September 4, 2016 - 11:00 a.m.
Pastor Matt Willmington
Plugged In: Commissioned
Scripture: Nehemiah 2
Summary: In this sermon, the third in a series entitled Plugged In, Pastor Matt Willmington focuses on Nehemiah 2 and the need for believers to be in community with one another and on mission.
There are people in pain, people who, are lost even people in prison. And there are people in chains. We know that as we’ve sung this morning and as we’ve already been listening to God. And because there are people in those circumstances, that’s why we come together as a church in things like life groups. That’s why we’re in this series talking about being plugged in. It’s not just because we want to get people on a roster; or to join an organization or join the church; but we’ve got to get plugged in.
Plugged in to what? Plugged into the mission of the living God. And so the question, as we finish out this series, is, are you plugged in? We’re going to take a look at what God has for us as a church and what He wants us to do to be plugged in—to life groups, to serving teams—to be plugged into the mission of this church.
Very simply, if you are around here very often, you know that this church exists to change our world by developing Christ-followers who love God and love people. And we do that through six practices, six actions: Scripture, prayer, worship, community, serving, and sharing. We do those things because we want to change our world; we want to develop Christ-followers. We want to love God. We want to love people.
We practice Scripture, prayer, community, worship and, and sharing because there are people who need a pain-taker; there are people who need or a way-maker; there are people who need a prison-shaking Savior. There are people in our community, in our homes, in our schools—maybe you here today—who need a chain-breaker. And Jesus invites us to join Him on this world-saving mission.
We are about community, and I want to talk to you today about that word community in our six values. Sometimes when we hear the word community, we think about church community, or about fellowship. We’ve got community down because we have a building called “the fellowship hall,” most churches do, and what do you do in the fellowship hall? You eat. Food and fellowship good together if you are a Christian. And we sit around and we love one another, and that’s a good thing; the Bible’s filled with loving one another. And we eat together. That’s a really good thing.
But community is more than just being together; there has to be a purpose. If you look up the definition of community it very simply means it’s a common body of people. It’s a unified, common body of individuals. Think of the groups of people you’ve been with this week. Maybe you’ve sat in a cubicle with a bunch of offices there and that was a community; you all worked together this week. Or you sat in a classroom together; that was a community. Or you’ve got roommates; that’s a community. Or you watched a game; that’s community. All kinds of different things where people come together just to have in common.
But I don’t want to talk about community this morning. God wants to push us deeper. Not just sitting together, being together, but He wants to talk to us about a deeper word, and there was a word that was coined by some sociologists years ago called communitas. Writers like Turner and Frost and a friend of ours, Alan Hurst, in the church, have actually written about the word communitas. And communitas goes deeper than community. Communitas is a community, but it is a community on mission.
In other words, it is people that have come together to play a game, to fight a war, to accomplish, to tackle a task. It is a common mission. And folks, church, we are not just a community; we are commissioned. We are a community on mission. Sometimes people come together just to sing, like we’ve seen today, and that’s awesome. Sometimes they come together for a campaign to elect their favorite candidate. Sometimes they come together for a war, to fight other nations or other armies or to protect themselves.
Walking around downtown Lynchburg yesterday, sometimes people come together in community to catch Pokémon. There are groups of grown men walking around, catching Pokémon. Don’t worry, Lynchburg, we are safe from Pokémon, okay? But at least they are a community, and at least they are on mission together.
People come together for a mission of playing a game. We’ve got some great games, great sports around here, and a great football game yesterday, Virginia Tech and Liberty. But let me give you an example of this, of what communitas really is. Let’s say that we go to a football game, and those of you who know me, you know I like me some sports ball. I’m a real athlete. So let’s say it’s NFL season, and your favorite NFL team, the best football team in the country—and of course I don’t need to say them, because we all know who the best football team in the country is, right? On the count of three, I want you to call out the name of the best football team right now in America. One, two three: [Cacophony of voices] Exactly. That’s right. Did you hear that? Exactly. Do you see how we have community in here? Do you see how you all agree on that? That’s great. You see, we’re all coming together.
Let’s say I go to a game today and your favorite team is down on the field, but to your horror, you watch Willmington. While the game is being played, I waltz out onto the field, pulling a Yeti cooler and a Weber grill, and I walk out right into the middle of the field, about the fifty-yard line. I’m standing there, and to your horror, I pop open the grill, fire it up, I open the Yeti (non-alcoholic beverages), I plop down some lawn chairs, and I yell out to the guys, “Hey, come on over, guys, let’s have some community.”
Now you know that I am nuts. To your horror, your football team, your favorite, they drop the ball and go, “That sounds like a good idea,” and they come over and plop themselves down and start eating stuff I’m grilling up. “What you got there? Some brats? Some burger? And they start eating and we’re laughing and talking.
Now some of you would go, “Yep, that sounds like my team. They are so sorry, that’s probably what they would do.”
Meanwhile, the opposing team is running sprints back and forth over the goal line with the ball, scoring. Now that would be horrible, and you would yell out from the grandstand, you’d say, “Hey dummies! Get back in the game!”
And I might yell up and say, “Why are you guys so upset? We’re having community down here. We’re sharing our feelings and our thoughts. We’re a close group of guys.”
You say, “I don’t care about your feelings! Get in the game!”
