JESUS FOR MESSIAH | Week 1 | Sermon

And it reminds me of when you try to make room for what really matters, sometimes that's hard. Sometimes you don't want to because you think what really matters,

you try to avoid making room. When I was growing up, my dad, you know, he was military ship shape. We had to make our beds every day before we went to school, keep our room relatively clean. But we had catch up day. Like, Saturday morning was always where we did the extra chores. I had to make sure that I cleaned the pool filters, but you had to make sure your room was really clean. And the the issue on Saturdays for me was

Saturday was the day you had to clean the closet. Because how I cleaned my room all week to make it look good was I threw everything in the closet. So then my dad would look at me and go, I don't know why you do this because it just makes Saturday longer because you're gonna go clean the closet on Saturday.

And if and and I didn't get it. I'd be but I don't wanna clean it right now. I just wanna go do my fun stuff. And then and on Saturday, we could not leave and go do anything with our friends till we did our jobs. Now if I had kept my closet pretty much clear of clutter all week,

everything I had to do on Saturday probably would take a half an hour. And if I got up early, done. I have the whole day. But, you know, I was young, and then even my teen years was worse. Stay up too late, sleep till 10:30 in the morning, eleven, goof around, eat, procrastinate. And then by the time

I would would would be able to do it or wanted to, I didn't really want to, my friends would call, hey, let's go hang out. And I might as well not tell you to do your stuff. And now I'm stuck with about two hours worth of stuff because I didn't listen all week. So then I would have to go clean the closet.

And and and and it was just a pain because I just kept hiding it. I kept hiding it. I made my room look good, but it was then my dad would go, let's see the closet. You'd open the door, and we would need an avalanche rescue team to come get us out after it buried us.

And I know we some of you still do that today. It's that pile of laundry that you never fold,

and you're looking around for like a pair of socks. And you're like, I don't have time to fold this stuff or put it away. How long do you spend every day squatting over having your back go out trying to find two socks that match?

I even tried it once. I I just said, you know what I'm gonna do? When I was younger, I bought all the exact same socks. So I didn't have to find matches. I just had to find two. And I'm like, why? Why do we do this? Because we tend to get clutter. And when we have clutter in our lives,

it pushes out time for what really matters. And that's what Jesus is doing

when he comes to the temple. See, he comes in on on on that triumphal entry day when he's going into Jerusalem for this last week of his life where he's gonna end crucified and then resurrected.

And he's been telling people he is, but now he officially does what the Bible says. He gets on this this young colt, which is a humble act, but it's said in scripture that he the Messiah would ride in that way. But he rides through the king gate though. Goes out of his way to go through the king's gate. That's where the king would come in and out. And he goes through there saying, I'm the king. But instead of going if you're really looking for a political king, a military, political ruler that's gonna fix all those current problems, he would have went a king would have rode to the Tower Of David,

the bastion of power there. The fur he doesn't go there. He never goes there. He goes, that's not what I came to do. He went to the temple. And that's one of the reasons what happens here within the rest of the week sets up his crucifixion because the people that were cheering for him wanted

they were more worried about their current problems, what's going on politically, the economy, all those things. That's what they cared about more than God.

And they were really rallied about that. And once they realized when he started explaining and showing real what much more directly who he was to people, they're like, oh, this isn't the king we want. And they rejected him. So what happens when he goes to the temple that started this whole who

hubble of? It's the same thing he did at the beginning of his ministry. Way back in the beginning, he goes in the temple and he gets frustrated and he clears house.

And I'm only gonna read two verses today. Though all the points are coming from these two verses, so pray for me. Because when I only have two verses, sometimes I go too long.

But here it is. Jesus clears the temple. It says, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice.

He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. And he said to him, the scriptures declare my temple will be called a house of prayer. That's important. But you have turned it into a den of thieves.

So that's you probably heard of this story. He goes in and clears the temple out, flips some tables over, drive some people out. In in John, when he did it at the beginning of his of his ministry and then comes at the end and does it again, it shares a little bit more of how people reacted.

And it says the disciples saw his heart is when he did it the first time. They they actually quoted a psalm that said, zeal for your house will drive him. Meaning, they understood when they saw him, they saw their go, he is the Messiah. The everyone else said, what authority do you have?

