Who has seen the A& E series, “Hoarders”? I love the show! Hoarders is a fascinating look inside the lives of different people whose inability to part with their belongings is so out of control that they are on the verge of a personal crisis.
VIDEO: “Hoarders”
I find myself hooked to the television each time I watch an episode of Hoarders. You never know what people are going to find in some of these houses.On one episode there was one house that, while they were cleaning it, they found two mumified cats under a couch.In another episode they find a live opossum that had been dwelling in the house along side the residents and they never even knew it was there among them.
Hoarders are people that are in a constant battle by an obsessive need to acquire (and failure to use or discard) a significant amount of possessions, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. This is much like when people come to Jesus. Some of us hold onto things that clutter our walk with Jesus. We, too, are in a constant battle and need to clean up in order to see Jesus.
We need to allow God to clean out our lives and try to live a life of holiness. Some Christians get to a point where big, devastating sins never enter their mind. We don’t wake up and say, “I think I’ll commit adultery today.” Or “I think I’ll murder someone today.” What we do, however, is hoard sins. We tell ourselves that they are small, insignificant sins that we know we don’t need or even want any more, but we keep them around anyway.
There’s that grudge that we hold onto, never willing to let go. There’s that small piece of gossip that we hang onto. There’s that excuse that keeps us from being faithful to prayer time, Bible study, and even from God’s house. There small little things that we keep around we just can’t part with can we.
Suddenly it seems like almost overnight we notice that our lives have become cluttered. We think we should throw out some of these sins, but we don’t, they have really grown and taking over. We realize that our lives have become more than just cluttered. Now it looks messy and it’s difficult to get through certain rooms in our lives. We know we need to throw away some sin, but again we don’t. We realize that, our entire life is trashed.
Our children are a mess, our relationship with our spouse is in ruins, our career is falling apart, and when we look at our life all we see is dirty sin. Now we’re overwhelmed. We say, “Where did all of this come from and how can I ever get rid of it now?” What we must realize is that it didn’t just appear, we’ve been accumulating it for a long time. We’ve become hoarders.
This morning ask yourself, what is the clutter in your life that keeps you from seeing God’s will for you?
Illustration: The Learning Annex, a chain of adult-education schools, says that more than 200,000 people have completed its popular class on controlling household clutter. Who takes the course” People who keep empty mayonnaise jars, manuals for appliances they no longer have, broken buttons, out of date phone books, etc.
Household clutter occupies space, saps energy and creates frustration. Spiritual clutter is much the same, unresolved conflicts pile up in our hearts; un-confessed sins gather a thick layer of guilt; unspoken prayers litter our minds.
Are you a Hoarder? Do you have unresolved issues or sins that you just can’t part with? How can we clean out our jumbled lives today? I think that our text this morning gives us some answers.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
I.We hoard unresolved conflicts.
- Two men who lived in a small village got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So they decided to talk to the town sage. The first man went to the sage’s home and told his version of what happened. When he finished, the sage said, "You’re absolutely right." The next night, the second man called on the sage and told his side of the story. The sage responded, "You’re absolutely right." Afterward, the sage’s wife scolded her husband. "Those men told you two different stories and you told them they were absolutely right. That’s impossible -- they can’t both be absolutely right." The sage turned to his wife and said, "You’re absolutely right."
A.I believe we all have had conflict with people once or twice in our lives. It may have been a family member, a business partner, a fellow employee, a neighbor, a total stranger, but we have had difficulty with them.
1.It was David who says in Psalms142: 3 his enemies have laid a snare for him. I have felt like that at times. Have you?
2.In fact, it is not difficult to believe that someone who is not a Christian might want to belittle us or cause trouble for us, but I had a rude awakening shortly after I became a Christian. I discovered that even Christians can have unresolved conflicts with other Christians.
3.The truth is, we are not going to see eye to eye with everyone we work with or even worship with. We read in Acts 15 as Paul was making plans for his second missionary journey that he and Barnabas got into a rather heated discussion over taking Mark.
4.It appears Paul felt Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia and did not want him to take him on this trip, but Barnabas did. The disagreement was so sharp that Barnabas took Mark and went to evangelize in Cyprus while Paul chose Silas and headed toward Syria.
5.The lesson I believe we can draw from Paul, Mark and Barnabas, is that they did not allow their conflict with one another to interfere with the plans God had laid for them.
6.Conflict with other people appears to be unavoidable regardless of how spiritual one may be, but that conflict does not have to consume us or drain us of being the person God wants us to be.
7.This morning, do you have someone or maybe even several people whom you have had strained relationships with? Then welcome to the human race, but are you allowing your conflict with them to drain you, to rob you of the peace and contentment God has promised to those who love Him?
(Matt. 18:15) “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
8.This morning some of us need to clean our house so to speak. We need to stop hoarding our hurt, our resentment and bitterness toward someone and we need to move on!
