Why Is The Church Responsible For So Much Injustice

Good morning. Thanks for pulling up a chair with us this morning. We're in the second part of our series, Pull Up a Chair, where we're tackling some of the biggest questions that we've heard from outside the church and even from inside the church. Last week, we looked at how. How a good God could allow so much suffering.

And questions are good. We value questions here at Greenwood Christian Church. So thanks for coming and allowing me to help unpack today's question together. You know, God is not intimidated by our questions. He doesn't want us just to have blind faith.

And so it's good for us to explore these questions together. Questions you may have asked yourself or maybe you've heard some of your friends and family ask. You know, humans often romanticize the past, don't we? This partiality shapes our narrative, making us usually the heroes of the story. We tend to be harsher on others than we are on ourselves in many cases.

When I was younger, my sister Marcie had to babysit me while our mom worked three jobs to pay for my dad's medical bills. Now she's five years older than me. Look at that cute little guy. I mean, how could that guy ever be a villain of a story, right? Come on.

Well, when I was a preteen a little bit older, my sister still babysat me. And her job, she saw, was to protect me and to make sure I finished my chores before mom got home. But in my eyes, I was too old to need a babysitter. She was just trying to control me. She's trying to be my mom.

She's not my mom. And one day, I'd had enough. She was nagging me to empty the dishwasher, so I grabbed a butter knife and I chased her around the house. Now, in her version of the story, it was a big steak knife. But I was the victim here, right?

I was the poor little boy who was being, you know, oppressed by his sister trying to tell him what to do and when to do it. But in her version, I was the villain, right? Imagine that I was the obnoxious little brother who didn't appreciate the love and care that she was providing and that she was just trying to keep me out of trouble. But isn't that what we do on occasion? We hate admitting that sometimes we are the villain of the story.

And I think the church wrestles with that throughout history as well. In Matthew 7:3:5, Jesus reminds us, how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a Big log in your own eye. But it's hard to be more conscious of our own mistakes. It's much easier to be conscious of other people's mistakes. We often use words like evil or immoral to describe others, not ourselves.

But Jesus in Scripture uses those words for all of us, opponents of the faith and those who follow him. And I think we must acknowledge the evil in our lives before we can accept the fact that we need a savior to save us. And I believe the church must also admit her stains before Jesus can fully remove them from her. You see, the temptation of every age is to elevate our time and place as the pinnacle of, of human achievement and purity. And so we must speak ill of the past.

Right? We talk about the Dark Ages so that we can tell everyone we live in the light. As if nothing in the Dark Ages was positive, which is just wrong. There was incredible good done during the Dark Ages. But it's a defense mechanism we use to protect us from owning our own mistakes.

The question we are wrestling with today comes down to how can the church be trusted when it's responsible for so much injustice? How can organized religion still be effective? Oh, church, we're going to step in it today.

I'm going to try to be fair. I'm going to try to be honest. Of course I'm partial. I have given my life for the church I serve every day. I love it.

I made that decision as a 17 year old boy and as a 46 year old man. I'm still plugging away, serving the church because I love her. But we have to be fair. This morning I think I would start by reminding that people everywhere are universally flawed. You see, we have two problems in the church.

Christians who mean well but make terrible choices, sinful choices, and they hurt themselves and they hurt others in the process. But we also have people in the church who claim to be Christians, who don't follow the Jesus of scripture, but they do things in his name. And both reflect poorly on the church's reputation. Old time preacher Billy Sunday said, going to church doesn't make you any more a Christian than sitting in a garage makes you a car. And I like that quote.

You see, some claim to be Christians, but clearly do not follow Christ. They are what we call wolves in sheep clothing. Maybe you've heard that phrase, others sincerely follow Jesus but still mess up. And this imperfection leads to skepticism from those outside the church, but it doesn't negate the church's purpose. And that brings me to our first point this morning.

The Church is made up of imperfect people. That's not a cop out, it's reality. You see, Jesus didn't come to call perfect people to repentance. That would be silly. No, he chose fishermen and tax collectors and zealots.

And eventually he called a Pharisee of Pharisees to be his disciples to follow him. He literally came for all of us. And all of us are imperfect and broken people. But he calls us to follow him nonetheless. In Matthew 9, as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at a tax collector's booth.

