Dharius Daniels - I'm Tired of This Church

Well, listen, I want you to turn in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew or click in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28. I always encourage you to bring a Bible with you while I’m teaching, whether it’s a paper Bible like mine. I use a Bible like this because, sometimes, technology—at least for me—can be challenging. Occasionally, I feel like I have to perform exorcisms on my technological devices. Those demons can really get into my phones! Yes, indeed. I use Apple devices, and I sometimes think those demons really get into these Apple devices. I don’t want to come off as a Samsung hater—some people are haters, but I’m not. If God leads you in that direction, go ahead! Just don’t be texting me with those green messages; I prefer blue on my phone.

But listen, it’s important to keep a Bible with you so that, if I reference scripture, you can look it up and examine it as long as you need to, rather than just during the brief moments we put on the screens. Matthew 11, verse 28 says, «Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.»

I want to talk from this subject today: «I’m Tired of This Church.» If you were to push me into a corner and make me use one word, based on my pastoral perspective, to describe the dominant spiritual and emotional disposition of many of the people I encounter, that word would be «tired.» They are working religiously and relationally in contexts where they feel like everyone is making withdrawals and not deposits, operating in a culture that seems to treat self-depletion and self-deprivation as spiritual virtues. Emotional exploitation is being confused with being a nice person, so therefore, if I’m nice, I’m supposed to allow people to manipulate me, walk over me, use me, and never set a boundary, hold a standard, or practice limitation or elimination out of my life in the name of being Christian.

Being saved has become conflated and confused with self-destructive behavior. As a consequence of this, relationally, many people are tired. Professionally, many people are tired. Emotionally, many people are tired because, instead of having emotional partners, they have emotional parasites and call them friends. Tiredness is this intangible exhaustion. When I use the word «tired, ” I’m not talking about the fatigue that is simply a natural consequence of activity; I’m talking about a tiredness that truly has theological roots—a tiredness that God told Adam about in the Garden of Eden, which would be the consequence of living in a broken world. Remember, after Adam’s insubordination in the Garden of Eden, God told Adam what life would be like in the future: „By the sweat of your brow will you eat your food until you return to the ground.“

Here it is—God prophetically proclaimed to Adam in this passage that the consequence of his disobedience would be a life of toil. The things that should have come easily to you are now going to be hard. The things that would have been sweatless are things that you now have to sweat for. The things you used to be able to wait on are things you’ll now have to work for.

Don’t miss this! When He tells Adam, „By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food,“ He’s speaking literally. However, if we apply this text to ourselves, it applies metaphorically. It’s not just that I have to sweat for physical food; I also have to work to get my appetites met. Did you hear that? You have a physical appetite, but you also have an emotional appetite. When He’s talking about eating, the statement has larger implications for our appetites, and in order to satisfy our emotional and spiritual appetites, it’s going to take toil. This toil makes people tired because something inside of you that is eternal—your spirit—recognizes that it’s not supposed to be like this.

So this unexplainable frustration you’re feeling is consistent with what the writer of Ecclesiastes says when he declares that God has put eternity in your heart. The eternal part of you—your spirit—recognizes that you’re not supposed to be living like this. Therefore, there’s this tension you experience with what’s normal, because everybody’s going through it, versus what’s right, because it doesn’t feel right to you. Just because it’s normal for them doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And I want to know, am I talking to anybody today who is willing and ready to break out of normal, to say: Just because it’s normal for them doesn’t mean it’s right?