House - “House Rules”
Text: Psalm 127:1, Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Peter 2:5
Psalm 127:1 – KJV
1Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it:
Message - If GOD doesn’t build the house, the builders only build shacks.
Ephesians 2:19-22– Message
19-22That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
1 Peter 2:5 – NIV
5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
I. Introduction
As Christians we have our own language, don’t we? We use terms/phrases that non-Christians don’t understand. “Are you saved?” Saved from what? Have you been found? Found? I didn’t know I was lost! Have you been washed in the blood? That’s gross!
Some of the terminology we use for church can be confusing unless you are an insider. For instance when we talk about the corporate identity we might use the word kingdom or body. We understand that those terms mean our church. However, the term I want to look at is house.
Before I can start talking about the concept of the church as a house I probably need to stop and mention to you that when I use the word “house” or “church” I am not talking about this physical building. In fact, God himself tells us in Acts 17:24 that God, even though He dwelt in a physical tabernacle in the Old Testament, no longer lives in temples built by hands. So it wouldn’t matter how much stained glass, marble, or gold we adorned this building with God doesn’t live here. According to what I read to you from Ephesians and 1 Peter we are His house. He brings together the discontented, the indebted, and the dismayed – those marked by pain. In His own power and ability He joins us together, fits us together, unifies us, and shapes us into a dwelling place. Our part in this is that we determine, by how we obey and respond to his shaping, whether or not we are establishing God a palace or a shack! Some of us are asking God to settle for a shack! But I believe God wants to work in us to establish and build a beautiful house for His dwelling place!
Now we are also told that unless God builds the house we build in vain. In other words, unless the house is constructed according to His standards, His specs, His orders, and His blueprint then we are wasting our time. God never lives in a house He has not built. He is not obligated to come and live in our church just because we call it a church! He will only live in what He builds! You can go back and discover from the Old Testament that any time the folks built something according to His plans that it was at those moments that His glory would fill the house. I want that here, don’t you? I don’t want to build a clique or a club. I want to see God’s house establish in and through us so that His glory will live among us! I don’t want to build something and then beg God to come and bless it. He isn’t obligated to do so. That is true of this house and true of your house/life. Our only hope to see His glory is to build our church/life according to His instructions.
I have discovered that in the natural every house operates differently. Each house has its own system, structure, and order. Maybe in your house the Dad was the boss. That is a patriarchal system. Maybe in your house the order was that the Mom was the boss or the glue that held everything together. That is a matriarchal system. Or maybe in your house the kids were in control. That is called a jacked up system! In some houses everyone is early. In some everyone is late. In some houses people don’t talk about real issues. In others, dirty laundry is displayed for everyone to see. Systems and structures change in every house and if you don’t know those systems and structures you can be miserable and find yourself in a house full of trouble. For instance in my house if you raised your hand as if you were going to strike back you were – go ahead and pick out your casket you are a dead man. You need to know that if you were gonna live in my house.
I think God knew that if He didn’t give us explicit and precise instructions about how He wanted His house to be established that we would treat His house like our house and there would be no consistent structure or order. And since we would have tried to build it to suit us and to make us comfortable we would build in vain. So God very clearly gives us orders and directions on how to build His house and how His house should operate so that His blessing and His presence can dwell here. And in order for us to fit into and be productive in His house we need to understand the house rules!
So every house has a mode of operation. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is that God’s mode of operation, the system, the guiding principle by which His house operates is authority.
Herein, lies the problem. Most of us have never really seen a house (a church) filled with God’s perpetual glory because we can’t stomach the concept of authority! The moment I said the word "authority" has already made some of you nervous, uncomfortable and caused your sphincter muscle to tighten up:
There are two reasons this is true:
1. We have seen authority abused.
We resist authority because the Jim Jones, David Koresh and the throngs of shepherds who have tried to use the principle of authority to become a dictator has caused us to balk at the idea of authority. So, we don’t trust leaders of any kind.
2. We resist authority because we are try to operate the supernatural like the natural. Let me explain. We are Americans! How many of you are thankful that you are an American? I am so thankful that I was born here. However, being an American where we all demand and get our own rights and we all want our independence makes for great government, but flies in the face of how God’s house operates. God’s house was never set up to run as a democracy, it is a theocracy! What Daddy says goes!
Our mentality, as Americans, is no one can tell me what to do! No one is my boss. I am my own man. I get to choose what is right for me. Great government . . . poor church. And we bring that mentality into the church and then when God tries to take authority of our lives we resist and we live unblessed lives!
I have some bad news for you this morning! We were taught incorrectly. We were taught to question authority. They left out three crucial words! Because what we should have been taught was to question who is in authority? We are all governed by something or someone whether we like to admit it or not. What governs you? For some of you it is your anger. You can’t go a day without losing your temper. For some it is your past. You can’t live for today because of happened to you yesterday! Your thoughts are controlled by your past. For some it is your emotions. You live with your feelings on your sleeves. For some you are governed by money. Got to get the next buck, can’t relax, can’t enjoy life, and can’t love people because of the almighty dollar! Your inferiority complex … means you can’t be happy by yourself! You got to have a man to affirm you. You have got to have a woman on your arm to make you feel like a man!
