Difficult Times Will Come #1

This past week I've felt a lot like, well, I don't know if I actually have felt a lot like a pastor from the times gone by, but I think I have. And the reason is because I normally preach and teach on Sundays, and sometimes Wednesdays. But this week was different. This week we had men's group, and we taught. And then we had men's retreat, and we taught three more times. And then we had Sunday school and church. And so this is the... sixth time I've taught this week. And it's a lot of work. But it's good, good work. And I'm happy to do it. And I'm glad that each of you are here. Every man that was at the men's retreat that I've looked at, we're all kind of walking a little more tenderly. Because Taylor was adamant that we play tackle football instead of the more reasonable two-hand touch. And so we're all banged up and bruised up a little bit. But we had a good time of fellowship, a good time of...

and learning together. And so thank you for all of you who are able to come. So this morning, we're going to be continuing in our study of 2 Timothy, and we're going to be moving on to a new chunk of a new passage, chapter 3, verses 1 to 9. But before I read it, I want to introduce it to you. I want to ask you some questions, get you thinking in the direction we're going to go. And so I'm going to begin by asking you, what do people expect to find when they come to church? What kind of people do they expect to encounter? What are those people, us, supposed to be like? We could probably list a number of things that we'd hope to find in a church if we visited them. And we could also list the things that we hope would be apparent to those who visit our church. They come, they worship, they interact with us, and then they go away with an impression. And each of us could describe what we hope that impression is, what stood out to them.

What did they take note of? There's one thing, though, that I think very few of us would set out to find in churches or hope that a visitor's first impression of us would be. What is it? What is it that we would not expect to find in a church or want someone to go away saying, oh, the one thing I know about him is that he's a sinner or that the church is made up of sinners? Not theoretical sinners, not those who think about things that they could potentially do that they see other people do, or past sinners. Those who used to do bad things, but now that they're Christians, they don't have those problems anymore. Or little sinners that do little bad things, but instead that the church has real sinners who commit real wickedness, who cause real harm.

Is that what you would want? If a visitor came to church and you had the privilege of talking with them, would you want them to know that when they left, they went, you know what, that place has sinners in it. I think many times what we want to convince ourselves and those around us of is that that's not who's here. But to promote that sort of thing is to promote a lie. But it's a lie that everyone's comfortable with, that everyone might wish were true. And yet it's not the case. Sin in the church is a real problem. And there is an ever-present temptation to hide it, to deny it, to paper over it, to make it appear as though we've got all the things in our lives under control and that nothing is all that bad. Whatever problems we have are either small enough that we can bear them on our own or in the past. And we're hard when we dealt with them, but not right now. Not right now. I'm okay.

And so in a word, our aim in the church is to present well, which is to say that we desire and cultivate the ability to be good hypocrites, ever increasing in our ability to hide the realities of our own lives, keeping our sins hidden so that no one sees them and consequently we don't have to repent of them. Now I realize that that's not always what we think, but I ask you, isn't it often what we do? We sin. It's sort of like when you stumble. You know, if you're walking and you trip over something and you stumble, what's your natural inclination as soon as you stumble? You pop up and you look around. Did anyone see? And if they didn't, we go on like, glad no one saw. But don't we do the same thing with our sins? Don't we do our best to conceal them and hide them so that no one else sees? Because we know that if they were seen, something may have to be done about them.

And so this morning, we're going to be studying the first nine verses of chapter 3, the book of 2 Timothy, and we're going to be focusing primarily on verse 1. In the weeks to come, we'll work our way through the passage, reading the whole thing each week so that we get the flow of Paul's argument here. And so what's my goal this morning? It's simply to show you that sin is ever-present in the church, in Christians, and that we should not be surprised by it. We shouldn't be cultivating in ourselves or in those around us, hypocrisy, a hiding or a lying or a downplaying of our own sin. Nothing good comes from us lying to ourselves or to those around us, whether those people happen to be Christians or not Christians. The church is a place where we ought to be able to be honest about sin, but it's not a place where we want to be honest about sin. And I think that this temptation is not unique to us. I think it's been around since the time

since the Bible times and even before. You remember in the Old Testament where the Lord said at one point in rebuke of his people, he says, these people draw near to me with their service, with their acts, but their hearts are far from me. And what is that except a denial of their own sinfulness? We're going to play the game. We're going to present the thing, but the realities don't match. The realities of our heart don't match what we present. to those looking on. So our text is 2 Timothy 3, verses 1-9. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. But realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy.

unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress. For their folly will be obvious to all, just as Janice's and Jambres' folly was also. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I started out by saying that my whole goal is simply that we would not be surprised when we encounter sin in the church. We all would like to present well and to look good. I want you to think for a minute about how easy and how often you look down on other people's behaviors.

