Nehemiah: God Remembers Ordinary Faithfulness
Pastor Fletcher preaches from Nehemiah 3:1–32 about the people of Jerusalem rebuilding the wall. Discussion points: God cares about the ordinary faithfulness of non-heroes; being part of the body of Christ means serving, suffering, and rejoicing together; Jesus restores our relationship with God, not just our society.
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Scripture reader: I'm going to be reading from Nehemiah 3:1-32.
Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set its doors. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Tower of Hananel. And next to him the men of Jericho built. And next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built.
The sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. And next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired. And next to them Meshullam the son of Berechiah, son of Meshezabel repaired. And next to them Zadok the son of Baana repaired. And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.
Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Gate of Yeshanah. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. And next to them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, the seat of the governor of the province Beyond the River. Next to them Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths, repaired. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired. Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph repaired opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah repaired. Malchijah the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens. Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired, he and his daughters.
Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and repaired a thousand cubits of the wall, as far as the Dung Gate. Malchijah the son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
And Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He rebuilt it and covered it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. And he built the wall of the Pool of Shelah of the king's garden, as far as the stairs that go down from the city of David. After him Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, ruler of half the district of Beth-zur, repaired to a point opposite the tombs of David, as far as the artificial pool, and as far as the house of the mighty men. After him the Levites repaired: Rehum the son of Bani. Next to him Hashabiah, ruler of half the district of Keilah, repaired for his district. After him their brothers repaired: Bavvai the son of Henadad, ruler of half the district of Keilah. Next to him Ezer the son of Jeshua, ruler of Mizpah, repaired another section opposite the ascent to the armory at the buttress.
After him Baruch the son of Zabbai repaired another section from the buttress to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest. After him Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired another section from the door of the house of Eliashib to the end of the house of Eliashib. After him the priests, the men of the surrounding area, repaired. After them Benjamin and Hasshub repaired opposite their house. After them Azariah the son of Maaseiah, son of Ananiah repaired beside his own house. After him Binnui the son of Henadad repaired another section, from the house of Azariah to the buttress and to the corner. Palal the son of Uzai repaired opposite the buttress and the tower projecting from the upper house of the king at the court of the guard. After him Pedaiah the son of Parosh and the temple servants living on Ophel repaired to a point opposite the Water Gate on the east and the projecting tower. After him the Tekoites repaired another section opposite the great projecting tower as far as the wall of Ophel.
Above the Horse Gate the priests repaired, each one opposite his own house. After them Zadok the son of Immer repaired opposite his own house. After him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, repaired. After him Hananiah the son of Shelemiah and Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph repaired another section. After him Meshullam the son of Berechiah repaired opposite his chamber. After him Malchijah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired as far as the house of the temple servants and of the merchants, opposite the Muster Gate, and to the upper chamber of the corner. And between the upper chamber of the corner and the Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and the merchants repaired.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Good morning. Thank you for getting out of bed early this morning to come read a long list of names with us. That took about 5 minutes. And some of you, you know, you might get to a passage like this in the Bible and you think, you know, that's why I don't even try with the Bible. Like, like, what is this even here for? You know why? Why, why am I reading this? Isn't this book supposed to help me with my life?, how could an ancient list of people working on a wall supposed to help me? How is that ever supposed to help me? And more than that, how am I ever supposed to preach a sermon on this passage? And how are we supposed to get any sort of devotional value from a text like this?
If you're asking those questions, I just want to let you know that I'm glad. I'm glad that you're asking those questions. Those are things that you should be asking. You shouldn't just be reading your Bible and getting nothing out of it. You should be able to read it and say, why is this? Here Because here's the reality, we believe that the Bible is fully inspired by God. Under the authority of God, human people, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote every book of the Bible, every piece of the Bible, and it's there for our benefit. But sometimes it is difficult.
Now sometimes we think about the Bible as a collection of wise sayings. A lot of times appro people approach the Bible, they know it's a sacred book, and they think about it as just a collection of wise sayings to live their life by, or a sto a collection of fables or legends to live, to look and emulate. And so they'll open the Bible to a random page and say, OK, well, I guess I should be like this guy, or I guess this is a nice saying, but then you open the Bible to a passage like this, and there's no one really to emulate. And there's no real wise sayings in it. And what do you do?
