Before I became a Baptist pastor, I was a Methodist minister. We enjoyed many happy years in that denomination before transferring to the Baptists. I applied for the Methodist ministry during my mid-twenties, and the application process revealed something disturbing: I struggle to be real, even with myself.
As candidates for the Methodist ministry we were taken on a few days
away. Part of this stay over involved
two psychological tests. To my great
embarrassment I failed them both. I
think that I failed one of them because I had not listened to the instructions,
and misunderstood how to answer. But I
think the other one revealed that I was not being truthful with those doing the
interviews!
The test I failed had to do with honesty. Was I being real with people or was I simply
putting on a front? It was full of
subtle questions that would highlight if you were presenting a false image of
yourself. Although I tried to convince
myself that I was answering truthfully, I was not. Our heart is so deceitful that we will even lie
to ourselves (Jer. 17:9).
In truth, I did not want those who were doing the interviews to realise
how insecure I was. I did not want them
to see how weak I was in my faith. I was
not even sure I was a Christian, as I feared I had committed some unforgiveable
sin.[1] I felt if they knew the real me, they would
never accept my application. I told myself
that I was being transparent, but I was not.
Super-spiritual people are never transparent. They don’t want you to see any of their
weaknesses. They are also people who don’t
invite you to be transparent with them. They
are not people you feel safe to be vulnerable around. You feel that if you open up with them then
they will simply judge you. But being vulnerable
is a key to growing as a Christian and a to enabling those around you grow. Charles Swindoll writes, ‘vulnerability
invites people in, helps them identify and feel comfortable around us …. When we find
contentment even in our weaknesses, the anxiety that accompanies keeping up a
good front vanishes, freeing us to be real.’[2]
So, how
real are you with people? Are you willing to be
vulnerable? Do you feel free to ask for help? We are going to look at the issue of transparency.
A willingness to be transparent reveals that the
gospel has reached our hearts.
In
her book on ‘Brokenness’, Nancy Leigh DeMoss King points to the difference between King Saul and
King David. Saul and David both failed terribly. The
difference between them was shown in how they responded to that failure.
When Saul was confronted by the prophet Samuel
and he made excuses. He was caught red-handed and said, ‘please
don’t tell the people’ (1 Sam. 15:30). While David wouldn’t face up
to the magnitude of his sin for a whole year, eventually the prophet Nathan got
him to admit his wickedness, and he wrote two great Psalms of confession (Ps. 32
and Ps. 51). David knew that every time we read those two psalms we
would be reminded of the awful things he had done. Yet true
repentance is not about saving face.
Transparency reveals that the gospel has reached out hearts. ‘God
opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble’ (1 Pet. 5:5). Grace is God’s unmerited, unearned and
undeserved favour. In grace God does not
treat us as our sin deserves but according to His loving kindness (Ps. 103:10). Grace not only brings us into relationship
with God, it is grace that keeps us in relationship with God. The apostle John writes that the blood of
Jesus goes on cleansing us of all sin
(1 Jn. 1:5). If we claim that we no
longer have a sin problem in our lives, then we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us (1 Jn. 1:8). The gospel not
only allowed the apostle Paul admit that he was the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15),
but that he continued to battle with his sinful nature (Gal. 5:16-18).[3] People who are willing to be transparent will
admit that they struggle with weakness, temptation and sin.
Jesus was the only person who had no sins to confess. However, He did experience weakness. He got tired and thirsty, and asked for help (Jn.
4:6-7). His love for people meant that
He wept (Jn. 11:35). He did not believe that
big boys don’t cry! In the Garden of Gethsemane,
He is shockingly open about His spiritual struggles (Mk. 14:32-50). I
find it amazing that the gospel writers imply that Jesus became so weak after
his flogging that he was too weak to carry the beam of his cross (Mk. 15:21). The
creator of the universe experienced what it was to be physically and
emotionally broken. He offered prayers with loud cries and tears
(Heb. 5:11). It is hard to maintain
friendship with people who refuse to be real with us. But what a friend we have in Jesus? We can be real with Him because He knows what
it is like to suffer. ‘For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who
in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us
then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive
mercy in our time of need (Heb. 4:15-16).
A willingness to be transparent enables
us to minister to people
‘When we refuse to shed that hard, outer shell called “self,” no one can
get close to us; no one can penetrate or enter into our life. Just
as pride repulses God, so pride keeps others from getting close to us’ (Nancy
Leigh DeMoss).
