A City on a Hill That Cannot Be Hidden

0:48Of course, they didn't land on the lunar surface. They orbited it and then came back, but it was a truly amazing journey. And this past Christmas Eve marked the 50th anniversary of that trip. Well, while orbiting the moon, they captured what is arguably the most famous image of the 20th century. It's called Earthrise. It's a picture of the Earth rising up over the moon's surface as they circle the dark side of the moon. I love that image.

1:19It's the first time that human beings have seen the full sphere of the Earth in a photograph. We had seen Earth from space, of course, but only at close distance, only At a distance slightly higher than that which airplanes fly. And so this was a really monumental moment. Now, since then, we've sent up many satellites, many shuttles that have captured phenomenal images of the Earth. One of my favorites from NASA's weather satellite, you can see here. This image is put together from months and months of shooting pictures, and they compiled all of the greatest images where there was no clouds, clarity was at its best to compile this whole picture of the Earth at night. And of course, what stands out in this picture is all of these cities, these cities that are glowing in the night sky that you can see clearly from outer space.

2:14Because that's what cities do. They shine brightly. So brightly that they can't be ignored. They're clearly seen. Well, friends, a couple of weeks ago, we were last in our study of Nehemiah, and so I figured since we've had spring break and we've slept a few times since then, we could probably use a little refresher. Nehemiah is the cupbearer to Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, and he has returned to Jerusalem in 445 BC to rebuild the wall. That was his God-given task.

2:42The wall around Jerusalem was destroyed when Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon conquered the city in 586 BC, and it has remained destroyed since then. And so, despite many barriers, despite all of the opposition, they rebuilt the wall in just 52 days. It was a destroyer. Of God's glory and power, not only to the people of Israel who are working on the wall and who completed it so quickly, but it was a display of God's glory and power to all of the nations around them who were watching them build with faith despite the opposition that they faced.

3:16And so that's where we left off in chapter 6, right before spring break. The wall is complete. But hang on a minute. The book of Nehemiah is 13 chapters long. If the book of Nehemiah is about rebuilding the wall, why doesn't the book just end after chapter 6? Why are there still more chapters, half of the book, left to go? Well, maybe the book of Nehemiah isn't primarily about rebuilding the wall. Now, don't get me wrong, rebuilding the wall is a prominent feature of the book. Nehemiah's first task was to rebuild the wall because without a secure border around the city, the city could not rebuild itself socially or economically or spiritually.

4:06That was necessary. That was a necessary first step. But rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem was not Nehemiah's end goal, and I would say it was not God's end goal either. Nehemiah's end goal was to reestablish Jerusalem with God's original intent to make it a city on the world. A hill. So, what do I mean by that? I want you to look at Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. This is where God first appears to Abraham.

4:40Now, the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So, I want you to focus on that last phrase: In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

5:09So, we fast forward now, many, many years later, and Isaiah the prophet is speaking to the people of Israel before the fall of Jerusalem, before the exile. And look at what he says about the future glory of Israel in chapter 60. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

5:56You see, God's intent from the moment that he called. Abram to be to make him into a blessing for all the nations of the earth. Indeed, before the beginning of time, before the foundation of the world, God's original intent was to establish a people for his own possession. That is what God has always been doing, making a city on a hill that would point everyone on earth to the glory of the Lord. What made Jerusalem different was not the fact that it had a wall around it and a temple inside of it.

6:40Every major Persian city had a wall around it and a temple inside of it. Before them, every Babylonian city, every Assyrian city had a wall around it and a temple inside of it. After them, every Greek city, every Roman city would have a wall around it and a temple inside of it. The wall and the temple were not what made Jerusalem distinct. That's not what made it a city on a hill. What made Jerusalem different was the people living inside of it. That's what made Jerusalem different. God's chosen people who would point to his glory through the way that they worshipped him and the way that they lived their lives.

7:23So you see, friends, Nehemiah isn't really about rebuilding a wall. Nehemiah is about rebuilding a people. A people for God's own possession who would live as a city on a hill, drawing the nations around them to worship God through their own holy, worshipful lives. They were called to shine brightly as a city on a hill. So we fast forward to the new covenant, and in the New Testament, Jesus is speaking to his disciples in Matthew 5. And look at what he says: you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

8:05If you are a follower of Jesus, if you have turned from your sin in repentance, and you have turned to Christ in faith, then what Jesus says is, You are the light of the world. That you is plural. So in Texas, we would say, y'all, y'all are the light of the world. He is communicating that we, the people of God, the community of God, the people of God's own possession, we are the light of the world. We are supposed to shine brightly in the world, and through our bright, holy, and worshipful lives, we're supposed to point everyone to the glory of God. We are the light of the world. But, friends, I think it's possible, and maybe in fact actual, that in the 21st century, many of us have lost sight of that fact.

