This episode delves deep into the ongoing journey of recovery and the transformative power of God's grace, as discussed by Jean Larroux, Byron Yawn, and Tullian Tchividjian. The hosts share their personal stories of sin, failure, and the struggle for redemption, emphasizing that recovery is not a destination but a lifelong process. They explore the idea that many Christians mistakenly believe their struggles should lessen over time, but the reality is that these challenges persist throughout life. The conversation highlights the importance of community and connection in recovery, stressing that no one should face their battles alone. Ultimately, the dialogue serves as a reminder that grace is not contingent upon perfection but is freely given, inviting all to embrace their identity as beloved children of God despite their imperfections.

A candid exploration of faith, failure, and redemption unfolds as Tullian Tchividjian, Jean Larroux, and Byron Yawn engage in a heartfelt roundtable discussion on the reality of sin and the overwhelming grace of God. The trio bravely shares their personal stories, emphasizing the importance of embracing vulnerability and honesty in the Christian journey. They draw upon the metaphor of 'Misfit Island,' a concept derived from the beloved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon, to illustrate the unique struggles and experiences that shape their lives. Each host reflects on their own 'misfit' status, connecting it to their faith journeys and the societal pressures that often distort the message of grace. Tchividjian particularly emphasizes the idea that recovery is not a destination but an ongoing process, one that requires continuous engagement with God and community, reinforcing the notion that we are all, in a sense, always in recovery from the trials of life.

As the conversation deepens, the hosts dissect the misconceptions surrounding recovery and spiritual growth, challenging the belief that growth should equate to an absence of struggle. Tchividjian's poignant reminder that 'the struggle is real and the situation is live' resonates throughout the episode, inviting listeners to confront their own battles without shame. Larroux shares his journey of recovery from personal challenges, illustrating how shared experiences among men can foster connection and transparency. The episode culminates in a powerful discussion about the essence of grace, noting that true freedom comes from understanding one's identity in Christ, free from the chains of past mistakes. The hosts encourage listeners to find community and support, emphasizing that no one needs to journey through their struggles alone. The dialogue serves as a poignant reminder of God's relentless love, extending grace to all, regardless of their past.

Takeaways:

• The struggle of recovery is ongoing, and we must embrace that reality continuously.
• Isolation can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms; community is vital for healing.
• Our identity in Christ is not defined by our failures or shame, but by His grace.
• Recovery involves understanding that we are always in need of grace and support.
• The journey of healing requires transparency and vulnerability with trusted friends.
• Grace means we are unconditionally loved and accepted, regardless of our past actions.

Links referenced in this episode:

• prodigalpodcast.com
• amazon.com
• barnesandnoble.com

You're listening to the misfit preachers, Talian Chavidjian, Jean Leroux and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com. we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time. Now here are the misfits.

Welcome to Misfit Island. It's becoming more and more that way. Yes, I looked up the technical definition of Misfit Island. I'll share it eventually.

It's from the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon.

Yes, it is.

I mean, it is definitely Misfit choice. There's no doubt. And I am the square wheeled choo choo. There's no doubt. I claim that one like the car in Monopoly.

But I'm here with Jean Le Roux, Tully and to Vijian. One of the things we're doing is we're telling our story. We're going first.

You're going to hear a lot of that and it's going to make sense eventually. But after hearing it, there's. We asked you questions during it, but you can't walk away from something like that.

A story like that, which I described as doxological in nature and worshipful, without marveling at it.

And it's like you looking at a beautiful painting, which was kind of an analogy in it, and wanting to get to the painter who's dead and ask him what the inspiration from it was, things underneath it. So what we like to do in this triangulation is ask questions of you.

Things that occurred to us, that most likely occurred to the listening audience, people that related to what you said.

Open book telling, you're up.

Thank you. You and I have known each other for a long time. I've never heard you tell your story the way you told it.

I've gotten bits and pieces and we stayed in touch during this time. But to hear it all put together the way that you did was, I would echo what Byron said, doxological. It was, as you know, I'm a huge recovery guy.

And I guess my question would be, what does recovery look like for you going forward? One thing you said at the end, which I thought was amazing, was that the struggle is real, the situation is live, that we don't recover.

We are always in recovery. So what does that look like? I mean, going forward, what is it? I mean, for people who are out there, who think that if you're a.

If you're a growing Christian, your struggles should be getting less and less, that your idiosyncrasies should be kept at bay more and more, that your demons should lie Quieter and quieter as time goes on. But we all know that's not true.

Everybody knows that's not true.

Everybody knows that's not true. If you think that's true, you're deluding yourself. So recovery is a real ongoing work and will be till the day we die.

So you're married, you're divorced. You were divorced from your wife, Kim. Kim, you married Valerie. You are a leader and a lover of a blended family. I know what that's like.

