House Work

Luke 11, verse 24-26. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man,! he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none.

And he saith, I will return unto my house once I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself.

And they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. And with the help of the Lord, I want to preach to you for just a little while this thought, housework.

Amen. Lord Jesus, I thank You for Your Word today. I pray it is a challenge to us, but also, Lord, that it is light, that it reveals things to us, God, about this life that we are living, God.

And God, I pray, Lord, that You would shine that light. God, give us understanding. God, let Your Word penetrate today and have free course to our hearts and our minds. God, let there be fruit that comes from Your Word today.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Amen. Owning your own home is what they call the American dream.

But really, I'm sure that everyone in every place, no matter where you're from, dreams of maybe someday owning their own home.

One thing I've noticed about being a homeowner is that owning a house can be a lot of work. And Mario knows what I'm talking about. I've heard the stories of him painting things and falling on his car and things like that.

But owning a home is a large responsibility. When you own your own house, you're responsible for it. You're responsible for its upkeep and the maintenance of the house.

Everything about the house, it's a large responsibility, owning your own home. We drive by houses sometimes and we say, wow, look at that. That's a nice house.

Look how big that house is. And almost without fail, Sister Eccles will say, I wouldn't even want that house. Think of how long it would take to clean that house or what it would take to clean that house.

And then I'm thinking about the electric bill in that house that's probably more than my mortgages for my house and just how big the house is and just the cost of furniture, what it would take to furniture, put the furniture and furnish the house like that.

That was, and you know, just all the upkeep and to maintain it. And I understand just my little house that I have what it takes and couldn't imagine a house of that size what the upkeep would be.

And so it's true that house, the house has to be kept clean. The house has to be furnished and the house has to be maintained. Otherwise, the house will start to fall apart.

It will get dilapidated. It will lose its value and it will depreciate and it wouldn't be a good investment. And if you own a home, you find out fast that there is always something that needs to be done.

There's always something that needs to be fixed. There's always something that needs to be tightened or redone or fixed or painted, whatever it is, right? And anything that goes wrong with that house, we're responsible for that house.

If you don't own a home and you're renting or leasing, somebody owns that home and somebody's responsible for it, but I guess maybe you're not as responsible.

But still, even if you're leasing a home, there's a lot of responsibilities in leasing a home as well. Just upkeeping the home. And so you may be thinking if you don't own a home, that it doesn't sound like an American dream to own a home.

It sounds like a nightmare of some sort. But no, actually, owning your own home is great. There's a lot of benefits to that. It's a great investment and I highly recommend it for many reasons.

But the fact of the matter is that there is a great amount of responsibility that goes and comes along with being a homeowner and being responsible for a house. And so I'm not here to teach a real estate class or anything like that or how to keep up with your house.

I mean, this is church and just let me start getting to the point. In the Bible, we are taught that metaphorically, the house represents a person's life. The house is used to represent and teach about us as a whole, the outer of us, our bodies, the inner of us.

It's the body, the soul, our spiritual condition, all this stuff. We are taught that our fleshly body is a dwelling place, the house that houses our spiritual being, our soul.

We are the house. Our life, we live, is referenced in the Bible as a house. Point to your chest and say, this is my house. We're not of this world.

The Bible says we were created as to be spiritual and eternal and our bodies house, the real us, our souls. And so, I'm preaching to you today.

I'm preaching to me today. Point to yourself and say, he's preaching to this house today. We're a house. We are the house. Our life, we live, is referenced as a house.

The house I'm talking about today is you and me. The physical and the spiritual us. The life that we live. Jesus taught that we are to be wise in building up our house in the way that we build our house.

We are to choose an appropriate foundation to build our house upon and a solid foundation to build life upon. In Matthew 7, verse 24-27, Jesus says, Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will like him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock.

What is he talking about? If you hear the words that I'm telling you, he says, and you doeth them, I'm going to compare you. You're going to be like a man, a wise man that built his house upon a rock.

And he said, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

And verse 26 says, And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house on the sand.

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Amen. Thank you, Jesus, for making a clear point to us in His Word about how we should build up a house.

Amen. It should be through His Word. Your life, your house, must be built upon the obedience to the Word of God. For Jesus, the Word of God, He is the rock of our salvation.

