Lead On Podcast

On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses the pastoral challenge of extending radical forgiveness while maintaining appropriate boundaries and consequences. He explores what restoration can—and cannot—mean for forgiven people in church fellowship and ministry leadership.

Creators and Guests

Host
Jeff Iorg
President, SBC Executive Committee

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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.

Hosted by SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, this dynamic podcast provides insight for seasoned executives, aspiring leaders, or those in ministry who are simply passionate about personal growth. The Lead On Podcast offers actionable, practical tips to help you navigate the complexities of ministry leadership in today's ever-changing world.

From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.

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Jeff Iorg:

Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. That's what we do on this podcast. We talk about the practical challenges of day to day life in ministry organizations and church leadership. So to create those ideas, sometimes I ask listeners for, input, and I did that a few weeks ago with a survey that I sent out to pastors.

Jeff Iorg:

Small group of pastors, East Coast, West Coast, some in the middle of the country, big churches, small churches, some different ethnicities, backgrounds, ages, and I asked two questions. First, what's pressing you right now as a pastor? What are the issues of concern? And second, because these guys are all leaders, when other pastors come to you, what are the questions they're asking you to help them with? Well, those two questions, I got quite a bit of response back, and they've given me a lot of good ideas for the podcast.

Jeff Iorg:

And I've been going over some of those for the last several weeks now, and I wanna do another one today. Today's podcast is going to be about dealing with the issue of forgiveness and the implications of incorporating forgiven people into church ministry. Now this podcast is linked together with that theme, but it really emerged out of some concerns that these pastors raised with me. Like, for example, you have a couple that comes into the ministry of your church

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that's not married but living together, they come

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to faith in Jesus, they wanna be baptized, they wanna be members of your church, they're not yet married. Where does forgiveness, extend, and where do consequences start, and where do boundaries remain? That's the kind of question that I wanna talk about today. It's not just in that situation though.

Jeff Iorg:

It's also in church leaders who fail, various

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kinds of moral or ethical failure, and then a church leader repents of that and comes to forgiveness. And then how do you deal with that in terms of what goes on in your church fellowship or church ministry? I could go on and on with these examples. You you might have a person who is convicted of a crime or or accused of some inappropriate moral behavior and and comes to face up to what they've done. And and do they experience forgiveness, and is that even possible?

Jeff Iorg:

And then if they are forgiven, then what does that mean for them in continued relationship with a church family? You know, these are practical and challenging issues, and they're

Jeff Iorg:

not new. They're not new. I think about forty years ago when I was in my first pastorate,

Jeff Iorg:

I had a couple in our church that broke the law. They were arrested. They were going to go on trial, but they decided to plead guilty to the charges, and they were both sentenced to time in jail. They had a two year old child that had to be cared for by family members while this, couple was incarcerated. It was a disaster.

Jeff Iorg:

And they had lots of questions for me about, you know, God's forgiveness. And then if God forgave them, what did that mean for their church relationship, and what did that mean for them coming going forward in their work or their career lives? And what does it mean to be forgiven and yet to then recover from the consequences of what's happened and any boundaries that might exist going forward? Similar situation. Church leader in another context had a moral failure.

Jeff Iorg:

This moral failure was not adultery, but it was still a moral failure. And because of that, the person ultimately was just broken by their sin and came in repentance and requested forgiveness from God and from others and, of course, received it. But what did that mean then? What did that mean for them going forward in terms of church ministry, in terms of church leadership, and and those kinds of things? So I've been dealing with this for a long time, and it's not surprising to me that pastors wrote me back and said they're still dealing with it today.

Jeff Iorg:

So let's talk today about the power of forgiveness, what it means, and what the implications are for continuing to have ministry to forgiven people. First of all,

Jeff Iorg:

let's establish the radical, beautiful power of Christian forgiveness. There's a wonderful parable in Matthew 18 starting in verse 23 that really illustrates, the power, the dramatic impact of forgiveness. The story is that a king wanted

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to settle his accounts and so he started calling in the people who owed him money and he called in one fellow who owed him 10,000 talents. Now that is an inconceivable amount of money. A talent equals to 600 denarii and a denarius was a day laborer's wage. This is something like fifteen or sixteen thousand years of back salary that would have been owed. Now if you're hearing this and you have any kind of business perspective or perspective on money, you've probably asked yourself the question, how in the world did anything get that far out of hand?

Jeff Iorg:

Well, that's the point. Jesus is not telling a true story here. He's using a parable, and he's using what's called hyperbole or gross exaggeration or overstatement to make his point. Jesus is saying, the king called in this man who owed him an unbelievable amount of money and his situation in terms of paying it back was hopeless. Now the fellow knew how distraught and desperate his situation, so he fell down on his knees, the

Jeff Iorg:

Bible says, knowing he had no way to pay back the debt. He fell down before the king and begged, begged for mercy. He needed forgiveness. And in this case, he needed debt forgiveness in a dramatic, dramatic way.

