 You a Christian, but you hate the church? Well, apparently you can be a Christian and not like the church. For whatever reason, it seems to be involved to want to attack the church, to want to be on the side of the world coming against the church, rather than being bold enough to stand up against the things that come against the church, rather than having courage to attack the things that attack the body, rather than having the courage to deal with the wolves versus blaming and jumping on the sheep for not laying down for the wolves. For some reason, we've got pastors, we've got preachers, we've got people who are teachers, we've got people in the pews, and even those who don't go to church, who talk about the church. There have been many organizations in many of countries that have not been destroyed from outside but have fallen from within. Fortunately, God says, Jesus says that the very gates of hell should not prevail against his church. You know the church, the one that is apparently a whack or the institution surrounding it, those are whack. Yet that very church, the Bible says that not even the gates of hell will prevail. Thankfully, there's some people out there who also feel like they're not gonna stand by and just let folks attack the church. One particular brother, his name is Anthony Phillips. I don't know much about him, people have been asking me about him, and so I can't necessarily vouch for him. I've seen a few clips and so far, so good, but this particular clip of what he's saying about the church is spot on. You a Christian but you hate the church? Brothers and sisters and mother, not pointing to Christians by name. Where he's talking about, where he's coming from is Matthew 12, 48. They're telling Jesus about his mothers and his mother and brothers being there. But Jesus answers them in verse 48, he says, Jesus said to them, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, behold, my mother and my brothers, whoever does the will of my father was in heaven, he is my brother and my sisters and my mother. So his point is, these people that are around me, these folks that follow me, these folks that listen to me, these people that are on my team, you know, the church, as wackiest person wants to call it, that particular person who Jesus is speaking of, he says, this is my brother, this is my sister. Yeah, there are a lot of folks out there who have got first in their profiles and their pictures and their names, they're Jesus, this, Jesus, that, but other than them telling you, you can't see. And his point is, who is Jesus pointing to? Those very same folks you have a problem with, those are the ones that Jesus is pointing to as his disciples. Those are the ones that he said, is my brother and my sister. Cyples! So he gives a criteria for who you can call a spiritual family. Disciples! Then you should be asking a question of the text. What is a disciple, a church goer? No, a Bible reader. No, a conference attender. No, a Christian poster. No! There's a lot of folks that have it kind of confused as to what a Christian is or what a disciple is. And by the way, I understand, there is no such world where a person can exist as a Christian and not be a disciple. The two go hand in hand. It's like the water and the wet. You cannot be repentant. You cannot be unrepentant and be a Christian. You cannot be unbelieving and be a Christian. You cannot be a person that doesn't have the Holy Spirit, the baptized Holy Spirit and not be a Christian. You cannot be a person who is not a disciple and still be a Christian. Those go hand in hand together. So if you're gonna come against a church, notice what you're going against. Disciple is a learner of Jesus, a follower of Jesus. They do the will of Jesus. They love the people of Jesus. You're a Christian, but you hate the church. You're a Christian, but you hate the church. It didn't seem odd, you're a Christian, but you've got something negative to say about it. I'm not talking about the goofy things that happened. Someone coming down off of some sort of trampoline or all sorts of tricks and all sorts of props and bringing different things on the stage to make a mockery of, not those things. No, not those things because that thing needs to be called out. Those are sort of things that need to be called out. But you've got a problem with the church. As a matter of fact, you've got a problem with what do you say with religion? There's something wrong with religion. Well, what does that say in the Bible? Where is it in the Bible that religion is a bad thing? The things that we do even religiously, those are good things. As a matter of fact, we are to have a pure and undefiled religion. How we do things, the way we do things, even if we don't feel like doing things because there's two things that God honors. One, the relationship that we have with him, you know, us wanting to come to him and doing things because we love him. But then also us having to come to him, you know, the religion side of it. The thing at the time is we don't want to, but we do it anyway. Why? Because we have a sense of duty to him because we love him and we're concerned because some days we just don't feel like it. So we do things out of it in a religious fashion. And so we have different things that we do and people have a problem