A Word Concerning Forgiveness

So, I've been reading these two incidents at the forefront, it seems, of American Evangelism: Josh Duggar, and the other issue with the Root family at Village Church, where Matt Chandler is pastor. I've read different articles from different angles, meditated and pondered much on these issues. But, my mind keeps going back to one thing: the Gospel. No matter where I go in my thoughts, and how I try to consider what has been done and what consequences should be laid out, I cannot escape the fact that many who have spoken on these issues are not speaking from a Gospel-centered, Christ-centered view.

What really got my wheels turning in this direction was a blog post from my brother, Kevin Jandt, over at Uncommon Faith. You can read his take on the Duggar situation here. Then I read one this morning on the Village Church situation from Jordan Hall over at Pulpit and Pen. You can read this one here.

After reading both of these articles, I finally came to my own conclusion.

Here's a few questions:

Is your forgiveness as radical as the death of Christ on the cross, or do you only dispense it to the "deserving", or those who aren't as "morally bad" as these two men?
Or is your response to write these two men off as if somehow they are undeserving of that finished work of Christ on that cross?
Are you one of those who mutter under your breath, "Well, I would NEVER do THAT!"?

How can any of us, who are experiencing the grace of God and the benefits of the cross, be so arrogant or condescending as to act in such a way as above, or respond in such a way as above?

Believe me, I understand fully the anger and disgust that I have seen concerning the actions of these two men, and I do not condone their actions. However, what I also see is responses fueled by emotions, and not guided by Scripture. While we mourn for the victims, has anyone mourned for the souls of these two men?

You're disgusted? I hope you are just as disgusted at your own sin, if not more.
You're upset? I hope you are just as upset at your own sin, if not more.
You're decrying their actions? I hope you are decrying yours even more.

You see, it's so easy for us to stand flat-footed against others' sin, all the while secretly minimizing our own. Let me ask you this: What makes your sin, BIBLICALLY, any less of a stench to God's nostrils than anyone else's? When we consider ourselves, and the depths of our own sin, it develops a proper response to the offenses of others. Emotions, anger, disgust, and whatever other feelings you may be having NEVER trump your obedience to Scripture, IF you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, nor do they carry greater or even equal weight. Now, does a biblical, Gospel-centered, Christ-centered response negate how you may be feeling? No, but it grounds your feelings. It gives your feelings a proper foundation to work from.



Remember this in your dealings with others' offenses: You were (or are) just as guilty as these two men, and yet, the Son of God - an innocent man with no spot, blemish, or wrinkle - died in your stead because there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that you could do to remedy or change your standing before God. Because of this, we should all be standing in a posture of readiness to forgive all men of all offenses provided that they show true repentance, and when and if they do, we are commanded to forgive them...regardless of how egregious the offense may be. If you do not want to forgive upon clear signs of repentance, then the problem really lies with you and not with the offender.

The Scriptures are clear:


³ Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, ⁴ and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” - Luke 17:3-4, ESV


²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. ²⁵ And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. ³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” - Matthew 18:21-35, ESV

In your dealings with these two men, whatever manner that may be, keep watch over yourself to make sure that you are not the unforgiving servant in the parable above.

What You Do With Jesus Isn't As Important As What He will Do With You

Matthew 7:21-23

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

The question is often asked these days; “What will you do with Jesus?”

I am aware that this is an earnest question asked in a desire to compel the lost to come to a conclusion about who Christ was and what He claimed about Himself. It puts me in mind of Lewis’ trichotomy, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic or He was Lord; but He could not be all of them. I freely confess that the claims that Christ made about Himself demand that we must come to a conclusion about who He is. Yet I am not convinced that the best question to ask is “What will you do with Jesus?”

In all honesty I am not terribly concerned with what people will do with Jesus. I know this sounds a bit lax; and maybe it is; and I may need to repent of this later (Sorry that was my nod to Mark Driscoll), but I am just not terribly concerned with what the lost world does with Him. In fact, judging from what most of the professing Church does with Christ; my greater concerns are with them. Sadly we live in a day and age where all too many people who claim Christianity as their religion have done terrible things with Jesus. They have made Him their buddy; their homeboy; their BFF; their boyfriend; their husband; their personal genie; their excuser; and even in some cases their lover. 

