Andy Stanley on the crucial thing

I was watching an Andy Stanley sermon over the weekend in which he was trying to present the central problem that causes people to grow cold in faith or not have any interest in it in the first place.

When he got down the Bible, he turned to Acts 26 where Paul comes before King Agrippa and retells his conversion story. For Stanley, the key piece was the end of this section:

I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me^* and to those in which I will appear to you. ¹⁷I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you ¹⁸to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

The end of verse 18 after the “so that” is what Stanley said was the crucial thing we forget or let slide from our vision. The reason that Paul was sent was so people would receive forgiveness and a place among the holy ones of God.

The problem, Stanley said, was that people do not recall or believe they have anything they need to be forgiven for. And I liked his analogy here. We all admit freely that we’ve done stuff that falls short of our own expectations for ourselves. We need to forgive ourselves. We all admit that we have done things to or regarding other people that falls short of their reasonable expectations of us. We need to be forgiven by other people.

Somehow, though, we are reluctant to take that one more step and acknowledge that we have done things that fall short of God’s will and desire for us. Most of us have no problem admitting that we need forgiveness from ourselves and others, but we have a hard time saying that about God – who is the most willing and ready to offer it.

I found Stanley’s discussion on that point really helpful.

Advertisement