CHUCK COLSON REDEMPTION

Transcription

1 1 CHUCK COLSON REDEMPTION He will forever be remembered as President Nixon s hatchet man, the one who authored Nixon s infamous enemies list, as one of the Watergate Seven and as a convicted felon who served time in a federal prison. Well, that s not correct. He will be remembered that way by historians. But he will forever be remembered as a man who loved and served his Lord Jesus Christ. When history and this world are no more, in eternity he will be remembered as a life that was redeemed by the grace of God and who was used by that same God to change the lives of countless others. Our series is titled The Story of a Lifetime: Your Life is Your Message. Here s how Chuck Colson describes his life and his message. Clip: Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony, Episode 1, Biographical Notes Charles Colson was born in North Boston in the middle of the depression, From an early age, Chuck s drive, intelligence and leadership skills were evident. As an eleven year old, he led a successful campaign that raised enough money to purchase a jeep for the US army during World War II.

2 2 Upon graduating from high school, Chuck accepted a Navy ROTC scholarship to Brown from which he graduated with honors. In the same year he married and received his commission to the Marine Corps. He served in Korea and did so with such drive and distinction that he became the youngest captain in the Corps long and storied history. Chuck left the Marines, and entered George Washington University Law School, working during the day and going to school at night. Again, he graduated with honors. By the age of 17, Colson had become interested in politics. He volunteered with the campaign of Massachusetts governor Robert Bradford. And it was then that he learned his first lessons in campaign dirty tricks, from planting false newspaper stories to spying on the opposition. Twelve years later when he was called upon to manage the 1960 reelection campaign of Senator Leverett Saltonstall, he would employ all of the dirty tricks he had learned in the past and invent some of his own. Following this victory, he and a friend opened their own law firm which became highly successful. At the same time, his marriage was falling apart. After his divorce, he married Patty Hughes, who would be his wife for the next forty-eight years.

3 3 Colson left the firm he began in 1968 to join Richard Nixon s campaign for the Presidency. After Nixon s election, Colson was appointed as Special Counsel to the President. At the young age of 38, he had the ear and the confidence of the most powerful man on the planet. His brilliance and his drive made him Nixon s go-to guy in practically every situation. Slate magazine writer David Plotz described Colson as Richard Nixon s hard man, the evil genius of an evil administration. White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman described Colson as the president s hit man. Colson himself wrote that he was valuable to the President because I was wiling to be ruthless in getting things done. Things like instigating New York State AFL-CIO union leaders to arm 200 construction workers with segments of steel reinforcement bars and hard hats to attack students who were protesting the recent shootings at Kent State and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Known as the Hard Hat Riot, the construction workers broke through police lines chased down the protesters and in the process 70 persons were injured. Colson s reputation spread as a chain-smoking, hard-drinking ruthless political operative who, the quip was, would run over his own grandmother to re-elect Nixon. The Watergate Scandal would expose the unethical and illegal activities of Colson and others in the administration, resulting in 69 government officials being charged with a crime, 48 being found guilty, and President Nixon s resigning from office.

4 4 Before the seriousness of the scandal came to light, Colson left the administration and returned to private practice as an attorney. Hoping to land Raytheon as a client, Chuck met with the company s CEO, Tom Phillips, who just the week before had accepted Christ at a Billy Graham crusade. He told Colson, I had gotten to the point where I didn t think my life was worth anything. Now I have committed my life to him, everything has changed attitude, values, the whole bit. If you d like to hear more, give me a call. In a few months time, the Watergate scandal exploded with the revelation that Nixon had secretly taped most of his Oval Office conversations. News crews and cameras were stationed outside of Colson s home and his life became a circus. To escape he took a trip to the Maine Coast and while there he visited Tom Philips at his home and asked why he had felt empty inside after achieving so much success. In the light of Watergate, Colson was looking seriously at his own life. And for the first time, he was wondering if he had been living with the wrong priorities. Philips answer was fairly simple. No matter how hard he worked or how successful the company, he felt that something was missing. He turned to the Bible and realized that he needed a personal relationship with God. Colson was skeptical it seemed too simple and rather ridiculous.

