Dangers in Exposing Cultural Sins
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:04.000 | Welcome back to the podcast. This week we're looking at controversy.
00:00:07.000 | We opened the week looking at the sick love of controversy.
00:00:11.000 | In APJ 1949, on Monday, we looked at this disease called craving for controversy,
00:00:17.000 | as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4.
00:00:19.000 | Today we look at how to best speak of a culture's sins, when we must do so.
00:00:25.000 | Such work is complicated by the fact that Paul seems to tell us there are some sins in the culture
00:00:31.000 | that are simply too wicked and too shameful to even speak of them.
00:00:36.000 | That's according to Ephesians 5.12, at least on the surface of it.
00:00:40.000 | So what shameful sins should Christians not even speak about?
00:00:45.000 | The question is from a listener named Dan.
00:00:47.000 | Pastor John, hello to you. I'm an elder at my church, and I was thinking about how sin is to be addressed
00:00:52.000 | by Christian preachers, both pastorally to the congregation, and in calling out the sins of culture.
00:00:58.000 | What advice would you give preachers on how to avoid merely complaining or going off on angry rants
00:01:04.000 | about cultural sins and how to wisely identify and call for repentance from sins inside the church?
00:01:12.000 | So what cultural sins do we expose and speak out against?
00:01:15.000 | What cultural sins do we ignore or refrain from talking about because of their vulgarity?
00:01:21.000 | And how do you think preachers in local churches will best balance addressing the sins of culture
00:01:26.000 | and the sins in the pew?
00:01:29.000 | This is an important question because the sinfulness of contemporary society is today more outlandish
00:01:40.000 | than it has been for hundreds of years in America, and more in-your-face because of the ubiquity
00:01:49.000 | of social media and online streaming and advertising.
00:01:53.000 | Those two facts, outlandish and ubiquity, are a strong temptation for a pastor to vent his anger
00:02:03.000 | and frustration at the degeneration of the world so that the pulpit runs the risk of becoming
00:02:11.000 | not a place mainly of exaltation over the glories of God in Christ, but a place of irritation
00:02:18.000 | and condemnation of the insanity that is going on out there in the world.
00:02:25.000 | A pastor can feel that things are so bad that if he does not linger over the latest grossness of evil,
00:02:36.000 | it will look like he's going soft on sin.
00:02:40.000 | So it's good for us to think about how to speak of sins in the world and sins in the church
00:02:49.000 | and yet sound the dominant note of amazement at the glories of the grace of God in Christ
00:02:58.000 | so that that's what people walk away from on Sunday morning or walk away with on Sunday morning,
00:03:06.000 | namely, "We are amazed here at the beauty and the glory of the grace of God in Christ."
00:03:14.000 | There is surely a reason why Paul said to the Philippians, who were threatened by legalistic dogs,
00:03:26.000 | who wanted to ravage their faith, according to chapter 3, and by "enemies of the cross of Christ
00:03:35.000 | whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, who glory in their shame."
00:03:42.000 | There's a reason why Paul said precisely to this embattled church, surrounded by so much belly God debauchery,
00:03:54.000 | "Whatever's true, whatever's honorable, whatever's just, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely,
00:04:01.000 | whatever's commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
00:04:10.000 | We are not to be consumed emotionally or attentively with the latest drag queen strutting among the four-year-olds
00:04:23.000 | or the latest butchery to the genitals of eight-year-olds.
00:04:28.000 | There is a fitting groaning and tears over the wickedness of these things.
00:04:36.000 | But if it consumes us, we have lost our bearings and need to go back to Christ.
00:04:44.000 | Think of this. He said, Paul said, "Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice."
00:04:52.000 | He said that seven verses after saying, "I tell you with tears they walk as enemies of the cross of Christ."
00:05:04.000 | That's amazing.
00:05:06.000 | So let's take Ephesians 5, 3 to 12, as an example of how Paul deals with sins outside and inside the church in his preaching.
00:05:18.000 | So here's what he says. This is Ephesians 5, 3.
00:05:22.000 | "Sexual immorality and all impurity," and he had a lot of gross stuff in that word,
00:05:31.000 | "sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints.
00:05:40.000 | Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk or crude joking which are out of place.
00:05:46.000 | Instead, let there be thanksgiving.
00:05:49.000 | Fill your mouth up with something positive so it pushes out all the filthiness and foolishness and crudeness.
00:05:56.000 | For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or covetous,
00:06:03.000 | that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
00:06:09.000 | Let no one deceive you."
00:06:11.000 | Now he's talking about believers here. "Let no one deceive you with empty words because of those things.
