Removing the Rubbish

[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: cluttering experts tell us that we're supposed to ask ourselves several questions frequently in life as we're looking at all the stuff that we accumulate in our homes and in our lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have I used this in the past year?

[SPEAKER_01]: Does this item serve a practical daily purpose?

[SPEAKER_01]: Does this item bring me joy in my life?

[SPEAKER_01]: Does it make my life better?

[SPEAKER_01]: Am I keeping this out of guilt or obligation?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it time?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is this item taking up space that I could use for something else?

[SPEAKER_01]: And does this align with who I am now with me as a person?

[SPEAKER_01]: Last month during the snowstorm we had my wife and I thought, well, what are we going to do?

[SPEAKER_01]: A couple days or snowed in?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we look in the closet and the storage room and see if there's anything we can get rid of?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so without any effort at all, a minimal effort, we dug through closets and clothes and the storage room and we

[SPEAKER_01]: four large garbage bags of stuff just a throw away, and several boxes of things to donate to charity, and that was without very much effort at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: Something deeper goes on in our lives, though, with the stuff we own, doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a famous quote that's been in a lot of movies and out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: The things that you own, end up owning you, the things that you own, end up owning you, somehow all the stuff takes up space in your life and so you have to care for it, you have to give it attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the cost, it's the maintenance, the psychological and emotional attachment that we have with the things in our lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not just the things, it's our attitudes, it's our habits, it's the way we sue our own soul when we're in pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the prejudices that we have, the bitterness,

[SPEAKER_01]: as Kelly and Jenny told us it could be technology.

[SPEAKER_01]: It can be the screens.

[SPEAKER_01]: It can be scrolling through our Facebook feed or me wondering why I have so many apps on my phone when I have probably not used over half of them and they'd last couple of year.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we just accumulate things, we accumulate things and it always takes our time and energy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then that concept can be expanded to a lot of human behavior.

[SPEAKER_01]: But even into our spiritual lives, both individually and corporately.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as men and women, moms, dads, children, teenagers, as a church, as a small group, as a friend group, how are we allowing the things that we accumulate to take up space in our lives, that somehow hinders or gets in the way of our service or worship of God?

[SPEAKER_01]: The section of the Bible that we're looking at this morning gives us an ancient example of how to declutter our spiritual lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to be looking at second Chronicles chapter 29, we're in the middle of a series focusing on how our church is on mission.

2 Chronicles 29 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: In the past two Sundays, we've looked at verses 1 to 11, where Hezekiah in his first axis, King of Judah, set out to reopen the temple, where Yahweh was to be worshiped, and he called out the Levites to consecrate themselves, and had this plan of how we're going to confess our sins, and we're going to repent of the sins, not just our lives, but of our fathers, and set a new path.

[SPEAKER_01]: The King acknowledged the sins of the path claim.

[SPEAKER_01]: He claimed, our fathers were unfaithful.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: And after assessing that situation and casting vision, we pick up in verse 12, where if you remember Adam's message last week, he talked about, he has a kind of outline this plan, and one of Adam's points was removed.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now we're circling back to that, and it's actually gonna happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: This passage is about it actually happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've been having some of our elders, or one elder, a week come and reach scripture and pray, so I'm going to invite Rich Kepper, one of our elders to come and join me to read this scripture passage and pray for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is important.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing this, partly because we need to be reminded of our elders and the ministry that they have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we can pray for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: It gives them an opportunity to participate in our message.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm especially thankful that I get to hand off this passage to

[SPEAKER_01]: Difficult to pronounce Hebrew names.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, John.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Levites started to work from co-host descendants were Mayoth, Son of Amassai, and Joel, Son of Azariah.

[SPEAKER_00]: From Amarariah's descendants were Kish, Son of Abdi, and Azariah, Son of Jaha'alel.

[SPEAKER_00]: From Gurshan's descendants were Joa, Son of Zimma, and Eden, Son of Joa.

[SPEAKER_00]: From Elizafan's descendants were shimmery and G-I-L, from Asaf's descendants were Zachariah and Matt Naya.

