Keeping Clean in a Dirty World

Playing Church?

I’ll never forget a story one of my professors told me while I was in seminary.  Dr. Kelly had gone to Oxford in the late 1960s when it was vogue to deny the Virgin Birth, downgrade the Deity of Jesus, and question whether the Bible was accurate and true.  In the midst of all of this compromise and theological liberalism, Dr. Kelly stood unapologetically for orthodox Christianity, much to the amusement of his fellow classmates.  

Nearly thirty years past and Dr. Kelly received a call from one of those old Oxford colleagues.  After small talk and reminiscing, his old friend told him how thankful he was that Dr. Kelly had stood strong for Jesus while they were in school together. Then he shared some great news- earlier that week, he had become a Christian.  Dr. Kelly rejoiced with him and celebrated his newfound faith. 

What had this old classmate of his been doing the last thirty years?  He was a pastor!  He had preached thousands of sermons, married and buried, baptized and dedicated, counseled and led scores of classes.  Even though he looked the part from the outside, his heart wasn’t in it. He was merely good at “playing church.”  

Dr. Kelly let that sink in for a minute and then said to the group of wide-eyed future pastors, “It’s not about what you do, it’s about your heart.  God wants your heart.” 

That’s exactly what Haggai has to say to us today through the verses we will study together.  Haggai directs a laser beam directly to our hearts and uncovers the motivation behind our behavior. 

A Review

So far in our study of Haggai, we have looked at the first two prophesies/sermons out of four recorded in this short book.  If you remember, the Israelites were given permission to return to Jerusalem by Cyrus and even encouraged to rebuild the walls and the temple. [See Ezra 1]  The people returned with great joy and rebuilt the altar and begin offering sacrifices on it.  They also laid the foundation of the new temple.  

But then opposition came and the work was abandoned for sixteen years. During this time, the people were building their own “paneled houses” while the temple lied unfinished.  

God used Haggai to speak to the people and challenge them to get their priorities right.  They were confused as to why they weren’t being blessed and God said that it was because of  “my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.” (Haggai 1:9)  They needed to put first things first spiritually. That’s Haggai’s first sermon.

The people started building the temple and the older generation got discouraged because it wasn’t as grand as Solomon’s Temple.  

God used Haggai to speak to the people again and encouraged them to finish the work because this present Temple will “be greater than the glory of the former house.” (Haggai 2:9) Jesus Himself would teach and preach in this Temple and declare the coming of the Kingdom of God!  That’s Haggai’s second sermon. 

This morning, we come to the third sermon that is recorded in Haggai.  While the first two sermons consist of questions, the third is more like a riddle.  In fact, it’s a very creative word picture that God paints through the prophet Haggai. 

Turn with me to Haggai 2:10.  

Prayer.  

Are You Going to Bless Us or Not?

Let’s begin reading verse 10:

On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai:” (v.10)

I love the fact that Haggai records the dates of his prophecies.  This sermon was preached to the people on

December 18, 520 B.C.  The date is significant for several reasons.  

It had been exactly three months since they had started rebuilding the temple.  It had been two months and three days since his last sermon. During this time, the prophet Zachariah comes on the scene.  And exactly five years to the day, the Temple is dedicated.

More importantly, it was the time when they would be able to discern whether their crops were going to grow well that year.  In mid-October, the early rains fall and by December, the planting is done.  

In the midst of famine and drought, surely God will bless the people.  After all, they had been working to rebuild the Temple! Since they were doing a good deed, they expected their problems to disappear. But God has a message for the people about their hearts that they would never forget.  

Ask the Experts  

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says:” (v.11)

Haggai is instructed to direct this prophesy to the priests.  The priests were the official interpreters of the Mosaic Law. The Law didn’t cover every single detail of life so the priests were often called upon to answer questions about certain rules and regulations. (See Lev. 10:10-11; Jer 18:18; Mal 2:7)

What follows is two strange word pictures to our ears but would have made perfect sense to these priests, and to the people listening.     

Non-Transferable   

If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’  The priests answered, “No.” (v. 12)

Haggai is given his hearers a word picture they would have been very familiar with in their daily lives.  

Jewish religious life centered around a sacrificial system.  If a person sinned, they would bring an animal to the priest to be sacrificed on the altar.  The priest was responsible for killing the animal and cutting the portions up for the sacrifice.  The animal died in the place of the person to pay for the sins committed. 

