Extreme Makeover –
Cane Creek Edition
Nehemiah 6:15-16
Some of you I know watch the television program, Extreme Makeover – Home Edition. On this program, an army of contractors, builders, and suppliers rebuild or build a completely new home for people in need. This process all happens amazingly within one week. Twenty-four hours a day, the rebuilding and building happens until the job is done.
Here is how the television program describes this process on their website: Each episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is self-contained and features a race against time on a project that would ordinarily take at least four months to achieve, involving a team of designers, contractors and several hundred workers who have just seven days to totally rebuild an entire house -- every single room, plus the exterior and landscaping.[1]
Tonight at 8:00pm, the program will tell the story of the Riggins family. William is legally blind. Linda, his wife, has severe arthritis. They have three children under the age of six. The parents, William and Linda, both work in Raleigh with Building Together Ministries, an organization that mentors disadvantaged parents and helps kids with after-school programs. And since December, they’ve been living in a brand new home that’s custom-made for them and their needs.
When I occasionally watch this program I’m always amazed at how quickly they’re able to complete this process. And while I know it’s television, I also marvel at how this process offers hope to people.
ABC television says this program is in its fourth season. I couldn’t help but wonder if the network got their idea from our text today.
Nehemiah and his fellow Jews have been working on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Some estimates say that the walls of Jerusalem have been rubble for over one hundred years. And now, after fifty-two days, the walls of the city have been rebuilt.[2] If you look at the timeline a little more closely, it’s probably been about nine months since God first planted a vision to rebuild Jerusalem in this prophet’s mind.[3] What can you do in nine months? You can play a major league baseball season. You can complete a year of education. You can grow and harvest a crop. You can conceive and birth a baby. But rebuild the walls of city in nine months let alone fifty-two days? Even if you give Nehemiah and the Jews the full nine months, this all seems like a stretch. This is what the Bible proclaims. You could call this, Extreme Makeover – Jerusalem Edition.
There are two powers I want you to pay attention to from this text today. They walk hand-in-hand in the wall rebuilding process. One is the power of God – you probably guessed that one. The other is the power of determination.
Throughout
the Nehemiah story, God’s power has been the prime mover in this story. Several times, Nehemiah acknowledges he was involved
in a God thing. The very end of our
text today says that the neighbors, “...perceived that this work had been
accomplished with the help of our God.”
But it’s not just this one phrase.
In chapter 2:8 Nehemiah says, “…for the gracious hand of my God was upon
me.” In chapter 2:20 he says, “The God
of heaven is the one who will give us success.” In chapter 4:20 Nehemiah was reassuring the people and said, “Our
God will fight for us." When Jews
from within their own group did more to oppress the people than join in the
work, Nehemiah says in 5:13, "So may God shake out everyone from house and
from property who does not perform this promise. Thus may
they be shaken out and emptied." Nehemiah’s
theology was centered on the power of God to accomplish the task. He had no doubts about the origin of the
results in his mission.
The last several weeks, I have been
asking you to join what I feel is the boldest agenda this church has embraced
in quite a while. Seeking God’s heart
in prayer for the rebuilding of our faith; each doing our part to support
financially the work of this church; committing ourselves to discipleship; and
being bold with our friends who don’t have a church home asking them to join us
here. I’ll look like a fool if we’re
still the same church at the end of this year that we were at the beginning. But that’s not, by far, the worst possible
outcome. The worst thing that could
happen in all this is that we won’t have tapped into the power of God to transform
our lives and this church. Let’s tap
into that power together.
And now the other power, the power of
determination. I haven’t said a whole
lot about one aspect of the Nehemiah story in this series of messages:
opposition to the work.
When I was going to Seminary, I spent
one summer painting houses to make money for school. One of a painter’s major battles is against hornets. They don’t want you to paint the house. They want their nest to stay right like it
is. Hornets will pretty much leave you
alone until you start rocking their world and then they get mad and start
stinging.
The same thing happens with Nehemiah
and will eventually happen with us.
When Jerusalem was a pile of rubble, the neighbors left the people
alone. But once the rebuilding started
and moved toward completion, things got tougher. As the wall gets closer to completion, the intensity of
the opposition ratchets up quite a few notches.[4] Nehemiah has stirred up the hornets and it
takes God’s power…and determination…to keep going forward.
One of the
indicators for me this year that we’re moving in the right direction will be
opposition. I don’t know exactly where
it will come from, but in every major biblical story I’m aware of, when there’s
a God-thing going on, there will be opposition. As long as a church stays asleep, stays in a non-threatening
posture, then opposition will stay quiet.
But once a church begins pursuing a vision from God, get ready for the
hornets. We need to hang in there and
keep pursuing.
About
8:50pm tonight, Ty Pennington will say these words, “Bus driver! Move that bus!” Then the Riggins family will see their new home. In that moment, they’ll be amazed at what
had been accomplished in a week.
This year,
two things will allow us as a church to have a moment like the Riggins family:
tapping into the power of God; and staying determined in the face of opposition
to what God wants to do with this church.
This will be our own Extreme Makeover – the Cane Creek Edition.
Amen.