Another Pastor Falls From Grace Sexual Secret Service Purity 1456

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a distorted view of a portion of Oswego, New York's Riverwalk at night comes to us from yours truly as I captured the scene during a one-night stand in the city of my alma mater while I was heading west to serve as a volunteer altar counselor for the evening— an Evening with David Jeremiah event in Buffalo back on November 9th, 2022. Well, it's Friday, and I share this distorted evening scene because I learned that, uh, learned the bad news that another famous pastor has been released from their duties, uh, due to an inappropriate relationship with a woman that was not his wife. This one hurts. Uh, the pastor in question is Steve Lawson, who I highly respected as a pastor and teacher as I have become familiar with his work through Ligonier Ministries. I own several of his books and video teachings, and, and I'm quite frankly surprised, if not shocked, uh, that Lawson, who presents as a pretty straight-laced, button-down, if not a little nerdy kind of guy, would have apparent sexual immorality happening behind the scenes. Uh, but such is man, we sin. And as someone who has overcome his own sexual addiction problem, I know that if you don't take sexual purity seriously and leave the door open to lustful thoughts and imaginations, the world the flesh, and the devil will work together to lead you into temptation and cause you to sin. Uh, and as with any secret sin, as it persists, it usually escalates and only gets worse until that fateful day when your secret darkness comes to light. My previous marriage had several problems, and sexual immorality was one of them. So when I got divorced, I came to a crossroads of sorts where I had to decide what part sex would play in my life, as I would now be a single man who wanted to you know, wanted to live as an authentic Christian, you know, living an authentic Christian life. Before my divorce was anywhere near to being finalized, I decided to live in sexual purity. Because of my victory over my alcohol addiction, I knew that the Lord would give me the strength to walk it out. From November of 2018 until I married on New Year's Day of 2022, I didn't have sex with anyone else, and I didn't masturbate. To this day, I keep all my sexual activity in the bonds of my marriage and continue to be masturbation-free. I am not shy about sharing that fact when I teach in Recovery or Freedom Ministry because it is so uncommon, uh, that I don't think that people believe that sexual purity is even possible. Um, unfortunately, sex scandals in the church and survey statistics reveal there is a huge sex or porn problem in the church in America. The fact that sexual immorality is often coded as a problem with porn sort of reveals the church's failure to be real about its efforts to combat the lust of the flesh. But this comes as no surprise to me because I know from experience that the vast majority of those claiming to be Christian are not living a disciple life. The vast majority of the church is lukewarm or ice cold when it comes to attempting to live according to biblical wisdom. But it really bothers me that these men who have a huge platform to deliver the gospel to the masses are allowed to live in the shadows and to be a scandal to the church. Billy Graham's ministry team back in the day was known for its mutual accountability to not only prevent sexual sin from happening, instituted measures that avoided even the possible appearance of anything that could be construed as unflawed. So why aren't these megachurch pastors and famous teachers enlisting the same techniques? Why are the churches that pay their salaries supporting them and putting in— you know, not supporting them and putting in— not putting in measures to keep them safe? Why is any woman who is not the pastor's wife ever allowed to be alone with the pastor. Not to be facetious, but I think the church in America needs a sexual secret service to protect these pastors from themselves. In fact, I will offer my services as an undercover sexual purity coach to any megachurch pastor out there who secretly struggles with lust but who has not yet committed fornication or adultery. If you've stepped over the line and already had sex with someone else, confess your sin and step down as you should. Because of— because my divorce and my broken sexual past, I know I will never serve as a pastor. The Bible doesn't really allow for that. So likewise, if you are a pastor who committed adultery, you should step down and humbly seek another role if you wish to be true to God's word. And serve the body of Christ. But for those 57%, you know, the reported 57% of pastors who struggle with porn, porn in the past, or with the 14% who courageously have admitted that you currently struggle with porn, I'm willing to offer my services as a full-time undercover sexual purity coach. Above the, above the board, you would hire me as a pastoral counselor. Uh, for your church, I would serve as a pastoral counselor in your congregation, lead the recovery ministry, or do men's discipleship. However, I would also perform as your personal sexual purity coach. I would make you accountable to not only keep you above board and free of any allegations of inappropriateness in the public eye, but I would also work with you to help you to actually be free. From sexual immorality. You know, sexual purity isn't about— isn't putting on a show. It's not about putting on porn blockers on your phone or computer to protect your eyes. Sexual purity is about your love relationship with the Lord and trusting him to heal you of your brokenness and to cause you to be obedient to his call to sanctification in