In the Closet

More than likely, this will be my only post this week, as I want to make sure that everybody has a chance to read it without having to scroll down to the bottom of the page. I have a few drafts ready for next week.

We've created a monster...

"The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 1 John 2:4 (NIV)

Holiness is a vital part of the Christian faith. Scripture tells us that we must walk as Jesus did. Jesus tells us that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Scripture even uses harsh language, calling those who sin "enemies of God." Thus, if I am a serious student of God's Word, I must come to grips with these statements and teach them as Truth.

I'm hard on my fellow preachers. Part of the reason is that I hear a lot of garbage coming from our pulpits. Turn on WTBI in Greenville and you'll hear it. What they are saying, in some cases, is not unbiblical. The problem is that the rhetoric is overly belligerent. From my pulpit, I have no problem calling sin exactly what it is. That is not my issue with much of the preaching that I hear. The problem that I have is that people preach against sin without a greater point.

If I want to hear "amen," all I have to do is find something to rail against and I'll hear it. If I ask people to be introspective, however, you'll hear crickets chirp in the church. Nobody likes to look in the mirror. If I talk about those dastardly homosexuals, drunks, perverts, and liberals, people like that. Pastors, your congregation will LOVE it if you preach about somebody else.

The problem is that we've created a culture where sin is something that somebody else does, not something that I do. Further, we've created a culture in our churches where people are afraid to speak out and get help for their sin. I'll give you an example. I did a little bit of research and found out that about half the men in our churches struggle with viewing pornography, including pastors, whose percentage mirrors laity. You read that correctly; half of all pastors surveyed admitted to viewing a pornographic website in the past year. If this is true, then half of the men in my church are viewing porn. Half of the ministers that I go to conferences with are viewing porn. Do you know how many confessions that I've heard on the issue? None.

Now imagine this: Let's say that one person in your church during the Sunday morning service had the courage to admit that he was viewing porn . Let's say that he asked you to pray for him. How would your church respond? I told my church yesterday that I better never hear gossip from anybody about someone who has confessed their sins. If I hear it, I will deal with it very harshly. In my church, I really believe that it would start a revival. I believe that others would see that courage and begin to confess as well.

We should never treat sin as something somebody else does. If we do, then we're struggling by ourselves. We cannot fight the Devil alone. In this area, the Catholics really have something. In order to receive the Eucharist during a Catholic mass, you must go to confession. To Protestants, this doesn't mean much; however, let's consider the Catholic view of the Eucharist. Catholics believe in transsubstantiation; the elements literally become the body and blood of Jesus. Thus the Catholics are saying that if you don't confess your sins, you cannot have Jesus! While I tend to disagree theologically on several of those points, I cannot argue with the conclusion.

I don't want to hear your sins so that I can judge you. I don't want to hear your sins to examine your dirty laundry. I want you to confess so that you can get sin's filth out of your soul. It's amazing; sin tends to leave our bodies through our mouths!

But the closet is the devil's home turf and we've created a culture of fear. We're afraid to be judged. We're afraid to look weak. We're afraid to be characterized as "that sinner over there." I told our church yesterday morning that our prayer list looks like this:

1. Mary Jones - surgery
2. Fred Smith - sick
3. Bobby Jackson - cancer
4. Susie Cooper - sick mom.

Imagine if our prayer list looked like this:

1. Mary Jones - gossip
2. Fred Smith - pornography
3. Bobby Jackson - stewardship
4. Susie Cooper - grudges against Mary Jones

We've created a monster. All of our preaching against sin has taught our people that our preacher and our brothers won't love us if we're a sinner. We need to change this now, or we will continue to have spiritually weak congregations. Pastors, be careful how you preach sin. Stand for holiness, but show grace and love. Encourage confession. Laity, quit gossiping, judging, and shunning those who struggle. You are a stumbling block to revival. Show love. Pray earnestly for those in sin. Confess even the darkest sin in your life. Let's have church be a place of grace and healing.

The Benefits of Confrontation

We "yanks" have a reputation for being a rude bunch. Even though I'm not a "true Yankee" because Maryland is technically south of the Mason-Dixon line, the area of Maryland where I grew up is much more like Massachusetts than Mississippi.

The reasons why southerners feel that northerners are so rude is that we don't shy away from confrontation. If your friend has something to say to you, he says it, you deal with it, and you move on. This method is not considered polite in Southern culture. Here, if you have a problem with your friend, you tell everybody else but him while simultaneously refusing to forgive him. Nothing gets dealt with, but hey, we're not fighting, right?