Perhaps most especially the behavior of other people's children. How long does it take you to notice sin? The reason we think of it in terms of other people's children oftentimes is because children don't have the capacity, the thought that this might be embarrassing and not something I should do in public. And so they may scream or they may throw a fit or they may yell or they may hit or whatever it is they're doing. They do it at home, and they haven't learned yet that you're not supposed to do that in public because it's embarrassing, so they'll do it. Adults, we've learned the lesson that there's some behavior that's shameful, and we should only do that in the privacy of our own homes, which you do realize I'm mocking. That's not the lesson we should learn. It would be far better for us to behave in private the way we behave in public. But what is it that you think when you look at someone's behavior, the behavior of their children, when you see sin?

What do you do? What goes on in your heart when you see it? Glad I know better than them. Glad my kids don't act like that. Those are my kids. I wouldn't let them act like that. I often think I could fix that in 30 minutes. These are my thoughts. We're going to raise our kids right. But aren't we deceiving ourselves? At least in some measure. We think of sin as a very small, simple, controllable thing that only rears its head here and there. And that's why I believe we're shocked when we see it. It's very important to us that we look good. Why? Because we know that everyone's watching with just as critical of an eye as we have. And we don't want to be thought poorly of. Or maybe another way to say it is we don't want people to see us honestly. Or what about when you see someone struggling with sin and it's not their children?

Maybe you see them in an ongoing struggle. It's a temptation you've observed or borne with for months or maybe even years. Doesn't the thought in your heart just well up and say, why don't they just stop that? Why do they do that? That's stupid. And maybe you even say that to them. What's wrong with you? Just stop it. If you won't stop it, at least stop doing it around me. Learn to keep it under wraps. Get it under control. And what is this except us being surprised at sin, us being offended at sin, us saying, don't you know better than to become a better hypocrite? Why can't you be better at suppressing your sins so that they don't offend the rest of us, so that you don't inconvenience us or look foolish yourselves? I can't believe they just did that. Did they really just say that? These are the thoughts that go through our minds because we're surprised at sin. And so we put pressure.

on ourselves and on those around us to get better at lying about and covering up. That's how we'll get along. Now, why do I say all of this? Well, I say all of this because this chapter starts with these words, but realize this. Paul draws our attention to something that we may well, without his instruction, miss. And so he says, but realize this. Pay attention to this. Hey, look over here and see what there is to see. Paul is working in his letter, to inoculate Timothy and us against thinking that sin isn't present in the church. And so he says, pay attention and remember, Timothy is a pastor. Pay attention and remember that sin is present in the church. You ought not to be surprised by it. I've had occasion in counseling to say to people, you will not surprise me by saying that you're a sinner. I won't go, You did what? I may look at you and say, that is wicked. That is awful. We need to call the police. But I will not be surprised that sinners sin. It would be crazy for me to think that. It would be unreasonable for me to think that. It would be me placing a very heavy, unbearable burden on your necks as your pastor to say, you ought to not sin. And if you do, I'll be surprised by it.

And so Paul says to Timothy, realize this. Pay attention and remember. In the last days, difficult times will come. And then he goes on to a long list of sins. I don't know how you approach long lists of sins or good attributes in the scripture, but I think they often get approached like genealogies. You just don't read them. You just don't think about them. Interestingly, when I was reading, Calvin on this text, and he didn't preach just verse 1. He actually preached down to the part where it says, avoid such menaces. He completely skips over the list. He didn't even deal with it. He's just like, there's a long list of all this stuff that we do, and we all know well that we do these sorts of things. But he doesn't open it up or talk about it, because he just presumes that the people are willing to admit, this is who we are, and this is in the church. In our day, though,

I don't know that we're as willing to admit that these are the sins that Christians commit and that these things happen in the church. Our eyes just kind of glass over and we just kind of fumble through it like we would a genealogy and then get to the important stuff later. Realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. Why? Because the church will be full of people doing that kind of stuff. They hold to a form of godliness. Paul says, but they've denied its power. The wicked have come into the church and they live there and they corrupt with their behavior, with all of those sins and more, the people of God. And Paul tells Timothy, don't be surprised. Realize this. These are the terms of your engagement as a minister of the word, as the people of God.

