Who Are the People Who Are Supposed to Do It
Tom Shrader walks through Nehemiah chapter 3 to examine how effective leadership involves mobilizing different types of people for God's work. He identifies eight categories of workers who participated in rebuilding Jerusalem's wall, from ministry professionals to artists working outside their expertise. Shrader emphasizes that everyone has a role in kingdom work and challenges believers to find joy in the mundane aspects of serving God.
“If you want to get an accurate view of yourself, the only way, not the best way, the only way to get an accurate view of yourself is to get an accurate view of God and who He is.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2004)
Recorded: 2004
Duration: 42 min
Themes: leadership, service, teamwork, vision, unity, purpose, calling, commitment, new to leadership, feeling inadequate, pastor, ministry leader, team member, volunteer, church elder, finding purpose
Scripture: Nehemiah 1:4, Nehemiah 2:11-18, Nehemiah 3:1-32, Matthew 28:19-20, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Isaiah 6:5, John 9:3, Acts 20:20, Philippians 4:9
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church structure, servant leadership, spiritual gifts, body of christ, kingdom work, biblical leadership, stewardship
Full Transcript
This is session three. As I mentioned, the first two sessions are available on CDs and tapes. We're working our way through the first chapters, the first eight chapters of the book of Nehemiah.
If you have a Bible with you, I'm going to invite you to take some time and find Nehemiah. I say take some time because some of you probably have to separate the pages of that Old Testament. You know what? That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. It's page 405 in my Bible, but that doesn't help you any.
Leadership in Nehemiah
We look at Nehemiah virtually every time you hear of Nehemiah in a study situation. It's in conjunction with a topic of leadership. Nehemiah is synonymous with this idea of leadership. I want to make a couple of things clear.
Number one: everyone's a leader. There's a tendency to hear "leader" and think Bill Gates, Rudy Giuliani. You tend to think of leaders in some perspective like that. You're a leader if anybody is following you. That follower may be a little toddler. That follower may be a group of two or three people. I believe that everybody in this room is leading in some sphere, some capacity.
Let me give you the other side. You are all followers in some capacity, some place, either at church or at work or somewhere. So you're probably wearing both of those hats. You're probably in both of those areas.
Nehemiah is a terrific study for this because we have the opportunity to watch him lead. We spent a lot of time on that in the first two sessions. Today we watch him put together this team.
The Vision for the Project
Let me remind you what's going on. Nehemiah has in his mind... Let me get you through this outline. Let me give you the first four points.
Here's what he had for the project. Here's the first thing: he had the vision for what needed to be built. He saw that the wall was down around Jerusalem. He knew that once the wall was down, that city was vulnerable. He hears of this. He is moved. Remember in chapter 1, I think it's verse 4? He's moved and he mourns and he prays and he fasts over the condition of Jerusalem. He has that vision.
I want to stop there just a second. Add this parenthetically: Nehemiah had another vision, and his vision was an accurate vision of God.
Historical Context
Let me give you a history on both. Remember the twelve tribes to the north, the ten tribes to the north, are destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. Then in 583 B.C. or so, the southern tribes are overrun. The city lays in ruin. The wall lays in ruin until 445-444 B.C. That's the time frame.
Zerubbabel comes, tries to rebuild the wall. Doesn't happen. Ezra comes, tries to rebuild the wall. Doesn't happen. Nehemiah is on the scene. So Nehemiah has the vision for the project.
The Need for an Accurate View of God
Bigger than that, Nehemiah had a vision for God and who He was. This is absolutely critical. I'll meet people all the time who will say, "I want to find myself. I want to understand who I am. I want to get an accurate view of myself." If you want to get an accurate view of yourself, the only way—not the best way, the only way—to get an accurate view of yourself is to get an accurate view of God and who He is. Once you understand who God is, you will inevitably see yourself as you really are.
That's what happens, for example, to Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6. That's the classic passage. Isaiah, he's tooling along and he thinks he's okay, and all of a sudden he sees the Lord on high. He sees God for who He really is. When he does, what does Isaiah say? "Woe to me, for I'm undone." I thought I had it all together, but I didn't. I may look good compared to you, and I may look good compared to him. I may look great standing next to her, but compared to a holy God, woe to me for I'm undone. Then he says, "I'm a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips." He all of a sudden sees himself as he really is.