9.We have allowed unresolved conflicts with others to limit the blessings God desires to give us. It has robbed us of peace, and contentment. It has limited the power of God to work in our lives.
10. David in our Scripture from Psalms 139 asks God to search him. He does not start with a request for God to search someone else, but start with me. The subject of the search is me, - the source of the search is my heart, - and the person of the search is God.
11. It is refreshing to note that after Paul and Barnabas had their disagreement, there is no mention of it again in Scripture. Neither one of them appears to have gone out and tried to smear the other before the church. In fact, we actually find them coming together again for a third missionary journey.
12. I think they allowed God to search their hearts and as a result, though neither man was changed in what he believed about Mark, but both men would not allow their disagreement to hinder the work God had called them to do.
B. It is important who we invite to search our heart.
1.If we search our own heart, we have a tendency to overlook some things. We tend to want to pass over areas of our lives that perhaps may be displeasing to God but we are comfortable with.
2.After all God, it was not my fault. It was his! I find it easier to look at my life and to accommodate some sin rather than to expose it.
3.But I think too that if we are the person of the search, we can tend to go just the opposite direction and see nothing but our sins and our failures and thus we live in guilt and defeat.
C.This morning, who do you need to forgive and move on? What action do you need to take to let go of your hurt, to cease trying to belittle the person you are in conflict with?
1.Unresolved conflict clutters our spiritual life and it blocks the peace and power of God in us.
2. Today is the day to let it go and clean your life up. It’s time to stop hoarding all of those un-resolved conflicts.
II.We hoard un-confessed sins.
A.Un-confessed sin in our lives is like a small pebble in our shoe or a small splinter in our finger. Neither one is big enough to stop us, but they sure slow us down.
1.Who has not tried to keep walking or running with a small pebble in his/her shoe? You can do it, but it hurts and it steals our concentration on what is important.
2.Un-confessed sins in our life do the same thing. They may not keep us from going to heaven, but they sure make getting there much more difficult.
3.David not only invites God to search him but to know his heart. Now that is a bold statement. The heart is the depository of my true self. It alone knows who I really am and who I really want to be.
4.For some that may be unnerving because you do not desire to see that your commitment to God is only half hearted. But it is also refreshing because it is the heart that reveals the intention of our will, the intention of my spirit.
5.Un-confessed sin is a robber of joy, a robber of peace, a robber of victory. It keeps us in shame and defeat.
B.But there is a cure for this clutter of un-confessed sin. We read in (I John 1:9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1.This was the prayer request of David in our text for this morning. God search me, know me, try me. See if there is any hurtful way in me.
2.By un-confessed sin, I do not mean sins that at the end of the day you can not remember you committed and cannot pray for forgiveness. My goodness, it would require me carrying around a notebook each day if this is what God meant by un-confessed sin.
3. No un-confessed sin, is sin that we are very much aware of and hold onto, not willing to let it go. We find ourselves not only hiding it from others but we may even be justifying it .
4.This morning is your life choked with the clutter of un-confessed sin? Today is the day for you to open up your heart and allow the cleaning person to enter. The Holy Spirit is his name and sin is his aim.
III.We hoard unspoken prayers.
- A carload of ministers was returning to the city after a church conference in the country. While they were traveling along a deserted stretch of road, the engine stalled. The ministers all piled out of the car, and each one had a turn at fiddling under the bonnet and turning the ignition key - but all to no avail.
"Brothers," said Rev. Jones, "all is not lost. Let’s pray and ask the LORD for help. If we pray in FAITH, I have no doubt that He will answer us."
Thus the other ministers knelt around him on the side of the road, while Rev. Jones prayed that the Lord would start the car. After they had prayed, he opened the driver’s door, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered. Then it roared into life. As a result, Rev. Jones staggered back from the car, and went as white as a sheet.
"What’s the matter, Jones?" asked his colleagues. "Aren’t you feeling well?"
"Good heavens!" Rev. Jones muttered to himself, "Good heavens! It actually STARTED!"
A.I wonder what great things God has in store for me if I would but ask. We read in Scripture, that we have not because we ask not.
1.Perhaps it is a feeling of unworthiness that keeps some of our prayers from being offered to God.
2.Maybe we are afraid God would give us what we pray for and we are not willing to make the changes necessary.
3. I don’t know why we hold unspoken prayers. I only know that in
Philippians 4:6 we read, 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,present your requests to God.
4.What prayer do you need to offer to God today?
5.When we hold unspoken prayers in, we allow them to build up and clutter our lives up with negativity.
6.We begin to feel un loved, un important, we begin to feel all alone in this world with no one on our side that is there for us to guide us and lift us up.
Conclusion: God wants us to come to him and lay our burdens to him and him alone. He wants us to have that faith in Him that He is the one we run to, He is the one that can clean us up and keep our lives free of all the clutter.
