About this Series: “When God Calls It Sin” was originally a 5-week study I had lead in 2019 for an adult Sunday School class at my old church.

The outlines and lessons were based on Jerry Bridges’ book “Respectable Sins,” which I highly recommended for anyone serious about confronting the sins in their own hearts that are often overlooked.

For the blog, I am adapting my own notes and slides from the class and posting them almost verbatim. Since each class was an hour long, however, I will be dividing segments of each lesson into separate posts for easier reading.

Jump To:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Ungodliness || Unthankfulness || Anxiety || Frustration || Discontentment)
• Part 3 (Pride || Selfishness || Judgmentalism)
• Part 4 (Anger || Impatience & Irritability || Envy, Jealousy, & Related Sins)
• Part 5 (Sins of the Tongue || Wordliness)

Part 2 Segments:

1. Ungodliness
2. Unthankfulness
3. Anxiety
4. > Frustration & Discontentment

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Frustration

The sin of frustration is very closely related to anxiety and worry. Bridges defines frustration as “being upset or angry at whatever or whoever is blocking your plans.“

On a personal level, this is one of the besetting sins in my own life. As a fairly “techie” guy, I am accustomed to my devices behaving in a certain way, the way they were intended to behave. Click a button, something happens. Instantly. If I have to wait any longer than that, I tend to get annoyed.

Maybe YouTube videos take too long to buffer, my cell phone doesn’t have signal, or internet is unbearably slow. I am much more liable to give up in frustration than to simply wait patiently.

Instead of believing that God is sovereign even over my devices and internet connection, and that He has a good reason for causing things to behave unexpectedly, I allow frustration to take hold of my attitude.

I believe that frustration is rooted in my ungodliness because I am behaving as though God is not involved in my life or my circumstances. I tend to not think about God at all in those moments, but focus my attention instead on whatever is causing my frustration, or blocking my plans.

… all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalms 139:16 NIV

Now, that means that not only has the length of our lives been ordained ahead of time, but all the events and circumstances of each day, as well. God does not plan our lives on-the-fly; He is never caught by surprise.

Whatever trial we may be going through, there is comfort and encouragement in knowing that!

We have already looked at the role of the holy spirit in regards to our sanctification; we should understand that we are able to pray and ask that He would call us out of our frustration and point us to Scripture. Perhaps there is something we need to learn or pay attention to in those moments that try our patience.

There is nothing that happens in our lives that doesn’t ultimately come from God’s hand, whether we know the reason or not.

Job had plenty of seemingly-justifiable reasons to be frustrated with the events in his life. He had lost all of his wealth, his children were all killed, his wife abandoned him, etc. He questioned God’s purposes, but ultimately trusted in the Lord’s providence:

I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.

‘Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You make me know.’ I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.

Therefore I reject myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:2-6 LSB

As Job repented of his frustration, we must be willing to do likewise. Just because anxiety and frustration may seem reasonable at the time, they should never be more acceptable to us than murder or adultery. All sin is grievous to our Lord!

Discontentment

Many of the topics we have discussed already certainly apply to the sin of discontentment as well. After all, if we were godly and thankful for our possessions and blessings, and were not anxious or frustrated, we would certainly be content as well, yes?

However, whereas anxiety is fear over the future and frustration is usually the result of some immediate event that disrupts our plans, discontentment most often arises from ongoing and unchanging circumstances that we can do nothing about.

As a caveat to the topic, I should make it clear that we should, to some degree, be discontent with our spiritual growth and with the injustice and evil in the world. Not all discontentment is inherently evil. But for our discussion, we are looking at sinful discontentment that negatively affects our relationship with God.

The Bible does instruct us to be content in all situations. The Apostle Paul, even while in prison, was content!

Not that I speak from want, for I learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in abundance; in any and all things I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

Philippians 4:11-12 LSB

He knew what it was like to be wealthy and have many possessions. He also knew life as a poor, starving prisoner. And yet he says he had learned the “secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (ESV). And he tells us in the very next verse:

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Paul was not talking about personal achievements, sporting contests, or passing an exam. He had learned to be content, in Christ, in any and all circumstances!

