Stop Mopping — Remove the Stopper

Stop Mopping — Remove the Stopper

Some years ago in Europe, there was a peculiar way to determine whether someone confined to a sanitarium was cognitively healthy enough to be released back into the general population.

The crude method was this: they would put an inmate in a janitor's closet, place a stopper in the sink, and run the water until it overflowed the bowl. As the water overflowed, they would hand the inmate a mop and tell them to clean up the mess.

The supervisor would leave for a few moments and then return. If, upon returning, the stopper was still in the sink, the water was still overflowing, and the inmate was still mopping, they knew that person was not well enough to leave — because they hadn't figured out the root of the problem. They could never solve the dilemma because they hadn't gotten to the root.

When you look at our world today, there is a lot of mess to be mopped up. There is chaos, confusion, calamity, and conflict. And there are a lot of mops being slung to clean it up — economic mops, social mops, political mops, racial mops — all trying to mop up the mess. The mops have been swinging for years, yet the mess only continues to accumulate.

So allow me this morning to talk to you without a mop. I want to talk to you about a stopper — because if we can remove the stopper, we can stop the mess. Which means we don't have to spend all our time with a mop.

A World of Disturbances

Turn to 2 Chronicles 15:5:

"In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city."

Many disturbances afflicted everybody. Notice the levels of disturbance:

• Personal conflict — "no peace to him who went out." Individuals were living in conflict with themselves. And if you can't live with you, anybody around you is going to be in trouble too. When you look at the discontinuity of life today, people are struggling to live with themselves.
• Familial conflict — "or to him who came in," that is, when they went home. When you look at the divorce, the abuse, the family rebellion, the teenagers running loose, it's clear the home is not functioning effectively.
• Community conflict — "city by city." Urban instability. The racial divide, the political divide, the class divide, the gender divide — instability in our centers of communal living.
• International conflict — "nation was crushed by nation." International chaos, confusion, and instability, which we're in the midst of worldwide today.

Whether individual, familial, communal, or international, "many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the land." Everybody was in trouble.

The Surprising Source of the Distress

Then we're hit with a phrase you wouldn't expect. The end of verse 6 says:

"For God troubled them with every kind of distress."

I would have thought, with all this confusion, it would say the devil troubled them. But that's not what we read. God says, "You see all this chaos? Blame me."

• If God is your problem, it doesn't matter who you elect.
• If God is your problem, it doesn't matter what program you institute.
• If God is your problem, it doesn't matter what strategy you inculcate.
• If God is your problem, only God is your solution.

Active and Passive Wrath

In the Old Testament, when God was dissatisfied, there was the active wrath of God. He would come down and bring judgment — the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the earth opening up on Korah and his family, the ten plagues of Pharaoh.

However, with the death of Christ in history, 2 Corinthians 5 tells us Christ reconciled the world to God. So now you and I don't have the active wrath of God; we have the passive wrath of God, explained in Romans 1. Because people no longer wanted to keep the knowledge of God, verses 24, 26, and 28 say God "turned them over." God released man to life without Him: Since you don't want Me, you don't have to have Me. Let's see how life works without Me.

Whether it's the active wrath of the Old Testament or the passive wrath of the New Testament, the chaos is a description of God's displeasure with men who have abandoned Him.

Three Causes of the Crisis

If God is the basis of the crisis, what were the ingredients that led to it? Verse 3 gives us three reasons:

"For many days Israel was without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law."

1. There Was No True God

It doesn't say God was missing. It says the true God was missing. And when you don't have the true God, you have false gods — idols.

An idol is a noun — a person, place, thing, or thought — that you look to as your source. Idols weren't merely something to worship; they were worshiped for what they could produce. People looked to idols for rain, for crops, for healing — for some benefit.

In Western civilization, we don't worship rocks and stones in the sky. We have sophisticated idols — American idols:

• We worship skin color, so we have racial idolatry.
• We worship politics, so we have political idolatry.
• We worship money, so we have materialistic idolatry.
• We worship status, so we have identity idolatry.

When you look at anything other than the true God as the source of life, that person, place, thing, or thought becomes an idol — something has taken the place of God, even while you may still go to worship.

We want God on discount. I had to go to Walmart once — I hate anything with "Mart" in its name — and I wanted to be first in and first out. But the parking lot was jam-packed. When I finally got inside, I discovered the store was having a store-wide sale. Everybody had shown up to get their goods at reduced prices.

As I stood in line, it dawned on me: that's our problem. Everybody wants God — they just want Him on discount. As long as God comes at a reduced price, we'll shop there. The moment He comes at full price, we shop elsewhere.

People don't want the true God. They want a God they can control, a God they can define, a God they can influence. They don't want God as He reveals Himself to be; they want the God they wish Him to become. And the moment you have that God, you don't have the true God.

