I am the Worst Sinner I Know

I was recently watching a promotional video for a conference featuring one of my favorite preachers, C.J. Mahaney. I was struck by the way he introduced himself in this particular video: “Hello, I am C.J. Mahaney, and I am the worst sinner I know”. And this wasn’t said to prove a point, or be used as an illustration, I could tell that he really believed it. What humbleness.

As I thought a little more about this, I though how true that statement is. Not that C.J. Mahaney was the worst sinner I know, but that he was the worst sinner he knew. We are all the worst sinners we know. Let me explain a bit further. I know every sin I have done (or at least most of them). I now my deepest, darkest, most evil thoughts that no one will ever know. I know my entire past and what I have done, what my mind has thought, what my failures have been, what has, as Jesus said, come out of my evil human heart (Mark 7:20-21). Hello, my name is Andy Smith, and I am the worst sinner I know.

I will tell you that when I think of it, it truly creates first sorrow and sadness, but then humbleness. Paul calls it godly grief (see previous post). But more than that, it cause me to preach to myself the gospel. In reflecting on my past I must remember that that is not me anymore, God and His Gospel has changed me. With humbleness I must remember that I am the worst sinner I know, but this causes me with joy to remember 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Chist, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”.

Funny enough, not till later did I realize that C.J Mahaney was not the first to realize this. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”