SUNDAY (LIVE) - May 3, 2026 | The Grind: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 - The House of God

I think sometimes that we treat God like a fool. Like, he does not know where our heart is actually at. And God is like, no. No. Don't treat me like a fool. The best way to come to church, not offering the sacrifices fools, is to be really honest with God. God, my heart is wrong. I've been doing things this last week that I wish I wasn't. I'm confessing that. Change me. You have the power to change me. You come in as soft clay, misshapen. He's the potter who takes the misshapen clay and remakes it, Jeremiah says. God, am misshapen clay. Remake me. That's the right way to come into church. [00:56:23] (45 seconds)  #ComeAsClay

Fight through it all. Come up here. You get in here. What's amazing is I'll see people that, for an hour, just sit on their phone. After all that effort and I'm sure they're just reading their Bible. I'm positive of it. It's what they're doing. I just wondered to myself, like, all that effort to not listen? All that effort? You can do that anytime you want. I tell people, church is a horrible hobby. I think it hardens your heart. If you want a hobby, buy a fishing boat. [00:48:38] (38 seconds)  #ChurchIsNotAHobby

Vow, vow, vow, vow, vow, vow, vow. Don't verse five. It's better that you don't make a vow. So what is a vow in the house of God? Here's what it is. It's when we start to barter with God. God, I will do this if you'll do this for me. I will stop doing this if you do this for me. And we believe somehow by by a vow that God becomes indebted to us, that God owes us. And then when life does not go the way that we think it should go, what do we do? We get mad at God. [01:01:20] (39 seconds)  #DontBarterWithGod

Solomon looked at the house of God. Jesus did the same thing. He looked at two people that went to the house of God. It's Luke chapter 18. The first guy stood up, and said, god, I fast twice a week. I give alms to the poor, bragged on himself, and then pointed to the second dude and said, and I'm not like that filthy sinner. And the dude on the ground that had been pointed out wouldn't even lift his face up to heaven, but just kept beating his chest saying, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. And Jesus said, that's the dude that left justified, just as if he'd never sinned. [01:17:02] (61 seconds)  #HumbleHeartWins

Knowledge is the basis of all life, by the way. You don't have knowledge, you can't make any decisions. Solomon says, the beginning of the beginning is fear of God. It's understanding the order of the world, understanding the order of the universe. There is a God, I'm not him. The difference between God and man is God never thinks he's a man. But a lot of us thinks we're gods, and we can do our own things. So we're supposed to understand, this is the way the universe is made, and I'm trusting God in that. And it gives you the proper perspective on things. [01:04:41] (34 seconds)  #FearOfGodWisdom

What the fear of the Lord is, God, you've made the lines, and I agree with you. If you say this is good, I agree. If you say this is bad, I agree with you. If you say this is righteous, I agree with you. If you say this is unrighteous, I agree with you. That the stove is hot, and I don't have to get burned to know it's bad. I'm trusting you that you have boundaries in life, and I'm staying within those boundaries because that's where life is found. Fear God. [01:07:08] (28 seconds)  #TrustGodsBoundaries

You're like, son, did you get into the chocolate? No. I didn't, dad. Son, I followed a trail of chocolate chips to your room. You have a chocolate goatee right now. Do you think I'm an idiot? I think sometimes we treat God like he's an idiot. Like, doesn't know what we did yesterday or the day before. That we come in here and because I'm singing the song. Well, I'm just singing away. I'm taking some notes. Wow. That is profound, God. I'm gonna go home and meditate on that. That God's like, boy, I thought I thought Matt was all messed up, but he's in church. [00:55:42] (33 seconds)  #GodSeesYourHeart

The Christian should be like, God, you've been so good to me. You love me. You accepted me. You adopted me. You brought me into your family. And like a flower, I grow toward the sun now. I respond like a flower. Make me this way. Change me. That's what's supposed to happen. And then he ends, and he'll come back to this. For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but God is the one you must fear. [01:03:51] (31 seconds)  #BloomInGrace

God, but I. I stopped watching r rated movies. I started giving you 10%. I stopped cussing, except for that one time in the car, but that guy needed it. He was a terrible driver. You were there. You saw it. Why am I sick? Why am I having this financial trouble? Why is it's we believe that we can make God indebted to us. I deserve to be treated better than this after I gave this to you, God. We become the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. While the entire family is partying in the father's grace and mercy and forgiveness, the older brother is outside angry and having a pity party. [01:01:59] (43 seconds)  #GraceNotDebt

And the entire book of Psalms begins with Psalm one. It says, meditate. It says, don't be like the sinful people who do bad stuff. Be like the man that meditates on God's word day and night. And then it makes these crazy promises to this guy. He'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. His leaf will not wither, and he'll produce fruit in his season, and whatever he does shall prosper. That's insane promises to the one meditating. [01:09:37] (32 seconds)  #MeditateOnTheWord