00:06:17.000 | The wrath of God comes upon sons of disobedience."
00:06:21.000 | See the connection there? You watch out. You Christians watch out for deception.
00:06:26.000 | And then he calls those whom he's really talking about sons of disobedience, which means unbelievers.
00:06:32.000 | "Therefore, do not become partners with them.
00:06:36.000 | For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
00:06:42.000 | Walk as children of the light.
00:06:44.000 | Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
00:06:47.000 | Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
00:06:54.000 | For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret."
00:07:01.000 | So, here you have Paul naming the sins of the world—sexually immoral, impure, covetous.
00:07:12.000 | And then he warns the saints not to be partners with them.
00:07:16.000 | So he's not just grandstanding against those bad people out there.
00:07:21.000 | He's concerned about the church.
00:07:24.000 | "You are saints now. You are in the kingdom of Christ now. You are the children of light now."
00:07:30.000 | But he doesn't draw the inference from this, "Well, all we need to do is stand aloof, castigate the world."
00:07:37.000 | Rather, he makes the sins of the world an occasion for warning the saints.
00:07:44.000 | "We are vulnerable.
00:07:46.000 | If you partner with them in those sins, you too will come under the wrath of God."
00:07:51.000 | And then he closes with something paradoxical.
00:07:55.000 | He says, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
00:08:04.000 | For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret."
00:08:10.000 | So, there's a way to expose the sins of the world without being verbally contaminated.
00:08:20.000 | It's shameful even to speak of them, Paul says.
00:08:24.000 | Which I think means it's shameful to find pleasure in talking about them, lingering over them with excessive attention.
00:08:36.000 | It is possible to find pleasure—we're just so deceived on things like this.
00:08:45.000 | We can deceive ourselves so easily, I mean.
00:08:47.000 | It is possible to find pleasure in talking about the things we hate.
00:08:54.000 | Isn't that awful?
00:08:56.000 | It's possible to find pleasure in talking about the things we hate.
00:09:01.000 | God doesn't want this.
00:09:03.000 | That's not good.
00:09:05.000 | So, the right way to summarize that paradox would go something like this, I think.
00:09:10.000 | Expose, but don't gloat.
00:09:13.000 | Expose, but don't linger.
00:09:16.000 | Expose, but weep.
00:09:19.000 | Expose, but pray.
00:09:21.000 | Expose, but don't grovel in the mire, even in the name of mocking the mire.
00:09:29.000 | Some people think they're justified in lingering in the mire by spending a lot of time finding clever ways to put it down.
00:09:35.000 | Expose, but then return quickly to the clean, clear, holy, happy air of the mountains of Christ's fellowship.
00:09:47.000 | Just three more bullet points, observations that might give some more guidance on how to deal with sins outside the church.
00:09:55.000 | First, when you deal with them, do it in a serious biblical way.
00:10:02.000 | That is, do a biblical analysis, a careful analysis, a thoughtful analysis for why they are sin.
00:10:10.000 | Some sins we think are so gross, so harmful, that we don't need to give any kind of biblical analysis or rationale for their rejection.
00:10:18.000 | I think that's a mistake because it tends to make us think simply on a par with conservative unbelievers.
00:10:28.000 | That's not a good place to be for a Christian, simply on a par with conservative unbelievers.
00:10:34.000 | But a biblical analysis would get to the root of how the sin relates to God and to Christ.
00:10:44.000 | And our dealing with the sin then would be seen as a passion for God's glory and Christ's majesty, His mercy, not just our proper gobsmack at the outrage.
00:10:56.000 | Second, keep in mind 1 Corinthians 5.12, "What have I to do with judging outsiders?"
00:11:04.000 | Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.
00:11:11.000 | And then third, finally, aim at the fullest experience possible of Romans 12.21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
00:11:25.000 | Finding pleasure in talking about the things we hate. That's a haunting thought.
00:11:30.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, for walking us through this, and thank you for joining us today.
00:11:34.000 | If you want to ask Pastor John, email us your question. Go to askpastorjohn.com.
00:11:41.000 | Well, Monday we look at one aspect of smartphone addiction many of us can't identify with.
00:11:46.000 | It happens to us just about every morning.
00:11:48.000 | We wake up, grab our phone, silence the alarm, and there, laying in bed, phone in hand, we face our very first decision of the new day.
00:12:01.000 | Will the screen stay off, or will we start scrolling?
00:12:05.000 | That dilemma is up next time. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday. Have a great weekend.
00:12:11.000 | [End of Audio]
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