248: Counterfeit Christianity — Counterfeit Community

Adam Cook (0:00): Welcome to the Messy Walk podcast with pastor Adam Cook, where our goal is to have a genuine and authentic conversation about the Christian faith journey and what a messy walk with Jesus really looks like. Make sure to follow us for future episodes that will be posted regularly each Wednesday. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Unknown Speaker (0:19): Hey. Welcome to the messy walk podcast. I'm your host, Steph here, pastor Adam.

Unknown Speaker (0:23): I'm here.

Unknown Speaker (0:24): I slowed down because he started drinking water. Yeah. You got me.

Unknown Speaker (0:27): I was like, whoop. Let me let me take a very small sip and swallow fast.

Unknown Speaker (0:31): Yes. So, anyway

Unknown Speaker (0:34): That's a fun intro.

Steph (0:36): We're in our series titled counterfeit Christianity. And last week, we talked about a really cool one called counterfeit humility. Yep. That was episode three.

Adam Cook (0:46): That's a very That was good. I don't think I've ever had that conversation before, so it was cool one to have ever. And then today's today's, at least on paper, is my favorite one of the series. So we'll see how it comes out. We're gonna talk about what, Steph?

Steph (1:00): This one could feel scary, by the way. Counterfeit community.

Unknown Speaker (1:03): Counterfeit community. Right? Episode two forty eight. There you go. Counterfeit community.

Adam Cook (1:07): I really like this one on paper. Let's just so let's see how well I can say it as we're talking through it. But, if I can be real with you, one of the biggest problems in modern Christianity is that many people are surrounded by church activity but deeply unknown, and it's a problem. It's a big, big, big problem. We are more connected now than we've ever been technologically.

Adam Cook (1:31): Right? You can, at any moment, be involved in somebody's life, have friends Parasocial. Talk to people, and you can you know, when I was a kid, the dream was that one day we would have a telephone where we could see the person that we were talking to. Right? That was the big dream.

Adam Cook (1:50): So so when I was a kid, this is what we thought what we thought would be happening in the year 2000. Right?

Unknown Speaker (1:56): Yeah. The year 2000.

Adam Cook (1:58): We thought that we'd be driving flying cars. Right? And we thought there'd be robots everywhere, and we thought that we would be able to see a person when we talk to them instead of just talking to them on the phone. Right? But we do live in an era now where the cars aren't really flying, but robots are everywhere.

Adam Cook (2:13): And now, you know, FaceTime's been around a long time. Right? And so you've got all these ways in which we can be connected to each other, and yet we are more isolated than ever emotionally. Right? We are around people more.

Adam Cook (2:29): We're around people online more. We're connected to people in that way, but we are isolated, emotionally like crazy. So I think a lot of people have church attendance, without real biblical community. No. That's true.

Adam Cook (2:43): Are not the same thing. Like, church attendance and biblical community are not the same thing. You and I were not called to. There's nowhere in the scripture where we are called to mere church attendance, but we're constantly called to real biblical community. But a lot of people have church attendance, and they don't have biblical community.

Adam Cook (3:03): This is heartbreaking, And I'm a pastor who sees this all the time. It is heartbreaking to me to look out and know that I'll see people sitting in in the congregation, right, week after week, month after month, year after year, and they are not in any real biblical community whatsoever. Right? Which is sad because it turns in it turns corporate worship into a mess. It turns us listening to the pastor's sermon into listening to a TED Talk.

Adam Cook (3:32): Right? I mean, that's what it turns it into. Like, the and so, you know, you you got folks who have this church attendance, but they don't have biblical community. You can sit in a crowded church every week and still feel completely alone. You can you can know hundreds of people casually while nobody actually knows you.

Adam Cook (3:51): And I have lived this life. So this is a Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (3:53): We do.

Adam Cook (3:53): I think one of the reasons why this episode is my favorite is because I have lived this struggle. Right? And I have to fight this constantly because hundreds, if not thousands of people, right, in this town, thousands of people in this town know me. And because of the way I teach and preach the things that I share, they think they know me well. But, really, they don't know me at all.

Adam Cook (4:20): Yeah. Right? And so there's this fight to actually have real biblical community for me personally. And that but it's not just limited to me because I'm the pastor. Right?

Adam Cook (4:30): It still happens constantly where people have a church attendance, but they don't have real biblical community. Counterfeit community allows people to stay visible while actually remaining hidden. Right? They're visible. They're around.

