Welcome to Where Your Performance Can Cease
I want to welcome everyone today to a place where you no longer need to perform.
To a place where your tears, if you have them, no longer need to be held back. To a place where your stress and burdens, if they’ve been heavy upon your shoulders, no longer need to be carried alone. To a place where your depression - if it hangs over you, your doubts - if they wage war against you, your fears - if they hinder you, your regrets - if they eat away at you. If you are not impressive. If you are not accomplished. If you are not yet complete. I want to welcome you. I want to welcome you to a place where you can be that and do not need to perform as if you are not.
In short, I want to welcome you to the church. Admittance here is not granted according to a person’s merit. No amount of clean clothes, or conversational skills, or even theological understanding can be the cause of your belonging here. The church takes in not those who have supply, but those who have need. Like its head physician, the church exists not for the healthy, but the sick.
What this means is that when you come here you are welcome to share the great things the Lord is doing in your life, you are welcome to be grateful for God’s provision throughout your week, you are welcome and exhorted to fight sin, and grow in the faith, and increase in understanding and wisdom, seek for holiness…You are welcome to all of this, and you are, at the same time, welcome to confess that it’s hard to be a broken sinner living in a broken and sinful world. I assume many of you feel welcome to do that before the Lord today — and that’s a glorious thing! I want to welcome you to be that, be that before your brothers and sisters in the faith as well.
That might look like asking someone here, “Could you pray for me because I just cannot seem to maintain joy in this season?” It might look like saying, “Hey could you call me mid-week because life right now feels lonely, and I need people around me.” It might look like asking, “Hey, what’s hard in life for you, right now?” it’s hard to be a broken sinner living in a broken and sinful world, but the church is the place where broken sinners, to a degree, step out of that broken and sinful world and into the strength, comfort, security, and love of family — united by Jesus, the one who was broken by the sinful world he came to save.
And this reminds us of our need to confess for the times we have performed – not to make much of Jesus, not for the good of others, but to make much of us. As well as for the times we’ve not welcomed others to stop performing, not given them the time and attention to share the hard things and relieve the heavy burdens. We confess this and all the other ways we’ve sinned and fallen short this week. We bring it all now in this time of silent confession.