“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. ”

Ravi Zacharias

That quote, spoken by a friend, without credit to Zacharias, has been familiar to me for years.

It came to mind the other day because I wanted to share it with someone… but I couldn’t remember it.

So I Googled it.

Surprise.

The words don’t belong to my friend.

They belong to Ravi.

Turns out that those words belonging to Ravi is the most important part of the quote.

Go figure.

For those of you who don’t know, Ravi Zacharias is a person who became famous as a Christian, for being a Christian, among Christians.

He did all the things that famous Christians of our present Church age do.

He was a wildly charismatic evangelist.

He founded an organization.

He wrote books.

He said (almost) memorable things that others would sometimes share.

He grew a corporate-franchise-in-the-name-of-Jesus.

I don’t think he wore sneakers or had a podcast. If he were a bit younger he probably would have.

None of which is what he will be remembered for.

What he will be remembered for is that as his life wound to a close, and following his death, it became apparent that he had existed as a sexual predator for years upon years.

Evidence emerged that more than 50 women had credible claims of misconduct, sexual predation, spiritual abuse, and rape.

Over 50.

Rape.

The organization collapsed.

Lives collapsed.

Everything stopped.

Do-not-pass-go.

Do-not-receive-200-dollars.

This is the man who stood under the brightest lights, on the largest platforms, linked his name to the name of Jesus, looked his audience in the eye and said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. ”

My point is simple.

If anyone knew… it was him.

Normally, a betrayal or event like this removes a teacher’s credibility. The quality of their witness.

I think here we have the opposite.

If anyone knows the cost, method, and pattern of sin, it’s Ravi.

We should listen.

So why don’t we?

I think we are, on the whole, terrified of grace.

The need for it.

The reality of our brokenness.

We, consistently, as-a-whole-church, want our leaders and examples to look like anything other than someone who desperately needs God.

If I could change one thing about the church it would be that.

So what happens is that our friends that administer or teach in the church have to look really really really good… or they cant have jobs.

Because we fire them.

So they do.

They learn how to look really good.

Because they aren’t given room to be weak, by you or me.

They aren’t given room to demonstrate how to need God, by you or me.

So they break.

Luke 18:9-14

Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else:  “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer^: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector!  I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

We have a problem.

We don’t listen to tax collectors.

We only listen to Pharisees.

And when a teacher is revealed to have been a bit more tax collector than Pharisee… we forget what they had to say about being a tax collector.

That doesn’t work.

Not if we’re trying to learn how to deal with sin.

I see some obvious push back, so let me address that.

I am not saying we want men or women lost in sin to in anyway be our teachers. I am not validating sin. I am not offering a new version of an old heresy and saying ‘sin is good if it helps us avoid more sin.’

None of that.

I am saying that our systems of ministry and leadership are in many cases so far from allowing ‘a healthy Christian life’ that instead of Christian leaders demonstrating their Christianity in the profound wrestling with inadequacy and motivational sin that affects all men and women… everyone gets stuck playing church.

Burdened with an entirely unchristian ideology that tells them to look perfect, at all times.

Everybody.

The sheep. The wolves. Smiles all around.

…tell me, how are we supposed to tell wolves from the sheep if everyone has the same smile?

…is it possible that a biblically motivated willingness to be open, to share weakness, and to not hide from the fact that we wrestle with sin… could keep everyone safer?

…is it reasonable, the thought that if our leaders - our examples - were able to show us how to be Christian in addressing weakness… that maybe the wolves would have a harder time faking that?

Look, it just doesn’t work as it is.

We don’t allow weakness in our leaders.

So we keep having leaders collapse under hidden weakness.

Then, instead of trying to learn from the profound failures in our midst… deriving value from the profound cost they create… we pretend they didn’t happen.

So it happens again.

I mean, by all means, when the next ‘Hey-Everyone-Look-At-Me’ Christian leader is revealed to be a bit more than a narcissist and lost in darkest sin… for sure, probably lose all their teaching on how great they are.

But on the reality of sin?

That probably deserves a listen.

But that’s not what we do.

Instead, to the words they gave us, the ones the are uniquely positioned to give us… about sin… we wipe their names from them.

Let me ask you a question…

What would happen if you ran your own life that way?

Right?

If you aren’t able to admit you have a sin issue you can’t deal with your sin issue.

If you can’t learn from your sin issue you can’t avoid repeating it.

