Healing from Toxic Church Experiences | Living Like Never Before (Part 1) | Stephen Feith

Um, if you're watching and joining us online this Thursday, welcome. I'm Steven leaf pastor, we're so glad that you're joining us. And welcome to Madison church. And if you're new with us, a special welcome to you, I want to start off with a little bit of a story. Some of you might have heard bits and pieces about this before, it's part of my story.

But right after I graduated from college, can anyone remember that some of you is more recent than others, some of you are maybe leaning up and getting ready to, I was doing what everyone else did, which was like really eagerly hoping to find a job. Because I just taken out a load of student loans, and they were going to expect me to pay them back at some point. So while I'm trying to finish strong finish, while keep my options open for grad school, so I can't completely slack this last semester, I'm also trying to look for a job and I wanted to be a pastor, I kind of just felt like led into that. There's more to that story, but not for today. But I wanted to be a pastor, and there were only two churches that were looking to hire a pastor in the area. Now my wife, Megan, who's up here singing, she still had two years left of school. So geography was also very important. I could not take a job in California or New Jersey, because I will take us away we were engaged, we're gonna get married right after graduating. And so there was a lot of like contingencies or and things that we had to follow.

And I got this job, I was excited about it. I was really excited because it was the better of the two. And by the better of the two half of you know that I mean, the one that paid better, right, that's the better job the one that paid better. So I'm going to do the exact same work, but you're going to pay me more for it.

That's the better job.

But little did I know that it actually wouldn't be. You know, last week on our anniversary Sunday, we were talking about Miss expectations or unmanaged expectations are when we hope for one thing and reality hits us and I went into this job thinking this is going to be great. Can we get to be a youth pastor, and I wanted to be a youth pastor, because one young guy out of college doesn't want to get paid to minister and go to camp and do all the fun things and stay up late, right?

That was, I was looking forward to that. And it like I said it paid well. And so I have all these expectations, this is going to be great, I'm gonna get so much experience out of this.

And it turned out to be really, really not good, not the time, we didn't really have a whole lot of vernacular around this.

But we would have described it at the time a toxic environment as what we would have described it. But as I look back on it now positively, because there was an abusive place to work. It was absolutely abusive. To work. I mean, my boss, remember one of the first days in the office, he was kind of bragging to me about how he could make anyone on a staff cry. And I thought I thought he was like, I thought he's just like maybe joking. I mean, this was he was in southern Missouri. So it's kind of you kind of have a he-man culture down there, you know?

And so I just thought he's messing around, but No, he wasn't. And I mean, I remember as the Associate Pastor, I was hired, I sat in on a lot of those meetings throughout the summer, where he bullied people and pushed them around and broke them down for it just seemed like for for pleasure mean things that were like, not a big deal you would make into this thing and make you question like your self worth, make you question your devotion to God.

And I never thought I'd be on the receiving end of that. I thought I'd be above that. But I wasn't after the few months of me being the new guy that wore off, and I began to be sitting on the other side of the desk, getting yelled at. And it was awful. I mean, it was awful. I hated going to work. I still went to work and worked usually about 50 or 60 hours a week. I really like working. I mean, I'm kind of one of those weirdo guys. And so I was still working a lot. But man, I just hated it.

And I remember I'd be in the car and he'd be on the phone with someone and he'd be like bad mouthing his wife to someone who went to the church. And I thought, well, this seems inappropriate. Now, granted, I'm young, and I knew there was a lot to learn. But I was like, I don't I don't know if this is appropriate. I remember one time the denomination came in and they said, Hey, here's a $10,000 check to use on the ministry that I was over. So of course, I'm like $10,000 All right. I wrote down a bunch of things.

And I knew he would want to be involved in the process. Right?

I knew that. So I came the next day. And I said, Here's what I think we should do. And he said, Don't worry about that. The money's already spent. They just gave us the cheque yesterday.

It's over my minute and yesterday was Sunday. So I know the bank wasn't open. first thing Monday morning, I'm having a really difficult time understanding and, and I was told to drop it. I mean, it was like, drop it, you're not gonna get to know anything about this.