Adam Cook (4:45): You see them. You know them, but you don't really know them, so they're really hidden. And that's very dangerous because biblical community was never built around image management. It was built around honesty. Right?

Adam Cook (4:57): Real biblical community is not you being seen in your church clothes on a Sunday or you being seen for my particular case, you being seen out at the gas station as pastor Adam. It's never been about image management. Biblical community has always been rooted in real true honesty. This pairs up with the humility thing we talked about last week. It was always built around honesty.

Adam Cook (5:19): So real genuine biblical community is hard. Right? Because vulnerability is terrifying.

Unknown Speaker (5:25): It sure is.

Adam Cook (5:26): Being vulnerable in front of people is terrifying. If you say the word like, every time I'm preaching, if I use the word vulnerable, I will pause and say, to the men that it's okay because they all wanna curl up in a ball anytime they hear the word vulnerable. Right? Being really vulnerable and sharing who you really are is a terrifying thing. And so what we will do is is we will settle for this counterfeit community, instead of real genuine biblical community because real genuine biblical community is very hard because it requires you and I to be very vulnerable.

Adam Cook (5:59): So instead, what people are settling for is they're settling for shallow relationships built around appearances even in the family of god. Right? Even in the family of god, it's it's your, you know, church with people, you're side by side with folks. Sometimes you're serving beside them, and you don't really let anybody know you. They don't really let anybody know them.

Adam Cook (6:18): And it's this shallow church relationship. Right? It's just, your your fellow church members instead of actual brothers and sisters in the faith. Ain't it interesting that in the scripture, you see all these family references when it comes to the family of god. Right?

Adam Cook (6:34): The body. We're one body. We're all connected. Each one has a part. I mean, it's very, very personal.

Adam Cook (6:40): And never is it, you know, well, this is I go to church with this person. Right? No. No. No.

Adam Cook (6:45): It's brother and sister in Christ. You know what I mean? Like, it's this family unit. And so you can spend years in church relationships without ever really being truly known, and that is counterfeit community. That is not real biblical community.

Adam Cook (7:02): Real biblical community, I'll say it again, real biblical community requires full honesty. Right? Not just you being honest and when you say something, but I'm talking about you being honest about who you are. It it requires real transparency. It requires real authenticity.

Adam Cook (7:19): That's what we're just talking about a few minutes ago in the last episode was that's biblical humility as well. It requires real transparency, real authenticity, real honesty. And that's what biblical community really, really requires. Steph, will you read, James chapter five thirteen through 16? I'm a probably gonna stop you somewhere along here.

Unknown Speaker (7:39): Just let me know.

Adam Cook (7:40): We're trying to get I'm trying to get to one verse, but I really like this chunk of scripture.

Steph (7:44): Okay. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.

Steph (7:53): Is anyone among you sick? Sick. Sick. Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the lord.

Adam Cook (8:03): Alright, Pauls. I real this verse is this verse really came to life to me several years ago when I realized that the entirety of what he's talking about is in relation to community. So when he says at the beginning, what did he say at the beginning? Well, if any of you among you what? In trouble.

Unknown Speaker (8:18): In trouble. Right?

Unknown Speaker (8:19): Mhmm.

Unknown Speaker (8:20): Cry out for help. Is that basically what he's

Unknown Speaker (8:21): pray.

Adam Cook (8:22): Yeah. Right. Right. He's talking still in in terms of them all being together. This is not some isolated thing.

Adam Cook (8:28): So when he says the next one, if you're happy, right Mhmm. Let them sing songs of

Unknown Speaker (8:32): praise. Right?

Adam Cook (8:33): Mhmm. That's talking about in the community church setting. It's not talking about being in private. The reason we know that is because when you get to the next one, it says if you're sick, what do you do? You call the elders.

Adam Cook (8:43): You have them pray over you and anoint you with oil. Right? Mhmm. This is a community thing. Right?

Adam Cook (8:49): This is not individual. He did not just say, you're having hard times. You're sad. Go pray by yourself. You you're happy.

Adam Cook (8:57): Go sing by yourself. Right? You sick. Pray over yourself and anoint yourself. It's it's not.

Adam Cook (9:02): It's all community driven. Right? All about it. And you see it because of the whole context of this verse. Read a little bit further.

