The People Had A Mind To Work

00:04 If you're still there in Nehemiah, that's where we'll be taking our thoughts from this morning. Appreciate the service thus far, and we're not going to be long until lunchtime, but we'll try to be out normal time. But we do want to turn our attention to the Scriptures and also to a word of testimony. 00:25 From my perspective, the beginning of Living Water was very much tied to the development of the Biblical Mennonite Alliance, or what we call BMA. 00:35 And we found ourselves at the time at Mount Joy and in the Conservative Mennonite Conference, and we were aware and a part of the early operating or the early vision of BMA. In 1997, a group of ministers met in Medina, 00:56 Ohio, to discuss some of the drift that was happening in various church groups at that time and to measure interest concerning a new association and fellowship of churches and ministers, some of whom were unaffiliated and others who were part of the Conservative Mennonite Conference at that time. 01:17 That was formed. The charter formation of that group began in June of 1998 and went through September. And I'll be real honest with you that that plunged us, my wife and I, into a time of crisis. 01:34 We knew that our heart and our heads and our feelings and our beliefs were very much in link with BMA. That was before it was called BMA and then when it was called BMA. And to raise our family where we were was not something that we felt comfortable doing. 01:56 And so we were looking. And God had at that time begun to place a call upon my heart to pastor again. I had served as a pastor out in Oregon for several years, and then we were traveling with Gospel Echoes Team, Prison Ministry. 02:13 And for some reason, God orchestrated quite a number of events to come together to reignite my call to pastor, to be a pastor. In fact, I had been in conversation with a couple of congregations here locally that would have been interested in having us move their direction. 02:34 And it just nothing felt right. Nothing seemed right. And I struggled. I struggled with this call because of also our involvement with Gospel Echoes, being in a parachurch ministry, which was supported by finances and donations from various church groups. 02:54 And BMA was rather controversial at the time. It still is in some respects. And to plunge into that, I didn't know how it would affect Gospel Echoes, how it would affect our future ministry. And it seemed like there was a lot on the line. And I knew the risk of joining BMA was great, 03:14 but the Lord reminded me that if I try to save my life and my ministry, I can lose it. And if I give my ministry up, God can establish it. And I did not know how that would work or what that would look like. I also was rather critical at the time. I guess I was about Ryan's age. 03:33 What'd you say this morning? 25 years ago, I was two years younger than you. And so I was rather critical of some older brethren in churches who would not take a stand, would not take a stand for biblical truth and biblical practice. And then the Lord rebuked me and said, "Well, brother," he said, "Todd, are you willing to take a stand? 03:53 And if you're not, how can you be critical of anyone else?" So by the time BMA formed in that summer of '98 and then again, First Ministers in Richmond in '99, 04:08 Pleasant Grove was approached by one of the leaders in BMA at that time about the possibility of pastoring another emerging church here in northern Indiana. I was not aware I mean, I was not privy to information of what all was happening. 04:24 But that set us on a course where Marv and I would begin communication and conversation to whether or not we could work together in a new endeavor. And my response was always the same. 04:40 I'm willing to do what God wants me to do, but how in the world would that ever happen and take place? Well, the rest is a bit of history then that you've heard already. 04:53 There were a managed separation, a church plant, if you would, to relieve some tension at the sister congregation. And then here we found ourselves being asked to give that leadership alongside of Brother Marvin. 05:11 One of the questions that was asked repeatedly in those days is, "What do we need another church in the community for?" And interestingly enough, I think there have been several other churches that have started since then. So we were not the last one, and neither were we the final word on starting a church. Why two BMA congregations in the same community? 05:32 As I processed that, my question was, "Well, how many churches is the right number of churches? Who is to say that there are too many churches in Elkhart County or in northern Indiana? 05:46 And furthermore, why would the Conservative Mennonite Conference need eight churches if we can't have two?" And the Indiana-Michigan Conference had probably around 30 churches in northern Indiana, southern Michigan at that time, and all kinds of charismatic churches and Bible churches. 