THIS is why pastors keep HIDING their sins...

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How can you stand there and preach on a stage every week, knowing that you're holding so many secrets?

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We tell a lie, we sit on it and we learn to live with it. It's like adapting to dysfunction. How is it that pastors who were faithfully preaching the word could ultimately be discovered to have led secret sinful lifestyles?

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Oh, look at pastor so -and -so, look at he's so great. As you continue to hear this and hear this and hear this, the praise of man, all of a sudden over time, you were all struck by the recent stories of pastors who have failed morally.

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Some of these announcements didn't come as a shock, okay? Let's be real, but others did. Folks like Tony Evans and now

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Stephen Lawson, not only morally failed, but they lost their positions of ministry. And it's that surprise that I've been chewing on and questioning for the last few months.

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Like I said, it's more of a thing for a liberal mega church pastor with little regard for what the

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Bible actually teaches and no accountability to fail. But it's another thing for quote unquote, conservative pastors who faithfully teach

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God's word to do the same thing. To not only fail, but as we come to find out, hide their sins for so long.

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Live secret lives and maintain those secrets from everyone, including the closest people around them.

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My question is, how do pastors get to this point? How do they begin as faithful servants and then get disqualified later over hidden sins?

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Well, I think Carl Lentz actually helps us to think through this issue. So we're gonna take a look at something that he said a few months ago.

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This was before Evans, before Lawson, before a lot of these guys fell. And then we're gonna look very closely at Jesus teaching on this issue as well.

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And we're gonna do all of this because I'm convinced that if we understand how faithful pastors can get to this point, we'll know how to avoid these things in the future.

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Amen, does that make sense? If you're new here, welcome. My name is Nate and this is Wise Disciple where I'm helping you become the effective

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Christian that you are meant to be. Before I jumped into this ministry fully, I was a pastor and a Bible teacher at a church in Las Vegas.

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And it is from this perspective that I make these videos. Make sure to like and subscribe and share this video around, but only if it blesses you, all right?

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Let's get right into it. How do you feel, like, do you think people can live with lies or covering up things? Because I know there's a lot of other people that have done the same thing and cover it up.

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That's gonna come out. Definitely will come out. I think the grace and compassion that we have towards the people that we know that are dealing with the same thing,

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I'm sad because nobody looked at my situation and was like, that looks incredible. Right, because of how it was handled.

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People looked at our situation like, oh my gosh, if it happened to that guy like that, what's gonna happen to me? So this is

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Carl Lentz and his wife, Laura, talking about Carl's moral failure in the midst of his being one of the most famous pastors in America at the time.

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I mean, I think that's accurate, right? He was the pastor of Hillsong, New York, a huge church, lots of celebrities attending, and it was making a name for itself as an organization.

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And Carl Lentz was at the center of its popularity. And there's a lot more to say about all that. I made a video actually about Hillsong that you can take a look at.

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But Lentz was discovered to have, he had an adulterous relationship with a woman who was not his wife, and he became disqualified from ministry, and then he went away and worked on his marriage.

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This was a few years ago. And now he's back. So this video came out three months ago, and he's talking about his experiences with his wife.

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He's talking about what he's learned. I suspect in the same spirit of this video that I'm making for you.

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And so Laura asks him the question, like, how do you think people live with their own lies and their secret sins?

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Take a look at what he says. Like, our situation brought like a huge wave of honesty in the church. I don't believe that happened.

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I know it didn't happen from my vantage point. I know a lot of guys were like, I'm gonna go deeper in hiding, and I'm gonna make sure that my wife is cool with this, and we're just gonna gut this out in private because I do not wanna lose my job.

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I don't wanna lose my reputation. I don't wanna lose this. So I'm definitely gonna be able to point at this guy and have judgments about it, but the stuff that I'm going through.

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So that's a real part of this. And I think that - So I don't wanna spend too much time on this one, but I don't want you to miss what he just said either, okay?

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He just said, I hope you caught it, that he knows other guys who were concerned because they did not want to lose their jobs in ministry.

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They did not wanna lose their positions of influence. And so whatever problems they had in secret, they were scrambling to fix them behind the scenes so that nobody would know, essentially, okay?

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Do me a favor, just file that away. We'll come back to this in a moment. That happened and it is happening.

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I hope we can bring a little bit of light to that and help people because it's gonna come out. You know, if you build anything on a lie, it's gonna fall eventually.

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And my story is that. We did a lot of great things. There was a lot of good things happening, but there was a lie in the foundation, in the fabric of who

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I was as a person, not even an incident. There was a lie about who I was and it's painful.

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The consequences are painful. One thing I don't understand, how can you stand up?

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How can you stand there and preach on a stage every week, knowing that you're holding so many secrets, so many, you know, sins, lies, all of that.

