Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 20, 2021 | Good Question - Love Jesus, But Not the Church?

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June 20, 2021 | Good Question - Love Jesus, But Not the Church? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Connor.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure to be with you.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, in the first few rows here, if you're picking up a scent of menthol and lemon, that's me.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my new cologne.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's uh Hall's, the official cough drop of TBC.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um if uh if I look at any point today like I'm um about eight rounds deep into a boxing match, it's because I'm not exactly a hundred percent, but I'm super excited to thank you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm really excited about this lesson this morning, and frankly, I'm really excited about this series that we've got.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Good question.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it because there are uh a number of topics um in our Christian world uh that are really great to discuss.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sometimes hard to find um the proper way to bring them up unless it's this obvious.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, our question is is it okay to be spiritual but not religious?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand that for some of you that makes a lot of sense, and for some of you you're like, I have no idea what he's talking about.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you've made a dating online dating profile since like 2000, this is one of the options that you can typically pick, okay?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um if that's not you, all right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's actually a lot of data behind this category, this sort of feeling uh that a number of Christians are experiencing, which is uh this desire to maintain an aspect of faith, maintain this uh purpose in their lives towards God, but wanting to sort of slough off or reject, if you will, traditional organized religion.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's sort of a spectrum that we can walk with here.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um frustration with the church is generally how it's defined, but it's not necessarily like everybody's mad at TBC, though frankly that could be part of it, but it's more capital C church, like global, worldwide, we're disinterested with what the church has for us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this spectrum, right?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh some people who would fall into the category of I love Jesus but not the church, and then you go slide all the way over to um SBNR, which is spiritual but not religious.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And actually that is sort of the furthest extent.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what does it mean to fall into this category, and how do you know if you're there, and if you're not there, why is this important?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, this is where Christianity is heading, okay?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um Europe has been here for a long time.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: The coasts of the United States have been here, and post-Christianity, post-Christian uh thought is basically everywhere we're at now.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, there is a really, really deep ingrained American need to become an individual that has adversely impacted our churches, which is that we love the idea of an individual faith.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while ultimately the you know, salvation, trusting Christ as your Lord and Savior is an individual decision, um, every single thing in the Bible about being a Christian is about being a part of a community.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't really see Christians, whether uh Jesus and his disciples are in the early church in Acts, or once we get into the epistles and Paul's letters and things like that, uh, you see people doing church as a part of a community.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But that's that's not really what this is.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you're in this category, some things that you might identify with.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: A general frustration with uh the church.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You could feel that it doesn't have as much of a purpose anymore.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like you've been able to connect with God outside of church better than you did here.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably some doctrines of Christianity that really frustrate you and you have rejected, and ultimately you're holding on to a spirituality, but how exactly that comes about in your life isn't so important.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody is telling you what to do, then you're probably going to get a little frustrated.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we see this uh mirrored in our culture, like I said.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um of you would say that your relationship with the church is uh a complicated one.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um Facebook doesn't have this option anymore because it was super weird when people would post it as their status that they were in a complicated relationship.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't share that with social media.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, it's okay for you to admit it here in church that you have a complicated relationship with the church.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um Jen Hatmaker who is a Christian influencer, would maybe be a good way to title her.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she had a post um not that long ago, and I just wanted to read to you what she said, because this is sort of uh typifies what I'm talking about and what I want to share with you this morning.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: She says, for those of you with a complicated relationship with the church right now, and it has become clear the last five years, most of what I taught as gospel standards, uh most of what I was taught as gospel standards, turned out to be entirely optional, able to be abandoned for power or greed or lies.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: To put it succinctly, church confuses me.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I am adrift inside it for the first real time in my life.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I remain stubbornly attached to Jesus, devil be darned.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Something inside that connects, um, something inside that connection stays tender and gentle and true.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: He is the center that holds for me, but even that relationship is different.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then something that is very significant in what we're going to talk about this morning is the way in which this group uh wants to engage in worship.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Church to me right now feels like my best friends, my porch bed, my children and parents and siblings.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like meditation and all these leaves on my 12 pecan trees.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pecan, I don't know, I don't want to get into that fight.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um it feels like Ben Rector on repeat.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like my kitchen and my table and my porch.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like Jesus who never asked me to meet him anywhere but in my heart.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be really sympathetic and gentle because there's a this group is growing in the church.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm sure some of you are listening right now who identify with Jinn.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so my my goal this morning is not to um in any way accost you for your faith and the way that you are holding to your belief, but rather to uh help walk through some things that maybe need to be reconsidered about this approach.