Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2006 : September 10, 2006

Theme: Jesus Cleans Up Messed-Up Lives

Church year occasion: Pentecost 14

If we were to take everyone in the congregation to your house right now, how would your house look? How messed-up is your life? Hopefully it is. If not, you don't need Jesus. Jesus is here for those with a lot of messes.

Yesterday, I poured myself a cup of coffee in the morning, and I noticed that the filter must have been folded up while it was brewing because I noticed that a whole bunch of coffee grounds went into my coffee cup. I said to myself, "I'll have to remember that. When I get to the bottom of the cup, I'll have to make sure I don't drink the grounds." Well, I was about half way through with drinking it when I was called away to do other things and my coffee cup sat on my desk for the rest of the day. By the time I got around to my desk again, it was cold, so I nuked it and was ready to enjoy my cup of coffee. But do you think I remembered that the grounds were in the bottom? Of course not! So when I eventually got to the bottom of the cup, I suddenly had a whole mouthful of coffee grounds. At first, I thought a colony of ants got into my mug and I just about flew out of my chair ready to spit them out. But then I remembered that it was just coffee grounds from that morning. I had told myself I was going to remember, but I forgot. I got sidetracked.

Can we treat our spiritual lives that way at times? "I know I should do something about my relationship with Jesus. It's been hurting lately. I haven't set aside enough time for private devotions. I haven't been all that faithful attending church, especially because I get lazy in the summer. I haven't been especially good to my family lately because I have a lot of pressure on me. I'll turn over a new leaf next Monday." Only, Monday comes, and that leaf doesn't get turned. Before we know it, it's been two months since we've been in church, and about two years since we've had any meaningful devotional life at home, and we're still under a lot of pressure, and we're still testy with our family.

We can get distracted by all kinds of things instead of making sure our relationship with our Savior Jesus is strong and getting stronger. That's why it's good for us to have messed-up lives. If we don't, we might not realize that Jesus is all that important to us. What does it take to have a messed-up life? As you know, it can be any number of things. Sending your kids off to a new grade or a new school, and praying that they'll be able to handle it and hang out with the right people. Not being able to sell your house, and praying that you'll be able to make ends meet. Having a son serving in Iraq, and praying that he'll come home safely. Having your mother or your father or wife or husband die, and praying that God will be there with you to hold your life together because it sure feels like it's falling apart. Any of those things show that your life is to some degree a mess. But that's actually a good thing. How could that be good? It not only can be good, but it is good, because that gets us to look beyond our lives and our strength and our resolve and our self-reliance, and it forces us to depend on God because we can't take care of our messed-up lives.

Maybe some of you are thinking about your life right now and thinking that you don't have a whole lot of big messes in your life. In one sense, that's a great blessing. But beware. I'm not saying you should watch out because it's like the calm before the storm. You should beware because you might forget how much you need Jesus. You might put him in some closet someplace or behind the couch like a worn-out pair of socks, and just forget about him. You might forget about those passages in the Bible that say we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Your prayer life might become paltry or even non-existent. When our lives are filled with turmoil and pain and danger and grief and fear, then we know that we have to keep our spiritual armor on at all times and be ready to defend ourselves against what this world and Satan can throw at us. But when our lives are filled with bulging bank accounts and no broken bones and healthy kids and friendly neighbors and a good-paying job and everything is pretty great, we might think we can put down our guard, that we can take off our spiritual armor and lower our shield of faith. And then, even though we don't realize it, when everything is going well for us and we have no worries, then we should make sure our connection to Jesus is strong and living and active. Because that's when it's easy to think our connection to Jesus is strong, but it really isn't.

We can learn that valuable lesson from two people this morning. One was a woman who had problems with her daughter. The other had physical disabilities. But both knew how important Jesus was to them.

The first was a woman who lived near the city of Tyre. She is often called the Syrophoenician woman. Syrian-Phoenicia was just north of the land of Israel, actually very much in the news today because it's the land in southern Lebanon where the Israeli army fought against Hezbollah guerillas. Jesus went here because he was looking to get away from the crowds to get some rest and time to teach his disciples. That explains why he didn't want anyone to know where he was. But he didn't find any rest because his popularity had preceded him. But he also knew there were a woman and her daughter who needed his help. He was able to give them the rest they needed.