The same thing happens to Peter. Peter's walking along with the Lord. He sees Him do this supernatural feat. What does Peter say? He says, "Depart from me. I'm a sinful man."
True Conversion
By the way, at that point in your life, the first time there's that understanding, hopefully you should be connected with conversion. Conversion isn't just coming to Christ or finding God or getting spiritual because you need help with peace in your life or you need to find your way and navigate your way through some stormy weather in your life.
Conversion is when I understand who God is, I understand who I am, and for the very first time in my life, I believe the promises of God. That's what faith really is. Faith is really me believing God's promises. The first one being that if I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead, I will be saved. That's the very first. That's that opening idea of promise. That I'm a sinner, separated from God by my sin, Christ died so that I could have eternal life. That's the first promise. Isaiah sees this.
Getting Organized: The Permits
Here's a couple more things just so you can get that outline filled in, because I do know that some of you are just a smidgen anal about these things. Here's the second thing: he had the permits needed. Remember? We said about numbers two and three, he understood the system.
He goes to the king, and the king said, "What would you have me do?" He said, "I want to go to Jerusalem. I want to be granted that I can go there." He said, "All right, here you go." He's got these letters. He says, "I'm a slave walking along. They're going to stop me and say, 'What are you doing?' And I'm going to say, 'I'm going to go build the city.' And they're going to say, 'Who said you could do that?' And I'm going to say, 'The king did.' And they're going to say, 'There's no way. The king's going to let you do that.' So I need a letter."
The Materials and Site Survey
Number three: the letters or the material. Remember, he had letters to the keeper of the forest to give me the timber, give me the wood, give me the materials I'll need. I love this aspect. We won't spend much time on it today because we did last week. He understands how life works.
Just because he knows who God is and he understands he's God's man doing God's job, God's way, God's timing, that doesn't mean he takes his brains and puts them on the shelf. I need timber. What's the most logical way to get timber? Well, I go to Home Depot. I go to Lowe's. I go get the timber I need.
The fourth thing is he did the survey of the site. We looked at that in chapter 2, verses 11 through 18. In the midst of that, he did something that I'm not particularly good at doing. He stopped. He gathered information. He came to the city and he didn't say, "I see what trouble you are in." He said, "I see what trouble we are in." What Nehemiah is doing here is trying to get this project done.
What Nehemiah Needed for the Project
Let me give you a B here and then we'll work our way through it. So what did Nehemiah need for the project? One, he needed the people to do the work. He needed people. He can't build this alone. This is not a job. Every leader, I hope you understand that—a leader is not supposed to do everything that's associated with the task. He needs people.
So the question is, how would Nehemiah staff the project? The answer here is in chapter 3. He's going to staff the project with 40 separate crews and 40 specific assignments. We'll look at that in just a second. And then here's what he's going to do. Now we're going to find out who are the people who do this work.
The Structure of Nehemiah 3
Let me give you the introduction. That is part of it. Let me set it up for you. As you look at chapter 3 of Nehemiah, and just kind of let your eye fall through there, if you were to just pick it up and read it, I think your flinch would be, "Let's get through this and let's get on to the real stuff." Because it just writes, "Then Ishmael the high priest arose with his brothers, they built the sheep gate, they consecrated the same. Verse 2, next to him were the men of Jericho, they built a wall. Verse 3, then were the sons." And that's what it is. It almost reads like a genealogy.
I remember listening to Chuck Swindoll teach, and he was talking about one morning he was working his way through an Old Testament book, and he began. He said, "Now this chapter begins with a genealogy. And there's basically 40 verses of so-and-so begets, so-and-so begets." He said, "We're going to skip that. We want to get on to the meat of this chapter."
So oftentimes you wonder how coordinated is the church that you're working in and attend, how coordinated is all that goes on in the pulpit. Well, let me give you an example. One night, Swindoll had in a guest speaker. He said, "I want you to turn to the book." He gave him the book. "I want you to turn to the chapter." He gave him the chapter that Swindoll was in, and he said, "Lots of people want to skip this genealogy, but this genealogy is rich with teaching material." So a smidgen of an embarrassing moment for Mr. Swindoll as he works his way through it.
