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White Horse Inn
Equipped: Defending the Church
00:45:22
Why is going to church necessary when Christians have the Bible and the Holy Spirit? Michael Horton, Justin Holcomb, Walter Strickland, and Bob Hiller make the case for the church as the means by which God nurtures his people, and address common...
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
Introducing Tell Me a Story, a brand new podcast for children and families. Each episode brings scripture to life with immersive storytelling followed by a short devotional to spark meaningful conversations.
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Bob Hiller
Let there be light.
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Michael Horton
The serpent. He tricked me.
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Podcast Announcer
It is I, Joseph. I am the brother you sold to the traitors.
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Podcast Host
In a world filled with distractions and declining biblical literacy, our children need stories that anchor them in truth. Tell Me a Story weaves the rich narratives of God's promises shown in His Word and the world, equipping parents for discipleship and helping families reflect on the greatest story ever told. Episode one is available now. Wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Justin Holcomb
If you are someone who has been cruelly harmed by your church, you're sad, you're mad, you've.
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Michael Horton
You've.
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Justin Holcomb
They've done something to harm you. Just that wasn't Christ, that wasn't Jesus. He baptized you. He called you his own. He won't allow that gathering, that person, or even whatever demonic work may have happened in such a situation to separate you from his love. I think of the beautiful words from Zephaniah. How he will heal you. He will console you. He sings songs over you. He quiets you with his love. Your oppressor will be dealt with, but he still has words of mercy and grace and welcome to speak to you. And he will speak those words to you. Maybe not, as Mike you said in that church, but he will speak to you through a church where His Word is faithfully taught.
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Podcast Announcer
Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Sin, a weekly roundtable discussion about theology and culture.
- [02:20]
Justin Holcomb
The author to the Hebrews writes, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. So far, the reading what wonderful words. Christ Jesus has given you access to God and gathers you with your fellow saints around his word to receive his gifts and to encourage one another towards love and good works. We call that gathering that Christ Jesus does the church, and the church is a blessing for us. The stories and statistics have almost become cliche by now. People are leaving the church in droves. I talked to plenty of pastors whose congregations are still reeling post Covid. They're trying to figure out how to get people back in worship on Sunday morning. They're trying to figure out what they did wrong. And there's a lot of guilt and frustration in all of this. And they find themselves looking to combat the culture that is perhaps, as we perceive it, antagonistic towards the church. But I think more of the reality is it's just kind of become indifferent to worship on Sunday morning. And they'll say, you know, oh, church is fine if you're into that sort of thing. But I like the beach. I like to connect with God on my morning walks or at the golf course. People just don't feel that church meets their needs anymore. Yet Christ has given us his church and gathers us into it in order to daily and richly forgive us for our sins. So how do we encourage people to return to church after they have lost interest? How do we speak of the importance of the church for the Christian faith? Well, this week on Whitehorse Inn, as we continue through our series called Equipped, we're going to talk about sort of defending the need for the church and talk about why actually being a part of a local congregation really matters for you and to have this wonderful conversation. I'm here with the usual cast, Michael Horton, Walter Strickland and Justin Holcomb Brothers. Oh, and I'm Bob Hiller, by the way. I showed up too to have some of the talk. Why do we need the church? Why do we need the church? Say, if we have the Bible and the Holy Spirit and YouTube where we can just watch a service on Sunday morning, why do we need to go to church or be a part of.
- [04:35]
Bob Hiller
A church when I have a job?
- [04:37]
Michael Horton
Yeah, right.
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Justin Holcomb
Well, I know I gotta go. Yeah, they paying me to be there. But the rest of you guys, the.