[SPEAKER_00]: From humans' descendants were G-I-L and Shimei.

[SPEAKER_00]: From Judea's descendants were Shimei and Uzia.

[SPEAKER_00]: These men gathered their relatives and performed the ceremonies to make themselves holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: then they obeyed the King's order from Yahweh's Word and entered the temple to make it clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: The priests entered Yahweh's temple to make a clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: They carried into the courtyard every unclean thing that they found in Yahweh's temple than the Levites took the unclean items outside the city to the key-drawn book.

[SPEAKER_00]: They started on the first day of the first month.

[SPEAKER_00]: On the eighth day, they went into Yahweh's entrance hall, and for eight days, they performed the ceremonies to make Yahweh's temple holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: They finished on the 16th day of the first month.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, it's a great passage.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love the way it starts with the Levites, started to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: His Pastor John unpacks this passage today and helps us understand how the Levites started their work of decluttering and purifying and cleansing the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's also gonna give us a few tools of how we can do the same in our own temple, in our own lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, I just ask for this church that each person here will seize the tools that we're gonna get today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll take the time with the energy, with the passion, with the commitment to actually do some decluttering and purifying in our own lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like the Levites, let's start to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus name, amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Rich.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Levites mentioned here, just as a reminder, the priestly tribe in Israel, priests in the Old Testament were Levites, not all Levites were priests, those who were descended from Aaron were the priests, but all Levites concerned themselves with worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were all concerned with what goes on in the Tabernacle and later the Temple, both in the Coutrements and the Furniture and in the Expression and the Sacrificial System.

[SPEAKER_01]: From verses 12 to 14, we identified as rich red, 14 Levites, eight from the Levitical families, and then others from the families of the Levitical singers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they gathered, we see in verse 15, all of these other Levites to come together to start the work of purification of the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: But before they had, before they would work on the temple itself, the scripture here says they had to purify themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: an extensive sacrificial consecration process is outlined in Exodus chapter 29 for priests.

Exodus 29 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: Before they could go to God on behalf of people that purify themselves and it wasn't a physical purification.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a spiritual, whole life consecration to the work and worship of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's presumed that all the Levites had similar kinds of purification rituals.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as mediators between God and his people, we find cleanliness and redemption is what God requires.

[SPEAKER_01]: So how should we view this consecration as being made holy?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's being set apart for God's use.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then they set a part to cleanse the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that wasn't to remove the dirt from the temple, although that may have been part of it, but rather to achieve a degree of ceremonial, cleanliness and purification and sanctification, being set apart from God that God originally intended this temple to be about.

[SPEAKER_01]: They brought the priests went into the areas where they could go and the whole of Holies and some parts where all the Levites couldn't go.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they brought out the parts that were unclean, the idols that had been accumulated in the temple area.

[SPEAKER_01]: They brought it out to the Levites and they carried it out and disposed of it in the Kiddren Valley.

[SPEAKER_01]: In second, Chronicles chapter 28, the previous chapter, we read about King A has who is the predecessor of Hezekiah, how he defiled the temple by taking the furnishings out of the temple and replacing the furnishings in the temple that was supposed to be the worship center for God with idols from the culture.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second Chronicles, chapter 28, verses 24 and 25, is where we read this.

2 Chronicles 28:24

[SPEAKER_01]: The king, this would be A has, has a chized predecessor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Took various articles from the temple of God and broke them into pieces.

[SPEAKER_01]: He shut the doors of the temple so that no one could worship there.

[SPEAKER_01]: He set up alters to pagan gods in every corner of Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_01]: He made pagan shrines in all the towns of Judah, offering sacrifices to all the gods.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this way, he aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of his ancestors.