When I come to Nehemiah 3, my flinch might be to skip it, because it's so-and-so. In fact, I think it's 28 times. I've circled some of them. You'll see that word "next to," "next to," or "after," or "beyond." You'll see that. "Next to him, next to the house." I think it's something like 28 times in here. There's a sense of continuation.
Nehemiah's Project Management Strategy
Here's what Nehemiah's done. He's going to rebuild the wall. He assigns 40 different teams to preside over the construction of the wall essentially that's directly adjacent to where they live. He's divided this project up into 40 separate tasks.
Now, I assume by giving them an area that's close for them to work on, it's just convenient. I assume they're going to be more invested if it's right there. They're going to be more prone to fight for that. It's going to be easier for them to get neighbors and so-and-so involved. So that's the task.
Application for Today
We're not going to look at all 40 of these. We're going to look at eight types of people that are being pulled into this project. Here's the deal for me. What I like to do is to take a lesson and apply it. I want you to understand what it says, but I want you to understand what it means to you.
I can't do that today in every area because you're going to be able to apply this. Some of you are going to be able to take this and you're going to say, "This is exactly what we're going through at work. This is what we need at work right now." Mike's a basketball coach. Mike could easily take this information and take some portions of it back to the high school kids right now, to his coaching staff, his team. Some of you could take it right to, if you're involved in a volunteer organization of any kind, you can take this and go right smack and apply it.
Where I'm going to apply it is to the church, the church that you attend or the church that you're involved with. We'll apply it in some other areas, but that's how I'm going to try to make the connection for you here this morning.
Type One: The Ministry Professionals
So here you go. Eight types of people who were involved in this. And here's the very first one. It's in verse one: "The high priest arose with his brothers and the priests and they built the sheep gate." Here's the first one. The ministry professionals were called and in a sense led.
And that's what you'll see even in a church setting. I have—well, I'm trying to come up how to say it gently. I've always had a problem with the term laity and clergy. I've never really liked that. I don't like that distinction. Even when somebody will say to me, "Pastor Tom," I don't say to you "insurance salesman Bill." I mean, I think that's somebody trafficking in a term there to get a free meal. I don't like it.
It makes me feel uncomfortable. People with their kids will do it. Whatever. I don't like it because it sometimes conveys an artificial distinction. We're all part of the royal priesthood.
I had not been doing this very long and I went out. We're out at some people's house for dinner, four or five couples there. So it's time to eat. And the guy said to me, and I'll never forget it, and I know he's just kidding, but he said, "Okay, it's time to pray. Tom, why don't you pray? That's what we pay you for." And I know he's kidding. And that's what you hear all the time is that we are paid, we who do this full time are paid to be good. The rest of you are good for nothing, as you well know. So that's the old joke and all that stuff. I don't like what that communicates. I don't like that. We're all part of this royal priesthood. Now, there are going to be some who are going to lead. There are going to be some who are in those positions. But I need to be very, very careful in that process.
Right from the top, this is exactly what He identifies first, and that is the professionals.
The Dispassionate Upper Crust
Here's the second group. There were this dispassionate upper crust who were, in verse 5, uninvolved. The nobles did not support the work of their masters. So you've got these professionals.
Let me go back to that, just again on ministry. When you are going to have people who are in positions of leadership within the Christian community, God has laid out the criteria for what that person ought to have in their life, the qualities and the characteristics. And they're probably different than you and I would. If we sat down with a committee and said, "We want to get some leaders for this church, what do we want?" we'd be talking about MBAs and all these other things. We'd be even talking about spiritual knowledge.
Here's what Paul says in 1 Timothy 3. He said, "Listen, if you want these guys, these guys are going to be overseers. These guys are going to be the elders. They're going to be the leaders. Here's what they ought to do. They ought to be above reproach, husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free of the love of money. He must be one who manages his own house well, keeping His children under control of dignity. But if a man doesn't know how to manage His own house, how will He take care of the church of God? Not a new convert, lest He become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. He must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that He may not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil." And then He talks about deacons.
