You’re listening to Nehemiah. Building a city within the city, a teaching series by Pastor Mark Driscoll. The following is a presentation of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. For more audio and video content visit Mars Hill Church.org.

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The hope of Mars Hill since the beginning is that Seattle is a great city and what it needs is a great city within that city. A city that loves Jesus, a city that believes scripture, a city that lives for the good of the whole city; not just its own self-interests and self. Mars Hill started off as an experiment to see if we could build a city within the city that would love the city and seek the transformation of the city as the city meets Jesus.

Well howdy. My name is Mark. I have the great pleasure of teaching you the Bible today. We’ll be in 11 Nehemiah. Little visual. So if you’ve got a Bible you can go there. If not that’s alright. You should be able to follow along today. We have yet another stunning list of names I cannot pronounce. [Laughter] it’s cool. Nothing like reading the phone book at 9 a.m. to thousands of people.

So I will pray and we’ll get right to work. I hope you’ve enjoyed the book of Nehemiah. It has been quite helpful to us as a church as we’re in the process of reorganizing and getting ready for our 11th anniversary this fall. So just praise God for the book of Nehemiah. It has been particularly insightful and will help us continue with our work to our city as we examine their work to their city. So we’ll get right to work.

Father, we begin by thanking you for scripture. We receive it from you as your perfect, authoritative and inspired word. God, as we study your word today we pray that you would send your spirit so that he might illuminate our understanding that we might be connected to the Lord Jesus and his mission for our city. Pray that for each and every one of us. God as well, we pray for the various parts of our city that we have campuses. We pray for various parts of our city that we aspire to have church plants and campuses. We aspire to Lord God to be faithful throughout our whole city and region.

Furthermore Lord God, we pray for the churches through our church planning network that are in various cities throughout the county and the world. God, we do pray that as we study Nehemiah our hearts would burn to begin new churches, to begin new church campuses of Mars Hill, to see people meet the Lord Jesus. To have their lives changed by him so that cultures in which people dwell also could be redeemed and transformed so that the quality of life for all might be improved. For that to happen Lord Jesus, we’re going to need you to instruct us and lead us and guide us to save us, forgive us, enable us and empower us. So we ask that our time in scripture would be pleasing to you and profitable to us as we ask this in your good name. Amen.

Nehemiah up till this point, we’ve been studying for some months. I’ll catch you up. We started first with the case of ruin. That the city had lay in ruin for about 141 years. Just a very typical case of urban blight and poverty and flight. So the story moves from one of ruin to one of rebuilding where this man Nehemiah leads a rebuilding effort that takes about 52 days to rebuild the walls, fortify the city in its gates so that people then can begin to revisit the city. So we examined then how after 141 years in ruin and 52 days of rebuilding that about 50,000 people then revisited the city. Then God began to stir in their hearts the kind of ministry they could have to transform and rebuild and renew this great city.

We then looked at how a revival broke out. People were confessing their sins and coming to faith in God and renewing their covenant pledges to God based upon faithful God centered Bible teaching. Then this week we will look at the repopulation of the city. So they went from ruin to rebuilding to revisiting to revival to what we will examine this week being the repopulating. All starting with the word R because I went to cutting edge mega church pastor school and that’s what they said to do. So all of these various R words declare for us kind of what is happening at this point in the story. So this week you will see people moving into the city.

So people are living in outlying areas, suburbs, farms, places of that nature. They end up, you will see, casting lots, literally rolling the dice leaving the decision up to God and ten percent of the people are going to move into the city strategically relocating into various neighborhoods in the city. So they’re moving into their homes and their condos and getting their lives resettled and re-established. Many of these people are not paid ministry professionals. These are tradesmen and people who have jobs just like you do and these are people who have a heart for the city, a heart for particular neighborhoods in the city and so they relocate into the city to do ministry there.

So we’ll read their names that I can’t pronounce beginning in Chapter 11 Verse 1. And then we’ll look at what is going on here, but we’ll read it in its totality all the way through to Verse 36. So Chapter 11 Verse 1 of the great book of Nehemiah.

“Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem.” So that’s the urban core. That’s the city. That’s the very influential center from which ministry is to flow. “And the rest of the people cast lots” – literally rolled the dice. The point here is that sometimes you just need to leave it up to God. And even Proverbs says that the rolling of the dice is in our hands, but what comes up on the dice is ultimately in the hand of God. So in this people can’t grumble and get angry and frustrated and say “I was picked to relocate with the church plant” or “They asked me to move to another part of town to do ministry there because people need Jesus.” “We rolled the dice. God’s in charge of the dice. I accept God’s will.”

So occasionally it’s good just to leave things up to God and let him decide and that is what they’re doing. So they’re not gambling. That’s different. Just so you know. They’re leaving the decision ultimately in God’s hands. There was no money on the table for this, okay. That’s my big point.

“And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten” so ten percent of the people. “To live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other towns.” Outlying suburban, rural areas, work on the farm; that kind of thing. “And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.” So you think of it, in our cultural equivalent, we start campuses and plants. So we start campuses that are connected to Mars Hill.

We also help to start churches through Acts 29 church planting network and those are independent churches that are loosely affiliated with us. When we do that we ask people to consider going out with a campus plant or a church plant that includes people who relocate, move to help start a ministry, a church or a campus in another part of the city. So a number of the people nominated themselves. Said, “Well, we love the Lord and we love to serve. So if you’ve got a ministry going on in a part of the city, feel free to put our name on the list of consideration, roll the dice and if God wants us to go, we’re happy to do that.” These are very generous, humble, sacrificial people willing to do whatever it takes to see the ministry of God move forward.

