Christ Church at Grove Farm

Rev. Craig Gyergyo: Let's praise God for that. That's what He does. He builds lives; He rebuilds lives. I'm so glad you all are here this morning. I want to go back in the service just a little bit. Earlier, Pastor Robbie was up here, and he was fired up about groups and all the opportunities we have. You'll hear more about that.

He was expecting you all to be fired up, too, and two people gave a polite golf clap. I believe the quote was, "You're the worst." So I just want to go back to that moment for the visitors in the house. You're wondering if this is a fire and brimstone church. No, it's not that kind of thing. We're not trying to scare you off. And I also want to make sure you know Pastor Robbie does not think you're the worst. He really likes you. I promise he does. Let's give a hand for Pastor Robbie. He's just excited. He's been working on this, and he wants all of us to be excited with him, too. And we are, Robbie. We're behind you.

We are reading through the New Testament as a church family. We have this resource called the Life Focus New Testament. You can get one in the main commons today. The idea is that over the course of 365 days, we will read through systematically from Matthew all the way to Revelation. We just finished Matthew yesterday on January 31st.

I got this note I wanted to share with you because I think this will encourage you. This is from a neighbor who received a version of the Life Focus New Testament when we did our Bible give back in the fall. We distributed over 6,000 Bibles to the neighboring people who live around our church. It says, "I wanted to share a thank you to Christ Church for the Family Wins Bible devotional that were passed out last year. I've always struggled with consistency and having an organized daily devotional life. I decided to give it a go with this one, and I'm happy to say that I have completed 31 straight days. I just wanted to mention this in case your church has been wondering what impact passing those out have made. It's been so good for me."

Isn't that wonderful? I think we can all identify with the person who says they've always struggled with consistency. We struggle with this. In fact, you may be saying, "Man, I'm off track right now. I didn't hit the mark in January." Listen, it's not too late. Start anew today. Start afresh today. Whether that means you cram and you go back in time and do two a day or three a day for the next few weeks, or you just start on February 1st and get reading with us. Either way, be a part of this. Our hope is that God is going to do what He's doing in our neighbor's life here. He's going to reveal Himself to you. You're going to grow in love for Him. Your life is going to be stronger because you are in God's word. So let's do this together, and we encourage you again to pick one of those up.

We are in the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, and we're doing a series now called Rebuilding and Renewal. This is the fourth week we've been in this. As we get into it this morning, let's pray and ask God to speak to us. I'm specifically hoping that we will grab hold of a truth that's deeply embedded here in Nehemiah 3 this morning.

Father, open our eyes to see. Help us, Lord, to see Your truth and who You are through Your word. Lord, see what You've called us to. We thank You for the power of the scriptures. We're grateful that people in our community are getting into it. It's our desire to get into Your word also. We pray, God, that not only in reading the New Testament but now this morning in reading the Old Testament scriptures, we indeed will find You and see You as we read the word. Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want you to think about the kind of advice that we tend to give one another whenever life starts to crack, whenever things get difficult. We'll say things like, "You've got this." You've told someone that before. "You've got this. You can do this." It's well-intended. Or you'll tell someone, "Be strong. You can do this."

The idea in all of this, and this is deep in American culture, is you can handle it. You can do it. Don't let anyone see you struggling. You take control of your life. Even in the church, we absorb this instinct. Some of the things that we'll say, even in the church, I've heard this before, maybe you've said it, "I don't want to be a burden to anyone."

Or you'll say secretly to yourself, privately, "I can handle this on my own. Just me and Jesus." I've heard people say that: "Just me and Jesus." Here's what we need to approach honestly today. Sometimes what we call strength is actually resistance. This kind of thinking that each of us falls into, the "I've got this" thinking, sounds responsible, but is it really the heart of God? Is it what God has for you? Is it His best for you?

The idea of, "I don't want to be a burden to anyone right now," sounds humble on the surface, but those kinds of phrases are less about maturity and more about control. That's what those phrases are really born in: "I've got this." They allow us to live these lives that are composed, self-managed, and unexposed. We kind of like this.

