Watermark Blogs

“I am a natural born Pharisee. Trying to justify myself through works is the greatest sin of my life,” said Matt Boswell. “I love to make new laws to prove my own righteousness — and occasionally so I can judge others for not keeping them. I’m both a rule maker and a rule breaker. There’s a part of my nature that hates the rules. It’s a battle…every day.

“I’ve never known a day where I haven’t been part of the church. I got my love for the church from my Dad, who was a pastor my entire life. By the time I was 15 years old, I was leading worship for youth ministry in our church, and a year later, I was leading worship at a large church in DFW. I learned very quickly how to talk the talk and play the game at church. I was taught a lot of things about God, but nobody modeled how to have a relationship with Him. I wanted to be discipled – to be taught how to relate to God. I searched but never found what I was looking for. I wanted to find out who I was and who God really was.

“My senior year of high school, I met a girl and against the advice of my parents and many others, we married right after graduation. The relationship was chaos. I didn’t know how lead well, and in isolation, got into something I was not prepared for. I had always been somebody who could make anything work. But I couldn’t control this or make the right decision for someone else.

“The marriage ended when I was 23. At the time I was working on staff at a church in Fort Worth, and really questioned whether I would be considered disqualified for ministry and leadership. Divorce felt like the unforgivable sin to me. There was a lot of shame, and I wanted to hide it to protect my image and validate myself personally and in ministry.

“But God was able to use this situation for good. For most of my life, I leaned on my ability to do what was right to justify myself in front of Christ. Now all the things I’d propped myself up with were gone. I had no defense and no justification. I’d always wanted to be used powerfully by God.

“But during this time, it became clear that I hadn’t really wanted God. I wanted God to make my plans work. “It was then – at 23 years old – that I first truly understood God’s grace. For a long time I was fighting my armor – like David walking around in another man’s suit of armor that never fit. I had to wear my own armor, and the armor I needed to put on was Christ. Understanding the gospel changed everything for me. Rather than searching for life in performance and rule-making, I found my identity in light of His grace — the driving force of salvation from beginning to end.

“During this season, God gave me a tremendous desire to disciple men – knowing that churches were full of men like me who had never been discipled. I began to see more clearly that church growth must equal disciple-making. I had a real desire to stand firm on the sufficiency of Scripture and never compromise on Truth.

“In 2004 I met Jamie, who is God’s grace to me in every way. When we first met, I knew she was the kind of woman I wanted to have as my wife. I wondered if her parents would allow us to marry since I’d been married before. I was joyfully shocked when they gave us their blessing. We married six years ago, and went on to have three kids in less than three years. We’ve loved seeing God build and bless our family life.

“Today I’m being discipled by a group of guys in my community group at Watermark. I’ve never been part of a reciprocal discipleship group before, but these guys are helping me in a lot of ways. They’ve helped me make decisions that scare the mess out of me at times. Community is helping us have a healthier marriage – to love my wife with no agenda or strings attached. In community, I’ve learned a lot from the other couples’ marriages. It’s been lifegiving, because there’s always ground for me to take in showing extravagant love to my family.

“I still battle being a Pharisee every day. But because I understand the gospel now more than ever before, I know God loves me, regardless of my performance. The resumé I’m handing to God is not my religious works, my track record, performance, or even how good my marriage is. I’m resting in Christ’s work on the cross, His grace and His resurrection. That’s allowed me to offer good deeds to God, not as self-justification, but as an act of worship. And wild freedom is found there.”

“Then Saul gave David his own armor—a bronze helmet and a coat of mail. David put it on, strapped the sword over it, and took a step or two to see what it was like, for he had never worn such things before. ‘I can’t go in these…I’m not used to them.’ So David took them off again. He picked up five smooth stones from a stream and put them into his shepherd’s bag. Then, armed only with his shepherd’s staff and sling, he started across the valley to fight…” 1 Samuel 17:38-40 (NLT)