So then it goes on to list the people. Verse 3. “These are the chiefs of the province” so the leaders, “who lived in Jerusalem, but in the towns of Judas” — you’ve got urban centers in outlying towns. “Everyone lived on his property in their towns. Israel, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants, the descendants of Solomon’s servants, all kinds of various groupings of leaders and in Jerusalem lived certain of the sons of Judah and the sons of Benjamin, of the sons of Judah, Athaiah the son of Uzziah, son of Zechariah, son of Amariah, son of Shephatiah, son of Mahalalel, sons of Perez; and Maaseiah the sons of Baruch, son of Col-Hozeh, son of Hazaiah, son of Adaiah, son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, son of the Shilonite. All the sons of Perez who lived in Jerusalem were 468 valiant men are literally in the Hebrew dude of dudes.

Verse 7; so 468 dude of dudes. Love those guys. “And these are the sons of Benjamin. Sallu the son of Meshullam, son of Joed, son of Pedaiah, son of Kolaiah, son of Maaseiah, son of Ithiel, son of Jeshaiah, and his brothers, men of valor – 928. Joel, the son of Zicri was their overseer.” So he is the leader. You’re going to start to see here that ministry is done by neighborhood in the city. It is led by various families who work together and those various neighborhoods and families have appointed leaders. Sort of like our campus pastors and ministry leaders. Under them there are varying levels of additional leadership.

So Verse 9, Joel the son of Zicri was their overseer” their leader. Same word for pastor in the New Testament. And Judah the son of Hassenuah was second over their city. So he is like a pastoral associate.

“Of the priests, Jedaiah; the son of Joiarib; Jakin; Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, ruler of the house of God, and their brothers, who did the work of the house — 822 people; and Adaiah the son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, son of Amzi, son of Zechariah, son of Pashhur, son of Malkijah, and his brothers, were heads of the fathers houses—242.” These are large teams. Think of large church planting core groups. Think of 242 people leaving Mars Hill to help go plant another church. We do this all the time. We do this all the time.

When we started West Seattle campus we sent out more than 242 people. When we started the Shoreline campus maybe that many people went out, but this is what we do. Groups of people go out to start new campuses and church plants. A lot of our money goes to planting new campuses. We hope to double the number of campuses from three to six in the next year. We also give 10 percent of all the money that comes in to church planting.

We had a big church planters retreat this last week down in Sonoma, California. You guys don’t know it, but you paid for it. You paid for all of these church planters and their wives to get a little bit of vacation and training and rest and retreat and instruction and admonition. So on their behalf I want to say thank you.

This next year you will give about a million dollars to church planting. The list just came out and we are tied for the most influential, the most successful church planting church in America. We plant as many churches as any church in the United States of America. [Applause] It’s something that really matters a great deal to us, but to do that we do the same thing we’re doing. We take dollars and people and we distribute them. They are giving their money and their people to church planting.

So some of you may have been from churches where when people leave it’s a bad thing. Here it’s often a good thing. They’re going to start a new church or they’re going to start a new campus. They’re going to help pioneer a new ministry. To be real honest with you in the history of Mars Hill we’ve tended not to lose people under bad circumstances. We’ve never lost leaders under bad circumstances, but we send them out all the time because we want the influence of Jesus to spread throughout the city and the region and the outlying areas and then throughout the nation to the ends of the earth.

We do that by sending out people. Just like they’re doing here. This is Old Testament, missiological, be a missionary, move into a city, serve Jesus there kind of action. None the less and “Amashsai the son of Azarel, son of Ahzai, son of Meshillemoth, son of Immer.” Now we’re in Verse 14. I didn’t lose my place ‘cause I have undiagnosed OCD. I always come back.

Verse 14, “and their brothers, mighty men of valor.” Love that. That’s a great book title right there. “128. Their overseer was Zabdiel the son of Haggedolim.” Say it fast if you don’t know it. That’s always the key in the Old Testament. “And of the Levites, Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, son of Azrikam, son of Hashabiah, son of Bunni.” Poor dude. [Laughter] Poor guy. “Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were over the outside work of the house of God; and Mattaniah the son of Mica, son of Zabdi, son of Asaph, who was the leader of the pray.” So he led the worship team. “Who gave thanks and backed Bakbukiah, the second among his brothers.” Various levels of leadership. “And Abda the son of Shammua, son of Galal, son of Jeduthun. All the Levites in the holy city were 284.” Another group.

“The gatekeepers” our equivalent of campus pastors who literally opened the door of Mars Hill in various neighborhoods in the city, like Shoreline with Pastor Steve or West Seattle now with Pastor Adam who we’ll install today or Ballard with Pastor Bubba.

“The gatekeepers, Akkub, Talmon and their brothers, who kept watch at the gate were 172. And the rest of Israel and to the priests and the Levites were in all the towns of Judah, everyone in his inheritance, but the temple servants lived on Ophel, and Ziha and Gishpa, were over the temple servants. The overseers or leaders of the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzzi.” Great name. “The son of Bani, son of Hashabiah, son of Mattaniah, son of Mica, the sons of Asaph, the singers.” So the bands. “Over the work of the house of God for there was a command from the king concerning them and a fixed provision for the singers as every day required.” Now they’re talking about remuneration and salary. Some people get paid to do ministry vocationally. Others are simply relocating and working because they sense God’s calling upon them though they will not obtain a salary.

