Build and Fight

Build and Fight

In my series on Ezra-Nehemiah we’re at a section that’s very important to our church. Nehemiah 4 is the inspiration for our strategy: build and fight. So this morning we will make sure we all understand how to do that. Let’s start by reminding ourselves how we fit in the story of Ezra-Nehemiah. Ezra-Nehemiah is part of the repeating pattern of Scripture where…

• God gives his gracious decree.
• God provides for his people and protects them.
• God's enemies attack his people.
• God fights for his people, and God's people conquer their enemies.
• God's people respond by consecrating themselves to him.
• God greatly blesses them.
• God’s people forget God and turn from him.

That’s been the story over and over from the story of Abraham, and Jacob, and Exodus, and Joshua. Over and over God provides for and blesses his people, fights for them when they are attacked. Thankful for the victory, God’s people consecrate themselves to him, and then eventually forget him again. The old covenant didn’t transform their hearts, and so they wandered.

We can see this in the two big projects in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah: the temple and the walls. Both of their projects are completed by the grace of God, but they don't do what they should. The temple structure is completed, but doesn't bring spiritual renewal. The walls stand tall and sturdy, but they don't keep sin and wickedness out. Israel doesn't become a city on a hill. Instead they invite the pagans into the city. This isn't true reconciliation with God or reformation in the people.

But we live in the age of the new covenant that brings new life to God’s people, a new chapter to the story. In our age God is building a new temple and a new city. They went to Jerusalem to establish the worship of God and live as the holy people of God. They left Babylon, but God still had to take Babylon out of his people. Now he has. God has set up a new temple, and 1 Peter tells us that we are the living stones of the new temple. He filled this temple when fire fell from heaven on Pentecost as God's Spirit moved into his new house: the church. He's building a new Jerusalem. And we are that New Jerusalem. But this city won't ultimately compromise or capitulate to evil. It will one day have no spot or wrinkle. It will be a beautiful bride for the lamb.

This chapter will not end in tragedy, like Nehemiah does. This time the faithfulness of God will overwhelm and overthrow the faithlessness of man. This time the story won't end with compromising intermarriage with God's enemies, it will end at the marriage supper of the lamb.

We’re living in a new chapter of the same story, where God is still building a temple and a city for his people. My goal this morning is to make sure we all know what we’re building and fighting.

In Nehemiah 4, the men know what they’re building and fighting toward. We need to make sure we know too. I want to make sure we’re working from the same blueprints by reminding us what we’ve already said. All the way back in July 2024, Andy, our lead pastor, wrote out the mission and vision of our church. As elders we all agreed on the basic content of it right away and refined it until we agreed together on how to articulate it. In this sermon, I won’t be saying anything new. I’m just trying to unpack that same mission, vision and strategy again so that we can keep going after it in this new year. So, this morning, I’m going to answer three questions:

1. What are we building and fighting towards?
2. How do I build?
3. How do I fight?

What We Are Building Toward

Our church’s mission and vision is what we’re building toward. It has four parts:

1. Make disciples
2. Who glorify God
3. In all of life
4. For all of Stillwater.

Make Disciples

Part one of our mission comes from the Great Commission. In Matthew 28 Jesus meets his disciples on a mountain. He’s preparing to leave them. These are his last words,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Since Jesus has all the authority there is (“all authority in heaven and on earth”) we should make disciples. As we do, we need not fear and we shouldn’t let up, because he is with us always to the end of the age.

Making disciples includes evangelism, which is assumed in baptism. If we are making disciples we will be making converts. People who didn’t know Jesus or that he is king will hear about him from us. They will turn from trying to rule themselves and confess that Christ is Lord.

But making disciples isn’t done after they’re baptized. It’s only just begun. Making disciples means teaching people to obey all that Jesus commanded. So we’re not done making a disciple of somebody until they are perfectly obedient—which is to say never.

Making disciples isn’t something that we do just “out there.” Certainly it includes evangelism, but it’s also what we’re doing as parents, friends, neighbors, and fellow church members. When you look someone in the eye and shake their hand, you have an opportunity to make disciples. When someone comes to your home for dinner, you have an opportunity to make disciples. When your child asks you a question, you have an opportunity to make disciples. In other words, “making disciples” is the mindset we come to every relationship with because it’s what Jesus commanded.

Who Glorify God

The second part of our mission/vision is making disciples who glorify God. When you boil down what it means to obey all that Jesus has commanded, it’s “glorify God.” The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So it’s crucial that we understand how we do this.

