Church Membership Has Left Me Relationally Jaded
00:00:00.000 | Well, we are making our final approach to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation that
00:00:10.040 | will be celebrated on Tuesday the 31st.
00:00:12.800 | And this weekend is a big one for you, Pastor John.
00:00:16.000 | You're right now in Phoenix, Arizona, speaking several times, including Friday and Saturday
00:00:20.600 | at Grand Canyon University, and then scheduled to preach Sunday, Reformation Sunday, at Harvest
00:00:27.400 | Bible Church.
00:00:28.400 | Please be praying for Pastor John and his busy weekend in Phoenix.
00:00:33.120 | We would appreciate it.
00:00:34.440 | Today's question comes from a listener named Barb.
00:00:36.440 | "Pastor John, hello.
00:00:37.800 | I've been blessed to be in the same local church for 12 years.
00:00:40.920 | It's a very good church.
00:00:42.400 | Nevertheless, over those years, I have seen most of the congregation come and go.
00:00:47.640 | People who walked with me through difficult life circumstances have left, and I've started
00:00:52.920 | over.
00:00:53.920 | I feel more and more lonely as the time passes by, mostly because I feel myself becoming
00:00:58.880 | more cynical, cautious, and superficial with new people.
00:01:03.880 | It's hard work getting to know them, and I know that they will likely move on before
00:01:07.160 | long.
00:01:08.560 | What would you say to a Christian who is growing relationally jaded by membership turnover?"
00:01:15.200 | I would love to help Barb overcome the drift, because it is a sinful drift, even if an understandable
00:01:27.000 | one, the drift toward cynicism or anger or low-grade bitterness.
00:01:36.680 | If for no other reason, then it won't solve her problem, and it will only make her own
00:01:42.400 | life more sad and miserable.
00:01:46.880 | Then her sense of abandonment will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because nobody
00:01:52.840 | wants to be around a bitter person.
00:01:56.600 | So several things come to my mind that might help.
00:02:00.240 | Let me just offer them to Barb and see if they might be of service.
00:02:06.880 | Keep a clear biblical view of this life, this earthly life, this church life, this
00:02:16.440 | family life, this earthly life as a season of partly joyful, partly painful waiting for
00:02:25.400 | the fulfillment of all God's promises, a mindset of waiting in an imperfect situation.
00:02:33.720 | Much of our frustration, I speak for myself at least, comes from having wrong expectations
00:02:41.440 | about what this world and even this age of church life will be.
00:02:48.040 | We expect a better church, a better marriage, better kids, better government, better health,
00:02:54.640 | better friends, and the reality falls short.
00:02:58.720 | And the more it falls short, these expectations make us cynical and bitter.
00:03:05.720 | I know that God is willing to do great things for us, but most of the time we are dealing
00:03:15.440 | with people, including the one in the mirror, who falls short of what we hope for.
00:03:22.520 | And therefore, we need to get a mindset about this age that is sober and marked by the long
00:03:33.360 | view of patient waiting, like James 5, 7 says, "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the
00:03:41.400 | coming of the Lord."
00:03:42.520 | Now that's a long patience.
00:03:44.040 | It might be to the end of your life.
00:03:45.980 | See how the farmer waits for precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until
00:03:52.980 | it receives the early and late rain.
00:03:54.960 | You also must be patient.
00:03:56.900 | Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
00:04:01.500 | Do not grumble against one another.
00:04:04.940 | So in circumstances and people around us in the world, in the church, in the family, let
00:04:09.800 | us down, James is calling us to hold fast to our hope and pursue the blessedness that
00:04:16.380 | comes precisely through patient waiting.
00:04:21.220 | Because he says in chapter 5, "Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast."
00:04:29.980 | You have heard of the steadfastness of Job and you have seen the purpose of the Lord,
00:04:36.580 | how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
00:04:39.020 | So that's the first thing, a mindset of realistic waiting in an imperfect world.
00:04:46.340 | Here's number two.
00:04:47.700 | Barb, keep in mind that Jesus himself tasted a kind of holy frustration with what happened
00:04:58.460 | with the people around him, even to his own disciples.
00:05:02.060 | He said, "Oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you?
00:05:07.540 | How long am I to bear with you?
00:05:10.580 | Bring him here to me."
00:05:11.580 | And then he heals the boy.
00:05:13.820 | It helps, helps me anyway, to know that there is a kind of godly frustration with the imperfections
00:05:23.780 | of this age, including the imperfections of God's people, including the imperfections
00:05:29.140 | of the whole system that keeps people moving around, coming in, moving out of God's church.
00:05:36.780 | You're not alone in your disappointments.
