House Hunting — Sandeep Poonen

Hunting. This is something that when this is one of the things when you get married I'm talking the men mostly. One of the things that you get married in America when you get married a lot of us can't afford houses.

But one of the things that you get when you get married they say women are nesters. A nester is somebody who wants to build a nest. So if you go to your house if you're married you know how the wife kind of has to make sure that the house becomes like a nest because you know you're gonna have children there.

And the mother's kind of has an instinct to build a nest. So one of the things that after I've got married I've been pointed out a lot of houses because my wife has a nest in mind. So she has many different options that she's giving me.

Can we make this honest. Can we make this honest. So far I have not found the perfect nest. So we're still living in an apartment. But you know so how something is something that has become something that I've become a little bit more familiar with.

So this is a beautiful option for a nest. Unfortunately very unaffordable. But my question for you is this. How many of you would like this for a house. You can be honest. How many of you would love to have this for a house.

I would love to have this for a house. This would be a beautiful house to live in. Here's a question for you. When God is house hunting what does he look for. I'm open to answers. Purity. Sorry. Vacancy.

Holiness. Humility. Human. I don't know why it's doing that but I'll fix it later. Desire pricing. That's good. Praise praise praise. Honesty. Sorry I forgot that it was something was said that reverence when you call that reverence for God yeah people will fear him.

Sincerity when God is house hunting God wants a place to live. What you tell me is what you think and how you look at it when you come to God. So when you come to God and you say God I want you to live with me.

These are the things that you say. This is how I need to be if God's gonna come live with me. Right. What you write down and what you say as you think about. Okay God I want you to live with me. What you have said to me here are the things that you say.

This is what I need to have otherwise God will not live with me. Right. If you don't have humility the chances are high that God won't live with you. These are the things that based on your what you've been taught in scripture what the people have what you've been raised with.

These are the things that you look for. And there are so many others we can put in here. But I want to talk about house hunting and I want to talk about something that is an absolute must that we must have.

And what God looks for when he's house hunting. When he looks at his house he says this is what I need to have in my house. I mean it become obvious to you know what I'm not saying that these are wrong.

I think that all of these are right to you know to different different extents. But there is believe it or not something that has not been said in here that God is looking for her when your house hunting and that is what I want to establish for us to say this is something that we must also concentrate on not meaning to say that these are to be discounted.

Okay I'm not trying to discount any of these. These are all very very valid things. But I want to add to it establish something that I believe that a lot of us often ignore. We may take care of a lot of these and we may beat ourselves up for a lot of these too.

We may say I'm not. God is not dwelling in me because I'm not sincere enough. God is not dwelling with me because I'm not honest enough and I keep beating myself up. And that's why I say okay so either I'm not honest enough and I know it or I'm trying to be honest but I feel like you know I'm never being honest enough.

That's why God's not dealing with me. So I want to address some of those concerns in this talk today. I want to start with a review though. I wanted to review what we said yesterday. Why did you give up three days and maybe even take vacation.

Let that be in the forefront of your mind. You may not you may not believe this. But one of the things I want to change your perspective about is this you and your your time is extremely valuable. That is something that anybody who's working the the company tries to keep driving into you.

Your time is very valuable and we want your time to help us make money. That's their objective. God's has an equally in important objective with your time. So our time is extremely valuable and anybody sitting here know this.

When you were single you were able to do a lot of things that you can't do when you were married when you were 16 there were a lot of things you can't do now that you're in your 20s and on and on. You know the concept of time and how time can be wasted and how time can be used very productively.

So that is what I'm trying to drive up when I say if you've given up three days of your life to be here I'm trying to raise the stakes to say it's up to you also to make it worth it. I'm trying to do my part.

The organizers are trying to do their part but you have to do your part too. You have to be quiet to listen. You have to have yours open to listen. And you have to have a deep desire to say I've given up three days of my life because I these are very important days that I'm trying to do something.

I'm trying to set the foundation for 2009 maybe and so these are critical days because this is going to shape it could possibly shape how 2009 turns out. And I can't impress on you to take that seriously.

