229. When Shepherd’s Fall. A Gospel Response.

For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffin' peace. Cigars of victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for verity. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, he set me free. Not for chains, not for guilt, not for verity. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. We interrupt this summer break series that we have been doing as a time where we can come together. We understand lots of things come up and we know that sometimes our times are busy and we schedule a break in the podcast, but some things need to be addressed. And so we felt it best to come on and do this special episode, this special event to talk about what happens when shepherds fall. And how to have a gospel response to that. We do want to, when this comes out, me and Brett, we're actually going to be in Nicaragua recording this on Monday. But we want to put this out for you to help you out. One of the things that we want to start out by saying, and today's going to be more of a somber episode, just talking through some stuff, is that the failure of a spiritual leader is tragic. It does not change the faithfulness of who Christ is and what he has done for us. Our response should be governed by scripture rather than by emotion, gossip, or even celebrity culture. And we're going to talk about cancel culture as well. And so as many of you know, and many of you have heard over the last week, many people have heard about the case involving Kenny Baldwin, the alleged event that happened with him. And, you know, we're, we want to begin by saying this, we, we, we are not here to speculate about details. We're not here to spread rumors, or we're not even here to act as investigators. Me and Brett, we're not here to, to, to lay out what we think happened or why this happened or what could have transpired or any of those things. There, there are many, many people out there who have done that. And so we have no desire to do that. What we want to talk about is something very, very much bigger than speculation and investigation. You know, every generation has respected leaders that fall and it hurts because these are men who have preached the gospel. These are men who have influenced thousands. These are men who have pointed people to Christ. These are men who came and visited your family when they were in the hospital, who preached your grandmother's funeral. And then outside of local sphere of influence, these are men who you've bought their books. You've read their books. Their books are on your shelves. They they've baptized people. And, and, and even though I'm against the practice of signing Bibles, you have, some people have Bibles with the signature in there from this pastor who, who, who fell in this sin. And they're, uh, so, so when this happens, it, it, it confuses people. Not only does it confuse people, but it also gives critics ammunition. You know, people were out there already wanting to attack the church. It gives them cannon, uh, you know, power to shoot and it, it, it shakes people's faith. I have good friends who have walked away from the faith because a pastor like this fell. And, you know, we'll talk about that more later in the episode. Um, but man, this really, really can shake people when this, when this happens. Yeah. You know, Brett, our authority is never in social media. Uh, it's not in YouTube. Our authority should be the word of God. Um, and oftentimes, and, and JC shared a screenshot of, um, CT, uh, sharing a post from, uh, Kenny Baldwin from 2010. Um, and he, he just commented and said, uh, this post didn't age well because of what Kenny was talking about in that moment. Uh, let me ask you a question sort of to get started here. Do you think social media has made these situations harder when a situation like this happens? Right. When, when a guy fell, when we were in Bible college, um, even we can go back and talk about Jack Scott. Even when that happened with him, social media wasn't as big in, in that time and it didn't spread. I mean, I can remember sitting in a gymnasium and someone bringing it up like three weeks later. And I really didn't even know what they were talking about. Um, I mean, within minutes, I mean, really minutes of him, uh, this happening with Kenny, the whole world knew about it. Um, so do you think that social media has hurt these situations, made it harder? What are your thoughts on that? Absolutely. I think social media has made these situations a whole lot harder. Um, like you said, years ago, it might be a local newspaper. And unless you live in that area, you would probably never even hear about it. Like talk about Jack Scott. I remember when I found out about Jack Scott, I was, my pastor had pulled me into his office and my pastor was the one that told me. Um, so, you know, today within just a few minutes, it's all over Facebook. Facebook, X, YouTube. YouTube. And, and the problem with that is everybody gets an opinion before they get all the facts. And I also think social media has created this culture where we, we consume these stories instead of grieving over them. You know, people treat them like the next big controversy. Um, and they lose sight. The fact that these are real people. These are real churches. These are real families. These are real victims. These are real people who are hurting. Now, don't, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not at all saying that sin should be hidden. Not at all. But if a pastor disqualifies himself, that needs to be dealt with biblically and openly. But there's a difference, I think, between biblical accountability and internet spectacle. Just another form of, of gossip. And, and as Christians, our, our response needs to be grief. It needs to be prayer. It needs to be humility. You know, we don't need to go grabbing a popcorn, you know, watching the dumpster fire on our phones. You know, that's, that's not what this is about. So yeah, social media has definitely changed the way we deal and hear situations like this. Yeah. And I think it's also important to remember and to note, uh, pastors need our centers and we need grace as well. Um, now the, the alleged event that happened with Kenny, uh, is heinous. It's disgusting. Um, and, uh, you know, grace will be there when repentance comes as well. Um, and, and there's a lot that we can talk about there, but I want to talk back and forth a couple of ways. Um, just some scripture to get us in our mindset of where we're at and what we're talking about. We're going to go to Romans three first. I'm going to read verses nine through 18. And I just want you to hear, um, what Paul is saying as he's writing to the, the people of, of Rome there. He says, what then are we better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that both Jew and Gentiles are all under sin. As it is written, there's no one righteous. No, not one. Uh, there's no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. All are like have been worthless. There are no one who does what is good. Not even one. Their throats are an open grave. They're deceived. They deceive with their tongues. Vipers venom is in their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths. And they, and