Practical Holiness

The Danger of Sinless Perfectionism and the Call to Practical Holiness

So may we be different, different Christians, different church members, different husbands, different siblings, different everything.

On that day, when free from sinning, we shall see His lovely face. That was the beginning of the last verse of the song that we just sang. And it reminded me of an important truth that I think is needful in this time of study.

And that is, we will not cease to struggle against sin until we are glorified in the presence of our Lord. There has been, in the history of the church, a very insidious, and I would say often devastating, doctrine called the doctrine of sinless perfectionism.

The idea that one can attain to a state of sanctification in this life where he neither sins in thought, word, or deed. And the Bible knows of no such thing that a Christian would come to a place in this life where he would be perfectly sanctified in all areas including thought, word, and deed.

And it reminded me of a story of a man who visited our church, and it just so happened that night, it was on a Wednesday evening, and we were having Bible study, and I wasn't the teacher that evening.

One of our men in the church was teaching on Baptist history. And so I sat in the back of the room, and we had a visitor come in, and he sat down. Actually, he came in first and sat down, and I went and sat next to him just to welcome him, make him feel like we were happy that he was there.

And he was by himself, so I went and sat next to him and introduced myself. Well, about 10 minutes into this study of Baptist history, which I know is an exhilarating subject anyway, this guy just folds up his Bible, picks it up, and walks out kind of in a just upset look.

And I gots to know. Like, I can't just let you go. I got to know why you're leaving. Like, is it because we're talking about Baptist history? Is it because we're Baptists? I don't know, but I gots to know.

So I got up, and I followed him out to the Narthex area right before you leave the church. There's that little foyer. And I just said, Sir, I just wanted to say thank you for visiting with us tonight, and just wanted to say we're glad to have you.

And he turned to me, and he just looked very frustrated. And he said, What are you about here? I've never been asked that question in quite such a frank way. What are you all about? And I said, Well, in simple terms, we're about telling men that they are sinners, and they are in need of a Savior, and the only Savior is Jesus Christ.

You want to know what that's all about? In a nutshell, that's what we're about. Men are sinners, they need a Savior, and the only Savior is Jesus. And he said, Well, I'm not a sinner. Say what? And he says, I'm not a sinner.

And, oh, you are.

But I said, Well, what do you say? He said, I'm sanctified. I'm a saint. I am not a sinner. And I said, Well, I think we may be engaging in a little semantical distinction. You know, when we're born again, we are made holy.

We know that. I said, But are you telling me that you don't sin? That's what I'm saying. I am not a sinner. I don't sin. And I said, Sir, have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and all your strength from the moment you woke up to this very moment perfectly all day long?

And he said, Well, I didn't say I was perfect. I said, No, you really did. That's exactly what you said. You said I'm not a sinner and I don't sin. And I just showed you in two seconds that you really are.

And so I want you to understand. I give that illustration moving into this final session because we are now going to move into the area that we call practical holiness, living out our Christian walk. And I don't want you to confuse what I'm about to encourage you to think that I'm teaching you sinless perfectionism.

Again, I appeal to J .C. Ryle's book. He spends a lot of time in the book repudiating the idea of sinless perfectionism while at the same time pointing people to holiness. He said, I'm calling you to holiness to strive for holiness, without which no man will see God.

I'm calling you to this. But I'm also telling you, I'm not teaching this. I'm not teaching that if you fail. That you have somehow demonstrated you're not a Christian. Because the Bible says that we're to not sin.

But if we do sin, what we have an advocate with the father. And when we sin, what are we to do? We're to repent and go to God and know that he says if we confess our sin, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

There's a God that we go to when we sin. And a God who will receive us and restore us based upon the work of his son. And so, everything I'm going to say needs to be predicated on this is not a message of sinless perfectionism.

But it is a message that understands the difference between sinless perfectionism and what we mean by practical daily Christian living. Practical holiness means to live the Christian life day by day. And will you have days that you fail?

Yes. But as you see in your life, you will see a progression. As many people have noted, the hardest part about being a Christian for a long time is you know more about your sin now than you did then because you know more.

But at the same time, you can say, I know that God has changed my life. I was telling somebody asked me for my testimony earlier and I said, you know, I got saved at 19. 27 years in the Lord. I am not the same man I was at 19.

