Leaving a Legacy or a Scandal? - The Prisoners Dilemma and the Truth - Purity 913

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a street lamp shining like the sun in a blue sky as the real thing fades over the horizon, illuminating the roadside trees on State Route 9J, or River Road, in Skodak Landing, comes to us today from yours truly as I was moved to turn my phone sideways from its vertical rearview mirror mounted orientation to capture some of the glory before me during yesterday's commute back to Riverhouse. After the previous day's snowstorm, the Lord graced us with a clear day and a reminder of, of that his creation is awesome and something we can miss and just drive through if we are too consumed with the things of this world. Well, it's Tuesday, and I learned this morning that Clyde Wilburn's memorial service and funeral will be tomorrow in Catskill, but but I won't be in attendance. I am not the best griever, and a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby sums up my feelings about funerals. A mob boss in that story says, "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead." Of course, the context of the Gatsby story actually reveals that this quote isn't so profound as it may have been self-serving, as Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim may have desired to distance himself from his deceased friend and his illegal dealings. So do I want to distance myself from my deceased friend because of his falling away from the church we attended, his illegal choices, and his death by overdose? Not really. Uh, I try to be as transparent about my addictive past and don't try to distance myself from anyone I met along the way during the 5 years that I went through taught, and eventually led the Celebrate Freedom Recovery ministry at my former church. Because of our interactions there and in church, I will always consider Clyde Wilburn as a brother and a friend. But the truth is that other than seeing him earlier this year at a Bible study with the Zinkatis, I haven't seen him in quite a while. Um, my life has taken me in a direction that led me away from the church, from Hudson and the church that we used to attend together. And before hearing about Clyde's death on Sunday, I didn't know what was going on in Clyde's life. I assumed he was well. I was wrong and discovered that he was charged with armed robbery in September. In 8 months, Clyde went from a Bible study to the police blotter, and now, 3 months later, his obituary will be all the news we may see regarding our old friend. As I was thinking about Clyde yesterday, I was reminded how important it is to keep walking with the Lord and how when I was first saved, I was so ignorant about about the importance of having a good testimony. Because I had lived a very selfish and sinful life for 38 years before being saved in 2010, I never thought, um, that I would have, would have any hope to leave a good testimony other than that the Lord, that God is gracious to forgive a sinner like me. I didn't understand that our testimony isn't frozen in time, or frozen in stone. It is progressive. While it is awesome to say a sinner's prayer and attend church services, the glory that we give to the Lord comes from our decision to continue to follow him and to seek our identity and, and enact our, our purpose in Christ. A long pause as he corrects a typo, one of the few that won't get missed. My testimony regarding Clyde Wilborn would be overwhelmingly positive as I loved him for his testimony as someone who had walked in darkness and decided to get right with God. His insights on the word of God, his sense of humility and humor, and his huge heart made it easy to love him. But my testimony is obviously one-sided and based on the context of Clyde's time in church. However, recently I wrote about how, due to situations from my past, some people out there, even though I am walking out my faith the best I can, consider me to be a bad Christian or hypocrite. And as much— and as I thought about the unfortunate circumstances and poor choices Clyde had made in his life I, I, I suspect that for every praise of his name that will come tomorrow at his memorial service and funeral, there may also be words of condemnation and possibly cursing whispered or flatly stated about Clyde's in the days, weeks, months, and years that will come as Clyde doesn't get a chance to change his story or to defend himself. The woman charged as an accomplice in the armed robbery that allegedly took place in September with Clyde now has the perfect opportunity to craft a defense as a hapless victim to an out-of-control man that coerced her into participating in his crime. How true that is, we will never know, but whether the illegal proceedings regarding those charges are resolved currently or not, this woman now has the option to speak well of or ilov, uh, my friend, uh, because he gave into his dark side. I wonder if she knows that Clyde was a Christian. Did she— did he share his faith with her? Does she know the Lord? Will she bless Clyde's name with fond remembrances and a defense of the things he is alleged to have done, or will she possibly— will she possibly rightfully curse him? It is doubtful that I will ever know any of the answers to these questions, but I pray for peace and comfort for the Wilburn family, and I pray for the— for the— this woman who will remain nameless, at least in my blog anyway, and all the people that Clyde met in his time on earth, on his time on this earth, that will— that would Discover the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, turn to the Lord in repentance, and learn from Clyde's death just how important it is to continue walking with the Lord and to endure in our faith. The longer we live as active Spirit-filled disciples of Jesus Christ, the longer and brighter our testimonies become. No matter how dark our past may be, if we keep walking and talking with God and show our faith, in the way we live every day, the brighter and more glorious our lives become. So let's not forget to encourage one another as we walk through the last month of this year and through the— throughout the rest of our lives, um, to stay the course, to resist the devil and his temptations, and to stay within the safety of the community and fellowship of the church. Church congregations and individuals, and the individuals who make them up, may not be perfect but the one who established the church is, and he calls us to abide with him there. So let's draw close together and keep following the voice of the Good Shepherd all the days of our lives, and show our friendship to one another while we live so we can report on the good testimony and legacy of faithfulness each of us will leave behind. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men This morning's meditation verse is John 1:29, and the text says, "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.'" Today's verse tells us that Christ was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Christ died for all sinners, but we must be redeemed by putting our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And let's face it, we also have to follow him. I'm short on time, but this Lamb of God thing indicates that Jesus was the perfect, sinless sacrifice to pay for all the sins we have ever done or will ever do. And when we put our faith in him, we are forgiven and set free. So thank God for Jesus. And your forgiveness and walk free from the sins of your past. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship, and we continue in the section of, of his book, uh, under The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship, with quote-unquote Chapter 11, or Chapter 30, I think it is, in, in Cost, um, on the visible church community, or the visible community, um, it depends on the translation. But basically, if you wanted to check out the first section of that chapter, go to mt4christ.org and see what Dietrich Bonhoeffer has to say about the visible church community. As I stated there in our message The visible church community is a place of safety, and it might not be a perfect place, but it's a place where we can go continually to be encouraged and to, you know, grow as Christians. My time spent in church has, you know, really been a valuable investment as it taught me about the Word of God, about how to live as a Christian, and how to serve and how to be a friend and how to, you know, do this thing called Christianity. And as much as I think that we take, you know, we are to take our Christianity all over the world in every aspect of our lives, you know, a big part of that has got to be fellowship in a church body. It's— and don't get me wrong, I don't think a church is everything about our faith. It's not just supposed to be going to church. It's supposed to be walking as a disciple of Jesus, abiding in his word, and trying to live according to our Christian faith. That makes us Christians, you know. Well, Christ makes us Christians, but we should try to represent him. And that's what we try to do here at mtforchrist.org as we encourage people to, you know, seek the Lord and do his will, find out who you are in Christ and be set free. Um, we offer things on our podcast, um, Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ. For all discipleship classes that I taught back in 2021 at my local church that are available to you to encourage you in your faith, to show you who you are in Christ, and to encourage you to, you know, resist the devil and become the person God created you to be. We also share our Bible studies with the Zinkatis. Today I'm sharing a link to the one Bible study that Clyde Wilburn sat in with us at the beginning of this year. So if you wanted to watch that Bible study, it's, it's available. I put it on Facebook and I'm putting it in today's blog as well, um, as I remember my friend. But I won't be attending his funeral. I just, uh, I'm not a funeral guy. And the Lord forgive me for that. Um, so there you go. Um, yeah, guilt and condemnation here on, uh, on, uh, on the podcast today. But there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We all have our lives and we all do our— do what we have to do from day to day to support our families. And, uh, unfortunately I don't have the time off from work and It is what it is. Um, God bless the Wilburn family and all of Clyde's friends. Remember him fondly, and it's my prayer that, um, he'll be remembered for his faith and not for the things he did in the last few months of his life and how he died. Um, in Jesus' name, amen. Um, anyway, um, tonight we'll be doing Lesson 18 of the Bonhoeffer series. So if you wanted to check that out as well, it'll be uploaded later today. And so there's lots of— we try to provide encouragement and teaching to help people in their walk. And you know, that's why we do these things, because we know how valuable a life in Christ is and how awesome it is. So let's encourage you today. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for all that you do. For us, Lord. We pray for blessings on the Wilburn family and all the people listening or reading our message today, um, Lord. As we just, we just know that the further we go with you, the better our lives are, and we, we do, we discover who we are and our purpose, uh, for you in our, in your kingdom, Lord. So we pray for you, pray for you to go before us today, pray for you to bless, uh, Bless all the people I just mentioned. And Lord, as always, we pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go today. Because all we want to do is represent you in your glorious light during this Christmas season, um, to show people that you are the way, the truth, and the life, and that, uh, it's through Jesus Christ alone that we're forgiven and given each eternal life. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.