Grace is greater (3) Ch.2.

 Ch.2.  More Beautiful Than Your Brokenness

In 2009, I received the following message on Facebook from a man named Wes who was in his early forties.

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  I have known I was adopted all my life. I was raised in a Christian home by two terrific people who could not have     children of their own. I’m now happily married and have my own children whom I dearly love. 

  I never had a desire to seek out my birth parents until a few years ago. I was attending a Christian retreat and one of    the speakers was an older man who told about getting his girlfriend pregnant and then secretly giving the child up for    adoption. He explained that he had lived with constant guilt that eventually caused him to develop a hard heart and        bitterness toward God. One day his daughter contacted him and told him that she forgave him and God did too.

 It changed this man’s life and he spoke of the freedom and the healing he had found.

  That story made me think of my own situation. I wondered if it would help my birth parents to know that I was doing OK. I was able to find the name of my birth father and contacted him. It became clear to me that I was right about the guilt and pain that could follow a person after making such a difficult decision. He had never told anyone about my birth.

It seemed that it was probably best that I not interfere with his life or complicate things for him.

   But then something happened. . . One night I was lying in bed with my wife and one of your shows came on.

I was already half asleep, but my wife was watching it. Suddenly, I was startled when my wife exclaimed, “Oh, my God! That’s your cousin!” She was talking about you. She knew a lot more about my birth family than I did because she is the  one who did all the research. I didn’t believe her but after a little Google search I realized she was correct.

   I hope you are not too shocked, but your uncle, David Idleman, is my birth father. I picked you to contact first        because as [you are] a pastor I thought you might be used to giving counsel in difficult situations. I know that I also      have a sister, but I don’t know if she knows about me. I don’t want to stir the family pot and create problems or        difficult situations, but like I said, I felt like God compelled me to reach out.
  
 When I read that Facebook message, immediately a lot of things made sense to me. I had grown up close to my uncle Dave. He taught me how to slalom water-ski when I was a kid and gave me a few karate lessons when I was in middle school. But as I grew older, I could tell my uncle carried a heavy weight wherever he went. Keeping a secret like that for so many years wearies a man. His eyes often seemed tired to me, worn out, like he was always just getting off a long day at work.  

 My uncle Dave somehow missed grace when his girlfriend became pregnant. He shouldn’t have missed it. He grew up in a church environment and his girlfriend’s father was a pastor. He shouldn’t have missed grace, but somehow it didn’t get communicated. Carrying around the guilt and shame of a secret for decades takes a toll on a man’s heart.

 When the secret about my uncle Dave’s son came out, it was overwhelming for him. For decades he had lived with the weight of it and the fear of people finding out. What would my dad, his older brother, say? How would his parents, my grandparents, respond? Would they feel cheated out of knowing their grandchild? And what about his daughter, my cousin? She had grown up as an only child. She had always wanted a brother. But he never told her. He never told anyone.

 And what about Wes? My uncle Dave had to think that his son would be angry at him. He could have felt abandoned and rejected his entire life. But now there was no hiding.

 Sometimes our sin stays hidden because we are in denial or because our pride has blinded us to it. But oftentimes we try to keep our sin a secret because we just can’t deal with what we’ve done. So we do our best not to think about the mistakes we’ve made or the sins we’ve committed, and we try to steer clear of God. How could he possibly forgive us when we can’t even forgive ourselves?

 Before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the Bible says they lived life naked and unashamed. But the moment sin came on the scene, they were ashamed and did their best to hide from God.

 Sometimes when our secret sin gets exposed and we can no longer hide it, then we go into hiding. As much as possible, we do our best to avoid the people who know. Shame becomes our constant companion who relentlessly whispers, You’re not worthy of forgiveness. You don’t deserve a second chance.

 But here’s a surprising characteristic about grace – grace chases you. You can run away and hide, but grace is relentless. Grace will chase you down. That’s what’s happening to some of you right now, and you don’t even know it. With every word you read, grace is gaining ground.

 As a pastor, I love witnessing the moment grace finally catches up to someone’s mess. The phrase I use to describe that moment is “beautiful collision.” Those two words don’t seem to go together. Collision brings to mind words like broken, busted, and wrecked – not typically words that fit with beautiful. But the Gospels are full of beautiful collisons. When a broken, busted, and wrecked life collides with Jesus, it’s a beautiful thing.

