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SOME IDEAS AND IMPACTS FROM READING THE FIRST QUARTER OF RESPECTABLE SINS

I recently flew to Detroit to be with my father during the funeral of his father. During the flight I read the Jerry Bridges book Respectable Sins. It is a great book written to help you battle the sins in your life that tend to go unnoticed.

It really centralizes its application around applying a Gospel relationship with Christ to your life and letting that relationship make you more Christ-like. One of the areas that I tend to (and I think a lot of us do) let go is that I let the sinfulness that still exists in me sit on the sideline like a basketball coach and control my life. The first 60 or so pages of this book have not only shown me this problem, but I think it has exposed from Scripture the tools to eliminate it. I started writing this, because I forgot a pen to highlight and didn’t want to lose my train of thought, but it has turned into a little blog, so I figured…why not? Post it. If you think it’s worth the read, feel free. If you think I’m totally off base, please tell me, if you’d rather ignore it…read and see.

Although I can tell this book is rich from page to page, there is a small section on pages 34 – 36 that really made an impact on me. I want to talk about those.

The summary of what I took out of this section is the answers to two questions:

1. As it relates to my sin do I view God as my Judge or my Gracious Father?
2. Am I my kids’ judge or their gracious father?

Let me set the stage with the sections of Jerry Bridges’ book that I think give a template to answer these questions:

On page 34 Jerry Bridges is talking about the remedy for Sin. He says that the Gospel is the remedy. He then goes on the “take a good look at the gospel”. He uses 3 aspects of the Gospel as they relate to sin. I want to focus on the 2nd one. It caught my attention and I think is a huge element in eliminating the respectable sins in our lives.

Jerry Bridges Quote from Respectable Sins on Pg 34:

Second, not only does the gospel prepare me to face my sin, it also frees me up to do so. Facing our sin causes us to feel guilty. Of course we feel guilty because we are guilty. And if I believe, consciously or unconsciously, that God still counts my guilt against me, my instinctive sense of self-protection forbids me to acknowledge my sin and guilt, or, at the least, I seek to minimize it. But we cannot begin to deal with a particular manifestation of sin, such as anger or self-pity, until we first openly acknowledge its presence and activity in our lives. So I need the assurance that my sin is forgiven before I can even acknowledge it, let alone begin to deal with it.

He goes on to say on the next page…

Why does God not count my sins against me? Because He has already charged it to Christ. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (53:6).

He later says:

The assurance that God no longer counts my sin against me does two things. First it assures me that God is for me, not against me (see Romans 8:31). I am not alone in this battle with sin. God is not watching me from His heavenly throne saying, “when are you going to get your act together? When are you going to deal with that sin?” Rather, He is, as it were, coming alongside me saying, “We are going to work on that sin, but meanwhile I want you to know that I no longer count it against you.” God is no longer my Judge; He is now my heavenly Father, who loves me with self-generated, infinite love, even in the face of my sin. That assurance greatly encourages me and motivates me to deal with the sin.

Further, this assurance…produces within me a strong sense of gratitude for what He has done and is presently doing for me through Christ.

The two fold effect of encouragement and gratitude together produce in us a desire to deal with our sin…although it is our duty to not sin, “Duty without desire produces drudgery”

Wow! This goes WAY beyond the concepts and deals with motivation. The whole reason I continue to sin is guilt. I will read a book (such as Respectable Sins) and will see sin after sin after sin in my own life. I know in my head that Christ has removed that sin, but battling it seems like an endless battle that isn’t worth fighting. I’ll start the book or the passage of Scripture or look at other believer’s convictions and say, “Yep, I’m doing that. Man I shouldn’t” but then stop at that. I’ll try to avoid Christ, because I feel guilty for my continuing to sin. I will ignore the loving one that has given me the tools to eliminate these sins. What a joy that this isn’t how I HAVE to live and we can combat this train of thought!

Is God Your Judge or Your Gracious Father?

Yes: He is my judge, but thankfully through His grace Christ died and He is now my Gracious Father.

How do I ensure that when I see my sin, I confess, acknowledge his judgment and grace, but use the relationship to let me move forward and eliminate the sin instead of feel guilty and ignore the Father?

He has given me His Word, he has given me the Holy Spirit and He has given me other believers who have struggled as I have. These three (and non can be ignored) can work concurrently. However, I think the key with me is my heart attitude towards my relationship with Him and my sin. I need to confess, but I cannot end it there. When I am tempted, I acknowledge Him and ask for His help. Jerry Bridges makes a point that so many of us limit our relationship with Christ to quiet times or specific occurrences of prayer / worship. How many of us are in constant prayer and communication with Him throughout the day? Probably not enough and I know that if I’m in sin, the last thing I want to do is pray.

Jesus referred to God the Father as Father throughout the Gospels. I think this is to emphasize the relationship we will have (and do have) with Him through Christ. If this is the case there is an important analogy here.