What about your circumstances? Are you stuck in an unfulfilling job? Are you unable to have children? Is your marriage rocky or maybe you have reached middle-age and are still single?

Whatever situation we find ourselves in that causes us to be discontent, we need to recognize that it is a sin. Again, God is orchestrating everything.

Do you recall the video in a prior post by Todd Friel? Whatever situation you are in that is causing you to be discontent is the exact situation the Lord has placed you in, for a reason. We must remember that!

If all things are in his hand, if the very hairs of our heads are numbered; if every event, great and small, is under the direction of his providence and purpose; and if he has a wise, holy, and gracious end in view … then we have nothing to do but with patience and humility to follow as he leads, and cheerfully to expect a happy issue.

John Newton

Closing Questions

• If we tolerate anxiety, frustration, and/or discontentment, what other sins might often crop up?
• Do you think God sometimes allows us to face difficult, unchanging circumstances for reasons we may never know?

Suppose someone you love were to say to you ‘I don’t trust you. I don’t believe you love me and will care for me.’

What an affront that would be to you! Yet that is what we are saying to God through our anxiety.

Jerry Bridges, “Respectable Sins”

<< Previous: Anxiety | Next: COMING SOON >>

About this Series: “When God Calls It Sin” was originally a 5-week study I had lead in 2019 for an adult Sunday School class at my old church.

The outlines and lessons were based on Jerry Bridges’ book “Respectable Sins,” which I highly recommended for anyone serious about confronting the sins in their own hearts that are often overlooked.

For the blog, I am adapting my own notes and slides from the class and posting them almost verbatim. Since each class was an hour long, however, I will be dividing segments of each lesson into separate posts for easier reading.

Jump To:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Ungodliness || Unthankfulness || Anxiety || Frustration || Discontentment)
• Part 3 (Pride || Selfishness || Judgmentalism)
• Part 4 (Anger || Impatience & Irritability || Envy, Jealousy, & Related Sins)
• Part 5 (Sins of the Tongue || Wordliness)

Part 2 Segments:

1. Ungodliness
2. Unthankfulness
3. > Anxiety
4. Frustration & Discontentment

---

Anxiety

Other than love and humility, the character trait of anxiety is talked about more than any other in the New Testament and can often be referred to as “worry” or “fear.”

Whereas you or I may attempt to encourage someone by saying “don’t be afraid,” when the Bible says “do not be anxious,” it has the force behind it of a moral command. It is the moral will of God that we not be anxious. Or, to put it quite bluntly: anxiety, in general, is a sin.

It is sinful for a couple of reasons. First of which is the fact that anxiety is the polar opposite of trust in God.

In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches that our heavenly Father takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. If He cares for their needs, will He not much more take care of our own temporal needs?

In 1 Peter 5:5, the apostle reminds us that God is opposed to the prideful, but gives grace to the humble. And it is with that humility in mind that he goes on to instruct us on our anxiety:

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, CASTING ALL YOUR ANXIETY ON HIM, because He cares for you.

1 Peter 5:6-7 LSB

Not only does he tell us to cast our anxiety on God, he also tells us how (by humbling ourselves and recognizing God’s “mighty hand“) and why we can and should do so (“because He cares for [us]“).

When we give in to our anxiety, we are, in essence, believing that God does not truly care about us or is not mighty enough to take care of whatever circumstance over which we may be anxious.

There is another reason that anxiety should be seen as sinful, and the doctrine of God’s sovereignty guides us to it.

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Several years ago, during our 4th of July celebration, my youngest niece (about 3 years old) was playing a little too hard and hit her head, causing her to briefly lose consciousness. Her mother, my sister, was understandably panicked as she announced she was rushing her to the hospital.

The first reaction of my whole family, myself included, was one of panic and worry and doubt. We were all anxious (and praying) as we waited for word from my sister. Eventually, my niece turned out to have suffered no major injury and was home shortly.

