God's Kindness to One Sinner

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm John Snyder, and with me again is our special guest, Jordan Thomas, one of the pastors at Grace Church in Memphis, Tennessee. We just spent a number of hours today looking at three glimpses of Christ in the book of Hebrews.

And now, really, I want us to continue to look at Christ, but the lens will be radically shifted. The lens is the kindness of God through His Son to you and how He brought you to Him. And so, as strange as it seems, you become the billboard of something of God's greatness.

Psalm 110 and the Kindness of God in Conversion

In Psalm 110, which we happened to mention as we were looking at Hebrews, we read these words, the Lord says to my Lord, and of course, this is the only place in Scripture where we are told what the Father said to the Son at this moment, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies. And then we come across this wonderful phrase, your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power.

And throughout all the Puritan and Great Awakening preaching, they loved that as a description of what God does to bring us from darkness to light. So, Jordan, tell us something of how God has dealt with you and to bring you to the place where you freely volunteered in the day of His power.

You know, joyfully. I still have to pinch myself sometimes to realize that I can insert my name in the story of His grace. Yeah, so the short version is I was converted as a freshman in college. I had a lot of religious experience before that and a lot of raucous rebellion.

I actually would have considered myself a Christian since about age nine. Had big church experiences, meaning the church was actually large that I was reared in in North Carolina. Made a profession of faith as a young child, was baptized almost immediately thereafter.

And from then until college, I think I would have considered myself a Christian. Insert the raucous rebellion. Following my parents' divorce and a move to Arkansas, where my mom's family is from, living with a single mom, my brother and I took full advantage of the riotous opportunity.

But, you know, that manifests shorthand, that manifested in trying to get as much of the world as fast as I possibly could. So just import into your, you know, understanding or supposition what that might look like.

That was my life. Fast forward to college. Again, would have considered myself a Christian. The Lord surrounded me with a handful of guys who were true converts. They knew and loved the Lord. I also was in an on-again, off-again relationship with my now wife through the years leading up to college.

We went to the same school. She wasn't aware of that riotous part of my life because we lived in neighboring communities, and I would do the riot over here and the self-righteous over there. Very duplicitous in that sense.

But she was also at this college and had some really honest talks with me. But between her and these guys, I tried to hide from them the conviction that I was under because I was seeing genuine Christians, hearing how they related to the Savior and to one another, and I presumed that I was one of them.

So just to fast forward and expedite the story, several of them challenged me to go figure, read the Bible. So I did. As a freshman in college, I started probably September of my freshman year, 95, read through the New Testament.

By the time I got to the second semester, January, February, early March, it was terrifying because one thing was very apparent to me. The Jesus in this book and the Jesus that I knew were two very different Jesuses.

And as I continued to work my way through Scripture, I would say around March of my freshman year, the Lord made me new. And I often refer to a Spurgeon line when he was referencing his conversion story.

He said, either I've changed or the whole world has changed, but something's different. So yeah, March of my freshman year, I'd heard plenty of fiery sermons, but the Lord brought me to a place of decisive and unignorable conviction of sin and staggering awareness of Christ's sacrificial love for me.

And so I felt like a man in the desert, parched, being handed an ice-cold glass of water that the Lord would volunteer freely in the day of his power. I mean, what fool wouldn't throw themselves into the arms of such a wonderful Redeemer?

False Assurance, Fear, and Coming to Christ

Yeah, I mentioned I was reading through the New Testament and came under this heavy conviction, but there were several passages that just became haunting, gripping, and it was the Holy Spirit's dealing with my soul.

One such passage was a familiar parable in Matthew. It's in Matthew 13, the parable of the wheat and the tares. But to summarize Matthew 13, 24 to 30, it's possible to have some externals, the comparison to the unconverted, the tare, that look like the genuine article, in the passage, the wheat.

So externally look largely the same, let them grow together because nobody can tell from the outside the difference, you know, the Lord will sort it out at the end. And the real difference is what's on the inside.

So where the wheat has the kernel, the Christian has Christ within. I had a Christ out here, but then I ran into passages, same gospel, Matthew, in the warnings of chapter 23, 24, where Jesus says many Christs will arise.

