Accept the Bad to Accept the Good

I want to take some time to talk about something nooooo one wants to talk about (especially in the Church). And I’ll give you a little hint: it starts with ‘S’ and ends with ‘in.’ Okay now hang in here with me…because this is important stuff. I’m just here to share what I have learned about sin through reading Scripture, how I have dealt with sin in my own life, and some other important aspects of it that the Church often neglects. No need to squirm or click on the ‘X’ in the upper corner of your screen. Just hang with me and learn with me!

I’ll be the first to admit…I really dislike this subject too. It’s uncomfortable, never easy to discuss with close friends and family, and it really just makes you feel like you are sitting in a pressure cooker, waiting to explode. But sin is so incredibly important to discuss. “We have to accept the bad news in order to accept the good news.” In other words, we have to be aware of our sin and accept that we are sinful in order to accept Jesus’ love, mercy, and grace towards us! There cannot be salvation if we are not saved from something in the first place! The Bible talks about sin probably more than any other subject (I don’t know that for sure, but from all the reading I have done, I’d warrant it’s a pretty dang good guess). Why? It’s not to drag us down, but to lift us up. We must first be able to recognize sin in our own lives and confront it in order to realized just how amazing our Savior is! Without seeing how broken and burdened we are, we will never be able to truly accept Jesus’ sacrificial gift! We deserved HELL for our sin and He took on that punishment all on Himself so we wouldn’t have to. Lemme say it louder for those in the back: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT SIN.

Let’s first start with how we recognize sin in ourselves. We know from Scripture and personal experience that sin is a burden. It is a burden to ourselves and to others. Sin is ultimately what separates every single person from God. For unbelievers, those who have not accepted Jesus’ gift of eternal salvation, sin is exactly what keeps them from God forever. These individuals have not surrendered their sinful lives over to the One perfect Being who can wipe their record completely clean. For believers, those who belong to Jesus and have trusted Him with their lives, sin is a life-long battle between the “old self” and the “new self.” It is what keeps these individuals from experiencing life-giving fellowship with Christ and continued growth to be more like Him! No matter what way you slice it, sin is a rejection of God’s gift to us humans. To choose a life of unrepentant, continuous sin, is to NOT choose God’s ways. Sin leads to death. Repentance leads to life. And for the Church (the body/community of Jesus-followers), habitual, continual, truly-unrepentant sin is extremely dangerous.

This is why it is so important to discuss this! We live in a society where a thing I like to call “cultural Christianity” exists. It is a religion, for lack of a better word, that may believe that Jesus was a real person and that He died on the cross out of love, but it neglects the foundational pillar of sin in the Gospel message. Cultural Christianity screams, “GOD IS LOVE!” yet fails to also shout that God hates sin. Our culture today cringes at the word “judgment,” rails against any mention of “sin,” and runs in the opposite direction of anyone who even starts to bring up the fact that we are in desperate need of forgiveness. People, this is even happening in our churches!! We cannot let this continue. If we are true followers of Jesus, we need to recognize sin in ourselves, mend our relationships through repentance and confession of those sins, strive to live pleasing lives, and be able to lovingly hold our fellow believers accountable. This is why I am writing today. And this is what we are going to dive into.

Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

This is one of my favorites chapters in the entire Bible. This is a Psalm of King David. He ends this writing by asking God to reveal his sin to him. Whoah. Do we EVER do this? Do we actually ask God to point out our flaws, mistakes, failures, and transgressions? We should. Take this as example 1 in “How to Recognize Your Own Sin 101.” We need to pray that the Lord will reveal sin in our lives! We need to ask Him to point out things in our lives that offend Him. We need to beg Him to show us how we have done wrong. But why?? Take a look at Romans 12:1-2.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We need to ask God to reveal our sin because our lives are a sacrifice to Him. Offering our lives to Jesus is how we are a “living sacrifice.” THIS is worship! You ever wonder how to worship God? Live a life that is pleasing to Him, obedient to His perfect ways! We need to know what sins we struggle with in order to lay them out before God, confessing how wrong we are, and then living differently, because THAT is WORSHIP. Wow. It is important to note, however, that “cleaning ourselves up” is not what makes us right with God. Our works do not save us. God saves us graciously. However, after we are saved, our choices in life are what become worship. Walking in love is like a fragrant aroma to Him.

