Jesus in our mess


Life is messy, sometimes overwhelmingly so.

Our lives don’t usually end up neatly packaged and orderly.


The bible talks about “living in contentment and part of living in contentment is understanding that our lives are messy, busy, and sometimes chaotic.

The reason our lives are messy is that we are messy and sometimes hurting or broken. Our hearts and desires are often messy and at times pull us away from the peace that Jesus wants for us and the freedom in which He wants us to walk.




Jesus Offers Freedom
Jesus wants us to live in freedom. He wants us to trust Him with the mess of our broken past,
the mess we have made by our own sin,
the mess that we deal with from how we have been sinned against,
and the mess that comes from living in a broken world.


Over and over in the Bible, we see Jesus moving toward people's mess and miraculously coming through for them. Whether it was a blind man beside the road,

Luke 18:35-43 NIV
35As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. 36When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. 37They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” 38He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 39Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 40Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, 41“What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied. 42Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” 43Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.





a woman caught in adultery,
John 8:2-11 NIV
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”





or a lame man lying beside a pool,

John 5:1-15 NIV
1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 45One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” 12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” 13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.


Jesus stepped into their situation and showed them that His love was more powerful than their mess.


God doesn’t love us from a distance. God steps into our messy world to save us and set us free.

Jesus is not afraid of our mess. He wants to be in it with us and help us in the midst of whatever we are facing. The truth of the Gospel is that God stepped into our messy world to save us and set us free. God didn’t try to just love us from a distance. He didn’t encourage us to clean ourselves up, or command us to try harder and live a better life. By sending Jesus, God ran into the mess for us. Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.


Live Like Jesus
Love is messy.

As believers, Jesus wants us to follow His example and run toward others' mess. We live in a world where people naturally run away from other people's junk. People are dealing with pain, hurt, and difficulty all around us. Life gets overwhelming and struggles can weigh us down. As the church, we are not called to love from a distance. We are called, like Jesus, to be willing to step into the mess with others who are hurting and help those who are tired and wounded. We are called to be in it with them and point them to God.

Closing:
What is the mess in your life that feels overwhelming to you? What is it in your life that is weighing you down?

Who is hurting around you that needs you to step into the mess with them?

We have a God who wants to show us that He is who the Bible says He is. God didn’t just step into the mess 2,000 years ago. He is ready and able to step into what we are dealing with right now. And as we love others the way God loves us, we get to see God come through and do what only He can do.