Jeff Iorg:

Now this part of the parable is an illustration of your relationship with God and mine as well. We are accountable to a holy God, and we are in desperate need of forgiveness. And we have no way of making things right in relationship with God.

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No way. Our situation is hopeless. And yet, when we find ourselves broken, on our knees, desperate,

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coming undone and recognizing the vileness of our sin,

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We come to God and he does the unimaginable. God forgives us. Brothers and sisters, I don't know if you've thought about that for a while, but just stop and think about that miraculous, wonderful reality. You are forgiven. God,

Jeff Iorg:

whose holiness is beyond comprehension,

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forgives you when your sin is overwhelmingly vile. Man, that feels good. God forgives us. But the parable goes on and it says that just as God has forgiven us, we're responsible to forgive others.

Jeff Iorg:

The the parable goes on this way, that slave that had been forgiven, he also had some people who owed him some money including one fellow who owed him a 100 naira, and that's about three months wages. So we went out and found him and started choking him and demanded, pay me back the money that you owe me.

Jeff Iorg:

Well, this this particular fellow did the same thing. He he fell on his knees and he begged for forgiveness, for mercy. But the Bible says that the one who'd

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been forgiven much was not willing

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to forgive this other one who owed so little. And in fact,

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threw him into debtors' prison, the worst punishment possible. Meaning that he had no personal earning power and was doomed to labor in a debtor's prison until he could somehow pay back what was owed.

Jeff Iorg:

Well, word got around and eventually, word got back around to the king, to the master in this story. And he called in the forgiven slave and said, look, I I forgave you all this that you owed me and you couldn't forgive the little bit that was owed to you? And he said, I'll tell you how this is gonna end. You're going now to debtors' prison and you're going to pay me back everything that you owe me. And in fact, it's gonna be a lifetime sentence because you'll never be able to pay off that debt.

Jeff Iorg:

And the parable ends with this this stunning stunning conclusion.

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Bringing together the king representing the heavenly father, the forgiven servant representing us, and then the servant who's unwilling to forgive then also representing

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us. Jesus ends the parable and says, so my heavenly father will also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart. So the Bible is crystal clear. We can be forgiven No matter what we've done, we can be forgiven. This means that there is no sin, no sin, beyond the capacity, beyond the reach, beyond the scope of God's incredible forgiveness.

Jeff Iorg:

And not only have you experienced this, but as a Christian leader, you have the privilege of announcing this radical forgiveness

Jeff Iorg:

to every single person in the world. It doesn't matter if you're dealing with an adulterer, fornicator, drunkard, swindler. Doesn't matter if you're dealing with a pedophile, an extortionist, an arsonist. It doesn't matter if you're dealing with a gossip.

Jeff Iorg:

It doesn't matter who you're dealing with and what they've done.

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God's forgiveness can extend to them. Man, that's good news.

Jeff Iorg:

It's good news to experience it and it's good news to share

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it with other people. But the pastoral challenge becomes when people are forgiven, how do we then incorporate them into the ministry of our church

Jeff Iorg:

and how do we then help people interface with them based on their past behavior in the context of the forgiveness that they've received? Well, perhaps the most important principle to remember in solving this dilemma is this.

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Forgiveness does not remove boundaries or negate consequences.

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Forgiveness removes your sin in relationship with God and it releases your right to revenge on other people,

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but it does not necessarily remove boundaries or negate consequences. Now, wise parent

Jeff Iorg:

knows this almost intuitively and puts it into practice regularly.

Jeff Iorg:

So let's say, for example, you've got a 13 year old that has a curfew, has to be in by a certain time and they miss the curfew. And when they are caught, you find out they were doing some things they they shouldn't have been doing.

Jeff Iorg:

And

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you confront them and they're broken about it.

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And they come to you as a parent, 13 year old, and say, mom, dad, I I really messed up. I I'm so sorry for breaking curfew, and I'm so sorry for getting involved in the things I was doing, and so sorry for lying to you about it and all the other sin that goes along with this. And you can see because you know this child pretty well, you can see that the the repentance is genuine, that the brokenness is real, and the request for forgiveness is is

Jeff Iorg:

heartfelt. And so when you hear all of this, you you conclude it by saying, hey, son. Listen.

Jeff Iorg:

I understand what you're saying to me and I want you to know that I appreciate you being honest, coming clean about what you did and why you did it. And I want you to know that I I forgive you, and we're gonna put this behind us. But you're also grounded for a month. Now you say, but wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You you you just forgave this child.