the peace, I'm sorry, in the path of peace, they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And, and I would say this, Brett, Paul was talking to all of us there. Uh, we are, none of us are good. We all have a fallen sinful nature. Um, and so we need to be aware of what can happen and will happen. Uh, if we do not guard ourselves, uh, in, in the basic area of life. I mean, he talks through there of the worthlessness that we have, uh, the, the things that we say with our mouth, with our tongues, I can confess to this. There have been many times where as a youth pastor or someone else, I have lashed out and said things that I shouldn't have said, done things that I shouldn't have done. And I had to go back and apologize for those things because my tongue is wicked. Um, and so there are things that we need to show grace for. Exactly. And, you know, to your point, it's not like there's unbelievers over here and pastors are over here, like they're cut from a different cloth and made from a different material. Pastors, there are the same centers just as everybody else. You know, like spiritual leaders aren't made of a different material. They battle the same flesh. They battle the same temptations. They need the same grace. I know growing up, we were taught different. We were taught that the man of God is, is different than everybody else. He's holier than everybody else. And, you know, you stick with it long enough and you mature enough and you understand that that is definitely, definitely not the case. And, but, you know, the thing is, is that even though they're cut, they're made from the same material, they're held to a higher standard. And so that's another thing we'll talk about here soon. Yeah. And that higher standard really goes to what we're going to look at. First Timothy three, two and seven. It says an overseer, therefore must be above approach. What we'll stop right there about a husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, all those things. And then verse seven says, furthermore, we must have a good reputation among outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil's trap. So Brett, why don't you talk about that for a minute? First Timothy three, what's your thoughts there? You know, first Timothy three reminds us, like we said, that pastors are held to a higher standard. Nobody is, is perfect, but the elder is to be above reproach. Now above reproach doesn't mean sinless. It means that their life should consistently reflect the gospel that they preach. In fact, I taught on first Timothy three, not very long ago on a Wednesday night and above reproach basically means free from scandal, you know, and when a leader commits this kind of disqualifying sin is something, you know, especially involving a minor, like this is what we're talking about. The issue isn't just forgiveness. It's qualification. You know, God does forgive completely, but that doesn't automatically restore someone to pastoral ministry. And let me hit on one other thing from Romans three. Romans three reminds us that we're all sinners in need of God's grace, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that all sins have the same consequences. What, what we're, what specifically what spurned this episode on is evil. And when a leader exploits a minor, that that's not just a moral failure. It's a betrayal of trust. It harms the victims and disqualifies that person from ministry. And that brings us back to first Timothy chapter three. You know, uh, there is forgiveness, but you know, when it comes to being a pastor to mountain a pulpit again, the leading people again, the shepherding people again, uh, you, once you're disqualified, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we'll, we'll talk about that here in a little bit as well. Uh, the last scripture we want to look at as in this opening part of the episode is James chapter three versus one, two, let me read maybe one or two verses here. It says not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that they will receive a stricter judgment for we all stumble. I think James is laying it out here. Every one of us are going to stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature. Also, he is able to control his whole body. Uh, and so this is for us to understand that, uh, there is a stricter judgment on us as pastors, as teachers, as leaders in the church. Um, and we must understand that as we go through life and we must understand that as we lead people and as pastors, we need to understand that this is where it's going to be at. And, and in a world of social media, in a world where everything is always on, uh, we have to understand that we are going to be looked at. I was told many, many years ago, uh, if you're going to be a pastor, you've got to learn to live in a glass house. Uh, I hate it. I hate that thought. Uh, but every day I know that I know that every one of my actions, every one of my statements, um, and really this is even multiplied by a thousand with social media because we're never off. If we're on it, we're on it. And people are always judging us and always judging our families. And, and, you know, I wouldn't do that or I wouldn't do this. Um, and so we must understand that we have a stricter judgment. People are going to look at us different. So when a mistake like this happens, and I say mistake, when a devastating sin like this takes a hold of someone's life, um, you must expect people to judge you differently, even though we are not going to be the ones that are judged. James, there's going to be judgment. Exactly. And to your, to something you said about living in a glass house and in your family being on display, you know, the pastor is held to a higher standard, but then people look at, you know, the fan, the pastor's family. And, you know, it's hard. Sometimes it's hard when your kids are held to a higher standard than all the other kids around them. And they're not allowed to just be normal kids who make normal mistakes because what they do reflects on the pastor. And so that's another layer that a pastor has to deal with. But, you know, there's a reason why pastors are held to a higher standard. And that is because pastors have such a wise sphere of influence. Um, and that's why they have the stricter judgment. You know, when, when a pastor falls, the damage doesn't just stop with him. It affects his family. It reflects his church, the reputation of Christ in the community. And that's why scripture treats the office of a pastor with such seriousness. But I think one of the mistakes that we make is we take pastors and we have a bad habit of doing this, not just in the IFB. This is all around the board. We like to take pastors and we put them on pedestals. We expect them to be more than human. And that's not what scripture teaches. I literally watched a Mike Winger video the other day where he is talking about Benny Hinn was in Africa and he's coming out to a preaching engagement. And they've got a parade of people singing and dancing and they're carrying Benny Hinn on this white throne. And men have it on their shoulders like they're carrying the king down the road. And that just that kind of, you know, lifting up a man like that, it's it's idol