God Wants Us To Be A Clean House

Good morning. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, grateful that we can be here this morning and your word says that in your presence is fullness of joy and life everlasting. Yet circumstances in our life sometimes cause us to become discouraged and there's a tendency for us to want to draw back in the flesh, Lord, but you call us to press on, Lord, and to get our eyes on you from Hebrews 12 and to fix our eyes on Jesus. I just pray, Father, that we would look to you and we wouldn't look around at those that are falling, a thousand at our side and 10,000 at our right hand, Lord, that it wouldn't come near us, that we would continue to keep going in Jesus' name. I'll read something from 1 Peter in chapter 2. The scripture says in this world we'll have trouble, but we can rejoice because Jesus has overcome the world. And when we're found in him, we can overcome the world. But if we become carnally minded, there's a tendency for us to fall. The scripture says the carnal mind is death, but the spiritual mind is life and peace. So we want to have our minds renewed, to have a helmet of salvation so we can have some protection against the fiery darts of the enemy that would buffet our minds. In 1 Peter in chapter 2, there's an exhortation, verse 1, that says, therefore laying aside all malice, all lies, all hypocrisy, even envy, and evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You know, as parents, we're very concerned if a child is not healthy, is not doing well, is not eating properly. There's one thing they need. They need the mother's milk. And the Holy Spirit speaks here saying that desiring the pure milk of the word is how we're going to grow spiritually, especially even as newborn babes. There has to be a thirst for God. There has to be a thirst for the living God, a thirst for the word of God. Even though there's not much understanding, there's just bits and small nourishment that can come that can cause us to grow. If we don't grow, we'll not become established in the faith. And it's important. Paul refers to himself in passage as a nursing mother. He also refers to himself as saying you may have 10,000 instructors in Christ, but not many fathers. We have to see that there's people who have been influential in our lives and have brought us up in the way that our spiritual fathers and mothers to us, to give us the food at the proper time, to give us the milk at the proper time. This is a stewardship that comes from God. It is given by God. If God entrusts you with stewardship, then it is important that a steward be found faithful. Can you imagine a mother's tired because she had a bad night, a tough week, and she decides, you know what, she's not going to feed the baby that day. Or she's going to take a week off and do some of her hobbies or do some things that she enjoys. And that child doesn't eat for a week. We would say that mother should lose the child and that that child should go into foster care where somebody will take care of that child. Brother, sister, we have to become faithful servants to give food at the proper time. It doesn't matter whether you're tired, doesn't matter if you're discouraged, doesn't matter if you don't want to. What matters is that you're faithful. Because the Lord is looking for faithful servants. He said, who is that faithful steward whom his master will make ruler over all that he has. You know, a lot of times we take so much pride in being faithful with money. And God tests us in this regard. But if we are not faithful with money, and we just spend everything prodigally on ourselves, then he will not entrust us with his true riches. His true riches are the jewels that we receive in our crowns. Oh, these are wonderful rewards, jewels in our crowns. You can have a bag of jewels. What good is it going to do you in heaven? They say gold, they use it for pavement in heaven. What good are these jewels? And what good is this gold? Except when we see from Malachi in chapter 3, he says, they shall be mine, saith the Lord, on the day that I make them my jewels. What is he speaking of? He's speaking of taking sheep from among sheep. He says, he's going to take sheep from among sheep in Ezekiel, I think it is. And in Malachi in chapter 3, he says, then they that feared the Lord, they spoke to one another. Brothers who are talking about the Lord, and it says of all the billions in the whole world, the Lord listens in. He hearkens in to them who are talking about him to hear what we're seeing. He takes notice when we talk about the Lord one with another. That's the true church of Jesus Christ, where two or three get together and we talk about him. He's in our midst. This is our church. This is a gathering of fellowship. The church are believers who God knits together. And he builds up a spiritual house. He says living stones, even in this passage, rejected by men, the world will reject you, but chosen by God and precious. Why are we living stones? Because Christ lives in us. Why are we being knit together? Because we found a common denominator in humility and love. When the Lord listens in, he listens in to see and to hear what we are saying about him. And he says, they shall be mine, saith the Lord. Who's they? They that feared the Lord. They're not already his. It seems to be a special treasure that is pulled out of sheep among sheep. They shall be mine, saith the Lord, on the day that I make them my special treasure. My jewels. He says, I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him faithfully. This is a revelation we need. Do you want to be one of his special treasures? When he gives you jewels in your crown and you take your crown and you cast it at Jesus feet, because it never was you preaching the gospel, it never was you discipling people, it never was you doing those gifts of help. It was the Holy Spirit in you, working within you, both to will and to do for his good pleasure. This is the salvation that we're working on. We don't do it because we feel like it. We don't do it because we're having a good day. We don't do it because any other reason. Paul says, even if I don't want to preach the gospel, a stewardship is laid on me. Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel. We have a responsibility if you've received the gift and the call of God. Make your call and election sure, brother. Don't do the work of the Lord with slackness. Lord, when were you hungry? When were you thirsty, Lord? When were you in prison? When were you sick and I didn't visit you? What you didn't do for the least of these, my brethren, you did not do it for me. We are working as unto the Lord. It doesn't matter if good days or bad days, we need to be faithful. As newborn babes, it says, desire the pure milk of the word. And we have a responsibility and a stewardship to lay our life down for the sheep as Jesus laid his life down for us. We also lay our lives down for others, especially the brothers, because that is how they'll know that you're a Christian because of the love, the sacrificial love you have one for another. Love is sacrifice. It's not a feeling. Greater love has no one than this than to lay his life down for his friends. He said, you are my friends if you do what I ask. As brother Eileen shared, God sometimes asks us things to make room for more of Christ to be conformed in us to fulfill the purpose and call of God. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. I can go and do all kinds of things, but I will neglect the purpose and the call of God for my life if I go and do all those lawful things. What will be the end of those if they don't receive the gospel of Christ? And if we don't encourage them to follow the gospel of God, we don't strengthen those who are weak. We don't come alongside those who are struggling to see them rooted and grounded in the faith. This is important. It's also important that we discipline them correctly. As God disciplines us perfectly, even as a royal priesthood, he calls us that we are careful that we discipline correctly. We cannot just tell our children only good things. We have to also speak the truth to them in love. If your son is driving for a cliff and you love him so much you don't want to upset him, you just let him head right over and say, God's got him. God gave you wisdom, because you've been that way before, to warn your son. And this is what love looks like. It says in James chapter 5 verse 19, if you see a brother sinning, I'm talking about a sin unto death because there's some sins that lead to death and some sins don't lead to death. I'm not talking about sins not unto death. We can't be the junior Holy Spirit, but there are sins that lead to death. And he says, if you see your brother sinning and you're able, through wisdom and through careful instruction, to turn him from the error of his ways, it says you will save his soul from death and you will cover a multitude of sins. There's only one thing that covers all the multitude of sins, it's love. And so if it's done carefully, like Ephesians 6 says, if you see a brother overtaken in a trespass, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, lest you also be tempted, because we can be tempted to become angry, we can be tempted to judge and speak down on and to discourage, but in our disciplining and in our correction, in our exhortation, it has to always be for the building up. Now sometimes it comes across strict and sometimes it comes across very pointed and very direct. Even as Paul wrote to the Corinthians and he said, I think it was them, and he said he was sad that they were made sorry, they were grieved by what he said, but he was glad that that led to their repentance. The gift and the call of God, it's irrevocable. But if we should take a choice and choose, as some of us among us have decided, I'm going back to the pornography. I love it too much. I'm going back to my ex-wife from another man's, the third marriage, and I'm going to go live with her. I mean, when we take foolish decisions, the scripture is very clear, the wages of sin is death. And we know that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But Joshua gives an exhortation to the people of God, not to the enemies of God, but to the people of God. Choose you this day whom you'll serve. Who do you want to serve? Do you want to serve the flesh? Do you want to serve the devil? Or do you want to serve God? Well everybody gave mental assent and said, oh we will serve the Lord. But the Lord had spoken to Joshua and he said to him, you say so, but the Lord showed me you won't. Because he showed them, the Lord showed him, Joshua, that these people were honoring God with their lips. But it wasn't in their heart to follow God wholeheartedly. And so many of God's people over the generations, we see them joining themselves with the worldly people, picking up their habits, adjoining themselves with their idols, worshiping their gods, being unequally yoked with the unbelievers. And what can we say? It was in their hearts to do these things. That's why it's important for us to preach the truth, to speak the truth in love. That we might impart grace to the hearers. That genuine faith can come. Faith comes by hearing, not just with the ear, but with the heart. Hearing the rhema word of God. We have to take heed how we hear. Our hearts have to come in agreement with what we hear with our ears. A lot of people give mental assent to the word of God, but they don't have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. And so it's important for us to take heed how we hear. He says here in verse 4, coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. If Christ was rejected by men, what do you think you will be? You're going to