Follow me, he told him. And Matthew got up and followed him. And while Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? And on hearing this, Jesus said, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. I've heard it said that the church is a hospital for the sick. You see, Christianity is not about good people who earn God's favor with their cleaned up lives. The church is full of immature, broken, sinful people.

In his book Reason for God, Tim Keller says, so we should expect that many Christians lives would not compare well to those of the non religious. Just as the health of people in the hospital is comparatively worse than people visiting museums. As I said, we not only have wolves and sheep clothing, but the bigger problem, I believe, is Christians who are trying to follow Jesus, but can be misguided and downright hurtful at times. It's important to remember the church isn't God. You know, the I love Jesus but can't stand the church movement sounds right sometimes.

I get it. I get the sentiment. Sometimes we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We. We give up on the church because of the people inside the church.

But I think a better way for us to think about that is that my faith. Hopefully your faith is in Jesus, not in people. Matt talked last week about free will. And that explains why people in the church, even church leaders, can sometimes choose evil. God does not want it in his church, but his church is made up of people who must be able to choose good from evil.

And there are times we all choose evil. I believe it's why some of Jesus harshest words in scripture are to the religious people and the religious leaders of his day. How can people who have tasted and seen the goodness of God turn and commit such atrocities against their neighbors? It's one of the world's greatest tragedies. How can people of the church cause so much injustice and hurt?

And I'll tell you, even church leadership, even ministers are not immune to church hurt. In previous ministries I worked with fellow minister who extorted money from church people. I was lied to by Christian people and Christian leaders. I was privy to one elders meeting where there was cussing and throwing of hands. In another meeting, I had some serious reservations about a children's minister the leadership wanted to hire.

And in that meeting, my integrity and my motivation for ministry was called into question. As one elder said that I didn't want her to be hired because she would work harder than me and show me up. That wasn't the reason at all. The hurt and the wounds by church people is real. And sometimes it's been my experience that church people can be meaner than non church people.

I don't know if you've had that experience. You see, you don't need to tell me that I'm not fit for service. And maybe this morning you don't feel like you're fit to be part of God's family either. But that's the good news. That's what we call the gospel.

God takes what isn't fit, loves us, forgives us and allows us to be part of his family. And he even chooses to use us to fulfill his mission, to save as many as possible. As I was thinking about this conversation today, I realized very quickly. Throughout church's history, the church suffers when we obsess over power and politics. We miss the mark when we use Christianity to conquer, not serve.

Christianity is about service more than it is about domination. In Matthew 20 again, Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercised authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave.

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve to give his life as a ransom for many. Another book I read to prepare for this was called Bullies and Saints. It's by John Dixon. He said the very first Christians believed that true power to change the world lay not in politics or the judiciary or the military, but in the message of Christ's death and resurrection. I think he's right.

When Constantine made Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion, unfortunately, it was a moment of revenge for the once bullied church to become the bully. When we finally had political power and influence, we didn't handle it very well. Throughout history, the Church's pursuit of power and political influence has usually ended up pretty bad. And maybe that's why Jesus didn't come to establish a military or a political party, just like ancient Israel found out. You can't force someone into a relationship with God politically or by force.

That's not how true religion works. During the Crusades, some churches were feeding the hungry, establishing schools, building hospitals, creating legislation on behalf of the poor that still exists to this day. But others were killing innocent civilians in the name of Jesus, bullies and saints. Some were beautifully showing others Jesus, while others were were very badly out of tune. Sometimes it was the same person doing both and this tension gives us heartburn.

But it's the story of the church, you see. You wouldn't blame Mozart for an orchestra who played the masterpiece poorly, right? So it's not fair to blame God for what people have done with his Gospel. We must be honest with the evils done in Jesus name. The Crusades, the holy wars, the 30 years war, the Spanish Inquisition, the troubles of Northern Ireland, the Salem witch trials, even American slavery, and on and on.

We can look at history and we say, well, we didn't live through the bad history of the Church, so we don't have anything to do with that. But what about the injustices done today in Jesus name? Church leaders who molest children, preachy, overbearing Christians who use scripture like a weapon to beat people into submission, ministers who have affairs, those who perpetuate racism and are super judgmental. The pain caused by people in the church is real and it cannot be ignored. People who have used the church to gain power or political influence have done incredible harm and it can't be wished away or even made better by all the good that we've done.