Don't bring it up, or else.

And then eventually what began to happen is I my personality, I just couldn't leave it especially 15 1015 years ago, could not leave it. It just seemed like so much of what we were doing wasn't just unethical. It seemed like what we were doing was like disobedient wasn't wasn't being faithful. And I wasn't saying that from a judgmental standpoint. But like from as pastors, I think that we We should be trying our best to do the best we can. And it definitely seemed like we weren't. And eventually the friction spilt over. And then the Monday after Thanksgiving, he told me, you need to be out by the end of the day, you're done out. And I was a little surprised, I hadn't been written up, there was a lot of conflict.

But that was part of the culture. That's just part of the culture was all the conflict and the confrontation. That's what a conference is expected. This is what my life was going to be like was that every day was gonna be a fight. So I was a little surprised, like, Oh, I'm, I'm being fired, and I had to go to Walmart to buy my own boxes.

So they're like, you can go buy your own boxes. But we want you to be out. And I came back from buying the boxes at the Walmart to pick up my stuff. And they said, Here is a letter that we're going to read on Sunday to tell people why you quit. as well. I'm not quitting. Now.

Like, do you want to read it?

You can suggest edits. Like I don't want to read it. Because I want to be and this is what I told them. I was a little bit of a smart aleck. I said, I want to be just as surprised as the rest of the church on Sunday when I find out why I quit. I want to be just as surprised. So when they find that you're quitting, I'll be like I am. Because on Monday, he told me I had to leave. Wow. I spiraled. I mean, I cried the whole way home is a long commute is about an hour long commute, cried the whole way home, called my dad didn't call Megan right away. We just gotten married six months earlier wasn't sure how we're gonna have this conversation about how, like, we're not gonna be able to pay the rent anymore.

We didn't have anything and savings, because we're just like paying off stuff. And as I thought, we're just we're in trouble as I cried the whole way home. At that point, I really questioned do I want to be a pastor? And at that point, I wondered, this is my only church experience. Are all churches like this are all pastors like this? And I could tell you right now affirmatively, no. This is a small, just example of a bad situation that I got into most churches, most pastors are not like that. But I remember thinking I don't want to be in ministry anymore. I even started going to grad school for counseling again, I, my undergrad was in psychology thought I wanted to do counseling, went into pastoring.

Instead, I thought I'm gonna go back and start doing counseling.

So that's what I did, I started the very next term, going back to counseling, grad school, so I was going to be a psychologist, again, because at least the people were gonna yell at me, I wanted to get paid like $150 an hour for, you know what I'm saying. And so, had a bad experience. But I did have a couple of friends who were pastors are really, at the time, they were just pastors, now they're friends, but I remember reaching out to one of them. And we went out to a hamburger place. And, you know, I'm just telling them about all this bad stuff that I just told you about. And in the midst of it, he was being very supportive.

You know, he was, he was sad with me, he was concerned about me. This family has done a lot to help our family out over the years. But I do remember at one point, just being absolutely appalled when he said, you know, this entire time you're blaming them, and there certainly is a lot to blame. He's like, but I'm interested in how you're going to take responsibility for the areas that you need to grow in.

And I was like, I just got out of this toxic environment, and you want to talk about how I can grow. I was like, This is unbelievable. I was mad at him.

I mean, I was like, This is it.

This is the end of our friendship. I'm never talking to him again. Because I would I mean, yes, I could grow I was I was humble enough to be aware of that. But I was like, I'm never going to talk to him. Again. And of course, we keep talking. And I because I felt like there was just something like this guy loves me enough to tell the truth. I know some of some of us in the room, very, you don't like confrontation, you're going to avoid it at all costs. But I remember feeling like this person loves me enough. To tell me the truth. This person loves me enough to tell me the truth.

This person loves me enough to say that was a bad environment.

But Steven, I think you can learn and grow from it. This wasn't a wasted six months, it was bad, you're going to need some help, there's going to be recovery. But you can absolutely learn from it. And I bring that up because it's very relevant to the text that we're going to be studying. In Hebrews. today.

