How to DRAMA-PROOF Your Church

Good to see you. If, if you've got a Bible, go

and get that out, get that open. If you don't, that's OK.

We will have every word of the biblical text on the screen for

you. So just keep your eyes either

here or there. We are in the book of Titus.

Everybody say Titus. Lovely voices this morning,

Titus. We are spending 18 weeks

together in this little book, exploring every nook and cranny

of it. And this is week, I think 6.

And so we have been taking our absolute sweet time.

And this morning we are going to be in verse 9, what Paul is

doing in the book of Titus is he's instructing Titus, who is

operating kind of as the chief leader on this island called

Crete, over these new young fledgling churches that have

sprung up. And he's teaching Titus how to

build a church. And so that's really the way to

read this book best is it's really just a manual for how in

the world do you do it? How do you be a church?

That's why we called this sermon series How to Be a Church.

And to quote the Brad Pitt movie Moneyball, it's hard not to be

romantic about the church, who the church is, what the church

could be. The church is the hands and feet

of Jesus. The church is the bride of

Christ. The church is the community of

the people of God. One theologian referred to it as

the loveliest place on earth. The New Testament calls it the

pillar of truth. Eugene Peterson called the

church a colony of heaven invading the world.

It's a hospital for sinners, not a museum for Saints.

It's a beautiful place and it's hard not to be romantic about

the church, but we also have to remember that the church is

primarily made-up of sheep. That's one of Jesus favorite

illustrations for what you are. What I am and what this is, is

we are sheep and who like sheep, wolves.

So by necessity of the very character of what a church is, a

flock of sheep wolves are attracted to the church.

And so that's what Paul is going to start talking about.

What do you do with these wolves that pop up, these people who

intentionally want to devour and destroy the church?

And as we think through this subject of what?

What is a wolf and what are they out to do?

And how do you spot them? How do you not harden your heart

so that you become one? We will invariably talk about

the relational and social hardships that are part and

parcel of belonging to a church. Somewhere along the way, we'll

even teach ourselves. What does it look like to drama

proof the church? And after 40 minutes of teaching

and preaching, if the Lord has put something into your heart

that helps us drama proof this church, that'll be a win.

Amen. So let's hear from the Bible

first. Go ahead and stand if you're

able. So in verse 9, this is a

continuation of a thought unit that Paul already started all

the way back at verse 5. He's he's telling Titus, the

first thing you got to do if you want to build a church is you've

got to find, develop, train elders, pastors, overseers, find

these people, make sure they've got these character

qualifications. And then Paul pivots in verse 9

from character qualifications to the one skill or competency that

these elders must have. He says in verse 9 he must hold

firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able

to give instruction and sound doctrine, and also to rebuke

those who contradicted. Why, that doesn't sound very

that doesn't sound very nice. Paul.

I thought Christians were supposed to be nice.

Well, he says, for there are many who are insubordinate,

empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the

circumcision party. They must be silenced.

Why? Since they're upsetting whole

families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought

not to teach, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own,

said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

This testimony, Paul says it's true.

Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the

faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands

of people who end up turning away from the truth.

To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and

unbelieving nothing is pure. Both their minds and their

consciences are defiled. They profess to know God.

There's an appearance of spirituality, but they deny Him

by their works. They are detestable,

disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Do you ever just read a Bible verse and think, man, I would

love to preach on that? That's not how I felt about this

one. Heavenly Father, would you make

this text come to life? I have had to.

I have had to spend an inordinate amount of time in my

prep this week focusing on my own heart.

This this text has made me I want to preach passive

aggressively and with bitterness and our church deserves better

than that. And so I just would you make me

pure of any other motive. Would you, would you purify my

heart so that I don't make this sermon about my experience with

with the church because that would not ultimately be helpful,

Lord. So just purify my heart and help

me help me preach from, from a place of, of purity of

conscience. And I just, I just want to

preach in a way that even with a text like this that I didn't

want to preach that nobody wants to hit nobody signs up for a

sermon on this Lord, and yet it's hearing your words.

So it, it needs to be preached. And so I pray that it would be

preached in a way that yes, is helpful.

Yes, that leads to clarity, but somehow, some way would it lead

to greater joy in Jesus. That would be awesome.

And that's what we ask your spirit to do.

So it's in the precious name of Jesus that all God's people

prayed. Amen.

You can have a seat. Insubordinate, empty talkers,

deceivers. What's actually going on here?

OK, so what's happening is these are young churches, which means

that they're really, really fragile and new.

And they're on this little island called Crete.

And Paul's instructing Titus on how in the world do you shepherd

these communities? How do you take these young,

immature communities and make them into a church?

And he says, Titus, go find, build and install pastors and

then make sure they've got the right character qualifications

and then train them to drama proof the church through good

doctrine. And one of the great things

about preaching this text is that I don't have anybody in our

church in mind. So I don't have to like stand up

here and be like I'm preaching responsibly to some wolf in the

church. I'm actually just preaching

proactively from the text. And so that makes this a little

bit of an easier sermon. But the basically the gist of

this is, is Paul Tantitis drama proof the church through elders

who have good doctrines. Very practically, this seems to

be what's going on in in this text.

