Please open in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 11. As you are doing so, I'm tempted to ask your forgiveness, but I will not. It is a long reading, and if you have a hard time standing for a while, this would be a good day to sit. Nehemiah chapter 11 and part of chapter 12 stand together, and so we're going to take it together. It is our sermon text, and if you would now please stand together that we might express our reverence for God's written and inspired word. For the grass outside will wither, flowers will fade away, the word of the living God will endure forever, and so his people strive to hear and heed it faithfully together. Let's do that this morning now, beginning with Nehemiah chapter 11. Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of 10 to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of 10 remained in the other towns. And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. These are the chiefs of the province who lived in Jerusalem, but in the towns of Judah everyone lived on his property in their towns. Israel, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants, and the descendants of Solomon's servants. And in Jerusalem lived certain of the sons of Judah, and of the sons of Benjamin. Of the sons of Judah, Atahiah, the son of Uzziah, son of Zechariah, son of Amoriah, son of Shephetiah, son of Mahalel, of the sons of Perez, and Messiah, the son of Baruch, son of Kol Hoseh, son of Haziah, son of Adiah, son of Jorob, son of Zechariah, son of Shillanite. All the sons of Perez who lived in Jerusalem were 468 valiant men. And the sons of Benjamin, Selu, the son of Meshulam, son of Joed, son of Pedaiah, son of Coliah, son of Messiah, son of Ithiel, son of Jeshiah, and his brothers, men of valor, 928. Joel, the son of Zichri, was their overseer. And Judah, the son of Hassanuah, was second over the city. of the priests. Jediah, the son of Jorib, Jachin, Sariah, the son of Hilkiah, son of Meshulam, son of Zadok, son of Mariath, son of Ahitab, ruler of the house of God, and their brothers who did the work of the house, 822. And Adiah, the son of Jehoram, son of Peliah, son of Amzi, son of Zechariah, son of Peshur, son of Malchijah, and his brothers, heads of father's houses, 242. And Amishai, the son of Atzirel, son of Ahazi, son of Meshillamoth, son of Emer, and their brothers, mighty men of valor, 128, their overseer was Zabdiel, the son of Hagadolim, and of the Levites, Shemaiah, the son of Hashub, son of Azraqam, son of Hashabiah, son of Buni, Shabbatai, and Jozebad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were over the outside work of the house of God. And Mataniah, son of Micah, son of Zabdi, son of Asaph, who was the leader of the praise, who gave thanks. Bakbukiah, the second among his brothers. And Abda, the son of Shemua, son of Galah, son of Jedathim. All the Levites in the holy city were 284. The gatekeepers, Akub, Talmon, and their brothers, who kept watch at the gates, were 172. and the rest of Israel. And the priests and the Levites were in all the towns of Judah, every one in his own inheritance. But the temple servants lived in Ophel, and Zihah and Gishpah were over the temple servants. The overseer of the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzzi, the son of Bani, son of Hashabiah, son of Mataniah, son of Micah, of the sons of Asaph, the singers over the work of the house of God. For there was a command from the king concerning them, and a fixed provision for the singers, as every day required. And Pethahiah the son of Meshezabel, the son of Zerah, the son of Judah, was at the king's side in all matters concerning the people. And as for the villages with their fields, some of the people of Judah lived in Kiriath Arba, and its villages, and in Daban, and its villages, and in Jecabzeel, and its villages, and in Yeshua, and in Moladah, and Bethphalet. and Hazar, Shual, and Beersheba, and its villages, and Ziklag, and Mekinah, and its villages, and En-riman, and Zorah, and Jarmuth, Zenoah, Adulam, and their villages, Lakish, and its fields, and Azekah, and its villages. So they encamped from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnan. The people of Benjamin also lived from Geba onward, at Micmash, Isha, Bethel, and its villages, Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah, Hatzor, Ramah, Gittayim, Hadad, Zeboam, Nebilat, Lad, and Ano, the Valley of Craftsmen. And certain divisions of the Levites in Judah were assigned to Benjamin. These are the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and Yeshua, Sariah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Amariah, Malak, Hatush, Jeconiah, Rehum, Merimoth, Edo, Gennathoi, Abijah, Mejamin, Mediah, Bilgah, Shemaiah, Joy, Arib, Jedidiah, Salu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jediah. These were the chiefs of the priests and of their brothers in the days of Yeshua. And the Levites, Yeshua, Benui, Kadmil, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mataniah, with