Highlight: Dealing with Internet Slander as a Pastor

Apologia Studios

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But I think, Luke, let's talk about this. I think this would be a good ending to the show, because we're all about wisdom, talking about wisdom right now and ministry.

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We've been doing this for a long time. Going on 13 years. Just with Apologia. Yeah, just Apologia.

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You and I have been involved in ministry for much longer than that. Yeah. And we planted the church almost 13 years ago.

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And one of the things I want to say to my brothers and sisters, especially those who are pastors, who are those involved in vocational ministry, or you're invested.

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Faithful ministry, faithful ministry hurts. It hurts a lot.

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I've often said, from a human perspective, the reason why I try to talk everybody out of doing vocational ministry, like pastoral work or whatever, is because I want to get the ones that are truly called, and not the ones that are just really excited about God's word and love

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Jesus and want to evangelize. Just because you are all those things doesn't mean you have to be a pastor. It's not like this is the elite status.

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We're just one part of this whole thing, right? Like you can do so many other things and glorify God and do just as much important work for the kingdom by not being a pastor, right?

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But I always try to talk people out. Yes. And Luke knows this. Like we're brutal about it.

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Try to talk people out of this, because we want the ones who are truly called and truly gifted and just can't do anything else.

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You can't do anything else. From a human perspective, this is like a nightmarish experience in many respects.

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Imagine always being on call, always having to be available, and it's 24 hours a day, spiritual attacks, trauma, death, disease, pain.

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I mean, your days will be filled as a pastor from like 9 a .m., this huge moment of victory and like sanctification and amazing stuff happening in someone's life.

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Someone comes to Jesus, a marriage is healed or what have you, and then 10 comes along.

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At 10 a .m., it's this tragedy, right? And then 11, it's this other victory.

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And then 12, it's an even worse tragedy. It's from a human perspective, it's nightmarish.

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Like why would you choose this? Only because you're called and only because you're gifted and you can't do anything else because you're doing it for the glory of God anyways.

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All that to say, if you're gonna do faithful ministry, you have to prepare yourself for the slander.

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You have to prepare yourself for the gossip. You have to prepare yourself because it's going to happen.

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If the enemy uses this tool of accusation, lies, slander, gossip against the ministry of Jesus, against the ministry of Paul, you better be darn sure he's gonna use it against you as well.

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Be ready for it. Be so ready for it. And I think for us, for Pastor Luke and myself and Pastor Zach and Pastor James, most of the time, we don't even respond to things like this because what have

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I said? The judge of all the earth will always do right. We entrust ourselves to the one who judges righteously.

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We know there's a day of judgment where all is gonna be revealed. But it's important to consider as a believer, the fact that if you do faithful ministry, people are gonna say awful things about you, not having all the facts, people lying.

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Like I saw an article someone shared with me the other day. Someone had done an article that said that I regularly, regularly preach in skinny jeans and beer t -shirts.

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I despise skinny jeans. I've never worn a pair.

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There's a record of that, by the way, on this show. Yeah, there is. How much we loathe skinny jeans. Yeah, I despise skinny jeans.

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Always have, would never own a pair. Encourage every man on the planet never to go near such a thing.

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And I've never, I don't even remember, do I even own a shirt, a beer shirt? I might have bought a

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Guinness shirt in Ireland, but I preach regularly in beer t -shirts. Here's my challenge.

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Find that, find it. But people get away with it because, well, it's a respectable sin in our culture.

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Because at the age of the internet, you can say what you want when you want. And we just don't think that gossip and slander on the internet translates to real sin.

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But it is, it is. Luke? I mean, I don't know what else to add to that.

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Well, I mean, just the, I guess in preparing, preparing maybe men who are being raised up right now for ministry to, like, how do you deal with it?

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Like when, as a ministry, when you like see some crazy article, there's accusations or something like that. You know, you're like, how do you, how are you dealing with that spiritually?

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Because I usually have you, but. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I'll, you know, for this guy that doesn't like Doug Wilson, one thing we learned from him is when that happens, they party, right?

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And that's great advice because, you know, it's even like reading the YouTube comments. You know, we try not to.

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You know, every once in a while, I'm like, I wonder what they said here. And then I immediately like regret looking at the

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YouTube comments. Yeah, keep your sanity. Don't read the comments, keep your sanity. So a lot of it, you just, we know the truth. God knows the truth.

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Those we love know the truth. And it's just not worth your time and effort and being stressed out over just unfounded slander and comments.

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You know, it's just like, whatever. Have a nice day. I got like, like we have real problem with, or real, real people with real problems to deal with on a daily basis.

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Right. You know, so like this video we just played, it's like, this isn't even a real thing. It's make believe I, you know, we've, this has been a year.

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This has been a year. 22 has been a year in some ways. I would say 22 for us as pastors has been harder than 2020 because we've had so much tragedy and conflict and stuff like that.

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And it's like. Death, we had someone we loved. We had someone we loved. Yeah, exactly. And it's like. Very dearly die. You know, it's like,

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I got, when we get done with this show here, you know, we're gonna, you have a. Counseling.

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You have appointments waiting for you. We're, the rest of the day is counseling. Yeah. I have another, let's see, what time is it for?

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I have another five hours of appointments here yet. So like, I have real issues to deal with, people that are really struggling.

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And I don't really even have time. We're pastoring. Yeah, to like even care what the other people think.

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Right, so just being faithful. Serve God, be faithful. You do what you do to the glory of God, worship

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Christ. And you gotta be, you gotta know that if you do faithful ministry, you're gonna get attacked.

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You're gonna get accused falsely, all that stuff. And you just gotta be okay with it. And you gotta rejoice in the

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Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. You're rejoicing in God and his faithfulness. He's unchanging. And I think, you know, for me, the anchor is, is there's a day of judgment where all of it's gonna be revealed.

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Yep. That's your hope. No one's, here's the thing. Nobody will get away with the lies and slander that they make against you.

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Right. No one will get away with it. And in terms of like the Christian worldview, all sins of gossip and slander, whether it is with your mouth or with your fingers, all sins of gossip and slander are going to be dealt with or have been dealt with.

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No sin of gossip, slander, false accusation will be missed.

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There's gonna be a day of judgment where it's gonna be judged before the watching world or it was actually dealt with in Jesus Christ.

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But God is not gonna allow any sin of slander and gossip to go unpunished. It either was received by Christ and fully atoned for and answered by God, or it will come upon the head of every person who doesn't know

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Jesus and does it because there's a day of judgment. And so we should take these sorts of things really seriously.

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And I think it's important in the age of the internet, we are so confident and willing to engage in the sins of gossip and slander and to engage in the lack of wisdom, like not knowing both sides before we actually make a judgment or not hearing something fully before we give an answer.

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And scripture says, if you do that, it's to your folly and to your shame. And so I think that as believers, we should read the book of Proverbs a lot more than we do.

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And I hope, I do hope that our study series through the book of Proverbs will be a blessing to the church for generations to come.