http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15871840/let-your-heart-exult-vertically-and-horizontally

We’ve all been disappointed by someone. We’ve all known what it feels like to be let down. The bitter taste, the sharp sting, the nagging sense of betrayal — it hurts when people fail us. It hurts even more when the people who fail us are our friends. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the potential wounds from disappointment. David knew that deeper pain:

For it is not an enemy who taunts me — then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. (Psalm 55:12–13)

In another psalm, he says, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9).

As Christians, our deepest relationships are often those found and cultivated within the local church. And rightfully so, for, as the church, we are “members one of another” (Romans 12:5). Unlike all our other relationships, we are called to “love one another with brotherly affection (and) outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). This makes church relationships uniquely deep and glorious. That means they can also be uniquely, deeply disappointing.

Do you know this by experience? If so, how have you sought to handle it?

The Way of the Cynic

One way to handle this potential for disappointment is cynicism. As a defense mechanism, cynicism markets itself as a way to avoid future disappointment by assuming everyone’s an imposter. The cynic leans on his familiar formula: “You only do (action), because you want (result).” He can attribute impure motives to just about anyone, even those in the local church.

The young man volunteering in childcare is only trying to impress his girlfriend.
The older woman attending multiple Bible studies is only trying to earn the respect and admiration of her peers.
The pastor preaching God’s word is only trying to grow his church (and his salary).

No one in our churches, whether in the pulpit, or on the platform, or in the pews, can evade the cynic’s accusations.

Sadly, cynicism often seems to work, at least for the moment. The one who views the whole world as a fraud is very rarely disappointed. Instead, he appears to have exchanged his potential of future disappointment for the present impression of power (“Now I’m the one who gets to criticize”), and control (“I decide if and when to trust them”), and courage (“I don’t need anyone but me”). And yet, those impressions of power, control, and courage, are only just that: counterfeits of the real things. And as counterfeits, they take more than they give.

Consider, after all, the glorious works of God that any cynic must disregard. When face-to-face with a man who has been radically transformed by God, or a woman who has found her happiness in Jesus despite all the suffering she’s endured, or a whole host of elderly believers who have held on faithfully to God since childhood — what can the cynic do but scoff? A God of miracles and love can’t exist if every saint’s a fraud. We might take up cynicism as a shield against disappointment, but it ends up functioning as a shield against the living God. It keeps us from seeing the wonders of all he’s done.

How ironically disappointing is the world of the cynic?

Disappointment from friends can hurt. Disappointment from brothers and sisters in the church can hurt more still. For those who know this all too well and have found themselves growing cynical as a result, I invite you to lay down your shield and take your disappointment somewhere else.

What Would Jesus Say?

Jesus is the thoroughly genuine man. He says what he means and he means what he says — before every audience, in every context, at all times. He cannot be charged with guile. Insincerity hides from his presence. He is true. He is pure. He is peerless. He is the cynic’s kryptonite. Because of who he is, we can go to him with our church-inflicted hurts, disappointments, and fears, and we can ask him, “Jesus, what do you have to say about these people?” What do you think he would say to us?

“I have called them.”

Faults, blemishes, sins, and all, Jesus has been at work in the lives of those around you. He’s known their names since “before the foundation of the world,” and from eternity he has set his love upon them (Revelation 13:8). At the right time, he came and laid his life down for these sheep, weak, sinful, and ungodly as they were (and weak, sinful, and ungodly as they still are at times) (Romans 5:6–8). Knowing all this beforehand, he still called them (Romans 8:30). Many of them, long before you ever knew them, and long before they ever joined your church.

Yes, they may have disappointed you. Yes, they may have hurt you. But Jesus has been at work in them all the same — calling them out of death, into life, and, in this season, into the membership of your church. Will you choose to love the brothers and sisters whom Jesus has already chosen to love?

“I am still calling them.”

Jesus never calls people partway home. When he calls, he calls all the way: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). And all along the way, he himself is working in them for his own good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Although they, like you, might go through seasons of spiritual drought or despair, he will yet sustain them and make them blameless (1 Corinthians 1:8).

They are, right now, members of the church — his very body of which he is the head. And one day, they will be presented as a bride before him in splendor without spot, wrinkle, or blemish (Ephesians 5:27). He has begun a great work in them, and he promises to finish that work (Philippians 1:6). So will you choose to love this great work even when, at times, it results in great disappointment? He has not grown cynical about them. Should you?

The Hope in Excommunication

But what if some members of your church aren’t actually believers? What if they really are hypocrites? What if they are “lovers of self, lovers of money,” . . . “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:2–5)? Or, what if they are genuine lovers of God but seriously and actively walking out of step with their faith?

Either way, the church responds with action, not inaction. Where cynicism would only sit on its hands and sneer, Christian courage, fueled by love and oiled by grace, gets up on its feet in pursuit of the one who is living out of step with godliness. We don’t say, “I told you so,” but, “Brother, come back.” And should our efforts fail, and the time comes to remove them from fellowship, even then, things would not be done as the cynic would have it, but in hope — hoping for miraculous repentance and restoration (1 Corinthians 5:5).

God’s people, with all our faults and immaturities, are God’s glorious works in progress. Though our hearts are often fickle, they are also cleansed. Therefore, we don’t write one another off, but commit to one another, rejoice with one another, give grace to one another. In the process, we will certainly be disappointed, but Jesus will even more certainly be a sufficient salve for our wounds. So, we renounce the way of the cynic and lay our disappointments and fear with Jesus, listening to what he says about his people, and then believing he’s at work in them, even when we don’t see it.

