How would you feel about taking a psychological test today? Sort of a verbal Rorschach. Let me paint a word picture for you, and then we’ll see what comes to your mind.
You are running a marathon race. You have practiced hard, and have now entered a 10K race. You have been told that it is really of no importance whether you are the first person to cross the finish line. What matters, they say, is that you finish. The rule is that anyone who finishes the course, however long it may take, is a winner.
And so you begin. You trot merrily off into the sunset, trailing clouds of glory. For a while you feel fine. But then the enormity of what you have undertaken begins to seep in on you. The fellow on your right hand veers off the road and plops down under a shade tree, waving his hand as if to say, “I’m out of here.” The lady on your left sprints ahead as she watches others drop out, as if to say, “Nothing’s going to stop me”, but within twenty yards she has pulled up, grimacing in pain and rubbing her calf muscle. You begin to wonder. But on you go, running, running, running.
Some of the other runners get far ahead of you; others fall well behind. But you aren’t worried. There is plenty of distance left to go, and you feel fine, all things considered.
After half an eternity, in the distance you see your goal. Down the road is the finish line. For a hundred yards ahead of it are spectators – family members, friends, racing fans, athletic wannabes – standing on the sidelines, waiting for the runners to arrive. You look around and take inventory; quite a few have dropped out, but a good many are still going. About half of those are ahead of you, and about half are behind. You begin to think, “I could win this thing. If I really pour it on, I really could win this race.” Mind you, they have said that anyone who gets to the finish line is a winner, and you agreed to that; but now the thought that had always been in the back of your mind creeps to the fore, “I could win. I could be first. I could show them all. I could. I will. I will”
You round the turn into the home stretch, breathing hard. Various muscles are tightening up, and you would give almost anything for something cold to drink. How hot is it out here, anyway? Broiling and blazing! But you are almost ready to put on that last burst of speed, to burn that last ounce of energy, because you really want it now – you want to be first. You want to be the best. Not just second best, not just honorable mention, and certainly not something hollow like, “It was a victory just to have finished.” You want to be top dog, at the head of the pack, number one, the fastest of the fleet feet.
But what about all the others? How are they doing? You turn your head to check them out. They are running hard. They seem determined. There’s some tough competition in this race! You stare at the others for just a couple of seconds, and in that moment of hesitation something happens with your stride. You wobble, you bump the person next to you, both of you stagger and have trouble keeping your balance – and the crowd goes wild! The sidelines erupt with yells and screams. Somebody shouts – what? Someone else waves his hands and screams – what? Still another person pounds her fist into the palm of her hand and shakes her head – meaning what? What do you think the spectators on the sidelines are shouting? Is it encouragement – hang in there? Is it advice – stay focused? Is it a cheer – you’ve done well?
Or is it criticism? Is it complaint? “You fouled the other runner!” “Watch where you’re going, you idiot?” Maybe something like, “You turned your head; what a stupid thing to do!”
Which is it? This is our spiritual Rorschach test! In this little scenario, how many of you, if you are the runner, think the sideline spectators are shouting encouragement, cheers, and positive things when you stumble?
And how many of you think the sideline spectators are shouting criticisms, complaints, and negative things because you have stumbled?
The way in which we answer that kind of question is a clue to where we are spiritually. The way in which we hear people respond to us tells a great deal about our spiritual maturity. More than that, the way in which we receive constructive criticism is a measure of how Christ is being formed in us.
The writer of Hebrews uses this very picture of a race to focus on this business of receiving criticism:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
This great cloud of witnesses on the sidelines – what are they saying as we run the race? Are they urging us on, or are they disparaging all we do? Are they cheering or are they jeering? It’s important to discover how we answer that question. It’s important to discover how to receive constructive criticism.
I
Let’s begin with those of you who thought you were hearing complaints and criticism as you entered the home stretch. Let’s agree that some folks are more than ready to find fault. Let’s acknowledge that not all criticism is constructive. Not all the sideline shouting is intended to be helpful.
Have you ever been around somebody whose mission in life is to set you straight and put you down? Is there anybody in your life now for whom you are never going to be good enough, never fast enough, never smart enough, never right enough? I had a professor like that back in my engineering school days. He taught organic chemistry – not the world’s easiest subject, as I soon found out. Every exam I turned in, every lab test I did, every report I wrote came back peppered with insults. If I got the chemistry problem wrong, his blue pencil spewed out snide remarks and exclamation points as if there were no tomorrow! And on those all too rare occasions when I got the problem right, there was still something to be snarled at – I showed too much information, I showed too little information. I wrote too large, I wrote too small. When he criticized not only my chemistry, but also my English and my handwriting, I felt he had gone over the top. He had it in for me; his criticism crossed the line and was not constructive.
Now the writer of Hebrews knew that that can happen. He wants us to understand that hostility is real and that we’re going to have critics whether we deserve them or not. He points us to what happened to Jesus:
Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.
Consider Jesus, who endured immense hostility. Jesus did not deserve all the criticism leveled against Him. They complained about his eating habits, they sniped at his choice of friends, they disliked His street preaching, and when there wasn’t anything else to criticize, they snarled about His theology. What was going on? Why did Jesus receive such hostility? No one even pretended that that criticism was constructive. Why did it happen?
Well, there is an important spiritual reality hiding in this little sentence. Hebrews does not mince words about the origin of hostility. It says that Jesus endured hostility from sinners. Hostility comes from sin.
You can be sure that half of the criticism that is heaped on your head comes right out of the spiritual issues that your critics face. You can be confident that much of what passes for constructive criticism is not constructive at all. When someone says, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but …”, put it down: he does want to hurt your feelings. He does want to make you squirm, because he is hurting about something. He is struggling with the mess in his own life, and because he cannot solve it, he projects that mess on to you.
