Why are you starting a church?

For the preaching of the gospel. That’s the only reason any church should start. Perhaps though the question is, Why are you starting a church? More than four years ago I made headlines across the Christian world when I was arrested for and pled guilty to driving under the influence. It was a scandal, and it wasn’t my first. There are some who would argue that I am thus disqualified from ministry. There are others who would argue that I am, by virtue of my failures, especially qualified. Who better, after all, to reach grievous sinners than a grievous sinner? I would argue that I am ordinarily qualified.

I am, like every other pastor and aspiring pastor, a sinner. My reputation, based on my past, is not good with those outside the kingdom. Heck, it’s not good with plenty who are inside the kingdom. My damaged reputation, however is grounded in a scandal that is long behind me. My critics out in the world could surely still pin plenty of sins on me today. Those sins, however, would not be any different than the sins of any other pastor in the world.

I have lost a great deal through my scandals. What I haven’t lost, by His grace, is the one thing I need, His grace. I have lost neither the covering of my Elder Brother, nor the love of my heavenly Father. I have not lost my ongoing need of His grace nor the ongoing provision of His grace. What I have lost is the will and the ability to pretend that everything is just fine, that I have it together, and that in those few places where it’s not quite as it should be, Jesus has that. I have lost the ability to act as though Jesus saves us from the really bad sins, and once saved all we’ll ever commit are the not so bad ones.

I have not lost my commitment to the Reformed faith. I have lost my faith in the Reformed. Not, mind you, that we are any worse than the rest of His church. Rather, though we are too prideful to admit it, we’re just as bad as the rest of the church. I have lost, by His grace, many lifeless idols I once dragged behind me. His grace is not only in loving me in the midst of my ruined reputation, but in loving me by allowing me to ruin my reputation. He is setting me free from the me I pretended to be.

What changes me, in the end, is what changes all of us- repenting and believing the gospel. Sovereign Grace Fellowship begins this Sunday as a body of repentant sinners who gather each week to hear the good news and who scatter each week to speak the good news. If the fact that it’s me preaching disturbs you, don’t come. If the fact that it’s me preaching excites you, don’t come. If the Man preached excites you, please, come. Here it is the message, not the messenger, that matters.