BUILD HIS KINGDOM 7

Announcements

After service today - anyone who wants to help with Church on the Mountain

Next Sunday is Party with the Pastors!

Known Women’s Conference - Sept 6-7

Fall Retreat - October 18-20

Recap

Ezra 1 “…build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel…”

Nehemiah 2:18 (CSB)

18 …They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and their hands were strengthened to do this good work.

BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES - what we have been talking about the last several weeks.

How good and necessary it is for us as men and women of God - those who have experienced God’s grace and mercy in our lives and claim Him as Lord of our lives.

It’s important that we build borders and boundaries in our lives - protecting what is holy and sacred…protecting primarily the presence of God, where we meet Him - often in the secret place - where we are one on one with God Almighty.

Where we identify a delineation between what is righteous, and what is unrighteous; between what is holy, and what is unholy. We protect the things the are holy and righteous - and we resist the things that are unholy and unrighteous. The man of God yearns for these things.

We do this with other aspects of life all the time. Those things that are sacred to us - we protect.

We protect our wives from the wolves - we protect our families from evil influences. We protect our time, and in conjunction with that, our sanity. We try to protect our space and our freedoms.

But what about our relationship with God, our time with God, our bond with God.

Here’s a key element as a Kingdom Builder - because this is the goal, to be used of God for His Kingdom purpose and His Will be done in Aviano as it is in Heaven.

Like we talked about last week - we have to inspect our faith to find where there are ruins of unbelief, where there are holes of doubt; and we need to patch them with the Word of God so that the enemy can’t take advantage of these weaknesses - our weaknesses that can be strengthened with the power of God’s Word.

But here’s what happens with these personal evaluations, these personal inspections:

We’ll see our lives and how we’re doing in our faith-walk, and these extra things that are unnecessary in our lives will become exposed.

Sometimes they are doubts, sometimes points of ignorance of what God’s word says - which we all have those moments, sometimes they are flat out contradictions to our identity in Christ Jesus; or maybe ultimately, it’s an aspect of sin that we hadn’t realized before and we need to repent of those things.

We’ve been referring to Colossians 1 during this sermon series and constantly reiterating the supremacy of Christ in all aspects of all that there ever was, all that there is, all that ever will be. Jesus will always be FIRST and SUPERIOR to anything and everything. Never count God out of any troubles you may be facing.

And in conjunction with that scripture we see:

Colossians 1:21–23 (MSG)

21 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. 22 But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. 23 You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message.

Going through the Valley Gate and those times of trials and tribulations will inevitably, and it should, lead to identifying aspects of our lives that do not line up with God’s Word.

Things in our lives that do not line up with our identity in Christ; things that we find that are contrary to who God is, in His nature and Holiness.

The Dung Gate

These are moment when we walk through the Dung Gate.

Nehemiah 3:14 CSB

14 Malchijah son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and installed its doors, bolts, and bars.

What do we see in this scripture reference?

We see that its one verse.

We see that its one person involved with repairing the Dung Gate.

We see that there are securable doors and access and we know there are walls adjacent - meaning that this is an issue to be protected and paid attention to.

We gather from this scripture a couple of insights:

It’s the Dung Gate - pretty self-explanatory. The place by which trash and mess were taken out of the city to be removed and burned.

It was done by a single individual - one person bared the responsibility of securing this access point of daily living.

Here’s the deal , to sum it up: You’ve got mess in your life. And you’ve got to get rid of it.

Hebrews 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Therefore? Therefore follows Hebrews 11 - the faith chapter - that ends with “since God had provided something better for us”…

Man and woman of God, God has provided something better for you - so let go of the hindrances to your faith, and the sinful behaviors of life that entrap you! Things that hold you bound! Things you can’t seem to be without. All those things God are opposed to who God is - His Sovereignty, His Holiness, His Righteousness.

Whatever it is, if it doesn’t line up with Who God is - reject it. Full stop. And remind yourself, that God has provided something better for you!

