A man with a need couldn't get to Jesus because religion filled the house

Great message from Andrew Shearman at MKCC - Is it time to rip the roof off?



"One day four friends had another friend who was paralysed and they wanted to see him get better. So, they carried him to where they heard a man called Jesus of Nazareth was. When they got there to the house, it was a nice house apparently, they couldn’t get in because there were too many people.

The bible says that the scribes and the Pharisees and all the religious people from Jerusalem in Judea and all the villages around about had come to see this Jesus Christ and they had filled the house till there was no room in the house.

Religion had filled the house and a man with a need couldn’t get to Jesus because religion had filled the house. So they said “we’re not putting up with this” so they climbed up on the roof and ripped the roof off. This is another one of those dvds or however God’s got this technically recorded in heaven that I want to see when I get there. I’ve got lots of things I want to see when I get to heaven.

The owner of the house was no doubt standing in the middle of the house it was probably his lifetimes investment, he’d probably spent many years saving and building it and now the dust is falling around his feet as men are on the roof wrecking his lifetimes investment. I’m here to tell you sometimes it’s worth wrecking a lifetimes investment to get to Jesus. Depends how much you want it.

Some of you might have to change the way you think. A lifetime of intellectual arrogance might need to be ditched in order to let his blessed pierced hand touch you. Not necessarily? It might be, and if necessary we should be prepared to rip our particular roof off. Can I have a little amen to that?!!"

What's the number one reason you are on the planet?

Snippet of a preach from Andrew Shearman at MKCC



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8 reasons NOT to be Anxious

Eight reasons not to be anxious. Originally posted by John Piper in his reading plan on Matthew 6:25-34.

1. Life is more than food and the body more than clothing (Matthew 6:25). 
2. God feeds the birds and you are more valuable than they are (Matthew 6:26). 
3. It's pointless. It adds not one hour to your life (Matthew 6:27). 
4. If God clothes ephemeral grass, he will clothe eternal you (Matthew 6:28-30). 
5. Unbelievers are anxious about stuff. And you are not an unbeliever (Matthew 6:32a). 
6. Your father knows that you need all these things you're anxious about (Matthew 6:32b). 
7. When you seek first God's kingdom and righteousness, what you need is added to you (Matthew 6:33). 
8. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Tomorrow's trouble stays there (Matthew 6:34).

"We should be slow to treat Jesus as if he doesn’t know what he is doing in our lives"

The Inheritance of Humility

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, God opposes the proud—but gives grace to the humble. - 1 Peter 5:5

Humility is a choice

"We have no humility by nature. There may be a softness of disposition, and a readiness to yield to others—but there is no true humility." - James Smith

However the choice is not simply to choose by our own force of will to enforce humility on our own puffed up ego. That for sure is to end in failure as eventually all our own acts of rightiousness.

To clothe ourselves in humility is to live in close fellowship with Jesus. By this we are transformed by the sanctifying and transforming work of the Holy Spirit, germinating and growing its fruit in our lives.

Humility puts God in your camp

Pride should be an oxymoron in a Christian's life. The very origin of the label Christian from "Christ like" about the believers in Antioch sets it in context of the greatest act of humility the universe has ever witnessed - The Incarnation.

So for those of us who have colided with our own inability to do anything about our eternal state, and discovered a a grace that we were nither look for or deserved, pride and arrogance should be an unwelcome stranger.

To invite the one, who has through the ultimate act of humility, exhalted us to heavens top table, to oppose us because of our pride is a special kind of insanity.

Humility brings an abundance of God's Grace.

The humble are God's special favorites. God will do anything for them, or give anything to them.

Grace to serve. Grace to endure trials. Grace to have comfort in poverty. Grace of deliverance from danger. Grace to sweeten our sickness. Grace to trust.

May I grow downward in humility before God. O to be like Jesus, rooted in humility. - James Smith