Holy House Cleaning - November 1, 2020

all of us know that keeping our homes clean is a never-ending task there's always something else that we overlook or no sooner do we have the floors clean that someone walks across them and tracks in dirt the kitchen always needs a spot clean bathrooms are always neat and refreshing the sheets need to be stripped on the bed and reset the floors need to be vacuumed upstairs on and on we could go as we know that that homes require constant cleaning i'll tell you a little secret living alone i don't regularly clean my house the way i should i don't keep it as neat and tidy as as i would like to and as some of you know i have two dogs so the dogs are accustomed to seeing me scurry about the house and start straightening up when company comes and it's so funny because i'll start straightening items doing some cleaning and rushing around the house and the final step is spraying a deodorizer throughout the house and when they see me in that routine by instinct they go and sit by the door and look at the door to see who's coming so it really does make them wonder when they see me cleaning and i'm just cleaning because i need to clean not because company's coming it messes with their minds and they wonder why didn't anybody come through the door well i don't know what your routine is but we should all strive to keep a clean home and do you know who else likes to keep a clean house god likes to keep a clean house we often speak of the lesson that the gospels teach us about the time jesus went into the temple which is god's house and he cleansed the temple it was god's way of cleaning house he turned over the tables of the money changers and called them a den of thieves you you know what i'm talking about but when i think about god wanting to clean house i'm not talking about the house that we live in or even the temple that jesus cleansed i'm talking about us because you and i are god's house and the title of the message today is holy house cleaning because god wants to cleanse the home that he occupies in our hearts and we're going to look together into a passage today that really removes some areas some blind spots from from our intentional negligence sometimes or sometimes it's just things inadvertently we have failed to take note of but god is going to shine the light on some vulnerable areas in our life that need to be cleaned up and that's what i want us to think about today i want you to turn to ephesians chapter 4 and we're going to read beginning in the 29th verse and we'll read through verse 32 the last verse of the chapter the apostle paul is writing to these ephesian believers and he says let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers and do not grieve the holy spirit of god by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption let all bitterness wrath anger clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as god in christ forgave you so when we read those verses it would be great if we could just gloss right over those move into the fifth chapter and not delve into what he's really getting at now paul may have written the words that ended up in this letter but we know that god is the one who led him to write them down and he may have written this to the church in ephesus but it was god's intent that we as the church today in 2020 benefit from these words god wants to cleanse our hearts and there are some things that this passage calls attention to that are necessary if our hearts his house are going to be clean the first thing that we need to think about if we really want to yield ourselves to god to have a a clean house for him is to recognize the power of our words you have to recognize the power of your words i have to recognize the power of my words there is power in our spoken words i'll add to that there is power in our typed and texted and posted words sometimes we think that because we didn't verbally articulate the words we simply wrote them down or sent them that there's some kind of immunity some kind of artificial distinction between what literally comes out of our mouths versus what we say in other ways but there is no such distinction and there is no such immunity all of us especially today never has there been a time when this has been more important than today as christians followers of jesus we have to recognize the power of our words in proverbs 18 verse 21 the bible says death and life are in the power of the tongue death and life in the power of the tongue think about that for a moment our words can bring about death our words can infuse life now i'm not making that up that's what the bible says about the power of our words they contain death and life be careful how we speak be careful what we share in the book of james he talked about the power of the tongue which is the power of our words he says in james chapter 3 verses 9 and 10 sometimes the tongue is used to praise god our lord and father and sometimes that same tongue is used to curse those who've been made in the image of god and so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth surely my brothers and sisters this is not right so i want you to think with me about what what we're saying here he he's talking about the corrupt words that can come out of our mouths and and james is saying how how how rational how logical is it that we as christians can use our words to praise god to bless god but then use our words to destroy those who are made in the image of the god that we have just praised he says this isn't right and today as as we look at this we need to realize that god wants to cleanse our mouths now it's not literally cleansing our mouth some of you may have grown up in the older generation to which i belong now and i remember having my mouth washed out with soap a couple of times as though washing your mouth out with soap dealt with the problem well it certainly taught you not to say the words that you weren't supposed to say but the real issue is here it's the heart and and so while our words are are being confronted in this passage here in ephesians 4 and in proverbs and in james and in other places where we'll see here's what it all comes down to if we're going to recognize the power of our