Stop Lying to Yourself

Transcript

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[0:00] All right, let's try to shift gears back. I'll try to shift gears back to where we were. I was talking about the sermon, so I'm going to give the highlights just of what we've been learning in the book, and I'm going to leave some stuff out because it's just a little lot. It's a big book, but I'm going to kind of hit the highlights, and then at the end, I'm going to ask us to kind of break into groups and talk. So let's go, just a reminder, to define lament. Lament is a complaint directed at God or even at nobody in particular. It could be out to the world that I'm suffering mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, or probably all of those, and it's a complaint that my current circumstances are terrible and my future circumstances are not looking good. So there's a question of hope in there too, and our book is called Prophetic Lament because it's not just lament that things are bad, but the prophetic voice is the voice of God calling to account. So it's a question of how do we deal with this? And I'm going to give you a the world for its lack of justice. And so a prophetic lament both names the painful things that we're experiencing, the painful things in the world, and also asks or pronounces some of

[1:10] God's judgment on it because God judges iniquity, he judges injustice, he judges all of us, you know, and only God can. But he also, of course, he also forgives us, so let's not lose sight of that. But prophetic lament and the prophetic voice says this is not as it should be. There's brokenness, there's sin. There's a lot of things that we can't do. And so we're going to have to work on that. And so our prophetic lament is both a complaint, but also a naming of injustice. And that's important. The naming of injustice is a very important thing that we have to kind of work on. So let's go to our reading. It's Lamentations 5, 19 through 22. This is from the New Living Translation, just four verses. And these are the last four verses of the whole book. And notice how it kind of does end on a question of whether there is hope or not. But there is hope. And so we're going to have to work on that. So let's start with a little bit of hope. So verse 19. But Lord, you remain the same forever. Your throne continues from generation to generation. Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long? Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again. Give us back the joys we once had. Or have you utterly abandoned us?

[2:27] Rejected us? Are you angry with us still? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Even for a difficult word, we thank God. So I want to just highlight some of the ideas that we have seen, starting at the very beginning of the book. And one of those is that, and this won't come as a big surprise, but that suffering is a reality. Did you know that? Suffering exists in the world. Death is also a reality. Death exists in the world, right? And those are the kinds of things we can't escape. But we have a very powerful mechanism inside almost all of us, I think, that tries to find ways to shield ourselves from suffering and from death by compartmentalizing it somewhere else. We shield ourselves from the reality of suffering and death. So for example, when other people are suffering, we can avoid contact with them so we don't have to hear about it, see it, see what's happening. If somebody in a distant land is suffering, that's as simple as turning off your TV or your radio or whatever, however you get your news and not even hearing about it because it's just too painful to absorb, right? So we can cut off, but notice that God never does this. God never does this. He can hear it all the time and he does and he listens. So now that's if other people are

[3:42] suffering. But what about when we're suffering? Well, we have a lot of mechanisms there too. When we're suffering, some of us lament. That's great. You know, when your sports team loses, you can lament. You know, it may not be a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but it does hurt.

[3:57] Other times, I think when we're suffering, we have our own ways of minimizing our own suffering. We don't try not to think about it, try not to talk about it, because if we talk about it, it admits that it's real. We think that it gives us life that it shouldn't have. But in reality, as we see from the scriptures and the example of scriptures, speaking about our own suffering actually is a path towards naming it and some kind of healing from it. Even if there's no hope for it, at least we're saying something out loud. So there really actually is, even a psychologist would tell you that there's great value, to a certain extent, talking about your own suffering, right? But the biblical example is different here. Pain and suffering and death in lamentations, as we've seen, there's the death of people. It talks about people dying in the siege. The Neo-Babylonians or the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 BC, 586 BC. They killed a bunch of people. They just killed them. They tore down the walls. They destroyed a bunch of buildings. They destroyed the temple, right? And so what happens? The city's destroyed, the temple's destroyed, the place where religious things happen. The honor of the city is gone. That's a loss. The honor of the people is gone.