06:05 How many churches is enough in a community? And I come to the conclusion in talking about that with others that it takes as many churches as it takes to get the job done, to get the job done, to make sure that God's people are cared for, fed, evangelized, nurtured, discipled. 06:26 And if that is incomplete, then there's always room for one more. Amen? And so that's where we came out. So why Living Water? We would ask the question, "What does Living Water contribute to the landscape of churches in northern Indiana? 06:43 Why does God have in mind what does God have in mind for us that we couldn't get elsewhere? And why do we exist? And why am I a member here and a founding member and founding co-pastor with Brother Marvin?" And as I was thinking about this, again, my mind was drawn to Nehemiah. 07:03 And I'd like to just draw a few thoughts from Nehemiah this morning to kind of put this in a biblical perspective and to cast the vision. For I believe that there are four pillars that our local congregation has rested on. The first pillar is the pillar of truth. God has entrusted the truth to the church. 07:22 Now, Nehemiah found himself in a situation where he was in captivity in Babylon, but he had risen to the point of being the king's taste tester and was next to the king, the cupbearer. And he got news one day that the walls of the city of Jerusalem, which had been rebuilt, the temple had been rebuilt, but the walls lay in shambles. 07:44 And there was room for there was a need, an intense need to protect the people around that city, which had been burned by fire approximately 70 years before. And so he had this information that things were not looking good in Jerusalem. 08:05 And so he went into the presence of the king, and he was kind of downcast and sad, which had never happened before. The king noticed and said, "Nehemiah, what's bothering you? Something's obviously wrong." And so he sent up a flare prayer and said, "God, help me." And then he began to tell the king about the situation in his home country, 08:27 which had been overtaken by Babylon, which this king now is the king of Babylon. And he says, "I've got to do something, or something needs to be done about my people back home." And so the king asked him, "If you were to return, what do you need?" And Nehemiah was sticking his neck out. 08:49 There was a great amount of risk in what Nehemiah was doing. 08:52 So in chapter 2, he says, "What do you request?" And Nehemiah said that, "You would send me to Jerusalem," verse 5, chapter 2, and verse 7, "that you would send some letters to the governors of the region beyond the river and that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah and a letter to Asaph, 09:12 the keeper of the king's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel, which pertains to the temple for the city wall and for the house that I will occupy. And the king granted them me according to the good hand of my God upon me." So in other words, he said, "I need to go back home. I need to rebuild. I want you to pay for it." And so that's what the king did. 09:33 And he paid for the whole excursion. Nehemiah arrives. And in verse 17 of chapter 2, he takes a tour at night of the walls and the brokenness. And then he gathers the nobles and the priests and the officials together. 09:49 And he said, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach." And so get on board and let's go to work. 10:05 Then, of course, they responded to Nehemiah's leadership and began to see things the way that they really are. You see, spiritual drift happens when the way things are not recognized. But we get accustomed to the drifting that happens around us. 10:25 And we don't recognize that 10:28 a boat out on the wind-driven lake will drift with the wind unless it has an anchor. And if you don't have the anchor down and you're drifting, you don't know that you're drifting until you look at a point on the shore and you see it disappear in the distance and you realize that it didn't move. You did. 10:46 And so one of the things that Living Water has been built on is the pillar of truth, that the truth that does not change. Now, we expect the world to reject God's truth, but we do not expect the church to reject God's truth. But in the last 25 years and I'm not speaking of any one in particular group or anything, 11:06 and I'm not wanting to disparage other individual groups. But in the last 25 years across the Church of Jesus Christ, we have seen tremendous, horrendous drift away from the truths and the central tenets and the teachings and practices of God's Word. And if there is ever a time that we needed an organization like BMA, it's today. 