5 5 As the conversation continued, the talk turned to Watergate, with Colson trying to justify his actions, putting the blame on Nixon s enemies. Philips pushed back. It was pride that had created the scandal, the Raytheon CEO insisted Colson s pride and the pride of others in the administration. He took out C.S. Lewis book, Mere Christianity, and read the section on pride. As Colson listened, he heard his own life being described, he saw how twisted and corrupt he had become, and he felt shame. Philips then read John 3 to Colson, about Nicodemus needing to be born again, and asked Chuck if he could pray for him. As he did, a wave of emotion hit Colson and he had to fight back tears. Here s Colson describing what happened after he left that night. Clip: Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony, Episode 1, 9.39-end He wrote: Charles Colson: I stayed there in the car, wet-eyed, praying, thinking for perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer, alone in the dark of the quiet night. Yet for the first time in my life I was not alone at all. His study of Mere Christianity that week in Maine confirmed his decision. The Gospel was true and he would follow Jesus.

6 6 Even with Christ, the next months were torturous. New revelations regarding Watergate and the Nixon administration came out daily. Colson was offered a plea deal by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. He could plead guilty to a misdemeanor, escape prison, and continue to practice law. The problem was he had done many things much worse, but he hadn t done what he was asking to plead guilty to. His new found faith in Christ would not allow him to lie, so he refused the deal. Immediately, felony charges were filed against him. Rather than fight the charges, Colson pled guilty to obstruction of justice in the Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers case and was sentenced to federal prison. On the court house steps, Colson announced to the world, that he had committed his life to Jesus and that he could serve Christ in prison as well as out. His claim of conversion was seen by many as a cynical ploy. Men like Chuck Colson, hard, nasty and ruthless, did not suddenly get religion and become kind and caring. Colson, who had once had an office next to the president, was now mopping floors and working in the laundry of a federal penitentiary. But it wasn t only his position that had changed; his heart was changing.

7 7 He was being humbled and this Ivy League educated, former Marine came to see the poor, uneducated men in prison with him as his brothers. Clip: Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony, Episode 2, /49 In January, 1975, Chuck learned that the Virginia Supreme Court had voted to disbar him. Even worse, he received the news that his son had been arrested for drug possession. Without his knowledge, his attorney asked the judge who had originally sentenced Colson for a ten day furlough so he could be with his son. In a decision that stunned everyone, the judge released Colson from prison permanently. What now? In a dream he remembered a conversation he had had in prison. A six foot six inmate had screamed at him, When you get out of here, you ll forget us. There ain t nobody cares about us. Nobody! In April 1975, while staring at himself in the mirror, a series of images flashed across his mind. Colson saw men in prison dress attending classes, praying together. They were smiling, walking out of prison, then sitting around tables, studying the Bible together and talking. Then he heard an almost audible voice tell him, Take the prisoners out; teach them; return them to build prison fellowships

8 8 in every penitentiary in America. Of course, getting prisoners out of prison for a two week retreat was ludicrous. But that s what Colson proposed to Norman Carlson, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And that is what Norman Carlson agreed to, starting in the Washington DC area. Here s Colson later talking about how God used him. Clip: Chuck Colson Gives His Testimony, Episode 2, In the years that followed, Colson wrote over thirty books, worked for criminal justice reform, began a radio program that promoted a biblical worldview, called BreakPoint which had 8 million listeners every day. In his later years he counseled President George W Bush to fight human trafficking, combat the global spread of AIDs, and protect persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Those who had doubted his conversion nearly forty years earlier, could not deny the legacy he had left when he died at the age of 80 in Nixon s hard man had become a heart softened by trials, humiliation, prison, and ultimately the grace of Jesus Christ. Once intoxicated with power and driven to destroy his enemies, Colson spent his life working for those who could do nothing for him and who no one else cared about. And he proved that Christian men can combine grace and truth, loving the unlovely as Christ did and at the same time defending the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the truth of the Bible.

