​When we turn to Chapter 3 in Exodus, we read the story about Moses and the burning bush. It is a story central to Judaism and Christianity and to the way we understand who we are as God’s people and who God is as God.

Unfortunately, sometimes, when we read this story, we may get caught up in the bushes, so to speak, and fail to see the big picture. By that observation, I mean that we can fail to see the larger point that God is wanting to communicate if we get caught up in the kind of bush it was or the kind of chemical reactions that can take place in the desert to cause a bush to burn without being consumed.

As one writer has put it, “When God decides to make an appearance, any old bush will do.” Any old bush would do!

And yet, it is the ‘any old bush’ in Exodus that is blazing while not being burned to crisp that gets Moses’ attention – a combination of sight and sound that attracts Moses to come and stand on holy ground: to come into the presence of God (3:3). First, there is sight because fire is coming out of the bush; and second, sound because God is speaking to Moses (3:4).
          
It is a scene of divine mystery, with God’s disclosing who God is as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3:6); and it is a scene of clarity with God telling Moses two important things: first, God hears the cries of his people; God realizes the pain of the Hebrews in Egypt. God knows what is happening (3:7-9). Second, God assures Moses that God will go with him from slavery to freedom (3:11-12). 

In other words, God speaking out of an ordinary bush is just the beginning of what God is going to do! God promises to remain close to Moses though it took a burning bush to get his attention!

How is God trying to get your attention? What burning bush have you seen lately? After all, there is always a bush burning somewhere!

Pastor Andy

What if this is the new normal?  What if this is life now?  What if it’s all a hoax?  What if it isn’t?  What if Biden wins the election?  What if Trump stays another four years?  What if this is what public school looks like from now on?  What if this is as good as it gets?  What if, what if, what if. 
    
For being such small words in the English language, the words what and if when put together can be full of promise and hope like “what if this is the best day ever?” or “what if this is the answer I have been waiting for?” They can also be full of uncertainty and dread like, “what if this is the worst day ever?”  “What if this is all there is - what if this is the answer?” 

Have you considered the powerful and profound nature of the question “what if” when it comes to your life and the living out your faith during this particular time in our country and in history. 
    
For example:  What if  we lived our life out of our God given potential rather than human generated fear?  After all, potential is God’s gift to us.  Making the most of it is our gift back to God.  

What if we measured spiritual growth and faith  in someone not by keeping score of their sin, failures, and shortcomings or  by tracking how well they follow the  do’s and don’ts of religion and its institutions,  but rather by being Jesus to each other? 

What if we approached every day as if the victory has already been won at Calvary’s cross, (because it has) rather than fearing we just might lose?    

What if we could reimagine what community, success, wisdom, love, and neighbor could look like or sound like?  Too much to ask for?  Too big?  Too lofty?  Too rainbowy, warm fuzzies, and pixie dust wishful thinking?   Really?  Cause have you ever wondered what if Moses’ mother hadn’t saved him by floating him down the river for Pharaoh's daughter to find?  What if David’s sling slipped and he missed Goliath’s forehead?  What if Esther refused, had not prayed and fasted, thereby finding favor, thus saving the Jewish people from genocide?  What if Joseph and Mary had not heeded the angel’s warning to flee Bethlehem before Herod’s henchmen showed up? What if those first followers of Jesus gave up, quit, or walked away when things didn’t make sense, when they were afraid, or when everything around them was in turmoil, falling apart, or  being undermined and destroyed?

When it comes to the eighth chapter of Romans, “even wordsmiths are at a loss for words. Not many adjectives can do justice to its mystery and majesty”.  One theologian calls it the “Great Eight.”  Martin Luther called it, “the clearest gospel of them all”.  William Tyndale, who was martyred for translating the Bible into English, called it, “the most excellent part of the New Testament”  (Mark Batterson, If page 15)

Why “The If Chapter?”  Because in the midst of the action, adventure, story line, subplot, and even a few special effects, the hinge on which everything turns is the “if” statement in verse 31b or the second half of the verse.  

