The
Lord Jesus, speaking to the crowds, told them: “Come to Me, all who are
weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you
and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is
light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Unknown
to many people today – but not unknown to most of His listeners – Jesus was
quoting God’s words to Israel through Jeremiah: “Thus says the Lord,
“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good
way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they
said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ “And I set watchmen over you, saying,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen.’
(Jeremiah 6:16-17)
In
other words, Jesus offered comfort and guidance and grace and forgiveness to
his audience in the first century – knowing many of His listeners would respond
as those did in Jeremiah’s day – “We won’t come. We won’t listen.”
And
why would they not? In a word: Rebellion. Arrogant rebellion. They, like many
in and out of the Church today, don’t want to follow Christ because they don’t
like His commandment to a lifestyle of holiness. Just like those in Jeremiah’s
day, and in Jesus’ day, and those in 2026, many in the pews and pulpits like
the form of Christianity, but not the demands of Christianity. As
one version renders Paul’s warning to Timothy: They will go on pretending to
be devoted to God, but they will refuse to let that “devotion” change the way
they live.” (2 Timothy 3:5)
As
I prepared this message, I thought of Jesus’ question to the religious clergy
of His day who confronted Him: “Tell us by what authority You are doing
these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” Jesus
answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you
tell Me: Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” They reasoned
among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you
not believe him?’” (Luke 20:2-5)
My
brothers and sisters, a similar question confronts us today. “Are the Scriptures
the infallible, inerrant, and fully inspired word of God? Are they ‘letters’
from God’s pen – so to speak – to our hearts? If our answer is yes, then the
Lord’s follow-on question is ever current: “Do we obey it?”
What
I mean by that question is, if Scripture says an unwillingness to forgive is a
sin – do we repent? If Scripture says holding on to bitterness is a sin – do we
repent? If Scripture says gossip is a sin – do we repent? If it says sexual
immorality is sin – do we repent? If jealousy and envy are sin – do we repent?
Are
we – you and I who call Jesus our King, Master, and Lord – are we striving to obey
all His commandments, in little things as well as the big things?
This
is a serious question, for the Lord warns us: “He who is faithful in a very
little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very
little thing is unrighteous also in much.” Luke 16:10
All that I’ve just said is a preface to the heart
of today’s message which centers around the news that broke last week about a
widely known and respected author, whose books about Christian faith and God’s grace
have been translated into more than 30 languages. Several of his books have earned
multiple Gold Medallion Awards from the Evangelical Christian Publishers
Association. The man and his wife recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding
anniversary.
And yet, for the last eight years, while
continuing to write books, attend church, and from all appearances was a model
Christian – he was betraying his wife and betraying God by routinely committing
adultery with another man’s wife.
For eight years.
Writing
about the terrible scandal, theologian Eric Metaxas, said that the deeper issue
every Christian must address is how our behavior reveals what we truly
believe. The Church often emphasizes faith and grace while forgetting that how
we live is evidence of saving faith.
In
other words, for anyone to make professions of faith in Christ while actively living
in contradiction to His commandments profoundly illustrates the terrible reality
that true faith has not taken root in that person – ANY person. You. Me. A
pastor or priest or teacher, choir member, Sunday School teacher, and so on.
Certainly,
there is not a Christian in all history who did not stumble from time to time
into sin. But ‘stumble’ is not the same as ‘practice.’
The
apostle John wrote forthrightly and bluntly about the required interplay of faith
and behavior: (1 John 1:8-10) “If we say that we have no sin, we are
deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
John
continues in the next chapter (1 John 2:1-4) “My little children, I
am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone
sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous; And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not
for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. By this
we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The
one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
Yes,
we all know – from a lifetime of experience – we know that we all sin. But to live
in the SAME sin day after day, year after year – such a thing simply is impossible
for a true Christian. Listen again to John tell it: “No one who is born
of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot [practice]
sin, because he is born of God. (1 John 3:9)
As
St Paul warned Titus about the tares among the wheat that Jesus spoke of (See
Matthew 13): "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny
him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good."
(Titus 1:16)
The
unarguable truth is that without a true repentance, without a turning
from that sin, then Jesus’ warning will ring bitterly in their ears for
eternity: “Not everyone who says to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of
My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name
cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And
then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)
If
any of us think it cannot happen to us, then beware. If we think it cannot
happen to us, then we will not be on the lookout for it. If we think it can’t
happen to us, then we are at increased risk of falling. Remember what the Lord
said to His closest disciples: “Watch and pray. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak.”