God doesn't take sides — He takes over. Remember Joshua doing reconnaissance around the walls of Jericho (Joshua 5). He sees a captain leading a great army and goes over to ask, "Whose side are you on? If you're on our side, help us; if you're on Jericho's side, you'll help them." The captain replies, "I think you're confused. I am neither for you nor for them. I am captain of the Lord's army." God did not come to take sides — He came to take over.

We get confused, as though God rides the backs of donkeys or elephants. We've confused God's house with the White House, God's house with the House of Congress — not understanding that God has a whole other agenda.

Identity in Christ over racial idolatry. Consider Peter in Acts. He had learned it was okay to eat with the Gentiles — "Don't call unclean what I call clean" (Acts 10). He was sitting and eating with the Gentiles, but when the Jews showed up, he was so intimidated he left the Gentiles sitting there. Paul says he condemned Peter before them all (Galatians 2), and it's in that context that Paul quotes the great verse:

"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

That verse isn't just hanging out there — Paul quoted it to Peter to say, Peter, you've forgotten your identity. You're not black first, you're not white first — you're a follower of Christ first, and everything submits to that.

When we let the culture define us rather than placing our self-definition under the authority of our Christian commitment, we allow race to become an idol, and God is pushed to the sidelines. All of that means the true God is missing.

2. There Was No Teaching Priest

It doesn't say there were no preachers. There were plenty of priests — but what they were saying and what God was saying were not the same thing.

There are two answers to every question: God's answer, and everybody else's — and everybody else is wrong. When our view disagrees with God's view, we need a radical return to the authority of Scripture.

They weren't communicating biblical truth; they were communicating cultural truth — true information with a little Jesus sprinkled on top.

The officials and the book. When two rival teams take the field, there are actually three teams out there — because in the midst of the conflict stand seven officials. Those officials wear black-and-white jerseys, not the colors of either team, because they don't belong to either team. They belong to the league office.

Each official has been handed a book that governs every decision on the field. Their personal opinions must be subject to that book. Whichever team they might personally prefer is irrelevant. Sometimes they get booed, sometimes cheered — but how people respond is inconsequential, because all decisions must be based on the book.

We have too many Christians who've joined teams and traded in their jerseys, no longer operating by the book. It is the Word of God that must be the basis of all decision-making by the people of God. But when there are no teaching priests, a mist in the pulpit becomes a fog in the pew. When the pulpit compromises the Word, you can't expect the pew to hold to it.

The consistent method — don't change books. If you told me your life was in crisis, I would:

1. Seek to understand what you're going through.
2. Identify the biblical principles that address it.
3. Give you practical steps to apply those principles.
4. Ask the Holy Spirit to bless your obedience to bring the change.

If your family is falling apart — same method. If your church is in conflict — same method. If your nation is in trouble — the same book, because God is the author of government. What I will not do is change books, because we have too many people changing books. The Word of God is the standard by which decisions are to be made. That's why belonging to a church with teaching priests who insist the Word is the final authority is the basis for getting God's involvement to override the chaos.

3. There Was No Law

When there's no divine standard, people become their own standard — or they go to TikTok for a standard, or Instagram, or Twitter. You go all over the place because you haven't locked yourself to a fixed standard.

Lowering the rim. When my son Jonathan was eleven — and short — he called me to the church gym to watch him dunk a basketball. He dribbled, ran up to the hoop, jumped, and boom — dunked it. Before you're too impressed: he'd gotten the custodian to lower the rim from ten feet to six feet. He changed the standard, dunked at the lower standard, and impressed himself.

That's what the culture does — it lowers the standard. Then when you can dunk at the lower standard, you think you've done something. But the idea is not to bring God's standard down to us; it's to grow up to His standard, so that His standard sets the governing guidelines for all decisions.

The candy-apple problem. My favorite fruit isn't the apple — except at the Texas State Fair, where they sell candy apples, apples dipped in liquid sugar. My doctor told me that once you dip that apple in liquid sugar, you've nullified its nutritional benefit.

A lot of people do the same thing. They come to church for the Word, then leave and dip it in human opinion, in secular thought, in cultural acceptability, in racial identity, in political commitment. Then they wonder why the Word doesn't work. It's not that the Word doesn't work — it's that it's been compromised and nullified. As the Bible says, you nullify the Word of God with your tradition. You can cancel the Word from doing what it was designed to do because it's been dipped into the secular culture.

And so there was chaos everywhere in the land. There's a reason for the crisis: no true God, no teaching priest, no law.

The Cure for the Crisis

Is there a cure — for your life, your family, your church, your society?

