Overcoming Resentment Towards the Church
Preamble: Recently a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, left his congregation over a dispute with the leaders over the way they handled the COVID restrictions. During the restrictions, and knowing I was a safe space, he confided in me. He was angry, confused, and resentful. In return I shared with him my thoughts and feelings on the situation. After he left his congregation, he asked me how I overcame the anger I had towards my leaders to not only remain in my congregation, but grow and thrive and be a contributing member. After sharing my account, he reconsidered his own position, and was reconciled to his congregation. My hope in sharing this, is that this will help another person who may be stuck in the fracture between loving Jesus and his church, and having resentment towards some people in the congregation.
I was Angry
I was angry. I admit it.
I did not agree with how things were being handled by the church leaders during the dark depths of the middle of the pandemic restrictions, so in my anger I wrote scathing letters to them.
Those letters were not sent.
They were a way for me to vent. My angry thoughts may have been put in a Google document, but they never saw the light of day. That Google doc has been deleted…However, I did write a blog post that admittedly was a little bit angry. That caught the attention of many, including the elders of my church, but that post was nothing compared to the evil angry thoughts in my mind.
I confessed to my church leaders, repented, and asked for forgiveness and sought ways to help, rather than hinder, the church during an already tumultuous time.
Now here we are 2 years later. I find myself holding office in the same church, and serving alongside some of the men whose decisions I had been angry with a couple of years earlier. Now I get to witness first hand all of the brokenness. All of the resentment. All of the sin. All of the hurt. And it’s not just my congregation. It’s every congregation. Every church has a story of disagreement and division, resentment and heartache, over the past 2-3 years. Every church has seen fallout happen between members. Every church has seen people withdraw, leave, disappear. Every Church has seen office bearers burn out, question, doubt. I am thankful that the Lord spared me office during those times. Now I get to serve with these men and can see the battle scars these men carry from the war they have endured over the past few years. I am grateful for their servant leadership.
Now it’s not all bad, I also get to see the things which bring joy. New believers coming to faith. The evangelism our congregation is doing. The joy. The prayer. The sharing of meals, and coffees, and families and lives. The Word goes out to the people each Sunday, the sacraments are shared in, faith grows, and lives changed by the gospel.
As I ponder those who have withdrawn, stopped coming, or “prefer” to do church online…I can’t help but wonder what happened to our vows? When we publicly professed our faith before the Lord and the congregation we made covenantal vows. Similar to marriage, we vowed to be faithful, to only have one love, in good times and bad. Do we simply give up on marriage when it gets hard? Or do we dig in and do the dirty work to fix it?
It seems many don’t want to do the work when it comes to church membership.
Why is that?
I believe that over the past few years of difficulty, pride and resentment have set in. Resentment is a relationship killer. Pride makes it all but impossible to see resentment in ourselves, attributing these negative feelings to the other people.
Perhaps you disagreed with the way your leaders handled things. I know I did. So how did I get over the resentment?
Here are 5 things I considered:
1. Ask The Lord to Show Me My Sin.
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32
The point of this verse to me in that dark time was not so much to be kind and tenderhearted, but rather to ask the Lord to show my sin to me.
To show me how much he has forgiven me for.
In the fight against resentment toward others, one of the greatest weapons is an ability to see my own sin. My willingness to forgive my brothers and sisters, will be in direct proportion to my capacity to see the stinking festering garbage pile of sin for which Christ has forgiven me.
The beautiful thing is that the Father looks not at my sin, but at Christ’s righteousness.
I also asked the Lord to show me my sin in this situation. And I was shown my pride and my selfishness.
So, instead of my brothers, I looked at my own sins.
Those great offenses that stood before me and separated me from the Lord.
How could I deliberately resent my brothers and sisters, when their offenses (if they actually were offenses) against me were so small by comparison? Blindness to my own sin was responsible for me harboring bitterness to others. Especially the sin of pride. Pride is the root of resentment. Pride makes it difficult to remove the plank from my own eye. This verse tells us that Christians forgive because God first forgave them. Ultimately Christ’s forgiveness, secured for me at the cross, enabled me to look past differences, hurts, and forgive my brothers in order to be reconciled to them.