the sexual area. Well, another section with another sexual scandal in the church, and it's clear to me that this is still not understood. And if our leaders don't practice what they preach, how can we ever expect the church to impact the world that is consumed by lust? As Christians, we are supposed to be different from our sexually immoral neighbors, and it is only when, when we take this fact seriously and surrender to the Lord's way for our lives that we can ever expect others to follow us as we authentically follow Jesus. My website is mtforchrist.com. I would love to be in full-time ministry, so call me and I'll be your sexual secret service, and we can serve together. Purity, peace, and joy. Okay, uh, forgive me for all that, but you know, I'm serious. Um, today's Bible verses come to us from this quick scripture reference for counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses, um, come from the section on forgiveness of— the forgiveness of sins. And today's verse is Psalm 25, um, verse 7, and it says, do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions. According to your loving kindness, remember me for your good— for your goodness' sake, O Lord. Today's verses fall under the 30th point of our counsel Counseling Reference Guide resource section on the forgiveness of sins. And that 30th point is David prayed that the Lord would forgive the sins of his youth. And I say today's Bible verses are the familiar call of everyone who has walked out of the darkness and tried to live in the Lord's light: Lord, forgive the sins of my youth. Uh, but as much as I can relate with David's plea that the Lord does not remember his youthful and not so useful transgressions. God's omniscient, so he's not forgetting anything, and maybe neither should we. I'm not saying that God's angry with us and holding a grudge. When Scripture talks about him forgetting our sins, we need to understand that means he doesn't hold them against us if we put our faith in Jesus, of course. And we shouldn't hold our sins against us either. But we should remember the darkness of our past so we never go back there again. And that means we don't continue in the sins of our past. We need to repent and seek God's help in being transformed, because if we don't and stay broken, forgetting the sins of our youth will be a lot harder for God and for us, because they won't be youthful sins. So let's keep it real. Accept God's forgiveness for the sins of the past and take care of today so you won't— so we won't lament over our failures. Tomorrow, as always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com where we offer, you know, uh, uh, insights from prominent Christian theologians and counseling, uh, counselors to help our brothers and sisters in Christ with our walk, and where we also offer our, our Christian life coaching, um, services. Um, anyway, uh, today we continue sharing from According to Your Word Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. Today's, uh, in Alford's devotional, he, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture. In today's chapter is Hebrews 11, and he shares from verse 1, which says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And Stephen Alford writes, the truth of this verse is manifestly demonstrated by the record of the men of faith in this chapter of Hebrews. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. That is best illustrated perhaps in the life of Abraham. For by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. Here was substance of the things hoped for. Elsewhere it is reported of him that he did not waver at the promise of God. An utter impossibility. But was strengthened in faith. He was rewarded. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Here Moses perhaps best illustrates by faith. He forsook Egypt with, with its pleasures of sin, accounting the, accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches, assuring him who is invisible. And Alfred ends by praying, Lord, deepen my faith as you did for these men. And, and we say amen, you know. You know, one of the first stories in the Bible about God's interactions with man, you know, is with Abraham, or Abram, uh, as, you know, he calls him to, to leave his family, to leave everything behind, and to go into the, you know, to go into a new land. Um, that's the first That's the first, you know, interaction, really, um, to, to, to go and leave everything behind and to follow him, to trust him and to follow his word. And the illustration of Moses here is it points out that he leaves behind riches and the pleasures of sin, you know, uh, counting, you know, Christ's greater riches, you know, basically Um, we follow and we obey, and we turn from our sin when we follow the Lord. And we don't just accept our forgiveness and say, thank you, I'll apply that forgiveness every time I sin now, and I'll just keep on going the way I'm going. Um, sexual immorality is preached in the Bible time and time again, and for the church not to have, you know, proactive, uh, approaches to deal with it and to really root it out, you know, is a, is a great indictment of a failure, uh, on our church. But it's a failure of the whole system because it's, it's a systemic problem. Um, there's no authenticity in the church. We, we've decided to make things a religion and just have this nice little place to go to, to listen to a message and to leave, and then go about our business. Um, there's no, there's no call for discipleship. There's no call for authenticity. Or there is every week, it's just no one answers it and no one really expects you to do it. Um, and that's one of the biggest frustrations of a pastor is they, they preach it, but no one's listening. And apparently