But the irony is that the moment you say, "I don't want to be a burden to anyone," you are also deciding that the call to carry one another's burdens, which is found in the scriptures, doesn't apply to you. It isn't true. So listen, here's what I'm putting my finger on this morning for us. Autonomy keeps God's design for your life at arm's length. It pushes it away.

When someone says, "Just me and Jesus," in the deepest sense, that's true. I can appreciate what someone might be thinking. But the Jesus that you deeply need will often meet you through the people that He joins you to. You see this? This is the thesis of the whole thing today because the text that we're going to look at puts this tension right in our faces.

It says if you want God to rebuild in your life what's broken, and I know people are tuned into that because we all have these broken parts, if you want God to rebuild, you've got to understand that renewal requires you to need other people. That kind of renewal you're looking for, that kind of rebuilding that you desire in your life, actually requires that you need other people.

If you're looking for growth without entanglement, I get it. If you're looking for growth without exposure, okay. If you're looking for healing without shared responsibility, I get it. Listen, it doesn't work that way because Nehemiah tells us a story, and the story shows us this. This is my prayerful intention for us today. It shows us that we have to confront our love for autonomy, the "I can do it" attitude, and you've got to do it with a truth that may feel uncomfortable, but nonetheless is true: lives are rebuilt together. They're rebuilt together, not alone. Oh Lord, let this be something that gets deep into our church, that we would truly be a people who are one through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

I will tell you this, this is interesting. You go on a journey almost every week if you're preaching a sermon. Robbie and Bob could attest to this. I originally planned to bypass Nehemiah 3. You'll see in a moment because it feels very skippable. If you've been reading ahead at home and you tried to read this passage, you're like, "This feels like a skippable passage because it reads like an Excel spreadsheet." I mean, it's names, locations, and it's repetitive over and over again.

But then you sit with it and think about it, and God speaks to you, and it became clear. This chapter isn't filler. I think this is important to show to you here. It's not filler because I think this passage actually teaches us what faith looks like when it actually has to do something. It's not just pew faith. It's not just Sunday morning faith. It's a living, acting, working faith.

So let's look at this passage. We're going to draw it out in three movements. The first movement is side-by-side. Verses one and two, picking up in Nehemiah chapter three: "Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the Sheep Gate." You'll remember Nehemiah is about this great project. The walls and gates of Jerusalem are destroyed, and they're about to rebuild. "They dedicated that gate and set its doors in place, building it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel. The men of Jericho built the adjoining section, and Zakkur son of Imri built next to them."

The chapter here opens, and building is now happening. It's not just being talked about. The chapter opens with the high priest and the other priests rebuilding the Sheep Gate. I think this says something not only to clergy but to all of us who consider ourselves followers of Jesus, people of God, and that's this: godly people take the lead. The very first names in this Excel spreadsheet of names are the people of God represented by the priests here, and they get out in front of things.

The priests lead by example. The priests, the people of God, are not too spiritual for the hard work. You see this? I think there's something there for us. Look what happens when they take the lead, when the people of God take the lead. In this case, and I think we could see this also in our world, immediately others join in.

You see Joe and Sue Sweeney taking the lead and taking on human trafficking. What happens? People get behind them. They say, "We're in this, too. We're going to give money to this. We're going to pray for this. We're going to support it." That's what you see happening here. In fact, you'll see over and over again that the text is going to repeat the same phrase: "Next to him... next to them..." because people are joining in. It's repetitive, and that's intentional because what you're seeing here is the rhythm of restoration, the rhythm of renewal. That's what God's doing. No one builds the whole wall by themselves. Everyone rebuilds a section.

God is doing this. He graciously is renewing His people, and He does it through shared obedience. It's all empowered through Him, by His Spirit. I want you to have a visual. I think this will help. It's a rendering of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day. What you see here is the outline of the wall, the terrain, and the gates.

What I want you to see is this was not a small project. No way. If you're thinking this is like a backyard warrior's kind of thing, no way. This wall was 12 to 15 feet high. They were six feet thick, these walls. If you're a Pittsburgher like me, here's a comparison: it would be the same as building a wall around the Golden Triangle downtown. That's the scope of this thing.