with it. What they really have a problem with is not the church or the religious systems. What they have a problem with is the church being someone there to hold them accountable for when they do certain things and they don't like it. Because notice the things they talk about that they call the religious systems they don't like. They're not describing the church. What they're really describing is some individual person or a particular local body that's doing something that's not in the Bible. And you hate the gathering of God's people, but you are Christian. And I'm supposed to call you my sister and my brother. No, the Lord gave a criteria for even the people in the room. He points to his followers, learners, do words of his word. And he said, these are my brothers and my sisters and my mother. It's vitally important that you understand that the gathering is of utmost importance to God. But remember, Paul describes us as a body, now concerning these spiritual things in 1 Corinthians 12. And if you go on further, you'll notice as he talks about the body or as he talks about everything, he talks about us as a body. Verse 12, for even as the body is one and yet has many members and all of them are the body, though there are many are one body, so are also in Christ, for by one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. The body is the church. We talked about the church, that word church comes from the Greek word ecclesia. It's not, we make it out to be the called out ones. Well, it's two words that are put together that individually out of and called, but the word together just simply means a congregation, the gathering, the assembly. And so when someone says, I'm the church, no, you're not the church, you are part of the church, but you can't have church or be the church by yourself. It naturally means there must be multiple parts of the body. Can we have all of the body together in one place? No, but if there's a local body, a gathering of people, that necessarily means multiple people. And so this is just, this is a huge disservice to the body and rather than either making the body better. Yes, there's problems in the church, there's hypocrites in the church, of course there's hypocrites in the church. It's supposed to be, where else should hypocrites be? Where else should lives and backbiders be? Where else should the bad in society be? Where else should the sick be but at the church? Where else should you be right there with him? And so this particular young man, Anthony Phillips don't know much about him, so I'm not necessarily vouching for him, but what I've seen so far, I like. And certainly what he's saying about the body, you're a Christian and you either hate the church, well, I don't hate the church, but you got a problem with the church, you're a Christian, but you have a problem with the body. Who does that? Who's the person, we all have a family member who has a problem with the other people in the family. They talk about the other people in the family, don't wanna come around the family when they do their noses turned up, they've always got something negative to say. Don't mind posting things on social media about their family, talking about their family. That's the person that need to be around the family. That's the person that the family can do well without them until they get themselves together, until they realize they're nothing without that family or they decide they wanna be a part of some other family. Either way, don't say that you're part of a family and then down the family that you claim to be a part of. And notice this in the text. The Lord measures their love for him based on how they treated the service. Now, obviously this is one of our favorites. This is Bishop Wooden and he's speaking of, matter of fact, let's pull the passage up. He's in Malachi 1.11 and he says, for from the rising of the sun even the setting of the sun, my name will be great among the nations and in every place, incense is going to be offered to my name and a grain offering that is pure for my name will be great among the nations says the Lord. And he's speaking about his name being honored but he's talking about it in this service, even the service, there's a reverence to the service and he's making a point about how we deal with the actual church service here in America and really anywhere else. The rituals. Oh, I hear people all the time. Oh, I love the Lord, but I don't believe in religion. Oh, I love the Lord, but I don't go to other churches. I just have, I'm spiritual. I got this personal thing just between me and the Lord and I don't go to other churches. I don't believe in organized religion. I just serve the Lord myself, read the Bible myself and all that. You hate God. That's harsh words, ain't it? It was pretty hard. You hate God, but the fact of the matter is, yeah. Not in a sense that you can't stand, you have a disdain, but what it is is you have a disdain for what he's called for. You don't, you've rejected him. You have placed something else above him. Matter of fact, your own comfort and your own convenience above doing what you are called to do. And guys, it's in the scriptures. I know folks want to get around this, but he says, and let us in Hebrews 10, 24, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. You can't do