Divided We Are Falling/Failing

Divided We ARE Falling/Failing

Good morning MGCC.

TODAY – is January 17 of the year 2021…

YEAH – I know a lot of us were looking forward to the new year, wanting to put the year 2020 behind us.

HOWEVER – 17 days in 2021 is not looking so good.

I MEAN – the turmoil, the unrest, the anger, the division

Is, is… it’s just crazy out there.

NOW – to be honest I really struggled this week over what to share with you this morning.

YOU SEE…

ON THE ONE HAND – I do not want what is happening out there in the world, to consume and dictate what we talk about on Sundays as a church.

YET AT THE SAME TIME – I do not want to avoid what is going on.

AND – unfortunately there is a lot going on.

LIKE - I don’t want it to consume us.

BUT - we can’t just ignore it either..

AND SO - in a time such as this what are we (as Jesus followers and members of God’s household)

What are we to think, like how are we to respond to all of the insanity that surrounds us.

AND YOU KNOW – one of the most troubling things to me has been the way that Jesus followers are behaving.

I MEAN AS – I scrolled through my Facebook feed this week, I saw so much anger, animosity and judgmental attitudes from Christians… aimed not at the world, but at each other.

LIKE – some people are very happy about President Trump leaving office and some are not.

Some are excited about the new administration,

and some - are not only not excited but are fearful that the America they grew up in is on the way out.

BOTTOM LINE – there are some very real and very raw emotions out there among God’s people.

Real and raw emotion that are being stirred up 24/7 by

the news media, social media… censorship…

MAN – it is just absolutely insane out there… it really is.

SO AGAIN – what are we to do, how should we then live.

UNDERSTAND – my really struggle this week was real (and to be honest it still is)

LIKE – what does God want me to share this morning, with you His people?

LIKE – what do we ‘need’ to hear.

NOT – what do we ‘want’ to hear, but what do we need to hear.

AND SO – where I eventually landed was on a conversation that I am calling…

Divided We ARE Falling/Failing

NOW – I do not think that anyone in this room or watching online would disagree with me on the following 2 points…

#1 – THAT we are living in a seriously divided country right now. AND - in my opinion we have never been more divided except during the Civil War.

#2 – THAT the last thing this dark, lost, broken, divided world needs…

IS - a divided church.

IS - for our salt to loose it’s saltiness

IS – for our light to be hidden under a cloud of division among brothers and sisters in Christ.

CHURCH – it is 1/17/21, and there is much division and nastiness and snarkiness… in the church.

NOW – maybe not between people in this room, because in here we tend to keep our opinion on current issues to ourselves (after all that is what we have social media)

BUT UNDERSTAND - all you have to do is scroll through a news feed on social media…

AND - you will see so much bantering, taunting, ridiculing, fighting and attacking going on between Christians.

“I can’t believe you voted for Him”

“I can’t believe you support this”

“I can’t believe that you did this, went there”

“You are a Christian nationalist”

“What happened on January 6 was a Christian insurrection”

“How could you even consider voting for a man like that”

IN FACT – this week I saw here an article posted on my Facebook news feed by a fellow pastor in Idaho,

Evangelicals face a reckoning:

Donald Trump and the future of our faith.

AND WHAT – this article claimed is that Christians who supported and voted for President Trump were basically

in a cult and were worshipping President Trump

and putting their faith in Him, rather than in Jesus.

IN FACT – there is even a conference coming up later this month about removing Trumpism from the church.

BUT LISTEN – the truth is that there are people who attend MGCC (in this room or online) who voted for Trump and others who voted for Biden…

AND – what are we going to do with that.

NOW – if you want to know who I voted for let’s grab some coffee and I will tell you who and why.