Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. This week we’re looking at controversy. We opened the week looking at the sick love of controversy. In APJ 1949, on Monday, we looked at this disease called “craving for controversy,” as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4.

Today we look at how to best speak of a culture’s sins — when we must do so. Such work is complicated by the fact that Paul seems to tell us there are some sins in a culture that are simply too wicked and too “shameful” to even speak of. That’s according to Ephesians 5:12, at least on the surface of it. So what shameful sins should Christians not even speak about? The question is from a listener named Dan.

“Pastor John, hello to you! I am an elder at my church, and I was thinking about how sin is to be addressed by Christian preachers, both pastorally to the congregation and in calling out the sins of culture. What advice would you give preachers on how to avoid merely complaining or going off on angry rants about cultural sins, and how to wisely identify and call for repentance from sins inside the church? So what cultural sins do we expose and speak out against? What cultural sins do we ignore or refrain from talking about because of their vulgarity? And how do you think preachers in local churches will best balance addressing the sins of culture and the sins in the pew?”

This is an important question because the sinfulness of contemporary society is today more outlandish than it has been for hundreds of years in America — and more in your face because of the ubiquity of social media and online streaming and advertising. Those two facts — outlandish and ubiquitous — are a strong temptation for a pastor to vent his anger and frustration at the degeneration of the world, so that the pulpit runs the risk of becoming not a place mainly of exultation over the glories of God in Christ, but a place of irritation and condemnation of the insanity that is going on out there in the world. A pastor can feel that things are so bad that if he does not linger over the latest grossness of evil, it will look like he’s going soft on sin.

Sounding the Right Note

So, it’s good for us to think about how to speak of sins in the world and sins in the church and yet sound the dominant note of amazement at the glories of the grace of God in Christ, so that that’s what people walk away with on Sunday morning — namely, we are amazed here at the beauty and the glory of the grace of God in Christ.

There is surely a reason why Paul said to the Philippians, who were threatened by legalistic dogs who wanted to ravage their faith (Philippians 3:2), and by “enemies of the cross of Christ” whose “end is destruction, [whose] god is their belly, and [who] glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:18–19) — there’s a reason why Paul said precisely to this embattled church, surrounded by so much belly-god debauchery, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

We are not to be consumed emotionally or attentively with the latest drag queen strutting among the 4-year-olds or the latest butchery to the genitals of 8-year-olds. There is a fitting groaning and tears over the wickedness of these things, but if it consumes us, we have lost our bearings and need to go back to Christ. Think about this. Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). He said that seven verses after saying, “[I] tell you even with tears, [they] walk as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18). That’s amazing.

Sins Outside and Inside

So, let’s take Ephesians 5:3–12 as an example of how Paul deals with sins outside and inside the church in his preaching. Here’s what he says.

Sexual immorality and all impurity [and he had a lot of gross stuff in that word] must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk and crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

That is, fill your mouth up with something positive so it pushes out all the filthiness and foolishness and crudeness.

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you [and he’s talking about believers here] with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

See the connection there? You watch out — you Christians watch out for deception. And then he calls those whom he’s really talking about “sons of disobedience,” which means unbelievers.

Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light . . . and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.

Uncontaminated Exposing

So, here you have Paul naming the sins of the world: sexually immoral, impure, covetous. And then he warns the saints not to be partners with them. So he’s not just grandstanding against those bad people out there; he’s concerned about the church. “You are saints now. You are in the kingdom of Christ now. You are the children of light now.” But he doesn’t draw the inference from this, “Well, all we need to do is stand aloof, castigate the world.” Rather, he makes the sins of the world an occasion for warning the saints. “We are vulnerable. If you partner with them in those sins, you too will come under the wrath of God.”

“There’s a way to expose the sins of the world without being verbally contaminated.”

And then he closes with something paradoxical. He says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Ephesians 5:11–12). So, there’s a way to expose the sins of the world without being verbally contaminated. “It’s shameful even to speak of them,” Paul says. Which I think means it’s shameful to find pleasure in talking about them, lingering over them with excessive attention. It is possible to find pleasure — we’re just so deceived on things like this; we can deceive ourselves so easily — in talking about the things we hate. Isn’t that awful? It’s possible to find pleasure in talking about the things we hate. God doesn’t want this. That’s not good.