We're in the final stretch of our series in Hebrews. This is part three, part three, or beginning in verse, or sorry, chapter 10. Now for those of you who weren't here, for when we started doing the first part of the series was like a year and a half ago, if you weren't here, no worries, it's still going to make a lot of sense to you. If I do if I do my job, right? I think it will, I will.

But in the first part of the series, which was the first four chapters of Hebrews, we talked about finding our faith. And that's really the question that the author of Hebrews who we don't know, we don't know who the who wrote Hebrews. But the author of Hebrews sets out the answer that question, it's kind of like the what, you had these Jewish Christians, new to faith and like, what do we believe?

And perhaps you're new to faith?

And you're wondering the same thing. Perhaps you're kind of deconstructing your faith? What is all of this extra pneus? And what is absolutely essential to my faith? That was what the author of Hebrews set off? To answer right away right with these new Jewish Christians.

Hey, this is what we believe. In the middle part, a series that we called losing my religion.

The all Three explains why.

Okay, this is what we believe.

And this is why we believe it.

And it's very deep, weedy stuff.

When we talked about that a lot throughout this series, we're talking about the old sacrificial system, we're talking about the high priests, low priests, we're talking about all of these different things, but to Jewish Christians, this made a lot of sense that we're understanding it. And now in this final part, this living like never before series, we're talking about the how, how do we live this stuff out. So we know what we believe we know why we believe it. Now the author of Hebrews takes us into the how we are going to live this out. Now, when we're done with this series can be almost 30 parts of going through Hebrews and all that's available on podcasts and YouTube, if you've got a long drive, and don't mind listening to me talk for an extended period of time. And so I plan our series out two years in advance. And they're usually built around the goals that our church community has, this is how our church stays proactive, we don't do knee jerk sermon series, usually, that did change, we went into COVID, at a very nice summer lineup for 2020. And very nice, we're gonna be hard on discipleship and spiritual growth, and then the pandemic hit. And I felt like we didn't need to be harder on people than the world was being on them. And so we completely changed that. But we try to be proactive, and I lead with that just again with the story and with saying that because today's message is going to be just super relevant for where our church community is at it's it's exciting that it works out this way, we're going to go to Hebrews chapter 10. We have house Bibles all around, you definitely encourage you to use those or smartphone with your Bible app. We'll have the word on the screen today. And so at this point in Hebrews, the author themselves is transitioning to the closing of their message. Now, you may not know this, but when this letter was sent, most of the people could not read. So when this letter was sent to the Hebrews, it would have been read out loud for them. So when you read Hebrews, you should read it like a sermon. So he has a 20 minute or she has a 20 minute message.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And now we're transitioning. So here's where they recap. And so dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heavens most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. By His death, Jesus opened a new and life giving way through the curtain into the most holy place. There's all of this Old Testament language that we've been unpacking for several weeks. And since we have a great high priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting Him, for our guilty consciences, have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. There's the summary.

If you missed the losing my religion series, you don't even need to watch it now, because that's the summary of the entire series. But I'm just kidding, we unpack all that. But we're talking again about this Old Covenant. And now we have a new covenant. And yes, in the past, we've had high priest, but now we have just one high priest, who is Jesus, there was this old temple of physical space we went to, and now there's a new temple. And it's you. And it's me, because together we are the new temple of God. There was the old sacrificial system, where if you made a mistake, we're bringing a bird or RAM to sacrifice before the altar, we're going to do that once a year. And now there's one sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us. And so if you can imagine being a Jewish Christian, you just came to the Christian faith, there's this Jesus guy with all of that, this would have been very challenging. Everything that you grew up with, and your dad and mom grew up with, and your family grew up with your heritage was being challenged by this Jesus of Nazareth. And so the author of Hebrews is showing them how this isn't a new religion. This isn't a new religion, but how this is where this was heading the entire time. And he goes methodically through it with him. And as a result, who cares? Who cares, you might be saying, as a result, you can now approach God boldly.

We can come together in Madison, Wisconsin, the year 2022. And we can sit in these red chairs, and the band can play songs, and we can sing, not to the wall, not to each other, but to God.

