welcome to the Believers Bible assembly today dr. Jackson will continue his teaching on the truth about the church by

looking at the reasons why people don't attend church listen and be blessed and I want to talk about the

truth about the church so open your Bibles to Matthew 16:18 and it says I tell

you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and

the gates of Hades will not Prevail against it now last week we spent some time talking about

why people attend the local church and we saw that many people go to the local

church for the right reasons to learn about God to grow in their faith and to

build genuine Fellowship Koinonia with other like-minded believers but we also saw the others come for

reasons that are rooted in false expectation or religious tradition focusing mainly on what can the local church do for

me today I want to flip the coin and I want to look at why people stopped attending the local

church this is important for us to know and understand why people stopped attending the

local church we're going to look at these reasons and we're going to examine them with

the scripture why people don't attend church that's what we're going to talk about today although many

people identify themselves as Christians a lot of them have become completely disconnected from the

local church some have legitimate reasons they have stories about church hurt stories about spiritual abuse by the

people in the church and the leadership of the church others have allowed spiritual laziness and worldly priorities to distract

and disconnect them from True biblical Fellowship so there's a lot of legitimate reasons why people don't

come to church my goal in this teaching this morning is not to guilt anyone who has

stepped away from the local church but what I want us to understand is there reasons why and my

goal is to encourage age those who may have stepped away from the local church to

reconnect to the body of Christ we have to encourage those who have stepped away from

the word to come back to the word come back to the truth come back

to Jesus Christ to reconnect with the body of Christ look with me at Hebrews 10:24

and 25 it says let us not neglect our meeting together as believers for worship and instruction as some people

do but encourage one another that's the key word in that text especially now that the day

of Christ's return is drawing near the writer of Hebrews connects our gathering together our assembly with three

reasons to encourage one another in our faith journey to stir up each other towards the

genuine love and good works and just a spiritually connected as we anticipate Christ's return so as we

live move and have our being in this Fallen Wicked World we need to encourage one

another when we come together so the question isn't why aren't people coming to church

the real question is what has caused them to disconnect from the very community that God established for their spiritual

growth and enrichment number one church hurt and I meant one of the most painful realities is that many

Believers have been hurt deeply hurt by the very people who were supposed to help them

grow in their Faith Church hurt is real many have been betrayed they face gossip

they experienced favoritism manipulation public humiliation and embarrassment they were rebuke openly and publicly before

uh others and they had to endure spiritual abuse by Spiritual Authority these are painful realities

of people who went to the local church looking to grow in their faith to connect with the word

to connect with God but instead you had to deal with all this ungodly Behavior so to protect themselves

from getting hurt again they chose to walk away from the church entirely now let me

put a pin here before we move on if truly born again and you have the spirit of the Living

God on the inside of you you can never ever leave the church because you are

a member of the what the universal Body of Christ now that local church that

you chose to attend oh you walk away from that church and because of this church hurt and

disappointment many people have chose to walk away but then they missed that corner Nia

that Fellowship they want that they designed that so what happens is they end up jumping from church

to church looking for searching for a perfect Church a perfect congregation and the truth is there is no

such thing as a perfect Church there's no such thing as a perfect congregation there's no such thing as a

perfect Pastor so these people who've been hurt in the church they experienced Church hurt and

abuse by spiritual authorities they jump from church to church trying to find the perfect church and

they don't find it so now they are disappointed in the expectation of what the church is and what

the church is supposed to do Church hurt it's real I've talked to many people who

love the Lord and their sincere in the love for the Lord but they don't want nothing

to do with the local church to organize church so I try to encourage them brother since

I understand but you were not meant to travel this journey alone you need to connect yourself with other brothers

and sisters in Christ you're not alone but this truck hurt is real but although you've been hurt what

I want you to know this morning is that God cares for the hurting the Brokenhearted if you have

experienced Church hurt know this God sees and understands your pain Psalm 147 3 reminds

us that God heals the Brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds God draws near to those who are hurting

and God wants to restore your inner life he wants to restore your mind he wants

to restore your heart he wants to restore your hope he wants to restore your

peace because he's a guy that heals the broken hearted you went to that church

and somebody says something you went to that church and somebody did something God don't want you to turn your

back on him God I don't want you to turn your back on his son Jesus Christ no no he

wants to restore you he wants to store your mind you're thinking Paul says that we have to

renew our minds and that will lead to a change of heart and that change of

heart will give us peace and give us a hope but listen this is why I

want you to know and understand there's a key distinction the ekklesia the true church that Christ is

the head of did not hurt you a broken hurting in purpose person who's struggling with their own

pain the struggle with their own issues use within that assembly or congregation they're the