11:26 If there's ever a time we needed a church like Living Water, it's today that we would not just trust God in the big things, but in all the things that Christ has commanded. For he said, "That I am with you unto the end of the world when you are discipling and baptizing and teaching them to observe all things, 11:48 whatever I have commanded you. And then I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." We are influenced not only by the world, but we are influenced entirely too much by what other Christians do, other churches do. And then we map ourselves out in relation to that. 12:07 And as we say, as long as we stay right here, we may drift along with the rest of them. But as long as we're positioned between this group and that group, then we'll be okay and not realizing that the truths of God's Word do not change no matter where the culture drifts the church. Amen? And so Jude 1:3 says, 12:28 "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." God has entrusted the church with the truth of God's Word, the truth of the Gospel, the truth of the kingdom of God. 12:49 And Colossians says, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." The second pillar that I'd like to mention this morning is not only the pillar of truth, but the pillar of life. 13:08 One of the things that happens when you have a heavy emphasis on truth is that truth can end up becoming a body of beliefs that is just kind of stagnant and sterile and dead. And we call it and refer to it sometimes as dead orthodoxy. 13:28 And that is a very real problem and possibility not only in churches, but in our own personal faith. It has to move beyond the page into the life. It has to move beyond the head into the heart. It has to prove it has to move beyond intention into action. And that's what happened in Nehemiah. 13:49 The people had a mind to work and to do life together. Don't you like that phrase? It's kind of a catchphrase today, "We do life together." But it's a descriptive phrase. You do it in marriage. You do it in family. You do it in church. We're doing life together. 14:04 And you see that in chapter 3, how that the truth of the situation and of the results of apostasy were now recognized. And in chapter 3 and 4, they begin to do something about it. 14:21 And life begins to take form in those dead stones of 14:28 a wall and of gates. And so Eliah Shib, the high priest, chapter 3:1, rose up with his brother and the priests and built the sheep gate. They consecrated it and hung its doors. And they built as far as the Tower of the Hundred and consecrated it then as far as the Tower of Hananel. And I want you to look at something. Just going to pick this out that in verse 2, 14:49 next to him was Eliah Shib. And in verse 4, next to them, Meremoth. And next to them, Meshullam. And next to them, Zadok. And next to them, the Tekoites. And next to them, verse 7, Malathiah. And verse 8, next to him, Uzziah. And verse 9, and next to him, Rephiah. 15:09 And next to him, Jediah. And next to him, Shalem. And they were just all working side by side around those walls, doing life together, rebuilding together, establishing the pillars of protection of God's people together. And it all had to have its right order. 15:29 In verse 16, after him came Nehemiah. And then verse 17, after him, the Levites. Next to him, Hashabiah. 18, after him. 19, next to him. 20, after him. 21, after him. 22, and after him, the priests, the men of the plain made repairs. 15:48 I mean, this was done in order and in structure and with a plan. And they put themselves to the work. 15:58 And in chapter 4:6, "So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work." Living Water Church is not here today because Todd and Marv had a mind to work. It's here because you had a mind to work. 16:18 You have had a mind to work. And we're going to see some of that work this afternoon on some video presentations. But you've heard it. You've heard it this morning. Elders, leaders, teachers, Sunday school teachers, children's choir leaders, 16:39 cooks, ushers. I mean, there are so many parts, moving parts of this congregation that are dependable. They're dependable. And we can make the phone call and things go into action. In fact, I brag about you when I travel about how well our congregation goes into action when there's a need. 17:02 I praise God for it. The people have a mind to work. We try to do life together. Yes, we do. So this doctrine and truth must be infused with life, spiritual life. 17:15 And that spiritual life needs to work its way out through our lives to produce a body that is filled with God, that does the work of God, that has the image of God, and that accomplishes the tasks that God sets out for us to do. 17:37 A lot could be said about this, but we're going to move on to the third pillar. The third pillar of Living Water is not just the truth, and it also includes the life, the life of the Spirit of God working through the congregation to work and to represent Christ. But then thirdly, 17:57 there is a place for accountability in the church. You see, in Nehemiah here in chapter 5, as he delved into things, he found out that there were things that were not right, that were happening behind the scenes. In fact, there was a group of people who came to him and said, "We are having problems paying our bills. 