his brothers, was in charge of the songs of thanksgiving. And back Bukkiah and Uni and their brothers stood opposite them in the service. And Yeshua was the father of Joachim, Joachim the father of Eliashib, Eliashib the father of Joida, Joida the father of Jonathan, and Jonathan the father of Jadua. And in the days of Jehoiakim were priests, heads of fathers' houses, of Sariah, Mariah, of Jeremiah, Hananiah, of Etra, Meshulam, of Amariah, Jehonim, of Malachi, Jonathan, of Shabaniah, Joseph, of Harim, Adna, Mariath, Helki, of Edo, Zechariah, of Ginnathen, Meshulam, of Abijah, Zichri, of Minyanim, of Modiah, Piltai, of Bilgah, Shamuah, of Shemiah, Yehonathan of Yoreb, Matanai, of Jedediah, Utsi, of Salai, Kalai, of Amok, Eber, of Hilkayah, Hashabiah, of Jediah, Nathanael. In the days of Elisha, Joedah, Yohanan, and Yaduah, the Levites were recorded as heads of fathers' houses. So too were the priests in the reign of Darius the Persian. As for the sons of Levi, their heads of father's houses were written in the book of the Chronicles until the days of Yohanan the son of Eliashib, and the chiefs of the Levites, Hashabiah, Sherobiah, and Yeshua, the son of Kadmil, with their brothers who stood opposite them, to praise and give thanks according to the commandment of David, the man of God, watch by watch. Mataniah, Baqbukiah, Obadiah, Meshulam, Talmud, and Aqub were gatekeepers standing guard at the storehouses of the gates. These were in the days of Joachim, the son of Yeshua, son of Josedach, and in the days of Nehemiah, the governor, and Ezra, the priest and scribe. Thus far, the reading of the word of God. And let's pray. Dear Holy Spirit, It is so clear how much we need your help. And here we are, and here you are. And so we ask that you would do exactly what you have promised to do, that as you have inspired these words and preserved these words, we pray now that you bless their reading and their preaching, that faith be worked in our hearts, and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit would receive glory and honor in the church. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Please be seated. If you're visiting here today, I'd like to say thank you. It's not always like that. Please come back. It is a strange and long section, and arguably the last of its kind. Some of you are saying amen and amen. But in many ways, it is a beautiful chapter. And as we begin to dig down deeper into the details, perhaps that's something that you will see. I'd like to begin by taking our attention to the importance of the city. How important is the city? Well, many of us think about cities in terms of, on the one hand, at least certain positive things, the resources they provide, the safety that might appear in them. But when you think about the idea of the city itself, it is an interesting trail. to walk down. Some of the earliest known cities are actually the ones that are found in the Bible thousands of years BC. Many of them formed alongside rivers because there people could settle and find not only water to drink but to bathe in and to nourish their fields. The first city in human history to reach one million people was Rome in the first century before Jesus came into this world. And the history of the city is sort of an interesting idea, at least for a moment, as a brief way of introduction. In 1800, half of the world's population lived in rural areas outside of cities, and now over half of the world's population lives inside of cities. The world has changed. In many ways, we have moved out of the field and into the city because cities are perceived as having safety and pooled resources, but not so in the days of Nehemiah. In the days of Nehemiah, the city was not necessarily the happening place to be. And as we see in this chapter today, interestingly, in many ways, it was actually a great sacrifice to leave the rural life for life in the city. but such was the calling of the people of God, because God himself was populating or repopulating the city of God for his glory and our good. And that's what we'll see today in our text. We're gonna approach it through three points as you have there in your outline. And the first one we're gonna consider together is a people of providence. Now, if you've been here, for a while, you know that the list that we just read together is not the first one that we've read. If you're here visiting, you're looking around the people in this room thinking, poor people. But this is the fourth of five lists in the book of Nehemiah that, remember, God inspired. He doesn't simply inspire stories. He inspires lists and names, even as we have them recorded here. And so the four lists that we've looked at thus far includes a list of those who returned back from the exile, those who went out to do the work together on the wall, those that stood in just a couple of chapters before this one to renew the covenant before God, those who here in this list repopulate Jerusalem, and then the next