Minister's Blog

Be Killing Sin…
This past week many of you may have heard about the independent investigator’s report delivered to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. This report detailed many instances of alleged sexual abuse and misconduct allegations against ministers and some very prominent SBC leaders. Aside from the horrible injustice done to some of our most vulnerable members, I want to speak to the cause. While some of the allegations may be unfounded, we see symptoms of a sickness that is destroying the effectiveness of churches throughout our convention. We have lost sight of Christ’s call to holiness. We believe we are forgiven, yet we have stopped killing the sin that is at work in our flesh. It is killing us. We have been lulled into comfortable indulgence in almost every area of life. This is even true of many in the pulpit. The above men-tioned investigation puts this on display. How has this happened? It’s pretty simple. Over the course of the past 75 years we have become increasingly hesitant to offend and hold one another accountable to Biblical standards of holiness. We are afraid we might upset someone and they might move their membership. We are hesitant to set forth standards because we are afraid someone might hold us to them. As this became more widespread in the local church, it crept into the leadership of the convention. We had better recover the Biblical teaching of holiness. If we do not, we will be shown to be lukewarm like the church of Laodicea. We will not receive the approval of the Lord and we will lose our witness to our neighbors.
The old Puritan preacher, John Owen wrote, “be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” Paul used similar language in many places as he wrote to the churches regarding sanctification. In Colossians 3:5-6 he wrote, “Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient.” We have been born again, forgiven, redeemed, and set free not to gratify the flesh, but to glorify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in 1 Peter 1:14-16, “as obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.” Holiness (moral purity) is to be one of the central characteristics of the Christian life.
Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits. 1 Peter 2:11-12