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Like, how do you do that? That right there is the $6 million question.

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And like I said, Lentz is going to say a few things, but then I'm going to show you what

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Jesus has to say about it. So you should stick with me. And it's all in the hopes that we can understand how pastors get to this point.

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So stick with me. Very difficult question. And I understand it. The way

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I can articulate living a life where you have that kind of secrecy, it is torture for the person living, me, and it's torture for the people that are not in the know.

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I don't care who you are, what you've done. Nobody's created to live with lies.

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If anything, we tell a lie and we sit on it and we learn to live with it. It's like adapting to dysfunction.

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That's what it's like to live with a lie. Okay, so this is helpful, all right?

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Notice he said, you tell a lie and then you learn to live with the lies.

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You sit on it, right? And that's the dysfunctional lifestyle that you ultimately adapt to.

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Now, the question for me is, what is the mechanism that gets somebody from the point of telling a lie to the place where they believe they can live with it?

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Lentz is right. Your sins are eventually going to come out. I mean, he's just paraphrasing what the

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Bible says. Look at this, Numbers chapter 32, verse 23. Behold, you have sinned against the

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Lord and be sure your sin will find you out. By the way, this is my trusty

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Logos Bible app. I've mentioned before about Logos. This is the app that I use to study the scripture. I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

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You can purchase Logos, you can just use the free app, but that's, you know, there's all kinds of features here that is designed to get you to go deep into your studies.

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And it's a game changer for anyone who uses it. So go check out my page over at logos .com forward slash wise disciple for more.

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This verse is, it is a promise.

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It really is. There is no hiddenness when it comes to God. He knows, ladies and gentlemen, he knows what we do when we think that nobody is looking.

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And the Bible promises that the sins done in secret will eventually come out. Jesus said in Luke, you know, nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.

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And pastors who faithfully preached the word already should know this, right?

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So again, you know, and again, just so you understand where my head's going, how is it that pastors who were faithfully preaching the word could ultimately be discovered to have led secret sinful lifestyles, right?

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What is the explanation for the mechanism that, you know, that gets these folks to believe that their lives will not be discovered, that they can just live with their lives, sit on them and live with them indefinitely?

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I think I know the answer. And I'll explain in a moment. Is what you preached, is it true? Is it real?

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Because I'm sure people have those questions as well. Yeah. Like is everything you've said a lie? Very fair question.

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I've actually been in the position that people are in on that one. I've had men that I respect come out with secrets and lies.

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And so I do know the feeling to a degree of what it's like to have a hero or somebody you look up to or trust, or I can just use the word trust, not heroic.

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Somebody you put trust in and you found out that that's not true and their trust is broken. I am now in a position, part of the consequence of my action is that people have the right to question everything.

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Although logically, I could make a case that doesn't make sense because you know, when you're lying about something, it doesn't mean that everything in your life is a lie.

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But I understand why people would think that. I can't say this about my preaching. Did you catch that?

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So when you're lying about something, it doesn't mean that everything you said was a lie. Did you hear what he just said?

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I think he's right. I think that's true. So then, you know, what can we conclude?

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Well, it must mean that pastors, and I mean, anyone really, they're using the same mouth to essentially shape two messages, one true and one false, right?

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This kind of compartmentalized language is all coming out of the same place, the same mouth, which takes an incredible amount of control if you think about it.

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Does this make sense so far? I think Lentz is onto something here and I'll give you my thoughts and we'll go to the

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Bible in just a moment. I preached the truth. I preached about who Jesus is. I preached about the grace of God. I preached about stuff that's real.

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And so the preaching, what people heard, if someone was a part of our church, was any of it real? Yes, it was all real.

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You know, I showed up the best I knew how to show up and gave it the best I could, dedicated my whole life to this, as did our family.

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And I just would hope that God would give people the grace to look at it through a human lens. Doesn't mean you accept anything.

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Doesn't mean that you make an excuse for me. It just means that you understand that, yeah, I was living on some lies.

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And what I preached, I believe with my entire whole heart. Actually look back now at what

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I preached. And I say, at least preach the truth. Because nobody can take that away. Nobody can bring me videos or something of some heretical thought.

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That's not our story. Our story is I preached the truth. And maybe I did it so passionately because I was running from my own demons.

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I was running from my own lies. Okay, so in other words, maybe he was preaching to himself, right?

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Like if he's up there, and I don't know, because I've never seen Lentz preach, but if he was up there one

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Sunday talking about, you know, being free from adultery or sexual immorality, maybe he's preaching to himself first and foremost, which is what preachers do, ladies and gentlemen.

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You know, I've been at the pulpit before preaching out of Matthew chapter six and telling people, don't worry about the uncertainty of the future.

