Brick by Brick - Rebuilding foundation

Whenever you rebuild something, you first assess the damage. But when your walls are down, .

We know the frustration of taking a wrong turn and going off track. It happens, even in our spiritual lives; but, thankfully, we can turn back, and rebuild what matters. The Israelite remnant that returned from exile to the Promised Land rebuilt their walls brick by brick.

Rebuilding what matters.

1. It’s time to Rebuild! Most of us had some unhealthy things happening in our lives, and the pandemic gave us a chance to reset. Some of us are thriving as we reinvented ourselves, started new businesses, made career changes, and reconstructed our faith in healthy ways

A. Rebuilding Blocks for Today:

Rev 21:5 “And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.””

What are some things that got reset in your life in the past few years?

Ps 51:10-13 “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.”

Were they positive or negative?

What are some things you need to reset in this next season?

B. When you are truly rebuilt, God regularly takes you out of your comfort zone to help others rebuild

C.In our rebuilding process, we will find ourselves in situations where we are totally inexperienced. God loves to do that. When we find ourselves in those positions, we can no longer rely on what we know and what we have done, but we have to lean on him and be open to learning new skills.

D. Holy spirit spoke this to me this past week and He said Son I invite my children into impossible situations so that I can show them the possible

Matt 19:26 “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.””

Builders surround themselves around skilled builders who know how to get the job done

2. Renew your Church

Acts 2:42 says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and the fellowship, and the breaking of the bread, and the prayers" and so on.

A. In this passage from Acts 2 the first mark that Luke gives us of that early renewed and Spirit-filled church is that it was a learning church. It was a studying church. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. That's exceedingly significant. One might say that the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day. Jesus had appointed the apostles as the teachers in the school, and there were no fewer than 3,000 pupils in kindergarten. It was a remarkable situation. These Spirit-filled converts were not enjoying some mystical experience which led them to neglect their intellect or to despise theology or to stop thinking. On the contrary, they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles. Moreover they didn't imagine that the Holy Spirit was the only teacher they needed and could dispense with human teachers. Not at all. They sat at the apostles' feet. They acknowledged that Jesus had appointed the apostles as the teachers of the church, and they submitted to their authority, authenticated to them by miracles.

B. A caring church

Second, a renewed church is a caring church, a loving church, a supportive church. Its members love and care for one another. If the first mark of a renewed church is study, the second is fellowship. "They devoted themselves to … the fellowship." That's the Greek word koinonia. It comes from the adjective koinos that means "common." Koinonia bears witness to what we have in common and what we share as Christian men and women and young people. It bears witness to two complementary truths.

First, koinonia expresses what we share in together, what we have received together, what we participate in together. That is the grace of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So the apostle John, at the beginning of his first letter, says, "Our fellowship [koinonia] is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." The apostle Paul adds the phrase "the fellowship of the Spirit." So authentic fellowship is Trinitarian fellowship. It is our common participation in the grace and the life and the mercy of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We come from different nations, denominations, and cultures, but we are unified by our common share in the grace of God.

But koinonia also bears witness to what we share outward together—not only what we receive together, but what we give together. Koinonia is the word that Paul uses of the collection that he was organizing from the Greek churches for the benefit of the poverty-stricken churches in Judea. And koinonikos, the adjective, means "generous." So it is on this that Luke lays his emphasis in our text.

C. A worshiping church

a. Third, a renewed church worships together. Continuing in verse 42: "They devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread and the prayers." Luke uses the definite article in both cases. The breaking of the bread is evidently the Lord's Supper, though with a fellowship meal thrown in as well. "The prayers" means prayer meetings and prayer services. Both phrases refer to Christian worship. What impresses me about the worship of the early church is its balance in two respects.

Formal and informal Firstly, it was both formal and informal; it took place in the temple and in their homes. They continued to attend the prayer services of the temple. I'm sure they wanted to reform them according to the gospel. I'm convinced they didn't continue in the sacrifices of the temple, because they knew they'd been fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ. But they did continue in the prayer services of the temple, which had a degree of formality. So they didn't immediately abandon the institutional church. There is an important lesson here: they supplemented the services in the temple with their own simple, informal, unstructured, spontaneous meetings at home.

3. Reshape your world

“The Kingdom of God is already among you.” Luke 17:21 NLT

Let's talk about why it's essential to adopt a Kingdom mindset and how you can change your perspective by transforming your thoughts.

If your context is wrong, your conclusion will be wrong.

The Church throughout history has fallen short in its mandate to mature and equip the saints with the strategies and principles necessary to bring His Kingdom to earth.

You have the power to reshape your life and redirect your destiny, but you must invest in renewing your mind to make that transformation possible.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:2

B. How do you renew your mind?

Through knowledge of the truth—”by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17)—by immersion in Kingdom-focused teaching and exposure to revelatory wisdom.

The Bible says you have been given everything you need to live in the fullness of all He has provided and accomplish all He has called you to do “through the knowledge of Him” (2 Peter 1:3).

But it is incumbent upon each of you, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23).

Once your paradigm changes, everything changes.

Once you are able to establish the proper context, you are able to adjust your conclusions.

You can read the same verse of Scripture a hundred times from an incorrect context, and as a result it won’t deliver the power it actually carries to bring the transformation you need.

Paradigms are deeply rooted, and it can take deep work to shift them—yet in the right environment, this depth of change can happen instantaneously.