8:56We've lost sight of the fact that we, the people of God, are the light of the world. World. And instead, maybe just like some of these people living thousands of years ago in Jerusalem, we've begun to think that the wall is the point. We've begun to think that the church facilities are the point. The church programs are the point. Rather than we ourselves being a people for God's own possession, a bright light shining in the world that is supposed to be pointing all nations to the glory of God, that we ourselves are supposed to be the city on a hill.

9:37I think maybe we've lost sight of that. And so as we study Nehemiah chapter 7 this morning, I want us to honestly evaluate ourselves. I want us to ask the question: are we living as the city on a hill that Jesus intended for us to be? And what we're going to see as we look at this chapter together is that a city on a hill has three defining characteristics: godly priorities, godly leaders, and godly people living for God's glory.

10:15So let's take a look at the text now together, starting in verse 1. You see here in Nehemiah 7:1 that after completing the wall, Nehemiah's first order of business is to appoint spiritual leaders. That's his top priority. Now, you might think that his top priority after completing the wall would be appointing military leaders, standing up an army. I mean, after all, if a wall was necessary, a military is necessary. But, friends, Nehemiah understood that if the people's spiritual priorities weren't in line, if they weren't worshiping God as he had commanded them to do, then no amount of military preparation, no amount of military planning or strategy was going to protect them. The entire reason they were exiled, the entire reason they were conquered by Babylon, wasn't because they had an inferior military. That probably was also true. But the reason that they were conquered, the reason that they were exiled, is because their spiritual priorities were out of whack. They were no longer worshiping God alone as he had commanded. That's why they were exiled. And so the very first thing that Nehemiah does after completing the wall is to appoint spiritual leaders. There are three types that are mentioned here in verse 1. You see here, he appoints gatekeepers, singers, and Levites.

11:42Well, the gatekeepers were the men who stood at the entrances to the temple and made sure that nothing and no one unclean entered into the temple to worship. You see, in Scripture, God reveals himself to be a holy God, completely set apart. Dwelling in unapproachable light. And because of that, he gave very clear commands to his people that if we are going to worship him, we have to do so purely. We can't be unclean. And so God said in the Mosaic or the old covenant law, there are a bunch of things that if you do these things, that makes you unclean. You're not to approach me and worship in that state. First, you have to be cleansed from those things. So the role of the gatekeepers was to make sure that no one and nothing unclean entered into the temple. They were setting up a spiritual perimeter around the temple, just as Nehemiah had built a physical perimeter around the city.

12:44So first, he appoints gatekeepers. Second, he appoints singers. Now, their role is less defined in previous Old Testament books and also here in Nehemiah than the gatekeepers, but it's clear that their role was to lead the people who were there to worship in singing to the Lord, in congregational worship. And of course, when we look at the worship book of the Bible, the book of Psalms, we find many commands to sing to the Lord. Look at Psalm 30: Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. Look at Psalm 98. Oh, sing to the Lord, unto New song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. Look at Psalm 149.

13:41Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of examples in the Psalms. I chose some from the beginning, the middle, and the end of the book so that you can see that all throughout the Psalms, we are commanded to sing to the Lord, to praise His holy name. And so the singers, their task was to lead the congregation in worship. It is the congregation's worship that is primary, that we are gathering together to sing to the Lord. And the singers were helping those people to do that, just as our worship team today helps us to do that, to join our voices together in saying what is true to God and saying what is true to one another. And so he appoints the singers. And then, third and finally, he appoints Levites. Well, these men, of course, were descendants of Levi, who was the third of Jacob's 12 sons. And they assisted the priests in the temple worship. But they also served an important teaching role in the community. In fact, next week, when we look at Nehemiah chapter 8, you're going to see that the Levites helped the people to understand and apply the Word of God to their lives. They would read the Word, they would then help people understand what it meant and then what it meant. It meant for them. So they had this important teaching role in the community. That was important for everyone, but it was especially important for all of these men and women who had grown up under Babylonian or Persian rule. They had to be retaught. They had to have their minds conformed not to worldly thinking, not to worldly ways, but to the ways of God. And so that was the Levites' role: to help them understand and apply the Word of God.