00:05:39.500 | Jesus himself felt some of what you are feeling.
00:05:44.140 | That's number two.
00:05:45.540 | Number three, never forget that both forgiving when you're sinned against and forbearing
00:05:54.380 | when you're simply frustrated by other people's circumstances or weakness beyond their control,
00:06:00.740 | both these, forgiving and forbearing, grow in the soil of amazement at God's grace in
00:06:11.060 | giving us such a privileged place in Christ, such a privileged identity.
00:06:18.260 | So here's the passage that came to my mind.
00:06:21.980 | This is Colossians 3.12, "Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and loved, compassionate
00:06:31.220 | hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another if one has a complaint
00:06:37.940 | against another, forgiving one another as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive."
00:06:42.980 | In other words, bearing with or forbearing, that is just sucking it up and dealing with
00:06:49.460 | the pain and the frustration and the sorrows as well as forgiving those who genuinely sin
00:06:56.900 | against you.
00:06:57.900 | He says all of that is preceded by these three glorious realities.
00:07:06.140 | You are chosen by God.
00:07:08.340 | You are set apart for holy purposes by God.
00:07:11.440 | You are loved by God.
00:07:12.940 | Isn't it amazing?
00:07:14.020 | That's the way he argues.
00:07:15.900 | He begins the verse, "As chosen, as holy, as loved, forbear."
00:07:23.900 | This kind of joyful confidence in God's grace and who we are in him will make us like a
00:07:32.540 | fountain or a spring so that we can keep on giving ourselves in friendship.
00:07:40.940 | This is where the rubber meets the road for Barb, I think.
00:07:43.880 | Keep on giving ourselves in friendship when it feels like people only drink and leave.
00:07:49.320 | They just drink and leave.
00:07:51.000 | They drink from me and then they leave.
00:07:54.320 | Jesus says, "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling
00:08:01.040 | up to eternal life."
00:08:03.400 | Or that's John 4.14.
00:08:05.400 | Here's John 7.38.
00:08:06.400 | "Whoever believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his heart will flow rivers of
00:08:12.720 | living water."
00:08:14.280 | Now that's our calling and God is sufficient.
00:08:18.300 | So be a spring.
00:08:21.040 | Be a spring.
00:08:22.040 | Be a river.
00:08:23.600 | And don't stop flowing when people drink and leave.
00:08:26.840 | A never-ceasing spring is a beautiful witness to the all-sufficiency of Christ.
00:08:35.040 | Here's one last thing.
00:08:37.080 | Maybe two.
00:08:38.080 | I'll squish them into number four here about friendship.
00:08:42.520 | Maybe just a few of those friends that have left, maybe you can keep them.
00:08:49.560 | Maybe you can stay in touch for decades and cultivate a lifelong friendship over miles.
00:08:55.440 | There are one or two people in my life that I count as precious friends.
00:09:02.800 | We have been through some horrific things with each other who live far away from me
00:09:07.480 | now and I used to work with them decades ago and they're still precious.
00:09:13.760 | And remember, I guess this would be the other of two things in my fourth one.
00:09:19.640 | There is a friend, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, closer than a sister,
00:09:26.320 | closer than a spouse, and he has promised never to leave you, Hebrews 13.5, and will
00:09:33.560 | always be with you to the end of the age, Matthew 28.20.
00:09:39.120 | Amen.
00:09:40.120 | Thank you for this encompassing view of life that puts our loneliness and our friendships
00:09:45.560 | and our broken friendships all into perspective, Pastor John.
00:09:49.460 | And thank you for listening and making the podcast a part of your week.
00:09:53.160 | Three times a week we publish and you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our
00:09:56.240 | past episodes in our archive and even reach us by email with a question of your own, even
00:10:00.840 | questions as it relate to relationship issues faced within your local church.
00:10:06.800 | Though please keep it at the principal level.
00:10:09.720 | We cannot address specific issues within a local church, obviously.
00:10:13.120 | So keep it at the principal level like this very wisely worded question from Barb.
00:10:17.200 | Barb, you did this really well.
00:10:19.160 | Thank you.
00:10:20.160 | Do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:27.160 | So with Christ's love for the church providing the typological pattern or the archetype as
00:10:32.440 | we say for a man's love of his wife, it's no surprise that we get a lot of emails from
00:10:37.840 | husbands who don't know if they're on the right track here.
00:10:41.240 | What does this look like in our everyday lives to love a wife like Christ loved the church?
00:10:47.440 | That's on the docket on Monday on the other side of the weekend.
00:10:50.720 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:10:52.320 | Thanks for listening and we'll see you then.
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