What should I do if I feel hurt, bitter, and unsupported in my church?

Joe, you’re on the air with pastor Mike. How can I help? Yes, sir. It’s been a while since I spoke with you. I called in the past and I’ve had surgery, so I’ve been out for a few months. But my question is discipleship. Discipleship is the word is doing it right? I mean, Martha, toss is the word, but go ahead.

Yeah. So you go and make students out of people, right? Students? Yeah. We’re making students, right. Martha. Martha comes from Martha. We get the word mathematics from it. And yeah, certainly you got to be a student to learn math and a lot of memorization. But yeah. So yeah, we’re making students. That’s true. Followers, teachers. You need a student.

And as Jesus put it, everyone when they’re fully trained will be just like they’re their teacher. And that’s what discipleship like. We’re trying to reproduce what the what the teacher has taught us. Yep. So go ahead, Joe, what about discipleship? So I’ve never been disabled before my whole life, and I’ve been trying to beat yourself up. I’m a member of a church.

And actually, the other month I was actually driving around. I had you on the radio. And you actually promoting Southern Baptist. I’m currently a member of a Southern Baptist church, and as at this point I do not recommend it to nobody. I believe that so far what I’m inquiring and have encountered is they’re in it for the money, you know, for the for the, you know, five week location pay and, you know, holidays off.

And I mean, they got so many freaking financial benefits. Being a pastor of a Southern Baptist church is just ridiculous. I mean, you ask them for time. They’ve got no time to give you. They’re in this 40 hour type structure. And if you ask anything outside of their 40 hour structure, they’ve got no time. They’ve got no time for this.

And then and then I’m entangled in a sin. And when I approach the, you know, it’s been about four and a half years ago where I approached my pastor and an associate pastor, and I told him, look, I’ve got this problem with pornography, okay? I want help, you know, to to this day, you know, four and a half years later, not one of them have brought it up to me.

Not one, not one. It’s just so disgusting them. I just discussed it with them. Well, I’ve been pushing it lately about being discipled, and. And I’m getting there. We don’t got time. Go to our Sunday school class. You need to go to Sunday school. You need to go to Sunday school. If I go to their Sunday school class and it’s just ridiculous.

You know, they going off of magazine. And one of the things I brought up in the last Sunday school, I pretended several of them. And the last one that I attended when I talked about confessing your sins one another, giving an account to one another, not giving the appearance of evil. The teacher said, yeah, we the Bible does teach that.

And we used to do that, but we don’t do that no more. And it’s like, well, what’s the purpose? You know, here you’re declaring that this is what the Bible teaches, but we’re not going to do it. You know, it’s like I said, I’m just so disgusted. And my last conversation with my pastor a couple of weeks ago didn’t go too well.

But he told me one of the things that he told me was, I’m the only person that he knows that uses scripture to beat himself up. And he also said that I at this time I know enough that I should be disciple people. Sounds like how can I be discipling people when I myself need to be discipled? You know, I just thought, well, I would tell you this, Joe, I would agree with you.

You probably shouldn’t be discipling anybody in your current state. Your heart is filled with bitterness and disgust. You got a problem with pornography? Yeah. I would agree with yourself in this regard. You probably shouldn’t be discipling anyone. You need to be discipled. I would agree with that. And I would go back to what you said. I said I would tell you this one reason you shouldn’t be disciple.

You don’t recall any with any accuracy what I said, because I certainly did not give any wholesale approval of any denomination. I don’t go around doing that. I would know if I did that. I’m not promoting any denomination. I did not promote Southern Baptist as something that everyone should go to. I don’t promote denominations, you know, as some blanket statement.

I may have said something about speaking in a Southern Baptist church, but I cannot give any wholesale endorsement of any set of churches because every church has got to stand or fall based on how they’re functioning. And it sounds like you ran into a church that’s not doing a great job, and it’s made you bitter. It’s made you angry.

It’s made you a man who’s carrying around a lot of of disgust in your heart, as you’ve put it. And you need to repent of that. And you need to go and and say before God, I’ve got a heart that’s filled with some really bad things, and you need to pour that out before the Lord, and you need to start over and you need to go.

