A Great House - Week 1

Amen.

We're starting a brand new series today called the Great House,

kind of our.

Theme for the year.

And I have preached a lot of sermon series over

the years, and I think that probably this sermon series

is one that I'm as excited about or more excited about,

than any I have ever preached in my entire ministry.

So you may not be excited about it, you may

not even like it, but I'm excited about it. And

we're going to start today in Second Timothy chapter two,

Second Timothy chapter two. So if you've got a Bible,

go to Second Timothy chapter two, and a good principle,

A good thing for you to do will be to

read this passage of scripture at least every week between

now in Eastern Now, if you want to read it

every day, God will show you new things every day,

but read it at least once a week, because we're

going to preach through this passage of scripture from now

until Easter, so that that's we're really digging in to

this Great House scripture. So Second Timothy chapter two, starting

in verse twenty. If you're there, say amen, Calvin, you

just you just look at the screen or share.

With your mama.

Second Timothy Chapter two, Verse twenty says, but in a

great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver,

but also of wood and clay, some for honor and

some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter,

he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful

for the Master, prepared for every good work. Flee also

youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those

who call on who call on the Lord out of

a pure heart, but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing

that they generate strife.

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but.

Be gentle to all, be able to teach, patient in humility,

correcting those who are in opposition. If God perhaps will

grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth,

and that they may come to their senses and escape

the snare of the devil, having been taken captivity by him.

To do his will. Father, we thank you for your word.

It's the only change agent on the face of the planet,

and our desire is to build a great house, Lord,

a great house.

Here this corporate gathering of believers.

At cornerstone Tabernacle, and Lord for us individually to build

great homes, great houses for our families, or to establish

a great house in the places that we frequent. Lord,

that place of dwelling, Father, give us the wisdom and

the insight to follow you more closely so that we

can serve you more purely. In Jesus name, we pray Amen.

This is uh. This passage of scripture paints this image

of a.

Great house, and it starts by saying, hey, that there's

there's all kinds of vessels. There's gold and silver vessels,

there's wooden vessels. There's some for honor and some for dishonor. Listen,

don't get caught up in the language.

Okay.

I think that sometimes when we read, especially when we

read King James New King James version of the Bible,

and we see, uh, we we see these these words

that that they become almost offensive to us. They feel

offensive because of the way we use the language today.

And this whole thing of dishonor is something that uh,

that that has a very negative context to it.

But don't get caught up in that language.

Basically, when it's saying a vessel of honor and dishonor.

It's talking about those things that that that are used

for godly purpose and those things that are not of

godly purpose. And he says that a great house. And

in context here we're all wants to talk about this place.

I wanted to talk about our corporate gathering today. There

should be every single time we gather. There should be

both believers and non believers. Every time we gather, there

should be people at all different spectrums, on all different

places of their walk in faith. We should have some

brand new baby Christians in the house. We should have

some senior saints that have been saved longer than you know,

the Methusalam lived. We should have all we should have

all variations in between, because it takes everybody to build

and create a great house.

And the Lord says that some of those some of

those people.

That are using their gifts and their talents, those people

that have discovered where they fit, have discovered their place.

Come on, somebody, those people that have found those gifts

in those talents. He refers to them in this passage

of scripture as vessels of honor, which simply means those

that are serving and doing that's what that means in

this passage of Scripture, and he says there's vessels of honor,

then there's vessels of dishonor those who just simply haven't

discovered where they fit yet, those that have not come

into the Kingdom of God yet, those that have not

really had that same grace collision with Jesus that we

all have that have caused transformation in our lives, and

that we should have both operating and comfortable in the House,

because even those who have not come to know Jesus

yet still have a purpose in a place in the

Great House. As a matter of fact, the reason we

do what we do, it's not so that we can

show off our gold and silver instruments. It's so that

we can use and so that we can be of

service to the wooden instruments. The wooden instruments were used

for everyday life, everyday use, not yet set apart and

constant created as something that is only reserved for special occasion.

And it is that that we exist for. You know,

I think that a.

Lot of people don't really built.

For the average church comfortable here at Cornerstone because we're

not really built for the average church person. We don't

really try to do church things because we're here for

our community. We're here for those who have not yet

met Christ. And as a result, people that are kind

of a serve me, give me kind of attitude don't

really last too long or don't fit too well here,

and we're okay with that because there's other churches that

do that.

Amen.

The biggest thing I want you to understand is that

we have a very kingdom focus, and I believe that

most of the churches in our community have a Kingdom focus.