So, the right way to summarize that paradox would go something like this, I think: Expose, but don’t gloat. Expose, but don’t linger. Expose, but weep. Expose, but pray. Expose, but don’t grovel in the mire, even in the name of mocking the mire. Some people think they’re justified in lingering in the mire by spending a lot of time finding clever ways to put it down. Expose, but then return quickly to the clean, clear, holy, happy air of the mountains of Christ’s fellowship.

Overcome Evil with Good

I have just three more bullet points, observations that might give some more guidance on how to deal with sins outside the church.

“Expose, but then return quickly to the clean, clear, holy, happy air of the mountains of Christ’s fellowship.”

First, when you deal with them, do it in a serious, biblical way. That is, do a biblical analysis, a careful analysis, a thoughtful analysis for why they are sin. 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. I think that’s a mistake, because it tends to make us think simply on a par with conservative unbelievers. That’s not a good place to be for a Christian, simply on a par with conservative unbelievers. But a biblical analysis would get to the root of how the sin relates to God and to Christ. 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.

Second, keep in mind 1 Corinthians 5:12–13: “What have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.”

Third and finally, aim at the fullest experience possible of Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

First, they worshiped him.

Before Jesus gave them any tasks to be done, any commission to fulfill, any directions as to how they might, in some sense, carry on his work once he was gone, first they went to their knees before him. Matthew reports that

the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him . . . . (Matthew 28:16–17)

Before they might imitate aspects of his human life, and echo his teachings in their own words and obedience, they bowed before Jesus — not only as man but God himself.

What’s more, before Jesus uttered the lone imperative of his Great Commission to his men, for his church, he declared his unique authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The church has one Groom, one Chief Shepherd, one Lord, one risen Son seated at the right hand of the Father, supplying the Spirit. And more than that, when the disciples did receive their charge, it would be strikingly focused on “the Son” — baptizing in his name, with the Father and Spirit, and teaching all nations to observe all that Jesus commanded.

Yet, the other foot would land. Not only would utterly inimitable aspects of the God-man’s life have their clear markings here, at his giving of the Commission, but his disciples would have a call to answer, a part to play, genuine obedience to render. There was actual imitation of their master to own and realize, however qualified it might be.

At the heart of this final, culminating report at the end of Matthew’s Gospel stands a particular directive — work to be done, an imperative to heed, a mission to embrace, and yes, a pronounced dimension of Christ’s life to imitate: make disciples.

He Made Them Fishers

How would this charge — one that encompasses all the other commands of Christ’s teaching — have landed on his own men in that moment, and in the days and years that followed as they reflected on it? After all, this was the particular band who knew him best. These were his disciples. What might his disciples hear when he told his disciples to make disciples?

For Peter and Andrew, James and John, Jesus had first framed his call to disciple them in terms of their native profession. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Having been trained, their whole lives long, to use boats and nets to draw food from the sea, what would have been plain to them then, and all the more plain after three years with Jesus, was that you don’t make fishermen, or disciples, overnight or in an instant.

Making good fishermen is a long, involved process, as they knew all too well. It requires teaching and training over time. Not only hearing, and internalizing, clear words of instruction and direction but also watching a master fisherman at work — and catching the unspoken rhythms and patterns of his craft. Such apprenticing requires, according to pastor Tom Nelson, “the kind of knowing that is difficult to capture in propositional terms or categories, but that emerges in the context of a close relationship and in the imitation of another” (The Flourishing Pastor, 94). Nelson cites philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) who calls it “tacit knowledge”:

By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 53)

Such disciple-making, as seen in the life of Christ, involves more than formal, verbal instruction. Disciples not only hear their master talk about his craft, but they watch him at work, and then receive ongoing instruction as he, in turn, watches their early efforts and speaks into their emerging abilities.

Now You Make Fishers

How, then, did this spiritual fisher-making unfold during Jesus’s ministry? In Matthew’s Gospel in particular, from Jesus’s summons in chapter 4, to his commission in chapter 28, it is remarkable to observe his recurring attention to and prioritizing and investment in his disciples.

Again and again, from one chapter to the next, and often one account to the next, Jesus navigates public and private dimensions of life, showing rhythms of welcoming “the crowds” (in public) and then giving undivided attention to “his disciples” (in private). He is willing to receive and bless the masses as they come seeking, yet he himself seeks out his disciples, to invest in the few. (Observe it for yourself by skimming through the Gospel of Matthew and watching for the words crowd and disciples in the first and last lines of various sections.)

“Christ himself showed his disciples the Christian life, inside and out, in pubic teaching and private prayer.”