there will be sinners among us. I searched out the enemy and I found out that I am he. When you go through that list and you think for a minute, are you equally tempted toward all of those sins? Probably not. But I bet a few of them, three or four of them, were like, it should have been like a shot to the heart to you. You should have thought that. Oh, oh, I do that. And I hide it. I think it's worth saying to us, when we think about difficult times coming, we're predisposed to think of difficult times coming outside in the world. I think we're more prepared to accept the reality that there are difficult times coming in society, politically, economically, morally. Difficult times are coming out there. It's where we expect it to occur.

Not that it's good, not that we approve of it, but we expect that unbelievers would act like unbelievers, meaning they'd sin. There are a bunch of sinners out there, but the church should be different. The church should be a place without sin. The world can say and do what it will, but if you're going to come into church, clean yourself up and become presentable, because it's the church after all. We all have this idea that the church is a holy place because it's where the Christians are. And there's some reality to that. Even unbelievers think this. It reminds me of during COVID. Some of you might know this story. It's quite funny. We were shut down for a few weeks. Our daycare was shut down for a few weeks. There was nobody here. And we opened back up the daycare. And I was out at a lunch meeting, and I get a phone call.

from the director, and she says, are you still here? And I said, no. I'm at a little meeting, and she says, well, there was this loud bang on the roof, like it shook the pictures on the wall. I don't know what it was. Do you know what it was? I go, I don't know. I said, well, I'm sorry. I'd been watching some geese fight out in the parking lot that morning. I thought, well, maybe the geese are fighting on the roof. I don't know what goes bang on the roof in the middle of the day. And so I said, well, call me back if there's another problem. And I go back to my meeting. I get a call another 20 minutes later and she's discovered what the problem is. And what's the problem? There are two teenage boys riding bikes on the roof of the church because we have a flat roof over there. And then we have like a slope this way and a slope this way and a slope this way. So it's like a giant half pipe. And so during COVID, they decided this was a good place to ride their bikes.

So they're up there. Well, we opened back up, and they either didn't know or didn't care. They're up there riding their bikes on their roof, so I get this phone call, right? And she's saying, well, what do you want me to do about it? And when I got done laughing and thinking, I would have done that when I was their age, I said, well, you probably should call the police. I mean, I suppose that's a good idea. So call the police. So she did, and the police come. And they didn't break anything. including themselves, which we're thankful for. And what are we supposed to do? Well, the kids are mouthy to the police officers, and they won't identify themselves. And then the police says, well, that's fine. If you won't tell me where you live so we can call your parents, we'll just arrest you, and we'll take you downtown, and then we'll figure out who needs to come get you. And so then one of the kids starts talking. Well, I'm me, and he's him, and this is how we're related, and we live over there, and here's our parents. So anyway, the parents come.

So now we've got the kids with their parents here. And you can understand the parents. If you got that phone call as a parent, you would have thought the kids have let it out of the bag. We know they're bad, but here they've gone and done it in public. And the police are calling. So the parents come. And so one of the parents, all of this to tell you, one of the parents is upset at their child. And they say to them, why would you do that at a church? As if it's somehow worse to ride your bike on the roof of a church instead of a gas station. We have this idea that you're not supposed to sin at church. Whatever bad stuff you do, you do it out in the world. But when you come to church, you get cleaned up. And you present well. And you lie. And that's what you're supposed to do here. And even unbelievers understand that. Because that's what we've taught them. We've taught them, we're holy people.

We don't do that bad stuff you do. But Paul has a different message to us. Yes, there's corruption. Yes, there's wickedness out in the world. I'm not denying it. I'm not questioning it. But those same things are in here. And that's the point at which we go, are you sure? Shouldn't it be different? And Paul says, in these last days, difficult times will come. He goes on to describe everything that happens in the church, and we know that because he says that these men who do these things hold to a form of godliness, though they've denied its power. And this is because we don't shed our sins when we walk through those doors. We don't go through this magic thing that says, they're not sinners in here.

