It's so good to be here with
you. Anytime we have the opportunity
to gather with Ligonier, it is always a very special blessing
for us, and I just want to thank Ligonier and Dr. Sproul for this
opportunity to be here and to be able to minister the Word
of God in these days. We've already been encouraged
and built up in our faith. I loved hearing the message from
Dr. Sproul and from Dr. Dever this
morning. A wonderful workshop this afternoon,
and so the Lord, I trust, will just continue to minister His
Word to us. I've been given the topic, Respectable
Sins, and I want to invite you to take your Bibles and turn
with me to the book of 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 2. And as a launching point for
this lecture, I'd like to read verses 20 through 23 and draw
your attention to these verses before we look at some specific
respectable sins. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, beginning
in verse 20, of course you know this is one of the pastoral epistles,
the last letter of correspondence to come from Paul to the outside
world. He's in the Mamantine prison
in Rome. His head will soon be severed,
and this is his final words of challenge to young Timothy. And
he is telling him how to be a man of God. The gospel baton in ministry
is literally being passed down from Paul to Timothy as he writes
this. It's been well said, last words
should be lasting words. When you come to the end of your
life, what is most important should be on your lips and dripping
from your pen. And that is what we find here
with Paul. This is no time to discuss peripheral
issues. It is a time to put your finger
upon the live nerve of what is critically important in ministry. And Paul will address a broad
number of issues in 2 Timothy, but in these verses, beginning
in verse 20, it is a call for the personal holiness of the
man of God. It is a call for the pursuit
of godliness in the lives of those who minister the Word of
God. It's true for the entire body
of Christ as well. And in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and
verse 20, we can feel Paul's emphatic sobriety as he conveys
this to Timothy and now to us through inspired Scripture. Paul
writes, now in a large house there are not only gold and silver
vessels, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, and some
to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses
himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, useful to the master, prepared
for every good work, but now flee from youthful lusts and
pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who
call on the Lord from a pure heart. In these verses, the Apostle
Paul compares the church to a large house, a large structure in which
there are many different utensils and instruments. Paul writes
that there are gold and silver vessels, and there are vessels
of wood and earthenware. The former, Paul writes, are
vessels of honor. They are useful to the Master.
for high purposes. And there are other vessels that
are vessels of dishonor that cannot fulfill lofty and high
purposes. Not all the vessels in this large
house are the same. Neither are they of equal usefulness. Some are more useful to the master
than others. The vessels of gold and silver
are useful for honorable purposes such as for serving food. such as for serving drinks in
the house that others would take in their hands and put to their
lips and put to their mouth, and what is on the gold and what
is on the silver is transferable to them, and they eat it, and
they drink it. And these instruments of gold
and silver fulfill a very high and lofty purpose inside the
house. There are other vessels inside
the house, though, that are less noble. they are wood, and they
are made of earthenware. And the purpose that they serve
is to take out the trash and to take out the human refuse
that comes as the result of eating the food and drinking the drink. And Paul then makes this application,
it is those vessels in the house, the household of faith, that
are honorable vessels, they must be clean. They must be pure. They must be sanctified, to use
Paul's word. And in order to be used by God
for lofty purposes in the household of God, one must be sanctified
if he is to be prepared for every good work. In the ultimate sense,
God will not use dirty vessels. God will use those who are clean
and pure and godly. And that is the focus of these
verses. It was Robert Murray McShane
who said years ago, the greatest need of my people is my own personal
holiness. What McShane was saying is spiritual
leadership begins with what we are and who we are. More important
than our giftedness is our godliness. Before God does a work through
us, He must do a work in us. And if there is to be authentic
spiritual leadership, then there must be genuine spirituality
in the leaders in the church. We cannot take people where we
ourselves have not already gone. We cannot impart what we do not
possess. Our personal holiness is the
platform on which we stand as we preach and teach the Word
of God. And if there is not personal
holiness in our own lives, we have no sure place to stand in
the local church. We must first be something before
we can do something that is honorable to God. We must first be personally
involved in the pursuit of holiness before we can call others to
do the same, or we have become hypocrites like the Pharisees
who clean the outside of the cup, but the inside of the cup
remains dirty. We become like the Pharisees
who paint the outside of the tomb, but on the inside it is
dead men's bones. At the end of the day, like produces
like. Like priest, like people. And so spirituality in the church
must begin at the top. It is a trickle-down effect.