Character Over Credentials
When Timothy hears from Paul about leadership, He doesn't hear about MBAs, He doesn't hear about PhDs, He hears about character, character issues. And that's why, the last time we did this series, Bill Clinton was president. And it was so easy to apply it at that point because He was the antithesis of whatever character is. You know, you got those memoirs coming out in just a couple of months and if those are not in the fiction section, something will be seriously wrong because you know He won't even sniff reality on that. And I don't mean politics to be a dividing issue. I'm just saying, this guy is so fatally flawed in His character. There are stories now, even now, He's struggling again. Here He goes struggling. Why? He's got a fatal flaw. He's got a character flaw. He has no character. And I don't mean that to be political. That's not a political statement.
When you're coming to the church, it's not finding the tallest guy, thank goodness. It's not finding the brightest guy, the sharpest guy. It's finding people. Are they perfect? No. But when you go to acknowledge it and you look in their life, and all of a sudden, you see there's something different. Because here's the way you're going to lead. You're going to ultimately lead by example. You're going to say something and then do something.
So, in that ministry profession, you've got that. In the second part, you've got these uninvolved people here in chapter 3, verse 5. They're the nobles. They're the people and you have them around you. What they would prefer to do is nothing but reserve the right to criticize whatever you do. They don't want to be involved. They don't want to work. They don't want to do any of the things that would have anything to do with the project. But at the end, they want to make certain that they have full opportunity to survey and criticize anything you do.
The 80-20 Rule
Any organization... All the church guys used to moan, it's the church. But there's a book that was written not long ago that deals with this in virtually every organization. It's the 80-20 rule. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. In a church, 80% of the money is given by 20% of the people. Those seem to be the trends, the numbers. Why there's that mass in an organization, I don't know. That tends to be the numbers.
If you're working here, if you're in the church... Now we're coming to the church. If you're in the church, it's not an option for you to be part of the 80%, but to be part of the 20% that's doing the work, that's giving the money, that's involved in the organization. And if you're leading, you need to understand that. You need to understand that. If you look at 100% of the people, you've got 80% of them that are probably going to be disengaged in the process.
So Nehemiah, He's got a typical project here. He's got the religious guys to lead. He's got these uninvolved guys.
The Artists Expand Their Horizons
Look at the third characteristic. He's got the artists. The artists begin to expand their horizon. If we're going to get everybody involved, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be working in my area of talents. In Nehemiah 3, verse 8, He tells us the goldsmith was involved and the perfumer was involved. Have any of you in here ever met a perfumer? Because I have. The reason I ask is
Has any of you ever met a perfumer? I have. I had a guy who came to me and he said, "I've got the perfect gift for Susan." And I said, "Well, don't give it to her. I want to know what it is so I can give it to her." And he said, "Every woman loves this." I said, "Alright, what is it?" He said, "There's a guy in Scottsdale. I don't know if he's still down there. E Pluribus Sniffum. From many scents. And his name was Erne. Now I think in his yearbook it was Ernie. But today, it's Erne."
So I said, "What is this thing?" He said, "Oh, women love this. Susan will love this." I said, "Well, what is it?" "Well, you go and you meet Erne and then he talks to you and he tries different scents and he matches up these scents and then he creates your own fragrance." And I said, "Wow, Susan's going to love this." So I gave her this thing and she said, "What is this?" I said, "Well, it's Erne. It's E Pluribus Sniffum." She said, "Is this a joke or what is it?" I said, "No, it's great. You need to go down there." So she went down and created this own perfume for Susan. Her own scent. Sushwa. This is what they created.
So I met a perfumer. Not a likely guy, at least in my mind, to work on this construction crew here. But they did. The goldsmiths were involved, the perfumers were involved.
When You Don't Feel Qualified
There are times when you're going to be called to do things and you may say, "You know what, I don't know that I'm absolutely perfectly qualified for this." That's part of finding your place. Spiritually you want to be in your area of giftedness, right? But there are times where we just need a body. Nobody's got the gift of working in the nursery. That's not a gift, that's a body. That's somebody in there to work. It takes a special personality to do it.