So you repeat it.

So it gets worse.

It is, without any deviance at all, the exact pattern we see with addiction.

Exactly.

That’s super interesting.

I wonder, what will it take for us to hit bottom?

All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.

For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.

Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.

I loved it.

I was in love with Jesus and with my church and embarrassment and shame weren’t part of my make up.

I was an early stage Kool-Aid-Christian and I wore my t-shirt everywhere.

I wore it to Chipotle.

I wore it to the Bank.

And I wore it to California for the Celebrate Recovery conference.

On the very first day of the conference I was wearing my shirt, like the new kid in school I went off, brave faced, to see what the world had to offer.

So did everyone else.

Maybe it was an outreach.com promotion.

Maybe everyone stole the same idea at the same time.

Everyone loved their church that day.

The mall at Saddleback was covered with thousands of people coming into the conference, large percentages of them all wearing a shirt, gray, with type arranged ‘just so’ that said, ‘I ❤️ My Church.’

There were differences.

Some used Impact as a font while others used Helvetica… but that was pretty much it.

I think everyone else was thrilled.

I was maybe a bit alone in my response.

I felt stupid.

Isolated in the earnestness with which I wore my shirt.

Like my naivete was written across my chest for the world to see.

I’ll be the first to admit that myself as the Celebrate Recovery conference attendee was a spot of contradiction.

Because despite the pain or brokenness that may have brought me to such a point where I became willing to pursue recovery… I also carried an odd innocence and earnestness about church and the things of God. A lot of folks in recovery do.

I just wasn’t ready for the reality of the business of the church.

I had eyes only for the miraculous… and I didnt have the tools I needed for accepting the reality of others’ best efforts or conclusions.

I was maybe a bit odd… but… it’s an odd bunch.

We’re talking about people who have gone into the far depths of sin and self deception… who are also the exact same people who have publicly admitted and owned it… and who now go to church conferences to talk out loud about personally recovering from engaging in traumatic sin… so that they can then better help others do the same and grab onto Jesus… and they also buy the t-shirts.

And wear them.

Those people.

Those beautiful, innocent, vulnerable people, all on a very real and very personal mission.

They were mine.

I was theirs.

Moments like this seem pretty important in the maturation of believers.

They were for me.

When I look back at my story and the seasons I have walked through, from the life of a born again and reforming criminal to the later earnest volunteer to the eventual serving pastor and then, more lately, to a space that simply bears the name ‘christian,’ each step of that process has involved disappointed expectations and learning to become better in how I hold my eye and my mind as I look at the life God has given me.

Realizations - again and again - that the problem is not with others, but with myself, yet again, and entrenched in my own world view… yet again, will happen… yet again.

As a result I was able to set down one childish expectation after another as I walked forward… and accept the reality of the Church as I found it rather than holding to my belief of what it was or should instead be.

It turns out, that last part is really important.

I mean, kinda hard to argue I’m living a life of trusting Jesus when I’m just so sure how everyone else should be doing everything. You know. In Jesus’ church.

World’s biggest hypocrite, that’s me.

The lesson is that there’s nothing wrong with the church selling t-shirts.

The lesson is that you can buy the shirt without drinking the Kool-Aid. …and being angry at the t-shirt vendor because you don’t like the Kool-Aid may not be the healthiest way to look at things.

Look… when I apply the expectations I have of God and God’s character to the earnest, imperfect, expressions of his bride that I find in the local church, it will always fall short.

It will for you too. That’s just not where that goes.

I concluded that I need to remember that it is not the job of the local church to make sure I have the right boundaries with church, nor is it the job of the church to live up to my expectations.

It is the job of the local church to be accountable for how they hold authority… but no matter what they say it’s my job to decide what I think.

The lesson… at the end… is that I need to accept the very human nature of the ‘church’ as compared to the beautiful, befuddling, web of relationships that is ‘The Church’…

…and not hold it against the latter.

…and keep showing up in the former.

As we become more mature, I think it behooves us to remember that the burden of our sight, mind, and soul is no one’s but our own to carry.

We have to grow up.

Buying that t-shirt?

That helps.

It puts money into circulation that the Church can use to take risks to accomplish mission. That’s awesome. Be a part of that. Please.

But the Kool-Aid?

You don’t need to drink the Kool-Aid.

It’s on the same table but you can just walk on by.

All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.

For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.

Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.

It has so much… drift.