be rejected on the job site. You're going to be rejected in the workplace. You're going to be rejected in the world. You're going to be rejected when you try to align yourself in different avenues where you find yourself seeking to excel, maybe on sports and different things. You're going to find yourself being excluded. Christ was excluded. He even came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. You may find yourself even being rejected among the church people, because not everyone who goes to church is of the church. And so sometimes you can feel like a speckled bird that you're not really fitting in. But you know what? The Lord knows those who are his. And don't fret over these things. Everyone who names the name of Christ, he calls us to depart from iniquity. He said in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but of wood and clay. Precious things, but also carnal, earthly things. And if you want to become useful to the Lord, as Aline had already shared, we need the Lord to have full reign in this house, in this temple, to give him lordship over those carnal things that he might cleanse us, that we might surrender them to him. Even those good things that a brother Aline shared, of the wood, of the hay, of the clay, the earthenware, the common things, that we might become a vessel unto honor, fully sanctified and useful, fit for use, so that we can become his own special treasure, his own beautiful people. He goes on from here to say, you as living stones are being built up into a spiritual house. We are individual stones being knit together on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, being built up into a spiritual house, a spiritual tabernacle. Some say they don't want to spiritualize the word of God, but Jesus himself says, my words are spirit, and they're spiritually understood. The natural man cannot understand the things of the spirit, because they're foolishness unto him. But we have the mind of Christ, he says in 1 Corinthians in chapter 2, I believe, or 1. We have the mind of Christ. And so we are now able to understand the things of Christ. And so many of us, the way I was brought up in our doctrines and so on, is that we're waiting in Jerusalem for this mosque to come down and this tabernacle to be built on that hill there. And until then I can live as ungodly and as fleshly and as carnal as I like, because they haven't started building that tabernacle yet, and so I know I got time until Jesus comes, so I can live my best life now. But this is a deception, because he said the mystery of the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory. You are God's house, you are God's building, you are God's temple, if the spirit of God is in you. And so we need to have a spiritual understanding of God's house. And God wants us to have a clean house. He wants our temple to be holy and acceptable to him. He wants us to offer our bodies, spirit, soul, and body, a living sacrifice to the Lord, which is our reasonable act of worship. Brother Aline shared about Abraham offering his son Isaac on the altar. And Abraham said, me and the lamb are going to worship, and we will come back again, because he believed that God was able to raise him from the dead, because God cannot lie. God had said in Isaac, your seed shall be blessed, and he was going to worship the Lord. Worship involves sacrifice. Worship involves giving the Lord all that you have, so that you can be holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. He says that you are a chosen generation. You are a spiritual house. You are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices in the new covenant, which are acceptable to God through Christ Jesus our Lord. To you who believe, verse 7, he is precious. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling. They stumble, a rock of offense, being disobedient to the word. A lot of people, they stumble at the word. They become disobedient to the word, because they don't believe. They have an easy believism. They don't believe with the whole heart. Two commandments, to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second one like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. If you do this, all the commandments hang on that. Make it simple for yourself. Love God with all that you have. Loving God is everything to do with obedience to the word of God. Jesus said in John 14, if you love me, you will obey my word. But if we don't obey God's word, we can honor him with our lips. We can tell him that we love him. But our hearts are far from him. Many of us say we would never deny the Lord. I will never deny the Lord. I used to say that while I had a bottle in my hand sitting in the pub. Never would deny the Lord. But it says in chapter one, verse 15 and 16. It says to the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Even their consciences and their minds are defiled. They profess to know God. I would never have denied the Lord Jesus because from young, I was going to church and I made a commitment. But by my actions, I was denying him. Being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified. That word is reprobate, ad hocimos, disapproved in the Greek. Same word used in Romans one about the reprobates who God gave over to homosexuality and every other unclean thing. We cannot deny the Lord by our actions. We have to honor him with our lips and we have to honor him with our life. This is true saving faith. We can't have a bad day as believers and say, well, you know, there's grace. Grace is not for us a license to sin. It's the power of God to overcome sin. And when we're discouraged. So we need to strengthen our weak hands and our knees, which hang down our arms, which hang down and make straight paths for our feet. You can't say, you know, I will fish. Well, I will fish. We do that. But once the power of the Holy Spirit comes