All that stands between so much of our current political, economical, racial, environmental, and cultural situations and a unified, acceptable, doable, workable, and sustainable solution is one little if.  What if we would truly listen to one another?  What if we treated one another as people and not labels?  What if we recognized and admitted when we were wrong and grew from it?  All that stands between your current circumstances and your wildest possibility, dream, and God potential, is one little if.  What if I took a chance?  What if I could do it?  

If you believe with every ounce of muscle, bone, and fiber of your being that God is for you, then you have nothing to fear; the sky's the limit for your God given potential and how you live out your faith in word and deed.  AND you have much to offer the rest of us.  

If however,  hidden behind or just below the surface of that good job, nice house, big smile, perfect pet, and manicured lawn,  you doubt God’s love and good intentions, such doubt will surface in a thousand forms of fear.

Those early followers knew fear.  They carried the task of spreading the Jesus message to the known world at the time.  They were confronted with uncertainty, disappointment, and failure.  They knew hardship, struggle, and heartache.  They faced cultural challenges, political assumptions, and government expectations.  They questioned God’s purpose and Jesus’ call on their lives and how they were to live.  Paul knew what they were facing and said: yep, it’s a long haul, a tough road, uncertain at times AND God is with you through it all. Period.  God was, is, and will be with you.  Jesus was, is, and will see you through.  Period. That is Paul’s great reminder and truth of chapter 8. 

If God is for us dear church (and God is), there is no room for fear, only faith, hope, and love.   And our communities, our families, friends, colleagues, neighbors - our world could use a little faith, hope, and love right now.  

Thanks be to God and may it be so, amen. 

Pastor Jenothy Irvine

What does it mean to be free?  Is it a state of mind?  Is it physical in nature? Is it more mental or emotional?  Is there a psychological component?  What does a heart set free look like?  Free from bondage.  Free from addiction.  Financially free.  Debt free.  Culturally free.  Free from responsibility.  Free from addiction or abuse. Free from the past.  Free to be yourself.  Free from worry and doubt.  In the church when we speak of being free, we often mean free from sin and guilt and we understand that to mean, we are set free in Christ.  It is difficult to know who is free and who is not.  

A person can follow all the rules, do all the right things, say all the right things, and go through all the right motions, and yet NOT be free in their heart.  A person can live in the right neighborhood, have a good job, drive the right kind of car, have the right friends, and yet, NOT be free in their heart.  

As Jesus followers we are called, named, identified as the church.  As such we were given, by Jesus, a model to live by; a way to be community.  We were given a promise, first by God and then, fulfilled by Jesus, that we would become the family of God.  That we would find our true freedom in Christ.

Here’s the thing though - from the early church, some followers came to believe it was all about rules, regulations, and certain ways or practices.  They loved God and followed Jesus with as much passion and conviction as anyone else but they clung to the rituals more than the cross.  This caused problems in the church.  This still causes problems in the church today. 

Paul is going after the pious followers of Jesus who measure their salvation and freedom in Christ by whether or not they, or anyone else who claims to be a follower, are adhering to the strict Jewish code of circumcision.  This was considered to be the mark of the true people of Israel, the true people of God.

Paul sends this letter as a reminder that Jesus fulfilled the code of law or the code of God; Jesus completed the promise of God given to their ancestors Abraham and Sarah, and passed on through people like Moses, David, Joshua, Esther, Ruth, and all the way to Mary and Joseph.  

Freedom was now found in Christ and Christ alone.  Jesus set us free from the bondage of sin and from being held captive to destructive, hurtful behavior toward ourselves and one another.  Jesus came to make us free from those things that imprison our ability and shackle our potential as people of God.  Jesus came to free the marginalized and invisible in society from oppression, We are to live by God’s way given to us through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, and not by our human nature.  

