Not in Our House | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

that you're joining us. Drop a comment below of where

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We hope that you enjoy today's service.

Welcome to Venture Church. If i haven't au before, I'm Brandon.

I am the lead pastor of the church. I love

the opportunity to meet you. If you're new, I'll be

hanging out in the lobby after the service. Please come

up say hi to me. Love the opportunity again to

meet you. I'm gonna ask the first service, everybody answered yes,

but I want you to be honest.

If you're a parent, raise your hand.

Okay. There's a lot of you. Okay, so no one lies,

so that's good. Put your hands down. In the first service,

we were all parents of adult children for the most part,

but your parents.

I think every parent at some point.

Has said to their kids, well, that's okay for their family,

but we don't do that in our house anyone. I

think it's good for parents to say that's okay for them,

but it's not okay for us. Because every family kind

of has their family rules. There's things that we don't

do in our family. We have Fiel's family rules. Like

growing up, they were kind of unspoken rules. We didn't

like have them posted on a sign in our house,

but our kids knew these rules. They're kind of go

like this. In our house, we do hard things. The

amounts of times that I heard my wife give our

kids a pep talk when they didn't want to do something,

and she would say, we do hard things. And so

now my kids are adults. The amount of times I

hear my kids think I know, and our family we

do hard things. So we hear that one that was

an unspoken role. Here's one in our family. We don't quit.

I give you sign up for something. If you start

a sport at the beginning of the season, even if

you find out you are terrible at the sport and

you hate it.

You agreed to do it. We don't quit. I remember

the time I had Judah come in.

It was after his like third or fourth taekwondo practice,

and he had tears in his eyes and he was done.

He he didn't he wanted to quit, and I gave

him this speech. I call it the Mickey to Rocky speech,

and it was.

You don't quit. In our family, we follow through on stuff.

Get up Rock, you can do it because Mickey loves you.

I don't know if Judah would say it was quite

that nice, but we don't quit. Another kind of rule

that we had in our family was.

You follow through.

Like if you told the youth pastors at the church,

and my kids had Pastor Morgan and Pastor Tony, if

they agreed to do something, they agreed to go to something,

we expected them to follow through. They couldn't say they

were going to do something and not do that something.

Another one of our family.

Rules is that our kids worn't they had jobs. Sports

were extracurricular activities. They weren't jobs. So this carried over

to our kids when they were in college. Now I

had two kids that went to the University of Washington,

Go Huskies, Go Dogs. Judah, Rachel and Elijah went to

U DUB and Rachel was in a sorority and Elijah

was in a fraternity. Now, one thing that happens in

a sorority in fraternity, there's a certain type of kid

that ends up in a fraternity and sorority. And I'm

not talking about like the party type of kid. It's

usually kids whose parents have some extra resources and means

the amount of times Rachel and Elijah said to die

and I, well, the other people in our sorority, the

other people in our fraternity, don't have to pay for this.

They don't have to have extra jobs.

Rachel, while she was in college at one time, worked

three jobs, and Dian and I would always respond the

exact same way. We would say, well, that's okay for them, but.

Not for us.

My favorite thing is now that my kids are full

on real adults and now gainfully employed, the amounts of

times they come to us and say thank you for

having those expectations on us because they see their friends

who were now real adults but didn't have those expectations,

and they see where they're at in their life and

they're very thankful. They weren't at the time, but they

are now for those expectations. And the last kind of

unspoken rule we had is our family goes to church.

So our kids just grew up used to going to church,

used to going to youth services. This was as normal

for them as going to school. Like We didn't give

them the option whether or not they wanted to go

to school. They didn't have the option whether or not

they went to church. This was just like a normal

part of their life, like breathing. So that were things

that were expected in our house. And we would tell

our kids often that you don't just represent you, you

represent our family. When you have a part time hourly job,

you represent our family. When you are on a sports team,

you don't just represent you, you represent our family. These

are expectations in our house. Anybody two of you could.

If you don't do that, you should be doing that

with your kids. This is the exacts fact, same idea

Paul was sharing in Ephesians four. In Ephesians four, Paul

was saying, when you heard the message of the gospel

and you responded to it, when you repented and were forgiven,

God gave you grace. He adopted you. You are like

his son and daughter. And because you are now a

part of God's family, you are guaranteed an inheritance and

in God's house, these are expectations for you and I.

And it starts in Ephesians chapter four, verse one. Paul

says this. He says, as a prisoner for the Lord.