You know what they did? They did this work in 52 days. Massive project. How? How did they accomplish that? That's a big project in 52 days. This is how: the reason Nehemiah keeps on saying "next to him" these people were working, "next to them" this group was working, is he's highlighting the unified nature of their side-by-sidedness.

This is really important because no family, no one family, could rebuild it alone. No subgroup could build it alone. That didn't work. Here's the part that matters to us as we talk about this. We have a vision in our church for the sake of the world, and we are dreaming big about reaching the community, reaching the city. We've got a plan to renew our campus and to build and to restore here.

When you look at the wall of Jerusalem that Nehemiah and all the people are rebuilding, the wall doesn't stand because everyone does the same amount. That's not why the wall stands. It stands because everyone showed up. That's important. Everyone showed up. This is inherent in the Kingdom of God. Some people rebuild gates. Some people repair long stretches of the wall. Some people work near their homes. Some gave leadership. But everyone owned a section, and they trusted the people beside them to own their section. Do you see?

That's what shared dependence looks like in the life of God's people. Again, there's something here that we as a people want to grow into: side-by-sidedness, togetherness in a deep way. Let's keep going. We're going to look now at ordinary faithfulness. Before I read this passage, Lord help me with these names. They're so hard to pronounce. So give me some grace as I try to pronounce these names.

Here's how the building continues: "The Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place. Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired the next section. Next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs, and next to him Zadok son of Baana also made repairs. The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors."

"The Jeshanah Gate was repaired by Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah. They laid its beams and put its doors with their bolts and bars in place. Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah—Melatiah of Gibeon and Jadon of Meronoth—places under the authority of the governor of Trans-Euphrates. Uzziel son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the next section, and Hananiah, one of the perfume makers, made repairs next to that. They restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. And Rephaiah son of Hur, ruler of the half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section. Adjoining this, Jedaiah son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house, and Hattush son of Hashabneiah made repairs next to him. And Malchijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens. Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of the half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters."

There's something kind of unexpected that emerges in this text. Did you catch it among all the names? There are goldsmiths who are participating. There are perfume makers who are participating. There are merchants. There are people of authority, a ruler who's in there. And then there's the women. I love this. In a time and place where women were not valued as much, this is a place where the women are repairing sections right alongside the men. Isn't that beautiful?

This is a good part. I can't wait to point this out to my girls. I'm a dad of daughters. This one guy had his work done with the help of his daughters. They're not sitting inside watching TV, girls. They're out working. I like this. I want us to be this kind of people. What you see is this: these are not professional builders. They didn't contract this out to the neighboring country. There's no masons' guild here. There's not union workers. There aren't specialists.

The point is that God works through willing people. Willing people who are simply willing to offer up what they have, show up with what they've got. You see it? This is ordinary faithfulness. What's remarkable is not simply that they worked, what's remarkable is that they stayed at it. This is repetitive work, all these stones having to be built up into this tall wall.

In all the little things that no one would ever know about, faithful work that no one would ever be able to take credit for, they're doing the hard work and showing up and doing it—ordinary faithfulness. This is what it looks like. It's doing the necessary work. I'm talking about in the context of God's people, in the context of the church, the Kingdom.

It's showing up and doing the necessary work without applause. It's taking responsibility and not demanding control. It is remaining steady, even when the work is slow, even when it feels like the outcome is far off. Every generation has to decide where that kind of faithfulness is going to be practiced over time. In Nehemiah's day, we're reading here that that faithfulness took shape during building of the sections of the wall.

Then if you look in the New Testament in the book of Acts, you see this kind of faithfulness was built through gatherings in homes. In our life together, ordinary faithfulness will most often be formed in smaller and shared spaces. This is what Robbie's talking about when he's talking about groups and why he's so excited about it. This is why it matters, because groups have a way of training our hearts, training us in ordinary faithfulness.

In the discipline of staying and showing up when things are inconvenient and being present when the work feels small, these are the kind of things that being a part of a group will birth in your heart. In groups, burdens get carried. In groups, names are known. That's a good thing. You're known. In a group, no one is expected to be rebuilding alone in their life and being renewed alone.