So Jesus actually said, when somebody says, there he is, no, there he is, no, he's over there, Jesus said, don't believe them. So questions like this started to formulate in my heart. I don't know if I could have articulated it, but this was the sum of it.

The Bible is not asking, do you follow Jesus? The Bible is asking, which Jesus do you follow? And I had one, and mine was over there and over there and over there. But Jesus actually said, don't believe them.

When they say the Christ is that one or this one, he's the genuine article. And I did not have him. So I would like for anybody who listened, just to say very simply, you can become one of them too. You can have Christ too.

And on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15, his death for your sin, his burial, his victorious resurrection, you can be forgiven and united to God. I could not help throwing myself into the arms of that Savior, once it became obvious to me that I didn't know him, had spurned his love and kindness and needed his forgiveness.

We talked about the fact that that kind of passage can be used by the Lord as it was in your life, to plow up a false assurance. But it can also be misused or abused in a way that produces a paralyzing fear in many people, especially those whose personalities tend to have a propensity toward introspection.

So as a pastor, one of the things I look at is, how does the person interact with all things in their life? Do they basically doubt themselves in every area? If they do, I fully expect that even in Christianity, that will be an occasional struggle.

If a person is super confident and capable in every area of life, but then when you talk to them about Christ, they get unnerved. That concerns me. One thing we would advise, I think, both of us, for our own souls, how do you apply the medicine of Christ to your own soul and to others, is that if the Bible pricks the heart and in a way that deeply bothers you and creates a fear, a question even, the answer is, do not hide from God as Adam and Eve did in their sin.

Wait, God, I'll fix this, then I'll come back. Do not lay down in this kind of paralyzing, proud despair, but let even the most fearful questions drive you to Christ, to His cross, and to say to Him, you are the answer, whether I'm coming to you for the thousandth time, or this is the very first time.

You know, there is no other place to go.

Yeah, no, well said.

Yeah, and if the heart does that, God will not let you miss assurance and all the other sweet byproducts, you know, by focusing on His Son.

Yeah, well said. He wants us to know Him more than we want to know Him.

Yeah.

So you keep coming to Christ, and Jesus actually promised, those who come to Me, I will not cast out.

Right.

The Father gave them to Me. I'm going to raise them up on the last day.

Yeah.

So just keep coming to Christ.

Yeah.

Discipleship Through Clyde Cranford and the Sermon on the Mount

Now, Jordan, you mentioned some peers in college that were really helpful in pointing you to Christ. Their lives sparked some questions, you know, wonderful picture of how God uses the simple obedience and the happiness of every believer.

But I know that you also had an older believer really invest himself in you, so tell us about him.

Gladly. This is God's great kindness. So I mentioned I was converted around March of my freshman year of college. Well, you know how college semesters work. That means it was about halfway through the second semester of my first year of college.

Well, two months later, the semester ends in May, and I go home about two, maybe two and a half months later, and I go to my now father-in-law, who I regard as an eminently godly man. I go to talk to him about all these great things God's doing in my life and my newfound conversion.

And I'm just thrilled. I'm like a kid in a candy store. Well, I walk into his office. He was serving as a pastor at a local church, and there's a man who I had not met discipling him. And for me, that's a conundrum.

How does the most godly person possible get help by anybody? And this other guy, Clyde Cranford, was actually walking my now father-in-law through the Sermon on the Mount. And I said, may I stay? May I just be part of this?

And Clyde said, if you don't say anything. So I sat on the love seat that was in the corner of the office and just listened. And for an hour, hour and a half, they were in the beatitudes. I was blown away.

And Clyde, to your question, a few weeks later, I kept showing up. I came back the next time, the next time. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to get kicked out. Get sent to the principal's office and not get to hear the things that were benefiting me.

And after a few times, Clyde and I had developed a little bit of a relationship. He asked if the two of us could spend a little time together. Well, hindsight 2020, I realized I was so rough around the edges, and he could see that very obviously that I needed some help.

So what Clyde would do with guys like Steve, he did more so with guys like me. Young men, he would just pour his life into them. And I know he poured his life into you in a lot of ways. But he would typically spend a year or a year and a half with a guy.