By the way, he reminds you that he's a prisoner

to kind of say, hey, don't complain about your situation

and circumstances. Don't complain about where you're at. I was

in jail. I wrote this letter from jail. Then he said,

as a prisoner for the Lord, I urge you to

live a life worthy of the calling that you've received.

In the Old Testament, it was obey me and I'll

bless you. But now we're in the New Testament, and

the idea is, I've blessed you. In response to my

blessing and love to you and grace.

To you, you should obey me.

In the Old Testament it was blessing comes from your obedience,

but in the New Testament, its obedience should be a

response to the fact that.

God has blessed me.

So Paul is saying, in our house, in God's family,

in God's house, these are things that you should and

shouldn't be doing. And he starts off by telling you

specifically who he's talking to, and that's verse seventeen. And

he wants to make it clear that this is an

expectation for those of you that are Christians. This is

an expectation for those of you that are followers of Jesus.

If you're here today and you are a seeker, If

you're here today and you are not a follower of Jesus,

this is not an expectation for you. This is an

expectation for our house and for those of you who

are in our house and are thinking, well, this expectation

is too hard. What about them? Your attitude should be

that's okay for them, But this is what is expected

of us. And Paul makes it very clear. Here's what

it is. Verse seventeen. He says, I tell you this

and insist on it that you must no longer live

as the gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

Remember in chapters one, two, and three, we talked a

lot about this is who you used to be, but

this is who you are now.

You're no longer this. You were this.

So Paul is saying, in light of the fact that

you're no longer this, stop thinking that way, stop acting

that way, stop living that way. Live like you are

a person that has received grace. Live like you are

a person that is forgiven. Then he goes on and

he says they are darkened in their understanding and separated

from the life of God because of their ignorance that

is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Having lost all sensitivity, they've given themselves over to sensuality

so as to indulge in every every kind of impurity,

and they are full of greed. So Paul is saying again,

this is who you used to be. Your heart was hardened.

Maybe for some of you you heard the gospel, but

it took you a long time to respond because your

heart was hardened. Maybe there's some of you you actually

took a step and responded to the gospel, but later

on in life your heart got hardened and you turned

away from it. Paul said, Okay, for them, this is

the way they live.

But you, as a.

Forgiven, grace received person, this is how you should live

in God's house. You should live in a manner that

honors your family name. Because as a follower of Jesus,

we represent Jesus. We also reflect positively or negatively on

each other. It's not an accident that we have these

words that are on the side of the walls in

our auditorium.

You are venture, We are venture. Why do we do that.

We want you to know that you represent something that's

bigger than you. That you represent more than you when

you post on social media. How are you representing venture?

We have a missional presence in Snahomish County. How do

you represent us by the way you drive? How do

you represent us by the way you cheer on your

kids when they're participating in sports?

We are Venture.

But more important than the fact that you and I

represent each other, we represent Jesus. So here it says

make Jesus famous. Last week it just said famous. I'm

glad they added to make Jesus part, but you represent Jesus.

When I first got saved, the line that everybody used

was you you might be the only Jesus that anyone

ever sees. Then by the time I was a youth

pastor in the nineties, everybody wore these bracelets that said WWJD,

what would Jesus do? Both ideas are the same, that

you represent something bigger than you. You represent Jesus. When

you talk, you represent Jesus. When you interact with people,

you represent Jesus. And you and I want to make

Jesus famous, not infamous. Too many Christians the way they

represent Jesus, they make him infamous, and we don't want

to make him infamous. We want to make Jesus famous.

You and I are saved by grace, but that grace

should cause us to live for Jesus like crazy Verse twenty.

You with me, all right, however, so he's talking about

this is the way you were, You shouldn't live that way. However,

is not the way of life you learned when you

heard about Christ and were taught in him accordance with

the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with

regard to your former way of life, to put off

your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.

So this is basically Paul saying what baptism illustrates. After

the next service, we'll do baptisms. So when you're baptized

in water, it illustrates when you go under that your form,

your life is washed away, and your new life emerges clean.

And that is what Paul is saying.

He is saying, before you were corrupt, before you were dead,

before you were broken, but then you heard the message

of the Gospel, and it transformed you from the inside out.

You are radically different, radically changed. You should live like

you're different and changed. Then he goes on verse twenty three,

to be made new in the attitude of your minds,

and to put on the new self created to be

like God in true righteousness and holiness. You are no

longer that person when you repented. That word repented means

you've been forgiven. You're changed. You're a part of God's family.