I’ll let you in on a trade secret among preachers. The thing that the preacher is death on is the thing he is having trouble with himself. The spiritual issue that the preacher cannot conquer is the one he screams the loudest about. You remember Bakker and Swaggart a few years ago, don’t you, and how they found moral decay in every nook and cranny of America? Guess what? They weren’t talking about America; they were talking about themselves. They were not trying to help others struggle successfully with sin; they were dealing with their own demons. The hostility that is not constructive criticism comes from sin and has little or nothing to do with you.
Consider Jesus, who had to endure such hostility from sinners, and do not lose heart.
II
On the other hand, when we did our 10K race image, many of you saw yourselves approaching that finish line and getting encouragement from others. Many of you imagined that, even when you made a mistake, others on the sidelines were honestly trying to help you.
Sometimes those who criticize really do have an insight into our. Sometimes we need criticism and need it very pointedly.
Hebrews teaches us something very important at this point. It teaches us that constructive criticism comes ultimately from God and that it is a discipline designed, out of God’s love, to grow us. When we receive correction, and it rings true – when it genuinely feels like the truth – then we must see that it comes from God and is an expression of God’s disciplining love.
"My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts." Endure trials for the sake of discipline. … [God] disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.
Has the Lord put into your life people who will tell you the truth, whether you want it or not? God has a way of giving us people who have really heard the Scripture when it tells us to speak the truth in love. When we discover that these are not just busybodies with nothing better to do than to meddle, but they are God’s messengers, then we can grow.
I think back to some of the people who have helped me along the way with their constructive criticism. There have been many of them. I think of Bernie Sams, back there in my home church, who listened to my first faltering efforts at preaching and told me that I was packing too many things in. He said that if I wouldn’t try to preach the whole Bible in one message he might have a chance at understanding what I was getting at. That stung at first, but that was the voice of God, loving me and loving His kingdom, and wanting to make me effective.
I think of my daughter, who, when she was just a little sprout, said, “Daddy, you have time for everybody but me.” That stung at the time, but it was true. In that four-year-old was the voice of a God who loves me too much to let me make a mess of my family life.
I think of a fellow pastor, who, when he heard me make some pronouncement about racism, suggested that I needed to do more listening before I said more. That really stung! Why, I had been working in multiracial settings for fifteen years. What did I have to learn? But in this young pastor I came to hear the voice of God, working to make sure that I would be more eager to understand than to sound like a know-it-all. Do you see? Constructive criticism is the voice of God, disciplining us in love so that we can grow.
I think of some of you, who have called or stopped in or written notes to share your insights. Unlike some churches, where anonymous letters and secret conferences and angry business meetings poison everything, you have offered your perceptions in the interests of the kingdom and of the success of this church. Even when I didn’t understand or agree, I’ve known that you have been the very voice of God, loving your church, loving the kingdom.
When constructive criticism is on target; when the truth is being told, even when it hurts, we are to hear it as the voice of God’s love. We are to know that it is a discipline designed to grow us. Whom the Lord loves He disciplines. Receive constructive criticism as the voice of a loving God who, more even than our earthly parents, wants to grow us into maturity.
III
For the bottom line is this, wherever you came out on our little Rorschach test: that our God has given us not only an example in Jesus Christ, who endured hostility from people caught up in their own messes; and our God has not only spoken to us through others to help us see what we can become; but most of all, God in Jesus Christ has captured our incompleteness and has made it complete. God in Jesus Christ has received our brokenness and has healed it. God in Jesus Christ has taken all of our lostness, our loneliness, and our leastness and has made us brothers and sisters with His own Son.
We do not let criticism destroy us, for all of our sin, all of our shame, all of our guilt, is nailed to the cross and we bear it no more. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. We do not allow persecution or nakedness of famine or sword to destroy us, for now, redeemed by Him, nothing in all this world can ever separate us from the love of God expressed in Christ Jesus.
It is not a question of what the critics say about us. It is not even a question of how we feel when we are criticized. The writer of Hebrews puts things into perspective for us when he reminds us,
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
In other words, you haven’t had it that bad. A little complaint here, a little criticism there, even when it wasn’t deserved, is not all that destructive. You haven’t had to die for it. Someone wrote a little book entitled, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” and then put a subtitle on the book, “And It’s All Small Stuff”. We don’t have to allow criticism to be destructive, because no attack, no hostility, no criticism destroys us. Christ has died for us. We take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune because Christ has taken into His own body all our suffering. The ultimate mystery, the greatest of good news, is this: that God has made Him to be sin who knew no sin, pouring on Him all the world’s evil, dumping on Him all of history’s venom, saturating Him with all of the corrosive powers of the human heart, and so God has released us from all of that. All of it. When I see Jesus, perfect and complete, and know that on that Cross He took everything that should have come to me, then how can I worry about a little criticism here or a bit of hostility there? In my struggle against sin I have not yet resisted to the point of shedding my blood. And I don’t have to. God has loved me enough to bear every burden, pay every price, and go to the outer limits of love, all for me, all for you.
Go back with me in your mind’s eye to that 10 K race. There you are at the finish line. Yes, the cloud of witnesses is shouting at you. Some are cheering you on, urging you to finish what you set out to do. Others are pointing accusing fingers, “I knew you’d fail, I knew you’d fail.”
But don’t look or listen just to the sidelines. Look up, look ahead, for someone has been there before you. You are not the first across the line, but you’re a winner anyway:
Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. … Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
