Yes, as hard as it is to admit especially as a pastor of a growing and exciting church like LifePoint, I’m a mess. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, but not a very good one. I love God more than anything else, but I don’t have it all together. My deepest desire is to live a life just like Jesus Christ, but in all reality sometimes I’m successful at it and sometimes I’m not. I pray and I read the Bible but I know I should pray and read more, but I don’t always do that. As hard as this is to say I don’t have life all together. I am flawed, broken, incomplete, under construction, unfinished, unfixed, a work in process, I’m a mess.

By the way I am not alone when it comes to being a mess; I am in good company or bad company, depending on how you look at it…Noah the drunk, Moses the murderer, David the adulterer, Eli the screwed up priest, Samson the lustful hunk. The disciples were not exactly models of discipleship either, or should I say they were models of real discipleship. Trouble is, over the centuries we’ve tried to make them something they weren’t. The real disciples were inconsistent, erratic, confused, frustrated, afraid, had doubts, and argued with each other. IMPORTANT: Don’t forget most of them “messed up” while in leadership positions!

That’s very encouraging because if what I just described is a real discipleship of Christ while being a leader, then I can be one

We can address problems, we can clean up the particular mess we’re in, but we are all still a mess, still imperfect and flawed. We can do better, but we’ll never be perfect. That’s the truth. That is reality. And, for some reason, the church doesn’t like to admit it.

Now don’t misunderstand me, a person’s life style and relationships provides a window into their character. If have a lifestyle of being honest, not stealing, not cheating people, not a drunkard, then I would say you are living above reproach. Remember our life style (not one mistake or even one act of sin) provides a true look at the person we are. Sometimes it is easy to confuse “living about reproach” with “living above sin”. If that were the case why would we need Christ? The fact remains according to God we are all “a mess”, “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV). As old fashioned at it sounds, it is only when we have the blood of Christ applied to our lives can we truly say we are “above the mess” because when God looks at us, he sees the blood of HIS SON, not our faults. So with all that said, for my life I have concluded that being a Christian, and even a Christian leader is not about getting rid of the mess (being sinless), it’s about living a life with Jesus being present in the midst of my mess. Pastor Larry

Have you ever been to a new place and felt confused about what happens there? I remember going to a dinner theatre called “King Arthur’s Court” somewhere in Florida. The waiters dressed weird, talked with really bad English accents, and served the whole bird when ordering chicken. I had no idea what was happening most of the time

At Pentecost (Acts 2:1) when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and they spoke in different languages, they acted differently; people thought the disciples had been making some early morning grape dacaries. So Peter had to stand up and explain to guests that they were not drunk but had been filled with God’s spirit.

So we need to realize the next time when a new person comes to church, they feel the same way about the regular attenders. The way the people associate with each other and how the service runs is so different to anything they’ve ever experienced. And unfortunately most of the time it’s not because the congregation members are so filled with the Holy Spirit that they seem different! It’s usually because the church has locked itself into a particular way of functioning and no one outside of the church knows how it works. As Christians we need to “GET REAL”, start living a relevant, engaging, and authentic life, in our communities and in our churches.

Pastor Larry