That means that we want you to find where you fit,

whether it's here or whether it's down the road. We

want you to find the place where you can serve

and you can belong because that unlocks anointing and faith

in your life. And this whole idea of church has

become something in the modern day, and really it started.

And now listen, everybody, look at me. Let me take

a time out for my sermon here and taught y'all,

I'm not diminishing holiness. Okay, don't leave here.

And say old boschiefs said holiness people are bad. I'm

not saying that.

But what I'm saying is there was a movement through

the Kingdom at one point referred to as the Holiness movement,

that really taught us some things that we probably should

not have embraced. Now, holiness is something that we should

all embrace, but there was a holiness movement was a

theological perspective. It was just simply a church method that

swept through especially the Southeast United States, that said, hey,

you need to isolate and remove yourself from anything that

is not church, that you need to segregate yourself, that

you need to uh, that you need to come apart because,

after all, sanctification means that you're called out, that you're

you're called above, and that you can associate with with

people who are not holy, that you shouldn't do those things. Well,

let me ask you a question of church. If you're

not associating with people who are not saved, how were

they ever going to be saved? If if you are

appalled by every act of sin that happens in the

world and you want to distance yourself.

Now no I'm not talking about participating in it.

You shouldn't participate in it, but if you want to

distance yourself from it, then how.

In the world are people ever.

Going to see the light of Jesus. How are people

ever going to experience his grace if we continue to

create this subculture that we've created. And when we look

at society, us as Christians, we have created a completely

different subculture from most of society. We have our own gatherings.

Come on somebody, and we should we should do this.

But we have more than this. We have our own

isolated gatherings where we do everything just us. We have

our own conferences, we have our own music, we have

we have our own schools.

We even have our own chicken restaurant.

Come on somebody, and we've created this sol culture that

creates a buffer and a barrier between us and the world.

And the reality is is that we have convinced ourselves

that that's the way we stay saved, that that's the

way we stay holy. But holiness has nothing to do

with what's out there pressing in. It's what's in here

trying to press out. See, holiness is not what I

look like. It's my heart slammed towards Jesus. And if

I'm passionately in love with Jesus, I'm also going to

be passionately in love with hurting broken people.

In John Chapter seventeen, Verse thirteen.

It says, but now I come to you, and these

things I speak in the world, that they may have

my joy fulfilled in themselves.

Just see, we sometimes we read that Jesus.

Writes what he writes to us because the people that

haven't found him yet. He says, here's the thing. When

I look at the world, I want them to have

my joy. I want those that are far from me

to experience me and to have my joy, that fulfillment.

That believers have.

I died so that they can experience the same thing

you experience, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has

hated them because they are not of the world, just

as I am not of the world.

Verse fifteen.

I do not pray that you should take them out

of the world. Jesus said, I love him, But Lord,

when I go leave him, won't you think about that

for a second? He said, I'm going to prepare a

place for it. You know, he prepared this place. Everybody says, Oh,

how could God create the world in seven day? Why

did he take so long? People ask how he did

it in such a short time. I always asked, why

did it take him so long? He could have done

it in seven seconds. And he created, He created this world,

and then Sin came into the world, and Jesus said,

I'm going to prepare a place for you. Jesus went

to be with the Father two thousand years ago. He

created the whole world in six days and rested on

the seventh. There has to be a purpose if he

says I'm going to prepare a place for you and

it's not done yet, it's because.

He knows.

That you're needed here. He said, I'm coming to you, Father,

but don't take them.

Leave them, even though the world will hate them. Leave them,

even though they're going to be more comfortable and they're

going to have easier lives if you bring them with me,

Leave them because there is a purpose.

For those that believe on the face of the planet.

As a matter of fact, that I think that if

it was up to me, if I was God, then

I would work this whole thing out that the minute

you got saved, you would just go be with Jesus.

It would simplify things a whole lot more instant discipleship.

Come on, somebody, me.

It would just be like going through the drive I order,

and then I'm there. I got my big mac and

I'm going on my way. But that's not his plan

and purpose, because it is to establish a great house,

a great house where where the culture of the kingdom

collides with the culture of the world, and the culture

of the kingdom begins to shape and manipulate the.

Culture of the world, so that the culture of the

world looks a little more like the culture of the Kingdom.

I pray that you should I pray that you should

take I do not pray that you should take them out.

Of the world, but that you should keep them from

the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am

not of the world.

Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, I also have

sent them into the world, and for their sakes, I

sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by truth.

