Dirty Filters
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So we have started this series called detox. I have heard some pretty good things about it also. Week one the phrase lose the TUDE was spread all around facebook and instagram. Then last week Pastor David talked about relationships and the people that you don’t need in your life and the people you do need. I have heard so many good things from that, I wondered if I needed to come back. No I am just kidding.
Let’s refresh though on what a detox is. For those that haven’t been here before and joining us for the first time, I want to make sure we are all on the same page.
This series is all about getting the toxins out of your spirit. We do this for our bodies. Anyone ever had to go through detox or seen someone go through a detox. Maybe because of drugs or alcohol? It is a terrible thing. I have gone through a detox from sugar that I didn't know I was addicted to. It was not fun. The first few days of not eating sugar, I was mean. I get that way during this fast. The beginning, I am what we affectionately call hangry. About the middle of it, I am setting in and I feel better. I feel better. It is amazing what a good detox will do for your body. But have you thought about a detox for your spirit?
You know your spirit can get toxins in it just the same. You have to remove those things.
Detox means to remove the toxic substances from living organisms.
One of the things that helps with toxins not getting in is what we call filters.
This series comes from the scripture in
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
2 Corinthians
The word cleanse could be changed to purify. Let us purify ourselves. So who is this sermon series for? Look to your neighbor and say this is not about you. It is about me.
One of the things that helps with toxins not getting in is what we call filters. These filters are designed to stop the bad stuff from coming in. That is this weeks message title.
Week 3: Dirty Filters
We have filters on everything. Depending upon your age or your job you probably think of different things when you hear the word filter. For me, I think immediately either ice machine water filter or A/C filter because I worked with my dad and he was in the A/C business. Filters are there to help the machine function the way it is supposed to for as long as it is supposed to. Your ac will work longer with a clean filter. Your car won’t run very long if you'don’t get the oil filter changed.
If you are under 30 you might think of a cell phone filter. With filters on social media like Instagram or Facebook. Those filters can either improve or impair your picture. Some of you like my wife, don’t need any improvement. While others like me will take all the help we can get. I will not point out which of you is which. So let me show you what these filters can do. I took some pictures earlier today. So let’s see if we got them up there.
(Show Pictures)
What you see is actually what you believe. See I don’t actually have doggie ears on but because the filter you were looking through said so, then you might actually believe that I had them on. I said it this way in your notes.
Your OUTLOOK always affects your OUTCOME.
Now I have all kinds of filters up here. But what we are going to do is I am going to have someone come up here and make some fresh Colombian coffee. Straight from my trip this past week. This coffee right here is approximately only a week old. It was roasted 48 hrs before I picked it up. So I mean you just can’t get any fresher than that unless you grow and grind yourself. Most of you don’t really care about that. And here is the filter that we are going to use. Everyone excited about this coffee? The good news is that all of the coffee this morning was already made with that filter. I am just kidding as all of you spit your coffee out. But here is the deal.
No matter how pure the substance is, going through a bad filter makes it dirty.
That person you used to love, but something happened and you have a dirty filter. So now you can’t even look at them the same way. Then you get a new job and you are pumped but something happens and then you get a dirty filter and you can’t even find the thing that most excited you. Or some of you right now at the beginning of 2019 are looking at it through last year’s filter. You say last year was so bad, last year this happened, etc. I didn’t win powerball like I wanted and I was fasting and praying for it. I didn’t get the promotion I wanted. You are looking at this year through a dirty filter. And here is what you need to know about that.
A dirty filter produces a disappointing future.
So many things will be dirty and disappointing if your filter is bad. Filters will break down your car. IN the bible there are pepoel that had dirty filters. Some had God filters.
