Rebuilding the Walls

John 21:15-19

Last week we looked at Nehemiah 1, and admitted that we are largely a people with broken walls and ruined gates. That Satan has attacked and attacked, and at times it feels overwhelming. In Nehemiah 2, Nehemiah has gone to Jerusalem to inspect the walls and comes to a conclusion: Then I said to them [the officials of Jerusalem], “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” Nehemiah 2:17

We just need to exchange “Jerusalem” for “Millersport UMC” and remember that the walls we are rebuilding are spiritual. Come, let us rebuild the wall.

Would you take a moment and pray Psalm 139:23-24 with me? Let’s pray this prayer aloud together: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Now take a moment and if God has revealed to you an area you need to turn over to Him, if God has shown you your sin, if your walls are broken down, if you have been hurt, acknowledge that with an X on your post-it. Then bring your post-it up and place it at the foot of the cross. If you have physical limitations, please send your post-it forward with someone else.

[Prayer time]

We have taken an amazing step by giving our hurts, our sins, and our struggles over to Jesus. Many of us have been carrying the burden for years – the burden of broken relationships, the burden of your sins and shortcomings, all the burden sitting solidly on your back.  

But the scripture I read today applies not only to Peter, but also to each of us. Everything we’ve done, every sin, every hidden sin, every bad attitude, every bit of guilt, we’ve admitted that was how we were. We’ve laid it at the foot of the cross. And Jesus asks of each one of us: “Do you truly love me?”

After Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me.” And he reinstated Peter by telling him, “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Follow me.”

So as we have laid all of these at the foot of the cross, Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” If we do, we can show him by obeying his commands. By feeding his lambs, by taking care of his sheep, by following him.

But before you’ve done any of that, know this: you are forgiven. God offers his forgiveness to you. God offers you his healing. All of that baggage – you can leave it behind, because it is no longer yours. It is buried with Christ.

And now you are a new creation in Christ. You have probably heard that before – certainly if you are a part of this church you’ve heard it from the stage; it’s one of my favorite verses. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! But did you know what comes next? All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

God reconciles us to himself through Christ – that’s what the Easter message is all about. We are no longer sinners, we are no longer strangers and aliens to God, but we are his chosen people, beloved and free from sin and guilt, reconciled to God because of Jesus’ gracious sacrifice on the cross.

And because of this, we are called to be reconcilers as well. We have the message of reconciliation. In other words, this freedom we have is not only for us, but it is for others as well.

This week Bill Simpson lent me Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God, and there was one quote that really stuck with me. The book is about the parable that we call The Prodigal Son, which is really the story of two sons and about God’s extravagant love and forgiveness, but in the book, Keller writes that forgiveness always costs. In the Old Testament, we had the sacrificial system, where the “cost” for forgiveness was prescribed specifically. We recognize that on Easter, Jesus paid the price to forgive everything we’ve done against God. But what about the things that we have done against one another? That forgiveness still comes at a price, a price that is borne by the one who is being called to forgive.

It is not easy to forgive. One price we pay to forgive is our sense of entitlement. Until we forgive, we feel entitled to our anger, entitled to be bitter and resentful, entitled to get revenge.  After all, that person hurt me. The pain is all mine. Now shouldn’t I at least get to enact some little bit of revenge? Can’t I get back at them? Or at least can’t I sit in my own bitterness, angry at the one who hurt me? Now, there’s a word for someone who feels hurt when someone wrongs them: that word is “normal.” Most of us have been hurt by people who were close to us, and it’s perfectly normal to feel betrayed, rejected, and offended.

But Jesus set the example in his reinstatement of Peter. It’s not like Jesus didn’t know what Peter said about him, that he claimed to not even know the man. But Jesus told Peter, “follow me,” and reinstated Peter, making the statement that he would not hold Peter’s denial against him, that he would not kick Peter out of the 12, that he would not hold a grudge, that he would not get revenge.

And by forgiving, you are making a statement that you are also giving the person who wronged you a clean slate. If you want a different frame of reference, think of it this way: I ask to borrow $.50 from you to buy a can of pop from the fridge. You have a lot of $.50s, and you know that the pop money goes for children’s ministry in the church, so you tell me, “You don’t have to pay me back. Consider the can of pop a gift.” Now I’m free to enjoy the can of pop.

