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Home Improvement 3 – Maintain your Home

                                         It is important to learn the art of maintenance.

Everything you own needs to be maintained. Your car, clothes, relationships, health, and of course, your home.
There are a lot of things in the home that require maintenance, yet we often forget. We adjust our air conditioner often, but forget to change the filter. We use the hot water in the shower, but we forget to flush the water heater yearly.

We forget what is right in front of us.

By consistent, disciplined maintenance we take responsibility for our life. Truly, there is not an area of your life where you can just stop working and rest on your past effort. You must keep going!
Don’t forget to maintain your life through worship, God’s Word, and prayer.
   

Welcome to Redemption Church! Who knew that you could do so much with a Tim Allen grunt. Make sure you are here next week to see if we could possibly come up with an even worse bumper video for this Home Improvement sermon series.
Over the past 2 weeks we have talked about Building & Fixing your home. Today we are going to talk about maintaining your home.
Maintain Your Home

It is important to learn the art of maintenance.
Everything you own needs to be maintained.
Your car needs gas, oil, even window wash fluid. Those tires need to be replaced as they age. Every car has a manual and included in that are the mileage at which you can expect the need to do maintenance on a particular part of your car.
Your clothes need to be washed, dried, folded or hung up. Every once in a while you may lose a button and need to sew it back on or send your nicer clothes to the dry cleaner.
Your house definitely needs maintenance. You need to take care of the yard. Cut the grass and shrubs so that they don’t over grow your house. You need to clean the floors and vacuum the carpet. Sometimes touch up paint is needed where someone banged or dinged a wall. The list of things to maintain can be overwhelming…
I did some searching on home maintenance and I have some bad news. Chances are that you do not maintain your home.

• Every year you are supposed to clean your chimney.
• Yearly you are supposed to flush your hot water heater and remove sediment to prolong its life and improve efficiency.
• Yearly you are supposed to check and clean your dryer vent exhaust. This is one of the major causes of home fires.
• Yearly you should clean out your gutters.

Anyone forget to do these things?

• Biannually it is suggested that you vacuum your refrigerator coils. It could save up to $100 a year on electricity bills.
• Bianually you are supposed to test the pressure relief valve of your water heater.

Twice a year you are supposed to do this stuff. Anyone forget?

• Quarterly you are supposed to test the garage door auto reverse feature. You set a 2×4 piece of wood on the ground in the spot the door lowers. You lower the door and when it hits the wood it should go back up.
• Quarterly you are supposed to check all your smoke & carbon dioxide detectors.

This maintenance could save a life. Surely you never forget to test these things every quarter…

• Monthly you are supposed to check your air filters and possibly replace them.
• Monthly you are supposed to clean your range hood filter. It’s that metal filter that helps suck the smoke out that your cooking puts out. It becomes covered in grease and they recommend using an auto parts degreaser and letting the filter sit in the degreaser.
• We all clean our kitchen sink disposal every month right? They suggest freezing Vinegar in an ice cube tray and then running them through the disposal.
• Of course you should monthly inspect your fire extenguishers..

Anyone need to go home and do some maintenance?
We forget what is right in front of us.

We do this don’t we? You can look at something daily but not think about maintaining that thing you see every day.
We are that way with people. This leads to many divorces. This leads to struggles between parents and children.
We are that way with “new things.” When you get something new… a new car, a new job, a new house, it is very much front and center in your awareness. But as the newness wears off our awareness goes away.
Over time we forget to do things like our maintenance list earlier. Some people actually forget to say words like “I love you” & “thank you.”
We are in danger right now. Here we are in this place again.

• Another Sunday afternoon service at Redemption Church.
• Another time singing songs about Jesus.
• Another time hearing the Word of God.
• Another time talking to God in this altar.

