Love God. Love His Church. | Heart For The House Sunday | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

First Chronicles chapter 29. And let's look at verse one. Furthermore, King David said to all the assembly, my son Solomon, whom alone God has chosen. He is young and inexperienced, and the work is great because the temple is not for man, but for the Lord God. That's a good truth right there. Now for the house of my God, I have prepared with all my might and he lists all the gold and the silver and the bronze and the iron and the wood and all the different types of stones and the marble and verse three moreover, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, I have given to the house of my God. So good because I have set my affection on the house of my God. I have given to the house of that's a good place to say amen. Over and above all that I prepared for the holy house, my own special treasure and gold. Now David begins to listen, list specifically what he did, letting people know he was not asking them to do something he was not willing to do. And he gave great detail into what he did. And then the end of verse five, he says, who then is willing to consecrate himself this day to the Lord? In other words, he said, I'm doing this now. What are you going to do? In other words, a leader doesn't ask people to do something they are unwilling to do. A leader understands that they go first. They go first in spirit. They go first. Indeed, they go first in sacrifice. And it's not always that you have to do everything somebody else does, but you have to be willing to do it. And so I want to talk to you based upon this, this scripture on loving God's church, the way he does. Years ago, I was reading a book by CS Lewis and in there kind of as a point of satire, he wrote about Satan's beatitudes. I took those beatitudes and different versions of it. And I put it into grok this week and I said, give me a new version of Satan's beatitudes. And so this is going to get rough. So relax. Are you ready? So this is what, you know, Jesus on the, the, the sermon on the Mount, he preaches the beatitudes, the attitudes that ought to be. So if Satan were to write his beatitudes, they would probably sound something like this. Blessed are those who are too tired and too busy to go to church on Sundays for they are my best workers. Blessed are those who never read their Bible to doom scroll for every morning for they keep my algorithms fat and their souls starving. Blessed are those who ghost the church over hurt feelings for I literally, literally run a support group called I'm deconstructing AKA. I got offended and now it's a personality. Blessed are the complainers who have a 47 point manifesto about what the church is doing wrong.

Your divisive spin is music to my ears. Blessed are the ones who say I'm spiritual, but not religious for they have the fragrance of heaven with none of the obedience. And I love a good knockoff. Blessed are those who comment. This is so divisive on every sermon clip that mentions sin for they police the truth right back into silence. Get ready. This one's tough. Blessed are the nine non-tithers who give to everything but the local church for they fund my influencers while starving my bride. Keep singing my anthem. The church is all about money. Don't worry. I'm going to get myself in just a minute. Blessed are the easily offended who leave churches over music style, politics, and the color of the new carpet for every exit sign is a door I hold open. Blessed are the gossip prayer chains. Please pray for brother George or sister Karen. She's struggling with this or with that for I taught them to wrap slander in concern and call it intercession. Blessed are the parents who let fortnight raise their sons and tick-tock catechize their daughters because nothing says Jesus is Lord like 400 hours of screen time discipleship from yours truly. Blessed are those who do the minimum for stagnation is the sweetest to sing over a dying church. Blessed are the pastors who care more about being like than being faithful for a wolf in Lululemon is still a wolf. See that? The last service did the same thing. Nothing else you laughed about, and now you laugh about when we pick on what I do. So the next ones, I'm gonna preach really hard. I'm gonna come at you like it's not satire. I was just playing with you. Now I'm gonna come for you. I'm done with this. Blessed are the perpetually offended, now I'm speaking to myself, I guess, who church hop every 18 months because it's not all about you. Congrats, you've invented a Christianity where you're the only commandment. And I added, you can sing the song they wrote for you.

How great thou art, how great thou art. That's mine. Blessed are the ones who scream don't judge the second someone quotes a verse that inconveniences their lifestyle. For selective grace is the hill I will gladly die on again. And an extra special blessing are you who read or hear this whole thing and think, wow, this is savage. Good thing it's not about me. Pride just high-fived me so hard, my pitchforks tingling. Delivered from the Department of Eternal Trending Topics, certified organic, gluten-free, and approved by every influencer who's ever said my truth. Signed, yours eternally, Lucifer. Wow. I said that to be, honestly, just to be cute and light, but I can say two things about that list that hit me immediately. One, I can say I pastored every one of those types of people. And two, I can say a church is only as strong as the people who love it. A church is only as strong as the people who love it. But not only love it, but love the church the way God loves the church. You see, when you get to an understanding of how God loves the church, he loves it sacrificially. He loves it in a way that it's not just talk, it's not word. He's given himself for his church. And there's a blessing that comes on people