Consider this scene from the book The Shack (I am paraphrasing the account for the sake of time.) The “protagonist” is walking along the shore of a lake with the author’s version of Christ and he begins to curse. He realizes after a moment that he is cursing in front of Jesus and looks at Him almost sheepishly. To His surprise Jesus is chuckling at his indiscretion and waves it off as no big deal because men’s curse words are of no consequence to God. I am pretty certain that there is no scenario that any godly person could ever imagine where they would even utter so much as “shoot” in the presence of Christ if for some reason He happened to be walking along side of them.

Consider Ann Voskamp’s overly sexualized familiarity with Christ in her book One Thousand Gifts; where she speaks in lascivious terms about Jesus; or the godhead in general. (I will not give the explicit examples here because having read them it makes me terribly uncomfortable to even mention them.) Consider the movement within evangelical Christianity that has single women buying wedding rings and wearing them and telling anyone willing to listen that Jesus is their husband. This may sound proper; but it isn’t. Furthermore it has its roots in Roman Catholicism where we see nuns wearing wedding rings because they are married to Jesus. Jesus is not the husband of individual believers. Jesus is the Groom of the Church. Individuals make up the Church and in unity with the Body of Christ we are united to Christ in that marriage. For anyone to claim that they are married to Christ individually is blasphemous, and bordering on grotesque when one considers the implications of what it means for a couple to be married. The communion between Christ and His Bride is no doubt intimate, more intimate than any physical relationship between a man and woman. Make no mistake; the woman or man even, who claims that they are individually married to Christ is failing to understand this well.

I do not argue against the theological reality that Jesus is the friend of sinners; but when we take him from the context of “He who lays down his life for his friends” and put Him into the context of being our BFF over-and-against being a mighty Savior and Lord; we cheapen what it is that He accomplished in laying His life down. Bear with me here; understand what it is I am saying; we have become all together all too familiar with Christ. This is not to say that we know Him too well. No believer will ever know too much of Christ. It is to say that we have come to treat Him as if He is one of us. We appear to read statements such as “he was like us in every way…” and stop there. We behave in such a way so as to appear as if He isn’t our Lord and that He does not have the right to command us or demand our obedience and submission. Can you imagine your best earthly friend looking at you and telling you to bow your knee to them? 

I will freely confess that as good of friends as I have in this world; not one of them is a better friend to me than my wife. She is the one who lives alongside me every day. She is the one who watches my struggles and my sins as they work up to the surface of my very being. She is as close to being a BFF as I will ever have. She calls me on my sins and encourages me when I am down and tells me when I am doing well. She however is not Christ, and if I walked into my house some night after being on duty all day and heard her say “Submit. Bow your knee.” I would laugh at her. Then I would probably gauge the level of seriousness she said it with and prepare the proper rebuke if need be. Yet if the Friend of Sinners came to me right now He would not need to tell me to bow my knee, I would fall on my face and worship; because He is worthy and my knees should bow. No BFF in the world is worthy of such a reaction. No person in this world is worthy of such a reaction or response. Only the Lamb of God deserves this response from those He has made His friends.

So no, I am not terribly concerned with what the world or what the broader Church will do with Jesus. Because I have already observed with my own eyes the shambles they have made of Him. Not that they have actually done anything with Him. No, instead they have built up a false Christ. They have taken Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, and so twisted and bent him that he no longer resembles what Scripture teaches of him. They have molded Him into their image instead of being shaped into His. 

So the Jesus believed in today by so many is not the real Christ and what is done with him is done with no fear of retribution. Yet the true Christ, the Christ of Scripture, is not the powerless creation of those polluted juvenile minds with pornographic visions filling pulpits in your local mega-church. He is not the limp-wristed milquetoast effeminate man that the pantywaisted liberal churches have made Him out to be. He is not this gentle “unoffendable” God who makes no demands and accepts you just as you are; and then leaves you comfortable in your culturally acceptable sins. Christ is not some purpose driven marketing exec bent on helping you fulfill your dreams. Christ is not some social justice communitarian community organizer come to change the world with his message of equality for all, contrary to wretched films such as Son of God. Not at all; not in the least. 