- [04:43]
Michael Horton
Chapter just before leading up to the verses that you quoted about not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. In chapter 12, previous chapter, beginning at verse 18, we read, for you have not come to what may be touched. A blazing fire and darkness, with gloom and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus Christ, the mediator of a New covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Real contrast here between the law which just sent terror upon the people of God at Mount Sinai and the gospel. You have not come to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion. And that's both a comfort and also a calling to us as ministers and to bring people to Mount Zion. Not to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion. And this is what we call the mystical body of Christ. I know we don't have a lot of place for mystery in today's secular culture. A lot of people are turning to bad mystery. They're turning to pre Christian pagan mystery religions or to paganism and so forth. But look, this is mystery. When we gather for worship, why do we do it? Because we're not individuals merely. We are gathered together as one flock. We are united to Christ in a mystical union. And that means that if I have Christ as my head, then I have you, brothers and all of the brothers and sisters listening now as my brothers and sisters, closer to me than my natural family.
- [07:14]
Walter Strickland
If we think about, hey, if I just go out and take a walk and look into the heavens, if I just get my Bible, I have the Holy Spirit, it really reduces the Christian faith to knowledge acquisition. And I think that's one of the issues that we face in our society where podcasts are aplenty. As we are doing one right now, as YouTube channels are just multiplying as the amount of knowledge and information is increasing online, is that we just assume that all of life is about just consuming information. But the reality is, is that as we are in the house of worship, iron does sharpen iron. There's. There's a. A real sense in which there's days I walk into the church house and I am just elated to be there. I'm able to sing of the glories of our God and the face of Jesus Christ. But there's other days I walk in there where I need somebody else to sing that over me to remind me of the truth. This is iron sharpens iron. This is burden bearing. These are all biblical principles that happen, that are formative amongst the people of God that we just cannot get as isolated individuals with our Bible and the Holy Spirit.
- [08:23]
Michael Horton
Yeah, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He didn't become a download, he became one of us. To be with us. And we need to be with him bodily. And the way we do that is to be with his saints bodily and to feed on his body and blood through the sacrament. He's given us visible, tangible, physical means of grace that cannot be communicated when you're alone, when you're at the beach or on the golf course.
- [09:01]
Bob Hiller
Church is where God delivers the goods. He delivers goods in the proclamation, all that, but particularly he's made promises that in the preaching of his word, pointing to his son in the waters of baptism, bread and wine, that he would be present. And so he's made promises. And because we live in a world that's all about scorekeeping, many communities are communities that are a courtroom of assessment as opposed to what the church is a family of belonging, but also a hospital for souls where instead of condemnation, the proclamation of the remission of sins and presence with God and belonging, I mean, in this, the language of the scriptures are important for the community of God. In the Old and New Testament, one of the images is the people of God. I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will be with you. That's a refrain of the covenants. And then you have that in the New Testament as the family of God. With the language of adoption, it's not just the people of God, but you go even more. Get more nitty gritty on that, where the language of adoption, as J.I. packer says, is the kind of the crown jewel. Justification gets you in, but adoption's the purpose. You're justified so you can be adopted.
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Justin Holcomb
Part of the family.
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Michael Horton
Yeah, we have a family reunion every week.
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Bob Hiller
And so you have. And what happens with family is there's authority, there's love, there's belonging, there is acceptance. I mean, there's different things that happen in this family image, the building of God. You have this language of building. In the Old Testament, you have the temple, he gives a gift to, his building. You have a foundation and all that kind. So there's language of that. There is the bride of God. It's not uncommon. In Old Testament, you have this language, and especially the New Testament bride of Christ, where you have provision for the bride, you have protection, you have love for the bride. And then a fourth one is body of Christ. That's all New Testament. All the other ones, the people of God, the building of God, the bride of God, our old and New Testament body of Christ is particularly Pauline with Christ as the head. All the language of what that means in Corinthians of the honorable and the differently gifted and all belonging together, like, who are we to see what you were saying, Mike, about? I mean, these are my brothers and sisters now, and this is a really different group. And so just looking at those images of the church, of the community, of the ecclesia and the images that are given there and what it means for how God relates to that, that, you know, God builds the building, God protects the body, God loves his bride. God's the head of the body of Christ. All of that is built into what we're talking about with the church.