You represent him. Repentance is a change of mind, It

is a change of direction. When a person believes in

and trusts in Jesus, their entire outlook should change. Your

faith should change your values. Your faith should impact your goals.

Your faith over time should change your entire worldview.

Everything's changed because we're not who we used to be.

We've been looking at Ephesians over these last couple months,

and in Ephesians chapters one through three we're reminded over

and over again who we used to be and who

we are now. And then what Paul begins is this

transition in chapters four, five, and six, and he says,

because of who you are now, this is how you

should live. In chapter one, we were called by grace.

In Ephesians four and five, we should live a life

worthy of that grace. Paul said in chapter two that

we were raised from the dead spiritually. In chapters four

and five, he reminds Us over and over again that

we need to take off our grave clothes. Many of

you know the story of Lazarus. Jesus raised Lazarus from

the grave after he'd been buried for four days. When

Lazarus comes out of the tomb, the first thing Jesus

said to all Lazarus's friends is unwrap his grave clothes.

Don't smell like death anymore. That is in the past,

that is no.

Longer who you are. You are alive.

Don't walk around in grave clothes. Paul said in chapter

two that you and I are reconciled to God because

of Jesus, that we are right with God because of Jesus,

And as a result, he tells Us in chapter four

that we need to live a life worthy of that reconciliation.

This is a challenge for believers. These are expectations for

our family. If you are a part of God's family,

that you and I should live this way, and we

should stop worrying about people that aren't a part of

God's family that live otherwise, because it's not about them,

it's about us, and we're not supposed to worry about them.

It's okay for them, but not for us. We are

God's family. We represent him, we represent each other. We

are venture. We want to make Jesus famous. We are

changed because of Jesus. He's changed our values, he's changed

our goals, he's changed our worldview. And Paul says that

in our house, in our family, there's five things we

don't do. I'm gonna rattle them off quickly, and it's

the rest of Ephesians four. Understand this that when you

give your life to Christ, the Holy Spirit resides inside

of you, like you have God's spirit inside of you

that's helping you live and walk a spirit filled life.

And Paul is saying that if you participate in these

five things, you are doing something contrary to the Holy

Spirit d side of you, like you are forcing this

conflict internally because you are not living according to the

grace and reconciliation of Jesus in your life. Number one,

Paul says, in our house, in our family, we don't

lie Verse twenty five. Therefore, each of you must put

off falsehood speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are

all members of one body.

In our family, we are honest, we tell the truth.

You see, a lie is a statement contrary to the fact,

spoken with the intent to deceie. We know from John

eight that Satan's like his native tongue, is lying, that

he is the father of lies. You and I are

supposed to be truthful. But when we say a white

lie to not hurt someone's feelings, or maybe we commit

a lie of omission, like we know we should say something,

but we don't say it for fear of conflict with

that person. What happens is the Holy Spirit in our

heart gets shoved to the side by the enemy. When

we lie, whether big or small, we speak the enemy's language.

The amazing thing is when we speak truth, the Holy

Spirit works. When we lie, Satan is at work the

amount of times because of the nature of my role

where I see something in someone's life and I know

that in all likelihood this is going to hinder their marriage,

I should say something. And then in the back of

my mind and the enemy lies to me and he says, well,

if you say something, they're gonna be mad, they might

leave the church. They're gonna think you're judging them. And

then I come back to when I speak truth, the

Holy Spirit works.

But when I don't speak truth, the enemy works in

our house. We tell the truth, Paul says.

In verse fifteen, he says, when you speak the truth,

do it in love. Our job is to be honest

with each other, understanding that sometimes when you're honest with someone,

their initial response is to not like it. But oftentimes

they will come back to you and say, I really

appreciate when you said this. We live in a weird

world today, especially the church world. I was just in

a meeting with a bunch of pastors. We were all

youth pastors in the nineties and now we're all lead

pastors today, and they were all talking about the number

of former youth students that are mad at them, Like

some talked about like there's all these news reports that

are coming out because and when push comes to shove,

it really boils down to when they were youth pastor.

They did a good job. They held a student accountable.

They said, if you have sex with your boyfriend before

you were married, that is the sin, and twenty years

later in therapy that became trauma. There's other times like

they would say you should be obedient to your parents.