2. Choose Forgiveness.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
I had to realize that forgiveness is a decision not a feeling.
It doesn’t matter if I feel like forgiving. Christ commanded me to forgive.
I admit this was not easy. Feelings are real. Feelings can be hurt. And it is very difficult to think rationally and clearly when emotions run high, or when we have festered on those feelings of hurt or seeming betrayal. When I perceive someone to have hurt me, it doesn’t just go away. In my sinful nature I am prone to dig in my heels and push back.
Again here, I had to look to Christ on the cross. When I read the words, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” I saw Jesus was talking about me. Christ, on the cross, suffered and died so that I could be reconciled to God. Even when I was still a sinner. Even when I still hated him. Even when it would have been easy to turn his back on me, he didn’t.
I had no clue what I was doing…and He died…
For me.
I can’t control my feelings, they are what they are. But I can control my decisions and my actions. I can ask for forgiveness when I am stubbornly stuck in pride. I can forgive. God asks that we be willing to repeatedly and persistently forgive all of our brother and sisters sins, realizing that we too are sinners in need of forgiveness.
3. Forgive Often.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!
When Jesus tells Peter to forgive seventy seven times he isn’t capping forgiveness at 77, rather he tells me that I need to have everlasting Christ-like persistence in forgiving others. Though forgiven saints, we are all still sinful people. There are many times in every congregation when brothers and sisters must repent and forgive each other repeatedly. So I talked about it, not to others but with those I needed to clear the air.
I shared how I felt with my pastor and elders.
And don’t kid yourself, your feelings are real and they do matter. Don’t keep them bottled up where resentment will have a place to thrive. And don’t talk to others about the negative things, avoid gossip and slander, rather talk to those who have hurt you.
Be honest. And humble. Work toward full forgiveness and reconciliation in the Lord.
4. Ask the Lord for Humility.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride. All throughout the Bible we are warned about our sinful pride. I had to ask myself, “Is it possible I am hurt about something I shouldn’t be?” I had to look at myself. Was my pride getting in the way? I am not able to see my brother’s heart motives, and it is far too easy to judge others, when our opinions do not line up. Our Lord teaches us in his Word that our hearts are deceitful. If that is so, how can I even trust my own opinions, feelings and thoughts? Was I upset about things I had no right to be upset about? Was I upset about things that maybe I did have a right to be, but didn’t understand the context? Even if I was upset about something to which I was completely in the right…I was still wrong to hold on to it. Either way, resentment was setting in. The solution was to repent over being resentful and ask the Lord for humility. It’s important that we always be willing to examine our own hearts when resentment begins to take hold.
5. Seek Jesus.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Seek his face. Look to Jesus.
Ultimately everything is about Jesus. Everything we do is for the Glory of the Lord. When we seek his face, he promises to forgive our sin and heal our land… or congregations. Satan is the great deceiver and will rarely ever use a full frontal assault on the Church. Rather he will use deception. He will use pride and our own sinful nature against us to try to tear the church apart. We can see how the church is fractured right now. We all need to seek Jesus’ face, humble ourselves before the Lord and others, repent, forgive and seek reconciliation.
As I considered my vows made to the Lord and my church upon my profession of faith, I also considered the vows I made to my wife. I couldn’t imagine leaving her over trivial disagreements or minor hurts. But we don’t allow those trivial things to fester in our marriage, so they do not become bitter roots leading to resentment. Why do we allow these things to fester in the church?
As I worked toward reconciliation with my church, the feelings changed from hurt and resentment to love and joy. These are my brothers and sisters in Christ, with whom I am yoked. We are to bear one another’s burdens, not be burdens to each other. Jesus healed those negative feelings for me. He can do the same for you.
If you have stopped going to church, or have bitterness in your hearts, please consider these things. If you are a leader in the church, also consider if resentment has taken hold in your heart. We are all forgiven, yet sinful people. We are all given to sinful pride. The only cure is Jesus. Let us repent, look to Jesus, and forgive each other, working toward reconciliation.