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you say that has never been me, I've never felt that way, well, um praise God that you feel like you've always had a very strong relationship.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But keep in mind two very important things if you don't identify with this.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: One is this is what Christianity is heading towards, and it's helpful to know how to relate with those who feel like they aren't a part of the church, because ultimately that's what we're going for, is to bring people into the church so they can learn about Christ.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's helpful to know these things.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the other one, and just to be a little careful, is that for some of us, we are the reason why those outside the church have said that the church can be a place filled with judgment.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not pointing any fingers, I'm just saying it's helpful to understand that that is actually one of the main reasons why somebody would say that they don't want to come to church.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So just to clarify my definition that we're going with this morning, it is the desire to have a component of faith in your life without the structure and community of organized religion.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I also want to say that I mean there are some really deep and profound reasons, good reasons, why some people would struggle with organized religion.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't have the best track record over all of time and responding to humanity.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And even just in the last, you know, last couple weeks, we've uh, if you, I don't know how many of you keep up with your Southern Baptist Convention news, um, but uh they just elected a new president, and there's been a lot of controversy within that denomination about the ways in which they had handled some abuse claims in the past, how their leadership wanted to do that, both sexual abuse and racial abuse.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are things that are coming up even now, and the denomination is fighting it, and and the good, the godly is winning out, but even still, that there's there's genuine pain here for a lot of people who feel like the church hasn't been there to help them when they needed it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really have to go very far to look at examples of pastors or um Christian leaders who have fallen from grace because of sinful decisions that they've made and have left a wake of destruction behind them.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or even those of us who grew up in a church where the interpretation of the Bible was actually harmful to us.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can use playing cards, it's okay.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's alright for you to do that.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but beyond that, there is um some of us, like I said, have grown up in a church where the Bible that we were taught was harmful.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to acknowledge those things, and I want to say that I recognize them, and that for those of you who are feeling pained in that way, um that that is a genuine feeling that you're going to have to reconcile with.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That just because the uh blueprint for church was not followed by the builder does not mean that we get to toss out the architect, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing in this, again, very well-studied group, the spiritual but not religious, is that um though those reasons that I just mentioned, difficult things in the church, might be the reasons that are given if somebody asks them why they don't want to be a part of the church, in reality, when you get down to the core of it, there are normally much more personal reasons, um, less less justified.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: It could be that they don't agree with the moral or sexual ethic of Christianity.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They don't like some of the ways in which the Bible is conflicting with our culture right now.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It can be that um they had a conflict with a specific church, they didn't like the way things were being done, and or they didn't like the worship music or something like that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It could also be that it just church did not fit with their schedule or priorities of life any longer.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: The travel ball schedule got extended far into the year and becomes year-round.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when asked why, hey, you know, so-and-so, haven't seen you at church in a while.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why, you know, are you doing okay?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Well, yeah, and then give a reason that sounds more justified than the one that is internally true.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as we move forward here, and as I know I'm kind of treading on some touchy ground for people, I just want to say that I recognize there are real hurts that need to be walked through, but that overwhelmingly the reasons why we step back from church is not because of those justified reasons, but typically because we want to pursue a faith that fits our own needs and our own desires.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, where can we go to the Bible, in the Bible, to understand what God thinks religion should look like, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the sort of bully that we're hitting on today is religion.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Religion is the thing that has hurt people, religion is the thing that we're railing against, religion is the thing we're trying to figure out.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where can we go?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the book of James and chapter one has a really good passage that tells us what God thinks about religion, true religion.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And just a brief bit of context that's really helpful here is that James is the brother of the half-brother of Jesus, and he is the leader in the Jerusalem church, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, really, the epicenter of fighting going on between the Jews and the Christian movement and those who are outside of it and are trying to persecute them.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's in a very unique position.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he's writing the book of James to those who have been cast out of Palestine because of their faith, and specifically writing to Jewish people.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when James is speaking of religion, you have to keep in mind all of the things that you have been taught about the ways in which the Jewish faith prioritizes religion and structure and rules and behavior.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And know that when James speaks about religion, this is who he's talking to.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: He gives us a kind of a great intro into what he says, chapter 1, verses 26 through 27.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he is religious, without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh we're gonna go through this a little bit, but before that I want to draw something out for you.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the word religious there in the uh the beginning.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: You've got religious, and then religion is highlighted two other times.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: That word religious is uh in the Greek, it's only used here.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't occur any other place.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what it's talking about is the inward feeling that somebody has where they say they love Jesus and they want to follow Jesus, and that is bringing alongside within them this desire to carry out his will, right?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is a righteous sense, or at least idea for the way that they are behaving.