“Pethahiah the son of Meshezabel, sons of Zerah the sons of Judah, was at the king’s side in all matters concerning the people.” In the Hebrew it’s literally the right hand. He’s the right hand man. So this is the trustworthy assistant. By way of excurses briefly, for those of you that work in organizations, there are two ways to climb an influence in an organization be it a business or a ministry or a church. One is to have leadership gifts combined with humility and performance that enable you to rise up as a leader. The other is to be that trusty, right handed assistant. That person who humbly comes alongside the leader and is that trustworthy right handed helper. That’s what it says about this man.

He wasn’t the leader, but he was the right hand. Meaning he would make plans and execute and implement. He would work hard. Very faithful. Very dependable. This kind of position requires someone who’s very humble. They’re glad to be the number two. They don’t have to be the number one, but because of their humility being connected to a good leader as the leader rises, they rise with the leader because they’re of strategic importance.

Then transitions to the villages, the outlying areas, not so much focusing on the urban core of the city, but the outlying areas. This would be various suburban and rural neighborhoods that are surrounding the city and “As for the villages” Verse 25 “ with their fields”, so they have to work the fields to feed the people who live in the city, “some of the people of Judah lived in Kiriath Arba and its villages, and in Dibon and its villages, and in Jekabzeel and its villages, and in Jeshua, and in Moladah, and in Beth Pelet, in Hazar Shual, in Beersheba and its villages.”

Here’s what they’re saying and some lived in Shoreline and some lived in Belltown and some lived in Fremont and some lived in West Seattle and some lived in South Seattle and some lived in Kent and we pray for them. That’s what it’s talking about.

Verse 30,”Zanoah, Adullam and their villages, Lachish and its fields, and Azekah and its villages. So they encamped from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnom. The people of Benjamin also lived from Geba onward at Micmash, Aija, Bethel and its villages Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah, Hazor, Ramah, Gittaim, Hadid, Zeboim, Neballat, Lod and Ono, the Valley of the Craftsmen and certain divisions of Levites and Jerusalem were assigned to Benjamin.”

When it says here that there were those who lived in the Valley of the Craftsmen what it is showing is this. Some people were in paid ministry; some were not. Some moved into the city to do specific strategic urban ministry, some also lived in the suburban and rural areas to do ministry there as well and even those who weren’t vocationally paid to do ministry, they weren’t singers or priests or pastors, they did however make their money through their crafts. In our day this would be the equivalent of those of you who work in a cubicle or write code or pull coffee or whatever it is you do; sell cars or invest in real estate or build condos and do construction. These are people who are using the various vocational skills that they have to integrate their faith and work so that they are serving the city and loving God and being a good witness to the city through their business dealings.

Give you an example of what this looks like. I recently had lunch with a person who attends Mars Hill and runs an investment firm. As we were talking he said, “I do strategic investments of people’s money management and portfolios, but what I don’t do is invest in certain stocks that are bad for people’s health or lead them into sin.” It’s a way of doing your business in a way that helps people, but also honors God and serves the well being of the whole city.

So he says, “Those kinds of businesses that take advantage of the poor, those kinds of businesses that are disadvantages to people’s health, those kinds of businesses that are not good for the city.” He said, “I don’t invest in those and I don’t encourage my clients to invest in those because I’m a Christian and I want to serve people well and do good for the whole city.” These are various ways of using the vocational craft abilities and skills and talents and opportunities that God gives you to do ministry vocationally by simply doing your job well.

Now that being said, you read with me these 36 verses. It’s a long list of names and places that people move and what I want to do now is back up from the list and I want to give you sort of an overarching view of what is going on here and how this is inextricably tied to our ministry at Mars Hill.

So I’ve got six principles for you and I’ll run through them quickly. The first thing I will say is something that I’ve said before, but we need to repeat it and that is that cities are strategic to God’s plan for the world. My first point is that cities are strategic for God’s plan for the world. Here we see the strategic importance of a city. Now by city what we mean is two variables that are working together primarily: density and diversity. Diversity meaning there is a broader spectrum of kinds of people; races, languages, cultures, subcultures, generations, educational levels, socio-economic backgrounds and such. Included in that is religious, spiritual diversity, political diversity. There’s just a lot more diversity in a city.

Secondly, there’s also density. There’s just more people per square mile. I was looking at one of the Seattle magazines that came out this month and there is a series of condominiums that are going up in the city. There were zoning restrictions in our city that limited the height of a building. Those are being lifted because the density requires it. One of the condo associations now has a virtual web site where they will show you the buildings that they are constructing virtually. They don’t yet exist, but they’ll show you what it will look like in the city landscape when it is finished. Also give you an idea of what your view will be like depending upon which condominium you purchase and that’s all issues of density.

You don’t have that kind of opportunity in rural areas. There’s not a lot of condos in rural areas. There aren’t virtual web sites where you can hand select your rural condo as well as it’s view of the tree. You just don’t get that, but those are all issues of density. We’re struggling as a city with the issues of density, schooling, health care, traffic, transportation, how to move people around, environmental concerns of how much density can our climate or our city endure before it becomes an unhealthy place to live. These are the issues of urbanization, density and diversity. God’s plan for the world is inextricably linked to God’s concern for the cities because cities are upstream. James Davidson Hunter for example is a sociologist and he rightly says that if you want to change culture you don’t go after the masses downstream who consume culture. You go upstream to the hand selected small group of individuals who are culture makers and gatekeepers.