and last one that we'll see are the priests and Levites that served together in the house of our God. This list is a doozy. This chapter that I just read is a doozy, but as you'll see, chapters 11 and 12 really do hold together as one unit, one chunk that hopefully is properly preached together as a whole. And I will say, and I mean this with sincerity, I appreciate the privilege that it is to preach to a church that takes God's Word so seriously that you would stand for such a long reading and sit then to hear it preached, and I think in your heart of hearts actually hope that I would not skip a chapter of the Bible just because it's long and the list of names is hard to pronounce. But as we have seen before, we're gonna see again, these lists are not just tedious catalogs of hard-to-pronounce names, they're history for the soul. In their own way, in a unique and providential way, they tell the history of God's people. They tell the story of not only the people of God, but of the work of God among his people, and they give us, in a certain sense, a sense of our place in the story as well. As one author refers to it, these archives convey a series of far-reaching biblical truth for the family of God. First lesson that we ought to listen to and learn from is that of God's providence. And what I mean by that is as the chapter begins, chapter 11, they're casting lots to see who it is that would return to the city. All by itself, that immediately introduces the idea that those who are going to be selected to go did not necessarily or at least not all of them actually want to go. That's why they're casting lots. This is kind of like when a few young guys are doing Rochambeau to figure out who's going to be the first to do something either really brave or really dumb. This is the first time, as we've already highlighted in the introduction, this is the first time in, let me start the whole idea over. At this time in human history, the majority of people lived rural lives, quiet, peaceful lives, out in farms and villages, and they were kind of happy that way. At this time in biblical history, the majority of the world were like hobbits. including the people of Israel. So this idea of moving into the city is not a quick or easy sell. Most people, including the people of God at this time, were farmers. When you pause and think about it, it's an entirely foreign world to us. I'm gonna explore the foreignness of it. It was entirely foreign world to people like us. Most people at this time, in the days of Nehemiah, would live and die on the same plot of land. You would be born there, and you would quite likely die there. And your life, in a certain sense, was not defined by all the places you went, but the one place you remain. Life for little boys was learned in many ways by their fathers, as little boys learned their trades, watching their dads work, watching him work the field, watching him sharpen his tools, watching his hands grow calluses, watching his son get baked in the open exposure to the elements. Little boys would grow up to be men standing alongside their dads doing the work that their dad did beside them. And eventually, when those little boys grew up and became men, what would they do? They would take over the family trade. I know I'm speaking like crazy talk, but I'm asking you to imagine a world before the internet, a world before easy to access highways, a world before colleges. Eventually, dad would die off, and that little boy, now grown into a man, would inherit the land, and he would perpetuate not simply the work that his dad had done, but the family name and the family property. That's what life was like in the days of Nehemiah. The little boys, little girls, would walk a very, very similar trail. They would learn from their mothers what it meant to be a woman. You know, that's a very biblical idea. They would learn what it meant to contribute to the work of the family because it wasn't just the men that worked hard, it was the women as well. They would learn to raise children in an agrarian world where land and farming was just a part of life. It was so important not simply to have a child, but many had what? Many children. The Dutch didn't invent that. Farm life did. Sorry if you're Dutch, but you'll forgive me. This was life, young people. before colleges, when couples got married back then, you know what they didn't do? They didn't wait to have children. If you got married and you went on a honeymoon, you were probably gonna have a child sometime soon. This is life before the internet. This is life before the Industrial Revolution. This is life before the city. When over half the known world lived out in rural farmland outside of the city, and explains why, as we open this chapter together again, that they are casting lots to see who will go. moving into the city was risky business. Life in the city came with a certain measure of calculated risk. Even for this particular city, Jerusalem, that's just been rebuilt, at