It must begin in the pew. It must begin with the elders.
It must begin with those who serve in leadership in the church,
for the church can rise no higher than the godliness and the spirituality
of her leaders. And this is why we must consider
our personal holiness as church leaders. And in this session,
I want to talk about respectable sins. And you certainly recognize
the title of this session. It is drawn from a bestselling
book written by a very notable author, Jerry Bridges, the book
by the same title. And in this book, Bridges says
that respectable sins are those sins that we pamper, those sins
that we tolerate. And they are said, sad to say,
to be acceptable sins. But in reality, it's like saying,
well, I just have a little cancer, and that won't hurt me. Bridges
writes, quote, those of us whom I call conservative evangelicals
may have become so preoccupied with some of the major sins of
society around us that we have lost sight of the need to deal
with our own refined or subtle sins." Respectable sins are not
like those that are blatant and obvious, such as immorality,
adultery, lying, stealing. embezzlement, drunkenness, pornography. To the contrary, respectable
sins are discrete sins usually hidden within the heart. They
are not sins that in most cases will remove you from the pulpit,
but they are sins that will remove the power of God from the pulpit
in your preaching. You'll continue to preach, and
you'll continue to have a ministry, but Ichabod will be written across
the pulpit, the power and the glory of God have departed. In
his book, Respectable Sins, Bridges lists the following sins and
devotes a chapter each to these, anxiety, which is worry, frustration,
discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control,
impatience, irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy,
sins of the tongue, and worldliness. As Ligonier has asked me to speak
on this, they have singled out five of these sins for me to
draw to your attention. I'd like to work with four of
them, time permitting. It was two years ago that I was
speaking in a conference in Sacramento, California, and the speaker with
me was Jerry Bridges. I woke up early to go eat breakfast
and review my notes, and sitting in the lobby was Jerry Bridges. I spoke to him, and he said,
may I join you for breakfast? I said, I would love for you
to join me for breakfast. And we sat down, and within the
first five minutes, I thanked him for his book, Respectable
Sins. Having no idea, I would give a lesson on this today.
And he actually asked me, Steve, what would you say are the respectable
sins of those who are in the ministry? And my first comment
was pride. But I want us to look at four
others. I want us to look, first of all,
at the respectable sin of discontentment. When was the last time you heard
a sermon on discontentment in the ministry? Every pastor and
church leader wrestles at times with a sense of discontentment,
and part of it is because we minister in a fallen world to
imperfect people, and there are struggles, and there are challenges,
and many times it leads to discouragement, and many times discouragement
leads to discontentment. Discontentment is marked by despondency
and discouragement, unrest, uneasiness, frustration, And unfortunately,
many times this marks our own heart as we find ourselves in
the midst of ministry. And it can lead to, in our own
minds, fantasizing and imagining how much better it would be if
I was serving the Lord someplace else. This is a long way from Jim Elliot,
who once said, wherever you are, be all there. Many times we serve
the Lord and our body is in one place, but there is discontentment
that grows, and it brews, it festers, and we begin to, with
our mind and our heart, wander and dream of another place where
we would serve the Lord. And the fact is, if God by His
sovereign providence has placed us where we are, then we do need
to be content in the work of God and in the will of God and
to put our shoulder to the plow and to give 110 percent of ourselves
to the work where we are until God by His sovereignty and His
perfect timing moves us someplace else. I want you to turn with
me to Philippians chapter 4 for just a moment, which would certainly
be the signature text on contentment in the ministry, contentment
in the Christian life. In Philippians 4, verse 11, before
I read this verse, let me also begin by saying this. As Paul
writes this, he is in anything but ideal conditions. As Paul
calls us to contentment, he himself is in imprisonment in Rome. But
note what he writes in verse 11. Not that I speak from want, but
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. Please note in verse 11 that
Paul says he has learned to be content. It is not our natural
inclination to be content when we find ourselves in difficult
situations. It's not natural. It is supernatural. Being content is something that
we must learn. It is something that we must
acquire. It is something that God must
do in us as God is at work within us, both to will and to work
for His good pleasure. It is remarkable that Paul would
write this, because at this time, he is a prisoner in Rome. He
is confined to a small apartment. He is guarded around the clock
by Roman soldiers. He is in chains. Paul will be
taken trial soon, he thinks, before the madman, the emperor
Nero. Paul himself is a very aggressive
man, and now he finds himself confined in this very small place. And if there was ever an excuse
or ever a reason for one to be disconnected, it would be bleeding
through these verses as Paul would be undergoing such a challenge
in the ministry where it is. But instead, we find the theme
running through this epistle, rejoice in the Lord always. Again,
I say rejoice. And he is calling upon others
to be content with where they are, with what they have, as
they are ministering in the name of the Lord. What is it to be
content? Interestingly enough, in verse
11, this is the only place in the New Testament that this word
for content is used. There are other words that are
used in other contexts, but this word for content carries the
idea of having enough or to be sufficient. The idea is that
you are self-sufficient or not being dependent upon others.
