But in some of your earlier experiences of church, you said, you heard more law than gospel.
My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges.
That's a common mistake. I think that's the reason Paul wrote the book of Galatians. There are merit badge earners in the church where I pastor. There's some of that still in me. It's a constant battle to say, You know what? I will never add one iota to the finished work of Christ on the cross. My best work will not make me more saved than I was. But we default to legalism. It makes such sense to us.
So, as a kid, I thought, Okay. I'll do my part and God will do his part, and we'll all be happy. Then I found out, number one, I don't have a rule book; number two, the rules I do see I can't even keep. I remember as a kid the preacher saying that if you even look at a woman with adultery in your heart, it's a sin. I remember thinking, How in the world am I never going to look at a woman with adultery in my heart? That's the weight that comes on the legalist, and it was starting to suffocate me even as a kid. It suffocates people still.
"Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" Galatians 3:2,3
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