Steph (9:08): Okay. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they ascend, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Steph (9:23): The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Adam Cook (9:26): Confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. Did you see this? So, like, notice that healing is connected to confessing our sins to other people. In other words, healing is connected to honesty. Right?

Adam Cook (9:45): God is connecting. James specifically right there is connecting the fact that we confess our sins to each other, not by ourselves. In other words, we're being very transparent and honest about who we are. And healing somehow another is tied to us being honest. Right?

Adam Cook (9:59): Because it's tied to healing is tied to real biblical community. Right? Healing's tied to the work of the lord, the work of the head of the church within the body of the church. Right? And so healing's tied to honesty.

Adam Cook (10:13): That's a really interesting thing. This is a call to the church. Like, that right there is a call to the church to be a place that is really honest and open. Right? That the community of the church is supposed to look like that.

Adam Cook (10:27): So if you take that little picture right there, it gives you a cool picture of the church. You got people who are praying out loud. Right? Going to the lord out loud because they're sad, because they got problems together. And you got people who are singing and celebrating together.

Adam Cook (10:43): Right, because they're happy. And you got people who are sick, which we all gonna get sick, and they're coming together to be prayed over, to be anointed. They're confessing their sins to each other, right, for healing. That is a call to the church, the the family of god, real community, to be rooted in real honesty. But many church environments accidentally train people to hide.

Adam Cook (11:11): Right? Like, we don't mean to, but we do. We accidentally train people to sort of blend in, hide their stuff, because image is something that tends to get rewarded. Polished people get celebrated. People feel pressure to appear spiritually strong all the time, so everybody starts pretending.

Adam Cook (11:31): Right? The church doesn't mean to do this, but we do it. We set this tone to where when somebody looks like they got it all together, then we celebrate that. And then when when people are struggling, there's this there's this pressure to, I gotta walk in and pretend like I'm spiritually strong. Right?

Adam Cook (11:48): The the idea of this is gonna this is gonna make somebody mad listening, but the idea of wear your Sunday best to church sounds real good on the surface. Right? I'm a bring the lord my best. I'm a look my best on Sunday. But you know what it really is?

Adam Cook (12:05): Every suit, every fancy dress, and every nice clothes you can put on, it's really just hiding. It's easy to hide behind all the jacked up stuff you got going. Hide it behind a nice Sunday suit. Right? And in theory, it's let me bring out my vest.

Adam Cook (12:23): But, really, it really gives us a way to pretend. Right? I can't tell you how many times and I've talked to other couples too. So I I'm a talk about me and Valerie. Can't tell how many times we've been on our way to church fighting and arguing fighting and arguing with the kids and walk in the door and be like, hey.

Adam Cook (12:38): Good morning. So good to be at church. Right? You know what I mean? Like and so we accident we sorta accidentally lead people into the ability to hide.

Adam Cook (12:49): Right? So if it doesn't seem like it's spiritually strong, let me just hide it. Let me pretend to be spiritually strong. Right? So everybody starts pretending.

Adam Cook (12:57): So over time, the church can slowly become a place where broken people learn how to hide their brokenness better. Right, instead of actually bringing their brokenness out. Right? Because brokenness is messy. Right?

Adam Cook (13:08): Us being really honest and being in real community, it is messy. Real biblical community, I think, is the hardest thing.

Unknown Speaker (13:15): It is hard.

Adam Cook (13:16): It's hard because it requires real honesty on both parts, on all people's parts, and and and that's gonna bring up some messiness. Right? And so and we're all broken. So we should be bringing our brokenness all the time, and people should know about our brokenness. Right?

Adam Cook (13:30): But what ends up happening is is we end up creating a scenario and a situation where church is the place where broken people just learn how to be, how to hide their brokenness, you know, where that shouldn't be the case. Right? If there's anywhere where you should not have to hide your brokenness at all, it's in the family of God. It's a church. Right?

Adam Cook (13:49): You shouldn't have to walk in acting like everything's fine. You should be able to answer the question honestly when somebody says, hey. How you doing? You don't have to say fine. Right?

Adam Cook (14:00): Which is almost always a lie. You could actually be honest about how you're doing. Well, it's been a rough week. You know, I'm trying this. I'm doing this.