The true Christ of Scripture is a noble man. He is the God-man with all the power of heaven and the authority of the King of creation. He speaks and things happen. He says be still and the raging waves of the sea stop. He cries out to the oceans and they devour the evil and the land they live on. He commands legions of angels; and unlike his first advent when He willingly chose to not call on the angels to rescue Him; when He returns again this time He will come with a sword and with fire and legions of warrior angels to slaughter His enemies. He is coming to execute the vengeance of God and to bring such horrific retribution against His unrepentant enemies that when He is done the battlefield will be filled with the bodies of His enemies and the blood will flow freely (Revelation 19). This is the Jesus we are talking about.

 

This is the same Jesus who came and lived peacefully with the publicans and sinners and drove the religious and culturally elite from out of the temple with a whip made of leather and rocks and bits of broken pottery. Not once, but twice. This is the same Jesus who was silent before His accusers and yet cried out for their very forgiveness upon the cross that they had hung Him on.

So forgive me if I don’t seem terribly interested in what you, I or anyone else is going to do with Jesus. Here is another aspect of this thought; Jesus never asks His followers or the crowds this question either. The closest He comes is when He asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” The answers vary from a prophet to the resurrected John. So even back then, with Christ walking and talking with them, most people still missed it and got it twisted. Yet when Jesus asks the disciples “Ah, but who do you say that I am?” Peter replies with the only viable answer “Truly you are the Christ.” 

What more can any of us say? He is truly the Christ, The Anointed One, and the Son of the Living God! It just doesn’t matter what any of us do with Him. Make no mistake everyone will give an account for what they say about Him and what they believe about Him. But we ultimately cannot do anything with Christ. He is not ours to command or to give direction to. The better question; the question that we should be asking of others and of ourselves is this “What is Jesus going to do with you?”

For those who have bowed their knees in repentance and faith Jesus will be their Savior and their friend and He will be their rewarder. To those who have spent their lives in rebellion and war against Him; Jesus will be their judge and executioner. He will do with them as He wills. This means these rebels will suffer eternal hellfire suffering under the unmitigated unabated wrath of the Father.

This is the reality of what we have to deal with. This is the question that we should be asking everyone that we share the Gospel with. What will Jesus do with you? Any answer that we are given in reply to this question will lead us to ask “Why do you believe that? What makes you think that?” See the point is that getting the answer to the question “What will Jesus do with you?” wrong is tragic. At the end of Matthew 7 we see what this looks like. 

Jesus describes a horrible and terrifying scene for us. He tells us that at the appointed time many, not a few, not a handful, but many, will come to Him and cry out to Him “Lord Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, heal the sick in your name? Didn’t we do all sorts of great things in your name?” They come to Him making stupendous claims about what they did with Him. Yet that is not what matters. What matters is that He doesn’t know them; He never did. He casts them away from His presence into eternal judgment crying out to them “Get away from me, I never knew you; you workers of lawlessness.”

These are startling and staggering words and they come about due to a misapprehension of the Gospel. They are a result of asking the wrong things and making the wrong inferences. We have to get this right. It is imperative that we ask the right question. Literally to hell with the man-centered appeal to humanity’s personal desires. Instead we should be calling on humanity, our co-workers, our neighbors, our siblings, our parents, and even our spouses to answer the right question rightly. “What is it that Jesus will do with you?” Because in the end, what they have done with Him, reflects what they believe about Him and is indicative of what He will do with them in turn…

Soli Deo Gloria!

-Todd

How Long Has That Been Like That?

I think we've all had that moment.
The one where you are driving by the same place you've always driven by and you suddenly realize you've been missing something, or someone real sneaky like added something to the landscaping.

This happened to me on Thursday evening. I was on my way home from my bi-weekly men's group and my wife's bi-weekly women's group and I drove by these wooden carvings that I've driven by for years. These carvings look like totems to the gods of golf and they come complete with a carved golf ball. I mean seriously, whoever did this work or commissioned the work has to have been a huge fan of golf and possessed of a goodly amount of money. In fact they have to truly worship the sport; because I just can't see putting these things in your yard if you aren't obsessed with the it. These things are only endearing in that, the town I reside in is a small town, and one expects eclectic things like this in a small town in Southeast Minnesota.