Glorifying God has two crucial aspects. One happens in your heart and mind, the other happens with your body.

First, we glorify God by believing in him, by having faith, especially in his Son Jesus. We confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:9) so that right now he has all power and authority. We love him and praise him and depend on him. Ephesians 1:3–14 outlines our whole salvation. We are chosen by God, predestined, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, given an inheritance with Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit all to the praise of his glorious grace. Every spiritual blessing we experience we experience to God’s glory. That faith goes down deep and changes us from the inside out. And as it changes us from the inside out, we begin to act differently.

That’s the second part of glorifying God: obedience. Jesus tells us that if we love him we will keep his commands (John 14:15). Paul tells us in Philippians 1:11 that when we are filled with the fruit of righteousness we glorify God. We get to work out our salvation because we’ve been born again and God continues to work in us for his good pleasure. This obedience is a crucial part of glorifying God. It’s not just some automatic add on. It’s so crucial that James says that faith without works is dead faith—that is not really faith at all.

Let me try to give you an analogy for how important obedience is. When God’s glory appears physically in the Bible it’s typically with imagery of bright lights, clouds, and fire. Glory is supposed to shine out, light up, flash out, fill up. Faith without works is like God filling the temple without smoke. Or a burning bush without flame. Or a pillar of fire without light. It’s a contradiction.

So we want to make and be disciples who are born again Christ-confessors who let their good works shine before men so that they glorify their Father in heaven (Matt 5:16).

In All of Life

The third part of our mission is where we want to glorify God: in all of life.

We want to make disciples who glorify God in all of life. This is a way of saying that glorifying God is not a part-time job. It’s not something we do in the morning when we read our Bible and on Sundays while we’re at church. It’s what we’re up to everywhere. Anything else would be part-time obedience, which is not what Jesus said when he told us to pick up our cross and follow him.

We’re here to make and be disciples who love and obey God in all of life. In our personal lives, in our families, at our work, in our church, and in the world as citizens. God tells us in Romans 12:1 that we are living sacrifices. Doug Wilson comments somewhere that if we are living sacrifices that means that everywhere you go, you are on an altar. As you sit at the breakfast table, your chair is an altar and you are the sacrifice. When you get to work, your desk is your altar. Kids, as you sit and play together, the floor is your altar where you offer up a playful sacrifice of joy and contentment. Students, your desk at school is your altar. Wherever you go, you serve God there. Wherever you go, you were bought with a price and are called to glorify God with your body there (1 Cor 6:20).

This means that we live coram deo, in the presence of God always. Our conviction must be that we live always before the face of God, everlastingly in the holy of holies with his Spirit inside of us and his presence surrounding us, and his watchful eye over us.

For All of Stillwater

And when we are faithful to God, and walk according to his commands, he promises to bless our efforts. We envision the Stillwater area covered in the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Full of households whose marriages show off Christ’s love for the church and the church’s respect for Christ. With schools that help parents give their kids a Christian enculturation. Where children are brought up to learn God’s righteous paths as normal and desirable instead of constantly battling against the wicked culture of our age. Where God’s people do good works in business and politics and real-estate and restaurants and wedding venues and coffee shops and bookstores and bicycle rentals and breweries and school boards and county commissions and farming and financial services and manufacturing and museums. Where churches turn back to the true gospel, neighborhoods are evangelized, businesses flourish, and the justice system does righteousness.

This is what Ezra and Nehemiah were laboring for. They didn’t just want a temple. They wanted a society with the temple at the center. They didn’t just want walls. They wanted a society that kept evil influence on the outside. This is the kind of Christian civilization our forefathers risked their lives and died to create for us, and it is still worth building and fighting and dying for today.

It’s why our church has an outward focus. Local churches aren’t supposed to be cul-de-sacs of God’s grace, they’re supposed to be conduits. They’re not supposed to be compounds, but launch pads. We gather each week because God calls us. We leave because he commissions us to go and do this work.

That society won’t be born here overnight, but it is what we dream about at night. It’s what many of us talked about together as we looked over the city from Pioneer Park Wednesday evenings for the summer. It’s what we pray for every time we recite the Lord’s Prayer, “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

In 1843 Stillwater was founded as the first city in Minnesota. The earliest settlers came to tame the wilderness and make life in this beautiful land of 10,000 lakes. Since then, we’ve lost our way. Don’t you want to be part of redeeming this broken and sinful place? Wouldn’t it be great if God wrote a story where our efforts here in the birthplace of Minnesota saved Minnesota? I can imagine a hundred years from now our great grandkids smiling and shaking their heads when they find our names on another piece of strategic real estate, and they reap the benefits of our business partnerships, and read our books, and live in our houses, and invest our money, and sing the Psalms they learned from us, and cook our recipes.

