Pay The Rent Series

According to the US Census Bureau, almost 30 percent of the people living within five miles of our church do not have the ability to paint their own home. If population projections are correct, that number will grow to nearly 35 percent by 2011. These folks are not impoverished or disabled, yet they do not have the ability to drive a nail to hang a picture, cut down a tree in their yard, or have a pet in the house. I am one of them! And have been all my life. I rent! Ronda and I have never owned a home. We are not opposed to home ownership; we just have never bought a house. For the nearly 30 years we’ve been married, we have rented or lived in a church-owned parsonage. It’s just always worked for us.

Now I know you might say, “Well, Pastor, you’re just throwing good money after bad. Don’t you realize that had you bought a home when you got married, you could soon be burning the mortgage! Besides, you can’t do what you want. You have no way to build up equity. You are simply helping someone else get rich!”

I know all that to be true, and maybe I’m stuck in the rent mode because my parents rented all their lives.

Yet there is some other statistics about the people who live within a five mile radius of our church that you need to know. Everyone who lives within five miles of our church is a renter! In fact, everyone who lives in Bossier City, and Shreveport, yea in Louisiana, the United States and the whole world:

EVERYONE IS A RENTER!

We have always been renters. We came into this world renting. When you were born, you owed nine months rent! Maybe that’s why babies are evicted!

1 Timothy 6:7

7 For WE BROUGHT NOTHING

into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.

(NIV)

The Bible tells us that none of us are owners, all of us are renters:

Psalm 24:1-2

1 The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and

ALL WHO LIVE IN IT;

2 for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

(NIV)

RENTERS ARE NOT OWNERS!

The basic difference between renters and owners is this:

OWNERS HAVE RIGHTS.

RENTERS HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES.

As a renter I cannot call in Ty Pennington and “EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME EDITION” to remodel the home in which I live. Only my landlord has the right to do that. I don’t have the right to paint the girl’s bedroom walls purple and the ceilings pink! My landlord does, though. Now if she chooses to do that, she may have to look for new tenants. I cannot install a Jacuzzi tub in my bathroom. I don’t have the right! However I do have the responsibility to let my landlord know when the pipes break and flood the bathroom.

RENTERS ARE RESPONSIBILE

TO TAKE CARE OF WHAT BELONGS

TO SOMEONE ELSE!

THAT’S WHAT A STEWARD DOES:

HE MANAGES

WHAT DOES NOT BELONG TO HIM!

All of us are renters, stewards.

WE ARE TO BE GOOD RENTERS OF OUR BODIES!

These bodies in which we live belong to God. We are merely tenants in the flesh and blood God has given us!

1 Corinthians 6:19, 20

19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN;

20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

(NIV)

We have no right to treat our bodies just any way we desire! What we inhale, ingest, or inject, and expose ourselves to is entering into God’s property, not mine! As a good renter, we dare not destroy God’s house!

What if we had entered this sanctuary this morning to find it filled with cigarette smoke? Yet we fill God’s house with it! What if you found a spittoon ate the end of each pew? Yet God’s house is filled with tobacco juice every time we put just pinch between the teeth and gum. What if every Sunday School class were a bar and the alcohol flowed freely for every student? Yet we fill God’s House with it! What if we came here today and pornographic movies were playing on the screen? Yet we fill the sanctuary of God’s house, our minds, with these images. Why do I compare this church building to our bodies? Friends, God does not live in this house (the church); He lives in THIS house (our bodies)!

WE ARE TO BE GOOD RENTERS OF OUR CHILDREN!

Our children are not owned; they are loaned! If you think you own your children, wait a little while, you’ll see! We only rent them! And that rent is expensive, in more ways than money! The Bible says: