Katie routinely gently reminds me that I need to make haste in getting up here whenever my presence is required up here. I kind of like the suspense a little bit. Sometimes just got to mess with you a little bit. All right. Time to be in God's word together. Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we come to you again, asking you for wisdom as we always do. We are told that if we lack wisdom, to ask of You and You give it generously and without finding fault. And so often, we are guilty of neglecting that promise in Your Word. We neglect the importance of wisdom. We neglect the importance of understanding what You have revealed of Yourself and of Your Son and of Your plans in Your Word. So we do come to You, God, as the body of Christ, that we may share in this wisdom written down in Your Word, fully revealed in our Savior. In His name we pray. All right, if you haven't already, go ahead and open your Bibles. We are going to read Nehemiah chapter 7. All 73 verses, and not only that, I'm gonna do my best to clear all 73 verses. Now some of you may be thinking, there's no way Jonathan can do such an impossible task. And you know what, you might be justified in thinking that. But we are gonna do our best to get through the whole thing and put this all together. The title of today's sermon is simply Legacy of Exiles, and I will read chapter seven, so please follow along with me. Pay attention to the names. Now when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed, then I put Hananiah, my brother, and Hananiah, the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than any. Then I said to them, Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be open until the sun is hot, and while they are standing guard, let them shut and bolt the doors. Also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, each at his post and in front of his own house. Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few, and the houses were not built. Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first, in which I found the following record. These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his city. who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Rahamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpareth, Bigvi, Nehum, Ba'anah, the number of men of the people of Israel. The sons of Perosh, the sons of Shepetiah, the sons of Ereh, the sons of Pahath-Moab, of the sons of Jeshua and Joab, 2,818. The sons of Elam, 1,254. The sons of Zatu, 845. The sons of Zechai, 760. The sons of Benue, 648. The sons of Bebi, 628. The sons of Asgad, 2,322. The sons of Adonikam, 667. The sons of Bigbi, 2,067. The sons of Adin, 655. The sons of Atar of Hezekiah, 98. The sons of Hashim, 328. The sons of Bezai, 324. The sons of Harith, 112. The sons of Gibeon, 95. The men of Bethlehem, Netafah 188, the men of Anathoth 128, the men of Bethazmaveth 42, the men of Kiriath-Jerim, Shephira and Baroth 743, the men of Ramah and Geba 621, the men of Mikmas 122, the men of Bethel and Ai 123, The men of the other Nebo, 52. The sons of the other Elam, 1,254. The sons of Harim, 320. The men of Jericho, 345. The sons of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 721. The sons of Sennath, 3,930. The priests. The sons of Jediah of the house of Jeshua, 973. The sons of Emer, 1,052. The sons of Pashur, 1,247. The sons of Harim, 1,017. the Levites, the sons of Jeshua, of Kadmiel, of the sons of Hodeba, 74, the singers, the sons of Asaph, 148, the gatekeepers, the sons of Shalom, the sons of Atter, the sons of Talmon, the sons of Akub, the sons of Hatita, the sons of Shobai, 138, the temple servants, the sons of Ziha, the sons of Hasufa, the sons of Tabaoth, the sons of Kiros, the sons of Siyah, the sons of Padon, the sons of Lebanon, the sons of Haggabah, the sons of Shalmai, the sons of Hanan, the sons of Gedel, the sons of Gahar, the sons of Re'aiha, the sons of Rezin, the sons of Nakoda, the sons of Gazam, the sons of Uzah, the sons of Pasea, the sons of Bessai, the sons of Meunim, the sons of Nepushesim, the sons of Bakbuk, the sons of Hakufa, the sons of Parhir, the sons of Bazlith, the sons of Mahida, the sons of Harsha. the sons of Barqos, the sons of Sisera, the sons of Tima, the sons of Neziah, the sons of Hatipha, the sons of Solomon's servants, the sons of Sotai, the sons of Sofereth, the sons of Pereda, the sons of Jaala, the sons of Darkan, the sons of Gedel, the sons of Shephateah, the sons of Hatil, the sons of Pokereth, Hazabayim, the sons of Ammon. All the temple servants and the sons of Solomon's servants were 392. These were they who came up from Telmala, Telharsha, Cherub, Adan, and Emer. But they could not show their fathers' houses or their descendants whether they were of Israel, the sons of Deliah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nakoda, 642, of the priests, the sons of Hobiah, the sons of Hakoz, the sons of Barzillai, who took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and was named after them. These searched among their ancestral registration, but it could not be located. Therefore, they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood. The governor said to them that they should not eat from the most holy things until a priest arose with Urim and Thummim. The whole assembly together was 42,360, besides their male and female servants. of whom there were 7,337, and they had 245 male and female singers. Their horses were 736, their mules 245, their camels 435, their donkeys 6,720. Some from among the heads of fathers' households gave to the work. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 gold drachmas, 50 basins, 530 priest garments. Some of the heads of father's households gave into the treasury of the work 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,200 silver minas. That which the rest of the people gave was 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,000 silver minas and 67 priest garments. Now the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants and all Israel lived in their cities. And when the seventh month came, the sons of Israel were in their cities. All right, let's try to get into Texas. My iPad will open here. It says my face is too far away. Okay. So we've kind of been through this exercise before where we read off a list of names, and we read them off first and foremost because it's in the Bible. And the Bible is God's inspired word. So God himself, by his own testimony, intends for us to benefit from what is written in genealogies. And I think that after studying, we are able to to get the point here, but these are not merely names that are being recorded, and I think I preached on this earlier in the book of Nehemiah, kind of expanded on that, and I'll repeat some of those principles here, because I do believe they are important. Again, written in Nehemiah chapter seven, elsewhere recorded in Ezra chapter two, and so you have two witnesses of that, two inspired perspectives. So again, there