Jesus, the Master, had called them to follow him, and for more than three years, in setting after setting, in private homes and in the midst of great crowds, walking long journeys between towns and enjoying unhurried meals — one conversation at a time, one day at a time — Jesus had discipled them. Christ himself showed them the Christian life, inside and out, in public teaching and private prayer. Now they too were to make disciples.

In particular, he says, “Disciple all nations” — which must have landed on them with at least a double force.

‘Disciple’ as a Verb

First is the relational context we’ve been observing.

Christians today often talk about “discipleship,” and so it might be helpful to clarify what sort of action and process Jesus’s disciples would have heard when their discipler said to “make disciples.” Disciple-making, in this context, is the process in which a stable, mature believer invests himself, for a particular period of time, in one or a few younger believers, in order to help their growth in the faith — including helping them also to invest in others who will invest in others. (Paul gives such directions to his disciple, in 2 Timothy 2:2, for raising up leaders in the Ephesian church.)

“Disciple-making is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing.”

Such disciple-making requires both structure (particular lessons and topics to work through) as well as margin that allows the discipler to speak into unplanned teachable moments as they arise. Such a process is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing. Quantity time is the soil in which quality time grows.

Formal and Informal

The vast majority of Jesus’s time with his men wasn’t formal. Mark 3:14 says, “He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him . . .” Before he sent them out to preach, they first needed to be with their Master, to hear his instruction, watch his life, and absorb his ways — not with a clock ticking in the background but with the space and time and overlap of everyday life that encourages the kind of effect that Jesus had on his men.

It is nothing short of amazing what three years with Jesus did for this ragtag band of young Galileans. All of them were outsiders to the religious establishment of the time; none of them were rabbi-trained like Paul. And yet, after Christ’s ascension and the pouring out of his Spirit, the religious authorities could see with their own eyes the profound imprints of Christ on his men:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Jesus did not despise the crowds. He received them. He taught them. He healed them. But he didn’t pursue them. His days revolved around his disciples. And when it came time to turn to them, and give them his Commission, he didn’t say, “Draw crowds.” He said, “Disciple the nations.”

‘All Nations’ as the Goal

Second is the outward push of all nations.

In his commentary on the Commission, D.A. Carson notes that while “the main imperatival force” and “the main emphasis” is on the verb “make disciples,” we should not downplay or overlook the effect of the participle going (“go and make disciples”). Lingering indefinitely in Jerusalem, or in Galilee, will not fulfill the mission. There is an irreducible “centrifugal force,” we might say, not only in the participle but also in the object of the verb “all nations.”

Jesus commissions both depth and distance. Yes, his disciples seek to “make converts” — nothing less will do. They must be evangelists. But Jesus calls for more. At the heart of his charge is the depth of making disciples. And the inevitable effect, and impulse, is outward, expansive, evangelistic, even global. The Commission directs Christ’s people to both “go deep” and “go out” — locally and to other cities and peoples.

All He Commanded

Now, as we go — across the street, down the hall, to the church building or a coffee shop, into a new relationship or another appointment, or to the other side of town, or to a new state, or across an ocean, or to a new culture or language — we make disciples, offering our words and time and attention for months, even years, and putting forward our own lives as examples.

We exercise patience, speak with grace, answer simple questions with humility, and as disciples of Jesus ourselves, we point our “disciples” not finally to us, but to him. And when our focus is making disciples, rather than the modern fascination with drawing crowds, we find that life and ministry take a whole new tenor, perhaps even that of Christ himself.

And as we seek to live and minister more like him, we own afresh that Jesus is indeed unique. All authority is his. The commission is his. The church is his. The promise of divine presence is his. We worship him, and disciple others to do the same.

Audio Transcript

The Bible is very clear on a point we address today. And it’s this one: for our prayers to be answered, we must be obedient to God. That’s right — for our prayers to be answered, we must obey. The point is blunt and pervasive, and you can find it all over the Bible, in texts like Isaiah 1:15–18; John 15:7; 1 John 3:21–23; 1 Peter 3:7, 12; 4:7; James 5:16; and on and on. Okay then, so how holy must I become in order for my prayers to get answered? If you’re paying attention to your Bible, this is a legitimate question, and one Pastor John took up in a sermon over forty years ago. Here he is to explain and to add two more texts into the mix that I didn’t mention.

God said to Solomon, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). And the psalmist confirmed it in his own experience: “I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:17–19). Therefore, I find it taught in the New Testament and the Old Testament that if a child has bad attitudes or misbehaves, God will not give him everything he asks for. In order to have our prayers answered, we must be obedient children.

