One Reason Pastors Should Pursue Holiness

I’ve been reading the biography of Keith Green. In one particular section, shortly after Keith becomes a believer, he meets up with a former friend. He rather passionately chastises his friend, who was a believer, for not sharing more of Jesus with him. Keith figured he would have been a believer sooner if his friend Randy had just been faithful. I could relate to his friends response. In the words of Green:

“He said he did try to tell me, but because he wasn’t living out his faith consistently he knew his words probably didn’t have a lot of power. He said he knew actions speak louder than words sometimes. Randy said he was sorry.

Apparently there were areas where Keith’s friend knew the truth but wasn’t consistently living the truth. And rather than be a rank hypocrite he decided to be silent. I wonder how many times pastors shy away from certain points for similar reasons.

I confess that in my ministry there have been seasons when I did not feel I could as truthfully and passionately press home a point because it was something that I myself was struggling with. Don’t get me wrong, I believe Piper is correct that we will always be preaching above our heads. It is not only our former sins which we can preach against. But if a pastor is sinning with his wallet he likely won’t be able to effectively preach on stewardship.

It’s the sin that we are battling and fighting and beating and even painfully stumbling in which we can passionately preach against. If we aren’t doing battle with sin then we’ll just preach against vague sins. The sin will be abstract. It’ll be the sin out there—the safe sins of other people. And when we aren’t battling real sin then we aren’t drinking deeply of real grace.

This is what Martin Luther meant when he said this:

If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life in not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. . . . Pray boldly-you too are a mighty sinner.”

I’m convinced we cannot passionately preach grace unless we are also pursuing personal holiness. The grace we preach will be a cheap grace. It’s only when we are facing up to the ugliness of sin and fighting it with vigor that we’ll be able to honestly stand before people and powerful preach a grace which transforms.

Choose holiness over silence or hypocrisy.

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