15:30So, friends, we're called to be a city on a hill. But obviously, things look different in the New Covenant than they did in the Old Covenant. We don't live in a theocracy, we don't worship in the temple, we don't offer physical sacrifices in worship. So, what does it look like for us today, as New Covenant believers, to live as a city on a hill? I think Paul does an excellent job of explaining this in Colossians chapter 3. Look on the screen. He says this: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

16:26So, we see here as New Covenant believers. Who have been bought, purchased, justified, and sanctified through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, his life, death, and resurrection. We have these commands given to us. And you see the three different roles that we saw in Nehemiah 7 reflected in these verses. You see the role of gatekeeping reflected in Colossians chapter 3. We're told to admonish or to correct one another. We have to keep the gates.

16:58Anyone is welcome in the body of Christ who is a repentant sinner. The church is open in that sense. But it is not open to anyone who is an unrepentant sinner. We are open to all who acknowledge their need for a Savior, who see that they have sinned against the Holy God and they need salvation from him and through him. So we're told to admonish one another. There's the gatekeeping role. We're told to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to one another. We see the role of singing there. We see the role of teaching in Colossians 3, teaching the word of Christ to one another so that we can understand it and so that we can then live it out. It's not enough for us to know and agree with what the Bible says. We must put it into practice. That's why Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

17:52Not simply know what the word of God says or agree with what the word of God says. So to be the city on the Lord, A hill that Jesus has called us to be, we have to be defined by godly priorities. And those godly priorities are going to be seen first and foremost in how we worship God together as a believing community. It's going to be reflected in our admonishing one another and teaching one another, in our singing together, that then translates into how we live our everyday lives between Sundays. That's how we live as a city on a hill. See, how we worship is going to determine how brightly our light is going to shine before the watching world. It's going to determine whether or not we are drawing people to glorify God. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 5. Let your light so shine before others that they will see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. That's what we're going for. So, first, a city on a hill is defined by godly priorities.

18:57Second, you see in verse 2, a city on a hill is defined by godly leaders. So, Nehemiah, through his courageous leadership, has given us a great vision of what a godly leader looks like. But of course, he's not the only godly leader in Jerusalem. Here in verse 2, you see that he gives his brother Hanani and also Hananiah, the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem. Well, why does he appoint these men to these important civic responsibilities? It's not just because they're great. Leaders with great leadership skills. I assume these men were good leaders. I assume they did have leadership skills. But, friends, those things are necessary, but insufficient qualifications for a godly leader.

19:49A godly leader has to have good leadership skills, but that alone doesn't qualify you as a godly leader. Look at what it says in verse 2. Why did he appoint these men? Speaking of Hananiah, particularly, he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many. So he appoints these men because they're reverent men of integrity. They are reverent men of integrity. And it's so important for us to recognize these are not positions of spiritual leadership. He was not appointing these men to be leaders over the temple or over worship. He was appointing these men to have charge over the city. These were civic responsibilities.

20:35And I think that's very important for us to reflect on. Because so many professing Christians make distinctions between the spiritual or the sacred and the secular. We break things down into categories like religious and non-religious. We break things down into categories such as spiritual and unspiritual. That's how we look at life. There's kind of our Sunday life and our every other day life. So every single election cycle, I hear at least a few professing Christians, when they're discussing about who to vote for, they'll say something along the lines of, well, I'm voting for a politician, not a pastor.

21:21Well, to some degree, I understand that. I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint because that's true to some degree, isn't it? Just because somebody is qualified to be a politician doesn't necessarily mean they're qualified to be a pastor. And just because somebody's qualified to be a pastor doesn't necessarily mean they're qualified to be a politician. So I can appreciate that sentiment. But I think the problem with that view is that when we make that sacred secular divide, we're pretending that character and worldview won't have any bearing on how people actually live out their lives, in how people make decisions when they're in public office. But character and worldview absolutely have bearing on how people are going to lead in the civic realm.

22:11So whoever we are in private, whatever we believe deep in our hearts, that's going to be the kind of leader that we're going to be in the civic realm. These men were given these positions, these civic responsibilities over Jerusalem, because they were. Were reverent men of integrity. Nehemiah didn't say, you know, anybody is open for this job because I'm appointing politicians and not pastors. He didn't have that viewpoint. He understood that faithfulness and reverence matter in all areas of life.