How Do I Build?

So that’s the mission and vision. And our strategy is to, “build and fight” (inspired by Nehemiah 4). When God’s people rebuilt the Jerusalem walls, “each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built” (Neh 4:18). Sword and trowel. Build and fight.

The reason that we must be doing both is because we live among the ruins of what sin has destroyed and God's enemies, just like in Nehemiah’s day, want to make sure that walls aren’t ever built up again. So we have the challenge of rebuilding personal lives and households and a society broken and marred by sin and we have the challenge of fighting off those who want to keep it broken because they hate God and his ways. We need to be craftsmen and warriors.

So first let’s talk about being craftsmen and our second question, “How do I build?” How do we build toward making disciples who glorify God in all of life for all of Stillwater?

Nehemiah is a great example to us.

1. First he set an intention. When he hears that the progress has been set back in Jerusalem, he forms an intention. He has a specific desire, “I want to set the return to the land up for success by getting a wall around the capital so that we can be a distinct people.” If you do not know what you are building or what you are fighting, you’re probably not doing much building or fighting.
2. Then he made a plan. He knows what materials he will need and how long it will take. How will he get from Cupbearer in Susa to overseeing wall-building in Jerusalem? He makes a plan to make that happen.
3. He prayed for God’s blessing. He knows that unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
4. And then he acted courageously. He got started. He stuck his neck out and got to work.

That’s how you build:

1. Set an intention.
2. Make a plan.
3. Pray for God’s help.
4. Get to work.

Now, we do that in five different spheres of life.

• Personal
• Household (fathers, mothers, children)
• Vocation (nurse, plumber, doctor, etc.)
• Church
• Citizens

So we’ll look at each one and how you would build toward our mission and vision in that area.

Personal

You are you wherever you go. You are the same person at home and at work and at church. You cannot keep them separate. So when you build a sound, healthy, faithful personal life you’re becoming the kind of person who can make disciples in all of life because you are one. We need to tend our hearts so that with God’s blessing they are full of life, brimming with God’s word, trusting in his promises, relying on his help. So when you cultivate the usual means of grace to build up your faith (Bible reading, prayer, meditation), you are building toward our mission and vision.

Looking at how Jesus grew up is a good example for how we can build our personal lives. Luke 2:52 says that Jesus grew in wisdom, and stature, and favor with God and man. One area for personal growth is internal, in wisdom and knowledge. Another area for personal growth is external, in stature and strength. Another area is in favor with God, meaning increasing obedience. And another area is in favor with man, learning relational wisdom and gaining gravitas.

To build up your personal life, you’d start with an intention: I want to increase my wisdom about how to deal with those I disagree with. Then make a plan: I will survey Proverbs for advice and the gospel to see how Jesus interacts with the Pharisees. Set a repeating event on your calendar so that you know when and where you will do it. Then pray for God’s help, and get started.

We’re building when we make every effort to live sound, healthy personal lives.

Household

The second area we all live in is a household. Some of you are adults and still single. You’re looking forward to beginning a household like I will describe. Others of us are in it now. To get a good idea of the kind of households we want to build, you should go back and listen to Andy’s series on God’s Good Design on Manhood and Womanhood.

Depending on who you are, you’re aiming to build something different.

