The church is all about the decorations and the building.
Let me tell you something.
In the New Testament, the emphasis is not on the building.
It's not on the windows.
It's not on the stained glass.
It's not on the artwork.
It's not on the facilities.
The emphasis is on the preaching and the Spirit and the work and God's people, not
a building.
But we have churches today where what do they emphasize?
The building program, the building fund, that's what it's all about.
And they measure their success in buildings.
Bigger building equals success.
Cheap building, you haven't arrived.
Keep on trying.
Whereas I would measure the way God measures it, I know thy works.
He didn't say, I know thy building.
I know thy facilities.
I know thy building.
I know thy campus.
Right?
Okay.
Here's another thing.
You go to a lot of churches, what's it all about?
The Christian school.
Is that what the New Testament emphasizes?
Not even one mention.
But if we look at the budgets today of churches, if we actually looked at their bank statement,
where the money's going, huge amounts of money are going to the Christian school.
And people wonder, how do you afford giving away CDs, giving away DVDs?
How do you afford to do these soul winning marathons and take all these trips to Indian
reservations and buy hotels and buy meals and have a hundred people out soul winning
and furnish them and equip them and feed them and lodge them and do a great work for God
on the mission field in Arizona or in the uttermost parts of the earth.
Where does the money come from?
Are you being funded by Hamas?
Are you being funded by...
Where's the money coming from?
And you know where the money's coming from?
The same place the other church's money's coming from.
Except we didn't spend it on a window.
We didn't spend it on a building.
We didn't spend it on bale shaft up on top of our building.
We didn't spend it on a Christian school.
We spent it on soul winning.
We just have a different priority of spending our money.
It's that simple.
We didn't dump a bunch of money into this black hole called a Christian school.
We didn't dump a bunch of money into a black hole called building a building from scratch.
We didn't dump a bunch of money into artwork so that our church could look like an art
gallery or a palace.
No.
We have a building that's functional.
And it's all about the work.
It's all about getting the job done.
Why?
Because we want to emphasize what God emphasizes.
And God says, ye are God's building.
He doesn't say, get building.
A pastor told me his favorite book was Nehemiah and I found that disturbing.
And look, I love the word of God.
I love the whole Bible.
I love all of God's word.
Obviously I would never be down on a portion of God's word, but I found it disturbing that
this pastor said, oh, my favorite book of the Bible is Nehemiah.
Because I just love building and our church is in this multimillion dollar building program
and we were in a building program before and we're going to be in another building program.
You know what?
Why don't you pick a favorite book that talks about Jesus?
It's sad today when it's just all about the building, the building, the building.
And Nehemiah is my favorite book.
You know, my favorite books are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I'm not criticizing you, whatever your favorite book is.
If your favorite book is Genesis, great, great, find Jesus in Genesis.
He's there.
Hey, if your favorite book is Revelation, great, it's all about Christ.
But it's pretty sad today when somebody's favorite book is Nehemiah because they just
love pulling another building permit and putting up another thermometer and let's build, build,
build.
No, I want to build the kingdom of God.
I don't want to build a kingdom on this earth.
Look, I'm not trying to build a wall around Jerusalem.
I'm not, I mean, okay, I like that part in Nehemiah too where he's chasing people and
ripping their hair out.
That's a good, I do like that part.
Look, I like the part where he rips the hair off their head.
I like it where he's chasing them.
I like it where he says, hey, come back one more time and I'll lay hands on you.
I like that too.
But you know what?
I'm not going to emphasize that.
You know why?
Because God didn't call me to rip the hair off anybody's head.
God didn't call me to lay hands on anybody except to ordain them for the gospel ministry.
Amen.
God didn't call me to curse people for speaking the wrong language or for lodging outside
the wall of Jerusalem.
You know what?
I'm not going to emphasize that because you know what?
We ought to emphasize what God emphasizes.
And it's not a physical battle.
It's not a physical wall.
You know what it is?
It's a spiritual battle and it's Jesus.
Let's emphasize Jesus.
Let's emphasize the gospel.
Let's emphasize soul winning.
Let's emphasize his second coming.
Why don't we emphasize the importance of having every word of God?
That's something the Bible talks a lot about.
And we need to emphasize not a building, not a school, not a window, not a steeple.
We need to emphasize what God emphasizes because all that stuff is going to burn someday.
The sanctuary is going to burn.
That steeple is going to burn.
That church building is going to burn.
All of it is going to burn.
It's all going to become nothing.
But you know what's not going to burn is my soul and your soul and the souls of every
person that we win to Christ.
That's all we can take with us.
It's the only thing that we can take with us.
There's nothing else.