People are creeping into these churches and these particular

people that Paul is referencing, they're they're viruses.

They're viruses. I know that's strong language,

but Paul uses strong language. They are people who are allergic

to health and they thrive off of drama.

Again, Paul's language is probably stronger, right?

Insubordinate, empty Tuckers, deceivers.

Jesus uses the term wolf to describe these people.

Jesus's own words in Matthew 7 quote, Beware of those who will

come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous

wolves. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to

say that the pastors who do nothing to protect the flock

from these wolves are not good pastors.

In fact, Jesus says they're not pastors.

This is what Jesus says. He says, quote, he who is a

hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees

the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf

snatches them and scatters them. So Jesus says the pastor who

does nothing to protect the sheep from the wolves, and he's

not even a pastor. Jesus says he's he's just a

hired hand. Yikes.

So let's go deeper and let's get a more accurate picture of who

these people are. Exactly.

The thing that's happening in these churches is this

self-righteous self appointed leaders.

Always beware in the local Church of a self appointed

leader. Somebody who appoints themselves

a pastor, appoints themselves as a leader, has not gone through a

process, has not had eyeballs of other elders and pastors

training them and just says, you know, I feel like a pastor.

So today I'm a pastor. self-righteous, self appointed

leaders. What they're doing in here is

they're rising up and they're preaching a false gospel.

This is what Paul's were hinting at when he uses the phrase in

verse 10. He calls them what?

Especially those in the circumcision party.

So what exactly? What's going on here is these

are people who are preaching a message that is contrary to the

gospel of Jesus. They're the circumcision party.

What that means is that they're going around saying no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no. I don't care what Paul says.

A person is not saved by faith alone in Jesus, which is the

gospel. Amen.

That's the biblical gospel. You're saved by faith alone in

Jesus, apart from works of law. These wolves are coming in.

They're saying no, no, no, no, no, yes, you got to believe in

Jesus. He got that part right.

But they also have to do Old Testament works of the law,

believe in Jesus, yes, but also you need to get circumcised.

You probably should not eat certain types of food.

You also have to do all of these ritual cleansings.

And if you can juggle all those responsibilities, then you can

earn salvation. They're taking the gospel,

they're preaching a false gospel by adding things onto it.

This is key. I need you to hear me.

Anything added to the gospel, Jesus plus this Jesus plus that

Jesus plus you got to earn it through obedience, Jesus plus

works of the law. Anything added to the gospel is

not a simple addition to the gospel.

It morphs it and transforms it into a different gospel, a false

gospel. OK.

Anybody who adds anything to faith alone in Jesus is

preaching a gospel contrary to the biblical.

It's it works this way. I've used this analogy in the

past. You guys didn't like it.

I'm going to use it again. It's like a really good bourbon.

OK, If you have a really good bourbon and you decide you want

to make a cocktail with it and you add stuff to it, it's not a

simple addition to the bourbon. It spoils and dilutes the

bourbon. Yeah, that's right.

I thought you guys were Baptists.

So. I mean, so I've heard Joseph

told me. That's what happens when you

make a cocktail like that Now, it cuts, dilutes the the purity

of the thing. That's the way the gospel is.

Any addition, no gospel cocktails.

You can't mix the gospel with earning your salvation.

It dilutes it into a false gospel.

That's what's going on here. That's why in verse 14, Paul

describes it with a little bit more detail.

If you got your Bible, look at verse 14.

He says these are people who are devoted to Jewish myths in the

commands of people who turn away from the truth.

I studied John Calvin on this about 500 years ago.

He said, you know, it's they're making up frivolous myths that

are really attractive to the carnal mind in order to keep the

minds of people in a state of suspense without ever leading

them to Christ. So we don't know exactly what

myths they're making up here, but they're obsessed with all of

these old Jewish myths that aren't in the Bible.

And it's, it's what might actually be going on too, is

the, the main myth that happened in in Crete was actually the

myth of Zeus. So huge myth in the ancient

Roman world. One of the reasons why the Roman

world hated Crete, this little Isle and island.

And one of the reasons why Paul says that their own poet said

that they're evil and liars and lazy beasts is because they

claimed and told the rest of the world that Zeus was actually

born on the island of Crete and died on the island of Crete and

that they had Zeus's tomb. It was their way of trying to

say, hey, we have something special to Rome.

And the rest of the world was like, bro, what are you smoking?

Zeus? Zeus is immortal.

He didn't die there. And so on Crete, you actually

have a bunch of Zeus worshippers, which makes me

believe that maybe one of the myths they're bringing into the

church is, yeah, you should worship Jesus, but also Zeus.

But yeah, I make your church about Jesus.

