Mon 11 Aug 2008
To Pose as a Minister Without Abandoning Sin is Lying to God
Posted by Dan under Character, eternity, ministry
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Eileen and I have been in prayer about ministry — ministry here in Fresno at our church serving in the role of training our church up in evangelism, and this is something our pastor and our church has felt a deep hunger and need — to reach the lost for Christ, to see souls saved and discipled.
Our pastor called a fast in our church for 21 days. I wanted to participate, and so did my wife. Some would take on partial fasts for health reasons or for reason of what they felt called to do. And, as usual, there were feeling sometimes spoken but often unspoken where people feel put-upon or coerced or pressured into something they would really rather not do, and yet there seems to be a feeling among people that they dare not speak up and say anything about those feelings or they will be regarded less holy, less worthy to be a member in good standing, good enough to minister, less cooperative, less submissive to God’s legitimate authority over our lives, less supportive of the ministry, less of a Christian.
People fast for different reasons, both good and bad. Some fast to get something they want. Perhaps it may be a little like a more mature case of a child holding his breath to get what he wants. The scary thing about this approach is that it can be considered perhaps a form of witchcraft if you think of it in terms of it saying, “not Thy will be done but mine”, as rituals of witchcraft tend to do. And, yet it is done with somewhat innocent ignorance in a way. Others press in with fasting fearing that “my will be done” rather than “Thy will” (God’s will), and they want to seek God to strip away all sin, to bring to knowledge every sin that remains unexposed to them in their lives to they might take it up and give it an examination and make a choice to surrender it in full and true repentance before God.
It seems to me a frightening thing to take the position of a leader or a minister without being fully surrendered to God. I know God’s grace is greater than our sin. And, if we have the option of taking hold of that grace, if we have the option of seeking God and calling upon Him to search us and make known to us if there be any wicked way in us, if we choose to fail to do that or if we choose to put on a show of it without taking it to heart with sincerity, then all we have done is lie to God and refuse His rightful place as Lord over our lives.
It is frightening and depressing to think that many pastors and people serving in positions or roles of ministry will not take this matter to heart with sincerity but choose to live out much of their lives as a lie, swindling God, stealing from God, lying to God, playing a charade, calling out for the defense of sin, taking up arms against God’s Word and God’s heart and God’s purpose and militating against it in the name of ministry.
It is a horribly frightening thing to imagine coming before God’s throne of judgment with such horribly scarlet sins covering every square inch of our being without the blood of Jesus truly applied to bring forgiveness and the cleansing of sin. What if that repentance is nothing but an empty charade, an attempt to lie to God, an attempt to swindle God, and attempt to play God for the fool or manipulate Him into feeling obligated to believe and honor such behavior?
What if all we do as ministers is come up to the standard whereby we obtain the approval of man, of other so-called ministers who have also faked their repentance and lied to God? What if that is all our Christianity amounts to, and what if we have led a multitude of people to hell by our insincerity and fake revivals and such?
Without holiness, there can be no true ministry. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me Lord but do not what I say?” The question he asked was very reasonable. If we have truly received Him as Lord, then why do we refuse to do what He asks us to do? Who really has our obedience? Who really has our trust? Who really has our faith? Jesus or something else? Jesus or someone else?
I heard a youth pastor address a young adult’s dilemma once by suggesting that person go ahead and sin to solve the problem and come back to God and ask forgiveness afterward. What is this other than making God’s command to be unwise and calling upon a young person to lie to God and swindle Him by pretending to be repentant when in fact the very sin is the thing being promoted, justified, and encouraged? How can one defend the sin while repenting from it at the same time?
It is time we ask who our God is? Is it sin? Is it lust? Is it greed? Is it cowardice and fear? What or who is our Lord? Is our Lord not the one we obey? If we give ourselves to sin, how can we say sin is not our Lord? And, if sin is our lord and god, and if faith is the evidence of things not seen, then how can we make evident to others that Jesus Christ is worthy to be trusted and obeyed and loved if Jesus is not our Lord, if we love our sin, if we obey our sin, if we trust our sin?
And, what about our mistakes? Isn’t everyone human? Doesn’t everyone make mistakes?
Well, yes, but that statement of truth is usually given as a lie to excuse sin. Sin is not a mistake. It is a calculated choice — a contemplated calculation — a decision — a surrender to one lord who is not legitimately entitled to be our Lord. The fact that all have sinned does not make sin a matter of personal weakness as though God had overlooked giving us what we need to avoid sin. And, it is a lie to claim personal weakness as an excuse for failing to keep one’s faithfulness to God.
When we live in sin, we are not unlike whores cheating on our husbands or wives. When we live in sin and justify it, we are like the Biblical whore or adulteress who wipes her mouth and says, “I have not sinned”. When we attempt to reduce our sins to mere mistakes, in a backhanded way we blame God for failing to make us more perfect, and we throw all responsibility for our sin back into God’s face while proudly displaying our false humility taking credit for humility while having none at all that is real. Real humility begins with taking responsibility for one’s bad decisions and unfaithfulness.
It is shameful that we can have the Bible in our midst with excellent Christian teaching all around us, be bathed in it, attend Christian schools, Christian seminaries, and practically live in Christian families and churches all the days of our lives and in the midst of all these blessings, we can hear a pastor in the midst of it assault God with offense declaring holy matrimony the very adulterous marriage the Jesus called adultery. Another pastor plays the harlot with his secretary and dumps his wife and his ministry, and perhaps it is for the best because if this man is a whore and a liar at heart, then it would be better for him to be out of the closet and that the Church be able to see the condition of the heart of a person who will not surrender fully to Christ.
In recent years, we have seen pastors fall into adultery, pornography, financial sins, lying, swindling, faking miracles, molesting children, covering for others who do, and not only defending adulterous marriages and homosexual behavior, but even carrying out such ceremonies under the guise of holy matrimony.
Until a person abandons sin, he or she cannot really minister. I am not talking about perfection in terms of being free from mistakes. I am speaking of the kind of perfection that is related to faithfulness to God, faithful intentions, sincerity, honesty, sincerity of love, abandonment of sin.
The most sure sign of an unholy fake minister is when a person chooses to confuse sin with accidents or mistakes which are unavoidable or attempt to justify or defend sin in any form. Another sign is false accusations because the devil also knows well that the best defense is a good offense. Therefore he is quick to bring up false and true accusations regarding a true believer’s past — accusations that are created to silence and shame and intimidate and bully the Christian into silence and fear.
And, yet, if we are in sin and try to call others out of sin, the devil may take delight in this. He may allow the charade to go on with the intent of using it to dishonor God and call others to give up any hope of coming to Christ. Satan can and does use the sins of the believers to bring dishonor and accusation and abuse and persecution.
But, the core of the Gospel message is that we were all in sin and needed salvation and that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins so that by faith we can receive the grace needed to be saved from our sin and from the eternal damnation resulting from our sin.
We are not meant to present ourselves to the world as people who have never sinned. Neither are we to present ourselves to the world as people who continue in sin while putting on a facade of fake repentance. We are to present ourselves as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. Not a dead sacrifice, but a living one, a sacrifice that continues day after day, minute after minute, year after year.
If we would lead others to heaven and not to hell, we can surrender no less than our all to Christ.