18:19 We are ready to be sold into slavery. And here we paid for you guys to come back to us, and we're ready to be sold into slavery. Can anybody help us?" Verse 6, this is chapter 5:6, "I became very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. 18:38 After serious thought, I rebuked the nobles and the rulers and said to them, 'Each of you is exacting usury from his brother.' So I called a great assembly against them." You see, what we find here is that there was accountability to the things in the community that needed adjustment. 19:00 And that is one of the calls that Living Water and BMA have done and have made, is that as things need adjustment, we want to try to adjust them. And sometimes that means making changes that are painful. 19:18 And sometimes it means telling each other and encouraging each other and exhorting each other, "I'm not sure you want to go down that road, brother. I'm not sure you want to go down that road, sister." And then sometimes it requires us to simply say, "Do not go down that road." And so in Nehemiah in verse 10, 19:39 he simply said as he evaluated this, "I said with my brethren and my servants, 'Am lending them money and grain. Please let us stop this usury,'" which was exorbitant high interest rates that they were charging their brothers who were in need and bringing them into bondage. 19:59 "Please let us stop this usury." Well, that's an example of accountability. And so there's a point in church life for that to happen. Galatians chapter 2, "Paul withstood Peter to the face because he was to be blamed." You had two leaders in conflict. One called the other out, 20:19 and that brother repented. Acts 18, "Apollos began teaching about Jesus accurately, but he didn't have the whole picture. And so Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and explained to him the way more exactly." And so there was correction. There was teaching. 20:38 There was discipling. There was input. And one of the things that happens as we do life together is that we can learn from each other. We can learn from each other. We can learn the what to-dos and the what not to-dos. I used to tell my children, "You can learn from everybody. Some people, you learn what to be like, 20:57 and other people, you learn what not to be like. But you can learn from everybody." And so I had a friend years ago who said, and I've said this before, but he said, "If you really want to grow, ask God to send somebody to rebuke you every day." Well, I'm not sure that I have ever really wanted to grow that much, 21:17 but it happens whether we want it or not. But you see, if we live in an echo chamber and all we ever hear is ourselves and all we ever hear is people that look like us, think like us, and do everything just like us and our echoes into hearing back from them what they think we want to hear, we'll never grow. 21:37 Amen? We'll never grow. We'll never change. We'll never become what God wants us to be. And this requires discipline. I'm amazed at the Methodist Church, how they grew under the work of John Wesley. This is what John Wesley said about discipline, a.k.a. also known as accountability. 21:57 "The work of God could not prosper without church discipline. Without it, there could be no true Christianity." Wow. Now, wherever doctrine is preached, where there is no discipline, it cannot have its full effect upon the hearers. One sinner or one sinner diffuses guilt and infection through the whole congregation. 22:18 Reading certain sections of his journal, one author said like this, "Gives the impression that he spent as much time throwing people out of Methodist societies as he did persuading them to come in." Now, I'm not suggesting we do that or have that kind of a rigid approach. But the fact of the matter is that God used that disciplined approach to the Christian life to build the Methodist Church, 22:39 which has been one of the largest organizations, ministries in the United States of America and around the world. You say, "Where are they today?" They stopped doing that. They stopped believing the Gospel. They stopped holding people accountable to the Gospel. And today, they're in pathetic shape. A lot could be said, 22:59 but we'll go to the fourth pillar found in Nehemiah chapter 13. And that is faithfulness. Faithfulness. The pillar of truth, the pillar of life, the pillar of accountability, the pillar of faithfulness. You see, it is required among servants that a man be found faithful. It is required among stewards that a man be found faithful. 23:19 Jesus said, "If you're faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many." That's a wonderful promise. You have been faithful over a few things, and I will make you ruler over many. "Be faithful unto death," Jesus said to the church in Smyrna, I believe it was. "Be faithful unto death, 23:38 and I will give you the crown of life." Faithfulness. Revelation 17. And those who are with him, that is those who are fighting alongside the Lamb to overcome the enemy, those who are with him are called, chosen, and faithful. And so what we want to be, brothers and sisters, is faithful. 