There are many things that I enjoy about the South. It's slower, it's not as competitive, it's much cheaper, and the climate's nicer. Generally, things aren't too bad, here, but the Southern way of dealing with problems gives me headaches.

Now, there are times when Northerners take the act of confrontation too far. They're aggressive. Sometimes I've been confronted and I really didn't appreciate how the person did it. You don't need to get up in my face for having a hair out of place.

However, here in the South, we simply try to smooth things over and hope that nobody notices that there is a problem. I cannot tell you how many times in my four years here that somebody has alerted me to a problem long after it was possible to do anything about it. Had we dealt with the situation immediately, we could have taken care of the problem, but that would risk somebody speaking up and possibly causing a ruckus. As a result, I am the last one to know of the problem and I look genuinely stupid. I could have fixed the problem with no hard feelings, but by the time it gets through the church circular, I'm the bad guy for not reading people's minds.

If my house catches on fire, but I don't call the fire department for six hours because I feel bad that I'm making them work, my house burns down. They're not at fault. I am. If I go on a crusade to make them look foolish for not putting out a fire that I never told them about, then I am sinning. The same goes for the way people treat their problems. If you don't call somebody to help put out your fire when your house could have been saved, and then you try to make somebody else look bad for not helping you, then you are sinning. This scenario has happened to me, it's happened to my friends, and it's happened to my colleagues, and it drives us all bonkers!

We don't have to walk around looking for something to complain about. What we do have to do is be honest about our issues. If you need help from me, my friends, or the pastor of whatever church you attend, then you have a Christian obligation to seek counsel. If you don't confront the issues in your life, then you'll never grow closer to Christ. All the pastors that I know are smart cookies, but we cannot help if you don't seek to help yourself.

This is a harsh post for many of you. Some of the pastors who read this will shout, "Amen!" I'm not putting any one individual on the spot, and this is not in response to any one incident. But we need to wake up and realize that just because there is no confrontation doesn't mean that there is healing. It's quite the opposite, actually. The only way to genuine healing is to be honest about ourselves, our issues, and our hang-ups. Once we come to grips with those, we must then make ourselves vulnerable by sharing those ideas with the party that hurt us. It is the only method of true healing.

A Place of Healing?

"The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." James 3:6 (NIV)

So that's what the burning in my mouth is. I thought it was that whole can of jalapeno Pringles that I ate. I know it wasn't the buffalo wings.

That's some tough stuff from James. Here's some more tough stuff:

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." James 3:9-10 (NIV)

Ouch! When did James write this epistle because I'm sure he must have been in all of our churches? I wonder, did he zip to our day and age, then get in his Delorean and head back to the first century?

I know that the Bible was written to a myriad of cultures long gone. I know that it wasn't written to people in our day and age. What I do see, however, is a striking revelation that in several thousand years, despite the preaching of many to the contrary, humans have not changed one bit. Not one! We are still the same prideful, spiteful, vindictive, and hurtful people that we were in Jesus' day.

Verbal abuse is not a laughing matter. It can carry long-reaching consequences. I would come home from school as a kid, crying because of the frequent barrage of taunts, slanders, verbal barbs, and downright hatred that I received as a child from my classmates. The old "sticks and stones" retort that we used when somebody said something mean is a lie that is only stated to cover up our pain at the words somebody else used. Truth be told, the words hurt more than any savage beating provided by sticks and stones.

This being said, I still have my head full of the lies that others have told me. I still have my head full of thoughts of my own worthlessness. When I contrast those words with the Truth of Scripture, I begin to understand my value; God said that I am worth the blood of His one and only Son! God said that about me! On the cross, He determined that I was more valuable than Himself, pouring Himself out as an offering for me so that I may be healed. The truth is that I am created in the image of God, and Jesus came so that I may have that image, an image that was tarnished by sin, restored fully by His grace.

Thus, when I encounter fellow Christians, grace should flow from their mouths, and I should be blessed by them, and I should bless them. I go to the church, even as a pastor, to find healing for my soul. Yet, I have found that even in the church, I can have my soul torn by the verbal barbs that are aimed at me, not to build up, but to tear down. Why?

Christians, listen to me! When you direct your verbal comments to another Christian, you are insulting the image of God! Would you call God some of the names that you call your brethren? When I step into the pulpit, provide counseling, or otherwise provide ministerial assistance to somebody, I am speaking and acting for God. When you identify yourselves as Christians, so are you. It's time we let our tongues practice what they preach.