is a point. This is not meant to simply be glossed over. Again, I don't think it's necessary, especially for our purposes and then the main point of this sermon, to go and hash out every single name and explain the meaning. That could be an exercise for you. Once again, I'm sure that would be a sanctifying activity. But I want to emphasize in this morning's message the overall themes, the overall application, and to really galvanize the fact that there is something in this chapter for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the overall context here is the census of the first returned exiles. One thing that is put forth by various commentators is that any discrepancies between Nehemiah and Ezra may include, again, not anything that would compromise our belief in the infallibility and the inerrancy of scriptures, but one more likely solution that has been put forward by people I consulted was that this was a list that was updated as further exiles returned belonging to certain families. Remember that when the Israelites returned, they did not return all at once. So a large group returned, and then after some time went by, some more returned. And so this is several years in the making of the children of Israel returning from exile. So we want to keep that in mind in the context. But here we come now to chapter seven, And so, again, I just want to emphasize the fact that we can benefit immensely from a text like this, and I believe that the main points will clarify that. It was Martin Luther who said, we are not to imagine that the names of the saints in the Bible are of no consequence. God has placed them there not to burden us, but to show us that he knows each one by name and has set them in their place in his eternal purpose. And so we can go forth confidently with that in mind. So once again, let me draw your attention to the title of this sermon, Legacy of Exiles. And we've talked a lot about this term, legacy, and I find that amongst Christians, it takes on a very special and precious significance. We are not to think that legacy is something for only the worldly. We do have a legacy to offer. We do have a legacy to contend for and to perpetuate and to strengthen. And I think the fact that a legacy can be sanctified by the blood of Christ and by the work of the gospel makes it all the more important to us. We are not to fall under the myth that legacy somehow makes this whole Christian enterprise a me-centered one. A legacy is only as valuable as it reveals Christ and his work and the great treasure and wealth that is found in him. The primary definition of legacy is this, it is an amount of money or property left to someone in a will. Synonyms for this include bequest, inheritance, heritage, bequeathal, bestowal, benefaction, endowment, gift, heirloom, patrimony, settlement, birthright, provision, and more. So we understand this issue of legacy in light of this. And he actually was talking, I think it was with you, Andrew, this week about the importance of legacy. And we were talking about, I think it was by Mercy Me, a Christian song. And he says, I don't want to leave a legacy. I don't care if they remember me, only Jesus. And while I appreciate the sentiments of that, We also don't want to discount the very clear fact that we want our lives to be remembered precisely so that the Lord Jesus Christ is remembered, right? One of the things that spurs us on to perseverance in the faith, and I would say read Hebrews 11 and 12 for my authority on this, is that God called people to be faithful. God called people to himself to remind us of the fact, to encourage us to persevere in the faith, especially in difficult times, especially in light of the fact that we now live in light of the fulfillment of God's promises in Christ, because Christ has died and has risen from the dead. When the writer of the Hebrews points us back to the Old Testament saints, they had the promises, but They only saw them from far off. We currently hold these promises in our hand. We are living in light of what Christ has accomplished and how he has brought these promises to their fulfillment. And the fact that we remember Abraham. Now, Abraham may not have thought, man, I just hope people remember me. But here's the fact, we do remember him. We do remember Abraham. We do remember Job. We do remember David, Noah. We even remember Lot. We remember Gideon. We remember many of these Old Testament saints. And if God wants us to remember, who they were and their various exploits committed in his name, then it does stand to reason that being remembered does carry some weight, does carry some importance to us, if only that we are able to point successive generations to what Christ has done in our lives, what he has done through us. It's an encouragement. And so guys, it's okay to be remembered. It's okay to want to be remembered. It's okay that by great faith in Christ, much is accomplished so that people know that if God could use someone like you, he could use anybody. I mean, have that humble mindset. And so we come to this chapter. So let's look at the first thing. We are talking about the concept of legacy. We're talking about godly legacy. And so that is the primary concept application I want us to keep at the forefront of our minds this morning. There are three of them, and they will cover all 73 verses. So let's look at the first one. A godly legacy has an eye for the future in that it establishes order. So this will cover the first four verses of our passages this morning. A godly legacy has an eye for the future, it establishes order. So of course, open your eyes, look and see, behold and see what God has done. Behold and see what God has done through a man, a mere servant like Nehemiah, a prayerful man, a godly man. who had an eye for the very things that God was doing, right? We so often fail to pay attention, to open our eyes, to take a basic, even cursory look at divine activity in the created world, right? That he is making all things new. And like I've contended all along, that Nehemiah gives us a mere glimpse of all that Christ is doing now in this world, this great restoration project of the cosmos. And so now in verse one, we find that the wall has been rebuilt and he set up the doors and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed. And then he says he puts Hananiah's brother and Hananiah, the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. And he says, do not let the gates of Jerusalem be open until the sun is hot, and while they are standing guard, let them shut and bolt the doors. Also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, each at his own post and each in front of his own house. Now listen to verse four. This is very key. Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not built. So we have thousands and thousands of Israelites who have returned to Israel. They returned from the Babylonian exile. And it's interesting because now, you know, all this time, Nehemiah is trying to make safe the city. He's rebuilding the walls. He's trying to remove, as the text describes, so that the reproach of the city would be removed. What is a city? A city without walls is pathetic. It's open to attack. Where are the borders? Where's the security? Open to any kind of invasion or theft or any danger from without. It's enough to try to keep order from within, but such is the situation. Now the walls are built, but many people are still living outside. In fact, later on, Nehemiah will say that It was one in 10. Only 10% of the people actually lived inside the city gates. Everyone else kind of lived outside in the surrounding territories. They were living in the burbs, as it were, but they weren't living inside the city. And so Nehemiah, with all of his planning and with all of his construction and all of his accomplishments, his thinking seems to be, we need to get now people inside the city, inside Jerusalem. And so on many levels, we find Nehemiah, again, with an eye for the future. He does not want his work to be undone. And I think many of us can understand the importance of that principle, that any work we do in the name of the Lord, we want to be preserved. And so we have to think about the future. We have to keep our eyes open. as to what the Lord continues to do and plan accordingly and use wisdom to set up, what I say, future generations to be good stewards of the work that we have personally done to advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're never focused on one single thing all the time. Yes, sometimes we think about the past. Sometimes we think about the present. Sometimes we think about the future. But we should be thinking about all three of those things. Each of those things has a lesson for us. And we don't want to get caught in any one of them. Getting caught in whether it's thinking about the past too much, thinking about the present too much, or even thinking about the future too much all have their respective pitfalls. But we do need to have an eye for the future. And of course, plan accordingly so that the work is secure and so that the work can continue. We've harped on that a lot in our study in Nehemiah, right? Not thinking that we are somehow the only generation that matters, right? The only generation of significance. And then only work for our own good. No, we want to work for the future as well. And so this is where Nehemiah provides a wonderful lesson. You think about what he actually does. He rebuilds and he sets up the door, so he's concerned about security. He's also concerned about worship, right? The gatekeepers, the singers and Levites. You see what's really in Nehemiah's focus here. I think his primary passion, honestly, is to see worship restored in Jerusalem. He can look back and say, wow, this is what Jerusalem used to be. The presence of God was here. We had the temple. We had those serving in the temple. What is the center of our culture in any time? The center of our culture is worship. And we're trying to recapture that. I'm trying to get you guys fired up about that. via our study in Nehemiah, that if we are going to build anything, worship of the triune God must be at the center. God will accept no culture where he is on the periphery or where he is not somehow in the bullseye. He must be the center. He must be all in all. And I think Nehemiah understands that. Consider also, not just this culture of worship he is rebuilding, but he cares about who is keeping the city secure. I put Hananiah, my brother, and Hananiah, the commander of the fortress, right? It's rebuilt. Well, now we need it to be protected so it's not destroyed again. So they are in charge of Jerusalem, the city, but why? Why? Because he had lots of experience? Because he knew lots of really decent people who had other connections? Because he bribed his way into the position? No, here's what mattered to Nehemiah. He was a faithful man and feared God more than many. Now we understand that peripherally there are other things that matter when it comes to putting people in charge of a given location or a given project. But what matters above all is a little thing that we call character. What kind of man is this person? What is in their heart? What matters to them? What are their priorities? Who do they worship? And this is Nehemiah's Priority here in finding leadership over Jerusalem for he was a faithful man and feared God More than many and even scripture itself says a faithful man is hard to find right who can find a faithful man Men tend to be even on their best days fickle wishy-washy right indecisive self self-interested self-motivated self-preserving It is hard to find a faithful man Who will stand by and carry out the duties to which he is appointed in spite of the difficulty. And this is how Hananiah is marked. He is a faithful man, right? One of the fruits of the Spirit, faithfulness. And he feared God more than me. There's another one, right? If you don't fear God, who are you going to fear? There's really only two options. You either fear God or you fear man. And when it comes to preserving the work of the kingdom, you don't want the entire rank and file of your leadership to fear man. To fear what men may do or to fear what men may say, we are to fear God and we care about what he thinks. We care about what he says. We care about what he is able to do in his strength, especially in his strength is manifested in judgment. We talk about the fear of God as a fear that clings, right? A fear that says, Lord, I'm staying here. As you stand with me, I will stand with you. I will go where you go. I will obey your commands because I fear you infinitely more. than man. And I know that to fear you, Lord, is to find ultimate security. It's one of the blessed ironies of the Christian life. In the fear of the Lord, we find ultimate security. We asked that question last Lord's Day, I believe, in our Psalms reading. What can man do to me? Whom shall I fear? Because the Lord is with me. So he cares immensely about this vigilance and security. And he gives specific, and he also cares about order, right? The order, the process. In verse three, he says, don't let the gates of Jerusalem be open until the sun is hot. All right, so they had a timeline. Again, Jerusalem is situated in the desert, in a very warm area. And so here is a timetable that the guards can follow for security reasons. Don't open the gates until the sun is hot. And while they are standing guard, let them open, let them shut, and bolt the doors. So Nehemiah, having just finished this project, is still on high alert. Also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, those from within the city, each at his post, and each in front of his own house. This is something that the church needs to remind herself of often, that in this great, we call it the great work from last chapter study, the great work of building the kingdom of God, of proclaiming the gospel faithfully, we