Twenty years later in therapy trauma. And we have a

world that says, don't be honest with people. Tell people

what they want to hear honestly, that's okay for them,

But not in our house. We tell the truth. We're honest.

Second thing that Paul says, in our house, we control

our anger. Listen to this one verse twenty six. In

your anger, don't sin. Don't let the sun go down

on your Don't let the sun go down while you

are still angry.

Don't let the devil get a foothold.

You see, anger is an emotional arousal that's caused by

something that displeases you. Stuff displeases me all the time.

Anger in itself is not a sin. Jesus got angry.

People get angry all the time if something bothers you.

I like to say, I don't get angry. I get

righteously indignant. But anger becomes sin when you hold on

to it, when you allow it to smolder, and it

becomes malice and it bursts out in wrath. Malice is

the intention or desire to do evil towards someone. So

when I get angry, I have a decision of what

I'm gonna do with that anger.

If I stew on it.

I'll really get mad and then I wish doom upon

someone else.

That is malice.

Malice leads to wrath, and wrath is a strong, vengeful

anger or punishment for an offense. Somebody does something to you,

they wrong you, You get angry, but instead of deal with

that anger, you stew on it in the enemy shoves

the Holy aside and places hatred in your heart towards

that person. You get madder and matter and matter, and

then they do something. You say, well, it was the

straw that broke the camel's back, whatever that means, and

you lose it on the person and you feel you

were justified losing it on the person, not realizing your

anger led to sin, because that is wrath. And Paul says,

don't let the sun go down on your anger. What

is he saying. He's saying, you're gonna be angry. Sometimes

deal with it, address it, walk through it, because if

you allow it to stew in your heart, it will grow,

and it'll push the Holy Spirit to the side, and

eventually you might say or do something you really regret.

You might actually do some serious damage to somebody because

of a small thing that bothered you that you shouldn't,

that you should have addressed that you didn't, and you

allowed it to explode. The fire of anger, if not

dealt with quickly, will spread and defile and destroy the

work of God. If you bottle it up, it'll explode

with wrath. Not in our house, is what Paul says.

In our house, we don't lie in our house, we

control our anger. In our house, we don't steal. Now

we here that one. Of course, it's one of the

ten commandments. You're actually gonna find out that that is

not the type of stealing that Paul was referring to. Okay,

but that's wrong too, that type of stealing. But here's

what he says, verse twenty eight. He says, anyone who

has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work,

oh doing something useful with their own hands, that they

may have something to share with those in need. Paul

is talking about in our house, you get a job.

You work that.

If you choose to not work and are expecting someone

else to provide for you, that is the equivalent of stealing.

Don't be mad at me. This is what Paul is saying.

I realize that you and I are supposed to care

and help the hurting and broken. But those that might

be here today and you are hurting and broken, there

is an expectation from the words of Paul that you

would be actively looking for a job, and it might

not be the ideal job that you originally get offered.

But we are all supposed to work. Every single person

that God calls to something great in scripture, he calls

them while they're working. Moses was caring for sheep, David

was tending his father's flock. Elisha was plowing with oxen.

Gideon was threshing wheat, the Disciples were fishing. Jesus was

a carpenter. We are supposed to work. There's been a

recent psychological study that just came out and talked about

these extra benefits of working. Now. It was kind of

funny when I read the article. It was like the

people that heard the results, they were stunned. It's just

something that we already knew. And these are just a

couple highlights the benefits psychologically of working. Number one, a

job gives you some esteem. Number two, job gives you purpose.

Number three, a connection with people at work gives you

a third place. There's this idea that people need three

places for relationship development. They need their family, they need

their like church, family, their friends, and then they need

that third place to build relationships. And so this article

was emphasizing the importance of work. I come back and

I look at my life. I was debating with my

daughter whether or not I should use this illustration because

my dad's here. Growing up, my dad parented me as

if if you aren't doing something, something bad is going

to happen. So from the moment I had a summer free,

I was expected to work. Never forget the day I

was like thirteen fourteen. My dad woke me up early

in the morning and said, come on, you're going to work.

I'm like, I don't even know I had.

A job, and he dropped me off at his friend's

house who owned a rockery company. So I spent an

entire summer in junior high school building rockeries because that's

the way it works in our house. I remember one

time I'd finished a sports season and my dad looked

at me and he goes, are you gonna get a job,

And I'm like, I just finished the season. He goes,

leave the house. Don't come back until you get a job.

Some of you grew up with that dad, So you.

Know what I did. I drove down ninety nine.