- [11:56]
Justin Holcomb
Walter, you brought up something earlier about podcasts. You made a comment there. It strikes me that, like, why do people listen to podcasts? One is entertainment. But a lot of times people listen to podcasts because they're trying to do some kind of self evaluation, self improvement. They're trying to, like, create a life for themselves that they want to live in. So they're searching for their answers with this spirituality or that spirituality, especially if they're listening to spiritual podcasting kind of stuff. All of it goes back to this idea that I'm the main actor and main character in my story.
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Walter Strickland
Right.
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Justin Holcomb
So I. I'm gonna put all of this sort of information dump into my head to help organize and design the kind of life that I want for myself. And so you go to all these different sources. What the church is that's unique in this way is that it's a voice outside of you that's there to say you're not actually the center of your story. You're part of a grander story that has been going on for quite some time. And the God of all creation has a few things he'd like to say to you. And so we go to church, really, when you say, like, well, I'm not getting a lot out of church. No, it's because you're thinking about it the wrong way. You don't go there to get something out of it for your own sort of narrative. You go there to be killed by the law and raised by the gospel. You go there because you need a preacher to remind you of who you are and whose you are. And so the church is given to deliver Christ and the goods. As Justin, as you said the gospel to us, to remind us of the forgiveness of our sins, to deliver the forgiveness of our sins, and then fix our hearts and our minds on Jesus. We'll spend a lot of time in Hebrews today. Fix our hearts and our minds on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and just remind us of where we are actually at in this story. It's not actually all about you, but it's about who Jesus Christ is for you.
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Michael Horton
Yeah, and that's such a better story. You know, it is it's like missing Christmas or Easter. Family reunions, they can be difficult times, hurtful times, as well as good times and joyful times. But can you imagine, say, a Christmas rolls around and you don't join your family or your family doesn't join you or friends to exchange gifts. Instead, you all stay home. No one exchanges gifts. And you watch the King's College Choir on YouTube and watch it's a Wonderful Life. That's your Christmas. That's what a lot of people are settling for. It's as C.S. lewis said, it's like a kid making mud pies in the slums because he can't even imagine a holiday at the sea.
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Walter Strickland
Yeah, we want to participate in something that costs us nothing. We want to receive a bunch of benefit. I mean, again, to Bob's point, making the whole thing about me. And I want to have it for very little investment into it. And this is exactly what the church is not. I mean, we go there and we do receive the truth. We receive the message of hope and faith. But it's costly for the Lord Jesus for sure. But at the same time, we have to decenter ourselves in our story or in our own lives in order to receive that gift.
- [15:21]
Justin Holcomb
It's also interesting to think about this. It reorients you, reminds you you're not at the center. But also at the same time, that doesn't mean your presence there doesn't matter. So to go to Mike's illustration, if you miss family Christmas, that's hard for the whole family. Like, you bring something to that gathering that is valuable and important. So this is what Paul is getting at when he says something like the foot can't say because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body. No, we all you're needed there by the body now. I mean, of course Christ doesn't need you there to do what he's going to do. Christ is going to do what he's going to do. But he wants you there. He saved you there. He's baptized you so that you will be part of the body, part of the family, part of the building. As Justin went through all those beautiful metaphors, like he has you there for a reason. God desires you there and your brothers in Christ need you there. You're part of this thing and it's important for you to be around.