But I was so jacked up that he took me for about the last five years of his life. Yeah. Now, the funny thing is that.

I don't know, when was this? Do you remember what year this was? That would have been May 96. Okay. So, right. So I lived with Clyde from... I actually moved in with him because I was going to seminary and hadn't gotten married yet.

So for about a year and a half period. So Clyde, or maybe a year, I can't remember. I'm terrible with years. So years before that, when I was in West Memphis, Arkansas, in the middle of college, realizing that I was a fraud.

I too looked back at age nine at a prayer I prayed. You're in one of those services where they say to the kids, do you want to be on the devil's team or God's team? Who wants to join God's team? Well, you don't want to be the only kid saying, I'm going to stay in my seat because.

I want the devil's team. So you go forward. Spiritual malpractice, brother. I've just got to say it. So many churches do it and you may get snarky comments because I said that, but.

You can blame me. So 11 years later, it became apparent that for 11 years, my religion only was religious when it benefited me. But it was through a series of very selfish choices that I saw myself. And Clyde had already been kind to me in spite of the way I acted at church.

And I went to him and spent a weekend with him. And it was him talking to me about the cross that led to conversion. And then maybe months after that, he asked, would you be willing to be discipled? And I thought I was the most privileged person on the planet because Clyde really was extraordinary.

So one of the funny things was we would get reports on each other. Now, back then you got called PJ. So he would say, I've been talking to PJ. And then years later, you're like, yeah,.

Clyde told me about you. I'm like, what? No, no, no. And he did. Come to find out. He told us the same thing about each other, how many years you took off his life. And then I think he was telling you how many years I took off.

And in the Lord's providence, the Lord called him home. He was 46 years old, died celibate, and just spent the last 12, 14 years of his life pouring into people like he did with you and me. So what years, do you remember when you lived with him?

Yeah, it was like 90 to 92. I graduated college in 90. So four or five years before I met him. And I think were you in Wales when he and I, 96, May 96. Yeah. So I would have been in Wales. I think he mentioned.

You to me before I went to Wales. And then when I got back, a year after I got back and we'd planted the church here, he died. And then we saw each other at the funeral. Yeah. So that brother.

Became to me, I've often described him, I'm a coffee drinker. He would hand me the coffee cup with the handle facing me. That's what I felt like about our meetings. He was saying to me in intelligible words, with ample scriptural support, things that God was showing me, and I had no idea how to put them together and apprehend those things.

And so I remember one thing he said to me early, he gave me Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy, and he wrote a little note in the inside cover. And he said, it was a subtle rebuke, which Clyde wasn't usually subtle.

I have many rebukes in front of my books. Dear John, happy birthday. And then the bomb.

So he's usually not subtle in his rebuke. He's usually very, very open. But in this one, cover of the Knowledge of the Holy, I'm six months into the faith. And he said, this little book helped me to realize that I wasn't nearly as acquainted with the God that I thought I knew so well.

PS. But no, what a brother, what a gift. And the Lord, I think fast forwarded a lot of my um, a lot of the missteps I would have made. He protected me from a lot of missteps I would have made and gave me just a friend who was eminently Christlike.

And yeah, I think for me,.

Clyde, it wasn't just like you said, he really did say things in a way, never, it never came across as like super spiritual talk. It was so practical. It was so deep, but it was said in a way that like I knew how I used to say to Clyde, how am I supposed to apply this between like brushing my teeth and, you know, putting my shoes on in the morning?

And like, and he always had the answer. And I remember the first couple of talks I had with him, he, um, he would start, he would ask me a question. So 1 John 1, 9, if we've confessed our sins. Well, I had thrown that up so many times at God as a lost person, like you can't punish me because I'm saying this magic charm.

Clyde, so Clyde starts and says, so John, what do you think about 1 John 1, 9? And I jump in as Mr. Know-it-all, you know, and I've been a Christian for a month and he's real patient. And then when I run out of steam, he says, well, that's good, John, have you considered?

And then he talks for an hour and a half and I am so embarrassed, like shut up, John, like that. So I would think, I don't know anything, but what he just said was so clearly biblical, but also lived on.

Um, but yeah,.

