Building Churches That Find Their Identity in Christ

Um, he'd come to speak to me 'cause he was just generally...

Didn't wanna be here, but he was generally frustrated in church life.

He was angry at himself that he wasn't able to effectively spin, keep more of the, the plates spinning.

Uh, he'd enjoyed a time where the Lord had blessed the ministry, people were being built up, and it just felt that it was moving into, in the direction of a kind of, um, drift perhaps, and he couldn't run any faster.

Uh, and the place where he was leaving that was, "I, I wonder whether this means it's, it's time for me to move on.

What is the Lord doing?" But there was something else that bothered him as well.

Along with that, as he felt his ability to deliver and bump up the ministry was sort of waning a little bit, he'd noticed that he would...

He'd become much more sensitive to criticism than he'd ever been before.

Um, he, he'd enjoyed, dare I say, the accolades or the recognition of being somebody who was effective, a doer.

And here is a guy who really loves the Lord.

He is justified by faith.

He delights in the gospel.

He weeps over his sin.

He, he, he's serving the cause of the kingdom.

And, and almost to, to prove it to me, randomly in the middle of the conversation, he said, "I just need to tell you something like, that happened, Steve.

I don't usually go to these kind of concerts, but I went to a concert." And, and this is me.

I can't remember whether it was the actual The Who or a, a tribute band, The Who, but it was a Who song that was being sung and he wanted to tell me.

And I was trying to imagine him at this concert, and there was a mismatch.

It didn't work.

Um, and he said, "You know there's that song that they sing." No, I'm not gonna sing it.

Um, "Who, who, who are you? Who, who, who, who." You, you know that one? Sorry, sounded like a demented barn owl.

Um, and there's that pla- that song, that Who song playing in the background.

And he said, "I don't know where it came from, Steve, but just all of a sudden, with e- all the crowd around me," and this is quite out of character, "I just screamed at the top of my lungs, 'I am a beloved child of the living God in and through Jesus, and there is nothing you can do to take it away from me.'" [laughs] And I looked at this dear friend trying to imagine it, but he'd already moved on 'cause his face looked low.

And he said, "So Steve, why is it that after all these years as a believer, I am still so sensitive to almost any question that punctures my belief that I have to be it all and do it all?" Why does a harmless question about church life act like an attack against who I am? And you guys in this room know what he's talking about, don't you? Maybe not the concert, but there's those moments where our identity, it just feels under attack.

And I thought it was a great question and, you know, I'm a biblical counselor, so I'm supposed to have something about it.