He said, they're in the world, but they're not of

the world. They're off the Kingdom, but they're in the world.

And I'm sending them into the world. I'm sending those

vessels of honor to find those vessels of everyday use.

To bring them into the Kingdom.

That they could have transformation, that they could find their

giftings and their talents where they fit, and that they

could become vessels of honor. See church, it's not enough

just to say that we're Christians and that we only

have Christian friends. Because when we make that discernment, when

we make those divisions that I'm going to separate myself,

then we also make the next division, which becomes very

detrimental to the believer, and that is that I have

a spiritual part of my life and the secular part.

Of my life.

Because see, that's the next step in that train of thinking,

is that there are holy parts of my life, there

are sacred parts, there are spiritual parts of my life,

and there are secular or worldly parts of my life.

So when I go to church, I'm putting on my

spiritual hat. Come on, somebody, when I'm in small group,

when I go to group, I've got on my spiritual clothes.

When I work at the food bank, come on now,

I got on my spiritual hat.

In other words, that's what this man. Listen. I ain't

gonna cut nobody out into parking lot of the church

or at the food bank.

I'm not gonna come into the church parking lot on

two wheels, throwing Budweiser out of the window. So that's

my spiritual life. But then we isolate our spiritual life.

And then we say when we have a secular life,

and I run my business and I'm deceik, I'm deceitful

in the way I run my business. I show up late,

but I get somebody to clock it. I get somebody

to clock in for me, even when I'm running late,

so that my boss don't know.

And I'm stealing from the company.

But that don't matter, because that's my secular that's that's

that's my secular life. I watch ESPN on my phone

while I'm supposed to be working and I'm stealing from

my employer.

I talk about people behind their back. But I don't

do that at church. I won't do that in group.

What set in group stays in group until I get

out of group.

Come about somebody.

And we make these divisions in our lives, and we

set these compartmental these compartments in our lives, and we

try to compartmentalize all these things. And and this over

here is for God, and this over here is for me,

and this is that and that's that. And the reality

is is that God wants us to understand.

That we are vessels of honor everywhere.

All the time, and that we live our lives in

such a way that we are still going into the world,

but we're not of the world. That we're making an

impact in the people that we encounter on a daily basis,

that we don't live appalled at what they do and

how they live their lives, because you live that way too.

One time, until somebody made an invitation of some kind

to you, whether it was to pray, whether it was

to listen, whether to come to church, or maybe a

long time ago when and they invited.

You to vacation, Bible school, whatever it was.

You were that way until someone stepped out and decided

that they would be in.

The world and not of the world and offer.

That invitation, and you were transformed. See in that moment,

In that moment, you became different because you came out

of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light,

and you can see better than people that are still

in the kingdom of darkness. You have a different perspective

about the world. But God says, go and take the

light and shine it in the darkness, not just in your.

House, but everywhere you go. To come to church and

be different, To come to church.

And act like you got it all together, and then

to go out there and live a different way, it's

hypocrisy as its highest level. Hypocrisy is not when you're

trying to live holy and you slip up and you

make a mistake and you sin. That's not hypocrisy, that's

being alive. Hypocrisy is when you intentionally are one way

in a holy setting or a spiritual setting, and you're

intentionally another way in these divisions that we've created in

our lives. I'm gonna tell y'all something, and listen. My

wife wishes I w wastn't this way. Sometimes I think

I'm exactly the same on the stage as I am

at home.

All the difference is I'm not over he up here.

On my just in my underwear. At home, I'm just

in my underwear a lot. But other than that, listen,

if I dance here just like I dance at home,

I mean, you know, I say the same things because

to me, there is no difference. There is no there

is no difference. There is no holy or secular part

of my life. It's just Jesus. It's just Jesus, and

I don't talk about this. This is probably gonna shock

some of you. You may even go to a different church.

I don't talk about Jesus all the time. I don't

as a matter of fact.

Listen, when Pastor Clay and I get together, just like

in a social setting, I hardly ever talk about Jesus.

I talk about football, I talk about all kinds of stuff,

talk about church sometimes. Let me give you a big

let me give you a huge statement here. Church and

Jesus are not the same thing. This is where we

gather together as believers to find and hear the truth

about Jesus and to live out the truth about Jesus

when we get those truths. But Church and Jesus are

not the same things. I think there are people probably

that worship the Church and not Jesus. But if we're

building a great house, that means that those people are

welcome too until they all figure it out. We are

all on this journey trying to figure these things out,

and every single person, no matter where you're at on

the journey, has a place right here in this great house.

