The Mess in the Mirror | ADDRESS THE MESS

Introduction

Welcome - Harvest Fest Attendees / Live Stream

Kicking off a new series, “Address the Mess”

How many of you have a garage that looks like that? A closet? A junk drawer?

Isn’t that where it starts… a junk drawer?

It’s the catch all. A place for the stuff that has no place.

But then it grows. Junk draws becomes TWO junk drawers. Then a closet. Then we can no longer park the car in the garage, so we build a shed. And rent a storage unit.

>>> So many of the messes in our life start this way. Something happens that we don’t have a place or a category for so it gets shoved to the side. And then it grows.... And now we’re at the point where we’re tip toeing around just hoping not to knock anything over and ignite another catastrophe.

Here’s a phrase that’s been around for a while: Hot mess.

Can anyone guess where this phrase originated?

In the 1800s, a “hot mess” was a reference to food—especially food being served to soldiers (think “mess hall”).

In the 1900s, it was used to describe a dangerous or unpleasant situation in a military context: “Don’t shoot, or this entire situation may turn into a hot mess.”

In the 21st century, with the evolution of the term “hot,” a hot mess now refers to an “Attractive Disaster”: Someone whose life is in obvious disarray but who somehow remains functional and attractive in spite of it.

This has become our goal...

Regardless of what is going on at home...

You show up to work and smile

You come to church and pretend everything is okay

You post picture after picture of your family smiling at the beach, during a sunset, highfiving a turtle, with dolphin jumping in the background—failing to mention you had to scream at your kids 15x just to get them to shut up and smile for the picture so you could prove to everyone that your one big happy family.

One of the reasons some of you don’t like church, and maybe have tried to avoid church, is because you look around the room and it seems like everyone is happier than you; that they have their lives all put together.

I promise you, today, you are surrounded by rows and rows of hot messes.

We’ve all got a mess going on somewhere in our life, we just clean up good.

What Mess?

Our Messes:

Relational mess: dating, live-in, marriage

Family mess: kids, in-laws

Financial mess

Physical mess

Habit mess

A pastime turned out to be a pathway

What started out as social has become a secret.

You may be between messes right now.

But you’ve got one or two in your rearview mirror.

You never know when the next one will materialize.

You are one dumb decision, or someone else’s dumb decision, away from a brand new mess.

Some of you made your mess.

You saw it coming. I know I shouldn’t… but you did it anyway.

You were warned. Don’t get involved in that… Stay away from that… Don’t do what I did…

You just didn’t think it would be this bad.

Some of you married a mess.

Your family told you he was no good. Your friends told you he was no good. His last three girlfriends took you out for coffee and told you he was no good.

You were in love. “I’m gonna fix him...” — famous last words right.

That and, “Watch this; hold my drink” — Which got you into a whole-nother mess.

Some of you are parenting messes right now.

You don’t know what happened.

You did everything right.

Some of you are being parented by a mess.

Some of you got dragged into somebody else’s mess.

It was no fault of yours, but it’s your mess now.

>>> The thing we all have common — whether your religious or not, Christian or not — life is just messy. Sometimes because we create the mess. Other times we inherit a mess. But the truth is, life is messy.

We are genetically engineered toward messes.

Our parents were messes.

Their parents were messes.

Your children’s parents are messes…

Here’s the good news: There is always someone whose life is a bigger mess than yours.

You can take comfort in knowing this. Let’s pray...

Actually, that’s not good news. That’s mean.

>>> The good news is this:

The mess is our common ground.

It’s not just you.

It’s not just your life, your marriage, your family, your finances, your GPA.

It’s the mess that brings us together.

This is why we should be careful when we are tempted to criticize.

You see a mess coming/brewing on the horizon.

The people in front of you and behind you are navigating messes you don’t know anything about.

You can’t really understand why they do what they do and say what they say until you know the mess they’re in.

We should be students, not critics.

This is also why we should look in the mirror before we judge — because you’re a mess too!

Our messes seep through our attitudes, words, and responses.

Have a tendency to judge others on the areas we don’t struggle.

Matthew 7:5 NIV

5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Yank the Plank.

Jesus told us to first stake the plank out of our own eye, so we can see clearly to remove the speck from our brother’s eye.

Jesus told us to first stake the plank out of our own eye, so we can see clearly to remove the speck from our brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:2 NLT

2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

Matthew 7:12 NLT

12 “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

5. Our mess is also why we need one another. It’s rare to meet people who were able to clean up their messes all by themselves.

How many have had someone reach down and help pull you out of a mess?

This is to be our response when we discover someone else’s mess. Not to stand and judge, point fingers and laugh, but to roll up our sleeves and start digging.

Imagine the reputation Christians / the Church would have if we got this one thing right.

The Mess that brings us together (the thing we all have in common) is the mess that brought God near.

For God so loved the mess… For God so loved the messy people of the world…

And His response was nothing like anyone in the ancient world expected. There was no existing narrative that fit what actually happened, so they were caught completely off-guard. Not because God hadn’t told them, but because they misinterpreted His message.