But damn media, it's not going to hurt to also throw a little

bit of Zeus worship in there. And it Paul's like, no, no, no,

no, no. That stuff is leading you away

from Jesus. And that's why Paul's main

exhortation, his main strategy to drama proof the church is to

what? Install good pastors who have

good theology. Verse 9.

He says they have to hold firm to the trustworthy Word as

taught. He's talking about the teaching

of the apostles, which is the New Testament, so that he may be

able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also rebuke

those who contradict it. That's why at, at Frontier,

we're not perfect. Our elder team is not perfect.

We've got 3 elders right now. We're going to install three

more in a couple weeks. It's going to be great.

But we have a rigorous, rigorous, rigorous elder

development program where we need to make sure that we're all

on the same page with character and, and also with theology.

Like it's, it's notorious in the city of Des Moines how rigorous

our process is. It's like 12 to 24 months of

ongoing training. I had a pastor in the area come

up to me randomly in the coffee shop a couple months ago saying,

what are you working on now, Cole?

Another boot camp to beat the crap out of your elders, right?

So like it's notorious for being really, really robust.

I was talking to a pastor from Waterloo a couple of years ago.

He was like, what's your elder process?

And I was like 25% of the way through explaining it.

And he goes, what, your pastors read books for you guys?

And I was like, brother, they don't just read books.

They write essays too, and have to defend their doctrinal

positions to the other elders. He's like, how do you get?

I just want anybody with a heartbeat, with a pulse that

will share some of the eldership load with me.

How do you find these people? And I'm like, I don't know.

I honestly, I think part of it is like when you have a high

standard for elders, that's who you tend to attract.

And so when you say, hey, we're not going to lower the bar on

theology in this church, I don't care how smart you are, I don't

care how sparkly or good looking you are, we're not going to

lower the bar for theology. So you're going to spend 12 to

24 months studying, debating, thinking about theology.

It's going to be brutal. What good elders do when they

hear that is I want a piece of that.

What wolves do is they go, no, no, no, I don't want I don't

want to process. I want a really quick ladder

when I can rise to the top. So you can't skip this part like

it's God's word says they must hold firm to the trustworthy

word as taught right in verse 13.

He says they need to be able to rebuke those who preach a false

gospel sharply, sharply. Strong words doesn't sound nice.

And yet the qualification character wise for elders is

they need to be kind and gentle, but also they need to know when

to hold the line. Tough and tender, gentle but

rebuke wolves sharply. Why such strong words silencing

wolves, rebuking, why such strong words for this?

And this is the key. I want you guys to hear me here.

It's because of the nature of these wolves.

When we're talking about wolves, when Paul's talking about empty

talkers and deceivers, Paul is not talking about grouchy church

members. OK?

You just have to deal with grouchy church members.

I told one for I was like one of my buddies who's a pastor.

I'm like, look, not everybody who's a pain in the rear end is

a wolf. Sometimes sheep just crap a lot

and you got to pick it up. That's just part of that's part

of being a shepherd. So I've heard these are not

faithful church members. They're not church members who

disagree with pastors. You guys are actually welcome to

disagree with pastors in this church as long as you don't seek

to actively undermine them. He's not talking about people

who have questions about the way the church operates.

That's normal. That's just being a good church

member. He's talking about people who

are allergic to health, thrive off of drama, and take a dark

pleasure in the destruction of the church and her leaders.

Go deeper with me. Here's where it gets unnerving.

And Titus, these wolves are doing it.

What's their reason? Look at verse 10.

They're doing it for, quote, shameful gain.

In other words, their spiritual predators who are praying on the

fragility of these young churches.

Now, we don't know exactly what type of shameful game they're

seeking. Some theologians out there think

that the shameful game is financial.

So in other words, they're seeking financial compensation

for performing these ritual ceremonies that they're saying

that people need to do in order to be safe.

So if these guys are right, it would look something like this.

Hey, now you have to believe in Jesus and get ritual cleansing

for all the meat that you eat. And by the way, as God would

have it, I can also be the person who cleanses that for you

for a small charge. It could be.

It could be that I don't personally, I don't think that's

it. I think the shameful gain

they're seeking isn't financial, though it might be.

I think it's actually just followers in an honor shame

culture. People really liked having

followers. And So what these wolves do is

they see these young, fragile churches that lack elders right

now, by the way, as an opportunity to gain themselves

new followers. This is what wolves do.

They profit from division. And since they benefit from

division, what do they stir up? Division.

Be aware of anybody who benefits from division.

People who benefit from division will also stir it up.

Look at verse 11. There seems to be a deliberate

strategy. Even they are upsetting whole

families. In other words, they seem to be

strategically targeting family units, bouncing around

methodically from family to family.

Seeking what? Bouncing around from family to

family, trying to find out who is willing to carry their virus

and spread it. So think, think here.

I need you to hear me. Just hear Guy hear this again.

These are not cranky church people.