that time food supplies were not well established. Without fields to farm, Those moving into the city would not only have to take up a new trade, they would be, in a certain sense, vulnerable and dependent for some sort of a trade route to supply all the things that were needed for life inside the city. Imagine if you were a farmer, way out in the rural countryside, far from Jerusalem, and then you move into the city because your name came up in the lot, you're changing jobs. You're learning a whole new skill set. And then there were people. What do you mean by that? Well, there are people, how many of you like having neighbors really close? Some of us do, some of us really don't. Some of us feel claustrophobic when there are people all around. Others feel sort of vulnerable out in the open country. But if you lived out in the farmland, moving into the city would be an entirely different new social structure. Your whole life would change. Modern man may find a certain measure of comfort by living life in the city, but for most of humanity's known history, it was actually the opposite. In the days of Nehemiah, the city of Jerusalem was not a well-founded or well-fortified city. And not only that, was it weak in terms of its fortification and its infrastructure, it was also a target. Jerusalem was a target. God may be on their side, but the enemies of God disdained the people of God, and they targeted the city of God. This is a city that's been toppled before. These are walls that have been broken down before. This is a temple that has been ransacked before. The city of Jerusalem was of strategic importance for Israel, but that also made it a strategic target for the frowning nations around them. It was, in many ways, something like the center of a bullseye. Thus, moving from the rural field was a form of sacrifice. You might even say it was kind of like becoming a missionary. taking up the calling of God that is providentially laid upon you and moving to a place in a moment of sacrifice. Those who left would be leaving behind not only people, but even place, farm, as well as family, and what lie before them, having abandoned now a certain past, right? inheritors of their father's fields, family and fortune. They now have a rather uncertain future. Who knows what life inside the city was going to be. And so why did they go? Well, they went because they were following God. But we should probably have here just a little moment about casting lots. And I'm speaking here both as a pastor, but also as a parent. How do you go about discerning God's will? Well, that's a pretty important question. And we should remind ourselves that not everything that the Bible describes does the Bible also prescribe. Just because it happened in the Bible doesn't mean we're supposed to do it now. Casting lots at that time, was a certain form of trusting God and discerning His will, but it is not a method of discerning God's will that is commended for all God's people in all times and in all places. In fact, it is arguably a pretty unwise way to go about making meaningful life decisions. Questions like this, who should I marry? You gonna roll dice on that? Where should I live? Rock, paper, scissors? What should my job be? Shake up a can, whatever falls out? Is that what you're going to do? We don't discern God's will for our life by casting lots, and there are a few reasons why we don't do it that way. And it comes to this, we actually have certain things that the people in Nehemiah's day did not have. Number one, we have the full written word of God. They did not have that yet. That's a pretty big deal and a pretty big difference. We also have pastors, elders, deacons, and a whole church in a certain sense that was not yet formed in quite the same way in the days of Nehemiah. We have an abundance of counselors that has been surrounded all around us. We have the Spirit of God in ways that they did not have at that time. And we have one another. But as one author, Raymond Brown, says very helpfully, Christian believers who genuinely seek God's will and have a single eye to his glory are less likely to make serious misjudgments about the big issues of life. So here's the point, and don't miss it. If you want to make good decisions in life, don't cast lots for those decisions. Walk closely with God. Because the best way to make good decisions is to be close to God. when we're spiritually strong. We make good decisions. And when we're spiritually weak, we are tempted and inclined to make very bad decisions. So if you're facing big decisions in life, read your Bible, spend time in prayer, guard your heart. Remember, and this is an encouraging word, I hope, that what God calls us to do, he also provides for us to do, including providing the wisdom to discern, through the right means, that is, what he is calling us to do. And this takes us to our second point. What is the thing that God is unambiguously calling us to do? Well, holiness. If you're unsure about certain