24:00 Faithful. Nehemiah was faithful. He kept making reforms. He kept making adjustments. In verse 4 of chapter 13, Eliah Shib, one of the enemies, had ended up worrying and weaseling his way to live in the new temple, the rebuilt temple. And Nehemiah said, "You have no part here. You're an enemy of God." And he removed him and his stuff. 24:21 Verse 10, he said he realized that the portion of the Levites' support was not going to them. There was financial inequity and unfaithfulness. And so he corrected that. And in verse 13 or 15, he saw that there were some Jews that were conducting business on the Sabbath day. 24:42 So he corrected that. Verse 23, he found that some of the Jewish leaders and their families had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab and had children that were unbelievers. And he said, "We can't have that, and we're going to stop that." Verse 25, "You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, 25:01 nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves." And he cleaned up the 25:09 practice of marrying outside of the community of faith. In verse 30, it says, "Thus I cleanse them of everything pagan." Don't you like that? He cleansed them from everything pagan. He was faithful. He was a faithful leader, a faithful servant, a faithful man of God, 25:29 a faithful proclaimer of God's truth, a faithful one who not only did the work of rebuilding the walls but did the work of rebuilding the community and did the work of rebuilding people's lives to reflect the covenant that they had with God. So where do we go from here? 25:50 I don't know what the future looks like. We don't know what the future of our country is going to be like. We don't even know what's going to happen on Tuesday, much less next year, next week, next month, two years from now, five years, or another 25 years. I personally don't expect to be here in 25 years. 26:09 I'd be 86, and I doubt if I'll live that long. If I do, that's fine. If I don't, we'll go to glory. I don't expect for any of us really to be here by that time. I expect the Lord to come. But we've been saying that for 25 years too. So we don't know what the future holds. 26:28 But we do know that it will be possible, whatever it holds, to be a faithful Christian. Amen? No matter who gets elected on Tuesday, no matter if we know who's elected on Tuesday, no matter if we don't know it for a week or a month or 10 days or two months, 26:49 and we come to January 26th or whatever day it is, and we still don't know, or it turns out way different than we wish it would, it will be just as possible to live as a faithful Christian as it is today. What does that look like? It looks like bringing our lives under the submission of the Word of God, 27:10 under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, into conformity unto His Word and Will and Way. And we can do that whether in a prison cell, a jail cell, or here in church, or on the island of Patmos needing a revelation from God. 27:28 I'm going to ask Tim to play a song. We wanted to sing it this morning, but my wife is not singable. She's got a bad cold and said, "Please, please, please, can I not sing today?" I told her last night, 27:48 I said, "I've never forced you to sing." She said, "Yeah, 27:50 but you haven't let me off the hook either." So I let her off the hook today. But Tim and us recorded a song a couple of years ago, and I'd like for us to hear that. And then Brother Trevor, if you would come and have prayer for the meal and dismiss us. 28:12 We want to invite everyone for the 1:15 service. We promise we're not going to keep you real long. It's going to be a rather short service. It'll be more informal. And you are welcome. And we have some special things planned, I think, that you'll enjoy. God bless you. Good. 28:46 The mountains look so high from the valley, and it feels like I have been here for so long. 29:00 There are days it seems I've been forgotten, but you give the strength to press on. 29:14 I must confess I've known disappointments, but somehow I'm still here, and you're still gone. Lord, I know you've held me through each moment. 29:35 I have learned your grace is enough. So on the mountains, walk with me, and in the valleys deep, remind me in the hard times I have promises to keep. 29:56 Because life is hard for everyone with battles fought and lost and won. But when all is said and done, find me faithful. 30:16 Miracles don't show up without heartbreak. So if this is the cross that I must bear, I will stay the course and keep on trusting. 30:37 Because you have proven you won't leave me there. So on the mountains, walk with me, and in the valleys deep, remind me in the hard times I have promises to keep. 30:58 Because life is hard for everyone with battles fought and lost and won. But when all is said and done, find me faithful. 31:17 Because life is hard for everyone with battles fought and lost and won. But when all is said and done, find me faithful. Find me faithful.