When we live out of a place of human nature / human desire, we seek things like power, control, authority, division, and …. That was not the promise given, nor the promise we are to keep.  That is not who we are designed to be.  That is not our original goodness created by God.  

When we live out of place of the Holy Spirit, we seek things like shared authority, equality, compassion, empathy, unity, and we find ways to build true communities across social, cultural, racial, sexual, and political lines.

How do we do it?  How do we live the kind of life Paul is talking about and Jesus died for?  How do we keep the promise and be the people of God?  Paul makes it quite clear (as did Jesus before him in response to the Pharisees' question of the greatest commandment): Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.  It doesn’t get much simpler than that church. 

There are a lot of promises being spouted out right now in our country; from all sides and angles of the political arena.  There are a lot of promises being made regarding what is and what is not the truth of Covid19.  There are a lot of promises being put out there for us to decide what is and what is not true; what is and what is not who we are to be, and how we are to live. 

There is only one promise ever given that remains as true today as it was when it was first spoken - “I will be your God and you will be my people.”  It’s that second part that is the promise we must learn and strive to keep. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Live that promise church, and you will live free, regardless of what is going on around you.  Live that promise and you will live with purpose and intention regardless of what promises around you are being spoken, unspoken, broken or manipulated. 

​Pastor Jenothy Irvine

​In the ancient world, most people would have known all too well what a cross was about. They would have known, for example, what the apostle Paul was saying when he spoke of crucifixion. Indeed, earlier Paul in Galatians Paul had reminded the Churches in Galatia of how he had been crucified with Christ (2:19), and of how it was no longer he who was living, but Christ who was living in him (2:20). It was quite a picture. Paul shared with the Christians in Galatia that Jesus died in public humiliation. It was as if God was drawing a diagram for the whole world to see.

 It reminds me of those many times when I was in high school and the coach of our team would draw up a play at a timeout, only for us to mess it up and fail to follow the instructions! The coach would literally draw us a picture, and then, we would forget it! It was as if we would go back to our old habits! 
         
 Let me ask you: Have you ever been in a situation where you just don’t get something, or you have a difficult time understanding? And someone will say to you, “Do you need me to draw a diagram for you?” And you feel so big!
   
 To bring the point closer to home, “How many diagrams does it take for Christians to understand that Jesus was crucified like a common criminal, and that he died such a death to liberate us from sin and evil? How many pictures does it take for us to understand what Jesus did on the cross to forgive us and reconcile us to God and one another?”

Maybe this is why Martin Luther, the German Protestant Reformer, had the artist Mathias Grunewald paint the picture of Christ crucified, with Luther pointing to it, reminding the church of the gospel. 

Maybe the church always stands in the need of such a reminder, a reminder that Paul had been saying all along: that “We preach Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23).

How big does the diagram of Jesus crucified have to be? How may we think about the promises of God in ways that do not reduce the bigness of Christ's love?

Pastor Andy Kinsey

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I hereby call to order case number G.A.L. 2:15-21 the cultural dispute between Jewish believers and Gentile converts.  Representatives of today’s case are Paul, an apostle and church planter of the early church and Peter, also an apostle and leader of the early church movement.  Gentlemen, you may proceed. 

Your honor and members of the jury, I am the apostle Peter and I represent a long line of Jewish believers, the people of Israel.  This is a simple misunderstanding with a simple solution.  We, as Jewish believers are God’s chosen people, Israel.  Our jewish lineage speaks for itself and as it was written in the Biblical Law, the Torah, the first five books of what is now called the Bible, we are chosen by God to God’s purpose and we live that purpose by holding to a strict code of behavior, beliefs, and expectations.  That is how we ensure our place as God’s chosen.  That is how we are set apart and marked for God’s goodness.  