Now, at the time, our worrying seemed like a perfectly normal and acceptable human response to the events that took place. After all, it did cause us all to turn to the Lord in prayer!

But in retrospect, I have to wonder if our worry and doubt wasn’t rooted in a sinful lack of trust in the Lord’s sovereignty and providence. We were failing to remember that the Lord was in control and orchestrating even this event for His glory and for our good.

This does not mean that God has promised things will always turn out well as long as we have enough faith. That teaching is wholly unbiblical.

This is also not to say that we should not react swiftly and urgently during a medical emergency. But we should not be anxious or filled with worry! Even if and when things do take a turn for the worse, we need to remember that it was still God’s doing; it was still His will and it would have been worked out for His glory and our ultimate good.

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In that example, we see how anxiety can so easily become one of our “acceptable” sins: at times it can seem like such a reasonable and understandable response to a particular situation.

But what seems reasonable to us can still be sinful, and often is, and the Bible never speaks of anxiety in any other terms; anxiety is never taught to be reasonable or acceptable.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares Yahweh.

Isaiah 55:8 LSB

Side Note: I understand that there may be some medical or mental conditions that are beyond our control, and sometimes those conditions could lead to sinful thoughts and behaviors. I honestly do not have an answer for how God view those situations (ie: bipolar disorder or clinical depression); my knowledge on the subject is limited to what Scripture says about what is and is not sin.

There have doubtless been many studies on the subject of anxiety disorders, medication side effects, and the like. Unfortunately, we do not have time to delve deeper into those here.

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Another very common way that anxiety can appear is when we consider the future. Where should I go to college? Will I pass my exam? What will happen to my kids if I should die?

Or maybe it’s more of a current situation. Did I marry the right person? Am I working where God wants me?

With that, we are going to watch a clip from an episode of Wretched TV that deals with making Godly decisions about your life. God does care about the big decisions and life choices we must make, so how do we know what God’s will is?

In this clip, pay attention to the theology of providence that Todd Friel presents; it just may be the antidote to your worry and anxiety.

The video is obviously more specific to the “life decision” topic than to that of anxiety, but the host makes an important point that wherever you are in life, whatever you are going through, is God’s will and a part of His ultimate plan.

So rest in that and be anxious for nothing!

<< Previous: Unthankfulness | Next: Frustration & Discontentment >>

About this Series: “When God Calls It Sin” was originally a 5-week study I had lead in 2019 for an adult Sunday School class at my old church.

The outlines and lessons were based on Jerry Bridges’ book “Respectable Sins,” which I highly recommended for anyone serious about confronting the sins in their own hearts that are often overlooked.

For the blog, I am adapting my own notes and slides from the class and posting them almost verbatim. Since each class was an hour long, however, I will be dividing segments of each lesson into separate posts for easier reading.

Jump To:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Ungodliness || Unthankfulness || Anxiety || Frustration || Discontentment)
• Part 3 (Pride || Selfishness || Judgmentalism)
• Part 4 (Anger || Impatience & Irritability || Envy, Jealousy, & Related Sins)
• Part 5 (Sins of the Tongue || Wordliness)

Part 2 Segments:

1. Ungodliness
2. > Unthankfulness
3. Anxiety
4. Frustration & Discontentment

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Unthankfulness

Unthankfulness is one sinful attitude that comes out of an ungodly heart. Everything that we are and have is a gift from God. When we fail to thank God for His blessings of salvation, deliverance from spiritual darkness, and the gift of life itself, we are not merely being forgetful; we are being sinful.

Read this brief passage from the Gospel of Luke:

And it happened that while He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing through Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him. And they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And it happened that as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they? Was there no one found who turned back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?”

Luke 17:11-18 LSB

When you read that passage, do you wonder how those other nine men could have been so ungrateful? Leprosy was a horrible disease that left these men outcast from society, targets of scorn and banishment, not to mention their physical suffering.

Jesus cleansed them all and sent them to the priests to present themselves cleansed, allowing them to once again be welcomes in the Jewish community. Yet nine of them could not even be bothered to turn back and offer a single word of gratitude.