Of course, we know our sufficiency is never in ourselves because
we are very bankrupt in and of ourselves. Our sufficiency is
in the Lord. Our sufficiency is in Jesus Christ,
the head of the church. Our sufficiency is in the Holy
Spirit. This word for content, in verse
11, one ancient writer used this word in reference to a country
that supplied itself with all of its own needs. In other words,
nothing had to be imported from other countries into this country. This country is content. This
country has all of the natural resources that it could possibly
need, it does not need to lean upon any other nation to supply
its needs. I think it's very easy for us
to see how this word carries the idea that when we trust in
the Lord with all of our heart, and when we abide in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and when we put our trust in Him, that there
is a sufficiency of all of our needs being met and found in
the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Christian, true contentment
comes from God and from God alone. It means to be satisfied with
God. It means to be sufficient in heaven's resources. It means
to be at ease in the midst of any problem because of the sufficiency
of the abounding and abundant grace of God. True contentment
cannot be found in this fallen world, and neither can it be
found in fallen people. Neither can it be found in ministering
to fallen people. Instead, true contentment is
found exclusively in God and in the fullness of His grace,
and simply moving to another location or to another ministry
or to another church in no way changes that. Notice what he
says in verse 12. I know. Paul has come to have
deep assurance within his soul. I know how to get along. And
when he says to get along, he means to have contentment. I know how to get along with
humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity. That
covers the full spectrum. in any and every circumstance."
That pretty much covers the field. I have learned the secret. Well,
whatever secret Paul has learned, this is a secret that you and
I must discover as well. For I have learned the secret
of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and
suffering need." You'll note that there are six terms that
are used here. Humble means prosperity, filled,
going hungry, having abundance, and suffering need. That covers
the full spectrum of life. It covers the full spectrum of
ministry. Now whether you're in a large
church, small church, growing church, struggling church, church
that's making its budget, church that's not making its budget,
church with a beautiful facility, church with an unattractive facility,
church in the midst of good times, church in the midst of difficult
times, in the midst of prosperity, in the midst of poverty, with
a full house on Sunday, with an empty house on Sunday, In
any and every circumstance in the ministry, Paul says, I have
learned the secret of being content. If our contentment is dependent
upon the people, the circumstances, the ministry, or the situation
in which we find ourselves, we are in for the roller coaster
ride of our lives. We will be jerked all around
emotionally. But if our contentment is found
in the sufficiency of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, then
you could put us in a Roman prison cell and have to pay our own
rent and be change-a-Roman soldiers, and there would be a supernatural
supply of contentment and joy and grace that is found in the
Lord Jesus Christ alone. Look at verse 13, because here's
the secret. When I was in college, I went
off to college a long way from home and played football in college
and was tested and pulled in every different direction. I
actually had this verse posted on my dorm room wall right over
my bed. so that every time I walked into
my dorm room, I had this verse staring me in the eyes. What
a great verse this is. I can do all things. Now these
all things refer to all things lawful and all things within
the will of God, all things that will glorify God, all things
that will promote the kingdom of God and exalt the name of
the Son of God. I can do all things through Him,
through Christ, who is our mediator, who strengthens me. No matter how difficult and demanding
the circumstances are in which we find ourselves, Paul has learned
the secret of being content as he serves God in ministry, and
it is that he will rely upon the all-sufficient grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it is a respectable sin to
walk in the flesh, to trust in the arm of the flesh, and to
lean upon any other shoulder but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Discontentment comes from our
failure to look to Christ. We are looking at circumstances. We are even looking at ministry.