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Bob Hiller
It reminds me of many series ago on the Great Dechurching and I did the interview, but we also talked about with Jim Davis and Mike Graham on their book the Great Dechurching and it was Mike Graham when he was working at the church. He's no longer serving at that particular church. But he reflected on something he said, said to someone, which is, hey, you are a baptized member of this church. And when you're not here, we want you here because for your good, but also for us, we're missing out on something. When you're not here, you're a member of our family. And he wasn't saying that in some type of like, hyper therapeutic. This is a way of me making you feel guilty for not being here. We need you here like some codependent thing. And there was a beauty to that that I. And that's been rattling around my head. How. How cool is that? And that you just picked up on that and said. And so I felt the same way when you were saying that, Bob, of come on home. Like, yeah, because this is your home, this is your family. This is where you belong. Like, you know, we've all prodigal son this thing. We all know what it feels like. And when we start acting like the older brother, someone else will slap us up the head and remind us of how good this is back. Or even if you haven't really messed up and you're just not there because it's not convenient. Like, come on back because you're missing out. But we're also missing out as our brother. Our sister who should be here is not here. And it reminds me of the story. I don't know who it was. It was the inklings with the CS Lewis. We keep on talking about CS Lewis regularly. One of them died. And they said, well, it's not that that person being gone gives us more time and more of ourselves for each other, but that person being dead, there's something that we all miss about ourselves that only that person pulled out. And so the whole community was suffering not only because they were sad that that person was dead and gone, but because that person did something and brought something out of those people in a relationship that was missing. I thought, what a great picture of the church and what you were saying, Bob.
- [18:20]
Michael Horton
And you know, it's like one of those planters that you hang. If it just goes down, it's all horizontal. We go to church just for relationships with each other, but you hang it up with Christ at the top and you think, what a wonderful family to be a part of with Christ as our elder brother. I love the line from John Calvin that for now, Jesus considers himself imperfect until the rest of his body is raised in glory with him. It's not just that our brothers and sisters need us. And I hesitate to say Jesus needs us, but he wills to need us. He stoops. He condescends to say, I need you there.
- [19:12]
Justin Holcomb
He didn't save you to not have you around.
- [19:15]
Michael Horton
Yeah, right. I have stuff I want to give you. And also you're part of me. I want to be with you and I want you to be with me. And that's not just the invisible Church we tend towards Gnosticism. The Incarnation is the invisible made visible, the intangible made tangible, the incomprehensible, comprehended, the great majestic become human and spat upon. That's our story. If that's just something that we heard online, we can dispense with it in real life. We're Gnostics, but we're not Gnostics. We believe that God tangibly gives us Christ with all of his benefits and a family that we can touch, hear, handle, Remember Jesus said in John 25, Inasmuch as you have done this to the least of these my brothers and sisters, so these are fellow believers, you have done it unto me. And when Paul was knocked off his horse on his way to kill a bunch of Christians, what did Jesus say? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So Jesus takes his body very seriously, and it's a body that meets on earth at predetermined times because that's where God is going to assemble his people and give them his gifts.
- [20:57]
Bob Hiller
On this unity with Christ in His body, there's this beautiful quote by J. Todd Billings, who's a Calvin scholar, really good on union with Christ, wrote a book called Rejoicing in Lament, and it was his subtitled Wrestling and with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ. And he has this beautiful paragraph on the church that fits really nicely. And so he writes this. The church is the church as a creature of God's word, a creature that finds its life outside of itself, that does not have faith in faith so much as faith in the God of covenant promise made known in Christ. From one standpoint, the church is a gathering of sinners who are both old and young, healthy and sick, growing and dying. But by God's promise, the church is also people who move through birth, health, dying and even death on a journey to resurrection because they belong to Jesus Christ. For the end of the story of God and of the church is not death, but resurrection. Christ has been raised from the dead and the defeat of death and resurrection comes through him. And then to those who belong to him, Christ, the First fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. He quotes 1 Corinthians 15. I mean, that, that's that picture of what you're saying about Cal, and that's just a beautiful vision for what the church is and what the church will be.
- [22:22]
Podcast Announcer
Weakness isn't a flaw. It's where hope begins. In a place for weakness, Michael Horton shows how the cross and resurrection of Christ don't just explain suffering, they overcome it. This isn't a book about cliches or quick fixes. It's about real hope for real pain. Hope that quiets guilt, silences doubt, and outlasts every storm. Whether you're grieving or walking with someone else through their grief. A place for weakness shows how the doing, dying and rising of Christ silences the thunder of the law and gives eternal hope in the face of life's hardest questions. Grab your copy today for a donation of any amount@solarmedia.org offers. That's solarmedia.org offers.