Jeff Iorg:

Now you're gonna ground him for a month?

Jeff Iorg:

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm gonna do.

Jeff Iorg:

Because forgiveness does not equal negating consequences or removing boundaries. Forgiveness releases a person from sin and eliminates the right to revenge in the situation.

Jeff Iorg:

Forgiveness takes the sting out of the situation, but it doesn't remove the consequences of their actions.

Jeff Iorg:

This is one of the most important and really quite frankly obvious principles of forgiveness when it's related to parenting, but we seem to want to

Jeff Iorg:

forget it sometimes when we bring it over into church ministry context. Forgiveness

Jeff Iorg:

does not mean there are no further consequences

Jeff Iorg:

or there are no further boundaries. So for example, it might mean that when a couple is living together and comes to faith in Jesus, you might say, we forgive you for the way you've been living, but now you have

Jeff Iorg:

to understand that our church has a boundary about what we believe about marriage. And even though you're fully forgiven by God and we receive that and we accept that and we bless that, we also know that we have some boundaries about the standard of marriage that we can't release are violated in terms of your being together and being a part of our church. And so we need to hold to those boundaries while at the same time extending you forgiveness and grace and patience while you work out what it means for you to get this relationship made right. Another example I have already mentioned and that is a ministry leader has a a moral failure of some kind. Now, moral failure can be graded or great gradations, if you will.

Jeff Iorg:

So a person has a problem, for example, let's say with an incident of pornography on their computer. Well, that person comes and repents and wants to be forgiven. Well, certainly they can be forgiven. But they might also then lose the privilege of that ministry leadership role that they've had. Or even if it's in this case something that can be confronted and managed, they may lose the privilege of accessing information, for a while on computer networks, through a church office or something like that.

Jeff Iorg:

They may find themselves disciplined in other ways and restricted in other ways. They have restrictions placed on them that are the boundaries or the consequences of of their actions. You know, this is one of the things that a person recently came to me and talked with me about a situation in their church where they were trying to restore a ministry leader. And he said, you know, I'm I'm for the concept, but I I think we need to really think through what it means to be restored. And then he made this very, very wise statement to me.

Jeff Iorg:

He said, I think we're confusing restoring a person to Christian fellowship with restoring a person to Christian leadership. They aren't the same things. And that's so wise. You extend complete forgiveness to someone and you say, we welcome you back into the fellowship of our church and we we hold on to you because you're our brother and we want to do the right thing with you. But we have no obligation to restore you to Christian leadership because in the doing of that, we would be violating boundaries and removing consequences that would have negative effect on the people that you're trying to minister to or that our church is trying to reach.

Jeff Iorg:

So forgiveness does lead to restoration,

Jeff Iorg:

but they're not necessarily the same thing, meaning that you're restored fully to everything you were ever doing before. When you forgive, it does not remove boundaries or negate consequences. Another example, I I was teaching on this once and when I finished the message, a woman came forward to talk to

Jeff Iorg:

me after the service. If you've been

Jeff Iorg:

preaching for a while, you know what I mean. This woman obviously was not happy with me. And I could tell by her body language and demeanor that she not only wanted to talk to me, but she had some things she needed to get off her chest in that conversation. Well, she made her way up to me and I said, how can I help you? And she said, and these were her exact

Jeff Iorg:

words, so you want me to forgive my brother? And I said, yes. She said, well, you don't even know what

Jeff Iorg:

my brother did and you still want me to forgive him. And I said, yes. If God has forgiven him, then I want you to forgive him. I said, what did your brother do? She said, my brother stole $300,000 from our parents.

Jeff Iorg:

And when I found out about it, I turned it over to

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law enforcement, they investigated. He was arrested, tried, and convicted,

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and he's in prison today. And I said, good. Well, that was like

Jeff Iorg:

a slap across the face. She stepped back and she said, what what do you mean good? You you just told me that you want me to forgive my brother. I said, I do. But I also want him to

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go to prison for what he did to your parents.

Jeff Iorg:

And then she finally asked me the first real question that wasn't motivated by her own anger. Her entire body language shifted and her tone of

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voice changed and she said, well then, what would forgiveness look like if I gave it to my brother? And I said, forgiveness would mean that you go visit him in prison and encourage him

Jeff Iorg:

while he goes through his incarceration.

