Finding the Love of Your Life
03/28/2004 - Beyond Pseudocommunity
While I was in Ghana this past month, one of the issues that weighed heavy on John Balmer's heart was the need to confront an African pastor. Five years ago, on John's first trip to Ghana, he teamed up with this pastor to conduct an evangelistic outreach event that saw over a hundred people come to Christ mainly out of Muslim backgrounds. It was a thrill! And as a result, a church was planted in a remote Ghanaian village.
A few years later, John returned to that village with the pastor to see how the church was doing and it became apparent that in order for the church to continue it needed a place to meet. Nobody had a hut big enough to contain the church and there was no YMCA to rent. They needed a building of some kind to house their gatherings and the pastor told John that for about $900 they could build one.
So John took this story back to his home church in the United States and they were so excited that they quickly raised the $900 and in a very public celebration presented it to the pastor who visited John's church during a trip to the States.
But a year and a half went by and there was no word from the pastor, no update on how the project was progressing, no pictures to show that a building was being constructed. So John asked his friend, Moses, another Ghanaian pastor, if he would look into it for him. Moses called the pastor repeatedly but he didn't return his phone calls and seemed very evasive. So Moses finally drove out to the village to look for the building himself, but when he arrived he couldn't find it. Where did the $900 go?
When John heard about all this he knew that one of his priorities on this trip was to investigate the situation and, if necessary, confront the pastor. It wasn't something he wanted to do, the very thought of it made him anxious. But it was something he needed to do if that relationship was going to continue. So all during the trip we kept praying about this situation. Was it an integrity issue that needed repentance or was it an administrative issue that needed repair? That's how John put it.
Confrontation. Nobody likes confrontation. It's difficult. It can tie us up in knots, both to give it and to receive it. In his book, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them , John Ortberg titles his chapter on confrontation as "The Gift Nobody Wants."
He opens by saying, "This is the foundational paradox about the porcupines in our world. We want to know the truth about ourselves, and we want very much not to know the truth about ourselves. We both seek and resist awareness about the reality of who we are."
This morning we continue our series called Finding the Love of Your Life with a teaching called "Beyond Pseudocommunity." Pseudocommunity is a term that I first discovered in a book by M. Scott Peck called The Different Drum.
Pseudocommunity is what most of us usually experience on our first date. Do you remember your first date? It's that kind of shallow community when you're really nice to each other and polite and you're on your best behavior. You pretend that you agree with each other and like the same things and do everything you can to avoid any kind of conflict so that maybe you can go out again. And some people, if they're not careful, end up getting married without ever moving beyond pseudocommunity. They avoid conflict at all cost and because they do they never experience any real depth in their relationship. Instead, they live lonely, miserable, isolated lives under the same roof for years.
Conflict and confrontation, as hard as they are, are the very things God uses to take us beyond pseudocommnity into deeper levels of authentic community. We all need a few truth tellers in our lives, one or two people who have the freedom and the trust to tell us hard things sometimes. We all have weak spots and blind spots that we can't navigate on our own. We need someone to remind us of the things that matter most and to warn us when we're getting away from those things.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin."
So today I want us to take a look at one of the most famous men in history who got off track, who made some bad choices and knew some deep failure, but had a truth-teller in his life, which meant that failure didn't get the last word. His name is David and his story is found in 2 Samuel 11.
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
The story opens with King David staying home while his troops went off to war. That was unusual. Kings normally accompanied their troops into battle. But something was going on inside David. We don't exactly what it was. But he was restless, lonely, maybe even a little bored being the most powerful man in the world. But he keeps it all inside until one day he's walking on the roof of his palace and sees, through a candlelit window, a beautiful, naked woman taking a bath. She is hot!
Look at verse 2, One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
David is in a vulnerable spot. He's bored. He's looking for a buzz. So he sends for the woman. Maybe she's the answer to his mid-life crisis. And when his servant finds out about her he essentially says, "David, she's a married woman. This is somebody's wife, somebody's daughter. Be careful."
But David isn't interested in being careful. He isn't interested in hearing the truth. He only wants to feed his lust. So when he sees the yellow light he hits the gas, not the brake.
Verse 4, Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David sent for her, slept with her, sent her home and now she's pregnant. It all happened so fast. It only takes a few minutes to tank the rest of your life. So when he hears the news that she's pregnant he can't celebrate it. Instead, he tries to hide it. He shifts into overdrive, fires off an e-mail to General Joab and says, "Send Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, back to Jerusalem ASAP." He figures that if he can get Uriah to sleep with her then it will look like it's his baby." This is before DNA testing!
Verse 6, So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house. 10 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?" 11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!" 12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.
This guy Uriah is amazing! He is so loyal to David and to his buddies in battle that he refuses to sleep with his gorgeous wife while his friends are sleeping in foxholes. David even tries to liquor him up, but that doesn't work either. So he hatches another plan.
Look at verse 14, In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." 16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
Look down at verse 22, The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead."