take ownership of the project. We take ownership of what we're doing, of what we're called to. We recognize that this is my responsibility, and I'm not going to leave it to someone else. I'm not going to be lazy. I'm not going to be disinterested. I'm not going to remain uninvested or careless about this work while everyone else toils away. No, I want to be involved. I'm willing to get my hands dirty. I'm willing even to face insult and injury and setbacks if only I can faithfully carry out what has been appointed to me. And so here we have these guards appointed. And notice that the burden here is not overwhelming. He says each at his post and each in front of his own house. This is not a long commute. And for many of us, to carry out this work faithfully does not demand a long commute from us either. Does anyone in here actually commute to Denver? Yeah, most of us are local. We're in the Springs. And we have these intricate machines called automobiles where we can drive to work in but a few minutes. So what used to have been known as a hike is now just a hop, skip, and a jump, and we can go to where we need to go. And so wherever the Lord appoints us in our vocation, again, whether it's somewhere we have to drive, our own households, our places of worship, all those various spheres of interests in the kingdom, we can do them faithfully. This kind of points to the easy yoke and the light burden that the Lord Jesus promises for all who come to Him. He gives us the wherewithal to fulfill our respective callings. So each is at his post, each in front of his own house. Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not built. So all of this, the character of those in charge, vigilance, security, taking ownership, including wise oversight, lend themselves to protecting what has been built at any place and time. And so it is a great reminder for us that whatever it is we build, we need to do so in a wise way so that we can see that work preserved. And we should desire it to be preserved. Because whatever we build, we want to bring honor and glory to the Lord. We want others to see that His hand is clearly in this great project, this great work. And if it is a great work, then it does follow that we want it to last. And of course, that requires wisdom applied into selecting those who will carry on the work, those who will protect the work. That's the first thing. Secondly, a godly legacy has a heart for the past. So first, it has an eye for the future. It establishes order. Secondly, a godly legacy has a heart for the past. It remembers God's promises. And this was very convenient to my point, because verse 5 says, then God put it into my heart. All right? There we have it. There's the point built into the text. Then God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first, in which I found the following record. And then he goes on to say, these are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own city. And then I will not read through this entire list of exiles. I trust you've memorized it already. But here we have the exiles having returned down to the number, down to the number based on households. And so this is kind of where we want to explore, you know, why is this so important? Why would Nehemiah, and of course Ezra, doing the same thing, why would they name all of these names? And I think the first thing is, is that it does draw us to the attention of the fulfillment of God's promises. I think that is the big message here. We have God's promises fulfilled down to the name, down to the detail. In the big picture, we are reminded, okay? Remember, judgment must begin with the household of God. Peter reminds us of that. Okay, so in this text, it's the same thing. In these names, in these households that went away into exile, we are reminded of God's promise to judge. We are drawn to that reminder that if a people persists in sin, especially even God's people, if they persist in sin, judgment will come upon them. And God warns them faithfully many, many times throughout many hundreds of years. If you are unfaithful to me, if you go chasing after idols, if you go whore yourselves to the gods of the nations, if you are unfaithful, if you are unrighteous, if you are unjust, especially toward your fellow Israelites, you will be puked out of the land. You will go into exile. warning after warning, right? And this constant cycle of of rebellion and hard-heartedness and idolatry and then judgment. And then Israel cries out to the Lord. And what does the Lord do? Because he is a gracious and merciful God, he comes to their rescue. And he restores them. He forgives their sins. Never let that be a light thing in your minds, friends, even as Christians. Never fail to let the wonders of God's mercy and grace prevail upon you. Never think of it as a light thing. Never fail to think of sin as an infinite offense against a holy God, that it is outright rebellion, that it is the gravest wickedness. I think it was Lewis who said, even the lightest sin, the seemingly most inconsequential sin is a grave evil. I'm paraphrasing, of course. But it is a sadistic evil to sin against the Lord. And so our measure of His grace, our view of His grace should be proportionate, right? Should be exalted, proportionate to the depth and wickedness of our sin, which of course means our view of God's grace should be almost beyond description. But it should never be a light thing in our hearts. so that we end up indulging in more sin. The person with a great view of God's grace, the person who looks at God's grace and says, amazing, and who reminds himself of that constantly is the person who, like Nehemiah, walks with God, who does not forget the Lord. And more importantly, in a text like this, we are confronted with the truth that the Lord, in His justice and His grace, does not forget His people. He has not forgotten His people. He has not forgotten us. When the scriptures say that God remembers His people, it doesn't mean that He has somehow stopped forgetting them. No, it means that He deliberately calls them to mind. And I would say, calls them to mind with the intention to deliver them and also to put down their enemies. And we even see in this chronicle of Nehemiah that the Lord has constantly undermined all of the devices of the enemy. All of their nefarious ploys have come to nothing. Even to where, as we saw last Lord's Day, Nehemiah 6, verse 16. When all of our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence, for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God, right? By trying to undermine this project, we might as well try to imprison the wind. It's doing no good. We should probably just give up and go home, because God is for them. And if he is for them, and we are against them, then guess what? Their God is against us. The unbeliever has to have an occasional whiff of the danger that he is in, allying himself against God's block, and that the shepherd that is over them is a dangerous shepherd, a shepherd who can kill as easily as he can save. And so by this great list, we are reminded of God's faithfulness. We are reminded of the fact that God intends to keep His covenant promises. We know, we are reminded afresh, that God knows His people. I mean, you want an immediate application and encouragement from this? That God not only knows His people, but it is a timely reminder that God knows His people by name, right? The hairs on your head are numbered. You are more of more value than many sparrows. That if the Lord has redeemed you, right, you are his sheep. You matter to him. And he is with you. I love it from John 10. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. This is, we say, in a world full of so much noise, so many distractions, so many things to give us pause and maybe to instill doubt in us. We know that the Lord knows us and that we belong to Him. Now, this should strike us as profound because, I mean, here is a list of people. Keep this in perspective. Here is a list of people, right? They sinned against God, right? These are people, this is a, guys, this is a list of unlovable people. Unlovable people, people who have deserved everything they've gotten, right? Who deserve to go into exile, whose names deserve to be blotted out on the face of the earth, right? We deserve the same. I know we like to think the best of ourselves. I know we like to think that we are so lovable, right? We're so nice, right? We're just, we're so doggone it people like us. And yet in light of the holiness of God, we fail to realize how wicked we are, how despicable we are, how purposeful we are in our rebellion. And we can all add ourselves to this list the list of the undeserving, the list of the exile, the list of those who deserve nothing but fiery hell and estrangement from the Lord, and yet who are brought back to dwell in His presence and to experience His goodness and grace. And in light of our experience in Christ, in light of our great salvation, all these names, Parosh, Shephatiah, Ara, Panathmoab, Elam, Zatu. We can almost cross those out and just say the sons of God, because that's who we are in Christ, brought back from exile, brought back from certain death, brought back from estrangement, only to enter into the presence of God, who, while he has every right to kill us, gives us grace, gives us life, gives us favor, gives us love, gives us his son. That is what these lists remind us of. I think we should, our hearts should all echo the sentiments. of 1 Kings 8. Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise. We even see that here. Yes, his good promise to exile his people should they continue in rebellion. But there is also a promise included in that that he will bring them back from the exile. I mean, read the prophets. It's all over the place. Too many examples to note. But It's one of the richest themes, especially in the major prophets, is this return from exile, this promise to be returned to the land where God will dwell with them. He will be their God and they will be his people. That is shalom. That is the way that life is meant to be in God. He is with us and we are with him. And we come to the grips with a sudden realization that we will not be destroyed. It is a dangerous thing to dwell in the presence of God. And yet we can do so without this unholy terror that grips us. We can draw near with boldness, knowing that the Lord will supply himself with every grace that we do not deserve and yet could desire. And he gives it to us. And I believe that this is the reason that Nehemiah has a heart for the past. I do believe that we see Nehemiah as a man of the word. He is not praying to a God he does not know. He is praying to a God who he knows. Why does he know God? How does he know God? He knows God because he knows the scriptures. I think that is a very fair and logical conclusion to reach. Nehemiah can have a heart for the past because he knows what is in the past. And what is in the past are the good and sure promises of God. And I think that really the zenith of that message is found in Jeremiah 31. Remember where he says, I'm gonna make a new covenant with the house of Judah. Not like the one I made before, not like the old covenant, I'm gonna make a new one. And I think that Nehemiah has enough grounding in scripture that he knows that the new covenant is going to be instituted in Jerusalem. And so what does he do? He wants Jerusalem to be repopulated because he realizes that in the promises of God is a new covenant amongst a populated Jerusalem that of course will, through the preaching of the gospel, expand to the ends of the earth. He considers all these promises. Now if we consider Hebrews 11, eight through 10, by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. Four, listen to this, for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And so if you read on in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 16 actually goes on to clarify that this city is a heavenly one, of heavenly origin, of heavenly substance, of heavenly promises, of a heavenly quality. They knew. They were looking for something beyond the scope of their immediate experience. And they knew it wasn't going to be fulfilled in their lifetime, but they were looking for a heavenly city. And I believe that Nehemiah has his mind on the same promise. It's one of the reasons we read Revelation 22, right? You couple that with Revelation 21 as well. All the promises that are being fulfilled there, the descent of the great heavenly Jerusalem upon the earth, this sort of gradual overtaking of the world as we now know it. This is what I think Nehemiah was looking forward to. I think he had enough knowledge of the scripture to where he knew that this exile, this return from exile, was going to provide the platform of what would take place through Christ in his bringing to us the new covenant. And so what Nehemiah is demonstrating here is yet another illustration of generational faithfulness. So once again, we as Christians, even hundreds and hundreds of years removed from Nehemiah's time and even from Abraham's time, we do not have to worry about being the most significant generation. Just recognize that our generation is significant and be faithful where God has placed you and model that faithfulness to your children. Seems like a pretty simple directive. I think so much we fret about the significance of our time. Always assuming, usually, that something cataclysmic is about to happen. Oh, these are really significant times. Every time has been significant. Times have been significant since God said, behold, it is very good. It's always been significant. Don't compare your own time with others. Just be faithful and realize that if God is working through you, you live in significant times. Be satisfied with that. And then pass it on. I know certain times seem to be more glamorous than others. Don't worry about that either. It all matters. It is all significant because