Your honor and members of the jury, if I may.  Paul here - This is not a simple misunderstanding between two cultural groups with various backgrounds and religious experience.  This is one group deciding for and over another who is in and who is out; who is more and who is less.  The misunderstanding is not about groups, biblical law, or how much one does to follow the law.  The issue is failure to understand the very essence of why God, through Jesus came, walked among us, taught us, and changed the world.  My colleague Peter seems to have forgotten that.   And how dare he speak in such a way that excludes the very people Jesus made a way for - the very people society tends to ignore. He is undermining the very work we started and established in the early church.  He is allowing division to creep in and destroy what was planted here in Galatia.  

It is no longer about the Biblical Law.  It is no longer about holding on to every dot and tittle of the Torah.  Jesus was the fulfillment of that law, all of it in every way.  There is nothing we can do to earn our way into God’s favor; no rule, code, task, achievement, or accomplishment that will obtain or secure our place with God.  Through Jesus Christ, we are one body, one church, one fellowship.  We are marked by a promise of faith. 

It’s called grace and it is the reason Jesus came when he came, taught what he taught, died when he died, and rose when he rose.  It is not about insiders and outsiders.  It is not about being separated by and for God, it is and has always been about bringing all God’s people back to God - and Jesus did that by being the fulfillment of the biblical law and sacrificing his own life for ours and those to follow. 

Thank you gentlemen that will be all.  We will take a short recess to allow the jury to deliberate.  As you do however, I ask the jury to consider the following…On the surface, Galatians chapter two seems to be centered on the question of whether Jewish and Gentile Christians should eat at the same table - should they share what was called an agape meal together at one table.  The heart of matter however, is much deeper.  The heart of the matter is not who sits at the table, the heart of the matter is the question: who is God’s true Israel? (N.T. Wright)  Who is the ultimate insider?  Who are the true people of God? 

Peter declared it was those whom God chose from the beginning; those who followed the biblical law of Moses and held to the teachings therein.  Paul focusses his answer on the most basic point of all.  God’s true Israel consists of one person:  Jesus / the Messiah.  He is the faithful one.  He is the true Israelite.  The question then becomes: who belongs to  Jesus?  How is that identity expressed?  How is one’s promise of faith lived out? 

For Paul, the answer is related to God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, when they couldn’t have children and God told them they would have children upon children; so many, it would outnumber the grains of sand or the stars in the sky.  That promise was and is fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah; The promise that God would create a single worldwide family whose identity marker would be their faith - living a Christ-like faith - living, serving, growing together, caring together in community. 

In order for you, the jury, to unpack all that is embedded in this text it is critical to keep in mind three questions:  Who set’s things right?  What role has Jesus played in setting things right? What does the character and truth of life with Jesus look like (regardless of race, gender, political party, work experience, sexual orientation, the size of your paycheck, cultural background, educational level, or religious heritage)?  (NIB Vol XI)

In the life of those who believe in God and claim Jesus as Messiah and Lord, the answer to who sets things right is God.  God is the one to rectify; put things in order, and make right that which has gone awry.  God rectifies his people by coming to their rescue and instituting right order in a world gone wrong.  How God does this - leads to question two.

What role has Jesus played?  Paul states that we are made right, set in order, brought back into a right relationship through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  It is not through the strength or purity of our own work ethic or ability to follow all the rules.  We do not rectify our relationship with God through our works alone but we are made right through the faithful act of Jesus who gave his life for ours.  His promise of faith gave us ours.   

What Jesus has done for us is not merely to enable us to believe and thereby find individual forgiveness of sins.  His promise of faith, created a whole new world and liberated us from powers that once held us captive.  (i.e. powers that kept us separated one from another; powers that divided rather than united, powers that oppressed rather than built up.)  You cannot reach a verdict in this case without recognizing the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and how that in and of itself put to death the old regime (old way of biblical law) and inaugurated a new creation.

Third and final question you, the jury, must wrestle with is this: What does the character and truth of a life with and for Jesus look like?  What does a promise of faith look like?  Paul tells us that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  We read in other New Testament writings Jesus’ words, “you abide in me and I abide in you.”  In other words, when you say yes to Jesus, it is by divine mystery that God’s Holy Spirit manifests itself in your life through your character, not your list of great works.  