These are people who have the appearance of spirituality, but

who are secretly, inwardly malevolent.

If I had to guess based on the text of exactly what this looks

like, what Paul's talking about, I think it's something like

this. These are people in Creep who

are putting on a spiritual mask, going from family to family,

saying, hey, can we get coffee? Like the Lord has just laid

something really heavy on my heart and he wants you to hear

those. You got brother, sister, you got

to know. Oh man, God's telling me to say

this to you. And I don't get any pleasure

from saying this, but I just, I need you to know that Paul is a

liar and that you can't trust him.

OK? He's, he's not preaching a true

gospel. He's just preaching 1/2 gospel.

It sounds great that salvation is by faith alone in Jesus.

It's just not true. It hurts me to have to say this

about Paul. We should pray for Paul.

We should pray for Paul. But Paul's, Paul's wrong.

Paul's wrong. Faith in Jesus isn't enough.

You also need to get circumcised.

You also can't eat meat. You also have to do ritual

cleansing. Paul's Paul's a liar.

We should pray for him. Do you see the spiritual mask

there? That's why Jesus literally says

that the wolves will be dressed in what?

Sheep's clothing? What's that look like?

Probably close to what I just said.

Lots of religious spiritual mumbo jumbo with the aim of

making your relationship with your church toxic.

And again, I know you didn't sign up for this sermon, but

just come a little bit deeper with me.

Edwin Friedman, he wrote a legendary leadership book,

Failure of Nerve. I quoted every other week.

He's not a Christian, so he has a different word.

He doesn't use the word wolves to describe these people.

He uses the word virus and Friedman makes 10 observations

about the similarities between the way that these people

operate in organizations because he says they're any organization

or multiple human being. Viruses are attracted to that.

And so he makes 10 observations about the way these people

operate and the way that biological viruses operate.

I'm going to spare you. I'm not going to give you all

10. I'm going to give you 5 of these

observations. And as we walk through these,

maybe, just maybe just resist the temptation to picture other

names and faces and just self assess and just ask yourself,

hey, are these are these things true about, about me?

And they're fantastically, I think, astute observations.

Friedman says #1 like viruses that have no outer membrane, in

order to protect their integrity, these people tend to

be easily hurt injustice collectors wherever they go, who

are always given to victim attitudes #2 like viruses who

have a parasitic quality to the way that they bond, these people

bond in parasitic ways too. They tend to idolize their

leaders. This is the best church ever,

man. Paul's the best leader ever.

Paul is awesome. They idolize the leader until

the unrealistic expectations fail, whereupon they crucify

their gods. This is the best church.

Paul's the best, and then Paul accidentally has to reschedule

his dinner appointment with them.

And then they're like pulse, pulse the worst.

There's a parasitic quality to the bonding #3 like viruses that

are limited to either being turned on or off.

These people tend to be entirely unable to relate to people who

do not agree with them on everything.

If there's not 100% agreement about everything, there's just

an just unwilling to even engage in a relationship #4 like

viruses, they tend to ooze into, if not directly interfere with

the relationships of others. Why did we see this in Titus?

What's the strategy in Titus? In Titus they are strategically

targeting family units, actively working to upset them, losing

into the relationship. This is an old strategy.

This is precisely what the serpent does in Genesis.

What does the serpent do in Genesis?

He oozes between Adam and Eve's relate.

You got to read like when biblically literally.

Not trying to be hyperbole here, but biblically, when you read

about the character of Satan, you have to recognize that

Genesis to Revelation, Satan is literally a drama queen like

that. Like that's his, that's his MO,

he's a drama, that's what he does.

He seeks to find a relationship and inject drama into it.

Adam and Eve in the Old Testament, right?

Your relationship with the church in the New Testament

agents of division, these people ooze they you know, you know,

you might be hanging out with one.

If you always hang out with this person and you leave with a

smaller, darker, diminished view of the church.

There's they want want to spoil your experience in the church.

Which brings me to the fifth and most important observation I

think Friedman makes, which is number 5.

Like viruses, they find light and truth, the element that's

most healthy to other forms of life.

They find light and truth to be toxic to their nature.

In other words, they are allergic to health.

Like they hate being around healthy environments.

They hate being around healthy people.

If there's not drama, their lives don't feel satisfying, so

they have to stir it up, right? They find they find health

repulsive. When you experience joy around

these people, your joy feels like a condemnation to them.

So it elicits bitterness rather than joy.

And they try to cut you down when you're in the presence of

somebody, when they're they're allergic to health.

So that when they're in the presence of somebody who's like

passionate about Jesus, their responses, Oh, it's just because

she's a fake, you know, actually worship Jesus so passionately on

Sundays because she's performing like they'd find it alert.

They're toxic to be around health.

Oh, he's he's a good worker or he's a good husband.

It's because he's a normie. Like viruses, they thrive off

darkness the way that viruses thrive off of bacteria.

So again, if there's not drama, then life feels boring.