I think that our idea of what the Bible is has to change. That's the way that we think about the Bible. The Bible is not a collection of wise sayings, it's not a collection of stories of legends, it's not a collection of fables. The Bible is a story, one cohesive story, but told through 66 different books. And each book has a slightly different perspective on things. It has, it's written by different people. Many of the different books of the Bible were written by different people over the course of thousands of years. And it tells one cohesive story over the long story.
And so, in the Bible, you do find answers for your life, though it might not be in the way that you think about it. The Bible answers questions like, why are we here? Why does the world exist? How does it exist? What's wrong with it? What's gonna make it better? What is our hope in this life? And where are we all going? Those are the main four questions that are answered throughout the Bible. And as you approach the text, you have to be able to approach it and say, where in the history of the world do we find this text? And what is going on, and why is this relevant to me with that understanding?
Now, some people, they do disregard the Bible as a collection of made up fables and legendary heroes. And that's almost certainly because they haven't read it. Because if you've read the Bible, you know that there are very few heroes to be found in this book. Even at the end of Nehemiah, which we think was written by Nehemiah, he kinda loses his mind and starts attacking people violently. Like, it's. Not many. Heroes to emulate here. If someone were inventing A heroic story about Nehemiah. This is a very strange chapter to include. I just want you to think about your friends who might say, I don't believe that the Bible is true. OK, why include this chapter if you don't, if it's not true? This seems like a chapter that was written by someone who cared a great deal that people remember the names of the faithful who rebuilt the wall.
And that is part of the heart of this is God cares about ordinary faithfulness. I hope that that brings you some encouragement today. That is you are doing your life and it feels small and insignificant in times that we think we need more and we need to do more. And then we read a chapter like this and we see that God cares about ordinary faithfulness. Now, let's, let's zoom into this passage a little bit more and get what we can from it. I'm not going to pretend to you, that this chapter is as important or as applicable as like the book of Romans, if you were to give, if I were to give you one chapter of the Bible to read, it would not be this one. And so if you're joining us this morning and you've never read any of the Bible, let me encourage you, go read the book of John, go read some of, you know, Ephesians, something like that.
But that's not to say that there's not anything good and important here. We'd not, we would not spend a whole week studying it if there wasn't. Now, I need to zoom out a little bit and talk about what is going on with the story of Nehemiah so that you can understand what's happening in this passage. Nehemiah tells the story of how, God called one leader, a man named Nehemiah, to lead a remnant of the people of Israel. Out of exile and back to the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the walls so that the city of Jerusalem might thrive for generations to come. And so we're right now in chapter 3 of Nehemiah's Make Jerusalem Great Again plan. And surprisingly enough, it also involves building a wall.
And he's investing and the casting the vision and now we actually see how the work is done. The people have gathered and they are building the wall. And so this long list of names, which is sometimes called an onomasticon, academics will come up with a name for anything, is a list of people who rebuilt the wall. So let's just look at it. And I'll draw a few things out.
First they start at what we call the sheep gate. OK, verse one. Alexis's Hebrew, far superior to mine. I'm so thankful that she read this passage. Then Eliashib, the high priest, rose up with his brothers, the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set the doors. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Tower of Hananel. And next to him the men of Jericho built. And next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built.
So, the Sheep Gate, this is, if you were an ancient Israelite reading this account, you would understand all these things. The people it was written to knew these locations. It would be like saying, and they started at the salt and pepper bridge in Boston, and they made their way around. So basically they start at Faneuil Hall, and they make their way around in a in a a clockwise way around the whole city of Jerusalem. And they're stopping at each gate along the way and describing it. But they start at the sheep gate.
And the sheep gate has significance because the sheep gate is the gate that is closest to the temple. And it's called the sheep gate because this is the gate where all the sacrificial animals would enter into Jerusalem every year around the day of Yom Kippur. And many other days throughout the year as well as people would bring their sacrifices, the sheep would come in through the sheep gate. So it's a sacred gate, it's where the sacrifices for the people sin would enter into the city, and that is why the priests are working on this gate. And after they work on this gate, they consecrate it. Consecrate is this word that means to set aside for holy purposes. And the word that we use in the New Testament for consecrate, basically the same word is sanctify. So they set aside this gate for holy purposes, saying this is a gate for the Lord.