22:51And so now let's think about ourselves. We're called to be a city on a hill. What does this mean for us? Well, friends, the clear application here is that we are called to be men and women who are shining light to others that point them to the glory of God. So it matters how we live our lives in our community, in our workplace, in our neighborhoods, in the classroom, even privately in our homes. It matters because we are sending a message to the watching world about who God is and what He has done. We are either telling the truth about that or we are telling a lie with our lives. Jesus Himself said, a city on a hill cannot be hidden.

23:40So go back in your mind to that picture of the world at night. You can try to hide New York City. You can try to hide Shanghai. You can try to hide Rio de Janeiro, but you can't do it. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. That means that we are going to. Be seen for whatever it is that we really are. Character and worldview cannot be hidden. They're going to come out in the way that we speak, in the way that we live our lives, and in the decisions that we make. A city on a hill must have, must be defined by godly leaders.

24:25And then, third and finally, a city on a hill must be defined by godly people reflecting God's glory. We've talked about spiritual leaders and civic leaders, but the question is: what about the everyday, ordinary believer? What about people like you and me? Well, the everyday ordinary believer makes up most of this chapter. We didn't read these verses today, but beginning in verse 8, all the way through verse 66, you have all of these verses of names. Does this list look familiar to you?

25:02It should, because it's the same exact list that appears in Ezra chapter 2 that we looked at back in the fall. The same exact list. And so, if we back up to verse 4, here's the situation. The temple has been rebuilt, the wall has been rebuilt, but the city is almost empty. And so, look at verse 4, what Nehemiah says. The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt.

25:32Well, that's a problem. And why is that a problem? Because Jerusalem is supposed to be a city on a hill. It's supposed to be filled with people who are brightly shining through their holy and worshipful lives the glory of God. That's what it's supposed to be. It's not a city on a hill because literally it is a city on a hill. It's not a city on a hill because it's got a wall, because it's got a temple. It's a city on a hill, as we saw from Isaiah chapter 60, because it's supposed to be filled with the people of God, a people for God's own possession, who are brightly shining, brightly reflecting the light of God's glory through their holy and worshipful lives. But very few people are living there. The city had been destroyed, it had been leveled and burned by Nebuchadnezzar almost 140 years ago. Almost everyone in the city had been exiled to Babylon. So they rebuilt the temple, but because the wall was destroyed and would remain destroyed for almost 100 years, very few people, even those who came back with Zerubbabel in 538 BC, very few of them moved into the city. It wasn't safe. There was no wall.

26:52So Nehemiah's task is now to repopulate the city. And how is he going to do that? We see in verse 5 that. God puts it into his heart to enroll everyone by genealogy. And in God's providence, he has these lists that were made by Zerubbabel and kept and preserved by Ezra in the temple of all of the people who came back in 538 BC, they're recorded by their families. And so he's going to draw from these people volunteers to repopulate the city of Jerusalem.

27:27Now, as we scan this list of names, I want to remind you of a few observations that we made back in Ezra 2 and then add a few more. The first observation is this. These ordinary people listed here in Nehemiah 7 exercised extraordinary faith. I want you to think about the fact that in 538 BC, all of these people had been living in exile for 50 or more years. It's a very long time. They had grown up there. They were raising their children there. Some of them had grandchildren there. This is where they lived. This is where they worked.

28:10And so when Cyrus, king of Persia, because of God's providential decree, when he said, you guys can go back and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, that required a great amount of faith to say, yes, we will uproot our family's life. We will uproot our business. We will uproot everything that we've come to know. And we will move back. To a very uncertain future in an unsafe city that has no wall and no military. These ordinary people exercised extraordinary faith. And I think we forget that. All we have to do to remember, though, is how much our faith wavers when God asks us to make much smaller decisions in our day-to-day life than uprooting our entire family and moving hundreds and hundreds of miles away to an uncertain future. These ordinary people exercised extraordinary faith. Second, these ordinary people obeyed God in the face of constant opposition.

29:16You remember from our study of Ezra and then early in Nehemiah that when these people moved back to rebuild the temple and then the wall, they were constantly opposed. They had enemies all around them that did not want to see Jerusalem rebuilt, did not want to see the temple rebuilt, did not want to see people worshiping God alone. They didn't want any of those things, and so there was constant opposition. So God sent the prophets, Haggai and Zachariah, to encourage them to resume the work of building. And they did that. But they did that in the face of constant opposition. These ordinary people obeyed God in the face of constant opposition. Third, These ordinary people gave sacrificially to support God's work.

