The hidden hours of ministry: Personal godliness

I once knew a minister who often stayed up late on Saturday night in order to finish his sermons. He told me that the combination of tiredness, night and a quiet house created the perfect conditions to tempt him to look at pornography. At first, and on the surface, his late-night decisions appeared to have no bearing to what happened on Sunday. But it didn’t take long for him to learn that his private struggle for personal godliness impacted so much of his public ministry.

In earlier articles, I wrote about two aspects of Christian ministry—preparation and prayer—that lay the foundation privately for a public ministry. In this article, I want to discuss how struggles with sin, even if they are hidden from others, can undermine your ability to serve God more broadly. Nothing that follows is new, and while my main focus is on those of us who have fallen into persistent patterns of private sin, I hope this is a firm, gentle reminder for those involved in any ministry to take sin in your life seriously.

Whether the area of personal godliness is lust or lack of self-control (like my minister friend) or anger, lying, greed, discontentment, pride, competitiveness, envy, drunkenness or anything else, and whether ‘private’ constitutes the minister on his/her own or the minister along with his/her family, here are six ways that unattended sin weakens our ability to serve God in public.

1. We act out of guilt, not grace

As ministers of the gospel, we know full forgiveness in Christ. However, besetting sin creates clouds of guilt and shame that blind us to the light of Christ. This is not a posture suited for humble service of our king, serving through his grace (1 Cor 15:10), because it can easily pave the way for ministry to be used as penance to work our way back into God’s good books.

2. Hypocrisy nullifies public worship

The gap between the words we profess and who we really are is called ‘hypocrisy’. God denounced Israel’s sacrifices and prayers because of their hypocrisy (Isa 1). That teaches us that God does not care about our public worship if we do not live a life that honours him in private.

3. We value esteem from others rather than from God

When we kid ourselves that what we do in private doesn’t matter, we betray a horizontal view of ministry. According to this view, we value who we are before others as more important than who we are before God.

4. We erode our trust in God

The origin of all sin is a failure to trust God (Rom 14:23). Persistent sin, then, represents and even fosters a continued break in our trust in God. We can do our best to quarantine this to one area of our lives, however, it will inevitably erode our trust in God in other aspects of our lives—including our efforts in ministry.

5. We lose confidence in the Spirit’s power to change others

When a minister is trapped in sin, he or she can become despondent about the power of the Holy Spirit. If they are not seeing progress in their own lives, how can they trust the power and goodness of the Spirit to change the lives of others? This affects everything—from evangelism to pastoral care, rebuking others to training people for ministry.

6. Sin always flows out

In the end, the brutal truth is that sin, no matter our attempts to privatize it, always affects others. Lust and pornography will undermine marriage; unchecked anger affects family; and competitiveness, pride and envy spill over into your relationships with the rest of your ministry team. As Jesus said, sin begins in the human heart (Mark 7:21-23), but it rarely stays there; like flood waters along a levee, sin builds pressure, looking for weak spots in the public façade in which to burst through.

Like all Christians, ministers need to be realistic about achieving holiness in this life. While we remain in our wretched bodies, we cannot be free from sin’s clutches (Rom 7:24). Those who teach (indeed, any who lead and serve in God’s kingdom) will be judged more harshly (Jas 3:1), because when they stumble (Jas 3:2), the stakes of causing others to fall are far greater.

So here are some ways ministers can guard against harbouring sin in their personal lives.

1. Preach the gospel to yourself

As you hold out the word of life and the grace of the gospel to others, hold onto it yourself (Phil 2:16). Moses, David and Paul were some of the most notorious sinners of the Bible, and yet, humbled by God’s grace, God was pleased to use them to build his kingdom. Preach the gospel to yourself regularly, reminding yourself that, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

2. Apply the gospel to yourself

As you prepare to teach others through sermons, small groups, Scripture, and youth and kids ministry, take a few minutes in your preparation to apply God’s word to yourself. Whatever the passage or theme, don’t allow yourself to use God’s word as an instrument to do good in others without applying it to yourself.

3. Trust that God desires your faithfulness more than your usefulness

When Paul lists qualifications for overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy 3:1-13, every qualification is to do with godly character. The only area of competency is to be able to teach (v. 2)—although even this could refer to the quality of being teachable. God wants servants who trust and obey him; only then will he engage you to be useful in his kingdom.

4. Regularly sit under God’s word

In full-time ministry, I’ve noticed that I rarely sit under God’s word in order to grow in my faith and godliness. Often I am leading a service, offering feedback or giving the sermon myself. Over a period of time, my mindset slips to one or two places: either I’m viewing God’s word as an instrument to be used for others, or I’m training people to use God’s word better. In the end, I distance God’s word from my own heart and areas of sin remain unchallenged. I need to remind myself that I am not above God’s word; like all Christians, I must submit to it.

5. Share your private struggles with friends you can trust

As it says in Proverbs 28:13, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy”. Don’t be proud. Don’t be embarrassed. Chances are, your friends struggle in precisely the same area.

6. Stop the sin

Lest I finish this article without saying the fundamental gospel truth regarding sin, here is the black and white call from our Lord Jesus Christ: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matt 5:29). Sin is serious. You need to put it to death. Take drastic action. Do not grant the devil a foothold in your heart or a sanctuary in your ministry. You need to bring your sin before God in repentance and rely on the Spirit to help you “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom 8:13).

One message or two?

Christian leaders are called to model God’s truths in their lives (1 Thess 2:1-16, 1 Tim 3:1-16), and thereby preach one message with their lips and their lives. This is why Paul told Timothy to watch both his life and doctrine closely—so that he could save himself and others (1 Tim 4:8, 15-16). This can’t be done if a person is one thing behind closed doors and another in public.

In an exhortation to a commitment to holiness among ministers, Charles Spurgeon captures the folly of living this way:

It is a shocking state of things when good people say, “Our minister undoes in the parlour what he has done in the pulpit; he preaches very well, but his life does not agree with his sermons” (SJ Miller, C.H. Spurgeon on Spiritual Leadership, Moody, Chicago, 2008, pp. 60-61).

Let us be ministers of the gospel whose lives agree with Scripture.