And that is the decision everyone in this room is going to have to decide. And you're not gonna be able to procrastinate because procrastinating is the decision. At the end of the sermon, how do you see Jesus in your life?

Will he flip some tables over and challenge you and you'll see his heart and trust him? Or are you gonna walk out of here just not accepting that he has any authority over you. That's the choice we have to make.

And what Jesus is doing is he is making room for what really matters because he has a problem with what's happening in this worship. And that teaches us from here and other scriptures and knowing what he's talking about and knowing the history here of what is he trying to show us and that we can apply to us today

with our worship. Because I think this scripture of Jesus clearing the temple is the most misused scripture from Christians. I mean, if if I could tell how many times people think we're a sellout church because we have a coffee shop that we sell coffee in our building.

That has nothing absolutely ridiculously has anything to do with this passage. Matter of fact, what we're doing is actually accomplishing what Jesus was mad at them not doing.

Now you're all intrigued. What does that mean? What does it mean? Like, so there's three things we could take from this. When we say, hey, are we gonna worship in a way that makes room for what really matters? What God really wants in our lives?

And the first thing we're gonna have to do is assess your attitude. I gotta assess my attitude. What is my attitude towards worship and the Lord's authority in my life? What when I think of worshiping the Lord, what do I think? What's my attitude about it? What does it look like? But before I dive into what Jesus was doing here and called him out on worship, we have to address Jesus' attitude because people get stuck up on that. Like, well,

he lost his temper. So does that mean every time you lose your temper, do something stupid, you go, well, Jesus lost his temper. No.

Does this mean that when he lost his temper, he was just needed the disciples to run up and give him a Snickers and say, hey, Jesus, you need to eat because you know you get extra wrath y whenever you're hungry. No. There was a very calculated

burst of anger that he had every right to do, and it was proving a point that he was the Messiah. It was actually guaranteeing that these leaders that are gonna reject his authority are now gonna say, we are going to kill him.

He was guaranteeing the cry. He was making sure he goes to the cross for us. He was setting it up, but there was also a thing he was very angry at the way they worship that we have to apply to our lives too and understand that Jesus still wants to flip some tables in our hearts.

And and we need to listen, and we need to listen. Yay. I like that amen. Amen for the amen. Don't do it too much. I'll preach too long. My wife likes to say, don't encourage him.

So what was he really mad at then? Was it the fact that they were doing business? Was the fact that they were doing? It says really clearly what the what they were doing. He who he went after is the people that were, buying and selling animals for sacrifice.

He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. You see, when we look at that and then how he says it's a house of prayer and understand what's going on,

He was frustrated with the leadership for allowing this to happen, but he was frustrated with the people that are worshiping in this way. And it wasn't the fact that they were changing money, selling animals, or selling doves. That was not the problem. That needed to happen. That actually allowed people to worship.

Because when you came to town, you this time of year when you brought for the day of atonement, you would come from a long way to worship at the temple because the temple was literally where the presence of God was. In the holy of holies, he was behind this veil. It literally said at miraculously, would light up like a bright light, like, you know, the pillar of light by day, and it was the Shekinah glory of the Lord was there physically.

And the people had to come there. You had to go to that temple to worship God because that's where he was. And you brought your sacrifice, which was symbolic of a sacrifice of the blood shed for your sin.

And they had to do this. And they had this one time here. So you would come from a long ways to do this. And you couldn't bring those animals. The animals were for people that had more money that just didn't wanna drag them. The doves, why he goes specifically after them was if you were too poor, you had special compass. You didn't have to bring an unblemished land.

You can offer a dove, which was cheaper. And you had to exchange because you had to buy it in the temple with, like, the money that was the right form of coin. That was not the problem. That was actually a thing that helped worship. It had to happen. What he was mad at is how they were doing the business and where

in the in where they were doing it. It wasn't doing business or doing the money in exchanges. That wasn't the problem. It was how and where. What's the how? The how was, it's like if you go to a sporting event

and you get out of your car and that guy has his own little cooler and he's selling you a bottle of water for a dollar 50. And he goes, you're gonna wanna buy it from me. And then you walk through the gates and someone's holding the exact same bottle and it's $7. They moved it into one of the courts in the temple,

really close. It makes it super convenient, but they were ripping people off, especially the doves because these were for poor people, and they're selling it at an extraordinary amount. He's like, you are trying to make a profit off of people trying to worship.