You have to do that yourself. I'm trying to appeal to you by saying you've given up three days of your life now it's up to you whether you want to take it seriously or not. And the other point is how are you going to ensure that you are a success in life.

All of us must be successes. God created us. God is a success. He created us in his image. He wants us to be success. Our definition of success might have been incomplete might have not. I'm not saying they were wrong.

They may have been incomplete. To finish college to finish high school is those are important success metrics do in this world because you need to survive in this world and it's getting hard to survive.

You don't have a good education so those are not. I'm not discounting those success metrics but there should be a bigger success definition for what our whole life is about. And I gave you these two verses for you to ponder upon because these are the verses that have made sense for me and I would add Romans 829 to that.

Take these verses down meditate on this. Or if you don't agree with it make your own metrics. But I would suggest take a verse in the Bible because that's God's Word. Don't take Tiger Woods. Don't take popular culture.

Don't take your brain and saying okay this is what seems. Rest try and base it on what we believe to be God's Word. I have come across three verses that I said I have found what I have defined a success.

And I'm not saying I may not change it. I just have not found something better than this so far. So even if you have a definition of success you can be open to changing it. But this is something that I get very excited about and I get something that says I can do this for the rest of my life.

And 1 John 3 verse 2 and 3 saying I'm gonna fix my hope on being just like Jesus is so I'm gonna purify myself which means today I'm gonna make use of my time which means today I'm gonna try and do something that I've God has given me my gifts for I'm gonna do it and I talked about that yesterday.

That means me writing down something in my in a Word document. It doesn't mean I have to keep on speaking somewhere. It means I'm gonna continue to use my gifts. Nobody's gonna see that Word document but I'm using my gift.

And I can clearly say that I'm being successful because I'm going by these metrics. I don't say that with pride. I say that with humility but I say I want to know that I'm going somewhere in life at the end of Paul's life.

Paul said in 2nd Timothy the verses you worse you probably know I have finished the course completed it done. I knew the course and I completed it. I've kept the faith. I fought the good fight. If Paul could say that.

So should we be able to say that too. I knew the fight. I knew the course. I knew the faith and I kept it. I fought it and I didn't lose hope. I didn't give up. I kept going. You should all be able to say that.

But you must have a goal in mind first. And Paul describes that goal again in Philippians 3. I forget what leaves behind and I look for a life going upward in Christ Jesus. Use these verses. Use the Bible to define your own definition of success.

Write it down. Use that journal. But I appeal to you that knowing where you have to go to for 2009 2010 is very helpful again. You have to do it. I've given you a suggestion feel free to steal it. Feel free to copy it.

But if you're gonna copy it make it your own and believe it and run after it. If you've got a different one make it something that you can run after. And we were talking in this series about the last days.

Using Our Gifts Like the Donkey Who Carried Jesus

What would you do if you had one week last to live. One week left to live. It's a good perspective to always have God. I mean I might have a week left. What should I do. Jesus had one week left to live and he basically the bottom line that we were talking about from from last session was there are donkeys and that there are horses.

And a lot of us think that we need to have a horse before we can be useful for God God and the kingdom of God. When God Jesus said I have one week left to live he said let me embody something that's so critical about this new kingdom that I'm establishing.

And in this new king in the Old Kingdom the Old Testaments King David everybody rode on chariots win by horses these beautiful majestic animals most valuable in the culture. God's Jesus says I'm establishing a new kingdom.

And in this kingdom I want anybody and especially I want the donkeys. The people who don't think they have it all figured out. The people who come in limited colors the people who have big ears sticking out.

You've got all your warped broken messy spirituality. God says I want to ride in. I want to be ridden into the kingdom. I want I want to be on display. It's the donkeys not on display. Jesus is this is on display because he has need of you.

Tell the tell the master of the donkey I have need of you. And all our gifts in our life is broken as they are. God has need of it and he wants to ride into the kingdom. He wants to ride into the city with it.