The myth among Christians has been for a long time that if we just have lots of people become Christians then culture in the world will change. Not necessarily because most people are downstream. Upstream are the record labels, are the television stations, are the media outlets, are the transportation centers, are the educational systems, are the political headquarters, are the court systems, the policy makers, the culture makers, the decision-makers and the influencers that are upstream allow certain ideas and certain products and certain values to flow downstream through the distribution channels of transportation and technology and media and such to those who live in the city as well as the suburban, rural areas and out to the other cities of the nation and out to the ends of the earth.

So if you really want to affect change in the world you’ve got to get upstream and to get upstream you have to be in a city. You have to be close to an urban downtown core. What this means is if you can see a city, fall in love with Jesus you will see the information about the person and work of Jesus ring out from that city to the outlying areas. We see this with businesses like Amazon.com and Starbuck’s and Microsoft that from Seattle have touched the whole world. It’s because from a city there are those distribution portals for information to go forth. That’s why cities are not more important than rural areas. They’re not more important than suburban areas, but they are more strategic because they have the opportunity to affect the masses.

What we’re seeing globally is a great increase in urbanization. James Montgomery Boyce who is a deceased pastor who pastored a church in urban Philadelphia on his commentary on Nehemiah, he made the statement that just a few hundred years ago only 2.5 percent of all the people in the world lived in a city. Now today we see many people living in cities and the sociologists are saying that by the year 2030, 60 percent of all people who live in the world will live in a city. They’ll live in a city. It means that the world is becoming increasingly more urban and that means in regions like ours it’s not just one city like Seattle.

Also we see on the East Side, Bellevue and Kirkland and Redmond are major financial centers. That other cities around us are getting their own density, their own diversity, their own urban renewal. So as this urbanization increases it spills out of an urban core and you see that density and diversity expanding around us. The cool thing of this is that it really follows with the storyline of the Bible. The Bible begins with a garden and it ends with a city, the New Jerusalem that comes down of Heaven handcrafted by the Lord Jesus for us to enjoy forever.

So God’s vision is that the world would transition from a garden to a city. That we will all be living in an urban paradise forever with the Lord Jesus if we have faith in him. So God’s plan is an urban plan. God’s vision is a citywide vision. So God’s love for the city is demonstrated both in the present where God has a heart for cities and in the futuer where God is building a city for us to dwell in with him.

So my first point is that cities are strategic to God’s plan for the world, which leads to my second point and that is that some Christians should live in cities. Some Christians should actually move into cities. That’s exactly what we see happening in the pages of Nehemiah. God’s plan for the world is very much connected to God’s plan for the city of Jerusalem. So in an effort to bring the good news of the God of the Bible to the city of Jerusalem, God’s people voluntarily relocate into the city of Jerusalem through the casting of lots and they tithe, ten percent of their people move back into that previously decimated urban area.

This is what you and I must continually pray about. God, where would you have me to live. Not just where you can get the best mortgage, where you can get the biggest yard, you can get the most square footage for the buck, but strategically if all of our life is to be a witness to the love and the salvation that comes to us through Jesus, then we need to consider where we live as part of the means by which we will be doing ministry for the rest of our life. Most people don’t factor into their housing purchase decision where God has called them to do ministry. Some of you God has called you to do ministry in an urban core. We have families that have actually moved into the city.

We have empty nesters as well who’ve actually moved into the downtown core of Seattle to live in condos because lots of upstream people are there and they strategically want to do ministry to those people. That’s why right now we’re actively pursuing a facility to open a whole new campus in Belltown which is sort of the upstream of the downtown. So that people with condominium living and those who are culture makers and gatekeepers could have access to a church that is walking distance to them in the downtown core of Seattle.

This also means that some of you however will have a calling to a particular neighborhood in the city. Some of you will have a calling to up and coming neighborhoods. So you’ll want to move, for example, over to West Seattle, which is an area that’s on the rise. Or you will want to move down south into the central district or into Georgetown, areas of town that are on the approaching rise. Some of you will have a heart for communities like Shoreline or the East Side. What we’re saying is that it is very important to pray about where God would have you to be.

If your heart is inclined toward an area then you must be willing to consider eventually, if not soon, relocating there. For my wife and I when we were in college, God called me in the ministry and called me to Seattle and so we moved back to Seattle following graduation from college after we were married. Shortly thereafter we moved into the city. We’ve now lived for the duration of our ministry in the city limits of Seattle. Don’t think everybody needs to be downtown, but for us we felt very strongly called to remain in the city limits of Seattle.

So for some of you I think this is very pressing. You’re at that point where you’re thinking about where will we live next. Where might I buy my house, my condominium. Factor into that this issue of ministry. Some churches have even broken this down whereby people take certain blocks or districts and even though they have regular jobs, they take it as their ministry to serve that part of the city.

I know of a few major urban churches where they took the number of blocks in the city and they graphed it out and people in the church intentionally moved, living on every one of those blocks so that every block in the city would have a person or a family who loved Jesus from a particular church living there. Serving people, caring for people, praying for them. When people are sick, visiting in their home. When mother gives birth, bringing meals. Having house parties and Christmas parties and practicing hospitality and welcoming in the neighbors. Loving your neighbors just like Jesus said.