I’ve talked a lot about confession and repentance. Let’s dive into that next. I am not a Catholic, so if you are thinking along those lines for confession, NOPE! Not even close. As a sidenote, Catholic confession must involve a priest, an intermediary, if you will. The Bible does talk about the High Priest, who is Jesus. Jesus is our intermediary. We don’t need to go to a booth to talk to someone about our sin. We can go directly to our Father in Heaven to discuss our sin. We don’t need anyone here on earth to do so. The Bible is very, very clear on that! (See all of Hebrews if you are interested in learning more) ANYWHO. True, biblical confession is so very important. Jesus teaches confession in the Lord’s Prayer, as well as teaching about forgiveness numerous other places in the Gospels. My favorite Scripture dealing with confessing sin is Psalm 51. This is a perfect, biblical example of how to confess sin and honestly, it is my own go-to. The author of this chapter, King David again, had just slept with a woman and had her husband killed. He was an adulterer and a murderer. Then, a prophet named Nathan (a friend of David’s) went to him to call him out on his horrible sins. King David wrote this Psalm in the aftermath of his conversation with Nathan.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You [God], You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” -Psalm 51:1-12

Whoah. Let’s unpack. David tells God how sinful he is and how he has wronged the Lord. David then asks God to wash him, purge him, and clean him from his sin, meaning, David recognizes how harmful sin is. David then reminds himself that God DELIGHTS in “truth in the inward being,” meaning, God delights when we are honest and humble and can admit when we are wrong. God teaches us right and wrong and He wants us to own it when we are wrong! Then comes my favorite verses…the greatest verses of confession in all of Scripture, in my opinon: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. David is asking for a clean heart and a right mindset. He is asking to remain in life-giving fellowship with God. He is asking to be reminded of how joyous it is to be saved from sin! He is asking for God’s willingness to help hold him up when he stumbles and fails. THAT, ladies and gents, is true confession of sin. 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sin, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God will never withhold forgiveness if we ask for it. Remember, our repentance must be true, full of humility, and full of thankfulness for His grace! This is worshipful to our Heavenly Father, the King of Kings.

Now that we have talked about recognizing sin and dealing with it in ourselves, we come to the tricky, even more controversial “sin topic:” Recognizing Sin in Others. You may be thinking, “But I thought we aren’t supposed to judge???” You are partially right. Let’s head back to God’s Word to clarify. Recognizing sin in others is important for spiritual accountability among believers and friends. And spiritual accountability is “judging,” in a sense. Think about this: we judge all the time. If you can think of someone in your life that needs Jesus and you go to share the Gospel with them, you are essentially judging them. You are judging their need for salvation, based off of prior knowledge, conversations, etc. Let’s look at it even more simply. You see a picture on the news of a little boy in a foreign country whose ribs are poking out, whose eyes are jaundiced, and who can barely walk by himself out of fatigue. You would probably judge him too. You would most likely judge that he needs a good meal. The difference in the judging many assume the Bible is talking about, is we, as Christians, are meant to DISCERN (judge)…not CONDEMN (judge). We don’t determine who goes to hell and who goes to Heaven…that is God’s role. What we are commanded to do, though, is righteously judge. Righteous judgment is loving and discerning and it is done by a biblical model! Let’s look at Matthew 7:1-5, one of the most misused passages on this topic in the Bible.

“Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.“

Check out that bolded section. If you can read, you can see that righteous judgment is a command of Jesus. HOWEVER, it must not be hypocritical or self-righteous! We have to examine ourselves and confess the sin in our own lives (remember everything we just discussed?) before we lovingly and carefully call out the sin that we see in our fellow Christians. Let’s look at another, more specific, example of this in Scripture.

“I [Paul] wrote to you in my [previous] letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” -1 Corinthians 5:9-13

The Apostle Paul is writing some pretty hefty stuff here. He is writing to a church that wasn’t just struggling with sin, they were full-on welcoming it with open arms. Paul is explaining here that it is pointless to avoid unbelievers who sin (like we all do) because to do that, you’d have to stop living on this planet. It’s just not gonna happen. However, Paul does warn them…the people that you really should be cautious of and worried about are those who “bear the name of brother” (someone who claims to be a Christian) who sins continuously and unrepentantly. Paul basically says, “It’s not my job to judge people who don’t love Jesus. God will take care of them someday. I should really be calling out my brothers and sisters in the Lord if they are sinning! We can’t tolerate rampant sin in the church!”

Another example of righteous judgment and recognizing sin in others comes in Galatians 2:11-14.

“But when Cephas [Peter the disciple] came to Antioch, I [Paul] opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party [the Jews]. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Paul and Peter were two of the greatest apostles, writers, and teachers (besides Jesus) in the history of the Church. They are the founders. Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers when He walked the earth. Paul wrote most of the New Testament and was converted miraculously by Jesus Himself. These were both incredible believers, and yet, Paul had to call Peter out on his crap, er, sin. Peter was acting hypocritically and not living out the truth of the Gospel. He was trying to add to it by imposing tradition on believers. Paul had to confront him and show him how he was wrong! You can see in these many examples, how important it is for us as believers to call each other out (lovingly, of course)! The truth of the Gospel depends on it and the integrity of our personal relationship with the Lord. If you see a friend doing something harmful, wouldn’t you try to get them to stop? You should. Even when it is difficult.

Sin is a literal life-and-death situation, for ourselves, and for every person on this earth. We are commanded to confess our sin to Jesus and to provoke each other to good works! Let us hold tight to the grace and forgiveness we have in Jesus and push each of our fellow believers to enjoy the same.