Four Reasons to Share Your Personal Struggles with Non-Christians

00:00:05.000 | Hannah, a listener to the podcast, writes in with a really good question for you.

00:00:09.000 | "Hello, Pastor John. I have a Muslim friend and I aim for their salvation in this friendship,

00:00:14.000 | but I never share my weaknesses. Moral weaknesses, bad habits, even my own sin struggles.

00:00:20.000 | I refrain out of fear that if I did share those things, this friend would see me and Christ in a bad light.

00:00:26.000 | My thought is, why should I talk about my weaknesses to an unbeliever since they can't help anyways?

00:00:31.000 | Or, if I should, what is the goal and hope for telling this person my own weaknesses and struggles?

00:00:37.000 | Can you help me think through this?"

00:00:39.000 | Hannah says that she avoids sharing her weaknesses with her Muslim friend or other unbelievers

00:00:48.000 | out of fear that they will see her and Christ in a bad light.

00:00:56.000 | That is a real, appropriate, biblical concern.

00:01:03.000 | Because the Bible repeatedly calls us to let our light shine that people might see our good deeds

00:01:13.000 | and give glory to our Father. So it's not wrong to want unbelievers to see us as doers of good

00:01:23.000 | rather than moral failures. But alongside that concern, there needs to be put another concern,

00:01:33.000 | namely, communicating a false perfectionism and a view of the gospel that fails to revel in the promise

00:01:47.000 | of ongoing forgiveness of sins and the justification of the ungodly.

00:01:53.000 | So Hannah needs to steer a course between being indifferent to the demonstration of God's power,

00:02:02.000 | like it doesn't matter, on the one hand, and the communication of a gospel-minimizing perfectionism

00:02:10.000 | on the other hand. So I would mention maybe four reasons why Hannah should, wisely and humbly,

00:02:22.000 | share with unbelievers, including her Muslim friend, her own struggles—struggles to trust,

00:02:29.000 | struggles to follow, struggles to obey Jesus and live a life consistent with His mercies

00:02:36.000 | and His promises and His Word. So first, she should do this because the Apostle Paul did it.

00:02:43.000 | He very openly said in 2 Corinthians 12 that a thorn was given to him in the flesh,

00:02:50.000 | a messenger of Satan, to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited.

00:02:56.000 | Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but He said,

00:03:03.000 | God said, Jesus said, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness."

00:03:09.000 | That's why I thought of this passage—weakness—because she's worried about sharing weakness.

00:03:15.000 | And here's Paul making much of his weakness for the sake of the glory of Christ.

00:03:21.000 | So she needs to stir that in to her thinking. And in Romans 7, at the end—and yes,

00:03:28.000 | I do believe Romans 7 is Christian experience in that debate—"Wretched man that I am,

00:03:33.000 | who will deliver me from this body of death?" And then he exults, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

00:03:40.000 | And then he goes back down, "So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh."

00:03:47.000 | In other words, when my flesh gets the upper hand, I serve the law of sin.

00:03:51.000 | And he just so boldly lets it hang out. So Paul's example should set us free to speak of our brokenness

00:04:00.000 | and weakness, and I think even our struggle with sins, always being sensitive to what's appropriate

00:04:08.000 | in every given situation. So that's the first reason.

00:04:12.000 | Second, I think we should be willing to share our weaknesses with unbelievers,

00:04:18.000 | lest we give the impression of a false view of what it means to be converted to Christ

00:04:24.000 | and what it means to be sanctified. John says in 1 John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin,

00:04:30.000 | we deceive ourselves." Present tense. And the truth is not in us.

00:04:35.000 | If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

00:04:40.000 | If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his truth is not in us.

00:04:45.000 | Now many unbelievers—this has been my experience over the years—many unbelievers are kept back

00:04:51.000 | from serious consideration of Christianity because they believe that the standard of behavior

00:04:57.000 | that would be expected of them is inconceivable.

00:05:01.000 | On the one hand, they don't know anything about the power of the Holy Spirit,

00:05:06.000 | and on the other hand, they may have serious misconceptions about perfection

00:05:12.000 | and about the people that are Christian and what they're like.

00:05:17.000 | And Hannah could help them have a clear view of conversion and of the Christian life

00:05:24.000 | if she spoke about it in a realistic way in relationship to the Holy Spirit.

00:05:32.000 | Third, we should be willing to speak about our weaknesses and struggles

00:05:37.000 | because this will give hope to unbelievers that Christians are real people with real struggles

00:05:44.000 | rather than a kind of superior moral race, which of course they know we're not anyway.

00:05:51.000 | And lastly, fourth, we should be willing to share our weaknesses, even with unbelievers,

00:05:58.000 | in order to magnify the extraordinary grace and patience of God in Christ.

00:06:06.000 | So Paul did this in 1 Timothy 1:16.

00:06:10.000 | He said, "I received mercy for this reason, that in me the foremost, Jesus Christ,

00:06:17.000 | might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in me for eternal life."

00:06:25.000 | So the point here is that the true nature of the gospel, the true nature of grace and mercy in Christ

00:06:35.000 | are highlighted when we describe to unbelievers how precious forgiveness is to us

00:06:43.000 | and how precious God's patience is to us even when we're struggling after we're Christians to obey.

00:06:52.000 | So I would conclude that Hannah should think through not just which weaknesses should be mentioned,

00:07:02.000 | but should also think through why Christ is precious to her in view of her weaknesses.

00:07:10.000 | In other words, talking about her weaknesses is not the point.

00:07:15.000 | Talking about Christ and his patience and his grace and his value and preciousness in relationship to her weaknesses,

00:07:25.000 | that's the point. It's a way of talking about Christ.

00:07:29.000 | So maybe she should just adjust the category question, not just should I talk about my weaknesses,

00:07:34.000 | but should I talk about the glories of Christ in relationship to my weaknesses.

00:07:41.000 | So for those four reasons at least, I would encourage Hannah and all of us to make the truth about our lives

00:07:51.000 | a means of celebrating the greatness of Christ.

00:07:55.000 | That's really good. Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:57.000 | And Hannah, that's exactly the kind of question we're looking for in the inbox.

00:08:01.000 | Thank you for sending that in.

00:08:03.000 | And if you have a question for John Piper, send it to me through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:08:11.000 | And speaking of our dealings with non-Christians, we are going to close out the week with a doozy of a question.

00:08:16.000 | How do I wisely and humbly confront someone in my life who claims to be a believer,

00:08:22.000 | but who gives no evidence of this in their lives?

00:08:26.000 | Wow. A huge question to be handled with pastoral care.

00:08:29.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.

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Four Reasons to Share Your Personal Struggles with Non-Christians

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