Do you remember the first time in your life that someone you looked up to as a spiritual leader had a moral failure?
I do.
I was a freshman in college at Liberty University studying for the pastorate. Kelly Williams is co-founder and senior pastor of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. | Courtesy of Kelly Williams
I had gone to chapel to hear a great preacher/teacher expound upon the Word of God. The speaker was such a passionate speaker who knew the Word of God so well, that it inspired me to memorize Scripture and to seek to know God like him. As soon as chapel was over, I rushed to the library to pray, read my bible, and begin to memorize Scripture so I could know Scripture like he did. Before that day was over, I had read over 50 chapters in my Bible and had memorized over 60 verses. Not long after that, I learned as did many others, that the man who had inspired me was a fake. He had made up the childhood story of his life to sensationalize his life. He was a fraud and later was found out to not only have had one moral failure but many in his lifetime. I wish I could say that this only happened to me once in my 49 years of life and 25 years in the ministry, but sadly, I have had close pastor friends and spiritual heroes, that I have looked up to, over the years who have let me down and caused me great pain and confusion. I am sure you have, too. It seems like in these days there are so many pastors having moral failures that we can’t even keep up with it. Decades of deception and repeat moral failure. Sometimes it comes out while they are in the middle of it and other times it comes out decades later.
If you are anything like me, when these sorts of things happen to you, it shakes your faith, causes you to wonder, and plummets you into a combination of hurt, questions, doubt, and anger. It arouses questions in the depth of your being like…was their influence and inspiration just a lie? Was that not God who used him or her to inspire me to become who He has created me to be? I have heard some say that when their pastor fell morally that it was like their own wife or husband failing morally. It hurt them that deeply and wounded them in their faith that deeply. We live in a world today where it is difficult to find people we can trust and depend on as an example to follow. Yeah, we all have clay feet and we all have weak moments and make poor choices, but it seems like moral failure in leaders is on the rise. When one of our leaders fall it creates a deep sense of distrust, sorrow, confusion, and questions that can lead to anger, or even worse. It can cause us to wonder, if what and who we believe in, Jesus, is even real and worth it. How could we be so duped by someone so close to us? How could we look up to someone for so many years only to find out they were a fraud?
Or were they?
How could we be so naïve?
Or were we?
Maybe they weren’t fake.
Maybe we weren’t naïve.
Maybe sin is just that powerful.
Maybe they underestimated the power of sin. And maybe we overestimated their power apart from Christ. Unfortunately, the New Testament does not give us an example of a spiritual leader who had a sexual moral failure, but the Old Testament does. The Bible says that King David was “a man after God’s own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14) Would you like God and the Bible to say that about you?
I would.
What does it mean to be a man after God’s own heart?
Being a person after God’s own heart means that your life is in harmony with God. A woman (or man) after God’s own heart is someone who has given their heart to Him completely.
David had done just that.
But David eventually found himself drifting in a direction that was the opposite of God. I want you to keep this in mind when you are hurt that your Pastor didn’t do what he preached. Know that Jesus set himself as an example for us to follow,not your pastor. No matter what, he is the only one that can save and set free. He is the perfect example.
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