I'm not the same man I was at 26. I'm not the same man I was at 30. And I'm not saying I have arrived. I have not arrived. But I see God working and I see God doing that which only he can do. And so, that's what we're talking about today.

God working out that practical Christ likeness in us. And what does it look like and what are the means God uses to bring about those changes? And so, we're going to look at Acts chapter 2. And as you're turning there to verse 42, so we're going to look at Acts 2, 42 to 47.

I want to give a caveat about the book of Acts before we read. And here is the caveat. Acts is redemptive history. In fact, it is one of the most important historical works of all time. Because it gives us the work of the early church and what they did and how the church was founded and established and made its way into the world.

But not everything in Acts is meant to be prescriptive. Some things are merely descriptive. Like, this is what the church did. Not necessarily that this is the model for all time. And so, understanding that will help us to understand at least some things in the book of Acts that aren't always meant to be prescriptive in nature.

This is how the church is to always be. But what we do see in today's text is a snapshot of what daily living was like in the early church. And even though it's not all necessarily prescriptive, I think it is descriptive and it provides us at least a model of what regular Christian living looks like.

Alright, so with that, let's read beginning at verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. Lord, now as we dive into it for this last time at this conference, I do pray, Lord, that this message will be highly applicable.

That you will take what we've learned about your holiness, that you'll take what we've learned about our positional holiness in Christ, and we will apply that now to our practical holiness lived out in the daily Christian walk.

And I pray as we look at the model of the early church, looking at this passage which shows us what they did, Lord, that we would see those things that we can apply to us and what we can do. Knowing all of it is done, Lord, by the power of your spirit.

And I pray, God, for, again, all the men here. Lord, that you would open their eyes to the text, open their eyes and their heart to the truth. And Lord, help them to not be confused about their salvation.

Help them not to be confused with their assurance. And Lord, for those who are not yet Christians, I pray that today might be the day that you would save them through the preaching of your gospel. And we pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen. So, in the book of Acts, we, of course, have the laying of the foundation of the new covenant church. And in this particular text that we are looking at today, we find ourselves at a portion where it's simply giving a description of what's happening in the early church.

What did it look like? What were the people doing and how were they living their lives? And this is certainly not all-encompassing. It doesn't tell us everything there is to know about the life and times of the early church, but it gives us enough to point us to some of the things that we can begin to apply to ourselves.

And there are three main things about this text that I want us to take away today. Three things that I believe this text should cause us to want to embrace. This text should cause us to want to embrace three things.

Number one, it should cause us to want to embrace the ordinary means of growth that God has given to us. The ordinary means of growth that God has given to us. That's number one. Number two, it should cause us to embrace the church as our spiritual family.

To embrace the church as our spiritual family. And number three, I believe this text should cause us to embrace a daily passion for the things of God. A daily passion for the things of God. So with that as our outline, let's go back to the beginning and let's look at the ordinary means of growth.

Now, I want to say this, I am not opposed at all. I think the term means of grace is fine and that's probably a phrase you guys use an awful lot. So I'm not denying the phrase means of grace, but in this case, since we're talking about growing in holiness, I'm saying one of the ways God grows us is through those ordinary means.

Through those ordinary means. So I call these not only the means of grace, but they're the means of growth. This is the means by which God sanctifies us. And I think sometimes we imagine that those means are going to be radical.

Years ago, there was a book that was very popular that came out and the title of the book was Radical. It was David Platt, very much. And David wrote about his work and missions and how Christians ought to be engaging in a radical form of change and behavior.

And we should run away from the ordinary things and run toward the radical things. Michael Horton, who is one of my favorite theologians, Michael Horton wrote a response. Did you know that? Did you see that Michael Horton wrote that response?

You know what the title of Michael's book was? Ordinary. He said, there is actual blessing and growth and power in an ordinary Christian life. In an ordinary Christian life. Now I'm not discouraging you from radicality.

I think I just made up a word.

Radicality.

I mean if God calls you to go share the gospel in the Himalayas, you get on that plane and you go share the gospel in the Himalayas. If God calls you to do these things, and God has called us all to be evangelists.