And so in Mark chapter 11 this is what happens when he rides in. Those who were in front and those who followed were shouting Hosanna. Look what happens. It doesn't matter so much that it was a donkey it was the donkey was does not become irrelevant because Jesus is riding on it.

So get your mind off how messy your gifts might be. The point of using the gift to carry is to carry Jesus in so that when Jesus is brought in in sincerity and humility and purity and simplicity the people will shout Hosanna.

That's what happens in the church when I come up here and I speak when I share a word to somebody who's younger than me if I should give them a word of encouragement. If it's not about me if it's about Jesus and carrying him in not me and not making myself look good then the response would be Hosanna.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David Hosanna in the highest we can be sure that the praise of God will be there for those of us who stand up.

And for those of us who use our gifts even in all of its brokenness. Nobody's commenting about how the donkey is looking. Nobody's asking why isn't there a horse. Because the because they see Jesus riding in Jesus has filled the view.

The donkey is no longer that much in sight. And there's a verse in Psalm chapter 22 verse 3. But thou art holy. O you that inhabits the praises of Israel. Israel started praising people. Israel started praising Jesus.

The moment Israel started praising Jesus. And whenever there's praise to God that happens. God says I want to inhabit you now. I want to build a house with you now if you're gonna sing and you sang and you praised God.

If you come to church and you say God I want to praise you. Then God says okay I want to praise you. If you're gonna praise me I want to live in this place that's praising you. So God comes after we praise him which is the initial response to following Jesus.

We say God I'm so thankful for dying for you dying for me. I'm so thankful that you saved me from sin and from death. God says I recognize those prayers and those praises. I want to now inhabit you. I want to set up shop.

I want to move in. I want to bring my couches. I want to bring all my utensils. I want to bring everything I bring with me. I want to bring them in and live. I want to inhabit. So when we praise him we're saying God now I want you to move in.

And so when they praised him in Mark chapter 11 God says I want to move in. And in the Old Testament before there was we know what the temple of our hearts are. What is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now ourselves right back then before Jesus died and rose again and the Holy Spirit was given.

The temple was a physical building. So are you following with me. What happens is he comes riding in into Jerusalem. The people start praising him. And right after that he says okay I'm gonna come in.

I'm gonna go to your temple because that's where God's gonna reside. And he looks around at everything and we know what he probably saw because we're gonna read about it in the next verses. What he saw all these people selling and you know making money in the name of God.

But he looked at it. It was kind of late. So he said okay let me take a few hours to process what I just saw. He probably already seen it but he took a few hours to say let me process what I just saw.

He was not very happy with what he saw. When he looked at he saw in the temple and on the next way in when he was when he left Bethany he became hungry. What is Jesus hungry for in your life. He has found a place of praise but he's hungry.

He's hungry to also have a place to live in. I may be reading too much in the text but I'm trying to draw a point here that God doesn't want just our praise. He wants more than that. The praise is the starting point.

It's good when we praise him but we have to keep moving from there. That's the starting point. And he saw the distance of fig tree and he didn't find anything on it. He found nothing but leaves. Because it was not the season for figs he said may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

Bearing Fruit as the Measure of Spiritual Life

And this is kind of like a it's a side point to what I'm truly driving at. But I wanted to include this in here for you to understand. If God doesn't see fruit in your life it is a pretty serious thing.

You can come to church every Sunday you can worship him every Sunday and you can worship him every Wednesday. But if you do not bear fruit it's a pretty serious thing. If you do God John 15 Jesus says if you abide me you will bear much fruit.

If not you will be thrown away. You will be discarded. He looks for those and if they're not bearing fruit so here's another question for you. Are you bearing fruit. And what is the definition of fruit.

I go to my definition of success. That's what it means. So each of you as you define what success means you can ask yourself am I bearing fruit. An apple tree has a definition of success. Is an apple tree supposed to bring bear beautiful apple leaves.

Very simple definition of success. If you're an apple tree you have to bear apples. So you know if an apple tree is successful if it's bearing apples if the apple tree said my definition of success is to bear leaves the apple tree will be diluted.