You try putting these things in your yard in a more urbane city and your neighbors will have the planning and zoning commission raining municipal hellfire down on you in no time. One can only imagine that more cultured and sophisticated city dwellers would drive through our little town and comment at how quaint and precious these things are. Of course they would also comment on how unsightly they are and about how they would never put them in

their yards. Yet it is still so cute and oh so small town country folk like.

But anyway I got sidetracked there. I've always noticed these carvings. One just can't drive by them without seeing them. And there is something oddly comforting about driving by them when it is -25 degrees with 5' of snow on the ground and they still stand there playing their perpetual 18 holes without ever getting anywhere. But what hit me today wasn't their presence in their accustomed place. Instead what I noticed and what caused me to take a second glance was the golf ball.

For the first time I noticed that despite the artist's best shot at carving a perfect golf ball, dimples and all, that thing was totally misshapen and not round by any sense of the imagination. In fact it looked more like a rectangle with the edges rounded off. The first thought that went through my mind was "Well that ball is never going to fly very far". Now despite the obvious fact that it's an over-sized wooden golf ball and the golfers are wooden and over-sized themselves, the aerodynamics were of little to no consequence. One would imagine that if one of the chaps standing there for perpetuity were to come to life and take a swing, that ball would probably take off quite well. I wouldn't want one of them taking a swing at me considering their size.

The second thought that went through my mind immediately following that odd set of observations was "Well how long has that been like that?" Mind you that was probably the most inane and idiotic thing I could have said at the moment, but it was honestly what went through my mind. Of course the answer to that question was "Since it was made you moron."

But here is where I am going with this. How often does this happen to us in our walk with Christ? It can be an issue of seeing a doctrine clearly taught in a favorite passage of Scripture that we have never noticed before, despite the numerous of times we have read it. It can be something as powerfully impacting as hearing the Gospel proclaimed from the lyrics of a song that you have listened to a thousand times, but for some reason you have missed it because you have become all too familiar with the song. The old saying is that familiarity breeds contempt, and I would add that often times it also breeds blindness. Sometimes we just don't have the desire to see what should be readily visible to us.

And no place it this more apparent than in our own lives. How many times have I willingly overlooked a sin that is besetting me and is growing in me? How often have I ignored the conviction brought on by the Holy Spirit? Proverbs 29:1 says this to us:

"He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck,
    will suddenly be broken beyond healing."

This stiffening of our necks to the rebuke of the Holy Spirit leads us to become blind to the sins that are having their ways with us. Eventually this sin becomes all too familiar to us and not only do we cease to struggle with it, but we also cease to see it for what it is.

I deal with this often, not only in my life, but in the lives of many of the people I deal with on a daily basis. They just don't see that the thing they are most in love with is wrong.

Often times they have been told that it is  merely a societal issue with what they are doing that makes it wrong. Some have even been sold a bill of goods that has promised them that they are genuinely good people who have been born again but are only victims of the wiles of the devil. I often deal with those who see what they are doing as only a societal issue but take a dim view of others who have, in their minds and by their perspectives, committed far more heinous crimes than they have ever dreamed of committing. To some degree they are right. One would have a hard time ever seeing a man or woman who is destroying their own body with meth or heroin as a plague on society, as long as they are only hurting themselves. At the same time anyone who victimizes a child, in any way, is truly the worst of the worst in society's eyes.These views, when considered through the lens of societal mores and values, makes perfect sense. Yet as Christians we are

not called to make our judgments based on what society dictates as the worse crime or the acceptable bad behavior.

