Currently I am reading a book called Uncensored Grace. The author is Jud Wilhite, and he pastors Central Christian Church in Las Vegas. I heard this man speak at a leadership conference last week and was blown away by the stories he told. I had to get his book! Since I got it, I haven’t been able to put it down. The pages of this book are filled with story after story of sinful people from Las Vegas who have been transformed by God’s grace and now live a life of service and whole-hearted surrender to God. I wanted to share an excerpt of Jud’s book with you…this part I found particularly thought provoking and convicting. “As a pastor committed to a conservative Christian faith, I have no reason to water down the message of Christ and what He came to accomplish. He came to free people who were – and still are – enslaved by sin, and it is my job to share that message, to call people to break free from the bondage of sin.
But after I call sin what it is, I want to be soft on people. I’ve learned that my assessment of others is always incomplete. Sometimes people who have it together externally are a mess internally. They hide dark secrets and addictions. I’ve known people who appear together on the outside, but sexually abuse their children or beat their spouse in secret. No matter how well-grounded my assessment of someone may be, it is still incomplete. So if I’m going to be wrong anyways, I choose to err on the side of grace. I choose to suppress the initial categories I want to put people in – rich, poor, together, not together, druggie, yuppie, rocker, loser, winner, cool, uncool. I choose to remember that I don’t know their struggle or their pain. I choose to err on the side of grace because someday I’ll stand before God, and I pray He’ll err on the side of grace with me.
The truth is we are all a mess, but God loves messy people. I turn to the Bible and see Jesus hanging out with the riffraff of society. Eventually the religious leaders accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. He “welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they said (Luke 15:2). We can’t overestimate how radical this was in Jesus’ culture. To share a meal meant to extend a bond of friendship…
Jesus did not simple hang out with people on the fringes of society; He took great pleasure in being around them. “Sinners” referred to those of low reputation who engaged in blatant sin – prostitutes, crooked businessmen, drunks, and rough and tumble people like the ones you see on Jerry Springer. As they sat and laughed together, He imparted meaning and purpose with His presence. He blew up the social norms and celebrated life with others…
Why did Jesus delight in these people? Certainly because they were loved by God. Perhaps also because they didn’t pretend to be blameless. There is something refreshing about those who readily acknowledge imperfections. Rather than play self-righteous games, they are stripped of pride, aware of their brokenness, and open to the message of a savior. Jesus said the religious establishment was worse off because they thought they were righteous and were blind to their own sin.
Too often we mistake grace for weakness, forgiveness for giving in. We see strength only in pointing out sin and stomping on it until its dead. But in Jesus we find someone who has no patience for those more concerned with enforcing the rules than helping others. Though He was perfect and, therefore, in a position to judge and punish all of us, Jesus showed us a different kind of strength, a strength found in grace, compassion, and forgiveness.
A paragraph by C.S. Lewis rocked me…He noted that there is someone I love even though I do not always approve of what he does. There is someone I accept, though I don’t like some of his actions. That someone is…me. I don’t like a lot of the things I do, yet I still accept myself. If I can accept and love myself in this way, I can seek to extend a similar compassion to others. This insight allowed me to love people freely, irrespective of what they may or may not be doing.”
Pastor Jud goes on to describe three situations in his church where this kind of grace was not shown:
1). I’ve known churches where people turn their nose up at the guy who steps outside to smoke after the morning service. One person told me that after several judgmental looks and a few snide remarks, he took it as confirmation that he wasn’t good enough for church or for God…and he left. He was driven away from God by the very people who were supposed to represent Him.
2). One friend of mine had his marriage shattered by adultery. When he reached out to the church for help, he was told he would be welcomed back to the church after he reconciled what happened and made it right. How does one go about doing that in isolation? Their family was in crisis, and they needed help to reconcile the situation.
3). Another lady said she was leaving the church because she didn’t like the type of people that were showing up and she did not approve of the way they dressed. As she put it, “I’m scared to even sit in my seat at church because you never know what you might get from those people.” I tend to think her comment was much more offensive to Jesus than the things those people were doing. (When Jud told this story at the conference he told us, the crowd, that he said to the lady, “Well, then don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”)
Jud finishes this chapter with this paragraph:
“I’m ashamed and embarrassed that Bible-believing churches have so often failed the people God loves by holding on to judgment and refusing to show them His grace. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s time to take risks to do things differently.”
