I See a Church Leader Living in Sexual Sin

00:00:00.000 | A female podcast listener in Colorado writes in to ask this. "Hello Pastor John, with a heavy heart I ask.

00:00:10.340 | First, what does Paul mean in Ephesians 5 verses 11 and 12 that instead of taking part in the unfruitful works of darkness,

00:00:17.300 | we're supposed to expose them? Is this talking about unfruitful works that others are committing against the Lord or our own?

00:00:25.240 | Second, if someone was claiming Christ and his gospel, leading in the church, yet living in sexual sin,

00:00:30.900 | are we supposed to do something about that?" What would you say Pastor John?"

00:00:34.680 | The short answer to each of those questions is one,

00:00:39.400 | exposing the works of darkness in Ephesians 5 11 refers to the works of others, not your own.

00:00:47.640 | And two,

00:00:49.920 | yes,

00:00:51.040 | leaders who are living in sexual sin should be brought into the light and dealt with in a biblical way.

00:00:58.520 | So those are the two answers. Now, what we need to do is to put those answers

00:01:04.840 | in the context of Paul's instruction about exposing darkness.

00:01:09.880 | The context is important because it shows the way that we expose the darkness is by being

00:01:18.960 | children of the light. That's the first thing it shows.

00:01:22.400 | So if you take the context, Ephesians 5 7 following, it goes like this, "Do not become partakers with them,

00:01:29.920 | for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,

00:01:39.200 | for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and

00:01:46.320 | try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in

00:01:50.680 | unfruitful works of darkness, but instead," and then comes the phrase, "expose them,

00:01:57.960 | for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret, but when anything is exposed," same word, "by the light,

00:02:06.720 | it becomes visible." So the first way to think about what Paul is saying is that Christians,

00:02:14.160 | by the light, by the purity and love and beauty and Christ's

00:02:20.640 | brightening

00:02:22.800 | demonstrations of their lives,

00:02:24.800 | inevitably cause the darkness of those around them to be more obvious. I think that's the main thing Paul's saying.

00:02:32.200 | We see this

00:02:34.760 | every time someone gets converted, and we see it in the Bible in 1 Peter 4 3, where it says, "For the time that has

00:02:41.360 | passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatries."

00:02:49.160 | With respect to this, they are surprised

00:02:53.200 | when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.

00:02:59.960 | In other words, the very brightness of the new life of

00:03:04.520 | the believers is

00:03:07.040 | what exposed the darkness.

00:03:10.000 | Paul intends for that to happen when he says, "Expose them."

00:03:15.200 | So the lion's share of our lives is not devoted to passing judgments on all the sinners around us, but rather

00:03:22.240 | living such lives of God-centered purity that darkness—

00:03:27.840 | the darkness

00:03:31.040 | specifically of God-neglect and impurity—will just naturally be

00:03:36.680 | shown to be darkness, will be exposed. Here's another example of the natural way it happens in 1 Corinthians 14,

00:03:44.360 | where it says, "If everybody prophesies," so a picture of some kind of

00:03:49.520 | gathering of Christians, and people are sharing the word back and forth in spirit-anointed ways, "If everybody's prophesying, and an

00:03:57.440 | unbeliever or an outsider comes in, he is," and here comes the word, it's translated

00:04:03.600 | "convicted," but it's the same word as Ephesians 5:11, "exposed."

00:04:08.120 | He's convicted and exposed by all, and he's called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are

00:04:14.320 | disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is among you. Beautiful.

00:04:21.700 | So again,

00:04:23.360 | the exposure or the conviction that happens is indirect

00:04:28.480 | rather than direct. In other words, it's the way the Word of God was being used in the service

00:04:34.120 | that brought the exposure of the darkness and the repentance.

00:04:39.360 | So,

00:04:41.600 | one last thing on the leaders issue. She wants to know now, what about

00:04:46.000 | leaders? And Paul is so helpful here. He's not always crystal clear here,

00:04:52.480 | but he is so helpful, because that word, "expose them," is

00:04:57.800 | precisely the word used to

00:04:59.800 | expose an elder caught in sin. So let me read that. This is 1 Timothy 5,

00:05:06.280 | 19 and 20. "Do not admit a charge against an elder

00:05:11.000 | except on the evidence of two or three witnesses." Now, that's a warning to the church not to willy-nilly

00:05:19.120 | spread negative things about an elder or to pay attention to one person without more than one person.

00:05:27.200 | But here's the key verse, verse 20. "As for those elders who persist in sin,

00:05:34.000 | expose them," or it's translated, "rebuke them," same word,

00:05:39.560 | "expose them in the presence of all,

00:05:42.920 | so that the rest may stand in fear."

00:05:46.280 | So, if someone was claiming Christ and his gospel, leading in the church,

00:05:52.600 | yet living in sexual sin, are we supposed to do something about that? The answer is a

00:06:00.120 | resounding "yes"

00:06:02.520 | from the Bible. Now, how you go about

00:06:07.240 | exposing something you have discovered will depend in part on

00:06:12.360 | the nature of the relationship you have with the person caught in

00:06:16.840 | sin, and I would say the closer the relationship, the more

00:06:22.280 | personal and private the initial rebukes and exposures will be. But

00:06:27.560 | since it's a leader who's

00:06:30.680 | involved, it cannot remain

00:06:33.920 | private or merely personal because there are too many other people's lives at stake.

00:06:42.440 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the question.

00:06:45.640 | You can search our archive of hundreds of episodes and download our podcast app, subscribe to the podcast, and even send us a question of

00:06:51.800 | your own at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:06:53.800 | Tomorrow we have a question from a man who has a lifelong question on his mind. His childhood friend who loved the Lord and respected his

00:07:04.360 | parents

00:07:05.560 | died young. Doesn't this prove God's word to be false or unreliable?

00:07:09.900 | And it's a heavy question, and it's on the table tomorrow. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:07:16.380 | You

00:07:18.380 | You

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I See a Church Leader Living in Sexual Sin — Should I Expose Him?

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