Where Do You Live?

Each one of us knows where we live, don’t we? We know which state welive in, which county welive in and most of us even know what street we live on.

When we leave church today, we will go directly to the street we live on, and I doubt if there is anyone here today who will end up walking into the wrong house by mistake.

We know where we live, don’t we? At least we know where we live physically. I wonder, though, how many of us know where we live spiritually. God’s word says there are only two places to live, and they are not even close to one another. One has a great heating system and the other a great cooling system. Those two places don’t even look alike, but it seems that too many of God’s children have taken up residence at the wrong address.

How can we tell if we are at the wrong address? Are there any tale-tell signs that would give us a clue? Yes there are, but we have to be willing to look at them. For instance, if you are more concerned with what others think about you than what God thinks about you, you might be living at the wrong address.

If you go out of your way to impress people with how much you know, or even how Godly you are, you might be living at the wrong address. If you are all consumed with how you look to others, you could be living at the wrong address.

A lady went to her pastor one day and said she has a problem that has become a gigantic sin in her life. She said she sits in church and the only thing she can think about is how beautiful she is and how much better looking she is than others are.

The pastor told her to relax, that in her case it wasn’t a sin, it was just a big horrible mistake.

Turn with me to JEREMIAH 17:5-6

“5- This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6- He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.”

Today, we are gong to go through this passage and break it down. We will attempt to analyze it, understand it, and then find out how we can put it to use in our daily lives.

1. VERSE 5 - Talks about putting our trust in man rather than God.

Do we put our trust in man rather than putting it in God? Sure we do – all the time. One way we do that is to worry more about what someone else will think about us instead of what God will think about us.

For instance, you might be invited out to lunch and a movie on Sunday morning, but you don’t want to tell them you will be in church worshiping the Lord at that time, so you either don’t go to church or you just tell your friends that you already have other plans. Either way, you get out of having to tell them that you are going to church.

There are some in church who really feel the need to come forward at invitation and receive Jesus as Savior, or to rededicate themselves to Jesus, but they don’t do it. Why? Again, they are afraid of what others will say about them.

There are many ways in which we tend to trust in the world for our futures, for our careers, and for about everything else we have in life rather than seeking help from our Father.

People who live at the wrong address actually think those things. I know! I used to live there! They just cannot let God get in the way of their earthly lives.

Many preachers don’t rail against sin and proclaim salvation anymore because they think either many of their congregation would not come back, or that they would come back – just to chase the preacher out of town.

Some of our church leaders live at the wrong address, and through hollow and deceptive philosophy, or false teachings, they are leading their entire congregations down to their neighborhoods.

When we put our fear of what our fellow man will say above our fear of what God will do to us, we become the lukewarm and cold. These people are so distasteful to Jesus; He said He would spew them out of His mouth!

You are at a point in your life that you must make a decision. Either you are a Christian or you are not a Christian. Either you care more about what God thinks or you care more about what your friends think. You cannot be both and you cannot have it both ways. It is like a fork in the road; you either choose to go left or you choose to go right.