[5:17] Some people are desecrated, some people are enslaved and taken off into another country, other peoples are murdered, and then the rest are just left there with nothing, which is also a desecration of them. So there's this cry in lamentations of absolute pain. Our city got destroyed. It's kind of like if Los Altos was hit by a meteorite or something like that. It would be like total destruction and all of anyone who was left over and survived would go, death was everywhere, fire was everywhere, you know. So the biblical example is that, at least in lamentations, there's this healthy, lament, this complaint to God that things aren't as they are now. As we look at it closer and we look at both lamentations in the history of Israel, the author of lamentations really does get that the reason why this happened is their fault. This is important. The reason why it happened is their fault. They had been unfaithful. They had been idolatrous. They had been unjust in the way they were treating the poor. And so they, at least the author, the author of lamentations said, yes, we had this coming, but it hurts like crazy. So there's this sort of this dual reality that we did a bunch of things we shouldn't have done and this is God's punishment of us.

[6:39] And also, it doesn't feel fair and it hurts and it feels awful and it feels like God has forsaken us. And that's the final, that's the final verse of lamentations. Or, have you utterly, utterly rejected us? Are you in the midst of the anger with us still? When is your anger going to cool off, God? When is your anger going to cool off and we can go back to the way things were? The answer is 70 years plus a lot of years rebuilding Jerusalem. It did eventually come about, but it took time. So, one thing that we do and the church has done and the world has done is this goal of shielding ourselves from the pain of suffering is to create, this is the really important thing, to create an alternate reality for ourselves where that suffering doesn't exist. Or that we've retold the story of suffering into some sort of story of victory. And when I say that's an alternate reality, I don't mean that it's a good reality. It's actually a fantasy, right? Because alternate realities aren't realities. There's, can everybody agree there's like one reality? I know this is a very controversial statement, but there's really one reality and I don't even think we see it as a reality. I don't think we see it 100%, but there is really one reality.

[7:58] And if you imagine that something isn't as it is, so like if you imagine that the earth is flat, and I'm sorry if anyone here thinks the earth is flat, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, there are people, like a pretty good percentage of the population think the earth is flat, and I just don't get it. But if you think that, then I would just say your understanding of reality isn't, it's defective in some way. You've created a fantasy where the world is flat. And that's not healthy because you're actually not dealing with the world as it is. And if you're not dealing with the world as it is, every action that you take in that fantasy that you've created will have all sorts of, won't actually affect the real world in the way you think it will. It will do something, but it won't actually fix it. So, you know, you're gonna take a ship and you're like, I'm gonna go see the edge and look over, you know, and you're gonna keep, you know, taking a ship around the earth and you'll never get there. And you're like, what? I've wasted all my money on fuel and, you know, on ship charters and nothing's happening, right? So that's just one example. So we can create an alternative reality where suffering isn't suffering. And

[9:05] one of those is what Americans have done. This is the author speaking now, and I kind of agree with it, is that we've told ourselves a story that we're actually really exceptional as a country. Like we're really the best. Like we're a pretty big deal around here, you know. America is awesome. And so, and all the other countries are defective in some way and a great are not exceptional because that's what the definition of exceptional means is that they're really unusual and they're not, they're pretty rare. So the average person is not exceptional by definition, right? We're talking about reality here. So I know you all think you're exceptional and I know I think I'm super exceptional, you know, but what if we're not? And what if America isn't all that exceptional? Maybe it's lucky, you know, or maybe it's something else. Now there were some exceptional things that I think happened in American history. I think about the founders, you know, the idea of democratic government. I think, you know, the most, if you want a history lesson, the most exceptional thing that happened in America was when George Washington decided not to run for a third term because everybody expected him to and they thought he'd become a king. And it was a way of saying we're not

[10:46] going to be a kingdom like England. We're going to be, and thus started this kind of peaceful prancity. And so, you know, I think that's a great transfer of power that hasn't always worked and may not yet work, but that's, that is exceptional. That act itself was exceptional. It made a big difference, but we can't rest on that laurel forever. Okay. So that's just, that is exceptional. It's somebody actually giving up power. That's great. And he didn't want to, he didn't want to, he didn't want to be king.