The were

When Jesus stepped onto the pages of history, only one guy recognized him, and he was a bit odd (John the Baptist).

Jesus entered a new word into the world’s understanding of God, “Grace.” No one expected, no one saw it coming, and most people missed it.

They were expecting Judge Judy God while they sat in the jury box and shook their heads.

They were waiting for an angry God to wipe out their enemies.

They were looking for plagues, and floods, and fire, and lightening.

They were hoping for a savior that would lead them victoriously into battle.

Nobody was expecting Grace God.

>>> If you are a hot mess (you have a mess going on but you try to look good and stay somewhat functional), we get that. We all have that in common. And I want you to know this morning, that the Gospel is for you because the heart of the Gospel is that Jesus came into this world not just for the sake of… because he felt sorry for… but because of the messiness of the world.

Listen to this; this should rock your world...

Rom 5:6

Romans 5:6–8 NLT

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Did you catch that? While we were still sinners… When we were utterly helpless, when we were just a bunch of hot messes—Christ came close.

God wasn’t try to avoid your mess. He came near to deal with our mess.

>>> Recognizing the mess is a baby step away from acknowledging God. To recognize one is to acknowledge the other.

This entire thing happened so quickly that God used a Pharisee to sort it all out after the fact and explain it to us.

BIO ON THE APOSTLE PAUL

Born into the best family, learned at the best schools, devote more of the most religious group.

Did not start out as a Jesus follower. Rather, he devoted himself to squashing/extinguishing this movement known as “The Way,” seeing it as a threat to Judaism.

Would hunt Christians down, arrest them, bring them to trial, and participate in their execution.

Then… Paul has an encounter with the risen Jesus and it changes everything.

Being a Pharisee, Paul would be intimately acquainted with the Jewish law and saw complete obedience to the law—not just the 10 Commandments, but the 600 additional commands the religious leaders instituted—as the most important aspect of Jewish life.

>>> So when Paul begins to talk about the law we should pay attention because no one knew the law better than him.

New Living Translation Chapter 3

Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given

,

Romans 3:19 NLT

19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.

New Living Translation Chapter 3

19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given

This is an easy concept to understand, but so often we get this wrong.

How many of you feel like someone has tried to hold you to a standard you never signed up for?

Christians are terrible at this. We expect unbelievers to behave and act according to a Book they know nothing about or have little regard for.

Paul says, “This is obvious, the law only applies to those to whom it was given.”

So who is under the law? Those who place themselves under it.

American citizens are under American law.

Students are under the laws of their school.

People visiting another country subject themselves to that country’s laws.

Christians place themselves under the law of Christ.

We also believe there is a universal law written in the hearts of all people; there are some “oughts.”

Well, everybody knows a person should… shouldn’t…

Everybody knows you ought to… ought not to…

More personally: I know I should/ought… or shouldn’t/ought not…

Then all of us—religious or not—say the strangest thing, because we all fall short.

We fall short of societies standards. Many of you feel like you’ve fallen short of your parents standards. If there’s a God, we know we fall woefully short of His standards.

But if we’re completely honest… it’s even more hopeless than that. I fall short of my own standards. I can’t even live up to my own rules and expectations.

And when we do, we all the say the same thing, and when we say this, we say more than we think we are saying.

We say: “But nobody’s perfect.”

We try to justify our actions, or at least assuage some of the guilt and shame.

Cheer ourselves up. Give our own little pep talk.

Yet, when you say this—that nobody’s perfect—you’re acknowledging that there is a perfect out there that nobody is.

There is a perfect that I… am… not.

Once we come to grips with this, the question staring us down is: What, where, or whom does this perfect originate with?

If you’re not a Christ follower today, I’m sure you have some explanation for this. That culture or society helps shape our morality. But, come on, you know it goes deeper than that. That left to our own devices, we’d be gouging each others eyes out.

Yet, you have some theory about where the perfect that you fall short of originates.

As Christians, we do too: God.

Paul continues…

New Living Translation Chapter 3

19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose

Are you catching this? Paul is getting ready to tell us the purpose of the law.

The guy who study the law his entire life. Who defended the law and punished all those that broke it. He says, “You want to know what this law is here for? I’m going to tell you.”

New Living Translation Chapter 3

for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.

The whole world — that includes you. And that includes me. And that includes your grandma who dragged you to church growing up.

We are all guilty. None of us are perfect.

None of us keep God’s law, karma’s law, society’s law—our own law. We all fall short.

The point is that when I am tempted to be critical of you, I would be silenced, because I am without excuse. I’m a mess too.

Christians believe we are accountable to God when we fall short, because He is behind the law.

If you’re not a Christian, you are accountable to whoever/whatever sets the standard you accept/adopt.

If it’s not God, then it’s whatever is the source of those pesky “oughts” that keep dinging in your conscience.

New Living Translation Chapter 3

20 For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

The law doesn’t/can’t make you a better person. It’s purpose is to remind you that you’re a mess.