9 9 At his funeral his daughter Emily said, There is work to be done. I encourage you to continue the work God has begun through my father s life. Do the right thing, seek the truth, defend the weak, live courageous lives. What LESSONS can WE LEARN FROM CHUCK COLSON S STORY OF A LIFETIME 1. PEOPLE NEED JESUS CHRIST. Men, listen. Everyone needs a personal relationship with God. The homeless guy living on the streets and the guy sitting in the CEO s chair, are more alike than they are different. They share a common humanity and a common need: a personal relationship with God whether they know it or not. Raytheon CEO Tom Philips told Colson: Tom Philips: I would go to the office each day and do my job, striving all the time to make the company succeed, but there was a big hole in my life. I began reading the scriptures, looking for answers. Something made me realize I needed a personal relationship with God. Blaise Pascal was a 17 th century French mathematician, inventor and philosopher. He wrote about the emptiness that we experience without a relationship with God. Blaise Pascal: This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. Sometimes what Pascal wrote is paraphrased with the line, There is a God-shaped vacuum within the heart of every man.

10 10 How is it that a man who had everything, like Tom Philips, could complain that there is a hole in his heart? How could he say about himself what I quoted earlier when he told Colson Tom Philips: I had gotten to the point where I didn t think my life was worth anything. Here s how. We were made to be in relationship with God. It s that relationship that breathes life into our souls. Without it, there is a hollowness inside, an emptiness, a vacuum. In over 30 years of ministry, I have been invited into the lives of scores, probably hundreds of people. Many have been very successful. And I can tell you this. Many of the most professionally successful men I have known have been driven to work incredible hours; some have been willing to sacrifice their families and their health; and some have been committed to succeeding at any price, even the cost of their integrity, because they are empty inside. If they can stay busy, they can hide from that feeling for a while. But they know it s there, the way you sense that someone is standing close behind you even though you don t know who it is or what he s doing there.

11 11 And there is the hope: one more success and I ll be enough; one more promotion and I ll be satisfied; one more goal met and I ll feel good about myself; one more material thing and I ll be happy; one more woman and I ll feel like a man; one more drink and the pain of being me will go away; one more I don t know what it is, but I know it s out there and I m going to find it, and then the feeling will be gone and I can be at peace. But there is a vacuum inside every man, yourself included. It s a spiritual abyss so it can never be filled by a material object or the prizes and pleasures this world offers. And if you haven t filled it yet with a relationship with God, the emptiness you feel isn t your enemy, it s your friend. It s not a problem you need to get rid of, it s a counselor you need to listen to, telling you that you were made for something more. That s why even a man like Chuck Colson hard, driven, cynical and successful that s why when he heard Tom Philips story, he heard his own story. That s why he sat in the car alone, weeping and crying out for God to fill the hole in his heart.

12 12 Two things to tell you here. If you haven t trusted in Christ in a personal way, you need to. Look at what I have on your notes. Human beings have an incredible ability to learn from the mistakes of others and an amazing disinclination to do so. How many times do you need to hear men tell you: I had it all, and I was still empty inside before you believe that having it all will leave you empty inside? Living a decent life, being a good husband and father, succeeding at work, all wonderful. But you have a bigger problem and a bigger need than that. You were created to be in a personal relationship with God. And the Bible teaches us that because of our sins we have become estranged from God. And we are deserving of judgment. All have sinned and have fallen short, the Bible says. (Romans 3.23) The wages of sin is death, the Bible says. (Romans 6.23) There is none who is righteous before God, not one. (Romans 3.10) It is by grace that we are saved, the Bible says, not by works. (Ephesians 2.8-9). That means by what God has done for us not by what we do for him, or by being good, or by serving others. And we receive the grace we need when we receive Christ, that s what the Bible says. But as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1.12)

13 13 If you haven t yet trusted in Christ, and that means you stop trusting in your good deeds and in your being a good person for being right with God, you admit your sins and your need for a Savior, we ll pray about it when we finish this morning. Here s the other thing I want to tell you with this point. The men you know need Jesus. I don t care how successful, how together, how content they look, they need a personal relationship with God. Do not be afraid of telling your story and as Tom Philips did with Chuck Colson, saying, if you want to know more, I ll be happy to talk. Every man you know has a God-shaped vacuum inside his heart. Even those who don t know it. Even those, who like Colson did, think accepting Christ could never change my life that s too simple, too naïve even that guy needs Jesus. Don t ever forget the greatest gift you can give anyone is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray for your friends, love your friends, and look for a way to share Christ with your friends. Second lesson from Chuck Colson s story of a lifetime. 2. IT MATTERS WHAT YOU LIVE FOR. You are never bigger than the purpose you live for.