moving targets in your life, certain decisions you might be inclined to make, one thing you can be sure of is that God calls you to holiness. And we're gonna talk about the city now as a place of holiness, point two. Why was moving back into the city such a big deal? Why was it so important? Well, in many ways, we're gonna squeeze an awful lot of juice out of just one verse, verse one, Jerusalem, is referred to as the holy city. But don't run past that too fast, as though there's very little to say or think about there. Jerusalem was, in a certain sense, a one-of-a-kind city in all of the world. in all of the world. Jerusalem was a city set apart. Only Jerusalem is referred to as a holy city in the Bible. And in a manner of speaking, not only was Jerusalem a city set apart, but Israel was a people being set apart as well. To say it this way, God has set apart both a people and a place for himself. Jerusalem was to be the city of God. And what made the city holy, as it's referred to in Not One, was not, follow me here, was not the presence of the people, but the presence of God himself. It was the presence of God that made Jerusalem a holy city. There was nothing intrinsically holy about it. It wasn't a special kind of dirt. It wasn't a zip code on a map. What made Jerusalem holy was the presence of God himself. It was God himself who was holy. His presence would reside in Jerusalem. His temple was now being again built, so rebuilt in Jerusalem. That's what makes the city holy. His people were inhabit the city, not only to maintain the temple, but to commune with the one who would dwell in its midst. God would come again and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And there the people of God would commune with the God of those people. God gave a command to Israel that they should be holy, even as he himself is holy. And part of what they're doing now is embodying that holiness in a very practical way. In some respects, it's a great privilege, then and now, to be God's people and to be set apart from the world as holy. But not only is it a great privilege, it's also a great responsibility. For those whom God declares to be holy, He calls to live as holy. And that's not always easy, is it? to live consistently with the holiness with which God has described us. In many ways, the book of Nehemiah describes a man, Nehemiah himself, who is fascinated with the holiness of God. Think about that language again. Fascinated with the holiness of God. You want to talk about a game changer in your Christian life? Try that. being fascinated with the holiness of God. That's what we have seen in Nehemiah now in these numerous chapters that we've looked at. In chapter nine, Nehemiah was fascinated with the Sabbath and Israel took it up again. They set aside time for the purpose of worshiping God. They made promises that they would not engage in worldly things, but rather would engage narrowly and exclusively with that which was holy. In chapter 10, Nehemiah was fascinated with the sacrifices that were holy unto the Lord and Israel celebrated not simply the Sabbath, but even the Feast of the Lord that marked out Israel's holiness. than the service of the priests and all the people." This also is described as holy, as unto the Lord, and in many ways, it becomes the sort of keyword, the code for describing the people of God. They are holy, unto the Lord, a people that ought to be fascinated by the Lord of holiness. So again, as another author says, to be associated with the holy was to be involved in a project specifically designed to glorify God, sharing in such an enterprise was an honor not to be missed. Are you fascinated with the holiness of God? Intrigued with the thought of sharing in those enterprises that lift up the holiness of God. The people of God in Nehemiah 11 are on the move, why? Because God himself was on the move. And as a holy God goes, so also go his people. We should find the holiness of God arguably, I may get corrected on this, but I'm still gonna say it. We should find the holiness of God arguably the most striking of his attributes. When R.C. Sproul became a Christian, it was the holiness of God that captivated him. And when R.C. Sproul died, it was the holiness of God that continued to captivate him. William Law said a good Christian should consider every place he goes as holy, because God is there, and he should look upon every part of his life as a matter of holiness, because it is offered unto God as holy. This raises a great question. How do you look at your life? Do you see it as holy? Do you only see it as holy on Sunday when you put on those certain clothes and sit beside those certain people who hold that certain book and sing those certain songs? Is it only then? that we are called to be holy? Or is that the way that we should look in a certain sense at all of our life? When we walk, when we work, when we play, whether we're on the internet or in the grocery store, when people are watching or when we're all