Abundant Affirmation for Abundant Sinners
This is from my book in progress on divine affirmation. The founder of AA was a scandal just waiting to happen. The apostle Peter collected failures like some collect stamps, but God’s affirmation isn’t based on our performance or sinlessness. God offers abundant affirmation for those of us who sin abundantly. Though of course we should all seek to grow in righteousness, this section of the chapter offers encouragement for when we fail.
“When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.”
Psalm 65:3
God is for you. He wants you to succeed.
The world wants you to fail. It takes a sick pleasure, especially out of Christians falling.
God is motivated by love; the world, by malice.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Living out of divine affirmation means that the world’s shame won’t move us any more than its applause. The world lifts people up for the wrong values and then takes people down with the wrong motivations. The world mocks God’s holiness and his grace. They hate the claims that God’s call to holiness makes on our lives, and they hate the application of his grace when we fail to live up to his commands.
You start to think that maybe they just don’t like God!
When you truly love God, you treasure his commands and you rest in his grace. It’s a two-part deal. You are passionate about obedience and passionate about repentance.
Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, is a hero to many who never met him but he seemed like a train wreck waiting to happen to those who did. Wilson’s associates often lamented how such an unworthy man was the figurehead for such a worthy mission. Bill’s lifelong struggle with alcohol arguably morphed into an addiction to sex. He was chronically unfaithful to his wife. The transfer from alcohol to sex addiction isn’t uncommon; in AA circles it’s derisively described as “thirteenth stepping,” and Wilson was one of the most prolific thirteenth steppers who ever lived. A long-term mistress, Helen Wynn, was actually a beneficiary in his will. In a particularly sad and heart-wrenching deathbed scene, Bill spent the last few weeks of his life berating nurses for refusing to give him a drink.[i]
Think of the potential scandal: the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous died verbally abusing nurses who wouldn’t give him alcohol. If that’s what he wanted at the end, was his whole life a failure? Was he the ultimate hypocrite?
If Bill had lived in the twenty-first century instead of the twentieth, any fame-thirsty blogger could have written a good “takedown” of Bill, cataloging his hypocrisy and his unworthiness to be a figure of renown. And then, like many crusading bloggers do today, seek to take down AA in its entirety by asking how AA or its message could be any good when its founder was so “bad.” The program Bill launched—though imperfect—has benefited tens of millions of people, helping them find the freedom that he never entirely did. Many would say it has been improved by Celebrate Recovery or Regeneration, but the founders of CR would tell you that AA led them to the more Christ-based version, making its prior establishment helpful, if not essential, to their own.
The good enough for God life doesn’t need the world’s approval to be used by God. Nor must it succumb to the shame-casting crusades that self-righteous people unleash because their spiritual lust is anger. Anger and conflict make the arrogant feel alive and important. Attacking is fun, and when they think they have truth and proof on their side, they can unleash a particularly vicious spiritual blood-lust.
Attacking without grace is called malice, which the Bible condemns soundly (Colossians 3:8; Ephesians 4:31-32, et. al). To forget grace is to forget God. Paul is adamant in this regard: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently” (Galatians 6:1). I wish people would remember that we can sin in the way we call out others on their sin. In fact, we are probably most tempted to sin ourselves when responding to other’s sin.
In part because of the world’s malice, if your self-view is tied to your reputation in the world or the church, you’re on perilous ground. The good enough for God life burns through God’s gifts and grace, cashing checks on our heavenly Father’s unlimited bank account. God unleashes the positive and takes care of the negative. He provides the raw materials for success and the clean-up for failure. The good enough for God life begins, is sustained by, and is finished by God himself, so we stay in it only through persistent walking in Christ, maintaining a life that seeks to be rich toward God.
If I’m living in the Holy City instead of the Great City, if I’m striving to be great only “in the sight of God,” then using his gifts to serve is essentially the same as using his grace to be forgiven. It all comes from him, is for him, and glorifies him. Whether I am an example of how we should live or an example of how merciful God is when we disobey, my life is pointing others to Jesus, and I am part of the Holy City.
The arrogant think their service earns favor because, after all, they are the ones doing it (denying the gifting, provision, and empowerment of God). And when they fall, they believe they are now less effective because the world looks at them differently. In reality, God knew the gifts came from him and that the current grace to forgive comes from him, so it’s not different in his eyes. If we live to point others to God instead of ourselves, whether we fall or climb, we’re still pointing “north.”
This seems logically absurd to those whose compass is set in the Great City. But how “great” is Babylon since we know she is destined to fall? She’s a dead tree, decaying from within, just waiting for the windstorm to reveal her rotting trunk.
God’s affirmation changes everything. When people have had their worst sides exposed and face uncertain futures, one of the greatest blessings of following Christ is being able to point them past their shame to the abundant opportunities ahead of them, beginning with the affirmation of Christ.
If you’re among the recently fallen, while the world may dismiss everything you’ve done once you “mess up,” that doesn’t mean God does. You don’t have to consider yourself marginalized for the rest of your life when you understand the story of grace and the Bible’s clear proclamation that there is only one hero in all of Scripture, and that hero is God. As long as we’re pointing others to him, our lives matter. If you had the biggest “fall” of your life yesterday, you can still begin living the good enough for God life today.
Bill Wilson’s “bad” doesn’t negate the good, any more than his good acts erase his bad acts. God used him and God forgave him.
Was he a hypocrite? In a sense, yes. Did God use him? Of course. That incongruency bothers a lot of people, but in the end, it glorifies God and gives hope to all of us. Who doesn’t want to celebrate that God has, can and will use radically imperfect people?
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