that separate. You can't do that while they're over there and you over here. You can't do that also while you are saying negative things while you're attacking them verbally. You can't attack them, but also want to stir them to love and good deeds. He says, not forsaken our own assembling together. This is all the whole point of coming together as is the habit of some. Some folks got out of habit of doing that, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing there, we are called to be together. Because here's the Lord saying, talking to them about what was taking place in the house of God. The way we treat the rituals of God speaks to how we feel about God. There's no way you're going to convince God that you love him, but you can't stand church. I'm in agreement. You can't, I love the Lord. I just don't love the things of the Lord. I don't love the Lord's body. You have nothing good to say about church. Praise the Lord. You endure church. Have you noticed people don't press that way to the mall. People don't press that way to the grocery store. They don't press that way to the game. They just go. But when it's the church, let me get up. I'm going to press my way. That's how we do sometimes. It's Sunday or whenever something's something along those lines, I don't feel like it, but we don't have the same feeling for work and how much do we complain about work? We'll get up and go. We'll do everything we can to please them, but we have this disjointed effort, this almost disdain for actually getting him. Yeah, I cannot just take a day off. Okay, we'll find, let them take a day off with you. Let the Lord take a day off with you and you don't want that. And we complain about everything else. We complain about the electric company, but we'll make sure that we give them their money. We'll complain about the price of groceries and the service that we get at the grocery store. And we'll keep going back. As a matter of fact, we love it so much. We'll even pay someone to go and pick it up for us. We'll complain about all these different things, but we'll keep revisiting them. But we'll complain about the church to one thing that God has given us as a reminder of his love. And you know what, not this week, church, not this week, God. If I make it at all. Told them in the eight o'clock, I said, I've never failed for that silly expression called church hurt. I don't go to church. I don't worship in church. I don't serve the Lord because I've been hurt in the church. Now, this is gonna be probably problematic for some people, but I'm agreeing with him. I've spoken before about church hurt. Not that folks have never been hurt in church, no. But we treat church and what happens there as though it's the problem of the church. The entire church has done something and the institution of the body has done something. But we don't have the same sort of response when it comes to something else. As a matter of fact, something or someone else or somebody else that have done far worse than us. Are there gonna be some folks that might be in the church that have done something that's hurt you, hurt your feelings or what have you? Sure, that's the nature of the world. Is there anywhere else you can go that didn't happen? There's no place on the planet you can go. And the same things don't happen. As a matter of fact, happen worse and more often. And you know what people love to do? People love to put down God. There's no hurt like church hurt. Honey, cause if you get hurt in the church, there's no hurt like it. Now I've never heard of grocery store hurt. I've never heard of school hurt. I've never heard of mall hurt. Praise the Lord. I never heard of ball game hurt. Never heard of hospital hurt. Now tell me, haven't you got hurt in those places? And the answer is yes. All of those places and more. We can go down a list of different places, different things and people that have hurt us and we have not turned our back on them. We still go back. We don't, we might give them a bad report or maybe instead of giving them five stars, give them three stars. Who knows? But when it comes to the church, we are Johnny on the spot to join in in the chorus of booze. We are Johnny on the spot to help talk bad about the church. I've been hurt at church. Well, first of all, if you've been hurt at church, especially been hurt at multiple churches, that might speak to your discernment, what made you go there in the first place. That might speak to you. Oftentimes also, we don't even act like we are part of the person that hurt someone else at a church because it's not like you've never done anything wrong to hurt someone's feelings or cause hurt at somebody towards someone who happens to be at a church. And so typically it goes both ways and not always, not always. So I don't want you to, you guys to get angry comments, but a lot of times those very same people that are complaining about church hurt have also participated in it themselves. And may in many cases, I've seen it in many cases, they're the only ones complaining about it and it might just be them. That's not to say that didn't happen. That's not to say that there hadn't been someone that some pastor or some preacher or another member that has overstepped their bounds and done something. But what you don't do, the point is you don't