that love his church and love it for the right reason. And so I want to, based on the story of David that we read, give three ways to love God's church the way he does. Number one, do it with no strings attached. The background of the story that we just read is fascinating because David had a desire to build God's house. And this was an honorable desire. This is a noble desire. It's a very legitimate thing that he wanted to do. But in God's sovereign purpose, he told David, David, I'm not going to let you build me a house. I know you want to do it. I'm going to let you be a part of it. But I'm not going to actually let you live to see the finish of it. In other words, what God wanted to do in David was so big, it could not be accomplished in his lifetime. It had to be accomplished through his lifeline. And when you think about your life, do you only see as far as what benefits you? Your life, your short time on the earth. And it's one of the things that I believe plagues churches. We're so short-sighted. We get so caught up with the immediate, the now, the urgent, that we forget everything we do should be so big that it can never be accomplished in our lifetime, but it can be accomplished in our lifeline. What we do today, believe it or not, benefits generations yet unborn.

The Bible says when Abraham gave to God and tithed, it's because the unborn generation was still in his loins. But the Bible actually says God blessed that generation that wasn't even born yet because of Abraham's obedience. There's something about thinking beyond your life, thinking what about the next generation? And so God said to David, I'm not going to let you do it, but your son Solomon is going to be the man to build me a house. Now, David could have said, I'm the king of Israel. Have you looked at what I've done? Have you looked at what I've accomplished? He could have gotten mad. He could have pouted and he could have walked away from it and said, I won't have anything to do with that. David could have said, there's nothing in this for me. If you think of it, about it. David was going to build a house of worship. He would never attend. He was going to build a house of worship. He would never live to see. And he could have said, what's in this for me? How does this directly benefit me? What does this directly have to do with me? And if he would have thought that way, he would have never given a dime to see God's house built. But David's heart was, I want to invest in the work of God any way that I can, no strings attached. I'm willing to enter into this covenant with God and build him a worship center or give to it or sacrifice for it, even though I will never enter it. Why? Because his goal was not what would benefit him necessarily. But he wanted God to be glorified. He wanted the kingdom of God to be advanced. He wanted the word of God to be preached. And at some point you've got to simply say, my goal is, is what I'm doing going to glorify God is what I'm building, going to honor him is what I'm doing, going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ is what I'm doing, going to equal people coming into the kingdom. And if so, I want to be

a part of it. No strings attached. Notice what he said in verse one, the temple is not for man, but for the Lord God, I want to remind seven Hills today that whatever we do, whatever we build, wherever we go, whether it's Nicaragua or lingua fi reaching people of different nationalities and languages, because they're here in our community and city, which means we have an assignment and an obligation to God to reach them, whether it's in a prison, Indochina, God knows wherever else, I can't even remember all the places online, Cincinnati, Dry Ridge, Highland Heights, here in whatever we're building. Listen to me. We got to make the decision that we're doing it not for man. We're doing it for the Lord, our God, and even more so that test is proven when it's not going to directly benefit you. You say Marcus, we've got all these projects. We've got all these things to do. We've got Cincinnati, we've got dry Ridge, what are we doing over in Nicaragua? What are we doing in the Congo? What are we doing over there? That's exactly the point. I know we do not have what we need as far as my natural ability to assess our situation, to do what God has called us to do. So my job is to say, I want to dream and be generous to someone else that has a need. So God can see I'll make their dream happen. So God will look down and do a miracle and make our dream happen. And I learned a long time ago, you don't pull back when you're trying to move forward. You don't get tight wad it infested when, when you want to see God do something, you just simply open up your life and you say, God, speak to me. I'll do what you want me to do. I'm not going to think about the numbers. I'm not going to commit a sin of taking some senses somewhere. I'm going to be responsible. I'm going to be practical. I'm going to be accountable, but I'm not going to lose my faith. I'm not going to lose my faith. What we do is for his glory and his kingdom. If you look at the details of what David gave, and I'm not going to go into all the details as far as the specifics of the stones and this and that and the wood and all that stuff. But in modern day terms, David personally gave $8 billion to build Solomon's temple. The total given to build Solomon's temple was $297 billion. Impressive, huh? But way more impressive than what he gave is why he gave verse three tells us David gave to God's house because he loved God. He wanted to love that, which God loved the way God loved it. He wasn't going to say, I love God. And I don't love his church. How can I love him? Let me just say it like this. Have you ever noticed when you love a person, you sort of have an affinity for the people that they care about? Are you here? Y'all better get involved today. You got to make up for all the people that are gone. At some point you have to say, God, what is it that you care about? Do you love God's church today? Not do you love a special ministry? Not do you love a certain outreach? Not, not,