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who says that they are religious, and what James is saying is anyone who says that they follow Christ, but is not controlling his tongue, his religion, and in that sense, and then here later on, he is talking about the structure, the organization of it all.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's sort of two levels that we're speaking of here.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: One is informing the other.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: The way we feel about Christ is changing the way that we behave to the world around us, and that is impacting our religion.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we keep going here, I want to address this beginning portion.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he is religious, following Christ, carrying out his will without controlling his tongue.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And James has a big thing about controlling his tongue.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter three, he has a number of different images to describe it.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for him, for James, um, can being able to control the tongue or your words, uh, whether they are cutting or whether they are sweet, for him seems to be kind of um endemic for whether or not you are able to be a doer of the word or just a hearer of the word.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he has a couple different analogies for it in chapter three.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is the spark that lights the forest fire, it's the rudder of the boat, it is uh both salt water and freshwater cannot come forth from the same spring.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so to him, he is highlighting here the starkest contrast possible.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: What scares me about this passage is that James is letting his readers know, his Christian readers, that there are those that are reading this document that don't understand that they have been deceived and are following a useless faith.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of application for this, but for our purposes this morning, we there are two sort of things I want to hit on.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part where I'm saying, maybe if we had a conversation and this is where you were at, I would go a little bit slower.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: But by virtue of the fact that this is a lesson, and I'm kind of trying to get to a point, we're gonna sort of have to rip the band-aid off here a little bit faster.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone thinks he's religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is useless and what is deceptive about being spiritual but not religious, or saying, I love Jesus but not the church.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: The religion is useless because this separation from other Christians is not an accurate portrayal to the world of God's kingdom, and is a self-made and self-centered religion at its core.
• 17:50
  unknown: Woo!
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that is a little extreme.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain myself as the cart of tomatoes is rolled out front here.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um what do I mean?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, um, spiritual but not religious.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has got a religion.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you have ever contemplated the greater things in the universe and a higher power, you have made some sort of decision about that thing, which we would call God.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have made a decision upon it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And from that decision, right, just like religious informs religion, the your decision that you made has informed the way that you behave towards this higher power or God.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you're atheist, that is your religion.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're agnostic, that is your religion.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, spiritualist, that is your religion.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so there isn't really such a thing as somebody with no religion.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But for those who say that Jesus is still their shining star, their sort of their cardinal direction that they're heading towards, but they have said that they reject what the church has provided and they want to do their own thing, make no mistake that they have made their own religion.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this religion is self-made and self-centered, because in my experience, and so anecdotally, um, and then also what the data is saying, is that typically these situations where we have comforted ourselves by sort of soothing, uh soothingly saying that we follow Jesus, but like the example I gave at the beginning with Jin Hatmaker, I'm really not doing anything to be a part of the church or God's people.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's that you live in this sort of cocoon of safety, and there is no part of that faith which is challenging you or prodding you forward.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is self-centered because you have adopted, whether you know it or not, a system of faith that just looks like you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's useless because that is not the kind of religion that God has intended for us.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: The other way in which I believe that James's example, his words are speaking into it this morning, is that individuals who fall into this category are deceived because God has never called us into an individual faith.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we fail to follow God's design, even if we're well-intentioned, and I want to emphasize that, we have missed the mark.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think that right there is the hardest part about this.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was working on the message this week, the one that continually sort of bothered me and how I was going to address it, because there are so many people who in this category have decided that church isn't for them, and I don't want to make it just about church attendance, because that's really not the whole thing, but that is sort of a part and parcel of this system of faith.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: That when we do this sort of thing, when we follow into this man-made religion that has the veneer of Christianity, um, what we are doing is we are not only hurting ourselves because we are living in a very shallow faith, but whether you want to believe it or not, you are harming other people because Christianity has always meant, is always meant to be done in community, like I mentioned.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And at the very end here of the message today, I want to give you sort of our example that we're shooting for, but suffice it for right now, what I'm saying is just, hey, being by yourself is a dangerous place to be.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And typically, this whole, I just listen to my Hill song on Sunday morning and I think about God a little bit and I have some quiet time.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: While I understand the desire to hold on to this part of your life that is centered in faith, it typically Don't stay there, and the slippery slope usually continues down into where you are just saying in name only that you are a Christian, but there is no other part of your life that is defined by it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh I I've got a problem then, and that is I've found, I believe, the perfect illustration to describe this, and the problem is that I'm not sure how many of you are going to understand my reference here.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: How many people have watched the 1986 movie Labyrinth?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: People of culture, thank you.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Henson's last movie, executive produced by George Lucas, David Bowie as the Goblin King, okay?