                      Crash Course with Grace

 In John 4 we find ourselves at an intersection where a beautiful collision will soon take place. Jesus is traveling on his way to another city. John tells us in John 4:4 that “he had to go through Samaria.” That seems like a strange way to put it. At the time, Jews would go out of their way to not go through Samaria. They would typically go around it and try to steer clear of any Samaritans. There was a lot of prejudice and hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. They tried hard to have nothing to do with each other, to the point that if a first-century Jewish person read this, he would think John was making the point that Jesus had to go through Samaria because he had no other choice. Maybe a road was closed or traffic was backed up from so many people going around Samaria that he had to go through it.

 The phrase had to go is important. He’s making it clear that he was going against his will. He didn’t have an option. He was forced into it. That’s how a Jewish reader of the time would have heard this, but as you and I read the story, it seems clear that Jesus wasn’t forced to go to Samaria, as if Jesus could be forced into anything.

 Instead it seems like Jesus went out of his way to go to Samaria. “Had to go” seems to be used more in the sense that he had an appointment he had to keep. Like he looked on the calendar that was established before the creation of the world and saw he was supposed to be at a specific place at a specific time to meet a specific person. There was going to be a beautiful collision and God had it circled on his calendar. Grace chased this woman down and caught up with her at a well outside of town.

 Jesus had to go to Samaria. He arrives around noon, in the heat of the day. He comes to the well and sits down to rest while his disciples go into town and get some food. It’s an unusual time and place to meet someone. People would come to the well in the morning hours or in the late evening, not at noon when the sun was beating down. But then he sees the person he is waiting on. A woman arrives at the well to get some water. It was an unusual time for such a chore, but it was also uncommon that she was alone. In those days women would go to the well together.

 What we soon discover is that this woman has rough past and a bad reputation. It’s hard to say if the reason she’s alone is because she avoided people or they avoided her. She had grown tired of the judgmental looks and the whispers behind her back. So she went by herself, with only her shame and rejection to keep her company.

 When she arrives, Jesus asks for a drink, and she’s not sure how to respond. She’s taken aback that he, a Jewish man, would speak to her, a Samaritan woman, and she calls him on it.

 “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” ...  Jesus answered her, “If you knew     the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living     water.” (vv.9-10)

 Now she’s really confused. She’s thinking in terms of physical water for her physical thirst, so she points out that Jesus doesn’t even have a bucket to draw water with. And Jesus explains to her that he is the living water, and that if she drinks this water she’ll never thirst again.

 She’s still not exploring the metaphor. He’s not making sense to her. So Jesus decides to be a little more direct with her.

 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and  the man you now have is not your husband. What you have  just said is quite true.” (vv.16-18)

 Well, that’s uncomfortable. I think at this point she might be ready to go back to talking in metaphors. Jesus doesn’t step away from the truth. He describes the reality of what she’s done and the mess that her life has become. The well of relationships that she keeps drawing from isn’t quenching her thirst, and Jesus isn’t going to politely pretend that everything is OK when he knows that everything is not OK. If she’s going to receive his grace, she needs to stop hiding in her sin.

 This is hard, and I know we want to find another way, but here’s the truth: before we collide with the grace of God, we must collide with the truth of our own sin. I wonder what hard truth Jesus would say to you and to me. Maybe he would say:

Your short temper keeps everyone around you on edge, and bitterness toward you is growing in your family.
Your drinking has gotten out of control. It’s affecting a lot  more people than just you.
Your porn problem is killing any chance of intimacy you have in your marriage.
Your flirting is leading you down a path that will devastate your family.
You’re allowing your heart to fall for a girl who’s causing you to fall away from me.
You’re choosing your live-in boyfriend over your relation-ship with me.

It’s going to have to be one or the other.
You’re going deeper into debt to feel better about yourself, but the water out of that well isn’t going to satisfy you.
Your self-righteous and legalistic spirit is causing the people at your job to stay away from me.
Your judgmental attitude and your harsh tone are costing you a relationship with your grandkids.

 Jesus speaks some difficult truths. It’s the part of the collision with grace that we do our best to avoid. And like any of us would do, the woman at the well tries to steer the conversation away from her sin and shame.

  “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews       claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  (vv.19-20)

                          False Assumptions

 Let’s push pause on our story and talk about some false assumptions that can cause us to miss his grace in our own lives.