Jeff Iorg:

Forgiveness means that you give up your right to revenge in the situation. Forgiveness means retribution is no longer on the agenda, that bitterness and anger and malice and getting even are not part of the equation, but it doesn't remove consequences or eliminate boundaries. It means that you're able to say to a person, I care about you. I wish the best for you. I'll help you as I can, but you gotta pay the consequences

Jeff Iorg:

of what you did. And when you get out of here, you're going to have boundaries and consequences the rest of your life because of what you did. Listen. These kind of pastoral situations are difficult, but I want you to hold intention these two realities. Number one, God's forgiveness

Jeff Iorg:

is overwhelmingly generous and available no matter what anyone has done. And on the other hand, that forgiveness does not eliminate the boundaries and consequences of our actions which may then mark our lives going forward. Now the beautiful thing about God is he has

Jeff Iorg:

a way of mitigating those boundaries and consequences and people can come back from so many things, but they don't come back without those things being lived through, managed well, and responded to appropriately. I'm thinking about another situation I had a few years ago where a young ministry leader found himself in a situation where he was failing morally and he admitted it openly. He repented of it heart wholeheartedly. He came and resigned and confessed and asked to be relieved of all responsibility and all recognition and all position. And the church leader said, we we're going to do that but we're also going to help you to do some things that will strengthen your family, that will turn you in that will that will shift you away from this immoral behavior, and that will focus you, in more healthy ways moving forward.

Jeff Iorg:

And they did that. But that did not include restoring him to his ministry position. It did include restoring him to the fellowship of the church and actually building a network of men around him that could help him to reestablish his life in some healthier ways and to move forward in much more productive ways. His response to all of that was gratitude and humility and a willingness to work with whatever consequences and whatever boundaries needed to be

Jeff Iorg:

put in place to help him move forward. I'm thinking about another person that had a ethical failure as a leader. It was about money. When confronted, he did not respond well. He tried to justify, tried to justify, tried to explain, tried to make it someone else's fault, wound up losing his job over it.

Jeff Iorg:

He was unwilling to admit what he did, and beyond that, unwilling to be a part of any corrective steps like taking additional steps of accountability for the money of the church that he served or being willing to put himself under the responsible leadership or direction of others in authority or being able to even have to get approval from other people before he spent certain amounts of money. He was

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unrepentant, unwilling to cooperate, and

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resisted any boundaries or negative consequences for his actions, and ultimately was terminated and is out of ministry because of that today.

Jeff Iorg:

Listen. If you're a ministry leader and you have people around you who will not respond appropriately to boundaries and consequences, that's often a good sign that their repentance is not genuine and forgiveness has not yet been fully experienced. Because

Jeff Iorg:

when it is, it produces a natural depth of humility and gratitude to God that makes us pliable and willing to cooperate with others in moving through the consequences and boundaries related to what we've done. And if you are a ministry leader today and you're listening to this podcast and you've made one of these kind of mistakes that cost you something, it cost you your privileges, it cost you your position, it cost you your opportunities, it it cost you your freedoms. And some group has said to you, you can be forgiven, but you also have to go through this process of learning to live with these boundaries or under these consequences. Cooperate with that. Recognize that that is not a sign that you've not been forgiven.

Jeff Iorg:

It's a sign that caring people want to make sure that your behavior really does change over time so that you become an asset, not a threat to the Christians that you're currently in fellowship with or even attempting to lead once again. You know, one of the beautiful things about getting a little older is I've now watched some people who've been in this process for a couple of decades. Restoration is beautiful. I know people who've been to prison that are now out living productive lives and those distant memories of their past are now really just a part of their old story. They're not a part of their daily existence or daily reality.

Jeff Iorg:

I know people who've come back from moral failure, people who've come back from all kind of marital conflict and discord, people who've come back from criminal activities and different kinds.

Jeff Iorg:

Look, if you repent and receive forgiveness from God and

Jeff Iorg:

it's real and people see it, they will give you forgiveness as well. But in the context of that happening, there are still going to be boundaries and consequences you have to deal with. And if you're a leader, you're still going to be responsible to uphold boundaries and consequences in the lives of forgiven people until there is the opportunity to demonstrate character, regain trust and establish new life patterns that really do validate the life change that God has produced. And brothers and sisters, this takes years in many cases, not months. And depending on the nature of what's occurred, it can take a long time but it's possible for that kind of restoration to take place.

Jeff Iorg:

Well, today on the podcast, we've been talking about the pastoral challenge of dealing with forgiven people and incorporating them into the life and ministry of our churches. And we've established these these two incredible principles. One, God's forgiveness is overwhelmingly generous and covers every kind of sin. And on the other hand, his forgiveness does not negate boundaries consequences and they're still a part of our lives and it's still appropriate for us to enforce them in the lives of forgiven people. These two principles are intention and yes, these two principles have to be worked together, but they are part of the pastoral responsibility you have of helping to restore people and help them find a productive way to move forward as part of the people of God.

Jeff Iorg:

It's hard work, but you can do it as you lead on. Hi.