the pastors don't hear their own words, uh, as the sexual scandal basically revealed that They know the word, but they don't— somehow they haven't applied it to their life in a very important area. So there's that. Anyway, um, we asked the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Um, because if you have, you'll be dealing with your sexual problem, you'll be dealing with your addiction problem, you'll be dealing with those negative mental states. Um, you know, if your life doesn't reflect the fruit of the Spirit of peace, joy, love, goodness, faith, kindness, um, um, patience and self-control, you're not walking in the will of the Lord. And, um, so we recommend that you not only understand what God's word says and these wonderful things about God, but to take God's word and do something with it. That's the most important thing about us, to take his word and apply it to our lives and live by faith. And we won't do it perfectly, but we do it progressively.. And, um, the Lord helps us. You know, we have to believe this. And when we ask him for help, he'll ask for— he'll ask us to help by enlisting us into ministry like Celebrate Freedom, where we do, uh, Christian recovery and discipleship. If you noticed, um, it's, it's a program that, uh, our— my local church has at Starpoint Church in Clifton Park, where we, we encourage people to walk by power and the power of the Holy Spirit. To be real and to be a real Christian and turn from your, your sins and to live free in Christ. So anybody in Upstate New York who can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday night and wants to be a real Christian by repenting and giving up their, you know, hurts, habits, and hangups, join me, and, uh, I'll try to encourage you and walk beside you and watch you walk into freedom. Um, and for those who aren't in Upstate New York, guess what? Uh, we believe that you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining our— one of our podcast classes on YouTube. Basically, you know, uh, you can check out the playlist for each of these classes: Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and our own very, very own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course, um, to give you truth and give you good teaching and encourage you that you can be free when you know who you are in Christ. But like any class, it's only as good as the taking that wisdom and putting it into practice. And so we, we always ask the question, are you empty for Christ? Are you allowing yourself to be filled with the Holy Spirit and be changed? And so we gotta, we gotta take it from our head, put in our hearts, and watch it, you know, be manifest in our lives. And that's why we say keep on walking and talking with God, because we might leave the church building on Sunday, but the Lord never leaves us, and we shouldn't His presence as we seek to follow him. So we encourage that. Why? Because like I said, my, my entire life was a denial of the truth of God's word. And, you know, the belief that I couldn't be a good person or any of that. But when I understood God's grace, that he would forgive me and welcome me into his kingdom without having to perform uh, that I couldn't earn my salvation and he accepted me anyway. After he gave me new life, uh, when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, he didn't leave me in the darkness. He encouraged me to follow him out of it. And believe me, I resisted, but, um, I kept hearing the call, and the Lord was faithful to change me. And I didn't quench the Spirit. I walked in the Spirit, and he's taken care of drug and alcohol addiction, sexual addiction, and we're working on the food addiction as we dropped, you know, historically from 320 pounds now to 216 right now. And we're not even happy about 216. We want to get a little lower than that because we see the addictive patterns that food can even have in our lives. You know, God, and if it's controlling you and it's something that steals away your peace, it's something that, you know, shouldn't be in your life, or you need to change the relationship. But God can help us with that, and when we pray. And so we'll pray right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for, um, the faithful men and women of God who haven't fallen into sexual scandal. And we thank you for what you've done in our lives, and we thank you for the forgiveness, uh, that you give us when we do mess up and when we do sin. Lord, we pray for Stephen Lawson and his family. Basically, we pray for you to be with them to help them during this, this tough time. Um, greatly admire Steve, and we should pray for him to be authentic and confess whatever he needs to confess according to your wisdom, Lord, and to, uh, take steps of repentance, Lord. Um, or just to quietly humble himself and retire. I don't know how these things work, Lord. You do. We just pray for your will to be done in that situation. Um, as he is a faithful servant, uh, delivering truth that we needed. And, uh, we just pray that, um, that won't be tainted because of his personal sin. And Lord, we pray for us and for anyone who's listening to this message, that you come alongside us. We're not perfect. We're not casting stones against Steve Lawson or any of the other pastors who've recently fallen this year or in years past about their failings, Lord. Um, but, but we're asking for your help. Help us to be the people you created us to be, Lord. Help us to, um, to walk in your, your righteousness and love. And, uh, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. That's all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord, but we definitely need your help with that. Well, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.