That's what the author of Hebrews is saying, you can now boldly do that you can have confidence that when we come together on a Sunday, or when you get together in your small group, or when you're just with your family having dinner on a Friday night, and you pray for that meal, if you pray for that meal, and you can be bold about it, I can talk to God. I don't need to talk through a mediator anymore. I don't have to make sure like, Oh, I've got to sacrifice and make sure I'm right before God otherwise, you know, I might get zapped because of what Jesus did, we can now boldly come to God, you don't have to have a hesitation about that. I think that can get lost in our faith. Most of us we grow up and we talk to God For we go to bed and we wake up in the morning we talk to God we we speed pass a police officer we talk to God was Oh, please, please let him have been looking down at his phone. You know, I mean, that's what, that's what we pray, we don't we I think we lose sight that for a long time a period of time people might have done that with their mind the amount of thought that but they didn't have the confidence to do that they would have still have gone to their priest. And that's how they would have connected with God. Now the author does tell us let's go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts and in the Bible, to have a sincere heart is referring to our inner life, the inner life, the stuff that we don't let people see the stuff that God knows about the stuff that you know about, maybe even the stuff that God knows about that you don't know, is there. But he says let's pro approach God boldly, with a sincere heart. Now this isn't about being perfect. And it's not about striving, poor for, for perfection. But it is to say that what happens behind closed doors matters, is to say that what you think matters is to say that how you treat your spouse, how you treat the waiter. Those things matter. They are in our life, our devotion to God in private matters immensely. So yes, you can boldly approach God but that doesn't mean that nothing matters now that Jesus took care of a 2000 years ago, the author of Hebrews is saying quite contrary, approach God, but do so with a sincere heart.

This is about discipleship between Sundays. This is about discipleship between our gathering times when we're together, and what does that look like? For you? Does it exist does not exist? Is it flourishing? Is it not flourishing? If we were to put up a graph and say this was your spiritual health before COVID, this was your spiritual health during COVID. And this is your spiritual health and whatever phase of COVID we're in right now. Are you getting better or getting worse? Or have you stayed the same? Those are the kinds of questions that as we read this passage, we have, we have to consider. Now we read in Hebrews 1023 Go moving forward, he says, she says, Let us hold tightly, without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. We know that a lifelong relationship with God is not going to be easy. It's never promised to be easy. You cannot find in the big book, that is the Bible anywhere where it says you know, once you become a follower of Jesus, all your problems go away. It's not the case, if that was the case, none of us would be here today, we'll be able to prove that it wasn't true. So while I still have problems, even though I believe, so we know that it's going to be difficult. And the author of Hebrews challenges you and I says, Hold tightly without wavering, we know that challenges are going to happen hard times in life are going to happen, you're gonna have dark valleys, you're gonna have anxious moments, there are going to be times where it doesn't feel like God is there you're there going to be times where you question if God is real, all these things are going to happen. All of these things are going to happen. And what the author is saying is, don't give up though. When you're in that dark season, where you can't hear God and you feel all alone spiritually. The author of Hebrews is saying, don't jump ship.

The author of Hebrews is saying, dig in deep, hold tightly to that. Hold tightly and without wavering, whatever it is you're going through. And and I suspect that you're all going through something but if you've been in a season, and perhaps you're going into it, you're in it, or you're just coming out of it, a season in which you just spiritually feel empty. And you're wondering of Gods out there. Don't give up. hold on tightly. Now, you might say that's a lot of pressure, I am holding on tightly I've been holding on tightly. Well, the author fevers isn't done yet.

Who writes in verse 24, let us plural let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do. But encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return, is drawing near. He says it's going to take a community he or she they it's going to take a community hold tightly. Stand firm. And let us as we do that think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love, and good works. followers of Jesus are supposed to care for each other. We know that right? We know that. We're supposed to help each other drawn nearer to God. We're supposed to help each other hold on to our faith during those tough times. And so when we gathered today, in a space like this, or if it's a small group or meeting for broth for brunch, we're supposed to help each other draw near to God to help each other get through difficult situations. You see back in the day before Hebrews and I understand that it still happens and Our day. But it was that you would go to the pastor, right? You would come to me if you were having an issue, and I would be the one person that you would confide in. And I would be the one person who helps you and and you give a little money to the church looks like you're paying for a service. I understand all that. I understand all that. But the author of Hebrews does not see it that way. If you're going through a tough time, he doesn't say Look to the front of the room, he says, Look around you.