And we're going to talk about, that's actually the third point today. We're all to be living this daily life of sharing the gospel and these things. But the ordinary life of being a father, being a husband, being a church member.

You may not be a deacon, may not be an elder, may not aspire to those things. But just being an ordinary Christian at work. And an ordinary Christian is actually a pretty radical thing. If you do those things that Christians do, it's actually a pretty powerful thing.

And yet it's the ordinary means that God uses to grow us. The early church was devoted to ordinary activities. And we see these in verse 42. There are four specific things that were standard or common.

And by the way, that's what I mean by ordinary. I don't mean that they lack value or they're just, you know, like we say, oh, that's ordinary, it's not impressive. No, what I mean is they're standard and they are commonplace.

They're standard and they're commonplace, they're ordinary. The church was doing four things that you would expect the church to do. They're the ordinary things. And we see these in verse 42. First, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine or the apostles' teaching.

The word there is didache. We have a book called the Didache. It's teaching. And the King James Version says doctrine. In the ESV, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. But the word here is they devoted themselves actually to what was being taught.

They devoted themselves to learning what was being taught. I want to tell you something, and this is honestly, and I meet a lot of people, go to a lot of places. I have been so impressed listening to you all.

Because at the fire last night, in the areas over here when we're at lunch, I'm hearing you guys talk about things that many people don't talk about. Theology, doctrine, truth. I mean, pastors, you should be encouraged that these things are happening.

Because this is one of the things we are to be devoted to. We're to be devoted to the apostles' doctrine. And it says the apostles' doctrine because we actually study what the apostles taught us about Christ.

You know, we don't have anything Jesus ever wrote.

You understand?

Everything that we have in the New Testament is written by the apostles or by the associates of the apostles. The only thing we have an idea Jesus ever wrote was when he put his finger in the sand when the woman was thrown at his feet, right?

The woman caught in adultery.

And we don't know what he wrote there.

I think he wrote the name of their girlfriends. But that's all we know. Jesus wrote something in the sand. Outside of that, we have no idea of Jesus ever writing anything. But we have what the apostles wrote.

This is why the Bible says the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone. We call ourselves an apostolic church. You guys recite the creeds? You recite the Nicene Creed?

And what does it say? We are part of the one holy and apostolic church. Universal as well. One holy, universal, Catholic, you know what it means. Catholic means universal. One holy, Catholic, and apostolic church.

It's apostolic because it's founded on the teachings of the apostles. These were the men God, through Jesus Christ, appointed and sent out and were his representatives. And that's what we are to become the students of.

That's what we are to be learning. I remember years ago, I was at a fair at another church. It was like a carnival thing they were doing for kids. And we brought our kids to play with some of the kids from another church.

And one of the young men there knew me. And he came up to me and he said, Hey, Pastor Keith, I want you to know, God's called me into ministry. And I said, that's great. Praise the Lord. I said, you know, if you decide where you want to go to school, I want to maybe give you some advice of some places where you can go and learn sound doctrine.

And he said, oh, I hate doctrine. And I said, son, well, I didn't go there. My first thought, I said, if you love the truth, you can't hate doctrine. Because doctrine is how we know the difference between truth and error.

Doctrine is how, I said, I don't think you know what you're saying. When you say you hate doctrine, I don't think you understand what you're saying. Your life is dedicated to preaching the truth, knowing the truth.

The apostles' doctrine is what they devoted themselves to. And so that is one of the ordinary means by which God grows us, is growing in our knowledge of the apostles' teaching. And if you don't have that, if you don't have a desire for that, certainly you're not fit for ministry.

I agree. But as an ordinary Christian man, should not we all be growing in the apostles' doctrine? And how many churches you go to today, and you hear the pastor get up and say something like, well, there's the doctrine of the Trinity, but nobody really knows what it means.

Nobody really knows how to explain it, so we're just going to move on. I hear guys say stuff like that all the time. It breaks my heart, because we stand on the shoulders of giants, right? Like our ancestors would have heard such a thing.

It wouldn't even have registered that we're not going to at least give the theological formulation, God is one in essence, three in persons, these three persons are co-equal, co-eternal and distinct, and this is the doctrine of the Trinity.

