When Church Gets Complicated

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right. Well, if you grew up in or around the church, you know that things get complicated from time to time. I mean, they've certainly gotten complicated here from time to time. And sometimes those complications are small. It's just like our preferences or the personalities involved, expectations, styles, and opinions about what the church should be, what it should look like, how it should operate. Those are small complications. If those are small, you might be wondering, well, what are the big ones? The disappointment, division, dishonesty or failure, betrayal and real harm, those are some of the more serious complications. And either way, and like I said, those things have some of those things have occurred at Madison Church, others of them haven't. But either way, once a church community has been shaken, the question for those who remain is difficult. And we we're left asking, what can actually hold us together? If not, you know, expectations, styles, all of that. If that doesn't hold us together, what actually does?

A Shaken Community In 1 John

SPEAKER_01 1:16

In first John, John is writing to a church who were who was asking those same kinds of questions. Something had happened that caused people to leave that church community and it wounded those who remained, those who stayed. There were competing claims about what was true, who belonged, what faithfulness looked like, and what it meant to know God and to follow Jesus. Again, we know about those things. Those are things that happen at our churches all the time today. Last week, in the first part of the series, we saw John began the letter by grounding the Christian faith in the real person of Jesus. He says, This Jesus was the one we saw with our own eyes, heard with our own ears, we touched him with our hands. This is the one with whom we've proclaimed the word of life. John says that Jesus makes fellowship with God and one another possible through his life, death, and resurrection. But now John is going to start taking us deeper. And this is the first layer of kind of unpacking what he has to say. Before John tells us how us as Christians and followers of Jesus should walk together, he wants to tell us who God is.

God Is Light With No Darkness

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And so reading from 1 John chapter 1, verse 5, he writes, This is the message we heard from Jesus, and now declare to you, God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. Christianity, as John is saying here, is received before it's adapted to our moment. Okay, Christianity is received before it's adapted. And what I mean is the church doesn't get to invent God. And we do not get to create a version of Jesus that fits our preferred temperament or politics. A Jesus that doesn't, a version that doesn't necessarily fit our wounds, our personality types, or even our preferred church model. The people who received this letter first were not being asked to rebuild the church around whoever had the strongest feelings, or the loudest voice, or the deepest wounds, or the most persuasive version of events. The people who first received this letter were being asked to rebuild the church around the one who started it, Jesus Christ. Now, as a sidebar, that doesn't mean that there are no room for questions or wrestling or faithful discernment in new times and places. I think, along with many other theologians and scholars, that every generation has to ask what faithfulness looks like in its own context. But that's not where we begin. We don't begin with ourselves, we begin with who has been revealed. And this is the message. God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all. John is using one of Scripture's richest images to describe the character and presence of God. Light reveals, it exposes, light guides, it can give life. Light makes things visible as they actually are. And that's why darkness can be so disorienting. For those of us who have been had some dark days, dark seasons, you know, we know that darkness doesn't create the reality, but it makes reality really hard to discern. In the darkness, we misread what's around us. We mistake shadows for substance. We lose our sense of direction. And John makes the statement absolute. There is no darkness in God at all. There is no shadow side to God. God is not deceptive or manipulative, corrupt. God isn't cruel or false or even divided. What that means about God is that He is true, He is holy, He is clear, and He is light. Now we have to contrast that with contrast that with you and me. Because we're different than that. We can want the right things for the wrong reasons. We can say something is true, but we can say it without love. We can be wounded and still hurt or wound other people. We can be sincere and still self-deceived. You see, this is part of what makes the human community so difficult. John wants this wounded church from 2,000 years ago to remember that God is not confused because they are confused. And God is not divided because they're divided. And God is not compromised because they are compromised. And I know that their situation is not exactly the same as ours. Or the church down the road or elsewhere, but the theology impacts all of us, regardless of where we're meeting.

