Wand Joseph, and some of the people in their family; and we’ve made some interesting discoveries about what it means to be an authentic believer.
Authentic believers are all made of clay Let’s begin with a confession from the famous American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. There was a time when I used to be troubled a good deal about these Bible characters. I used to think that, because they were saints, everything they did was right; and I could not understand how it was that God would permit them to do such things and not be punished. … But when we come to a character like Jacob, and we find that God had grace enough to save him, I think there is hope enough for almost any of us.
Anybody who takes the Bible seriously identifies with Mr. Moody’s concern. Too often we think that the important characters in Scripture are angelic, not human, always obedient and above reproach, never stumbling or resisting God’s will. Then we discover that these famous people in the Bible drama are frail and flawed, made out of the same clay as we are, and yet the Lord used them to accomplish His purposes!
Gideon was a frightened farmer until God turned him into a courageous general. Rachel and Leah were scheming wives who competed for Jacob’s affection; yet they helped build the nation of Israel. Moses was a fugitive from justice, and wanted for murder in Egypt, but he turned 2 million slaves into a mighty nation and wrote the first five books of the Bible. Jeremiah occasionally went off by himself and wept before God, offering to resign his prophetic calling, yet he faithfully stayed on the job during forty difficult years of Jewish history.
If I believed some of the sermons I’ve heard and books I’ve read, I could easily come to the mistaken conclusion that God calls and uses only perfect people, people who are never discouraged and who never want to quit, but the facts are otherwise. Moses and Elijah became so discouraged that they asked God to take their lives (Num. 11:14–15; 1 Kings 19); and both Job (Job 3) and Jeremiah (Jer. 20:14ff.) cursed their birthdays and wished they’d never been born. So much for perfection.
I find it liberating to realize that God can use frail, flawed people to get His work done on earth, people who make mistakes, people who want to do better but rarely feel they’ve achieved their goal. The important thing about these authentic people that made them what they were was simply that they accepted themselves and were themselves, and that they dared to trust God to use them in spite of themselves. Though the Lord didn’t approve of their disobedience, these people were precious to God, and He kept every promise that He ever made to them.
Frederick Buechner calls these saints “peculiar treasures,” and the name fits.
Authentic believers depend on the grace of God Now let’s balance the ledger with a second obvious fact: Authentic people pay for their sins and mistakes and learn from them because they depend on the grace of God. For them, life is a school; the lessons are hard, and grace is the teacher (Titus 2:11–12). Struggle as they must, they make progress and learn more about themselves, their peers, and their God because they learn from God’s grace.
If you were God, would you have met Jacob at Bethel, shown him the angels going up and down the ladder, and given him those marvelous promises? Remember, Jacob had deceived his brother and his father, and Scripture makes it clear that God desires truth in the inner person (Ps. 51:6). If God had consulted you about His plan to appear to Jacob at Bethel, would you have agreed with Him? Probably not.
Authentic people depend on and experience the grace of God. They know they aren’t worthy of the least of God’s mercies (Jacob said that—Gen. 32:10), but they also know that there would be no blessings at all apart from the good pleasure of the Lord. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not suggesting that we “do evil that good may come” (Rom. 3:8). I’m only suggesting that we adopt the outlook of Joseph who said, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50: nkjv).
I have a suspicion that the apostle Paul may not have been an easy man to work with in Christian ministry. He was trained as a Pharisee, which suggests a love for precision, an orderly life, an emphasis on obedience and will-power, and a high standard of perfection. Because he was single, he’d never been tempered by the demands of marriage and parenthood. Was he wrong in the way he treated Barnabas and John Mark? (Acts 15:36–41) Probably. At least 2 Timothy 4: suggests that he changed his mind.
But with all his angular character traits—and we all have some—Paul was an authentic servant of God because he depended on the grace of God. “But by the grace of God I am what I am … but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). To live by God’s grace means to depend on Him to enable us. We aren’t striving in our own power to do something for Him. Rather, He’s working in and through us to accomplish the good pleasure of His will. It’s the difference between legalism and life.
The enemy wants God’s people to concentrate on their imperfections and failures, because that keeps them from getting lost in the greatness and grace of God. Yes, there’s a time for godly introspection and confession, but the Christian life isn’t a perpetual autopsy. It’s a feast! So after we’ve washed ourselves, let’s enjoy the feast to the glory of God (5:7–8).
Authentic believers aren’t all alike One of the major differences between a church and a cult is that cults turn out cookie-cutter followers on an assembly line, while churches model a variety of individual saints on a potter’s wheel. The Christian faith thrives on unity in diversity, “one body, many members” (1 Cor. 12:12ff.).
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were all believers, but they were all different from each other. Isaac made a great beginning as a young man when he obeyed his father and willingly put himself in the place of death on the altar. He showed spiritual sensitivity in the way he accepted Rebekah, God’s choice to be his wife, and the way he prayed about their family situation.
But Isaac’s life of faith reached a plateau and then began to decline, and in the end, he was more concerned with his dinner menu than in doing the will of God. Not all authentic people end well.