   Assumption #1: Jesus wants nothing to do with me.   If your assumption about Jesus is that he doesn’t have any interest in you, then there’s a good chance you’ve never had much interest in him. Said another way, it’s not that you don’t want grace. Who wouldn’t want grace? It’s that you’re convinced grace doesn’t want you.

 Feeling rejected can be one of the worst feelings to experience. When someone experiences rejection early and often, they quickly learn to build up walls to keep people from getting close. Given this woman’s history of husbands, she was likely careful to avoid putting herself in a position of vulnerability. After all, you don’t run the risk of rejection if you never give someone a chance to hurt you.

But Jesus went out of his way to be with this woman. Grace chased her down because that’s what grace does.

 After preaching at one of our Sunday-night services, I was standing down front as we worshiped. A man came to talk to me. I could tell he had been crying and was still a little emotional. He told me his name, and I asked how I could pray for him.

 He cried his way through his answer. “Well, my wife has left me. It’s my fault. I’ve done some really stupid things. I haven’t treated her the way she deserves. She tried to tell me but I just wouldn’t listen. Would you pray that God would forgive me and my wife would forgive me? I know I’m ready to make some changes, but I’m not sure that God would want me here after the mess I’ve made of things.”

 He was assuming that his mistakes were greater than God’s grace and that Jesus wouldn’t want anything to do with him. I prayed for him and asked God to intervene in his marriage. I prayed that God would draw him and his wife back together again. I asked God to fight for him and for his marriage. But more than anything, I prayed for his relationship with Jesus, that he would know it wasn’t an accident he was in church and that God wasn’t rejecting him but was ready to help him.

 After I prayed I asked him if this was where he went to church. He explained, or rather confessed, that he hadn’t been to church since he was a kid. I said, “Oh, does your wife go here?” He explained that she didn’t go to church either. Then I asked him what made him come and he said, “I don’t know. I was driving by and just felt like I had to go.”

 I think I understood what he meant. I connected him to a man who presented the gospel to him, prayed with him, and got some information from him so we could follow up.

 On Sunday morning, the very next day, I had finished with my message and was standing down front as the service was wrapping up. Two ladies came down to talk with me. It turns out they were sisters. One sister was comforting the other, who was clearly going through something difficult.

 Before I had a chance to ask for her name or why she had come down, she explained, “I haven’t been to church in a long time. I hope it’s OK that I’m here. Last night I was so upset and my sister said I had to come this morning.”
She asked me to pray for her husband, because they had recently separated. She asked if I would pray that God would soften his heart, because she didn’t think he cared anymore.

 At the point my heart was pounding. I said to her, “I didn’t get a chance to get your name. Can you tell me your name?”

 Do you ever get the feelings that God kind of winks at you?
I excitedly told her that her husband had come forward in tears just the night before. He had repented and asked God for help. I could tell she was having a hard time believing it. It was a beautiful collision, and grace was flying everywhere.

 Both of them were making the assumption that God had given up on them and it was too late. They presumed that their marriage was too much of a mess, and he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. But God made it clear that he was ready to meet them right where they were.

   Assumption #2: Jesus is more interested in religion than me.
 Did you notice what the woman at the well does in the conversation? She tries to distract Jesus by talking about religion. She tries to avoid this collision by engaging him in some religious argument that could be debated endlessly. These days grace often gets overlooked because the church gets caught up in religious arguments and interpretive differences.

 I’m amazed at how easy it is for us to become distracted with religious or even pseudoreligious arguments. I think we are especially prone to this when what we are studying gets a little uncomfortable.

 Like the woman at the well, we have a tendency to get religious when Jesus starts to get a little too personal. I run into this as a preacher so often that I’ve developed a bit of a theory about it. The more people obsess over issues that clearly fall under the umbrella of theological interpretation or opinion, the more likely it is they’re trying to keep Jesus from getting too personal in some area of their lives.

 I used to get distracted by this quite a bit. Someone would email me and go off on some interpretative detail they felt like I missed, and I’d fire off an email and defend my interpretation, and we’d go back and forth. I don’t do this much these days. I’m not saying I never do it. If you want to try it, you’re welcome to, but I rarely come out to play anymore. I’ve learned that when someone is especially determined to talk about religion, it’s often because they are desperately trying to keep Jesus from getting too personal.