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This is not what Jesus would have for you. When that's precisely what I struggle with. And so I've had to tell people like, look,

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I need to hear this myself because I fail at this. No pastor is perfect in that sense.

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So, you know, there are areas where they will be crafting a sermon that will absolutely speak to them and to their own deficiencies.

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And that's where actually God meets us pastors in a special way in our prep because he reveals this flaw in our own lives.

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And we get to have some tender moments with God, just confessing and thanking him for his grace and his mercy, you know, to reveal these things before we get up in front of the whole congregation and we just start running our mouth off.

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You know what I mean? So I think the clues are all here now for us.

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I think we've heard enough from Lentz. Now, what I think we should do is go to Matthew and look very closely at something that Jesus said.

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Look at this. So Jesus is teaching his sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six.

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It's actually Matthew five, six, and seven. This is where Jesus does multiple things at the same time.

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He's identifying himself as the new Moses, right? The promised Messiah that the Jews have been waiting for, but he's also properly interpreting

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Tanakh for them because their current leaders have become corrupt and have led them astray from the true intent and the purpose of God's word.

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And so right here in chapter six, Jesus is gonna highlight the difference between what God really wants and desires and what the religious leaders do.

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Take a look at verse one. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.

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Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

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And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.

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It's a key phrase. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. Verse six, but when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

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Jesus goes on later in chapter six to teach the same thing about fasting as well. It's the same concept.

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Don't do these things for others to see, go in secret and do them so that only your heavenly father will see.

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Now we see this word hypocrite, right? Look at verse five right here, the hypocrites.

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And we have our understanding of what this word means. As a matter of fact, many pastors have taught on this passage in the past and said something along the lines of, well, you know, hypocrites are essentially folks who live inconsistently with their beliefs.

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And that's who Jesus is talking about. That's not who Jesus was talking about, okay? A hypocrite in Jesus' day was a

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Greek actor who traveled from town to town putting on shows. When they entered a new town, trumpets would sound, they would announce their arrival because they were a big deal.

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And they would ultimately disguise their face. They would paint their faces in order to convey a certain kind of emotion for the crowd.

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All of this was a performance meant for the crowd's applause. So what

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Jesus is referring to are actors who essentially wear masks. They have a facade that is presented to the crowd that is not truly expressing the real face beneath the mask.

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You with me so far? It's that concept that Jesus is describing. And again, that's not somebody, you know, because sometimes you can be ignorant of your own inconsistencies.

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You can be ignorant to the fact that you're a hypocrite until somebody points it out to you. And that's very embarrassing, right? But that's not what

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Jesus is getting at. Jesus is getting at people who know that they're wearing masks, who knows that the masks that they're actually wearing is concealing the truth underneath the mask.

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This is a person who controls what people see. Why? Well, because it's the people's praise that they really want, all right?

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Look at verse two. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the, there they are, the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.

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Verse five repeats the sentiment, right? That's the whole reason why they do it. So somewhere along the way,

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Jesus is saying, real righteousness becomes a performance. These people practice righteousness because they seek the praise of man.

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Now, Jesus is gonna go on to condemn these corrupt leaders incredibly harshly later on.

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Look at this. Matthew 23, verse 27. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. There it is again.

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For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

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So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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This is the thing that Jesus is calling out. Don't be like these people. Don't allow your righteousness to become a performance.

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So a moment ago, I asked the question, right? Like what was the mechanism that gets a person, a faithful servant of God initially, from the point of telling a lie to the point where they believe they can live with the lies that nobody's gonna find out?

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And I think the answer is, it's this mask. It's the mask of performance that people can become comfortable with.

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So before you get comfortable living with lies, you first get comfortable living with the mask.

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Oh, look at, you know, pastor so -and -so. Look at, he's so great. Look at pastor so -and -so.

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He brings the word every time. Hey, thank you for the, you're such a great teacher, pastor so -and -so. Oh, look at pastor so -and -so.

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He's such a godly man. He's this or he's that, right? You start to hear this and something happens to you.

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But then as you continue to hear this and hear this and hear this, the praise of man, all of a sudden, over time, you stop confessing your sin, right?

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Why? Because now you're controlling that aspect. You don't let people in to see your shortcomings, right?

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And it creates this persona of you that's not the real you. And then you learn to wear that everywhere.

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And why? Well, because you value the praise of man over the Lord's. That's the tough reality.

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I mean, that's how even the most conservative of pastors can fall, even in this area. It's interesting because, you know, some of the teachers in the first century were swayed by Jesus and what he taught.

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Did you know that? But they actually refused to follow him for the very same reason. They were too concerned with the praise of man.

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Take a look at this. John 12, verse 42. Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in Jesus.

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But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.

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Here it is. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

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Isn't that a tricky, slippery thing, right? The praise of man, the glory of man, which by the way, comes from pride.

