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Text:
Prov 14:4

Title:
People and mess
Date preached:
17/04/22

Illustration:
How many know what OCD is?
OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder.
1. a personality disorder characterized by excessive orderliness, perfectionism, attention to
details, and a need for control in relating to others.

Someone with OCD needs things to be clean and uncontaminated.

Or need things to be orderly & symmetrical.

Had a lady I used to work with had OCD, everything had to be right angles, I
had a boss and he was a joker and he would go and put things out.
And this lady every time, comes back “who touched my desk”

So cleanliness & order are good in life.

But it can be taken too far.

The text we are looking at gives us a simple truth.

Mess is a healthy part of Life.

But more importantly mess, is importantly mess is an important part of

ministry.
Text
Proverbs 14:4
New King James Version
4
Where no oxen are, the trough is clean;
[a]

But much increase comes by the strength of an ox.

Pray:

1st Point: Life and mess

a) OT is speaking about the reality of mess, and the writer makes a simple
point.
b) Wherever there is life, there is mess.
1. Anything that is alive can be messy
2. Anything that is alive Makes mess

How many have learned this?

1. Children are messy!
2. Babies are beautiful but they are messy.
1. They poo their pants
I remember thinking when our kids were babies, how did they get
poo on their head?
How?

c) New converts are messy

You get genuine converts
1. They have bad habits
2. Bad clothing
3. Bad language
4. Warrants for their arrest
5. They have court dates
6. Parole office
7. Probation officer

People are messy.

d) People come to me, Pastor there are problems in the church
Who would have thought there would be problems in a church?
Read the book of acts, read the bible.

1. There’s fighting,
2. racism, gossip,
3. complaining,
4. immorality
5. selfishness,
6. drunkenness.

I heard a story of a new convert man who just finished testifying in a

concert scene, walks off the stage & punches another guy in the
head. And the visitors and this guy were having it.

e) My point wherever there are people there will be mess.

OT is written because apparently some people don’t understand this.

Some people there entire approach is life needs to be clean and neat.

V4 the trough is clean

[a]

Feeding trough for animals

f) Neatness and cleanness are good, but you can take this to extremes.

My wife is much cleaner than I am.

Sometimes she will point out that there is mess, and my question is
“Your point is?”

I can live with a different standard of mess to my wife.

My wife is a very clean woman.

g) OCD though is a compulsion

Obsessive compulsive disorder
It’s a sickness, it’s taken to extreme.
 Where everything has to be clean, perfectly lined up.

h) You see that’s not healthy.

Have you known someone who has OCD?
They are not healthy in their approach to life!

1. It is unhealthy when in all of life,

Where you are obsessed with cleanliness.
2. If mess completely vexes you, that’s unhealthy because life is
messy.

i) It is unhealthy when cleanness and neatness, consumes all of your

mental energy.

j) This applies to pastors and ministry.

Pastors shouldn’t spend every waking moment on “How can I
straighten people up, where he tailors every sermon designed to get
these people in line up.
Listen that is not healthy.

As a matter of fact, you can do damage to other people if you try to

make every trying to make everything neat and clean.

Let me tell you some truth about people.

1. Children – some people are obsessed with trying to get children

behave.
 I’m all for that but I’m talking about people who are obsessed.
“You will sit still you will not breath”
It is like the greatest crime in the world.

Sometimes they’re like, You know there were children, they

were in church and they were looking around.

 They’re kids, they’re boys.

 Cmon
  Pastor was telling a story how he went over to another family’s
house, and here they were at the table folding hands.
He said it made him feel nervous.
Ps field is a man from the country, he was raised to have good
manners, but he said man it made him feel nervous.

Some kid burps, get to your room!

Eph 6:4 fathers don’t exasperate your children

IOW Paul was writing and saying there are some people, who
go to an extreme, to the point where their kids start hating
church and hating God. Because they have gone to extremes.

2. New converts
One of the greatest problems working with new converts
Who want to straighten them out, before they even have any life.

I remember visitors come in and they are pouncing on them.

Are you saved, are you both married?
Relax bro, they started coming to church.

Scaring people away!

Their idea of follow up is “list of things you must stop doing”
things you need to get rid of, things you need to start doing

So what they are doing is demanding perfection.

They don’t even know if they want to serve God yet.

“theyre already, we have to look at your music collection.”
“Do you have any tshirts – it has to go.

Stop trying to be the holy spirit police

Ive learned a very long time ago, Im not here to run your life.

We do not have time for that!

 Love your wife, Spend time with your kids, invest in your
children.

I search up some church news headlines.

1. Pastor cusses out church for not attending bible study.
2. Pastors’ wife screams and curses at congregation for not
contributing to her birthday gift.