That's what his problem was. But his even bigger problem is why he goes, my house is a house of prayer, is it's where they were doing it that made him mad. It's not that they were in this holy, it was where, but why the where mattered. You see, where they were doing it was in this place called the court of the Gentiles.

The Temple Mount is laid out. God told them how to lay it out, the dimensions and all this stuff. They build it, and it's built in a way that it's laid out. And when you look at the dimensions, it says something because there's three main courts. I actually have a picture

of, from a a museum in Jerusalem. I've been there. This is like a really big model they have outside of what Jerusalem looked like in the time of Jesus. And, that that model right there, that that whole big thing right there, that's the Temple Mount raised up. You can see the gates, the walls.

And it's about that tall, the model. This is big. And, if you look at there, there's the Temple Mount. I've been on it. The whole temple, all the structure in the middle doesn't exist anymore. The Romans wiped it out in 8070. But I've stood on that entire mount, and and, it's huge.

Like those open areas on the left and right, those are both bigger than football fields.

They're giant areas. So if you look at the tall structure, that's the main house of the temple. That's where the holy of holies is, Where there's this giant veil that's over an inch thick that hides the glory of God, that has the ark of the covenant, that the literal presence of God is. He's literally there, but he's also saying something about our worship, how we approach him. You gotta come with the sacrifices.

And on the day of atonement, a priest, you can only go only one person go behind that veil one day a year, and he has to pray up, get ceremonial wash and clean and go in with the right attitude, or he dies. Matter of fact, when the priest would go in, they would tie a rope around his waist as he went through,

and then they would wait. And if you heard a thud and he didn't come out after the five minutes or so, you'd pull the rope and drag his dead body out. That's how God seriously is presenting. I am holy, you are not. And I love you, I wanna be in your presence, but you can't be in my presence.

And they would go there to worship. So that's the holy of holies. Right outside of that taller structure there, that little courtyard surrounded by the walls, that's the court of the men, the men, male Jews. They go in there to pray and to basically study scripture and and and and and and talk.

The one right in front of it, that big courtyard area, that's the court of The women. That's where the the the women go to to pray and to be together. And then outside, all those two huge areas, that whole area is called the Court Of The Gentiles,

which is interesting. The Court Of The Gentiles. If you weren't Jewish, you were a Gentile. So every outsider that wasn't born into this faith,

they that God told them to build a structure that the part where the outsiders can come to meet God, the people that are far from God can come to know, where they can come to pray, because prayer is a two way street as far as we'll talk about prayer. They can come to ask and pray, respond to God's word, pray and meet the Lord is most of the space for the Temple Mount.

God had them build and make more space for people on the outside than who were already on the inside. That should speak to us today because God intended Israel to point people to the Lord by loving them like the Lord does. But

they forgot about that, made their worship about their own little walk, their own little time. I wanna go pray and learn the Bible. I wanna learn scripture. I wanna learn stuff. I wanna do my ritual. I wanna be right with God. I want my family to be right with God, and they forgot about outreach. They basically looked down on everyone. They like to sit in there and talk about how bad people who weren't Jews were.

Sounds familiar?

We still kinda have the same approach to worship in our day a lot of times. Will will sit there and we think churches, I gotta get there. I get my seat. Get my thing. I get my kids. I want my program. I want this. And I start talking about, hey, guys. Can you give me several million dollars so we can build another building so we can get more seats? Because we keep having more outsiders come and we need to reach them. And you're like, I don't wanna get more money. Why is it always talking about money? And the next thing he's gonna say is you better serve too. Yep. I am.

And because that's the mission. It was the mission even for them. And part of the problem is they forgot the mission. They didn't care about anybody. They they thought being God's chosen meant they're better than everybody else. And then they thought when I do the ritual, I'm already right with God. That's why they rejected Jesus' authority when he came and said, you're doing it wrong. How dare you tell me? Who are you to tell me to do that? How dare you? You tell me how to worship you. I'm gonna worship you the way I wanna worship you.