I'm in the same position. So I know that not only is the struggle real and the struggle is live, but there are some unique challenges that face you, that face me.

Kids involved, grandkids, in my case, involved all of that stuff. It's. It's tough. And so one of the reasons that I take recovery as seriously as I do is because I know how badly I need it. So what is that?

I love the question. And I. If you'd asked me 10 years ago if I was in recovery or would ever even use that terminology, I would have said no.

I don't even know what it means. What am I recovering from? I would say I'm in recovery from life, from me, from the stuff around me, from all of those things.

And my medicator has just changed over time. And I think most people that speak the recovery language or that are familiar with their own struggles would say a yes, and amen to that.

Like, it's always been me. I've just kind of changed the wheel of what it is that is my go to stuff.

So true, man.

I have, I guess about three years ago, started meeting with a group of guys curated by a therapist once a week or every other week, sometimes virtually, when Covid hit.

And I think there was something about it for men, especially it being online and curated by a therapist that a lot of us, for the first time were like, wait, you too? Like, I'm not the only guy. Like, when I say I open the toolbox, and there's one tool, and it's anger, and that's the hammer that's in there.

When you sit with seven guys and you say that, and every one of them goes, oh, my God, that's what I learned from my grandfather. That's the only tool my dad ever had, either. I thought that was right. Blah, blah, blah. I had somebody at work tell me, why?

Why am I always such an asshole? And then you go, wait a minute. I am not alone. The lack of isolation leads to transparency. Transparency leads to awareness and transformation. The end.

It just works. And so I Don't ever want to get far from it. It's too vital to me. And what I've told those guys, I mean, I think I'm.

It's not an overtly religious group of people, and I like that about it. And they asked me to describe, based on my faith life, like what? Like they were like, we know you're religious, kind of.

And I was like, I'm kind of religious. And I said, I don't really like that word. And I said, if I had to describe you, to me, it would be this.

The Big book and the 12 steps give people a lot of latitude to fill in the blank with their higher power. And I happen to know the one who I fill the blank in with, his name is Jesus. He loves misfits and that.

So those tools always push me to a deeper place with him.

My friend Nate Larkin quoted when he was here preaching a while back, he quoted a TED Talk that he had heard. And whoever the speaker was, I forget who it was.

I should remember, but I forget who it was said the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. There is no recovery without relationship.

Amen.

And as soon as I heard that, I thought gold.

Yeah.

Which is what you're describing.

Amen.

Recovery cannot happen alone. It can't happen alone.

And most of our audience either is literally or feel alone. Alone.

Correct.

Yeah.

And those things that feel like, granted, they're problematic, but the medicators, they can get so out of control. If you're not willing to chase it back to I'm alone, lonely and isolated, then you're going to think your problem is that you just like dope.

Right? Right.

You're lonely. I mean, and I think that's. Grace makes you very gracious and patient with people whose medicators are different than yours.

Yeah.

Yes. That's good. That's exactly right. Yeah.

I like sugar. You like cocaine. I got it.

That me personally.

Right?

He wasn't talking, you weren't referring.

I don't like sugar.

I've got a question for you, and then I want you to explain something.

Okay.

For the listener. The. You were in orange jumpsuit, white Crocs in a jail cell. Go listen to the story if you haven't heard it.

A blanket that doesn't fit at your worst, darkest night of your soul. I felt it when you described it.

I was in a different sort of sell myself, but I know it just somewhere between self pity or self pity mixed with despair was where I was, you know, and it's. It varies for people, but the feeling is the same. The incarceration can be different. You know, what do you say?

What would you say to the person there right now who's lost hope and never thought they would be there and are completely despairing?

The deeper the well, the brighter the stars will shine. And even when you can't know it, you need to have people around you, that community that can know it for you.

Because sometimes, sometimes when you're there, you don't have the will to pray. You don't have the will to ask to pray. You don't have the will to do anything.

The best you got is to drag your ass through the day and have somebody else pray for you. And we will. And there are people. There are foxhole friends. There really are.

And if you don't think you can find that person, then you've got to know you've been around the wrong people. There are people that will stick with you and make it through and not judge you.

And they're not many.

No, they're not many. They're not in droves.

And I mean in our lives in particular, if you think you have more than average, you don't.

And I'll make a recommendation for somebody who feels like I don't have any.

Perfect.

You don't have to be an alcoholic to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And they happen every day of the week in every town in this country. Find one, sit there, listen. You don't even have to speak. You listen.

I know people who have gone as non alcoholics to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings simply to meet fellow strugglers, even though their struggle was not alcohol. And they didn't say a word for two months. Every time it got to their time, they were pass. Okay. And Alcoholics Anonymous allows that.

Absolutely.

And they just listened.

And after a while of listening, they started feeling less alone and they started feeling the freedom to open up and started talking about the fact that my issue is not alcohol. My issue is I felt alone until I came here.