This is not always formal ministry. It’s often informal ministry. It’s sometimes not dictated top down from a church, but it often times comes bottom up from people who say, “I’ll take this cul-de-sac. This block is mine. I have a heart for this part of town.” One of the cool things I’ve seen in Mars Hill is a stirring in the past few years in particular in our people’s hearts where their hearts are like the people in the days of Nehemiah saying, “I love Wedgwood” or “I love Lake City.” Or “I love” wherever it might be. Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Belltown, wherever it might be; Ballard. Therefore I’m going to move there and I’m going to intentionally live in a particular area. I want to live in community and relationship with those people and I want to bring the love of Jesus to them and I want to open my home and my life to them.

Again, these are people who are not paid staff of the church. These are people who love Jesus and they see their whole life as ministry. These are just things for you to pray about.

We live in this day when people don’t. Even Christians don’t oftentimes factor into where they will live the issue of who they will minister to, but let me tell you. As a dad and as a husband, as a father it’s just the glue for the family. If you and your family, particularly once you get married – I know many of you are single are able to strategically place yourself in a neighborhood and love and serve that neighborhood and see the neighbors come to me, Jesus, and host a community group in your home and host parties in your home it’s a wonderful thing.

I could still remember we moved into our house, a newer house a few years ago and one of the first things we did is we hosted an open house party and invited all the neighbors over. It kind of freaked people out at first because none of the neighbors ever go into one another’s homes. Now I know they’re all curious to know what everybody’s house looks like. They’re all wondering. So we had them all over. We had hors d’oeuvres and food and hung out and it was actually really fun and we really got to know some really nice neighbors and sort of warmed up the social relationship. Eventually they find out you’re a pastor. Their kids come over and play with your kids. You get to talk and love people and it’s just being a good neighbor and loving people.

So now we got the big play set and all the kids are over at our house and it’s sort of the park for our end of town, our little area, our little neighborhood and we love that. My kids know that’s why we do this. My wife knows that’s why we do this. We do this together as a family. So I even teach my little kids like my three year old daughter. I teach her, “Hey, when the little girls come over to play you love them. You’re their host. You be nice to them and let them use the swing.” Seek ye first the kingdom of God. So let them swing and you push. Don’t go first on the swing. Be a sanctified little three-year old and in the sandbox tell the one-year old ‘no throwing sand’. Jesus didn’t throw sand. He didn’t do that. Be like Jesus, Gideon. No throwing sand.” It’s just an issue of practicing hospitality, teaching the kids to practice hospitality to the neighbors.

Which leads to my third point. The Christians living in cities should love the whole city and serve the common good as a demonstration of the gospel they proclaim. If we say God loves the whole city and yet we don’t love the city, then we’re contradicting ourselves and we’re confusing the people.

This means that if we’re going to live in a city we can’t live in whatever city it is – Shoreline is a city. West Seattle is a city. Ballard is a city. These are neighborhoods in the city. So I’m not just saying downtown core though I’m including in my description that city as well.

First thing, we can’t live as a fortress. Too many churches exist in the city as a fortress. Meaning if you love Jesus, come here and huddle up with us because we’re all scared too. We’re scared of the city. [Laughter] Some of you know. Some of you – the last week or two saw the parade and you’re like, “I need thicker window treatments so I can never look out and see that guy in the leather chaps ever again.” [Laughter]

You can have a fortress mentality where you’re scared of the city. We don’t have a fortress mentality. Our church doesn’t exist to hide from the city, to collect all the Christians, to hunker down and to read books on the rapture and stack up canned good waiting for Armageddon. That’s not our objective. Our objective is to love the city, serve the city. Not to be a fortress to hide from the city.

Additionally, we’re not to be a parasite on the city consuming goods and resources without serving the city, without caring about the city, without contributing to the city. And thirdly, we are not to be a mirror of the city. Whatever the city believes that’s what we believe. Whatever the city does that’s what we do. That’s not the truth. The truth is that we are not to hide from the city. We’re not to take just from the city. We’re not to just mirror the city, but Jesus says in Matthew 5:14, he says, “You are a city on the hill.” “You are a city on a hill.”

What he’s saying is that we are to be a city within the city. That the city has its way of doing things and as Christians in this church we have our way of doing things. Our way of doing things is guided by the Bible and is led by Jesus whom we love. Our hope and goal is that others would see Jesus’ love for them through us as we are a city within the city that’s not against the city; is really for the city. Doesn’t always agree with the city, but even when disagreeing does so in a winsome and amicable way.

Furthermore, the result is that we’re echoing Jeremiah 29:4-6 where Jeremiah tells some people living in Babylon to “Seek the peace, prosperity and well-being of the whole city.” Because if the city prospers, if things go well for the city then things go well for the church, too, because the church is part of the city. So I want you to know our heart at Mars Hill, why I picked the book of Nehemiah. Why we’re taking almost a year to go through it. Because we love this city and we love the other cities that we’re sending out campuses to and we love the other cities that we’re sending out church plants to. Our prayer honestly is to be a church that has dozens of campuses and over a thousand church plants.

We believe there are lots of cities to be loved and served. We also believe that there are many neighborhoods in each city to be loved and served. So right now we love and serve in Shoreline and in Ballard and in West Seattle. We’re also working on the East Side and Wedgwood and downtown for the coming year. We want to expand beyond that in addition to church plants.