It is this horribly flawed view that tells us that a man getting trashed on Saturday night but getting a sober cab home is a righteous man while the guy next to him who attempts to drive home drunk but gets picked up for drunk driving is a criminal. It is this view that allows us as a society to see two sixteen year old high school students engaged in sex in private as being in charge of their own bodies and exploring a good thing. Yet the nineteen year old man engaging in sex with his seventeen year old girlfriend is a criminal and faces the most severe judgments and life altering penalties that society and the justice system can throw at him. I am not attempting to give anyone a pass here. I am not looking to make light of any of these issues that so often end with justice being served in the eyes of culture and society. What I am trying to do is point us to the reality that all too often we, even the most orthodox amongst us, turn a blind eye to our own sins as we gaze so eagerly at the sins of others. Because each of the things I just listed above are indeed sins; and God views them as tragically severe.

Yet, every so often what we need is for someone who loves us to come up to us and ask the hard questions. How many times have I been in need of hearing "How long has that been like that?" as someone points out what should have been glaringly obvious to me. All too often though we spend as much time ignoring the

planks we see in others. So much so they end up building themselves nice little houses of sin and rebellion. We are terrified of hearing "Ignore my speck take out your own plank man!" So instead we allow ourselves to be hardened to our own sin and the sins of those around us that we love the most. I know this seems to run counter to the thought process that we perceive being out there today. But I am convinced that it isn't. I am convinced that we have become so myopic in the "ophthalmological" sense that we have become dangerous to one another. We are starkly near-sighted almost to the point of blindness. So we ignore our own sins and to avoid having them pointed out we ignore the sins of those we love.

So we all get really wrapped up in this strange ignoring of sin. We gather together and we love one another by way of service to one another. We read to one another from Scripture and we pray for one another. We sing songs together and we just get really used to and familiar with one another. We have these drive by relationships that allow us to get used to seeing everyone around us without really seeing them. We talk about "pressing in" (that's the new Christian phrase for forcing people to be transparent) on one another but we never really put any weight on the pressing. We talk about accountability partners, but we never really stop and hold anyone accountable. Mostly because we are afraid that they may do the same for us.

All of this builds and builds and piles up and pretty soon, as result of our blindness and the fear of being exposed by others, we become these walking talking misshapen people. It takes something drastic to happen before any one will say about us, or we will say to ourselves, "How long has that been like that?"

The elder who sees his marriage and his ministry destroyed as a result of infidelity didn't just slip into it one day. The Christian woman who has her kids taken away from her for abusing them didn't just lose it one time. There were tell tale signs in both of these cases. The guy who was so faithful about coming to worship and other functions but slowly starts to fade out of the picture only to get arrested for possession of narcotics and ends up locked up for a long time or in court ordered treatment didn't just get wrapped up in that type of mess one day.

Two things happened in these cases and in a million more like them. The person guilty of these things hardens themselves to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the people closest to them did not love them enough to point out the planks. So everyone fails in this. Oh sure it is a catastrophic failure for the guilty one, but is just as much a failure of the local church as well. There are always signs. There are always indicators and we have to be willing to watch one another in love. We have to be willing to not wait until the last minute when the problem has erupted like Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii is buried. We can't wait until nothing is left but a destroyed brother or sister, a wrecked home and a reeling church family. That is when it has become too late. That is when we are left scratching our heads and asking ourselves and everyone around us, "How long has that been like that?"

If we love one another in light of the finished work of Christ. If we are living outwardly what the Gospel has done to us inwardly, we will pay careful attention to ourselves and to those around us. We have to be so very careful to not be like Cain when God asked him where his brother was, and Cain replied "Am I my brother's keeper?" Because, if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we will be their keepers, and they will be ours. But if we think we aren't, we are sadly wrong. Because when those we claim to love the most and share the most with through the bonds of the Holy Spirit, fall, the wreckage of their fall will cry out against us when God asks us where we were before it all fell apart. And scratching our heads in disbelief and bewilderment over the mess and saying to God 'How long has that been like that?" just isn't going to cut it.

God has loved us enough to send His Son to die in our stead despite our utter worthlessness and undeserving state. He has loved us enough to send the Comforter to encourage and convict us. And He has loved us enough to put other believers in our lives. So we would do well to not ignore the problems we see creeping in to each others'  lives as if we are waiting for them to become tragedies...