worship. It shouldn't be done. But pastors, what people need to know are pastors are sinners saved by grace, just like everyone else. Now they're called to a higher standard. They're held to higher accountability, but they still daily need the grace of God. And when we put man on a pedestal instead of Christ, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment because a man will let you down. A man will fail you given enough time. A sinner will always be a sinner. Our faith has to be anchored in Jesus, not in a church, not in a, not in a preacher, not in a man. It has to be anchored in Jesus Christ or it won't last because when that man falls, your faith will fall. Absolutely. A hundred percent. I agree wholeheartedly with that. And, you know, Brett, there's a difference. A pastor friend of mine recently said that there is this respecting that he still has. You know, there's a difference between respecting a spiritual leader while they're in office and then respecting them after they fall. Many of you know, and I've shared the story about John's brother, Ben, who fell into sin and disqualified himself and is still serving ministry time or time in prison for his effects of what he did. I no longer respect him. There isn't, there was zero amount of respect that I have for him because of his mistreatment of a victim that he had. I still love him. I still pray for him. I still care about him, but my respect for him is gone. And I think there's a difference between respecting a spiritual leader and expecting them to be perfect. We have this mindset that this leader that we have is going to be perfect, that nothing is ever going to go wrong in their life. And that is such a misnomer. I mean, we're going to look at here in a moment, leaders all throughout scripture who have done wrong and had messed up and made mistakes. And what I want you, I'm going to ask two questions that are rhetorically, and then we're going to talk about the third question. The first one's this, why do Christians often idolize leaders? Ask yourself, why do you idolize people like that? We're sinners, we're going to fall. Is the celebrity Christian, Christianity partly responsible for what has happened here? The rise of influence that happens all across the world of these guys that, that rise to what we call the celebrity pastors that get the invites. Has this risen to this place where they feel like they are untouchable in that sense? And then the question I want us to ask about is this, have we confused giftedness with godliness? This giftedness that men have to preach. Man, I can remember when I took my last youth group 10 years ago, and we went to a youth conference and Kenny was there preaching. And I had one young lady walk away and she said, Pastor James, we need more of him. We need to get him around. She said, I've never heard a message quite like that preach because of his giftedness. And have we replaced the godliness that we have with the giftedness of preaching and speaking ability? Thoughts on that, Brett? I absolutely, absolutely think we have. I didn't know Kenny. I was out of the IFB before Kenny was a thing. So I know very little about him, but I have seen other dynamic preachers like, for instance, Jack Scott, you know, was one of the, I surrendered preach under Jack Scott. I've said this many times on the podcast. But I think sometimes we have, we see someone who's a powerful preacher. He's a gifted communicator. He's a dynamic leader. And we assume that means he's spiritually mature. He must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. But we have to remember that giftedness and godliness aren't the same thing. A person can have incredible talent, but neglect their walk with God. And that's why the Bible places so much emphasis on character in passages like 1 Timothy chapter 3. You know, God is far more concerned with who a leader is than what a leader can do. And for instance, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, there are 15 qualifications for elder, pastor, overseer. 14 of those qualifications are character qualities. Only one qualification has to do with giftedness, and that's apt to teach. All the rest of them are character qualities because that's what's important when you have a leader like that wielding as much influence as they do over people's lives. It's very important that they have godly character. More so, their character is more important than their giftedness. And in 1 Timothy chapter 3, we see their character as 14 times more important than their giftedness. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. So, James, let me ask you, when did pastors start becoming celebrities? When did this happen? Brett, as I was thinking about this and meditating on this question, my mind went for me. You know, for our methodology and what we were raised in, I can probably trace this back to Jack Howells. Jack Howells began the pastor's conference, and he brought these guys in. And if you were platformed on the stage of pastor school, that was like the elite status. You could walk around and say, hey, Jack Howells platformed me. And all of a sudden, this culture of who you're going to put on your platform began this celebrity culture. Kenny Baldwin came to NYWC, our National Youth Workers Conference at Gospel Light. He did lots of things around where we were at. And it was these guys who they're platforming all across the world that they're bringing in to bring this celebrity culture. And now it's so much even more than that. I mean, if you go outside the IFB, T4G, pastor school, G3, all these guys, whoever they're platforming begins to be the celebrity in the SBC. It's the pastor's conference that we have every year at the SBC annual meeting, right? It's who was on that platform. Oh, man, this guy, he must be somebody. I need to take notes because they have brought him in for a reason. And so this idea of platforming celebrities and making them celebrities has began to really elevate it to this. The greater the platform, the greater the accountability that you're going to have that we must understand that there's this gravitas by the platform that we hold, which means the greater you're not immune to sin, you're going to have a temptation on you. You're going to be in the crosshairs of the devil. As we read in Romans chapter nine, Romans chapter three, verse 18, where you begin to be in the crosshairs of the devil. And he is watching us in everything that we do. So sin has devastating consequences. Brett, let us transition to this idea of what sin does. And we're spending a little bit longer time on this, but we'll begin to speed this up a little bit. But sin has great consequences. I want to read Galatians chapter six, verses three through five. And it says this, for if anyone considers himself to be something that he is not celebrity culture, right? He begins to deceive himself. Let each person examine his own works. And then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else. For each person will have to carry his own load. Brett, this can be one of those scriptures that we must understand that we are going to go through things and we must not consider ourselves greater than what we actually are. And we begin to puff ourselves up as Paul talks about all throughout scripture. Do not puff yourself up just because you have a platform or you're able to speak. And even Paul said, I've become all things to all men. I've been at the top of the heap. I've been at the bottom of the heap. I've been at the table of the kings. And I've sat where there's no food and I've had to beg for food. Like I have been all of these things. And through all of those things, what did I learn? I have taken nothing for myself. It is all because of Christ. And I think that's the attitude that we have to have when we go through this, because sin will come for every single one of us. And we must understand these consequences. Exactly. And I want to drop down and keep reading verse seven and verse eight. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a person sows. This will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh. But the one who sows to the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit. And I think Galatians 6, it goes on to remind us that, you know, hey, we don't ever need to forget. Even pastors, we reap what we sow. And that's true for every Christian. And it's especially true for spiritual leaders. Sin always promises more than it delivers. And it may stay hidden for a little while, but eventually there's a harvest. And we see in situations like this, like sin has painful, everlasting consequences, not just for the leader, but for the victim, for the family, for the church, for the cause of Christ. And that's why scripture repeatedly warned us not to play with sin. What is that saying you always say about takes us further than we want to go? Yeah. Sin will take you further than you want to go, cost you more than you want to pay, keep you longer than you want to stay. Exactly. So as spiritual leaders, we've got to be aware of that. Yeah, absolutely. Let me look at this next scripture. Numbers chapter 20, 32, verse 23. In the Old Testament, we're going to flip over here to a couple of things. Let me see here. Numbers 32, verse 23. It says this, Moses is telling his people how they are to go. And several of them are wanting to go back into their land and build some things up. And Moses in verse 20 says, if you do this, if you arm yourselves for the battle before the Lord, and every one of you arm your men crosses the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven out his enemies from the presence, and the land is subdued before the Lord, afterward, you may return and be free from obligation for the Lord. And this land will belong to you and your possessions. But if you don't do this, you will be certainly sinning against the Lord. And he says this, be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure your sin will catch up to you. And so oftentimes we try to get ahead of the Lord. This coming Sunday, when I come back from Nicaragua, I'm going to be preaching on patiently waiting on the Lord when heaven seems silent. And I'm going to talk about how oftentimes we try to get ahead of the Lord. We try to do our things our own way. And you can look all throughout scripture where Abraham tried to get ahead of the Lord, and he went with his handmaiden, and Nishmael was born. And there was this strife that happened because he said, I'm not going to wait anymore. And his sin now began to find him out. And as he had Isaac, and now we have this rift that is still going on today between those two brothers and the generation that follows them because they try to take things and put them in on their hands. Exactly. Be sure your sin will find you out. That's not just a warning. It's a principle. You know, we may hide from people for a season, but we can never hide from God. Eventually, everything that's in the dark comes to the light. And that's why the answer isn't getting better at hiding sin. It's dealing through repentance before it destroys lives because hidden sin always has a way of becoming public sin. God always knows what's going on. He always sees you. He will always bring it to the light. And so we have to heed that warning. Yeah, I was telling Allison this yesterday, and we're going to go to this passage of scripture in 2 Samuel chapter 12. This is the passage where David has sinned with Bathsheba, and David has conceived a child. And he goes and gets one of his best friends, one of his faithful men, Uriah the Hittite, and has him assassinated on the battlefield. And Nathan, his good friend, his good buddy, comes to him and gives him this passage of where he says, Hey, there's this guy who's got a large group of flock, and there's a poor man that's just got a couple of sheep. And all of a sudden, the man with the large flock comes and takes over. The rich man comes and takes one of his sheep and brings it into his fold. And David gets furious with him and says, The Lord lives. This man deserves to die. And he begins to rebuke this guy that is the richer guy. And all of a sudden, David looks at him in the face in verse 11, and he says, This is what the Lord has said. I am going to bring a disaster on you from your own family. I will take your wives and give them to others before your very eyes, and you will sleep with them in broad daylight. You acted in secret, but I will do this before all of Israel and in broad daylight. David responded to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And you can go to Psalms 51 and read his full prayer of sinning before the Lord. And Nathan replied to David, And the Lord has also taken away your sin, and you will not die. However, so there's forgiveness there. There's restoration there because he acknowledges sin. However, because you have treated the Lord this way and such contempt in this manner, the son that is going to be born will die. And Nathan went home. And we can continue to read that Nathan and David's friendship was never the same after this because of David's sin and because of what David did. And so I think it's important for us to understand that David was forgiven, but David still had consequences. David still had to go through the punishment of what was going to happen. And oftentimes we think, well, I can just forgive this guy. We can move on. It's not how God works. God is a just God and a just judge. And he's going to judge us for what we've done. And some of those judgments are here on earth. As he said, what you've done in secret will be revealed and be done in public and be judged in public. We must be very attentive to what we're going through. We can look through and I'm just going to mention these names, Brett, and sort of turn it over to you. But Moses, as he killed one of the Egyptians and was trying to take up for his own kinsman and buried him in secret, all of a sudden the next day he comes out and all the people were like, no, you're a wicked man. We don't want to follow you. Samson, I mean, lived a life of wickedness. And we see how his life ended in the end there where he's standing there with no eyes and gouged out and just a sack of who he was before. And all of a sudden he has one final request that the Lord honors, but he dies in that moment. And then Peter, Peter denied Jesus three times. And yet God sought forgiveness there, restoration there. It wasn't immediate. It wasn't immediately David