alone, when God is there and when he is, well, wait a minute, he's always there. And is there ever a time where God says, you're kind of off duty from this holiness thing? You can give it a break for today. We'll get back to that in a couple days. It's not the way that it works. There is a manner of speaking which all of our life is to be holy as unto the Lord. He's always there, always with us, and always holy. And in many ways, the story of the people of God and the challenge of being the people of God is learning to be what we are, which is plain and simple, holy. You are holy, now be what you are. And work at that the rest of your life by the grace of God. Seeing all that we have and all that we do as a matter of holiness is unto the Lord. That is the goal of the Christian life. It is the command of scripture elsewhere. Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for what? The glory of God. What is your chief end? Make a lot of money and smile as much as you can? No, your chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. It is our chief delight. Why are you here? Why did God not only give you life, why did He give you breath one more day? Well, it's the reason why God brought Israel back to the city, and it's the reason why God brings us into his presence, which takes us to our third and our final point, the privilege, or a privilege of service. I do have one final point to make, and I grant that it may seem to you almost like a little bit of a bait and switch, so to speak, because here it comes. Israel has a holy city, but guess what? You don't. at least not here. Israel had a holy city, but you don't, at least not here. In fact, there is no such thing in this world as holy space. as a holy place. God does not regard any longer one city as more holy than another. God does not regard one earthly space as more holy than another. Let me get in just a little bit of trouble here. It's been a while. Let's talk about this building. Is it holy? Well, be careful. It's just a building. It's just space. What was it yesterday? A building. What was it five years before this church bought it? A building. What would it be if we sold it and moved someplace else? A building. You're seeing the theme here. The walls in and of themselves are not holy. We sometimes refer to this room almost improperly by calling it a sanctuary. Technically, it's just a place where we come and worship together, right? It is used, however, for a holy purpose. But the space itself is just a space. God does not dwell here physically. Christians should be careful about the way that we talk about certain places, as though those places themselves are sacred. But there is something that God regards as holy. He regards his people as holy, and he also has a sense of holy time. The Lord's day, when God calls us out of the world and into his presence, that's holy. That is sacred. That is unto the Lord. The Lord's day is holy. Abraham Kuyper famously said that there's not one square inch in all of this world that does not belong to God. And that is true in a certain sense. All of this world belongs to God, but there are no earthly temples. This is not a temple. This is office space. where the people of God come and gather together for worship. But you are His temple. In a certain sense, and this is beautiful, you are His sacred space. You are His particular property. You are, if we can say it like this, not simply His temple, but the city in which He dwells. When we gather together, it's not simply our individual bodies that are referred to in Scripture as His temple. We collectively are His temple, His city in which He dwells, where His holiness is manifest, where the glory of God is on active display. before watching world. The building, the walls here, beloved, are not holy, but you are. And that is a remarkable privilege. Nehemiah 11 through 12 is not just an exhausting category of names, though I admit, when I finished reading, I wanted to sit down. Maybe you're hoping I would. I once heard a preacher who wasn't sure what to say on a Sunday morning, so he read all of the book of Ephesians, and he sat down, and that was it. There was no sermon. But he did end climactomy with, thus saith the Lord, and no one could argue with him. I was tempted to do something this morning, but did not yield. Nehemiah 11 through 12 is not just a long catalog of names. It's a collage of holy service, of holy servants. And I want you to think about it. A collage of holy service and holy servants. Some, as we saw in verse one, some went by the casting of lots, but did you notice in verse two, there were others who went freely. There were others who volunteered. It's kind of like those who have gone off to war. Some were drafted and others signed up. And why did they do that? Because they saw that the need was urgent. Why do missionaries go where they go? Where do they come from? We've asked this question before. Where do missionaries come from? Well, they come from the heart of