That’s part of my complaints with all talk about the Olympic opening ceremonies - and whether is a mockery of the Last Supper, or if its related to greek mythology; either way, both views are opposed to who God is AND, AND the behavior was done by a people so fixated on immoral sexuality that they’ve created an identity out of it…

Let’s not forget all of it was opposed to who God is and His holiness. The man and woman of God should be upset, should be agitated, should hate what is evil…

And at the same time, we should have such compassion for these people because they are completely blinded to the world of Darkness they’re living in - and are completely ignorant to what is Right and what is True.

But for us - for you and me - we have to do this self-inspection. Walking through the Valley will identify a lot the things that are contrary to who God is.

Burdens that we no longer need to carry.

Shame that no longer applies to us.

Guilt that never came from the Father.

Sin in our lives that needs to be shut down and removed. To use some modern contextualization. You need to log out of sinful behaviors and shut down any return access to those things.

I’m talking about spiritual things this morning.

God has called us to a life of repentance - He’s called on to inspect ourselves. You see, He’s already done the Work at the Cross. He’s already put a new robe on you, given you a new title, given you a new identity. It’s your responsibility to make sure the clothes of righteousness stay clean, the new title remains functional, and the identity remains pure.

Hebrews 12:14 (CSB)

14 Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness—without it no one will see the Lord.

You need to unfollow and unsubscribe from the influences whereby temptations continue to flood in, and the enemy of your soul is trying to leverage against you.

I was listening to a preacher, Pastor Mark Ryan, this week and he had this awesome word directly in line with what God has for us today:

“You need to remember that the Blood of Jesus still applies to you today!

You’ve got the blood of Jesus on the doorposts of your life and your heart.

You need to remember all the Cross has done for you - and is still applying to you!”

You see we call carry some things - we carry unnecessary baggage. And Pastor Mark Ryan talked about a recent move he had - and it was so timely and relevant.

Because we here have all had to move our home. Most of us here use the term PCS - where we uproot every aspect of life and move on to a new chapter.

And in PCS’ing we box everything - and we TRY to maintain some kind of order and knowledge of whats in each box.

But then there are times where you got behind in your planning and schedule - and you begin to rush. Where you start out wrapping each mug carefully - each glass, each plate…piece of tupperware like it’s fine china. Then you realize you’ve spent too much time on things that didn’t matter - so you just start dumping things like the silverware in the box, not paying attention to the disposable plasticware that you’ve also decided to preserve and take with you.

But ultimately what happens is in midst of living amongst the disarray and chaos of life, you box things up you had no intention on keeping. And when your House Hold Goods are finally delivered, you find that you packed up trash, and you’ve wasted precious time in both the packing and inventorying, and the unpacking and reinventorying to find that it was just trash. Baggage. Mess.

You’ve moved into a new chapter of life, a new identity in Christ, a new and fresh life, and you brought your mess with you.

Pastor Mark Ryan said it like this “If I’ve got this mess with me, why would God want to move me into a new life - a new way of living.

“But God knows about it. And His promise is to deal with it. As a matter of fact, He’d like to take from you today if you’ll give it to Him.

Some here today may be thinking, “Well, I’ve got issues. God can’t move me forward. Well my friend, we’ve all got issues.”

Here’s a great reminder - God is bigger than your issues. God is bigger than your mess. God can take your mess and burn it.

Let me please tug on your heart here for a minute - please don’t stay stuck in your mess because you have mess. God will clean it up. He knows your mess. He wants you to give Him your mess.

You are His Son. You are His daughter. He wants you to live the best life and He has one lined up for you.

1 Peter 2:1–9 (CSB)

1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, 3 if you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.

7 So honor will come to you who believe; but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this one has become the cornerstone, 8 and A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

In removing the mess from your life - the sin, the stinking thinking, the influences of temptations - you find what you’re doing is disciplining (as a disciple) your self and your body for good works.

Where James talks about: James 1:2-4

James 1:2–4 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Endurance - mature and complete - lacking nothing.

Sports repetitions analogy - where athletes constantly work to improve their form, their posture, there ability for endurance. That endurance translates to speed, to distance, to strength. - meaning their effectiveness and ability is matured and more complete over time.

This is what God wants for your faith! And your faith will be more effective for Kingdom work. And through it all, we live a life holy and pleasing to God. And it is our worship.

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

God will take your mess and turn it into a message.