is it attached to some pet project that you like? David said, I love God. And so I loved his house and I gave financially no strings attached. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. Do you love his church? How do we know Jesus loves his church? How do we know it? Ephesians 5 25, Christ loved the church and he gave himself for her. You see, God not only sees what we give, he sees why we give and why you give. You do not give to a man. You do not give to an organization. You do not give in the I'm not responsible beyond that point. God is the one who holds things accountable. God is the one who does. My job is to say no strings attached. I may not agree with everything that goes on, but that's the wrong reason to give. I may not like everything that goes on and sometimes things may not go my way, but that's the wrong reason to give. David said, I don't, I wanted to do it this way. I had the blueprints. I had the plans. I gave the resources and I wanted it to go this way, but God said, no, I'm going to make it go that way. And David said, I'm still going to do it because I love God and I love his house. I'm doing it. No strings attached. That's good. Discipleship, by the way, you need that. We all need that. We need to know not just what we do, but why, why? Because the devil will come and take something from you. He'll take the joy from you. If you don't have your why, if you keep it in the natural giving is not natural. You got to get that in your spirit. I'm not telling you what to give. And I've never told you what to give. I've told you to go get with God and get in his word and see what it says. But at the end of the day, you got to know why I want to love him. I want to honor him. I want to please him. I want, I want to, I want to be grateful for what he's done in my life. And I'm not going to hold back on a God. Who's done all that he's done for me. Remember when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Jesus asked Paul, a very interesting question in acts nine in verse four, Saul, Saul, why persecute is thou me? Paul was persecuting the church, not Jesus, but Jesus didn't say, why are you persecuting the church? Jesus said, why are you persecuting me? What is Jesus saying? Anything you do to hurt the church hurts him. When you neglect loving the church, it's personal to him. It's not personal. Cause I said, it was, it's personal because Jesus said, Paul, you're hurting people. You're hurting my cause. You, you, you got your own little thing that you're doing, but, but it's hurting my heart. And I want you to know that a four-year-old boy told his

mother one time, mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to buy you so many cool things. I'm gonna buy you diamond rings. I'm going to buy you a fur coat. I'm going to buy you a Mercedes mom and mom says, Oh, that's so sweet, honey. Well, the next day he's acting up. And the mom had to get onto him, said, you got to quit acting like that, or you're going to get grounded. And that little boy lifted his finger at his mom and said, there goes your fur coat. And that's the way some people are in church. But David said, I gave for one reason and one reason only because I have set my affection to the house of my God. So I have given to thee, no matter what you do, every sacrifice you're giving you're tithing, you're serving. The small groups, the outreaches, even attending on a Sunday morning, do it because you love Jesus, no strings attached. Number two, you can give God a good praise if you'd like, that's fine. Do not neglect the bride. There is a statement from Nehemiah 10 39, it says, we will not forsake the house of our God. The word forsake means to neglect, to let go of or to let loose. It's a word that describes how someone after 25 years or more of faithful marriage leaves their spouse for someone younger. Get the image, Nehemiah said, don't do that to the bride. Don't act like you can just trade it in because she's 40 for two 20s. You can easily have that same spirit towards the church. I got so much imagery going on in my head right now that I wanna give, but it's almost inappropriate in my heart, but people get so seduced to such shallow things that they give up

that which matters most. Do not neglect the bride. How do you know you're neglecting it? Well, when you're absent, you don't miss it. I can't tell you the amount of texts and emails I got even just yesterday and last night, people saying, I'm sorry, we can't be there. Now, I don't normally get those, but what I'm saying is not do you miss, not are you absent, that's normal. None of us are gonna make it 100% of the time. I don't make it 100% of the time. The question is in your absence, do you miss it? Does the absence make your heart grow fonder? Catch the imagery, do not forget. Do not forsake the bride. Catch the imagery, if you're away, you should miss it. David said, my soul yearned, my soul longed, even fainted for the courts of my God. Do you see what he's saying? He's saying, I might be away from it for a little bit, but when I'm away from it, I can't wait to get back to it. I remember COVID, and I remember the first time we had a church service, there's probably less people than in here right now. I did not care, I was flooded with emotion. I couldn't believe how much I missed it. I couldn't believe what wasn't in my life by not having God's house since I was 16 years old. It's not that I never missed it,

