Today I did something really bad, actually I did something bad a couple of weeks ago and I was confronted on it today. I hurt someone’s feelings because of my own short comings and issues of trust. Essentially, I asked someone to do something and didn’t trust them enough to follow through and stuck myself into their business.
 
As this person sat across from me and said, “you don’t trust me,” my honest answer was that he was correct. As much as I wanted it to be untrue, it was true, but the fault was not in the other person, no, the fault was in me. This person has never done anything, that I have seen, that could be construed as untrustworthy (and even if he had, there is a graceful presence about him that has been shown over and over in how trustworthy he is). As I processed his statement I started to look at my own life and see why it was that I couldn’t let go of control.
 
As I grew up, I felt abandoned at times by my father. I grew up with a fear of being left alone and not trusting anyone. Today this translates into me having a hard time letting go of all of my hang-ups and letting other people do what needs to be done.
 
Now, why do I write this blog to tell you all this? Because I, as one of your pastors, am not perfect and need grace; it comes down to issues of the Gospel and community lived in the Gospel. 
 
First off, the other person valued relationship enough that they sought me out to talk about it. They didn’t run or let it fester inside of them, they came and talked about the issue and we were both better off in the long (and short) run. In Matthew 8:15 Jesus tells us, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” This is exactly what happened.
 
The second thing (really this is the first thing) is that the Gospel changes people; it changes me, daily. God is my Father. When I cease to rest in the fact of who God is (His character and His actions), I begin to respond in ways that are inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am reading this book by Tim Keller and he writes, “I continually observe that ministry amplifies peoples spiritual character. It makes them far better or far worse Christians than they would have been otherwise, but it will not leave anyone where he was!" I wish my character was better at times, but with all of us following Jesus together, living the Gospel in each others lives, we will be better.
 
As Hebrew 12:2 says, we must look to Jesus “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Our hope lies in Jesus and Him alone. We are not undone by the shame of our own failure, but use it to grow to be more like Jesus.
 
Let us all become people who live and speak the Gospel into one another’s lives and have it spoken into our own. This will most often happen during difficult conversations that we will naturally want to avoid.