Holy Home, Part 5

Calvary Temple

Holy Home, Part 5

September 6, 2017 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Chapter 5 of Ephesians. We left off in our last session dealing with the responsibility of the husbands to make sure that they were fulfilling the call of God on their lives, fulfilling the mandate of them to wash their wives with the water of the Word of God. We saw what that entailed. In our last session we dealt with the fact that it was men's responsibility for making sure that our wives don't lose their first love; amen? We'll go into it in detail, but then we talked about the fact that our responsibility, men, is to help our wives achieve that role of the Proverbs 31 virtuous woman. We were talking about this just the other day. Of course, the way you don't do that is by on a daily basis sitting down with your wife and pulling out each chapter and saying, "And you're not doing this and you're not doing that." That is surely not the way that we deal with that issue. In this chapter that we're looking at in Ephesians 5, we see that the thing that is behind all of this ministry of care is the love of God. We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church; amen? So in every way that we deal with our wives it's to be done in First Corinthians 13 love. We'll be talking about that a little bit later, but we should say it at this point. In every way we approach our wives, it's to be done in love, it's to be done with kindness, it's to be done with gentleness; amen? It's to be done not promoting or vaunting ourselves or our will or our way, because, man, we're not looking to accomplish our will, we're looking to accomplish God's will. Aren't we? So when we understand that, we see and we receive that ministry from the Lord. As we've been loved we then are responsible to love.

Ephesians goes on and speaks to us, saying in verse 25, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it." Now this giving of ourselves is a very interesting aspect. We've been talking about that and man has an innate selfishness and love of himself. Very clearly we see that's why Adam sinned. Ultimately, it was a love of self. He didn't want to lose his helpmeet that he had just been given. He had been in a place of fellowshipping with God but somehow that wasn't sufficient...

Holy Home, Part 1

August 9, 2017 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Well, the Scripture says it's not good for man to be alone; amen? And that doesn't have an age limit on it. Praise God. Neither does living in order and following the same rules. I remember when I got engaged not too far back, my chaperones would get worn out into the evening as we were chaperoned on all of our time together. And the fact that you might be "mature" does not make you not flesh. So we realize that there's a safety and a way to walk out these betrothals and everything done to the glory of God; amen? We're excited about that. We're going to be switching gears and actually moving into a study called the "Holy Home." We're going to take a little while and go back and look at the divine order in the home so that we can be prepared for the coming of the Lord, because a holy church is made up of holy homes. The church can't be holy if the home isn't holy. We realize that the tactics of the enemy are to come and bring schism and division, and the way that's done is for there to be strife and conflict and disorder in our homes. And to think, then, that we can have disorder in the home and come together in one accord, doesn't work. So it's very important that we see that it goes way beyond our own personal gain and good to have things in order. It is for the glory of God. It is for the edification and purification of the kingdom of God; amen? And so it's beyond us. We don't live for ourselves. We live for God's glory and for God's honor. As we talk a little bit tonight about the husbands and their role in the home, their responsibility to love their wives as Jesus loved the church and the willingness, readiness, delight, to die to ourselves and to lay our lives down on behalf of our spouses, on behalf of our wives, is so important. For you, as the head of the house, men, to set this house in order is God's number one will for your life. If you're praying about, you know, what God's will is and "Is it God's will if I take this job?" and "Is it God's will for us to buy this home?" and all of those other things, they all shrink in comparison to the fact that it is God's will for you to bring divine order to your homes and for you to properly oversee and be the head that Christ ordained you to be from before the foundations of the world. How vital that is...

Holy Home, Part 2

August 13, 2017 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Let's turn to Ephesians this morning. We'll continue on with our study on the holy home. It's quite a feat that we have ahead of us to have holy homes in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We're living in a world that, the Scripture tells us, is reeling like a drunk man under the effects of sin. People talk about the climate and things, which is just symptomatic of the fact that everything is winding down. The reality is that Jesus' coming is sooner than when we first believed; amen? Our doctrine says that we believe in the imminent return of the Lord. Are our lives emulating that? We've asked the question before. We'll even give ourselves a little more time. If you knew you had 72 hours and then Jesus was coming back, what in your life, priority-wise, would change? How would you conduct your life? How would you prioritize your day? If we're not living that way, then we don't believe it, because it's by our fruit that we're known. We can have great intentions, we can have great doctrine, but we are what we do. We are, the Scripture says, the servants to whom we yield our members, whether of the system of the world, the pursuits of the world, or whatever it might be. So we've been spending quite a bit of time trying to define what worldliness is and contrasting the kingdom of darkness with the kingdom of light. The Lord has been putting His finger on some very sensitive areas in many of our lives. Now, as we transition this over into the home, we're going to see the same thing. That many of our homes have begun to function contrary to what we say we believe. At best we're Pharisees and at worst hypocrites, if we're not doers of the Word. Tragically, if we're hearers of the Word and not doers of the Word then we have done what? We've deceived ourselves. What a great, great danger that is...

Holy Home, Part 3

August 16, 2017 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Hallelujah! Father, we do come tonight and we just rest in Your great love for us, hallelujah! We thank You, Lord, for all Your goodness and all Your tender mercies toward us, Father. We thank You that You do have a great plan for our lives and it's to be conformed to Your image, hallelujah! You are going to cause us, Lord, to finish this course, and we praise You for that. We've come, Lord, and given ourselves over to You that You might be glorified in our life, and in the midst of these, Your people. So, our heart tonight, Father, is to hear what You're saying to Your church. Our heart tonight, Lord, is to be full of Your Spirit so that we can lift up Your name in praise and worship and thanksgiving, and declare the majesty of our God. Lord, our desire is to see You tonight, Lord, and to have a visitation of Your Spirit. Father, we need to clearly hear what the Spirit is saying to the church, that we might say, "amen" and be about Your business. For that, Father, we will give You all the praise and all the glory in Jesus' name; amen. Amen. Just as we were singing that last chorus, of course, I've shared it several times, but how quickly you can just go back 50 years and a young man had just barely turned 20. I still remember so clearly, standing in a service, a CA (Christ's Ambassadors) convention, at a sectional CA meeting and singing that chorus and making that pledge. Little did I know what God had before me that day as a 20-year-old. I had no idea the world was as big as it was and the kingdom so much greater. How vast the kingdom of God is, and how much needed to be done in this life that had just been committed to Him! But the declaration was made regardless of what life brought; amen? You make a vow to God and you keep it. That's how it works. Over all the years, at times just going back and remembering that. There've been times when it's been a tough journey. There have been times when others didn't go on. There've been times when we tried to be seduced. There've been times when we tried to be bought off. There've been times when we just got tired and wanted to quit. No turning back; amen?...