I mean, we ought to at least be able to do that. And yet we have, in many ways in the church, abandoned a sense of duty in knowing what we believe. As I said before, there are men…. If you spent 20 years as a hunter and you knew nothing about hunting, people wouldn't say you're a hunter.

If you spent 20 years as a mechanic and you didn't know anything about cars, it would be hard to say you were really a mechanic. But people will spend 20 years as church members and know nothing of the apostles' doctrine, and not feel at all as if they have missed anything.

It's heartbreaking. So the first ordinary means of growth is to be devoted to the doctrine, the apostles' teaching. That's number one. Number two in this list of four is fellowship, koinonia, mutual relationships, partnerships, not just getting together to talk about….

I was going to say football, but up here it's hockey, right? Who knows? Depends on the season. Anybody soccer?

Oh, okay. We'll be careful.

Somebody at lunch said underwater hockey. It exists. Look it up. Not right now, but look it up later. It exists. And that's another thing I see a lot of times, and this is, again, I want to commend you.

And I'm not simply just trying to win your favor by flattering you. I'm not flattering you. I'm telling you the truth. A lot of times I get together with men's groups, and men's groups want to talk about everything but Christ and everything but Scripture and everything.

But you guys have been talking about these things. That's what Christian fellowship is. It's not just getting together with your buddies, but it's getting together with your buddies to grow in Christ.

That's fellowship. That's what we're doing. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't get together and watch the game or get together. You should do life together, and I think doing life together is a valuable part of our Christian walk.

And if that means getting together for fun, get together for fun. But we should not do that in spite of getting together, but we should do that in addition to spending our life learning about Christ together.

This fellowship here is precious. It's partnership in the gospel, and that was part of what they did. They got together, and they did it regularly. Notice it says they devoted themselves to this. You know what?

According to statistics, average church members, meaning they attend church average amount of time. What do you think the statistic is for average church members in the United States? Once a month, 12 times a year.

You nailed it. 12 times a year counts as average. Average means medium or mean. That means there are people who don't make it 12 times a year. Huh? I don't know what that means.

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We call them CEOs. Christmas, Easter only. Yeah, but no, 12 times a year. Pastor, 12 times a year.

There you go. There you go.

We had something similar. It was basically a de facto membership. If you hadn't been in worship for a certain amount of weeks, you weren't an active member anymore. So very similar, not the same, but I think that's true.

How do you live? There's no such thing as lone wolf Christianity. Living the Christian life is living in community. It's living together. You can't do it if you're not here. So, yeah, I agree. So the first is the apostles' teaching.

Second is the fellowship. Third in this is the breaking of bread. Now, there is debate about this, and again, if you want to debate this, I'll be leaving for the airport, so talk to your pastor. There are some who believe the breaking of the bread here only pertained to the normal participation in meals, and there are others who I would favor this account.

This would actually refer to the regular participation in the Lord's Supper, because the breaking of bread, I think, especially with the definite article here, is referring to specifically that participation in that part of worship.

And certainly churches do it differently. Our church just happens to be a church that takes this supper every week, but I'm not saying that's a requirement. But regular participation in the Lord's Supper, whether it is however your church does it, whatever their regular looks like, should be a regular part of your life.

And if you're not in worship, you're not going to be doing it. But when you are in worship, this should be a regular part of who we are as Christians participating in this. Not because in the participation in the Lord's Supper that we are somehow re-atoning for our sins, as the Roman Catholics believe that this is a representation of the sacrifice of Christ, and somehow this is again laying Christ as the unbloody sacrifice on the altar for our sins.

No, it's not that. But this is this means by which God has given us to commune with Him through this element that unites us with His Son in this moment. And we have this powerful moment where God gives us this time.

And when we neglect that, we don't participate in that. We're neglecting one of those things that God has given us for growth.

Amen.

I don't know if I said this yet already, but like Luther said, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget. Yeah, and that's same. And actually that's one of my arguments for weekly participation in communion.

I say because no matter what I'm preaching on, we always end with the gospel. Because no matter what the subject of the sermon is, we always come to the table and we're reminded of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Christ says, do this until I return, right? This in remembrance of me. And as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show forth the Lord's death until He comes. We do this to be reminded, absolutely.