And I looked for every place that had to help

wanted sign, the places that were appropriate to work, and

I filled out every single application. I because I wasn't

allowed to come home and tell her had a job.

And I'm proud to say I got a job at

Taco bell. I worked at the Taco Bell on one

twenty eighth. Why does it still exist? I was part

of its legacy? Number four? What did Paul say? In

our house? We think before we speak, probably like I

should have just done there.

Paul said this.

He said, don't let any unwholesome talk come out of

your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others

up according to their needs that it may benefit those

who listen.

Paul is saying in our family, in.

Our house, we don't excuse saying something by saying I

didn't really mean that. We know that your mouth is

connected to your heart. Jesus said himself. The mouth speaks

what the heart is full of. So out of the

abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So we don't

want to have any unwholesome speech come out of our mouth.

Your speech should change when you became a follower of Jesus.

I tell everybody all the time that I didn't grow

up in church, and I had a potty mouth free Jesus.

Like when I first started going to church, some of

my like church friends said, I taught them words they'd

never heard before, and then Jesus saved my soul. No

one told me that I shouldn't cuss anymore. No one

told me I didn't know. But the first thing that

God redeemed was my speech. Let no unwholesome talk come

out of your mouth. Now it's not just cursing, but

it can be gossip, slander, exaggeration, bad mouthing someone that

might be okay for their family but not for ours.

The King James, I like that translation of this better.

It says, let no corrupt communication come out of your mouth.

That word corrupt, actually translated, is the same word that

we use for fruit that is rotting. That when you

let corrupt communication or unwholesome talk come out of your mouth,

you are rotting something. Finally, Paul says, in our house,

we don't let bitterness control us.

Verse thirty.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom

you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid

of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander along

with every four of malice. Bitterness is subtle hostility that

poisons your inner self. In the Book of James, it

talks a lot about bitterness, and it talks about bitterness

is the seed that takes root in your heart, and

it grows, and it poisons and it ruins the whole body.

Hall actually is stating here that bitterness grieves the Holy Spirit.

So when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you,

you get saved.

His Spirit dwells inside of you.

When you harbor bitterness and anger inside, it grieves the

Holy Spirit. I've heard it said that an unforgiving bitter

spirit is the devil's playground.

You're inviting.

By your bitterness, You're inviting the enemy to play next

to the Holy Spirit, and that grieves the Holy Spirit.

When we repent and believe, everything changes. Now. I know

it doesn't change overnight. I know that it is a journey.

I have been following Jesus, we'll say forty years longer

than that, and it's still a process. It's still a journey.

The more I get to know him, the more I

want to conform to his image. And then there's times

I mess up and I fall back, and then I

do good and I take two steps forward and one

step back. And that is a journey with Jesus. You

are not transformed overnight. It is process. But be clear

from the words of Paul, these are the expectations to

be in our house. You and I are sons and

daughters of God. We are inherited, we are adopted sons

and daughters, and we are guaranteed an inheritance. And we

should live like we represent our father. Our values should

be different, our goals should be different, our worldview should

be different. We represent something much greater than ourselves. We

represent a life transformed by Jesus. We're supposed to be different.

Paul sums it all up in this verse, verse thirty two.

I mean you could almost add in in our house,

be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other.

Why because Jesus forgave You.

Want to ask everyone to buy your heads close your eyes,

Lord Jesus, I pray that that would be our desire,

that we would want to represent you well and Lord,

I thank you for your word that it cuts like

a two edged sword. And there's areas that you addressed

here that most of us struggle with. But Lord, I

pray that you will help us walk this journey of

conforming into your image.

Lord. If there's areas of people's lives.

That they need to change or let go of because

they are not representing you, well, Lord, I pray that

they would lay those things down today, that they would

just make a decision this morning to change.

And to walk full. Lord.

We love you, We thank you, We thank you for

your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen, come on, what a word this morning?

Jesus.

I want to call your attention to the What's next

page on our app via website, just materials that you

can get into reading different resources, just to apply this

message throughout your week. Pray that you guys have an

amazing holiday. I'll see you all on Thursday. All you

guys signed up. You didn't know it, but you signed

up by laughing at my jokes earlier. You're gonna be there.

So we love you guys so much. God bless you.

Thank you again for joining us. If you enjoyed today's service,

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see future messages. If you'd like to learn more about

Venture Church, you can flick the link books in our bio.

We hope to see you again.