One example is David. David walks dwon to the battle field with his bread and cheese and hears the poeple tlaking and they are saying this guy Goliath is too big for us to defeat. But David says this guy is too big fro me to miss. See filter. Its like the story of the shoe company wanting to expand business into the congo. They send two people there to check out the potential. So they go looking around and they decide that in order for niether of them to influednce the other, they would not tell ecach other what they recommend until the letters are sent. So they did that. They wrote the letters and mailed them. After that they met up to discuss. One guy says I wrote home and told them there is no way that we can sell shoes here. The potential is zero because no one wears shoes. The other guy looked with shock on his face and says, I wrote back that the potential is never ending, because no one wears shoes. See it is all about the filter you are looking through.
We need to change some filters today. I want us to change some filters. There are a few things that can dirty up your filters. Here is the first one.
Enviorment
Here is where i might hurt some folks and truth is, it hurt me. Because I didn’t use to think this affected me. But we have some major filters because of our environment. The main one that I have noticed came in the past week on my trip to Colombia. The filter I affectionately call the American filter. It causes us to look at everything through the eyes of being American. We see people different because we are American.
I don’t mean that we look by race. Although some do. What I am saying is that we look at things through the filter of being American. Countries are less than and we think how pitiful they are because they aren’t american. We look at other countries and think about how much better we are than them beause we are American.
We even take the American dream and portray it as God’s dream. God wants me to be happy in my job. God wants me to have no needs. God wants me to have a family and kids. God wants me to have the job I want. God is supposed to bless me. God loves me because of where I am born. We need to help others because they don’t have anything like we do.
Let me tell you a little bit of truth here today.
It is better that God be happy than for you to be happy. Take that filter off.
God may have you in a job that you aren’t happy in because He wants to teach you something to teach someone else something or do something in that place for the kingdom. Take that filter off. God may not want you to have a fmaily because He wants to be your family. Take that filter off. God doesn’t have to do anything for you that He hasn’t already done. Take that filter off. Your wants may not line up with His wants. Take that filter off. God doesn’t love you any more or any less because of where you are born. Take that filter off. People may not have the physical things like us in America but that isn’t what is important. Take that filter off. We are constantly looking into our Christian lives through the filter of America and you are Christian First!!! I love America. I feel so blessed to be here. But why do I feel blessed to be born. I’ll tell you why 99.9% of the people say those words. Because of the things they have. It has absolutely nothing to do with God. If you took the things away the things they would cease to feel blessed here.
We leave or attend churches based on the things that church can offer us. That is not nor ever will be Christian. That is American. We don’t like the music, we leave. We dn’t like the seats, we leave. We don’t like the preaching we leave.
No mention of where is God wanting me to go. You should not come or go unless God is directing you. The Holy Spirit leads where God is calling. There is no confusion. Take the filter off. We don’t evangelize becauseit makes us uncomfortable. We don’t witness because we don’t want to offend. Take the filter off. It is about Him and what He wants. Take the filter off. Look to your neighbor right now and say he is talking to me. I am taking the filter off. We don’t read our bible because we don’t understand it. God said read. The holy Spirit bring revelation. Take the filter off.
God said come together and don’t forsake it. But I am american I don’t need anyone. Take the filter off. Take the American self centered, self aggrandizing, self promoting filter off. This is about you and me. Stop looking through the filter of what is better for us, what makes us happy and focus on Him and what is better for his Kingdom and what makes Him happy.
There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
Proverbs 14:12
Why is that because you go by what you want or what is better for you.
Psalms 14:12
Let me give you an example…what is this? (Coke)
See where I grew up here in Tennessee everything is coke. Unless its pepsi. If you go up north, everything is pop. But that’s just wrong. It may seem right but its wrong. A pop is what I do when I smack you in the back of the head for calling this a pop.
But your Environment affects your filter. How you grew up affects your filter. Maybe you aren’t racist but you had racist parents and just sometimes ever so slightly you see something and it makes you twinge. YOu almost say something you heard your father say or your auntee say. Maybe you grew up poor. Maybe you grew up where church wasn’t important. It just dirties your filter. Maybe you work in a place where everyone is negative and there is just constant negativity. It dirties your filter. Here is what you do with that.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Don’t conform to it. When go to bed I say Lord clean me. See every morning His mercy is new. Clean the filter. Put a new one on. My students get on my nerves everyday but I hve made a vow to God and to them that I will never bring yesterdays problems to today. I do my best to not look at the filter of my environment. The next thing that affects our filters is this.