The character and truth of a life in Jesus looks like a life transformed - a life lived and given as an instrument of God’s reconciling love; a life lived as a vessel of God’s restoring love.   A life of trust - not always knowing the answer or outcome, but trusting God is working for good in all things; God is with us no matter how messy or ugly life gets.  How can you be an instrument of God’s reconciling love and be divided believers; a divided church, denomination, organization or community?  How can you be an instrument of restoring God’s people when you or oppress others, or hate someone because of their skin color,  who they love, who they vote for, where they live, or whether they have a job or not?  

Jury, you have perhaps the most significant decision of your life to make.  You are not only deciding for yourself but for believers everywhere - the way you live your life reveals what, how, and who the church will be.  The way you live your life, give of yourself and your resources, reveals your decision.   Your decision will impact the world.   

In today’s society I don’t have to tell you the lines of division among believers are still there.  The struggle to be the true people of God remains. Perhaps your decision will bring us that much closer to what God had in mind all along.  

We are adjourned.   Amen
Pastor Jenothy Irvine

Commentary and insights adapted from N.T. Wright’s Paul for Everyone, The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. XI, and William Barclay’s DBS Commentary on Galatians. 

Over the next few weeks, we want to explore what it means to live as a “people of promise,” or as those who promise to live out their faith in mission to others. We want to find out what it means to make a promise and keep it, and trust God to provide for it, not just with respect to our Faith-Promise campaign, but with our lives.

For what Faith-Promise is all about is taking God at God’s word and trusting God to provide. It is about risking God’s generosity or God’s abundance, and saying to God, “Okay, God, I am going to step out in faith and I am going to allow you to lead me, to see the fruit of the Spirit grow in my life. I am going to risk God’s generosity, and I am going to learn and discover how there is always more to God, always love in excess.”

For all the “giving” we seek to have and all the forms of ministry and mission we seek to carry out – are about living out the assumption of that abundance: that we live in and out of God’s abundant, triune life. It is why we say that we cannot possibly out-give God; we can’t! We learn this truth by trusting God, by having faith in God: that God is always good to God’s promise, even during the most desperate of circumstances, even during pandemics and unrest (Genesis 22:1-19)! 

What did Bishop White used to say to us? God is good! All the time. All the time, God is good! 

God is good to the promise, from beginning to end. Just as God was good to Noah after the flood (Genesis 9). Just as God was good to Moses and Miriam in the exodus (Exodus 5:22ff). Just as God was good to the prophet Isaiah who proclaimed “there would come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch would grow from that root” (11:1).

Just as God will be good to you, good to us. God will be good to God’s promise!

How may we understand the promises of God being fulfilled or carried out in our lives? How may we receive God’s grace of abundant life? 
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

The whole setting in Nehemiah 9 is one of collective remorse, with Nehemiah and Ezra leading the people to acknowledge the corporate nature of the nation’s sin on the one hand and the generational effects of that sin on the other. The whole gathering is about the way the whole nation has missed the mark, and how it can get back on track.

It happens to be a very familiar biblical scene, with sackcloth and fasting, with ashes on the forehead, and with confession of sin, similar to what we share on Ash Wednesday, or on what we read in the prophets like Jeremiah and Joel, or Jonah and Isaiah. There is a “going back” to basics, and there is a deep recognition that the future needs to be better than the past.

This is part of the reason, we think, the people pulled out the book of the Law, probably the book of Deuteronomy, as it is in Deuteronomy that Israel learns to confess the basics of its faith and remembers its identity and purpose: The Shema – or, Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. It is very similar to what we hear in Nehemiah where Israel blesses God and devotes its life to God (Nehemiah 9:5): remembering all that God has done for the people – in calling Abraham and Sarah, in leading Moses and Miriam, in making covenant at Sinai, and in settling in the Land, and then in rebelling against God and forgetting God’s ways.