In this transaction, you had every right to ask me to pay you back $.50… that is, until you forgave me the debt. But now that you have forgiven the debt, you can’t ask me to repay it, and you don’t have any right to badmouth me for being such a cheapskate that I won’t even pay you back. You don’t even have the right to hold a grudge. Otherwise you haven’t forgiven me at all. But this is the path to new life, to being a new creation. Because it takes a renewed mind. A renewed mind allows us to think differently about others, to care about them instead of being indifferent to them. To love them instead of resenting them.

And this applies to ourselves as well. Some of you have never forgiven yourselves. You have fallen short of the ideal God has for you and of the ideal you have for yourself, and you can’t forgive yourself. Did you know that when you hold on to that self-resentment, you are in a sense saying that your will trumps God’s, that you know better than God does? Listen for a moment what God says about you.

Jesus declares: “I have chosen you out of the world.” John 15:19b. Paul writes to the church in Colossae, calling Christians “God’s chosen people” (Colossians 3:12a). Peter calls Christians a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession (1 Peter 2:9a). What does this mean? That God chose you on purpose. God knows exactly who you are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, and he chose you. You weren’t the last pick. You weren’t a consolation prize. You were God’s first pick. If it was the NFL draft, God traded up to get the first pick in the first round just so he could use it on you. You are God’s prized possession.

God thinks that much of you, so if you refuse to forgive yourself, you are saying that God’s will and wisdom don’t matter. God’s will is perfect, and his wisdom is better than ours. Can you trust God and accept that He has something fantastic in store for the world, and he wants to do it through you?

Once you realize that God thinks so much of you and has so much in store for you, the devil will oppose you with every ounce of his being. In Nehemiah, we see opposition to the rebuilding of the wall. Already in Nehemiah 2:19, we see these guys, Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab, and they are mocking and ridiculing Nehemiah. They accuse him of rebellion against the king. (When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. “What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?”)

Then, from Nehemiah 4, listen to the ridicule Nehemiah and the Israelites got:

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble, burned as they are?”

Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side said, “What are they building – if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones.” Nehemiah 4:1-3)

The devil will try to tell you that you are weak and worthless, that there is no way you can have victory, that this church is doomed, that we have experienced our heyday and that now we should just die off and close the doors. Don’t be discouraged – this work is God’s work.

As Nehemiah and the Jews rebuilt the wall, things got more and more tense, and the people got more and more discouraged.  So Nehemiah introduced a new strategy. From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. Nehemiah 4:16-18a Everyone would rebuild the wall near his own house, and while one built, another stood guard. This is a great strategy, not just for Jews rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, but for us, rebuilding this church to be new. You will encounter resistance, but God calls you to rebuild the walls around your own house. In other words, rebuild the destruction you have been near. Reconcile broken relationships you have been a part of. Forgive, accepting the cost.

But this is only half of what we’re called to, because that’s the hard part, the part where we’re vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. Because we’re left in this position of vulnerability, we’re called to stand guard for one another. Take up the full armor of God, not just for yourself, but for one another as well. The only weapon included in the armor of God is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). Stand in prayer for one another, praying the Word of God. Satan cannot prevail over God’s Word.

You might not think that there is any rebuilding work to be done “in front of your house” so to speak – that simply means your job is to be diligently praying for someone else. If you know someone who is struggling or who has a lot of wall to rebuild, someone who might be going through a tough time, someone who you know has suffered through broken relationships, especially right in the church, or maybe someone who has broken down the wall themselves, a Christian who is difficult to get along with, that person is in need of a prayer guard, and you are the one called to prayer.

The result of this rebuilding and prayer will be renewal. I said it last week, but I’ll repeat it again this week for free: we’re not just going to get a new pastor here; Pastor Jerry is going to get a new church.

The renewal is why the rebuilding of the wall ended with this scene from Nehemiah 8:5-6: Ezra opened up the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded,“Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

Will you worship the Lord, the great God as we release Him to do His will in this church?