MARCH 3, 2020
Leighton Okada
Leighton is a senior studying East Asian Languages and Cultures, TESOL, and Songwriting. He currently serves on Core as Worship Coordinator. Fun fact: Leighton can almost stick his entire pinky up his right nostril!
“I once was lost in darkest night, yet thought I knew the way
The sin that promised joy and life had led me to the grave”
You could say that I grew up lost in the “brightest” darkest night ever; I called safe, rich, white, Bible belt Dallas, Texas my home for eighteen years, going to church every Sunday and youth group on Saturdays, attending an elite all boys school, praying before dinner and bed at night. Life was good. As Christians, my parents did everything right, and yet I developed a hardness to the things of God despite growing up knowing who Jesus was and what he did. Going to church was following my parents’ orders. Praying was a game to see who could use the biggest words. Scripture was just stories and words to recite. The things of God were foolishness to me because, of course, I knew what was best for me—and it wasn’t Jesus. God fit quite nicely (and quietly, at least for the time) in my back pocket. Why do I need a savior if I don’t need saving? How could there be anything wrong with living to please my parents? What was bad about my secret lusts, my prideful sassiness, or my judgmental personality if they never came to light? As long as I showed off the good part of me, who cared about the bad?
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I remember sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car on 9/11 repeating the words after her, asking Jesus to come into my life, but I just did it because I was scared of what she would say if I didn’t. This fear of living up to expectations carried into adolescence and characterized my worldview. Being the perfect son, the perfect student, and a star musician was priority #1. Upholding my pristine facades was too vital a task and the risk of being found out too great that no one, not even my parents, knew who I was behind those walls. The life that was being offered to me so freely in Christ was trash in comparison to my own understanding, and I had no idea that my pride and self-righteousness were leading me to the grave.
“But as I ran my hell bound race indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross
and I beheld God’s love displayed: you suffered in my place
You bore the wrath deserved for me, now all I know is grace”
It was during a time of musical worship at Mt. Hermon in seventh grade when head knowledge came crashing down into heart knowledge as God softened my heart to the gospel. As I stood there indifferently mouthing the words of the songs, God came bursting through my self-righteousness and confronted me with the question: “If you stood before me today, what could you bring that is of worth to me?”
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As I pictured God exalted on high, the train of his robe filling the temple, seraphim covering their faces and feet in the presence of His brilliant glory, His righteous judgement toward the nations, His presence in the pillar of fire and cloud, God covering Moses from the infinite holiness of His face, and God speaking the earth into existence, I fell to my knees, trembling in fear. There was nothing I could bring before him—nothing worthy of his recognition or praise, nothing that could earn my right standing before him; I needed saving.
And in that moment, God gently pointed me to the cross.
“Because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul is counted free;
for God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me”
These lyrics echoed in my heart as God awakened me to the truth of the gospel for the first time. I saw with new eyes Christ’s perfection, his crucifixion, his burial, and resurrection. He took my sin and the sin of the world upon himself, paying the price, and conquering death by rising again, placing his righteousness on me, giving me the Spirit as a seal of my election, and promising me glory and eternal satisfaction when I see him face to face.
“I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will
And if you had not loved me first I would refuse you still”
I realized that God had never given up on me. No matter how hard my grip on my idols was, no matter how deep in sin I insisted on being, no matter how far I ran away from him, he always followed, and when I recognized my sin and turned around, he was always there with open arms, ready to embrace me and kiss me and put his ring on my finger and celebrate that I had returned home.
That night, I prayed that God would have His way in my life. I didn’t know what that meant for the future, and I didn’t know if my life would change because of it, but I knew that it was worth it simply because Jesus did what He did.
“Now, Lord, I would be yours alone and live so all might see
The strength to follow your commands could never come from me”
What followed was years of the actualization of Christ’s redemptive power in my life. Slowly but surely, He has been showing me how I am no longer enslaved to the sins that once held me captive but am free and fully satisfied by Him. As I got to know my Father in the pages of Scripture, my identity found its proper roots in Christ as I don his righteousness and am further shaped into his likeness by his Spirit. The talents he’s assigned to me are not my own, but serve his glory. He showed me that I don’t need to put up walls to hide my sins; my Father is quick to forgive when I come before Him in repentance. I no longer live to please others; the Creator of the world is completely pleased with the righteousness of Christ upon me. My worth is not in how well I can perform or sell myself; my gifts of music and art point not to my sufficiency but to the beauty of our creator. And He is faithful to continue His sanctifying work in me as my unbelief is increasingly brought to light.
“O Father use my ransomed life in any way you choose
And let my song forever be my only boast is you”
As you read this I want to ask: is “o Father, use my ransomed life in any way you choose” your constant prayer? Can you pray with full trust, knowing that God hears and very well may do what you ask? It’s a scary thing to pray, but knowing Christ and the life, hope, love, and joy we have in him make it worth it. Praying this has helped me sing through my darkest nights as I keep my eyes on Christ. It has fostered a deep love for Christ’s church and a desire to serve it faithfully and selflessly. Praying this has brought me to a commitment to joy in singleness. Praying this has uncovered an inescapable desire in my heart to participate in the preaching of the gospel in Japan as a missionary.
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Our AACF 2019-2020 theme passage from 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is such overwhelmingly good news for sinners that it effectively controls us! It changes how we see the world and how we regard others still in the bonds of sin (v. 16) and it reforms us into COMPLETELY NEW creations (v. 18)!! Our old selves completely pass away, and sin and the enemy have power over us no longer. And as new creations we are ultimately given a new ministry on earth, one that calls the nations (including your parents, your friends, your neighborhoods, your schools!!) to be reconciled to the Father (v. 19). Those who have been transformed by the gospel become its redeemed messengers. This is who we are as Christians! On behalf of Christ, until he returns, let us hold high this appeal for the world to be reconciled to God, remembering that “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21). What grace it is to bear his name and to serve our holy King!
My prayer for AACF USC is that we would always be a community united in the gospel that treasures the gospel and lives boldly for the sake of the proclamation of the gospel among the nations. May we see all of life in light of the great Love that God has shown us by sending His Son to die on the cross for us, and may we live in the power of the Holy Spirit that now dwells in us and is carrying us home.
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Quotations from the song, “All I Have is Christ,” by Sovereign Grace Music
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Thank you Leighton! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