in our life, we're not supposed to be going fishing anymore. So let's be done with all that. It brings me to Malachi chapter two. There's some parallels here in Malachi chapter two, which have to do with being a royal priesthood in a holy nation. Well, let's look at chapter one. We can start in the beginning because this has to do with the election. Election is something that is very real. It is sometimes hard for us to understand because the scripture kind of talks about two things. It talks about being elect and it also talks about making your call and election sure. And so there's something on our end that needs to be worked out with fear and trembling because our life has to line up with our words. The burden of the Lord to Malachi. Malachi chapter one, verse one. I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet the people of God, the priests, they're answering the Lord back saying, in what way have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? There were two twin brothers in the womb, Jacob and Esau. And they're saying to the Lord, how can you say you love us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? What are they saying here? Yet the Lord says, Jacob, I have loved, but Esau, I hated that guy. How could the Lord say that about Esau? Before he was born, but while they were still in the womb, because God knows all things. That the purpose of election might be made manifest. That God chose Jacob, but he rejected Esau because he saw that Jacob would begin as a deceiver and that God would be able to work with him and subdue him and bring him to a place where he would submit himself to God. But Esau, he would give him every opportunity and every blessing and the purpose and the call of God. And he would sell out for a bowl of stew. And it says of Esau that at the end, he sought repentance with tears from Hebrews in 12, but found none. And he goes on to talk about it here. He says, but Esau, I hated that guy and laid waste to his mountains and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness, even though Edom, which is the land of Esau has said, we have been impoverished. In other words, the Lord's dealt with us severely, but what's going to happen is we will return and we will rebuild the desolate places. We're going to repent. We're going to get back on our feet, but thus says the Lord, they may build, but I will throw it down. They shall be called the territory of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord will have anger forever, indignation forever. Your eyes shall see, and you shall say the Lord is magnified beyond the border of Israel, but the Lord has a problem with the descendants of Jacob here. And he's exhorting them because they are doing things also that are not right. And we do things sometimes that are not right. A son honors his father, a servant, his master. If I am the father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where's my reverence? Says the Lord opposed. Now he's speaking here specifically to the priests who are despising the name of the Lord, but we have just read on the new covenant that you are a royal priesthood, that you are a holy nation. So we can say that this applied to the priests of the old covenant, to the priests of Levi, but we can also see a parallel that it can apply to us today under the new covenant because we all have been chosen to be a royal priesthood who are called of Jacob, so to speak. And he says these priests have despised, they've made the Lord's name worthless, yet you say in what way have we despised your name? And he says this, you offer defiled food on my altar, but say in what way have we defiled you saying the table of the Lord is contemptible. And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame as a sacrifice and the sick as a sacrifice, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor. Offer it then to Trudeau, see if he'll accept your lame sacrifice. Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord? But now, he says, entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us while this is being done by your hands. Will he accept you favorably? He goes on from there, but let's break this down. He says in Romans in chapter 12, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you offer your bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. And to you priests who are called by my name, you royal priesthood, you holy nation can apply to all of us who are in Christ. Are we going to offer the Lord that which is lame? Are we going to bring a lame sacrifice to the Lord? Are we going to give him some religious service? Are we going to bring him a half offering, a half a heart? Are we going to say, well, you know, Lord, I don't really want to see what it says in your word, and we bring him a blind sacrifice and claim dumb? Are we going to come all crippled up and offer a half-hearted sacrifice, one that costs us almost nothing and give it to the Lord? Are we going to bring a sacrifice of Cain to God and hope that he accepts us favorably? With Cain and Abel, here we see it. Abel brings of his best, of the first fruits and of the fat to the Lord. It came in his heart to give an offering to God and to Cain. He also wasn't commanded of him, but it came in his heart to give God an offering. And he gave some of his fruits that he had to the Lord and he made an offering to the Lord. And it says God accepted Abel's offering, but Cain's offering was despised. It was rejected and Cain was angry. And you know what? Sometimes we can get angry because we come with our half-hearted sacrifice and we say, you know what? You raised the bar too high on us. You know, God loves us all. No, no, Jacob he loves and Esau he hates. Who are you? Who are you? You prove by your fruits that your faith is genuine. Faith and fruits are inseparable. Show me your faith without fruit. And brother James