An essay: Let us not restore one another by law, but by grace...

This has been on my heart a couple of weeks now and I must write down my thoughts before I go crazy…

God has recently showed me in the mirror that I am guilty of the spirit of condemnation. Jn 8:7-10. In that story, though the Pharisees didn’t dare declare that they were without sin, they still threw proverbial rocks by bringing her in front of Jesus. I have also been throwing proverbial rocks. However, I am not throwing them at people outside the church. No. Non-christians deserve to know grace. I’m throwing them inside the church. It’s as if once people become a Christian, they don’t need grace. They need the law. Because they should know better. And who can judge? Of course I can. Because I haven’t committed any of the “Big” sins like sexual immorality. I wasn’t a senior pastor who did drugs and had a 3-yr homosexual relationship. If a non-Christian did that, it’s understandable. But a Christian? Especially a person who is already a senior pastor? Shouldn’t he have already taken care of those major sins and temptations before he became a senior pastor? He doesn’t deserve grace! He should have known better! He’s giving Christianity a bad name. They need to be expelled from the church. Don’t let the world be able to point fingers at the church and laugh and say, “Look! You Christians aren’t that much different from us after all! So, why should we believe?” Let us show the world that we are just as harsh on crimes as they are…we should at least be able to live up to the world’s moral standards for Christians…which is to be perfect. Our churches must be perfect. No pastors that commit sexual immorality. Those that do are fired. They must leave the city. They must not receive any help from any church. If they’re a true pastor, a true believer, it’s between them and God. God will help them. A pastor who has sinned is a disappointment to the Church. He’s failed us and tricked us by living a double life. We’re already showing him grace by giving him a gracious severance package including a large sum of money to pay the rest of his salary. Isn’t that enough?

If I were a leader in the church and I had sinned, I think I would also rather keep it hidden than confess it to the Church. Oh but I would confess it a million times to God in secret. Only God has to know. It’s between me and God anyway right? I know that even though God hates sin, he looks at Jesus when he looks at me and so I get grace, help, and forgiveness for my sin.
What’s ironic and painful is the fact that God uses the Church as part of his plan to help sinners (Christian and non-Christian alike)…
It’s this part that I (and I feel the Church as a whole) has failed to do. Father forgive me! For I have become a Pharisee! I have sinned and continue to sin to this day…Am I better than that pastor? (Rom 2:1). I need Your grace just as much as he does! It doesn’t matter if he is the “worst” of sinners and I am the “best” of sinners. We are all in need of grace and the blood of your Son. It doesn’t matter if he’s a pastor. He is a man just like everybody else…a fellow brother in Christ and I am a fellow sister (II Cor 5:16, 19; 6:1-2).

We have taken I Cor 5:1-13 and twisted it. Taken it out of context and not read it along with everything else that the Bible says. I used to think that “context” meant at least reading the chapter before and the chapter after or at MOST, reading the whole book. But I was wrong. Context is taking I Cor. 5:1-6:1-20 and making sure your interpretation for it follows what the ENTIRE book of the Bible says.

II Cor 2:5-8
“If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him”
Galatians 6:1
“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. Bu watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”

Now before my readers blast me with cannons, don’t get me mistaken. Leaders are leaders so there should be consequences when they sin that surpass the consequences of lay people who do not hold a leading position. God holds leaders especially accountable if they lead sheep astray. But there is no hierarchy in the church (Rom 12:3, I Cor 1:26, I Cor 3:7). Leaders are no better people than us. For just as Rom 12:3-8 says, we are all the same except each person has different gifts. In the end, we are all human, are sinners and are banking on the grace of God to save us. In the end, God is the reason why any of us are leaders and are great. Without him, none of us are significant. As Reinhard Bonnke said at the Fire conference I attended in Taiwan, “The Church lifts regular people who they see as ‘super Christians’ up so high that they get dizzy and fall down”.
Sin is serious. Leaders who have been living a double life will be removed from all their positions in ministry. For an indefinite time period. And isn’t that enough sorrow? If he is a true follower of Christ, the feeling of guilt, repentance, of failing his sheep, his family, and the feeling of failing God, and then losing the joy (and blessing) of ministry (partnering with God and with others). That’s enough punishment: “The punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient.”

“Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him…reaffirm your love for him”

It is THIS part that we do not do as a Church. THAT is grace. Instead of grace, what we’ve feared as come true. Fear is a funny thing. What we fear will happen, actually does happen. We feared the world pointing at the church, laughing at our weakness. We feared becoming Pharisees because of what we read in the 4 Gospels. When the world finds a weakness, a similarity between it and the Church, we seek to deal with it severely and quickly to show that we are not weak. We are supposed to be different from the world! When we do that, we have shown that we are in fact weak. We have shown them that we are ashamed of sin when it comes out hiding. That we are surprised by its presence in the Church. And in that process, the Church is severely damaged. Sheep are lost. Pastors and families are hurt and broken. The Body loses its arms or leg because we have cut it off ourselves. And the world gets to point and laugh even more at the now mutilated Church.

I feel intense sorrow and conviction for the body of Christ. Conviction for myself…my eyes were opened to my wickedness and as I looked around, I saw the mutilated Body of Christ in the US (I cannot speak for other countries, nor do I presume to have the authority to speak for every church in the Body of Christ in the US). I feel sorrow so intense that could I physically tear my clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and go sit at the gate of a church, I would. For I grieve at the amount of harm sin and Satan has caused in the general body of Christ in the US.

But how do we comfort? How do we reaffirm our love? By being there for fellow brothers and sisters who find themselves ensnared by sin. To fall from such a high pedestal (if a leader or pastor has been lifted up by a church or by himself in that way, unconsciously or consciously) is quite a fall indeed. We need physically pray WITH them. Counsel them. Care for their family. Walk with them. Read the bible with them. All of this done weekly, at least…and of course, brothers counsel other brothers and sisters counsel fellow sisters or a couple counseling couples (so that we, the counselors, do not fall into temptation ourselves). And then we can watch the Holy Spirit do what only He can do…that is to give total victory over sin and continue the process of sanctification. The day when that person is able to be restored to his (or her) ministry should be a joyful day indeed. For a sheep who once was lost, is now found again and restored. The success of the ministry of reconciliation, the putting to death of sin and of the old self, and the victory of the blood of Jesus Christ is a great joy and reward for those of the Body of Christ to witness and experience. It is what sustains us and why we exist. Not only do we proclaim that victory. We can tangibly see that victory.

Almighty God have mercy on us. Forgive my sins and the sins of my people. Take away the spirit of condemnation, of sexual immorality, and of hypocrisy. Replace it with the spirit of unity, of repentance, of grace, and above all of Your love. Make us different from the world who judges by law and condemns to death. Jesus alone has the right to judge, for Father, You have given it to Him. Let us use grace and restore gently with truth.

Is there hope for those fellow brothers and sisters already expelled by the Church? Yes of course. Rom 8:35. Though the sword may come from your own spiritual family, God is still God and He can reconcile people with each other through His love.