And so like that empty talkers and Titus, they make it their

goal to go around and stir it up.

And our, our church has been very fortunate.

I think we planted this nine years ago and we've had a

really, really drama free church for the most part, for the most

part, But still, it still happens, right.

And I, in my opinion, this is the hardest thing about being

part of a church is that you can't, you can't stop the church

from experiencing drama. You can't like just think of it

this way. Imagine you have a home that you

love and you're building it, and it's your home and you take

responsibility for it and you want it to be a beautiful home.

So what do you do? You you study as much as you

can. You try to pick out the exact

right artwork to hang up on the wall.

So your home looks beautiful, right?

You You get exactly the right furniture, and you strategize

about where to put it and how to organize it so that people feel

comfortable when they walk into it.

You study the dietary habits and needs of your family, and then

you stock the shelf with exactly the right groceries.

You spend all this time planning it, but imagine that as you're

building your house, there's something different about this

house. Unlike other houses, this house

you're not allowed to put a lock on the front door.

Can you imagine that you're building a home, but you can't

put a lock on the front door? What's that mean?

That means that while you're working your rear end to make

this home beautiful because you love it and it's yours.

Anybody can walk off the street and walk through your house and

eat your food, screw up the furniture, make a freaking mess,

and then walk out and do it to the next house.

And what's that mean for you? If it's your church, If it's

your home, it means you're stuck cleaning up the mess.

It's like a house with no lock, right?

In that same way like the church, you can't put a lock on

the front door and say, OK, welcome to Frontier.

No dramatic people allowed, no sinners allowed.

You can't do that. You can't do that.

And as a result of that, anybody can and will walk into this

church that you're praying for, laboring for building, and they

can say whatever they feel like saying, spread whatever gossip

they want to try to spread. And then they can just freaking

leave whenever they want. And it leaves you to do what?

To clean up the mess, reorganize it and keep building it.

And that that just it happens and a church, you've experienced

it. If you haven't experienced it,

you will experienced it. And it's really hard.

You get left with the mess and you got to clean it up and then

keep building. That's what belonging to a

church is like, right? Like every faithful church

member knows this pain. Somebody comes into the church,

you disciple them and you invest your time and your energy into

these people. And then you, you spend time on

a daily basis lifting them up before the throne of Jesus,

praying for them. And on Christmas break while

you're at your parents house, you take out and you take a 2

hour phone call to help them work through their issues.

Because you love them and you're investing them.

You're giving them your time and your energy.

You want to see them become like Jesus.

And then suddenly you discover that for the past year they've

been undermining you and spreading gossip about you

behind your back to everybody besides you.

For the last year you experienced that.

And when you do, you need to know two things.

Number one, it hurts and #2 you can be healed by Jesus from

that. It hurts.

It's going to happen. You're going to invest in

somebody and they're going to turn around or they're just

going to walk out with the middle finger and you're going

to be like, gosh, all right. And you can't put a lock on the

front door of the church and say, no dramatic people, no

sinners allowed. If you do that, you become a

dead, legalistic church who only lets people who think, talk, and

look exactly like themselves into the church.

Is that an option? No, it's four centers.

It's four screwed up people. Can't put a lock on the front.

You can't stop the drama from happening.

Here's what you can do. You can, number one, drama proof

your church to the best of your ability.

And then #2 you can have a strategy for healing when you

experience it. Let's talk about the first

thing, drama proofing the church.

I'm going to be really practical.

I'm going to be really specific here.

I'm going to give you 1 tool. It's it just one tool that if

you use it as a church, it is actually incredibly simple and

incredibly effective to drama proof the entire church.

Simple, practical, and effective.

If you're a note taker, write this down.

Write this down, write this down.

If you're just a remember, remember, remember, remember.

Here, here it is. Here's my tool.

When a person sits down with you and begins to undermine the

credibility of a person in our church, Let's be hypothetical.

Let's let's say Broseph Johnnifro.

Yeah. Yeah.

You sit down. Oh, gosh.

Is that why the name is familiar?

So somebody sits down and starts to talk about Broseph Johnnifro,

about concerns undermining the credibility of this person in

the church, bringing charges against them, are intentionally

seeking to destroy your trust in their leadership.

When you are in that conversation, which is heavy,

please, please, please ask them one question.

And this is the tool I want to give you and it's effective and

it's simple. Ask them one question.

How was that conversation with Broseph about that?

Tell me about what was it like talking to Broseph about these

concerns? And if that individual says, oh,

I actually haven't talked to Broseph about it yet, what I do

is I tell them I can't have this conversation with you until you

have that conversation with Broseph first.

I'll go with you. I'll sit with you in the

conversation. I can mediate if you need me to.

But until you have that conversation with Broseph, the

New Testament forbids me from having this conversation with

you. And the reason why this is so

effective, why this question, it's so effective?