In other places, the scripture warns us the same way. In Jude 4, it says, For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons, who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Where did they creep in from? The world. Where did they creep in to? The church. And what have they done? When they got in, they've turned the grace of our God into licentiousness. What is licentiousness? License to sin. They said, well, God will forgive me so I can behave however it is I'm inclined to. And through this, they deny their only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Acts 20, when Paul's speaking to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, and he's explaining to them, you're never going to see me again.

I'm going to finish my course. I'm going to Jerusalem. He warns them. And this is what he says to them. He says, I know that after my departure, savage wolves, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Because after all, that's what a wolf would do if he got in among the flock. He would ravage it. Because wolves kill and eat sheep. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Where do we get the idea that the church is a place where sin is checked at the door, as though Satan treats it as though it's a demilitarized zone? It's not a place where we have to deal with sin. Sin doesn't exist here. Where do we get this idea?

I think we get it from our own hearts because we don't want to have to deal with our sins in here. Sin will be present in the church. What is Paul warning us against? Up to this point, I've just dealt generally with sin being present in the church and who can deny it. But you should be wondering, is there no difference between a Christian and a non-Christian? Are these savage wolves that Paul's warning about in Acts or the Jews warning against in his epistle? Or that Paul's warning us against in this? Are they just general, just sinners? Is there any hope? And I say, yes, there actually are different types of sinners in the church. What's the difference? What different types of sinners can you have? Repentant ones and unrepentant ones. That's the difference. Too often we say, we won't have that distinction. We're going to make the distinction between sinners and not sinners instead of sinners who repent and sinners who don't.

We are all sinners, and we should heed Paul's warning here. But his warning is not just that the church will be filled with sinners. Remember, that's unavoidable. He's really warning us about those who come into the church and do damage because of their unrepentance, because of their wickedness. These are the men, he says, ought to be avoided. Now, here's the difficulty. Are any of us perfectly repentant? If you had to give yourself a grade for how soft-hearted, tender-conscienced, and quick to repent when you see your sins, what would you give yourself? Honestly. Not like, oh, I'm going to beat myself up by giving myself, you know. But honestly. When you see sin in your life, maybe you should have seen it five years ago, but when you see sin in your life, how quick are you to repent of it? How thoroughly and vigorously do you oppose it? And we all realize none of us are perfect, even in our repentance.

We stumble and we falter. We justify, we dismiss. We do all kinds of things instead of having our sins laid bare. And yet we have to distinguish between unrepentant sinners and repentant sinners. And it's not a black and white, simple distinction. It also requires us to make judgments about someone and whether they're repentant, whether they're sorry, truly sorry for their sins. In the liturgy that I sometimes read when we partake of the Lord's Supper, there's a point at which it says, and what does our Lord require of you except that you repent and dust in ashes and be truly sorry for your sins? That this is all that the Lord requires of you to come to his table, that you see and that in your heart you hate your sins and that you trust God to help you hate them more and more as you go along.

But your work's not only to pay attention to your own sins, but also the sins of those around you, because there's danger that can come to you as a result of the sins of other people. And so it requires that pastors, as Timothy is here, keep watch over the flock, pay attention, warn, shepherd, that there are men that should be avoided, particularly men who don't repent of their sins, men who come in and seek to do damage. And so one of the applications of our text this morning is that you should want pastors and elders who do this work. And you should want that realizing you will not always appreciate it. In fact, many times you will not appreciate it because they'll bark or growl at somebody that you like. We have to make judgments in terms of protection. In your own home, You're probably willing to make judgments. If danger came into your house, if a threat came into your house, you'd be willing to say, away with that threat. So many of your kids are so young, you haven't run into this yet, but there's such a thing as the kids having bad friends. And what are you supposed to do as a parent when you recognize clearly that your child has a bad friend? What do you do? You get rid of them. No, he can't come over here anymore, and you can't hang out with him.

Does your kids like when you say that? No, they don't. They don't like that because they have to go to school or wherever and interact with the kid. How about when your teenage daughter's got a boyfriend and he's bad news and you say you may not date him? How's that go over? It's hard, isn't it? This is the work that pastors and elders do, saying avoid such men as these. And we're quick to defend the sinner. We're quick to say, well, but you don't understand the whole story. But that's not the real question at hand. The question is, do you allow danger right into your lap? Because it would be mean to say, no, you can't do that here. No, that's not allowed. We once had a neighborhood kid that played at our house. And we knew from the very beginning that he was trouble.

his grandmother that he lived with came over and warned us and said, I don't know that you should let your kids play with my grandson because he's trouble. And so he, I said, well, he can come over when I'm home. That's the only time he's allowed, right? He comes over and Vanessa and I are interacting and we're trying to figure out how to relate to this kid. And one of the rules that we had in our house is there's just, kids are not allowed to have electronics in our house. Our oldest is 14. This was years ago. I don't know how old you were. This had to have been, what, five years ago?

