It’s overwhelming to count the number of Christian books focused on topics not explicitly biblical. Just on church leadership, the most popular books cover keys to increase attendance, tricks to design the best information cards, strategies to station greeters, and checklists for meeting the expectations of church visitors. However, it seems the greater challenge for the Church is excellence where the Bible is clear. Isn’t that what Mark Twain said?

Let me give you two examples.

When was the last time you confessed your sins to another Christian? That’s biblical (1 John 1:8-9). Or when was the last time you humbly received correction? That, too, is biblical (Heb. 3:12-13). Reformatting the information cards can wait.

Now, I’m not saying these two disciplines are easy or popular. They are not. It’s far more comfortable to circle the theological errors in other groups. And when it comes to popularity, publishers know a book on these topics would flop. Confession and correction rub the cat the wrong way. They are too painful to be popular.

Speaking of pain, have you ever stepped on a nail? I mean really stepped on one. Out of the blue, you’re walking along, minding your thoughts and then – silence! – you feel the odd sensation of the nail entering the bottom of your foot. Youch! (My foot just curled in reaction to writing that sentence.) The worse part is the expectation that someone now needs to pull the nail out. (Now my hands, both feet, jaw and forehead are all tense.) I think removing a nail is the most agonizing part of it all. But the nail must come out for healing to begin.

So it is with sin. Spiritual health demands sin be pulled out of our hearts. Despite the painfulness of confessing sin and receiving correction, this is the Christianity once for all delivered to the saints.

How we style the welcome cards is a matter of preference. Whether we confess sin and receive correction is a matter of faithfulness.

Our forefathers understood the depth of remaining sin. As you saw earlier today in the brilliant quote from Horatius Bonar, we may think we sail on a calm and sinless ‘wine dark’ sea. But it only takes an icy blast of trial to awaken the old man and churn the mud of sin – the idolatry, anger, self-centeredness – that remains in our heart. Puritan Richard Sibbes warns us too. Let Rome say she cannot err. But let us who know better be aware of our black hearts and proneness to sin.

The battle of mortification continues throughout our lives. Confessing sin and receiving correction is the appropriate awareness of our sinful condition. Because sin ever remains in our hearts, our confession of sin and openness to correction never ends.

So I invite you to join me this week as we conspire to boot that wicked old man overboard in our seafaring pursuit of holiness.