Safe and Clean

Where there are no oxen, the barn is clean, but an abundant harvest comes through the strength of an ox. Pro 14:4

My wife loves a clean house. But, she faces two problems in accomplishing her goal of living in a clean house: Cason and Me. We are boys and we are messy. We both try to help clean, but we are not very good at it. But, I am very confident that Rebecca is content to deal with a lived in home, that is not perfectly spotless all the time, because she loves her two boys. She trades a clean house for two handsome, kind, polite, and decently smelling fellas.

You see in Proverbs 14:4 the writer is telling us that A barn can be kept cleanly swept where there are no oxen, but isn't it better to have some dust and dirt around, knowing that the labor of an ox will lead to a bountiful harvest? Oxen can be difficult animals for a farmer. They need plenty of food. The farmer must work hard to look after them. But, the rewards of the work they do more than compensate for their disagreeable aspects. Now, this proverb is not intended to encourage our homes or churches that look like disaster areas. But it does a discourage that passion for order and dustlessness that puts the brakes on progress and productiveness.

So, let’s look at life. What is the easiest way to keep your self from conflict, hurt, sadness, or embarrassment? Do nothing, have no relationships, try nothing, be safe all the time, never step out in faith, never love or open up to someone and you might live a safe life. Happy, I doubt it, but probably a steady and easy life. You see if your life is empty of people, it is useless; and if you live only for yourself, your life loses its meaning. Instead of avoiding people, we should serve others, share our faith, and seek to help them bear their burdens. Is your life clean but empty? Or does it give evidence of dirty knees and bloody hands that show your serving God wholeheartedly?

Look at church. I love a happy unified church. I love it when everyone agrees all the time. But, if this comes at the expense of the church, doing nothing, trying nothing, never stepping out in faith, protecting status quo, then it is worthless. Does it make my job easy and less stressful? Probably, but in no way do we this as representing the ideals that Jesus has in mind for his church. You look at all the vibrant and gowing churches in the New Testament, none were prefect all had problems and big personalities. Read Philippians and check Euodia and Syntyche.

Look at Peter in Mark 8:31-33. He thought he was helping Jesus, but Jesus said “that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and rise after three days. (32) He was openly talking about this. So Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. (33) But turning around and looking at His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan, because you're not thinking about God's concerns, but man's!" Peter blew it.

Then in Matthew 26:74 Peter denies Jesus three times when Jesus needed him the most and even “started to curse and to swear with an oath, "I do not know the man!" Immediately a rooster crowed.” Peter continues to falter in Gal 2:11-14 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. (12) For he used to eat with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party. (13) Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. (14) But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, "If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?".

Could God have done things more efficiently and easily and avoided Peter all together? Yes. Could God do things easier and more effectively without us? Yes. Then why does God bother with us? God uses us because he loves us and he loves to see us live for Him. Does, He love to see us fall? No, but when we fail and coming running back to Him and let Him clean us off it does give him great joy. Is cleanliness next to godliness? Maybe, but remember in our lives if the are to imitate Jesus, they must include taking a bloody and old rugged cross daily and seeking to live for Him.

Got to clean up a dirty office, Pastor Phillip