 The Samaritan woman falsely assumes Jesus will be more interested in religion than her, so she tries to draw Jesus into a religious debate.

  Assumption #3: He’s making an offer that’s too good to be true.
 This woman doesn’t believe in water that will forever quench her thirst. Again, consider her history. She had had all kinds of men make her all kinds of promise and she’s skeptical. She’s cynical. She doesn’t trust a man who seems to be promising more than he could possibly deliver.

 She makes a number of false assumptions about Jesus and the gift he offers her. Those assumptions keep her from getting too close. Each assumption is like a brick in the wall that separates her from grace. And as their conversation continues she’s ready to be done, so she tries to wrap it up.

 The woman said, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”      (v.25)

 Don’t miss the irony. She says to Jesus, I know that when Jesus comes he’ll make things clear. And I don’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain Jesus couldn’t help but give a slight smile when he said to her,

  I, the one speaking to you – I am he. (v.26)

 This is the only time in his entire life when Jesus voluntarily and candidly tells someone he is the Messiah, the Son of God. And it’s to this Samaritan woman with a bad reputation who’s been married five times and is now living with some other guy. How’s that for grace?

                           Chased by Grace

 When the truth about your life is hard to face, when you’ve made such a mess of things you don’t even know where to start cleaning up, when you can’t forgive yourself, and guilt and shame are your constant companions, it’s hard to imagine that grace is for you. Believe me, I get it.

 Some of you think that the worst thing that could happen to you is that your sins will be found out and your secrets will be exposed. You’re afraid that someone’s going to bring up something you did a long time ago. You don’t want anyone to know, and since God already knows, you do your best to avoid him. You think the worst thing that could happen is that you get found out and are forced to confront the truth.

 But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing that could happen is that you go through your life and nobody knows. No one ever finds out. You just carry the weight of your guilt and shame around with you everywhere. The worst thing that could happen is that you spend your life trying to outrun God because you think he’s chasing you to collect what you owe – when he’s really chasing you to give you what you could never afford.

                           Father and Son

 My uncle Dave and his son Wes began to talk from time to time, and after a few months they decided it was time to meet. My uncle lived in Missouri and Wes lived in Virginia, so they planned to meet at my house in Kentucky. We turned it into a miniature family reunion, and my grandparents and other extended family members were all there, excited to meet Wes.

 I’ll never forget standing in my driveway and watching as Wes pulled up with his beautiful family and my nervous uncle started walking toward their minvan. Wes stepped out, and we all wiped away the tears as we watched a father and son embrace for the first time.

 I was too far away to hear what words were exchanged, but Wes gave my uncle a gift. A little later someone told me it was a watch. My uncle was really moved by the gift, but I didn’t quite understand why it meant so much to him. Don’t get me wrong; the watch seemed like a thoughtful gift, but I just didn’t understand why it would cause such an emotional response.

 Later that day my dad brought the watch over and showed it to me. It was a nice watch, as far as watches go, but I still didn’t understand. Then my dad told me to turn it over. On the back there were two words engraved. Two words that have the power to change everything: Pure Grace.

                             Pure Grace

 The grace effect soon began to change my uncle. The weight of his shame and guilt suddenly fell from him. His hard heart became softer. Not long after this he ended a conversation we had by saying he loved me. He had never told me that before. He has become active in a church, and the pastor has become one of his good friends.

 Maybe what surprise me most is that I get to tell you this story. I didn’t think my uncle would be comfortable with me sharing this story with you. After all, when he worked so hard for so long to keep it a secret, I was sure he wouldn’t want me to share it with the world. But I was wrong. That was exactly what he wanted. When I emailed him and asked for his blessing to share the sroty, here was his response:

 Please feel free to share my situation in any way that will express God’s love, mercy, and amzaing grace to anyone      who needs it.

 When I read his response, it reminded me of the change that took place in the heart of the woman at the well. Before she met Jesus, she didn’t want anyone to see her. She didn’t want anyone to know, and if they knew, she didn’t want to know that they knew. She could never forgive herself for what she had done or the person she had become. But then her life collided with grace, and suddenly she saw things differently.

 The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?” So the people came streaming from the village to see him. (vv.28-30 NLT)

 When God’s grace and mercy collide with our shame and guilt, it’s messy but it’s beautiful. Jesus knows everything you ever did, but he wants to make sure you know that his grace is greater.