Nehemiah didn’t come to just build walls. Once he arrived and saw the condition of the city, saw how much it had been broken down, he set himself to start with the walls, but then there was much more. He called the people back to the city and allowed those who would lay claim to living in Jerusalem to move back and live there. He reestablished the priesthood and designated the people who would carry on the service to the Lord to come back and resume their duties.
But then, he started to do something even greater. He reestablished the people as God’s people before the Lord. He called Ezra as the teacher of the Law to return and read the Law before the people. After the first day, they celebrated because they had started to relearn what it meant to follow God’s laws. They wept and repented from their sins because of what they had been missing, but then they celebrated and they continued – day after day – to follow God and listen to what he would tell them through the reading of the Law. They celebrated the festivals once again, and they did all that the Lord told them to do.
Then arrived the day that they wanted to reestablish themselves as the Lord’s people. They wanted to sustain all that they had done. This wasn’t to be a resurgence, or a revival, for one time, but it was to be a new way of life. They would continue living as they had come to understand, with the walls rebuilt, with Jerusalem rebuilt, and their lives before God rebuilt.
Together, they decided that this would be their way forward, and so they made it plain and clear. They wrote down how they would live. They made a covenant together before God regarding the way they would live. This would be their new way of life. They were returning to the old way, the first way, the right way, the way of God. They were committing themselves to what they now understood that God wanted of them, and they were doing it together:
“In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”
Nehemiah 9:38
This is our task. We aren’t just about the business of building walls. We aren’t just about the business of making groups, teaching ways to share the Gospel, or teaching people how to disciple others. Yes, we have to do this. But even greater, we have to call people to new ways of life. We build the walls, yes, but day after day, we build the people. This is the real work. This is the true calling that God has given to us.