You remember when Peter was on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus
came walking on the waves? And Peter said, Lord, bid me
come to you. And the Lord said, Come. And
Peter stepped out of the boat, and he began walking on water."
It's pretty good. And then it says, as the waves
were crashing around him, he began to look to the waves and
to look at the waves. And he became fearful. And he
began to tremble on the inside. And he began to sink. And he began to go down. And
as he was going down, he turned to the Lord and he gave that
greatest prayer, help! Save me, Lord! And the Lord reached
out and pulled him up. And the next thing we read, he
is in the boat with the Lord. Is this not the way it is in
our lives in ministry so often? There are times we want to walk
with the Lord. We want to walk on water, if
you will, and our eyes are upon the Lord, and we are doing so
well, and then there will be the report from the elders, or
the report from the finance committee, or the report from wherever.
and we look at the waves crashing all around us, and we become
discouraged, and we become despondent, and soon we become discontent,
and emotionally we begin to sink, and we begin to go down into
a sea of despair. And we think, if I was just in
another ocean, or if I was in some other sea, I would be doing
so much better. In fact, what it is that we need
to do is to keep our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews
12 verse 2 says, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter
of faith. The more we look to Jesus, the
more our faith is made strong, and the more we can run the race
that is set before us. So, it is contentment that we
need in the ministry. a sense of peace, a sense of
calm, resolve, that I am God's man, that I am in the place that
He has appointed for me. I have the abundant resources
of heaven at my disposal, and there is nothing that can overwhelm
me but that my God is not greater in the midst of this to stabilize
me and to give me peace that surpasses all comprehension.
The noted Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs has written a classic work titled,
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. And in this masterpiece, Burroughs
writes, quote, Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet,
gracious frame of spirit. which freely submits to and delights
in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." The entire Bible calls us to
be content in the Lord with where we are, where He has placed us. Luke 3.14 says, be content with
your wages. 1 Timothy 6.8 says, if we have
food and covering, with these we shall be content. Hebrews
13.5, make sure that your character is free from the love of money.
Being content with what you have. 2 Corinthians 12, 10, Paul writes
that he was well content with weaknesses, with insults, with
distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's
sake. 1 Timothy 6, verse 6 says, Godliness
actually is a means of great end when accompanied by contentment. All this is to say is that contentment
in ministry is realized when we put our trust in the Lord,
and when we are subject to discontentment, it is inevitably because our
focus is off the Lord, and we are not trusting in Him and looking
to Him and relying upon Him as we should. Being content means
that we are satisfied with who we are in Christ, that we are
satisfied with what God has given us, and that we are satisfied
with what circumstances He has placed us in. Are you content
this afternoon? Are you at peace in your heart?
Or are you discontent? Are you restless? Are you searching? Are you looking? Are you wanting
to be any place else but that place where God has positioned
you? It is a respectable sin to be
discontent when we have the abundance of the sufficiencies of the grace
of God at our disposal. Perhaps one of the greatest things
that could happen in this conference in your life is that during this
sanctuary time, that there be a renewed commitment in your
heart and in your soul for the ministry to which God has called
you. God uses adversity in our lives. to mature us and to deepen us
and to conform us into the very image of Christ. He is the Lord
of the storm, and He sends His disciples into the midst of the
storm in the darkest hour of the night by His sovereign providence
so that He might train us and prepare us for the greater storms
that lie ahead. Let's talk about a second respectable
sin. The first is discontentment,
really dissatisfied with what God is doing in your life and
where you are. The second would be impatience. Closely related to discontentment
is the respectable sin of impatience. And this too must be rooted out
of our heart. Impatience is a sin by which
we fail to wait upon God and fail to wait upon God's perfect
timing. Impatience is becoming restless
while we are waiting for God to answer our prayers and waiting
for God to act. And as we are impatient, we become
easily agitated. We become anxious. We become
irritable as we do. We find ourselves overreacting. Sometimes we want to shoot a
mosquito with a cannon because we are just impatient. Abraham became impatient with
God and had Ishmael when he should have waited for Isaac. Job became
impatient with God and sacrificed his simple trust in God. Job
21, verse 4, why should I not be impatient? The children of
God became impatient in the wilderness, did they not? And it was their
impatience that led them to rebel against God. In Numbers 21, verse
4, we read, the people became impatient. And literally out
of the Hebrew it means, the soul of the people was short. They
were short with God. They were not long-suffering.
