From Burnt to Blessed Part Three

Monumental Moments

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

March 30, 2025

From Burnt to Blessed Part Three

Turn with me to Neh. 4. Just to set the context, 140 years before Nehemiah’s time, the Babylonian army invaded Jerusalem, burned down the temple, broke down the walls, and destroyed the city by fire. There the city of David sat in ruins. Babylon eventually was conquered by Persia and the book of Nehemiah opens with Nehemiah hearing a report that their beloved Jerusalem’s city walls are broken and burnt. Nehemiah weeps and grieves over the state of his people and decides to do something about it.Neh 2:17

With the Persian king’s blessing he travels to Jerusalem, surveys the wall and calls everyone there together.

¹⁷ Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” ¹⁸ I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.

They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work. Neh. 2:17-18

But no sooner do they begin to rebuild when they hear a voice ridiculing them.

4 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, ² and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?” Neh. 4:1-2

This is the third message in my From Burnt to Blessed series. Let’s pray.

The city walls had lain in ruin for over 100 hundred years. Piles of rubble. Heaps of burnt bricks. Sanballat hates that someone has come who has Jerusalem’s best interests in mind so he mocks them with rhetorical questions. The answer he thinks is no. Will they restore their wall? No! Will they offer sacrifices? No! Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble…burned as they are? No, no, no.

For over a hundred years no one thought those burnt stones could ever amount to anything ever again. Sanballat didn’t need to mock or ridicule cause those heaps of rubble stayed heaps of rubble. Now someone came who had a vision from God about what those burnt stones and heaps of rubble could become.

God loves to use burnt stones to build His kingdom. God’s answer to Sanballat’s sarcastic question, can you bring these stones back to life, burned as they are? is, yes I can! It’s what I do – raising the dead back to life. Taking people from burnt to blessed. Turning burnt stones and turning them into living stones.

⁴ As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5

Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He is both the builder and the chief cornerstone. The church is built on Jesus and he is the only perfect stone in the building. All the rest of us were burnt stones lying on the rubble heap of sin until Jesus picked us up, redeemed us back to God, and said I’m going to use you in the building of my church. God loves to use burnt stones for His glory!

I was talking to a guy the other day and invited him to church. He joked if he stepped into a church fire would probably come down on him from heaven. I told him, “that’s ok, we have a fire extinguisher.” Jesus didn’t come for perfect people, he came for burnt stones. As we come to Jesus he turns us from burnt stones to living stones.

But I think there are Christians who have been burned and now hear Sanballat’s voice in their head. Do you really think God can use you in the building of His kingdom? You’ve been burned before; do you really want to put yourself out there where you might get burned again?

If the devil can’t steal our faith, he’ll try to neutralize it. Ok, be a Christian, trust in Jesus, but stay there in that heap of rubble. You’re burned, God can’t use you. If that’s you I believe Nehemiah has a challenge this morning for you.

1. Acknowledge and feel the burn

Nehemiah went out at night and rode around the entire city evaluating the heaps and piles and rubble and burned gates and burned stones. He wanted to understand what he was going to be working with.

We can talk about “burned stones” but stones don’t hurt when they get burned but people do. There’s a lot of pain in the world around us. A lot of pain. It’s not a lack of faith to acknowledge that. In fact I think it’s a first step towards healing. It’s not healthy to deny the pain and try to move on too quickly.

Remember David and his men returning to Ziklag only to find their city burned to the ground and their wives and children kidnapped? The first thing they did was weep until they couldn’t weep anymore. They didn’t spend the rest of their lives weeping – at some point we have to move on. But they wept until they had no more tears.

If you’re a burnt stone, some kind of fire torched you. Maybe it was a broken relationship that left you burned. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one and the fire is grief. Maybe you feel like God let you down – you prayed for a situation and it got worse. Where was God? Doesn’t He care?

We have to admit some of the burns we get in life are self-inflicted. And sometimes we have been the

one who did the burning. I knew a guy who wherever he went fires seemed to follow him! And he always felt it was all those other people who were the problem. If we have a trail of fires behind us, we might be the cause of some of them.