Jacob’s spiritual experience was up one day and down the next, like a cork in the ocean during a storm. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). He would earnestly pray about his problems and beg for God’s help, and then go out and engineer a scheme to get things done his own way. He was a master of using bribes that were wrapped up like gifts. It wasn’t until God wrestled with Jacob and broke him that he became Israel, a prince with God.
As for Joseph, his life of faith seemed to be steady and even, and each new trial lifted it only higher. Yes, he had his times of suffering when he wondered whether the Lord would ever hear; but as far as we know, his faith never wavered. Joseph was a forgiving man and a man who remembered to forget the evil things others did to him. He lived by faith and he died by faith, and his faith brought about the salvation of the Jewish nation.
So, here are three important men, servants of the Lord, and yet all of them different. In the church today, we still have the Isaacs who make glorious beginnings in their youth but gradually decline into respectable worldliness. We have many like Jacob who always seem to be fighting a battle or trying to get out of a predicament, and yet they somehow get things done for God and end up blessing everybody.
There are some steady solid Josephs, men and women who end up in places of significant leadership and help many people. The church probably has more Josephs than we realize, people who just do their jobs faithfully, put up with misunderstanding and criticism, and glorify God. And, like the Old Testament Joseph, even after death they encourage us to trust God.
When Jesus called His twelve apostles, He selected a variety of men. Matthew had worked for the Roman government while Simon the Zealot had worked to destroy the Roman government. Peter appeared to be a type-A activist, willing to try anything once, but Thomas seemed to be a pessimist who had a hard time believing even when he heard the evidence. Each of the men was authentic, occasionally blundering, sometimes even opposing, not always able to get along with the other apostles, but always in love with Jesus and wanting to be more like Him.
God wasn’t ashamed to call Himself “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6), nor is Jesus ashamed to call us His brethren (Heb. 2:11–12). He knows our weaknesses and failures, and yet He stays with us and helps us run the race with endurance for the goal He’s chosen just for us. God’s authentic people are originals, not imitations.
Authentic believers know that life is a pilgrimage According to Hebrews 11:13–16, the patriarchs confessed that they were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” A vagabond has no home; a fugitive is running from home; a stranger is away from home; but a pilgrim is heading home. They had their eyes on the future, the glorious city that God was preparing for them, and they passed that heavenly vision along to their descendants.
Living like a pilgrim isn’t a matter of geography but of attitude: You feel like a traveler and not a settler. You tend to feel “temporary,” wondering if you really belong here; and your eyes have that faraway look.
Pilgrims make progress. If you stand still in your life of faith, you’ve ceased to be a pilgrim. There are always new promises to claim, new enemies to fight, and new territories to gain. Pilgrims have many privileges, but one privilege they don’t have is that of standing still and taking it easy.
The famous Scottish Presbyterian preacher Alexander Whyte said that the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings. We never arrive, and if we think we have, it’s proof that we haven’t. Martin Luther said it best: This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing; not being but becoming; not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
Authentic believers become like Jesus Christ To be “conformed to the image of his Son” is the goal of the work of God’s grace in our lives (Rom. 8:29), and nobody reveals that better than Joseph.
Like Jesus, he was beloved by his father but rejected by his brothers. He was punished for crimes he hadn’t committed, and he took it without fighting back. He thought of others and served them, though they forgot him and his kindnesses. He was separated from his father so that he might save his brethren, and he went from the prison to the throne, from suffering to glory.
He forgave those who wronged him and never again held their evil deeds against them. He wept over them because he loved them. He graciously provided a home for them and met all their needs. We could go on, but the point is obvious: What Joseph experienced as an authentic believer made him more and more like Jesus Christ. That’s what the pilgrim life is all about. But Jacob too experienced the work of grace in his life and ended his life on a much higher plane. As he grew older, he matured in his faith and sought to be a better spiritual leader to his growing family. It’s never too late to get back on the upward pilgrim path.
Authentic believers make a difference in their world The important thing in life is not what we drag along but what we send ahead and what we leave behind. We came into this life owning nothing, and we’ll leave this life taking nothing with us. Between the joys of birth and the sorrows of death, we’re only stewards of all that God gives us, and God wants us to be faithful stewards.
Life itself is a stewardship, and as such it should be invested, not merely spent or wasted. When we accept our lives as God’s gift and our opportunities as a stewardship, then we can make a lasting difference in our world. We may not climb the heights that Joseph climbed, but we’ll still make the contribution that God has assigned to us (Eph. 2:10). What Mary of Bethany did for Jesus became a blessing around the world (Mark 14:9), which is the last thing she expected.
So, the challenge comes to us today: Will we be dull copies or exciting originals? Will we take the safe route of the tourist or the dangerous route of the pioneer? By the grace of God, will we allow trials and suffering to be our servants to help make us more like the Master? When we come to the end of our lives, will it make any difference to our world that we have lived?
E X O D U S“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) is the call of God to be authentic, to become one of God’s “peculiar treasures,” a special person to do His special work.