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Jesus, Can You Clean Up My Mess?

Friday, November 13

Have you ever had to clean up after someone else? Like a boss or co-worker, ruining the computer system leaving you to sort out and clean up the mess. How about coming home to find that the kids’ spilled milk all over the place, they tried to clean it up but there is still milk everywhere. Living in Florida you learn a lot about cleaning up messes like the devastating messes left behind by hurricanes. Sometimes the devastation is so great that owners choose to sell their land and move away instead of staying behind to clean up the mess. God felt the same way when He saw the mess that sin created and the devastation it brought upon all of creation.

Genesis 6:5-6 NLT

 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart

 The sin of mankind was so enormous, there was absolutely no way mankind could ever clean up the mess and devastation its blatant irresponsibility caused. God however, instead of opting to move on and start fresh, He chose to stoop down and clean up the mess and devastation. The cleaning process began when God flooded the earth with water ridding the planet of all those that rebelled against Him. Only Noah and his family accepted Gods’ invitation to escape the cleaning process.

One might assume that a second chance and the opportunity to start over would solve the problem. Unfortunately, soon after the waters receded, man went right back to his sinful ways. Cleansing the earth of sin was not enough, the problem was much deeper; sin was like a virus dwelling in each of them and with the birth of every child, the mess and infection continued to spread. Our sin posed a huge problem. For God to rid the earth of the sin He so much hated, He would have to destroy what He loved so much, humanity.

Romans 3:23-25 NLT,

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.

God hates sin but He loves sinners. In order for God to successfully clean up the mess and devastation caused by sin, He would have to treat the root problem, sin infecting the hearts and minds of the human race. The only way to do this was by punishing sin. The punishment for sin however was death. So, what did God do? God took the death sentence and placed it on His son Jesus Christ making Him responsible for cleaning up the mess that He did not create. By doing this, God cleaned up the mess once and for all for those who accept the invitation to allow Jesus to carry their sins. God punishes sin but gives grace to those who ask Jesus to clean up their mess.

Isaiah 53: 5-6 MSG

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.