They were not enduring. They were not persevering. They
were impatient. They wanted the ministry. They
wanted their lives to be like going through a fast food drive-thru
where they could just be in the promised land just so quickly.
The people became impatient because of the journey. And then the
next verse, the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us out of
Egypt to die in the wilderness? And it was the spirit of impatience
that was exasperating that carnal cry. Turn with me to the book
of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 31, that last verse
in this monumental chapter that begins the second half of the
book of Isaiah, this last verse of Isaiah chapter 40 that calls
upon us to wait upon the Lord, to wait upon the Lord. And no doubt as we look at this
verse, there would be any number of us here today that this text
would unusually speak to your heart where you find yourself
today. Isaiah 40, verse 31, really this
climactic verse says, "'Yet those who wait for the Lord.'" This
word, wait, literally means who hope in the Lord, and the idea
is as they are waiting, they are hoping. Those who wait patiently for
God's perfect timing. Those who wait and bear up under
difficulty. of those who wait and do not
act impulsively and get ahead of God, those who wait for God's
schedule to be worked out in my life. It should be noted at
this point that God is rarely in a hurry. On the whole, God moves methodically. And then when God acts, as Lloyd-Jones
said, God can do more in five minutes than man can do in fifty
years. Wait on the Lord. God is concerned
with growing us to be oak trees, and He is not concerned with
what pops up overnight as mushrooms. Those who wait for the Lord,
note what this says, will gain new strength. A note of certainty,
if we wait for the Lord, we will gain new strength. The idea is
of exchanging our weakness for His strength. That's a pretty
good deal. That is a great buy low, sell
high exchange. will gain new strength. And conversely,
those who are impatient with God inevitably will be worn out
and weak as they serve Him." Notice what it says next. They will mount up with wings
like eagles. The they is emphatic. They and they alone. The only
people who mount up with wings like eagles and soar in ministry
and in life. are those who wait on the Lord,
those who act impulsively, those who are out ahead of God, those
who are going by their own schedule. They will never soar like eagles. They will mount up with wings
like eagles. Literally, they will sprout wings.
They will run and not get tired. Again, it's emphatic, they and
they alone. No one else will run and not get tired except
those who wait on the Lord. And they will walk and not become
weary. Again, it's emphatic, they and
they alone. And the reason that they and
they alone will walk and not become weary is because they
will be walking with God. If you do not wait on the Lord,
you are walking on your own. You are flying solo. They will walk and not become
weary. When we wait on the Lord, we
have supernatural strength, and God will bear us up. It is a sin to become impatient
with God. It is a sin to be impatient with
elderboards. a sin to be impatient with deacons,
to be impatient with staff, to be impatient with ministry development,
to be impatient with where we are. And this is not to say that
this gives us a pass for mediocrity. It does not at all. In fact,
those who wait on the Lord, they are the ones who will mount up
with wings like eagles and who will run and be strong. Psalm 40, verse 1, I waited patiently
for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry. Psalm
25, verse 3, None of those who wait for you will be ashamed. Psalm 25, verse 5, For you I
wait all the day. Twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week, there is a sense of our waiting and hoping in
and resting in God. Psalm 27, verse 14, wait for
the Lord. Be strong and let your heart
take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord. I'll never forget one time I
was sitting in Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, and John
MacArthur was in the pulpit and read Psalm 27 for the reading
of Scripture. And sitting next to me was the
president of a seminary. And when he came to the end of
reading this psalm, knowing that I was at an impetuous time in
my life, I remember he turned to me and said, Steve, wait for
the Lord. It's a word for all of us. Psalm 37, verse 34, wait for
the Lord and keep His way. Psalm 37, verse 7, rest in the
Lord and wait patiently for Him. Galatians 5.22, the fruit of
the Spirit is patience. In waiting for the Lord, there
is a willingness to accept the painful situation in which we
find ourselves. and to remain grounded there
until God chooses to move us elsewhere. It is the ability
to endure injuries inflicted by others. It is a great virtue to wait
for the Lord and to be patient, and it is a respectable sin to
be impatient. A third respectable sin is the sin of envy. Closely related
to being discontent is envy. These go hand in hand. What is
envy? It is a resentful discontent. It is an evil feeling, a wrong
desire to possess what belongs to someone else. The Greek word
means that it is the feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing
or hearing of the advantage or prosperity of others. Those who are competitive in
life, in sports, many times carry that over into the ministry.