or Peter came in and sought that forgiveness. And the next day he preached Pentecost. This was months later where he was with the brethren and he was praying and fasting and seeking the Lord. And then the Lord used him in a mighty way. But it was time that was between that. But none of these things were some of the depravity that we've seen today and this past week. So, Brett, what are your thoughts on that? You know, that's one of the hardest lessons to learn in scripture is that you can be forgiven. Absolutely. But grace does it doesn't erase the physical consequences of your actions. God forgives completely. There's no question about that. But forgiveness does not always remove the earthly results of our choices. And just like you said, David is a classic example of this. He's the poster boy of the guy that messed up. He was restored in his relationship with God. But his consequences continued. And not just with him, but his consequences affected his family. His consequences affected his wife. It affected every single child that he had. The sword followed his house for the rest of time. And that's why we should never treat sin lightly. You know, God's grace is amazing, but it's never a license to think our choices won't have lasting effects. So, yes, when we feel sorry for this man that that and these victims that he got up and he had this platform and he helped so much people and he preached and everybody said he's a great preacher. And this comes out, yes, he can be forgiven, but those consequences, they don't go away. They're still there. Yeah. You know, we live in a culture that has canceled everything. And we either have the idea that we must follow, are we going to cancel forever or are we going to restore immediately? And I don't think either one of them is biblical. I think that there is a time of healing and grace, and we're going to talk about that. But I think we need to understand there's damage that's been done. Damage doesn't heal overnight. If you've ever been a part of like a house fire, you understand the next day the house isn't rebuilt. The house has to take time for the inspectors to come in and say, okay, this can be fixed or this has to be torn down or these things have to happen. But there is this time that has to be used for healing. Churches, there are times where there's got to be healing in the churches. The reputation has to be brought back. And really, ultimately, there are unbelievers that are watching. And we'll talk about some things here at the end of this next section. But, Brett, the big thing that we want to get to, sort of the main section of what we want to talk about, is how do we respond? We opened up by saying that when shepherds fall, how do we respond? What is the grace gospel-filled response? We know it's tragic. We know that it's our responsibility to go through Scripture. So we're going to go back and forth. We wrote down four things of how we can respond, a gospel response to when leaders fall. So our first response, the first step, and it always needs to be the first step, is prayer. We need to pray. The situation needs prayer. First, we need to pray for the victims because they're the ones carrying the deepest wounds. So that's the first one on the list. Pray for the victims that have to carry the wounds for the rest of their lives. I mean, these victims, they're fundamentally changed. They're scarred, and they've got trauma for this. And while there's healing, there's still a part of that that they will carry for the rest of their lives. And then the next step is you need to pray for the leader's family. Those who are experiencing, they're experiencing unimaginable heartbreak. They didn't have anything to do with this most of the time. They were just, they're victims as well. And now they've got someone that they love that is experiencing and going through this. And we need to pray for them as well. Next, we need to pray for the church because the church has to be shaken. The church has been shaken to its core. And this is a church that loves the mission. The church wants to see, you know, wants to see the mission of Christ fulfilled. It wants to reach their community. And they've been working for so long to build this reputation in the community. And the reputation just gets torn apart. And then you need to pray for the elders and the church leaders. Because the elders left behind, they have difficult decisions to make. I would not want to be in their shoes to have to clean up this mess that this man of God caused. And to be the guy that's left behind to pick up the pieces. Man, it would be an awesome, just a big responsibility and such a heavy burden. So they definitely need prayer. And then, yes, we need to pray for the individual who fell. We need to pray that God would bring genuine repentance for them. But listen, prayer doesn't ignore the seriousness of sin. But it acknowledges that everyone involved desperately needs God's grace. So the first step has got to be to go to the Lord in prayer and bring this before the throne of grace. Absolutely. Prayer has to be there. It's the most important thing we can do. Jesus modeled this all throughout his ministry. Anytime something that was heavy on his heart, he went and he spent time with the Father in prayer. He went and spent time in the garden. He would heal people and do things and miracles. And then immediately they were like, hey, where'd Jesus go? And the Bible says that he found a way into a secret place of a mountain to get along with the Lord so that he could revive his own soul. And so prayer is important not only for the others, but for us. When we are hurting, when something like this does happen, we can go to the Lord and see that. The second thing I want to mention is guarding our own heart. It is oftentimes when something like this happens, we can begin to become cynical. We can begin to overanalyze and we begin to over justify things or say things that we come back later and wish we would have never said. I believe this is why we have waited a week to even talk about this, because we wanted to process this for ourselves to understand where we're at and understand what's going on. And really allow more of the facts to come out before we just began putting things out there, because we want to guard our own heart. We want to make sure that we were in the right headspace. When this news came out, I mean, I was I was in tears. This was devastating for me and devastating for my wife. And she texted me. I was like, did you see what happened? And here was going like, no, I was in a meeting. And all of a sudden, like everything was coming out and everything was going on. And people were saying this and we were saying that. And it was easy for me to say, well, that would never happen to me. But all of a sudden, I pray that it would never happen to me. But how often is it that we can begin to overly be cynical about things and assume that everyone's the same? Well, every pastor must be like this. Every church must be like this. And oftentimes you can read the comments if you want to go and find comment threads where people say, yeah, this is why I never go back to church, because this is what all pastors and all churches are like. And you can begin to