Adam Cook (14:07): Like, that's what we want, but the church ends up sorta accidentally helping broken people hide their brokenness. And that's heartbreaking because Jesus never built a church to be a performance. Right? The church is a family. The church is the body of Christ, and families know everything about each other.

Adam Cook (14:29): They know all the ugly stuff. Right? That's what families do. You you can you really be a family and function as a family unit in general if stuff is hidden? I don't think you can.

Adam Cook (14:42): Like, take a take a take a married couple. Right? Can you really function as husband and wife when you're called to be one if there's a bunch of hidden stuff between the two of you? You can't. Right?

Adam Cook (14:54): And and the church is supposed to be a family. It's not supposed to be about us performing spiritually or or acting like we got it all together. Right? Families know everything about each other, and the church of God, the family of God is supposed to be that way. That's what real community is supposed to look like.

Adam Cook (15:09): And it is very, very messy if you're gonna do it that way. Our one of the enemy's favorite strategies is convincing people to suffer silently, especially if he can use the church to do it. Right? If he can get you to suffer silently, then you just keep those things to yourself. Right now, you're isolated.

Adam Cook (15:30): And when he's got you isolated, he's got you because nothing grows on an island but sin. And so he gets he convinces you, don't tell anybody. Nobody's gonna understand. They're gonna judge you. Right?

Adam Cook (15:43): He convinces people to suffer silently. And then and if he can use the church to do that, well, man, he's won. Right? This is a huge victory for the enemy. And I know that some people listening right now, you have been deeply hurt by church people.

Adam Cook (16:00): Let me just say, I am also one of those folks. Absolutely. Right? Like, we actually planted union, I'd had so much of it that I was done with all this mess. You know what I mean?

Adam Cook (16:11): So I know that some of you've been hurt by church people. And so what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna expose yourself again to then be hurt by church people again. And I don't wanna minimize that pain by what I'm about to say. But counterfeit community should not cause us to abandon biblical community. So just because you have walked in and experienced some counterfeit community in the church doesn't mean that you throw out biblical community all altogether.

Adam Cook (16:37): You have to steal. The onus is still on you even though you may have been hurt by some church people to still put yourself out there and pursue biblical community. Mhmm. Because isolation ain't healing either. Right?

Adam Cook (16:48): So, you know, you're you're you avoiding community because of the hurt that you had ain't gonna heal anything because it just keeps you in isolation. Right? Counterfeit community ain't healing nothing, but biblical community can. And the onus is on us the the onus is on those of us who have been hurt that way, which is which is everybody, by the way, right, is for us to still pursue real biblical community, not just settle for isolation because that's not gonna fix anything. The answer to unhealthy community is healthy community, not loneliness, not isolation.

Adam Cook (17:24): Right? And we have to pursue and fight and push for real biblical community. And I will be honest with you. I think the hardest thing of my job as a pastor shepherd of a flock is to constantly try to help create real biblical community because it is hard to do, and it is messy. Right?

Adam Cook (17:47): And people are always hurt by each other. Like, we always be biting each other. You know, when somebody shares something that they don't like, you know, somebody shares something they're struggling with and the person's like, I don't wanna be around that person because they struggle with this. You know mean? It's just a mess.

Adam Cook (18:02): It's really hard. But you you're not gonna fix unhealthy community by ignoring it, right, or by isolating or by being by yourself. The only thing that fixes unhealthy community is healthy biblical community. So we have to pursue that. You know, the remedy to counterfeit community is real community.

Adam Cook (18:23): Right? The remedy to counterfeit Christianity is real biblical Christianity. Right? The the the remedy to counterfeit humility that we talked about before, counterfeit grace, counterfeit worship is real biblical grace, worship, community, all those things, humility. Galatians six two, Steph, read this.

Adam Cook (18:42): I like this verse. I actually use this I actually use this verse at every single funeral that I do. Alright. We'll talk about it.

Steph (18:50): Oh, well. Okay. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Adam Cook (18:57): The law of Christ. Wow. The law of Christ obviously is the fact that, you love someone, deeper more than you love yourself. Right? And so it talks about carrying each other's burdens.

Adam Cook (19:14): I use this scripture at every single funeral I do because it's really important. So in the context of that little paragraph, you get two pictures. Right? You get carry each other's burden, and you get each person has to carry their own load. Right?