[SPEAKER_01]: So these pagan shrines undermined, opposed, and corrupted the worship of Israel's one true God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Itals always demand sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's important that we remember that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever kind of idol in your life, it always demands a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so A has it allowed all of these idols to come into the place that was supposed to be the worship of Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of sacrificing to Yahweh and worshiping Him, now we're sacrificing to all of these other gods

[SPEAKER_01]: As the Levites under Hezekiah started carrying the pagan alters out to the Kydron Valley, it's important to remember they were not just hauling away rubbish.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were taking away hopelessness, deception, darkness, and death that always accompany idolatry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whenever there's something that creeps into our worship, whether it's corporately or individually,

[SPEAKER_01]: It brings, it brings lies.

[SPEAKER_01]: It clouds our view of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 17 says it took them 16 days to complete the purification of the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth noting that this purging,

[SPEAKER_01]: was either incomplete or later idols were reintroduced because after hezekiah's reign in Josiah's reign, later articles are removed that were there for the worship of Baal, Eshtara, and it says in the second Kings 234, the Starry Hosts from the Temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: So somehow after this purging,

[SPEAKER_01]: believe I let their guard down, and either they didn't, fully purge from all of the idols, or they started to creep back in.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really important reminder for all of us, because sometimes we're really good at confessing and cleansing our hearts and getting right with God today.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then tomorrow comes and we allow things to creep back in that begin to corrupt our own worship of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what does this reflection on the Levites in the Old Testament?

[SPEAKER_01]: Removing idols from the temple have to do with us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at a couple of verses in the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: First Peter chapter two, verses 9 and 10, you are not like that for you are a chosen people, your royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession.

[SPEAKER_01]: As a result, you can show others the goodness of God for he called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once you had no identity as a people, now you are God's people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once you receive no mercy, now you have received God's mercy.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are a chosen people.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are royal priests.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are the priesthood of God in this place.

[SPEAKER_01]: And says, as a result of being holy, as a result of being the people of God, we can show others the goodness of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: which is a slight variation on the common theme as we can show others a goodness of God because of how messed up we are.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which is true and it's biblical, but there's another aspect of showing others how good God is is because we live differently than the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we've been purified and we're set on a different path than the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or look at 2 Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 7:1

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit, and let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no word to hide there is there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clans ourselves from everything, everything that defiles our body and spirit, and work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's another phrase that isn't brought up a lot in modern evangelicalism because we fear God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We like because God's grace and God's love and God's God of mercy and those are really, really fun themes from the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the because you fear God's theme is just as strong.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just as much we're called to a life of obedience to a life of purging of sin and getting idols out of our lives because we fear God, not because God is some fickle God who just doesn't want us to have fun, because these things will destroy us.

[SPEAKER_01]: They'll destroy our relationships, they'll destroy our health, they'll destroy our faith, they'll destroy our witness.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we cleanse ourselves from these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Hebrews chapter 10, verses 12 to 14,

Hebrews 10:12–14

[SPEAKER_01]: But our high priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then he sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet.

[SPEAKER_01]: For by that one offering, he forever made perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are being made holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today God doesn't dwell in a building.

[SPEAKER_01]: This building is not God's house.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like the temple was in the Old Testament to place we gather.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a place where the temple comes and gathers in small and large groups.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we are the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are the place where God resides.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the New Testament both in the church corporately and individually, we are the place where God resides.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very, very important to remember that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this verse in Hebrews also brings up something about the substitutionary atonement of Jesus that forever makes us perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Forever, he forever made perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a sense in which our sanctification, our purification, our holiness is totally because of what Jesus did on the cross and when God looks at me as a child of God who's been forgiven through the work of Jesus Christ, he doesn't see anything but a perfect person.

[SPEAKER_01]: through Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: He sees holiness.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's another truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we fail because we lean on one of these truths or the other.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's another truth for by that one offering.