And it is difficult and a challenge at times to not be envious of
other works of God in other places that seem to be prospering more
than where the Lord has placed you. John MacArthur writes, quote,
by definition, the envious person cannot be satisfied with what
he has and will always crave for more. In other words, he's
never content, he's never satisfied with what he has. He always wants
more. His evil desires and pleasures
are insatiable. And he cannot abide by any other
person's having something that he himself does not have, or
having more of something that he himself has. Envy certainly
marked our lives before we came to Christ. Titus 3, verse 3 says,
for we ourselves were once also foolish, and then along litany,
and envy is included. And one of the deeds of the flesh
is envy in Galatians 5.21. Jerry Bridges writes, envy is
the painful and oftentimes resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed
by someone else and making the application for us as church
leaders as it relates to ministry. Bridges continues, we tend to
envy those, and this is very insightful, we tend to envy those
first with whom we most closely identify and second in those
areas we value most. We as pastors and church leaders
must be guarding our hearts and not to be envious of the successes
that God by His sovereignty would grant in other places. There were pastors like this
in Paul's day who were envious. Philippians 1 verse 15, Paul
writes, some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy
and strife. It is possible to preach from
envy. And the other pastors in Rome,
as Paul was in imprisonment, their carnal desires in preaching
were fueled by the high octane of envy. Their message was right. Their motive was terribly wrong. And they were envious of Paul's
apostolic authority. They were envious of Paul's successes. They were envious of Paul's giftedness
and his intellect and his powerful preaching. They preached out of envy, interested
only in their own self-advancement, seeking to promote their own
prestige. We who serve the Lord must root
out envy with radical repentance. If the Word of God is to have
a place in our hearts, then envy must go. 1 Peter 2, verse 1 says,
putting aside all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy and envy,
like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the Word. Envy chokes
out our hunger and appetite to study the Word of God and to
take in the Word of God and to preach the Word of God. When
envy moves in, our appetite for the Word moves out. Envy will
negate our longing for the ministry of the Word. as you would search
your heart today, as you would look inward, as you would ask
God to turn the searchlight on in your own heart, would there
be seeds of envy that have established a beachhead in your heart? Is there in any way a wrong desire,
a displeasure towards the success of other works while yours would
be in a more deliberate pace. The last sin, respectable sin,
that I want us to consider is sins of the tongue. We who are
called by God to minister the Word of God, our tongues have
been set on fire by heaven above. Our tongues have been loosened.