words we need to stop the destructive words we need to stop speaking destructive and unkind words when paul wrote there in verse 29 of ephesians 4 where he said let no corrupt word come out of your mouth the word corrupt in the greek means rotten or spoiled in fact it's the kind of adjective that would be used to speak of rotten fruit or vegetables or even eggs that have gone bad rotten eggs you've heard that expression so when he says let no corrupt word come out of your mouth we're talking about stopping words that are destructive things that belittle other people things that are cruel and hurtful and intentionally unkind and vicious and in order for us to stop the destructive words it requires an intentional effort on our part we have to make up our minds that this isn't who we are as christians we don't have any business speaking about other people the way we feel so comfortable speaking about people if it will tear down if it will spread death instead of life if it will be a tool the enemy can use if it will intentionally injure and wound someone who's been made in the image of god then why would i as a heaven-bound spirit-filled christ-honoring follower of jesus why would i want those words to come out of my mouth i hope you know i'm preaching to me as much as i'm preaching to you because all of us need to be reminded that we too often and too freely and too comfortably let destructive words flow from our lips when he says in verse 29 let no corrupt word look at that say that out loud let no corrupt word come out of your mouth what he's saying there is that when it comes to rotten words that we say or send he says we're to have a zero tolerance for words that would intentionally destroy or injure someone else and he doesn't say well it's okay to let a few of those words come out no no no he says let no corrupt speech come out of your mouth when i think about this command to let no corrupt word come out of my mouth i'm reminded of a of a prayer that david in israel prayed in psalm 141 and verse 3 where he said to god set a guard o lord over my mouth keep watch over the door of my lips now you know i have i have thought many times through this pandemic i would love to patent some masks that had that printed on the mask oh lord set a guard over my mouth watch over the door of my lips and i wonder if there might be some symbolism in these masks that god might be saying hey you guys have spent all this time trashing each other being cruel and unkind with your words now i'm just going to sentence the whole world to mask wearing as a reminder that the words that have been coming out of your mouth are a stench in my nostril could it be that's one of the messages we need to be hearing from god when it comes to these masks that we're all having to wear david said set a guard o lord over my mouth you know what this means it means we should pause before speaking that it means that when we type up a message that we just know is going to be a zinger when someone reads it we need to pause before hitting send we need to hold off on posting comments we need to build intentional delays in our responses because what can happen in our our cyber culture is that we can misunderstand what someone means when we're just reading it rather than hearing it and seeing their facial expressions and i've been in exchanges before and i'm sure many of you have where someone says this and it gets misunderstood and then the response gets misunderstood and before long there is world war iii going nuclear via email or text we see it happening on twitter all the time where it gets nasty and vicious and people's worst side comes forth and here is the danger of launching the verbal missiles here is the danger of sending the the bombs out and that is that once the bombs drop they cannot be recalled once the words go forth they cannot be reclaimed the damage is done and in many cases the damage is irreversible and so this is what this this passage of scripture is talking about a holy house cleaning means we have got to measure our words and we got to stop speaking destructive words and we got to start speaking uplifting words we need to speak the uplifting words in verse 29 the alternative to rotten and destructive words are two-fold he says necessary edification and for imparting grace so uplifting words are the words that we speak that can unleash blessing when we speak them by choosing words that build up someone that's how you bless someone by speaking life into them not death by speaking encouragement into them not things that are cruel and harmful the word attification there means building up that's literally what it means it's like building a house when you you build an edifice you are edifying you're putting bricks in place and so the question is this are we wanting to build people's sense of their value and worth are we wanting to tear that down we've got to speak the uplifting words so he says for necessary edification and he says that our words should impart grace to the hearers and what exactly is grace well we know grace is the undeserved favor of god and it means that we use our words to impart blessing to people grace to people even if they don't deserve it that's what grace is god imparts grace to us god speaks grace upon us and we don't deserve it and he's calling upon us to speak with grace to those around us starting with our family members oh ouch yes starting with your spouse your children your parents then your friends your coworkers your neighbors and really everyone you meet edification and imparting grace consider the example of the words of jesus in john chapter 6 and verse 63 jesus said it is the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing then look what jesus says he says the words that i speak to you are spirit and they are life and he had just gotten through teaching them something that had been very offensive to them and what he was saying here is he was saying i i didn't intend it to be offensive i want you to understand that the words that i speak they are spirit and they are life the great greek scholar who taught at southern seminary in its first years or in the early part of the 20th century dr a.t robertson in his word pictures volumes he says