says, I'll show you my faith by what I do. If we have genuine saving faith, then salvation is there for us to also walk in the grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit that we would overcome sin because sin shall not be our master. We're not under law, we're under grace. Grace is not a license to sin. It is the power of God to live free from sin and teaches us from Titus 2.11 how to live holy and righteous and godly in this present age. So if you're bringing a half-hearted sacrifice and you're practicing sin and then you're upset with the brothers because they seem to think that they're doing better than you, then you need to repent because God gave Cain a choice to repent and he's given these priests an opportunity to repent. So you know what? Rather than justify yourself and say, well, you know what? We all sin. Yeah, we all sin. Some sin is unto death though and some not unto death. We want to make sure that our sins are not unto death, brothers. We can justify ourselves. We can hold on to some kind of security that we're doing well while we're practicing sin. But you know what? Like the man from Rosalind House, he thought he had this. He decided to go back, dabbled in the narcotics. He'd been off of it for some time and all of a sudden it was too much for him and it was it. That was it. Doesn't matter how good you were doing, you go back to your vomit as a pig being washed goes back to its wallowing in the mud as a dog returns to its vomit. You know, we have a dog in the house and we wash that dog to think and smell wonderful but you take that dog outside and it will eat a dead rat or it'll eat some manure. No problem. And it'll vomit it up and eat it again because that's the nature of the dog. And the nature of a pig is to go back to the wallowing in the mud. Brothers, sisters, if you're elect, then make that call election sure so that you know that you are elect. Otherwise, you prove yourself to be a transgressor of the law. Brothers, by grace we are being saved through faith. It's not of ourselves, it's a gift from God. But we have to make that call election sure. There's a salvation to be worked out and we need to have some good fear of God. The fear of the Lord is also needed in the New Testament as it was in the Old Testament. By this, a wise man will be established through wisdom. And the beginning of that wisdom is the fear of God. So when you're having a bad day, you're angry with the Lord, you're bitter or something went sideways, you don't understand his ways, catch yourself quickly and repent early and get back on the path that leads to life. Because there's a way that seems right to man but the end of it is destruction. You know what? He gives us an exhortation. I'll finish with this in Romans 12. We need to offer our bodies. We're not just giving them some blind eyes and claim ignorance. That's not going to work. Doesn't work with the courts. Ignorance of the law is not justification of the law. We have a responsibility to take heed to the things that we've heard lest we drift away. Take heed how you hear, brothers. Don't just say, well, I'm going to give him my deaf ears. Hopefully he'll accept them. No. Offer your best to the Lord. Say, Lord, give me ears to hear and eyes to see in Jesus' name. Even if it's hard. Even if the road is going to be difficult and the way narrow that leads to life, I pray, keep me in the way. Cause me to walk in your way. Empower me by your spirit to be obedient, to be well-pleasing unto you, Lord. Help me, Lord, through humility and through brokenness, God will establish you. You might have started like Jacob, but you don't have to end there. You can be like Jacob at the end of his life, walking with a limp, but leaning on his staff, blessing his grandsons to see his children's children, to see them walking with the Lord. No greater joy, my friend, than to see your children walking in the truth. We've been praying recently for our oldest, Kenda, and her husband, Quentin, and God spoke to me. And he said to me, you gave all your other children to me, but you never gave your first two children to me. I got a revelation. And I said, Lord, that was after I got born again. And I never thought of it. I've been praying for 12 years for their salvation. And the Lord said, give them to me, give them to me. And I had a cry for about 20 minutes. And I said, I give them to you because I trust that you're a good father. I surrender them to you. For heaven or for hell, I trust you. I remember coming to grips with it. 12 years of prayer. And I'm telling you, it was that night, that very night that my son-in-law heard a word from the Lord. And he had a deep sense of sin and a conviction in his heart. I found out two and a half weeks later, but it was that very night he wrestled in his bed. He had no rest. The weight of his sin came on. When I surrendered them to God, God heard 12 years of crying and prayers. Surrender them to the Lord. He's able to take care of them way better than we can. It's all about full surrender to Jesus Christ. When we surrender everything that we have to him, even those things that are precious and lawful, then he's able to make everything beautiful in his time. He's able. And he'll do it because he's a good father. And he promises us that we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And he says that we will see his seed. We're going to see our children walking with the Lord. Abraham saw a city far off whose builder and maker is God. We have to be able to see the promise of God. To see our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren continue to follow the Lord. Not falling off to the left and the right, but to be established. Coming back to the Lord. Restoring the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. Restoring them back to the Lord. Back into covenant with Christ. To see it in Jesus name. Amen.