Now, there are two possible misunderstandings of this, which I want to ward off. Both of them would result in a great diminishing of our joy of faith, and a belittling of God’s mercy.

Obedient, Not Perfect

First of all, it would be a mistake to go away from here and say, “The Bible teaches that one must be sinlessly perfect in order to have our prayers answered.” There is a big difference between an obedient child and a perfect child.

You know the Lord’s Prayer? At the heart of the Lord’s Prayer is this petition that Jesus taught us to pray: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Now, I assume that since immediately prior to that was the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), that Jesus means for this prayer to be prayed each day, which means that he expects us to need to pray, “Forgive us our sins” each day. I don’t think Jesus had any illusion that his disciples would in life outgrow the need to pray for forgiveness for sins. That’s a great reassurance to me, who sins daily in my own attitude.

Here’s the inference that I draw from that: Since he taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins,” it would be a contradiction to say that in order to have our prayers answered, we must be without sin. That’s plain, I think, and therefore, it does not follow from Jesus’s teachings that we must be perfect, without sin, in order to have our prayers answered.

“The righteous person, whose prayer avails much, is not the sinless person, but the repentant person.”

No, the righteous person, whose prayer avails much — as James says it does in James 5:16 — is not the sinless person, but the repentant person. He’s not the person who falls into sin, but the person who stays there and is content with his sin. The person whose prayers are not answered is not the person who fights against temptation and now and then loses the battle, but the person who is quite content with his spiritual mediocrity and makes no effort to improve or to overcome his lethargy and carnality. Therefore, never say, “I must be perfect in order to have my prayers answered.” That’s the first misunderstanding I want to avoid.

No Merit Involved

The second misunderstanding that might arise from the fact that we must be obedient children in order to have our prayers answered would be that this obedience merits or deserves the answer to prayer. That one would follow very naturally, some might think. If you’ve got to obey in order to get your prayer answered, then what he’s teaching is that you’ve got to merit or deserve answers to prayer. But that would go against everything I said at the beginning, to the effect that the death of Jesus purchased for us the answers to our prayers that we might receive them through mercy freely.

Now, the way I picture this — namely, the importance of obedience in relationship to God’s mercy — is something like this. None of us is a child of God by nature. On the contrary, Paul says we are all children of wrath by nature (Ephesians 2:3), which means that we have freely, by mercy, through grace, been adopted into the family of God. We have our standing as children not owing to anything meritorious in ourselves, but only owing to the grace of God.

Therefore, all good behavior in this family must spring from this dependence upon mercy. All true obedience to Christ, the only obedience that pleases him, is the obedience that springs out of our confidence in the power and the wisdom and the love of God.

The only reason to disobey God is that we don’t trust his advice, isn’t it? The only reason my sons disobey me is because, on the spur of the moment, or planned out, they don’t think what I’ve said is best for them. “Don’t play there.” “Well, it looks like it’s more fun to play there. Therefore, I will play there.” Tacitly, Daddy’s wrong. That’s why we disobey. We do not trust God.

Therefore, since all disobedience flows from not trusting the Father’s counsel, it follows that all genuine obedience flows from trusting God. There’s a huge difference between trusting God for mercy and meriting answers to prayer. Merit looks at itself and thinks about its own value that it can offer to God. Mercy looks away from the self to God and thinks about how much value there is in his mercy to me in my lack of merit.

“God answers the prayers of the obedient because he delights so much in their faith, out which their obedience springs.”

So God answers the prayers of the obedient because he delights so much in their faith, out of which all of their obedience springs. He sees faith, wherever he finds it, as a token or a sign or an outworking of what he values above all. But faith is not meritorious because it looks away to mercy rather than looking at its own value. So never say, when you get an answer to prayer, “I have merited (or deserved) this answer to prayer.”

Asking as God’s Children

If we avoid these two errors — perfectionism on the one hand and legalism on the other hand — then the teaching stands. According to John 9:31, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.”

It seems to me that the application of this teaching is plain; it hardly needs any emphasis. But I’ll state it in a sentence: When Jesus commands us to ask, to seek, to knock, he is not merely commanding that we pray, but that we live like children of a merciful Father ought to live. “Let my words abide within you. Cherish no iniquity in your heart. Love your fellow believers. Do good to all. Forsake oppression. Confess your sins.” If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we will have confident communion with him, and see great answers to prayer.