Rev. David Holwick N
Congregational Church of Bristol (well received)
Bristol, Maine
October 2, 2022
James 4:7-10
MESSY CHRISTIANS
I. You don't have to dig far for the mess.
Brian Nichols was a middle-class young man from Baltimore.
He moved to Georgia and worked for Hewlett-Packard and UPS.
He attended church faithfully.
But when he found out his former girlfriend was dating their pastor,
he brutally assaulted her and was arrested.
In 2005, while waiting in the courtroom, he overpowered a guard and
stole her pistol, then used it to beat her into a coma.
Nichols entered the courtroom and killed the judge and a court
reporter.
As he escaped the courthouse he killed a police sergeant.
During his getaway he stole several vehicles and killed another
policeman.
All of Georgia was terrified.
In the town of Duluth he forced his way into Ashley Smith's
apartment.
For seven hours he held her at gunpoint.
What did she do?
She fed him breakfast, which surprised him.
Then she read him portions of Rick Warren's book "The Purpose
Driven Life."
Ashley finally convinced Nichols to turn himself in by telling him
about her husband's recent death, and showed him her scar she
got in a car wreck while under the influence of drugs.
When Ashley wrote a book about her experience, she added one more
detail - when Nichols asked if she had any marijuana, she said
she didn't, but she did have some crystal meth.
It was a rather messy detail to reveal to the world.
#66620
I suspect most of you are not addicted to crystal methamphetamine.
But I also suspect most of you - probably all of you - have some
mess in your life.
With the way media is today, if you get caught, the whole world
will soon know about it.
It is hard to keep a secret sin secret.
Just think of all the pastors who have been exposed in the last
few years.
Is anyone pure anymore?
Is it possible to live a consistent Christian life?
II. The life of Jesus seems to portray a different scenario.
A. A typical story in the gospels.
1) Person has a deep problem.
2) Jesus appears.
3) Person turns to Jesus and he solves their problem.
a) Healing, exorcism, etc.
4) Person is overjoyed and tells the world.
a) No one seems to backslide.
B. There is one glaring exception - Peter.
1) He follows Jesus, then messes up, then follows Jesus again.
a) Paul's letters suggest Peter messed up later on as well
(he avoided Gentiles so as not to offend Christian
Jews)
b) Paul had to rebuke Peter to his face.
1> Then he wrote about it in Galatians 2:11 and so
everyone knows about it forever.
2) The book of Acts has another failure, Ananias & Sapphira.
a) This couple follows Jesus but contrives to make a big
contribution while secretly holding some back.
God kills them, lesson is learned.
b) Simon the sorcerer is another possibility.
He is baptized, then asks to purchase the power.
c) In both cases, you are left wondering if they were
really genuine Christians to begin with.
III. Paul's letters cast more light on Christian messiness.
A. Paul describes enemies of the church who used to be insiders.
1) You might assume all these "enemies of the cross" were
bloodsucking outsiders, but no, they were pew sitters.
2) They had bad beliefs about Jesus, and sinful behavior in
how they lived.
3) Jesus himself tried to warn us this would happen.
B. Paul also has lots of exhortations to stop certain behavior.
1) Don't be greedy, drunk, lazy, backbiters, troublemakers.
2) We can infer that he has to exhort like this because members
were doing these very things.
IV. Every Christian is messy.
A. Some more than others, but all fall short.
A pastor was preaching a sermon about how no one is perfect.
To prove his point, he asked for anyone who was perfect to
stand up.
One man in the middle of the congregation stood up.
The pastor asked him, "Do you really think you are perfect??"
The man replied, "Oh no! I'm not perfect. I'm standing up
on behalf of my wife's first husband!"
#9522
1) The Bible is very clear on his point.
a) Romans 3:23 says "all have sinned, all fall short
the glory of God."
b) 1 John 1:10 says, "If we claim we have not sinned, we
make him out to be a liar and his word has no place
in our lives."
2) Admitting we are messed up is the first step we have to make
on the path to salvation.
B. Areas where we struggle, according to Ephesians chapter 4.
1) Anger and holding grudges. 4:26-27
2) Stealing and idleness, and selfishness. 4:28
3) Unwholesome talk, tearing people down. 4:29
4) Hanging on to bitterness. 4:31
5) Rage, anger, brawling, slander, malice. 4:31
6) (He doesn't even go into sex here!)
a) The alternative - be kind, compassionate, forgiving.
b) Be like God! Live lovingly. Eph 5:1-2
C. Be compassionate and understanding of the failure of others.
1) Christians have a reputation for being self-righteous
and judgmental.
2) "There but for the grace of God, go I" is a worthy attitude
to have.
V. Be less messy!
A. Our messiness is not an excuse to be lax.
1) Modern Christians overemphasize grace and forgiveness.
a) We are so into unconditional love we forget that God
actually lays out lots of conditions for godly living.
b) It is unwise to make legitimate guilt a bad thing.
2) My Denver church experience.
My youngest daughter used to live in Denver.
She went to a church called Pathways and when we visited
I always tried to go to services with her.
I was impressed by the church - not a traditional sanctuary
but an auditorium filled with 20- and 30-year olds.
