Restore The House

0:00 This position today is a divine assignment. Today is not just, we are not just sleeping into another service, I was supposed to say stepping, but if sleeping fits, but we are stepping into a God ordained moment. And the word of the Lord for this house is very simple. Restore the house. We're gonna talk about some aspects of this house

that I'd like to, that I know God wants us to restore and I'm gonna tell you why here in a minute, is this isn't a temp thing, this isn't a Ravenna, I won't say Ravenna, sound like God, this isn't an outpouring worship or a people thing, this is a God thing. We are going to restore this house

and we're gonna do it with God's help. It's not just the structure, it's not just our systems that we're learning through the process. When change takes place, sometimes we have bad things happen, but if we continue pushing through, we'll get to what's better. We keep settling for what is good, but God wants what is best.

It's just not the name on a sign, but the house, the dwelling place of God, the people of God, the order of God, the excellence of God and the mission of God. It's very clear to me today that he wants us to keep stepping forward and moving to a place that we've never been before.

We may have fallen back over the last few years, but I believe that God is here to help us go to a new level that we've never been to before. I want to honor the faithful foundation that had been laid before us. It was decades of service that brought us to where we are today,

both the good and the bad. We thank God for the years of prayer, the sacrifice, the preaching, the counsel, the perseverance that brought this house to this moment in time. Not that it's a bad moment, but it's not the greatest or best moment that we should be in. But church, we honor the past without living in the past.

From this day forward, the wind has shifted, the atmosphere has shifted, the same spirit's still among us, but like he has promised us, he's going to do a new thing. We bless what God has done yesterday, but we also prepare for what he wants to do right now. Excuse me. Ecclesiastes says, there is a season for everything.

3:08 And I believe this house has stepped into a new season. Jesus taught that new wine requires fresh wine skins because God does not pour fresh purpose into a people that's unwilling to stretch. He's speaking to you and I today. Are we willing to stretch a little bit, even if it hurts? God didn't say it would be easy.

If it was easy, we can do it on our own, but we know that we cannot accomplish what God wants us to accomplish without his strength. That means we must have faith for what's next. We must begin to think about moving in excellence once again. How do we build excellence? With confidence that no assignment from God

is too large for his purpose, too great for his power. You know, when you go traveling, when you go to a, like we were at the ark encounter and if there's got the tourist things, the t-shirts, everybody's always selling t-shirts. So Dawn and I were sitting there looking at these different t-shirts, trying to figure out which one we wanted to buy.

And I got one, it was about Noah and it says, no project is too big for God. There's nothing that God can't do. There's nothing that we can't do that God can't step in and help us get there. We may not even know how, we may not have the finances to make it happen.

We may not have the people to make it happen, but you're looking at the physical, right in this space right now. I can see in my eyes, every seat being beginning to be filled as God continues to fill the sanctuary. And we don't want people to come just to be a number or just to be a financial structure in the church.

We want God to change their life as he has changed ours. If you believe God is doing something fresh in this house just give him a praise right now. Come on, we know that God is almighty. He is our deliverer and he has everything planned for us in this hour. And now I'll get my first verse for you, Julian.

Julian told me I'm gonna lose him. We're gonna lose him for a little bit. Anyways, Haggai 1-7-8, consider your ways, go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I might take pleasure in it. And that I may be glorified. The I is God here. God wasn't asking for a casual effort.

6:02 He was calling his people to intentionally be obedient. The last piece of that verse I said, that I or God in this case, that God may be glorified. When we look around this house, do we see things that may not, I don't wanna say displeasing to God, but are we actually showing God

that we are offering in excellence, that we are offering him our best. The best way to get people into the sanctuary is for us to live in excellence, that when they come in, they said, they really do care about the house of God. They really do care that they glorify God. And if we have a house that is built to glorify him,

his glory will grow. His glory will go more than we could ever think or imagine and the people will come. I got a tough cough this morning. When God says build, he is saying that his glory deserves priority. I know we all have busy lives, but are we making time for God and giving God the glory that he deserves?

Psalms 127 one reminds us that unless the Lord builds the house, the labor is in vain. We're not building the house, God is. He has just given us the different abilities, the different talents to help that take place. He can just send a bunch of angels and do all the work but then we would miss out on our blessing.

Do you wanna miss out on your blessing? We don't know what, and every one of us here, we don't know all the blessings that God has in store for us. We've had many of us have had blessings happen in our life that we weren't expecting them or it took 10 years or 15 years,

or in some cases, 30 years to come to fruition. But there's a blessings out there waiting for us. And he's commanding us. He's not just making a suggestion that we clean up the house and we restore the house. It's a commandment from God. So we are not restoring the house for appearance or applause or aesthetics alone.

We are restoring this house because the presence of God deserves a place that reflects honor, stewardship and excellence. When I was at my commencement this last week, it was on Wednesday. And there was 88 different pastors or people getting their degrees, doctorates and masters and bachelor's degree. And this one lady, one of the professors,

9:12 she's also a doctor, she came up and she set the room on fire. You can tell that she was from this, her, she had the old Southern Baptist, but yet she had people on their feet cheering because she wasn't afraid to hold back. We know what it's like here. We don't hold back what God has to do for us.

We don't hold back what God has in store for us. We don't sit on our hands during worship because God deserves all the glory. Excellence is not pride. Excellence is not performance. Excellence is doing what God said, the way God said to do it. That is why Noah matters in this message. Hebrews 11, seven, by faith,

how long did it take Noah to build the ark? I expect Dawn to know that we were just there. 75 years, but it didn't happen overnight. It took some time when warned about things Noah has not yet seen in holy fear, he built an ark to save his family. In Genesis 6 22, it says Noah did everything

just as God commanded him to do. Are we open to hear the word of God? When he speaks to us, are we spiritual enough? Are we mature enough to hear the voice of God to know what he wants us to do? It shouldn't be when he asks us to jump, we need to just figure out how high.