You need to be very careful here. Even in the area of talents. We'll look at somebody and say they're a very gifted singer. Well, they're talented. There's a difference between talent and giftedness. Singers are so subjective. Music's so subjective. I like Sinatra. Susan hates Sinatra. Celine Dion is awful. It's like fingers on a chalkboard to listen to her. She's like Barbra Streisand to me. I just don't like them. Obviously a lot of people love them. That's not to make a judgment on it.
I like the Eagles. People don't like the Eagles. I like Buffett. I know Buffett can't sing, but I like Buffett. I like the Mills Brothers. I like Glenn Miller. So it's all subjective. These people are very talented, but are they gifted?
When we want to be technical, when we talk about giftedness spiritually, we're talking about them using that talent in a way that God uses. Frank Sinatra can sing a song and entertain me, right? But Crystal Lewis can sing a song that encourages me, or God uses. So there's a difference there.
It's not an option here to say, "I'm a perfumer. I can't build a wall." Yeah, you can. There's something you can do.
The People in the Neighborhood Did Their Own Parts
Here's the fourth thing. The people in the neighborhood did their own parts. This is really key. As you work your way through this chapter, what you see over and over is so-and-so did this, so-and-so did that, and they're working in their own area.
When it comes to the body of Christ, here's what I see. We sometimes neglect our own area with a desire to go somewhere else. Missions is a great example. So I come to Matthew 28, and here's what Jesus says: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them..." When I recite that verse to you, what's the word that jumps off the page at you? Go. Go jumps off the page.
Here's what's interesting. In the Greek, that's not the verb. In the Greek, the verb is making disciples. The emphasis of that passage is not on go. The emphasis of that passage is on making disciples.
To phrase that verse in a way we would understand exactly what Jesus is saying, He's saying, "As you are going, as you're going about your normal day, as you stop at AJ's for a bagel, as you go to the club to work out, as you're working with the kids, as you're at work, as you're traveling to Flag for the weekend, as you're going about your day, you be making disciples." It's not get a passport, go, and then don't talk to anybody until you get there, and then once you get there, make a disciple. That's not what that verse says. But it's become that.
Your Mission Field Is Right Here
We lose the whole idea of you are a missionary. You're a missionary right now with a mission field right around you here today. The first thing that we say when we're talking to somebody who wants to go to the mission field: the first thing we ask them is what kind of mission work are you doing in Gilbert? Or Tempe? Or Phoenix? Because if you aren't doing it here, why do you want to go to a different culture and do it?
It's very important to understand this is a really important call in your life. Think about those things that we do that we call spiritual, or we call Christian in our life. Virtually every one of them, we will do better in heaven. We'll praise better in heaven. We'll worship better in heaven. We'll pray better in heaven. We'll understand God better in heaven. We'll do virtually every one of them better in heaven except for one.
Evangelism. There's not going to be any evangelism in heaven. There are all believers there. When you're trying to figure out who are the elect, you're going to know on that day. All you've got to do is look to your left, right, front, and back. That's the elect. That will be a real simple project.
If that's true, is it not a way of inferring to us that what ought to be at the forefront of our mind on this earth is evangelism? Is sharing the truth?
Of living the Word? Of allowing people to see a difference in your life? There ought to be, and this ought to be a common experience. There ought to be in your life frequent opportunities where you're sharing the gospel. Some of them are going to happen as people come to you and say, "There's something different about you. I'm watching you. You're different. Here's what you used to be. Here's what you are now. What happened in your life? Something changed." And at that moment, you have got to say to them, "It is Jesus."
I hear all the time, "I'm just going to win people to Christ through a wordless sermon. That's what's going to happen. I'm just going to live differently." And you may create thirst. They may watch you, and they say, "There you are with your kids, and there you are in your suburban, and look at you, and you look great." And they're going to say, "You're a terrific guy." And they're going to say, "What is it?" And if you don't say Jesus, they're just going to say, "Well, I guess that's the way they're wired. I guess they're different than us."
See, there's one thing where God uses your life and creates a thirst in somebody, and now they say to you, "What's different?" And you've got to have ears to hear that. So when they say, "Listen, you were different, now you're this, what is it?" Here's what they're saying to you: "Tell me about Jesus."
