My Faith Is a Hot Mess (Fireside Chat)

Little change of plans today. I've put the message I was planning on hold for a week, because before we move into the next section of this series, I felt the need to sit down and have a kind of fireside chat with you - a few disclaimers, and a chance to be completely upfront about what's coming and why.

In some ways this hurts my soul as a presenter. Normally you take an audience on a journey - weave in the facts, the twists and turns, and land a powerful conclusion at the end. What I'm about to do is the opposite: I'm going to lay all my cards on the table right now and tell you where this is going. After some conversations with people I love and trust, I decided that even though it's bad public speaking, it's the right thing to do as a pastor and a friend - because over the next several weeks I'm going to present ideas that not all of you will agree with, and I'd rather ease your fears than build suspense.

Why I'm preaching these messages

I believe God put them on my heart, and the Holy Spirit keeps prodding me in an "if not now, then when" kind of way. Honestly, I'd much rather get up here and preach a message called "Bullfrogs and Butterflies" - the second-best Barry McGuire song, by the way - do a little shuck and jive, and send you off with "have a great week." That would carry no risk and a fraction of the preparation. But sometimes it's my job to challenge you, not just encourage you. And make no mistake: if some of this makes your stomach do a couple of flips, I guarantee I'm feeling it tenfold up here. If your stomach becomes a trapeze artist over the next few weeks, my colon will be playing the role of contortionist - we'll have a gastrointestinal circus together.

Nervous doesn't mean unsure, though. I'm a research geek; I need to be able to defend what I say from every angle - not just this series, every week. When I bring you material, I've done the work to arrive at a conclusion I believe is God-honoring, Christ-centered, theologically sound, and scripturally supported. You may not agree with me. You may never agree with me. That's absolutely your right. As an old friend used to say, a person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still.

A word about playing fair

Let me be clear about how I handle sources. I've read, watched, and heard the voices that disagree with me - in fact, I usually started there, and once agreed with many of them. So you don't need to send them my way; I assure you I know the other side's position. And if I quote a scholar who happens to disagree with you on some topic, that doesn't make them unreliable; it means they have a difference of interpretation. I don't use armchair philosophers or internet theology bros - I leave them in their natural habitat. If I'm citing someone, they're a respected, well-researched biblical scholar or theologian.

I also dislike labels like "conservative" and "liberal" voices - people can be one on one issue and the other on the next. Over the years I've quoted early church fathers and voices across the spectrum, and probably leaned on conservative and neutral sources more often, knowing some of you carry a bias there. You can't get much more conservative than quoting the Southern Baptist Convention - which I can do, having been a member of two Southern Baptist churches. The point is: I play fair. I don't Google a topic, grab the first quote that suits me, and call it research. These conclusions come from years of deep study; this isn't just my job, it's my life. And even so, we may still disagree - and that just means two people who love Jesus and love each other see something differently.

Does the fact that I'm egalitarian make me any less of a Christian? No. Does the fact that a friend of mine is complementarian make them any less of a Christian? No. That's not what makes someone a Christian. What makes you a Christian is doing your best to follow Jesus and believing that he is the Son of God, sent to save us from our sins. That's the non-negotiable.

My faith is a hot mess - not my faith in Jesus

Notice the title of this section is "my faith is a hot mess." It is not "my faith in Jesus is a hot mess." Our faith in Jesus is the best thing we've got - the greatest thing in the world. Jesus is the great physician, the healer, the author and perfecter of our salvation, the one who can fix and redeem every one of our hot messes, including the parts of our faith that feel messy or confusing. And Jesus is the bridge - the bond that should tie us together when we disagree about interpretation. Paul wrote:

Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. - 1 Corinthians 1:10

He doesn't say there will be no disagreements - Paul, of all people, knew there would be; he didn't always see eye to eye with Peter, and he had a falling-out with Barnabas. The Corinthians were splitting into factions: "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," "I follow Peter." Paul's response is to bring it all back to the cross of Christ - back to the one thing that's non-negotiable.

If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord. - 1 Corinthians 1:31

My agenda, straight up

Here's my agenda, plainly: I want us all to live more like Christ and show more of his love, so that everyone who walks through our doors experiences freedom in Christ. And I expect a lot more people to be walking through those doors very soon. If we're honest, this church hasn't always done a great job of being a place where people feel free or safe to disagree - where those who love Jesus but live it out a little differently feel welcome. Too often we've kept the people who look the most like us and quietly pushed the rest to look and act like us, rather than like Jesus.