[11:11] So you know, are we exceptional? Well, maybe not. Right. And the church thought it was exceptional because we're like, it's growing. We think we have it. We're going to send missionaries. And look look churches in really close to the downtown of big cities as they were growing and be a light in the hill to the city. And they were going to embrace and love and build up all these cities that they were in, like Chicago and Minneapolis and San Francisco and places like that. But then what happened, right? Cities changed. Ethnically, they changed. A lot of immigrants came in. There was migration after the Civil War. There was migration north. And the cities changed. And here the church had this great opportunity to witness to all sorts of different kinds of people and really enlarge the ethnic diversity of their own churches. But by and large, and there were some exceptions, they said, whoa, our neighborhood's changing. We don't have anyone we can serve here.

[12:31] Think about that. We don't have anyone we can serve here. They could just open the door and look out and see people walking past. Those were the people they could have served, but they chose not to. They closed their doors. They sold their buildings. They moved to the suburbs. And in the suburbs, where everybody else was fleeing, they grew. And they built these mega churches. And they're like, aren't we amazing? Look, we built this giant church out here where there used to be a farm. You know, this is great. We're really awesome. And our author really, he kind of pounds on them for that. He's like, no, that's not awesome. You're running away from reality. You set up your own alternate reality out there. You're in this alternate reality. You think you're amazing, but you're cowards. You ran away from the opportunity that God put right in front of you.

[13:18] I mean, this is powerful, painful stuff to listen to, right? So, I mean, think about this church. Are we in the suburbs? I don't know. I don't know. But there was a church in San Jose. It's our mother church. There have been some covenant churches in San Francisco. And actually, one of them is still going strong, praise God. One or two of them are. But by and large, some of the covenant churches in some of the larger cities have, have had, seen decline. But some have captured this idea that the gospel has to be for our new neighbors now. And so some of them have changed, and some of them are very multi-ethnic churches, covenant churches. So it's a mixed story. But by and large, the evangelical church has run away from reality and created this alternate reality, right? So that's infected us a little bit. One thing that they...

[14:13] churches do is they say, well, let me tell you how many people are in the church, how much money the church is making, how many new churches we are planting. And that was a dominant message, even in our denomination. You'd go to the pastor's conference, and they'd be like, look how many more churches we're planting in the suburbs, you know. Now they're trying to plant churches in cities. This is good. I think our denomination has learned some of this. And the other thing they're doing is they're telling churches that have been in the same place for 100 years, like in a small city or small town or, countryside, or we've been here for 60 years, they say, good job. Keep being faithful in the place where you started, and keep doing meaningful ministry where you are. And, you know, it's okay if your church is a little smaller. I mean, look around the room. This church, I think these pews used to be mostly filled. It's a little emptier in here. You know what? And what our denomination now is saying is, that's okay. That's okay. You are faithfully serving the people who are here. We want to grow. We want to expand. But it's not growing and expanding so we can create this exceptionalism for ourselves. It's only growing and expanding because the Spirit leads people to

[15:23] come here, and they find something here that feeds them, and that we're outwardly focused so that we want to reach people with the gospel. That's the reason. It's not to get on a leaderboard, you know, like a video game or something like that. It's not for that. It's not to fall into that trap of exceptionalism. But it's actually to live in the reality that Silicon Valley is a challenge. It's a challenge. It's a challenging place. There's a lot of people here that don't believe in God, and that's sad, but it's also an opportunity, right? We know where our work is. We know where our work is. So here's the important thing to remember about this, is that God is always faithfully found in reality. Think about this, because God created it. He can be faithfully found in reality. So as we understand and inhabit the same reality, the real reality with God, God is to be found there. But God is not found in our fantasies, because he didn't create them. Do you get that? We can create a fantasy, but it's not real. It's a false alternative world, and God can't enter it, because we can't. We're the gods of that world, and we can exclude him from it quite easily. So God is found in reality, and so it behooves us in all sorts of ways to embrace reality that

[16:42] is in front of us, which means that we can't enter it. We can't enter it. We can't enter it. We can't enter it. So the first thing we have to do is to untell the lies that we've told ourselves, and be honest about who we are, and be honest about what our country is, and be honest about what our church has been. And it's a challenge. It's not easy to do, but that's the lament. And that's what our author talks about, and we talked about a little bit, is you have to backtrack to the place where the first lies have been told, and you have to untell those lies. You have to say those were lies. Now we have to tell the truth and break their spiritual power, and from that point, we can move forward into reality. And so there are some original sins and original lies that we have told ourselves as a country, that we've told ourselves as a church, right? And the church's work is then in the reality that we experience. And so we need to look at the world as it actually is, not as how we wish it would be, right? Do you know what the world actually looks like? I think you know. I mean, actually turning on the TV does give you a glimpse into the real world a little bit. The world is broken. It's impoverished. It's warlike. It's corrupt. Have you noticed? The world is broken. That's