And I hope to that church if you can, if you can salvage this relationship with the church and try and start over. Hit the reset button and start over. If you can’t, because they’re all tremendously terrible people, as it seems like you’re saying, then you need to go to a different church and just start over. But start over with a good attitude.

Start over with the kind of heart that says, I’m ready to to to expect that there’s going to be some brothers and sisters in Christ here that I can have a harmonious relationship with. And maybe I can not only get help from them, but I can be of help to them. Maybe not as some mentor or disciple or, but just as a friend and someone who’s ready not to be angry or filled with wrath or malice or slander or, you know, any of the kinds of things that seem to be built up in my bitter heart.

So let’s let’s kind of flush out the bitterness and let’s start over. And, and I guarantee you this, there’s, there’s so many Southern Baptist churches and to say and trying to flush them all down the toilet and say they’re only concerned about time off and pensions and money. That’s just a ridiculous statement, Joe. I guarantee you, not every Southern Baptist minister out there is concerned about their pensions of their money.

I know many of them are working 60, 70 hours a week, and they’re spending and being expended for the souls of people. Now, there may be some that all they care about is their pension or the retirement or their benefits or their time off or whatever. But I know many of them are not. So we can’t cast aspersions and brush with, you know, paint with a broad brush here and say, that’s the way they are.

Any more than I can say that all the people that go to church are people that are filled with bitterness, or everyone’s embroiled in pornography. Not all of them are. So I can’t paint with a broad brush with, you know, my view of congregants either. So let’s be fair and let’s be honest, let’s send you back to church if you’re going to write them all off at your church, because they’re all money grubbing.

Ministers will then start over and go to a different church, go to a church that you know is within reasonable driving distance of your house. You’ve had surgery. Hopefully now you’re mobile again and you can get back to church. And let’s start over with a with an open heart to people that you think are all about at least believing that the Bible is God’s Word.

And let’s walk in there and be ready to minister to them as they minister to you. And we can get a fresh start. But let’s not let’s not paint with with such a broad brush. Or are we ready to start over? Joe? Can we do that? I’ve been ready, and I do believe and I do tell God. And I currently decided to embark on a Romans chapter seven again.

You know, a years ago I was stuck on that chapter and I just, you know, finally got out of there. I don’t know how I got out of there, but I just got out of there. But I find myself back in Romans chapter seven and I’m listening to your, your, your teaching on, on that on a mall, you know, not doing the things he wants to do and doing the things that, you know, he’s doing, the things that he doesn’t want to do and not doing the things that he wants to do.

I hate.

I want to be so thankful, but I want to be so in love with God. You know, I used to plead with God to let me love him, but everything that I have, I was like, let me love you, God, as you command me to love you. You know I want I want to be this to you, that I want to be pulled.

You know, I don’t want to be one of the goats. You know, in Matthew chapter seven, you know, depart from me. I don’t want to be that person. Well, I love that. I love hearing that from you. And that’s a great place to be. So get yourself through my study of Romans seven and get quickly into Romans chapter eight.

And as you’re doing that, I would commit to memory. Colossians chapter three. Start in verse 12. Put these on your memory list and start putting these words to memory. Ready? Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts. Right. Kindness. Humility. Meekness. Patience. Bearing with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord is forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

And above all, above all of these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body. And be thankful, and let the Word of Christ richly dwell in you, that I think you need to commit to memory as you study the end of Romans seven, and then move quickly on to Romans eight.

And I think if you do that, getting back to your church with Romans or I’m sorry, Colossians chapter three, verses 12 through 15, committed to memory, I think you’re going to be just fine. Your desire to be the person that loves God deeply, I think, is going to drive you in the right direction. Let’s just let all of that frustration go.

Let’s have compassionate hearts kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Bear with one another. And I think there’s going to be good days ahead for you. Joe. Just hang in there, okay? Don’t give up. Don’t be frustrated. Let’s forget what lies behind. Let’s press on to what lies ahead. And let’s just flush the bitterness and get on with kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

Okay, let’s do that. We can do that and call me back. Call me back tomorrow and let’s see how you’re feeling then, okay? All right, Joe, no frustration. You got this, got this.