that we might preach and proclaim and herald and declare the truths
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And with this divine
calling and with this power of the Spirit of God upon our lives,
there is a sacred stewardship that has been entrusted to all
of us in the use of our own tongues. That is why James 3 verse 1 says,
"'Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren. Knowing
as such, we shall incur a stricter judgment. There will be a stricter
judgment for us as teachers of the Word of God, who have been
unusually gifted by God for the public use of our tongues." How
we need to use our tongues so carefully, both in the pulpit
and out of the pulpit. Inevitably, we find ourselves
talking, do we not? It is the call of the ministry
that the Lord has for us and how our tongues need to be employed
in godly ways. In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse
29, Paul gives this familiar exhortation, this familiar command
to the believers at Ephesus How much more so is it applicable
to us who have been called to use our tongues in the service
of the Lord? Paul writes, let no unwholesome
word proceed from your mouth. This word unwholesome means corrupt,
foul. It was used in this day of rotten
food and spoiled fruit. Paul is saying that there should
never come out of our mouths anything that is inconsistent
with the high and holy calling of God upon our lives. Let no unwholesome word proceed
from your mouth, not a few, not some. Let no unwholesome word
proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for
edification. according to the need of the
moment, so that we may give grace to those who hear." The next
verse is so important. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God. When we misuse our tongues, we
grieve the Spirit of God who is in us and who has gifted us
and who has empowered us in ministry. Again, there is a stewardship
entrusted to us. and how we must be careful to
use our gift in ways only for edification, and that is profitable. What we say to others carries
extra weight. The humor I use with those in
the church, I need to be reminded that what I say carries unusual
weight and impact. and I can overuse that. There
have been many a time as a young man that I have had to step back
into the pulpit on the next Sunday and repent of my tongue. It had
a very quick way of putting a restraint on my mouth. knowing that I would
have to step back into the very same arena in which I had improperly
used sarcasm or humor in the pulpit, directed at an individual
in the congregation, and devastated that person, and devastated the
spouse, having no idea the weight of being the pastor in the pulpit
in front of the congregation, how different this was than merely
being on a golf course with some friends. Look at chapter 5, verse 4, Ephesians
5, verse 4. As we are called to be imitators
of God in verse 1, verse 4 gives specificity. And in verse 4 we read, and there
must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting, which
are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. Filthiness here refers
to both any kind of filthiness as well as filthy talk, that
which is degrading, that which is disgraceful, that which is
shameful. A silly talk is from a Greek
word moros from which we derive the English word moron, just
stupid talk. There have been more than a few
times I've attended a conference and when the pastor would step
to the pulpit The first five minutes sounded more like hee-haw than I was with the Westminster
divines. There ought not to be silly talk,
foolish talk, stupid talk. And then he says, coarse jesting.
And the idea there, it's more pointed. Dirty talk, dirty language,
even innuendos where the person would fill in the blank, and
you would run up to the edge, and with their listening, they
take that and go beyond and understand what you didn't say, but what
you implied. Double entendres, suggestive
words, dirty stories. These are unfortunately in the
evangelical church today becoming respectable sins. And I would
say those ministers who are involved in coarse jesting and silly talk
betray the call of God upon their lives and are bankrupt of the fear
of God in their hearts. and on the last day will give
an account for the very words they have spoken." We must use
our tongue to encourage one another, build up one another. We must
use our words to teach the Word and to explain the Word, to spread
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must use our tongues
to come alongside those who are the downtrodden in this life
and to lift them up and build them up. It was said of Jesus
that a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish, that His
words were sensitive to the occasion. He would play hardball with the
Pharisees, and He would say unto them, woe unto you, dead men's
bones. But to those who had been trampled
under in the devastations of life, He would say, go, your
sins are forgiven. Sin no more. Let us be those
who use our mouth in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to promote
holiness, to spread godliness. May our words be seasoned with
salt. May they be measured very carefully,
not only what we say, but how we say it, not only the substance
of our words, but even the tone and the trajectory as best under
the influence of the Spirit of God, knowing that what we say
is so often so memorable with those whom we serve. These are just some of the respectable
sins that we need to watch over, and every one of us needs to
be repenters, I foremost, all of us, to be continually turning
away from such respectable sins and confessing them when we commit
them and to go in a different path and in a different direction. I want to conclude with Psalm
139, verses 23 and 24. May this be a prayer for each
and every one of us as we consider our own walk before the Lord,
as we consider the use of our tongue, the state of our heart,
the condition of our soul, our attitudes, our inner life. David concludes this psalm by
saying, search me, O God. It's the word
used of Caleb and Joshua that were sent in to search out the
promised land, to explore and to give careful attention to
the lay of the land, and to come back and to report and how we
need to be searching our own heart through the guiding light
of our conscience and the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. And when he says, know my heart,
it is implied to make my own heart known to myself. For God
knows our heart. In fact, at the beginning of
this psalm, it says that God knows every word that I will
say, even before I say it. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me. And so when he says, search me
and know me, he is saying, God, only you can truly know my heart,
and only you can truly reveal my own heart to myself. We live in a world in which we
are self-deceived about ourselves. We become experts on the sins
in other people's lives, and we become blind to our own sin
at times. He says, search me, O God. Explore
my heart. Bring it out into the open so
that I can deal with what needs to be dealt with in my own life,
because you will only use an honorable vessel in your large
house. You will only use one of gold
and silver that has been sanctified, prepared for every good work.