God is in it, right? God gives everything significance. Rest in that reality and trust in Him to do with you what He will, even if it's something as simple as building a wall, whether literally or metaphorically. Just be faithful. And so all this All this, God, note that, this is why I think it's significant, you go back to the beginning of this point, then my God put into my heart to assemble the nobles. One thing that I think is amazing about this, have you guys ever in your Christian experience heard someone say, or maybe you're guilty of saying it yourself, you know, God just put it on my heart, brother. or sister, to say this to you, or, you know, I've been praying about it, and the Lord just, I mean, if you really wanna sound spiritual, you don't say, but the Lord put it into my heart, you say, but the Lord laid it on my heart. Yeah, see, that's, you really wanna, want some punch to it. How many of you have said that? Don't be shy. You've never said the Lord laid this on my heart? Wow, you guys are really reformed. It's pretty impressive. I heard this a lot growing up. Someone told me, you know, I've been praying about this, bro. The Lord just put this on my heart and He wanted me to tell you. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. He didn't give me, you know, He didn't give me any sign that this was going to happen or that you were going to come to me and say this to me. But the fact is, is that Nehemiah says that the Lord put this into my heart. And this is not the first time that this has happened, but it's very significant. And I think one of the things that should strike us as interesting, at least, is that he is saying this in the context of something that is rather mundane. You know, normally the phrase, my God or the Lord put this onto my heart is followed by some outstanding, amazing, impressive, enviable revelation. Man, I wish the Lord put something like that on my heart. But it is something very ordinary. The Lord put it on my heart. To do what? To assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first, in which I found the following record. And yet, in something that's seemingly ordinary, we find something truly amazing. We find Nehemiah with a heart for the past, able to recall fresh in his mind the promises of God involved in bringing back his people so that he could dwell among them and eventually bring about the Messiah who would bring a new covenant and who would expand the borders of Jerusalem to the end of the world. I don't know how to what detail Nehemiah was aware of all of that. But in his own time, he was faithful and ended up playing a very significant role in the playing out of God's promises. So a couple lessons on this. When it comes to the Lord putting it in your heart to do anything, I want to give a couple kind of guidelines because we know from this statement that the Lord does indeed put things into the hearts of people, right? We are not automatons, right? The Lord directs the hearts of believer and unbeliever alike. But here we have a case study by Nehemiah, and I want to draw your attention to this. Notice that this is not a one-off. Just like his prayers, right? We notice that Nehemiah does not just go into prayer or throw up prayers to the Lord haphazardly. These prayers that might seem to be random and done quickly and at the spur of the moment, I think are undergirded by a life of prayer, right? The godly man is a praying man, we know that. And so this thing of God putting it into the heart of those who draw near Him, I think we have to understand that truth. Nehemiah is a man who draws near to the Lord. And many people who like to claim that the Lord has placed this on my heart is usually a means to actually avoid using their mind to think through a particular issue or problem. When Nehemiah has this on his heart, he immediately embraces the responsibility of going through the genealogies. In many cases, we see this principle applied just the opposite. It's so that responsibility can be evaded. It could be used as a substance or even a substitute for daily faithful obedience. And this is what Paul just described as, hey, just walk by the Spirit. We live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. If we walk by the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. So it's not a substitute of that. I would say it's simply, it's more of like an accompaniment. It's the inevitable result of a person who draws near to the Lord. And in many cases, in most cases, guys, you may not even realize that it's happening and that's okay. Because you understand that the main thing is walking with the Lord. It's trusting in Christ. It's living in obedience to his word. Closeness, we find, for the Christian, is not a feeling. It's a reality. Some of us fret because we don't feel close to God. We just want a dose of the feels. Well, closeness is a reality. You're either walking with the Lord or you're not. And I would say this, if like Nehemiah, your first response is to pray, to draw near to God, well, guess what, my friend? You are close to God, as we understand it from a human perspective. We also have to consider the role of Scripture, our ultimate authority, in discerning God's will, right? If we want to know that God has put something on our heart, or if we think that that is in view, well, what's the first thing we should do other than pray? Well, we search the Scriptures. Is what I am doing lawful? Is what I am doing, is what I think has been placed on my heart, done from self-interest? Or is it done in the interest of honoring the Lord in obedience? I just can't stop thinking about this one thing. Well, is it my own idolatrous heart? Or is it because I really can't stop thinking about it because the Lord has somehow Put this in my mind, because I've been walking with him, and he considers me faithful to actually carry out this assignment. Well, where do we go for our authority and standard? We go to the scriptures. Is this something that the Lord would ask me to do? Think of those two concepts as walking side by side, right? I believe the Lord has placed this on my heart. The Lord has commanded me to do this thing. Those two, will always walk hand in hand. They will never be opposed to each other. They will never be at odds. So test everything with the word of God, regardless of any impression you might think, any leading you might assume, compare that leading with scripture. Test it with God's inspired word. This is especially important. Again, we live in an age where kind of feelings and emotions reign supreme. Feelings, desires, even experiences can be mistaken for actual divine guidance. So always ask yourself, what sayeth the scriptures? Another thing, if you believe that the Lord has put something into your heart, is it being confirmed through providence, right? If the Lord desires you to do something, guess what? He will make a way for you to actually do that thing, right? Yes, the enemy may try to stymie it or try