2. Experience
The things that happen to us. We start out clean and pure and then something happens and it causes us to dirty our filters. Don’t believe me? What about dating? Think about your first date. You were all excited. He was handsome. He was charming. She was beautiful and you couldn’t even believe that she said yes she would go out with you. And ladies I know you had the wedding planned before the first kiss. I’ve seen some of y’all wedding books. lol You walked into it with such a clean filter and then what happens. They break your heart. All of your dreams dashed. He leaves you for your best friend. She left you at the movie theatre running around after her but she just wanted to get out of the house and used you. That was me. She knows who she is that did that to me. But now you are heart broken and you are never going to love again. You are never going to let anyone get that close to you again. All boys are crap. All girls can just have a coke and a smile. they are all dogs right. I’m never going to trust anybody again.
While we are on that let me just put this out here. Why are you dating anyway? Seriously why are you dating. Cuz I am young and I want to have fun. Because I have to test drive before I buy. I get so sick of this and it is nothing but a wrong filter. If you wanna have fun get a freaking hobby. Go swimming. Go bowling. Play forte night. You wanna test drive something let it be an F-150. A persons heart is not a play thing for you to have fun with it and isn’t something that you are to test. The devil test people’s heart. Quit dating for fun. Date to find who God says you are to be with and you better be praying before you date, while you date, and after you date. Don’t use somebody’s heart to have fun.
Let’s look at dating.
What about coming to church? I know folks that came to this church with dirty filters of other church and it took coming here to get the filter clean by the Holy spirit for them to trust a church again. I know some of you every time we talk about about Next Steps class, which starts next month by the way, we talk about joining a team, we talk about giving, we talk about missions you cross your arms because the last church you went through let you down and you aren’t going to do that gain. The last church mishandled the money so I am not giving another church my money. You are in here right now with your proverbial arms crossed cuz I am talking about you right now You won’t commit because of your experience. Change the filter.
I am convinced that we miss things that God wants because we can’t see it because we are looking through dirty filters. in your notes it is this way.
You cannot effectively focus on your future while looking through the filter of your past.
The Bible says it this way and its way better than the way I said it.
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.
The last thing that dirties our filter is truly our own doing. Sometimes it isn’t the environment and sometimes it isn’t things that happen to you but rather it is you who messes up. You make an...
3. Error
We shouldn’t have left here but we did. We shouldn’t have come here but we did. We shouldn’t have made that business deal but we did. We shouldn’t have yelled at our kids but we did. We shouldn’t smarted off to our parents but we did. We shouldn’t take our job frustrations home but we did. You just did it wrong. Tell the person in front of you he is talking about me. Jesus had something to say about dirty filters. Listen to what he said.
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
A man or woman with a good heart with good filter will bring forth good. In other words whatever is in you will come out of you. In other words trash in means trash out. How do you know you got that stuff because you see it in everyone else. We want to believe God but we just can’t why. Because we have doubt in the filter. You wanna t
You don’t see things the way they are, you see things the way you are.
You’ve Got and anger problem which is why you see everyone angry. You see everyone trying to hurt you because you have been hurt. You get so easily offended because you look through a filter dirtied by offense. What do we need to do? What do you need to do? I am glad you asked. You have to get rid of the dirty filters. Something else needs to be your filter. Truly SOMEONE else needs to be your filter. Christ needs to be your filter.
What does this mean.?
He is the perspective in which we see ourselves in the world.
Stop seeing yourself as the victim. Stop seeing yourself as less then. stop seeing yourself as not worthy. Stop seeing yourself as not powerful.
He is the filter by which God sees you.
Even better than that.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.