Lord, I don't want to be set aside. I don't want to be put
on the shelf. I don't want to be put in the back closet. I
don't want my days of usefulness to be over. I want to be on the
front lines. I want my life to count for time
and eternity. I want you to be reaching for
me. I want you to be picking me up and using me in your service
and in your kingdom. But God, you're only going to
pick up a pure vessel, a clean instrument. Can you imagine a
surgeon going into surgery? and is doing brain surgery or
open heart surgery, and the nurse hands him a utensil, and it drops
on the floor, and he says, oh, that's okay. And he picks it
up, wipes it under his arm, and then unfolds his shirt and tries
to begin to wipe off with his sweaty undershirt, and then begin
to apply it to a person's brain or heart. It's unimaginable. How much more will the great
physician reach for those sinful servants who have been sanctified,
who are confessing their sin, who are repenting of their sin,
whose hearts are being made known to them by God? Those are the
ones whom the Lord uses. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me. The idea there is to
sift through me. and know my anxious thoughts,
and see if there be any hurtful way in me." A hurtful way is
a sinful way. It is hurtful because it certainly
grieves God. God is not a Stoic. It grieves
God and hurts God And it inevitably hurts us, and hurts our ministry,
and hurts our testimony, and retards the power of God in our
lives. So therefore, it hurts our work
for Him. And see if there be any hurtful
way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. The everlasting
way is the narrow path of purity and holiness and godliness. May our minds, as they are being
renewed, have the sanctifying effect upon every part of our
body. May we be those instruments,
pure and clean, that are being sanctified by the ministry of
the Word of God and the Spirit of God. And may He use us for
the extension of His work in the building up of His kingdom.
May we ask God to make each one of us more like Christ, because
in reality there are no respectable sins. The title is even an oxymoron. It was sin that crucified our
Savior. It was our sin that was laid
upon Him that led to the dreadful curse and the dreadful cry, My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Let us forsake our sin as
servants of the Lord as we serve in the name of Him who was forsaken
upon Calvary's cross. Let us pray. Father, we want You to cleanse us to sanctify us, to
mature us. We ask that You would prune out
of our lives those things that are not bearing fruit. We pray
that You would purge our lives, knowing that the greatest need
of our flocks and congregations is our own personal holiness. And there is only one thing that
prevents our growth in holiness, and it is sin, and there is only
one kind of sin, and it is our sin. Lord, we know every great revival
has begun with a thorough house cleaning within Your You say, let judgment begin with
the household of God. So, Lord, we pray that You would
search us, that You would know us, and that You would make our
own hearts known to ourselves. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it? We pray
that Your Word, which is like a mirror, will give the self-revelation
of who we are and what we are as we look into the law. And I pray that we would bring
our respectable sins out into the open and that they would
be slayed and put to death as deeds of the flesh. that there
would be the mortification of these respectable sins, and how
that would honor you and glorify your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be ministers and pastors
and elders and deacons and teachers and servants who walk in a manner worthy of
our calling. may our godliness be the platform
from which our giftedness may have far-reaching effect. Father,
we praise You and thank You for the power that is in the blood
of Christ, and that if we confess our sins, You are faithful and
righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we cannot preach against sin
and talk about sin without talking of our need for confession as
well as praising You for the fullness and the freeness of
Your forgiveness that is bestowed upon us. when we acknowledge
our sins to You.