This isn't theoretical. In the last little while, three families who loved our Sunday services and wanted to become members took one look at our membership form and left. They felt it was an overreach - full of things that had nothing to do with trusting and following Jesus, and some things that, frankly, looked like attempts to control people's lives out of fear. One of them said something that still echoes in my head: "This doesn't sound like the same thing we hear on Sunday mornings. This doesn't sound like you." And they were right - I didn't write it. It's a holdover from other voices and other times, and it's crippling us in the present.

What we're united by - and what we're not

Jesus boiled it all down to loving God with everything we are and loving our neighbor as ourselves - the two commands the whole law hangs on. And sometimes people will interpret what that looks like differently, even with the same Holy Spirit inside them and the same Lord over them. I'm tired of watching Christians label brothers and sisters who hold different opinions as the enemy, or heretics, or some lesser kind of Christian.

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:26

We are not united by traditions, or disputed doctrines. We're not united by being literalists or not, by young earth or old earth, by complementarian or egalitarian, by our view of the end times, by inerrancy, by which books we count in the canon, or by being Calvinist or Arminian. We are united through faith in Christ. We're not united by being Baptists; we're united by being Christians. And I'm not knocking the Bible - my life is devoted to studying it, and there's no better source for understanding Jesus. But the whole point of the Bible is to point us to Jesus, who is the one we're actually united in.

We're also not united by sharing the same politics. Republicans, get better at loving Democrats who love Jesus. Democrats, get better at loving Republicans who love Jesus. And please - I mean this - leave the politics off campus and out of our events. I'd like to hear a lot fewer names like the ones on cable news and a lot more names like Jesus, James, and John - or Peter, Paul, and Mary. I'll even take Solomon or David. Earthly politics, however well-meaning, tends to divide us rather than unite us under the banner of King Jesus.

Not a policy change - an attitude change

Hear me loud and clear: I am not asking for radical policy change. I am asking for an attitude change - for us to examine our hearts, to be slower to judge, and to stop being a church with very little room for beliefs that aren't identical to ours. The only hill we should be willing to die on is the hill of Calvary, where Jesus died. I will never water down the gospel. But I am asking you to treat the people who come through these doors as more important than negotiable bonus doctrines, no matter how right or wrong you think those doctrines are.

One of the friends who disagreed with me on the complementarian-versus-egalitarian question put it beautifully. He said, "I disagree with you on this one, but I see what you're doing - you're trying to make our church more accessible so it's easier for people to know Jesus. And we don't agree on this, but that doesn't mean I don't love you." Do you know what I said back? "I love you too. We agree on Christ - and that's the main thing." That's the unity I'm after.

The island of misfit toys

I keep flashing back to my sixteen years as a youth pastor, and the seasons when we were most successful. We were - and I mean this in the best possible way - the island of misfit toys. We had kids from every walk of life: church kids who dominated Bible Jeopardy and kids who'd never heard of David and Goliath; kids from Protestant, Catholic, and other households; kids who were sure and kids who had no idea what they believed. Not everyone agreed, and not everyone was best friends - but they knew it was a safe place to ask questions, to express different ideas, to learn to love Jesus and to love one another. And they did. There's no reason we can't bring that same love up here and trust God to bless and multiply it.

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. - John 13:35

So as we get ready to fling these doors open, here's what I'm asking. The people who walk in will carry baggage, just like we all do. Treat them the way you'd want to be treated - do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. That's the essence of the whole law and the prophets. I'll do my best to do the same for you, and I hope you'll extend it to me over the next several weeks, and to everyone who comes through these doors.

The main thing, always

Through all of this, the center never moves: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave his life on the cross to take away our sins, rose again on the third day showing his power over death, and offers eternal life in heaven and abundant life here as we follow his commands.

If you've never put your faith and trust in him and you'd like to today, you can pray a prayer like this:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. I know I've done wrong things. Please forgive me of my sins. Right now I ask you to be the Lord of my life. Help me to turn from my sins and follow you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins, for rising again on the third day and taking those sins away, for saving me, and for preparing a place for me. In Jesus' name, amen.

If you prayed that, I'd love to walk alongside you. Come see me after a service, or email me at josh@seacoastredondo.com.

Thanks for joining me for the disclaimers, warnings, and assurances hour. We'll return to our regularly scheduled series next week. May we be a church united under the banner of Christ, who loves all of his creation fearlessly. God bless you.