One Sunday a year ago I preached my first sermon here at Bethlehem as pastor and so this is the anniversary of one year here for me. And looking back on the year I have two chief emotions,

lots more, but these are the ones that, as I thought about it this week came to the

four. One is a sense of weakness and inadequacy to fulfill this very high and holy calling.

And the other is a sense of the tremendous mercy of God to meet my need, namely always. The first emotion is usually felt as a mingling of fear and guilt.

Guilt because I'm afraid that I have done something that might be harmful to the church in some decision or some word,

or that I've left something undone that ought to have been done by a responsible pastor and fear

that tomorrow's crisis or tomorrow's burden might be too complex and too heavy to bear. And that second emotion of humbling gratitude to God

is humbling because it's been my experience that the times when my

pride is most thoroughly broken and abased, are the times when at the end of my own resources

God has met my knee.

Most of the tears shed in the first year of the pastorate have not been tears of tragedy.

They have been tears of victory. Again and again I have entered situations

afraid and God has rebuked me with mercy.

Those are strange tears, a mingling of joy and gratitude and sorrow and repentance all in one a very strange experience

but repeated and real. I can't understand with any empathy or any appreciation what goes on

inside a person who looks at the cross of Christ or perceives the power of God exercised on his

behalf and derives from that a sense of worthiness. It's just the opposite with me in my experience.

When I catch a glimpse of Calvary love. My first response is not, oh how worthy I must be that one would die for me.

It seems like that's a very common response today.

And mine is just the opposite.

When I catch the clearest glimpse of Calvary Love, I feel what a foul heart of sin I must have that I had to have an atonement so excruciating

to cover all my sin.

...