broad brush so often as people do. That's why we try not to broad brush here. We try to say, hey, don't be cynical. Guard your own heart. Understand that shepherds fall. Understand that people are going to fail us, but that Christ, the ultimate shepherd of all, he never fails. He is always there for us. He is always there with us and will always be there for us when we are going through difficult times. Exactly. I think the next step is we need to refuse gossip. You know, I think Proverbs has a lot to say about this. I have just a few verses I'd like to read. Proverbs 11, 13 says a gossip goes around revealing a secret, but a trustworthy person keeps confidence. Proverbs 16, 28 says a perverse person stirs up conflict and a gossip separates close friends. Then finally, Proverbs 26, 20 says without wood, a fire goes out. Without a gossip, conflict dies down. You know, there's a difference between sharing a legitimate concern and then feeding sinful curiosity. If I'm talking to the elders because I'm trying to protect the church or help someone, that's one thing. But if I'm passing along details that don't help anyone, I'm just satisfying people's curiosity, that is gossip. And social media has made it so much harder because people want every single detail. They want the screenshots. They want the text messages. They want the latest update. They want to hear what everybody's saying. They want to read all the comments. But as Christians, we need to ask, why am I sharing this? Is it is it helping someone or am I just spreading information? The Proverbs reminds us that gossip wounds people. It destroys relationships. And we don't honor Christ by becoming the first person to repeat a story. We honor him by speaking truth when it's necessary. We honor him by protecting people when it's appropriate. And we honor him by refusing to turn someone else's tragedy into entertainment. It's one thing to tell somebody because, man, like your wife telling you, you know, Kenny had an influence on your life and she knew that and told you about it. But it's another thing. Hey, let me call so-and-so. They're going to be so surprised when they hear this. There's a difference in the two. One is gossip. One isn't. Relishing in somebody's tragedy for entertainment purposes is not biblical. Yeah. And I think the last thing we need to do as we go through this, have you went through not gossiping as you've prayed, as you've tried not to be cynical and you've guarded your own heart. I think ultimately when you go to scripture and go to Christ and allow Christ to be our cornerstone for everything we do and trust in Christ. I'm going to read Psalms 146. I believe this is the last passage of scripture that we'll read today. We'll go to Hebrews at the very end. But Psalms 146 says this, Hallelujah, my soul. Praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord all my life. I will sing to my God as long as I live. Do not trust in nobles, in the son of man who cannot save. When his breath leaves him, he returns to the ground. And on that day, his plans die. Happy is the one whose help is in God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God, the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, executing justice for the exploited and giving food to the hungry. The Lord frees prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord rises up to those who are oppressed. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord protects resident aliens and helps the fatherless and the widow. But he frustrates the ways of the wicked. The Lord reigns forever. Father, Zion, your God, reigns for all generations. Hallelujah. I think it's important for us to understand and it's important for us to know that we must always keep our confidence in Christ. Our confidence can't be in man. Our confidence can't be in the things that we think they should be. Our confidence can't be in our president. Our confidence can't be in our nation. Our confidence can't be in our church. Our confidence can't even be in our spouse. It must be in Christ first and foremost. And our faith must stand on Christ because Christ never fails. Men will fall. And if our faith is in men, all of a sudden our faith begins to fall and crumble as well. And I've seen post after post and people after people who are questioning their own ways, they're questioning their own thoughts because their actual foundation was on a man and not in Christ. And we must understand and know that our faith is in Christ. Now, the question that's been asked and the question that's been raised many times is this. Is restoration possible? Can restoration happen and be possible? Let's go back and forth. Restoration to fellowship? Absolutely. I believe that you can fellowship with sinners. You can fellowship with people who don't believe in Christ. You can fellowship with fallen people who have done things that are wrong. So I think restoration in our fellowship is there. It may take time, but absolutely, I believe fellowship can be restored. Exactly. But, you know, restoration to ministry. Sometimes, you know, sometimes, sometimes because there are times when the sin is, you know, so great. It's of a certain nature. They're not able to be restored. But then there are other times when after, like, man, I can't remember his name, but we just did a Bible study on a well-known pastor. And I don't have his book to call his name. But anyway, but he's a well-known pastor, writes Bible studies, pastors of a big church, I think maybe in Houston or something. And so, but he, he took a break from the ministry because something came out that he had did in the past. And it never really got out of the church. It wasn't nothing illegal, but it was something that needed to be dealt with. It was a sin. And so he took a sabbatical. The elders came to the pastor and, you know, they went through the process. He left the church, was gone for a certain amount of time, repented and got restored. And even though he didn't choose to go back to pastoring, he went a different route. The church said he could, but he decided to go a different route. But restoration and ministry, sometimes, not all the time, not every time. There are things you do that do disqualify you. But, you know, that's something you got to take on a case-by-case basis. What do you think about that? Yeah, I agree. I believe that sometimes you can have this restoration back into ministry. It's probably going to be a different ministry than you were before. It's not going to be the ministry that you had going into it, which leads us to the next one is, is it going to be restored to the same office? Not always. Not always. And I would probably go through to say never. However, in most cases, when a fall like this has happened or a sexual sin like this has happened, you're never going to be a pastor again because you have disqualified yourself. Like you said earlier, disqualification means disqualification. You cannot be requalified for that. You've been disqualified for that ministry and what that looks like. And so I believe that that is good and faithful for us to understand and to know and to process well and faithful. So, yeah, that is where we're at. So one thing we can look at is a couple of different