the breath of god and the life of god are in these words of jesus the breath of god and the life of god so here's what i want us to think about today before we move to this next point about holy house cleaning jesus spoke the breath of god and the life of god and jesus lives in us his spirit has taken up residence and we need to pray this morning and we need to pray every day oh god may the words that i speak let the words of my mouth not only be pleasing in your sight but let them speak life and blessing and grace into those with whom i will interact today so here's the second thing here's a second not only recognizing the power of of your words but surrendering your emotions to the holy spirit surrendering your emotions to the holy spirit this is a big challenge i'll tell you because it's not something you do and it's done it's something you have to do and then do again and do again and do again when it comes to surrendering our lives and our emotions the holy spirit i just wish there was some kind of church service where i could stand in line and some anointed you know apostle could put his hand on my head and i would fall out in the floor and wake up and i would stand up never again needing to surrender to god in other words i wish there was a holy ghost fix that would forever keep me surrendered but the truth is that surrender is daily surrender is often hourly it's moment by moment and nothing requires surrender like our emotions i mean our emotions are all over the place our emotions are real and why when he says in verse 29 let no corrupt word come out of your mouth why would corrupt words come out of our mouth i'm going to tell you why because our emotions guide our words we speak out of emotion the problem is that that our emotions are natural but god is supernatural and here is the ultimate battle of the christian life is that the supernatural power of god wants to bring into submission and to subdue the natural the the nature that is our flesh and it is ongoing and all the people said amen to that now there are many motions we emotions we could talk about but when you look at verse number 31 he gives us a list of them bitterness hostility ill will towards people evil thoughts we all have those hatred resentment and some have called this the inventory of anger and all of those emotions that he lists in verse 31 are are common to our experience all of us know what it's like to be ticked off at somebody all of us know what it's like to be resentful all of us know what it's like to feel hatred towards someone all of us know what it's like to be resentful all of us know what it is like to occasionally lapse into what if something bad happened to this person who's been so unkind to me these are things that don't even have to be taught to us they are encoded into our sinful dna he lists them right there so whenever somebody says something hurtful cruel unkind and they say you know what i i i was just having a bad day that day or they'll say that really wasn't me talking i that's not like me to say that and i want to say well if it wasn't you who was it that wasn't me talking did some alien come down from outer space and take over your body of course it was you talking you can't just give excuses to condone outbursts of natural emotion and while those feelings are natural they are not godly and that's what he's talking about here so realize this that when we speak with corrupt words destructive words rather than life-giving words when we do that we're just revealing what is in our hearts you know who taught us that jesus did in luke chapter 6 and verse 45 he said what you say flows from what is in your heart so listen when when you hear things coming out of your mouth or you look back with embarrassment and look at things that you said and are reminded of things that you said you can't say that wasn't you talking it was you talking because what you say is just the overflow of who you are and the question is am i happy with who i am or do i want to be who god wants me to be angry words come from an angry heart and in verse number 30 there is an imperative that paul gives and i want you to look at it where he says do not grieve the holy spirit of god this is a reminder that the holy spirit is the one who's wanting to do this work in our lives when we cooperate with the holy spirit it pleasures the holy spirit but when we resist the holy spirit when we disobey his leading his prompting it grieves him and verse 30 by the way is a beautiful reminder to us that we should never speak of the holy spirit as it the holy spirit is a person of the godhead for paul to to write in verse 30 do not grieve the holy spirit it identifies the holy spirit as as having the ability to feel and the ability to sense displeasure and sorrow and grief and it doesn't do that but he does the holy spirit is god and he says do not grieve the holy spirit and when it comes to grieving the holy spirit we grieve him when we resist him in ephesians chapter 4 and verse 30 the bible speaks of the holy spirit as the one who has sealed us remember the holy spirit has identified you as his own guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption when the new living says he's identified you as his own i like that paraphrase of the old king james version that says he's put his seal on you it just means that he has written god's name on your heart and so if we have been marked as god's possession then we should desire to be pleasing to god by allowing him to take those things that are impure those things that are ungodly that lead us to speak corrupt words and think corrupt thoughts that we should say oh god i am your possession i yield to the control to the cleansing to the power of your spirit purify my heart should be our prayer we need to surrender all of the anger that we have he says in verse 31 to let these things be put away from you he says let them be put away now the verb is in the passive voice and and what it means is that the subject is being acted on he did not say put them away he said allow them to be put away so the difference between putting away things and allowing them to be put away is that one is you doing the work the other is you allowing someone else to do