write off the whole church by calling it church hurt and I'm through with church hurt. I'm through with church, I'm sorry, because of I was hurt there, but you've been hurt everywhere else in your life. You've been hurt at your home. You don't have home hurt. You don't abandon your home because somebody inside your, inside these four walls in the roof have hurt you. You don't leave that. You're not leaving the job. You're not leaving everywhere else, but instead you want to put a negative marker because you want to cry out and blame somebody. So let me just blame the church. So why is it that if one ninja hurts you at church, you blame the whole church? If you got hurt in the church, an individual hurt you. The whole church didn't hurt you because most of the people in the church are busy trying to live their lives, trying to get delivered themselves. I don't believe in any preachers because one preacher disappointed me. Did you quit doctors? Right, right, right. Have you quit dentists? Have you given up on all school teachers? So why do we put these things off on the church? I'll tell you why. You're dealing with people who are looking for an excuse anyway. That's right. You're dealing with a weak person. Your heart wasn't in it. Anything your heart is in can't nobody run you off. My God, when Jesus gets in you, they may hurt your feelings just like they hurt his feelings. And he's got a good point. It's hard to make you leave something that your heart is in. It's hard if you are invested in something and you are just, this is who I am on part of this, it's hard to make you leave. Again, that's not to say that there hasn't been issues that have hurt people. Don't miss what I'm saying. And don't miss, I'm saying what he's saying. He's not saying that certain things don't happen. And if something happens to the degree that we want something that's illegal, if something illegal happens, if someone is abusing, if someone has taken advantage, well then that won't probably not even a church, but leave, but do not impune the entire church. I will, you never give up on the body when you're part of the body. You can't, that is, if indeed you are part of the body. But like he said, it's easy to give up and to dismiss and to write off the entire body if you are not sold out for it. If you're not, if your heart isn't in it, if your heart isn't in it, it's easy to leave. It's hard to run a person off if they love what they're in. No matter what, they take the pain, they take the heart. And sometimes the pain isn't it, someone says something wrong. You've got a few angry, disgruntled members that you're around and it's making you think negatively about the entirety of the body. Well, that's a person that that is not really sold out. That's a person that's looking for an excuse, as he says. And so this whole notion of blaming the church for what one person or someone does. Now, if you go to a place that calls himself a church and the whole place is corrupt, that's possible. It happens a lot. But one, don't blame the whole church too. You might also want to look and see, is it possibly me in my selection process? Because sometimes the writing's on the wall when you go to some of these places and you can see it and you don't see it too late because you have bought into what they're selling. They're not selling the gospel, they're selling something else and you bought into it. And so that's not an issue where we impugn the church. If a human being, if a man robs a bank, if a man kills another human being, we don't write off all of humanity. That's not the responsibility of all of humanity because one person or two somebody did something. But we do that to the church and we should stop that. Stop letting people attack the church. Stop letting people attack the body. Defend the body. You are called to defend the body. That means against folks outside of the church and inside of the church, against bad doctrine, against sin, against people that are just immature, against folks that weren't just hurl bombs and accusations. Again, the world is gonna attack us. What we don't need are people in the body attacking those that are legitimately in the body. I'm not talking about people that are sinful folks. I'm not talking about the folks that are not necessarily grounded in doctrine. I'm not talking about the foolish things that have infiltrated the false teachers, the false prophets that were told they're gonna come in. I'm not talking about that. That's not impugning the church. That's defending the church. That is purging, as Paul says, a little 11, 11's whole lump. So he says, get rid of that. Purge yourself of that evil. That's what we're doing. But we're not gonna call the entire, notice what Paul didn't do in 1 Corinthians 5. When he spoke about the man who was sleeping with his father's wife, Paul didn't have a discourse or writing on how bad the church is. He said, get rid of that person. Get him out of the church. Turn him over, turn his flesh over to the devil in hopes that his soul would be saved. Paul didn't impugn the entire church. What he did was he defended the church. That's what we ought to do. And so if you're gonna say that you're a Christian but you hate the church or you don't like the church, you might wanna question if you really are part of the church. Amen.