I think it all comes down to what questions we ask.

Example… ask, “what is Church?” and maybe most people will tell you it’s a building, or an institution, or, possibly a time of day on a Sunday.

Add a ‘the’ to the question and probably a few people will start talking about something bigger, maybe some will ask, “which one?”

Ask, ‘where’ is the Church, and most will give you an address and a few will tell you ‘everywhere.’ Maybe one very special child will say, ‘here.’

But ask “who” is the Church and something altogether different happens.

“Who” asks for identification, for accountability.

And the answer is simple.

“We are.”

I am.

You are too.

I usually try to write in “I” statements.

It’s so much easier to speak plainly when I do that. After all, my read is mine, and, when I apply it only to me… getting it wrong maybe doesn’t matter so much.

“Oops,” I say, “sorry.”

But that’s not the case on this one.

Because what I want to talk about today is the shocking, remarkable, outrageous gift of identity, grace, and power God put into our hands. Collectively.

My hands, sure.

But yours too.

Because Church, and Kingdom, are spaces of shared identity. I can’t talk about this with me alone.

I mean… I am the Church, sure… but only if you are too. I can’t be this thing by myself. It is an us-ness, we-ness, an all-of-us-together-or-not-at-all kind of jam.

Either we do this, united as image-bearing-individuals… or we don’t do it.

It’s a group thing. It’s an individual thing.

…it’s very much a Jesus thing.

It’s not an accident.

Christ came and lived, died, and lived again in part to make us exactly this… this thing that’s so hard to define.

He called it the Kingdom.

That’s us.

He said that we are His.

He claimed us as friends, students, and partners in grace.

He claimed us as family, children, and heirs in this, His Kingdom.

And, just as God himself is the great “I am” it so came to pass, I think, that in this moment of ridiculous grace, the one in which we were adopted forever into this holy and royal family, that it became that, “we are.”

After all, as friends, children, and heirs, how could it not?

We are the Church.

We are the Kingdom.

It is ours, the stewardship of it at any rate.

…so why does it so often look like we left it to someone else to manage?

Probably because we did.

We, the Kingdom, have handed the stewardship of that which we were given to steward to professional managers that are no more - or less - stewards than we are, and we, and they, have forgotten that it was we that enabled them to start with.

It’s gotten a bit confused.

Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t hire or enable these stewards and administrators… but I do think we need to remember that it is our choice to do so.

It is our responsibility.

The result of doing so blindly is a nation of platform performers and passive attendees, confusion of identity, and power so misplaced it doesnt remember the hand it came from.

That’s not good for anyone.

It is, mostly, I think, a problem of convenience.

I mean, it’s a lot easier to hand someone else your responsibility than to take care of it yourself.

And convenience is an American drug if ever there was one.

But it has created a loop of blind surrogacy, enabled by men and women giving up the power Christ lived, died, and lived again to put in their hands.

That power.

Yours.

1 Peter 2:5

And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests.

It is not someone else’s responsibility.

When we forget this, when we allow the accountability to slip from our own hands while still enabling the behaviour of our chosen stewards with our resources, attention, and passive participation, we become responsible for the temptations they face and, often, succumb to.

Because, no matter what story we may prefer to tell, the reality is that our leadership of the Church allows those we prefer to think of as ‘leaders’ to pay the price of our own irresponsibility.

…there are a lot of stories about stewards in scripture.

In all of them the steward is responsible for the choices they make. They don’t get a pass. That’s the whole thing about stewards. You at least have to look at the accountability.

We are not kings.

We are heirs. Heirs being the someday-I’ll-get-there-caretakers. Heirs are stewards.

We are responsible.

The reality of responsibility is that there is no avoiding it. We are, all of us, stuck with this. The gift of being God’s image bearer, and the difficulty of choice. Abandoning my responsibility into the hands of others is still an act I choose…

It is still a stewardship.

Just a poor one.

…look, here’s the thing - this whole dynamic is an ‘either/or’ proposition. Either we are the Church, or, we are not.

There’s no middle ground.

There is no discussion, anywhere, or anyone being ‘more’ the Church than any other.

There is no discussion, anywhere, of anyone being ‘kind of’ the Church whereas some other people are ‘really’ the Church.

There is no discussion, anywhere, that being paid by people that think of themselves as the ‘Church’ makes you ‘more’ the ‘Church’ than someone not paid by such people.

