Nobody on earth, what I say, “breathes pure, spiritual air.”  Nobody has their head in some superior spiritual cloud.  Everyone must struggle against sin.  My life has been one of a continuous struggle with sin.  When I say that, some might act like they are surprised.  I was surprised too, because when I was young, I didn’t understand sanctification.  Little was said about sanctification as a struggle, the latter a technical word to describe a successful Christian life.

I don’t expect believers to live a sinless life.  Scripture itself informs me of this (1 John 1:7-2:2).  It’s been, especially in certain seasons of my life, a real struggle, even after I became a pastor in early adulthood.  Being a pastor doesn’t take away the difficulties of living the Christian life and not sinning.

To a pastor, it seems very, very important not to be sinning.  It’s similar to sinning as a husband or parent though.  Your consideration is that the people you are leading will not do well with your leadership if you are sinning, you are not doing right.  Struggling with sin seems to be very, very incongruent with influencing people under your leadership, so you don’t want them to know that you’re struggling with it too.  This tends toward this idea that you’re really not, when you really are.

Struggling with sin doesn’t sound like a good Christian life.  It sounds like failure.  Yet, that’s what the Bible says sanctification is, a struggle.  It will be harder at different times in your life too, and it would be helpful to know that.

The struggle isn’t losing.  It is struggling.  Losing is giving in to sin, saying that you are just going to continue in sin.  When someone is struggling with sin, he’s not comfortable with his sin.  He’s vexed.  He doesn’t like it.  He’s battling, which can look ugly.  It is.  But he doesn’t settle and give in, to where he’s now a committed sinner, not giving it up.

One reason someone might not want to admit a struggle with sin is that someone might think he’s even unsaved.  This is an important reason why to teach believers that sanctification is a struggle.  It isn’t an excuse to sin.  Where is this doctrine though?  The classic passage is Romans 7.  Romans 7 gives a lot of hope to any Christian when he finds out what it’s like to live the Christian life.  It seems impossible to have assurance of salvation without a passage such as this, looking at Romans 7:7-24, but especially focusing on 7:14-23:

14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

When you read it, it is pretty self-explanatory why this passage is so helpful to present the true Christian life as a struggle.  This is not some novice, weak professing believer here.  This is the Apostle Paul, sometimes considered the greatest Christian who ever lived.  This is his describing of his own life, not someone else.  It doesn’t sound possible, but it is true.  Where do we get the idea that the Christian life is not a struggle if he said this about his own Christian life?

I write “surprising,” because I had the definitive impression that my Christian life wasn’t going to be like that, a struggling one.  Why?  I don’t remember anyone telling me it would be a struggle.  Keswick theology, which was the environment of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, that I grew up with, portrayed Christians able to live in an ionosphere of near perfect Christianity.  It’s not that people were doing it, but it was what was portrayed by preachers.  They weren’t living this way, but they were making it look this way.  I wanted what they had that they didn’t have.

How did I figure out that it wasn’t what was presented to me?  It took me awhile.  Ironically, it was a struggle to find out it was a struggle.  I had to study the Bible.  I had to reject what I heard or was taught, to sort through and understand without anyone telling me.  That’s not the preferred way, which is one reason why our church has recently put so much emphasis on sanctification in our Word of Truth conference, spending four years of conferences on this subject.  I’ve written on it.

Pastors are not disqualified for struggling with sin. Parents are not disqualified as parents for struggling with sin.  The people we pastor are not disqualified for struggling with sin.  There is disqualifying sin for a pastor.  He can’t pastor any more for varied reasons, but he’s not disqualified because he sins.  Paul was obviously sinning and he was the one who wrote about disqualification.

In writing this piece, I thought of pastors who are judged by a perfectionist standard, who actually don’t judge their own people in their church by a perfectionist standard.  They are trying to help their people.  Why are leaders judged harshly?  They are going to be judged, but a big reason for harsh judgment can be that the followers want to use their leaders as an excuse for ejecting from the struggle themselves.  They don’t want to live the Christian life, and they use the struggle of a leader as a reason not to struggle.  This doesn’t make sense, but it happens.  all.  the.  time.  Especially young people today are harsh about their leaders.  They don’t want to be judged by their leaders and then they use their own judgment of their own leaders, not to live the Christian life, but to not live the Christian life.

I’ve been careful in my leadership to give room to young people to grow and to help them to grow.  I don’t excuse their ejecting from the Christian life though.  I expect them to want the Bible, to love Christ, and to struggle.  Just giving up on the struggle and then using whatever leader — parent, pastor, teacher — as an excuse, to give up, to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, to go out from us and discontinue with us, is inexcusable.  This is apostate-like behavior.  Every true believer is going to struggle and the support with that struggle needs to be there, either with the follower or the leader.

The Apostle Paul was attacked all the time for his Christian life and for his leadership.  The whole book of 2 Corinthians among other chapters in other epistles accounts for this.  People used Paul’s example as their basis for false teaching and bad behavior.  He was regularly defending himself.  Why?  It was crucial for followers that they didn’t have him as an excuse.

I believe in continuous Christian living, a practice of righteousness, that is seen in 1 John and James among other places.  However, not in contradiction to that is a struggle with sin.  My lifetime has been a surprising, relentless struggle with sin.  Losing the struggle is giving up.  A true Christian will not give up.  Giving up is not an appropriate response to someone who is struggling.

Someone struggling is at least struggling.  Someone giving up is doing his own thing in contradiction to struggling.  Endurance is a struggle.  Followers of leaders should give leaders some room to struggle.  They are not following their example when they give up.  They can’t use the example of a struggling leader for ejecting from true Christianity.

Was the Apostle Paul a broken, useless leader because he was doing what he hated?  Was he not worth listening to?  We don’t want to trample and kick someone to oblivion, just because he has sinned.  It’s also contradictory in someone who is living in sin without repentance because he saw others sin, and those same people have judged him or her.  The question should be, is the judgment true?  Isn’t the point to repent, submit to and please God, and grow as a Christian?  In so many cases, it is just about not being judged.  This was the case with the critics of Paul.  They criticized him because they didn’t want to be judged by him and they had an agenda and life of their own they wanted to live.

Our judgment of other Christians should have as their point the desire to see repentance and growth, the actual winning of the struggle against sin.  It shouldn’t be to excuse behavior.  It isn’t an excuse.  Everyone is going to stand before God by himself.  He needs to struggle with sin and then help others with their struggle.