- [23:16]
Justin Holcomb
I mean, these are all compelling reasons to go to church. It's reminding us of who we are in Christ, the importance of being a part of the body. What do we do then when the body starts to attack itself? And so, so how do we deal with people who have been hurt or harmed within the church? Bruised reeds and smoldering wicks that have been snuffed out and broken. What do you, what do you say to somebody who comes to you and says, yeah, I used to go to church, but then I there I was mistreated in some horrific way. How do you tell someone like that it's important for you to be back at church?
- [23:53]
Michael Horton
Well, I'd say first of all, you don't have to be back at that church.
- [23:55]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
- [23:57]
Michael Horton
If it's harmed you intentionally, I mean, there's been deliberate harm caused there. And also sometimes one of my pastor friends says, sometimes you need to hear the word from someone else. Sometimes just the way you're hearing it, that person is not harming you, but the way you're hearing it is off because of something, maybe between the two of you or whatever, try to resolve it. But be a part of a family. Don't hop from church to church. Be a part of a family. But sometimes you have to change churches. That is simply a fact. But the second thing I would say is, can you not say that you've been harmed at some point in the past by a family member? I'm not talking about, you know, crime. I'm talking about somebody who said something that really hurt you. But what do you do? You go talk to that person, you work it out. Again, as Walter was saying, we want to have everything on our terms and we can't when we're in a body. You know, Paul says think of others more highly than you think of yourself. We have to do that and that's hard. We don't like that. We not only have to believe that and think that, we have to be in a place where that actually has to happen. So use these opportunities where you've been hurt, where you have grieved, where you feel like you have been unjustly treated. Use these opportunities to do family and to grow out of yourself, grow out of your curved in ness.
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Walter Strickland
And something else I would say to that which is so very helpful, Mike, is first I lament with them over what has transpired. And so this might come however long after that lament is over. But I would remind them that sin isolates when people sin themselves against other people or just sin, you know, even in secret, or when somebody sins against them, like sin is isolating you. And so being alone might be the result of wanting to protect yourself against additional hurt and things like that. But isolation is where the adversary has a field day on us. Isolation is where we can't do that sort of one anothering of getting outside of ourselves. As you're talking about Mike, when we're isolated, we actually curve more inward and the adversary warps reality even more. So that causes us to distort what's real and to even cause us to curve inward more. And so I think that the place that we sort of engage those lies that want to isolate us are actually within the body. That's the community that helps us to engage those. And again, that community could be one that's a different church where you were hurt. Or it's going back to a place, of course, with being very circumspect and just aware of what's going on. But walking back into that place and engaging people and trying to, for the glory of God, show the kind of reconciliation that the gospel does bring about by Christ's power.
- [27:37]
Bob Hiller
Rod, one of our friends, we quote quite a bit and former White Horse and guy Rod Rosenblatt and wrote a. Did a lecture and it's out there called the Gospel for those Broken by the Church.
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Michael Horton
Fantastic.
- [27:51]
Bob Hiller
That thing has been listened to, watched, read by thousands of people because. And he's addressing people who have been disillusioned with the Christian faith. And Jesus because of negative experiences with his body, his church and he used the two groups. I think it was just mad and sad. I'm not sure if he had better categories, but there are two different ones which was like, I've been let down by the church's failures. It's disappointing, it's embarrassing. I'm sad, I feel harmed and I'm mad, I'm angry over the hypocrisy. And so I think that's helpful, you know. So going back to your question, Bob, like what do we do about that is pastorally listening to people who have had that experience, there's almost the institutions have a tendency to defend themselves. And so I think as individuals, as either pastors, people who work for a church, go to a church like their church. When people are upset, be aware of the very quick, impulsive defend the church. I mean, out of defense of the church, so many horrible things like abuse and financial mismanagement and spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, physical. I mean just all the different types of abuse has been done because we don't. And you don't want to go to justice because you have to watch out for the reputation of the church because you don't want to besmirch the gospel. That's not how Jesus runs things and runs his family. But there's this impulse, be aware of the institutional impulse to defend the institution of individuals of that institution. And it's okay whether you believe the person or not. It's okay to listen to people who are mad or sad or whatever. All you're doing is listening to them. That's important just as a starting point and then address it sometimes pursuing justice, asking the next question of like, did this happen? I mean, there's really obvious things that you would do in a normal setting. If going back to Mike, if you were in a family, how would you do this? Well, think about that. How would you handle if. If one of your family members came to you with anger or sadness, how would you handle it? And then go from there.