Are we forgetting what is right in front of us? Are we no longer aware?
It’s not just another Sunday…
Psalm 118:24 (NIV2011) The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.
It’s not just another song…
Psalm 95:1 (NIV2011) Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Psalm 95:2 (NIV2011) Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
Psalm 95:3 (NIV2011) For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
Psalm 95:4 (NIV2011) In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
Psalm 95:5 (NIV2011) The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Psalm 95:6 (NIV2011) Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
Psalm 95:7 (NIV2011) for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice,
It’s not just another sermon…
Matthew 4:4 (NIV2011) Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Hebrews 4:12 (NIV2011) For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Amos 8:11 (NIV2011) “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
Amos 8:12 (NIV2011) People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
It’s not just another time talking to God…
1 John 5:14 (NIV2011) This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV2011) if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
We forget what is right in front of us.

• We forget.
• We become unaware.
• We don’t honor what we have like we should.
• We take for granted the wonderful things that are right in front of us.

We need to do some Home Maintenance today.
James 1:23 (NIV2011) Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror
James 1:24 (NIV2011) and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
James 1:25 (NIV2011) But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
It says you have to go further than hearing the word, you must ACTIVELY DO WHAT IT SAYS! You must maintain..
It says to look INTENTLY INTO the Word and CONTINUE IN IT! You must maintain..
What you don’t maintain, you forget.
 
Man was created to maintain

Genesis 2:15 (NIV2011) The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
God placed man in the garden to tend the garden and watch over it! Maintenance is God’s design for us.

• If you are healthy, but you stop eating healthy, stop working out, and start laying around watching Netflix all day… what will happen? You will become fat and unhealthy. Your body was made for maintenance.
• If you are knowledgeable in a subject, but then you stop studying the subject or using that knowledge… what will happen? You will start to lose that knowledge. Your mind was made for maintenance.
• If you are spiritually alive in Christ, but then you stop worshiping, reading God’s Word, or praying… what will happen? You will lose Spiritual ground. You can slide completely away from a relationship with Jesus. This is because your Soul was made for maintenance.

There is not an area of your life where you can just stop working and rest on your past effort. You must keep going!
Scripture urges you to persevere. That means YOU DON’T QUIT!
Scripture encourages you to keep the faith! To earnestly contend for the faith! This means you must fight for it!
Scripture encourages you to be aware and watchful. Don’t just stumble through life, forgetting you are in a war against a spiritual enemy.

• Scripture encourages you to pray constantly.
• Scripture commands us to spread the Gospel.
• Scripture tells us to stir up the gift inside of us.

Keep pressing. Keep praying. Keep praising. DO NOT STOP!
 
An unmaintained tool

I once let my grass grow too tall. The city sent me a warning that if I did not mow my lawn I would receive a fine. So in a panic I went to my garage and pulled out the lawn mower I had not used since the previous season.
I reached down and grabbed the pull that starts the lawn mower engine. I yanked it and it made the “grrrrrr” sound. I reached down again and tried again.. “grrrrrr.” I tried again even pulling stronger.. “grrrrrr.”
I needed to do a job. I had the tool I needed right in front of me. But I could not complete the job because the lawn mower would not start.
Why wouldn’t it start? The previous season, instead of doing a few minutes of maintenance, I just shoved it into the garage. The gas just sat in the lawnmower and went bad… and now it wouldn’t start.
Maintenance works in the now… so that you can work in the future.
I had to take that lawnmower and drain the gas and then take apart the carburetor and clean it and then attempt to put it all back together. It would have been so much easier if I had taken a few moments to maintain.
I wished that I had taken some time to maintain.
Have you ever reached for a tool that had not been maintained and it wouldn’t work?
I know that God sometimes feels that way when He reaches for us.
God sometimes has reached for me, in hopes to use me, but I was not in working shape. Like that carburetor, I needed my heart to be taken apart and cleaned out.
Could it be that God has reached for you and you were an unmaintained tool?
Could it be that God is reaching for Redemption Church and we are not ready to be used?
We do these 3 things every time we come together. Everyone worships, everyone receives the Word of God, and everyone talks to God. We don’t do this because some hotshot pastor recommends it for church growth. We do it because it can maintain your heart, mind, and soul for God’s use.
Do you want God to use you today? Come do some maintenance work in this altar.
Marriages are maintained in this altar.
Health can be maintained.
I would have lost my mind if it weren’t for an altar.
Come to this altar today.