And finally in this list is…. And again, I note the definite article here. I don't think it's by accident. I don't think anything in Scripture is by accident. And it says, the prayers, the prayers. And I believe the article indicates something specific.

I believe it indicates intentional prayers. And you say, well, what does that mean? There are different kinds of prayers. And I believe we are called to pray all different kinds of prayers. I think sometimes we allow our prayer life to become very anemic when it becomes, one, always spontaneous and never thought out.

And two, always sort of just going through the same things. You know, let's pray for mama. Let's pray for daddy. Let's pray for Aunt Edna. And those are fine. Pray for mama, daddy, and Aunt Edna. But we get very repetitious.

I'm careful with this with my kids. Because, you know, we get around the table. It's easy for them to pick up me praying in repetition and then them repeating what I say. And they go to a Christian school, so sometimes I hear them praying a prayer and I know they got it from somebody else.

Like, that didn't come out of you.

That was something you heard and now you're repeating it. Not that repeating prayers is necessarily bad, but we should be learning to pray the different types of prayer that Scripture gives us. And in our church, last summer, we do expository preaching, but over the summer I'll usually do a course that's more topical.

We call it subject-based because topical sounds so, you know, big even.

We're subject-based.

Sounds much nicer. But over the summer, we'll do a short series on something, and last year I did it on worship. Why do we do what we do on the Lord's Day? And we literally walk through everything. What do we do every moment of the worship service?

What's it for? And I said we have seven specific prayers that we pray. We pray a prayer of invocation. We pray a prayer of dedication for the offering. We pray a prayer of... I'm trying to think. I have to walk through them all.

I'm sorry? Illumination before the sermon. Yeah, benediction at the end. And we pray a consecration when we're praying for the table because we do that every week. So when you go through all of them, you say, you know, and we have a prayer of intercession.

That's the one that most people are familiar with because you're praying for Ananda's bunions or whatever it is. Like, people ask you to pray. Well, you know, people are like, we need you to pray for, you know, Mama Hurtado.

And that's fine. Pray for Mama's toe. But each one of those prayers is focused. How much time do we give to a focused prayer life? There's a book called The Valley of Vision, which is a series of Puritan prayers.

And it's broken up by category. And if you don't own a copy, I would commend it to your purchase. Just reading the way that these men put their prayers on paper and actually thought through what they're praying about, their own sin and their own need for Christ and their own salvation and their own sanctification, their own growth and holiness, all those pour out of that book, The Valley of Vision.

So again, these are the ordinary things God gives us. The Apostles' Doctrine, fellowship, mutual partnership in the gospel, the ordinances or sacraments of the church. Breaking of bread, I think, refers to that and the prayers.

And again, the term ordinary actually is in the teachings of reformed catechisms. Now I'm going to use a catechism which is not technically reformed because it's Baptist. Don't hurt me. Or I guess you'd be happy.

Spurgeon's Catechism, this is what it says. What are the outward means whereby the Holy Spirit communicates to us the benefits of redemption? What are the outward means by which the Holy Spirit communicates to us the benefits of redemption?

The answer, the outward and ordinary means whereby the Holy Spirit communicates to us the benefits of Christ's redemption are the word by which souls are begotten to spiritual life, baptism, the Lord's Supper, prayer and meditation by which all believers are further edified in this most holy faith.

I believe so. And it's almost exactly the same as Westminster 88. So these are all so similar. They're all so similar. They're all saying the same thing. God has given us means of growth and here they are.

And they're not drastic, radical things. They're the normal things that all Christians should be doing all the time. If you want to grow in holiness, if that is a desire of your heart and you don't have these things in your life, I would say these are the things that you should immediately begin to seek out.

There's a belief that church should abandon the ordinary and adopt the exciting. Many churches are based on that. I call them, you know, family funds on churches, you know, six flags over Jesus. Right?

We can't use the ordinary means anymore. We have to make everything explosively extraordinary and everything has to be a show. Recently, there was a church that said that they weren't going to worship on the Lord's Day.

They were going to feed the homeless. That sounds like, oh, man. And of course, the news media thought, oh, how holy. They're not going to worship.

They're going to feed the homeless.