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, it is, I'm sure it's in the Library of Congress as something that needs to be watched by future generations when we send our shuttle to Mars.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um let me tell you, though, about it just really quick, because um I really do think there's an important part here.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in this in this movie that I recognize 95% of you haven't seen, um you've got a young Jennifer Connolly, and she uh basically is a very self-centered girl, and she trips into this fantasy world because her younger brother is stolen by the Goblin King himself, Mr.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: David Bowie, and she has to go through this labyrinth to be able to find him, and along the way she meets all these friends that are typically puppets, um, and uh she ultimately discovers herself and her need to love other people more than herself.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great story.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this point near the end uh where she's gotten really close to the end of the maze, and she meets this uh this lady, they should call it like the trash lady, whatever.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: She goes into this junkyard.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just trying to be in my mind, like for those of you who still haven't seen this movie, you're like, I just walk with me, walk with me.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So she goes into this junkyard, right, and uh there's this this junk lady who basically collects trash, she's the ultimate hoarder.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she Jennifer Connolly, her character Sarah, falls asleep and wakes up back in her bedroom at home, and she thinks that everything that she, you know, had experienced was a dream and all this sort of stuff.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and but then the junk lady comes in and starts reminding her and saying, Hey, remember all of these things, remember how you were materialistic, remember all of these things that you used to love, and it's this turning point for her character where she says, No, it's it's more than that, it's beyond that, it's more important, and then the walls fall down and the junk lady is defeated, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how in the world does that relate?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when we create our own religion, when we step back, when we sort of take a red Sharpie marker to the Nicene Creed and say, I like these parts of Christianity, but not these.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: This one fits my lifestyle, this one doesn't.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to sort of mold it and shape it into the image that is most comfortable for me.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you are living like her character in this sort of room that looks like everything you know, but on the outside is weak and brittle.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is like the furniture that you can buy from Target, where you've got sort of this covering that looks like hardwood, and as soon as you like breathe on it, it chips off and you see the particle board beneath.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: The faith that we create on our own when we reject Christianity and doctrines of Christianity, the faith that we create on our own is not robust enough to handle criticism.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the problems that happens when people do begin to step away from the church, is that they realize that the faith that they've made, because they have sort of cast aside the things they didn't like, it doesn't answer all the questions that the world is posing to it, and so they just grow closer and closer to the world.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Look, there are parts of my faith, and I think Christian faith, that make me a little uncomfortable.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't love the idea of hell.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me, it's hard for me to process eternal judgment.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have my mind totally wrapped around the election of the saints before the foundation of the world.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you read Revelation?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know everything that's going on in that book.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: But just because I don't understand what's going on, or it makes me slightly uncomfortable, doesn't mean I have the authority to just cut it out of my life and believe what makes me comfortable.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you can see sort of this transition I'm trying to show, and that when we do create our own faith, the thought that is going on in our head is I'm doing what's best for me and my relationship with Jesus.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in actuality, you are just weakening it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're making it weak.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: But let's keep going here with what James has to say.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: What should, I've sort of torn down some things, what should true religion look like?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is in the Bible, this is what God is saying.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I put this into the messages translation and took it out of context, I'm sure there would be a whole lot of people outside of the church who said, yeah, that's what religion should look like.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's about helping those in need, it's about acting out on your faith, it's about being somebody who follows through with what they say.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what God is saying true religion is.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: James is speaking to the Jews who have this system of faith that they have constructed and put so much value in, and he says, Yeah, but it's not so much about the rules, it's about unanimity in Christ.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: What unifies us?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus and the work of his people to spread the gospel to the broken world around us.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: We, you and I, online, cab, are together in this purpose.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that is our desire.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is as Topeka Bible Church as then the churches in Topeka, the churches in Kansas, and so on and so forth as it spreads, that we are united in this desire to spread the gospel into the world around us.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that common denominator that we all share is the thing that should be driving us forward.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when we make mistakes about how we're carrying out that plan, that hopefully, like Paul, we can have a robust response and say, hey, that doesn't seem right, but not disengage from the church entirely.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about Paul.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of his letters is like, hey, I don't know if you guys should be doing this.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I helped found the church here, but you're not really living out the principles that you said you should.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's some correction.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Know that I love you and I care for you, and I'm still a part of your body.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when I come back there, I can't wait to see you again.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, you've got to change some of the things you're doing.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is the response that we're supposed to have when we feel this friction towards church.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you might be familiar with uh the story of uh Christopher McCandless, uh, John Krakower's book, 1996 Into the Wild, where he was dissatisfied after college, this young boy, and he went off into this sort of uh American trek where he was a vagabond and sort of just was couch surfing and going on and on until he made it up into Alaska, determined that he was going to find his purpose in life by being alone and by seeking out his own pleasure.