The kind of shared faithfulness we're talking about here comes with resistance because maybe when you hear about groups, you think, "I don't know if I could do that because it costs time. It can be an inconvenience that's required." Here's the other thing it'll do: it'll ask you to be seen rather than to remain or stay hidden. We like to stay hidden sometimes. But when you get in a group, that changes.

As a church family, we don't want autonomy to become more comfortable than obedience. So what we're called to is an ordinary, faithful, and shared life. This text is confronting us. Let me show you how it confronts us because there's something that stands out in verse 5. I kind of buzzed by it as I was reading the names, but listen. It says their nobles, they're talking about one group of people, and it says their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work to serve.

There was one group of people out of all these people listed here in this entire chapter. Read it for yourself. There's one group that it's said of them: the nobles, yeah, they didn't participate. It says actually in some translations they wouldn't stoop. The nobles wouldn't stoop to serve. I don't know. Did they oppose the work? I don't think that's it. I think they just stayed above it.

I think they said, "Yeah, we're not going to do that kind of thing." That can be a little unsettling because there's a truth that you can be close enough to watch but unwilling to stoop. You just walk on by. You let someone else take care of it. You're present, but you're unengaged. You're respected, but you're unavailable. Oh Lord, let that never be said of us.

Here's a question for all of us, including me. If you are absent from the shared life of God's people, and I'm talking about in this church family, if you're absent from that, why? If you say it's a matter of capacity, you're too busy, all right. You sure it's not a matter of pride that's eroding your obedience? Wrestle with this.

There's something about very simple, very pure, faithful obedience, ordinary faithfulness, and we're called to it. Renewal, and that's what we're talking about here, has a way of revealing our hearts. It truly does. I want to show you one more thing here, a couple more verses. Pick up in verse 10: "Adjoining this, Jedaiah son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house, and Hattush son of Hashabneiah made repairs next to him." So that was really close to home, right opposite his house.

If you look at verse 23, it says, "Beyond them Benjamin and Hasshub made repairs in front of their house, and next to them Azariah son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, made repairs beside his house." Skip down to verse 28: "Above the Horse Gate, the priests made repairs, each in front of his own house." This is an important detail for us because these people were repairing the wall right there at home.

They walk out the door, they see it. We often think about renewal being somewhere out there, somewhere more far removed from me. But the fact of the matter is this passage does point us to something that's very powerful: right where you stand, right in your own orbit, there's an opportunity for renewal to begin there, right where you live. In fact, I would say this: often the work of renewal will begin right where your feet are planted. I'm talking about the fractures that you have learned to live with.

We do that, don't we? We learn to live with fractures. That's not the way it's supposed to be. I'm talking about the habits that you have learned to excuse. Again, not the kind of thing that God has called, not His best for us. The relationships that you've learned to avoid. God has called us and made us for more than this. This work that's being done, it's done in sight of their front doors, right in front of them. That's cool, isn't it? Close enough that avoidance was no longer an option.

Here is what faithful, shared dependence looks like: it looks like taking responsibility for your section of the work right where you are in full dependence on God. You don't do this in your own strength, but also in full view of His people. This idea that it's in the context of God's family, not isolated, not like some self-managed repair. We're talking about something that's faithful and honest and without pretense.

Nehemiah records the names. I guess I'm thankful for it. Why does he preserve all these names? Because God remembers what the world overlooks. Ordinary obedience matters, and no faithfulness is wasted. This all prepares us for Christ. Remember, Nehemiah is not ultimately about walls. Walls could protect a city, but walls cannot heal a people. That is what this story points us forward to: the healing of a people.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that God's final rebuilding project is not stonework; it is human lives. Look at this verse from the New Testament. It's amazing how God's word does this. This is 1 Peter 2:5: "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." This is the work that God came to do: to build us, to build His people into a great, beautiful city.

Jesus doesn't come to fortify Jerusalem; He comes to form a body. He comes to form a people. He Himself becomes the cornerstone. This is all built on Jesus. He bears the weight of the fracture that sin introduced to the world. What the scripture teaches us is that we are being built together in Him to become a dwelling in which God's Spirit lives. That's how important this message is. We are living stones being built together. Jesus was broken so that broken people can be joined together by His Holy Spirit. This is the work that's happening.