1. Husbands, God has given us the responsibility to lead our household. We are building a faithful and fruitful marriage and faithful and fruitful children. Having responsibility means that we are responsible for results, not just efforts. It’s not our job to try to have a faithful and fruitful household. We emulate Jesus’s love. And Jesus didn’t just try to make the Church his loving bride. His love and sacrifices transformed her. Our wives and children are like a garden that needs consistent water and sunlight. Our job isn’t just to make sure she survives. Our job is to ensure the woman God gifted us with flourishes and grows and is purified and beautified like Christ does for the Church. How do we do this? By nourishing and cherishing. Men, there’s no such thing as “set it and forget it” for our households. Just like you can’t water a plant and leave it for a month, you can’t love your family really hard one weekend and then take the next few weeks off. We build up our households by consistent sacrificial love.
2. Wives, Ephesians 5 tells you to build up your household by submitting to your husbands, as to the Lord. As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands. There is nothing that puts wind in the sails and fire in the bones of a man more than the love of his woman. As his helper, you’ll glorify everything he does. An excellent wife is magical. She takes his raw efforts and transfigures them turning his seed into giggling children, his house into a home he can’t wait to come back to, his table into family dinners, his grocery money into bacon for breakfast and chicken with focaccia for dinner, and his Christmas budget into gifts under the tree (that he may or may not see for the first time on Christmas). You build up your household.
3. Spouses: A faithful and fruitful household starts with a faithful and fruitful marriage. If you haven’t read Song of Songs for a while, I’d encourage you to give it another read. It’s not sappy romanticism. It’s healthy, passionate, you might say “head over heels” love between husband and wife. Cultivate a marriage like that. A marriage where your kids don’t just know that Mom and Dad are on the same team. Don’t let them eulogize you thinking, “they stayed together, so obviously they loved each other.” Show them the picture of marriage you hope they’ll have. A marriage that’s loving, respectful, fun, sweet, and affectionate. A dance-in-the-kitchen, snuggle-on-the-couch, chat-in-the-car, laugh-at-the-table, bring-home-flowers-just-because kind of marriage.
4. Grandparents, when your kids move out you begin a new phase of life, but your influence doesn’t go away. You still have a thousand ways to advise and encourage your kids and build up your grandchildren. I still remember that my Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Fred were at just about every baseball game I played. They showed me by their presence that they loved me and wanted to see me. And that sense of a family tribe made for a secure, happy childhood.
5. Children, you build up the house you are in by honoring your parents. Young children, you should especially focus on doing this by obeying right away, all the way, with a happy heart. Older children, as you’ve grown up, your parents give you fewer commands, but you can keep an honoring attitude toward them. Don’t consider them fun-haters or fuddy-duddies who just don’t get it. Honor them by guarding your heart and keeping it soft toward them.

We’re building when we cultivate faithful and fruitful families.

Vocation

The third area of our lives is our vocation, or the job we get to do all day. If you're a student, this is school. If you’re a stay-at-home-mom, this is managing your household. Men, this is the job God has given us.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works. The lion’s share of those good works are in our vocation. You’re a living sacrifice everywhere you go. That’s why we should do our work with diligence and excellence. Strive to be outstanding at what you do because you are working as unto the Lord and not just for men (Col 3:23–24). That’s how you build in your vocation: by doing your work as unto the Lord.

Our vocation is the way we sustain ourselves so that we can provide our household with the necessities of life and be generous with others. But that’s not all it is. It’s not just a means of money-making. It’s where we invest our time, talent, and energy to build and fight for God. When you think about your vocation, you shouldn’t just think of it as the way you convert your hours into dollars. Think about what you’re actually creating. What is the result of your work? Does God want that result? Does it make the contribution you want it to make? God’s command to Adam to take dominion was taken up by Second Adam—Christ. And we are his body. Our jobs are a major part of how Jesus takes dominion.

If you’re in a job that you don’t think is especially meaningful right now, one of the good works God might have for you to do is to chart and walk a path into work that you believe is more meaningful. And if so, work at it with all your heart. If, in God’s wisdom, now isn’t the time for that, then keep working as unto the Lord.

Some of you are working in jobs that aren’t your favorite. They aren’t what you want to be doing forever. If that’s where God has placed you right now, that’s okay. I spent years stocking shelves starting at 4:00am and more years as a bank teller. We have to put food on the table and pay the bills. One of the good works God prepared beforehand for me was tens of thousands of pizzas to put on freezer shelves in Target and Walmart. I was never super passionate about the frozen pizza or the banking industry. I wasn’t trying to build a business in the industry. I was saving money for a wedding and for Maddie and me to start our life together. I spent years as a bank teller (and let me tell you, there weren’t many people who came into that bank branch). Again, it was the best way I could find to pay rent. If that’s the kind of job you’re in, you can still do it unto the Lord. Working towards our mission means working with diligence and excellence. Stock the shelves with all the pizzas facing the right way, stack your pallet nicely back in the freezer, don’t make a mess in the aisle. Remember that in Nehemiah the goldsmiths and perfumers, high and impressive jobs, did the good work of wall construction along with everyone else.

We’re building when we provide for our households and take dominion for God.

Church Member

The fourth area we live in is the church. Ephesians 4:11–12 tells us that Jesus gave the church pastors in order to equip the saints for the work of the ministry so that the body of Christ would be built up. In fact, he says in Eph 4:16 that when the body is working properly, it builds itself up in love.

Remember that the church is a group of people, not programs. So being a part of God’s vision for the church is really simple: encourage one another and build each other up! Speak the truth in love. Use your words and actions to give one another courage to act, wisdom for discernment, comfort in affliction, a needed kick in the pants to get you going. Send soup when you hear someone is sick. Get on the phone when you hear someone is struggling.

