12 Minute Read
Prepare Your Heart
To the best of your ability, get rid of all distractions. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and quiet yourself in the Lord’s presence. Then, ask the Lord to speak to you in this time. Let Him know that you will listen and make whatever adjustments He will reveal to you.
Read God’s Word
Lamentations 1-2
Hebrews 10:19-39
A Verse for Today
Slowly and reflectively read the following verse(s) and listen to what God will say to you through His written Word. Consider writing down any insights He reveals to you.
Hebrews 10:26-27 (CSB): “For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.”
Reflecting on God’s Word
Verses like the ones I chose for today make me realize that I (and so many others) have not healed completely. Those verses feel like a bandage that is yanked off a festering wound. Even though they are true, they hurt. Because the place where God intends healing and health to take place is often where people have received some deep scars.
Let me back up a bit, give my comments some context, and then resume my line of thinking.
The writer of Hebrews had some primary goals in his book. First and foremost, he set out to demonstrate, and did a masterful job under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, that Jesus is far better than anything or anyone the Old Testament had to offer.
But a secondary issue the writer of Hebrews was addressing was apostasy. There were Jews who claimed to have trusted in Jesus for salvation but then, for any number of reasons, turned away from Jesus and wiped their hands clean of Him. They cut ties and rejected the Jesus they once claimed to embrace. The writer of Hebrews said that if someone claimed a relationship with Jesus and then rejected Him, there was no hope for them. They had abandoned the only means by which God can save lost souls.
It is interesting to observe the verses immediately preceding the dire warning in Hebrews 10:26-27. Here they are.
Hebrews 10:24-25 (CSB): “And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Did you get that? Churches are meant to be places that encourage us to keep living for Jesus. If we are discouraged by life’s difficulties or if we are living in sin, the church is intended to be a place where someone comes alongside us, encourages us (this takes multiple forms), and helps us get back on the path to Christlikeness.
Hebrews 10:24-25 are actually comforting verses. The church is intended to be a safe place where we can learn, heal, grow, love, serve, and so much more as we become more like Jesus.
And yet, the very next verses are the ones I’ve chosen for today. Immediately after saying that the church is intended to promote godliness and help wayward or discouraged saints, readers are warned against straying from Jesus.
Hebrews 10:26-27 (CSB): “For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.”
Clearly, the writer of Hebrews, led by God’s Holy Spirit, is saying that if churches are healthy and doing what they are supposed to do, they will help individual believers grow in godliness. Anyone who could be in such a healthy congregation and yet eventually reject Jesus has clearly demonstrated that they are not saved. They deserve their divine punishment.
But, as we read Paul’s letters, we realize that churches are almost always dealing with issues. In fact, if the churches Paul wrote to didn’t have problems in theology, morality, or relationships, his part of the New Testament (Romans – Philemon) would be much shorter, because his letters spent a good deal of time resolving problems in the churches.
And that is why the verses I have chosen for today hurt my heart. They are true. When people are part of a healthy, godly church and still leave the faith, their punishment from God is just. However, I am convinced that an enormous number of people have left the church and maybe even their relationship with Jesus, because of the negative stuff they experienced in their church. Instead of the church being a place of godliness, instruction, unconditional love, and so much more, it was an agent of Satan to harm those who claimed to be followers of Jesus.
This is on my mind as I write this post because I led a business meeting last night. I am the pastor of White Hall Baptist Church in Richmond, Kentucky, and we had some positive discussion and then voted to approve the proposed church budget for next year. It was such a pleasant business meeting! That’s because White Hall BC is filled with people who love the Lord and each other. So, we were just a church family doing business in last night’s meeting.
I went home last night and realized how tense I was before the meeting, and it wasn’t even necessary. It’s not that I expected any negative stuff last night. It’s just that I’ve seen and experienced so much in churches that I feel like my cortisol levels naturally elevate as business meetings approach.
Over the years, before I came to WHBC, I’ve discouraged Kim from attending church business meetings. I saw how they were affecting her, and I was protecting my wife. I’ve seen multiple meetings (in my 23 years of pastoral ministry) that should have been tame go off the rails quickly. Rogue members, deacons, and even staff waited until they had a microphone in hand at a business meeting to try to discredit a committee’s decision or a decision I made, while completely bypassing the principle Jesus gave us for dealing with disagreements/hurts among Christians (Matthew 18:15-17). Oftentimes, their desire to feel important and maybe even to grab a handful of power was evident to those who were observing.
One of the many troublesome meetings that immediately comes to mind was on a Sunday night at a different church many years ago. It was a Sunday night, but we had a Sunday morning attendance. Word had gotten out that the meeting would be contentious, and people had shown up to watch “a good ol’ fashioned church fight.” I felt like shaming them (but I didn’t) for showing up to watch a “fight” in a business meeting when most of them never, ever attended on an ordinary Sunday evening. (Fortunately, as the meeting was getting underway, God gave me the wisdom to say a few words that calmed the meeting down quickly. Church members told me afterwards that God was in what I said because they believed it was going to get ugly quickly.)
