I read a blog post this week from a young woman who said that after 34 years of regular weekly church attendance, she was bored. She was bored with long sermons and predictable liturgy, bored with rambling announcements and empty prayers, bored with endless sign-ups for small groups and lunches. She was just bored. Now let me say that while this young woman is not a member of this church, many of her words reflect what we do on a regular basis and so I had to stop and ask myself, how many of us are tired of religion and maybe bored with church and worship? It’s ok if we are; in fact that might be a good thing because when we get tired of religion and bored with church it is because we are looking for and hungry for something more. Like the young woman says, “I’m sincerely unsure of the solution, I just know I’m ready for something else.”
Many people today are tired of religion and looking for something else, they are looking for something real, and longing for something that will touch their lives to the core and make a significant difference. A young man wrote that when it comes to church he doesn’t want cool as much as he wants what is real. “If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way,” he writes, “it is not because Christianity is easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing and what he says rings true.” I think when people heard the message of John the Baptist they were drawn to it because it rang true and it offer them something real, so they left behind their religion and headed out into the wilderness to find the beginning of a relationship with the living God.
Today if you are tired of religion, and if you are bored with church, then I want to invite you to find what is real because what is real is the opportunity we have to build a relationship with the living God but that relationship only comes when we begin to get serious about who we are and how God wants us to live our lives. Our journey to find what is real doesn’t start by going out into the wilderness but by being willing to go inward into the very depths of our own hearts and lives. St. Augustine wrote, do not go outward, return within yourself. In the inward person dwells truth.
The real journey that John called people to take wasn’t out of their towns and cities so they could be baptized in the Jordan River but to go inward and look deep into their own hearts and lives to see what needed to be confessed and offered up to God so they could begin to see God for themselves and see God’s will for their lives. If you are tired of religion and bored with church then it’s time to look inward and get honest with God and to get honest with ourselves and begin a process of confession and repentance, but beware, because this is not an easy process.
After his fall from grace a few years ago, Tiger Woods said, “at first, I didn’t want to look inward. Frankly, I was scared of what I would find—scared of what I had become.” It is scary to look deep into our hearts and lives because many times what we find there are thoughts, attitudes and actions that are not pleasing and acceptable to God, or for that matter to us. We know there are things we want to change about our lives and we know there is sin that we want to overcome but many times we just feel powerless to do anything about it so we just let that sin remain. But sin doesn’t just go away on its own. Selfishness, pride, out of control habits that destroy our families and finances, these things just don’t go away on their own – they need to be confronted and confessed so they can be overcome.
The first step in confession is to get real and honest with ourselves. What is it that we see when we look into our hearts and lives? What are the habits and patterns of thought and behavior that need to change? Where is our life out of control? We need to get honest about these things and confront this sin and confess it to God. Maybe we need to take some time alone and reflect on what we see in our hearts and lives and maybe even make a list of what we find there. Actually writing down our sin so we can see it helps us confront it in ways that then help us confess it to God. There is simply something about seeing the truth of our lives written down that convicts us like nothing else can.
When a woman who had been caught in sin was brought to Jesus and the crowd was ready to stone her, Jesus wanted to turn that situation around and confront people with the reality of their own sin, so he bends down and begins to write on the ground. I imagine Jesus writing down specific words like lust, greed, anger, lying to your wife, cheating on your husband, pride, fraud, selfishness. When people saw their sin written down they had to own up to it and that moved all of them to the point where they dropped their stones and walked away. They were convicted. There is something powerful about sitting down and looking at the reality of our own sin literally spelled out in front of us. Once we see it we can’t ignore it, so maybe we need to spend some time doing some serious self-reflection and write out our sins.
