By: Rex Stump
After a hard practice or workout, a long day at work, or working on a project in which you have been covered with dirt and sweat, it feels good to get cleaned up. Doesn’t it?
Every year at FCA Camp, the campers experience “Messy Night.” First, we give them a white shirt to wear over their clothes.
We then spend over an hour getting sweaty and covered with powder in a color run. They also get wet and sometimes muddy, sliding down a hill on a giant slip and slide.
We play games that involve eggs, pudding, ketchup, bananas, as well as shaving cream and more. We also play a relay game using something gross, like a cow’s tongue or pig’s feet.
It’s fun, hilarious to watch, and loud. But after an hour or so, everyone is ready to get cleaned up. They feel sticky, uncomfortable, gross…and messy.
Finally, the Camp Director blows the whistle signaling it’s time to clean up. The campers go to the lake and wait for the lifeguard to wave them into the water to get rinsed off.
They throw away their white shirts that have been stained from the games, they get showered up and head to chapel. This event symbolizes a spiritual truth.
In the same way, sin is messy! It’s gross and eventually we tire of it and the effect on our life. We long to be rid of it, cleansed of it, but only one thing can make us clean.
1 Corinthians 6:11, “Some of you were once like that. (Living a life of sin) But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
In Ephesians 2 the Apostle Paul says we were dead in sin, but God made us alive in Christ. Truth is, we are all at one time spiritually dead in our sin. But God wants to revive us. Sometimes we don’t even realize how dead we are spiritually.
But God shows us our situation, our condition, and give us the spiritual ability to see the solution. God came all the way, not part way to rescue us and meet our greatest need.
In John 11, Jesus called his dead friend, Lazarus out from the tomb. He was dead and smelly! (Vs.39). Like the lifeguard at camp, blowing the whistle saying it’s time to get cleaned up, Jesus called messy, smelly, dead Lazarus from the tomb.
“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)” Ephesians 2:4-5
What did Lazarus do next? He went home, ate, most likely changed his clothes, spent time with his family, praised Jesus, and probably laughed and celebrated!
I’m sure he spent the rest of his life telling everyone that Jesus is the Son of God, the almighty rescuer, the Savior of the world.
If you have been made clean by Jesus…praise Him! Just as Lazarus didn’t return to the dark tomb, don’t return to the mess in your life! Praise God for sending His one and only Son, Jesus to be your Savior! Spend the rest of your life living a new life alive in Him!
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Rex Stump is the Area Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and serves as a Pastor at True North Church in Wauseon, Ohio.