There is a Japanese art form that's known as Kintsugi, and it goes way back. This is like 6th-century stuff. The basic idea is this: when pottery breaks, it's repaired with lacquer that's mixed with gold. What you'll see is the cracks are actually a feature. What's broken is put back together, the cracks are filled quite intentionally, and what emerges is the vessel actually becomes more beautiful, not in spite of but because of its imperfection.

Here's what I think is easy to maybe miss about that particular art form: Kintsugi only works if the broken pieces are gathered together and joined. It's the only way it works. If the broken pieces aren't gathered, aren't put together, then there's no beauty; there's nothing that emerges. If the fragments remain separate, if each piece were to insist on being repaired on its own—it's crazy. Then there's no vessel to restore.

That beautiful gold that's inlaid in those—that gold heals the cracks. Yes, it does. That gold is a representation of Christ's victory. It joins the pieces together. Yes, it heals, but it joins them together. The joining is actually intentional, and it requires alignment. It requires a sense of pressure and patience.

What's this all about? Listen, Christ does not merely save isolated individuals and leave them scattered. That's not what He does. Yes, He saves your soul by His grace. We celebrate that today; we'll celebrate it again. But He saves us and He gathers us, and He joins us together. He builds. It's got to be deep in us.

It brings us all back to what we're reading here in Nehemiah 3. Renewal was not someone rebuilding the wall by their lonesome. Renewal actually came as God worked through a people, a community, families together, side-by-side. He does this by His grace. That is how He rebuilds. You want your life rebuilt? It happens in the context of people. You want to see the city of Pittsburgh, the greater community, rebuilt, renewed? It happens through the shared efforts of the people of God, each family taking a section, each worker standing beside one another, each gap held together by trust and responsibility and grace. That is how God still rebuilds His people.

It's not autonomy, and it's not isolated faithfulness. It's being joined together in Jesus Christ. God can restore what is broken. Of course, He can. But the question today is this: will you take your place at the wall? Will you join in the work? Not the whole wall, just a section alongside others.

When you step away from the wall, it won't immediately crumble. It doesn't fall apart immediately. That's not how it happens. But someone else has to step up and cover the gaps. And that makes us weaker because the whole structure will become vulnerable if each person's not working on their section.

Actually, the great risk of autonomy—you doing life by yourself—is that it actually affects the people beside you. We are called to love people more than that. We are called by Jesus to love one another as He has loved us. So guess what? God does rebuild His people. He does it living stone by living stone by living stone. So the question is: will you, will we take our place in what God is rebuilding in the lives of the people sitting next to you, in our community, in this city? Will you allow yourself to be joined to others, joined together with other people by His grace, or will autonomy—all by your lonesome—will you continue to act at a distance, disconnected? No, when we come together, the world will see repaired lives. The world will see a dwelling place for God's glory.

I want to pray over this. Join me in prayer. Oh Lord, Father, make us one. Make us one, Father. Join us together in Christ as living stones, Lord, each of us, that we may be a dwelling place for Your glory. The repaired work of Your Son Jesus Christ in us. The renewing of lives through the Holy Spirit. Oh Lord, make this so in us, we pray. Let this message go deep in us, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

It is awesome to think about what God has done and how He gathers people to share in His work by His grace. I've got a way for us to express that today. Throughout church history, the church has paused to confess together that which we believe. We do this with one voice, not isolated but as a body. So today, the Nicene Creed is a shared confession, and these are words that have held the church together across centuries, across cultures, and they hold us together today. Where it says "I believe," today let's say "we believe," because this is about us together understanding the depth of which Christ has called us to oneness. So with voices lifted, let's say what we believe.

Rev. Craig Gyergyo and Congregation: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets; and we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Rev. Craig Gyergyo: Thank You, Lord, for this. Having confessed what we believe, we're now going to come to the table, and God meets us here together. We're gathered in Christ, and listen, this is a feast of the rebuilt people of Jesus Christ. Lean in together, and let us experience the wonder of His love and mercy and grace afresh today.