Clean House - Week 1 (Fall Group Day 2025)

Lord, we give you glory and honor in Jesus' name. Amen,

brand new series called Clean House. Remember we preach that

series in the very beginning of the year, called the

Great House. And we're putting all the pieces together, working

towards building.

A great house.

And today we're going to talk about I start talking

about a clean house. And these are those areas, those

weak areas of our lives that the enemy tries to

infiltrade and tries to bring pressure to break us, and

how we can stand against those things. And I want

to start today in First Corinthians, chapter ten, First Corinthians,

Chapter ten, starting in verse twelve, First Corinthians ten, Verse twelve.

Therefore, let him.

Who thinks he stands take heed, lest defall.

Everybody look at me.

We could preach, we can preach a whole series right

there on that one sentence. Do you realize that there

are more people that fall out of spiritual pride than

probably anything else that you just simply say to yourself,

you know what, I'm impervious to anything. There's no way

I can make a mistake. There's no way that I

could ever get myself in a bad position, in bad shape.

Listen, take heed.

If you think you're just going to stand because the

enemy is good at what he does, come on, somebody.

The enemy's good, and he will exploit your most vulnerable moments,

your most vulnerable times, and he will make you think

out of pride that you're impervious to his attacks. When

he has isolated you and he's getting ready to pick

you off, he says, listen, take heed. In other words,

pay attention, look around, survey, and make sure that you

are secure and that you're surrounded by a support system

that can help you.

That's what group day is all about.

It's surrounding ourselves with people who can be there for

us in our hardest, most difficult times.

Verse thirteen.

No temptation has overtaken you accept such as is common

to man. But God is faithful who will not allow

you to be tempted beyond what you're able. But with

temptation will also make the way of escape that you

may be able to bear it. You know, a lot

of times we try to apply this passage of scripture

to other things. How many of you have ever heard

this saying God will never put more on you than

you can handle.

That's not what that says. What that says is he.

Won't be allow you to be tempted beyond a way

of escape. He's not going to allow temptation to come

into your life, the enticement to come into your life,

because the enticement is no greater. And then what is

common to all humanity. In other words, the same thing

you're going through other people are going through. Also the

same things that tempt you tempt other people. The enemy

is good at understanding humanity and understanding not just humanity

at large, but you as an individual, because he knows

the weaknesses.

That all flesh has and how.

To exploit those predispositions to certain sin that we all

have in our lives.

You know, when I look at my life.

I very easily fall towards towards addiction. I very easily

fall in that direction. You know, if I find food

that I like, I will eat that food every single day.

I have to be very careful.

I don't play video games because I will sit down

and play and I'll wake up or not wake up,

and then I'll look outside and it'll be the next day.

I have a givenness, I have a slant towards those things.

But the Lord has shown me that about myself. So

I have to bake protection and be very cognizant that

I'm not falling into those habitual repetitions that will lead

me to a place that I don't want to be. Now,

we ask God to keep us from temptation. We ask

God to keep us from those things. But I want

you to understand that temptation is going to come into

your life.

You cannot escape it.

In the society in which we live, temptation is a daily,

moment by moment thing that we are faced with, all

of these things that are coming into our eyes and

our ears and the experiences that we have around us.

Because not only does the enemy understand flesh, marketers understand flesh.

Everybody that wants to sell.

You something understands the power and the draw of the flesh,

and they're all appealing to it on a daily basis.

And it's not even the enemy.

It is just the predisposition of man to give into

the weakness of our flesh. Now, if you're sitting here

and you just told yourself, I don't have weak flesh,

I don't have any of those vulnerabilities, then I would

say go back and listen to the very first part

of this sermon.

Take heed.

Because you may be standing in spiritual pride, and he says, listen,

you're not going to experience any temptation that's not common

to man. But God is not going to put something

on you that he doesn't also give you a way

of escape. Did you realize that one of the most

spiritual things you can do sometimes is run? Oh, let

me say that again. One of the most spiritual things

you can do sometimes is run its flee, it's turned

the other way and go. You know, when we look

at the story of Joseph and we look at his progress,

we come to that place where he finds himself in

Potiphar's house and Potiphar's wife has come to him and

she's trying to she's trying to tempt him into an

inappropriate relationship. And Joseph's response to that was to not

stand there and think that he was able to withstand it.

His response to that was he turned and ran, and

sin grabbed hold of his coat. Come on, somebody grabbed

hold of his jacket, and he just took his jacket

off and kept on running. There's nothing in your life.

There's nothing in your life. There is no possession in

your life more important than your spiritual standing with Jesus.

Whatever it is, cut yourself loose from it.

Whatever that thing.

Is that's holding on to you, cut yourself loose, drop it.

Out, drop it, and keep on running.

That hurt like whoo.

Y'all know Jesus in.