Fourth point, because cities are strategic, as Christians move into them, which they should, they should conduct themselves in a way that is like Jesus and for the well-being of the city. My fourth point is that Christians who do live in this way, relocate, move, they pay a high price to do so. This is very sacrificial living.

I’ll give you some means by which this price is to be paid. The first is when you move into a city, cities strategically are not Christian. Just percentage-wise cities are not Christian and they tend to be very vocally not Christian. And they tend to have the media outlets, which means I get shot all the time. That’s just one of the prices to be paid. You saw this in Nehemiah where the critics show up on day one and throughout various seasons of the book there’s a critic there working through whatever media outlet was available to provide all kinds of discouragement and difficulty for God’s people.

I was recently reading an article on real estate. I was mentioned in it. [Laughter] It said, “Real estate is really selling fast in Seattle. I hope Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill don’t get anymore.” I was like hey, what does this have to do with me. It’s a big place and we just have – we don’t even have parking anywhere. We’re renting one facility. We don’t have a lot of – I was like how did I get in the real estate article. Just welcome to Seattle. It can be like, and there’s water and we hope Mark doesn’t get any. It’s like – what. [Laughter]

So there tends to be a real vocal opposition to Christianity in the cities and they tend to have the media portals to make a big stink. Secondly, zoning restrictions in cities make it difficult. Right now we’re having the most difficult time finding a permanent facility for our Shoreline campus because of some zoning issues and cost issues.

Furthermore, as we’re looking for other facilities, the city has made some zoning restrictions on us. Or churches in general I should say that make it very difficult. Costs to be paid.

Additionally too, sin tends to be more concentrated where there are more people. See, people are sinners so you get more people. You get more sin. That’s what happens. In a more rural or smaller town kind of area where people have lived there for generations and you know one another – some of you grew up in those towns – you can’t get away with very much.

But in the city where you’re totally anonymous you can sin like crazy and oftentimes people don’t know you and so you don’t get caught. So there’s not that kind of public pressure to conform to some moral standards. So sin tends to be more rampant in the city.

Also the costs of doing ministry in a city are far higher than in a rural area. I was recently down in Texas at this buddy’s church. I think he’s got almost 200 acres – acres. You know what we call that? Seattle. [Laugher] He shows me the land. It’s flat. There’s cars all over it. Never seen anything like it.

He said, “Well you know what you need. You need to get yourself some acreage.” I’m like well yeah. [Laughter] If I tap Bill Gates and Warren Buffet we could do this, ya’ know, but they’d have to live in a tent ‘cause we’d need every dime they have. I mean a few hundred acres. It’s very expensive. The closer you get into a city the more expensive it becomes and cities also tend to be less charitably generous. So Seattle is among the lowest per capita giving cities in the country for not-for-profit contributions. So what that means is there’s high need, lots of sin, density and diversity. Very complicated. Zoning restrictions; you can’t get a place to meet. The city opposes you. Oh, but lucky for you. It’s really expensive. [Laughter] That’s work in a city.

Two years running Forbes says that Seattle is the most over priced city in America. In addition to that people don’t give. That means that there’s a burden on Christians to give generously because everyone needs to do their part.

But that leads to my fifth point that this shouldn’t discourage us because cities are absolutely ripe for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Couple reasons. One, Jesus said, so he said, “The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.” So he says that there is a ripe harvest.

Secondly, where there is much sin there’s much opportunity for Jesus to forgive sin. You know who really needs Jesus – sinners. You know where there’s a lot of sinners – where there’s a lot of people. You know where there’s a lot of people – cities. That means there’s a great opportunity for all that sin to be dealt with through Jesus who lived without sin and died for sin and rose, and take away sin and makes new people and gives them new lives. Jesus is the answer to many of the urban dilemmas. He’s the one who deals with sin.

Furthermore, too, people move to the city because they like change. They like change. Things move far slower in more rural areas, but in the city things change very quickly. That means the people who move into the cities like change, like Christianity for example. They could change from being a non-Christian to becoming a Christian. They could change from not knowing Jesus to knowing him. They could change from not reading the Bible to reading the Bible.

We are finding that people who move into the cities because they’re more open to change are also open to the kind of change that comes with Jesus. Additionally, this leads to great opportunities for campuses and plants to send out teams of people and money into various neighborhoods in the city and the suburban areas and the rural areas. We need a church wherever there are people because God loves people.

What we see here is only ten percent relocate into the city. The other 90 percent are in the suburban and rural areas. So our heart is the same thing. A percentage living in the city ringing out through campuses and plants and additionally one of the cool aspects of doing work in a city is emerging leaders, young people, hip, trendy, cool people., artists, creative types, those who are into technology and innovation. What some sociologists call the cultural creatives.

They tend to flock toward and congregate in cities. So when those people meet Jesus they innovate all ministry. They do things in a different way. They’ll read their Bible and then all of a sudden video and web and music and organization and technology and all of these creative opportunities and gifts that God has given people get harnessed for the gospel of Jesus so that the church of Jesus Christ also can continually undergo reformation and change and renewal and refreshing.

It’s been one of the coolest things at Mars Hill is seeing the creativity that comes up in this church. One of the local presidents of Chamber of Commerce said a few years ago, he said, “I want to invest a lot of time in helping your church.” I said, “Why is that? you’re not a Christian.” He said, “I believe you have the highest concentration of skilled, talented people of any organization in the city.” Mars Hill Church. A non-Christian saying, “You have in the church amazingly creative people that bless and benefit the city.