Because what it does is it actually discerns the motive of

the person's heart. So if the person's concern is

really a godly concern about Broseph's heart and health, what

they'll do is they'll hear you say that and they'll go have

that conversation with Broseph and you'll know that was a

genuine godly concern. I've had probably, I would say

just shy of 10 conversations with church members over my last

nine years who came before me with a legitimate concern about,

about my leadership where with a soft spirit, right?

They've, they've said, Hey, brother, I just want you to

notice. I've, I've seen this thing in,

in your life. Can we, can we talk about this

thing? I've, I've noticed and every

time those conversations have been an extraordinary blessing

to me. I've walked away from those

conversations thinking, I think that person was right.

I think I got to work on that. I'll bring them before the

elders and be like, hey, have you noticed this pattern in my

life? And then you, it's such a

blessing. So if you genuinely have a

concern about a leader, why would you hide that gift from

them? It's such a gift to have those

conversations. And if a person hears you say,

hey, have you talked to Broseph about that?

And they go, oh, no, I shoot, I should.

What does that tell you? It tells you that that's a

genuine concern. However, if that person is not

willing to have the conversation with Broseph, what does that

tell you? Tells you that his concerns are

less motivated by his love for Broseph and probably more

motivated by a dark pleasure to spoil your relationship with

him. And there are people, I'm sorry,

you just I wish, I wish you could come to a different

conclusion. I would like to read the Bible

and come to a different conclusion.

You can't, if you can't read the Bible and come to a different

conclusion. There just are people out there

who experience a sick joy in destroying healthy communities.

Not most people. Most people are awesome right

there, image bearers of God. They're fun to be.

They want you to be like Jesus sometimes, right?

Some sheep poop a little bit and that's part of it.

But like, most people are awesome.

But like, Paul's not talking about hypothetical people.

There needs to be like, I I Della made me laugh so hard a

couple weeks ago. We were driving in the car and

we were listening. Don't judge me to blink 182.

Really loud. Yeah.

Blink 182. And for the first time in human

history, it was a situation of the child rebuking the father

for listening to Blink 182. So we're listening to Blink 182.

I can't even remember what the lyrics were.

The lyrics were something about a girl named Josie.

And I don't know, it's Blink 182.

So it's probably like, oh, Josie sucks.

I don't know what, something like that.

And I was listening to it. I was just listening to it.

And this squeaky, beautiful little voice in the backseat

goes. I turn the song down.

So I turn the song down and, and Della goes, what did he just

say? And so I, I think he said that

Josie sucks. No, no, no, no, no, no or

something like that. And and she goes, Josie is my

friend. Do you think he's writing about

my Josie? I was like, no babe, I don't

think Blink 182 from 18 years ago was writing about your 4

year old buddy Josie. So no, it's OK.

He's not talking about that, Josie.

And she goes, she goes, she goes, Dad, I never want to hear

that song again. It's like, OK, OK, so I shut the

song off. But sometimes you there's just

songs that get sung and played that you need to shut off.

What is that in Della's heart? That's relational love and

maturity. Sometimes you just need to shut

off songs. All right, so let's like map

this out a little bit. Suppose this person has a

concern with this person. Suppose that person has a

concern with Broseph. And so they go and have the

conversation with Broseph. You know what that is?

That is a godly friendship that they're both really lucky to

have. Amen.

Now, let's suppose that's not what happens.

Let's say that person has a concern with Broseph and they're

kind of nervous about having that conversation.

So they go over here to have this conversation.

This person says, hey, what was that conversation like with

Broseph? And they're like, I haven't had

it you're yet. You're right.

And they go have the conversation with Broseph.

That is a godly relationship. Sometimes you just have some

relational incompetency and you're like, Oh yeah, you're

right. I should probably should talk to

Broseph about that. That's totally cool.

That's just part of being a church.

Now suppose they have a problem with Broseph.

They go over here and this individual says hey.

I can't have the conversation with you until you talk to

Broseph. And they go, oh, yeah, OK,

totally. And then they go here.

No, no, no, I shouldn't have this conversation with you.

And then they go here, and it doesn't take here and it doesn't

take here and it doesn't take here.

And they get a little reactivity and they get a little bite.

And that person's like, oh, wow, this is a big deal.

Oh, man. So they keep going back there,

increasing momentum. Oh, wow.

We should start a blog. You're right.

We should do right. If if that's the strategy, I

don't know what to tell you. Like that Looks.

It smells like a wolf. Sounds like a wolf.

I don't know what to tell you. It looks like a wolf, right?

Targeting family units individually.

Upsetting whole families, right? These types of things, they

don't happen often, but when they do, they're heavy for

church members. Church members want to they want

to have an experience with church where church is the place

where they learn about Jesus and become more like Jesus.

And yeah, we sin and we need to forgive one another, but like,

it's where I learn about God. They don't want it to feel like

another middle school dance full of gossip.

And so it just gets heavy when this happens.