but I wasn't far away from running back to it and longing after the courts of my God. And COVID taught me how important it is that we're present, that we're here, and if you're not here, you're not just drifting away with a hard heart, you're still, your heart is there, your spirit is there, your faith is there, your prayers are there, you're celebrating the wins, you're cheering it on. I might have a work thing here or a weather thing there, or I might have this game here for this reason, but my heart misses it when I'm gone. Young boy was absent from school one day, the next day he came back and the teacher said, so tell me, Sam, did you miss school yesterday? He said, no, ma'am, not a bit, not a bit, I didn't miss it. I can relate to Sam. If I missed school, I didn't miss it. My absence in no way said I missed it at all. But God's house, don't neglect it. Another way we can neglect it is just, you don't contribute much but your presence. You don't give, you don't put any effort, you don't serve, you don't witness, you don't invite people to church, you don't even worship, you come. And I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying, I'm not being hard on nobody. I'm just simply saying I'm glad you're here, I'm honored you're here, I'm thankful that you're here, but it's possible to be present,

to show up and still neglect God's church. And at some point, you've got to look at your life and you've got to hear sermons like this, and you've got to hear messages like this, and you got to let them kind of spur something in you to say, what did my life look like? What are my good works looking like? And my good works are supposed to spur on yours, and yours are supposed to spur on mine. That's why Hebrews says, let us not forsake the gathering of the saints, which is the habit of many. It says, but instead, as the day approaches, talking about the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are to encourage one another. Your presence encourages people. Your serving encourages people. Your giving encourages people. And it's more important now than ever before as we see the day approaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, splitting that eastern sky and coming to take back his bride. And some just don't care at all. The thousands of salvations, they don't care. They don't say they don't care, but by their attitude. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the baptisms, over 1,100 baptisms this year, but they don't care. They don't care if we build something in Cincinnati

or Dry Ridge or wherever, Nicaragua, it doesn't warm their heart. It just doesn't make any difference to them. And I'm just here to encourage you, that is a sign of neglect. It's a sign that something's off. It's a sign that something is growing cold. And it's not something you should take lightly. You should be asking God to send such an anointing that it would break that yoke of bondage off of your life, break that spirit of indifference off of your life. You should be saying, God, don't let me live my life not caring about what you care about. I do not want to neglect. I do not wanna be the guy that after years and years and years of faithfulness that you've given to me, that I just simply throw all you're doing to the side like it doesn't mean anything. Our church is like every other church. It's full of willing people. Some people willing to do the work, the rest willing to let them. Many times when things go undone in God's church, it's because people simply don't care. I read a story about four people named everybody, somebody, anybody, and nobody. There was an important job to be done and everybody was sure that somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that

because it was everybody's job. Everybody thought anybody could do it, but nobody realized that everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up being that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did and anybody could have done. Are you part of the everybody that's waiting on somebody or to do what anybody can do, but nobody's doing it? Or are you somebody who is doing what everybody thought anybody could do, but nobody would have done it if you weren't doing it? Do not neglect the bride. Number three, appreciate the bride's imperfection. The church is beyond imperfect. You do not have to have the discernment of a ladybug. I made it up just trying to search and find something, but a ladybug flew and hit me in the face last night and woke me up so I didn't sleep. So that's why I'm a little extra feisty today. You don't have to have the discernment of a ladybug to see the flaws. You say, but he's coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkles. True, has he come back yet? No, his second return is still being held at bay. So I can be sure of a couple things. Number one, I can be sure God's got an iron and he's heating it up and he's gonna deal with every wrinkle and he's gonna deal with every spot, but between the wrinkles, he's gonna deal with every spot. Between us getting taken to the dry cleaners

and getting get back without spot or wrinkle, our job is to say, I'm gonna love the bride even with her imperfections. Preacher visited a farmer and said, I think someday maybe you should come with me to my church. And the farmer said, I'm never coming to your church preacher. He said, well, why not? And the farmer said, because I know the members of your church and how they live and I live better than they do. So what good is it gonna do for me to go to your church? Well, sometime later, the preacher wanted to buy a pig from the farmer. So he said, I want you to sell me the smallest, ugliest, sickliest pig you've got. The farmer amazed, gave him exactly what he asked for. After he paid for it, he said to the farmer, I'm gonna take this sick, small, ugly pig to everybody in the community and tell them that I bought it from you. And the farmer said, now preacher, that's not fair. I've got a lot of hogs that are nicer and bigger and fatter than that hog. And the preacher said, buddy, if it's fair for the church,

it's fair for the hogs. You gotta love God's house, even with her imperfections. You have no idea what somebody's gone through. You have no idea what they're trying to get over. You have no idea the things that, just to even be here at times, they've had to just overcome. Love her with all of her imperfections. Love God, love his house. The church deserves your consistent, constant, continuous, loving support in Jesus' name. Somebody say amen. Amen. I was thinking about today and sometimes I just can't get certain people out of my mind. And I'm not looking back to the past, I'm looking forward to the future. But something gets a hold of me at times when I think about the great people that have got us to where we are. And just a couple of weeks ago, a wonderful man in this church, Fred Rombold, I hate that we don't talk about what great people do here until they die. I hate that. I think it's a mistake, but that's just a human issue, is it not? And he was just a faithful man.