And maybe you're not going through a difficult time. Well, that means you're in a great position, help someone who is and maybe you are going through a difficult time, look around you at all the people, you're like these people should and could and would help me. Now we gather together for support. But we also gathered together for challenge. Let's ties a little bit into my story at the beginning. When I'm meeting together with this pastor, I think it's just going to be support. I think let us think of ways to motivate one another and acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect meeting and I'm thinking that's what we're getting together for. And he pulls out the challenge. And I want you to think about yourself for a moment. Okay. Most people are either or, but not both. Are you a challenge person? Because I am you're not the regime, but I'm a challenge person. So high challenge, I tend to be low support. Okay? Are you high support, low challenge. If you're married to someone, as Megan and IRC I'm high challenge. She's high support.

That's how our marriage works.

But we need both. And usually, we're more open to the support than the challenge, right? If you want to support me, that's great. But don't challenge me.

But in Christian community, we need challenge. And sometimes that challenge is how we can love other people better sometimes that challenge is the good work that we need to do.

Sometimes that challenge is that we're doing this thing over and over again, that's hurting ourselves. That's hurting our family that's hurting our community. And we need someone who loves us to come in and challenge us. Now we don't know the reason that in the original context that the author brings up, don't stop meeting together.

But they do mention let's not neglect meeting together as some people do. The author is referring to people in this ancient church who have already stopped doing that they've already stopped gathering together. And then the author says that this is kind of that leads to a diminishing of the faith is the conclusion here, stand firm hold tightly help each other and don't stop meeting together? Certainly in a place like this. We're meeting together. He says don't stop doing that. Now does that mean if you miss church next Sunday that like your faith is going to die? Absolutely not. Because church isn't just something that happens on Sunday morning. It's not just something that happens on Sunday morning church, is what we are doing Monday through Friday and Saturday to when we are gathered with other believers. So the author is saying, don't stop getting together with your Christian friends with the other followers of Jesus, don't stop doing that.

And what we see is like, you know, sometimes you miss ones, and that's fine. Sometimes you miss twice, we're starting to develop a pattern. And the author of Hebrews is challenging us. Don't stop meeting, don't stop getting together with other people.

So we need to persevere. And how we do that is by helping one another out through gatherings like this. Because of what Jesus has done another application for you today. I've got three questions. What do you desire the most? What do you desire the most? What are you most excited about this week, this month?

This year? What are you looking forward to? What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning, we shouldn't be emotionless God gave us emotions. They're part of the human experience. And while our commitment to God is not based on emotions, because sometimes emotionally you won't feel like walking with God like talking with God, but our emotions should engage God, even the bad ones are good ones and bad ones should engage God. This isn't to say that God should be the only thing we desire. I'm not saying to sell all your possessions and all that that's Jesus's job to confirm that message in you. But what I am saying is that honestly, ask yourself this morning, what is my desire for God? Do I have a desire for God?

What is my desire for God? Ask yourself that question. The second question, what are you devoted to? Now this may be the hardest question for any of us to answer again, you don't have to write this down. You're not gonna have to admit it. A lot of us have multiple desires. Again, that's okay. But we can't hold multiple devotions. Jesus tells us that you can't have multiple masters. There can only be one king sitting on the throne of your life. And what is that?

That means? That means that our faith should be more important than our jobs, our education, our achievements, anything that you can think of, that our faith should be the highest thing that we're devoted to And our faith will make all of those things better. I think when I say this to people, they tend to think that I'm saying like, only thing that matters is faith and that you should sacrifice everything else. On the contrary, your faith will make your job better If faith is most important.

