We Can Do It, Jesus Will Help

We Can Do It, Jesus Will Help (Part 1)
Isaiah 58:9-14

My Grandpa Behrens was a “handy man.”
His life’s career was a streetcar driver.
But in his retirement he was a house painter, carpenter, electrician, plumber, remodeler . . .
And like most “handy men” he was also a fisherman.
He was a person like Kent or Juanito or Ricardo.
If there was a remodeling job to be done, he either knew how to do it or would soon figure it out.

It’s unfortunate that the “handy man” gene is not transferred across generations.
House painting I learned by the very patient teaching of my friend Al Killingsworth.
But a “one note Johnny” who only paints, like me, can’t be called a “handy man.”
A handy man can fix anything given the right resources.

Lowe’s and Home Depot exist because of all the aspiring “handy men” among us.
Home depot has that great phrase “You can do it, We can help.”
The sermon title for today and next week is “We can do it, Jesus will help.”

Why are we doing this today?
Why are we shortening our worship service to work on the Sabbath?
I thought the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest.
And yet here we are shortening worship. Why? To rest? No. To work.

Let’s see if there might be an answer in Chapter 58 of Isaiah, one my top ten Bible passages.
God’s people have been allowed to return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.
They are very good at praying and fasting and worshipping.
They do those things a lot and they do them all the time.
But God doesn’t seem to be responding.

The people say, “God, look how spiritual we are! But it’s like you don’t even hear us when we pray.”
And God, not very diplomatically says, “Your fasts are meaningless. You quarrel with each other. You ignore the needs of the poor and the hungry and the sick.”
“The kind of worship that I want,” God says, “is Handy Man worship.”
The kind that looks at the neighborhood and says, “There’s some hungry people out there.”
“We can fix that, Jesus will help.”
“Kids are growing up in some unhealthy homes with lead and asbestos and mold.”
“We can fix that, Jesus will help.”
“This old temple here is in ruins”
“We can fix that, Jesus will help.”

Pastor Alfonso told me about a phrase in Spanish.
“A Dios orando y con el mazo dando.”
My interpretation is “Pray to God and swing a big hammer.”
Trust in God and work.
Pray to God and work.
Worship God and work.

And the amazing promise for me comes in verse 12.
"You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again."

If we work ’n worship with each other --- then I can finally be like my Grandpa Behrens.
We can become “Handy People” for our neighborhood and community.
We can become known as “those people on the corner there who can fix anything” --- physical, social or spiritual.
And along the way, like my handy man grandpa, we’ll also become better fishers of men.

We can do it, Jesus will help.

The work we do on this building today is important work, but is merely our practice laboratory for what God is calling us to do out there beyond the doors, in the neighborhood, in the community.
God is here helping us with this building.
But the ultimate “Handy Man” is already at work out there.
That’s where we’ll find Jesus.
That’s where we’ll find our delight.
That’s where we’ll find our true worship.
That’s where we’ll find our future.

We can do it, Jesus will help.