And so Paul's instructions are elders, you've got to step in

and protect people, right? The exact thing is silencing

them. I like we are a low control

environment. Like I'm going to be honest with

you, our elders, we're not controlling people whatsoever.

But at the very least, like we can't be faithful to the

biblical descriptions if we're not at least willing to have a

conversation with somebody practicing this and saying, hey,

do you even think that this is a good fit?

Right. We like, we don't, we don't,

we're not going to carry around torches and like, put muzzles on

people. Like sometimes.

And I've probably I've only had this conversation two times in

nine years where I've had to sit down and say, hey, so there's

been this pattern. I love you.

I want what's best for you. Do you want to have this

conversation? Is this church even a good fit?

It's OK if it's not a good fit, but it can't turn into like a

middle school dance. And you know what?

We also need to round out the opposite impulse, right?

If one impulse that needs to be rounded out is, oh, let's be

naive about people and never think that somebody's a wolf,

that you can't live with that naivety.

On the other side, though, you also don't you don't want a

church filled with trigger happy people either, like trigger

happy pastors who call everybody who disagrees with them a wolf.

That's not good either. That's the opposite error.

Like there's also a type of leader who gets too much

pleasure labeling everybody who disagrees with them as a wolf.

And what he does is he weaponizes biblical texts like

these against everybody who disagrees with him and wants to

challenge him. If somebody disagrees with

something he said on the Sunday sermon, he says touch not the

Lord's anointed. Or if somebody doesn't think

he's the greatest leader and as God's gift of planet Earth, he

calls him a wolf, that's not good either.

Unhealthy pastors, when they weaponize these texts, they end

up crying wolf so that you can't even see it, right?

And sometimes they use these texts to always avoid

accountability. So also beware of pastors who

always cry wolf because look at Paul's intention here.

He doesn't. He's not trying to.

It's not a power struggle. He's not trying to protect the

power of the elders. What's his?

What's his MO? It's not to help leaders avoid

accountability. What is it?

It's never, never, never when it's healthy.

It's never, never, never about power.

Verse 13. He wants these churches to have

soundness or wholeness and health, soundness of faith.

It's about the health of the church, protecting the wholeness

and the soundness of the church, right?

Drama proofing the church helps the church not get trivialized.

Some people's faith, it gets chewed up and spit out, not by

arguments, but through just the triviality sometimes of the

Western church. It's like, man, these all these

guys care about is gossiping about each other.

I thought these were the people of God.

And sometimes it's that the trivialization of a person's

faith that makes them have a negative experience with the

church. And so that's the point of drama

proofing is to make sure we can stay focused on Jesus.

So you can't keep drama from ever happening in the church.

He can drama proof it though, to keep it from spreading so it

gets dealt with. But that means that if you're a

part of a church, I hope you are.

If you build a church, I hope you do.

I hope you spend the rest of your life building an imperfect

church for Jesus. That means that by virtue of the

fact that it's a flock of sheep, you're going to get bit by a

wolf. Some of you have, some of you

will be, all of us will be. And so that like the question

is, OK, wolf, OK, what do I do when I get bit by a wolf?

I've got 30 minutes of preaching to do.

I'm going to do it in 6 minutes. What do I do when I get bit by a

wolf? Sister, brother, I want you to

remember the saying that hurt people hurt people.

That is mostly true. One Christian theologian said it

better. He said pain that does not get

transformed gets transmitted. You hear that?

So the first thing you have to do is you got just let it hurt.

Like when you invest in somebody and they turn around and bite

you or they just peace out with the middle finger to the church.

When that happens, I'm telling you it's going to hurt.

Your job is to not harden your heart.

Just a lot of pastors don't have the courage to say this.

I'm going to say it. Just let your heart hurt for a

season. Let it hurt.

Let the thing hold your heart in your hands.

Just let the sucker bleed out a little bit.

Let it sweat out the toxins. Hold your heart before Jesus.

Like a cookie without gluten, just falls apart.

Poetry, bro, you need to study it.

Just let it fall. Just let it fall apart, right?

We're there. I should spray it out.

You just got to let it fall apart, man.

But hurt people hurt people. So let it hurt.

And then after a season, don't be a coward.

Do not harden your heart. Do not avoid people.

Do not start every relationship with an unfair level of not

trusting people. So you've got to be courageous.

Hurt people, hurt people. Pain that doesn't get

transformed gets transmitted. So once you've allowed your

heart to hurt, your next most important thing is that if hurt

people hurt people, which is true, you need to know that the

gospel is literally the good news that I hurt God heals

people, hurt people, hurt people, but I hurt God heals

people. So your responsibility after

that is to go before Jesus, take your pain and just give it to

Jesus. Like I just love this about

Jesus. I love this about Jesus.

Jesus is the God who knows pain. There's no relational pain you

can experience. There's no social pain or

betrayal you can experience that you could bring before Jesus.

And ever hear Jesus say, what's that like?

