Jesus is much better than poop!

Tonight was my first ever opportunity to give a biblical message to others in a formal setting. I had done lots of public speaking and teaching thru the military and college, but never before had I taught the truth of God to a group of people assembled for just that thing.

It was a sobering thing to prepare for. I prayed that the Spirit would move within me for God's glory and I kept in mind the admonition of James 3:1
"Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness"

I was tasked with providing a short message to our new student ministry. I decided to go forward with a message that combined something all kids can relate to...talking about poop...with the deep biblical truth of Sola Christi. Be sure to keep reading after you look at my message - there was an interesting outcome.
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LEAD IN WITH BEDPAN BABY RUTH AND MT DEW SKIT…ME v. 2 STUDENTS

Alright everybody – that was gross. And oddly enough it was a great lead-in to my short message tonight, the title of which is:

Jesus is much better than poop!

Tonight I wanna talk to you about a verse from the New Testament that centers on poop. Did anybody know there is a bible passage about poop? No, well I think you’ll like it. Before we begin – lets pray:

“Father, thank you for being here in the person of your Holy Spirit tonight, thank you for revealing yourself to us in your word, thank you for have so much love for us that you sent Jesus here to be a sacrifice for us that we might be able to stand in your presence. Be with us tonight, open our ears to your truth, and fill up our heart with a passion for you. In Jesus name, Amen.”

So…poo. Everyone loves a good talk about poo and I wanna show you guys where the Bible talks about poo. Lets open up a bible to Chapter 3 of Philippians. This is a passage where the Apostle (that means he was set apart by Jesus as a leader in the early church) Paul is writing a letter to his friends at a church in modern Greece.

Let me read verses 2-11, you can follow along on the Powerpoint if you don’t have a bible.

2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—
4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

So – the first thing we see is Paul telling his friends to be on the lookout for “dogs!” What he means here is preachers trying to roll up in their church and tell the members that they need more than Jesus to be saved. These “Judiazers” would tell people that they have to be circumcised (if you don’t know what that is, trust me it would be painful and you don’t wanna know) in order to go to heaven.

Paul insults these “Judiazers” because he is so angry that they are telling his friends lies about salvation. Paul is convinced that all we need to be saved is Jesus and Jesus alone! Paul wants his friends to understand that nothing they can do, including circumcision, can get them any closer to God and everything they do to try is pointless and can be tossed out.

Next, Paul wants to prove to his friends that extra stuff is of no use for salvation (only Jesus) even if that extra stuff is really good stuff. Paul uses himself as an example here. So what is Paul saying about himself? What kind of man is he saying that he is according to the religious customs of that day?

He is basically saying “I’m the bomb” and if anyone has the ability to think that their actions are really religious and that their life can get them closer to God, its him. He talks about the family he was born into, his smarts in school, his excellence in his job, etc… He is saying that he was as “good” as it could get. He even uses the word blameless at the end of his example!

And then…

He says what he says in verses 7-8. Let me read it for you again.

Read verses 7-8

So what does he say here? Yes, he says that none of those things (family, attending church every time he was supposed to, memorizing the Old Testament)…none of those things are worth anything compared to knowing Christ.

One thing I want to point out to you tonight is that the word “rubbish” in the verse. Anyone know what rubbish is?

Good, now truth is that word actually meant poop in the original language that Paul wrote it in. In fact, it meant a slang version of the word poo that I bet no one here is allowed to say, especially not in church. To get a picture, think about the nastiest poo you have ever seen…that is what he means by “rubbish”.

Paul is saying that all our hard work to try and be good, all the cool guy status that we can get for ourselves, all the fame that so many see in celebrities and then try to get for themselves…all that is nothing but poo. Steaming, gooey, smells so bad you wanna gag POO!

Poo you say? Those things sound pretty good huh? Being rich, famous, everyone liking you…can’t get much better than that can it?

Paul says it can. He says that the thing which makes all those accomplishment nothing but poo is when you compare them to the joy of knowing Jesus as your Lord and his Savior. Because when we know Jesus and trust in him instead of our own efforts, that’s when we gain eternal life.

Jesus is the key to salvation. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except thru me.” Only Jesus can serve as the path to heaven. If we try to be “good” to get to heaven we are kidding ourselves.

Our ability to stand before God has nothing to do with us. It is totally because of what Jesus did for us. He died on that cross and took away our sin. Then he rose from the dead and gave us his righteousness (or his sinless life) so that we look as pure as Jesus in Gods eyes. The wonderful thing is that we didn’t deserve that and he still did it for us!

One more point – this doesn’t mean that being Christian has nothing to do with “being good.” It has a lot to do with that. The difference is, when we try to be good enough in our own power to get to God we always fail – we can’t really be good enough AND our focus is never on God, it’s on ourselves and trying to be better. When we trust in what Jesus did, our focus is on God and his Spirit will move inside us to bring us to do good things…not because we are trying to get to heaven – but because we begin to love doing good things. We begin to love good things instead of bad things because the Spirit of a perfectly good God is living in us. Be sure to realize that v. 10 says it may not always be easy!

When we understand all of that, we can say with Paul that anything we are or anything we do to try and get us to heaven is poop – a big stinky turd – compared to the wonderful joy that is found in trusting Jesus to be the one who died and did it for us. He will walk with us thru a fallen world and into eternal joy.

So as we finish up tonight, I hope you take 2 things away from here with you when you leave.

1) I hope that every time you look at a pile of poop from now on you will think about what Paul said and how the only way to be with God forever is thru Jesus – everything else is worth nothing except a flush.
2) Mostly, if you are already a child of God, remember that Jesus is there for you – lean on him and not the poop of this world for your happiness. If you haven’t seen Jesus for being much better than poop yet, I want you to know that Jesus had already paid the price and that you can be saved by his payment when you trust in him and make him your #1 treasure. If that is something you are interested in, you can talk with me or any leader after the meeting. (Discussion time)
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After the message we had some discussion time and then we came back together and wrapped up the message. One of our students stood up and told us that she had been struggling for weeks because she felt that she wasn't doing enough for Christ. She said that hearing my message tonight assured her that there was nothing she could do for Christ. It encouraged her that despite her undeserving nature, Christ had done it all for her on the cross.

I was very touched by the impact that the Holy Spirit made in her life via my message. I pray that God will use me in other settings and places to a similar end, for the glory of his truth and his name!