©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
Q. What makes a church a safe place?
I had planned to take us back into
our study of the book of Revelation this morning,
but yesterday I changed my mind.
Instead I’m going to share some random,
rather unorganized thoughts,
some of which were floating around in my mind during our vacation,
and some of which have been invading my mind during the past two days since we returned home.
This is the first Sunday of the new year,
a favorite teaching time for me.
It’s a time when most of us are in the process
of attempting to recover from the holidays,
a time when we tend to look back
and wonder why in the world we ever spent that much
and ate that much,
a time when we also tend to look toward the future,
sometimes with anxiety or fear,
sometimes with a sense of hope.
There are some things that take place in us naturally at this time of year
that makes it an ideal time
for thinking
and learning
and choosing.
And to help us start off the new year
I’d like to take just a few minutes
to talk about what it is
that has the ability to make a church
a truly SAFE place for people to be.
The world in which we live
is not a safe place in any sense.
Every day we live
we find ourselves and our values
being attacked and assaulted.
Nearly every time I watch a movie
or plug in a video
or turn on a TV program
there is a little part of me
always on edge,
wondering if some piece of mental garbage is going to be flung at me,
attacking my values or my God.
It doesn’t change my values,
and it certainly doesn’t challenge my God,
but it hangs around me like a bad odor
reminding my once again
that this world is not a safe place.
My daughter goes to work
and comes home having been verbally attacked by a customer
or her employer.
She drives to Anchorage
and before she leaves I feel compelled
to remind her that our world
is filled with predators,
and that she must use great wisdom
in the contacts she makes on her trip.
I don’t want her to live in fear,
but neither do I want her naive,
because our world is not a safe place.
But, if we are to survive,
and thrive in this world
there must be some places where we know we are safe,
some places where we know
we can relax without fear.
If a family is functioning the way God designed
it should be such a place -
safe, protected.
I remember hearing James Dobsen
describe an incident that took place in his home
when his children were still young.
The two of them
had gotten into a huge battle with one another,
fighting over something,
and Dobsen caught them in the middle of the battle.
He took them both over to the window in their living room and said,
"Do you see that world out there?
That world is not safe.
Out there are people
fighting with one another,
attacking one another,
hating one another.
But in here,
in this home we are safe.
In this home we fight for one another,
we protect one another,
we guard one another no matter what."
That’s good stuff.
And there is another place in human society that should also be a safe place - THE CHURCH.
The body of Christ.
But safe places do not just happen.
Safe families do not just happen.
Sometimes the family
is the most hostile environment a person will ever encounter.
And safe churches do not just happen, either.
Where they exist,
if they exist,
they do so because those involved in them
have chosen to make them safe.
I have spend a good deal of time recently
trying to figure out
what it is that makes a church
a truly safe place for those involved.
At this point in my thinking I have come to the conclusion
that true safety within the family of God
comes from the presence
of two essential ingredients.
And it will come as no surprise
that these two ingredients
were powerfully illustrated in the life of Christ Himself.
I would like to read you a passage
that I do not believe I have ever taught before.
Its found in the Gospel of John 8:2-11:
John 8:2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.
John 8:3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,
John 8:4 they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
John 8:5 "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?"
John 8:6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
John 8:7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
John 8:8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
John 8:9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
John 8:10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"
John 8:11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
There is a tremendous amount in this passage.
This records what was certainly
the most terrifying
and remarkable day in this woman’s life.
Some of what is going on here
is lost to us
because of the depth to which
our own culture has deteriorated.
Rarely do we even use the term "adultery" any more.
It offends us as a culture.
It sounds so judgmental,
so condemning,
so sinful.
We prefer to talk about someone
"having an affair"
or "getting involved in a relationship with someone else".
It still sounds a little negative,
but of course her husband was a real jerk
and her emotional needs were obviously not being met at home,
and really she couldn’t be blamed
for getting pulled into the relationship.
But not so in the nation of Israel
during the time of Christ.
They had not yet cultivated
the skillful verbal maneuvering
that turned sin into righteousness
and evil into good.
In the first century
in the Nation of Israel
adultery was sin -
direct, open, willful disobedience
to the moral commandments of God.
And it was a capital offence,
punishable by death.
I believe the Jewish leaders
had been waiting for an event like this -
a woman caught in a clear-cut act of immorality -
lets see what Jesus will do with this!
Certainly the point at which
this woman was caught in the act
had to have been the most terrifying moment in her life.