Yeah. That you.

Well, by the way, you can do. You can do Codependents Anonymous, coda, and AA Online as well.

Yeah.

And so if you. The excuse.

Which is good.

Right. The excuses are. But if you can go with even better. Agreed, agreed.

You. It just made me think of this. But you.

You in this, in your story, mentioned that before verdicts dropped, you wrote a letter and put it all out there. Have you gone back and read that recently?

Not recently.

You should. You should.

Okay.

Because I've had that sort of experience and it Gives you an insight into a moment that you never want to forget.

Right.

I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll find it and we'll tag it and put it on the website.

We'll read it first.

Yeah, I'm just going to go in blind.

You may want to burn it when you read it, but read it first.

If it's appropriate. I'll put it up there.

And you were telling your story. And listen. Couples, wives, husbands, single, whatever needs to go listen to the story of incarnated grace in your life.

When you were talking, I said, I came upon an idea. I'm going to write a sermon called Sinners in the Hands of a Gracious God.

Done late? No, but I was going to.

I claimed it out.

You win, you win. You got it.

Really? I've had that.

Oh, I've loved that. I actually had during. Let's run it. Let's collaborate.

I claimed it on. Listen, you also put your stuff out there when you.

As it was all going down and you said you were trying to control the narrative, but you actually came back and did it. Yeah, in a. In a better place. Where is. Where can people find that?

What is Carnage and Grace? Hold on.

Do you just happen to have a copy?

I actually just happen to have a copy. Boys, could you sign it Carnage and Grace? I don't really care if you read it, just buy it. Just kidding.

Wait, I want to. What percentage is a joke, right?

All of it, actually. But, yeah, I mean, it took me a long time. I mentioned before that I regret a lot of the stuff I wrote in the immediate aftermath.

It's kind of like the council of don't make a decision in a crisis.

Or as my friend Nadia says, speak from your scars, not your wounds.

However it might, my point is.

Weber.

Yeah, say it again. I interrupted you.

It was really good, too.

She said, write from your scars, not your wounds. Now, there's a mixture of writing from my scars and writing from my wounds in Carnage and Grace. But, yeah, it took me a while.

I mean, I started writing. As I said when I told my story. Writing is one way I figure out what I think. So writing has always been a creative outlet for me.

So I wrote for myself for a while.

Thought it would be compiled into a book at some point, and then really sort of set out to write a book that came to a halt probably three or four times. And it wasn't until I was probably five years removed, six years removed.

Six years removed from the explosion that I felt like I was able to start writing with some perspective. And even then, it took me just over 18 months to do it. So it was a long process, the longest process.

But, yeah, the experience I had was that I tried to. I tried to do it, and I think maybe wrote a couple pages and then just gave up.

Yeah, I did the same thing.

Where can they get it? Amazon.

Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Carnage and Grace. Confessions of an Adulterous Heart. It's. It's. It's raw.

If you're a pastor, you definitely need to read it, and you're a great writer. But I read it, and when I got to the emails and direct messages that were sent to you by pastors.

Yeah.

And that I was blown away.

But what I was gonna say a moment ago is when I went back and read what I tried to write at that moment, I immediately saw what other people saw that they were trying to tell me at that time, that.

You can see now, but you couldn't see then.

And then when I wrote it again, I agreed with that assessment and kind of mock it and make fun of it.

And there are a couple of instances in this book where I print a few things that I had written in during that time as a way of showing just how jacked up I was in those moments.

So the thing. The topic that I want you to riff on, when you were talking about probation, okay.

For the 12 months and then your freedom after that, I think spiritually speaking, it's a great analogy that a lot of people's relationship to God is probation in their mind.

Oh, yeah.

Don't mess up and you'll stay out of trouble. Don't mess up, and the worst won't happen.

And the verdict was handed down in your case, and you walked through the probation period and then into freedom, and you said, they can't find a crime. It doesn't exist. So in our explanation of Grace and the gospel, that was like, all of a sudden, that is a perfect analogy.

And I know that there are a lot of people who are out there suffering consequences from things and are defining God's relationship to them through those consequences.

Right.

Can you kind of riff on that for the listener of what the two experiences are like, spiritually speaking, in justification? Does that make sense?

The emancipation part, it was a little bit surreal, honestly, and it still is a little bit hard to deal with emotionally, because I think I have a tendency to live in the shadow of my own shame, and so to constantly define myself not by who God has declared me to be in Christ, but who I decided to be in me. You know, I love. Luther said. You know, I myself have been preaching and teaching the gospel for.

For almost 20 years, he said, and still feel the old clinging dirt of dealing with God so that he must give me his righteousness in exchange for my holiness. I'm just like, I want to earn it. You know, I want to earn it back. I want the title, you know, that Mosaic. I want me.