Living as a Display Case for God's Works
Or you're in the midst of some difficulty in your life. You've got a kid that gets sick, or a kid that dies. We just had three weeks ago—three and a half weeks ago, I think today—three weeks ago today, a 16-year-old boy from our church die in a motorcycle wreck. Just like that. His mom said, "No, go ride for a while, relax, and then we'll go do something later." And that's the last time she ever spoke with him.
And people are watching her in the midst of this, and they're saying, "How can she handle this?" And it's just great because she goes, "Because you know what? Because God's in control. And God's God. And God either caused this or allowed this. It's irrelevant which it is at this point. He's dead. And let's pray that God uses this so that we can preach the gospel." That's not a natural response. That's not a natural response to something. And it's a great platform.
When you're hurting, when you're in the midst of suffering and pain and hardship, when things aren't going well—not when you throw the perfect game, but when you can't get anybody out in the first—those are times that everybody's watching, and they're watching how you handle it. Your whole life is an opportunity.
That's John 9. Jesus, the disciples, here they are. They're coming into the city. There's a blind guy. So they say, "Wait a minute. Jesus, who sinned? This guy or his parents?" And He says what? "Neither of them. But that this man might be a display case for the mighty works of God." That's what you are. If you're a Christian, you're a display case for the mighty works of God.
If you're a Christian, God's done this marvelous work in your life, and your great privilege—not duty, although it's a duty, not responsibility, though you have a responsibility—your great privilege is to walk through life as a display case for God's magnificent works.
The Women Were Involved
Here's the fifth thing: the women were involved. Again, that would be very different in that culture. I think it's important in ours, and I don't want to spend a boatload of time on this, but you see in verse 12 that the daughters were involved. The women were involved.
Again, if it's a church setting, and I guess this needs to be said—and all of a sudden, I'm probably starting to get... It's funny how things go. I can just tell by the... I don't want to say criticism, because I don't care about it, or negative comments, but that kind—you get the flavor of what I'm talking about. By what I get back, I can tell where the culture's going.
I'm getting a lot of stuff lately about different stands that we take that the Bible teaches. So, "wives submit to your husband"—that would be one of those things we'd say, and so I'm getting all this... It's cultural. And so all you've got to do is come back and say, "Wait a minute, if that's cultural, then 'husbands love your wives,' which is the second part of the verse, then we'd better throw that out too." I've never had one person come up to me and say, "That 'husband loved your wife'—that's cultural. Let's get rid of it." They all want to throw out the first part of the verse, but not the second part of the verse.
Here's God's deal: men and women are absolutely equal. Equal in status, but they are different in role. They have a different function. It's like saying—and I know it's a football illustration—but it's like saying the left tackle and the quarterback are absolutely equal in status on the team, but they have a different function.
And this is one of the things—and you know it's coming, if you watch Channel 21, or you watch that kind of stuff—what you know is that you're seeing where mainstream church will be in about 10 years, and you're seeing now the proliferation of women in roles they shouldn't be in. You've got women teaching, women pastors, pastor this, bishop this, evangelist this, prophetess this. You've got all this stuff going on. The problem with it is—I don't care about it—the problem with it is, God says, "I don't want that going on. I don't want women in a role of authority over men."
Now, do women have a role? Absolutely. Am I a sexist? I think not. The director of our women's ministry identifies me—and I like this term—as a biblical feminist. I don't know what it means, but it sounds like I'm that. So, I want to go out of the way to point out, the ladies are involved in this project.
Credible Leaders Strap on the Tool Belt
Here's the sixth thing: there are credible leaders strapping on the tool belt. In other words, they're all involved. They're all the leaders. All the officials. In Philippians 4, verse 9, Paul says this: "The things..."
that you heard, the things that you saw, the things that you've learned from me, now do them." Now think about that. The things that you heard, the things that you saw, the things that you learned, what's going on there? There's personal contact. You can't just sit.
If you're a leader, now I'm talking to you as a leader, if you're a leader, you can't just sit in the ivory tower and issue these edicts. I got this in the mail Tuesday. And this is from somebody from the church who's back east and they're touring civil war sites. And you can't see it, but it's a monument, like you typically see as a gravestone, and typically you see a guy's name and the dates. This is different. Under this gravestone is the arm of Stonewall Jackson.