This entire system pointed to a day that was coming when Jesus, the “Lamb that takes away the sins of the world,” (John 1:29) would be sacrificed “once and for all” (Hebrews 10:12) as an atonement for the sins of the world.  

Once the meat was sacrificed on the altar it was considered holy, or set apart. (Lev. 6:25) 

The question Haggai poses to the priest is this- if you take that meat that is considered holy and carry it in the fold of your robes and you touch something else, does that thing become holy as well?

It was obvious that when the meat was placed in the robe it made the robe holy. (See Lev 6:27; Exodus 44:19)  That was the easy part.  The quandary was the notion of transferability.  

Could the meat transfer its holiness through the fold of the robe to something else?  

The priests didn’t hesitate in their answer.  Of course not!  

The equation looked something like this:

Holy meat → Fold of robe  → Food does not becomes holy

So what was God trying to tell the people through Haggai’s message? 

Holiness is non-transferable.

The implications for this are staggering and we will come to those in just a moment.  

Defiled!

But first, look at verse 13:

Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”

   “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”

Haggai poses another word picture to the priests.  Again, this was not a trick question.  It was easy and straightforward.  

From Numbers 19 we know that anyone who touched a dead body was considered “unclean” for seven days, and anything that they touched would also be unclean.  

To be unclean meant that you would not be able to participate in any religious ceremony.  

So, again the notion of transferability comes into play.  

The equation looks like this:

Dead body → person → anything that they touch becomes unclean

There is no Hebrew word for our word “yes” so the priest’s answer is recorded as one word, “Defiled!”

So what is God trying to tell the people through Haggai’s message?

Defilement is easily transferable

Contagious?

The implications for these two little word pictures are staggering.  

Just like the skit at the beginning of the service, there are some things that are contagious – itching, sneezing, and yawning. And there are some things are not contagious – like pregnancy!

Holiness is not contagious but sin is highly contagious.  

Imagine you are sitting in a doctor’s office and there are twenty other people in there.  You are just there for an annual check up.  You are in great health and haven’t been sick in a long time. 

As you sit there, you notice something about the other twenty people in the room.  They are all hacking, coughing, sniffing, and blowing their nose. 

What if I told you that your presence in that room is desperately needed because your health is going to “rub off” on them? 

That’s not the way it works, is it?  Healthiness isn’t contagious.  But a cold is!  Odds are good that you would not make the sick people healthy but that they would make you sick.  

Make sense now?

Holiness is not contagious.  It must be deliberately sought out and cultivated in an intimate personal relationship with God. 

Sin is contagious and is like spaghetti sauce – it stains everything it touches. 

Whatever

With that message ringing in his listener’s ears, Haggai delivers the final blow.  

“Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.” (v. 14)

So what’s the message to the people of Israel?  

The people tended to see the temple as a good luck charm.  

They thought: “See God, look at us, we are building the Temple!  We are doing good stuff here!  It doesn’t make any sense to us why You won’t bless us.  We are building Your house, just like You told us to.”  

But their sacrifices were unacceptable to God because they were “defiled.” 

Notice the word “whatever?”  

“Whatever they do and whatever they offer there [on the altar] is defiled.”   

It was as if God was saying, “If your heart isn’t right, whatever you do will be wrong.”

God wanted their hearts, not their sacrifices.  David, who knew this well, wrote:

“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; 

you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17)

Next week, Pastor Brian will finish the rest of Haggai’s third sermon but for now let’s see what God is trying to say

to us today.                      

Spaghetti Sauce   

I want to start with the second part of the riddle first.  

From Haggai’s questions we learned that although holiness is not transferable, defilement is certainly contagious.  

This is a spiritual reality that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.  

Romans 5:12 tells us that: 

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12

Adam sinned and his sin has been transferred down the human race to us.  We are sinners by nature and by choice.  

The Israelites were so proud of themselves.  They were working on the Temple.  They were working hard.  They were doing what God had told them to do.  But there was a problem…

Their sin, the fact that their hearts were not right before God, defiled everything they touched.  

It’s like the old story of King Midas who was given the ability to touch something and it turned to gold.  Turns out that the “blessing” was a curse because it was true, everything he touched turned to gold – his family and food included.  

They couldn’t understand why God wasn’t blessing them but failed to consider that it was because of their own disobedience. 

[Two glasses of water. One has ink in it and the other is clean.]

What if I poured the clean water into the dirty water, would it make the dirty water clean? 

What if I poured just a drop of dirty water into the clean one?  Watch what happens!

