Rubbish In, Rubbish Out

There is a problem witht he church as a whole and the problem is that the body doesnt always match up witht the head. Colossians ch1.18 tells us that Christ is the head and we ( the church) are the body. As a body we need to be moving together and the Bible gives clear instructions in the way to move. i am not talking about all the little theology debates we can get stuck on, im talking about the basic instructions. The body needs to match up as a head, but as a whole we often don't. When we water down the gospel, when we skip out certain teachings saying that they don't fit with our generation, when we compromise our faith in exchange for the ways of the world we don't match up with Christ (the head). instead we cause the body which is meant to be a beautiful body, made up of all God's children from all nations, of all tongues, and of course completed with chrsit himself as the head, it is a beautiful picture but when we don't match up with the head, when we go our own way we send this beautiful body into a spasim as it is pulled in all directions. If christ is the head he is also the brain and the brain instructions the other parts of the body in the way to move. the other parts of the body awaits the brain for instructions and surrenders to those instructions. That is what the church is called to do. That is what we need to be doing, all the time. But how do we get there and how do we stay there?

It all goes back to rubbish in, rubbish out.It is about what we are putting into ourselves because whatever goes in has to come out.
Matthew 12.33-37 says: 33"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. 37For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

What comes out of us, how fruitful and productive we are on this earth is all detemined by what is in us, by the condition of our hearts. It cannot be an outward working but it starts with our hearts. We are called to glorify God, we are called to produce good fruit, we are called to make a difference, to be salt and light to be a bright shining shar in a crooked and debraved world but to do all this, to live a life worthy of our calling our hears have to be right. Our hearts have to be clean and inline with God's own heart. The way that we keep and maintain a clean heart, inline with God's own is by storing up goodness in our heart and by guarding our hearts fromanything that would corrupt and pollute our hearts. Because rubbish in, rubbish out!

Let's look at the church of corinth. This church had massive potential but it became known for it's sexual sins. There were some issues they needs to deal with. Here are a few of their issues:

• lack of maturity as Christians (1 Cor 3.1-3)
• division and lack of unity within the church (1 Cor 3.3-4)
• sexual impurity (1 Cor 5)
• association (1cor 5.9-11 and 2 Cor 11.3-5)

We are going to look at the last one, associasion, because thats where all the others stem from.

2Cor 11.3-5: But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

Instead of influencing others the church of Corinth is the one being influenced. In 1 Cor 5 we see how they are not guarding their hearts at all they are not using wisdom in who to associate with and it has affected them and corrupted their hearts. And in the second book the same problem is there and sure enough paul's fear is that their hearts will be corrupted because they are not guarding their hearts but are compromising and allowing anything into them, even false teaching.and rubbish in, rubbish out!

Maybe the church of Corith thought they were strong enough, that they would be ok, that they didnt need to guard their hearts but for generations and generations God has been warning his people to not compromise and to not put their selves in places of temptation. God tells Moses in Exodus 34.12-17:

12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. [a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
15 "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.
17 "Do not make cast idols.

God was warning them so that their hearts were not corrupted. he knew that if they made a treaty they would compromise. He didnt even get them to leave it at not making a treaty. No, they had to smash allt he idols. These werent even their idols but they still have to be smashed, anything that could corrupt had to go. The Israelites could of thought, 'these arent our idols, we will just ignore them and let them be' They could of been like the Corinthians that passively let anything go on. It didnt matter that the idols werent theirs they still had to go. What are the idols around you? what are the things in your life that have the potential to corrupt your heart? It is easy to think that we wont be affected but the corinthiansd were so what makes us think we won't be? what needs to be smashed today?

We need to guard out hearts from worldliness ( my definition of worldliness id that which kills affection towards god), but not just that we need to store goodness up in our hearts. Where there was sin needs to be placed with goodness or else there is a space for anything to fill and then we are in trouble! (Matt 12.43-45) We need to smash down those idols and not compromise. because rubbish in, rubbish out!