[SPEAKER_01]: He forever made perfect.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those who are being made holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I am holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope I'm more holy today than I was last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I have less idols than I'm worshiping.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I have less things I'm depending on other than God than I did last month.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I'm closer to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I look more like Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I live more like Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I love more like Him than I did last week.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's being made holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And both of those are positional sanctification because of what Jesus has done and are progressive sanctification because of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives to purify us and to make us more like Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are both happening and they're both true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we missed that, I serve on a board of ministerial standing in the central district and read often credentialing papers for men and women that are seeking credentials, ministerial credentials in the evangelical free church of America.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of the questions, and it's so frequent, even in people that are church leaders, as to miss one or the other of those.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's either all about what Christ has done and little about what I'm supposed to be doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: where it's all about mostly about what I'm supposed to be doing and little about what Christ has done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Over and over, we see this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Simply put, these two perspectives are very true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing else is needed.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are a whole nation where God's own possession.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, the New Testament calls us to maintain lives of purity and to examine ourselves and examine the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: over and over again in the epistles.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christ followers are implored to get rid of bitterness and envy, gossip, divisive behavior, selfishness, sexual sin, misplace priorities, idolatry.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's people who are saved by Christ are called to do the work of getting rid of these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the idolatry of the age is very significant, and it's tied to the story we read here in 2nd Chronicles 29.

[SPEAKER_01]: King A has corrupted the worship of Yahweh in the temple, because he brought the cultural idols of his day into this space that was set aside to worship Yahweh alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout history, in every culture,

[SPEAKER_01]: There have been tendencies for Christians and even in the Old Testament, Old Testament people have got to adopt or allow cultural idols to seep into the life and worship of the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: As very reasonable, why?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's never been an encounter with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's never been a movement of God among people that doesn't happen in a culture.

[SPEAKER_01]: story of Genesis happened in a culture of people.

[SPEAKER_01]: So no one ever knows God apart from the cultural reality that you live in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the gospel, as we understand from the New Testament, seeks to not embrace that culture, but engage that culture and transform it to be more like what God's kingdom will ultimately be like.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why culture is always a challenge for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: But our cultural idols are rarely over and obvious.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if we brought 20 foot tall statue of a dollar sign and we put it on the platform here and said, in addition to our normal worship every week, we're gonna pray to the dollar and we're gonna talk about how powerful this dollar is and our hope is in the dollar.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've like, no!

[SPEAKER_01]: But how many of us, by the way, we live,

[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, we set our priorities by our fears and our ambitions, put our trust and hope and money.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, that's what idolatry does.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just sneaks in because our culture values it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's dangerous for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are other cultural values and pursuits that can infiltrate the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Corrupt our worship, corrupt our service.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're all about consumer, all about making sure we're getting value for our dollar, value for our investment, and that infiltrates the church, too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like this in this church, but I like the teaching over here and maybe the small group I get more community over here and youth group over here and we have people now they're like just like picking and choosing where we're going to go for different things in the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's going to a mall and figuring out where I want to get the shoes and where I want to go shopping and where we're going to have dinner.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of being called to a mission, to a mission to make a difference for the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: idol of our culture that we can allow and keep in mind not only things are bad in of themselves, it's when it's when a temporal thing becomes permanent, it's when something that's earthly becomes ultimate, it's when we start putting our trust in that subtly, it can creep into the church, political power, national identity, that's a huge challenge in the church today in America.

[SPEAKER_01]: I sometimes read articles or books and hear your podcast talking about faith and reading the Bible and interpreting the Bible and I ask sometimes, I wonder if the Christians and I ran today or the Christians in South America or the Christians in China would have the same interpretation of that verse?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it purely, no, this is an American interpretation of that verse.

[SPEAKER_01]: But to be careful, we have to be careful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not that we can't be patriotic, but we have to be careful of how things can see been technology.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've talked about that, and I love that Jenny and Kelly talked to us about how our children are, we're going to be training parents for helping our children deal with this because it's coming into our churches in such a powerful way.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be very careful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Happiness.

[SPEAKER_01]: individuality, individualism, that's a value we have, and that can creep into the church, and it can corrupt what we're supposed to be doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Success, being successful, or in many of our cases, it's maybe not my success as much as it's making sure I get my value and worse for my children's success.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they go to the right college, if they make the right money, if they get the right right, marry the right person.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the values of the culture to see pen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Celebrity, entertainment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah and I were just sitting down last week talking about this summer and plans and what plays we're gonna go to, what concerts we're gonna go to and we love doing that and having those kind of date nights planned out well in advance and they look a lot like this by the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: We go to a place and we get a seat out there in the audience and there are people on a stage who are doing acting or are playing guitars and drums and singing and we get entertained.