All of their sacrifices, all their effort, all their singing, were not acceptable to God since their hearts weren’t in it.    

But It’s Not That Bad

Recently, a friend of mine was listening to a relative talk about how hard his life is and how there seems to something blocking him every way he turned.  My friend simply pointed out the fact that this man was living with blatant unconfessed sin in his life.  He reminded him that God will not bless you if you stick your tongue out at Him and say the most dangerous sentence in the English language, “I know what the Bible says, but…”  

Paul strongly encourages us not to:

“conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

If you are conforming to the pattern of this world, you will find yourself in contact with things that do not bring spiritual life.  How do you renew your mind?  It is through your daily reading of God’s Word.  

As I interact with parents and students, I’m reminded of a story I heard many years ago.   

A dad was talking to his children about a television show that he had told them not to watch.  They sat him down and wanted to share their thoughts about this decision.  Their logic went something like this – that show wasn’t that bad and it only had one or two inappropriate things in it. The dad listened intently and told them he had heard them out and would give them his decision the next day.  

The next day, he sat them down and presented them with a plate of brownies.  He told them that he had heard their heart and that one or two inappropriate things in a show wasn’t that bad.  He then offered them a brownie.  

Before they bit into the brownie, he shared with them that he had taken their advice and he was no longer going to worry about the little things.  

As an example, he told them that he had put one or two small pieces of the dog’s poop in the brownies.  But that shouldn’t bother them –it’s just a little bit, no big deal.

You think those kids got the lesson that day?  

How about us?

* Do your friendships bring you closer to Christ or do they influence you negatively?  

When I was in college, I hung around some guys that smoked.  I grew up in a home where my mother tried for thirty years to stop smoking and eventually died from it.  You can guess how I felt about smoking.  But, I found myself smoking with them.  Even my brother told me how disgusted he was with me.  I allowed those guys to pressure me into decisions that went against everything I believed in.  

As I’ve said to the students many times, “Your friends help determine your destiny.”  How are the people closest to you influencing you? 

* Are you compromising in the areas of media (movies, books, music)?  

Our boys often get very frustrated with me because I will look up a movie they want to see on “Plugged in Online.”  I especially want to know the “cuss word count.”  Even in our house, we’ve been guilty of the “it’s not that bad.”   

Are you choosing media that brings spiritual life?   

* How about what you look at on your computer late at night? 

About seven years ago, Milt and I had a group of high school boys with us in the library.  We asked them to close their eyes and raise their hands if they had looked at pornography any time in the last six months.  Twenty out of twenty two raised their hands!  

Let me say straight up that one of the best examples of how sin can permeate everything is pornography.  There is perhaps nothing in this world that can damage a man’s soul more.  It’s like that one drop of ink that slowly oozes into every crack and crevice of our lives.  It affects your marriage more than you know.  It affects your relationship with your children.  It affects how you see women and their roles as our helpmates.  It defiles everything, including our worship of a holy God.  

Guys, one of the reasons why our male leadership in the church in America is so weak is because so many guys are totally overwhelmed by porn and lust.  

If you are one of those guys, let me encourage you to stop pretending like everything’s okay.  You need to talk to someone about this.  You need accountability.  You need to get to the heart of the matter. You need to rebuild your relationships, starting with God.  

Talk to me after the service or sometime this week if you want to get free – “it is for freedom that Jesus set us free.” (Galatians 5:1)

[To learn more, visit L.I.F.E. International at http://www.freedomeveryday.org/] 

Non-Transferable

Recently, I signed up for my second half marathon. In the process of registration, the website mad it very clear that my bib is non-transferable.  That means I cannot give it to someone else and let him or her run for me.  That would save my knees a lot of pain and would probably boost my time but it is also against the rules.  

God wants us to consider the fact that holiness is non-transferable.  The Israelites were mistaken when they thought they were getting holiness brownie points with God simply because they were working on the Temple.  

The same is true of us today.  

Some people think that you earn points with God by:

* Going to church 

* Tithing

* Singing worship songs

* Doing good deeds

Holiness is not something you get by hanging around holy people.  It does not hurt you to hang out with Godly people.  They just can’t make you holy.  

In one of the 5Ks I ran last year, I noticed a former student who is a lightening fast runner.  He had gone up to the line and toed it like the elites do.  I decided to line up next to him and I told him that the Puma was going to try to keep up with him.  

Only the really fast runners toe the line like that so if you had of been watching the start of the race you would have thought I was one of them.  