ones that hurt you and one of the things you need to know and understand is that hurting people

hurt other people misery loves company they're in pain they won't other people to feel the

same level of pain they feeling passed away stop this is church chances not designed for this church is

still be a place of healing and restoration yes but understand that the local church

is full of hurting broken people do Universal Church the Ecclesia the true church they're

made of people who are whole who are complete in Christ Jesus the church didn't hurt you somebody within the

church did especially when it comes to leaders God takes the misuse of Spiritual Authority very seriously

you might experience Church hurt from Usher or somebody within a congregation that's one thing but

as a leader in the church god holds them to a higher standard and God will hold

them accountable because God doesn't play when it comes to misuse us Spiritual Authority in Ezekiel chapter 34 verses two

through four God strongly rebukes the shepherd's the passes the leaders who fed themselves while

neglecting exploiting and ignoring the people in the flock God makes it clear he says Whoa and

that word whoa means judgment is coming upon these Shepherds the these pastors these leaders who

feed themselves while neglecting the flock because true leadership is about serving true leadership is about caring for

other people not self enrichment or control or being dominating First Peter chapter 5 verses 23 God lays out the

standards for leaders and this is what it says be Shepherds of God's flock that is under your care watching

over them not because you must but because you are willing as God wants you to

be not pursuing this honest game but eager to serve not lording over those entrusted to you but

being examples to the flock these are the standards that spiritual leader must adhere to and when you're

not doing these things when you are abusing people misusing people seeing them only as a

means for your self enrichment a means for your benefit God makes it clear whoa

judgment sir judgment ma'am is headed your way they're not being Shepherds caretakers watching over spiritually the lives of

the people that God God entrusted them with Jesus is a chief Shepherd everybody who calls himself

a leader is Under Shepherd we submit to the chief Shepherd and if you submitted to the chief Shepherd you

would never ever intentionally harm someone under your care I use that word intentionally because

I just told you that the church is full of hurting broken people and that's

including the leader we got to stop putting pastors and leaders on pedestals they are broken

people to everyday and you see a pastor a leader in the body of Christ that was held

in high esteem that were put on major platforms Fall From Grace now because of that there's a Rippling

effect is going to pack his life is going to impact his family is going to impact the

local church that that God has called him to lead and people who have elevated the pastor and put

him beside God the Father God the son God the Holy Spirit my pastor there destroy

it now because this perfect person that they put on a pedestal has fallen from

Grace so just like there are no perfect churches there are no perfect spiritual leaders stop replacing Christ with spiritual

leaders your pastor did not die for you your possible did not die for you that Prophet did not

die for you that evangelist is not die for you stop replacing Jesus with spiritual leaders because you

are allowing that man that woman in all their imperfections to abuse you spiritually there's some Churches they'll

put the word of the pasture over the word of God and some pastors been so Brazen

they'll tell the congregation don't believe that books a believe what I say God says

woe judgment is coming to you Pastor you misleading my people you're using and abusing them for personal

gain whoa judgment is knocking at your door God is going to hold every leader accountable for

how they treat his flock you have all these pastors going around talking about my people Church

bro you don't have any people they all belong to Jesus our job is to take care of

the teach to equipment to encourage the build up those who Christ has entrusted to our care so you get

all the stuff going on within the church and it's causing Church hurt people leaving the

church no one in to do with Jesus Christ The Changing religions even and if you

break it down to its most common denominator it's because of church hurt things happen whenever

you get people together things happen even in your own family things happen but Jesus

gave a prescription of how to deal with conflict how to deal with things that's going on within the church

is found in Matthew 18 15 through 17 if you find fault in a brother or sister

I've done some I say something number one you have a private conversation with them you go

directly to that person one-on-one and you express your grievance that you have with them and if

they listen no problem the issue is squashed the relationship is restored you damp up you hook up everything is

good however if they refuse to listen number two you bring Witnesses you take one or

two other believers along with you so that the matter is established by the witnesses

so it's not just you and the person one-on-one anymore now your grievance is being shared with

that person and with one or two other believers so that the matter is the witnessed okay

we got an issue here and then third bring it before the church assembly and

if they reject the church's Council now we're talking about primarily the pastor Elders are dealing with kind

of situation if they reject the church's Council the scripture says to treat them as

an outsider to treat them as an unbeliever so that's a process here how you deal with church

hurt within the body not to leave not to go posting on social media with the church

did to you and what the pastor said and know there's a way to do things because Church hurt

is real and whenever you're dealing with people there's a high probability somebody's going to

be misunderstood Buddy's gonna hear something one way when it was meant a different way

so instead of getting understanding we just fall out I don't want to do it you know