it very important that we look at the difference there in the in the way in the voice of that verb and who is the person who do who does this it's the holy spirit we don't have to put all of those all of those items in the arsenal of anger we don't have to displace or dislodge or remove those things the spirit of god will do it by the way we're not talking about anger management we're talking about anger surrender and and there's a difference i've through the years known people who've had to go go to anger management classes and i've heard of judges requiring it when they pass down some type of sentence to someone who's committed domestic violence and i get it anger management the result is to help people live peaceful lives but but here's the thing god doesn't want us to manage anger god wants us to let go of it and allow him to take it from us and the truth is you and i we can't just fix our anger we've got to let the holy spirit take care of it you know what being angry does though being angry makes you like everybody else in the world i mean if you notice how many people are just ticked off how many people are angry and foul i mean coven 19 really eased a lot of the tensions i've noticed on the freeways and and uh the the the heavily traveled um roads throughout our communities here in metro atlanta but now it's we're starting to return back to normal with the anger we see on the roads and then uh i don't know about you but but i get a news feed every day and i probably look at it too much and you'll see these people going off on a clerk because the employee of the business asks them to wear a mask and they'll go on a tirade and then you'll see people you know like the notorious karen in new york who went off on a racist tirade against someone simply for walking his dog in the park you know what that is it's hatred and anger and vitriol and when we as christians act like that we are just like the rest of them the only problem with that is that god didn't shed the blood of jesus so we could be like everybody else god put jesus on that cross raised him from the dead sent us the gift of the holy spirit gave us the ability to call on his name that we may be saved and his desire is to make us different we're to be different we're to be the exception to all that is going on because the anger of mankind does not produce the righteousness of god james again we looked at him earlier in the third chapter but in the first chapter of that little letter he says this everyone must be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of god you know something else anger does it reveals foolishness in proverbs 29 11 it says fools vent their anger but the wise quietly hold it back so when someone spouts off with no filter and you see these people who are getting recorded on the phones acting a fool you know why they're acting a fool because they are a fool but god didn't save you for you to be a fool and he didn't save me for me to be a fool bible says only fools vent their anger just so you know it's not just enough for us to ask god to take the anger out of our hearts but god cautions us about hanging out with angry people being friends with people who have unresolved anger in their heart in proverbs 22 it says don't befriend angry people or associate with hot tempered people or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul so don't befriend angry people or you'll you'll become just like them so where is all this anger coming from well it's coming from unresolved conflict in our hearts sometimes it's issues from childhood or past relationships sometimes angry people have unhealed hurts that they need the master's touch to feel the soothing peace that he can bring them from their injuries of the past and all the baggage they're carrying people have been wounded people have been grieved many angry people have unmet expectations in their heart they thought life would turn out this way but life has turned out a different way and they're angry about it disappointments in life will lead to anger many times sometimes angry people have unchecked jealousy they're resentful of the blessings that have come to other people we could talk about this for a long time and then there are the things that angry people will sometimes do to masquerade their anger they're covered up with humor do you know sometimes that the people who are the funniest people are hiding the most hurt and anger i'm not saying that's true of everybody who's funny a lot of people are funny because they're funny a lot of people are funny because they're happy but sometimes humor can be a shield to cover up anger in their life people can develop unhealthy coping mechanisms people who get angry will often take up the offenses because someone they know and love was hurt or victimized and so they take that up as though it happened to them and they become angry on behalf of someone else and it can be very destructive in your life many times angry people pact practice passive aggressive behavior here's what it comes down to if we want god to do a holy house cleaning we've got to recognize the power of our words but we also have to realize that god wants to take some things out of our heart and the only way for him to do it is for us to say lord i need you to do that and i yield and open up my heart to the control of the holy spirit well here's the last thing i want to mention to you today and that is just forgive as you've been forgiven forgive as you have been forgiven that is such an important truth for us to think about and in the 32nd verse the scripture says and be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as god in christ forgave you so we're told instead of being angry and unkind to be kind and tender compassionate sensitive to those around us now this is given in the christian context where he's saying believers should treat fellow believers this way but you and i know this should be the way that believers treat everybody not just our fellow christians we should treat everyone with that same kind of kindness being kind comes natural to many people and sometimes it is the very opposite of what we're inclined to do given a situation how many people show true kindness i'm going to ask you