You have perhaps heard the old saying that the church is not a rest home for saints, but rather a hospital for sinners. Like everything else that is true, we must guard against holding this truism falsely.
We are the covenant people of God, and we should want to live faithfully before Him over the course of generations. This is covenantal succession, but those of you who have grown up in the blessing of faithful covenant homes need to take constant care against the folly of thinking that the necessary cultural standards that develop from this are the same thing as the righteousness that enables you to stand before God. You stand before Him on exactly the same footing as someone who has just been converted, and has the most lurid testimony imaginable. We are, all of us, clothed in Jesus Christ.
In other words, we know we are all sinners because the Bible tells us that we are. We are not sinners because we have done something embarrassing in our circles—even if those circles happen to be Christian and scriptural. Embarrassment is not conviction of sin, and conviction of sin is not necessarily embarrassed.
Some take the hospital view because they want to go to church, intending never to recover. Some take the rest home view because they think they have never had a problem to begin with. What this actually shows us is that no one illustration can ever really encompass what the Church actually is. We are an army, a city, a household, a priesthood, a nation. And yes, we are a hospital also. And a rest home. And a nursery. And an inn. And a greenhouse. And an orchard. And countless other things.
This is the way it has to be because the Church is a new city, a new heaven and earth. The Church is the new world, and worlds always encompass everything in them.