And if the violence and the hurt that has been caused by the church makes you angry, get in line.

There is a lot of us who are angry as well. Even when I have been part of the problem, you see, every time I cut someone off in traffic, every time I'm rude to someone, every time I shoot my mouth off, I'm tarnishing the church's reputation. I may even turn someone away from the church and Jesus altogether. I have to admit that I'm part of the problem. But at the end of the day, Jesus didn't choose government or politics to carry his gospel.

He chose the Church. And the church is still God's Plan A to carry the Gospel. Despite her flawed people, the church remains God's chosen instrument for sharing the Gospel. There is no Plan B in Scripture. We're it.

According to Ephesians 5, Christ so loved the church that he gave Himself up for her to make her holy and blameless. And throughout the New Testament, the church is established as the Bride of Christ. We are set apart to be a community of believers who follow Jesus. And at no point does Scripture say that we don't need the church or we can do this thing on our own. No.

In Matthew 5, Jesus is preaching his longest recorded sermon. We call it the Sermon on the Mount. And he's preaching it to his church, if you will. And he says in Matthew 5, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. And now, here's where our English language fails a little bit. You see, in English, you can be a singular or plural pronoun.

And which case we take it in really changes these verses. Jesus is not talking to individuals here. He uses humais, which is the Greek plural form of you. He's literally saying, y'all are the light of the world. Y'all are the salt.

He wasn't talking to one of us. He was talking to his church. His church is to be like a city on a hill. One light in the darkness is powerful, but a group of lights. If you've ever traveled to a big city at night, man, you can see the glow on the horizon 15, 20, 30 miles away on a clear night.

And when you get downtown, you can sometimes even forget that it's night because of all the lights being so bright. Jesus is the light of the world. And he tells us, if you all follow me, y'all are my light. The church's mission is found in Matthew 28. We say it around here a lot.

Therefore, God and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age. You see, we love the gospel because we have accepted it and it has changed our lives. But maybe not as much as we'd wanted. Because we have experienced the gospel, though we want to share it with others.

Even though we aren't always perfect at doing it. So as you go to every church, test everything through Scripture. Paul said in Corinthians 11:1, follow my example as I follow Christ. Paul qualifies when he's worth following and when he's not. And I would say the same is true for the church as we follow Christ.

We encourage you to follow us if we're leading somewhere different. Don't. The church's shortcomings reflect not the flaws in the Gospel, but our failure to practice the Gospel. Let me say that one more time, just so we catch it. The Church's shortcomings reflect not a flaw in the Gospel, but in our failure to practice the Gospel.

Satan loves to attack the church. More importantly, he loves to attack the leaders of the church. Getting one of them to fall has a domino effect. And that's why God cautioned the leaders in James 3:1. Not many of you should presume to become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that those who teach will be judged more strictly.

So does religion cause more harm than good? Well, it's hard to put atrocities on a scale, but no one claims that the French terrors or World War I or World War II or Stalin's murder of 15 to 20 million people, Khmer Rouge or the babies killed in China have been religious wars. And this leads John Dixon to say in his book, the real problem is neither religion nor a religion, nor the problem is the human heart in possession of a misdirected passion, a passion for power, land rights, honor or wealth, and yes, even at times, religion. The church has a reputation throughout history that we are the ones who look after the widows. We are the ones who look out for the poor and the orphan and the children and the women and the elderly and the oppressed and the downtrodden and those on the outskirts of society.

But we are also known for violence, abuse, judgment, even hatred. We have unprecedented charities and education and care for people and unspeakable evils as well. And again, this good we've done doesn't cancel out the bad. But our world has had the indelible mark of the Gospel throughout the ages since Christ's resurrection. Though the church has done incredibly good, reflecting Jesus, it has also done incredible harm when we don't.

The Gospel says that not only does every human have value because they are an image bearer of God, but that God so loves each one of us that he gave his only son to pay for our sins and to give us the hope of victory over sin and death. That gospel has resounded through the halls of history. And we are promised it will continue through the one true church till the end of the age. The church is not perfect, but she is the bride of Christ. She is God's plan to carry the gospel forward.