But you have to assess your attitude. Is that maybe how you worship God right now? And here's why what he said has nothing to do with this building. This building isn't a temple. There is no building that is needed to be a temple anymore.

You know why? We'll get to it in the story. When Jesus hangs on the cross and says, it is finished, that thick veil ripped top to bottom as if God took it by its hand and went, and an earthquake, it collapses open, revealing the holy of holies.

Because God says, you don't need this temple. You don't need this veil anymore because now because I died, I you now have the holy spirit in you if you put your faith in me. And Paul says it really clearly in in Corinthians when he says, don't you know that you and your body

is the temple of the Holy Spirit? So everything he says that he wants to flip tables over how to worship is individualized now. It's what's going on in your heart. It's what's going on in your daily life. A lot of us still have temple worship mentality.

You act like this is some holier than holy ground. Like, you gotta be extra good when you come into the church building. You complain if we do business. Are we cheating, God? We're we're we're we're selling in his temple. And when you have temple mentality, you think this is where you come to worship God because this is where his presence is, and then you leave and do whatever you want

because you have this temple mentality. The temple mentality is why you'll sit there and be a mess arguing, fighting, your kids are trashed just a trash mess, and everyone's like, you pull in the parking lot. Now listen up, everyone.

Throw it all in the closet right now because we're on holy ground. Or I don't want the other people to think we're messed up.

And then you think there's something special about this. You know what's special about this? God does call all the individual temples to gather as the body in worship and challenge. And in these moments, this is often where Jesus will come into your heart and start flipping some tables over.

And you gotta decide how you're gonna respond. Half the time, you respond to that conviction of the Holy Spirit and you get mad at me.

I honestly do not believe I have challenges to do anything that is not absolutely commanded by God for us to be as a church. And one of them is outreach. That was a problem with them. Jesus got so mad. You know how many knuckleheaded people he ran into? And this is the one thing that made him actually

knock tables over and drive people out. He says, you've taken my house of prayer, which directly relates to the fact that it's the court of the Gentiles. You are not caring about the outsider. And in scripture it says,

his mission for Israel the whole time was to be blessing the world, to bring Jesus. But also he said through all of this, the whole goal was people from every type tribe, every tongue, every part of the world would know Jesus. And then in Romans, it says, how will someone here

know Jesus if they don't hear the preaching of the gospel? If they don't hear the word brought to them. And how will they hear it if people don't go? So when I ask us to give to this, guys, I am asking us to properly worship God. Because it says in Romans, he died for us so we can be a living sacrifice.

And he says he will make all things work together for good when we become that living sacrifice for those who know and do my will. See, God will make everything work for good in the end, even if it's tough, even if it's hard, if you're doing his will. That is how we worship now. We don't come to a worship service.

We gather to worship God corporately for some reasons, but then we get up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and decide, I'm gonna worship God today with my life. And I'm gonna tell you, if you don't do it during the week, if your worship during the week is not existent,

you only come to worship on the weekend. If you don't worship during the week and you only come to worship on the weekend, your weekend worship will be weak. I just thought that up. You should write that down, and then give it to me so I can remember what I just said. It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. Yeah. Go look it up.

And that's why a lot of us come in here and we're like, we're not into the singing or we're not into that. You know why? It's not because the worship service was bad or it's because of a song you didn't like or you didn't like that I challenged you,

it's probably because you are not your attitude towards worship is it's something you go and do. It's a it's a it's like what they're doing. They're just doing business. They're doing the transaction. John Piper, great pastor. I've met him. He he said this about this.

When we are more concerned about the business of worship than the God we are worshiping, we have missed the point. In other words, what we need to assess our attitude, how we can be doing the exact same thing, is your worship more about gain than God?

And what I mean by gain is not just financial. Is it all just about your problems, your current circumstance, next thing you want, the next thing you need, the next thing you worry about? Or do you come here to focus on who God is?