- [30:00]
Michael Horton
Mad and sad is really rife in our culture in part Today because of 24 hour news feeds and constant social media bombardment. People kind of going deeper and deeper into their silos, listening in a feedback loop to the people they already agree with over and over all day. And those people rile them up against all the other people in the different silos. That happens so much in our culture that for example, when the whole Covid thing unfolded, there were brothers and sisters in churches. And I know our listeners will be familiar with this in sound churches, brothers and sisters who were saying either that the elders trusted more in princes and what they had to say about wearing masks than they did in Jesus. And they said it publicly online, church members in good standing. And then you had pastors attacking parishioners in social media feeds. And it was appalling, the behavior of many people. Impulsiveness. Justin, you mentioned impulsiveness. There's an impulsiveness on both sides. Clergy impulsiveness leading to harm and pastoral abuse. And then also impulsiveness on the part of parishioners just not willing to be sheep, not willing to be cared for, not willing to be followers of Jesus, but they want to be Jesus. We have to come together in the body of Christ and negotiate these things in very practical ways all the time. So don't run away from it, embrace it.
- [32:10]
Walter Strickland
So there's A quote by J.C. ryle, if I'm thinking about people who are isolating themselves from community. And it's about friendship. But some of the deepest friendships I've had have occurred in my local body of Christ, the church. And so this is what Ryle says. He says this world is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It is a dark place, it is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendships have. Have our troubles and doubles our joy. And that idea about it has our troubles and doubles our joy. It really just sort of intensifies or like intensifies those joys, our celebration, but that also we bear our burdens. We cut that burden in half. And so I would pray that even as somebody has been hurt and you re enter into a place that you would find a friend like that that will half your troubles and double your joy.
- [33:08]
Michael Horton
It's neat too, the way the Apostle Paul talking about the. On the heels of talking about the fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the flesh says, dive in, take the time to try to recall brothers and sisters away from exhibiting the fruit of the flesh, envy, backbiting, dissent, all this stuff. But be careful you don't get caught in it too. Just be smart. And I love that. Just dive in. Go there. He ain't heavy. He's my brother.
- [33:39]
Justin Holcomb
Tell you, the other thing to keep in mind is that when the church, if you are someone who has been cruelly harmed by your church, you're sad, you're mad, you've.
- [33:48]
Michael Horton
You've.
- [33:49]
Justin Holcomb
They've done something to harm you. Just that wasn't Christ, that wasn't Jesus. He baptized you, he called you his own. He won't allow that gathering that person or even whatever demonic work may have happened in such a situation to separate you from his love. I think of the. The beautiful words from Zephaniah, how he will heal you, he will console you. He sings songs over you. He quiet you with his love. Your oppressor will be dealt with. But he still has words of mercy and grace and welcome to speak to you. And he will speak those words to you. Maybe not as Mike, you said in that church, but he will speak to you through a church where his word is faithfully taught.