to distract you or discourage you, but ultimately, if God is to have His way, He will, as Paul says in Colossians, right? A door has been opened. Pray for an open door. And we have to remind ourselves, what is the purpose of an open door? To advance the gospel. That is its stated priority. So if the Lord wants to advance his gospel in a particular way, using you as his instrument, providence will open up that door. Providence will make a way. And of course, that demands us to be watchful, to be wise, to consider how the Lord is achieving and guiding his purposes using us as his holy instrument. Another one to consider, extra counsel. Counsel from other wise, godly individuals within the church. People who you know love the Lord. Their primary interest for you is that you love the Lord and serve Him and obey His commands. If you don't have those people in your life, find them like yesterday. They're the ones that will also kind of give us that spiritual or maybe perhaps a literal smack upside the head. Hey, you're dreaming. This is not of God. Have you actually thought about this? You know, to kind of check spiritual checks and balances, right? So that they are willing to call us out for the things that maybe we are blinded to. We like to think of the best of our own motivations, our own desires. And of course, God puts people in our lives to check those things so that we ask those hard questions of ourselves. So always find counsel from fellow church members. No man is an island. Lone rangers are dead rangers, as we like to say. So make sure you are getting lots of extra counsel. Without counsel, plans fail. But with many advisors, they succeed. I think scripture is clear on that. That's Proverbs 15, 22. And kind of going full circle back to the first point made, I would say anything that the Lord places or might place on your heart to do, If that indeed is the thing, ask yourself, is it consistent with the fruit of the Spirit? The Spirit of God is the person who sanctifies us, who conforms us to Christ's likeness, right? Galatians 5. joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And so what I'm saying is if God lays anything on the heart of the Christian, these will be the resulting action. These particular characteristics, these virtues, will be the resultant actions. And they will actually be an underlying motivation and will seek to grow in in the particular action that results from whatever feeling you may think you have. And so again, that's a lot to take. But these are the things that we use to check our own hearts and check our own motivations because the desires of a man's heart are many. And sometimes those desires can be deceptive. And so we rely on a whole series of different things so that we can continue to have a heart for the things that God has a heart for. And I would say, again, drawing us back to this main point, this main theme, is first and foremost, when we have a heart for God, we are drawn toward His promises, toward His goodwill, toward His people. as well as how God himself identifies us, right? Galatians 3.29, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. And so in a greater sense, we who were apart from Christ, who were estranged from the promises of God, are now exiles and strangers to the promises, brought back to the Lord in Christ. Thirdly, a godly legacy has a mind for the present in that it resumes worship. So again, I would contend that this is Nehemiah's main priority here. What, when we restore anything, what has to be the top priority? It is the worship of its people. And so much, many of the people and families represented here have to do with worship, right? You have the singers, you have the gatekeepers, you have the temple servants, you have the priests, more temple servants. So you have so many people listed play a part in the worship of the true and living God, and they're brought back from exile and they are documented. We go down to the 60s of these verses that are listed here before us today. Also, we have the priest mentioned again in verse 63, and note also the priority of the commandments here. There is going to be an obedience in worship. So if you go to verse 64, we read of a family, it says, these searched among their ancestral registration, but it could not be located. Therefore, they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood. Now, if you want to know the long list of what it takes to be a member of the priesthood, go back and read Exodus and Leviticus. You see the very strict laws involved in the priestly work. Again, being a priest was a dangerous work, especially if you were the high priest. And so if you could not find your credentials here in the book of Nehemiah, right? If you didn't have your credentials back in Leviticus, you couldn't be a priest. And the same thing, they couldn't seem to find their credentials. They could not find a record of the work they claim they are called to. And so Nehemiah, as a faithful worshiper of God, puts a stop on that. They couldn't find their registration, so they were considered unclean. That's the default, right? There's no in between. You're either clean for service or you're unclean for service and hence excluded. And so what was Nehemiah? He is the governor in question here, verse 65. He says to them that they should not eat from the most holy things until a priest arose with Urim and Thummim, okay? And of course, the Urim and the Thummim are mentioned as early as Exodus 28. And just to kind of keep from expounding with too much detail on this, this meant lights and perfections. Some translations might say curses and perfections. That's the meaning of Urim and Thummim. But what they, in short, were meant to do was divine the will of God. And so Nehemiah is waiting for the presence of the Urim and the Thummim so that Basically, it can be revealed from God whether or not these priests are to be excluded or included. And so I think even this example from Nehemiah, his priority, right, is the purity and sanctity of worship. And so he says, OK, wait for this to happen. OK, wait for the Urim and the Thummim to get here. That way we can determine, we can rely on what God's word says regarding your fitness for the priesthood. So it all goes back to Nehemiah wanting to honor the promises of God in addition to the commandments and laws of God, particularly related to worship. I mean, don't you see this example, guys? This is so important for us. If we're going to get one thing right in this church, let it be worship. And then I think if we get that right, The various characteristics that getting worship right points to in a church lends itself to a lot of other things being executed in a godly fashion. But you must get worship right. Once you pervert worship, once you circumvent God's commands regarding worship, you are in an awful place to make other terrible and potentially catastrophic mistakes regarding a building of a so-called Christian culture. Get your worship