We are all too often guilty of that same sin of unthankfulness!

Do you remember the spiritual state you were in prior to your salvation? Our condition was far worse than that of leprosy. We were dead! Slaves to the world, children of the devil, and objects of God’s wrath.

But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-7 LSB

How often do we stop to consider the magnitude of that truth? Christ pulled us out of the grave and made us alive! We were enslaved to our own worldly desires, but God moved us from death to life!

Shouldn’t that alone cause us to be in a constant state of euphoric thankfulness? Have you stopped today to give thanks to God for delivering you from sin, death, and hell?

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:20 that we are to be “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.” I am sure that I am not the only here that gets a little miffed when I am not thanked for holding a door open for someone.

Have you thanked the Lord for that last breath of oxygen He so graciously provided for you? After all, it is God Himself who “gives to all people life and breath and all things!” (Acts 17:25)

At the end of your workday, do you ever stop to thank the Lord for giving you the skill, ability, and health to accomplish that day’s work? Do you ever walk through your house, looking at all the possessions He’s provided and thank God for the food in your cupboard, the car in your driveway, your furniture, or your indoor plumbing?

It is so easy, especially in our culture of abundance, to take for granted all the provisions and blessings that God has so freely given us. And that is why we can so easily see unthankfulness as an “acceptable” sin; or worse, we do not think it to be a sin at all!

But the Apostle Paul did. In Romans 1, Paul provides a vivid description of how a pagan culture spins into abject depravity and wickedness, and it all starts with our first two “acceptable” sins of ungodliness and unthankfulness:

For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Romans 1:21 LSB (emphasis added)

So, again, what we may see as a small sin, God takes very seriously. It was because of their ungodliness and unthankfulness that God gave them over to their sinful lusts (Romans 1:24).

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Now, not only are we to give thanks for everything, we are also to give thanks always. Give thanks in all circumstances, whether good or bad!

What about when things do not go as planned? Well, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28a), and if you read the rest of that passage, you learn that the “good” in view is our being conformed to the image of Christ.

That is the good that God is working us towards. So, “all things,” even our trials, are opportunities to express our gratitude. God is doing something in our trials that will help lead us to greater godliness and becoming more like His Son. It is not for us to understand how or why He is using our pain for good, but to trust that He is and we can be thankful for that.

So we give thanks, not just with empty words, but with genuine faith in God’s promises. He has promised to work all things for good and we must believe that!

In the book, Brides offers this helpful prayer that we might offer God in the midst of difficult situations:

Father, the circumstance I am in now is difficult and painful. I would not have chosen it, but You in Your love and wisdom chose it for me. You intend it for my good, and so by faith I thank You for the good You are going to do in my life through it. Help me to genuinely believe this and be able to thank You from my heart.

Jerry Bridges, “Respectable Sins”

Questions

• What are some blessings God has given you?
• Was there ever a challenging time in your life when you were, or were not, able to give thanks? What did God teach you through that experience?

<< Previous: Ungodliness | Next: Anxiety >>

About this Series: “When God Calls It Sin” was originally a 5-week study I had lead in 2019 for an adult Sunday School class at my old church.

The outlines and lessons were based on Jerry Bridges’ book “Respectable Sins,” which I highly recommended for anyone serious about confronting the sins in their own hearts that are often overlooked.

For the blog, I am adapting my own notes and slides from the class and posting them almost verbatim. Since each class was an hour long, however, I will be dividing segments of each lesson into separate posts for easier reading.

Jump To:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Ungodliness || Unthankfulness || Anxiety || Frustration || Discontentment)
• Part 3 (Pride || Selfishness || Judgmentalism)
• Part 4 (Anger || Impatience & Irritability || Envy, Jealousy, & Related Sins)
• Part 5 (Sins of the Tongue || Wordliness)

Part 2 Segments:

1. > Ungodliness
2. Unthankfulness
3. Anxiety
4. Frustration & Discontentment

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Ungodliness

The first of the “respectable” sins we are going to look at today is the sin of ungodliness. Let us begin by looking at two key passages of Scripture to set the framework for what follows:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age

Titus 2:11-12 LSB

Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Ephesians 5:18b-21 LSB

The first thing to understand about ungodliness, I believe, is that it truly is the root of all other sins. Even more so than pride, because a godly person will not be prideful.

