We’re talking about truth. The pillars of truth that support and secure our faith. [1Tim. 3:15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.] Paul here calls the church “the household of God”. It’s the word, oikos. A house, AND the people who live there. A family. And he actually says this family is the pillar and support of the truth. The way this family conducts itself in accordance with the truth affects said truth is received by the world. This is (or should be) a sobering responsibility. And if we’re honest, it’s an audacious claim. We have the truth. We know the truth. Paul warns us that knowledge can make us arrogant [1Cor 8.1]. It puffs people up. "I know something you don’t know." Right? We get to thinking that we’re better than the poor ignorant chap who doesn’t know what we know. There's a lot of that these days. Conservogressives. Calviminianists. It begs the question - how do WE, how should God’s family handle the truth? The words that we say, how we say them, the lives that we lead, these all either validate or (can seemingly) invalidate the truth.
Now as we saw last time, truth is eternal. It is unchanging. Ps 119:89 Forever, O LORD, Your Word is settled in heaven. Truth will always be true no matter how someone handles (or mishandles) it. [1+1 will always equal 2, whether my 5yr old understands that or not]. Jesus Himself was convinced of this [Jn 8.32, 14.6, 16.13a, 17.17, Mt 24.35]. But there can be challenges when it comes to relating truth to others. Truth is NOT easy to handle. What if I have questions - can I ask them? Or what if I’m wrestling with doubts - is that ok? What if I’ve messed up? Or how do I relate to my friends who don’t believe? What about areas where science seems to contradict some of these truths? Or, why should I believe these truths when so many who say they believe fail to practice the truth they profess?
The Barna Research Group has found that roughly 3 out of 5 young people are disconnecting from church life either temporarily or permanently after age 15, many of them citing 1 or more of these issues. But I wonder - why are young people in particular walking away from this family? Cuz family is forever. Or it’s supposed to be.
Sadly, too often, I think for many people, church has NOT been a family. It’s an institution. Or it’s a meeting, a show. You zip in, you zip out, take it or leave it. Or it’s a place we go to punch our spiritual time card. I’m supposed to do it. It’s good for me, like medicine. Or it’s a building. But we don’t “go to church”. We don’t watch church - we ARE the church. We’re a family. Only we’re not born into it - we commit to it, to one another. We need each other. We journey together, in community. But in many places the church IS failing to teach and live into this truth. More on this in a few weeks...
Having said that, there are ways we don’t handle the truth well. Sometimes we are too defensive (like we don’t feel it’s okay to allow the space to ask questions or even to have doubts). Sometimes we’re complacent - we accept the truth but then we assume the truth. Especially in the Bible belt. Church leaders and teachers and parents take the truth for granted and try to pass it on to the next generation without the whys behind the truth. We just assume that folks will hold onto what we’ve accepted. But then the next generation doesn’t know why we believe what we believe - and when the storms of life come, obstacles and opposition, some go through this time of disconnecting, falling away. Increasingly so.
One way this is playing out: People who grow up IN the church, they find themselves with a friend who is choosing to live a life that is NOT what God designed, and when push comes to shove, these young people choose to support their friend rather than the institution. Sometimes shelving their faith altogether (at least temporarily). Why are they doing that? Why would someone shelve their faith in favor of a friend? What would bring someone to the point of saying, these truths I’ve been taught, and this community up in which I’ve been brought - I’m done with it. “The rise of the dones.” I’m done with church. There are different reasons - but I think the church is complicit in how we mishandle the truth, in several ways:
Again, I think much of the time, this person's “church” hasn’t been much of a community. It’s just been a meeting. Or like a spiritual country club. Everyone “has their act together”. “Nobody struggles”. Nobody is allowed to ask questions. “No messy people allowed”. At some level, the church has failed - to live into the truth that, we are a family, and family is messy. I’m a mess, and so are you, and that’s ok. And we (are called to) love each other in spite of our messiness.
Another reason is that perhaps they conclude that the truth just isn’t true. Again, this can happen when we just assert that something is true but fails to reinforce the why’s. Mom/Dad/Pastor, why do we believe this, why is this true? Too often, the answer is, "Well it just is." When we don’t understand why we believe what we believe, then we can’t pass it on effectively. And the next generation will not hold on to it.
Bottom line: we can’t handle the truth [In "A Few Good Men" - the young lieutenant didn’t want to face the truth - cuz was messy]. But God’s truth isn’t messy, people are messy. We’re all messy, so much brokenness. And God’s family is called to love messy broken people - but the narrative has become that the church is afraid of messy people. The church hates messy people. And we protest and say, no we love messy people. But is there any evidence to prove it? How do we handle the truth? How do we bring the Gospel to bear in the lives of people who are messy and broken - just like us? The truth is, WE can’t. We CAN’T handle the truth - not on our own. We’re messy and broken too. And THAT is what makes the Good News so good - it’s for everyone. We all need to be forgiven. None of us is any better than anyone else. THIS is the starting point: Humility. Colossians 3:12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. God didn’t choose any of us cuz we were cleaner, or better. We all need Jesus to clean up our mess just as much as that person in that ditch over there. Humility says, we ALL need grace. [1Pet 4.10] And humility fosters gentleness and patience. 2Timothy 2:24-26 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
We must handle the Truth, God’s Word, with A LOT of gentleness and patience. And humility. But we also need compassion. We need the heart of Jesus - Mt 9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. And Jesus is the One Who needs to grow His heart in our heart. We're not able to love messy people in our own strength. And humility owns that, but then Compassion moves us past ALL the I can’ts. Lk 7:34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Jesus wasn’t participating in their dark deeds. But He found a way to be their friend. [Casting Crowns, "Jesus Friend of Sinners"] And He lives in me…!
Finding the balance isn’t easy. We don’t want to compromise on the truth. AND we don’t want to come up short on love [1Tim 1.5]. We’re called to serve up a heaping helping of both (Truth AND Love).
“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ...I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life -- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
It’s attainable - but we can’t handle it. Not in our own strength. It’s a super-human calling. And it’s getting harder. [2Tim 4.3-4] It’s hard to love people who don’t believe, who are different. Who don’t want to be loved. Who are hard to love. Humility says, I’m not better. I can’t do this - but with Christ, all things are possible! And then humility prays: Lord, help me/us (stay true to You, and give me Your heart, to love the hard2love…)
I love how Casting Crowns puts it:
You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast
For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came
Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast
But You died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet
Jesus died for sinners. Just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet. May the Lord give us grace so that, THAT truth, we can handle...
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