I have to take notes, and I have this thing that I trust. No matter who's up on front, if god's word is being opened, god can speak to me, and I wanna have a listening ear to hear what might be spoken to the church today. And so I gotta take notes. I have notebooks and notebooks and notebooks full of notes. And the return on the investment is eternal. Two things will never disappear, god's word and people. That's an eternal investment. Guard your ears. Guard your sacrifice. It is better, to draw near to listen, is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know what they are doing is evil. [00:53:17] (51 seconds)  #ListenOverSacrifice

Yeah. We need this awe and humility about who God is. But also remember, he's our heavenly father, that I am now his son, that we are his sons and daughters, that we're family. We gotta always keep that in our head. Because it's not attire that makes a humble person, it's attitude. I could come in here with a three piece suit and be the most graceless, arrogant jerk you ever met. You know, I'd be better off dressed like a beggar that was humble than coming in with a swagger. [00:47:03] (34 seconds)  #HumilityOverHype

Isaiah. First five chapters of Isaiah, Isaiah is saying, woe to everybody else. Woe to the Moabites. Woe to the house of Israel. Woe to the house of Jacob. Woe, wo, wo, wo, wo. In chapter six, God shows up, and guess what Isaiah says? Woe is me. I'm a man undone, literally being torn apart. God's cavot, his weight, his presence was like gravity, like a black hole. It was tearing him apart. I'm a man of unclean lips. [00:43:14] (32 seconds)  #GodsPresenceAwe

New Testament, John the Baptist, no problem telling people the way it is. Says the Pharisees, the top dudes of the land, the most religious people, calls them a brood of vipers. You're sons of Satan. No problem. Just tough guy. Jesus shows up and he says, I'm unworthy to even tie your shoes. Peter, Luke chapter five, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. Paul, I'm the chief of sinners. God never corrects them. God never says, oh, come on. You're not that bad. [00:43:46] (37 seconds)  #BoldYetHumble

In second Samuel chapter seven, God shows up, and he literally falls on his face and says, who am I, and what am what is my house? That's humility. Job. For 40 chapters, Job is saying, I want an audience with God. I wanna talk to God. This is unfair what's happening to me. I don't have some kind of secret sin. And then in chapter 42, God actually shows up, and Job says this. He says, I despise myself. I repent in dust and ashes. [00:42:36] (38 seconds)  #RepentInDust

My favorite is Isaiah chapter 41, where Jacob is like, I'm a worm. I'm just a worm. God doesn't say, no. You're not a worm. You're a caterpillar. And one day, you'll crawl up in a tree, and you'll poop pupate, and you'll become a butterfly, a beautiful butterfly. God doesn't say that when Jacob says, I'm a worm. You know what God says? Fear not, you worm Jacob. He agrees with him. That's my favorite. I'm with you. That's what matters. [00:44:27] (29 seconds)  #GodAffirmsYou

Don't take advantage of the poor or the weak. Because if you do, they have a dad in heaven, and he sees. And their dad will beat up your dad at the end of the day. That's what's gonna happen. Like, wow. Remember that when we treat people, they are God's kids. And he sees, and it really matters to him. So how do you cultivate this kind of a quality about the house of God? How do we become people that are guarded in this good way? I think there's something that no one does anymore. I don't do it enough. [01:08:27] (44 seconds)  #DefendTheWeak

Ecclesiastes is the book that shows the work that life without God is not good. So Solomon at the very beginning says, I set out to test some things. Life under the sun, apart from God, I set out to test some things. And he tests the six favorite things of humanity. Money, power, religion, friendships, work, and pleasure. And his goal is to show without God, you can have the most of any of these things, and it's still not going to be good. And we've kind of walked through that so far. [00:37:21] (46 seconds)  #LifeWithoutGodIsEmpty

Backdrop to it is this, it has a purpose. The bible says that life without God is not good. Genesis one, Genesis two, it's all good. And then Adam and Eve are put east of the Garden of Eden out of God's presence, and it's not good. So Ecclesiastes is like this. This is the way I explain it. If you took a math test in high school, and you wrote down only the answer, you would not get it correct because the teacher would say, putting the answer down doesn't count. You also have to show all your work. [00:36:36] (45 seconds)  #ShowYourWorkFaith

Modern? God's saying, I hate it when you go to church. Stop singing. Now, why would God be so mad at people coming to church like this? You keep reading it, and the reason is because the night before, they were making sacrifices to idols and other gods. And I think God is saying, you're treating me like a fool. Sacrifice the fools. You're treating me like I'm the fool. I think at times, we treat God like we treated our parents. Parents, you ever have your kids do something and you confront them, and they just treat you like a fool? [00:55:06] (36 seconds)  #WorshipMustBeReal