As difficult as that is, what would be even harder would be to then sit down with someone we trust and share that list with them. When people went out to John to be baptized they confessed their sin and when they did they didn’t use some nice generic cleaned-up prayer written by a priest or rabbi in some synagogue or Temple far away. They used their own words and most likely words that flowed through their own tears and pain. They would have walked down into the muddy water of the Jordan River and said things like this, my life is out of control and I need God’s help. I have allowed anger and greed and lust to control my life and I need God’s forgiveness if I am going to be able to experience freedom and healing in life. I’m tired of trying to live life on my own and always falling short, I need God. Religion calls us to go through the motions of confession while a relationship with God calls us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another so that we may be forgiven and healed. That’s what it says in James 5:16
When was the last time you confessed your sin to someone? Have you ever confessed your sin to someone else? I’m not talking about getting caught by someone in a lie or having someone else confront us about an issue in our lives, I’m talking about being willing to sit down across from someone and start getting real about life. This kind of honesty and vulnerability is not easy but it is the beginning of a relationship with God that will be anything boring. You see, religion gets tired and boring because it takes this idea of confession and turns it into empty prayers when what God wants is for us to be willing to come clean with one another and in love and grace start walking with one another in life. Generic prayers don’t bring life, generic prayers don’t bring the power to heal and forgive, that comes when we confess to one another and pray together using honest, heartfelt and often broken words.
Confession was just part of John’s message, the other part was repentance. You see, it’s not enough to just confess to God and to others all the darkness that we find in our hearts and lives, we have to be willing to take some steps to start living in the light. While confession means that we confront the reality of the sin and actually name it to God and others, repentance means we need to turn away from that sin and start living life different. Now as hard as confession is, repentance is even harder because it is not easy to change the way we think about ourselves, others and the world around us and it’s not easy to overcome habits that have become such strong parts of our lives – but we can overcome our sin and we can live life differently with the help and the strength of God. That’s why John baptized people because baptism was the sign that through the power and grace of God we can die to our old self and old habits and sins and raise up from the water to live a new life.
Baptism was the reminder to the people that new life was possible and the same is still true today. New life is possible for us. It is possible to overcome our sin and experience a freedom and forgiveness that can change us but this new life doesn’t come from ourselves and it doesn’t come from trying harder or thinking better or disciplining our bodies, this new life comes from God. It is God’s forgiveness that makes new life possible because it is God’s forgiveness that actually removes our sin from us. In Psalm 103:12 it says as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sin from us and it is because God has forgiven us or removed our sin from us that we can experience new life. When John baptized people it was to remind them that there was real forgiveness from God which makes new life possible.
New life is still possible for us today and I believe that it is this new life that people are searching for and it doesn’t come from religion. The new life God offers us doesn’t come from believing the right things or following all the right rules and traditions. New life comes when we are willing to build a relationship with God where we turn away from our selves and walk with God. 1 John 1:7-8 says, if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. Walking with God day in and day out and trusting Him cleanses us from sin which in turns gives us the strength and power we need to begin living life a different way.
So what does it look like for us to walk in the light as God is in the light? It means walking in the light of prayer and the light of God’s word. It means taking seriously what we find in God’s word and understanding that the real joy and thrill in life doesn’t come when we try to figure out how to avoid doing what the Bible says but we actually start living it out. So many people who are searching for something real and powerful in life find Jesus appealing and what he says rings true but they never experience the adventure Jesus offers because they never really follow him. We have to take seriously the word of God and apply that word to our lives. In Jesus God has shown us the way to live and it’s not an easy road of religious rules and regulations, it is a personal journey of seeking the direction and power of the living God just like Jesus did each and every day.
So if you are tired of religion and if church has become boring, what you are feeling is nothing new and the answer is nothing new. The answer is getting serious about a relationship with God which begins with confession and moves to repentance and then calls us to step out to live a new life. The answer is to get honest with God and real with one another so that together we can experience the power and life of Jesus.
Next Steps: If you are you tired of Religion:
Confess your sin to God and others:
• Take some quiet time this week to reflect on your heart and life.
• Write out the specific sins that you struggle with, and don’t avoid the hard stuff.
• Confess your sin to God.
• Find a trusted friend and put James 5:16 to work.
Repent (turn away) from sin and find the power to live a new life
• Experience freedom in God’s forgiveness .
• Read and reflect on Psalm 103:12 and 1 John 1:7-9.
• Look up other biblical passages on forgiveness and repentance.
• Walk “in the light” with God
o Pray for God’s strength and guidance every day
o Live out what you read in God’s word
o Trust God to raise up new life in you