ideas from Scripture. Scripture, David was considered the man after God's own heart. He had made mistakes. He fell. But yet when God called him to when David came to God and said, I want to build the temple, I want to build the place where you're going to meet with the people. God said, you can't build the temple. You can't have that ministry opportunity because you have unclean hands. You've killed your eye of the head, heart. You've done things that are ungodly and I cannot allow you, but I will allow your heir. I will allow John or Samuel or Solomon to come in and be able to build the temple. You know, in Acts chapter 15, Paul said, you know, let's Barnabas said, OK, we're going to go, but let's take John Mark with us. And Paul was like, take John Mark. Well, why do you want to take John Mark? Because we know, remember back in Acts chapter 13, John Mark left them. Now, at the time, the scripture didn't tell us why Mark left the ministry team. There are several reasons it could have been, but it didn't tell us how Paul felt about it. Well, then we come to Acts chapter 15 and Acts chapter 15 does tell us how Paul felt about Mark leaving. And he called him a deserter. Man, a deserter, that is a strong word. You know, when the going gets tough, Mark gets going. Paul's like, man, we're going to get out here in the field and we're going to need him. We're going to rely on him. We're going to lean on him. He's going to leave us just like he did the last time. And so that relationship between John and Mark, between Mark and Paul, you know, it was broken at that point. You know, he said, I can't use you because you're unreliable. But the thing about it is, is it didn't stay that way. Because later on in Philemon verse 24, Paul said, you know, he, you know, Mark is a fellow worker. And then in the book of 2 Timothy says, you know, Mark is useful for the ministry. So he went from being unreliable to being useful in the ministry. So Mark's failure wasn't, didn't define the rest of his life. Failure got a chapter, but failure wasn't the last chapter in Mark's story. And I think that's such a, such a great story about John Mark. But as he did change it, he, he was restored and he, he, his failure didn't become, didn't define the rest of his life. You know, and I love that story between, you know, Paul and Mark and, you know, Mark went on to write one of the gospels. And, you know, he was just useful for the ministry. And so he overcame his failure and became useful. And I want, I'll say one more thing about this and then we'll move on. You know, Paul's at the end of his life. He knows he's about to die. 2 Timothy is the last letter that he ever wrote. And he's thinking through the people that mean the most to him. And that name that comes up is Mark, this guy that he once called a deserter and a quitter. And I can't rely on you. Now Mark has become the biggest, one of the biggest benefits of his ministry. This goes to show you that restoration is possible. Yeah. And I believe it's a good, important thing to understand that forgiveness does not equal reinstatement. Forgiveness means you have broken that fellowship or that ministry and you have forgiven them and you've worked through those things together. But reinstatement is not just because you've been forgiven there. And we can see that all throughout scripture where people have been forgiven from Christ. But yet they have a, their ministry is not the same. And so it's good to understand that. Last thing we want to do, we'll skip down to the what can we learn? What can pastors learn from this? And I don't want this episode to be about pointing fingers about, Hey, look at how horrible this thing is or bad. This thing is less we own fall, right? Galatians six starts out by saying we can also be those ones that fall in ministry as well. So we want to understand that and, and properly identify this. And I guess the question we would ask ourself is how do pastors protect themselves? Uh, over the last week, I have had countless conversations with guys and we have talked back and forth. And so I just wrote down just a couple of things and Brett will give you the overview when I finish this part. Uh, but, but I think there needs to be accountability and there's gotta be accountability more than just an accountability partner that you can call and say, Hey, these are some things I'm struggling with. But even an outside counselor that is away from your ministry where you can say, Hey, these are some issues that I'm dealing with that are not going to hinder you, uh, by just going to someone that, that is close to a situation. I think there needs to be transparency. I think we need to make sure that we are open and honest with those that are around us, uh, which leads us to a healthy marriage. If you're a married man as a pastor, you need to be open and honest with your wife and you need to be vulnerable and let her help you in your own ministry, uh, strive to have personal holiness. Strive to keep your holiness and your prayer life and your scripture reading above reproach and to say, God, I want to grow closer to you. And I want to have a holiness that is for you in all that I do. One thing that, that I may that we need to do, uh, that I fail at doing is having a certain amount of Sabbath. Um, you know, you need to have your days off. You need to have your time where you disconnect, uh, you have your vacations, uh, but also time where you can get away for an extended period of time and just focus on your own holiness. Um, avoid isolation, avoid trying to be in alone times, uh, always be surrounded with people to avoid you falling into these sins that can, can easily, be, be, be, be set us that the Bible says, um, uh, know that you can say no to things, um, and have trusted friends. Um, no one drifts into holiness. We can drift into sin, but we don't drift into holiness. It must be on purpose. We must on purpose determine in our lives that we're going to grow closer to the Lord. We're going to grow closer to who he is and grow closer to our relationship with Christ. Exactly. You know, and I think every pastor ought to walk away with a healthy fear of sin, a greater dependence on God's grace. You know, none of us are above temptation. We need to guard our hearts, protect our marriages, avoid situations that invite compromise and stay accountable. Ministry success is never a substitute for personal holiness. At the end of the day, God is more concerned with our character than our platform. The goal is not to finish with a big ministry, uh, with your name everywhere, with your name in lights. The goal is to finish faithful. And that's what we need to strive for to finish it faithful. Yeah. I think in closing, Brett, it's good to remember and return to the gospel to know that Christ is there. He has forgiven us. He paid our penalty for our sin. He has given us a right standing on who he is. And we can be rested in knowing the gospel is our foundation. As the RFP guy said so often, it is for the sake of the gospel that we do everything we do. And so we must be people who are, um, loving the gospel, who are clinging to the gospel, not just for salvation, but for every single area of holiness in our life. Uh, if your faith was built