[17:50] reality. But it's also filled with people who bear the image of God who are suffering. The world is also like that. And those people are crying out to God, and God hears them. The question is, can we enter reality enough to also hear them, so that we hear them with our own ears, right? Or do we shield ourselves from that by turning it off, create an alternative, and then we're going to have to turn it off? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And look at a great Д Д or it'll all work itself out in the end, but it won't. That's not how the world works. The world doesn't correct itself often very much. It always seems to get worse, right? So how do we enter this reality? We start by telling the truth. That's the number one step. I think that's 90% of it. And I don't really know how to lament. I don't really, I'm not really good at it. I want to, it's a muscle I want to exercise. I don't really know how to complain to God in a way that's good for me and good for God, but I know how to tell the truth. And I'm not saying I know how to do that a hundred percent either. My own reality is like, I can lie to myself because it's comfortable to lie to myself. So I want to also develop a muscle of telling myself the truth about who I am.

[19:13] What's the original lie that I've told myself in my life? What's the original lie that I've told myself in my life? What's the original lie that I've told myself in my life? What's the original sin in my life that has shaped my life? How do I get back to that place where I can untell that lie and repent of that sin and come into this new reality where it's uncomfortable and hard, but God is there and he shows me what I need to see and he gives me the gifts to do my part in making a change. And does that make sense? I would, I would, there's this part of me that would so much love to live in my fantasy where there are no problems and I feel great all the time. That's quite, that's like, that's like Odysseus going past the island with the sirens on it. It's like, oh, this, I want to, I want to go there. But in my heart of hearts, I'd much rather live in reality. It's not easy, but at least I know I'm there. At least I, I know I'm not faking it. You know what I'm saying? Like I'd really want to live in reality and I hope you do too.

[20:12] So to get there, we start by telling the truth about ourselves. And the truth is we're not from Lake Wobegon. We're not that great. The other truth is that we're sinners. I think we've got that one. I hope you've got that one. If you haven't heard it, come talk to me later. I'll tell you to your face that you're a sinner, but I'll start with myself. Just like the apostle Paul said, here's a saying that's worthy of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of which I am the worst. Thank God for apostle Paul saying things like that. So you're a sinner. You sin personally and you sin corporately. We have sinned as, a church, we have sinned as a people, we have sinned as a nation, and we sin not just by commission doing things, we sin by omission. We sin by not doing the things that we know we should be doing. And so we have to backtrack to that original sin, not just Adam and Eve, but that story is very informative. It's really about like, can I have a life apart from God? It's a bit about a story about idolatry. It's amazing. It's really, the Bible is amazing. Genesis one through three, you should read it again, you know, once a week. It's amazing. But where do we find the

[21:23] original sin in our own life, in our nation's life, in the church's life? And I think there's a lot of candidates for these. The original sin, greed, pride, idolatry, lust for power, and indifference to the suffering of others. Those, I mean, that's all, I'm sorry I read that list so fast. I'm not going to read it again, but that's, they're all cousins. They're all related. This is what, this is what drives humanity. Greed, I, so we'll read it. Greed, pride, idolatry, lust for power, indifference to the suffering of others.

[21:53] And I don't think we can really move forward unless we go back and name those sins in our own lives and then corporately. And for the church, this is my opinion, 325 AD. 325 AD is when the church made its original sin. That's when the emperor Constantine decided that Christianity would become the official religion of the Roman empire. Terrible mistake. Terrible mistake. It's all been down. It's all been downhill since there. It really has. It was not good. A lot has gone wrong since then. Right? How do we undo that? Well, we're talking about Christian nationalism right now. And that's, that's, it's in the same family there. We do not want Christianity become the official religion of the United States. That would be a real mess. It would be a bigger mess than we're in right now. We really don't want that. And we don't want anything that even looks like that. We really don't. It's not going to work. It's not, for one, it's not going to work. You can't force other people into it. For two, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work.