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That's a prideful desire, isn't it? And so actually now, I think we have a formula for how a pastor who, again, begins as a faithful servant can be discovered to have secret sins that last a very long time.

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It's because of the mask of performance that stems from the praise of man that scratches the itch of pride.

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The praise of man puffs up. The mask of performance comes on and then there becomes, it's like this greater and greater disconnect between the mask and the real face.

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This is what Jesus is warning us about in Matthew 6. Paul David Tripp wrote a book called

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Dangerous Calling and he touches on this issue in the book. Take a look at this.

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It says, the Pharisees live for us as a primary example because they saw their lives as glorious.

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They were quick to parade that glory before the watching eyes of those around them. The more you think you've arrived and the less you see yourself as daily needing rescuing grace, the more you will tend to be self -referencing and self -congratulating.

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Because you are attentive to self -glory, you will work to get greater glory even when you are not aware that you're doing it.

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You will tend to tell personal stories that make you more the hero than you actually were. You will find ways in public settings of talking about private acts of faith because you think you are worthy of acclaim.

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You will seek the acclaim of others by finding ways to present yourself as godly. When you have fallen into thinking that you're something, you want people to recognize the something that you think you are.

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Again, you see it in the Pharisees. Personal assessments of self -glory always lead to glory -seeking behavior of some kind.

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People who think they've arrived can become all too aware of how others are responding to them. Because you're hypervigilant, watching the way people in your ministry are responding to your ministry in ways that you are probably not aware of, you will begin to shape the things you say and do for the purpose of self -acclaim.

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You will begin to say and do things in a way that gets you the recognition that you think you deserve. Sadly, you actually begin to fall into ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ, not for the glory of Christ or the redemption of the people under your care, but for the sake of your own glory.

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He says, I have done this. I have thought during the preparation for a sermon that a certain point put a certain way would win a detractor.

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And I have watched certain people's reactions as I have preached. In these moments, in the preparation and preaching of a sermon,

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I have forsaken my calling as the ambassador of the eternal glory of another for the purpose of my acquiring the temporary praise of men.

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It's a very subtle, ladies and gentlemen, but nevertheless, this is how it plays out in pastors' lives, even the most conservative and faithful to God's word.

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Praise becomes a very sly drug that men continue to chase, which leads to more pride and the performance of righteousness that mask comes right on.

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And that's why I've said many, many times, pastors must be accountable to others.

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They cannot do this alone, particularly those at the very top. They are sinners just like everyone else.

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And so they need other people in their lives to hold them accountable. This will ensure that there are no masks, that there is no division between who they really are and who they present themselves to be.

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Why? Well, because they're constantly confessing their sins and being held accountable by other godly

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Christians in their lives that know them so intimately that there are no secrets. Amen.

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The antidote, by the way, to all of this is in a very brief yet profound statement that Jesus actually made later in Matthew 18.

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Look at this. Jesus is teaching his disciples, but they get into a disagreement over who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, which by the way, like, isn't that precisely the opposite of what we're talking about right now, right?

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You know, don't be concerned with the praise of man. Don't be prideful and let that puff you up.

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And here come the disciples. Who's the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus? Look at this. Verse one. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

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And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And there it is.

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The antidote to being a hypocrite is being a humble child. Children have no expectation of secrecy, you know, of leading double lives, of lying and then sitting on the lie and learning to live with the lies.

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Not little children. No, little children recognize authority and they know how to submit.

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They know how to confess and remain humble because they don't have a high opinion of themselves.

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They don't even have the capacity to think that way. Not little children. That is precisely how pastors must be.

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That is precisely how we all must be. And again, it just comes back to asking your brothers and sisters to keep you in check in this way.

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Pastors are the worst offenders of this type of thing. They have the capacity to become like the corrupt religious leaders of Jesus day.

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And I think this explains what we're seeing in the news over and over again. But thankfully the

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Bible gives us a formula and a warning so that we can ensure that our pastors don't slip into this moral issue.

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They need accountability. They need transparency. They need to answer to others that have the ability to not only fire them if necessary, but know them deeply on a day -to -day basis.

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Know what they're thinking, know what they're struggling with, know their hearts and where they're coming from intimately.

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That's a level of knowledge that I just don't think many pastors have with others.

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And it's unfortunate because it creates the type of environment that can lead to secret sins and eventually disqualification of ministry.

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Does that make sense? Well, anyway, let's keep praying for our pastors.

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You know what I mean? And also let's thank God for our pastors. They have a dangerous calling.

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And for those who are faithful and obedient, right? They are diligent unto obedience for the

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Lord. Let's thank God and keep praying that they remain close and clean to him. Amen? All right, well, now it's your turn.

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What do you think? How do faithful servants get to the point of secret sins and disqualification? Let me know in the comments below.

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