After the sheep gate, the passage just works all the way around Jerusalem clockwise. We get a tour of how the how the walls were built. Name after name, group after group. Some interesting things that we see in this passage is first we see that everyone is pitching in. You have the ruling class and the working class working together. You have the nobles, and you have the merchants. You have every profession pitching in. You have the merchants, you have the goldsmiths, you have the rulers and the priests and the clergy. Everyone is pitching in, men and women both. You have the guy with his daughters, and then you have many people working as family units to build this this wall, repair it, restore it to its former glory. Everyone is important. The priests could not build this wall by themselves. The clergy is working right next to everyone else.
And you know, every scholar when they write on this chapter, what they notice, one thing that they notice is there seems to be a change from focusing just on the leaders of Israel to starting to focus on the work that the people do. And this is a progression that we see that makes its way throughout the Old Testament until you Get to the New Testament, where the progression has gone from the leader Jesus Christ, giving His Holy Spirit to all of the people. And so when we read this and we see this account of the people of God doing the work of God, we should be seeing a shadow of the church, which is the people of God. Called together to work side by side, doing the work of God.
A lot of times people in American culture at least and maybe some other nations treat church as kind of a consumer activity. We come to hear what the pastor has to say and enjoy the music that the band might put together and you know, maybe, suffer through some small talk or like a long list of names that are being read. But that's not the New Testament picture of the church. In the New Testament, believers are described as a royal priesthood. 1 Peter chapter 2. You yourselves like living stones being built up as a spiritual house, to be a royal priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Now if you are a royal priesthood, then that means that every person in the body of Christ is called to ministry of one sort or another.
And you might not have ever thought about your life that way, but the Lord has given a calling to your life to build his kingdom, to be his church. And if you're in the church, you don't just come to church, but you are the church and you function as the people that Christ has redeemed loving one another. As the pastor of this church, one of, yeah, I'm not here just to do the work of the church. One of my primary jobs, Ephesians chapter 4, is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And that means that my one of my biggest jobs is to equip others to do the work that God has given you. And so one of the biggest ways that I do that is by preaching and teaching the word, by praying for you day in and day out, by meeting the discipling leaders who can meet and disciple others. But the goal is to hand things over and allow each of you to flourish with the giftings that God has given you.
In Nehemiah, everyone is pitching in, except one person, one family. OK, verse 5, and next to them, the Tekoites repaired. But their nobles would not stoop to serve their lord. When you get to the end of your life, you don't want that to be in your obituary. That this person would not stoop to serve the Lord. Friends, do not let that be said of you. That you would not allow your heart to be to stoop to serve our king.
Now usually pastors would take this opportunity, myself included, to recruit people. To volunteer into what we might call the church machine, OK? What is the church machine you ask? Well, that it, it is, it is, I do understand, it sounds rather derogatory, but it, it is true like. Church on Sunday mornings, what we're doing right here takes a lot of work, OK?, every Sunday morning I went and counted, we have an app that manages all the volunteers. Every Sunday morning we have at least 35 people volunteering on a Sunday morning. That includes people setting up chairs, that includes people making coffee, which is oftentimes the same people., that includes Lots of kids servants. We have a lot of kids in the church. There's probably 35 or 40 children in the kids ministry right now. And that includes lots of volunteers with the children's ministry. That includes our worship team, that includes people coming here to welcome you and to to invest into reading the scripture for you. And it includes people praying, leading the service, putting out signs, working in the back with the slides and the, and the sound, the production ministry.
And we do need more people to fill the slots to carry the burden there because we, it does end up being a lot of the same people doing the same things week in and week out. But here's the thing. I am trying to learn my calling and. I do not want to be called to being the CEO of the church machine. I hate that. Like my, if my job just gets reduced to making sure that a program is put together on Sundays, like I'll go ahead and retire, all right?, that's not what I'm here for. I am called. To be a shepherd of God's sheep. And so before you think and and and as you think, I think sometimes we we downgrade the church to think about it as a church machine.
