Quote from Forum Archives on June 14, 2004, 9:57 am

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

CLEANING HOUSE
June 13, 2004

Text: Galatians 2:11-21

I’m certain it’s not too difficult for anyone here this morning who
maintains a home, especially the housewives among us, to imagine this
scenario. You spend all day scrubbing floors and sinks, dusting,
sweeping, rearranging - or even throwing out - clutter. Then the your
husband and/or children come in, and in a few minutes time it’s hard to
tell that you’ve done anything at all. Muddy shoeprints now decorate the
floors, milk and juice is splashed over the counters, and cups and cookie
crumbs extend from the kitchen to wherever the snacks are gobbled down.
Sound familiar? Right… all too familiar.

Well, cheer up, housewives and husbands who try to keep your home clean.
You will be delighted to learn that a new self-cleaning house may be
going on the market. That’s right! Just like all those futuristic
portrayals of space age, carefree life that used to be featured on
television in the ‘60s. It’s finally arriving!

AK Steel Corporation has unveiled an 11,000-square-foot house made with
special stainless and carbon steels. These alloys are coated with a
compound that actually kills bacteria and fungi, including mold. How does
that work? Glad you asked. The AK Steel home has a silver-based coating
that does its disinfecting by interfering with various biochemical
pathways in microbes. This anti-microbial compound covers kitchen
appliances, door handles and the heating and air-conditioning system -
places where little nasties like to live. It's an innovation that creates
a germ-free environment, and it could someday keep our homes from
becoming the neighborhood mold spore culture dish. After all our rains,
we probably all wish we had something to chase away bacteria and mold.
(Rick Weiss, "The Germ of a Home Design," The Washington Post, October 6,
2003, A9.)

As you can recognize, even if such a house does come to fruition, it is
still a far cry from the futuristic imaginary homes where everything is
always stored neatly, no dust collects, and the little mop robot comes
out to follow behind every muddy tennis shoe that makes it through the
door. Even though the perfect self-cleaning house may never become a
reality, we still like to live in a clean environment, don’t we? Which
means, of course, that we will still do the mopping and dusting and
scrubbing and picking up and sweeping ourselves even if we know it will
all get undone at some point.

Since most of us are willing to go to all the effort and work to keep our
earthly houses clean, questions arise about our willingness to keep our
spiritual house clean. Are we willing to put as much - or more - effort
into keeping our spiritual house clean? In fact, how do we clean house
spiritually?

Thinking about our physical bodies and our spiritual lives as houses is a
reference to the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1: “Now we know that if
the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an
eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” Paul writes of two
houses, or tents. If you think our houses today are challenges to keep
clean, replace it with a tent. A tent is hard to keep clean, and it is
fragile and will inevitably wear out and need to be replaced. When the
tent collapses, Paul notes, a second tent, is revealed - an inner house.
We're concerned with how to keep our inner house clean.

It's important to keep the outer house clean and pure as well, of course.
Paul underscores this in his first letter to the Corinthians, 3:16-17:
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's
Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy
him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” Our concern
this morning, however, is the cleansing of the inner person where our
thoughts are thought, our intentions are organized, our prayers are
voiced, and our actions take shape.

For instruction and insight, we turn to Paul's letter to the Galatians.
Right away, we should immediately notice that the housecleaning has
already been done! Look once again at Galatians 2:15-16. “We who are Jews
by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by
observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our
faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not
by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be
justified.” This is good news. God’s Word tells us that we can abandon
all notions of trying to apply some sort of anti-microbial righteousness
to get our spiritual house in order.

For Paul's audience then, this meant that any attempt to keep all of the
provisions of the Mosaic law in the effort to keep one's house clean is
doomed to failure. For Paul’s audience today, it means that no amount of
volunteerism, church-attending, tithing, singing in the choir, and the
like is going to set our house in order. There is no silver-based
substance we can apply to our souls. There is no sin-killing compound
that we can use to coat our hearts and minds. That's something only God
through Jesus Christ can do.

That's why Paul writes in verses 20-21: “I have been crucified with
Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in
the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness
could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” In other
translations, Paul’s last phrase reads, “… for if justification comes
through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (KJV) Take justification
as the key word here. It means, “Just as though I had never sinned.” This
is how God looks at us when we live by faith in Christ: clean, spotless,
immaculate, anti-microbial purity. We are clean because we live by faith:
“The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me.”