30:07If you look at the very end of the chapter, verses 70 through 72, we're reminded again that these people, the heads of fathers' houses, even the governor, Nehemiah inserts himself into the text here, gave sacrificially. Now, I want you to remember, again, these people left everything that they knew, their homes, their businesses. They moved far away to an uncertain future. It wasn't like they had a lot of disposable income. And yet, they so believed in the vision of seeing Jerusalem become the city on a hill that it was always intended to be, that they all dug deep and sacrificially gave to see God's work go forward. It's remarkable.

30:53And then finally, these ordinary people passed on their faith to the next generation. You see over and over again in these verses here in chapter 7 the phrase the sons of. The sons of. See, the people living in and around Jerusalem were descendants of these ordinary people who came back in 538 B.C. And you better believe that if you're going to make a life-altering decision like that for your family, for your kids and for your grandkids, you better have. A great vision, a great reason for doing that.

31:36These people had great faith in God that they then passed down to their children. They said, The whole reason that we're moving back is because God is worthy of worship. The temple is destroyed, Jerusalem is destroyed. We want to go back so that we can be a part of helping Jerusalem become again what it was always intended to be: a city on a hill that would draw people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to worship the one true God.

32:05They had that faith, and they passed that faith down to their children, to their sons, to their daughters. And then that task fell to them to pass the faith on to the next generation. See, friends, as we look at this chapter, we are reminded that in every generation, from Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Ezra and Nehemiah, to John the Baptist, to the apostles, to the early Christians, to us today, in every generation, God has had a people for his own possession that he called to live as a city on a hill, to shine brightly and reflect his glory for all of the world to see.

32:54And see, most of the people in this chapter are only known because their names are in scripture. We don't know anything else about these people. How many millions and millions of believers, including we ourselves, not only don't have our names in Scripture, but don't have our names anywhere. They aren't remembered. We, in all likelihood, will not be remembered. But that's okay. Because the whole thing is, this is not about us. It's not about these people. It's not about you and me. It's about God.

33:33It is about what God has done through the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is about what God has done through believers in the past. It is about what God is doing today through us. And it is about what God is going to do through future believers, our sons and daughters, who by the grace of God will carry on the good news of Jesus to the next generation. It's not about us. And it is certainly not about the wall.

34:05It's not about those things that we get hung up on, thinking that are going to point people to God and his gospel. It's about God being glorified from people in every tribe, tongue, and nation because we are living as the city on a hill that Jesus called us to be. See, I think it should be obvious that at this point in the 21st century, There are no church facilities. There are no programs. There are no strategies or methods that ultimately are going to lead non-Christians to see and behold the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They can and do ignore those things all day long.

34:56Our church building sits at the intersection almost, Texas and University. That is the largest intersection in terms of traffic between Houston, Austin, and Dallas. We sit a half mile away from that intersection. There have only been a handful of people in six years who have come to the offices during the week and said, I saw the sign from the road. Can you tell me more about your church? Can you tell me more about Christianity? Can you tell me more about Jesus?

35:32But there have been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who have been impacted by the gospel of Jesus Christ because you, the people of God, have met them where they are in the community, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your classroom. Friends, we are called to be a city on a hill, brightly shining our light for all to see, and that is going to happen. Primarily outside of the walls as the light travels beyond them to the watching world around us.

36:09Let's pray. Father, we are aware that to a large degree we have put our trust in facilities and programs, strategies, and methods, thinking that those things are going to be the silver bullet. That's what's going to draw non-Christians to see and behold and worship you. Maybe we've never said that, but often we've acted as though that were true. And we've neglected the truth of your word that we are your city on a hill. God, I pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit afresh this morning, that you would give us power to live the kind of holy and worshipful lives that you have called us to live.

37:26You have said that. Our light will draw people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to worship you. That's what we want to see. We want to see our neighbors and our co-workers, our friends and family members. We want to hear of people that we have never met and will never meet coming to faith in Jesus because you and your glory have been reflected through our holy and worshipful lives. God, we thank you for the faithfulness of these ordinary believers.

38:07We see ourselves in their names, in the brief pieces of the stories that we know about them. And we pray that we would be able to exercise that kind of extraordinary faith, that kind of obedience. We pray that we would be able to give as they gave. We pray that we would be faithful to pass on the Christian faith to the next generation. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you how week after week we have been challenged by the book of Nehemiah. And I pray that today we would receive the challenge to live as the city on a hill that you have said that we are and have called us to be. In Christ's name, amen.

39:00Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.