That diluted. Yeah the apple tree would have mistaken what its success was. That is why I'm going back to what I said yesterday. Important for you to understand what you're doing here on life what your path is what your success is.

That's you know whether you're bearing fruit. Remember guys these are the last days of Jesus. And Jesus is saying I want to underline certain things that I've said. One of the things he wants to underline is I want to use a donkey.

I don't need to use their horses. I want to you to bear fruit in your personal life and for other people to consume. The theme of this conference is maturity and responsibility. Fruitfulness is very important.

You might be fighting sin in your own life. But have you given fruit for other people to consume off you that other people can say. I am encouraged by your life. Every one of you must bear fruit. It's a non-negotiable.

There's no oh maybe some people can do it. All of you must bear fruit. But that's a side note to what I'm really wanting to speak about. I'll talk more about bearing fruit later on. I want that to be a subtle side point for you to always keep in mind.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple and Seeks a House of Prayer

The main point I'm really trying to drive from this is he came to Jerusalem and he was looking for a house in his temple. And he overturned the money changes and the seats of those who are selling doves.

And he would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And he began to teach and say to them is it not written my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a robbers den.

When God is house hunting what is he looking for. How do you think this applies to your life in the temple. If you are the temple of the Holy Spirit how do you think you can make your heart a robbers den.

I was thinking about this. What does it mean to be a robbers den. I was picturing this God entering my heart. I asked him to come into my heart and God Jesus enters my heart. If you want to just think about it as my house.

He's coming to live with me and he comes in and lives with me. But instead of him coming in and living with me quietly he comes in and a robbers den. There are all kinds of things or people in my heart that beat Jesus up and steal from Jesus.

What do you think it means. What do you think it means for your heart to be a robbers den. There's no again there's no right answer or wrong answer. I'm trying to get you to write down or think about what it is in your heart that might make it a robbers den.

How do you steal from Jesus. How do you take what is Jesus's and may keep it for yourself. And Jesus comes with a whip. It's the only time you see him getting so physically violent is when he comes into what we call the temple of our own hearts.

And he finds it to be a den of robbers in your own heart. What are the things that you might be stealing from God. I want you to think about that. And it's a very simple point I'm trying to make in all of that the opposite of being a thief to being a robbers den.

To be a den of thieves is to be a house of prayer. If you want to know what God is looking for when he's trying to live with you he's looking for whether you are a person committed to praying to him. The opposite of stealing from God is praying to God.

I can say the opposite of stealing from God is giving everything to God. But I've started to see that the opposite of stealing from God is praying to God. I repeat that so that you guys understand the difference.

Logically if I were to think the opposite of stealing from God is to say no God that's not mine that's yours so you can have it. And that's technically true. But the way we prove it to God that I'm not gonna steal from you is I'm gonna go to you and say God.

I'm gonna pray to you. And I'm gonna pray to you for help. I'm gonna pray to you because you're my friend. I'm gonna pray to you because I want your company. The two options you have are not stealing versus surrendering.

Because I've discovered in my own life that surrendering is a passive verb. And so maybe I'm saying there's an active verb associated with surrendering. Are you following me. I want to be crystal clear about this.

I want you to understand what I mean by this. I'm not negating that surrender is not important. Surrender is so critical to the life. But how do you know if you've surrendered by becoming a house of prayer.

A person who is truly surrendered is a person who is constantly communing with Jesus. That is the proof of a surrendered life. If I have very little time to talk to Jesus every day or if Jesus is not somebody I feel the need to commune often with not by going to a separate room and opening up my Bible and reading with him.

Maybe it's in the middle of my workday but my my thoughts are on Jesus. Often am I pleasing him. Am I thinking about him. If that is not happening I feel like what I've learned from this passage here is maybe I'm not surrendered.

So I keep going to God and saying God I'm surrendered God I'm surrendered. God I'm not gonna steal for you. I'm surrendered. The proof that you have surrendered to God is that you talk often to him. So let me ask you then is your temple a den of robbers or a house of prayer.