Audio Transcript

Back to questions about our perfectionistic tendencies, today and Monday. Many of us struggle here. Next time we look at how perfectionism makes us indecisive in life decisions. But first a question from a student. When are good grades good enough? Here’s the email: “Pastor John, hello to you and thank you for this podcast. I’m a female high school student in Minnesota, a senior taking five college classes, so technically a full-time college student as well. This last year, in my online classes, teachers would prohibit the use of textbooks during midterms and finals. But my friends would use their books anyway. I was tempted to cheat like this, too, but didn’t. I studied longer. Had I cheated, I would have had more time to study my Bible and to hang out with my family and attend church youth group events. I know I cannot cheat and honor God.

“But is overdoing my studies honoring to him either? How important is it to strive for As, if achieving them takes me away from more important things? I’m wired to be a perfectionist. But perhaps it is wiser to settle for Bs and for second best in school or in work to preserve my time for other things that are equally or more important. How do you weigh the pros and cons of excellence when settling for very good seems wiser? When are Bs wiser than As?”

When I saw this question earlier and had a chance to think about it (and even think whether I want to tackle answering it), I spent a long time pondering, How do you give counsel not only to this kind of question but to this kind of person? And by that I mean that she said, “I’m wired to be a perfectionist.” So, we have a person — and she’s, of course, not unusual — with a perfectionist bent wrestling with, you might say, good grades versus good deeds. That’s one way to say it.

Wisdom for Perfectionists

Almost everybody would agree that taking the time to save a person’s life is more important than getting an A. No question. Almost everybody would say (probably) that going to a party with your friends is not worth lowering your school performance for. But in between those two more or less obvious choices, there are dozens and dozens of gradations that a perfectionist is going to struggle with — especially a perfectionist.

And as I thought of particular pieces of advice that I could give, I realized that at every point, certain personalities, certain perfectionist types — I think I include myself here, probably — would likely take the advice and obsess over it and make the solution that I’m offering part of the problem. For example, if I said, “Read your Bible and pray so that you’ll have wisdom,” a perfectionist will ask, “How many hours a day should I read my Bible? How many hours a day should I pray?” You got yourself in a deeper hole now.

“Associating with wise people makes us wiser. To be around healthy people is to become more healthy.”

So, the question I’m asking myself is, What can I say that would point a person to the path of becoming a healthy person? And by “healthy person” I mean a person who is not tormented by questions for which there’s no clear biblical answer. The Bible simply does not tell a student how many hours to study and how much Christian service to do or how much time to spend cultivating friendships. A healthy person recognizes the complexities of such questions and humbly seeks a transformed mind and heart, which is able to spontaneously and without fixations and obsessions make healthy choices.

The Path to Healthy Living

Here’s the path I want to commend toward being a healthy person and making healthy choices when the Bible does not prescribe which choice to make. And I just have one piece of advice and then some explanations for why I say it. The advice is to seek to be a part of a community of healthy people. That’s my advice. And by healthy I mean spiritually and psychologically mature, Bible-saturated, wise, steady, sober-minded, balanced, joyful, humble, courageous, loving people — really healthy, strong saints.

Now, why would I suggest this? What’s the biblical warrant for giving that kind of advice to a perfectionist? Why do I hope that simply being around healthy Christians will have a healthy effect on perfectionistic people? Here are my three biblical answers to that question of why I’m giving this advice and why I think it will have a profound effect if we follow it.

1. The wise make us wiser.

The Bible teaches that association with wise people makes us wiser. Proverbs 13:20: “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise” — that’s an amazing statement — “but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Healthy ways of seeing the world and living wisely rub off. You can’t program it; you can’t itemize it; you can’t package it. And most of the time you can’t even point to when it happens. It’s relationally organic; it’s natural and it’s wonderful. So, the psalmist says in Psalm 119:63, “I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts.”

Or another way to say the same thing is that Paul says at least six times that his churches should imitate him. This is real, life-on-life watching and imitating. And the book of Hebrews says the same thing. It tells us, “[Be] imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). In a healthy community, this just happens. Sometimes it’s more intentional, but most of the time it’s just spontaneous. It’s caught rather than taught. To be around healthy people is to become more healthy.

And this is especially true, I think, for those who struggle in unhealthy ways with choices for which there’s no clear, biblical, step-by-step direction. It has to come from a healthy internal orientation to the world, and that we absorb in large measure from healthy people who are around us.

2. The Bible assumes spending time together.

Here’s the second way the Bible gives us warrant for this kind of advice. The New Testament uses the phrase “one another” 99 times, including — I’m not even counting the phrase “each other”; just “one another” in the ESV — “love one another,” “fellowship with one another,” “greet one another,” “serve one another,” “show hospitality to one another,” “pray for one another,” “confess your sins to one another,” “encourage one another,” “stir up one another,” “exhort one another,” “welcome one another,” “do good to one another,” “admonish one another,” “bear with one another,” “care for one another” — and the list goes on and on.

In other words, God’s plan for the healing of our personality defects — and everybody has them; I’m not picking on this girl, all right? Everybody has them. His plan for the maturing of our relational skills, and his plan for our ability to make wise choices, and his plan for all of our growth in how we serve and love each other — his plan for all these is that we spend time together, and for the more mature to become natural influences on the less mature.

3. God designs us for the common good.

Here’s one more way the New Testament commends this kind of advice. When discussing spiritual gifts and their use in the church, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” “Varieties of gifts,” “varieties of service,” “varieties of activities,” all of them with this goal: the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4–7). Or you could say “the common psychological and spiritual health,” “the common psychological well-being,” “the common capacity for making wise and peaceful decisions about school grades in relation to other good things.”

So, I’m saying to our Minnesota high school senior — who may well be in my own church, for all I know — that the long-range, lifelong answer to your question is to spend time with psychologically and spiritually mature, healthy people. Be in a healthy church. I know this is not a satisfactory short-term answer for specifics this semester. I know that. But it is what all of us need for the rest of our lives.