So we want to work with you and help you and come alongside of you because those people in your church are a blessing and a benefit to the health and well-being and future of the city.” To which we say, “Praise God.” Praise God that if our people love Jesus and the city and the city says, “Well if you love us you’d sure be a big help if we can work together.” That’s a wonderful thing ‘cause that means that not only do we love Jesus, we’re also loving our neighbor like he said.

Which leads to my sixth point is that this ultimately is all about Jesus. The reason that Jerusalem was being established was for the coming of Jesus so that after his death, burial, resurrection that news of Jesus would ring out from Jerusalem to Judea, to Summaria, to the ends of the earth. That’s what the New Testament says.

The whole reason for the establishing of Jerusalem was the preparation for the coming of Jesus so then it could be that strategic center, that urban upstream place from which the good news of Jesus, the gospel of Jesus could ring out to the world.

So my sixth point is that Jesus himself practices and demonstrates this. He relocated from Heaven to earth to demonstrate for us how to be missionaries in our city. This is a big under girding value of Mars Hill. Missionaries are not just people we send to far away exotic places like China. Missionaries are also people we send to far away exotic places like Capitol Hill. [Laughter]

That our city is filled with tribes. Neighborhoods are tribes. They’re value tribes and experienced tribes and style tribes. There are reasons that you will not see a Wal-Mart go up on Capitol Hill. There are reasons why condos are going up in Ballard. There are reasons why families are flocking to Shoreline. There are reasons why there is racial, economic and generational diversity scattered throughout West Seattle because certain people are drawn there because of values, because of style, because of tribal cultural identification.

So we see not only do missionaries need to be sent around the world, which they do, they also need to be sent around the region, which we are. One of my friends who’s a very well known researcher and statistician says in fact that the percentage of Christians in Seattle is likely the same as mainland communist China. That Seattle is now; you’ve heard me say it, among the least church cities in the country along with Portland where there are more dogs than Evangelical Christians.

So our view is that Jesus has sent us here. That’s what it means to be a missionary. Jesus says more than 39 times in the gospel of John alone, he says, “I’ve been sent on a mission. The father has sent me. I’ve come here on a mission.” He’s God, come from Heaven. He’s come down to the earth and he’s come here on a mission to seek and to save those of us who are lost in our sin.

So Jesus, our God, relocated, right, just like these people in Nehemiah, just like some of you, he relocated to a place that was very inconvenient for him. Earth is not like Heaven. He was certainly treated better in Heaven than he was on earth. He paid a great price to come and do ministry on the earth. Not only did he live in poverty, opposition, criticism, he also shed his blood and died. He paid the ultimate price to be a good missionary to a culture that initially rejected him, but now people have come to know and love him and a few billion on earth today worship him because of the success of his mission.

Jesus says this in 20 John 21; he says this to you and I, “As the Father has sent me” on a mission from Heaven to earth, “so I send you.” So I send you. So God the Father sends God the Son on a mission to live without sin, to die for our sin, to rise conquering our enemies of sin and death.

Then the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit is at work in the world and he’s at work in the church and he’s at work in God’s people. Together they send us. God determines, we are told in scripture, when and where we live, where you were born, when you were born, where you live today, all of that is under the providential hand of God. The people who were born and living in the proximity of Jerusalem in that day, they were chosen for that time and that place to do that ministry to that city.

Likewise you and I are all brought here. Many of you moved here. How many of you have moved to this city in recent years? Many of you statistically have. You were brought here by God to either become a Christian – so today we’ll tell you how to become a Christian. You’re a sinner. Sin separates you from God. Jesus Christ is God who died to pay the penalty of sin for you. If you confess your sins to Jesus he will forgive you. He’ll reconcile you in loving relationship to the living God and you’ll have a whole new eternal life with and for and through and by and like Jesus. It’s all about him.

God has brought some of you here to become Christians. Others of you already are Christians and he has called you to Shoreline, to Ballard, to West Seattle or wherever you may be. Some of you as well commute in from long distances and then you are like Noah’s doves being sent out of the arc. You’re the ones going to look for a new opportunity and our hope is to get a campus to you as well.

We have people driving to our Shoreline campus from an hour away; same with Ballard; same with West Seattle. We have people coming all the way from south of Olympia all the way up to Bellingham. We have people who take ferries in to Mars Hill Church. Our goal is to send them out and to send with them opportunities for campuses and plants as time enables us.

Let me close with an illustration of what our vision is. Our vision is big enough to encompass the whole city and the outlying areas and the whole of our nation and to spill out into the world. It’s ambitious. It would take something as big as the resurrection of Jesus to pull this off. That’s good. [Laughter] Because the tomb is empty.

I’ll tell you a story from history that will help to illustrate this as my closing point. There’s a man named John Calvin. You may have heard of John Calvin. He is a legendary Bible teacher. My second son I named after him, Calvin, Calvin Martin after John Calvin and Martin Luther. So I’m a big fan of John Calvin. I think he’s one of the finest Bible teachers in the history of the church. Most people don’t understand as well though that what drove his heart, what drove his teaching, what drove his Bible commentating and theology making was a deep and passionate love for his city and the for the cities of the world.

