A Pastor's Thoughts on Philip Yancey's Moral Failure

Every time we hear the news of another pastor or Christian leader failing morally, there is an understandable sadness that comes to our minds. It is a sadness that shame has been brought to the name of Jesus again, a sadness that Christ’s church has endured yet another scar, a sadness that another family has suffered humiliation and painful disruption. In Philip Yancey’s case, there is a thread of good news: his wife is willing to show mercy and work to see their marriage restored. That is something to be thankful for.

We find many truths in the Scriptures that should comfort and instruct us in the aftermath of a leader’s moral failings. One of those plainly states there is an accompanying benefit to other Christians, “so that the rest may stand in fear,” (1 Timothy 5:20) with the result that they avoid giving themselves over to sinful ruin. The text of holy Scripture says, “stand in fear.” Here are some thoughts from a pastor’s mind about the sobering fear that can help keep us from devastating sin.

Anyone could fall like that 

This very real fear comes to mind - that anybody is, that I am capable of ruining myself, my church, and my family with my own sinful failure. I could sin just as horribly as the last leader named in the news. That reality should strike fear in anybody’s mind, a fear that makes us abhor sin and flee from it.

Consider these warnings. In Romans 12:3 we find, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” No, don’t think of yourself highly, that you’d never do such a thing. Instead, think accurately: “I could ruin myself and everybody around me with my sin.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 says, “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” No, don’t think it couldn’t happen to you. If you don’t take heed, you will fall! Galatians 6:3 says, “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” I must not deceive myself into thinking I am someone over whom sinful lust has no dark power. That is a self-deceiving lie.

The Bible would not have us think this kind of fear is emotionally unhealthy. We are told this is a good kind of fear that helps preserve us. It is right and good for us to pray asking, “O, God, please do not allow me to stray from Your will and bring disaster on everyone in my life. Please, LORD, keep me from falling into sin like that!” That kind of fear leading to that kind of prayer produces a heart that hates sin more and more and loves to obey God more and more.

I am shocked that I have not fallen morally

This quote from Pastor John Piper I cannot document, though I heard it on a recorded talk he gave to a group of pastors ten or more years ago. I recall it like it was yesterday. It was a hot summer afternoon on Sayers Road outside of Troy, Ohio, I was listening to Piper while on a six-mile run. His statement stunned me, coming from the preacher and author I’ve admired and learned from nearly all my adult life. He said something to the effect of, “I am astonished that I have not shipwrecked my faith, that I have not ruined myself with moral failure in sexual sin.” He went on to say how so many leaders have fallen into ruinous sin and how he is no different from any of them in his weakness; without the grace of God keeping him from sin he certainly would have fallen away from the faith in disastrous ways.

I believe that is a biblically accurate way to think following Philip Yancey’s admission of adultery, certainly for myself and for any Christian and pastor. The surprise isn’t that my strength has kept me from falling into disqualifying sin. Rather the surprise is that my weakness against sin has been prevented from sinking me. It is the grace of God that is “able to keep you [me] from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 1:24). How have I made it 25+ years in pastoral ministry in all my struggles with sin yet have not run off the deep end into immorality that breaks my marriage covenant, makes my children ashamed they know me, and gets me fired from being a pastor at my church? How has that happened thus far? And how will it happen for my remaining years of life, marriage, and ministry?

I do not look to myself but to the One who loves me more than I love myself. He is the One who has done more to care for me than I have ever done to care for myself. He has spent more wealth in caring for me than I ever would or could spend on myself – it was the eternally precious treasure of the life and blood of the eternal Son of God. That surprising gift of grace and goodness has a preserving power to it. Because He has shown this goodness to me, not only does He want me to keep from falling morally, it makes me want the same thing. It causes His desire to live in and be completed in me. I want to obey Him. I want to be pure like He is pure.

God forgives even the worst moral failures

Philip Yancey has lost his public ministry; he has stated his repentance and wisely given up public ministry. He lost his reputation, his good name, and almost lost his marriage. But he did not lose the loving, kind, forgiving grace of God. His eight years of adultery were not greater than the power of Christ’s blood to make him clean. Losing his writing career and book sales cannot compare with what he cannot lose. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29). “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

At the end of it all, the highest praise for any pastor will not be that he made it 89 years without committing adultery. It won’t be that he pastored the same church without scandal for 40 years. It won’t be that his reputation was never soiled by reproach. Even though “a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,” the treasures found in Jesus Christ Himself, in salvation for eternal life with Him in His everlasting kingdom, enjoying “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” at His right hand will far outshine them all!

We need the local church

Over my 57 years of life, hearing the reports of numerous servants of God falling, I have come to listen for a specific detail in their story. We all should fear not having this! What about his church? What is his standing with his church? Is this fallen leader still in his local church? Did his church faithfully confront him with his sin and call him to repentance as Jesus instructs in Matthew 18:19-20? Did he heed their loving call to repent? Upon his repentance, did his church “restore him in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1)? Even though he is no longer performing the ministry tasks he once did, is he still in sweet fellowship with the people of God who love him dearly?

All cases of failure and restoration are not the same; some may be much more complicated requiring many more efforts to find restoration. But there have been cases in which a fallen servant of God turned from his sin and humbled himself before God, his wife, and his church and found the all-sufficient grace of God lavished upon him in restoration both by the LORD and His church. This is the lovingkindness God wants for all sinners who have sinned. In your example, your teaching, and your prayers, lead your church and your own life to be like this.

My hope is that Philip Yancey has found this in his church, and it is my hope that my own church will continue to be this kind of loving body of Christ. And it is my hope that you, friend, are a member of a loving, gracious, burden-bearing church like that too.