[SPEAKER_01]: and our culture loves entertainment.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be really careful every Sunday morning when we come into this place, especially when you give some gifted musicians and vocalists who don't do this to entertain.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to be entertaining.

[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be leading us in worship, but sometimes it's easy to clap, not because God's great, because you guys nailed that song.

[SPEAKER_01]: And wow, the sound is great, and the music's great, and we just have to be careful, church.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be careful.

[SPEAKER_01]: That the things of the culture don't come in and become the things that we depend on.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, that's what it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are you trusting in?

[SPEAKER_01]: What are you trusting in?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because these things are not off limits to the church, not off limits to Christians, entertainments, fine, consumerism,

[SPEAKER_01]: maintained within the bounds of some kind of moderation is fine, technologies fine, political power, patriotism, that's all fine until it becomes something that takes the place of where we're supposed to worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the core, this isn't about reaching perfection, but about living an examined life.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a phrase I want you to take away,

[SPEAKER_01]: Or am I living in an examined life as a person?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a time when I regularly pull back and look at how I'm living, walk up to the balcony and look down and say, what's going on in our church?

[SPEAKER_01]: How are we doing this?

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to reflect on doctrine, how we hold the principles and the doctrine we believe in and how we live out our faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second Chronicles 29, 15 tells us that the Levites were very careful to follow all the instruction that all the Lord's instruction in their work.

[SPEAKER_01]: They took a back, not just to what Hezekiah was saying, but what Hezekiah reminded us, God said, that's really important.

[SPEAKER_01]: We follow in our kind of a,

[SPEAKER_01]: stream of the New Testament church, the Protestant Reformation, were Protestants.

[SPEAKER_01]: We go back to the Reformers who who actually challenged what their church was doing and they looked in the scripture and they said, we don't know if that's really what that means.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know if that's how we're supposed to be doing church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then here we are today, as Protestants, and sometimes we have to ask ourselves, are we Protestants, are we Christians that have the spirit of the Protestant reformers where we could even look at our doctrine?

[SPEAKER_01]: We can look at our way we're doing church.

[SPEAKER_01]: We could look at our practices, we could look at how we do things, and ask the question, is this what the Bible teaches?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really glad that in the leadership circles that I am in here at first free, and our elders and our pastoral staff and our deacons and our ministry team, we asked that, often, we asked that, often.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's an idea for ministry, here's an idea, here's some emphasis we're gonna have biblically or doctrinally in the next year or something or how do we increase this way of doing outreach?

[SPEAKER_01]: And we asked that question,

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what the Bible tells us to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that we're not just being pragmatic, we're not just trying to do something that would grow the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: The church is always in a culture, and we have to be aware of these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to share a couple of them that I've come across recently.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not long ago, I received an email.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of our pastors, other pastors did as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you're leading a church, you get emails from people wanting to give you the quick way to grow your church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Often.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the latest gimmick.

[SPEAKER_01]: They never, even if their church grew from 500 to 5,000, none of them ever got it from a gimmick, but they tell you they want to give you this gimmick that will help you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so some of us not even really that wrong, it's just not how we're supposed to be doing this.

[SPEAKER_01]: One email I got, led with this line, we are looking for 250 churches to become the go-to churches for entrepreneurs in your city.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for 250 churches across America to be the go-to church for entrepreneurs in your city.

[SPEAKER_01]: You wanna be one of those churches?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let us know, we're gonna tell you how.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what's the carrot that's dangling there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Boy, 200, 100, 100, we wanna be, what if all the entrepreneurs wanted to come here?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, what entrepreneurs bring?

