CHAPTER 4

Calling Sin Sin and Learning to Forgive

The day started out like a scene from The Sound of Music. We had spent the morning in American Basin, an 11,600-foot-high alpine paradise nestled in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The meadow was full of midsummer wildflowers, just as we had hoped. I half expected Fräulein Maria to appear with a quick chorus of “The hills are alive . . .” as we wound along the trail. Columbine, elephant flower, Indian paintbrush, harebell —it looked like a rainbow had exploded on the valley floor, the color interrupted only by a bubbling mountain stream that meandered through the foliage. Yeah, it was pretty sweet.

But as we drove back down the windy, rocky dirt road toward camp, disaster threatened an otherwise-perfect day.

As we bumped along, we came to a narrow, single-track section of road that perched precariously over a very steep, very long drop into a canyon. And wouldn’t you know, a truck was on its way up just as we were on our way down. We were at an impasse. So after conversing with the truck driver, I began to walk up the hill to let the other drivers behind us know that we’d all have to back up until we could find a turnout to let the truck pass. The first vehicle I came to was a blue SUV.

After I explained the situation to the driver, she began backing up, only she was so miffed at the truck’s driver for making us reverse that she didn’t notice that her wheels were turned the wrong direction. Instead of backing up the hill, she was backing off the cliff. As her tires started going over, I ran to her window.

“Ma’am, you need to get out of your car . . . right now.” My voice was calm but firm.

“No, I can do this,” she insisted. But as she tried to back away from the edge of the sheer drop, her tires slipped even further off the dirt road. Time to panic yet? I reached through her open window with my right arm, looking for the lock to open the door to pull her out myself.

“Ma’am, please. You’ve got to get out of your car!” I pleaded. Now her rear driver’s-side wheel was off the ground, and her front passenger side wheel was dangling over nothingness. Didn’t she see that if she didn’t get out of her car, she was going to die? Was she really completely blind to the imminent danger threatening her very existence?

I began praying, out loud and with conviction, “God, hold this car up! Send your angels to hold these tires up until she gets out of her car.” Lucky for all of us, God loves to show up when He’s all the chance we’ve got. I’m happy to report that He held that car up. Eventually (read: a few seconds that felt like an eternity later), I got her door open and hung on to it with all the body weight I could muster because, certainly, little ol’ me would be a big help to those angels keeping two and a half tons of metal from tumbling down the cliff.

Thankfully, the driver finally abandoned the notion that she could fix this herself and frantically unbuckled her seat belt. Still holding the door with my left arm, I grabbed her arm with my right hand and pulled.

Safely outside the car, she saw just how desperate her situation had been. She literally could have died. If God hadn’t graciously intervened, her blue SUV —with her inside it —would have found its home among the other mangled wrecks at the bottom of that canyon (and I found out later there were quite a few). But instead she was safe, and now three big boys from Oklahoma climbed onto her rear tire and bumper to weigh down that car until help could arrive.

Her name was Rita. We sat on the roadside for three hours together (along with the Oklahoma trio on her bumper and a growing crowd of people trapped by the roadblock) while we waited for the tow truck that would eventually lift her vehicle to safety. Because she was pretty much stuck with me, I talked with her about God. A lot. I figured God must have a pretty amazing plan for her, as He dramatically spared her life and all that, so she might as well get to know Him a bit. She didn’t surrender her life to Jesus that day, but she couldn’t deny God’s existence any longer. I’m praying that one day I’ll see Rita in heaven and get to hear the rest of the story —perhaps how that dramatic day opened her eyes to just how much God loves her and that she lived to see many more miracles in her life.

As I think about that story, I’m struck by a sobering reality: Rita didn’t understand the desperateness of her situation. There she was, tipping over the side of a sheer drop-off, and she thought she could fix it herself! How could she be that blind? you and I might be tempted to wonder. But before we’re too hard on Rita, will you consider another sobering reality with me?

We’re just like her.

Sin blinds us —you and me —to the desperateness of our situations. It keeps us from seeing the danger we’re in. Here’s the deal: If you are caught in habitual sin, you are dangling on the side of a spiritual cliff. I can’t in good conscience sit here and tell you that it’s no big deal. I can’t just pat you on the shoulder and say, “Don’t worry about it, girlfriend. We all have our struggles. Just keep trying harder and you’ll be okay in the end.” Please hear me on this. You won’t be okay in the end if you continue in your sin. And I’ll have to answer to God if I don’t warn you just how dangerous willful sin is.

Just as Rita was oblivious to the extent of her personal peril, we can also be blind to the danger of our sin. So if you’re caught in a secret sin of any kind today, let me stand outside your car window and tell you exactly why you need to get out right now.

Sin can have physical consequences.

In chapter 2, we discovered that one of the common denominators between most secret sins is that they are sins against our own bodies. That’s true both spiritually and physically. If you keep starving yourself, your body is going to suffer. If you keep cutting, your body is going to suffer. If you keep drinking or doing drugs, your body is going to suffer. If you have sex, you increase your chances for STDs or unplanned pregnancies. You might feel invincible now, but that’s the blindness talking. Some serious consequences are probably lurking just under the surface of your skin.

Sin can have emotional consequences.