We still face a problem, though, don’t we? There is a fundamental
disconnect here. It's one thing to have a clean house, but quite another
to keep it clean. Christians don't always seem to be so clean, so nice,
so caring, so loving, so patient, so understanding. In fact, too often we
seem pushy, petty, spiteful, judgmental, impatient, and intolerant. Turn
over to Colossians 3:8-9. When we read Paul’s letters, let us remember
who he is writing to. Christians! Paul’s letters are written to
Christians, so keep that in mind when we hear the word “you” in these
verses. “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:
anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not
lie to each other…” Turn now to Ephesians 5:3-5. To the Ephesian
Christians, he warns: “But among you there must not be even a hint of
sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these
are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity,
foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather
thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy
person - such a man is an idolater - has any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and of God.” Christians, clearly Paul knew, as we all know,
that too many Christians are tracking mud into the house. As Paul puts
it, they have “set aside the grace of God.”

The good news is that God has set our house in order. The bad news is
that we keep messing it up. God cleans it up, and we track in the mud.
Most of us have only one house to keep clean; look how many houses God
keeps clean! Are we going to help Him out or not? Here are some pointers
on how to keep our spiritual house clean.

First, walk in the Word. Jesus said, “You are already clean because of
the word I have spoken to you.” (John 15:3) The psalmist wrote: “How can
a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.” (Psalm
119:9) And this often memorized verse reminds us of the strength of God’s
Word: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (119:105)
The Word acts as one of those anti-microbial cleansing agents. When it is
daily applied, chances are our house is going to be clean.

Second, chuck the clutter. Pack-Rat Christians tend to just let the
clutter, the filth, the impurities pile up. Deal with it all -
immediately. Can it. Toss it. Paul advises us again in Ephesians 4:25-29.
“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his
neighbor, for we are all members of one body. ‘In your anger, do not
sin’; do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not
give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer,
but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may
have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome
talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who
listen.” Note all the imperatives: “put off,” “do not let,” “must steal
no longer,” “do not give a foothold.” Get rid of the clutter that can
pile up and make a wreck out of our spiritual house.

Third, commit to community. The writer to the Hebrews urges us not to
neglect “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us
encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
(10:25) In a community of others who have been cleansed by the Word, we
have our best chance of keeping our house clean with, not continual
criticism, but encouragement and support.

Fourth, accept accountability. Allow other Christians to hold us to God’s
standards of cleanliness. Accept their mentoring, their advice, and their
concern about your spiritual house. From Hebrews once again, 10:23-24:
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is
faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love
and good deeds.”

God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way,
writes Max Lucado in his Just Like Jesus Devotional. Max shares that when
his daughter was a toddler, he used to take her to a park not far from
their apartment. One day as she was playing in a sandbox, Max purchased
ice-cream treat for her. When he turned to give it to her, he saw her
mouth was full of dirt. Where he intended to put a tasty delicacy, she
had put dirt. Did her father love her even with dirt in her mouth?
Absolutely. Was she any less his daughter with dirt in her mouth? Of
course not. Was he going to allow her to keep the dirt in her mouth? No
way. He loved her right where she was, but he refused to leave her there.
He carried her over to the water fountain and washed out her mouth. Why?
Because he loved her. “God does the same for us,” writes Max Lucado. God
holds us over the fountain. “Spit out the dirt, honey,” our Father urges.
“I've got something better for you.” And so God cleanses us of filth:
immorality, dishonesty, prejudice, bitterness, greed. We don't enjoy the
cleansing; sometimes we even opt for the dirt over the ice cream. “I can
eat dirt if I want to!” we pout and proclaim. Which is true - we can. But
if we do, the loss is ours, and the mess only gets bigger. (from
“Cleaning House,” Homiletics, vol. 16 no. 3, 2004, p. 54)

We don’t need to wait for a futuristic, self-cleaning house before we
keep our spiritual house clean. Let us let God clean our house, and then
do what we are supposed to do to keep it clean. “I have been crucified
with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live
in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness
could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN
(note: There really is an anti-microbial compound. For more
information, look up the AK Steel website).

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!