So, nine-year-old. What's a nine-year-old need a phone for? They just don't. This boy was a few years older. He came over and he's got all these devices. All this stuff. These games and these screens and stuff. And we just told him, you know what, you can't. You can take that stuff back home and come back over and we can play whatever, do whatever you're going to do. Well, he didn't want to do it. And he got all offended. And he went out and sat on our porch and he cried and pouted. And I said, but if you just take this stuff home, he lived around the corner, you can come back. Now, how did I feel as I was doing this? I felt like I was being a man doing all the right stuff, you know? It was awful. It was awful. This kid's life was a train wreck. And here I am telling him no. But why? Because I love my children and it's my job to protect them. So I tell him no. And so he called his grandma or somehow she ended up coming over to the house and he's out there.

And I'm talking to her because he's being bad at my house, but he's far worse at her house, even to the point of violence toward her. And we're talking, and he's just out of control. And he eventually takes all of the electronics out in the middle of the cul-de-sac and looks at us and smashes them. Took them and smashed them on the ground. Pieces are flying. This kid's really upset, you know? Right? And his grandma's going, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm going, you need to get used to calling the police because you can't control this boy.

This is a tough situation, and I'm trying to protect my children. I'm telling you, this is what's in this kid. It is very sad that this is what's in this kid. But as a father, am I obligated or should I feel an obligation to expose my children to this for his sake? The answer is no, I shouldn't. And so as we're going along, the boy comes over and he starts butting into the conversation that I'm having with his grandma. completely disregarding me, being rude. He wasn't, there was no violence, nothing. I mean, he was a little kid, but he's just being rude. And I was talking to her and eventually I said something to him and he refused. He had a hat on and I said, but I said, I want you to understand, even through all of this, this is not us saying you can never come to our house. We're just saying everyone in our house has to abide by the same rules. These are the rules of our house and we get to make them because after all, it's our house.

And he gets all huffy, you know, and he pulls his hat down and he won't look at me. And I said, but I said, and I've known him for months at this time and we've had many conversations. And I say, look at me. Would you look at me when I talk to you? And he grabbed his hat and he pulled his head down even farther, you know, and I lifted up, I put my finger under his chin. I lifted up his head and I said, but would you look at me when I talk to you? I'm not being mean to you. I'm just trying to talk to you. I'm trying at the most basic level to teach this kid to have some, I'm trying to keep him out of jail. You realize that. It's like if you do this to people who are in greater authority than me, like this is going to go poorly in a few years for you, very poorly. And so eventually I lift up his head and he tried to bite me. As I lifted him up, he went, and he tried to bite me. And so then I just grabbed his head so he couldn't bite me. And I said, you may not bite me.

Now please look at me while I'm talking to you. This is the work, okay? This is the work. I'm just telling you all that as a story. This is the work of not being surprised by sin and making judgments and dealing with it. It's hard. It's quite unpleasant. You don't win any popularity contests for doing this sort of stuff. But it must be done in the church. If you can all listen to that story and say, that was really gnarly, but I think it was a good thing that happened there, then you should expect that this same sort of thing should be done in the church, because that young man and people like him come in here. Some of the people in this room now are probably those kind of men, and they need to be disciplined and cared for and protected against. So don't be surprised when you find sin in the church.

Expect your pastors and elders to do the sort of work I just described me doing in my home. Encourage them in it, because they don't feel like a million bucks when they're doing it, and they're acutely aware of their own failures as they're doing it. I don't think I did everything correctly with that young man. I'm sure there are things I could have done better, should have done better. Expect and encourage your pastors to do this work, and encourage them when they do. Second application, submit to it. when they do their work with you. In Hebrews, it says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sorrow, for that would be unprofitable for you. Now, I want you to know, if one of the elders comes to you and says, I just heard the way you were talking to your mother or your husband or your wife or whoever,

and it was inappropriate, they're not condemning you to hell by saying that to you. And I'm saying those things, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips. We do these things in the church. And part of the thing that helps us repent of them is having them pointed out to us. And so when they get pointed out to you, obey your leaders and submit to them because they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy. and not with sorrow, for that would be unprofitable for you. Don't expect that your pastors and elders should comply with the lie that you want to propagate. And what is that lie? That you're not a sinner. Please don't expect John or Abram or Daniel or Dan or me to go along with your folly and say, oh, I didn't know. I was having a conversation recently.