In Romans chapter twelve, we see a beautiful picture of

the apostle Paul trying to solve this diecos this pressure

that we have of trying to.

Be in the world but not of the world.

Paul knew better than anyone about what it was like

to try to be in the world and not of

the world. He was in the world, and his reputation

in the world was one where he persecuted and killed Christians.

His testimony was that he was.

A Pharisee of pharisees, that concerning the law blame less,

there was a spiritual pride and arrogance that was associated

and attached to his name. And in Romans, he begins

to to carry us through this struggle that he has,

and how he brought balance to this whole pressure of

being kingdom citizens but still living and being part of

the world and being asked to be a recruiter for

the kingdom. In Romans Chapter twelve, verse one, it says,

I beseech you there, for brethren, by the mercies of God,

that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable

to God, which is your reasonable service. One of the

reasons we have such a hard time living in the

world but not being of the world is that living sacrifices.

The biggest problem with the living sacrifice is that it

keeps crawling off the all see, a dead sacrifice just

lays there, but a living sacrifice wiggles and gets uncomfortable

and wants to get off the altar and doesn't want

to to continue to lay there so that God can

do the work that he wants to do, because after all,

the altar is a place of death. You know, in

the modern church, we've transformed the ideology of the altar.

In the modern church, the altar is a place of blessing.

But in scripture, the altar is a place of death.

It's a place where sacrifice happens. It's a place where

things came to die. It smelled like blood, it smelled

like meat, it smelled like those rotten things, because those

things came and died there.

And when we present our bodies a living.

Sacrifice, we come and we lay on the altar, and

He kills the things he wants dead in our lives,

and he resurrects the things that he wants to give

life to. And we do that every moment of every day,

conscious that God is still working on me and working

through me to make me effective in the world. I

would rather you be effective in the world and not

serve on a team.

Here, let me keep reading verse two.

Clay, you guys can come and get ready, and do

not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by

the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what

is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Those honorable vessels, they weren't gold sometimes and sometimes they

were always honorable, or they were always dishonorable. They had

different uses. But we as we struggle through these things,

we want to switch the place. We want to switch

at the honorable. We want to take off those tags,

and we want to put on tags, and we want

to do those things. But this is what he says.

The way that we do it is we transform our mind.

We saturate our minds in the Word of God and

the principles of God and the precepts of God. We

saturate our minds until our minds begin to think at

a kingdom level, until our minds begin to think on

a different plane, so that we don't look at our

lives the same way that when we live like this,

we look at our lives and when I'm having a

hard financial time. What that means is is that I

should tell people what God is going to do, how

God's gonna bring me through. When I'm in a good

financial time, I tell everybody what God brought me from

and out of. When I'm going through a problem in

my body and I'm struggling in my body. When we

have that perspective, then we talk about all the things

that God's doing for us right now. And I may

not be at the end yet, i may not be

stepping into my healing yet. I may not have my

miracle yet, but I'm on my way towards that, and

I'm onboarding people in this very difficult journey that I'm

in right now, so that people can see that it's

not beating me down like it beats everybody else down,

because I have hope. I have something that the world does.

I have and I can live through it and I

can have His joy in my heart, and I don't

have to be like everybody else. You don't have to

be like everybody else. You don't have to be discouraged

like everybody else, you don't have to be downtrodden like

everybody else, because God has called you to a special purpose.

He hasn't created you out of ordinary material.

He's created you out of the most precious out of

the most valuable substances he could find. He shaped you,

and he molded you out of the clay, using the

blood of his son Jesus as the binder and the shaper.

And that's who you are.

He's called you above and said you're the head and

not the tail, above and not beneath. The greater is

he who is in you than he who is in

the world. And to establish this place as a great house.

I should go and.

Live my life with my head up, understanding that I've

been called for such a time as this and such

a place as this to impact the people he has

given me influence and relationship with. He's not asking you

to grab a bullhorn and go to the.

Corner and scream at people.

Maybe he is, but probably not.

He's not asking you to sell everything you have.

And move inside the ten forty window where the most

unreached people live. He's asking you to make a difference

in the people you're around every day. He's asking you

to do what Mary Lena did the other day and

just bring her whole work. Folk everybody she works with her.

She just said, I don't know what she told them,

but she got them here. Maybe she paid them, I

don't know, but I bet it was because she had

built a relationship with them and she had invested in

their lives. And when she made the invitation, they came,

we do the hard things and we love the people

that are hard to love because Jesus loved us.

