Sometimes a story comes along that has so many similarities to God’s bigger story that you can’t help but be in awe. That’s Michael Molthan’s story.
If you haven’t seen his new I Am Second White Chair Film, you’ll want to watch it here.
I’m still getting over the chills from watching it a second time. A quick recap: Michael’s been arrested 27 times; he found himself in prison for four years; in prison, he started reading the Bible and Jesus rescued him; he started sharing the freedom he found with others; he was released on a technicality but turned himself back in; the judge was so blown away by his transformation she pardoned him and told him to “go pay it forward.”
In other words, Michael’s story is my story. It’s your story. It’s God’s story. No, really.
Let me put it this way: Maybe you haven’t spent time in actual prison – I haven’t – but we were all prisoners before Jesus. We all faced the consequences of our sin and actions. We were hopeless. And God showed up. And that’s what I want to drive home today.
I think as followers of Jesus, we have to do better about not just accepting but declaring how hopeless we were before He rescued us. Think about it this way: How many of us have found ourselves getting in trouble, or feeling empty, after doing the same thing over and over and over again like Michael? My hand is raised. Really high.
Maybe I don’t have 27 physical mugshots, but I probably have hundreds of emotional and spiritual ones. And that’s just one struggle.
That was also true for Paul, arguably the greatest convert to Christianity ever. His story is Michael’s story, too. He tells us as much.
“I do not understand what I do,” he writes in Romans 7. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
That sounds like 27 mugshots to me.
So what did Paul do about it? He boasted about that fact!
“‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,’” he says about Jesus in 2 Corinthians. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
Friend, we need to boast more in our weaknesses. We need to recognize that we’ve all been in some sort of prison, and the only way to get out is to be pardoned by a benevolent judge who not only excused us from our punishment but actually sent his Son to endure that punishment for us.
The more we boast about that weakness – that prison – the more it becomes obvious to others that nothing we do can fix it. It’s only by the grace of God that we are transformed, restored, and pardoned.
So I’d encourage you to use Michael’s new film to do just that – to drive that message home. Maybe it’s not your exact story, but it’s actually your exact story.