Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What makes someone a good "rebuilder"? What tools and skills do I need to be a good rebuilder? Pastor Tom Holladay shares from the book of Isaiah the skills needed to be, not just a rebuilder, but a great rebuilder.
CATCHING UP/LOOKING AHEAD
CATCHING UP/LOOKING AHEAD
- Ask if anyone had a victory in the face of the opposition we inevitably face as we put things together again.
- What God-given successes are you most grateful for?
KEY VERSE
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.
When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
Creators & Guests
Host
Tom Holladay
Tom Holladay is a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Tom’s passion in ministry is to help people discover a love for the Bible and an understanding of God’s truth that changes the way they live. In addition to his pastoral leadership and weekend teaching ministries at Saddleback, he assists Rick Warren in teaching Purpose-Driven Church conferences to Christian leaders all over the world. Books he has written include The Relationship Principles of Jesus, Love Powered Parenting with his wife Chaundel and (with Kay Warren) Foundations: Core Truths to Build Your Life On. He and Chaundel have three children and five granddaughters.
What is Putting It Together Again When It's All Fallen Apart: Saddleback Small Group Series?
Life crises can throw you into a tailspin, a lost job, a failed relationship, a struggling business, a financial mess. Where do you start? How do you pull it together? How do you begin again? Tom Holladay experienced a catastrophe first-hand when a sudden flood in California destroyed his home, his church, and the homes of many church members. Tom and his congregation had to rebuild, and they used the principles in the book of Nehemiah to get back on their feet. Now a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, Tom will help you discover seven principles for putting it together again that will give you the direction you need to get rolling on that fresh start. Holladay will walk you through seeing every problem as an opportunity, facing the obstacles head on and taking your first step, knowing how to expect and reject opposition, build on your success, and dedicating yourself to the One who rebuilds our souls. The task of starting again can seem impossible. And sometimes you just need to rebuild your confidence and regain a sense of purpose. If you're trying to find the emotional energy, but you just don't have it in you, let Tom Holladay encourage you. He understands how difficult and rewarding the business of rebuilding is.
Download the study guide with each episode. And of course, check out the book "Putting It Together Again When It's All Fallen Apart" by Tom Holladay on Amazon or your favorite bookstore.
Welcome back for our fifth session of the video studies that go along with putting it together again after it's all falling apart. My hope and prayer by this time is that in your group you've gotten to know each other a little bit. You're encouraging each other. God's using you in each other's lives either through this study or maybe for the first time. Or maybe again. Uh. After many times of you being together as a group. Where this week going to take a look together at one of the keys to being able to be a good rebuilder. If you've built or rebuilt anything, you know, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago from the Book of Isaiah, you have to have resources, but you also have to have skills. You have to know how to take the resources that God has given and use skills to put those together. You got to have things to build with and then you have to have the skills that you use in building with those things. We talked a couple of weeks ago about the resources that we have to build with things like confidence and guidance and abundance. This week we're going to look for the Book of Isaiah at some skills, some specific skills that God wants to give. We talked about skills this week as we looked at how you organize your successes. Well, Isaiah re emphasizes some of those skills and brings in some new skills. And what I like to do is actually take a look at just one verse from the Book of Isaiah that talks about four specific skills. You find them all in this one verse. Isaiah, chapter 58, verse twelve, says this. Let's take a close look at this verse. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age old foundations. You will be called repairer of Broken walls, restorer of Streets with Dwellings. So in this one verse, he talks about four specific things, skills that we need in rebuilding. Number one, he says you got to value the ruins if you're going to rebuild. One of the skills you need is a skill to value the ruins. He says your people will rebuild the ancient ruins. They would see the ruins of the city. They would value those ruins in such a way that they didn't just give up on them, but they decided to rebuild out of them. They'd not only cry over what had been, they'd also value what it could become. That's one of the skills of rebuilders. If you're rebuilding in your life, it means something has been lost and you can spend the rest of your life looking at what's been lost and just see the ruins. Or you can value the ruins and begin to see how God might want to rebuild. Even out of that. You're not going to rebuild unless you value the ruins out of which God wants to rebuild. You'll just see them as ruins. You'll just see them as rubble. But once you start to value them, um, you see how God might want to rebuild that business or rebuild out of that disaster, or rebuild out of the ruins of a relationship that you value that relationship still. So that relationship with your son or your daughter, god wants to rebuild because you value, you continue to value that relationship. I'm so glad that