Adam Cook (19:28): That's what's coming next in that scripture. So if you read that on your own, read a little bit further, get to four, five, and six, and you'll see what I'm talking about. So we have to, biblical community, carry each other's burdens. And then there's a part in there where it talks about carrying your own load. Alright.

Adam Cook (19:44): So here's the picture that's being painted in that scripture. The picture of a load is like a backpack. Right? Everybody's gotta carry their own backpack. You got your own adult responsibilities you got to take care of.

Adam Cook (19:56): Right? So everybody's gotta be responsible for feeding themself and having their house to live in and all those adult responsibilities that have to happen. Right? I ain't helping I don't I don't have to walk around carrying your own book bag. Everybody's gotta carry around their own responsibilities.

Adam Cook (20:11): Right? You know what I'm saying? Like, you gotta be an But the so the picture of the load is a is a backpack. The picture of burden that you just read in verse two is the picture of a boulder. Right?

Adam Cook (20:22): Nobody can carry a boulder by themselves. So when it says carry each other's burdens, it's the picture of this thing that's too big for one person to carry. And so then what we're supposed to do in real biblical communities, we're supposed to help them carry it. That's the whole point. That's the picture of what's happening there.

Adam Cook (20:40): And so when I use this in a funeral, I'm talking about, you know, a family has lost somebody. That's a burden. Right? That's not a backpack. That's a burden.

Adam Cook (20:49): And so the community, right, the community of god, the family of god, the church of god comes in and helps that person carry that burden. Right? That's why we bring them food. That's why we we walk we we mow their yard. That's why we help out and check-in because and we pray for them.

Adam Cook (21:04): We lift them up, and we help them with things when they've lost somebody because it's this boulder that they can't carry on their own. Right? So notice it says, is carry each other's burdens. Right? Well, how can you carry a burden or burdens that you don't know about?

Adam Cook (21:22): How can the people around you effectively do what the scriptures telling them to do and help carry your burdens if they don't know about them? Right? How can you carry somebody's burden, which you're called to do? Obviously, scripture is pretty specific. If you don't know about those burdens.

Adam Cook (21:40): Right? It's impossible. It's impossible without honesty. Like, somebody's gotta verbalize the fact that I have these struggles and burdens so that we, as a family of god, can carry them. So it requires honesty.

Adam Cook (21:55): Biblical community is built on honesty. We have to be honest. One of the clearest signs of authentic Christian community, real Christian community, is people can be honest without fear of rejection. That's what we wanna push towards in real biblical community. That's what we wanna push towards.

Adam Cook (22:14): And you can take like, you can take real biblical community as as big or as low as you want it to go. So you can take it as the whole church. You can take it as your little iteration of the church. You can take it as your small group. You can take it all the way down to the family unit.

Adam Cook (22:28): Right? What it looks like to be in real community in your family is that people can share and be honest without fear of being thrown out the family or without fear of being rejected. That's what real biblical community looks like in the family. And it has to look the same way in the church, and that's what we have to fight for. People can share and be open and honest about their burdens, their struggles, their fears, their worries, whatever those things are without fear of being rejected.

Adam Cook (22:58): That's what we wanna see. That's the openness. And that's what we get in Jesus. So that's the why the law of Christ is fulfilled as the scriptures talk about. I mean, in Jesus, what do we get?

Adam Cook (23:07): You can bring him absolutely anything. Right? He's died for all sin on the cross, so you can be completely honest and bring Jesus anything without being fear without fear of being rejected by him. And the church is supposed to mimic and look the exact same way. And so that's a that is the clearest sign of authentic Christian community, and that's what we have to be fighting towards all the time.

Adam Cook (23:29): Right? That's not celebrating sin. Right? That's not what we're talking about. That's not being affirmed in destruction.

Adam Cook (23:36): That's being loved honestly. Right?

Unknown Speaker (23:39): Mhmm.

Adam Cook (23:40): We're not talking about affirming the things that people are bringing up that might be sinfulness. Right? But but it's it's loving someone honestly in that way. Right? That they won't be rejected because of it.

Adam Cook (23:52): Because biblical biblical community is not pretending that sin doesn't matter. It's helping people walk towards freedom together. Right? It's it's you you've done these things. You've been here.

Adam Cook (24:05): You struggle with this. See you, hear you. Let's walk towards Jesus together with this stuff. You know what I mean? That's what real biblical community is.