right. And so many other things will follow. So back to this main point here. Godly legacy has a mind for the present, it resumes worship. So this is the final thing, right? You don't wanna be stuck in the past, right? Fretting the past, fretting past mistakes, or getting overly nostalgic, so you never think about the here and now. Nor do you want to be so fixated on the future, as bright as it looks, that you somehow evade your responsibility in the here and now to think, oh, someone else will take care of it. And I would say too, most of us have a very grim view, many of us have a very grim view of the future and the activity of the Kingdom of God. But if our view indeed is bright, it should bring us, bring our mind to the present. Be thinking about what you're doing. Don't be lost in the clouds of some hope that you will take no part of. Think about what God is doing now, about what He is commanding now, about how He is advancing His kingdom now, and realize that as a Christian, you are responsible to that. So just like Nehemiah did, take ownership of it. He has you numbered, right? I love this list. Even the horses and the mules and the camels and the donkeys were numbered. Amazing how specific the Word of God is. And so He has called us, He has numbered us. as his people in the present, in the here and now, to do his work. And so now that this whole assembly is together, go down to verse 70. Some from among the heads of father's households gave to the work. The governor, and I believe this is Nehemiah documenting his own gift, the governor gave to the treasury 1,000 gold drachmas, 50 basins, 530 priest garments. And then of course it says some of the heads of father's households gave into the treasury of the work 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,200 silver minas. That which the rest of the people gave was 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,000 silver minas and 67 priest garments. Just so you know, but this is a lot of money. This is a lot of money. This whole project of rebuilding Jerusalem in the modern day equivalent is probably in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Very, very expensive. But of course, they could sit back and say, yes, this was worth it. On one hand, everything I have is not truly my own. It is the Lord's. I am merely a manager of it. I am merely a steward of it. Secondly, and this is secondly at least, The person who understands that everything belongs to the Lord should also have an understanding that the work of the Lord is important. It's a financial priority. And so you steward what God has given you to make sure that the work is completed, that the work is done, that the wall is built, or whatever task the Lord assigns to you. Like we understand, yes, even today, stuff is expensive. Inflation is still ridiculous. And we kind of go into this survival mindset. But one thing I believe that will bring you peace is to reflect on the very real truth that one, you are the Lord's, He's going to take care of you, and that everything you have belongs to Him anyway. So stop being a miser. We've said before, stop treating God like He's a miser. Stop being faithlessly stingy, and however the Lord has equipped you, and however generous He has been to you, give in proportion to that. Give generously, give willingly, give joyfully, and give with great anticipation that the Lord is actually using someone like you to advance His kingdom. Remember, you're on this list. You're on this list of the undeserved, the cast out, but you've been brought near. Don't abuse that grace. Don't abuse that great kindness of the Lord. He is using us. Everyone has a role to play and no gift is too small to be of eternal value. So let's take this and read in it the rich fulfillment of God's promises and the great responsibility of stewardship that has been handed to a man like Nehemiah, and I would even say has been exalted, has been amplified in Christ. We actually see in Christ that the purposes of God are much greater than we could have possibly imagined. And yet it's right here in Scripture. But it involves a lot of resources, it involves a lot of commitment, it involves a lot of perseverance. But the Lord will bring about his promises and he will use us, and once again to encourage us that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, faithful is he who calls you and he will also bring it to pass. And so may we, like the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people and temple servants in all Israel, May we as Christians live and dwell in our own city and continue to seek its welfare and continue to watch eagerly as the promises of God unfold. Our Father, we thank you again for your love and faithfulness to us. Thank you for the immense truth and light that this chapter opens up to us. For our encouragement, Lord, for our good, for the strengthening of our faith. And Lord, help us to take to heart that your great priority for us is to worship you, is to exalt Christ. It's not to hide in the shadows of uncertainty. It's not to live in doubt and despair. Lord, it's to know that once again, you desire to dwell with your people. You desire to make your grace manifest in Christ to conform us to his image as the Holy Spirit does his great work in our hearts. So help us see, Lord, the magnitude of this project. Help us to put our own household in order. Help us, Lord, to know that we are on that list. We have been brought back from spiritual exile to dwell as members of the new Jerusalem, to see you worshiped and honored, to be lavished with praise. Lord, to also know that everything we have in this life and the next belongs to you. The earth is the Lord and all it contains. And may that be a reminder, Lord, and maybe a rebuke for some that we have robbed you, that we withhold our resources and the various talents that you have equipped us with. And in so doing, Lord, we rob you of your glory, because we are meant to be vessels of your glory, instruments of your glory, to pursue everything that brings you glory. Work, we work in this world, seeing it transform, and we want to be a part of that work. Father, we want to hear you say, well done, good and faithful servant, because we set ourselves about the task. We saw what needed to be done. We had a heart for it. We paid attention or we thought about the magnitude of the work that needed to be done and realized that you are in this great work, Father. and desire to make your presence and grace known among us as your household, your kingdom, the great Zion expands to the ends of the earth. And whatever phase of that great work we find ourselves in, Lord, what matters is that you are in it, and we can count ourselves blessed, and we can count the work as significant. Help us to be faithful to this call, Lord, and continue to encourage our hearts as we continue to do the very thing that fulfills our purpose in life, and that is worshiping you. In Jesus' precious name we pray, amen.