He has experienced it all. He's experienced the wrath of

God being laid on him. He's experienced betrayal of his

closest friends. He's experienced being spat upon

and rejected by the very people that he came to save.

He knows every iota of relational pain you could ever

go through. And this is the strange thing

about Christianity. Just test this, OK?

The strange thing about Christianity is how comfortable

suffering and pain is within the framework of Christian theology.

It is so comfortable within the framework of Christian theology.

Like the thing about I could never, ever, ever.

I couldn't. You cannot convince me to

believe in a distant, abstract, nameless, faceless God who's way

out there and doesn't know what pain is like.

I would never trust that God. By definition, that would not be

a God. If there's a God who doesn't

know what pain is, like, he's not omniscient.

And if he's not omniscient, he's not God.

And so like, if you have a distant, abstract, nameless,

faceless, yeah, sure, God probably exists and then you

experience pain. I guarantee you that what that

pain is going to do is you're going to go, oh, how can God be

real in a world where they're suffering?

What pain does, if you have a relationship with a distant God

is it makes you question the existence of that God.

Jesus is not a distant God. He's not a God who's way out

there. Jesus is the God of the cross.

He is the God who was crucified. He's the God who knows what

nerve pain feels like. He is the God who, when you look

at Christ crucified, that's not a one time event.

That's his nature. It's a central revelation of who

he is. That's what he's like.

If you know a God who is close to you and suffering for you and

knows pain, when you experience pain, which I hope you don't,

but you will, when you experience pain, it doesn't make

you question that God's existence.

It confirms that God's existence because in the pain and

suffering, you don't say, how could God be real in a world of

suffering? What you do is you say, oh, my

suffering proves the existence, that Jesus is real.

The world's filled with suffering because I worship a

God who suffers. And so, strangely enough, what

pain and suffering and relational pain does if you have

a relationship with Jesus, as it doesn't drive you away from him,

it drives you to him. The very pain that you thought

would destroy you actually increases your joy in Jesus.

The very pain that you thought would make you question the

existence of God actually drives you so close to Jesus that you

could. It has been pain and betrayal in

my life that has made me feel so close to Jesus that I swear to

God I can close my eyes and I could picture Jesus and I feel

so close to him that I can, I can literally lean forward and

rest my head on his chest and feel his heartbeat extinguish on

that cross. I picture him.

He's not nameless, He's not famous.

He's not, he's not nameless, He's not faceless.

He's not way out there. Picture a 1st century Jewish man

hanging on a cross, nails through him, spit dripping from

him, experiencing the wrath of God, crying out for God,

experiencing pain and betrayal. And I swear, when you do that,

when you picture that man on the cross, the voice of the

universal human experience will whisper, If God's not like that,

then God can't even be real. When you picture a man suffering

on a cross for you, I guarantee you the voice in your heart will

say that must be what God is like.

That's what God is like, and we'll drive you closer to Him.

It's so strange. The wound that you thought would

kill you becomes the very opening through which Jesus

administers Greater Julian, Him. It's the cracks that let the

light in. It's the wounds that I hope you

don't experience. I just know you will.

It's the wounds that invite the joy in.

The very pain that sought to destroy you actually serves your

joy. And I'm going deep here.

I'm going deep because when you experience relational pain,

sister, I need you to have a gospel big enough that it makes

the pain serve your joy in Jesus.

So what's going to happen if you commit to building a church,

being a part of a church? It's going to be great.

We're going to have a lot of fun together.

We're going to laugh together. We're going to eat together.

We're going to talk about Jesus together.

You're going to get bit by a wolf.

You're going to put yourself in danger to wolf attacks.

But here's my promise to you. By the grace of the Great

Shepherd, the God who suffers, you'll survive them, Amen.

And the Great Shepherd will heal you and it'll increase your joy

and Jesus will build his church. And Satan, that great and mighty

drama queen, will not prevail against him.

Amen. Heavenly Father, I pray that you

would you would make us a church that is drama proof.

Can't put a lock on the front door because it's your church

and it belongs to you. And so we got to be open to

messed up, screwed up people who don't have good friendships and

don't know how to have good friendships.

And maybe they're just socially immature sheep who don't know

how to handle conflict, or maybe they're wolves.

So, oh Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, give us the wisdom to know who's

a sheep that just you need to be prepared to do a lot of cleaning

up and who's a wolf. Give us the wisdom so that we

don't need to live with suspicion because I would hate

if the thing the sermon, this sermon, I would hate it if the

main thing it did was fill people with suspicion.

People should not be filled with suspicion.

Our first impulse towards other people should be like, wow,

image bearer of God. How awesome, man.

I would love to see them become more like Jesus.

I want to pray for them. That should be our first impulse

with people. And so, Lord, would you help us

hold on to our tenderness and softness of heart and also give

us the courage to know when to say, hey, this far and no

further. That is a that's a social

spiritual maturity that only the Holy Spirit can give.

So would you give that to us, Jesus?

It's in the precious name of Jesus that all God's people

prayed.