The Gospel in Me

I BELIEVE

The Gospel in Me

Matt Anthony, pastoral resident

We are pleased to welcome Matt, his wife, Ashley, and their four children to College Church as Matt begins his pastoral residency. Matt describes how God has been at work in his life, including his journey here.

God’s gospel call came after me when I was all of six years old, sitting in children’s church on a Sunday morning. I don’t remember the flannelgraph story my teacher Tina worked through that morning, but my young ears heard a gospel invitation that took root in my heart, and I wanted Christ to save me from my sin. So, I trusted in him for salvation, and joined the ranks of those who say that they cannot remember a day without Christ.

As I grew up in Effingham, Illinois, I genuinely enjoyed being kind to others (like holding doors open for people), but I was also distracted by my friends and what I wanted to do and neglected serious investment in pursuing Christ with my life. The Lord put a stop to that when my family and I moved away from everyone and everything I knew when I was 15.

Without those normal distractions, one thing began to stir in my heart, and it was this: Is this faith thing real? If it was, I wanted to devote my life to it. If it wasn’t, then I would be done living on the fence. I had nothing to do that summer because I didn’t know anyone, so I spent a serious amount of time reading and studying the Bible. I am still reaping the spiritual fruit from those three summer months because it was one of the most formative and joyful times of my life. God let me catch a glimpse of his glory, which captivated my heart and mind as well as ruined my taste for worldly things. He made it known to me that there is only one thing that can satisfy my soul, and it is him.

My taste for worldly pursuits may have been ruined, but I still needed God’s mercy to majorly disrupt my appetite for sin. When I was around 18 or 19 years old, the Lord helped me understand what it looked and felt like to hate my sin. I knew sinlessness was impossible, but I often used this as an excuse to sin. I needed the gospel’s logic stated in Romans 6 to understand the relationship of grace and sin. God helped me learn that loving him also means setting myself in opposition to any and all sin that seeks a home in my life. There is no darkness in him (1 John 1:5), and he continues to help me turn his light into the shadows of my heart.

These formative moments in my story of faith lead to a couple ways that Christ makes a daily difference in my life presently. The first is that God’s grace through Christ is radically more than anyone can ever imagine (Romans 5:20). That we can never sin ourselves out of his grace is something beyond my comprehension, but it liberates me from the crushing weight of the accumulation of sin day after day. Even as I close every day as an imperfect, repenting sinner, God’s grace meets me again every morning with the ever-present reminder that there is no condemnation against those in Christ (Romans 8:1). The second is that Christ is always at work (Philippians 2:13). This truth keeps me grounded by way of eternal perspective—whether I am experiencing great blessing or struggling through something—because behind each experience is Christ at work, and he is seeking to cultivate and increase my love for him, for my family and for my neighbor.

Now, a little bit of how God brought us to College Church. Five years ago, we left the Saint Louis area as a family of three to Philadelphia for me to purse a Master of Divinity degree at Westminster Theological Seminary. I had been serving in pastoral ministry and felt called to enter seminary for more theological education. During the first couple years there, I took a few classes from Dr. Kent Hughes, and he often shared about his time at College Church. It was a joy to hear of the ministry at this church in Wheaton. As graduation approached, my wife and I were prayerfully seeking what God would have next for us (now a family of six), and in our search, we found out about the pastoral residency program. It was a wonderful thought that God could be leading us to come and train within the ministry that I had the pleasure of hearing so much about from Dr. Hughes. So, I applied.

By God’s grace and timing, we are now happily invested in being with you all and joining the College Church in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that you were encouraged to hear of how God has personally worked in my life, and I look forward to being encouraged by hearing how he has worked in your life as well. My family and I are so excited to be with you all.