rebuilders // restorers
Two weeks ago, Cornerstone was privileged to have Matt Dean bring a message that God had been preparing on his heart for at least year. Matt knew that God was at work teaching him new things and growing him, but unaware at how that message would fit into the sermon series we would be going through this summer. His message was from Nehemiah chapter four and the opposition that Nehemiah and the people of Israel faced as they pressed forward in the vision of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem and restoring not only a city, but of a nation, a people specifically called by God. Matt spoke out of recognition of his brokenness before a God who loves him. And, without a doubt, you can see and hear the call of God on Matt’s life to be a rebuilder and restorer in Hong Kong where he and his family now live.
As Matt wrapped up his message two weeks ago, he asked, “What/where is God calling you to be a rebuilder, a restorer of hearts and minds and souls?” I’m pretty sure these weren’t his specific words, but it was something like that. The questions resonated in me and struck down in the deep places of me. Everywhere I’ve been over the past two weeks and everywhere I look and as we plan for the fall and the future at Cornerstone, I keep thinking about that question. What is God calling me/us to rebuild? What is he calling us to restore? Where are the people groups that need us to be the bringers of hope for the first time in generations or ever? What is my marriage needs to be rebuilt or restored? What friendship needs my attention and repair?
This question is haunting me because I know that one of the central themes of Scripture is that we are called to be the “Repairers of Broken Walls, and Restorers of Streets of Dwellings.” Not “makers of money and owners of the coolest things.” Outward-focused and other-minded, not inward-centered and personal gain driven.
2 Corinthians 5.16-21, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
