Hard Truths

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Series: Elephant in the Church

{Thought about calling it, “Things you probably don’t want to hear, but you need to hear it anyway.”]

But that seemed too long….

This is a Hard Saying…

John 6:60–68 “Therefore, when many of his disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard [a Hard Truth]. Who can accept it?” [“Who can hear it?!] Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

[Jesus explains the meaning of his “hard” teaching]

The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and the one who would betray him.) He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.” From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The Elephant in the Church

The overwhelming majority of Jesus’ teaching did not concern the issues outside the church…they were directed at the Elephants in the Church (God’s people)…

Here’s the problem with preaching a series on Elephants in the room…everyone sees the elephant, but they believe it someone’s else’s elephant, not their’s.

We need to get these republicans straight! -OR- We need to get these democrats straight!

We need to deal with these Hollywood producers and actors!

Somebody needs to confront these evil agendas!

Truth: One of Jesus’ primary forms of teaching was using parables…Parables were great because they told a story…invited the listeners to lean in…

Most of the time listeners would hear the first part of the story and thing…That’s Right! you need to preach that preacher!!

But at the final line, everyone in the room thinking this was a story about someone else, would suddenly realize, “Jesus is talking to me.”

Nathan was a prophet who told a parable to King David in 2 Samuel 2:12…There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms,1 and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, z“As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

Nathan said to David, “You are the man!

God will use Truth to offend us at the place of our presumptions and privilege.

Anybody else ever fell like you know how things are supposed to turn out…you prayed all the right prayers, went to all the right Bible classes…then you find yourself offended because God does something without asking your permission!?! …something that doesn’t fit into your paradigm.

An old mentor of mine used to say He’s “Jehovah Sneaky”

Bishop Miller: “I’m sorry I didn’t consult your great wisdom before I made my decision.” …I think I remember that moment so well because (a) I felt about this big, and (b) that’s how I hear God sometimes…I can be so confident in what I know that I forget that I really don’t know…ONLY GOD KNOWS.

God responds to Job and friends … (Job 38) “Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you know. Who fixed its dimensions? Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

God will often offend our presumptions to keep us from remaining bound by old paradigms and old strongholds.

Hebrews 4:12–13 (ESV): For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hard Truth: We are a People Formed by Jesus, not Political Agendas or Culture Wars (Issue Voting)

Election season is heavy on my mind lately…not so much because of some pressure to get the right leaders voted in…I welcome the opportunity to participant in our republic, but I have found there’s often more at stake than the church realizes…

What’s more at stake is the witness of the church…we are too easily sucked into the games culture plays that Satan uses to strip the church of her power.

Principle: Real life is much more complex than the pat-answers we come up with in the church sometimes. We’ve often failed to enter into the reality of the other. Instead of giving us a universal list of rights and wrongs, God did something better. He gave us Jesus.

We’ve allowed our culture to attack us into single issue Christianity on one side, or bully us into relativism on the other.

When we should be at church, who insists that Jesus is a living Lord, who speaks to all the issues of our lives.

Jesus is a Livable Ethic

Jesus has a sexual ethic

Jesus has a family ethic

Jesus has a political ethic

Jesus has a life ethic

Jesus has a race ethic

Jesus has a social ethic

Hard Truth: God Loves and Sustains Life at All Stages, In All Places, In All Circumstances.

[If this is online, maybe it will break the internet???!!] I don’t hesitate saying, it is heartbreaking to hear our political and community leaders, devalue the life of unborn children in the name of so-called “re-productive freedom.”

But here’s the challenge to the Church: God is the creator of ALL LIFE, including the mother. Our work is finding meaningful ways to defend both the life of mothers and the unborn child.

Let me take it step further… the church’s defense of Life is not exclusive to the life of the unborn! God calls us to stand at any place, any situation, any circumstance where human life is not loved or valued and demand we love and protect others.

Let me say this…the kind of thing that’s hard to hear: The church, for its part, has been far too quick to justify our weapons, our violence, and our wars, when the primary weapon of the Kingdom modeled by Jesus is LOVE. John 13:34–35 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

If there were love of neighbor, there would be no terrorism, no repression, no selfishness, none of such cruel inequalities in society, no abductions, no crimes. Love sums up the law. Not only that, it gives a Christian meaning to all human relations. …without love justice is only the sword. With love, justice becomes a brother’s embrace. Without love, laws are arduous, repressive, cruel. . . But when there is love—security forces would be superfluous, there would be no jail or tortures, no will to beat anyone.

-Archbishop Oscar Romero

You say, that’s just unrealistic…maybe so today…but the church doesn’t have the luxury of modifying God’s plan…we stand in the gap and pray, and speak up, and let our life and action be motivated by the love that can only come from Christ!

God make us a people who passionately confess, “…on Christ the sold rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand!!”

Only Jesus has the words of eternal life for you today!

Two options every day…

You can close your heart off to the words of Jesus, and harden your heart… -OR-

You can surrender to his plan, his way, by his grace…only he has the words of eternal life.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV)

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Can we throw our hands up in surrender today?