On this Sunday an associate pastor, a woman, was leading
the communion service.
To put everyone in a spiritual frame of mind, she began
talking about how she had a recent date that went bad.
They had gone too far and she was ashamed.
Many of the 20-somethings nodded their heads.
I was aghast. I turned to my daughter and said, "Didn't
she give this SAME TESTIMONY the last time we visited?"
My daughter shushed me.
She was afraid I was going to stand up and say something.
Relatability was key in this church, not repentance.
On our next visit I noticed a newspaper displayed in a
stand on a city sidewalk.
The headline was an expose of the Pathways church.
Apparently the pastor, Gil Jones, a relatable guy who
preached in T-shirts and paint-stained pants, had been
removed for inappropriate relationships with women.
Just as he had been from his PREVIOUS church...
B. Jesus calls us to repent and follow him.
1) Repentance has always been at the heart of the gospel.
a) It was the first theme Jesus preached. Mark 1:15
b) The alternative to repentance was to perish. Luke 13:3
c) Jesus condemned the cities that saw his miracles
but did not respond with repentance. Matt 11:21
2) Repentance can be hard.
a) In Ashley Smith's book she confessed to having been an
addict and her struggle with it.
b) She said she was trying harder and had friends helping
her.
c) She didn't want to be messy. She wanted Jesus.
3) "Believers" who persist in evil may find themselves rejected
and not real Christians to begin with. Matt 7:21-23
VI. Advice of James - clean up your mess! James 4:7-10
A. James, the brother of Jesus, comes across as a revival preacher.
1) His letter has many similarities to the Sermon on the Mount
which has the most famous teachings of Jesus.
2) In this short passage James gives 10 sharp exhortations:
a) Submit yourselves to God.
b) Resist the devil.
c) Come near to God.
d) Wash your hands.
e) Purify your hearts.
f) Grieve.
g) Mourn.
h) Wail.
i) Change laughter to mourning and joy to gloom.
j) Humble yourselves before the Lord.
B. True Christianity goes in two directions.
1) You must draw near to God.
a) Sometimes it is because of trauma in our lives.
b) Or it may be because they are seeking beauty and truth.
c) In either case, you realize only God can provide what
we are looking for.
2) You must move away from the world and Satan.
a) A teenager found this out this year.
Joani Barlow's parents divorced when she was in the
5th grade.
Her grandfather died a few years later.
Her dog had to be put down.
She was under a lot of stress at school.
She had not been raised as a Christian, but she felt
she needed to pray.
She wanted to be comforted by something other than
herself.
So she started praying.
Then she felt like going to a church.
She had been invited by friends before but had never
gone.
Now she went, and she loved it - even though she didn't
have a relationship with Christ yet.
She did have a bad relationship with a boyfriend and
she figured that made her unacceptable to become
a Christian.
At a church campout the youth pastor heard her concern
and told her God was calling her exactly as she was.
You don't fix yourself in order to get saved, he said.
God does it.
So Joani prayed and put her faith in Jesus.
It was 11:44 p.m., June 7, 2022.
That was the beginning of her salvation but not the end.
She realized she held a deep grudge against the father
who had abandoned her family.
She knew Ephesians 4:32 says, "Forgive each other,
just as in Christ, God forgave you."
So she met with her father and forgave him.
New birth also stirred her to be more aware of the
negative impact of contemporary culture.
She stopped watching certain TV shows.
She began listening to Christian music.
And she dumped her bad boyfriend.
#66615
Christianity is about accepting some great new things.
But it is also about rejecting bad old things.
b) Repentance can be emotional.
1> James mentions grieving, mourning and wailing.
2> New Englanders are not known for emotionalism.
A> I am not very emotional myself.
B> I have heard that Evangelicals in Russia require
emotions - if you don't weep and wail, they
don't think you are really saved.
3> Emotions are not the focus - a genuine encounter
with the living God is what it is all about.
C. What mess do you need to deal with right now?
1) Evil habits, relationships, and attitudes you may need to
be giving over to God.
2) Don't "make peace" with them, keeping them in one part of
your life and God in another. Be a unified godly person.
3) Ashley Smith decided to go in that direction.
When Nichols held her hostage she thought it would end in
her death.
She didn't think God would give her another chance.
But she decided to surrender completely to God and get right
with him.
And God did give her another chance.
Her confession of the messiness of her drug addiction was
embarrassing for her, but very helpful for others.
She says God's grace is what drives her now.
She is "addicted to Jesus". #66620
What are YOU addicted to?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 9522 “His Wife’s Perfect First Husband,” by Mike Minnix,
Fredericksburg Bible Illustrator Supplements, July 1991.
#66615 “Life of Turmoil Stirred Teen To Pray, Then To Church, Then…” by
Art Toalston, Baptist Press, http://www.baptistpress.org,
September 27, 2022.
#66620 “Purpose Driven Heroine Goes From ‘Meth’ Addict to Jesus Addict,”
Christian Post, October 29, 2005,
<https://www.christianpost.com/news/purpose-driven-heroine-goes-from-meth-addict-to-jesus-addict.html>.
Other online sources and Wikipedia were used for other details
in this illustration.
These and 37,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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