We want to try and be as honest with ourselves and others as we can possibly be.

But the deepest cause of all fires is sin. It’s interesting that Sanballat’s name means “sin has given life”. Now in that case sin refers to the moon god not to biblical definition of sin, but it’s interesting because that’s what sin promises – the good life – but it never gives life, it sets life on fire leaving ashes and destruction in its wake.

Honestly acknowledging our burns and the burns we have inflicted reminds us of how much we need Jesus. And how much those around us need Jesus. The church is made up of burnt stones who have been redeemed as living stones and rebuilt into God’s holy people, deeply loved by Him.

2. Sometimes we wait to be healed when we need to work to be healed

Let me repeat it’s important to acknowledge the burn and take time to process and heal. But some people say, I’m waiting till I get 100% healed before I do God’s work when doing God’s work is an important part of the healing.

Now saying “God’s work” can sound so imposing and impressive that we think we wouldn’t be qualified to do God’s work burnt or not. But we need to remember that the work was great but each brick was just a small, small part of that work. That’s us. We’re small. Someone once put it this way: do you want to be a big part of a small work or a small part of a big work?

Your brick might be to offer encouragement to downhearted people. It might be to befriend the lonely. Or telling people that Jesus is your Savior and they see his light and love in how you live. It may be giving to an orphan in Africa to help them have a better life and learn about Jesus.

It might be (and this is a shameless plug) going to a fundraiser dinner for a great cause like the Potter’s Hands Foundation or Mosaic Pregnancy Center. It was over a decade ago that I went to a breakfast for Mosaic – helping pregnant women make the choice of life – and God put on my heart to serve on their board. I served there for over six years. And honestly I served faithfully over those years and enjoyed it but really I did very little. I was a small part of a great work. I feel the same way about the Potter’s Hands.

Don’t wait till you make a big splash before you jump in the water cause you will wait forever. Jump in and be a small part – a small brick – in a great work!

God made us to be productive and to work. We drift aimlessly without work. And getting busy with God’s work can help us forget about and heal from the burn faster than focusing on the burn and

wondering why it’s not getting better.

3. God can use our burns to help others find healing from their burns

We can empathize with other people’s pain when we’ve gone through a similar pain. We can counsel people who are going through something we came through successfully. 2 Cor. 1: 4 put it this way:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Cor.1:3-4

How can God use a burned stone like you? To help other burned stones find the comfort God comforted us with. Someone who hasn’t been through it might be able to offer care and counsel, but when someone has walked where they walk, felt what they felt, hurt like they hurt, their words have so much more depth and power to heal and help.

Recently a young woman who went through the Potter’s Hands program successfully decided she wanted to devote her life to helping trafficked women find freedom. Can you imagine how powerfully she can speak to those women having been where they are?

My one caution: be careful to make sure what you are giving is biblical truth. There are a lot of ideas and ideologies and trends that go against the word of God – that won’t help someone find freedom and healing no matter how compassionately you give it. It’s knowing the truth that sets us free indeed.

After Nehemiah and the Jews finish the wall, they recommit themselves to hearing and obeying the word of God. God’s great work will always be built on God’s great word.

I want to close with a true story I read recently. William Baldwin writes how when he was a ten year old one of the most beautiful homes in his neighborhood burned down to the ground. He watched with his mom and dad as the flames tore through the house. In no time the entire house was burned to ruins with only the chimney standing.

They rebuilt and years later he was invited into the home. And when he saw the fireplace he was taken aback at its magnificence. Made from dark stones with a beautiful mantel made from some kind of darkened wood.

The owner smiled and said, “Everybody likes the fireplace. The stones came from what was left over from the fire six years ago. And the mantelpiece is made from several floor beams that didn’t completely burn up.” Amazing how something so beautiful can be built from scorched wood and burnt stones.

God loves to used burned bricks and stones to build His beautiful house. We aren’t rubble to Jesus, we are redeemed, restored, and are being rebuilt in his likeness.