Do It Yourself?

I’m about to start a project. It is something I’ve never done before. I ordered and picked up the materials, yesterday. They are stacked in my front yard. [insert drum roll] Yes…After over five years of promising my wife I would get it done, I’m finally going to hang some gutters.

Until yesterday, I had no idea how to do it. After a few seconds of searching, I found a few Youtube videos produced by experts in the field of hanging gutters. Listen. If Tom Silva from “This Old House” can teach a lady older than myself to hang gutters, he can teach me. Right? So, in less than 30 minutes, I learned everything I needed to know about measuring, cutting, putting the components together, and hanging the gutters. I’ll let you know how it turns out, lol.

This has me thinking.

Can you and I bring that same Do-It-Yourself attitude to our Christian life? Is the key to me becoming the man God intends me to be as simple as a Google search and watching a few Youtube videos? Turn back the clock a little. Is the key to me becoming that man found in reading a few pages of a book and gleaning some insights or keys to Christian living going to do it? I’m so very happy that we invest our time and resources to stream our services from Freedom Church. I’m happy folks take the time to watch. Is that all they need?

In Philippians, there is a single verse that helps us answer those questions and more.

And what you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do these things. And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:9

In the coming hours, I’m going to see how much I’ve really learned about hanging gutters. I have the components. I have the tools. I have the determination. Oh, I almost neglected to mention that to hang gutters, I need a partner.

There really is a series of sermons in this one verse, but we’ll keep it simple for today. In this single verse, we see why we need each other, in real time and real relationship.

We learn from each other.

We receive from each other.

We hear from each other.

We see what we need to see in each other.

We’re going to expound on these points over the next few Fridays. Today, I invite you to chew on them. Mull over them. Ask the Lord to bring to your mind and remembrance those people from whom you have learned, received, heard, and seen. That exercise alone will demonstrate the richness of real relationship and why we need one another.

By the way, we’ll also talk a bit about the promised presence of God and how, by His very being, God demonstrates the necessity of community.

Now…it’s time to hang some gutters.