Church, I believe that God sometimes sits in the grandstands of heaven and He looks over the grandstands and says, “Church, I love you, but you’re killing me. Get in the game! Stop coming to the church and just enjoying the music or the teaching. Stop being a consumer. Stop being a spectator. Get out of the stands and get on the field and get in the game.” Amen?
We are not called to sit back and enjoy everything. We are called to get into the community on mission. You, church, have been commissioned. You are to get plugged in. What are you doing about it? I remember growing up I was plugged in here. I grew up in a pastor’s home, and I was always taught to be plugged into a community mission. And as I was growing up here, this church taught me, starting back in the 70s (I’ll go in the way-back machine for some of you) we had singing teams and puppet teams and drama teams. I was on light company in junior high. And then I went from junior high into high school and we had All God’s children, and we were singing and doing skits and then we were young believers.
But you know I grew up in this church knowing that I was supposed to be a part of brothers and sisters that were serving God, that were making disciples, that were sharing God’s Word. You see, all the way back to Genesis 1, “In the beginning, God,” who is a community—He is one but He’s three, do we agree with that? He is one but He is three but He’s one but He’s three, and our heads blow up. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the community, God said, “Let us make man in our image,” and God created a community—Adam and Eve—and He put them together and He didn’t just say, “Well, enjoy your marriage.” He says, “I’m giving you a mission. I’m putting you into community for a mission. Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the Earth, and practice creations care—take care of this place.”
That’s what a church is about. A church is not to be a bunch of spectators. We are not to sit back and enjoy things. We are to be on mission with the brothers and the sisters. You were created for community, and I want to give you an example today of what community looks like. But I’m going to tell you at the beginning what my whole invitation is. It’s going to be real simple. It’s no secret.
At the end of our teaching today, I’m going to ask you, “Are you plugged in?” And I want you to be plugged in. So to do that, with no heads bowed and no eyes closed, I want you to reach into the seat back in front of you, and you’re going to find a card that says “Plugged In.” Everybody lean forward right now, reach out there and grab the Plugged In card. If you don’t have a Plugged In card, grab a Connect card.
This has been there for a while and it’s going to be there for a while, but here’s all this card says. It talks about life groups. We ask all of our children, students, and adults to be in life groups in this church. A life group is simply a group of Christ-followers that are loving God and people through Scripture, prayer, worship, community, serving, and sharing. And if you’re not in a life group, we’ve got a group link, a group activity that is coming up next Sunday night. You can come over here and get plugged in. You can start your own life group.
If you are not serving, if you’re not doing anything with the spiritual gifts God gave you, you can check a box here and turn it in later and we will help you get plugged into a serving team. This is your invitation today to get plugged in.
You say, “Is this a commercial today?” Absolutely. It’s a commercial. But not for Thomas Road. It’s a commercial for the invitation of the Savior saying, “Join me on mission. Get in the game.”
If we need convincing, we need to go to Scripture, and typically when we think about joining in any community we might go to the book of Acts. And the book of Acts is a great place to talk about how the early church loved each other and they were always serving together, but I am going to take you to the Old Testament. I want everyone to take a look at the book of Nehemiah. It seems a strange place to go, but I want to show you that all the way through the redemptive story of Scripture, from Genesis all the way through, God put His people into community for a mission. They have been commissioned.
In the book of Nehemiah, we see an example of this. As you remember the history of Israel, Israel had fallen into sin. They were conquered by Babylon, 586 BC, and carried away into captivity. The Babylonian Empire tore down Jerusalem, they destroyed the city walls, and now you have God’s place, Jerusalem, you have God’s place where the walls are broken down.
Folks, we have a community sometimes where the walls are broken down, right? Spiritually, we may have a city whose walls are broken down. You may have a workplace where the walls, spiritually, are broken down, and the enemy is just coming in, just flowing over. You may have a family today, you may have a marriage, and the walls, spiritually, are broken down, aren’t they, and Satan is just running rampant over your family and your parenting and your marriage. We need to rebuild the walls. Not that wall that we hear about in the news, but the walls, the spiritual walls that would defend us spiritually, and there is a work to be done.
But Nehemiah comes on the scene, because after the walls have been torn down, a few years later the emperors, the kings, allowed some of the Jews to go back into the land. Zerubbabel and Ezra led some of the people back in and they rebuilt the altar of God, and then they started rebuilding the temple. And Jews were living around the broken-down city of Jerusalem, but the walls were still down.
And finally, in 445 BC, a palace official, a servant of the king there in Persia, Nehemiah, got on his heart—God put a burden for him to go back and to help his people rebuild the walls. And he comes back and he’s there, and in fifty-two days he gets the Jews into forty-one groups, and they rebuild the sections of the wall. It’s a smaller wall. They rebuild the wall so the city can function. And then for the next thirteen years, he serves as their governor. But that is what they come together for, and it’s these people I want you to see, that God brings the Jews back into community and He brings them in community for three reasons that we are going to talk about.
They come together not just to sit around and sing Kumbaya or think about the old days; they come together for work, for war, and for the Word of God. Take a look, number one, the work. There was a city and a wall to be rebuilt. And in chapter 2, Nehemiah shows up at night and he casts a vision. He goes around and he assesses the damage. And then he brings the Jews together that are living there and he casts a vision of community mission for them.
Verse 17 he says, “Then I said to them, ‘You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us build.’” Isn’t that a common phrase we’ve heard in churches? “‘Let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.’ And I told them of the hand of my God, which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words which he had spoken to me.” So they said what? “‘Let us rise up and build.’ Then they set their hands to do the good work.”