There is no discussion, anywhere, that serving others that think of themselves as the ‘Church,’ while being, or not being, paid by those same people, makes anyone more, or less, the ‘Church.’

There is some discussion that to step into certain roles and postures such as ‘teacher,’ carries with it more liability… but nowhere does it give more identity.

Nowhere does it give more authority.

Our authority is simple.

Our authority is in our identity being wrapped up in Jesus’ identity.

That’s it.

It’s the same for all of us.

Our authority does not come from roles within the Church. That’s backwards.

Our authority does not come from the fact that we go to Church. That’s nonsensical.

Our authority comes from the fact that we are Church.

The roles, the numbers, the institutions and all the rest? Identity is first.

Look to Jesus. He died naked on a hill, abandoned by all who thought to value institution, title, or numbers.

That is, among many other truths, exactly what He refuted in the humiliation of the cross.

He didn’t ‘do’ something. He ‘is’ something.

And so are we.

We are the Church.

We, are the Kingdom, and we are responsible.

I get it.

It is much easier to not try, or, to let someone who seems to ‘know’ lead you in what they are doing.

And don’t get me wrong - we need leadership, we need friends to point the way - but that’s true of all of us.

Including the friends you may look to as a leader, or that you may choose to give your authority to. They were not designed to do it alone. That won’t ever work.

The Kingdom needs your participation.

It is better for it.

It needs your leadership. It needs your questions. It needs your voice in all the uncomfortable spaces.

You have to speak up to be heard.

It is very easy to show up at whatever local Church you find comfort in and say, “this is where God put me, this is where I will give and serve as asked” and then go to ‘auto-pilot.’ And that first part may be right… the giving, the participation, the service… but that ‘auto-pilot’?

I don’t think so.

I don’t see any indication - anywhere - that we should fly so blindly.

Within the old covenant? Sure. The temple was the only choice. The priests were the only mediators. Tithes, obedience, and service all had to happen there, and nowhere else.

That’s no longer the case.

You are the temple.

You are the kingdom.

You are the priest.

This is at the heart of the new covenant written in the blood of Christ.

When we elect members to walk out our priestly responsibilities as heirs of the Kingdom we make a huge decision. We are imparting to others an authority and power God died to put into our hands.

That might be worth a more than passive consideration, no?

Is it possible that who and why we select to give that power and authority to will be something we will be held accountable for?

Is that such an unreasonable thought? That our loving and active God would care about what we did with the authority He imparted to us?

That that might matter?

That there is no avoiding a decision as to where and how we want to invest our authority, resources, and attention?

I think it’s really interesting.

To look at, all of this. The dynamism of God’s design, the inevitable nature of how He made us… us. Because it just begs for another question, globally, to all of us. To me. To you.

It begs for your leadership.

Your investment.

Your creativity.

Like a whisper from a loving God, “…what is it that you want to do?”

…

Because this Kingdom… it is yours.

It is yours.

Yours.

Galatians 4:7

So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

We are the Kingdom.

We are the Church.

We are God’s heirs.

…and I am very curious. What will happen when we stop blaming others and take responsibility?

All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.

For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.

Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.

Did God save me or am I in process of being saved?

…which is, I think, a trick question.

I have to land on both.

One of these, without the other, becomes fragile and broken.

A life that ignores the reality that we are being and need saving right now tries to live without God in the present, ignores sin, lives in perfectionism, and tries to fight a - very sad and lonely - white knuckle conservative fight against screwing up too badly before death.

This person, often, winds up an angry judge.

A life that ignores the reality that we are saved, complete, in total, done, from the cross, does not carry a required confidence and rest in the power of God’s work and becomes fragile in its pervasive weakness, cycles of pain, drama, anxiety, and fear.

This person, often, winds up a frightened victim.

I know.

I’ve been both these people.

At once.
.
.
.

…I am ever the overachiever.

It’s tricky, and, frankly, it is hard to see.

Because it is offensive.

The eye wants to slip right off of it.

Feel free to disagree… but it is totally, remarkably, undeniably offensive that I am so utterly insufficient that not only do I need saving, in some big and dramatic and total way that requires God to die… but I need saving the next day too.

And the next.

And the next.

And probably also Thursday. Though I would wish maybe on Thursday I would not…

But then Friday too.

And so on.

It’s ridiculous.

Is it possible that this awareness, this galling realization of need, is, in part, what He means here?

