S4 E25 - What Lies Beneath the Couch

Have you ever cleaned underneath your couch? You never know what you might find under there. On the surface your sofa looks clean, but when you dig a little deeper and pull it back - there are all kinds of things hiding beneath the surface. 

If we are not careful, this is the way that we can be spiritually in our lives. On the surface we have the appearance of righteousness and godliness, but deep within, unseen, we are anything but that. It's time that we pulled back the cushions and did some deep cleaning in our lives. 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 4 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Thanks for tuning in! 

Today’s podcast comes to us via my dear sister in Christ named Kristee Wooten. Jared, Kristee, and her family worship with us here in Danville, KY – and she shared something with me this week that was all too familiar, while at the same time all too convicting. We got talking about different things going on in our lives, things we are growing in and things we are working on, when she said, “you know, it’s kind of like a couch.” She had my attention, because I’ve been known to dabble with how every day, ordinary things have the ability to teach us some important eternal truths. She went on to talk about how she was cleaning the house, and it came time to clean the couch. Now, if you’re like me, cleaning the couch means sticking your hand down the seams to find the remote or simply running a vacuum over it. Maybe you fluff the pillows, or rearrange the cushions a little bit here and there, but honestly it’s a very low maintenance piece of furniture. But that’s not the kind of cleaning Kristee was going to be doing that day. She was going to be moving the entire couch, so as to discover and clean up what had found its way underneath – out of sight and forgotten. Have you ever done that yourself? Let me tell you right now, we’ve got three kids – and there is absolutely no telling what kinds of things find their way underneath the couch. On the surface you walk past it, and it looks all clean! But then you pull it back, and underneath you find cheerios, wrappers from previously eaten fruit bars, that one ball the kids have been looking for over the past month, the cat toy, a dirty sock…you get the idea. It’s easy to ignore what is not seen and buried below the surface. And what appears clean and put together on the surface when you dig a little deeper is actually anything but that. Kristee’s statement, “you know, it’s kind of like a couch” suddenly made a great bit of sense. Not only did I feel the sudden urge to go home and clean underneath my couch, but it convicted me that I needed to go home and take a deep, hard look into my own heart. Because she was right – we are just like a couch. On the surface we might seem put together, pure, clean, and righteous – but if you were to dig a little deeper, there is no telling what might lie beneath that we have just allowed to remain in our hearts, out of sight and forgotten. 

There is a very strong warning given from Jesus to the Jewish leaders of the day in Matthew 23:25-28, and we would do very well to listen to it ourselves. Jesus would say, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” 

The religious elite of that day and age were concerned primarily with one thing and one thing only: being perceived by others as righteous and holy. On the outside, they appeared to be godly people: they wore the right clothes, the said the right things, they attended the right events, they prayed the right prayers – but that was about as far as their righteousness extended. Jesus, who knew the hearts of men, was able to see past their façade. While to others they appeared to be pure and holy, their hearts were anything but that. They were full of every kind of impurity, having hearts that were far from God. 

We would do well to heed this warning from Jesus, because this is the exact warning that Paul would later give to the young evangelist Timothy about how others would behave beyond the religious leaders of that day and age. He would write in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” 

I think all of us need to pull back our couch and see what lies beneath. And no, I’m not talking about your actual sofa in your home, I’m talking about looking beyond the surface and being introspective about who we really are in the sight of God. Perhaps you might think to yourself, “Well of course I’m godly! I go to worship, I give of my means, I volunteer, I participate in the Lord’s Supper, I even read the Bible every day!” And these things are all well and good…unless of course they are not coupled with a godly heart. It is entirely possible for us in our lives to have the appearance of godliness, but not in actuality have a fear and reverence for God at all because our hearts are still full of worldliness and impurity. 

Consider the warnings of the prophet Ezekiel in ch. 33:30-33, “As for you, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses. One person speaks to another, each saying to his brother, ‘Come and hear what the message is that comes from the Lord!’ So my people come to you in crowds, sit in front of you, and hear your words, but they don’t obey them. Their mouths go on passionately, but their hearts pursue dishonest profit. Yes, to them you are like a singer of passionate songs who has a beautiful voice and plays skillfully on an instrument. They hear your words, but they don’t obey them. Yet when all this comes true—and it definitely will—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

My friends, what lies underneath? What things have we buried deep within that others cannot see, but are nonetheless ever present in our lives? Is it perhaps greed? Is it lust? Is it an unwillingness to forgive someone who has done us harm? Is it apathy? Whatever it might be, it’s time for us to get out the broom and allow God to cleanse us once again from the inside out. It is only when our hearts are pure that we can truly be pure and useful in the sight of our God. Let us conclude with the following words from Paul in 2 Timothy 2:20-21, “Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also those of wood and clay; some for honorable use and some for dishonorable. So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.” 

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 4 episode 25 – and I’m so thankful that you decided to tune in today! A new episode is dropped most Fridays, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, as well as share it with someone else – it would help me greatly in trying to reach others. And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.