Any Work Bigger Than You

I have been on a cruise twice in my life. Once, when I was a few weeks old, we went to the Bahamas, and once for our thirtieth anniversary my wife and I took a cruise to Alaska. The ship was a marvel! I am a land lover, so it didn’t take much to impress me, but it was massive. It had several huge auditoriums, elevators that went several stories, a roller-skating rink, numerous restaurants, and all kinds of other stuff. The scope was amazing.

I think about the Hoover Dam on the Arizona Nevada border. It is also a marvel. I think about ancient structures like the Pyramids, so massive and well-constructed that some people find it easier to believe that aliens made them than that there is some historical answer for such a structure. Here in Nashville we have the Parthenon, which is a reconstruction of an ancient Greek temple in Athens. I think about the Great Wall of China, ancient and massive. And I think about Nehemiah’s work on the wall in Jerusalem.

All of these great constructions took more than one person. Sometimes you may think to yourself, “What can I do?” The task is overwhelming. What can one person do? I would say any work bigger than you requires more than you. A large undertaking requires more than just one person, but it does start with one.

In Nehemiah’s story the undertaking involved prayer, the wealth of a pagan king, and a team. In Nehemiah 3, you read about this team of builders. There were a variety of builders. Verse 1 names the high priest who with his brethren priests built the sheep gate. In verse 8 and following you find goldsmiths, rulers, Levites, Nethinims, merchants, daughters, and more.

There were a wide variety of people who built this wall. Any of them could have said, “I didn’t go to grad school to learn to build a wall.” No, but it was a common goal, a project bigger than any one person. There are a number of references to rulers who built right next to daughters, merchants, and others. This project included all kinds of people.

In Ezra 4:6 Nehemiah said, “So built we the wall… for the people had a mind to work.” Any work bigger than you requires more than you. That means there are going to be a variety of people involved in a common effort. This requires a few things. It requires modesty, realizing you are not the be-all and end-all of every project. You are not indispensable, though you are valuable.

It requires mercy. It is easy to look at other people and say, “Their job is not that bad. It is not that hard. They have it better than I do.” But there is no way you can perfectly know what is involved in that person’s work.

It requires contentment, to be content in the place God has placed you and in the portion of the work where God has put you. So, this big work requires a variety of builders.

It requires a vested interest. There was both a common and a personal interest by these people. For instance, the priests built the sheep gate. The sheep gate was where the sacrificial animals would often have come. They had a vested interest in repairing that part of the gate. Some people built the walls near their houses. These people would have a vested interest in the whole wall because if one portion went down it affected them all, but they would be especially interested in the portion right by their house. So, there was a common and a personal goal. They were all interested in the big picture and also the parts that affected them specifically.

Just this past week we had a group of friends who are gifted in building and repair volunteer to do some renovations on a house here on the Ranch in which a loved one lives. So, they came and repaired his house. Who owes that group of people thanks, me or the guy living in the house? The answer is both of us. The best way to help him is to help the big picture, and the best way to help the big picture is to help the people involved in doing the work of the big picture. There is both a common and personal interest in any work worth doing.

The nature of a body is that every part of the body has as an interest in the body as a whole. Last Saturday my son Weston, who serves at West Branch of the Bill Rice Ranch in Arizona, ran a 50K race. That is nuts, and I don’t even really comprehend it. He ran 30 miles and he got off trail, so he actually ran 34 miles. This was all at altitude. The parking lot was at more than 7,000 feet. In the first mile they gain 1,100 feet vertical and there was a lot more gain after that. I was talking to him after the run and he mentioned how much it was mental. On one portion of the run his wrist began hurting. What did his wrist have to do with running? It had nothing to do with it, but yet the wrist had sympathy for the legs and the legs had sympathy for the lungs. Why? It is because they are different parts of the same body.

First Corinthians 12 says, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations…and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all and all.” How silly it would be for the hand to say it has no need of the foot or vice versa. Both are individual parts and have individual responsibilities, and both are part of a bigger picture, the body. “For the body is not one member, but many.” I Corinthians 12:18 says, “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.”

For example, in your church not everyone is the pastor, but everyone should be involved. Not everyone is teaching the primary Sunday School class, but everyone should be involved. Not everyone has had a hard week, but everyone should be sympathetic. We should weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Both can be difficult in their turn. Both are vitally important because any work bigger than you requires more than you.