All of us, to some degree, are ungodly. You can be a nice, respectable citizen and still be an ungodly person; ungodliness simply describes an attitude we might have toward God.

Jerry Bridges defines “ungodliness” in a very helpful way: “Living one’s life with little or no thought of God, or of God’s will, or of God’s glory, or of one’s dependence upon God.“

We go through our daily lives, seemingly unaware that we are always in the presence of an all-seeing, all-hearing God; and he desires to have an intimate relationship with us. Godliness is that intimate relationship.

How much of your life do you live without any regard for God? It may not always be that we deliberately put God out of minds consciously. Instead, we tend to ignore Him and He rarely occupies our thoughts.

In the book, Bridges offers up a story of two young men in his town that decided to camp out in fron of an electronics store all night, in the middle of winter, in hopes of being one of the first to buy a new video game system. They had arrived at the store at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, waiting for the store to open the following morning.

Would any of us have such zeal for godliness? Are we that passionate about our pursuit of God as those boys were for their toys?

The goal of pursuing godliness is simply to grow more and more conscious and aware that every moment of our lives is lived out in God’s presence. That should be a goal of every Christian man, woman, and child.

In 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul writes that “whether, then, [we] eat or drink or whatever [we] do, do all to the glory of God.” That is the mark of a godly person: we drive, we shop, we eat, we drink, etc… all with the goal of bringing glory to God!

It is important to note here that simply living a moral life or regularly attending church services is no indication of your godliness. If God is seldom in your thoughts, then you are an ungodly person.

That is a radical statement, to be sure, but the Apostle Paul agrees:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.

Romans 8:5-8 LSB

Paul clearly explains the danger of the sin of ungodliness: You can not please God by setting your minds on worldly things!

So please ask yourself how much of your life is lived with little or no thought of God.

When you get together with other believers, outside of church, how often do you talk about God? Or about what Jesus has done for you?

Do your normal conversations ever stray away from sports or current events or your own families to talk about God? Do you ever delight in just talking about the Lord with your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you ever greet one another with hymns or songs of praise? Do you genuinely desire to worship with others any day of the week besides Sundays?

It is human nature to let our passions dominate our conversations and it is natural to want to talk about the things that we love and share them with others. If you love sports, you will talk about sports. If you love (or hate) politics, you will talk about politics.

But again we must ask the question: how often does Christ dominate your conversations outside of church?

Obviously, I am not arguing that 100% of our time needs to be spent on our knees in prayer and worship; God does grant us liberty to enjoy other activities as well. We also need to work for a living.

But we cannot think of God as a Sunday topic or a church topic. If He is not the root of all that you do, then you are, at least in part, guilty of the sin of ungodliness.

What Does Godliness Look Like?

We now have a definition of what ungodliness is and how it manifests in our lives and hearts. But what does it look like to live a godly life? If we are living our lives with a constant awareness that God is watching, how might our behavior change? Here are just a few practical examples:

• Treat the waitress or cashier with love.
• Be patient and kind to the customer support representatives on the phone.
• Avoid watching movies and TV shows, or reading books, that contain content that God clearly hates (we will return to this subject in part 5)
• Forgive the driver that cuts you off in traffic.

Or, as one of my favorite verses says, we can live a godly life by “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5 KJV)

In other words, we need to train ourselves to catch each thought and compare it with Scripture. It is not easy to think about thought before we think it, but that is what Paul has in mind here. As we live out our day-to-day, we must be conscious of each thought we entertain; ponder the ramifications of those thoughts as they relate to our obedience to Christ Jesus.