Because if you can't worship is worth ship. It's ascribing the worth he has. Well, you don't know him. You know his word. And especially if you do not know his love. You realize every one of these decisions to trust God with stuff with your time, your money, your your relationships,

your your job, like, whatever it is that you're struggling to just trust God's way on it, always comes back to do you trust his love. That's what happened to Adam and Eve. That's how Satan got on a fall. It's good. It's anytime you put something else. This is a direct what he's re responding to is in

Exodus when he gives the 10 commandments, one of the things is you will have no God before me. Anytime you spend any part of your life on something that God says do it this way, that is a God you have put in front of you and him. Every single time.

So you gotta ask yourself, why do I keep doing that if I come to church and I believe in Jesus? It's the same way Adam and Eve felt. There is a lie in your ear that says, you have to have this or you can't do it God's way because of. You are doubting his power, but really, you're doubting his love.

You're afraid that if you listen to God with your money, you won't have enough money to be happy. You're afraid if you listen with your time, you're gonna be so busy doing this, you won't have time for yourself.

You're afraid in your marriage if I choose to do what Jesus said, man, and love your wife like Christ loved the church. How did he love the church? He died for the church.

And you need to be willing to die to self for the sake of your spouse. And some of you are like, don't worry. She's killing me already. But that's okay. But ladies, respect your husband. Well, he's not acting respectable. He didn't ask you to this. Show him respect out of love for Jesus.

You're afraid. What if I do that? They're gonna take advantage of it. They're just gonna take advantage of me. That's not what we need to worry about.

Do you really believe you know what you need more than God does? Do you really believe you love yourself more than God knows of? Do you really believe your perspective on how life works and how the universe works and how everything's gonna work out in your the future, the past, everything. Do you really believe you know more than God? Because that's what you're saying every time you ignore some of this stuff.

Exactly. That's what many of us do. And the reason I'm bold about this is because I love you guys, and I also know that his main anger was towards the leadership at the temple that allowed that attitude and propagated it. I can't do that.

Otherwise, Jesus is flipping tables in my life for being a bad pastor, a bad leader, a bad shepherd.

It comes back to his love, though. Do you trust that he loves you more than you know how to love yourself? That'll unlock everything. Where's your attitude? And the way to get to that when you assess that attitude is the second thing.

The second thing is we need authenticity. We need to aim for authenticity. See, when we aim to just like, when you try to you think temple mentality that I'm showing up for church, you know what you aim for? You aim to look right, not to be right.

And you will just throw stuff in the closet, and you will hide it. And then I'll holler at you enough, and you're finally like, alright. I feel guilty enough. I'll go get in a small group because we need to be in circles, not rows because we need help. We need other people in our lives to grow. And but then everybody goes, but they have the meant the temple mentality. They don't have the authentic mentality. So every time you go to small group, cram everything away, only reveal what we think looks good, maybe reveal a problem if I need somebody to help me move because that's a common problem, stuff like that. But don't really get to the heart of the matter. So no one's really actually having authentic relationship because you're not authentic with God, you're not authentic with each other. So that small group becomes a waste of time. And then you go, tried it, didn't really do anything. All I did was waste my time, now I don't go anymore.

When it really was, you never really got in community. Because if you're not authentic with God, you will not be authentic with others. And that's what we need to get to. We need to get to real, and we need to get to honest. Because here's the deal, truth is always your friend. Truth is always your friend.

The problem is when the truth seems like it's gonna hurt or be scary, we act like it's the enemy.

And the truth is always our friend, and we need an authentic relationship with God. And how do I get to that authentic relationship? I gotta be real. I gotta be there. I gotta be I have to engage in more than just showing up at a church service.

Because if all you do is show up at church, you're never gonna get into a real deep relationship with God. You're not gonna trust his love. You're not.

It's kinda like if you've you got married. I don't know if you're like me, but when you get married and then you get married around the time all your friends start getting married, so then all of a sudden, your wife has friends that weren't your friends,

and and and and and then you have friends, but you wanna hang out with your old friends. But now they have spouses that you don't know, so all of sudden your wife drags you guys to a to an event like, oh, I love my friend, and you're stuck with this husband you don't know, and they and you leave in the car. And they're like, that was the greatest thing. We need to do that all the time. And you're like, I don't ever wanna do that again.