Matthew 5:3 NKJV

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

…which are the opening words to the ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ the single largest section of recorded speech we have from Jesus… and arguably the most defined, most taught, and most referenced of all the things He had to say…

Seems like that might be important, no?

(Go read it!)

There’s a surprising amount there, in those few words.

We are told of this ‘Kingdom of Heaven.’

We are told here that there is a state of being - ‘poverty of spirit’ - that denotes ‘possession’ of this kingdom.

…so what’s poverty of spirit?

I think it’s pretty much what we’re talking about today. The reality of ‘saved then, saved, now, offensively somehow still needing help despite all that.’

Poverty of spirit gets talked about a number of ways, but it all comes back to our relationship with God.

I’ve heard a lot of ways of explaining that but I like the way my wife Maria put it best, “that means not being proud with God.’

Realizing that we need him, now, today.

I think that’s amazing and exactly right. Reasonably straightforward.

Being poor in spirit is our remembering of Him. It is, maybe, our relationship with Him. It’s being ‘right sized.’

It’s reality.

…but what’s the ‘Kingdom?’

That’s worth… a lot of writing.

In brief - and only in part - we’re talking about a Kingdom that works radically different form any kingdom that has ever been present on Earth.

Citizenship is voluntary.

Follow this… citizenship denotes adoption denotes inheritance and becoming an Heir. Heirdom denotes both privilege and responsibility.

Romans 8:17

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

And,

Galatians 4:7

Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

And,

1 Corinthians 6:2

 Don’t you realize that someday we believers will judge the world?

Anyone was welcome, and the gate will never shut.

John 12:32

And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.

Revelation 21:25
Its (the kingdom come) gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there.

…

…and ‘poverty of spirit’ is what denotes your possession of all of that. All of that being, essentially, all of everything. Ever. Because God.

Huh.

That makes poverty of spirit pretty important, doesn’t it?

So… if you’re anything like me, that all adds up to make the next question really, truly, especially, important… what happens when we lose our poverty of spirit?

If your entire relationship with God is based on your receiving His grace… and he’s not going to force you… it’s reasonably important that you know and remember you need it…. no?

Keep yourself from walking out the open gate on yonder Kingdom?

And that’s why we need the both/and of remembering that God both saved us in full and that we are also in process of being saved.

I lose my poverty of spirit all the time.

I forget I need saving, today.

I forget that God did all the work, before.

I misplace my passport on a daily.

And that’s okay.

It is, in the end, just one more way I am poor in spirit.

And it is the both/and awareness of the total saving grace of the Cross and the daily saving grace of becoming more like Jesus that enables me to find it again.

Because it’s okay that I forgot, because He did it all from the start. I am not fighting a loosing battle against sin. That battle was already won, in full, by Jesus.

Because it’s okay that I forgot, because dealing with needing help today is what I do. I am not a perfect snowflake of idealistic wonder. I have a battle to fight, against myself, and my pride, in the name of Jesus, every day.

Even the days I forget.

These truths work together.

They give me somewhere to stand, somewhere to fall, and somewhere to get back up again.

That place is the Kingdom.

That two foot stance is my posture.

That reality that God did a HUGE and saved me in full in wild grace and mercy... and is also saving me right now, today, as I hope to become more like him…

That is the truth.

Thank you Jesus.

All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.

For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.

Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.

I was in a hotel room crying my eyes out, screaming into a pillow, “why is this so hard?”

It was an ugly cry.

Snot. Choking. All of it.

“If you were going to make me fail,” I cried out, “why didn’t we just skip it? If this is going to be life with you I don’t want it!”

And on, and on, and on.

(And on)

I was talking to God.

(My awareness of boundary and responsibility probably wasn’t ideal)

Everything was… impossible. My best intentions kept getting turned around. Every word skewed or twisted. It was all brutally unfair.

Everything I tried fell apart.

I was failing.

(Again)

I think a lot of people - high, middle, and low - maybe have a talk (talks) with God like this across seasons of well intentioned service.

It can be really hard.

And there is precedent.

‭‭Numbers‬ ‭11:14-15‬

“I can’t carry all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy! If this is how you intend to treat me, just go ahead and kill me. Do me a favor and spare me this misery!””

That’s Moses.

1 Kings 19:4-5

Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

That’s Elijah.

Matthew 26:39

He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

That’s Jesus.