My heart, I didn't even think about saying a bad

word or anything. I just smashed that thing and kept

on preaching. In Galatians, chapter five, verse nineteen, it says,

now the works of the flesh are evident. He says, listen,

everything is common demand. Now we're here reading in Galatians.

He says, now the works of the flesh are evident,

which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy,

outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries,

and the like. He said, I've given you a pretty

exhaustive list. But if I miss something, they're like those things.

Of which I tell you.

Beforehand, just as I also told you in time past

that those who practice such things will not inherit the

Kingdom of God, He said, here's the here's the thing,

Here's here's what your flesh waltz. Here's here are those

things that are common to man. These are those temptations

that draw us that when that person cuts you off

in traffic, murder rises up in your heart. Y'all are laughing,

But y'all know I'm not in a car with y'all.

But y'all know, you know that's why Listen, I got

a dash cam, got a dash cam for my truck,

and you know where it's that in the floorboard, because

that thing points back at me too.

Amen.

It shows them and me, and I just can't take.

The chance of being recorded when that expression goes over

my face.

And that look is in my eye. Those things are common.

They that they pull our flesh because our broken flesh,

as a result of the fall of man, are always

looking away from God instead.

Of towards God.

It is effort to make our flesh look towards God

because it is naturally drawn to the things of the world.

Because our flesh is from the earth and it will

return to the earth. It is bound to the world,

and it's always going.

To be a fight.

He says, Listen, I'm telling you now and I've also

told you in the past. In other words, he says, listen,

this is not a battle that we're ever going to win.

There's always going to be a battle between our flesh

and our spirit. We're always fighting that fight because those

things are in opposition to one another. And I told

you then Now I'm writing again, and I'm telling you

another time.

That these things.

Will cause you to miss the Kingdom of God.

Now I want you to think for just a moment.

I want you to stop and ponder for just a moment,

if the temptation that's drawing you, if the result of

acting on that temptation is greater than the privilege of heaven. Now, listen,

I'm cutting out some characteristics that we know about Jesus. Okay,

I'm I'm I'm cutting out mercy, I'm cutting out grace.

I want I want to do this in a very clinical,

lab driven scenario. That is, the thing that is enticing you,

that thing that's calling out to you, is it worth

being disqualified from the rewards of heaven? Because there are

those places in our life, those vulnerabilities that if we

don't weigh them against the consequences, we may participate and

just expect Jesus to move in our lives and grace.

But what if we find ourselves in a moment where

we are so overtaken by acting on that temptation that

it becomes very hard to ever look back towards the

grace of God.

Do you know?

Addictions don't start in a moment. Addictions start when we

begin to stack bad decisions on top of each other.

Come on somebody, And it doesn't matter what that addiction is.

I'm not just talking about the things that we think about.

I'm talking about any addiction that susceptibility of our flesh,

those weak places where we're more predisposed to slide down

the hill than in the other areas of our lives.

With David, it was Bathsheba, Come on somebody. With Samson

it was Delilah, or probably more appropriate, a hatred of

the felictings. When we go through Scripture, we see these

vulnerabilities in the lives of all of these great heroes

of the faith that we look back to and we

read about, and that we base these things in our

lives on the circumstances and the situations of their life.

But they were all susceptible, just like we are to temptation. Now,

let me just go ahead and clarify. Temptation is not sin.

I expect somebody say amen, right there, So let me

say it again. Say y'all can, and we'll cut the

first one out of the tape. Temptation is not sin.

Acting upon temptation is sin. When David was walking on

the rooftop, he looked, he saw bast Sheeba in the bathtub.

If he had turned around, that wasn't sin. It wasn't

until he stopped and looked again. Come on, somebody, That's

when it became sin.

And sin is our flesh's attachment.

To the earth, to the world.

Temptation is the module that moves us from where we

want to be to where we don't want to be.

And second Peter, chapter two, verse ten, it says, and

especially those.

Who walk according to the.

According to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and

despise authority. He says, here's here's here's how we know

we're reaching a point of susceptibility, when our flesh is

drawing weak, when we're getting to the place where we're

not going to be able to stand. He said, here's

what your your your fleshly lust looks like. It says,

they're presumptuous.

They they they make.

Presuppositions about things. They think they have an understanding of things.

They think they got it all figured out. They think

that they're above it, they think that they're better than it.

They think they got it all under control.

Said, they're presumptuous.

Their self willed.

You know, one of the uh one of the the

hardest things to overcome.

Is self will if it's not aligned with God's will.

For a long time, I operated my life in accordance

with my will. As a matter of fact, I wasn't

concerned with God in the least bit. Through the first

several many years of my life, until I was twenty

years old, I wasn't worried about God's will or God

at all, because I thought I was him. I thought

my will was all that mattered. What I desired was

all that mattered. My goals were all that mattered. The

things that were in front of me was all that mattered.

I was the main character in my story, and as

a result, I was so self willed that God tried

to work, and God tried to move, but I was

always resistant.

I was always pushing against him.