Of course, the greatest cure is the return of Christ. If Christ comes back tomorrow, and we've trusted Him, we're fine. But what if He doesn't come back for another hundred or two hundred years? Then your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will grow up in some kind of world.

Never use the rapture as an excuse for inertia. Never use the return of Christ as an excuse not to make things better. If He comes back, fine. If He doesn't come back for a while, you'd better care, because you're still living in a world of crisis.

So, short of the return of Christ, is there a solution? Verse 4 tells us:

"But when in their distress they turned to the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them."

In Their Distress

What distress? The distress that God Himself caused (verse 6). When things got bad enough, low enough, deep enough, they wanted to return to God. They wanted to get Him back on the front page and out of the editorial section.

God will let things keep going south until we look up. He will let things get more and more distressful until there is a return.

To the LORD God

Don't read that too fast. They didn't just seek "God" — they sought the LORD God. There are approximately 85 names for God in the Old Testament, and every name reveals new information about Him. (In fact, the reason you'll live in heaven forever is that it will take forever to discover all that God is, because He is infinite.)

• In Genesis 1, the only name used is Elohim — God — His power name, His creative-genius name, the God who creates things out of nothing.
• Beginning in Genesis 2:4, God adds a name: LORD (capital letters) — the Hebrew Yahweh, or Jehovah. This is His covenantal, relational name.

Why does the relational name appear at Genesis 2:4? Because that's where He creates man — not just for power, but for relationship. So He says, I'm not only the powerful God; I'm the powerful God who exists in relationship.

This is why, when Satan shows up in Genesis 3, he says, "Hath God said" — not "hath the LORD God said." Satan doesn't mind you wanting God's power, as long as you don't have God's relationship.

When Israel returned to the LORD God, they didn't just want to see what God could do — they wanted a relationship with the God who could do it. Everybody wants His power, but not everybody wants His relationship. You won't find God when you're only looking for His power. You find His power when you're pursuing the relationship. And when they returned to the LORD God, "He was found of them."

Get in Alignment

My garage door once wouldn't open. I pushed the button — nothing. Everything was plugged in. I tried to lift it — too heavy. I was trapped: my car in the garage, unable to make my meeting.

So I called my garage guy: "Help — deliver me. Come over here and get me out." He said, "Do me a favor. Hold the phone to your ear and walk over to the garage door." He had me look down at two little square canisters near the floor. "Where are they pointing?" The one on the right was pointing at the one on the left — but the one on the left was pointing straight ahead. "That's your problem," he said. "They're out of alignment. They're not communicating. You don't need me to leave where I am and come to you. You just need to get things in alignment."

So I turned the canister until the two faced each other. I pushed the button, and — voila — the door opened. Why? Because things got in alignment.

I wanted him to leave where he was and come deliver me. He said he didn't have to leave; I just needed to get into alignment. A lot of us want God to leave heaven and come fix our problem. God says, It's fine to communicate with Me, but I don't have to change My location. You just need to get in alignment with Me.

When you're in alignment, you'll see the intervention that brings harmony to the chaotic situation — personally, in your family, in your community, in your nation. Our problem is we're operating out of alignment, and out of alignment we don't see the movement, the presence, or the power of God. It doesn't mean there won't be crisis — it means the crisis will no longer define you or dictate to you, because you're now in alignment.

He Let Them Find Him

Have you ever played hide-and-seek with your kids? It's fun at first, but after a while, when they can't find you, they get desperate and cry out, "Mama! Daddy! Where are you?" And when they get desperate, you make yourself locatable — you make a little noise, you peek out — because they're desperate to find you.

The question God wants to know is: how desperate are you to locate Me? Because the verse says "He was found of them." And the next chapter (verse 15) adds, "and God gave them rest."

Come Out for Christ

We're living in a time of crisis, chaos, and confusion. But since Christ has not yet come, this only sets us up to see heaven's intervention in history.

September 11th will be remembered as a day of infamy. Nineteen men from halfway around the world came over here — in the name of their god — and shut down the most powerful country in history. You'll never travel the way you did before 9/11, because nineteen men in the name of the wrong god changed the whole trajectory of a nation.

So help me do the math. If nineteen men in the name of the wrong god can change how a nation operates, what do you think all these Christians in the name of the true God can do when we go public for Jesus Christ?

This is not a time for secret-agent Christians. This is not a time for covert operatives. Everybody else is coming out of the closet — we might as well come out too. Make your voice heard for the name of Jesus, so it is clear there is a people of God who:

• worship the true God,
• built on His authoritative Word,
• using His rule book as the standard.

You've got to deal with our God when you deal with us, because we are unapologetically — and yes, radically — followers of Jesus Christ.

Father, bless this house as these saints serve You, in Jesus' name. Amen.