I want me to be portrayed in this and to have the knowledge that the verdict has been handed. And it's not even not guilty. It's non existent.

Right. Yeah.

And honestly, as I walked out of that courthouse that day with that file in my hand, having been emancipated, declared not guilty, it is. It is the moment when that analogy came to my mind that for the Christian, there. There are the two. There are the two courthouse matters.

Right.

You have been emancipated, and it is declared that you were never a sinner. And by the way, Mr. LaRue, before you get out of here, one more thing. I mean, can you imagine?

Yeah.

Just to be ushered back in. And there's the judge who was the embodiment of all of your fears. He was going to bang the gavel at your gallows.

And then he says, I made you mine, my son.

Yeah.

You're like, it's. No one would make this up because you can't manipulate people with it. Like, you can manipulate people if you have to do good to get good.

But if you say, no matter what you do, you get good, you get loved. Like, how do you manipulate people with that?

Right.

The free offer of great. It's intoxicating.

Yeah. Faith in me is a struggle to believe that it's true.

Yes. For the rest of our days, sanctification.

At its root is believing this.

Where I slip and where the gravitational pull of my fallenness takes me is like I find myself walking back to the jail cell, you know, feeling like I'm in on probation.

I was eating dinner with Bob and Rose Bradshaw in Franklin, Tennessee.

They show up in the story prominently, by the way.

If you don't have context, they're my.

Paul's all another grace.

I mean, it's that Paul's all in Pat Thurmer.

Yeah. I mean, I can't. I can't tell my story without the people that were there.

We were at dinner in Franklin, Tennessee, and this was I mean, I may have been divorced 10 months, something like that, eating dinner with them. And so we're having a normal conversation at dinner and we're talking about something theological.

And Bob says to the server, he says, and of course Bob, he's older than me, so he knows the server's name, you know, because we always ask. And he says, steve. He goes, you know, you seem curious about what we're talking about.

And Steve said, yeah, I mean, like it sounds like church stuff you're talking about. And Bob said, he goes, well, this is my pastor Jean. I said, I'm not a pastor. I said, I am a frickin divorced, washed up previous pastor.

And Rose looked at me and she goes, and you should add in a total piece of shit. I was like, wait, what?

Bob said, thanks a lot.

He said, dude, it is depressing to be around you. You are so self deprecating. He was like, have you forgotten what your identity is? And I was like, yeah. Oh myself, yes I have.

Every day I forget we are vipers, but we are vipers and covenant diapers. I once heard someone say that and I thought, it's good. So my favorite writer when it comes to the subject of grace.

And I don't think there is any that even come close to being as eloquent and insightful as this guy is now deceased Episcopalian priest by the name of Robert Kapon. Oh, and anything that Kapan has written on grace is better than anything anyone else has ever written on grace. And that is no understatement in my.

Or no overstatement in my opinion. I mean this guy, his book between noon and three is unbelievable. It will make you angry. I mean it is grace with no strings attached.

It is, it's a parable about a womanizing professor who is married but carries on with a bunch of his female students. And it's a parable. So one chapter is telling the story, the next chapter is a theological reflection on that part.

The next chapter is a continuation of the story and the next chapter is a theological reflection on that part. It's brilliantly done. Some of the best sentences outside of the Bible ever written on grace came from Robert Kapun. And that is, that is no joke.

I mean he.

Like I said, if this is, this message is relatively new to someone, if they're beginning to grapple with this Capen will piss you off because he will tell you things that you were told your entire life you're not allowed to believe. But one of the things he said and what you said A few minutes ago. Sort of jogged my memory.

But he said, you and I have been unconditionally sprung with absolutely no probation officer to report to one Beautiful Way simple cookies on the lower shelf. Way to describe the gospel of grace, period. The word gospel means good news.

If you don't feel relieved, unburdened, like you can exhale when you leave church, you haven't heard the gospel. That is the singular effect, existential effect that the gospel has on us.

For me. Exactly your point. If somebody said to me, how did you know when it clicked?

Yeah.

I went from being tolerated by God to being adored.

Yeah.

Delighted in, loved, sung over like the hand, like everything you could imagine of being the object of his affection.

But what if you do it again, John?

He has thrown them. As a friend of mine says, he has thrown them into the sea of his forgotten memory.

That's pretty good.

Amen.

That is for good.

Tullian was quoting somebody else. I was.

And that person, I'm sure, was quoting somebody else.

Well, when we say we plagiarized Jesus.

We'Re quoting someone else.

We eliminate, of course.

Of course.

Because somebody plagiarized him.

That's good.

Thank you, brother.

You're up next.

Thank you so much.

Right, we're going to hear from you next.

Oh, great.

Okay, let's do it soon.

I'll go next into the deep end. Thank you, guys.

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