God's people. They come from the heart of God himself. When the need is made evident, people stand up and say, here I am, Lord, send me. They see the need and are driven by love for God and love for neighbor. They are compelled, like so many have been in history and are even now, compelled by the holiness of God and want to make the goodness and the glory of God known to the nations and cannot imagine waiting another day, spending an idle minute doing anything other than serving God. And so what do they do? They aren't called by the casting of lots. They are called like those in verse two. They surrender to the providential will of God because God laid it on their hearts to go. They say again, here I am, Lord, send me. And there are all kinds of missionaries. I'm not just talking about the ones that make it into our New Horizons magazine or onto our missionary cards or magnets on refrigerators. There are all kinds of missionaries in Nehemiah 11 and 12. In fact, it's really fantastic that they're not the normal type of missionary. that they're not the sort of celebrated professional Christians as we've once referred to them. And if you look at this catalog, you see a collage of those high and low, if you will. Some are leaders, but others are followers. Why? Because everyone was following God. Some were speakers. Others were administrators, like city officials that attend to the tedium of city life. Some were priests. serving in the temple. And my arguably favorite category are those who are listed here as the singers. There's a description of antiphonal singers, some standing here, others there, singing in harmony, as we were reminded yesterday, when beautiful voices come together. There were some who called to offer God praise, there were others that were called to give God thanks, and there were some who were called to pray. So again, some were priests and others would singers, but think about how, for those of you that attended the wedding yesterday, what would that wedding have been yesterday without the beautiful music that we had? Well, shorter, but far less beautiful. And the music was beautiful. Some of the missionaries in Nehemiah 11 and 12 are well known. Some of those names that I read, you've heard before, you knew them before I said them. Others, you've never heard of before, unless you're a member of the church and know that one family has like five names taken from that chapter. And we love you. And I couldn't pronounce half of the chapter without your help. But where would the church be? And there's a beautiful pastoral point here. It's a very heartfelt point. Where would the church be Where would the church be without its lesser known servants? The names you don't know. The jobs that maybe aren't quite as prominent or celebrated. Where would church history be without the little people, the ones whose names are never written into biographies or talked about in Sunday school classes or in theological lectures? Great things in history are remembered, but unfortunately, we only remember the so-called great people who get the credit. William Wilberforce, a Christian who's credited in England for so much of the work of ending slavery there, a well-known parliamentarian. You know his name if you know that story of history, but how well do you know Thomas Clarkson, who was the researcher who put so much of Wilberforce's information into his hand and onto his desk that prompted Wilberforce to do the work that he did, a great sacrifice. And all of us know the name D.L. Moody. I love this particular illustration the best. D.L. Moody, the famous pastor, preacher, evangelist who led so many people to Christ. But how many of you know the not so famous name of Edward Kimball, the Sunday school teacher that led Moody to Jesus? when he was a young man. History has a tendency of celebrating great names, but do you know what heaven celebrates? Faithful service. faithful service. The story of Christianity is not, beloved, a story of celebrities, but rather a story of sacrifice, selflessness, humility, and love. Why? Because the story of Christianity is one that celebrates and centers upon Jesus himself, the only true hero in our history. The One who modeled all these qualities far better than any name, whether remembered or not. The One who came into this world to lay down His life as sacrifice for many. The One who, if you will, left. the peace, comfort, and safety of heaven above, a heavenly city where there was no strife, no sin, no pain to come down, leaving that heavenly city to come down and pass through this earthly world, a temporary city where he himself said, here even I, the creator of heaven and earth, had no place to call home. Foxes and birds might, people might, but not Jesus. He passed through, why? Because he knew that in this world he himself had no lasting city and in this world we would have no lasting city as well. The book of Hebrews makes this point beautifully and brilliantly that here we have no continuing city. There