As I listen to a sermon, my thoughts will sometimes lead me to think about myself. A memory will be stirred, and I will spend some time in the place and time that has come to center stage again. Other times, I'll be led deeper into one of the Scriptures. "Wow", I'll think, "that piece of text from the Bible is just like something I experienced the other day!" OK, I'll admit it - I suppose my attention drifts to something else pretty often! But whether I'm led by the Lord or not, whether I am directed or whether I am drifting, something begins to happen when I hear a sermon. It is good to pay attention to what is happening while we listen to sermons.
This is particularly the case for a sermon about how God speaks to us through difficult people. Not only those who make our lives difficult at their own fault, but those who criticize us and are correct in doing so! Ouch! As Kevin spoke about these people, I began to think of memories that I instinctively "run" from. That is, my mind gets as far away from there as possible!
But the sermon was not intended to leave me there with those voices and reliving the pain. It was intended to help me hear God's word of grace in them so I could grow. Kevin's example of Abraham Lincoln and his adversary-turned-advisor Edwin Stanton was a great encouragement to me. Throughout Stanton's life, as a leader and as Lincoln's secretary of war, he was a critic of Lincoln. But Lincoln respected him. He didn't "run" from him. He thought he could benefit from such criticism. As such, we remember Lincoln, a man who among many other strengths, had the gift of being able to receive criticism well.
How was this gracious to me? It was gracious because the worst thing that can happen is that I would run from pain, difficult questions, the truth, and criticism in search of God. This is because I won't find God there. God has come to me in Jesus Christ through his cross. It is there that I meet God. And the cross is the place where my sin is paid for, the place where God's son died for me, the place where my idea that I can save myself, be admirable, noble, and great all by myself is exposed as a big, fat lie. Dorothy Sayers wrote, "God was executed by people painfully like us, in a society very similar to our own - in the over-ripeness of the most splendid and sophisticated Empire the world has ever seen." The cross is so much worse than criticism. Even if we begin to think about what Jesus went through on the cross, we can't help but admit how repugnant and unpleasant it would be. If I can't even face criticism - good, godly, soul-refining criticism, as from a loving parent - how on earth can I face the cross? And here's the grace. God already faced it. Instead of the cross that would finally punish sin and death in me, I freely receive the reputation and character of Jesus given to me. Instead of the curse, we receive glory. Instead of condemnation, we are lifted up into eternal favor.
What a stunning honor we have received from God! This is what gives Christians the courage to face their toughest criticism with humility, grace, and humor. It is because they have been given Christ's eternal life in spite of even worse things only they know about themselves!
Reflection Questions:
1) Did any painful memories of criticism surface during the sermon?
2) What gives these memories their painful edge - the person who said it? the way it was said? or perhaps you desperately hoped it wasn't true?
3) When we become Christians, we are "born again", made new in Christ. This means we receive Christ's unblemished character, totally undeserved on our part. How might this give you strength to face criticism with courage?
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