But really friends, I want to encourage you and empower you to think about the church more as an organism than a machine. Like in an organism, every part is valued. In a body, everything is valued. In a machine, you're a cog. If you break, you can get a new one. Look, I broke my pinky at the retreat last year. It's still not good, OK? I can't, I can't do, I can't straighten it all the way, OK? Maybe I should've gone to PT some say. Well, aren't you smart? But when a member of your body hurts, The whole body hurts. And you can't just, I can't get a new pinky. This is the only one I have. And they can't put a new one on there yet. Eventually you could grow Fletcher Pinky and put it back on there. But that's not. I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure how I feel about it.
We need to think about the church as an organism. Not as a machine. Here's what the scripture teaches us. When it comes to serving, being a part of the body, that we all have gifts. We all have gifts. You're not here by accident. A church this small, no one walks into the room by accident. Everyone walks into the room with a certain amount of gifts. There are certain hands you can hold. Certain burdens you can carry. That no one else can carry in this room. And we need to know one another and to come together and share our lives with one another in such a way that the members of God's body might support one another and build up His kingdom together.
Ask yourself this, how can God use me and my experience to reach people and to shape people? Maybe you don't feel like you have much to contribute to the machine, but let me encourage you, you absolutely have plenty to to contribute to the body. You can't build up a body without knowing the people who are a part of it. So it's going, if you're a regular here, that some of this might fall on deaf ears for a moment.
But if you are someone who's not too involved yet, let me just tell you, relationships are really hard. I've lived in Boston for 15 years now. Boston will eat up and spit out friendships. It is a hard place to live and to thrive and to have deep relationships. And after you do that a few times, you're like, man, I'm not sure I wanna do that again. Maybe I should just move somewhere easier and. Let me tell you that it's worth it to keep investing. And that there are a group of us who are committed here for the long term. And that we have to make room to welcome more people into our lives. And I know that that risk hurt, but CS Lewis said that a heart that doesn't allow itself to be hurt is a heart that's lost the ability to love. And so we have to love in that kind of way.
Now if you are newer, let me encourage you that it takes time. It takes investment. It takes time to get to the place where you feel where people feel safe with you and you feel safe with people. It just takes time. And you have to invest and invest and invest and sometimes you have to do things that are a little inconvenient. You have to do things like joining a group where you sit around and sometimes have an awkward conversation. You have to suffer through some, some small talk on Sunday mornings. You have to. But you know that's, that's the way you represent Jesus sometimes to people is by listening to them, caring for them. You have to stick around, have a bagel, you gotta. You gotta love people, let them into your life. There's no other way.
No one can zap a relationship. You can, I honestly think that you can, a lot of times fast forward through the first few stages of a friendship very quickly. I think we felt that sometimes you feel a kindred spirit with someone else. But friends, even, even if you do feel that kindred spirit with another person, you get to like level 4 and then you pause. It and it just takes time. And we have to be willing to give that time.
Now, these people, they're working side by side on the wall, and for one common purpose. And I do think that sometimes volunteering for a ministry is a great way to build relationships. My wife and I got to know each other because we were teaching a 4 and 5 year old kids class, for 6 months before I ever asked her on a date. And so every week at at the playground, we would get to know one another and and chat. And it was a great way to build that relationship. And then by the time we started dating, we felt like we knew one another. And so sometimes volunteering is a good thing to do. But I would encourage you. To focus not on being a cog in the machine. We don't need more cogs. But being a member of the body, the organism of Christ, how can you invest in relationships? How can you be the church? How can you represent Christ to others?
This past week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, my wife and I went on, a hike. And when I say hike, I really mean a 3 day, 20 mile death march through the New Hampshire wilderness. We stayed at the AMC Huts up there, which if you don't know about those, they have these nice little buildings that are in the, in the backcountry in New Hampshire where there's a crew, a small crew that'll cook for you, and there's a bed that you can sleep in, and it's, it's nice, you get breakfast and, and dinner, you have to bring your own, your own bedding and your own, lunch and that sort of thing. So you're still carrying a huge bag, like I probably had 30 pounds on my back as I was hiking through New Hampshire.