It's one of the two. I steal from him by not talking to him and not communing with him. Not only by sinning not only by backsliding. Those are all the fruit of what happens. But the real problem is I steal from him by not talking to him.

And we all criticize the Israelites in that day for saying how dare you steal money in the name of God. How dare you steal from these poor people and just make it for your own benefit without realizing that in this new temple that God's creating he's saying I still want this new temple which is in each of your hearts to be a temple of prayer a temple of communion.

Very simple point family. Very simple point. You either become a den of robbers where you will constantly be stealing from God taking things that belong to God and constantly becoming a thief. You will be somebody who is committed to prayer.

We all have busy lives to different extents but we all have the ability to go to God often and tell him I want you. That's prayer. God I desire you right after you've just sinned right before you're about to sin.

As soon as you can get your wits about you while you are sinning. A house of prayer says God. I see robbers coming in. I'm gonna become a house of prayer again often many times a day. This is the house that God is gonna say I can move into this because I'm not scared about who's gonna be behind my back if I'm entering this house and don't have to worry whether this is a den of robbers.

Because it's a house where we're talking. And each one of us can only answer that question to ourselves in the privacy of your own hearts. When you're at work when you're at home late at night are you committed to letting yourself be a house of prayer.

Prayer as the First Work of Cleansing the Heart

The first thing God often does when he when people start to praise him and he says okay I'm gonna move in. He has to clean house so to speak he has to clean your house up and he says throw away everything.

You have everything just become a house of prayer first. That's the first thing God did. As soon as the praise ended he went into the temple and he didn't see what he was looking for. As soon as you start to praise him God says okay I'm looking for something next.

It's critical for us to snap out of our backslidden ways for us to turn back into a life with God. It is critical that the first thing God says come and be with church and praise me. Okay you praise me.

Then God says I'm looking for a temple. And I'm looking for a temple to be a house of prayer not a den of robbers. So here's my final question to you. There's one thing you have to do for yourself to become a house of prayer.

And I can't control that. I can't control whether you will spend time before you go to sleep is talking to God for two minutes. I cannot control that. I can tell you that it'll be a good thing to do. I can tell you it'll be a good thing to during your lunch break to just check in with Jesus.

How we doing so far. God it's been four hours since I woke up this morning. How am I doing it. I suggest it as a good thing to you but I can't control it. But in addition to that there's a reason why God gave us each other.

God gave us each other because he says I want each other with you guys to help each other too in this. And God's given us community and fellowship. This is what makes Jesus's life more beautiful to me.

He had nobody he just had the father. And there are some people who God gives exceptional grace when they're all out alone in the middle of nowhere and the missionary where there are no Christians around them and God gives them special grace for the rest of us.

God gives us each other. He says I'm gonna give you a Holy Spirit but I'm gonna give you other members of the body to help you. And we squander. We squander one of God's best resources. Which are the other people in this room who you heard yesterday.

Every one of them wants to get better. Every one of them wants to know God more. Everybody wants that. So here's my question to you part of what I wanted to get out of this retreat and what I wanted to encourage the young people here to do was to come up with tangible decisions that can be acted upon in 2009.

Enough theory enough concepts. Enough. Oh I need to work on myself. You need to do all of that stuff. But you also need to work with each other. And I'm not gonna come up with the solutions here. You have to pray about it.

But you have to come up with. How do we CFC young people help each other. God wants you to bear fruit. And fruit is not about Jesus alone consuming all the fruit. He's created fruit for other people to consume it.

So if you are praying in your own personal life often and you're making your house your heart a house of prayer good for you you are way ahead of many other people good for you. I commend you on it. And if you wrote on the slip yesterday that you're doing good with God let me commend you for it.

It's a good thing if you've been good with God. I don't want to discount that. It's an incredibly important thing to be good with God. But the whole point of being good with God is also that I can bear fruit for other people.