upon a pastor or a preacher, your faith was built on a foundation that was small and breakable and had no effect. We must have our faith and hope in Jesus Christ that cannot be rested on any other ministry, any status, any idea. Uh, it must be on who Jesus is. Hebrews 13 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that must be what our foundation is built on. Uh, Brett, I want to, you to end this in prayer, uh, to, to admonish those that are listening to us. But before that, I want to give one last closing statement that I heard this week that I think is good for us. Uh, don't waste someone else's failure. Uh, oftentimes we are able to look into scripture and see when people fall and we're able to learn from those things. Uh, let it deepen your dependence on Christ as, as men fail. Don't wish for men to fail, but use it as an opportunity to grow closer to the Lord. Uh, as I was the fourth kid of five kids. Um, I would often look at my brothers and sisters that were older than me and I would see the mistakes they made. And I would say, you know, I don't want the whoopings they just got. I don't want the groundings that they just got from my mom and dad. And so I learned from their mistakes so that I wouldn't fall into them. And I got a whole lot less spankings than they got because I knew what mom and dad expected of me. And so this can be a time for us to learn and strengthen our commitment to holiness, to strengthen our commitment, to having compassion for those who have fallen. And to remind us that the only flawless one that has ever lived is the one that spread his hands and allowed nails to be pierced into his perfect holy hands for our sin. So that we could have a right standing with God. And so I pray this doesn't destroy our faith, but I pray that it deepens our faith in who Christ is. And it grounds us into a relationship with Christ so much more secure than we had before. Brett, any final thoughts before you pray? Um, I think this is a good conversation to have. Um, I think that this is something that we need to be aware of. We need it needs to be talked about and we need to come at this with the right attitude. And I just encourage everyone to have the right attitude. When you talk about this situation or other situations, remember to honor Christ and what you do and remember to pray, stay faithful. And, uh, with that, let's go to the Lord in prayer. The gracious heavenly father, Lord, we love you so much. We thank you for all the many blessings that you've given us. Lord, we come to you today. And Lord, first, I want to pray for this specific situation that, uh, sparked this episode. Lord, I pray for the victim, uh, in this case, Lord, I pray that you'd be with them. I pray that you would help them and guide them. Lord, this is a devastating sin. And it has devastating consequences. It has scars and trauma that will linger with a person for the rest of their lives. Lord, I pray for healing. Lord, I pray for the Holy Spirit to help the victim in this case. And Lord, I pray that you would, uh, be with them and that you would heal them, that you would bring them, uh, to where you want them to be. Lord, I just pray that you wrap your arms around them and guide them. Lord, I pray for everyone that's influenced by this from the families, uh, from the victim's families, the Kenny's family. Lord, uh, this is, this is a heavy burden to carry for the rest of their lives. And they're going to need supernatural power and supernatural strength to deal with this. Lord, I pray that you give them everything that they need. Lord, I pray for the church. Lord, this church is, is devastated that the elders and the leaders of this church that have to lead and clean up after this mess is such a heavy burden for them to carry. Lord, I pray that you would be with the church. I pray that you'd be with the members. I pray that you would be with the leadership. Lord, I pray that you'd give them wisdom and give them discernment and help them to, to deal with this situation in a God-honoring, Christ-honoring way. And Lord, I just, I pray that you would give them guidance. And Lord, I also pray for Kenny. Lord, I pray that you would be with him. Lord, I pray that you would bring him to repentance. Lord, I pray that you would instill in him and give him a heart to repent for what he's done. And Lord, I just pray that you would help him to do that, where he would have some sort of restoration, even though he may feel the consequences and he will feel the consequences of his actions. Lord, our goal and his heart that everyone comes to a point of repentance and has a restored relationship with you. Lord, I pray for situations like this all over our country, Lord, all over the world, Lord, in these churches, Lord, victims of this type of abuse and things like that. Lord, I pray that you would be with those. I pray that you would help us as Christians to appropriately deal with these situations and not gossip and pray and guard our heart, Lord. And help us to stay accountable and not become cynical. And help us to not have faith in a man. Help us to not have faith in a pastor. Help us to not have faith in an institution or a church. But Lord, help us all to anchor our faith firmly into the Savior of the world, Christ. Lord, we love you so much. Lord, you are the basis of our faith. Not a pastor. Not a man that's a sinner. A pastor is a man just like everybody else, Lord. We anchor our faith in you, Lord, because you left heaven and you lived a life we couldn't live. You died a death that we deserve. And Lord, you rose from the dead three days later so we could be reconciled to God. Lord, each and every one of us are called to the ministry of reconciliation. There is not one Christian under the sound of my voice that is not called to the ministry of reconciliation. Lord, as members of this ministry, Lord, our desire needs to be to reconcile. Reconcile us with each other. Reconcile men with God. Lord, we are in this ministry together. Lord, help us, Lord. Help us to respond to situations like this in the right way. Holy Spirit, guide us right now. And Lord, help us to deal with this in a Christ-honoring way. Be with everyone that carries pain. Be with all the victims, Lord. We lift them up. Give them supernatural healing and guidance. Give them comfort and peace that can only come from heaven. Lord, we love you so much. Guide us in the way that we should go. Deal with these situations. We leave them in your care and in your hands. And in your precious name, I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that, Brett. Thank you for listening. If you've listened all the way to this point. And we pray that this episode will be an encouragement to you. Maybe not even right now. Maybe it's five years down the road and something happens. And you come back to this episode and it helps you in a time of difficulty. Maybe a scripture that was read or a prayer that was given that will help you in this way. I believe it would be honoring to end this episode with our old school sign off. And so until next time, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. That has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast.

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