And you know, a lot of folks hate on New England hiking, a lot of folks from the West Coast are like, oh, the mountains are so tiny, and I'm like, they might be smaller, but they are mean. Like, the New Hampshire mountains are really rough. Like, it's all granite. Like everything you step on is hard, which I never would have complained about in my twenties, but I'm 40. Like that hurts my knees. Like, I'm old now. It's, it just hurts. It's really rough terrain, it feels less like leisure and more like survival, I think, and. And I loved every single minute of it. Anybody else love every minute of that sort of thing, of the pain? Yeah.
With a hike like this, you need every member of your body to cooperate, OK? No one can take a day off. Like if my fingers suddenly decided, I don't wanna work anymore. Then like my whole body suffers, even though you think you can hike without without fingers, but the, you really, it's really difficult. Like, how would I get the water thing into my mouth, you know, like, and then I'm just dehydrated and the rest of my body stops working. The funniest part of the whole hike was certainly the fact that we got to the second hut, which you have to hike like 6 miles over mountains to get really rugged territory to get to this hut. It's very secluded, very remote. You cannot hear any cars. It's wonderful.
But you got, we got there and they told us a story of how they were rebuilding the hut in the 90s and 99. And the US government stopped their rebuilding because they weren't doing it by code, because they were not putting in wheelchair accessible ramps. Into the hot Which is hilarious, because no one has ever taken a wheelchair up that ramp. So they literally had to stop what they were doing and make it all handicap accessible, which I'm all for accessibility, but the very nature of what that place is, is not accessible. But the funny thing is that MIT had a group of students that said, well, let's take advantage of it. So all the wheel, all the, all the disabled students at MIT or, or, I don't know the politically correct term anymore, I'm sorry, got together and they used a system of pulleys to work their way up to the hut to where they could use the wheelchair ramp. So, it's, it's funny.
All that to say that it's, you need every member of your body to, to make a hike like that work. And similarly, you need every member of your body. For the church to thrive, to do what it's called to. At one point during the hike, we were doing, it, it's part of that, Appalachian Trail, if anybody's familiar. It's a trail that goes from Georgia all the way to Maine, like the longest trail in the world. And this is like the toughest part of it. Literally the hardest day, the, that's what the people at the hut told us at least that it's the hardest day. My, my wife and I. We're, hiking, and we got to what we assume is the hardest part of the hardest day, which is like a 50 ft tall waterfall that you just summit. It's like as tall as this building and like basically straight up. So you really, it's not hiking, it's like scrambling up it.
So we started our way up the, the waterfall hiking trail, there's no way around it. And Megan scurried up that faster than I've ever seen, faster than I could say, hey, could you help me with this? She's up on top of the waterfall, you know, she is terrified of heights. She's out of there. And so I love. That sort of thing. I could just dangle off of any mountain like the Villa Ferrada things where you hang off the side of the mountain. I'm in. Like, don't even strap me in. I'm just like, I'm good on the side. Any other crazies with that? Yeah, maybe not.
But I took one step and my back just like started spasming, you know, and now I had my knee all the way up to here, you know, and the back was just like, mm I don't think so. So then I'm like stuck on this waterfall with a wet ledge of about this much underneath my boot, and I'm literally stuck, like cannot move, my back is just protesting at that moment. My, my back is refusing to stoop to serve the purposes. Of the moment And I'm just stuck there. Now, I'm here, so obviously, I worked it out. But the point is that it was touch and go.
Here's really the point I, I, I'm making. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 26. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. If one member of my body is hurting, all of me is hurting. If the church, in the church, when you are hurting, we are all hurting. You might be hurting silently. But that's still hurting all of us. If you're not thriving, we're not thriving.
And look, the whole reason why Nehemiah is building this wall is so that he might have a thriving city for generations to come. And he achieved it. He built the wall. He built the thing. Similarly, if we're going to have a thriving community for generations to come, it's going to require us to build, to commit, to stick together. There's a number of people doing that and I'm so blessed by it. Today we've been talking about rebuilding the walls, but let's remember why they were broken in the first place. The walls of Jerusalem were broken because for generations. The people of God rebelled against God. They worshiped idols. They would not bow to God as their king for generations. Hundreds, a thousand years, maybe not a thousand, for hundreds of years, they refused to worship God. And so God sent them into exile as a form of discipline so that they would stop bowing to the things of this world. And so that they would look to him who is on high.
