Heavy, Deep & Real ministries

I wrote a blog a few weeks back that took on the culture wars and apostate church – the churches that are falling to cultural norms instead of standing firm on biblical truth. A buddy of mine who reads my stuff was “saddened” by my thoughts. Here’s a snippet of what he wrote, “For too many in the church ‘anti-woke’ means they have the authority to discriminate, hate, attack and marginalize people and perpetuates the idea that some sins are better than others.”

I actually think he’s right. Those churches – the holier-than-thou types – are just as apostate as the culture-loving churches; neither are biblical. In my discussions with my friend over this issue I told him I’d pen another blog taking on the unloving churches – the churches that have perpetrated spiritual abuse against its congregants and the world at large. So, here it is!

Man, where to start!

Let me begin from the premise that when church became an organization with hierarchical leadership it almost immediately began harming people. The reason is pretty simple – put fallen men (and women) in leadership and power positions and they are almost guaranteed to abuse those positions and power. As Jesus would say, that is not how it was supposed to be from the beginning.

Jesus Himself struggled with the hierarchical structure of the Jewish leadership. While He was always full of grace and mercy (and truth) to the people, He absolutely blasted the religious leaders! He saw them as corrupt and told them they actually were going to Hell! He charged them with keeping people out of heaven and replacing God’s word with the traditions of men. Jesus was no fan of what we could call organized religion.

I’m with Jesus.

The Church has perpetrated some of the worst transgressions against people in the history of man all in the name of religion. I don’t see Jesus condoning Christian antisemitism, indulgences, fearmongering, the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, sexually abusing children, misogyny, prosperity gospel, jet planes and mansion for pastors, bullying and manipulation, and all the other spiritual abuses that happens in the Church. I use a capital C for Church meaning the entire Church not individual churches of which many are solid.

I completely understand why people don’t want to go to church. Most have either had a really bad experience in church or they see the absolute hypocrisy of people claiming to follow Jesus but looking nothing like Jesus. Heck, I was out of the church for 25 years for the exact same reasons!

Another friend of mine recently asked me how I put up with these “Sunday Christians” who don’t act out their faith on any other day than Sunday. I really can’t argue with him on that; there is a very large of percentage of these Sunday Christians in our churches today.

I think I’ve shared before that churches usually lean one way or another – some lean toward grace while others lean toward truth. But as we know grace without truth is unloving and truth without grace is cruel. We are commanded to tell the truth in love. Paul tells us that even if he spoke in the tongues of angels, he was only a banging gong if he did so without love (1 Corinthians 13).

We all know what flawed Christianity looks like so let me share what Jesus said we should look like.

We are to love God. That means we do as He says, submitting our wills, desires, thoughts, opinions, and our very lives to Him because He knows what is absolutely best for us.

We are to love our neighbor. Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans absolutely hated each other! Jews saw Samaritans as half-breeds who where heretics. Samaritans saw Jews as corrupts and heretics as well. Yet, Jesus says that the Samaritan was the good neighbor who Jews were to love! Amazing. It means we are to love people even when they are 180 degrees different than us. In other words, we are to love the unlovable because God loved us when we were unlovable.

We are to call sin sin. God is God and we are not – He gets to decide what sin is and isn’t not us. But the reason we call sin sin is to bring people back to God not to brand them, marginalize them, or condemn them! Jesus tells the parable of the Prodigal Son where the younger son takes an inheritance that isn’t his to have and blows it on wine, women, and song. The father searches for the kid to come home every day until he finally does and then the father throws a huge party for him because he was lost and now he’s been found! Heaven rejoices over the redemption of one sinner!! Our goal as Christians is to point out that God has something WAY better for people than the sin they are choosing to embrace and live in. If we’re not doing it for that reason – in love – we are absolutely wrong.

We must understand that Jesus died for the sins of the world (1 John 2:1-2) and that there is no hierarchy when it comes to sin; no one sin is worse than another. We need to understand a bit of Judaism to get this point. Jews see the law as a single thing not a bunch of individual laws. That is why James tells us that if we break one law, we’ve broken the entire law (James 2:10). While we no longer are under the penalty of the law and instead under grace, the absolute moral law stands! So, when one says that their sin isn’t as bad as the other guy’s you’re really being like the pharisee who looked at the tax collector and thanked God he wasn’t like that sinner! Jesus points out that it is the tax collector beating his chest in agony over his sin who is righteous not the pharisee. The slippery slope of claiming your sin isn’t as bad as someone else’s is you are arguing that you don’t need Jesus in that part of your life because it’s not so bad. And that means Jesus didn’t need to die on the cross for that sin because it’s no big deal. Dang, I get nervous even writing that! I need Jesus in EVERY part of my life because it ALL is fallen and doesn’t meet God’s holiness standards. So, no, LGBTQ+ is not worse than telling white lies.