So what happened was in God’s providence in the 1550s persecution broke out against Christians. Many of them fled to Geneva, his hometown, his city where he was doing ministry as a Bible teaching pastor. This included people from Spain, Italy, Scotland, England, France and Germany. So much persecution broke out that the number of Christians living in the town of Geneva literally doubled in a few short years in the 1550s.

Now these people from these various cultures all come together and they’re worshipping and they’re learning the Bible. They’re under the leadership of John Calvin and the pastors that he trained and the churches that he helped to plant. What happens then is in time the persecution diminishes so that the people can return to their home nation and their country, their cities and their villages and their neighborhoods.

What happened then was absolutely extraordinary. I wrote it down, but there were only five underground Protestant churches in France in 1555. So in 1555 you had 5 known underground Protestant churches in France, but by 1562, 7 years later after a lot of these leaders and pastors sat under John Calvin, learned some Bible, just like the days of Nehemiah where they sat under Ezra and learned some Bible, they moved back to France and they planted 2,150 churches totaling 3 million people. Went from 5 underground churches to 2,150; from a handful of Protestants to more than 3 million in 7 years.

Also, some of the churches that were planted were mega-churches with anywhere from 4,000 to 9,000 people in attendance. Many of these churches were huge urban churches that like John Calvin’s church, set themselves up to train pastors to then take people and dollars and send them out to start new campuses and new churches and to new neighborhoods in the city and new cities in the country including the suburban and the rural outlying areas.

Additionally, church planting missionaries were sent by John Calvin to Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland and the free imperial states in the Rein land. The Atlantic Ocean was even crossed by church planning missionaries as John Calvin sent to South America and what is today Brazil, church planters.

I want you to have a sense of why we’re studying the book of Nehemiah. I want you to have a sense of why we exist as a church. I want you to have a sense of why we’re doing multiple campuses and multiple church plants. I want you to have a sense of why we send ten percent of our dollars out. I want you to have a sense of why we send hundreds and by God’s grace eventually thousands if not tens of thousands of people out into the world. Why?

Friends, Jesus Christ is alive. Jesus is actually alive. That Jesus died for sin and rose and that Jesus Christ can take away sin. People don’t need to go to hell. They can go to Heaven. They don’t need to be disconnected from God. They can be connected to God. They don’t need to live lives of sin. They can live lives of transforming grace. People don’t need to do anything to merit the love of God. God demonstrates his love for us in this while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ died for us.

The good news is that Jesus is alive and that he is seated on his thrown in Heaven. He’s ruling and reigning over all creation. That means that every nation and every city and every neighborhood and every block and every suburban and rural area and every cul-de-sac and every coffee shop and every condo is under the lordship of Jesus and there are people there that he loves. There are people there that he’s willing to forgive. There are people there that he’s willing to save. There are people there that he’s willing to befriend. There are people there that he’s willing to change. There are people there that he’s willing to be with forever in the New Jerusalem, the great city that he’s created for us. So I urge you today if you don’t know Jesus give him your sin, receive his salvation and get connected to Jesus.

Secondly, this is the time of year where we implore you to be connected to Jesus’ mission. To become a member of our church and let us get you plugged in through our gospel class so that you can formally be connected to Jesus’ mission. Also, we would just encourage you to be in prayer to informally be about Jesus’ mission. Just owning your block, your condo, your apartment, owning your neighborhood, owning your cul-de-sac and prayerfully thinking through how you and/or you and your family could bring the love of Jesus there and say, like the people in the days of Nehemiah, we nominate ourselves to love and serve the people here on behalf of the God who loves us so well.

I’m going to give you a chance to repent of sin. The Holy Spirit may have brought some to mind. I want you to give yourself to the Lord Jesus and his mission, spend a little time praying for our city, to pray for the cities around our city, to pray for the places that we have yet to go, to pray for strengthening in the areas that we presently do have campuses and to also be praying about where God would have you to live and what God would have you to do to be a part of this amazing opportunity that God has given us.

Friends, I want you to see. This is really a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m not just a salesman in a hack giving a pitch, but think of the place we are, think in the time we are, think of the opportunities we have, think of the resources we have and think of the ground we’ve already covered. Wouldn’t you love to see what happened in John Calvin’s day happen in our day. Wouldn’t you love to see what transpired in the book of Nehemiah, in the city of Jerusalem happen right here in our own place. That’s what we want because Jesus Christ is alive.

So we’re going to pray to him now, confess our sins to him. We will give our tithes and offerings. If you’re a visitor or non-Christian don’t give. We’ll take communion to remember the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and we’re going to sing some songs in his honor, loving, worshipping, adoring, enjoying, appreciating him.

I’ll lead us in prayer. Father God, I thank you for the book of Nehemiah. I thank you that under just what appears to be at first glance a list of names is a very important set of truths about cities and the world and your heart for people and how we as the church have an opportunity to be about your kingdom work today, here, now in the places that you have placed us.

God, I pray that you would send the Holy Spirit to regenerate those who are not Christian. That for those who are Christian they would have a bigger perspective of their life than just a personal relationship with you. In addition to that, may they have a heart for our church, for our city, for our world. May they have a heart for their neighborhood and their neighbors. May they have a heart for others and may they find their joy in participating at your work in the world.

Jesus, we thank you that you’re alive and well. That you forgive sin, save people. That you call us to ministry that is meaningful and purposeful and that Lord Jesus, you’ve placed us here today to do some very strategic things so that we might share in your joy and others might share in your salvation. Please enable us to be equal to the task as we ask this in your good name. Amen.