Of course, church conflict isn’t limited to church business meetings. They happen in many other ways and places. A few church members have threatened me. I’ll never forget one Wednesday evening when a deacon, who was always joking, told me he wanted to speak to the congregation. That was a very unusual request, and I thought he was joking once again. So, with a smile on my face, I told him I wasn’t going to let him. Again, I thought he was joking. When I said the final “Amen” and the service ended, I caught his eye and saw fire in them. I realized that for once, he wasn’t joking and had actually desired to speak to the congregation. He waited until everyone else had left. At that point, he puffed up his chest, flexed his arms, and gave me a tongue-lashing, and soon moved his membership. I actually thought he was going to hit me in that encounter. Kim sat there, saw it all, and started crying (Kim is strong and doesn’t cry much). I can recount numerous occasions when something like this has happened … in churches!
I’ll never forget a lady who aggressively (but manipulatively) worked her way into being a friend to Kim many years ago. Being married to the pastor makes relationships in the church a bit complicated, and it can be incredibly lonely (have you ever noticed how many pastors’ wives sit alone in worship services?). After a while, Kim felt like this lady could be trusted. In a relationship of trust, Kim opened her heart and shared a few things. Sometime later, that relationship went cold. Kim wondered why that lady was completely ignoring her while seeming to really enjoy other relationships at the church. At some point, Kim found out that the lady had been broadcasting to others what Kim had shared with her in private. Kim was devastated that her “trusted Christian friend” was actually duplicitous and simply used her to create drama. To say it was a cataclysmic event in Kim’s heart would be an understatement. Kim has struggled to allow anyone near her heart after that “Christian” lady took her heart and crushed it on the ground.
I’ll never forget the day when Kim looked particularly weary. She had been walking through yet another bout with cancer, but it was some misbehaving church members that had ultimately overwhelmed her heart. I can still see the look in her eyes when she told me, “I feel like something inside of me has died.” Friend, Jesus’ bride has hurt my bride so many times that I’ve lost count. I’ve often felt like a failure for being unable to fully protect her from … church folks.
My boys have also felt the brunt of my role as pastor. There have been a few times when I’ve had to confront a church member about sin. It’s been my observation that people who claim to love the Lord generally get defensive and angry when confronted. On other occasions, I’ve made enemies when I’ve made a decision I believed was in the best interest of the church, only to rub someone the wrong way. If those adults had children my sons’ age, I noticed those youth immediately start to pull away from my sons, maybe forming groups that ostracized or even verbally abused my sons … because the “Jesus-following adult” in their life was angry at ME.
If I ever hear another “preacher’s kid” joke, I’m probably going to take a swing. Church folks laugh about preacher’s kids who stray, and yet the church is probably the very reason they strayed! And a preacher and his wife are left to grieve a wayward child who is going down a dark road because their child saw what it sometimes looks like behind the curtain of ministry, and they want no part of it.
What makes church hurt so painfully is that it’s not supposed to be this way. It’s supposed to be a place where we all love the Lord with everything we’ve got (Matthew 22:37-38), and we love each other as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). It is supposed to be a place where we encourage each other in godliness (Hebrews 10:24-25), even as we feel safe enough to “confess our faults one to another” (James 5:16).
Christians are CRAVING churches like that! Christians NEED churches where they can be honest about their struggles and receive encouragement, healing, hope, and love as they make adjustments on their journey toward Christlikeness.
I find it impossible to believe that legitimate Christians would abandon their faith in Jesus if they were a part of a healthy, loving church. But I also find it relatively easy to believe that people could abandon the faith if they had been a part of some of the churches I’ve seen (churches filled with good people but also enough bad people to cause serious trouble).
Satan has got to be laughing in victory at the dysfunctional condition of so many churches across our land.
Friends, by God’s grace, let’s build the kind of churches that are places of healing and holiness that genuine Christians need. Let’s refuse to allow Satan to use any of us to keep our churches from being healthy and holy. Let’s work toward our churches being such good soil that Christians can grow and thrive in them. And when someone steps out of line and threatens to cultivate an ungodly, toxic environment, let’s love the Lord and the church enough to stand up and stop the harm.
If someone is going to abandon the faith, may it NEVER be because of what was going on in our churches or Christian communities!
Why should we work against those who would harm the church and individuals within it? Would Jesus tolerate such harm? Just listen to what He said as I bring this article to a close.
Christians: “these little ones who believe in me”
Matthew 18:6 (CSB): “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Spend Time in Prayer
- Ask God to help you be a positive, biblical change agent in your church, helping it become more of what Jesus desires it to be, as outlined in His Word.
Going Deeper
If you want to dig a little deeper into Matthew 18:6, consider reading the following GotQuestions article:
“Who are the ‘little ones’ in Matthew 18:6?”
Sharing
If this post has been helpful to you or if you think it could help others, please consider tapping one of the social media buttons below to share it on your favorite platform.
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Matt Ellis is the pastor of White Hall Baptist Church in Richmond, Kentucky (whitehallbaptistchurch.org)
Matt’s Musings 