for me, for all of us, jesus Christ valued the ruins of our lives. Without Him, our sins scarred lives. Instead of just saying they're lost, forget it. He came, he died on a cross. He valued us even when we were still apart from Him. He valued us in such a way that he brought us back to Him. So you start by valuing the ruins. That's the first skill. The second skill is you find the foundations. You find the foundations you raise up, as it says in Isaiah, the age old foundations. Because when it comes to rebuilding, foundations are invaluable. You got to have a good foundation. I remember a number of years ago, sean Dell, my wife, and I were looking at a house maybe to buy. And I noticed that one side of the house seemed to like lean a little bit. So we went underneath to look at the foundation and it was actually built on these stacks of bricks, these shaky stacks of bricks. There's no way we're going to buy that house. It didn't have a good foundation. But if you do have a good foundation, then even when the house doesn't look that great, maybe up above you've got something to build on. How do you know if something should be rebuilt? You look at the foundation. If you see that there's a good foundation to build on, than it should be rebuilt and rebuilders. They have a knack for finding the foundations, the foundations that are worth building on. In a relationship, in a church, in a business, in your finances, you find the good things, the foundational things, and you build on those. That's the second key. Third key that we learned from Isaiah is this third key is you repair what is broken. Repair the broken. The phrase he uses here is you will be called a repairer of broken walls. So you got to fix, you got to repair what's broken. You know that old phrase, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We've got a new phrase now. If it is broke, don't fix it. Just buy it from Amazon. Why should I fix it if I can get it in two days? So I just order it and there it is, it's on my doorstep. In order to rebuild, you have to value the repair of the valuable things that are in your life, of that relationship, of what got started, and realize the value of it. Sometimes we're in too much of a disposable society. All of our things are becoming more and more disposable. Water bottles, diapers, cameras, utensils, they're all disposable. And the problem with that is sometimes it can cause us to begin to think that other things, valuable things, are just as disposable when they're not. The ways that God has worked in your life in the past, the ways he has built something in your life, the relationships that have been built into your life, those are not simply disposable and repairers. Understand that you need to rebuild the broken places, broken walls and broken people, and broken marriages, and broken churches, and broken dreams, and broken visions, and broken commitments, and broken plans, and broken parents, and broken children, and broken hearts and broken lives. God wants to rebuild and all those broken places. And if you're going to be a rebuilder, you realize that the places where you feel the most broken sometimes are the places where God shows up in his greatest power. God works in our lives in those broken places. God wants to repair what's broken. So to rebuild, you value the ruins, you find the foundations, you repair the broken. And then you do a fourth thing. Isaiah teaches us you restore the purpose. You have to restore the purpose because that's why you're rebuilding the restore. He says, of streets with dwellings. So we're going to rebuild the city and you're going to restore streets with dwellings. Why restore just to have streets with? Nobody living on those streets? No, there's going to be dwellings on those streets. People are going to be living there, children are going to be laughing there, families are going to grow up here. That's what you're going to restore. God's purpose is going to again be seen in this place. The purpose was to have a city for people to live in, not just to rebuild the streets, but to have dwellings there. So when you think about rebuilding, one of the skills is always looking at what is God's purpose? Rebuilders. Restore the usefulness. And the usefulness in anything is God's purpose. That's where I'm used. That's where you're used is God's purpose in that thing. You restore the usefulness not just to make people feel better or make yourself feel better, that you accomplished a project. You restore the usefulness because God has a purpose. You trust God to restore his purpose? That's what it takes to be a rebuilder. Never forget that whatever God restores, he restores for a purpose. And that purpose is going to bring glory to Him. It's even greater than you and I. God's purpose is to bring about a restoration of that relationship or of that building or of that business in your life. But as he restores it, never forget that he's doing that in a way that brings Him even greater glory. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for these words from Isaiah and every one of us. We want to be better at this. We want to participate with you we want to partner with you and follow you and let your leadership guide us in whatever needs to be rebuilt. So, God, give us this kind of skill. Help us to see those places where rebuilding can happen, where even though there are ruins, something's been lost. You want to do something. Even though it feels like things have all fallen apart, there's still a foundation. Help us to be the kind of people who repair what's broken, who restore your purpose so that you could be glorified, God, so you could be seen as the God who can work in any and every circumstance. So much of our lives are broken, but, God, that doesn't mean we have to give up. So right now, we look to you in hope. We look to you in Jesus name. Amen.