Go to verse 26, When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
David has Uriah killed in cold blood and his wife is heartbroken. So he marries Bathsheba and she bears him a son. The plan works! David covers it all up. He gives himself high fives! No one will ever know what really happened. That's what he thinks. But that's not what God thinks. God thinks the whole thing is utterly disgusting and he'll have the final word. He always does.
So David lives with the secret for months, at least as long as Bathsheba's pregnant. He pretends to worship God and lead the people as their righteous king while carrying the secret guilt of this unconfessed murder and adultery. And every day he gets a little more used to his deception. Every day his heart gets a little harder and God drifts a little farther away.
Until one day God says, "Enough!" Up until this point David has been playing god with people's lives and now it was time for God to play God with David's life. So he sends a prophet named Nathan to confront David and tell him the truth. Nathan is going to hold David accountable to live up to all those psalms he wrote.
How would you like that assignment? Put yourself in Nathan's sandals. His heart's pounding and his mouth is dry as he calls to make the appointment with David's secretary. He's going to tell the most powerful man on the planet that he blew it, when David doesn't think anybody else knows. And if he has to he'll kill Nathan to keep it a secret. He's already killed Uriah! Nathan's taking a huge risk, but he goes in obedience to God.
Look at 2 Samuel 12:1-10, The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. 4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
It's obvious that Nathan had prepared for this confrontation. He did his homework. No doubt he prayed about. He probably had others praying for him and he comes armed with a story because he knows David is going to be resistant to the truth. So he tells a short story designed to slip past David's defenses and go right to his heart.
Look at verse 5, David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
The story works! It gets David's attention. He connects with it. But now comes the moment of truth. Nathan has a split second to decide if he's willing to take the risk. Is he going to roll the dice? Is he going to give David the last ten percent? He looks straight into the king's eyes and says, "You're the man! This is your story, David. This is your sin. This is how far you've fallen."
Look at verse 7, Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.' 11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.'"
How would you like to deliver that message to the person who could instantly remove your head from your shoulders? This was hard truth for Nathan to deliver and hard truth for David to hear. Who knows how long they sat in silence.
But then the miracle happened. A heart that had been hard and cold and dead for so long starts to beat again. The ice begins to melt. And David says to Nathan in verse 13, "I have sinned against the LORD." Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die."
After the silence, David confesses his sin and he gets his life back. It will never be the same because of what he's done. In fact, within a week his baby will be dead. But God isn't done with David yet. Together he and Bathsheba will have another son named Solomon who will take Israel to the pinnacle of its power.
But what would have happened to David if he didn't have a Nathan in his relational world? How would his life have turned out? We don't know the answer to that. But we do know that David had gone the better part of a year living a lie and without Nathan's obedience to God and courage to confront, his downward spiral could have gone on indefinitely.
In Psalm 32:3-5, David writes about the torment that was going on in his soul during the days of his cover up, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgression to the Lord" and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Sometimes the most loving thing we can do in community is to confront someone we care deeply about with the hard truth about something that is destroying them and those around them. That's going beyond pseudocommunity. And that means we have to be willing to enter into the tunnel of chaos. And chaos is where we feel out of control and where negative emotions often get expressed. But it's the tunnel of chaos that leads us into deeper, more authentic community. People who value true community always prefer the pain of temporary chaos to the peace of permanent pretense.
But before we go there we need to count the cost. Even the most loving confrontation will put a relationship at risk. Which is why we need to be prayed up and absolutely convinced this is what God would have us to do, not for our own well being but for the well being of another. Nathan didn't go for his sake. He wasn't there to blow off steam and vent his anger at David. He went for David's sake and for God's sake.
Ortberg closes his chapter on confrontation with these chilling words, "We generally don't intend to make a mess of our lives. Nobody takes a vow of marriage and plans on ending up in divorce court (unless you're Brittany Spears). No dad welcomes children into this world and plans on being so busy with meetings and briefcases that he ends up a distant, polite stranger. No disappointed homemaker picks up a glass of wine to take the edge off her boredom and plans on entering the life of a secret alcoholic. No businessperson makes a first deal and plans on becoming so consumed with expanding his lifestyle that all generosity and compassion dry up in his soul. No one graduates from school and decides to become so pressured and preoccupied and self-absorbed that they end up without a single friend worthy of the title. Nobody plans these things. But they happen every single day. Why? Because they have no one who has the courage or the permission to tell them the truth."
The last Sunday John was in Ghana he and Moses drove out to that pastor's church in a nearby city where John preached a message on unity in the body of Christ. After the teaching, that pastor, along with others, responded to an invitation to repair any relationships that needed reconciliation and he did that day with John and with Moses.
He apologized that he hadn't communicated with them and when John confronted him about the $900, after about a three hour search through his piling system, he was able to produce receipts for the materials he had purchased for the building even though construction had not yet been completed. It was enough evidence for John to be convinced that this was an administrative issue and not an integrity issue. And before they left Moses agreed to work with the pastor and help him with areas of organization and accountability. And the relationship was reconciled.
In Christian community, confrontation is never easy and we never enter into it without a lot of prayer and guidance from God. Yet often it's exactly what God uses to move us beyond pseudocommunity into that deep, authentic community that we all long for.