[SPEAKER_01]: Creativity.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're go-get or they're gonna make things happen and they usually have really good jobs with good income so or they're gonna get there and so they may tie I mean it's not in the email but this is going on in our minds and it's like oh be that and I'm not even gonna say that

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me put this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can use this example and share what I'm going to share in a minute, and also say probably first free would attract more entrepreneurs than some other areas because of the place we live.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's where in West St. Louis County, so we're going to attract entrepreneurs.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that's wrong, but that email would be very different if the opening line was,

[SPEAKER_01]: We are looking for 250 churches to become the go-to churches for people with disabilities or for addicts or for the chronically unemployed or for victims of domestic violence.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for 250 churches who are going to be the go-to churches for people with mental illness.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when we look at the New Testament, who did Jesus die for?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who did He come for?

[SPEAKER_01]: For the broken, for the addicts, is for the ills, for the prisoners.

[SPEAKER_01]: You get my point.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that it's wrong to have entrepreneurs come to our church.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, where are we allowing something from the culture to seep into guide us in an area that we shouldn't be?

[SPEAKER_01]: What our marketing and consumer mindsets latch onto is that a program and events, something is going to help us do what God has already gifted us to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what I always, these kinds of things always are trying to help you step over the most simple, practical way that God wants to grow as church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's you talking to the people around you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your neighbors, the people you work with, the people you go to school with, the people you encounter in your everyday life, and share with them through your actions in your words, the incredible transformation that God is doing in your life, and let them see your life of holiness and be drawn to God, that's how God wants to do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: The question is, what are we trusting in?

[SPEAKER_01]: What are we trusting in?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that leads me to another common obstacle that we face in our culture here in West St. Louis County.

[SPEAKER_01]: Many of you are part of leading an organization or a business that dwarfs first free in scope of budget, staffing, size, many of you do stuff every week that makes this look like small potatoes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what we can sometimes allow to happen in the church is that we can allow our own capability to do an organization,

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got the skills and the experience to make this happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can run an organization.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do outreach.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can get people.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can build buildings.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do all these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's not bad on its own.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's bad if that replaces the God who said this is His work and His work alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we say it's his work and his work alone, then guess what?

[SPEAKER_01]: He uses our gifts.

[SPEAKER_01]: He uses our skills.

[SPEAKER_01]: He uses our abilities.

[SPEAKER_01]: He uses all the spiritual gifts that the New Testament talks about.

[SPEAKER_01]: The glorify himself and so it's no longer us and our abilities.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, wow, how incredible that God uses a bunch of people that thought we could do it our way, but he's doing a lot better his way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Erwin Luther, Pastor Emeritus at Moody Church, many years ago wrote a book helping church leaders.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he asked this question, where in your ministry are you 100% dependent on the power of Jesus Christ to push back the forces of darkness?

[SPEAKER_01]: Where in your ministry are you 100% dependent upon the power of Jesus Christ to push back the forces of darkness?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the purging question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if we got in ourselves out of the way enough, so like, wow, there is no way this is gonna happen, unless God does it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where, that's where He's a guy who wanted the people in second Chronicles 29 to get.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to this is God doing what God wants to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what God wants to do here.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got some cool plans for the next several years here.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they need to be God's plans.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we follow after his leading.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you get the idea, not going to belabor that anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our ministries, we continually examine them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can do this in your small group, by the way, or in your sunny morning community, your women's Bible study, your men's Bible study, whatever group you're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Take some time in the next month and one of your meetings and just ask the question to the group, how are we doing?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything that we've allowed to get into our group that's actually keeping us from accomplishing what God wants to do?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we spending 99% of our time just catching up on the kids and talking about fun stuff and then barely enough time to open the Bible and study?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we, are we, do we ever talk about things that make us uncomfortable, or do we avoid that in our groups so that we all feel good?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just self-diagnosed your group and ask those kinds of questions and see what God might want to remove.

[SPEAKER_01]: So much like the Levites went room from room, room to room, playing out the rubbish, and I purifying the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we can do that in our church, and we do it regularly as leaders.

[SPEAKER_01]: We try to, and we want all of you to be a part of it, we always want to be asking that question.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can do that individually, going through our lives, think of your life personally as a building with many rooms.