What or who governs you? Fight authority all you want, but you are governed by something or someone and I declare that I would rather come under God’s authority and be blessed than to go through life thinking I am my own boss, making my own choices, doing my own thing only to discover that there was a way that seems right to a man, but in the end only leads to destruction. All those other things are hard task masters. I would rather learn to submit to the authority of God!
We need to stop thinking like an American for a moment and start thinking like a member of the house!
I am convinced that too many of us go through our Christian life cursed. Oh, we call ourselves blessed, but we have never really submitted to the lordship of Christ and since we have never really seen anyone live under the commanded blessing we don’t know any better! We have settled for life and forfeited life more abundantly because we don’t understand the house rules!
Go back and read Deuteronomy 28! God’s kingdom operates on commands and with every command there is a blessing and then there is also a curse if we don’t cooperate and obey. God’s house is established on the rule/principle of authority!
Mary understood authority. She is at the marriage ceremony and the wine runs out. She looks at the servants and tells them do what Jesus says to do, period. It isn’t open for debate. He doesn’t need your suggestions. Do what He says! Submit to His authority!
I think we would have wanted to argue with Him. We would have talked about the fact that water is heavy and so why do we find a more convenient way to do this? We would want to fill the pots half full and then we would be shocked when we had no wine. Obey! Allow the principle of authority to produce a blessing in our lives! The seedbed for the miracle was response to authority!
Luke 14 paints a picture of us. The parable is told by Jesus of a wealthy master who throws a banquet and sends word to his friends and special guests to come and dine. The invitation didn’t say if you have the time, or if you don’t have anything else to do why don’t you think about stopping by later tonight? No it says, “come!” They all began to make excuses. The command was come and dine and because they didn’t understand authority they forfeit the blessing! That sounds like us. We have come to the conclusion that commands are optional and are really suggestions and so we miss the meal and find ourselves living under a curse!
I can see that you understand their mistake by not attending the meal, but what about us?
We are commanded to tithe and instead we tip and then we get mad because the window of heaven is closed and we struggle! Malachi isn’t about tithing it is about obedience to authority! It isn’t optional if it fits in our budget or if we don’t have something special we have been wanting. Because we think it a suggestion we get mad when a preacher says we should tithe! We don’t understand authority.
We are commanded to assemble together. But we sleep in and miss for weeks and never give it a second thought. When you are out of church you should get nervous! I am not talking about a vacation. I am talking about the Sundays we miss just because. Just because I stayed up too late on Saturday. Just because I would miss that good game on TV. Just because it is too pretty outside! And then we wonder why we are living under a curse? We don’t understand authority!
We are commanded to think on pure things, Godly things, holy things and we will go watch filth and then wonder why our minds aren’t filled with peace! We don’t understand the house rules!
We are commanded not to be yoked to unbelievers and yet not only will we date them, we will marry them, become bosom buddies with them, become soul tied to them and then wonder why our world is in turmoil and in a constant state of distress. We don’t understand authority!
We are commanded to live at peace with everyone and to avoid sowing discord among the brethren and yet we will talk about our brothers and sisters, hold grudges, blacklist one another and never make a move to correct it and then wonder why we aren’t blessed. We don’t obey house rules!
We are commanded to submit to governing authorities, but we cheat on our taxes, cheat and steal time from our employers, disobey parents, bosses, and teachers because we don’t know house rules!
We are commanded to acknowledge God in all of our ways and yet we will make major decisions without ever even consulting Him!
We will choose a job/career and never even pray one time about God’s will.
We will date the first guy that pays us any attention and cuddle up with the first woman that gives us the time of day and never even stop to ask God if this is OK. Well they are Christians so it is OK. Really? Maybe they are a Christian, but does that make them God’s choice for you?
We will go into debt and never think twice about it and then expect God to come and bail us out of our own stupidity! We don’t understand authority!
Stop just a moment and ask yourself a question. Have you checked with God on this stuff?
1 John 3:4 says, “Sin is lawlessness”. Lawlessness means lack of obedience!
Our level of blessing is directly connected to our level of obedience!
Your blessings increase as your obedience increases and vice versa!
We fail to realize that authority doesn’t harm you it protects you. Being under God’s authority keeps you out of a dead end job! Being under God’s authority keeps you from winding up in a miserable marriage. Being under authority will produce financial freedom in your life!
I am convinced that most of us desperately want to Jesus to take authority over our sins! We want His authority to rule over our eternal life! We just don’t want to relinquish authority of our daily life!
So I am praying today that you have made Jesus ruler over your eternal destination. But my main prayer today is that we will embrace the house rules and submit to His authority in every area of our life!
If your life is marked by chaos, fear, distress, turmoil, unrest, brokenness could it be that you have failed to play by house rules? Could it be that you have come out from under the authority of God?
Authority will not steal your freedom or steal your joy! In fact,
Psalms 19:7 - The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
James 1:25 - But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.
Authority will restore your soul and cause you to be blessed!
When you play by house rules you win!