Adam Cook (24:13): One of the saddest realities in modern Christianity is that many people have church friends but no church family, and we don't want merely church friends. Right? Now I am not saying in any way, shape, or form that you are gonna be in this completely perfect, open, honest, carry each other's bird relationship with every single person that walks in the church. Right? I'm not saying that.

Adam Cook (24:37): It's impossible. Right? But you should not just have church acquaintances, people that you sit on the same pew with or row with, people that you just kinda know or that you serve with. You need actual church family. And church family is rooted in real biblical community where people know you honestly.

Adam Cook (24:56): Right? Like like, you and your husband and your sister and your dad and my family, we're in real biblical community. Like, we know each other's crap. Uh-huh. Right?

Adam Cook (25:08): You know what I mean? And we share that stuff with each other. And we're we're family. Right?

Unknown Speaker (25:13): Mhmm. I

Adam Cook (25:14): mean, I'm like, the beautiful thing about biblical family is they are closer than our real family sometimes. That's true. Because we're united in the blood of Jesus. So we carry the same DNA now. Right?

Adam Cook (25:31): And we're spend eternity with each other, so we got a lot in common. Right? And we've been bought by the same Christ, so we got a lot in common. But when we function like a family, we know each other so well, and we're doing that on the basis of Jesus. Yeah.

Adam Cook (25:45): Right? Which draws us much closer than you will be with some of your real regular family. You know what I mean? So, you know, I'm not saying you gotta know everybody in the church on this level. That's not what I mean.

Adam Cook (25:55): But you can't just you can't just have church friends and not have church family because you're missing out on real biblical community. And if you settle for if you settle for just church acquaintances, just church friends, you are buying counterfeit community, and there is a better way. Right? There's there's better community in biblical community, but it's built completely on honesty. You need people who which what people end up having is is they have people who know their name but don't know their soul.

Adam Cook (26:29): Right? Biblical community always means both. Like, I know your name and I know your soul. You know, like, I mean, every time you and I record, we sit around talking about randomness.

Unknown Speaker (26:44): Mhmm.

Adam Cook (26:45): Right? And then sometimes but a lot of times, we're talking about struggles. Yeah. We're literally talking about things we're struggling with. Right?

Adam Cook (26:51): It's not that I just know your name. I know your soul. I know the things that bother you. Right? And nobody's ever gonna know you fully unless you share those fully things, but that's what real biblical community actually looks like.

Adam Cook (27:02): And that's what we gotta push towards instead of this counterfeit community that happens. And and the modern church in America and the culture that we live in is increasingly creating counterfeit community. Right? Yeah. It is.

Adam Cook (27:18): Let's walk into the big let's walk into the big church. Let's experience a church service together. Let's high five and go to lunch, and, let's pretend like we all got everything together and we're all fine and not share anything. And that's what it's turning into. Right?

Unknown Speaker (27:34): Which is a which is a shame. You know? It's a shame.

Steph (27:37): It is a shame.

Adam Cook (27:37): I wish that we could see into deeper into the early church in Acts, because the early church in Acts became a megachurch overnight. Right? You know, 3,000 people get saved right there. You know? I mean, it it became this huge thing right off the bat.

Adam Cook (27:57): And yet it talks right at the same time. It talks about them sharing everything, having everything in common. Right? Selling stuff that they didn't have because somebody had a need that need to be met. Right?

Adam Cook (28:09): Like, it talks about this this intense level of biblical community. And I wish we could see between behind the scenes a little bit in that and see how messy it was and how hard it was to actually fight to be that way. Right? Because it was not gonna be easy. It's gonna be a hard thing.

Adam Cook (28:27): People were coming from all different kinds of cultures. You had you had Jewish people and people who were outside of the Jewish family. So you had gentile folks, people with different customs and all these things, and now they're learning to be a family together. So there was gonna be tensions and arguments. There's all kinds of arguments happening in the book of acts.

Adam Cook (28:44): There's gonna be all this stuff going on and all these struggles, and everybody's got their own different struggles. And so it would have been this very messy thing. Right? When we look at when we look at acts chapter two and we see that verse, we think, oh, it's so beautiful. Right?

Adam Cook (28:57): They're sitting around loving each other in this commune. It would have been so messy and so hard. But that's biblical community, though. That's not counterfeit community. So I don't think it would look like us walking in some building on a Sunday morning, right, hiding behind our suit, pretending like everything's okay.

