So over the past weekend, my wife and I met up with some of her friends to go apple picking at a local orchard. If I’m going to be honest, when I go to apple orchards or local farms, I am not excited for the fruit picking so much as I am excited to buy all the cool jams, seasonings, and other products they sell that you can’t find in a grocery store. Maybe this means I have a consumer problem, I’m not sure!
As we were picking the apples, I couldn’t help but notice the thick smell of rotten, vinegary apples that saturated the tree fields. This is because many of the apples had fallen off the tree and for some time had been rotting in the soil. The smell and sight of these nasty apples immediately reminded me of one of my favorite sermon illustrations from Pastor Paul Tripp. I’ve heard him use his illustration of a pulpy apple tree many times before. It is no coincidence then that when I came home and continued reading Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, he used the illustration again! This was clearly a direct sign from God that I needed to blog about it (sarcasm).
Pastor Tripp’s illustration is concerned with addressing the matters of the heart. Tripp is a pastor who is very active and concerned with Biblical counseling. I’ve heard him speak in person at The Gospel Coalition conference, read numerous articles and book excerpts, and heard a handful of sermons. What I love about Tripp’s approach is that he understands how all of our approaches to eradicating and fighting sin in our lives must be concerned with matters of the heart. Too often, he says, our approach to looking at sin in our lives involves just step-by-step plans to prevent behaviors, but the desires of our heart never change.
Let’s take a look at his illustration:
Let’s say I have an apple tree in my backyard. Each year its apples are dry, wrinkled, brown and pulpy. After several seasons my wife says, “It doesn’t make any sense to have this huge tree and never be able to eat any apples. Can’t you do something?” One day my wife looks out the window to see me in the yard, carrying branch cutters, an industrial grade staple gun, a ladder, and two bushels of apples.
I climb the ladder, cut off all the pulpy apples, and staple shiny, red apples onto every branch of the tree. From a distance our tree looks like it is full of a beautiful harvest. But if you were my wife, what would you be thinking of me at this moment?
If a tree produces bad apples year after year, there is something drastically wrong with its system, down to its very roots. I won’t solve the problem by stapling new apples onto the branches. They also will rot because they are not attached to a life-giving system. And next spring, I will have the same problem again. I will not see a new crop of healthy apples because my solution has not gone to the heart of the problem. If the tree’s roots remain unchanged, it will never produce good apples.
The point is that, in personal ministry, much of what we do to produce growth and change in ourselves and others is little more than “fruit stapling.” It attempts to exchange apples for apples without examining the heart, the root behind the behavior. This is the very thing for which Christ criticized the Pharisees. – Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, 63
This illustration is just too good! I am in complete agreement with Tripp, that much of what the Church offers is merely a system of exchanging apples for apples without getting to the heart of the problem. The Bible again and again speaks plainly to this, but I’m not sure why we so often miss it. I love the example God gives us in Jeremiah 2. When God sends Jeremiah to speak to Israel about their numerous sins and lack of faithfulness towards him, what is the message he gives to Jeremiah?
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. – Jer. 2:13
God did not give Jeremiah a list of numerous sins that the Israelites could topically address with any law-keeping system. God was, and has always been, concerned with matters of the heart. And in this case, as it always is, his people were covetous idolaters with a heart problem.
Much could be said to the subject of addressing heart change, but for now I will leave the reader with four questions. When seeking to fight sin in your life, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you want to fight your sin simply because you know (intellectually) it is bad? Or is your desire to fight sin growing out of a genuine hatred for your sin and a genuine love for Christ?
- How does the gospel inform how you’re addressing your sin problem? The gospel is applicable to any and all sins.
- Would the world be able to offer the same advice you’re giving yourself? The Christian has a unique advantage in fighting sinful behavior the world does not have: Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the power of the gospel. Don’t waste your time on a 10-step plan to remedying anger that involves “counting to ten” and “going on long walks to alleviate stress.” These steps may be useful, but they don’t address your heart problem.
- Finally, are you merely putting a plan in place that will prevent behavior, or are you applying the gospel to your heart so that your very desires change?
My wedding! Courtesy of C-York Photography.
Many of you know that I recently got married to an amazing and beautiful woman. It has been about a month now, and while not without our own struggles, I thank God every day for this gift of marriage and the gift of having a bride.
I also continually thank God for the grace he had towards us in our dating relationship. While certainly vulnerable to the temptations and lusts of giving into sexual desires, by God’s grace and mercy we remained pure during our dating and engagement relationship. Admittedly, there came a time when we realized even kissing led to too much temptation, and God gave us the wisdom to realize we just needed to stop altogether.