When Church Hurt Distorts God

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And that is that after conflict or disappointment or harm, people often begin projecting the church's darkness onto God. For example, someone who experiences hypocrisy from a Christian begins to see God as hypocritical as well. Someone who experiences manipulation from a church leader feels like God is manipulative. Someone who experiences silence, avoidance, or image management begins to feel like God is part of that cover-up. That's probably one of the deepest wounds of church hurt. And it's not just that people have failed you or people that you believed in or thought were different. It's not just that they failed you, it's that their failure can begin to distort your perception of God. Now here's the thing: John doesn't deny that darkness exists among the people who know God. There's darkness in me, and there's darkness in you. There's darkness in all of us. And the next few verses confront that directly and exactly. But before John talks about the darkness in us, he names the light in God. And I'm speculating this is why. I think that if you begin with human failure, you end up cynical. I know that's what happens to me when I think about all of the people in the world or all of the Christians and churches and all the people who have hurt me or let me down, or I say, you failed me, I get cynical. If we begin with church failure, we might end up in despair. Saying, like, oh, well, what's the point? If we begin with our own sin, we end up in shame. But when we begin with God, it sets a different tone, a different conversation. Now, this isn't only a theme in 1 John, it runs throughout the whole story of scripture. In the beginning, God spoke light in the darkness, and in the wilderness, God leads his people with fire by night. The psalmist writes, The Lord is my light and my salvation. The prophets imagine God's people becoming a light to the nations. And then Jesus says, I am the light of the world. In John's gospel, Jesus says that people often avoid the light because they do not want their deeds to be exposed. He also says, Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. And that's the invitation for us today. The light isn't so that we can expose everyone else around us while staying in the darkness and hidden ourselves. You cannot hear that God is light and immediately think about what everyone else needs to confess. And the next verse is John will say that if we claim that fellowship with God while walking in darkness, we lie and we do not live out the truth. And then he will say that if we claim to be out without sin, we deceive ourselves. Christian fellowship isn't a room full of people who have no darkness, because we do. I mean, that's just the reality. But Christian fellowship, what we are invited to today is to be a people learning to stop hiding because they trust in the God who is light.

Holiness Versus Image Management

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And so here's the challenge for us it's we gotta stop confusing holiness with image management. We got to quit confusing being set apart because of God with managing our image. And some of us have learned to look clean, sound clean, avoid the obvious bad behaviors. We know the right answers and we keep the unacceptable parts hidden. But that's not walking in the light. And I think that as I read that out loud, I feel conviction. I know other people feel conviction. I know there have been people I know that we're on the same page. We know how to look, sound, and avoid the bad stuff. We know what we should say and what we shouldn't say, all in the name of being a good Christian, but that's not being a good Christian. Following Jesus well is about learning how to walk in the light. It's not about how to look good in the dark. We have to let go of trying to organize our lives around concealment. We have to let the character of God define reality for us. Learning to live as a people who do not need darkness to survive. And I think that that's how many of us get by day to day or week to week or month to month. And I'm sure some of you feel that. How intimidating it might be if you lost all of the darkness today. If everything that you've put in the shadows or packed away were to be brought out and put on the table that causes great anxiety or depression for you.

One Honest Prayer And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 11:31

But I want to invite you this week. We begin with one honest prayer. God, where am I hiding? Not where is everyone else wrong or what is wrong with everyone else. Not how do I look more spiritual? Not how do I keep this under control, but let's pray. What am I refusing to bring to the light? And perhaps it's that you don't know. And so we pray to God to search our hearts and to make known to us what we are unaware of. Maybe it's resentment that is starting to shape how you see people. Unspoken resentment that is turned into a bitter heart. Maybe it's fear, something that you're absolutely scared of that you call wisdom. Because you're afraid, you come up with all of these reasons or explanations to justify why you're not doing the thing you know you ought to do because you're afraid to do it. Maybe it's controlled, disguised as responsibility. It could be real church hurt, and there is real church hurt, but it's slowly become the lens in which you see God and his people, Jesus and his bride. Maybe it is a sin you've been managing instead of confessing, a spiritual numbness, you're just too tired or embarrassed to name.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

And so this week, begin with an honest prayer. And when you do, try to take a step.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Name the resentment in your heart. Admit the fear that's driving you. Confess the sin to someone you trust. Tell the truth about the numbness. Have a conversation you've been trying to avoid. Ask for help before the pattern hardens. The light of God is not against you. The light of God is not against you. It's the darkness that is. The hiding is against you, the self-deception hurts you, the resentment harms you, the shame poisons you, the refusal to come honestly before God keeps you down.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

But the light is mercy. The light is truth. God is life, and that life has come to us in Jesus.