But then the gun went off and I matched him stride for stride…for about two hundred feet!  And then he was gone.

I had on the same kind of clothes they had one.  I toed the line just like they did.  But, in the end, I was not one of them.  

Again, God is clear.  He wants our hearts. 

I was at a Christian music festival and a band was leading the crowd in an extended time of worship.  One of the students who was with our group, stood off to the side with his hands raised singing loudly.  

He then yelled over to me, “Hey look Mr. Williams, I’m worshipping!”

Was he worshipping?

No, because his focus was on the outward expression not the inward state of his heart.  

The Bible is clear on this subject.  So clear that I want to step back and just let God speak:

* Samuel asked,  “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? 
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” (I Samuel 15:22-23)

* “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.” (Psalm 24:3-4)

* “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” (Proverbs 21:3)

* For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

And Jesus could not have been any stronger when confronting the Pharisees: 

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matt 25:25-28)

God weighs the motivations of our hearts.  He wants our hearts first, then our worship.  

Caterpillar to a Butterfly 

I want to address something this morning.  It’s a burden of my heart and I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately.  

I hope we would all agree after this message from Haggai that holiness does not rub off.  Right?

We are not made holy by hanging around holy people. We are only made holy by a miracle – the indwelling, transformative work of the Holy Spirit that changes a “heart of stone into heart of flesh.” (Ezek 11:19; 36:26)

The Scriptures say that when we become a Christian we are actually made into a totally new thing:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.”  (2 Cor 5:17)

A.W. Pink wrote:

"The new birth is very, very much more than simply shedding a few tears due to a temporary remorse over sin...The new birth is no mere turning over a new leaf but is the inception and reception of a new life. It is no mere reformation but a complete transformation. In short, the new birth is a miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical, revolutionary, lasting." 

When we become a Christian, it is not that we start doing “Christian” things.  It is metamorphosis!  It is like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. 

It is a complete transformation.  We are different.  We still sin but now it produces guilt that leads us to repentance. (2 Cor 7:10) Our hearts are different. We have new dreams, desires, and a new destination.  

Model Kylie Bisutti beat out 10,000 hopefuls to win the Victoria Secret Model Search.  She was nineteen years old at the time and recently married.  It had been her lifelong dream to be a Victoria Secret model but as she started reading her Bible she became more and more uncomfortable about what she was doing.  She told a local news station, “I’m a Christian, and reading the Bible more, I became convicted about it.”

She finally decided to leave Victoria Secret because, “my body should be for my husband and it’s a scared thing…I really didn’t want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me…God graciously gave me this marriage and this life and I desire to live a Godly, faithful life…”

When she was accused of taking things a little too far she replied, “I want to go over the top because I don’t thing enough people go over the top about how series this all is.  I just want people to see something different about me because I have that faith and I think I think it’s so important for everyone to have.”  

An American Myth

You are not a Christian simply because you say you are.  You are not a Christian simply because you attend church, grew up in a Christian home, or live in America. You are not necessarily a Christian just because you raised your hand, repeated someone’s prayer, walked an aisle, or got baptized.  I did all of those things on Easter Sunday when I was twelve years old and I didn’t become born again Christian until I was twenty-one years old.    

There seems to be a myth in American Christianity that if you raise your children in a Christian home then they will automatically become Christians.  

The Bible is clear that we are responsible to teach, train, and disciple our children. (Duet 6; Eph 6).  We are to explain the Gospel to them, and more importantly, live it out in front of them.  

But, each of our children is an independent moral soul. As Hannah Johnston, our friend from Cedar Lake, said when sharing her testimony with the students last week in EQUIP, “God doesn’t have spiritual grandchildren.”

Our children do not automatically become Christians because we read the Bible to them, or pray with them, or do family devotions with them.  

Hear me out.  All those things are good and we want to encourage you to do them.  But Christianity is not just a set of behaviors that we get our children to act out.  That’s simply spiritual behavior modification.  That leads to children and teenagers who know how to play church but really have no relationship with God of their own.  

I know plenty of parents that raised their children in a genuine Christian environment and their kids are not living for Christ.  It’s easy for those moms and dads to blame themselves and ask, “What did we do wrong?” 

But that’s just bad theology.  We can’t make our children Christians anymore than I can make my children appreciate Barry Manilow, (although I’m still trying!)

How do you explain my brother and I, who are both pastors but grew up in a non-Christian home?  My father was once asked what he did to make us so “Godly.”  My dad responded, “Nothing, that was all God’s work!”