is no holy Jerusalem that you can go to. It's just a place. Southern California, San Diego, lovely weather, except for yesterday. But it's not holy. It's not sacred. It's just a place. And many of you know, whether you like it or not, how easily your zip code can change. And what does all this teach us? Here we have no continuing city, but it is here that we have no continuing city. We have a city that awaits us in heaven. and that space is holy. We have a city that awaits us in heaven and all of its inhabitants are holy. And like the people of God in Nehemiah 11, we leave our earthly cities behind and we travel to the city of God. And all along the way, we lay down our life selflessly, sacrificially, because we're following the footsteps of the one who did so perfectly on our behalf. and what is the manner of our life to be, but one of holiness. Holiness is what for a moment defined that passing city, but holiness is that quality that defines the everlasting city. And holiness is what ought to define the inhabitants of that city, not simply in heaven, but even now. I want to end by making this one final point here about family. And you may say, well, that doesn't seem quite right. How are we talking about famine all of a sudden at the end? I very much appreciated one observation made by someone studying this chapter, one of the people that I read, who pointed out that this is not simply a catalog or a collage of service, or even simply the story of God's people in a generic sense, in many ways what you have in Nehemiah 11 and 12 is a portrait of family. Over and over, repeated references made to the heads of households and the heads of households, and then when you look at the work, If you read it like five times, you pick up this point, that all the work is organized, not simply around the work that was done, but who did it, and people were bound together as families for the work. The priests descend from a family. The Levites descend from a family. The singers descend from a family. So much of the work is organized around family, because in the Bible, not only was field very important, family was very important. And the modern world could take a signal from us. The modern world could take a signal from the Bible and from the church. We will likely not return to a world without the internet, college, options, and big cities. But how were you struck earlier when I described the quiet life? How were you struck earlier when I described family life? Little boys learning their trades from their dads. Little girls learning the measure of a mama from their moms. In a simpler version of life, where God is at the center of everything and His holiness is the glue that binds and family is the framework of society. So yes, God had a city for His people, but that city did not last. But you, beloved, while you do not have here in this world a lasting permanent city, do you know what you really have? It's actually quite beautiful and it's even better than a city with walls. He has not given you a lasting earthly city, but what he has given you is family. And not just the family that you're related to. If there's one thing that yesterday illustrated for so many of us, two families become one, don't they? And in the body of Christ, many families are one. So here in this world, beloved, perhaps you don't have a lasting city, but you do have a beautiful family. You do have a holy family. You, beloved, are part of the family of God. And together, we look to that heavenly city whose builder and maker is God. Let us pray. Our great God in heaven, we thank you for all that you have given to your people, including your word. Nehemiah 11 and 12 are a little bit hard to read, but a real privilege to preach. To see how you set aside, at that time, a people and a place. And in this time, you continue to have a people and a place. The children of Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, we thank you for all that we have together in Christ, and that he was willing to leave that safe station above, to come down and pass through this present evil age, where the city of man and the city of God are in constant friction with one another. We thank you that he bore a cross upon a tree, the very emblem of his rejection from this world, and yet, through his death and resurrection, his entrance into the world to come. And we thank you, Lord, that the doors, the gates of the city have been opened wide for us, and one day we too shall enter into that place which is embodying Perfect holiness for all eternity. And we ask now, Lord, that you help us to recognize that our lives are called to be holy, holy as unto the Lord, for even you yourself has said, be holy for I am holy. Lord, help us to not waste our time, not even a minute, in all that we say, think, and do. Help us to bring glory and honor to your name. Help us to love one another as the family, the people, even the embodied and inhabited city of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.