The Gospel: Hope for the Jaded

[1 Corinthians 1:4-9]

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

{Rev. Dwight Yoo}

Idealism

Many people live by idealism. They assume that things will work out and everything will be ok in the end. There is even a Christian version of this. Many western Christians have this. It is characterized by trite theology. They dismiss struggle, suffering, and pain.

Cynicism

Others live in "reality." They have been through tough times and seen how things don't work out. They have hearts full of bitterness. They don't believe in happy endings. They are critical of culture, politics, and of anything good.

The Gospel offers us a different way: Hopeful realism

On one hand, the gospel is real about suffering, sin, darkness, and evil. But on the other hand, we can still hope things can and will change. Because we have a promise... based on the stone rolled away from the tomb.

To the Jaded: Perhaps at some time, we loved the church. Then something changed. A church... maybe our church disappointed us. This church hurt us. So we've disengaged. We are here, but it's because our friends are here. We find the church hurtful... and maybe even worthless.

The Gospel does not underestimate the sinfulness of Christians... and neither should we.

Note the greeting Paul gives to the church in Corinth. We usually breeze over it, but we need to re-examine what is going on. This church was planted by Paul. But since then the church had broken into factions, there was sexual immorality of a sort that even pagans did not engage in, the church was being led astray from the gospel, they were desecrating the communion and they even were opposing Paul, the one who originally started that church.

The church is not made of the most moral and upstanding people. Paul calls us foolish and weak. But he also says we are used to make fools of the wise & strong. This is who the church is made of. Consider King David, who walked so closely with God... then turned around to murder and steal someone's wife. If we understand the Gospel, we should not be surprised by the sin still in our hearts. That someone in our small group is sleeping around. But even after seeing all this, Paul greets them: "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus" Even in this ugly mess, Paul was thankful. Why? Because even through all these things were going wrong and messy, Paul was glad because God was working in them through His grace. Paul trusted that God was at work.

This is the view we should have of those who are in the church. We know of God's promise to make us glorious and holy. Because of this, we can hope that we can and will change.

The church is like a marriage. Paul loved the church at Corinth with their faults and failings. He loved them in their sin and their faults. He loved them for who they were. Like in marriage, we are called to love our spouses. We do not say: "you will have to change before I love you." This is the heart of marriage and the heart of Christ. Jesus loved us while we were still sinners and his enemies. That is love. This is what we are called to do for the church. We cannot love Jesus and hate the church. That would be like loving me (Dwight) and hating Paula (my wife). There's something wrong with that. We are supposed to see the faults, the failing of the church... and we are still to love them in that. We are not supposed to wait for change and hold the church at arm's length waiting for change.

"“The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.

Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial." (Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Keep this in mind, when you meet the church. There are three stages of marriage.
1) Honeymoon: I love it. (We think they're the bomb.)
2) Disenchantment: I've been duped! (Reality hits: people become jaded & cynical.)
3) Maturity: I see you clearly and I will love you. (It's real and I still love you.)