I don't really know this guy. He's weird. So then you put the brakes on it. You're really you really don't really like to do it, so you only do it every now and again, and that makes it even worse. So since you ever do it, it's like every time you meet, it's like you met for the first time, and it's always awkward. You don't understand their nuances. You understand? Like, man, that friend, he's so aggressive. He'll just tell me what I need to hear. And he's and and and and and you don't believe he really cares about it. You just think he wants to be right and control you or or whatever. Or he's a Seahawks fan, something more tragic like that.

And and you don't know what to do with it. You know what I'm talking about? You know the only time it ever converts

is when that one time when without knowing your wife or you did it to them, you're like, hey, we're going on this. We're gonna go up together. Oh, I invited so and so. We're gonna get a house and Airbnb together. You're like, no. And then you get stuck for like a good week straight. Sometimes that's tragic.

But every now and some of I bet everyone of us has a friend that once you got stuck with them long enough, you realized, wow. Now we have a couple that's a couple friend that we are good friends.

And that's what happens when you only show up at church. And guys,

some of you are here because your wife drags you and you come every now and again. And every time you come, this Jesus guy is awkward and I'm weird and I'm loud and you're like, I don't get it and it's uncomfortable. I only did it because I love you and can we get out of here as soon as possible when we're done?

But what would happen if you started to just explore? What if Jesus is Messiah?

What if what this says in scripture, he is who he said he is?

And even though you don't know him really well and you don't understand, he loves you and knows you more than you know or love yourself. And what if the truth is he is the only way to real life?

What are you gonna do with that? You need to aim for authenticity, not look right. Just look to be real.

And so you can pray to God about all your issues. Pray to him about your fears. Pray to him about, I don't I'm fearful of trusting you with my money. I'm fearful of trusting and and pray for them about your attitude. Like, why do I not care if this church keeps reaching people for Jesus?

Ask yourself, why do you not care? Because there's something cluttering your life that you care about that's taking the emotional energy towards that instead of the heart of God for people. Because as my dad used to say in combat to his men, this may be hard, but this is the job. This is the job.

So where are you at? Do you have an authentic relationship? And do you really trust that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and then resurrected to give you life? Do you really embrace that? Because none of this makes sense if you don't. And when he starts flipping tables over,

if you know him, you'll either go, wow, he's right. Or you will say, who is he to say that? So in the end, there's a quote about this idea of prayer. Why does he even emphasize prayer? Because I think prayer is the place where you really get to connect to God. But prayer is Paul Miller says,

is not about asking, it's about listening. You see, if you don't really have an authentic relationship with God where you are in his word consistently and and letting the word go through you, you won't pray like David pray prayed. Even when he sinned, he prayed, search my heart, oh God,

and show me any way that's running foul, like anything you'd wanna flip a table over on. David starts praying not just about give me this, give me that, give me that. Because when you don't have a relationship with God, you turn your prayer into just a wish list.

And it's not tied to the will of God. And so when things don't happen, you're discouraged. If they happen, you think, guys, see, God does love me and bless me. No. That just happened to happen. But and and then you don't get it. But when you start praying about the will of God in your life, God, give me the power to to use my gifts. Give me the ability to point people to Jesus. Give me the ability to trust you with my money. Give me let me be a part of what's going on. Give me the ability to love my wife when I don't want to. Give me the ability to respect my husband. Give me the ability to show my kids what real love is. Give me the ability to not be legalistic with them, but but have boundaries, but with love and grace like you have for me. Give me the knowledge. And you you when you start praying that way, you're amazed. God will say yes every time to those things.

When you want what God wants, you will get what you want every time. Just remember that. If you want what God wants, you'll get what you want every time. But that comes from an authentic relationship of trusting his love,

and that's where prayer is. It's his it's his two way street. You respond in prayer to what his word has said. We don't just go through God's word. You need to allow God's word to go through you.

And that's what I do in pre I'm trying to take God's word and say, here's how it should go through and work through us. And we should assess our attitudes when about what we think worship is. We should aim for authenticity. And then finally, we should clear the clutter.