When we were hard to love.

When my wife and I were dating, we were at

a Emmanuel College, Pentecostal Pentecostal hold in the school. That's

how they said it too, We'll go to a Manual

Pentecostal holiness school.

Everybody said it that way.

They as heard the phone, Manual College, pene Costal hold

in the school, Christian ministry, majors all over the place,

people that are preaching in churches today. And I was

as lost and far from God as anyone could ever be.

And my wife and her friends, they started praying, God,

do whatever you have to do to save him.

But saving just do whatever, Just do whatever you have

to do. Many of you know my testimony.

And I was not in a good place in my life,

was battling with substance. I was battling with alcohol, particularly

at that time, and I got alcohol poisoning and for

three days I laid in my dorm room and I

couldn't keep water down nothing.

And I remember the first prayer I prayed.

It's amazing. I mean it was so theologically unsound that

God even answered. I remember looking at my dorm room ceiling.

And I said, I cannot even believe.

I call God, dude, I said, Dude, if you're there,

like all these stuck up people say you are, just

let me feel good enough to take a shower.

Do you know that through that whole time, not one

Pentecostal holiness.

Preacher that was there in Bible College came and checked

on me or prayed or prayer for me. They all

knew what was wrong with me, but not one came.

It's three girls from this church who were praying for me.

They weren't the ones that led me to the Lord.

That was another divine appointment, but they're the ones that

were the catalyst of transformation in my life because they

had just simply crawled up on the altar in my

place and began to pray and cry out my name

and plead for the blood of Jesus to flow over

my life. What are you doing for the people around you?

What are you doing.

To build the great House of God?

How long has it been since you talked to a

lost person about Jesus? How long has it been since

you invited? And you're like pastor, you don't want my

friends to come here?

Yes I do.

I don't care who they are are. I don't care

where they've been or what they've done. The blood of

Jesus is able, and the reality I know pasionally I know.

I mean, as I went.

Through as I kind of had this thing turning in me.

I think the reality is that people want to do

those things, But I don't know that you're comfortable in

your relationship with Jesus to do it. There's still some

fear that it's gonna rub off on me, their sin's

gonna rub off on me. It won't if you think

it will take somebody with you. But do what God

has called you to do, and.

Less build a great house.

Let's build a great house of transformation by renewing our

mind and being so full of the Word that the

world is not appealing.

God's desire is for you to make an impact.

For you to build a spiritual legacy that when you

get to heaven and you stand before God, he shows

you the see of people who was impacted by your life.

That's what God wants for you. That's why he.

Said, leave them here, Leave them here because they have

a legacy to create. Leave them here, leave them here

that they're not of it, but they're in it because

we need them. It's your plan, Father, You're his plan.

Everybody standing with me all over the building.

And if you're here.

Today and through this message, you thought, yeah, that's not

that's that's that's not how I think. That that whole

thing about you know, my whole life being the godly part.

That's not how I think. That's not how I live.

I have those two areas, I have those divisions in

my life.

God wants you to come. He wants you to come

and give him everything.

He wants you to come and turn those secular, non

spiritual areas over to him and let him wash them

and cleanse them. If you're here today and you say, hey,

you know what, I don't know if if I died today.

I don't. I don't I don't know if I would

go to heaven.

If you're here today and you're struggling, and you say, hey,

I just don't have the peace of God in my life.

I don't I don't have I don't have peace. I'm

stressed out and worried all the time. He wants to

meet you here today.

So that people can see that peace in your life.

You're here today and you've never asked Jesus to be

your lord and your savior. Today is the day that

you do that. Altered team, come and get ready.

H hh. I'm gonna count to three. If any of

those things are you, I want you to step out

and I want you to come. I'm going to give

my whole life to Jesus. I want to meet Jesus

for the very first time, or I want to come

back to Jesus.

I want his peace. Fast. You don't look around, see

if anybody else is moving. Step out and come.

When I get to three, one, two, three, step out

and move right now.

Come on, where are you? I know you're here? Amen? Amen,

Come on, where are you? Come on? There's three or

four more people. The Holy Spirit's dealing with your heart.

You're you feel your pulse kind of elevated, Your heart

rates elevated.

That's the Holy Spirit working. It's the Holy Spirit drawing you.

So come on, step out, and come step out, and

come Pastor Clay, you guys are ready, is gonna sing.

The altar is still open. Stop fighting God right where

you are. Some of you are literally wrestling with God

in your seat. Stop wrestling him and step out and

come

As you claim.