All of that is in Nehemiah, and it is a reminder about what “matters” most, or about putting “first things first.” Nehemiah slows down long enough to lead the people in the direction of honoring God and then sharing in the goodness of God with others.

Again, this is confession, and like all confession, it requires humility: which says, “Hey, I am not in control, but I will continue trust God.” A confession, which says, “Hey, I am going to make mistakes, and I have made mistakes” but which relies on God’s forgiving grace and keeps an open heart. A confession, which says, “Hey, I am part of something much bigger here, and I cannot always see the whole, so I know I need patience to understand.” A confession is not an attempt to beat ourselves up with guilt and shame. No, a confession is God’s invitation to us to recognize how we all depend on God in the first place and to remember that if we forget what matters most we need to realign ourselves with God, to turn to God. I believe that it is what Jesus meant when he said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God!”

How may we continue to put first things first? How do we place our priorities in perspective? How is God calling us to share in God’s life?
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

It was the New Testament theologian, William Barclay, who once said, “We live in a world of broken hearts.” Indeed, at this moment in time, it is overwhelming the amount of news and information that speaks of such brokenness. And it is discouraging! It is discouraging going on social media, for example, and it is discouraging hearing what we can say and do to each other. We can easily feel frustrated.

But here’s the deal: we don’t need to let such discouragement or frustration win. We have alternatives as Christians: we have the Gospel! We have gifts like faith, hope, and love. And we have treasures like Holy Communion and Baptism. We have the fruit of the Spirit to bear like joy and patience and kindness and self-control. And we have a God who is for us and not against us. We worship a God who, in Christ, raises us up from the pits of discouragement and who promises to execute justice against those who deny justice to others, especially among the most vulnerable (as justice belongs to the Lord).    

Nehemiah depends on this truth, even as he tries to continue the work amidst all the challenges of rebuilding – letting God provide the resources and allowing God to have God’s way! For in the end that is the only Way that matters! In time, God will have God’s way: not in death, but in life. Not despair, but forgiveness. Not threats, but promises. That’s Gospel! That’s the Way!

So dear church: please know there is another Way: There is another alternative!

So let the building continue! Let it continue! Even now!
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

It was June 2008 when I arrived in Franklin, Indiana.  The streets were covered with streaks of mud.  The banks of the creek through town were a tangled mess of grass, weeds, tree trunks, trash, and in some places, picnic tables, lawn chairs, and yard decor.  Sidewalks in front of apartment buildings, store fronts, and houses were piled with furniture, moldy mattresses, ruined merchandise, and destroyed appliances. Water lines still etched the sides of buildings, bridges, and telephone poles.  The parks looked like washed out desert wadis.  Cars sat half buried in mud.  And the summer crops were decimated in most places.  
    
It was two weeks after the flood waters had finally receded enough for people to see the damage, assess what had to be done, sort through what could be kept, decide what had to be tossed; discern what could be repaired or salvaged, and determine what was a complete loss.  
    
It was devastating, and I didn’t even live here.  I didn’t grow up going to the Artcraft theater, or taking laps around the courthouse square.  I didn’t spend my summers at the pool or playing in the parks. I didn’t count on the corn or soybean crop for my livelihood.   I didn’t have friends who lived next to the creek, whose foundation shifted from the force of the water.  I didn’t have family buried in the cemetery along 31 where headstones were washed away. 

It was reported that no corner of Johnson County was left untouched by flooding that summer!  It didn’t take long to realize it was going to take weeks, months, even years to recover.  AND it was evident no one was going to be able to recover, restore, or rebuild on their own.  It was going to take teamwork.  It was going to take organizing, planning, resourcing, time, energy, and a willingness of folks to work together for the good of the whole. 
    
If there is anyone who knows what it takes to rebuild, restore, and repair something, it is Nehemiah.  I challenge you to consider what else was being rebuilt, repaired, or restored under the leadership of Nehemiah and according to the promise of God. 