She is the community of believers that that he established and loves. We can't excuse or minimize our failures, but I don't think it's fair that we should minimize our moments when we've acted in accordance with God's will and loved people well either. It was no coincidence. As I was preparing this week, that Tuesday, a Facebook memory popped up. On my Facebook.

Six years ago Tuesday, Greenwood Christian Church was in a message series called Broken. And I quoted Matt Giebler on my wall when he said, don't confuse Jesus with his followers. To which I added my own commentary on the best days. I can only imperfectly point you to the perfect man who saved my life, Jesus Christ. And that's all we as a church can do.

We are a group of people who are not perfect. We mess up, we hurt ourselves, and we hurt others when we sin. But in those moments, all we can do is sincerely ask for forgiveness, repent of our sin, and fall on the mercy and grace of our perfect Savior Jesus. We imperfectly point others to find God's perfect love, grace and mercy. You know, ultimately we can only control our own faithfulness.

And the challenge for each of us who call ourselves believers or followers of Jesus this morning is to be the best Christ follower we can be. We also must know God so well and be in his word so much that we can spot a wolf in sheep's clothing when it appears. And so the question for you this morning is, will you let the failures of church people keep you from knowing Jesus and being part of his church? I have three challenges for three different groups of people this morning. First group, if you're a believer and you have caused church hurt or used your faith as a weapon, ask for forgiveness from God, but also from the people you've hurt.

Repent of those thoughts, words and actions. Be completely humble and ask God for wisdom. Admit that you have been a part of the problem. Recognize that you may have kept some from wanting to be a part of the church. You see, Jesus wants all broken people to come to him, and we need to let Jesus transform those areas of our heart that don't match His.

The second group, if you've been hurt by people in the church, I'm sorry. I truly apologize. Please, please know that people do not always act in accordance with God's. Word. The brokenness of the world finds its way inside the church.

And I get that the evil of the church is especially atrocious because it comes unexpectedly. A safe place was made into a dangerous one. A place of good allowed evil to mess it up. Some churches allow that evil to gain more control than others. But hear me all churches are imperfect.

The good news is that if you've experienced anger, sorrow, disappointment, rejection, hurt, jealousy, fear, rebellion, pride, shame, embarrassment or loss due to church, hurt man. The Scripture speaks to each one of those and God can help bring healing to your wounded soul. Please don't give up on the capital C church. Don't let a root of bitterness grow in your heart and keep you from a committed community of Christ followers. And lastly, if you don't know Jesus and you're skeptical of the church and organized religion this morning, I pray that you'll give both a shot.

Please don't judge Jesus by the failures of his followers. Please don't judge Jesus by the failure of his followers. Judge him by his words and his actions. I promise you, Jesus will never fail you. I wish.

I wish that I could promise the church will never fail you. But I'm part of the church and I know better.

Realize that any church you belong to should be doing their best to follow Jesus and bringing others along. But also know that we're all imperfect people doing this Christian thing imperfectly. Again, there is no perfect church. But we invite you to join us here at Greenwood to stumble towards our Savior together. You see, we are just one beggar trying to tell others where they can find bread.

And thank you for pulling up a chair this morning. If you need someone to talk to or you have questions or want to pray with someone, please Text next to 317-707-9997 or after service there will be some of us up here that would love to chat with you. We would love to walk through whatever challenge or next step God is calling you to. But let's close our service by praying together. God, thank you so much.

Thank you for your church and God. We repent of the times when we have tarnished her name and by doing so tarnished your gospel. God, we are sorry for the times we have turned people away from you. God, help us to follow you more closely. Lord, we need your Holy Spirit to make us look more and more like Jesus.

Help us this week to shine your light so brightly that people are drawn to your church and want to know you. Thank you for the church. Thank you for rescuing us from sin. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for entrusting us with your gospel.

Carry us in your perfect love this week. Give us your heart and your eyes so we can be the church you've called us to be in Greenwood, Indiana and beyond. And it's in Jesus name we pray all these things. Amen. Amen.

Thank you guys for coming. We love you. Have a great week.