Now, to be fair…

Moses was leading a nation of millions in the desert, Elijah had just called fire from the sky, and Jesus was about to do the most perfect thing ever done…

…and I was mostly upset because a few people didn’t like me.

(Shrug)

So, admittedly, different.

But it was a hard day.

And I needed space to complain and I’m pretty sure God’s good with it.

A bit of context is probably valuable.

At this time (10 AM) on this day (Thursday) I was in Orange County California.

I was there for a Celebrate Recovery conference.1

I was there as a Pastor, and we had a team of about 30 from Venture Church.

I was there as a State Representative of the Celebrate Recovery national ministry, a role in which I oversaw the 10 odd Celebrate Recovery ministries and ministers of Snohomish and King Counties.

I was even there as the overseeing administrator for several states worth of such Celebrate Recovery State Representatives… my responsibilities stacked like little Russian dolls.

I had a lot of hats.

(I’d been collecting them)

(I needed to stop)

I wasn’t wearing any of them.

I wasn’t even at the conference.

I was in the hotel.

Alone.

Sobbing.

(Ugly cry)

So that.

I found leadership early in my walk.

I had a very hard time with it. Probably exactly equal to and opposite of how well I seemed to do with it.

I didn’t know, see, or understand just how badly my desire to ‘do right’ and ‘be good’ in the eyes of others had gotten mixed up with just… ‘doing right.’

(Not until the pain started)

The ‘gold stars’ I and others gave myself for successfully leading teams, initiatives, and solving problems - and let’s not forget being liked, that cheapest of all addictive drugs - had come into conflict with my willingness to to see, hear, and follow my heart.

Don’t get me wrong. I meant really well. That was part of the problem.

I was trying way too hard.

Doing well and doing what I was supposed to do had gotten all confused. Fear of the people I was supposed to lead had me upside down and I couldn’t hear a thing God had to say.

“How can I do this?!” I vomited, “It’s not fair! It’s impossible! Why is it so hard?!” I cried, and on, and on.

(And on)

A little whisper… God seems to say, “What if your definition of success isn’t mine?’

“…what?”

Silence.

That was a really good question.

So I paused a moment… and sobbed all the harder.

A short story:

God: What is ministry success… that people trust you or that people trust me?
Me: …you.
God: What is ministry success… that people trust me or that you trust me?
Me: Is that a trick question?
Silence.
Me: …people?
Silence.
God: You sure about that last bit?

What I am doing in my life is that I am trying to follow Jesus.

That’s it.

I have a lot more to say about that but at heart I see it as pretty simple,2 Jesus was perfectly motivated by the love of God and the love of others3 and that’s my job too.

Matthew 22:36-40

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

I’m just not very good at it.

There’s always a next thing.

Realizing in new ways how I’m not already doing it… all the time. Which is a good thing. Maybe the best thing.

Because realizing how to take that step forward is how I go a step further.

But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Maybe more so, if anything.

This was a moment in which I realized a next thing. That without meaning to I’d made things that were supposed to be about God, about me. That ‘loving others’ was maybe confusing for me because I wanted to make that ‘keeping others happy.’

That wasn’t the job.

God called me on it.

This was a moment of total failure.4

Something in me died.

(It needed to)

There are games we only win when we stop playing… and I’d been playing Church.

A version of that sad game in which well meaning pastors and leaders can lose the thread of the story when they start to cater to the opinions of the people they serve rather than the convictions of their hearts.

(That was me)

The fear of people in the service of God is a dangerous thing. It asks for compromise where we are called to boundary.

(I did that)

(I didn’t mean to)

We can’t do that.

(Not and be who we think we are)

We can succeed in the eyes of others when we do do that, and that makes it dangerous. Because sure, you can grow something, build something. That doesn’t mean it will be healthy.

(Cancers grow marvelously)

I think it’s an incredibly important distinction, the ‘why’ of serving people.

Don’t you?

Tell me, if we serve people to better ourselves, who are we really serving?

Isn’t that just serving ourselves?

If in serving God we concern ourselves more with the opinions of others than our own heart for God, what exactly do we have to offer those we serve?

How crushingly sad that would have been had God not brought that to my attention?

This was the moment that ministry as I understand it today got started.

Because if God is God then the people aren’t mine.

The numbers aren’t mine.

The outcomes aren’t mine.

That’s all His.

(Boom)

First principles5 are breathtaking when applied with rigor.

All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.

For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.

Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.