Merry Christmas-Messy New Year

  • Dr Brad Boydston
  • Dec 27, 2009

"Merry Christmas -- Messy New Year"


"Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest."  Proverbs 14:4 (NLT)

To experience FRUITFULNESS we must become adept at processing MESSINESS.

Potential responses to messiness:

1. OBLIVIOUSNESS

2. DENIAL

3. AVOIDANCE

4. EMBRACE & PROCESS

• We process messiness when we think and act like servants.

• He came into the very world he created, but the world didn't recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John 1:10-14 (NLT)

• Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.                                                         Philippians 2:3-8 (NLT)

• If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you..                                              John 15:18-19 (NLT)

• Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against. ‘Father will be divided against son
and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

                                                                                                  Luke 12:51-53 (NLT)

TABLE TALK:
• What kinds of people are most likely to "mess up" the plans that you have for your life?
• Do you think God experienced stress or annoyance when he entered into and participated in the human mess as one of us? Why or why not?
• How do you think that God is using the messiness in your life to carry out his plan for you and the  world?

 

Brad Boyston

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