While choosing a couple to submit to a potential church I was listening to some of my old sermons. The angry lack of balance shocked me.
"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify (set apart) you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass." 1 Thessalonians 5:23 & 24
I believe that the carnal aspects of that lopsided preaching had much to do with the fact that my sanctification by the God of peace was incomplete or deficient and that I was trying to bring too much to pass myself. I was not operating in the "wisdom of tenderness" as Brennan Manning puts it. So what was different? Why did some of these sermons ring a bit odd or caustic in my ears now?
I believe I may be taking some steps into the realm of "graced peacefulness," and though just entering that land, I am morphing into a more complete Believer and therefore a more complete, balanced or sanctified pastor & teacher. Let me share some excerpts from Brennan Manning's "The Wisdom of Tenderness."
"Self-hatred for real or imagined failures begets crippling guilt and is spawned by the father of lies. It thwarts God's plan for our existence, our personal standing in the world. When we scorn ourselves and say, "I'm a born loser, a fraud, a hypocrite," then we scorn the divine plan-scorn all the dreams God would realize through us, all the joy he anticipates from us, and all the hope he has placed in us."
I had always puzzled about why I could have 50 people tell me a sermon or teaching really touched their lives, led them into deeper relationship with God, resonated with the Spirit of Christ in them or something similar and the critique I believed was the one nasty note in my box or the one angry 'church lady' telling me I was a fraud. I believe now that it was because the negative bomb was actually what I believed about myself.
"The understanding of God's Spirit as the tenderness between the Father and the Son suggests an uncomplicated spirituality tuned into the present moment in the total simplicity of the here and now... To dispatch yesterday's cares and disdain tomorrow's concerns is a strong evangelical imperative. Living in the wisdom of accepted tenderness means receiving each moment as an end in itself. This tenderness also encompasses an unspoken assurance that Jesus will provide grace for the next step on the spiritual journey."
To me, the assurance of grace for each step along the way and the imperative of living today, or each moment, in the full grace, love and acceptance of Abba, is the catalyst or the bedrock for the "graced peacefulness" I have spoken of here. I told my wife that I am confident that my next congregation would benefit from this in that they would experience a much more patient and tender pastor with a much less overwhelming, almost crushing, 'Kingdom' agenda. I no longer see living in graced peacefulness as an accommodation to the world, a compromise with Institutional Christianity or a domestication of my ministry. It is, rather, the cure.
Is there a place in your life where there is disease, crippling guilt, self-loathing or a 'need' to wear that mask your mind or those around you have convinced you that you must wear? Is there a place in your life where you sense even a slight odor of this tactic of The Accuser?
I want to implore you to let it go, give it to Jesus. Abba is tender and merciful. You don’t have to prove anything! The bar is not lowered or raised, there is no bar in the first place. RELAX! Rest in Jesus. Some of you are thinking or asking out loud right now, "How?" It’s a gift. Ask for it and pray for the grace to receive it.
 Leon Hebrink: After 2 1/2 years of mercenary ministry and healing, searching & wrestling in the wilderness Leon is returning to pastoral ministry as the pastor of Community Baptist Church of Port Dickinson, NY in June. Leon and his wife, Mary Ann, have two children at home and two out of the nest along with a smattering of foster children in their past and potentially in their future. |