- [34:29]
Michael Horton
On a house visit, one of the elders with us, this young person was really struggling with something, a real spiritual and physical mental health all bound up together issue. And she said, I feel like when I go to church, everybody's looking at me, everybody's judging me. And instead of trying to defend the church, instead of trying to say, no, they're not. That's all in your head. That's just because you're struggling with all this stuff and so forth. First words out of his mouth were, and he got right in her face. And he said, you are baptized. You have an engraved invitation to come sit at the feet of Jesus. No matter what people are thinking or how they're looking at you, you have as much right. Who are they? You have as much right to be there. Now I'm slipping into Irish instead of Dutch. You have as much right to be there as anybody. Any of the other sinners, you are baptized, go back to church.
- [35:53]
Justin Holcomb
Yeah.
- [35:56]
Walter Strickland
That'S so good. That's so good.
- [36:00]
Justin Holcomb
But let's. Let's talk to the person who they're saying, okay, I love the church. I love going to church. I love the word of God. But I am struggling because I don't feel that I'm hearing it in the church. I feel like we're learning about anything in the pulpit except for the Scriptures. What kind of advice do you give to a person like that? Because I'll tell you what, I don't think it's healthy, and maybe you guys can correct me. I don't think it's healthy to just cut and run. You are part of a body and you are part of a group of believers. It's a real painful thing for a congregation when someone just decides to leave and not really share why, but maybe there might be legitimate theological reasons or something like this. What advice would you give to somebody in that kind of a situation?
- [36:46]
Bob Hiller
I love your point. I'm with you. I agree, Bob. I think communicating to, hey, I. I have a lot of bricks in my Backpack from condemnation from the world. My conscience and the devil don't need it from you. I mean, I think, say what you need, say what you would expect. I mean, the way we talk about church is that it is where the gospel is proclaimed, the scriptures taught, where the sacraments are rightly administered and discipline and discipleship is available. And it depends on what the reason is. But if it's like cutting and run, probably not communicate what's going on and give that preacher a chance to realize, because that preacher might be hearing some criticism from the other side. That's what we never know. I'm imagining preachers being like, well, all you're saying is all this nice stuff, tell me what to do. I need some exhortation. And so that preacher might be getting criticized from one side and trying to be like, okay, I want to talk about. There's this indicative, and it leads to this imperative. I'm going to talk about the imperatives now. And they might be trying to balance that out. So give them a shot like you would in a family. It's like, you don't do that in a family. Going back to Mike's point, you just don't go to the family.
- [38:01]
Justin Holcomb
I'm.
- [38:01]
Bob Hiller
I'm done. And then just drop your plate and walk out. Right.
- [38:04]
Michael Horton
If you go the right. In the right spirit. In my experience, pastors actually want to hear feedback. What they get every week is, thanks, Pastor. That was so helpful as they walk out.
- [38:17]
Justin Holcomb
I like that. I don't know.
- [38:19]
Bob Hiller
Amen.
- [38:21]
Michael Horton
And maybe that's most people's experience on an average Sunday, but if it's not, then as Justin's saying, go talk to them before you just walk out. At the same time, Karl Barth said, not only do preachers need to preach better, but we need to be better hearers of the word of God in bad preaching. Now, okay, that's good. That's true. That's absolutely true. But there are preachers who aren't so good at it, and then there are preachers who just leave the gospel for their own. What they read this week or the news or whatever they're interested in talking about. Well, the church is a creature of the word. It's created by the word. If you had poor hospitality, you need to correct that. You don't really have people in the church who are really good with finances. Find somebody who's good with finances, outsource it or something. I don't know. But if you don't have the preaching of the gospel, you don't have a.
- [39:33]
Justin Holcomb
Church you don't have the church. That's exactly right. Yes.
- [39:36]
Walter Strickland
Yeah, that's right. And so something that I've been mulling around over as we talked about, hey, go, go talk to the pastor, is even somewhat of a Matthew 18 sort of discussion. Hey, like, go yourself, and if you haven't seen much change, go with others who are also seeing similar things. I mean, obviously prayerfully and things like that. And then after that, you'll have to make some decisions. But, you know, I would say, you know, as we were saying before, just don't cut and run, but had those conversations, go prayed up in the hope that there's going to be restoration to what the church ought to be in preaching the gospel. And yeah, I think that'd be a helpful way to think through it.