14 14 If you live for material success, you ll never be bigger than money and stuff. If your goal is to be loved and wanted, you ll never be more than some needy person waiting for someone else to make you complete. If your dream is to be respected and looked up to, you ll never be more than a little mound of pride. If your primary desire is to be comfortable and well off, you ll never be more than a self-satisfied life of what might have been. And if your goal is power and position, you ll never be more than a driven man with a hole in your heart wondering how you can have everything and still need something more. If you live for this world, it s treasures and its prizes, you may gain the whole world, but you ll never live a truly great story because you were made for more. Here s a clip from Francis Chan that talks about living for eternity. Clip: Francis Chan Rope, If the Gospel is true, if you re here to tell a story with your life that glorifies God and matters for eternity, is the purpose you re living for is it smart or is it crazy? Charles Colson began his life living for what many men make their goal. Position. Power. Worldly success.

15 15 But what brought him joy, what brought him meaning, what made him feel right was living for what matters forever. And you need that too. Ecclesiastes 3.11: He has also set eternity in the human heart. There s something eternal inside of you. Whether you feel it or not it s something that knows you were made for more than this world can offer more than momentary pleasures and earthly prizes. You were made to live for a godly, kingdom purpose. You can know Christ, but if you re not living for eternal things, your spirit will never be satisfied. Because eternity is in your heart; you were made for more. Question. Do you think you are (1) a material being who occasionally has spiritual experiences or (2) a spiritual being who is having a temporary material experience? If the latter, then the question is: Are you living for a spiritual purpose? Last lesson. 3. YOU CAN COME BACK. We believe in redemption. That s why Jesus came to earth.

16 16 Because redemption was necessary. Because redemption is possible. Because redemption is God s will. Whatever has happened to you, whatever you ve done, whatever mistakes you ve made, they do not determine your story. God does. The wrongs you have committed don t have the last word on your life. God does. And his word is grace. His word is forgiveness. His word is redemption. Charles Colson. Disgraced, disbarred, convicted felon, sent to prison. Yet he became a man of integrity and an incredible servant of God. He became a living testimony to grace and power of redemption. Here s the way it works. Very often we must come to the end of ourselves before we can have a new beginning with God. We can learn from our mistakes. We can be changed for the better by our failures. We can come back stronger and wiser from our defeats. We can be humbled by our sins, and walk with God more closely than ever. Your failures, morally and spiritually, your failures are your greatest opportunities to come back better and stronger than ever.

17 17 In Matthew 5 Jesus describes the blessed life. It s part of the Sermon on the Mount, the part we call the beatitudes. What s the first one, the gateway to all the rest? Matthew 5.3: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God. Poor in spirit. When you realize your spiritual poverty. When you know that you ll never get it right on your own. When you look at your mistakes and your spirit is crushed by what you see. In that moment you have an amazing opportunity for a new beginning with God that will allow you to live the story you were created to tell. Guilt will tell you that you have disqualified yourself. Shame will tell you that your story is over. The accuser will tell you that God won t accept you or ever use you. Those are lies from the pit of hell because the devil knows that if he can t keep you down you will come back and you will be stronger and better and more powerful than ever. Whatever mistake you ve made, take it to the cross. Confess it, ask for forgiveness, trust God s grace for you. Then get up off your knees hold your head high, and walk with God into the story you were meant to live.

18 18 Clip: Chuck Colson Remembered, Prayer to accept Christ. Prayer: Lord God, you are my creator and you know me better than I know myself. Reveal to me who I am to be, what I am to do, what message I am to give, what gift I am to bring into the world. Big or small, public or private reveal it to me, and even before I know what it is, my promise to you is: I will do your will.