I am sure we all remember that old cliché: “What Would Jesus Do?” I believe a better question to ask ourselves is “What Would Jesus Think?” Sin begins in the heart, which drives our thinking, long before our actions reveal that thinking.

How would Jesus feel about my decision here? What would Jesus say to me about my current thought process? Would He approve of how I just reacted? Would Jesus watch this show with me? I hope you get the picture!

Before we wrap up with ungodliness and get to some questions, I would like us to watch this video as Paul Washer talks about holiness in the Church. Since holiness (or godliness) is the opposite of ungodliness, this should serve as a good reminder of how we should look.

Questions

• Do you think the world has a legitimate claim that many professing Christians are hypocrites?
• Have you ever gone through your daily activities without ever thinking about God? Do you think it had an impact on your life or those around you?
• 1 Timothy 4:7 tells us that we are to “train [ourselves] for the purpose of godliness.” What are some practical things we can do each day to train ourselves?

Next: Unthankfulness >>

About this Series: “When God Calls It Sin” was originally a 5-week study I had lead in 2019 for an adult Sunday School class at my old church.

The outlines and lessons were based on Jerry Bridges’ book “Respectable Sins,” which I highly recommended for anyone serious about confronting the sins in their own hearts that are often overlooked.

For the blog, I am adapting my own notes and slides from the class and posting them almost verbatim. Since each class was an hour long, however, I will be dividing segments of each lesson into separate posts for easier reading.

Jump To:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Ungodliness || Unthankfulness || Anxiety || Frustration || Discontentment)
• Part 3 (Pride || Selfishness || Judgmentalism)
• Part 4 (Anger || Impatience & Irritability || Envy, Jealousy, & Related Sins)
• Part 5 (Sins of the Tongue || Wordliness)

Part 1 Segments:

1. Ordinary Saints
2. The Disappearance of Sin
3. The Malignancy of Sin
4. > The Remedy of Sin
5. The Power of the Holy Spirit / Conclusion

The Remedy of Sin

That is, after all, what the Apostle Paul did. Perhaps there has never been anyone more aware of their own sinfulness than Paul, the man many theologians believe to have been the holiest man that ever lived, apart from Christ Himself.

If you examine Paul’s writing, you see that from the time he was first called by Christ on the road to Damascus until his final letter, his self-awareness only seems to increase.

Paul described himself first as “the least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:9), then “the very least of all saints” (Ephesians 3:8), and finally as the “foremost” of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)! In other words, Paul first considered himself the lowest apostle, then the worst Christian, and then even the greatest sinner in the world!

While Christians should continually be sinning less as the Spirit works in their hearts, a strange reality starts to form: we begin to feel more and more sinful, as Paul did. And I believe that is an important, albeit unpleasant aspect of our sanctification. Why should we sometimes feel more sinful as we mature in our walk with Christ?

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A Lame Analogy

All analogies eventually break down, but perhaps this may be helpful to understand this odd situation.

And that is what the Holy Spirit does in the believer’s life through sanctification. He shines the light of Christ’s righteousness on our sinful flesh, illuminating the shadows in which we have hidden our own sinful desires. So the issue is not necessarily that we are sinning more as we grow in holiness, but that we become more aware of just how sinful we truly are!

So, what is the remedy? How do we overcome? In a word: the Gospel. And by “Gospel,” I mean the entire work of Christ in both His historical life, death, and resurrection, and His current work in us through the Holy Spirit.

Before we continue today’s discussion further, we need to take a step back and review exactly what the gospel is. Whether you know it already or not, it is important to our discussion. We cannot truly understand our sin without first understanding the gospel.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 1:18 LSB

All of this talk about sin and righteousness will mean nothing to you until you first understand the good news of the Gospel.

What Is the Gospel? (a brief review)

God created us in His image, to be His representatives on Earth. As such, He gave us laws to obey, both written in our consciences and in His Word.

If you have ever lied, stolen, cheated, blasphemed God, or looked at another person with lust, you are guilty of breaking God’s law. There is not a single person reading this, or anywhere on Earth, that can honestly say they have not. (see Exodus 20:1-17)

We have all willfully rebelled against the Lord and chosen to live our lives our own way. By doing so, we have forced a separation between ourselves and our Creator.

