“The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build.” –Nehemiah 2:20, ESV

So said Nehemiah regarding rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. The task before him was a massive undertaking. The year was around 445 B.C., and the walls in Jerusalem were still in ruins from the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. God’s people were taken into exile for their spiritual unfaithfulness and disobedience to God, and they stayed in captivity for 70 years, until King Cyrus issued an edict that God’s people could return to the Promised Land. The second temple was rebuilt under the leadership of Zerubabbel in 516 B.C. But it is now 70 years since the completion of that temple, and the walls in the capital city are still in ruins. 

Without a wall, the restoration of the exiles was not truly complete. Without a wall, the Jews were assaulted by their neighbors and would not be able to dwell or worship in peace. They had no rest. The task before Nehemiah was a massive undertaking and looked hopeless, but Nehemiah trusted in God and labored with hope. ‘The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build.’  

As we look at America today, it is evident that much of it is in spiritual ruins. Romans 1:28-31 reads like a headline in a newspaper for our nation: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

Our institutions, our government, our schools, families, and far too many churches are in spiritual ruins. This has happened because our views of authority, sexuality, marriage, child-bearing and child-training, education, the Gospel, and the church are eroded, or are greatly weakened. And the root cause underneath is all that we as a nation have rejected Christ. 

What is the need of this hour? We need men like Nehemiah who trust God’s promises, who are full of the Spirit, who roll up their sleeves, spit on their hands, and build.  

Now is not the time to lose heart. Yes, it is sad what has happened in our country. Yes, we are manifestly under God’s judgment. Yes, there are many Sanballats and Tobiahs today who oppose the people of God and who mockingly say, ‘What are these feeble Jews doing?...Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?’ (Nehemiah 4:2). 

But we must be like Nehemiah and have a sword in one hand and work with the other. We must resist the enemies of God with the Sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God), and we must build. And we must build with hope trusting that as we labor, that God will bless our efforts. This isn’t a Pollyanna, blindly optimistic mindset. This is rooted in God’s promises. Jesus has promised that he will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Jesus will build his church, so let’s be co-laborers with him and say with Nehemiah, ‘The God of heaven will make us prosper.’ 

This building must first start with ourselves. Reformation always begins in our own hearts. We must present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We must love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We must love our neighbor as ourselves. We must flee from sin and follow Christ. 

We must build in our families. We must study God’s Word and receive what he has called us to as husbands and wives, as fathers, mothers, and children. We live in a feminist culture that rejects the beautiful, unique, God-given calling of man and woman. We must resist this as the poison that it is, and humbly embrace the goodness of God’s design from creation, that in the beginning he made them male and female (Matthew 19:4). 

And we must build in our churches. This building must not focus in man-centered priorities like numbers or programs or activities, but rather in the priority of high worship to our holy God. The church is a spiritual house, we are living stones, and our gatherings must be characterized by the worship of God. This is what our God is seeking. John 4:24—“True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” Our worship must be done in spirit and truth. This is always the first priority. 

I’ll flesh this out more what this building looks like in the weeks to come. But let us have a heart to build. 

Build. Build. Build. Build.