I actually preached his funeral and I talked about when a warrior goes home, because he was a warrior. Just an awesome, faithful man. And on his deathbed just a couple of days before he passed, he was talking to the team and he grabbed a hold of their arm. Because they were saying, what can we do for you, Fred? What can we do for you? You've done so much for us over the years. And he grabbed their arm and said, you just keep building the church. On his deathbed, had one thing on his mind. He loved God. He's on his way to heaven, that's set. But he had set his affection towards God's house. And I just wanna say, it's men like that and like many of you that got us here. And what got us here will get us there. We gotta love God and we gotta love his church. And there's nothing wrong with loving the church in the right way, amen? I thought about just a couple stories and didn't really plan to tell them, but just two stories I heard this week. That's how many amazing things, just two quick stories. One of them is kind of unfolded over the last year, but I heard the final result of this beautiful story this week.

And it began tragically in two different families. One family had experienced the tragedy of a man taking his life, the husband taking his life and leaving the boys and the wife to deal with all of that. And this church surrounded that woman and those boys. They loved her, checked in on her, made sure she was in the right small groups, all those things. I mean, it just was a beautiful thing to see the church be so present. Because you never know what somebody's gonna do when they experience that kind of tragedy and trauma and loss. I hadn't heard much. I had asked from time to time and I did know that she was in church and stuff like that, but I hadn't heard much about her. So put that over here. This week, this summer at youth conference, there's so many different things that we deal with. And one of the things that came up was a young girl that had confessed to one of her small group leaders that she was experiencing some great abuse at home. And because we have to go to the authorities, when we hear something like that, we immediately did. And the dad and the mom caught wind of what had happened, and they fled. And so this girl would have been thrown into some type of juvenile home. But another family in our church,

not involved in the youth ministry, just a family in our church, heard about it, a retired couple, and they took that young girl and not just took her in, not just gave her a bedroom, but bought her clothes, just started to make her feel loved and safe. Isn't that beautiful? They don't know this girl. They don't know anything about her. And so you got the tragic story of this family losing their dad and their husband. You have the tragedy of this girl over here, going through abuse, going through the pain of abandonment and being alone. And the woman who lost her husband a little over a year ago hears about the story and decides to bring that young girl full-time into her home for foster care. A brokenhearted woman grabs a hold of a brokenhearted girl. You do that. You make those kinds of stories possible. When you reach young people, it shouldn't be, I don't care. It should be, we know there's need. We know they're hurting. We know the devil's after them. We know they're lost, but we're doing it for the glory of God. And we're preaching to a generation that needs it. And you should hold that dear. And you should hold it dear that there are tragedies

and traumas all over this place that we're having to go and provide healing to the wounded. And maybe that's you right now, or maybe it's not, but you should care that it's happening because it's His church. Thought about another story that we heard this week of a girl had become pregnant in college. And she heard about Hills Women's Health. Somehow she found her way to the bus and the ultrasound. And she was thinking about not keeping the child, but through the support of all the women and the love of all the people there, the things that they provide, the ways we help women after they choose life and the ways we help women when they don't. Love them, provide them with small groups and do everything we can to love them, even when they make what we would consider to be a great mistake. She finds her way to those people. In order to keep the baby, this means that she has to watch her boyfriend of five years walk out of her life. Devastated, heartbroken, that same group of women bring her into the small group called Embrace Grace. She eventually finds her way into a church service. She eventually gives her life to Jesus Christ, turns her life around. And last week she was baptized, pregnant, the old life going under and the new life coming up

and not just her life being changed, but the next generation's life being preserved and saved. Come on. Oh, you're a dead church today. I said that girl is keeping the child and it'll be raised in the house of God because you loved His house. You loved it, you didn't neglect it. You gave your best to it. And I honor you for that in a world that doesn't even think it matters. Her mom, you can stay standing, I'm done, I promise. Her mom doesn't speak English, but heard about Linguify. And because she knows she can come and hear a service in her language, her mom who lives in Columbus is coming to our services. You gotta love His house, you gotta love it. I wonder what stories we've not heard, but we're gonna hear. Come on, like David, we give, we've set our affection on thee, and so we give to thee.