You might be wondering why I would open a blog post with these details. Well, I share this for a couple reasons. One, to be transparent about the fact that even though we were able to remain pure, we were completely aware of the temptations and desires of our flesh. Two, as an example that remaining pure outside of marriage is entirely possible. This leads me into the subject of today’s post.
Sexual sin is pervasive and has completely infiltrated the Church today. It is rampant and it is everywhere.
Before I continue, a clarification needs to be made. When I speak of rampant sexual sin, I am not speaking of the Christian who is genuinely fighting their struggles with pornography and lust. Our daily struggles with sin is something that continues so long as we are on this side of glory. What I am instead speaking of here is the apathy, laziness and general approval of sexual sin that exists in the Church.
The Western culture has reached a place in its progression through time where complete and total freedom in regards to sexuality is one of the fundamental pillars of society. I’d spend time citing examples to prove my point, but just turn to any major news network or prime-time television show and it will make the point for me.
In contrast to the culture, the Church should embody a Biblical and Godly view of sexuality and marriage. What has instead happened has been a remarkable change in what it means to follow God’s Word in this area. People like the idea of Christianity and having a Savior for their sins, but they do not like the idea of having to submit in all areas of their lives. The recent book by the Barna Research Group entitled You Lost Me puts it this way:
“…many perceive the church and the faith to be repressive. One-fourth of young adults with a Christian background said they do not want to follow all the church’s rules (25 percent). One-fifth described wanting more freedom in life and not finding it in church (21 percent). One-sixth indicated they have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them (17 percent). And one-eighth said they feel as if they have to live a “double life” between their faith and their real life (12 percent).“
In a culture where sexual freedom is an ideal to strive for, the Church buckles under pressure. Instead of standing for what the Bible speaks on sexuality, sexual freedom is a respectable part of Church culture. Cohabitation, per-marital sex, pornography, adultery, and open relationships have become a norm in many Church settings.
It should be no surprise to us then when Church attendance diminishes, passion for evangelism and outreach ceases, and churches altogether die out. Any brief study of the Bible will show us that in the majority of cases where sin is listed, fighting sexual sin is of utmost importance. Let’s take a look at a few verses:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; – 1 Thess. 4:3
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality – Gal. 5:19
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. –1 Co 6:18–20.
Any number of verses could continue to be cited in regards to sexual sin. Have you ever pondered why sexual sin is almost always mentioned first in lists of sins, and seems to generally carry more of a weight than sins of other “categories?”
It is for this reason: sexual sin weakens our conscious and clouds our thoughts in ways that most other sins don’t. Whenever sexual sin is present, we grow apathetic in drawing near to Christ because we don’t want him to overcome our weaknesses. We then grow distant and feel ashamed in our lack of passion for God. Finally, we end up distancing ourselves from other Christians because they don’t want them to know about our sin. Fear, guilt, resentment and anger can only result from apathy towards sexual sin. Therefore, we can expect that where apathy towards sexual sin abounds, faithfulness, conversions and a zeal for God will decrease.
To further the problem of killing our own zeal and passion for Jesus, when we give in to sexual sin as if it is acceptable for the Christian life, it entirely kills our witness to the unbeliever. Nobody wants to join a lukewarm church. Nobody wants to listen to someone who has no passion, doesn’t practice what they preach, and obviously explains away certain principles to make themselves feel better. Either the text as a whole is authoritative, or none of it is.
I am convinced that when people leave the Church, it is normally not for intellectual or other reasons. More often than not, people leave the Church or back away from their communities because they love their sin more than they love Christ and they do not want to expose it. Why? Because in the darkness we can hide our sin, but drawing near to our communities and to Christ means crossing over from darkness to light, and thus exposing our sin.
Ultimately, our apathy towards sexual sin fails to give God the glory he is due, and fails to allow the Bible to be authoritative over our lives as it was meant to.
As a Church, what should our response be? In short, it is crucial we do a better job at a God-glorifying and Christ-exalting view of sexuality. I may write on this more in the future (I guarantee I will), but for now I will leave you with this quote by Tim Keller:
Contrary to the Platonist view, the Bible teaches that sex is very good (Gen. 1:31). God would not create and command something to be done in marriage (1 Cor. 7:3–5) that was not good. The Song of Solomon is filled with barefaced rejoicing in sexual pleasure. In fact, the Bible can be very uncomfortable for the prudish.
