UPSIDE DOWN KINGDOM Week 11: THE ART OF THE CHRISTIAN APOLOGY

Do you remember the 1970 movie called “Love Story?” Romantic, gushing...garbage. :) At the end there is the dying gal - played by Ali MacGraw - who says that now renown statement to her husband - played by Ryan O’Neal, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Gag!

Two years later, Ryan O’Neal was in another movie with Barbra Streisand, “What's Up, Doc?: And in this film, Streisand's character repeated the very same line to O’Neal. This time, however, O'Neal had an answer. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," he said.

I agree! Why? Because when you truly love someone, you end up saying “I’m sorry” a lot! Too often!

Conflict is part of relationships, unfortunately. It’s part of our sinful nature. We are self-centered. We get stressed and grumpy. We project emotions onto other people. AND…. I’ll let you in on a little secret: EVEN CHRISTIANS STRUGGLE WITH THESE THINGS!!! 

By the way, if you’re looking for a church that has absolutely no problems in it, you’ll have to find one that has no people in it. As long as churches have people, there will be conflict. The tragic part isn’t that there would be conflict - but that even as God’s own people, we don’t know how to handle conflict.

So here’s the thing: when believers lack the ability to say we are sorry, even minor offenses can accumulate enough weight to sink a relationship. And when you’re talking about people for whom Jesus prayed would be unified, that’s the tragedy.

Last week, we saw how our words can damage relationships. And we ended with a couple of verses in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was telling us the importance of being reconciled quickly with our brother who has something against us. Notice he brings up a scenario NOT where we have something against our brother - but were we have DONE something TO our brother - and he has something against US. Here is where Jesus is telling us to run to the fire, to take responsibility and to go seek reconciliation with the one you have wronged.

It seems like it should be an easy thing, to go and say “I’m sorry.” But what I’ve found is that in our culture we have somehow lost the art of the apology. THIS is what I want to study this morning simply because as your pastor, I want us to have the ability to acknowledge when we have done wrong and to be mature enough in our spiritual lives that we would be willing AND ABLE to do what is necessary on our part to re-establish love and brotherhood amongst God’s church. We must learn the art of the Christian Apology.