And here again
our society can provide no parallel.
If someone is arrested for a capital offence in our nation
they know that the chance are remote
that they will ever be executed.
And even if they are,
it will be years and years and years
before all the trials
and legal maneuvering is completed.
But not so in Israel.
This woman was caught in the very act.
The law was clear.
There would be no maneuvering.
There would be no trial.
There would be no delay.
When they hauled her out into the street
she was certain
she was being dragged
to her own execution.
Her terror must have been intense.
But miraculously
they did not take her to her execution,
they took her to what she would come to realize
was the safest place in all the world -
they took her to the feet God Himself.
There are so many things
that amaze me about this passage.
One of the things that amazes me
is all the things Jesus did NOT say to this woman.
He did not say,
"Tell me why you did it."
He did not say,
"I understand things have been rough at home."
He said nothing about her husband.
He said nothing about her lover.
He said nothing about reasons for what she had done.
He did not say, "I do not condemn you because..."
He did not tie his lack of condemnation
to any reason or justification,
which, of course, is what we are prone to do constantly.
We would have been more comfortable
hearing Christ say,
"Given the circumstances,
I will not condemn you this time."
But His lack of condemnation
was not tied to any reason or justification she offered.
His pardon was tied
not to WHY she had done what she had done,
but rather to the attitude He saw in her
about what she had done.
I believe the very fact that she made no attempt at justifying her sin
was the basis for His forgiveness.
You see,
if his forgiveness had been tied
to any reason or justification she had to offer
He would have said,
"I do not condemn you,
go and leave the jerk you were married to
and marry your new love."
But that is not what He said.
Which brings me to the two phrases
that drew me to this passage in the first place.
I started out by talking about
the two things that makes a church
a truly safe place for a person to be.
I believe it is the same two things
that made the feet of Jesus
the safest place in the universe
for that woman.
Those two things
are perfectly stated
in those final two phrases
spoken by Christ:
And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
And I need to warn you about something -
depending on our temperament,
and our own individual areas of damage,
and our personal strengths and weaknesses,
we will tend to hear one or the other of those two phrases
more clearly than the other.
For some of us
we read those two lines
and hear only divine proclamation:"I do not condemn you..."
And for some of us
we read those two lines
and see only one phrase in bold, black type:
"...From now on sin no more!!!"
The truth is
either statement without the other
is powerless to create true security
in the life of the believer.
And I want to emphasis
that these two statements
are not a balance.
They are not a middle ground.
They are not a compromise between
righteousness and love.
They are two absolutes
that together form a whole.
Christ saw before Him
a woman confronted with her sin,
a woman who offered no excuses,
no justification,
no rationalization.
A woman who did not stand before Him,
eye to eye,
trying to find some angle,
some way of manipulating this man.
It was a woman who lay at His feet,
knowing her only hope would be found
in a mercy she did not deserve.
Christ’s response to that brokenness
was two-fold:
First He totally,
and unconditionally accepted her
and loved her right where she was:
And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you,..."
Second,
He used the full weight
of who He was
to create a radically new approach to the future for her:
Go. From now on sin no more."
And it is the combination of those two
that have the power to create
a true place of safety within a church.
Let me give it to you in a single sentence:
The church is to be a healing community that actively
and aggressively supports
each member’s choices for righteousness.
HUH?
Let me try again:
I believe a true sense of safety within the Body of Christ requires two simultaneous messages to be communicated
to all who come:
On one side we must know that this is a place
where deeply flawed people,
who have sinned against their God
and against themselves
and against their fellow man
can face those sins honestly
and, if necessary, openly,
without fear of rejection
or condemnation.
I have often thought there would be great value in the body of Christ
adopting the pattern of AA
by each person beginning their conversation
by saying,
"Hi, my name is Larry. I am a sinner,
both against my God
and against my fellow man."
But that alone will never make people
feel really safe.
There is a second essential message
that must be communicated simultaneously
in order for the church to be a truly safe place,
and that message is this:
There is a clear, revealed pattern for life,
given to us by our God,
and we will stand with one another
and support one another
as we actively learn how to live a righteous life.
Go, and sin no more.
Unconditional acceptance
without a clear direction for change
is not safe.
We do not just need to be forgiven,
we need to know how live a life that works,
and we need the active support of those around us
to help us move us in that direction.
Only the union of true acceptance
and support in righteous living
has the power to make us truly safe.