Let’s run with this analogy a little. If my son, let’s call him Jonathan, is getting frustrated with his younger brother, let’s call him Noah. I would never want him to deal with the situation alone. As their father, I do not want the frustration to escalate into anger, the anger to escalate into action, the action to escalate to pain and sorrow and so forth. I want him to come to me at the point of frustration and tell me that Noah is doing whatever it is and that he is about to become angry about it and would like me to step in and help him deal with the situation. Not as a point of tattling on his brother, but because he truly wants to respond correctly and knows that I, as his father, am capable of helping him through that and make the situation better. All of the sudden there is no reason for me as a parent to talk to him about his temper. He knows there is something wrong with it and is asking for my help to deal with it. I have gone from judge to gracious father providing the support needed to help him avoid sin.

That picture, when I saw it, blew my mind. We need to let God step in like this. We need to meditate on His word, so that when we ask for His help we can hear His words and we need to listen to the Holy Spirit when we’re walking into these situations, so that we can respond to it. And we need to utilize the believers around us to help us avoid the situations that would cause the sinful response. We need to let God step in when the sin is a frustrated thought to help us avoid it becoming more.

The remainder of the book Respectable Sins gives you incredible tools to do this is so many ways. The thing that we tend to miss in our lives, is that these so called respectable sins, like frustration, are a big deal, because sin grows like a weed. If we’re looking at God as our Judge then we will ignore the respectable sins. If God is our Gracious Father, than he is there to help us through those and is ALWAYS there to support us. Not sinning becomes fun because it is a chance to see God work with us throughout the day. Not sinning, or eliminating sins in our lives, stops being a burden, because we get to spend that time with the Father. What greater joy is there than this?!?!?!

This leads me to the second item that blew up in my face as I read this book.

Am I My Kids’ Judge or Their Gracious Father?

Yes if our kids are acting in a sinful manner we are required by Scripture to bring this to their attention. But if we are leaving it at this we will by all definitions “exasperate our children, so that they lose heart (Col 3:21)”. If God the Father left our battle with sin at judgment I’d be screwed, why would I do the same with my kids? And this is way too easy to do. Parents, think about the last 5 times that you corrected your children. If you are like me they went something like this:

Noah does something that is against the rules. I will immediately remove him from the situation, if we’re at home, it will include sending him to his room. Depending on the severity of the crime and the frequency that this crime has been committed as well as the response to correction I will vary the response when I sit down with him in his room. However, this time will always include time spent discussing the crime, discussing why it was wrong and talking about what he needs to do to correct this problem; typically the reconciliation includes an apology to his brother.

On the surface, this seems like a good process. I am ready for all of the accolades that I’m sure are crossing your mind at what a great parent I am. However, as I have realized, I am missing a couple of important steps.

My job as a parent is to:

1. Show my kids their need for a Savior
2. Show my kids the riches of a relationship with that Savior
3. Give them an opportunity to dedicate their lives to Him

If that is my job, than I believe being a judge is the only way I can show their need for a Savior. Parenting children to obedience should not be, to make my life more convenient (although it does). It should not be, because we want to be respectful to those around us (although we are). It should not be because we want others to think better of us (well maybe a little, but I’m working WITH God on that one). Look at the example above and tell me where in there do I show my kids a need for a Savior. I know that a lot of the time, I will talk about how God wants us to be obedient. How God wants us to follow him. But I am fundamentally teaching my kids a works based salvation. I need to have my discussion be more centered on what motivated his sin. I need to be talking to him, every time he sins, about how his sin is a cause of the fall. How the only way for him to not sin is with and through Christ. This leads me to the second point.

Although I’m not great at step one, I know that I try to follow step 1 in correction, step 2 in example and step 3 is ignored. How horrible my life would be if I only knew of my sinfulness and God only showed me a relationship by example without an opportunity to have one? (BTW: I’m listening to the new Death Cab for Cutie single and it is quite good…these guys are really growing as artists…I don’t know where that came from but anyway).

So how do we change as parents? The analogy I used earlier about Jonathan losing his temper is a great example of how to show the kids what a relationship with Christ is like (and we have to tell them this). We need to look for these situations and when we are the judge remind them that we can help them avoid these situations of anger or lying or whatever your kid is currently struggling with by walking through it with them ahead of time. This all starts with you making sure they know that your goal in parenting is not to make sure they are perfect, but to help them acknowledge their need for a Savior

This takes me to my last point. I don’t think I give my kids an opportunity to acknowledge Christ or ask Him for help. I know they can recite why they should obey, but I get so stuck on the convenience of having obedient children that I forget the ultimate goal in parenting. The times of correction, should be opportunities for your / my children to ask God to change them. We don’t need our kids to be saying confessions of faith (well actually, I would love that, but that’s not what I’m getting at). If I’m doing my job right, than my kids know that the only way for them to be obedient (without sin) is for God to change their hearts. If this is the case, aren’t we exasperating them by not giving them an opportunity to ask God to change their hearts every time they sin? Every correction needs to have a time of prayer, if not by them, by us. I want my kids to know that when they start seeing God work in their lives they have assurance that He saved them. I also, want them to know what it is like to have Him working in their lives, so they have a blueprint for what it means to be a Christian.

I hope this was as much an encouragement to you as writing has been to me. It really helps to put my thought on paper, because it lets me clarify the randomness that is my thoughts.