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes into Alaska in the wrong time of year unprepared, ends up dying of starvation and poisoning from plants he didn't understand.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when hunters found him the next season, they also found his journal that was laying next to him.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the last entries he had in it was that happiness is only real when shared.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity to engage in this in a way that is not only honoring to God, but benefits us.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there is loneliness outside, and there is hopefully warmth within.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So in the last part of this verse here, James says in chap uh in verse 27 that we are to keep oneself unstained from the world.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this is where Christianity is headed, this is what we must be prepared to encounter.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of like astronauts going out to do a spacewalk and repair the space shuttle, uh, we engage with the world, we help try and fix the world, we share the gospel and do these things, but we just don't take off our helmet to be exposed to the harm.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't disengage from the culture, but we also don't allow it to inform what God has already told us.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: If uh you found yourself this morning as one who is maybe relating to any of this, I would like to point out very quickly uh sort of the cycle that it follows.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is a process of doubt that we experience, and once we when we experience that doubt, there's a a decision that needs to be made whether we're going to engage or disengage.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you are struggling with doubt, um there's a podcast that TBC makes called TBC Extra, and this month's episode, Jim and I talk together about uh how to handle doubt with some really specific steps and how you can process that.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if doubt is not handled well, then we reject the idea.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once we have rejected the idea, it is then a slippery slope into adopting that practice internally.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You convince yourself that it's true, that Christianity has always been wrong, that for 2,000 years we've misinterpreted the Bible, and your understanding of the way the world works is the only one.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we've adopted it internally, then we compromise it externally.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our lives begin to change because we have let culture influence and sort of these wicked tendrils to work themselves up into our lives and infect us.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then we just begin this cycle over and over again because compromise on many things leads to doubt and many others.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, I want to give you something, though, to hope for.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to give you something to look towards.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1, 20 through 23 says, The Father worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Despite what you may feel, in the current age, the church, Capital C Church, and to our best, to the best of our ability to peek a Bible church, is the manifestation of Christ in the world around us.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to follow Jesus, then you should be wanting to engage with the church.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't feel that the church has a purpose in this world, then you don't understand the purpose of the church.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to invite you in.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you are somebody who has felt like you are on the outside and you want to be invited in, here is the invitation.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting you in to be a part of the church that doesn't want to judge you and condemn you for the way you've lived your life, but rather acknowledges saying, I we haven't always done things the best way, but we're doing our best because everything we do, we're trying to point people to Jesus and trying to do it the way he wants us to.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in those mistakes that we make, like Paul, let us correct ourselves and move forward in community.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is our desire and it's our hope.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, uh, this morning's question was, is it okay to be spiritual but not religious?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes and no.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is it okay to disengage from God's holy church because you don't feel like it's relevant to you and create your own religion?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not okay.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And though you can do it and nobody's going to stop you, it's going to hurt you and it's going to weaken your faith, and you're probably going to keep going in that direction.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is it okay to ask deep questions, struggle with your faith, get angry at Satan's work in this fallen world and pray that it was different?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that is okay.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is welcome.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is a healthy Christian response.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I don't always love the world that we live in.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always feel like we are carrying out God's will to the best of our abilities.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want to do when I experience those things, and what I hope you want to do, is you say, I want to come behind it and make it stronger so that we can lead people to life in Christ.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's our goal.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, it's not about are you coming to church or not?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is about have you made Jesus the center of your life?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Have you made it your own religion?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or have you realized that Jesus has become the head of the church and that this is where we're supposed to be, and this is where we can find the greatest amount of joy.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we can find the greatest amount of joy because this is where Christ is most present.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for our earthly fathers today as well.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the ways in which they've shepherded and guided us and our faith.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: God, we pray for um on days like today, uh, the hurt that sometimes comes along with celebrating these things.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: But God, uh, most of all, thankful that we can look to you as our perfect Heavenly Father, who's never let us down, who's never failed us.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God, as we look at the world around us, man, it's broken.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look like you want it to, it doesn't look like we want it to.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and God, as we are trying our best to carry out your will, um, please help us to engage more deeply, to overcome um the hurts.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, if they are genuine, please help them to heal that we've experienced in the past, so that we can be a part of a community, a fellowship that is sharing your word with the world around us and representing your kingdom.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God, it is good to follow you.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is good to follow Jesus.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that for those who feel like they're on the fringe today, Lord, that this message would just be maybe a sign that you could give them, that you are calling them back into a deeper fellowship with you, God, where they truly belong.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right, have a great Sunday.