I’m as guilty as the next guy. We are all willing to lament the propensity of the church to shoot its wounded. We are given to complaining about the lack of transparency at the local church, that we smile at each other each Lord’s Day and hide everything ugly about us. We don’t, however, really begin to change until our own sin can be hidden no longer. Then our calls for openness from others grow more urgent.
The first time I was invited to speak publicly at Pine Hills Church, a Wednesday evening event, one member there politely, gently, even humbly went to the senior pastor to ask if he was aware of my DUI. Pastor Mike was able to honestly reply, “Why yes, I am aware. The first time I met RC he told me about that failure.” I’d like to say that I was so forthcoming because that’s the right thing to be. More likely I figured it’s better to get it out there sooner rather than later.
Our goal in seeking such transparency, however, isn’t to create the spiritual equivalent of “Mutual Assured Destruction” where you know about my skeletons and I know about yours and therefore we’re certain not to hurt each other, for fear of our own exposure. No, the whole purpose is that we might celebrate the power of the gospel, and come to a deeper understanding of the reality of our heavenly Father’s love for us. An openness about the ongoing battles we have with sin in our lives opens the door for an ongoing deeper appreciation for His grace in our lives. Perhaps more important still, it helps us grasp that He loves the real us, not the us we used to parade for others, not the image we once projected.
The value of openness then isn’t about its psychological virtues. It’s not, in the end, about what openness does for me. It is instead about what it means for the glory of God. It is instead about living in light of the amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. The bigger the reality of my sin is out, the greater the exposure of the grace that covers it.
Which then finally does feed back into my well being. The more open I am about my sin, the more confidence I can have about the grace of God. It is precisely because His grace is not something I earn by being good that I can have confidence in His grace for everything bad in me, which is, of course, rather a lot. The glory of a gospel that doesn’t just save sinners, but saves wretched sinners also brings joy to wretched sinners.
So yes, you all know a few of my grave sins. And I know none of yours. But because of Jesus, our heavenly Father remembers neither of our sins. They are as far from us as the east is from the west. The gospel covers us all.