I don't know if you know the story, but it was at Chancellorsville, where Stonewall, it's near the end of the day, and Stonewall is out and He's trying to get some reconnaissance. He wants to understand exactly what's going on. It's a bloody battle. And Stonewall actually is out in front of the troops and is actually shot by his own guys. Loses his left arm and then ultimately dies. That's what Robert E. Lee says at Chancellorsville, "Stonewall lost his left arm, but I lost my right arm."
But where's Stonewall? He's not in the back, smoking a cigar, sniffing brandy and saying, "How's that battle going out there, gentlemen? Keep that nose to the grindstone. Win one for the gipper." He's in there. You can't leave. You've got to participate. You've got to do the work. That's what's happening there is that the guys who were involved as officials were doing the work. They were engaged.
The Zealous Workers
Here you go. A couple more things. Numbers 7 and 8. Number 7, there was a certain group. Look at verse 20. Of these 40, there was a certain group that stood out among all the others. And Nehemiah says about this group, they "zealously repaired another section." There was a group that was separate from all of the others. It's the only one that He marked. And He said there's a zeal about them.
Let me just talk about it because I'm getting ready to go to work today. If your attitude is "Where are you going? The salt mines. Not a lot of joy in Mudville. Just 23 years, 4 months, 5 days, 3 hours, and 50 seconds until I retire." There's not a lot of excitement in that. And I'm going to guess that that translates to the job. I mean for some reason, I don't understand it, and I don't mean this because I know that there are exceptions, but for some reasons, just in certain trades or certain areas, you have people for whom it's just a function, for whom it's just a job.
The Glory of the Grind
Robert E. Lee. We mentioned Lee a minute ago. Robert E. Lee had a magnificent phrase. Robert E. Lee is a terrific personality study, as is Stonewall. Those two guys are fascinating guys. If you want to really study somebody, and you really want to see just a fascinating life, read about Lee or read about Stonewall. And both of them really strong, devout Christian men, especially Stonewall. Strong, hard-core Calvinist guys.
Lee used to use this phrase, "the glory of the grind." He said we have to rejoice in the glory of the grind. Here's what He means: The joy of the ordinariness or the mundaneness of life. Life has with it, by definition, it's mundane and ordinary because there's so much of it. Life isn't just mountaintop to mountaintop to mountaintop to mountaintop.
There's some times where there's these extraordinary highs, but most of life is lived in the drive to work. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Iron your shirt. Say, "Have a nice day." Go through. Make the calls. Make ten calls to get one person to talk to you. And of those people that will talk to you, then you've got to find another ten to find one that's going to buy. There's the ordinariness, the mundaneness of life. And I'm suggesting to you, you've got to find joy in that.
It doesn't say it. Don't know. I'm guessing that they weren't just the most zealous of the work crews. I'm guessing they were the guys who were having fun. Flinging nails at one another. Just finding a way to bring some joy into this. You've got to find it.
Finding Joy in the Mundane
I'll give you a couple of illustrations from my own life, and I hope it doesn't sound self-serving. I used to drive to Tucson. I used to teach a study on Wednesday morning down in Tucson. And I would get up at 3:30. I'd leave at 4:15. I'd get to La Paloma at about 6:15. And then I'd teach. I'd finish. Sometimes there'd be a breakfast or a meeting. Then I'd turn around and drive right back up here.
And every time I talk about that, people will say, "How could you handle that drive?" Now, I don't know if you've ever made that drive. This is not like driving from Big Sur to Monterey. This is a very different drive. There are certain days of the year where the sun will come up just a little bit, and the sun will hit the sign of the TA truck stop at Toltec just right, and it's absolutely incredible. But there aren't many of those days. It's a boring, dull, dreary drive. And coming back is worse. And I hate to drive.
I learned to love it. There would be times of prayer. I'd listen to books. I'd sing. It was the mundaneness of it that allowed me what I love to do, which was to teach.
