Insecurities and the Seven Sons of Sceva
"But the evil spirit answered them, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?'" Acts 19:15
This verse (along with the passage from which it comes) has run through my head about a hundred times in the past week. Believe it or not, we've been on vacation, but my insecurities are no respecter of calendar dates, locations, or accommodations. I'm never surprised (though never ready) when feelings of unworthiness and personal contempt raise their ugly heads and say hello.
Without boring you with too many details (ask my wife: vacationing with me is about as exciting as watching paint dry), I started off our trip alone, flying to North Carolina to cover for Michael Card, who was teaching an intensive Bible seminar at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville. It's unfortunate that many folks my age (43) and younger don't have a knowledge of or appreciation for Mike's music, writing, and teaching, but the older (50 and above) folks know a good thing when they find it; many of them follow Mike across the country for his concerts or Biblical Imagination conferences or even around the world (he had just gotten back from a tour in Ireland in May and takes a group to Israel every year in January).
Mike's "fans" tend to have more gray hair, available time, and discretionary funds than most, all of which equate to big expectations when they're shelling out $429 a pop at one of the premier conference centers in the country to hear arguably one of the best Bible teachers in the world. The topic for last week was the Gospel of John, for which Mike has just finished a new book and album (pre-order yours here). The good news was he was able to teach Monday-Thursday; the other news was, due to a mistaken double-booking, he was going to have to leave late Thursday night and needed a pinch-hitter to wrap up the week.
As Mike and I have done conferences together off-and-on for 12 years now, he asked me if I would fill in for him. Without really considering the dynamics, I said I would. I flew out Wednesday night, sat in on three sessions on Thursday, and then Mike and I executed a brief baton pass toward the end of the Thursday evening meeting. It went well, but I still had two sessions by myself on Friday morning and 120 folks who, without intending to be evil, had to be asking the demon's question with a twist:
"Jesus I know, and Michael Card I recognize, but who are you?"
Fast-forward to Sunday morning. After leaving The Cove Friday afternoon and flying to Denver that evening, I met up with Megan and our two youngest daughters and drove to the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park to pick up our two oldest daughters who had just finished RYM Camp with our City Presbyterian Pyretics group (major props to youth director Jarod Mason and intern Laura Parsons for coordinating and chaperoning). From there, we drove to Colorado Springs and up to Eagle Lake Camps, where Megan and I met and invested ten years (1992-2001) of our lives, and where I was to speak at staff chapel on Sunday morning. (As their two older sisters had three years previously, our two younger daughters were also set to attend camp this week.)
As you might imagine, the crowd was much younger than at The Cove; instead of 120 senior citizens, I was looking down the barrel of 120 wild-eyed high school- and college-aged students who will spend the rest of the summer caring for over 2,700 kids from all over the country. The energy was overwhelming, as was my self-doubt. I had worked weeks in advance on my message, but now that I was onsite, I wondered if it would actually connect; most of these kids would have been in diapers (if they were even born) when I was at Eagle Lake in my twenties, and it's never pretty when an older speaker attempts to play hipster (which I didn't) to reach a younger audience.
While many of the staff had apparently heard of me (it's not hard to be a camp celebrity just by virtue of having lasted ten years at one), I couldn't help but imagine them saying to themselves:
"Jesus I know, and some counselor I heard a story or two about from twenty years ago I recognize, but who are you?"
Who are you? Luke records that the evil spirit asked the question not of Christian believers but of "itinerant Jewish exorcists" who "undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits" (Acts 19:13). In other words, these "seven sons of Sceva" (great ska band name!) were trying to coast on the coattails of Jesus and Paul, but the evil spirit would not be fooled. The result wasn't pretty: "The man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded" (Acts 19:16).
The story is a reminder as well as a warning. Whether speaking to a weekend conference or camp audience or to our family and friends on a daily basis, are we doing so as followers of Christ or as Christian posers? Are we ministering out of the overflow of our relationship with Jesus, or are we name-dropping the Savior and his apologists in hopes that - somehow - His power will transfer anyway? As the passage records, there are few more dangerous sins than the sin of presumption.
The question of "Who are you?" is as pointed an accusation Satan and his agents of evil can throw at us, as there is no more powerful attack than one that attacks our person. But this is when we remind Satan (and ourselves) of who the Lord says we are. Peter's words in 1 Peter 2:9-10 are helpful:
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
In case you were wondering, the two sessions at The Cove went better than I hoped (there's no more honest compliment than conferees confessing afterward that, yes, they had been disappointed you weren't the original speaker, but they saw God's hand in it and were glad and grateful after all). The talk at Eagle Lake seemed to hit home (there's no more humbling thanks than when semi-awkward 19-year-olds try almost too hard to convince you that your message was exactly what they needed that morning). Whew.
The good news of the Gospel is that, while feelings of insecurities may be frequent and no fun, they can keep our poser potential in check if we confess them to Jesus so He can remind us who - and Whose! - we are. To do otherwise - to "fake it 'til we make it" despite our insecurities - will leave us naked, wounded, and in a vulnerable state that we will only want to hide from others and from God.