We “knew better” and did it anyway.

Carrying around the law in our minds doesn’t make us better—it just makes us accountable.

The question we all have to answer is: To who? To what?

The law of God—love your neighbor, put others first—reminds me I don’t always love my neighbor and I don’t always put others first. The law reminds me that I fall short.

Your internal law/rules make you conscious of the fact that you fall short of whatever put those laws in your head to begin with.

What does the law that you’re under remind you that you’re not?

What does it remind you of?

Heartbreaking, same thing over and over again, addiction, habit, etc.

In that moment you’re experiencing the law for exactly the reason God gave it.

It is a mirror and a reminder.

You’re a mess. But you wouldn’t know you’re a mess if you didn’t have a non-mess standard with which to compare yourself.

Three verses later, Paul sums it up in a famous statement:

New Living Translation Chapter 3

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

We know that if we can’t live up to our own standards, there is no way we can live up to God’s glorious standards.

If I can’t live up to my parents standards, my wife’s standards, my employer’s standards… how am I ever going to live up to God’s standards?

Everyone is silenced because we are all without excuse. We all ultimately fall short of God’s glorious standard.

The reason you recognize a mess when you see one is because every mess has a reference point.

The reference point for the mess you created is the un-mess.

You know what your marriage should look like...

You know how you should behave...

You know you should be able to break away from that habit/addiction...

**It’s the awareness of our messes that awakens us to something outside of us to which we are accountable.**

We can’t live up to our own expectations so our natural inclination is to try harder.

God didn’t give you the law just so you would try harder.

God doesn’t ding your conscious just so you’ll try to be a better person.

God does this so you will become aware that there is something—someone—outside of you to whom you are accountable.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis (a brilliant thinker, theologian, and writer) said that when we quarrel, we appeal to a standard of behavior that we expect the other person to know about it.

This bothered C.S. Lewis and it was one of the things that drove him to become a Christ follower.

This was the thing, this was the thing he could not escape. He tried and tried and tried as a philosopher and thinker to escape this, but this was the thing that cracked him open as an individual to be open to the teachings of Jesus.

This was the thing, this was the thing he could not escape. He tried and tried and tried as a philosopher and thinker to escape this, but this was the thing that cracked him open as an individual to be open to the teachings of Jesus.

The law of gravity tells you what stones do if you drop them; but the Law of Human Nature tells you what human beings ought to do and do not. —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 25)

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 25)

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 25)

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 25)

Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way and cannot really get rid of it. —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 18)

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 18)

There is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behaviour, and yet quite definitely real—a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us. —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 27)

—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (p 27)

He says whenever people quarrel, if you watch, they're both appealing to the same standard, that is outside of them, that neither of them created.

In other words, no one ever jettisons the standard. What they do is they argue that they're keeping it better than the other person thinks they're keeping it. Or here's what we do, we argue that there's a good reason why we fall short.

We have all felt the pressure of our conscience, of all the “oughts” and “ought-nots,” and the Apostle Paul and C.S. Lewis want to convince us that that pressure is the gracious presence of God. And that pressure that we can’t escape—Christian or not, religious or not—is not God pressing us so we will simply be better people. It is God pressing us so that we will acknowledge and recognize God.

You know what that means? It means that while you are wrestling with the mess that you are wrestling with... And we are gonna talk about some of those messes. It's while you are grappling with the situation where there just doesn't seem to be any end inside, it just seems to be mess after mess, after mess, after mess, it is a reminder that there is a God that is above and beyond the mess. There is a standard against which all messes are measured.

There is an un-mess. No one's perfect because there is a perfect that no one is. And it is the pathway, it's the portal, it's the channel, it's the window, it's the lens to begin to understand the presence, the power of your Heavenly Father.

That our mouths would be silenced—no more excuses, no more justification, no more “Well at least I’m better than...” / “If they would just...”—and we would realize there is a law, there is a standard that we cannot attain and we cannot maintain, and all the people in the whole earth are silenced in the presences of God because we have no more excuses.

The Mess in the Mirror

>>> You see, once we acknowledge our messes, we are a baby step away from acknowledging God.

I’ve made a mess of… finances / health / relationships

Once we acknowledge/become aware that we fall short of our own standards and certainly God’s, we are a baby step from acknowledging God.

I know a mess when I see one, because I am one.

This week, I want you to keep your mirror close by and every time you see a mess I want you to pull it out and repeat this phrase:

“I know a mess when I see one, because I am one.”

The reason I even know that's a mess is because I'm aware of an un-mess. And the fact that I recognize there's such a thing as an un-mess is a reminder that I am a mess. And it’s the mess that brings us together today.

God Dealt with Your Mess

The Apostle Paul has built His case that the purpose of the law is to act as a mirror to reveal our need for a Savior. On our own, we are utterly helpless to address our mess.

But God, instead of choosing to flood the earth again or send down fire from heaven, chose to deal with your mess.

Romans 3:21–22 NLT

21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

Romans 3:21

**Altar Call & Close