So if I'm bearing fruit and nobody's eating the fruit except me and God there's a problem. I want to drive that in. God gave us gifts. God's given us the ability to bear fruit in our spiritual life so that the people God has put you with can also eat off it.

Mutual Encouragement and Bearing Fruit Together

This is my question to you how do you bear fruit so that other people can consume that. If you are a house of prayer yourself you've got another step to do. You need to help other people also become a house of prayer.

And if you're not a house of prayer it doesn't mean you can't do both right away for 2009 as you end 2008 maybe you have to make two decisions. One I'm gonna stop stealing from God by talking off into him.

The what is the opposite of stealing English majors. What is the opposite of stealing. I don't even know not stealing. I'll tell you what is the opposite the Christian opposite of stealing. What is the Christian opposite of stealing praying talking to him.

I don't know what the English opposite of stealing is but I know what the Christian opposite of dealing is a house of prayer. And each of us have our own hearts of prayer. But this is also important I in my own personal life my life started on a definite upward trajectory when a few of us men got together and said we are going to pray every week.

That's it. And we had a two-minute rule of you could not spend more than two minutes talking because we know how we love to share our burdens. And it's a complicated scenario. Well my grandfather did this and my uncles have been doing this and my brother is doing this.

Two minutes. What do you want me to pray for you. And we had a two-minute rule and I said don't tell me about your cat. Don't tell me about your grandfather's uncle who's having problems is 88 years old 98 years old and has probably lived a good life.

Is that really what you want me to pray for you about. What we want me to pray for you about. And a few of us men get got together. There may have been six of us and we committed to praying. So we spent two minutes each sharing.

And then we prayed for an hour. We prayed to God for who he was. We thanked him for he was. And we prayed for each other. That's all we did. No special Bible studies. No big words of God. No big sermons.

Nothing. We all have the internet. We all can listen to incredible sermons. You guys come to a beautiful church. You hear all the word of God you need to hear. You don't need to tell them the verses. They know the verses.

And these were people who had you know we're having. We're in relationships. They shouldn't have been in. They were talking to girls who are not Christians. These were very real struggles. There were addictions in there.

There were problems with people not finding jobs. There were people who had physical conditions they needed to be healed up. We had all kinds of things that we needed to pray for but God worked in my own heart and made me want him more as I prayed for my brother more.

There's an incredible gift you power that God can give you a lot of you asked for the Holy Spirit and it's a very complicated topic. It's a very it's probably something that I don't have. I'm not as equipped to speak about as the elders do but I'll tell you this I have found that the Holy Spirit gave me more grace as I sought to be of help to other people in my limited way and all I did was I was praying for them.

That's all I was doing for a long time way before I started speaking. I was started to I decided to let me pray with a group of people for each other and God gave me a burden for each of them and out of that garden gave me said God said I've got a gift of speaking through which you can also help them.

But it started by praying with them. So I want you to take some time of quiet and some time of personal alone time to prayerfully consider how you can encourage one another to be houses of prayers. You've got a CFC building that is a building that can be opened in the evenings if you want a place to meet.

You've got parks you've got houses you've got apartments and you've got community. You've got people. You've got all the resources you need in order to become houses of prayer for each other. We must all get out of the backsliding spirit that's within us.

I really believe I can only speak from my own experience that the really believe that those of us who have a desire for to get rid of it ourselves and to help other people around us get out of it can start here.

We want to be a group of young people who pray there. There's a young there's a conference a week from now. There are people spending a lot of money for people to come to be at this conference. I think somebody needs to be praying for them.

Some people are praying for them but are you one of them too. There are people in this room who if you've read heard what they wrote yesterday are doing really badly. Who's praying for them. You might be sitting right next to them right now but you may have had a great time talking over breakfast with them this morning but you don't really care to pray for them.

What are the things that young people the CFC young people need to do so that God can say. I live there. I live in that group of young people. Not only do they praise me but as soon as I have they praise me.

I go looking for the temple and I find a temple there where I'm not gonna get beat up and where I'm not gonna get everything stolen from me. Where people pray to me where people talk to me and you guys are all so creative.