Amen. And it is Jesus that our house needs to be built upon. Amen. This Word of God is the foundation. Building our lives upon any other foundation is foolish.

It's foolish. If our house, our lives, we live, are going to be able to withstand the trials and the tribulations that come, if you're going to be able to survive the storms of life and the ground that tends to shake beneath us.

Amen. In this life that we live. And all the calamities, how do you say that word? Calamities. I misspelled it. All the calamities that tend to come about life.

Amen. They come on a daily basis. On a daily basis, there are storms, like Jesus said, floods and winds that come against us in our life.

If we're to survive those things, our lives must be built on a solid foundation. We have to be firmly secured and planted to the Word of God. Amen. Philosophy and deep thinking isn't going to be solid enough, amen, to withstand the things of this life.

Amen. You're not going to be able to build your house on philosophy and science and, you know, I believe in science, you know. Hard work and your career.

You know, you might think you have a solid career, but it's not going to be solid enough. It's not a solid enough foundation to build your house on. Amen. The only foundation we should build our lives upon is the solid rock that is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

And the Word of God manifested for us. Amen. And I hope you all realize today that you are a homeowner. You're a homeowner today. I hope you realize you're responsible for your house, responsible for your life.

And if you're a parent, Mario and Isabel, Taylor, if you're a parent with children that are what the Bible teaches is under the age of accountability, Carlos, you're right there at that age of accountability where besides what your parents do, you're going to be held accountable by God for your decisions that you make in life.

If you've been making good biblical decisions, amen. And we thank God for that. Vincent is under the age of accountability, buddy. That's why we can't baptize you yet.

You've got to get to that age of accountability where you know what this Word says and understand it fully and know what you're doing. And that's why it's very important. It's taught in the Word of God that you have to have that age of accountability before we get baptized.

And so, but until then, your parents are responsible for your house until you're old enough to be responsible for your own house. They're not only responsible for their house.

Taylor, you're not only responsible for your house, but also Miles' house, his life right now belongs to your decisions and the consequences of those whether it be good or bad.

And so, it's very important to understand that we are homeowners and that we can even be responsible for other lives too. Jesus taught us that there's a wise way to build a house and there's a foolish way to build a house.

And the wise way is according to the Word of God. The foolish way is according to anything else that's outside of the Word of God. And I don't care how good it seems. I don't care what kind of principles it may seem to have.

If it's not the Word of God, if it's not the book that I'm holding up right here, if it's not found in here, then it's not a good foundation to build a house upon. And owning and being responsible for a house, which you do and are, is a huge responsibility and it takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of work. It is work that doesn't end. There's always something to do. Like I said, housework is hard work sometimes. And I see Sister Eccles doing housework all the time.

She's done it for two days now. But there's great value in owning that home, right? And the hard work will pay off. Amen. Amen.

You should be a proud homeowner today. Amen. Who's the home? Who's the house? We're the house I'm talking about. You should be a proud homeowner today.

God has gifted you life. Amen. Like Sister Eccles singing about today and talking about what she was feeling in the Word of God, right in tune with what I'm talking about today.

And I don't know if she was, she was probably looking at my notes. Someone was in my office. No, we didn't talk about this. You know, so I appreciate the confirmation.

But, you know, you should look at your life as a gift from God. There's value to our life. Our life that we've been given is not a curse. I've gone through times in my life where I was so depressed that I would think that living wasn't valuable.

That I've gone through times where I didn't think the house that I was given was really worth anything. And I've been to a place mentally and emotionally where I thought it was a curse that I was alive instead of a blessing.

But that was a lie from the devil. Amen. It was a lie from the devil because there is value. Our life is precious. And this life and this house that we have been given is a gift to us from God.

Amen. And it's so precious and valuable that there is a fight in the heavens for your house and for your life. The devil knows the value of your house.

He knows the value of your life. And he would like to convince you that your house, your life, has no value. But don't believe the devil for a minute that that's his trick to try to get you to hand over your house to him and to hand over your life to him and to give up on living so that he can have your life in your house.

But there is a God in heaven. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. God in heaven that place great value upon each and every single one of our lives. Amen. Amen.

And a God that wants you to live a life more abundantly through him. A God that has wonderfully and beautifully made you, the Bible says. A God that valued so much, He was willing to die for you.