And that is bad news, for God is a good and just judge and He cannot simply let lawbreakers go unpunished. If He simply overlooked our sin and let us go free, He would be a very corrupt judge.

Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” More specifically, the penalty for our sin is eternal death in a spiritual prison that God created; a prison which He calls hell. Hell is a severe punishment, a place of never-ending torment where the flaming wrath of God is poured out upon sinners for their lawlessness. And it goes on forever; there is no escape once that sentence has been handed down to you.

But if God is so loving and kind, why is the punishment so severe and so long-lasting?

One way of answering that is to say that the punishment needs to be proportionate to the one against whom the crime has been committed.

Another analogy I heard once that I found helpful is to look at our own Earthly justice system. We can get a sense of why the victim of our crime affects the punishment:

1. If you lie to a child, so what. Nothing is going to happen to you.
2. If you lie to your spouse, you may have to sleep on the couch.
3. If you lie to the police, you could be arrested.
4. If you lie to the judge, you could go to prison.
5. If you lie to a king, you could be put to death.

Notice that it is the same crime in these scenarios: lying. But the penalty depends on whom you have lied to. When we sin, we are committing high treason against the Almighty Creator of the universe, the highest, holiest, and most powerful being in all eternity.

We sin against an infinitely good God and the punishment is likewise infinitely horrible. But God, being rich in mercy and love, provided a way for us to be forgiven and reconciled back into a right relationship with Him.

God sent His son, Jesus, to live a perfect, obedient, and sinless life on our behalf. He was tried by sinful men and executed on a cross, where God the Father poured out the full cup of His wrath and holy hatred of sin onto Jesus.

God calls each and every one of us to repent (that is, turn away from our sins) and put our faith in Jesus Christ; every sin you and I have ever committed gets laid upon Jesus. He takes our punishment and our sin onto Himself. Our debt gets transferred to Jesus “account,” so-to-speak, and our debt is reckoned as being paid in full.

That is fantastic news!

But that is only one half of Christ’s work on the cross! Not only did He take on all of our evil, He also imputed (or gave) to us His righteousness, His perfect obedience! And when He rose Himself from the grave three days later, He proved forever that the Father had accepted that payment.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:21 LSB

So, God’s requirement for justice is satisfied: our sin has been dealt with and we are now seen by God as having perfectly fulfilled His will, just as Christ did!

We are no longer guilty in God’s courtroom and when we die, we can approach the throne with confidence, knowing that Jesus Christ has satisfied God’s wrath and we can enter into heaven and enjoy the Lord for all of eternity!

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1 LSB

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We need to preach this Gospel message to ourselves daily, for its message is not only for unbelievers. The Gospel is necessary for all who sin, including those who have been saved: we must remember what we have been saved from! It may be foolishness to the prideful and lost, but for the believer it is our “blessed hope” and it is the very power of God at work in our lives!

But, we still have the question: as Christians, how can we go about growing in holiness and destroying our sin?

It just so happens that the Bible tells us of one very real person that was able to resist every kind of temptation His entire life: Jesus Christ Himself. Christ never sinned. He never lusted. He never lied or coveted. Not once. Not ever!

But, he was tempted! Let us look at just one of these occasions:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

Matthew 4:1-4 LSB

You and I can follow His example. You may say “well, He was only able to resist the temptation because He was God!” And to that, I would say “eh, yes and no.”

It is absolutely true that Jesus is God, but look at what the Word says: He was led up by the Spirit and He was full of the Spirit. Jesus was able to resist every temptation and never sin, because was under the control of, and in complete submission to, the Holy Spirit.

So, while only God Himself could have such a perfect relationship with the Spirit, only a man could serve as our representative and take our place in judgment before God the Father. Therefore, yes, Jesus is God, but He is also a man.

Have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 LSB

So, now you can see that Jesus, as a human man, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, was completely obedient to the Father’s will, to the point of death.

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