Adam Cook (29:16): Nobody really knowing us, but we got all these church friends, and then just rinse and repeat and do that every single week. Right? The real biblical community requires it is built on honesty. We have to be honest with our junk. And when we get hurt trying to do that, well, I'm not trying to minimize the hurt, but we have to get we have to get over it at some point and try to continue to pursue biblical community.

Adam Cook (29:39): Right? Because you just saying, oh, well, that's not work gonna for me. Let me isolate. I ain't gonna fix nothing either. You know?

Adam Cook (29:46): This is a hard one for me per the thing is why I like this one. It's hard, hard, hard personally, and it's also hard as a path. Like, this is hard.

Steph (29:55): I can only imagine how you feel.

Adam Cook (29:56): It's hard. And it's hard to lead people towards this. Right? Because we bite each other all the time. Everybody's got their own issues.

Adam Cook (30:03): We're all sinful still. You know what I mean? So Yeah.

Steph (30:05): And it's, like, hard hard to trust people and open up. You're like, are they gonna use this against me, or are they gonna make this their struggle online? Or you know what I you know, you just never wanna share sometimes.

Adam Cook (30:15): Oh, and our family's been through the wringer with us. Like, you know, we've we've made friends and who we were in biblical community with, and then they have poo pooed on us. Right? And then we sit around going, I don't wanna do that again. Right?

Adam Cook (30:28): I don't wanna do that again. I don't want uh-uh.

Unknown Speaker (30:31): Can't deal with this again.

Adam Cook (30:32): Can't deal with this again. And we end up selling for something that we're not supposed to settle for. Right? I know what I'm saying is hard to do. I'll just say that again.

Adam Cook (30:41): And that it is very scary because it requires you to be vulnerable repeatedly, and it's very messy, and it requires you to get involved in other people's burdens and mess. I know that that's the case, but it's worth it. It's worth it. And any other route that we take is gonna pull us away from Jesus, not towards him. So we have to push through it, and pursue it because there's there's there is nothing in the world like the family of god when it functions like the family of god.

Adam Cook (31:22): There's nothing like it and, you know, we need practice too. Right? Because we're gonna spend eternity with each other. So we probably ought to actually spend some time with each other down here, right, to practice and get ready for that, you know. Anyway, this is a hard one, man.

Unknown Speaker (31:36): It is hard.

Adam Cook (31:37): It's a hard one. But it is true. And and the the the church is what holds the key to what real communion family looks like. And so we've got to live that. We've got to model that.

Adam Cook (31:50): If the church actually fought hard all the time for real biblical community, I think that that would be one of the primary things that evangelize to the world outside. Right? The world outside would go, I need to figure out who these Christian people are doing because they really love each other. Right? They really care for each other.

Adam Cook (32:12): Like, they don't have to hide who they are, what they're struggling with with each other, and I really want that. I think it'd be the primary evangelistic tool. Right? The primary one. I don't know.

Adam Cook (32:23): Anyway, I really like this episode, but it's hard. But it's hard. It's difficult. Ken, don't don't settle for this counterfeit Christianity. And don't, you know and I'd I also think that if you settle for it at church, you'll end up settling for it at home and in individual relationships too.

Adam Cook (32:40): Right? And it's just not gonna work. You you you you can't you cannot carry these burdens on your own, which is why the scripture is saying other people have to hear them. But they can't carry them if they don't know them. Right?

Adam Cook (32:51): And you can't carry them if other people don't know them. Well, you gotta be honest. Honesty is the best policy.

Unknown Speaker (33:01): Alright. I guess that's

Unknown Speaker (33:05): I had to say something I had to say something to change the tone, Steph. Sorry.

Steph (33:08): No. Don't be sorry.

Unknown Speaker (33:10): Also, it's so hot in here, and my head is sweating on these stupid headphones.

Unknown Speaker (33:17): And no no surprise here. I'm hungry. So I just wanna throw my little thing in there.

Unknown Speaker (33:23): That means it's a wrap. Right?

Unknown Speaker (33:25): It's a wrap.

Unknown Speaker (33:26): We'll see you later.

Unknown Speaker (33:26): See y'all next time. Bye. Bye.

Adam Cook (33:29): Thank you for joining us on the Messy Walk podcast with pastor Adam Cook. Make sure to follow us for future episodes that will be posted regularly each Wednesday. Have a good day.