And just a picture of Christ likeness. Completely. He, he, uh, he wasn't sentimental. In fact, he would say to me a lot that God doesn't want our sentimentality. That's not what he calls for in love. And the reason I underline that is because one of the distinguishing things in my memory about him, having spent five years, much of my, much of the last five years of his life, I spent a lot of that time with him.

Uh, one of the distinguishing marks was tears. Yeah. He were, he was, whether it was talking about the kindness of the Lord, I remember Ephesians 2, 7, he said, uh, he was near death and, um, he said, you know, God saved us to be kind to us forever so that in the ages to come, he might show to us the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness in Christ Jesus.

He just wants to be kind. That's why he saved you. And Clyde saying it to me, I knew that verse. I could quote the verse before Clyde told it to me for years, but he knew the God who spoke it so well and was so, uh, amazed with wonder and worship that he would be loved by such a King.

And there's the taught aspect of the Christian life. And the Lord gave me a lot of that through God. He taught me a lot of scripture, but there's the caught aspect when you live in proximity with somebody who has experienced the second Corinthians three 18 transformation that we talked about in, in an earlier episode, looking to Christ, Clyde was actually a changed man who was being changed.

And when you're, when you're around people like that, it has a palpable effect, especially as a brand new Christian who thought that I knew everything. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, actually Clyde toward.

The end of his life, uh, a number of us went together and bought him like a, an electronic typewriter that was also a word processor. So this is back in the dark ages. And so he, for, I don't know, like a couple of years, he put together all the talks that he gave to us and other men, which were like you said, it was about two years of almost every week.

He put all those talks together in a book that was eventually published after his death called Because We Love Him. Uh, it is a reduced copy slight, you know, we couldn't get, um, 500 pages through the editor, but 300 pages and Jordan, you have the copyright to that.

And we use that book with every new convert in the church. Uh, we have someone walk through that book with that convert. So it's not as good as having Clyde, but it does. It's a help. So what about since, since Clyde, what's been really helpful for you in walking with the Lord?

The Ordinary Means of Grace and the Local Church

Yeah, I think for all of Clyde's strengths, one of the things that I was missing most was the, the church piece, not to say I wasn't connected. I was, I have since conversion been connected and Clyde was too very meaningfully, uh, invested in a local church, but with Clyde, I got, um, repeated looks at the beauty of Christ from the scripture.

With Clyde, I also got without his initiative, but three years into our relationship from my questions, I got an understanding and a profound appreciation for the doctrines of grace, a God-centered soteriology that God saves all by himself and all for himself at great expense, the death of his son.

Um, but since then, I would say one of the most cataclysmic, um, awarenesses is if I could put it simply, God has one recipe that he loves. He's so benevolent, he'll bless in a billion ways, but he wants to bless all his children through prayer, through his word and through his people and particularly the, the, the local church.

And so through the years, um, I have benefited so much through men like Clyde, but we're not all going to have a guy who gives us the last five years of his life. You know what I'm saying? So some of us need so much help that God will kindly give us a man like that, but the ordinary means of grace that God intends for all of his people to enjoy.

And I would say I have also tasted through the church, the kindnesses of the Lord that I experienced in a relationship like with Clyde, um, coming in manifold ways. So since then, Ephesians three comes to mind, the last verse after the, he can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, which follows one of the most breathtaking prayers in the Bible to be filled with all the fullness of God, to know the unknowable love of Christ, that you would dwell in your heart through faith.

He's the King from whom every, the father from whom every family in heaven are. I mean, it's just, this prayer is amazing at the end of Ephesians three. And then it says, God can do more than that. The last verse to him, that's the father, be the glory in Christ and in the church to all generations forever and ever.

Amen. And I don't want to go back to English class. I didn't do very well in it myself, but, uh, it's a literary parallel to the degree that the father will get glory in all time, all generations and eternity forever and ever to the degree he will be glorified in his sign to that same degree, literary parallel, he will receive glory in the church, the purchase of his sign, the bride of his son.

And so I would say to any, any convert, immerse your life in the context of a church and try to help people gaze upon and, and obey the Lord Jesus more. Well, thank you, Jordan. Um, just.

One example of the father, keeping his word to his son, you know, stretching out his scepter, even over the house of his enemies, turning them into his children.