Soli Deo Gloria,
Todd

I Am A Wreck

I am a wreck...
No, seriously I am a mess...
I am a walking talking mess of a man...
There isn't a day that goes by when I am not fully and painfully aware of this reality. In fact, more often than not, I am reminded of this truth by the people I am closest to; those who live with me on a daily basis and interact with me because they really don't have a choice. You know the type of people I am talking about; wife, kids, family, friends, fellow members of my local body. Those type of people. The kind of people that each of us has in our own little world and sphere of influence, the same kind of people that each of us is surrounded by on a daily basis. I know this probably shocks all of you to read this confession by me, but I felt it best to get it out there in the open sooner rather than later.

See, I say things and do things all of the time that I do not mean to be offensive. Things that I do not even realize at times that are hurting people I love dearly. And it isn't my mouth or my hands or my feet that get me in trouble. It is my heart.

But here is something even more revealing, I am an even bigger wreck than that. I am the kind of wreck that doesn't just do property damage; you know the kind. The kind that puts a hole in your roof. Nope, more than that, far worse really.
I am a train wreck...
I am a massive train wreck of a man...
I am a full on, stop the presses, call out the local media and take pictures of the bodies left behind kind of train wreck...

In fact I am an even bigger wreck than a train wreck...
I am catastrophe of epic proportions...
I am the collapse of a mega-building...
I mean if I am being brutally honest about myself, which I think we should all be, I am far worse than I could ever imagine on my own. Nothing drives this home to me like living in a world surrounded by the self-professed righteous and upstanding people of the world. I am seemingly surrounded by people inside the church and outside of her that have it all figured it out, and they are not afraid to make sure that I and everyone around them are aware of this. It is like living in a shadow all of the time. It might be cool on a hot day, but once you have been there in the shadow long enough you begin to crave the light and the heat of being exposed to something real and transparent.  In fact like anything in God's creation, you need the light to grow.

I just don't have it all figured it out. I don't have it in me to try and convince anyone that I do. I am a wreck. I am embrace that. And it is not done gleefully either. It is done in sorrow and brokenness. I am grieved in my heart at the damage I have done to those I care the most about. It is devastating to me to realize that I have caused irreparable harm to so many relationships that are so important to me. Not the least of which is the damage I have done to my family.

I have been doing this Christian walk thing for a bit over ten years. That is barely spit in the wind compared to most of the people I know. In fact many of the people I know who are brethren are far younger than me and having been walking with Christ for a lot longer. What I wonder is how can so many seem to have it all together? How do they get to that point? Because I struggle all of the time. Sometimes I don't even struggle, sometimes I see sin sitting at my door and I pick it up and carry it across the threshold and welcome it in. I've got nothing figured out but this one thing, I am the chief of sinners. And I will wrestle with Paul to admit this truth:

¹² I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, ¹³ though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. ¹⁶ But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. ¹⁷ To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.Amen.

1 Timothy 1:12-17

This is what I am pushing at here. I just can't be perfect, I can't be everything that others seem to be. I am not capable of walking around with the facade of perfection or perfect composure that so many others seem to muster. Maybe this is my weakness and sin. No wait, not maybe, it is in reality my weakness and my sin.It is where I am. And as much as I strive every day to not be that person, I continue to fail and I need to know I am safe living that out transparently. It is this reality that drives me daily to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is this knowledge of who I am without Christ and even who I tend be with Him, that keeps me from being an even bigger arrogant and condescending jerk than I would be on my own.

This is the reality of who I am. This is the reality I live with every day. And maybe this confession will forever taint me in the eyes of so many within the Church Universal. But it is out there, and it is real, and while I regret the fact that I am all-too-often a willing accomplice in my weakness and sin. It is needful for me to be transparent in this way for the very reason that Paul gives in verse 16 above, "But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life." So I may never serve as a leader or as an example to anyone in a local body anywhere that I live, but God will work through me for His purpose of displaying to the lost people of the world what His perfect patience and forbearance look like.

So yes, I am a wreck of a man. And oh how I hate it, but because of it I never forget my God and what it is He did for such a wretch as I. A blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent opponent. I will never forget the pit He pulled me out of according to His loving and sovereign will because I simply could never merit such love and grace...

And to those of you that I so often hurt and damage. I am so sorry, I am so very very sorry... 

Soli Deo Gloria!
Todd