Whereas if your job is most important to you, your faith is not going to get better. But if your faith is most important, not only will your faith get better, but your job will get better, if your faith is more important to you, then your family, your family will get better. Jesus wants you to have a full life. He's not asking asking you to sacrifice your kids on the altar of ministry or on the altar of faith. He's not asking you to add at all. He's just ask him to be the Lord of your life. And so when we ask ourselves, What am I devoted to, again, a hard question to say that for a lot of us, when we look at where we spend most of our time, when we look at where we spend most of our money, that'll be an indication of what we are most devoted to. Now, again, I'm not saying that you need to quit everything to become a full time pastor. So you're spending most of your time here. I'm not saying that.

But in your personal life, as we're going through the week. Do you ever read the Bible? Are you ever connecting with God through prayer? Do you ever listen or sing songs? I mean, there's so many things that you can do.

Those are just examples. But how are you connecting with God between Sundays? And finally, what's your destination? We're on a spiritual journey. And I think for a lot of us, we have a lot of goals. And that's great, healthy families, happy times, degrees, education, I want to make a certain amount of money, I want to go on vacations, I want to have a boat, whatever those goals and dreams are, that's great. But when we think about our destination, we think about our goals, do we have spiritual ones? Do you have a goal to draw nearer to God? Do you want to be closer to God next week than you are this week, next year. And if you have that goal about drawing nearer to God, being closer to God, understanding the Bible more, praying more, whatever those goals might be for you, as we reverse engineer that, what's it going to take? Because you're on a journey, it's not just going to happen, you can keep saying, Man, I want to be closer to God.

And if you're not doing anything, you just won't get there. I've heard it said often, that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with him. That's not scientific, I'm sure. But I think that there's truth in it, that the people you hang out with the most are going to dictate a lot about you. And so as you think about the destination, and you think about the spiritual journey you're on, and you think about the people who are on journey with you, again, this passage in Hebrews, all about community and who you're walking with, is there somebody that you need to spend more time with, you think this person in my life, and I should spend more time with them, I'd like to be more like them, we'll see if they have the time, perhaps, or somebody that you're spending a lot of time with, not very helpful, not very encouraging. They don't motivate you to do loving things. They don't motivate you or encourage you to do good work. They don't all of the things that the author of Hebrews during your life and they're not doing any of those things, well, then perhaps it's time that you start spending less time with that person.

Because again, who we spend time with is going to be a reflection of us eventually. And as we consider our destination, we want to put people around us who will help us on our journey.

Does that mean you cut off everyone from your life? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying cut off your brother cut off your cousin, cut off your mom. You know, I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying as you think about the people you talk to and spend the most time with consider their actions and how those are affecting your spiritual journey. So as you go into this week, consider how can you draw nearer to God? What do you need to start? What do you need to stop? Who do you need to spend more time with? Who do you need to spend less time with? How can you better hold on to your faith? How can you encourage someone around you in our church community, perhaps that's taking them out for breakfast or lunch or dinner? Perhaps it's paying for maybe it's just thinking about them on Thursday afternoon and sending them a text message, hey, I was just thinking about you this week. Hope you're doing all right. And being encouraging. We have to be as intentional about our faith as we do about the other things in our lives, like taking showers and brushing teeth and eating breakfast. We're all intentional about that. But we need to be also as intentional with our faith, this passage and as we end our study in Hebrews going forward over the next six weeks, has an emphasis to put our theology into action. It's not just about what we know, but it's how we go. And it's about what we do. And it's not to say that what we believe doesn't matter what we believe absolutely matters that impacts us one way or another. For example, if we believe that it's imperative to our faith to encourage one another to do good works, then we're going to do it. But if we don't think it's a big deal, we're not going to do it. But I think we're all tired.

We're all over thoughts and prayers without action. We're over it. And to be honest thoughts and prayers without action isn't even Christian anyway. Because anytime we see Jesus, anytime we hear about Paul and read about it, thoughts and prayers are always followed up by action. And so as you think about these questions that we asked today, and as you think about drawing nearer to God, I want you to ask yourself this question, what do I need to do?

What do I need to do?