[SPEAKER_01]: And attitudes, possessions, habits,

[SPEAKER_01]: passions get into those rooms and boxes sit in the corner and they sit there and we let them sit there and they get in the way of our mission.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've identified six rooms for us to explore.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was first writing a sermon, I thought we would take a few minutes at the end of the service and kind of explore our lives and have a few moments of contemplation and clear some things out, but I thought that would let us off the hook really easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I gave you a homework this week.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you picked one up or there are some on the back table, there's a booklet, this gives us homework every day this week

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's an electronic version of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This homework is going to give you something to do every day this week starting tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are going to explore all the rooms of your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to do this together as a church, which I think is kind of exciting to think that we're all going to be doing this together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the rooms are, by the way, you can take 15 minutes, you're taking an hour to do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm leaving that up to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our hearts, our worship and allegiance, our mind, our thoughts and perspectives, our schedule, our time and priorities, our relationship, our love and community, our possessions and resources, our trust and stewardship.

[SPEAKER_01]: and our mission and service are purpose and obedience.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in this booklet, and again, you can use the QR code to download the electronic copy or their copies on the back table.

[SPEAKER_01]: You may pick up when you came in or you can pick up as you go.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to look at Monday.

[SPEAKER_01]: So tomorrow, all of us at some point in the day or evening are going to pull this out, talks about the heart, our worship and allegiance.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the room we're going to be in tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Scripture verse there, Matthew 22, 37, at 38, and then there's some reflection questions for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do I turn to first for comfort, security, and meaning?

[SPEAKER_01]: Where do I, where do fear, anxiety, or control show up most often?

[SPEAKER_01]: What would be hardest for me to give up, if God asked?

[SPEAKER_01]: Contemplate those, give them some time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe jot down in your notebook, header your journal, what your answers are.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there is some possible rubbish.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, this is taking out the trash day.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is all this day, we're taking out the trash.

[SPEAKER_01]: Next week, we're going to talk about what's going to happen next.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's the possible rubbish in our heart of worship?

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe misplace trust, fear or anxiety, pride, or self-reliance, bitterness or unforgiveness, desire for control, and you might come up with other rubbish that you need to take out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then write down what needs to be surrendered or removed in this area of my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: What would whole-hearted worship look like here?

[SPEAKER_01]: And then pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to eradicate that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to your spouse, your parents, your kids, whoever you need to talk to, to make sure we're doing this together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe your small group can bring this up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you see on Tuesday, we moved to the mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Wednesday is our schedule.

[SPEAKER_01]: On Thursday, we're going to talk about relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to think about possessions and resources on Friday.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on Saturday, we're going to explore the room of mission and service.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so this week is going to be a week of examination for all of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a guy who wanted the Levites to do this for a reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: Getting all the rubbish out made room for God's worship to return.

[SPEAKER_01]: Made room for the people of God to worship like the people of God were designed to worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then God is going to do incredible things to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure He'll do that for us as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when you do this with me this week, I look forward to hearing stories of what God helps you to see in these rooms in your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, we need to keep doing it over and over again because they creep back in.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I keep accumulating stuff in my storage room as much as I clear out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to do it over and over again as we go through our lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me pray and ask God to give us some cool experiences of cleaning out our lives this week.

[SPEAKER_01]: What a powerful example that the Levites under has a chia gave to us, going through the temple which was supposed to be a place that was solely given to worship you.

[SPEAKER_01]: They cleared out all the rubbish that was in the way, all the idols that got in the way and they kept the people of Israel and Judah from experiencing you like they need to.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we look at our church, when we look at our lives, we have to be honest, and there's a rubbish sitting around, things that we've allowed to happen, things that we've let sit in the corner of a room in our hearts that we want to get rid of.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I pray that you would use this week to help first free become a people of God that are purifying and clearing out the rubbish so that we can be ready for an outforing of your Holy Spirit, like we've never seen before.

[SPEAKER_01]: We give you all the glory and praise in Jesus' name.

[UNKNOWN]: Amen.