During the 2016 presidential campaign, George Clooney stated emphatically, “There’s not going to be a President Donald Trump.” Now, apparently, there will not be a President George Clooney.

In an interview with the BBC’s Andre Marr, the sixty-year-old actor stated that, while he’s engaged in politics, he hopes to reduce his workload rather than increase it by running for office. When asked if he had such political intentions, he said quickly, “No, because I would actually like to have a nice life.”

He has a point. In recent days, activists supporting the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill have accosted Sen. Krysten Sinema at an airport and on her way to the bathroom. Over the weekend, they announced their plan to follow her at yesterday’s Boston Marathon as well. Sen. Joe Manchin was recently at the houseboat where he lives while in Washington, DC, when a group of kayakers confronted him on the same issue.

When asked about the way Sen. Sinema had been treated, President Joe Biden replied, “The only people it doesn’t happen to are the people who have Secret Service standing around them. So, it’s part of the process.”

Tim Keller on celebrity pastors

Public service comes at a cost. Conversely, when we are filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), we are motivated to serve. When we love our Lord, we must love our neighbor (Matthew 22:34–40). When God is working in us, he will work through us.

Yesterday we discussed the temptation of “private” sins that seem to have no public consequences but keep us from being used and rewarded fully by God. Today, let’s accent the positive: private godliness positions us to be used by God in ways we cannot imagine beforehand.

Well-known pastor and author Tim Keller acknowledged to Christian Post that he is viewed as a “celebrity pastor in some circles.” However, he also understands that if he misuses his platform, “a lot of Christians can be put to shame” because of him.

He added: “Therefore, if God gives me a bigger ‘platform,’ then I actually have a responsibility not to disappoint people. Not just to look like a great person; I actually have to be holy; I have to actually mortify my sin. I have to have a prayer life. I have to do the stuff that every Christian needs to do. I don’t have to be better than other Christians. I just need to be what God wants a Christian to be.”

While public ministry requires private godliness, the converse is also true: private godliness empowers and enables public ministry. In seeking such godliness, let’s consider a simple but paradoxical fact.

A clown shortage and a war hero

Northern Ireland is experiencing a clown shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is a problem in circuses and other places where clowns are needed. Being a clown is anonymous business—the more a crowd can identify the person behind the costume, the less effective a clown that person will be.

In other news, Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia, was presented the Medal of Honor on this day in 1945. He was cited for outstanding bravery as a medical corpsman, the first conscientious objector in American history to receive the nation’s highest military honor.

He served during the bloody battle of Okinawa, saving the lives of dozens of his fellow soldiers at grave risk to his own. When Mel Gibson brought his incredible story to movie theaters with Hacksaw Ridge, I was invited to a private screening followed by a time of discussion with Mr. Gibson. I asked him why he felt compelled to make the film; he explained that he felt PFC Doss’ story was one the world needed to know.

He was right. As the movie makes clear, PFC Doss served with no thought of personal advancement. He simply saw his fellow soldiers in danger and did what he could. He could have had no possible idea that six decades later, his story would make global news.

“I am not but I know I Am”

The more we seek personally to glorify God, the more publicly he can use us. This is because God cannot share his throne lest he commit idolatry. If he seeks to glorify anyone above himself, he leads us into worship of the creature rather than the Creator. As Israel’s idolatrous history illustrates, this sin only leads into further sin.

By contrast, when we say of Jesus what John said of him, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), the Father uses us to draw more people to his Son than we could ever lead to him in our ability for our glory. When we say with Louie Giglio, “I am not but I know I Am,” we know the great I Aᴍ (Exodus 3:14) in ways that will lead others to know him as well.

God’s word states paradoxically, “The reward for humility and fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ is riches and honor and life” (Proverbs 22:4). Scripture promises, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10). Solomon noted, “Humility comes before honor” (Proverbs 15:33).

The more we seek public recognition, the less God will lead us to experience it. The more we seek to honor our Lord and glorify our Savior in all we do, the more God can trust us with public ministry that will lead even more people to him.

How to “build a tall house of virtues”

Tim Keller is just one of many “celebrity pastors” in our day of global journalism and social media exposure. You could name many others. But I’m sure Rev. Keller would agree that celebrity is not enough.

As the moral decline of our culture illustrates, we need fewer personalities and more servants. Being famous is no substitute for being faithful. As we noted yesterday, we cannot save a single soul or change a single life. Only the Spirit can accomplish spiritual transformation.

So, let’s take a moment to ask ourselves why we do what we do for God. Why did I write this Daily Article? If you attended worship last Sunday, or taught a Bible study, or led worship, or preached a sermon, why did you do so? Think of your last act of service as a Christian—why did you do what you did?

If we do not seek intentionally to honor Jesus in all we do, we will honor ourselves instead. Our default position as fallen people is to be on the throne of our own hearts, seeking our own glory. The “will to power” (Nietzsche) that began in Genesis 3 continues to tempt us today. But if we ask the Spirit to help us know our motives and seek to glorify God in everything we do, he will answer our prayer.