My guess is it that for many of you it is a lot easier to be transparent
with God than it is to be transparent with his people. We know that
God is gracious, but His people can be harsh and judgemental. Maybe
you have opened up to people only to find that they failed to understand you,
did not seem to care about your pain, gave you lousy advice or ended up
gossiping about you. Nevertheless, we are commanded to be
transparent. James writes, ‘confess your trespasses to one another,
and pray for one another, that you may be healed’ (Jam. 5:16). Part of the reason that we are to confess our
sins to each other is so that we can speak God’s promises of forgiveness to
each other. In the Methodist Service
Book that was used when we were growing up the words of confession were followed
by the promise that all who sincerely repent can know that they are forgiven.
It is only when we are transparent that we can truly model the gospel to
those around us. Without vulnerability there can be no intimacy. Christian fellowship can’t be experienced when
we keep others at a safe distance. This
will not only weaken our church fellowships, it will damage our witness to the
watching world. Jesus prayed that we
might be one ‘so that the world may know that you sent me’ (Jn.
17:23). The world will know God is with us when it sees broken
people accepting other broken people for the sake of Jesus. Are their people in your church who really
know you? Are you willing to join the apostle Paul in boasting of
the things that show your weakness (2 Cor. 11:30)? If people only ever see our strengths, they
will feel that Christianity is only for the strong not the weak (1 Cor.
1:27). If we never confess our sins to
people they will forget that Jesus came to call not the self-righteous, but sinners
to repentance (Lk. 5:32). We will give
the impression that Christianity is a religion of merit and boasting (Eph.
2:8-9).
Not only will other people be blessed if we are transparent, we need to
be transparent for the good of your soul. The masks we wear are a
symptom of our pride. The image we carefully project reveals
hardness in our heart. Pretending to be strong will leave us
weak. This is pride that robs us of intimacy with
God. ‘Though the Lord is on high, yet he regards the lowly; but the
proud he knows from afar’ (Ps. 138:6). ‘Humble yourselves in the
sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up’ (Jam. 4:10).
Transparency in humility will even enable us to invite people to show us
how we can change. We are told that the
wise will love you if you give them a gentle rebuke (Prov. 9:8), because they
want to grow in holiness. ‘The wounds of a friend can be trusted’
(Prov. 27:6a). Those who take holiness
seriously will seek out accountability partners. They will lift the
phone and call for help, or text, when facing times of specific
temptation. They won’t talk about their struggles in vague
terms. They will be specific, because they are seeking
specific prayers for help.
Of course, the super-spiritual critic does not speak as a friend, does
not speak gentle in order to help you grow but speaks words of harsh judgement
that are designed to assert their superiority over you.
Conclusion
Before I trained for the Methodist ministry I worked as a ‘lay assistant’
for a group of Methodist churches. I
loved those people and enjoyed great warmth from them. But I used to have a strange recurring dream
at that time. In the dream I would be
shopping in the main town of the area, when suddenly I would realise that I was
only wearing my underpants. It doesn’t
take a genius to see that I was fearful of being exposed. I wondered, ‘what if these people knew what I
am really like? Would they still love
me?’
One thing that stops us being vulnerable is fear. We fear the potential rejection. But to live without being vulnerability leaves
us with the nagging thought that they might reject us if they really knew
us. We all really want to be known. We fear being known and rejected. It is frustrating to be loved and yet not
feel loved. But the good news is that God
knows us better than we know ourselves and He is greatly in love with us. This is the love that we long to experience and
share in the Christ’s church.
Another thing that stops us being vulnerable is pride. We like to portray ourselves as strong. But what joy can there be in pretending to be
someone that we are not? It may cost you to be
honest. Immature people may judge you. Unloving people
may slander you. Self-righteous people will rejoice to look down on
you. But they don’t understand the gospel.
Transparent people bless the church and the world. They are the ones who enjoy true and intimate
friendship. They demonstrate that the
gospel is all of grace. They free up
people to be transparent with them. The
transparent person does not fear the skeletons in their closet because they
know that they are forgiven. They are not trying to show us that they
are great, they want to demonstrate the God is merciful and gracious (Ps. 103:8).
Charles Spurgeon said that, ‘he that humbles himself under the hand of
God shall not fail to be enriched, uplifted, sustained, and comforted by the
ever-gracious One. It is a habit of Jehovah to cast down the proud,
and lift up the lowly.’ ‘In reality brokenness brings a release,
which produces a deep sense of joy and peace’ (Nancy Leigh DeMoss). You need to be transparent, if you want to
enjoy good friendships, grow in your faith and show the world that the gospel
of God is a message of grace!
[1] If
you fear that you have committed the unforgiveable sin, then it is very
unlikely that you have. For the
unforgiveable sin involves a hardness of heart that means you would not really
care about being right with God.
[2]
The Grace Awakening, p. 207.
[3]
Paul talks of this battle in Romans 7.
But there is a debate about whether that passage is describing his life
before he became a Christian or after.
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