By what? Instead of don't wait till Jesus flips a table over. Because he will flip tables over. He'll have stuff happen in your life to get your attention.

And are you gonna do something about it? Some of us keep going through the same thing over and over and over again. Someone told me a quote, hope I say it right, about procrastinating, just not listening to God. Procrastination is the arrogance that God gives you a chance tomorrow to do what you could have done today.

In other words, some of you keep running into the same issue over and over and over again because you won't trust God. For example, most Christians that are always stressed out financially is because you just refuse to trust God and give like you're called to give. Plain and simple.

You wanna get your finances figured out before you give. They will never work right until you do. Same with your time. Because of the procrastination, because when we live cluttered lives, it takes more time and emotional energy to cram stuff in the closet and to procrastinate than it does to just do what God wants.

And then you get more and more tired, and then you hear me say you should do this. You're like, there is no way on God's green earth I can do that. No. You can't. Not why you have all the clutter, because now you're getting yourself so worn out, so tired, so spent, so exaggerated, so in debt, so in this that nothing that God wants seems to be able to work because you have too much clutter.

You need to invite him in and invite him to help. Hey. Instead of flipping the table, Jesus, help me clear this table. Help me move it to where it should go. Help me put this in place and then see what happens. But we have a propensity for that procrastination.

I get it. Because when God asks us to do something, there is some work that has to be done. When I have to clean out a closet, I gotta do the work clean out the closet. And

it's hard. I mean, I just came back. I I I've been I just had a procedure on one of my I gotta three more procedures. I've had developed some of these varicose vein things that I didn't know what was causing pain in my legs. I'm in I'm in good shape. I've worked out, but I go walk and I walk like a mile and I just my feet everything starts hurting. And

I figured out what it was. They said, it's all these procedures you gotta do. Great. Well,

I had to wait for insurance to say okay or whatever, but then they called right before I left for England to say, hey. We wanna sched start scheduling. And I go, I'm too busy getting ready for to be gone for three weeks. I'll call when I get back. I got back, and I said, really need to do this, but I kept not calling.

Why? It's gonna instantly make me feel better, look better, make life easier, be able to do more of what I love to do.

Why wouldn't I immediately call and start this? But I don't know because I know that, oh, man, you call, you wait forever on online. I've been to the pre kinda thing, and this is one of those docs. They're so good. They're so crowded that every appointment I had in the pre thing is if it's a 10:30 appointment, I know they're not calling me back till at least 11:15.

And it's twenty, thirty minutes away. So I was like, I don't wanna drive up there, sit there for forty five minutes for a five minute appointment, drive all the way back. I keep putting it off because I don't like what I'm gonna have to do to do it. But I know in my mind,

when I do it, I will be way better off. Why do I avoid? So then I finally, on Tuesday, go, that's it. I'm calling. I called at four in the afternoon. I waited almost the office is almost closed. I go, this is my last chance. I'm I'm calling now. I was on hold for thirty three minutes.

Thirty of the minutes was there saying, don't hang up. You're next in line.

How can I be next in line for thirty minutes? Then when they talked to me, my conversation was thirty three minutes long. So I go, oh, someone like me was on the line right before. So they go, alright. We need to schedule these things. They start talking, and then they go, okay. And the first one is it's a little bit more invasive. So it's oh, you gotta get this. You gotta do this. Is it I'm like, okay. Alright. I gotta do this.

And then they start okay. Let's look at our calendar. What can you do? I go, wait. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at 8AM. You can come in and start tomorrow. And my first gut response was I go, oh, no. I don't wanna do that. I wanna put it off for a few

If I put it off, you have to do a gap. You have to do the gap. I wouldn't be done. It'd be Christmas. I don't wanna be doing procedures on my legs when I'm having to stand up and do, like, 15 or however many ungodly amount of Christmas services we're gonna have to have.

Why do I do that? Why do you do that? Why do we do that? And why do we do that with God and our worship in our lives? Because we get we get too caught up in the current that we can't see past what we have to do right now to see what it's gonna result in over here.

