“Time to Clean House”
Matthew 5:8 and 1st John 1:9
Perhaps when you were growing up there were certain jobs or chores as some call them that you had to do…
• If the yard needed to be mowed-that was you
• If it was time for the dishes to be washed or dried-it was your turn
• Maybe it was making the beds or dusting or vacuuming
I have a feeling that whatever your job may have been that we all share one thing in common---we didn’t like it—cause it just wasn’t fun. When it comes to housecleaning there is nothing fun about it. And not only was it not fun, about the time you finish, it’s time to do it again. You don’t hear people say I cleaned my house 4 weeks ago—I’m not doing that again. Unless you live in a college dorm you know that house cleaning has to be done on a regular basis.
Jesus knew what it meant to clean house. On the first day of Holy week Jesus came into the temple and saw that the temple was being misused. A census was being taken and people all over the area had come to the temple and were bringing sacrifices with them—by the time they got there the sacrifices were not acceptable—they had to be without blemish of any kind so the priests in the temple would gladly sell them one to use for the sacrifice. But they were greatly overcharging them.
Jesus came in and turned the tables over that the moneychangers were using; he took some strips of leather and fashioned a whip and then he began to clean house. The Bible says that he drove out all those who were buying or selling; he turned the benches over and then turned the tables of the money changers over as well. And he said my house shall be a house of prayer but you are making it into a den of thieves.
Housecleaning is a painful thin but it is a necessity if we are going to live a life of purity. That word blessed means happy so what Jesus is saying here is this…Happy are the pure in heart for they will see God. So what does a heart that is pure look like? Well it might be best to consider first what a heart looks like that is filthy, dirty, impure. An impure heart is
• Full of junk/trash that weighs us down
• Full of hurts, habits and hangups
• Focused on the past rather than the future
• Carrying around deep pain that keep the heart from functioning properly
• Often blocked and cannot receive the abundant life that God has planned for us
So what do we do when we find ourselves in this situation? The answer is simple. We have to come clean. Come clean with ourselves. Come clean with God. Come clean with those we are close to. Now let me show you how this works in CR.
Realize we are not God. We do not have the power to manage our lives by ourselves.
Earnestly believe that God exists. Believe that He has the power & the desire to help us.
Commit our lives to God’s care and control.
Openly examine and confess our faults to myself, to God and to someone I trust.
Listen to what the scripture has to say. “What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven. What joy when sins are covered over! What relief for those who have confessed their sin and God has cleared their record.” Psalm 32:1-2 TLB
Let me remind you what guilt can do to us.
1. Guilt destroys our confidence. There are certain things that cannot coexist.
• 2 trains on the same track
• War and peace one will always drive the other one away
• Clutter and focus
• One more. Guilt and confidence.
Webster says that guilt is a “state of having done something wrong.” Most people define guilt as a feeling. They say that they feel guilty. Others say it is like a dark cloud that follows them wherever they go. Like a weight that we carry around.
Sir Anthony Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes novels and he loved to play practical jokes on people. One day he played a prank on 5 of the most prominent men in England. He sent an anonymous note to each man which simply said, “all if found out. Flee at once.” Within 24 hours all 5 men left the country.
Guilt can be like a dark cloud hanging over us and it seems to follow us wherever we go. And it will rob us of our confidence.
2. Guilt damages our relationships. Here is how. Guilt can cause us to not allow people to get close to us. If they get close to us they may find out we are hiding something. So we only allow people to get just so close to us. Guilt can cause us to overreact. It can cause us to be angry.
3. Guilt can cause us to become stuck in the past. Guilt is like a broken record that just keeps playing the past. It’s a bit like driving a car and only looking for it in the rearview mirror. Now a rearview mirror is helpful because it gives us perspective. We can spot that guy that’s driving right on our bumper –we can see when someone is trying to pass us. Looking at our past can bring perspective to our lives but here’s the things that’s dangerous---for some of us it’s the only place we look. We always have our head struck in the rear view mirror and we never look to the future.
Let me ask you. How long do you think you could last on the highway if you only looked in the rearview mirror? If we live like that there will be a crash in the near future. This 4th choice we are looking at today is a bit scary because some of us have really never opened up to anyone and the thought of doing so is troubling. But here’s the deal. If you want to change your life, if you want to grow up and let go of your guilt once and for all then you have to come clean. There are 5 steps you need to take. Let me warn you. These are not baby steps. Every one of these is a big step.
1. Take a personal inventory. If you have ever owned a business or were involved at all then you know that taking inventory is an annual event. Working as a teenager in a grocery store, I remember we had to count every single item we had in the store. Many of us don’t enjoy taking inventory. But here is what you must do.
• Make some time to be alone. No interruptions. Don’t rush it.
• Open your heart to God. The psalmist said, “search me on God and know my heart, test my thoughts. Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad.” Look at everything in your life –good and bad---write it down.
2. Accept responsibility for your faults. It’s not easy to do this. A few things to remember here.
• Be honest. This is a truth. Hard to accept but true. The greatest barrier in the healing of your hurts, habits and hang-ups can be you. We cause a lot of the problems we deal with.
• Don’t rationalize. This is how this works. We do something wrong but we try to convince ourselves otherwise by saying things like…it happened a long time ago…everybody does it….it’s not a big deal. Now if it’s not a big deal then why do we remember it 20 years later!!!
• Don’t place blame on others. Take responsibility for your actions.
Now let’s make something clear here. If you were abused as a child I believe that you have suffered one of the greatest tragedies of life. And certain kinds of abuse, as strange as it may sound, can cause you to feel guilty or unclean. Listen. No part of that sin committed against you was your fault. None of it. However because of what happened to you has now caused you to hurt someone else; that is your responsibility.
So (1) take a personal inventory (2) accept responsibility
(3) ask God for forgiveness. 1st john 1:9 LB
There is no sin so bad that God cannot or will not forgive.
A woman came in to see her pastor and said I’m depressed. I’ve been in bed for several weeks and I no longer have the energy to get out of bed and live my life. Obviously she was in deep pain. The pastor asked her, is there something in your life that you really regret? And she began to open up. She said, a few years ago I had an affair---she got pregnant and then had an abortion. And then she said I never told my husband.
The pastor told her that there is no stain that sin can put on your life that God cannot wash out/remove. Have you seen this verse?
“No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as fresh fallen snow.” Isaiah 1:18 TLB
You know what the woman said? That’s not fair! He said why not? Cause somebody’s got to pay for what I did. The pastor said, well somebody already has. He paid for every sin you have committed and ever will commit.
In CR we will also encourage you to do one more thing…
4. Admit your faults to another person. The Bible says “admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” James 5:16 TLB
There’s a funny thing about house cleaning. You really never finish. You may finish one room but then there is another one. Or the same one gets messed up again. You have to to surrender it all to Him. Let Him make the changes in your life. After marveling at Michelangelo’s statue of David, the Pope asked the sculptor, “How do you know what to cut away?”
Michelangelo’s reply? “It’s simple. I just remove everything that doesn’t look like David.” That is exactly what God wants to do in our lives. He wants to cut away everything that doesn’t look like the person that He intended for you to be.
