I was listening to the radio the other morning and heard a girl call in who was ashamed. She had made a few mistakes, and was now pregnant. For those that are wondering, that is not what I am talking about when I mention the title of this blog post. What is a shame is that she is already attending a church, and is afraid to tell anyone at the church because she is afraid of what they would think.
Now that is a shame, but it does feed into a stereotype of what non-Christians, and even some Christians, think a church is. Some think a church is a place for people that have everything figured out, have all the answers, and have nothing to be ashamed of.
This cannot be farther from the truth, and we'll look at John 8:2-11 to see why. It starts with Jesus preaching in a temple. A group of people brought a woman to him, saying she had been caught in the act of adultery. They state that the punishment for such an act is to stone her to death, and asked Jesus' opinion on what to do (they were trying to trap him, as they tried before and after, unsuccessfully). Jesus then tells them that the person who has no sin may start throwing rocks at her. Not surprisingly, no one did, and they all left.
This goes to show that the church (or temple in this case) is not a place for perfect people to congregate. In fact, the only person there that day, and any other day before or since, that had no sin was Jesus. The truth is, anyone who attends a church has something in their past that they are ashamed of. Romans 3:23 reinforces this by saying "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
Okay, so you do go to your congregation and admit your faults. What happens next? Jesus picks back up in verse 11 of the first passage. Jesus tells the woman "go now and leave your life of sin." We already know that people need to repent of their past sins, but what does this have to do with the congregation?
When most people unfamiliar with church try to explain a church, they usually say something to the effect that it is a place where you dress up and go to learn about the Bible, pay some money, maybe have some doughnuts and coffee, do some praying, then leave until next week. The church is more than just these things. A local church should be a community, or even like an extended family. Yes, it is a place for learning, but equally important it is a place for gathering, encouragement, and help. Since, as I said earlier, the church is full of not perfect, but broken people, you might be surprised to find that there is someone in your own local congregation who has been through circumstances similar, or even identical to your own.
As Christians, we like to talk about how God works in our lives, but it is also important to remember that the devil sometimes does as well. He doesn't stop when you commit the sin, he takes it to the next level. A common ploy of the devil is that when you commit a sin, he tries to make it sound like such a big deal and that nothing can undo it, and no one will understand, so you might as well give up. I don't know what happened to this woman when she told the people in her church, or even if she did. What I do know is that after her story was aired, many other women called up the station and said the exact opposite of what the devil was trying to convince her of, the fact that they had been there.
The truth is, if you need help with something, you need to go to God in prayer, and you need to seek the help of others. The ideal place to find help would be to go to a community, or a family, or in other words, a church. If you don't have a church, I would like to invite you to mine (had to put it in there, I hope you understand). If you don't live nearby me, I urge you to find a local church immediately. And as always, pray and keep in the word.
Amen
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