What if Nehemiah wasn’t just rebuilding a wall? What if God was using Nehemiah to rebuild, restore, and repair the identity of the people of God - the followers who were exiled and whose history was long forgotten by many?  What if God was using Nehemiah to rebuild, restore, and repair the sense of security and community?  What if God was using Nehemiah to rebuild, restore, and repair broken systems and relationships?

What if God is using Nehemiah to remind, retell, reclaim, rebuild, restore, and repair our sense of community, severed relationships, a fractured culture, or dysfunctional systems?  
It wasn’t simply the physical walls of Jerusalem that were destroyed, dismantled, or torn apart, it was the people, relationships, and community identity as well.  It wasn’t only the wall that was reduced to rubble in some places, it was the way people, groups, families, and systems were divided, isolated, and severed from one another and from God. 

God used Nehemiah to rebuild people just as much as that wall.  

Could it be the same for us today?  Are we in need of being made stronger?  Is our society in need of repair?  Are their groups within our society in need of restoration?

Long before this pandemic the answer was yes.  Long before wearing a mask became a political statement the answer was yes.  Long before we let things fall apart this much, the answer was yes.  This is not the worst situation humanity has faced and it will not be the last of what humanity has to struggle through.  This is not the first clash of power or political divisiveness and it will not be the last.  

BUT this can be our Nehemiah moment.  It is our moment to stand in the rubble, take inventory, no matter how painful it is to look at, no matter how vulnerable we need to be, and decide to repair what has been broken, rebuild what has been destroyed, and restore what has been neglected or ignored.  

This can be our moment to make strong, fortify, and build our connection to first of all God, and then to one another.  And by one another I mean it’s time to recognize, listen to, and work alongside those we don’t always agree with; those who we have been taught to fear, demonize, and hate; those who have been taught to fear, demonize and hate us; those we would rather leave to work on the other side of the wall; their side, not our side. 

Come on church - come on people of God, we can do better.  We can be better.

I think part of the lesson for us in Nehemiah 3 is the realization is nothing gets repaired, rebuilt, restored in and of itself.  From the rubble of our lives, the crumbling of any given situation, or the decline of our society, government, or whatever, we cannot rise alone; we cannot be a community of one. It takes courage, compassion, and cooperation to rebuild, repair, or restore what God has gifted us.  One stone, one person, on prayer at a time and it takes all of us.  All means all.

AMEN

​Pastor Jenothy Irvine

During this time in history I believe that it is important to understand the difference between God’s time and our time.

As a person who does not always practice patience, I think I can speak with some sense of confidence that I do not like to wait on God, or anyone else for that matter. Indeed, when God inspects my own heart, I am sure God sees a great deal of impatience. And yet, I have come to recognize over time that God’s timing is typically, well, on time, the right time!

As Paul says in Galatians: “When the time was right, God sent his own son” (Galatians 4:3). God does not operate on our timetable. God operates on God’s timetable. In other words, if we try to get too far ahead of God, we find ourselves out on a limb, and we can miss what God is doing. It is why we all need to develop, during this time, what I want to call “wild patience,” and rightfully so! After all, it is the tortoise that usually wins!

Maybe this is what God laid on Nehemiah’s heart when we was inspecting the walls at night (2:12). Nehemiah was coming to grips with how long this was going to take to rebuild. He was coming to realize how he was going to need the support of the people, the priests, and the governors, on the one hand, and, above all, God, on the other! He was realizing just how big the project was going to be! He was going to need to be prepared. 

Indeed, one of the things I believe we need to understand during this season of our lives, when our timetables seem out of sync with all kinds of things – is how God does not look down upon good preparation. There are things we need to be doing in any community, or any church, or in any family, that are part of the basics, that are about foundational matters.

It is why I believe that Nehemiah provides an example of how we may proceed into the future. Nehemiah has the patience to allow God to inspect his own heart and to look to God for strength and wisdom.
 
How may we realize what God is building in us? Our character? Our lives? Our families? 
 
Pastor Andy Kinsey