- [40:16]
Justin Holcomb
I think that Matthew 18 is a really good point, Walter, because if you think about this, whenever we do Matthew 18, we're always thinking about personal, almost moral sins against each other. But if a pastor is not preaching the whole counsel of God, and if the pastor is abandoning preaching the gospel for cultural touch points, like, he's. He's in a sense sinning against his vocation and against his congregation, like, and so someone needs to call him on it and say, hey, I'm glad you have an opinion about masks. That's. That seems important. But, you know, as Justin said, I got bricks in my bag and I'm feeling condemned constantly, and I just need to hear some forgiveness. Right. I mean, if he won't give you that, he's prayerfully, you got a pastor who hears that and goes, good heavens, absolutely, I resent. Let's move forward. Let's get back to the gospel.
- [41:00]
Michael Horton
That's where you hope it lands. And if it doesn't, sometimes, I mean, I've known of these cases. Sometimes it just provokes the person to dig in his heels even more. And what happens at that point in our churches is you not only have the local church, you have the connection of the broader church. So take it to the church. Doesn't just mean the local assembly, if that hopefully gets solved there, but if it doesn't. Look, every member of the body of Christ is equally a priest in the kingdom of God. And so you can actually take this to the broader assembly of the church, where you have some eyes outside the church, some ears outside the church, who can peek in and listen to both sides. And if the person really isn't preaching the gospel, you know, what could happen, especially if the person's a heretic preaching heresy, what can actually happen is because you didn't cut and run, because you stayed there. You helped save other sheep from being mistreated. And that is what a wonderful thing that you contributed to a rebuilding of that church around the gospel because you were willing to dig in, you were willing to do. Now again, you have to use your own judgment and wisdom in these situations and the counsel of elders and other people in the church to know. Because sometimes, for the sake of your family and for yourself, you do need to go. And don't think of that as just cutting and running, right? But when that is, you have to decide when that is. It's a matter of real prayerful deliberation. And just imagine what you could do if your family isn't suffering, if you're not going under, imagine what you could do as a layperson in the church to ensure the right preaching of God's word.
- [43:18]
Walter Strickland
And if we were all only congregational, you know, this would. In our governance, it'd be so easy.
- [43:25]
Michael Horton
I wasn't gonna go there, Walter. You dug your own grave on that one.
- [43:30]
Justin Holcomb
No, ecclesiology. Good heavens.
- [43:34]
Walter Strickland
Ecclesiology. There you go.
- [43:37]
Michael Horton
Just part of the New Testament, Bob.
- [43:39]
Justin Holcomb
I know the part we every believer priest, he answers the T, which verse he describes. We can all agree on this, though. The Lord's given us his church where he daily and richly forgives our sins. And he has made you and I a part of his body, a part of his temple, where you can share your gifts that you have received as well as receive the gifts from others that you lack. I mean, why do you need the church? Because here's the ultimate reason. Because Christ has given you the church. And because Christ knows you need a preacher. And so he sent one to you to give you the law and the gospel. He's given you brothers and sisters. You need the family of faith. You need the forgiveness and guidance. You need the accountability and the absolution. And it is in the church where Christ Jesus gives you his word and sacrament to nourish you and to sustain you into life everlasting.
- [44:36]
Michael Horton
This year marks 1700 years after the Council of Nicaea, and the mystery of the Trinity remains at the heart of the Christian faith. Recovering Orthodoxy in our modern context is vital to the unity of the Church worldwide. Which is why I'm so excited that we here at sola, in partnership with credo, are hosting a special two day conference on the Trinity. Please join US in Washington, D.C. this may as we bring together leading Trinitarian theologians for keynote messages and interactive breakouts centered around the Nicene Creed. Just go to solamedia.
- [45:14]
Justin Holcomb
Org.
- [45:16]
Michael Horton
TrinityConference. That's solamedia. Org.