Amen. The value that we have, the song that was sung did a great job explaining this. Your life, your house, is of great value. Thus saith the Lord your Redeemer and He that formed you in your mother's womb.

Amen. So build your house upon the rock of Jesus. Build your house on the foundation of the Word of God. God wants you to know your value. He wants you to know your value.

But the devil doesn't because the devil is a liar and the devil is a destroyer. The devil would like for you to believe that homeownership is not worth it. It's not worth the trouble.

And he would be happy to take ownership for you and let you just be a renter. And the devil wants to rule your life. He wants to be in control.

But I want God to be in control of my life and my house. Amen. We have to choose wisely. We have to choose wisely. See, the difference between the devil and God is the devil wants to steal your house.

He wants to devalue your house. He wants to make you think it's devalued and there's no value there and it's worthless. And he wants to steal and take away your house. But God was willing to purchase your house at full price.

Amen. Like we've talked about already. Don't be scammed and don't be tricked by the devil. Amen. In giving away your life to the enemy of your soul. And especially don't give it back to the devil if he once owned your house but then God redeemed you and purchased it for you.

Amen. God died to free you. God died to free you and to purchase you from that previous owner. When we were born of flesh, we were of flesh.

Amen. But now we've been born again of water and spirit. Amen. God became the new owner. Amen. God's the new owner of our house, of our lives.

Thank God for that. If you've been born again of the water and the spirit, don't give up your house. Don't give your life back to the devil after God delivered you from the devil.

Going back to our opening Scriptures, let's look. Turn in your Bibles with me. Let's look at this. Luke 11. Verse 24. Everybody doing okay?

Okay? Luke 11. Verse 24. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry...

Who's walking through dry places? He's talking about the spirit, not the man. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding none.

He saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. See, when you started repenting and you started that eviction process on the devil and his minions.

Amen. As soon as you've made up your mind, I'm not living my life like this no more. I want to look to the Word of the Lord and I want to see what this says and I want to start living my life this way in a way that pleases God.

What you begin to do is start serving an eviction notice on the devil. Amen. It's time to go, devil. It's time to go. There's going to be a new tenant coming in here. Amen. And so what you begin to do when you decided your house had more value than what the devil led you to believe in, and you wanted to clean house of the devil and you started to get rid of some things and you started cleaning house and started doing house work.

Amen. And the devil, it's time to move out. I'm not going to live this way no more. I'm repenting. I'm turning a new leaf. I'm going a different direction.

Jesus is the truth and the life. I'm going that way. And the unclean spirit is gone. But that unclean spirit isn't going to be happy about being tossed out.

In fact, that unclean spirit thinks he owns you. Notice what the unclean spirit says. Let's read it again. Verse 24. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding none.

What does the unclean spirit say? He saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. Amen. The devil is a squatter. The devil is a squatter.

He doesn't own you. Amen. Once you repent and you're baptized in the name of Jesus and your sins have been walked away and you've received the gift of the Holy Ghost, he doesn't own you anymore.

He may think he does, but he doesn't. The devil is a squatter. He wants to take up residence where he has no business being. And so, that unclean spirit will try to come back thinking he owns you still.

In verse 25, and when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Now, at first glance, swept and garnished means clean and decorated.

That sounds like a good thing, right? Sister Eccles likes a nice clean house and she definitely likes decorations. That sounds like a good thing, right? But it's not. And let's see what's wrong here.

The house is clean, but it's empty. The unclean spirit was evicted. The unclean part of the house was made clean. There was repentance.

There was water baptism. There was victory in your house. And so what happened? Somewhere along the way, the Spirit of God was no longer welcome in your house either.

You had evicted one unclean spirit, and now even the Spirit of God is not welcome. You have a clean house. It's decorated.

It's garnished. It looks nice. But now it's empty. And the point I'm trying to make here today is we have to keep God inside the house. Amen. It's not enough to evict the devil and clean the house and let it be clean, but empty.

We have to keep the Holy Ghost inside of us because that unclean spirit that was evicted, it's going to be trying to come back. And when it does, if it finds the house empty, look what Jesus said will happen.

In verse 26, then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in and dwell there.

And the last state of that man is worse than the first. The house represents our life, our inner self, our soul, the complete us. And when we are delivered from the unclean spirit, the dirtiness of a sinful life is what I'm talking about.