When it comes to our children, it must be about their hearts.  We must focus on their hearts, and the motivation behind the behavior.  

We must pray like crazy that God would draw our children to Himself (John 6:44), that they would have the power to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” that their spiritual eyes would be open to their own sinfulness and need for His grace, mercy, and love (Ephesians 1:18-19), and they would accept and receive that love and respond when He calls to them. (John 1:12) We must do all we can to help them understand that God desires their hearts, warts and all.   

[For a good discussion about how to know if your children are truly saved, see Brian Croft’s blog at http://practicalshepherding.com/2012/01/30/how-do-you-discern-the-conversion-of-a-child/]

What do I know of Holy?

Jesus once told this story to a group of very religious people:

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

    “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

    “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

Jesus presented two guys in the story.  One is a Pharisee, a member of the most conservative religious sects in all Israel.  The other is a tax collector, a traitor who worked for the Roman government and skimmed off the top for himself.  

The Pharisee prayed loudly and bragged about all he does for God.  

The tax collector stood at a distance with his head hung low, hitting himself in the chest.  He said, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”  

Jesus stunned the crowd by announcing that the tax collector was actually the one justified, or accepted, by God.  

His listeners just couldn’t fathom a world in which God accepted repentant sinners but self-righteous religious people were rejected.  

But that is the very world, or Kingdom, that Jesus came to inaugurate. 

The way to be “holy,” (acceptable to God) is through repentance, admitting that you are a sinner. 

This is what the tax collector understood that the Pharisee did not.  

He cried out, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!”  

One of the number one ways you can tell if you are simply playing church is to gauge the reaction to sin.  If you can commit sin, blatant sin, and you have absolutely no feelings of shame, guilt, or remorse; there is a serious problem in your soul.  

Because of our sin, we deserve death. 

“The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23)

Because of sin, you were separated from God, hopeless and helpless to save yourself. 

There are two ways to deal with this fact. 

You can go the “religion” route and try to be good enough to get into heaven on your own.  

The problem is that the Bible teaches we are not good enough, no matter how many good deeds you do.  

“For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” (Romans 3:23)

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

You can never hop high enough for God’s holiness.  

Or you can stop trying and start simply trusting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. 

Religion is man’s attempt to reach up to God. 

Christianity is God reaching down to save us when we didn’t deserve it all. 

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) 

All He wants you say is, “I’m with Jesus.  His death paid my penalty.  He died for me, in my place.  I trust that sacrifice.  He died for me.  I’ll live for Him.” 

Romans 10:9 says, 

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Jesus > Religion

I want to end this morning with a video that has gone viral.  In the first ten days after it was posted it received ten million hits.  It has now been viewed by almost twenty million people.  It has been featured on almost every news outlet and many bloggers have posted it.  

The guy in the video is named Jefferson Bethke, a young pastor/writer/artist from Seattle, Washington.  

As you watch him and hear his words, I want you to keep this question in your mind?  

Are you a Christian?  Have you been transformed? 

Paul challenged the Christians at Corinth with these words:

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Cor 13:5) 

The great theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote a book called, “Distinguishing Marks of a True Work of the Spirit of God.”  In it, he lists five signs that you are truly a born again Christian. 

A Christian has:

1. A love for Jesus that is palpable and contagious. 

2. A hatred for sin.  Our eyes are open to see the dreadfulness of our condition. There are no more excuses to be made.  

3. A Spirit-given hunger and thirst for God’s Word and a desire to obey it.

4. A heightened love for the truth and the things of God.

5. A love for fellow Christians and a desire to serve them. 

[For a full discussion of these 5 marks, go to http://theresurgence.com/2010/07/21/5-ways-to-know-if-youre-really-a-christian]

After hearing those five signs, let me ask you again - are you a Christian? Or are you just really good at “playing church” and your heart is far away from God?  Are you a Christian, or simply a religious person trying to earn brownie points with God by being good?

 [“Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” You Tube video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY]

From the Inside Out

We are going to end our service today with worship.  Again and again, Haggai says, “consider your ways,” which means to set your heart or fix your attention toward God.  

I’ve had people say to me, “Well Pastor, I’ll get right with God when I clean myself up.”  And I always answer, “How’s that worked for you in the past?”  Don’t try clean yourself up.  Come to Christ and He will clean you from the inside out!

Let’s spend some time fixing our hearts on God and allow Him to do His work in us from the inside out!