And you might think me a bad person for looking on that and not thinking it's a good thing. Because as good as it is to feed the homeless, we are not to abandon the Word and sacrament for anything because those are the means by which God grows us.

And we have six other days that we could be feeding the homeless. And there's nothing to say we couldn't, in addition to our worship, feed the homeless. But not suspend the worship of God and the participation in Word and sacrament to do something else, no matter how noble it may be.

Because these are the things that God has given us to use and to do. One, to glorify Him. And two, for our own growth. On the Lord's Day, we devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

The church, many churches can often no longer be satisfied simply to come together and worship God. They have to have something to distract or excite. It must be an event. It must be a production. It must require everything but simply the Word and sacrament.

Because the Word, prayer, and sacrament are not enough.

But they are.

That's the truth of this. They are enough. They are enough. John MacArthur says this, he says,. The church has become mired in restlessness, impatience, and selfishness. He says, by the way, that's the characteristic of childishness.

The church is adolescent. Wanting to be indulged and entertained, the church is largely superficial and immature, and experiences are designed to be for the people who are impatient, selfish, shallow, adolescents.

The God-ordained ordinary patterns of slow, faithful, thoughtful study and absorption of the Word and slow, steady growth in grace and knowledge of Christ in the midst of a faithful congregation is far too ordinary for the salesman of adolescent extreme radical experience.

And that's what many churches are selling. I like that phrase. Adolescent extreme radical experience. That's what's being sold instead of the ordinary means that God has given us to grow. There is an endless supply of adolescents to entertain, ready to be fooled.

Ligonier has this. This is a devotional they posted. It says, Prayer, the preaching of the Word, and the sacraments are not elaborate or fancy methods of giving us what we need to conform our trust in Christ to the outside observer.

They do not seem special at all. After all, they make use of rather common things, such as human speech, bread, wine, and water. But by faith and the work of the Spirit, these common elements are used to do an uncommon work.

The confirmation of our trust in Jesus and the strengthening of our wills to flee from sin and rest in Christ alone. They come in these ordinary things. These ordinary things. So that's number one. We need to embrace the ordinary means of growth.

The Church as Spiritual Family

Number two, we need to embrace the church as spiritual family. Let's read again verses 43 to 45. It says,. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. Now right away, I want to say, as I said at the beginning, this is descriptive, not prescriptive.

This is not saying that in all times and in all places, all Christians are to have a voluntary selling of everything they have and bringing it together where it would be under the hands of the apostles.

Certainly, this is at a time and a place. And this certainly, as I said in last night's message, this is not an endorsement of communism because everything here is being done voluntary, and that's the very opposite of communism, which is done under the threat of the government.

But what we do see here is we see the voluntary love of the church for one another. The voluntary love of the church for one another. The reason why people were selling their possessions was not because it was mandatory for church membership, but rather because it was for a mutual concern for the welfare of each church member.

Think of the blessing of seeing a church that loves one another so much that they would be willing to suspend their own creature comforts and the things that they have and even the things that they may need to help and love one another.

Chrysostom said this was an angelic commonwealth not to call anything of theirs their own. Forthwith, the root of evils was cut out. None reproached, none envied, none begrudged. No pride, no contempt was there.

The poor man knew no shame and the rich man knew no haughtiness. They were just brothers and sisters in Christ. And as needs arose, needs were met. And this leads to a good diagnostic question. Because I will say this, especially for me, and maybe it's different for you.

When it comes to study, like, I enjoy study. I enjoy learning and growing in doctrine and teaching.

I love it.

But loving people is hard. I thought I would get an amen. Let me say it again. Loving people is hard.

Amen. Okay, thank you.

I put this out the other day. It was a syllogism. I said, ministry is people. People are hard. Therefore, ministry is hard. Ministry is people. People are hard. Therefore, ministry is hard. And, I mean, anybody who's been in ministry for any length of time will tell you it's hard.

The burnout rate for pastors is huge. Guys who make it past four or five years are very rare. There's an old story about a pastor starts a church, and the previous pastor said, I left three envelopes in the desk.

The first time you have your first major problem, read the first envelope. They're marked one, two, and three. So, after about six months, you know that honeymoon period? After about six months, the pastor goes in, and he opens up the first letter.