Yes,
God’s grace keeps us from stumbling into sin; BUT we also have a responsibility
to do what He commands us to do so we do not stumble. Solomon – who certainly
had his problems with sin – Solomon warns us: “Above all else, guard your
heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Yes,
guard your heart. There is reason that God – who knows the human heart – there
is important reason that He repeatedly warns us to stay alert to ourselves, to
persevere in holiness, to avoid falling into Satan’s seductions. We bring
disaster into our home and into our lives when we try to dilute God’s
commandments. We naturally flee from danger. If the house catches fire, we run
to safety. If a tornado threatens, we run to safety. But when temptation to sin
comes near, too many Christians think they can safely dabble with it.
There is only one
remedy to avoid falling as the author I spoke of earlier fell, and it’s not
simply to read the Bible or to pray every day. While those are certainly
critical to a godly life, ultimately our protection against remaining in sin is
our humility, manifested by honest repentance.
Repentance
is what keeps us close to Christ. As I said earlier, if Scripture says a spirit
of unwillingness to forgive others, then we must repent. If Scripture says holding
on to a root of bitterness is sin, then we must repent. If Scripture says
gossip is a sin, then we must repent. If it says sexual immorality is sin, then
we must repent – for if we do not repent, if we do not turn from our sin, then
we become like those in Jeremiah’s day who told God to His face: “We will not
walk. We will not listen.”
So,
what is the overarching lesson I’m trying to get across to all of us in this message?
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer hit the mark squarely when he wrote: "Cheap grace is the
preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal
confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross,
grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
It is to our inevitable ruin when we underestimate the ferocious and
vicious cunning of Satan’s lies and seductions. That is why I urge you to do
something like I have only recently begun doing: I pray virtually EVERY DAY this
verse from Psalm 139: “Search me, O Lord . . . and see if there be any
wicked way in ME."
I
know I NEED the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to my sins – especially the sins I
successfully keep secret from myself. I fully agree with Jeremiah 17:9: “The
heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick.”
I
know myself well enough after 53+ years of walking with Jesus -- I need to be
sensitive to the Holy Spirit when He convicts me of my sin -- ANY sin, big sin,
small sin, medium sin -- and I need to repent right there on the spot. For if I
make myself insensitive to my sin – any sin – then I begin to harden my
own heart against His voice.
And, so do you; And so does anyone else who is slow to repent and turn from sin
– any sin. Big sin, small sin, medium sin.
We
must never minimize for a moment how desperately we need the Holy Spirit’s
supernatural help to run – not walk – from temptation lest we fall into it.
Remember Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39). Day after day she tried to seduce him into
her bed. And day after day he rebuffed her invitation, until one day she
grabbed him by his cloak – and he fled out of the house.
The
heart is deceitful above all else. That might be why the Lord Jesus also said
to those with ears to hear and hearts to receive truth: “That which proceeds
out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the
heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders,
adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy,
slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things
proceed from within and defile the man.” Mark 7:20-23
Please listen. It is not enough – it is NEVER enough – to simply walk down an
aisle and commit our life to Christ if a life of daily – hourly – repentance is
not also part of our life. It is not enough – it is NEVER enough – to be
baptized and to receive Holy Communion – if a life of daily – hourly –
repentance is not also part of our life.
What happened to author I spoke about earlier illustrates the merciless HOURLY
battle Satan brings to our nations, our homes, our churches, our communities, and
our lives. Which now brings me to the application of my message: How shall we find
protection in this battle?
Donning
the armor of God (Ephesians 6) is surely necessary. But, as the Holy Spirit has
been lately hammering home to me – and I am trying to help you to also see –
without ongoing and immediate repentance and a turning from our sin, our armor
will be riddled with holes.
Without
repentance, even for what we like to call ‘little sins’ – without repentance as
soon as the Holy Spirit gets our attention that we have offended the King of
the Universe, we open ourselves to greater attack and increasing injury to our
bodies, our relationships, and our souls.
I fear the fallout over what that popular author did. I fear mostly for the
young Christian – by that I mean the spiritually immature Christian who’ve sat
in church pews for years, even decades, but never matured in their faith. I
think they are most at risk for falling away from Christ because they never
rooted themselves in the Scriptures from Genesis through Revelation.
I
think it is unlikely that mature Christians will stumble because of what he
did. Why? Because they know God’s word is true regardless of how professing
Christians live – or don’t live. Mature Christians know that God and His word
are always true. And as the apostle Paul also reminds us: Let God be found
true, though every man be found a liar.” Romans 3:4
Christian
– keep your eyes on Jesus, not on people. Seek refuge and guidance from His
infallible Word and nothing else. And please remember what the Lord Jesus said
to the crowds on the Mount: “Everyone who hears these words of Mine
and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house
on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds
blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had
been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does
not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the
sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and
slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” Matthew 7:24-27
And
do not be slow to repent.
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