There's a Christina Scalise said it this way. She's like a world's best expert and author on how to unclutter your lives, like how to make things neat and tidy. And what she said, I think, is almost biblical in its description of us spiritually. She says, clutter is the physical manifestation

of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination. Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination. I believe spiritual clutter is the spiritual manifestation with physical manifestation of unmade decisions about God's will in our lives fueled by procrastination.

In other words, the procrastination

causes us to not make a decision. You're trying to organize I don't know where this goes. Like, have you ever tried to organize something and then go, it looks neater, but you just basically moved the mess around because you couldn't make a decision? Well, it's all clear. I go, well, I don't know what to do with this. So I'll tidy up that pile, but I still have this pile because I'm not getting rid of it. At least it's an organized mess. You can't make a decision. Just throw it out. Just get rid of it.

Some people can't do that. We you do that in our lives. We clear it. And then other people clear out too much. Go, know what? I'm so busy. I'm simplifying my life. You start throwing out God's will too. You're like, I'm not gonna do that. I gotta pull back from this. I can't do that. My dad was so much of an uncluttered. It was bad.

When we lived when we planted the church, my mom comes in one day, and my dad had been up for a while. She she looks at the counter, and she goes, hey, where's the stack of of of mail that was here? Oh, that trash, I threw it out. He goes, that was the mail. She goes, yeah, but it was sitting there for two days. It was trash. I threw it out. She goes, Bill,

you threw your paycheck from the military away again. That was the keyword. And I go, what? How many times he done that? This is the fifth time he's thrown his check out.

Because he'll if I leave the mail here for more than a day, he's like, trash. It throws it away. And I go, already came and picked up the trash. So now he has to go call the the VA and stuff and get his pension check sent again because it was before auto withdraw and stuff.

And I'm like, that's bad. Some of us do that. You clear out the clutter by throwing out God's will.

You throw out the important stuff. What are we procrastinating? What do we need to do? Because here here's what I meant. Like go back to that illustration of me in the closet. My dad would come, he'd see the closets clean, but then he got smart. I'd spent an hour in there, so it was a long time. But he goes, wait a minute.

Something doesn't feel right. And he pushed my clothes back.

And then he'd look in these like, we had organized all my toys, then when I was older, different clothes and different things in these little buckets kind of stuff. So you can keep stuff. Here's where socks are. Here's where this is. And he looks in these buckets, and I just threw anything in any bucket.

So now everything's disorganized. I spend an hour doing that. And then he goes, how much time are you gonna spend all week trying to find anything? You are multiplying the effort by avoiding the simple.

Where are you at on that when it comes to worship and living out your daily sacrifice and worshiping God by trusting his will? Are you spending so much time on the workaround? It's wasting more of your energy. It's wasting more of your time. It's wasting more of your money. It's it's making your relationships more difficult

than to just roll up your sleeves and invite Jesus into your heart, into your temple, and say what needs to go and what needs to be moved in. Make room. Make room. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna close. And normally, I'd say after talking about worship, and you better sing because Jesus deserves it. This is different.

Some of you probably just need to listen to this song. It's called make room. And just right now, the Holy Spirit's probably gonna talk to you about some of the stuff you already know that, hey, if I'm gonna worship God with my life, this is what he's asked it to be like.

And do it from a place of there is no veil between you and God. He already died and loves you. That's why you are the temple now. And make the room and do something about it now. If you say, I'm gonna do I'm gonna I'm gonna pray about it.

You don't need to pray about something God's already clearly said in his word. That'd be like my dad saying you need to clean your closet. You know what? I think I should pray about it. It's his house. He's the one that brought me into this world. He can take me out.

It's a respect thing. I don't need to pray about whether I should clean my closet. I need to listen to the father's will. Otherwise, you're gonna put it off and go like you've done a million times when I've said something, the holy spirit spoke to you, and you forgot about it by the time you got to your car.

Because everyone went back to we're at lunch now. We don't have to act good like we did at at the the temple. Just take this moment and let the holy spirit reveal what is that next thing that you what's the clutter that needs to go and what needs to be moved in?

And use this prayer time to be authentic before God, reveal your fears, reveal what you're scared about, and just say, God, by your love and through your power, I'm going to do this and see what happens when you make room for what really matters.

Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the Rock Point Church app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.