When we repent of our sins, when we're getting rid of old lifestyles and habits and we're cleaning out that house and Jesus described that house as swept and garnished.

And we're looking at a house, a life, and that has been cleaned out and decorated nicely. And there may be some outward signs of change that we may see.

And we may come to church and there may be some self-improvements that looks good on the outside. And one may say that the person really cleaned up their life and they really cleaned their house and they stopped certain sins and they improved their behavior and they started making better choices and they even seemed more religious, but they have not filled the house with anything holy.

They have not filled the house with anything holy. It is not enough to just clean the house of the filth of life, but then the house has to be filled with holiness once the unclean stuff is gone.

Amen. Because the house was left empty, the original unclean spirit returns, but with reinforcements. And the person ends up in a worse condition than they were before.

What a tragedy of having been able to clean the house and to garnish and decorate the house, but to leave it empty just for someone to go back to a worse state than they were before with such a great opportunity to serve the Lord.

You can clean up the appearance. You can dust. You can sweep. You can mop. You can put a plug in to make it smell better. You can go to Hobby Lobby and spend hundreds of dollars and get some decor and decorate it nice and pretty, but if Jesus isn't on the inside, if Jesus isn't on the inside, if the Holy Ghost isn't dwelling permanently in your house, if holiness doesn't begin to fill your life, you're going to find that the old problems will return seven times stronger than they were before.

That's the warning in Scripture today. If the Holy Ghost isn't fully allowed into that cleaned out, empty space, evil will return. Partial or temporary change without full surrender to God is a dangerous thing.

It's a dangerous thing. I've seen people come to church 30 years living for God over 30 years, 31 years now living for God.

I've seen people come to church. I've seen people repent. I've seen people get baptized in Jesus' name, even receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. And their life, their house changed greatly.

You can see tangible differences change greatly for the better. And six months later, you see that the house gets a little empty of unholiness.

And there's no housework going on. It's important. Housework is so important. Maintaining the house is so important. And then building on the right foundation is important, right?

But then maintaining the house is very important. If there's no maintenance happening, it's going to be trouble. And then I see another six months go by, and at that point, maybe just an empty shell.

Cleaned up, looking nice on the outside, feeling better about life, feeling better about a lot of things because God has that effect on us, but empty inside. And that's not where God wants us.

That's not how God wants our house. Amen. And then it happens. All of a sudden, back to the way it used to be. And then you hear back later in stories that they went way off somewhere and they ended up worse off than they were before they first discovered the Lord.

What does the Bible say? In 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19, Paul asks them rhetorically, what?

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and you are not your own? Verse 25, He bought you with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

We are to be the temple, the house, the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost. Amen. And of things that are holy. We have to work to keep our house full of the Holy Ghost.

Amen. Let's stand. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 1, it says, For we know that if our earthly house, say it, my house, for we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, if it went away, if it was gone, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

What does that mean? If we're built on the inside of our house with the Holy Ghost, then when this house of flesh fades away, what will remain is an eternal spirit house of the Holy Ghost in us.

And that is an eternal house. The Holy Spirit in us is the building of our eternal spiritual house that will live forever. Amen. If we dissolve and that's not there, there's going to be nothing left.

But if we have that fullness of the Holy Ghost inside of us, then there will be an eternal house that remains. The Holy Spirit in us is the building of our eternal spiritual house.

Amen. We need to have a heavenly house. It's not enough to clean up the house and get rid of the unclean things. It's not enough just to self-improve and look right and try to act right and talk right, but we can do all that and trick ourselves into thinking that we're better and we may feel better in those moments, but we have to clean that house and then let the Holy Ghost take up full residence in us.

Amen. So that when that unclean spirit comes back, no matter how many devils there are with him, greater is he that's in us than that's in the world. Amen. They're going to have to find that there's no vacancy because my house is filled with the holiness of God.

Amen. So what about it today? Let's raise our hands and let's ask God to help us out today. Come on, let's respond to the Word. Let's start some housework today. Amen. Let's make up our minds.

Yeah, I don't really like housework, but God, it's needed. I recognize, God, that I own a home that you've blessed me with and I need to take care of it with some maintenance today.

Amen. Let's build up a holy spiritual house full of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, help us today, God. Amen.