And we were talking about a young man and some of his apparent sins, not in our church. And talking with one of his close friends. And he said, well, his pastor's a good man. And I think his pastor should address it. And I said, I agree. His pastor's in a much better position to address it than I am. I've never even met him. And he says, well, we should talk to him because his pastor doesn't know about this. And I said, okay, well, his pastor should know about this. It's his job to know about this. Because if he doesn't know about it, he can't deal with it. And it's his job to deal with it. So in the course of your life, when one of the elders comes to you and says, you have a sin in your life. I can see it. I think I see it. Let's talk about it. Listen to him. Not because they're always right. Elders and pastors are not always right. God could have given you infallible leaders.

Calvin says he could have given you angels to preach to you, but he didn't. It was his will that you would have to submit to inferiors. And in many cases, those who are inferior to you. And that that was God's design. That we would learn humility through having to follow people who are not perfect. And so submit to them. Listen to them. Consider what they say. Hear their cautions. Take them to heart. Give up lying and deceiving. I was thinking when I preached last, one of the things I wanted to say and I didn't say, and so I'm going to say now because it relates to this, is that the most joy a pastor can have, there are many burdens in the work of being a pastor and an elder. There are many difficulties. There are many hardships. Do you know what the joy is of being a pastor? Do you know what makes me happy when I interact with you? More than anything else, do you know what makes me happy? When you confess your sins.

I would much rather, much rather have you come and confess your sins to me because you trust that God can help you with them and you want help with them. That gives me more joy than anything else. No matter how grievous the sin is, there's nothing that will encourage, do you hear me, encourage your pastors and elders than for you to come and tell us what sort of terrible sinners you are. It's our job to help you clean that mess up. It's our delight to help you clean that mess up. It's been a long time since I've had someone crying in my office. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to your elders. Don't be the sort of men or woman that should be avoided because of your unrepentance. Instead, confess your sins. Look to Christ for forgiveness and for strength to overcome them. Whether they're new sins or whether they're old chronic sins, hiding your sins is the quickest way to make yourself vulnerable to becoming one of these men that ought to be avoided. One of these men that clings to a form of godliness, or one of these women who says she's a Christian but does not. To bear the weight of sin is a terrible burden. I remember, I'll close with this, our assurance of pardon was Psalm 32. And I remember years ago, early on in our church, I used to preach, I wasn't the senior pastor, I used to preach like once a month.

and I worked full-time as a painter. And I decided I was going to preach on this passage, Psalm 32, 1-5. And what it says is, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. And then the psalmist describes what it's like not to repent of sin. He says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand, the Lord's hand, was heavy upon me. My vitality, my life, my lifeblood, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. And then he says what he did. I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin. So I thought that'd be a good thing to say to Christians, wouldn't it? And so I preached the sermon.

I didn't have any special knowledge about any particular sins in anybody's life. And on that day, three people came and confessed their sins. One woman left the service crying audibly for everyone to hear and then came and confessed her sins afterwards. And then two other people came and confessed some of the most awful sin I've ever heard. And you want to talk about being thrown into the deep end. We were new in this church. We were young. And it was tough stuff we were dealing with. And God was good to us and good to them in bringing repentance to their lives. And I thank God for that work. And it was the most terrifying thing to have someone standing in front of me saying, here's what I've done. But I couldn't do anything but love them because they had faith to confess their sins. They didn't lie anymore. They'd lied for years.

But they stopped lying. They claimed to a form of godliness and they accepted its power. They believed in its power to change them. And they weren't afraid anymore. And so we spent the next couple of years working through those situations. That is the best way to keep yourself from being the kind of man or woman that ought to be avoided. Because you're not a Christian, but you think you are. Christians are sinners who confess their sins. That's it. That's it. That's it. And they do it as often as they see it and are made aware of it and are burdened with it, weighed down with it. They confess their sins. That's what Christians do. That's what we ought to do. And I, as a pastor, or your elders, will not be surprised if you do. We'll be glad. And we'll help you to trust God to clean up the mess of sin. Let's pray.