I don't want to do with the church anymore I'm done instead of following Jesus has prescription on how

to deal with the matter now if the matter still not to your satisfaction you can leave and

find you another place to worship and to Fellowship but keep in mind whatever place you go that's

not going to be a perfect church either and don't join the search if it is perfect because

you're not perfect and so you join in that church you just going to miss the whole church up but

reality of it is there's no perfect Church there's no perfect Pastor there's no Perfect People Church hurt

is real but how do we as Believers deal with this we must learn to forgive we must learn

to forgive forgive that person that said something about you forgive that person that gossip against you forgive

that Pastor who said something that hurt you we must learn to forgive forgiveness does

not mean you pretend or ignore that the spiritual abuse never happened we forgive so

that we can move on and that's just not with shirt hurt that's in life in general people

still carrying things that happen in the past the steel dealing with it and processing it and Weighing on

them you know why because they haven't learned to forgive forgiveness is for you for your peace of

mind for your well-being there's nothing that you can do about what that person said about you there's nothing

you can do about that person who hurt you 25 years ago there's nothing you can

do about that you can't change the circumstances we forgive we give the matter to God and we

keep pressing forward in Christ we give the matter to God let God deal with it let God fight your

battles let God deal with that person that hurt you let God deal with that Pastor let God deal

with the matter and you keep pressing forward in Christ that's how you deal with church

hurt now church leaders they must acknowledge what went wrong and they have to set

and enforce boundaries hold people accountable and protect the people of God that's what a true Shepherd

is supposed to do the pastor's not all know me he's not all-powerful he's not everywhere present so

you can't hold him accountable for things that he's not aware of but once it's

brought to his attention he has an obligation and responsibility to deal with the situation I think about the

Apostle Paul had to deal with the situation in Corinth about a man who was sleeping

with his father's wife it's stepmother in essence and Paul gave the church Specific Instructions he

used the formula that Jesus used but instead of treating him like an unbeliever Paul says turn them over

to Satan meaning since he don't want to adhere to the word since he want to continue to think he's

right turn over to Satan exclude him from the fellowship let him deal with the outside world and prayerfully he'll

repent of his wrongdoing and then when he repents of his wrongdoing now bring them back into

the assembly but the leader the pastor has to take a strong stand of that

nature because it's not about the individual but it's about other people other people are observing the things

that's going on in the church they're seeing the favoritism the saying the abuse but it being quiet because

they don't want to say anything about it because if they do it might come their way now God never

intended for the church to be this way God intends for the church to be a place of

unity a place of healing a place of restoration my God we're getting beat up in the world enough

when we come together we don't need to beat one another we don't need to destroy one

another we don't need a gossip we don't need to belittle we don't need to demean we

don't need to be rebuked openly and publicly before people Church hurt comes from imperfect people fail leaders

not from God's we have to always understand that God is perfect we're imperfect God is all truth he's

all-powerful he said we're present and the same God promised us to heal the brokenhearted he didn't

want you to that place but sometimes God will let us have the desires of our heart and he

allow us to go looking for something that he knows is not there for us to realize it's not

there so that will never go to that place looking for that thing again but

God has a way of healing the Brokenhearted and we have the guarantee that God will hold

leadership accountable for their neglect of their spiritual responsibilities forgiveness does not mean that we

endure spiritual abuse the True Church of Christ will never hurt you the True Church of Christ would never

abuse you the True Church of Christ is going to set boundaries and accountability to protect

Believers from any kind of spiritual abuse the church is not made up of perfect people

but the church is full of Believers that are being transformed by God's grace day

by day if you don't take anything away from this message this morning please take

this away stop looking for perfect people in the church there are no Perfect People

The Past does not perfect nobody is perfect but we are all being transformed by

God's grace each and every day so keep that in mind wherever you choose to Fellowship I don't care

how big the building is some cow much it cost I don't care how many people come to the church

every Sunday is not a perfect place because it's full of imperfect people being transformed by God's grace

so what do you not to do we need to keep our Focus On Christ people

will fill has because they're human they're not perfect but they're human imperfections cannot diminish

or invalidate the power of God God's word is truth his word has the power to transform and the True

Believers are being transformed by God's grace each and every day and they will never ever intentionally do

something to hurt another person but our Focus must be on Christ because God in his word will

never fail us this week keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Isaiah 26:3 says he will keep

him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on him whose mind is stayed on

God whose mind is stayed on the word keep your eyes fixed stayed on Jesus who

is the author and the finisher our of our faith and not imperfect people not

imperfect church leaders keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and not church folk amen thank you for listening to our

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