I'm not a student. I'm not a scholar. You know that. I was my third year of college. Now, that's a long way into life before I ever read my first book. And that was a book on Muhammad Ali. I mean, I wasn't cranking out War and Peace here. That's just not my deal. I mean, if there was a movie or a comic book or somebody could say, if I could just say, "Give me the plot line and a couple of characters," that would be enough for me. I'm not trying to be on the dean's list anyway. I was on a dean's list, but not the one you wanted to be on. I could never get on that one. I'm waiting for St. Ambrose to call me and say, "We want to give you an honorary degree" so that I can say, "I thought the last one was." That's my favorite thing. That's what I'm waiting for. So I'm not a scholar, and
I hate to read. And then God saved me, and then I became convinced that perhaps teaching is what I wanted to do. And then Larry said, if you're going to teach, you need to have something to say. And all of a sudden, I realized if I was going to have something to say, I needed to be a reader.
And now I read all the time, and I do find some joy in it, but it's the mundaneness of it to get ready to be able to teach. That's what I love. And that's the way life is. You have to find those things in your work. Those things that are the mundane, ordinary things of life, that's what you're called to do, and to do them with zeal.
Peak Performers Go Above and Beyond
There's one last thing. The peak performers did their part and more. If you'll look, and you'll work your way through, verses 18-24, you'll see that these guys completed their section, and then another. There's always going to be guys in a project that are going to do their job and more, and perhaps that's you, that work efficiently, effectively, all the things that go with it.
What's the close on this? What's the wrap-up? What's the so what of this? In your life, whether as a leader or a follower, you're called to work.
Work Won't Kill You
I think, and I just think some of it's being a kid. I remember my dad saying, work is not going to kill you. And you know what? And I think he's right. I know what he meant when he said it and all that was implied by that. I think you mature and you grow.
You're called to work, especially in the area, those of you that are Christians, especially in kingdom work, those things that build the kingdom of God. I'm in a meeting one day with this guy and he's presenting his plan of what he's going to do. He's a ministry guy. And all of a sudden, there's like 40 of us in the room. Somebody raised their hand and said, you know, this is very ambitious. You better be careful. You're going to burn yourself out. And then the next guy, it started an avalanche of people saying, you're going to burn yourself out, burn yourself out.
So I don't like to talk in a group. I really don't. I like doing this. But in a group, I'm not going to participate. That's not my deal. So I came up afterwards. I said, I think you've got some pretty bogus advice there today. He said, what do you mean?
I said, don't burn yourself out. Don't burn yourself out. It seems to me that's the call that we have in our life is to burn ourselves up for the Lord Jesus Christ. I think you need to use your head. I think you need to exercise. I think you need to take vitamins. I think you need to sleep. I think you need to do those things.
The Apostle Paul's Example
I cannot imagine the Apostle Paul... Here you go. Acts 20. Imagine the scene with me. Here's Acts 20. Paul's saying goodbye to the elders at Ephesus. And he's saying, you know what? I never shrank from teaching you the whole counsel of God. I never backed off from what I was teaching.
And let me tell you, gentlemen, I want you to go out there. I want you to teach, but be very careful, boys. Don't burn yourself out, guys. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul saying that?
It seems to me that's the very call that you have in your life. As a leader, if you are in a position of leadership, it's not this dictatorial authoritarian. It's this loving, servant, participatory, delegation work that you have. If you are somebody who's following, then you're using your gifts and your talents to glorify God.
Nehemiah's Success Formula
Nehemiah... Remember what we've said? Zerubbabel tried it. Ezra tried it. 85 years they've been trying to get this wall built, and they can't get the wall built, and Nehemiah is going to get it done in 52 days. How? I think that's what we saw last week and this week.
Any project you're involved... I shouldn't say any. Most projects you're involved in are going to have these same components to them. And you can take these character traits and apply them instantaneously today somewhere. Work, home, church, family, club, somewhere.
Next week, we finally start now. Now we're ready to build. Let's get this wall going. We'll look at it next week.
Father, help us see this truth and apply it to our life, to our mind, to our heart. Thank You for Nehemiah and what You did in His life. And God, we pray that You would use us in the same way, that You would give us a vision for what You would have us do right where we live. And that how we do it would bring honor and glory to You.
Thanks for the men and women that are here today. And pray that what they heard would be something You would use and trigger in their life what You would like to teach them. Father, Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for His life, His death, His resurrection. And we pray to You in His name. Amen.