We are to share the gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ saving us from hell and offering us eternal life with Him. However, once we deliver that message gently with respect, we let that person decide for themselves. There are three scenes in the Bible that show Jesus doing just that. First, Jesus tells the rich young ruler what he needs to do to inherit eternal life but the cost is too high for him and he walks away. Jesus doesn’t chase him He just lets him walk. Then the same thing happens with the 70 disciples when they don’t understand Jesus’s teaching on what we now call communion and they walk away. Nope, He didn’t chase them or explain it to them. He simply asked the 12 remaining if they wanted to leave, too! Lastly, when he earlier sent those 70 disciples out to the towns with His power to heal, cast out demons, and preach, He told them if a town accepts them stay but if a town rejects them and the message to “shake the dust off your sandals” which an insult that basically cuts them off. We tell the message in love and let the chips fall where they may!

We are to be seen as humble. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Put others ahead of yourself. Turn the other cheek. Forgive as you’ve been forgiven. Don’t judge. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Go the extra mile. Bear each other’s burdens. You know all the commands of Jesus. We are to look different than the culture by acting as Jesus did in His own culture.

We are to show that we are disciples of Jesus by the way we love one another. That love does not have to be reciprocated by the fallen world but we must love it as much as Jesus does and He died for it!

We are to stand firm on biblical truth – everyone may disagree with you, mock you, attack you, and even martyr you, but we stand firm. That means we tell the truth about heaven, hell, sin, God’s holiness, God’s judgment, Jesus’s second coming, – you know, all the hard truths. But we do so in a way that shows our genuine concern for a person’s eternal spirit and again not in a way to condemn them.

We are to bear each other’s burdens, helping each other by serving, supporting, encouraging, and spending our time, talents and treasure to further the kingdom of God. We do things for “the least of these” and give of our resources generously.

Everything we do is to glorify God – all our thoughts, words, and actions point to Jesus.

So, does your church look like this? Does your life look like this?

Unfortunately, as my buddies have pointed out, the church really doesn’t look like this. What the general public sees is infighting among denominations, abusive pastors/priests, friends and family who have been spiritually abused, church leaders who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, and a church that will eagerly tell you what its against but rarely claim what it is for. It’s pretty easy to understand why people don’t want to go to church!

Now, that all said I’m going to defend the church to a degree.

As I noted earlier, I left the church for 25 years myself because of the exact reasons my friends pointed out. However, God called me back to church in 2004 so I obeyed and have learned a ton about church since. Here are some of my observations about church:

• Church is a hospital for the sick not a sanctuary for the righteous. Churches are full of broken people in need of a savior so it’s going to be messy, but it works so long as everyone is keeping their eyes on Jesus.
• The 80/20 rule we use in business is the same in churches: 80 percent of the people are there to be fed while 20 percent of the people are there to grow in Christ. Not everyone who attends church is sold out but there is a core group that makes up the heartbeat of a church.
• Church is the cauldron in which we get to practice our faith. If there is ever a place you get to practice patience (long-suffering), grace, mercy, forgiveness, bearing with, turning the other cheek and more it’s church (and marriage!).
• Church isn’t about you. This is perhaps the biggest pivot the church needs to make. We go to church to worship God not appease ourselves. That 80/20 rule applies here. Most think church is about them so the music has to be what they like, and the sermon must be given in a style they like, and they will only sit with people they like. Honestly, God hates that and says so when He told the Israelites their sacrifices disgusted Him (Isaiah 1:13).
• Relationship is important. Jesus tells us that His family (Who is My mother and who is My brother?) are those who do the will of God. That is true family. (Matthew 12:48-50). Thus Jesus wants us to be in relationship with other believers because this is the family of God no necessarily your blood relatives.
• Church makes Jesus more in your life and you less. All the components of worship – praise, thanksgiving, blessings, prayers, messages, fellowship and the rest – all move you to put Jesus first in every aspect of your life which is the goal!

So, as a guy who agrees with those who see all the problems in the church I also have come around to the conclusion that church is a vital component of one’s faith walk. I hear a lot of my friends say they can believe in Jesus without attending church. True, but Satan and the demons believe in Jesus, too, but they don’t follow Him. Jesus went to the Temple; Jesus went to the synagogue. Jesus believed in gathering to worship so I think we should, too.

Yes, church is hard and it can really stink sometimes. But life is hard and can really stink sometimes and the church is a part of that life. If you’ve been harmed by the church, I am crushed to hear that but I understand your reluctance to trust again. My advice is this: Go out and find a great church in your community and give it another try with the focus being Jesus not the preacher, the congregation, the music, the church budget, the church council, or any of the other trappings. Just worship Jesus and I think you’ll find a very rewarding church experience even if you are in the midst of other broken people.