I’ve seen a YouTube clip of an old preacher – guy falls asleep

in church.
And he goes on a rant, starts pointing out individuals.
“And where have you been?”

Ive learnt, man when people start coming to church.

Im glad they come in the first place.
It takes a lot of courage to walk through a church door.

They’ve been coming for a few months thank the lord.

k) Some people don’t want mess

“we want a clean trough”

This is why people don’t have children.

They chose to not have children, because they are selfish.

They don’t want kids, to mess up their lives.

Some people chose not to work with new converts.

New converts a re messy.

A pastor in America of a local church.

This is a historic building, oldest churches in town.

They had a new pastor he stood up and announced.

“We need to focus on older retired people, because young people are a
mess, and they don’t have any money.” But older retired people their
lives are together and they have money.
 After that service all the young families and young people in the church
left.
And left him with his nice neat almost dead people!

2nd Point: People and purpose

a) You can misunderstand your purpose
This Text says, the point of having a trough is not cleanliness, not
neatness, it is production.

OT But much increase comes by the strength of an ox

b) Anyone been on a farm

Some of you think meat comes from Coles

If you’ve been on a farm, they are stinky.

With cows you can plow, farm.

That’s why you have the ox, the cow, you don’t have a cow because you
want a perfectly clean barn.

1. The point of having kids is not cleanness, or neatness or perfection,

or order.
It is preparing them for life.

Ephesians 6:4
New Living Translation
4
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather,
[a]

bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

There was a famous baseball player.

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard, and
mother would come out and say “You’re tearing up the grass,
Dad would respond back and say were not raising grass, were raising
boys.”
 Perspective.

2. The point of new converts is not perfection.

We want new people to come along to church, long enough for God to
give them revelation so that they stay saved.

The point of people in church is not perfection

It is helping them to become useful

Ephesians 4:12
New Living Translation
12
Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the
church, the body of Christ.

If you don’t understand, people will be unhappy in church when they

don’t understand the reality of life and mess.

People are miserable, pastors can be angry, pastors’ wives that are
vexed.
Not because they have the most evil people in the universe in their
church.

But they haven’t learned that life and mess go together.

If you are obsessed with neatness and cleanness with people.

You will run them all off
Or you will fail to get any good out of them.

True story
A husband and wife were married for over 10years.
A friend tells the story, when I went over to his office, their was sticky
notes everywhere.

Flush toilet, make sure to rinse dishes after eating.

Close window to avoid dust.
 She wanted the house to be squeaky clean.

Then he says, this man ran off with another woman.

And then that woman had a very nice, neat and tidy house.
But it didn’t help her marriage did it!

This principle is simple – life has mess.

If you can’t deal with mess, its possible you will ruin and dmg
relationships.

Theres an old joke:

A pastor met his friend who used to be a pastor but now working in a funeral
home.
And he asked him, why did you quit being a pastor.
Well when I was a pastor I would council people try to straighten out their
marriage, but weeks later they would be messed up again.
I would try to straighten up addicts but very soon they are back to their
addictions again.
Oh but when I straighten people out now, they stay straight.

Listen If you like everything neat and straight maybe a funeral director job
would be good for you.
not children, or new converts, disciples, or human beings.

3rd point: a messy balance

a) OT gives us a simple but powerful perspective we need to have if we are
going to work with people.
b) There can be mess and productivity at the same time.
You can have both

I preached last service – about flawless but faithful.

 There is a balance.

The disciples were productive, making impact and at the same time they
were messy. And that’s ok!

So what do we do to get productivity whilst there is still mess.

1. We have to surrender our egos

Ecc 7:8 Finishing is better than starting.
Patience is better than pride
c) Children will not breath, no figeting, no noise.
That’s really about your pride.
Your afraid that other people will look at you like, your child is soo evil
they are making noise.

2. We need to love people

It is hard to minister to people, if you don’t love people.

Ministry is loving people.

Many things to work on, things to do. But it all starts with love for
people.

You need to ask God for it!

Ask God to give you a Burdon for souls, and a love for people.
Because that is a miracle dimension.

God bless you if were born loving, gracious, kind warm, large hearted
human being. – we will make a statue for you.

You can ask god for a miracle.

You need a refreshing for a love for people.

3. Make room in our hearts for people with problems.

If you heart is large, there is room

Matt 13:47 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that was thrown
into the water and caught fish of every kind.
 You minister to people that are opposite to you!

I love our church, yes theres problems.

There’s some things only God has to straighten out.

I don’t know if you know this but “your not god”

Right that down, put it in your phone “Im not God”

4. Patience
1 thes 5:14
Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those
who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

Learn this in life, you cant straighten out people.

It means you leave them to God, and you allow God to work on them.

One of the wonderful things is seeing God work in peoples lifes.

But it takes a miracle to work in peoples lives.
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