In verse 26 we read: "The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter." A few things make this an unusual encounter for Jesus. First, he was outside Israel. Jesus seldom went outside Israel because the work he had come to do had been prophesied to be done among the Israelites, God's chosen Old Testament people. Another thing that made it unusual was that even here people had heard of Jesus, and some had come to believe in him as their Savior.

In Matthew's account the first thing this woman does is cry out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Matthew 15:22) She addressed Jesus by names showing she believed in him as the promised Messiah and Savior. Then again Matthew adds something to our understanding that shows just how strong this woman's faith was. She was following along after Jesus and crying out for him, but Jesus didn't answer even one word. It got so annoying that Jesus' disciples wanted Jesus to tell her to go away, but Jesus simply said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

That helps to explain the rest of Mark's account: "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." First Jesus seemed to ignore her cries for help; then he compared her to a dog. Even though the word for dog here means "puppy" or "family pet," it still takes us by surprise that Jesus would treat her this way when she desperately needed his help and prayed to him as he asks all of us to do. But the woman understood that Jews often referred to Gentiles (or non-Jews) by calling them "dogs." She somehow understood that Jesus had a mission to do and he was to carry it out among the Jews, but she also knew that it included her.

Even a scrap of Jesus' mercy was enough for her and her daughter, and she knew it, so she replied, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." What a faith! If only we could have such a faith as this non-Jew! What a comfort to us knowing that Jesus' help and his mercy is meant for us also, because we also are non-Jews. Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. At a very dark time in her life, the woman knew where to turn. Her life was mess, but she knew that Jesus could and would clean it up.

The next account of Jesus in Mark's gospel is also remarkable.

Some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Again, Jesus does some interesting things. Why would Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears and spit and put that on the man's tongue? Certainly Jesus didn't have to do these things. He could have just said the word, and the man would have been healed. But here notice his particular care for this particular man. He took him aside from the crowd, so he didn't do this to get a big name for himself, but only for the man. And the man was deaf, so Jesus got down to his level and was able to show him with strong sign language where this man's healing came from. That's also explains why he looked up to heaven. The man was healed.

Jesus here, as he does elsewhere, told the people not to tell anyone. He did this because his time hadn't come yet to give up his life, so he didn't want to draw undue attention to himself yet, and because the attention he would get would be for people to make him their earthly king. But that was not Jesus' purpose. He was here to heal people. He was here to clean up their messed-up lives. He did that by healing the woman's daughter and this man, both of whom were Gentiles. But he was here for an even greater purpose.

The most important way Jesus would clean up their messed-up lives and the messed-up lives of all mankind was by giving his life as a ransom for the world. Earlier I was talking about how I was about to spit out my coffee because I thought I was about to swallow ants. What a horrible thing that would be! It's our natural instinct to keep that kind of thing as far away from us as possible. We don't want to suffer if we can help it.

How different Jesus' life was! The very reason he had come into this world was to suffer and -- at the end of that suffering -- to die. His home in heaven had no messes whatsoever. He enjoyed the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit as our Triune God. But something brought him down to us to not only look into our messed-up lives but actually to do something about it. It was his love for us that did it. He saw people who could take care of themselves spiritually or physically or emotionally. He saw people who had made their own beds of sin, and now they had to lie in it. He saw people who, because of their rebellion against God, would be doomed to eternal torment for such rebellion.

And he acted. He was born into this world to live as our servant. Imagine! The almighty God of the entire universe had to get his diaper changed. He had to learn how to eat and write and talk. He had to learn humility because that we the road he chose. He eventually also had to learn what suffering was and even death. When we look at that cross and see Jesus hanging there, we see someone who looked like he had a very messed-up life. He was despised by the religious leaders and rejected by his own people. He was misunderstood by his own followers and finally abandoned by his own heavenly Father. And to what purpose? To save us! He did it so we could look to him no matter how messed-up our lives are and see one who knows what we're going through and has done something about it. He saved us from the punishment of our sins. And he is ready and willing and able to help us in every trouble that might mess up our lives.

How messed-up is your life right now? Hopefully it is a big mess, because then you have the best reason to rely on your Savior. Because Jesus cleans up messed-up lives. Amen.