[22:49] For two, I don't know how I said that. For two. Anyways, for two, then it's not only is it not going to work, but it's going to make the church look even worse than it is now. And that seems hardly possible, but that would happen. The church could even look worse than it looks now. Amazing. And three, it's idolatry. Straight up wrong. That's not how Jesus did anything. If you look at the life of Jesus, it looks nothing like that. So, and I could go on. I have like four, five, six, seven, eight. I'm not going to give them to you. There's a lot of reasons why it doesn't work. So, here's the final, we're done. Here's the final thought. We're going to go to groups. I want to say this. This has been a tough book, a tough study, and I want to thank you for participating in it. I really want to thank you for engaging in it. Even if you didn't read the book, even if you didn't join a discussion group, thank you for listening faithfully to our sermons about it. Thank you for opening your mind to engage this topic, okay? I think it was a hard book to read. I don't, I'll be honest, I don't agree with absolutely everything. I don't agree with everything the author wrote, but he's given me a lot to think about, okay?

[23:51] And he's done a very good job of exploring a book of the Bible that we don't read a lot. And not only that, but he's done something that we hope evangelicals will do when they read the Bible, is ask the question, how does this apply to my life? And he's done that. So, this is good. So, this is a very good scholarly biblical explication, exposition of the book of Lamentations, and he's given us a lot of really powerful things that we could do as a result of reading it.

[24:24] So, we value, I value that book, this book for that very reason. And I think it's a form of discipleship to hang in there with a tough topic, right? Discipleship is learning that suffering is real, and that the Christian life is hard, and there's work involved. Some of it's actual work out there in the world, and some of it's mental work. Some of it's reading, some of it's thinking, some of it's processing things, right? And so, to learn deeply from the Bible and be challenged by it about how I lead my own life and how we live together as a church, that's deeper discipleship. That is deeper discipleship. That's harder work for a Christian, right? You're not going to get that at a megachurch necessarily. I hope you would, but you may not. Okay. So, I've, but I've, here's the other thing. I've come to expect it from you all. I have. Almost everybody, I mean, I'm not going to say who's not, but almost everybody here that I know, or everybody I hear, you're deeply mature Christians. You are. You can get this stuff. It's work, but you can get this stuff, and you can do this stuff. And I'm, you know, my work here is done. As a pastor, I can, you know, mosey on off, because you guys have this. Now, I'm not done.

[25:39] I'm not done. There's plenty of work to do, because we have work to do together, but you guys are good disciples. You're good readers. You're good thinkers. I appreciate that. And, you know, if someday, if the Lord calls me to another church that's not like this, then I'll have, I'll know, I'll have to start, like, back at 101, you know, in college. But you guys are like 401, or 408, or whatever, you know. You're like seniors in college, or you're almost about to go to graduate school, you know. So, thank you for that. Now, I'm going to just ask you to do one last thing, because this is the last thing to do with the book, but it might be the beginning of what we do together, is now I'm going to ask you to break into your discussion groups. Can you tell them I'm excited about this? I don't know. I don't know why I'm so excited about this, but I have to bring the energy. So, let's see, how many people are here? There's nobody on the Zoom feed. That makes it easier. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 30, 30 people. Could we break into five groups of six? And I know Brian and Victoria and I could lead a

[26:43] group, and we'll ask. Wendy, can you lead a group? And Karen, could you lead a group? Okay. So, can you join a group that you're not in a family with? So, Karen, would you go into the fireside room and five random people follow her there? Go on. Victoria, would you go into the choir room and five random people follow Victoria there? Can you ask Karen if she can lead her group enthusiastically? Oh, I don't have any problems with that. I don't. She has the passion. She has the passion. So, five random people follow there. Go on over to the choir room, Victoria, and five random people follow her there. Brian, could you set up way over here in this corner and five random people follow Brian there? And then Wendy, could you sit over there by David and five random people follow her there unrelated to her? And...

[27:48] Let's see. I'm going to go to the church office, and can whoever's left follow me to the church office and come back in 20 minutes? Oh, come back in 15 minutes. You know, I said this was going to be a short sermon. It didn't work out. 15 minutes. I'll go around and find people.