And so now, Nehemiah, the rebuilding of the wall is not just the rebuilding of the wall, it's a restoration project. But you know the wall isn't far enough. That's what we find when we get to, I'm gonna ruin the ending of Nehemiah right now. Sorry. Keep coming, please. They find at the end that building the wall wasn't enough. Because you don't just need to have a thriving society, you need a thriving relationship with the Lord. And that Points us forward to what Christ has done. That while we work on this wall, While Nehemiah was working on this rebuilt city, Jesus brings us a rebuilt relationship with God.
And that's why the story ultimately leads us to Jesus. Jesus is the true and better Nehemiah. He doesn't just build a wall, he rebuilds centers. He doesn't simply restore a city, he restores us to God, and he does it by becoming the Lamb who was sacrificed for us centuries later. Along these same walls Jesus would enter. And as the Lamb of God, he would enter through one of these gates built by Nehemiah and his people. And on his way in, he would be celebrated. People would shout Hosanna, which means please save us. They would celebrate him as a king, but then just days later, he would be sent out of the same walls, carrying the sins of the world to be born on a cross. So that we might have restored relationship with God.
You see Jesus doesn't just rebuild our society, he rebuilds our relationship, our true place as children of God. He brings us into the relationship that he's enjoyed throughout eternity with God the Father, that he was crucified for our sins that they were placed on Him and on the third day he rose from the dead. Jesus would become the sacrifice sent outside of the city, carrying the sins of God's people. He would become our atoning sacrifice. And so the call to Nehemiah for Nehemiah isn't simply get to work, but it's this come to Christ. Repent of your sin, trust in Jesus, be reconciled to God. And then having been brought into the family of God, we get to work, building up the body of Christ.
Each week we take a moment after we hear the word, most weeks at least. We take a moment after we've heard the, heard the word preached to have a time of confession, to come to the Lord and confess our sins, and to be assured of his grace and his peace. And so, if you would turn your attention to the screen as we confess together. You can read the underlined portions along with me.
Father, we confess that we often try to live as though we don't need you and don't need one another. We trust in our own strength. We carry our burdens alone. We resist being known, asking for help. Or admitting that we are weak. We confess that we have sinned against you and against the people you've placed around us and sometimes like the nobles of Nehemiah, we are unwilling to stoop and to serve. We think certain people, sacrifices or acts of service are beneath us. Forgive us. Turn us again from ourselves to Christ. Restore to us fellowship with you and with your people. Teach us to depend upon you, to receive from others, and to gladly give ourselves for the good of your church. Thank you for Jesus, who did not remain distant from us, but stooped down to save us. He humbled himself, became a servant, and gave his life for sinners. Amen.
Church, hear the good news. Christ has not left you to restore yourself. He has done for you what you could never do for yourself. Through his death and resurrection, he has forgiven your sins, reconciled you to God, and brought you into his family. So, as we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, know that you don't have to carry it all by yourself. You don't have to prove yourself, you don't have to save yourself in Christ, you are forgiven. You are reconciled and you belong. Even the biggest failure among us.
On the night that he was betrayed, Christ gave us a sacred meal so that we would be able to remember what he had done for us. He took a loaf of bread and he tore it and he said, this is my body, broken for you. And he took a cup and he said, this is my blood shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so each week we take a small piece of bread, a small bit of wine or juice, and we're reminded of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. If you're a Christian here with us today, we encourage you to repent of your sin, come and receive these elements so that you can be reminded of what Christ has done, so that you can experience that power again. I'm going to invite you to stand as we prepare our hearts to come to the table.
God, we thank you for your word this morning, and we pray that you would help our little body that resembles you, that reflects your glory, would you help us to thrive? God as we link arm in arm and work together, help us to care for those around us, to not just see projects, but to see people. And God, we pray that you would give us a, a slow and gentle spirit, that you would create in us a new heart. And God, we thank you for this communion meal. May we enjoy it to your glory. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.