Our best tool to be the kind of church that builds itself up in love is hospitality. Invite people over and make time to visit one another as often as you can. If you haven’t been invited to someone’s home, invite them! If they say no, don’t be discouraged (how many times have you been too busy to say “yes?”). Just ask someone else.

We’re building when we’re encouraging our fellow church members.

Citizen

Finally, you’re a citizen. This starts by being a good neighbor. You smile when you see your neighbors. You have them for dinner. You host a summer BBQ. You bring a chainsaw when their tree falls and get to work. You share the gospel with them and let them see what a Christian household looks like.

Being a good citizen means paying some attention to what is happening in the world, both locally, nationally, and globally. At the very least, you’ll pray about what you hear. You may be able to do something about it. You’ll certainly get the chance to vote. Being a good citizen includes doing your research and voting for the candidates who will advance righteousness the most.

Of course one great way to build in the area of a citizen is to run for office—whether it’s for city or county positions, school board positions, or state legislature positions. If you can’t run, you can support those who are (and by the way, Tom Dippel is running for an MN Senate seat right now).

We’re building when we advocate for God’s paths of righteousness in all of life.

How Do I Fight?

Enemies Without

The main temptation to avoid in this realm as a citizen is being pressured by “the world” or “the culture” to back down or act like their version of reality is normal, because it’s not. Rigney has called the pressure of the world the “Progressive Gaze.” In the days of Nehemiah, he might have called this the “Sanballat gaze.” We’re tempted to back down when we see rich and powerful enemies getting worked up about what we’re doing. We’re tempted to apologize and wring our hands and get out of the way instead of boldly keeping up the building and fighting. Don’t fall prey to backing down in order to appease your enemies. In Rules for Reformers, Wilson reminds us that we’re in a war that’s already won. So, there’s no reason to make compromises with the enemy.

My wife was a great example of this earlier this year in a small way. She brought our kids to the library near our house. When we go to the library, our kids need to bring us books they’d like to look at before they look through them because, if you haven’t noticed, there’s some pretty atrocious kids books at the library these days. Well, one of my daughters finds a book that she’d like, and instead of taking it quietly to mama for approval, she yells across the room, “Mama, is this book full of sin and lies?!” And instead of being embarrassed and making my daughter feel like she’d done something wrong, she just went to take a look at it. She didn’t let the ire of the local public librarian make her nervous.

Do that on a small scale and a big scale. Live in God’s world without softening it for those who are pretending they can re-make the world according to their liking.

We are doing our mission when we live upright, godly lives trying to see God’s will done in our county and state and nation.

Enemies Within

I hope that the vision of our church and how we’re all individually a part of it is inspiring to you. I hope it seems obvious and right and attractive in your eyes. So now is a good time to remember that we will face opposition. We will of course face opposition from the world, from the modern-day Sanballats and Tobiahs. But the hardest opposition to face will be the opposition from within.

Nehemiah 4:12 says that the Jews who lived nearby kept coming, over and over, telling the builders they needed to abandon Jerusalem and return to them. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. Your passion to see this vision happen, to make disciples who glorify God in all of life for all of Stillwater, to live holy and upright in every area of life will draw some people who you think are on your side. Your friends and family. The people that you’re counting on to support you and have your back and encourage you. It’s hard enough to deal with the disapproving gaze of the outside world. But it’s at least expected. Of course God’s enemies will oppose us when we condemn wokeness leaking into Christian circles, or government schools, or voting for someone who encourages abortion…but when the people you thought were on your side line up against you and start to pressure you to back down, that hurts more.

It means that we need to be careful not to give in to appease our enemies or to give in to appease our friends. It’s one of the reasons that we emphasize sound biblical teaching so much here. We need to be sound and solid, with roots deep in the solid foundation of God’s Word so that we can say, in Luther’s famous words, “Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God.”

Allow me to summarize as we come to a close. The mission and vision of our church is to make disciples who glorify God in all of life for all of Stillwater. In our individual lives that means living a godly personal life, creating a faithful and fruitful household, working in a productive vocation, building up the church, and advocating for righteousness as a citizen.

Build and fight first in the life God has given you. Older men, build sound, exemplary lives. Older women, build young women who love their husbands and children. Young women, do your part to build a faithful and fruitful household. Young men, build self-controlled, upright, godly lives.

Set an intention. Make a plan. Pray for God’s help. Get to work.

Let us pray.