St. Augustine noted, “If you plan to build a tall house of virtues, you must first lay deep foundations of humility.”

How deep are your foundations today?

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 “Llama therapy” is in today’s news. A Washington Post writer tells of a recent hiking expedition with her family in Yellowstone National Park aided by a “calm and gentle beast of burden” who carried their gear and bonded with them on a “calming immersion in nature.”

Emotional support animals are more popular than ever. From “emotional support fish” to dogs and other animals, they are one way many people are coping with the challenges of our day. For example, depression in America has reached epidemic levels, increasing by 450 percent since 1987. Five times as many people are taking antidepressants now as then.

Let me be clear: depression is a very real disease, one that must be treated by every means available. Like cancer or heart disease, it often requires the help of medical, psychiatric, and psychological professionals. Other forms of anxiety and emotional trauma are very real as well and should be taken with utmost seriousness.

However, I believe there is a causal factor behind much of the emotional and psychological pain of our day that is never discussed in secular media and is especially challenging for Christians.

High school crowns transgender homecoming queen

Repairs to stop the fifty-eight-story Millennium Tower in San Francisco from sinking have made it worse. Consider this story as a parable of our times.

A transgender teenager was recently crowned homecoming queen at her Florida high school. Evan Bialosuknia said, “I’m the first, but I hope I’m not the last, and I just hope that people will start to open up and see that it’s normal and that trans women are women.”

A Netflix series called “Sex Education” is being praised by the New York Times for its “frank but sensitive depictions of teen sexuality” including “more stories about queer relationships” and “gender presentation.”

In an important article titled “The end of vice,” Bryan Walsh notes that “all the old vices—from sex to gambling to drugs—are quickly becoming legal as both society and the criminal justice system rethink their values.” For example: legal betting on NFL games is up 32 percent. Support for decriminalizing prostitution rose from 24 percent in 1978 to 52 percent last year.

Our secularized culture is busy “repairing” the supposedly intolerant legalism created by Judeo-Christian values. But how is that working for us?

In The Hungering Dark, Frederick Buechner writes:

“If darkness is meant to suggest a world where nobody can see very well—either themselves, or each other, or where they are heading, or even where they are standing at the moment; if darkness is meant to convey a sense of uncertainty, of being lost, of being afraid; if darkness suggests conflict, conflict between races, between nations, between individuals each pretty much out for himself when you come right down to it; then we live in a world that knows much about darkness.

“Darkness is what our newspapers are about. Darkness is what most of our best contemporary literature is about. Darkness fills the skies over our own cities no less than over the cities of our enemies. And in our single lives, we know much about darkness too. If we are people who pray, darkness is apt to be a lot of what our prayers are about. If we are people who do not pray, it is apt to be darkness in one form or another that has stopped our mouths.”

Satan’s backup strategy

Jesus called himself “the light of the world” (John 8:12). The definite article shows that he is the only light of the world. He also told his followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) as we bring his light into the darkness. Note again the definite article.

If the room is dark and I have the only flashlight, whose fault is the darkness?

I believe that if God’s people brought the light of Christ more fully into the world, the world could not stay the same. But to bring his light, we must stay connected to his light. As the moon must remain aligned with the sun to reflect its rays at night, so we must remain aligned with the Son to reflect his love.

Jesus taught us: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Oswald Chambers observed: “I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God.”

As a result, we must “abide” in Christ constantly to bring his light into the dark. We therefore know that we must avoid public sins that shame our Lord and ourselves.

However, while Satan would obviously like us to commit such grievous public sins, he has a subtle backup plan: he tempts us with so-called “private” sins that the world never sees and we can be deceived into believing do no real damage. Such sins are especially dangerous since we can be tempted to continue committing them without apparent consequence.

But know this: Any sin grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19). Any sin breaks our alignment with the Son and eclipses our witness in the world. We may not recognize these disastrous repercussions since they do not cause positive harm so much as they prevent positive good.

Only in eternity will we see how much fruit on earth and reward in heaven we forfeit by sins we believe we can commit without consequence (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

The path to spiritual freedom

If you want to find true peace in a world of pain, abide in Christ. If you want to shine true light in a dark culture, abide in Christ. Abide in him on Monday, not just on Sunday. Abide in him in your private thoughts, not just your public words and actions. Recognize “private” sins as the cancer they are. Malignancy starts with tiny cells that, left untreated, can eventually kill the patient.

As a result, I encourage you right now to take a moment for a spiritual inventory. Ask the Spirit to bring to your mind any “private” sins you are committing, then confess whatever comes to your thoughts, claim God’s forgiving grace (1 John 1:9), and ask for his help in refusing them in the future (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The next time you are tempted by a sin that appears to have no consequences, recognize this as a lie from the devil. Now “submit it to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, my paraphrase). You will live in spiritual freedom, and your life will reflect the transforming light of your Lord to a world desperate for your hope in Christ.

Dwight Moody observed, “Character is what you are in the dark.”

What character will you choose today?

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