In my days as a pastor of a congregation, one of my joys was planning sermon series during the different liturgical seasons of the church calendar. One year I stumbled upon the idea of doing a summer series called “Characters of the Bible.” Each Sunday after Pentecost, we started walking through the Old Testament and studied the men and women of God that we read about in the Bible. For many adult congregation members, this was the first time these stories had been revisited since their childhood days when they were taught in Sunday School classes. Unfortunately, these stories are often not the topic of the regular preaching during Sunday morning sermons.
Through this sermon series, we began to focus on a theme that we find throughout the Old and New Testaments of the Bible: that God uses ordinary people like you and me to do his extraordinary work! Sometimes we remember the Sunday School stories of these Bible characters and imagine them as superheroes. As we stand in awe at what God does in and through their lives, sometimes it is easy for us to forget that the bible character themselves was a sinful human being just like us.
For some people, learning that the person God used in a mighty way as an instrument of his activity in the world is also an imperfect sinner can somehow be seen as a stain, as if it makes the story less powerful. Perhaps this is why the undesirable or scandalous parts of these stories are often glossed over. But I truly believe that the fact that God works through sinful men and women like you and me is by God’s own design and demonstrates that the power is not of man, but of God. Because of this fact, it displays God’s power even more! As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:7, Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We who minister in Jesus’ name are mere sinners: imperfect, broken vessels who are tasked with delivering the perfect and powerful Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, no one should be overly impressed with the messenger and our hope ought not be placed in a pastor. When we place pastors or any church leader on a pedestal, we inevitably will be disappointed when we realize that they, too, sin and fall short. Pastors and all church leaders are called to lead not perfect lives, but to walk honestly and humbly, confessing their sin before God and one another and receiving the forgiveness of sins we all need.
The church is often attacked when the sin of a church leader is exposed… as if it somehow invalidates the many ways God worked through that person for Kingdom good. While it is true that the church is hurt whenever sin goes unconfessed or covered up, God continues to perfectly move, display power, proclaim the Word, and deliver grace and blessing in the sacraments of baptism and communion through the work of imperfect vessels in the church. Despite our sinfulness and brokenness, God still does extraordinary work through ordinary people like you and me.