Contrary to the realist “sex-as-appetite” view, the Bible teaches that sexual desires are broken and usually idolatrous. All by themselves, sexual appetites are not a safe guide, and we are instructed to flee our lusts (1 Cor. 6:18). Our sexual appetite does not operate the same as our other appetites. To illustrate this point, C. S. Lewis asks us to imagine a planet where people pay money to watch someone eat a mutton chop, where people ogle magazine pictures of food. If we landed on such a planet, we would think that the appetite of these people was seriously deranged. Yet that is just how modern people approach sex.
Contrary to the romantic view, the Bible teaches that love and sex are not primary for individual happiness. What the Bible says about sex and marriage “has a singularly foreign sound for those of us brought up on romantic notions of marriage and sex. We are struck by the stark realism of the Pauline recommendations in 1 Corinthians 7 . . . but [most of all by] the early church’s legitimation of singleness as a form of life [which] symbolized the necessity of the church to grow through witness and conversion.”
The Bible views sex not primarily as self-fulfillment but as a way to know Christ and build his kingdom. That view undercuts both the traditional society’s idolatry of sex-for-social-standing and the secular society’s idolatry of sex-for-personal-fulfillment.
1) Prepare Your Public Prayers
If you are in any form of spiritual leadership, work at your public prayers. It does not matter whether the form of spiritual leadership you exercise is the teaching of a Sunday school class, pastoral ministry, small-group evangelism, or anything else: if at any point you pray in public as a leader, then work at your public prayers.
I found this advice really helpful. I have often felt like a hypocrite for thinking it is important that my public prayers be accurate and well-spoken.
2) Learning From a Lesbian Visitor to Your Church
My friend said the conversation is usually over once the caller realizes the church holds to traditional teaching regarding sexuality. He told me he always shakes his head and thinks, Who do we think we are, that we can come to God and tell Him what we will and will not change?
You and I are like the lesbian caller.
3) Some Thoughts on Pope Francis
It’s another week and thus another interview with Pope Francis. This one, I’m sorry to say, is more than just confusing. It’s a theological wreck.
4) 10 Silly Things Christians Say
Here’s what I am learning: It is my first instinct to jump all over this stuff, to sneer and snicker, to correct and nitpick. I have an odd, inflated sense of justice when it comes to these silly, stupid phrases. Even when I’m not correcting people, I’m thinking I really ought to. But this impulse says more about me than them. It is not the Spirit of Christ to ambush my brothers and sisters with smug nitpickery. It is not the way of Jesus for Christians to mock God’s children for their affectations, to bite, to self-righteously manage, or to otherwise shame. I am not the Holy Spirit of social media.
I thought I was the wittiest Calvinist on the block. Until I followed Jared Wilson.
5) John MacArthur and Strange Fire
It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? We can’t all be right and we can’t both be right. Sooner or later we have to have a discussion about charismatic (continuationist) theology and whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit remain in operation in the church today (or, if you prefer, about cessationist theology and whether or not the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased in the church today). We have wanted to make sure New Calvinism is large enough for both, that it will not fracture along this particular line, and this has delayed the conversation. But at some point we just have to talk about it.
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Finally, Watch this:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done…”
Father in Heaven,
On this day we praise you for your goodness and mercy to us. In an act of undeserved love and grace, you gave us your Son that we might be forgiven our sin and brought back into relationship with you.
On this day we pray for the wisdom and strength to live by your will alone. For as your Son modeled for us in prayer, we desire for your will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). But what does it mean, Father, for us to pursue your will in our lives?
How can I know your will? In my heart I desire to do great things for you, Oh Lord, so surely you would fulfill those desires and make much of my life? No, because it is not the deeds of a man you desire but his heart. Father, you do not call us to extraordinary things, but you call us to be obedient to the simple things you’ve laid out in your Word to us.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3) and “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). When in my heart I doubt the will of God for my life and seek grander and bigger things, I neglect and disobey the simple commands you have given me in the Scriptures. Namely, to above all else love you and love my neighbor.
For what is it to you if I preach the gospel to thousands but love my wife poorly? What is it to you if I lead multiple ministries yet fail to show compassion to “the least of these”? How can I preach the gospel if I am apathetic and negligent towards my own sin? I would but count these things as rubbish if I am consciously disobeying the simplest of commands.
Teach me what it means to be content with my daily bread. In a world that tells me “more is better”, my vision for the Bread of Life is clouded and often misguided. What I think are “Godly pursuits” are in reality an extension of my own selfish desires.
For what clearer message is there than your Son identifying himself with the “Bread of Life”, having been born in a feeding trough in Bethlehem, the “house of bread”? Surely it is this: “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9)
Father, teach me obedience. Not because I must be obedient to earn your love, but because your love and grace compels me toward obedience.