a question into how many faces did you look last week and now we can't see smiles anymore because the the masks cover our our mouths but you know what i found even during the pandemic with people wearing masks it helps to see a smile on someone's face but many times you can see kindness just in someone's eyes you can tell the mask may have covered up the mouth but i can tell by the twinkle and glimmer in the eye there's a smile hidden behind that mask you know something else you can do you can also see a frown through the eyes can't you you don't have to see someone's mouth to know they're not happy you can see it right here in the eyes this verse tells us that we should be kind which means we should identify with other people and want to encourage them tenderhearted means we should sympathize with others in what they're going through we should be compassionate with other people we should be considerate we should be courteous because we never know what that person is going through and sometimes when you see people who are angry and unkind we are to take the high road because the words we speak can bring them back towards the light can bring them back to where they need to be and ultimately our goal is to bring people to jesus isn't it many of you have heard of dietrich bonhoeffer he wrote these words nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves in other words what we hate in others we have within us we must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do and more in light of what they suffer and you know when i think of those words they ring so true in my heart and in my life that when you get to know people who are ornery or difficult to deal with many times they're angry and brash hurtful when you hear their story doesn't condone how they behave or how they act but when you know what they've been through it helps you understand there's a reason this person has made these choices whether they're right or wrong we need to be sensitive to what people's life's journey has been and as a believer he says here that when we are wronged when people commit these very things that we're being told not to do when we are the victim of these kinds of sins harsh cruel and unkind treatment from other people sometimes even abuse and exploitation when we suffer because of the words and actions of other people we are commanded to forgive them period as a believer i've been forgiven of my sins and i don't deserve to be forgiven of my sins but forgiveness was given because of something someone else did for me which is jesus christ and if i was given forgiveness in spite of the fact that i didn't deserve it we are commanded in verse 32 to do the same thing for others you say well i simply can't forgive i cannot forgive i'm too hurt that per you don't know what they did to me you don't know the years i lived with this you don't know how many times they have continually hurt me now listen forgiveness does not mean you keep having to go back for more i think god allows all of us to draw a line in the sand at some point only you and god will know where that is there comes a time when you have to let some consequences come into the life of someone who is a repeat offender but where whether you draw that line now or later here's the point you have to forgive either now or later but at some point god says if you are my child you must forgive and when you say i can't do it god says good i'm glad you realize that you can't do it you cannot do it you need me to help you do it and i've found there's been some hurt that has run so deep in my heart it has taken the help of god to uproot to literally pry his fingers around the roots in the soil of my heart and gently start to tear tear the bitterness out but he can do it and when we allow him to do that he will replace hatred with love turmoil with peace frustration with contentment and he will trade our rudeness for kindness he will change our lives and forgiveness is a gift according to this verse god in christ forgave us which means forgiveness is god's gift to us but can i tell you this forgiveness is our gift to others i don't know of a gift from god that i value any more than his forgiveness knowing what i'm guilty of knowing what i deserve and yet he still has open arms and has forgiven me of every sin and will forgive me of every sin i'll commit until i die i don't know of any greater gift i could ask for and yet if that's a great gift that god has given me i am obligated to give that gift to those who sin against me the great writer c.s lewis said to be a christian it means to forgive the inexcusable in others because god has forgiven the inexcusable in you and is that not a convicting statement and sometimes when i'm holding on to a grudge or i'm brewing in anger i'm thinking about oh god this person did this this person did that all i have to think of is jesus on the cross and and in that moment when i think of him on the cross it's not that he went there for everybody else i put him there every blow of the hammer on the nails was for sins that i committed shameful inexcusable sins of the heart and of the flesh and what god wants us to know is if he forgave us for the stuff we've done to him then who are we not to forgive people for the stuff they've done to us let's ask god to do some house cleaning father we praise you today we love you today and we thank you that when you speak to us like this you show us gently and lovingly the areas that need surrender we yield to the holy spirit and we ask that all of these things we justify as natural human emotions because they are that you'll forgive us when we justify sin and and when we find ways to condone behavior that is not according to christ we pray you'll transform us and help us to realize that one of the things going to set us apart in the coming week and in the coming months and even years one of the things that will set your people apart is that we are not filled with rage or anger we are filled with peace and love clean our hearts so we can be delight to people around us in jesus name amen

Channel: FirstBaptistAtlanta

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Length: 40min 8sec (2408 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020