Some of those who are younger can jump a lot higher than I can. Noah teaches this house three things. Faith obeys before it sees. He was told to build the ark. I mean, just think about it. He built this huge ark and it took him 75 years. It took a lot of faith.

People around him, the neighborhood, they all shunned him, they thought he was crazy. I posted this last week that Noah was crazy until he wasn't. Excellence does all that God commanded. And no God given project is too big for God, like I said earlier. The ark was not a small assignment, it was massive, unfamiliar, humanly overwhelming.

Yet Noah obeyed anyway. Scripture presents Noah as a model of trusting obedience in the faith of unseen future. So hear this this morning. If God could give Noah a blueprint for an ark, God can give this house a blueprint for restoration. If God could sustain Noah through a project bigger than his own strength,

12:41 then this project is not too big for God. Like I said earlier, I've worked in IT for 30 years and most of that time I've been a project manager so I know what it takes to get things done. But in the business world, you learn that there's hindrances to keeping the project. You always said when you decide to do a project,

they always set a date that in order to get there, you either gotta add more people, you gotta add more finances, sometimes it's both, to get to the date that we... The issue here is we really don't have a date set out that God wants us to accomplish this but we're gonna do it as quickly as we can

with God's grace. We are going to repair what has been worn down. We are going to clean what has been neglected. We are going to strengthen what has become weak. We are going to restore this house with faith and with excellence because the house of God should reflect the heart of God. 1 Peter 2.5 says it like this,

we are living stones being built into a spiritual house. So this is not only walls and carpet and lights and sound system and podiums and gymnasiums. This is about building a praying and worshiping people, a healed people and a faithful people. I see many people taking notes and we're also gonna help with that very soon.

It's not quite ready yet but we will have our own app that will have all these verses for you ahead of time. I came to sell somebody, God is not done with this house. He is not. We may be in the midst of change or transition but together with God, we are gonna accomplish what he has set out to accomplish.

God is not done with this church. He is not done with this family. He is not done with your future. He is not done with our future and no assignment he has spoken over this house is too great for us to handle with God's help. He's not done yet. Shout it, he's not done yet.

Most important from Haggai is two nine. The glory of this ladder house shall be greater than that of the former says the Lord of hosts and in this place will I give peace says the Lord of hosts. The ladder is going to be more glorified than the past. He has so much more planned for us

15:49 that we don't even know it yet. We are gonna make this house be glorified because he doesn't suggest it, he commands it. There'll be more glory in the latter days. A greater glory, a greater worship, a greater power, a greater unity, a greater harvest, a greater healing. All those are coming to us.

If you believe it say greater. And that was just talking about restoring this physically of the house. But he also wants to restore us financially. Micaiah 3.10, you've heard me say this many times but bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Proverbs three nine and 10 goes on to say,

Lord with your wealth and first fruits. That means stewardship is not just a money issue. It is a faith issue and a worship issue. We don't give to the church because the church needs the money. We give to the church because God wants to bless you. That God wants to see your obedience.

That he wants to see your faith. A church cannot carry a large vision with a small obedience. We have a large vision, a large project. We'll talk more about vision in a little bit but there is nothing too great for God to accomplish. A church cannot ask for a harvest while refusing to sow.

I don't need to explain that, everybody knows that. A church cannot pray for greater impact while remaining careless with stewardship. Faith gives, faith plans, faith honors God. And excellence manages what God provides with integrity. So we're gonna have financial restoration in the house. That's gonna come as we restore this house physically and it will be restored financially.

Not that we're in desperate need. I will not live in the saying that, oh woe is me, we don't have the money to do this. We don't have the money to do that. I'm gonna trust God. We may be slowed down for a little bit but God is gonna get us to that end result.

So what does that look like? Faithful giving, honest reporting, wise planning, shared responsibility, excellent stewardship. Some of those will come from me as your leader and this thing changes. I can be more administrative maybe than the, I almost said the past administration but we need to achieve excellence in everything that we do.

19:13 We are not going to manipulate. We are going to teach people to trust God because when people trust God with what is in their hands, God strengthens what is in the house. The project is not too expensive for God. Zechariah 4, 6, not by might but by power or nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord.

If we continue to restore this house so that his glory is here and we know that the latter glory will be greater than the previous glory that he will do what he has set out to accomplish. It will come by the spirit of God working through faithful, obedient people. The God who gives the vision also gives the provision.

God does not set us out to do anything without his provision. It may not even come in the ways that we would expect. We've already started down the path in some way of, as an example, and I don't know, I think this is just how God is helping us do our reset and our transition,

even though we had a little bit of difficulty with the new sound system this morning, but that's actually a blessing of $3,000. The God who calls this house to be restored is fully able to provide what that restoration requires. I hear the Lord saying today, I am breaking lack of this house. I am breaking fear from this house.

I am breaking disorder from this house. I am breaking from the small thinking to the greater thinking that God has for this house. Let me hear you say, break it. God is gonna break it. God is gonna break our little thinking. God is gonna lift us up so that we can see over the horizon.

Sometimes we look out and we see, we may be down in the valley and all we can see is this side of the mountain, but there is something on the top of that mountain. There is a beast beyond that mountain and as we climb that mountain together, we will get at a high point

and then we're gonna see over top of that mountain and we're gonna find another one because we should all be striving for the same purpose to be all that God has called us to be. The resources will come, the needs will be met.