And even though I was very susceptible to sin, it

was as if though I was impervious to the moving

of the Holy Spirit, because it was all about me.

If you're self willed, and you have the attitude that

I can do it and I can make it, there

is a fall right around the corner. They're presumptuous, self willed.

They're not afraid to speak evil against dignitaries. The moment

we start speaking against authority, the moment we start speaking

against those who God has set over us, it begins

to shift us from that place where we are placed

underneath godly authority, and we begin to take control of

those things as if we know better. But God has

those come on somebody. God has set people over. It's

clear in scripture that God sets authority over us. As

a matter of fact, it's very clear that if we

want to grow spiritually, this is what Scripture says.

It says, remember.

Those who rule over you, who have spoken the word

of God to you, whose faith follow He says, here's

the thing, those people that are said over you, there

should be a display of faith.

And if there's a display.

Of faith, then we follow that faith, We follow that

display of who God is and what he can do.

And in Galatians five, verse sixteen, it says, I say,

then here's the key.

Here's how we turn.

The tide on the lust of the flesh. Walk in

the spirit. Let me say that again, walk in the spirit,

and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

If you walk in the spirit, you won't fulfill the

lust of the flesh.

Well, how do I do that?

We just finished a series on discipleship. You learn to

worship through the hard times. You get in a group

and you surround yourself with people who want the best

for you. You open your day with gratitude and you

understand that God has the best intentions for you, even

when it doesn't feel great. We learn to walk in

the spirit for the luck. For the flesh lust against

the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

Listen to that we've talked.

We understand the word lust, We understand it in our

society today. But it says, hey, the flesh lust against

the spirit, but the spirit also lusts against the flesh.

That the flesh has drawn to the world, but the

spirit lusts after God, his presence, and who he is,

his character and his nature, And if I'm spirit driven,

it's pulling me towards him and away from worldliness. And

these are contrary to one another, so that you do

not do the things that you wish in either direction.

If our flesh is in control, we wan't do the

spiritual things we want to do. If our spirit is

in control, we wan't do the fleshly things that we

want to do.

Here's the reality.

We're all falling broken people, every one of us redeemed

by grace. We all make poor decisions on a daily basis.

We have those seasons of life.

Where we don't live in a renewed mind, and we're

always constantly fighting against those thought processes. But we serve

a God who is to him. We serve a God

who wants the best for us. We serve a God

who positions us around other believers that can help us

on our journey with the things that we're struggling with,

the things that we're thinking about struggling with. Come on, somebody,

do you know that if some of you will just

open your mouth and talk about the things you want

to do, there's somebody that can help you from doing them.

That if we don't always get on the other side

of it and say, oh, I did this, what do

I do? What if you just had a conversation before

you did it? Nobody here is gonna think you're terrible person.

We're gonna think you are a person trying to live

in the grace of Jesus Christ. And that's what groups

are all about. So this is that moment where we

normally make an altar call and ask you to come

down to the altar and.

We pray for you.

But here is your call today.

Here is your call of action today, is that instead

of trying to do life alone, thinking that you're the

only one that's going through what you're going through today,

you're gonna go get in a group today. You're gonna

find a group that meets on a weekly or monthly

or bi weekly or however often they meet basis men.

I'm gonna invite you at seven am to get up

and come to Kurts on Tuesday mornings and we're gonna

eat sausage, gravy, come on somebody and talk about Jesus.

Gonna invite you to come and get involved in an

incredible group of ladies or an incredible group of people

that want to bowl, or people that want to learn

how to interpret scripture correctly, or there's so many groups

that you can be involved in, and I want you

to find two or three of those groups that you

can visit over the next week or two and make

the decision about where you fit the best. And on

top of that, we're gonna feed you the most amazing

tacos you've ever eaten. So in just a moment, when

we dismiss, I don't want you to just head out

and go to your car. I want you to give

special thought because the other things we do are just

as spiritual as coming to this altar.

Group.

Attendants, Justice spiritual is coming to this altar fellowship is

just as spiritual as coming.

To this altar.

All of those things are part of the Kingdom of God.

So let me pray for you, Father. I come right

now to you and Lord, those of us in this

room that are already bound, Lord, that are are held

in chains. I pray for freedom for those that are

standing on the precipice, Lord, those that are standing right

on the edge of making poor decisions that will start

us on a road.

Towards sin. I pray that you keep us from it.

Lord, I pray right now that you meet every person

at their point of need and open their hearts to

experience what true Christian fellowship is. Lord, I ask it

right now in Jesus' name. Amen, listen, let's go do

those four things. Experience God, walk in freedom, find our place,

and live with purpose. I'm going to meet you down

at the grill in just a few minutes. Until then,

remember Jesus is an orning with the oil of gladness,

not the oil of sadness.

And so were you. You're blessed and you're.

Dismissed to participate in the rest of the worship. Experience

doubt in the annex. Love you guys, go get your

kids before you go eat.