Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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I’m sure by now you’ve heard a lot about this year’s Bridge the Gap effort. We’re raising funds to help families in the Nokomis area with much needed repairs in and around their homes. We’ll be doing things like patching roofs, weatherizing windows, and building wheelchair ramps. And we’re going to need a lot of volunteers to make this possible. What an awesome way to be the hands and feet of Jesus. So I hope many of you will step up to help families in our area. But have you thought about how this project can impact your own life? Your own soul?

Read Isaiah 58:9-12

Homes wear down for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes lack of funds, sometimes lack of manpower, sometimes just by accident. I had a friend back in college who was cutting grass for an elderly woman, and he was burning the grass clippings afterward, and the fire spread and burnt the woman’s house down. That’s a pretty big accident! My friend said he felt pretty bad about it. I’d say so! I know we’ve had some homes damaged in our area by fire. In fact, just a couple weeks ago a home caught fire just around the corner from where I live. Fire can be devastating.

But have you ever seen a forest grow back after a fire? It’s amazing how fast nature bounces back. Just days after many forest fires, the forest already begins to grow back because the heat from the fire caused pine cones, nuts, and other seeds to pop open, and they begin to grow sometimes within the same season as the fire. By the next year, there’s often a field of green, and within just a few short years, we start to see large bushes and trees popping up. Although it can take several decades for the forest to resemble what it used to, the healing process begins almost immediately after the fire. Now, we all know that houses don’t bounce back on their own, but just as God restores forests, God can use men and women of faith to rebuild the broken and worn down in our community.

I love the imagery used in these verses to described the restoration of beauty out of ruin. The end of verse 10 says, “then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.” Verse 11 talks about how God will “satisfy your desire in scorched places” and He will “make your bones strong” and you’ll “be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Then verse 12 paints this vivid picture of how our “ancient ruins shall be rebuilt.”

This is exactly what we’re doing with Extreme Makeover: Nokomis Edition. We’re rebuilding the ancient ruins. We’re going into homes that need repairs, places that are maybe falling apart, and healing those places. Rebuilding those places. And this is a much needed ministry. But I want to be clear that the most needed healing doesn’t happen on homes, or in cities, or even in physical places, but on souls. And as we seek to help people with their homes, we want more than anything to point them to the only one who can rebuild the ancient ruins of their souls. The truth of the matter is, without Christ, we’re all falling apart. We’re separate from God, separate from His love, and dead in our trespasses and sins. We’re unable to please God or truly do good because we’re broken. But with Christ, we’re restored. We’re healed. We’re able to serve God in faith and please Him not because we’re so great, but because the Holy Spirit inside us is powerful and good, and we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. We would be doing our community a huge disservice if all we do is fix up their homes. We also need to share the love of Christ with them, and be clear as to how they can, like their homes, can be restored and healed.

So the first thing they, or any of us, need to do to know God is to cry out to Him (v. 9a). We all need to get to the point that we humble ourselves before God, and recognize that we need Him in our lives. We need to recognize that we can’t save ourselves. We’re sinful people. Only God is perfect, we’re not. And because we’re not perfect, we don’t even deserve to be in God’s presence.

How many of you watched the Nokomis vs. Illini game on Friday? I don’t watch a whole lot of basketball, but I was really impressed with both teams. They gave their all, they played hard, and it was a good game. But you what? Neither team was perfect. Both teams made mistakes. And even though Illini won, they didn’t win because they were perfect. We can’t be perfect. None of us can. Even the greatest people on the earth are imperfect. We’re all disgusting sinners, unworthy of even knowing God.

But when we call out to God in faith, God answers us. He loves us and desires that we know Him. He desires that we have a relationship with Him. God doesn’t want us just to believe in Him, believe that He’s out there somewhere. He wants for us to talk with Him. To cry to Him. And when we do that, He talks back. He answers our cries. He comforts us when we’re in pain. He uses brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us when we’re down. God answers us when we cry out to Him. And the greatest and ultimate example of this is Jesus Christ. Because we’re all sinful, we all need to cry out to God for salvation. And God has already answered our cry. He gave us Jesus, so that if anyone would believe in Him, that person would have eternal life.

Second, notice, too, that when we cry out to Him, God changes how we live (v. 9b-10a). God loves us so much that he wants the very best for us. God doesn’t save us in our sin, but from our sin, so that we might not continue in sin. We have more joy in life when we live life they way it was meant to be lived! We have more joy when we stop putting burdens on others, and stop blaming others, and when we start speaking words of encouragement rather than tearing others down, and when we start giving generously to others just as God gives generously to us.

You know what this is called? It’s called repentance. Repentance is doing a 180 in how we live. Repentance is saying to God and yourself, “I’ve been living this way, going this direction, but now I’m going to go this direction and follow Christ.” It doesn’t mean we never mess up, but that we’re no longer content with the pleasures of this world, and that we’re determined to keep striving to please God. Something like 95% of alcoholics who join AA relapse in their first year. But that doesn’t mean they should give up. No, they go back to another meeting, and start counting their days sober from day one again, because they know it’s worth it. Repentance starts in our desires, and in our determination, out of a love for God because God first loved us, and then it has very real and tangible implications in the way that we live. The Bible is clear that our works don’t save us, only God’s grace saves us, but if we know Christ as Savior, we will work for Him.

God doesn’t save us to sit. He doesn’t save us so that we could come and sit in a church pew once a week for the rest of our lives. God saves us to serve. God desires that you step up and live for Him. For some of you, this might mean volunteering to help out with the Extreme Makeover renovations. For others, this might mean that you became more vocal with your faith in your workplace. For youth or children, it means standing strong in your faith while in school, or when you’re with your friends outside of school. For parents, it means passing your faith along to your children, not just bringing them to church once a week, but teaching them at home, and praying with them, so they can see faith isn’t just something with say we have when we come here. For all of us, it means simply living for God, and allowing Christ to live in us.

Some of you might be hearing all of this this morning and think, “Wow, I’ve had faith for so long, but I haven’t been living for God. Am I truly saved?” I’ll tell you this: it depends on what you do with the gospel. Will you forget it, and go on living however you please, or will you humble yourself before God, and allow the Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out? If you truly believe the gospel, you’ll live differently because of it.

I don’t play the lottery, so let’s say I’m told that I just inherited $10 million, and that it’s in the bank in my name. But after I hear this, I don’t do anything different in my life. I don’t pay off any credit card debt. I don’t buy a new car. I don’t give anything to my favorite charity. I don’t even go to the bank to see the money! Let’s say I lived exactly as I did before. Still worrying about bills. Still scrounging to save for retirement. Still putting off going on that vacation we’ve been saying we would take. Nobody does that! Probably what happened was that I didn’t really believe I inherited $10 million. Uncle Eddie was the one who told me, and you can’t believe a word he says. But if I believed I really inherited $10 million, something in my life would change. I mean, I hope I wouldn’t change too much, but at the very least, I’d buy an extra chocolate chip blizzard from Dairy Queen once a week.

Has the gospel changed your life? Let God rebuild the ancient ruins of your own soul. Cry out to him in faith and repentance, and watch Him transform you into someone who glorifies Him in your whole being.