Our secret sin has pretty negative emotional consequences as well, which is ironic, as many of us are sinning to try to cope with negative emotions. The battle with sin drains us emotionally; it steals our joy and leaves us bitter and cynical. We end up spending so much emotional energy on our pain and subsequent sin, which leads to more pain, that we have next to nothing to offer anybody else. Sin makes us emotional takers instead of life-offering givers.

Sin always has spiritual consequences.

Most important, every secret sin keeps us from the very thing we need most in this life and the next: God. And though our Father is slow to anger and full of love (see Psalm 103:8), He is also a just and holy God (see Isaiah 5:16). He has given His children the incredible gift of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into truth, frees us from the power of sin, and renews our thoughts and attitudes, just for starters.[17] But if our hearts are jammed full of unconfessed sin, the Spirit is going to get buried under it. He’ll still be with us, but He won’t be able to do much in our lives. We must be free of spiritual clutter if we want to hear His voice. We need to unclutter our hearts if we want His presence to have power in our lives.

No Excuses?

I think there’s another reason we can’t see just how badly we’re suffering from the effects of our sin. We don’t see how close our own sin is getting us to the cliff because we’re focused on someone else’s sin.

Let me ask you this: Were you originally tempted to sin because someone else first sinned against you? Think about that question for a minute. What caused you to feel so desperate to numb the pain that you took a razor blade to your arm? Were your parents fighting? Had you just read a bully’s message about you on Facebook? Or what first made you aware of your sexuality? Did someone force it on you? Were you abused or raped? What made you think that you needed to be thinner to be beautiful? Did a parent or some guy say hurtful things to you? Did some big company’s marketing campaign —out to make money at your body image’s expense —make you doubt your true beauty?

Our secret sins often became tempting at first because of someone else’s sin.

And you know what? It’s okay to acknowledge that fact, as long as we realize it doesn’t excuse our own sin. The Bible tells us that we all have sin hiding out in our hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 pulls no punches: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” We sin because we’re sinful humans, and we can’t go blaming others for our mistakes. Yes, someone else might have first sinned against us, but we can’t make the easy mistake of focusing on their sin while ignoring the danger in our own.

So what should we do with the reality that someone else really hurt us? For starters, we can allow God to use it.

Hebrews 12 has some mighty encouraging things to say about how we can allow suffering, even suffering caused by others, to act as God’s discipline in our lives. But before we look at this verse, I need you to understand that in this context, discipline does not always mean punishment. God didn’t send an abuser to your door because you did something wrong. This is extremely important to understand. In this passage, the Greek word translated “discipline” is paideia,[18] which means tutoring, education, or training. So yes, when we sin, God sometimes “trains” us with punishment, just like any loving Daddy. But that’s not always the reason for discipline. Paideia refers to any suffering in our life that God can use to teach or train us (which includes absolutely everything bad in our lives).[19] So now that we understand that in this passage, discipline isn’t God’s punishment, let’s get to the good stuff:

God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening —it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.   HEBREWS 12:10-11

God can use others’ sin to challenge, teach, and train us if we’ll let Him. But that means giving up the right we think we have to focus on what those people did to us. It means we have to stop despairing or judging or resenting their sin. In a word, it means we have to forgive. The people who wronged us? God will deal with them on His terms (see 2 Corinthians 5:10), but how and when that happens is up to Him. We might never see justice done in this life. Can you trust that God is good, true, holy, and fair, even if people who have hurt you don’t seem to get what they deserve?

We can’t control whether people sin against us, but we can control our response. We can either allow God to use our pain for our good or go kicking and screaming through it. We can respond to others’ sin with forgiveness, or we can respond with sin of our own. We have the power —and the responsibility —to choose.

I love the next two verses in Hebrews 12. What should the truth about God’s paideia inspire us to do?

Take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.   HEBREWS 12:12-13

Here’s a really, really, really hard truth, sis: God doesn’t excuse us from living His way, even in the really tough situations of life. Even in the face of intense suffering, He expects us to act like the Holy Spirit–empowered, royal children of the King we are! Are you feeling weak and tired from the suffering you’ve endured? Are you dizzy from the cycle of sin you’ve been spinning on? If so, it’s time to take a new grip with your tired hands. It’s time to get up, dust yourself off, and do business with God.

Dead Meat

Hamartiology. Sounds like what might happen to your arteries after Thanksgiving dinner, right? In the world of theology, hamartiology is the study of sin. But if we’re forgiven, you might wonder, why do we need to study sin? I’m glad you asked.

Imagine that you’re getting ready to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau in modern-day Poland. That brick-faced building at the end of a long railroad track might not mean much to you. It might be kind of boring, to tell you the truth. But imagine touring Auschwitz-Birkenau after first taking a course at school about the horrors of the Holocaust. Then that building wouldn’t be simply another tourist stop; instead, your heart would break at what you saw, knowing that millions of men, women, and children were murdered there by the Nazis during World War II.

Sometimes a little history is all it takes to bring a sobering reality to life.

That’s why we need hamartiology. We need to understand the history of our sin and how it destroys us and separates us from God. We have to get a handle on all the messy consequences of our sin before a tour of freedom will move our souls to sing “Amazing Grace.” We can’t fully appreciate the gift God offers us until we understand the desperateness of our situation.

So, hamartiology . . .

Sin is simply anything we do that is opposite of what God has asked us to do (see 1 John 3:4). God has a righteously, ridiculously high standard, and everyone has missed it (see Romans 3:23). He expects us to “be holy because [He is] holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Right —just be holy. No biggie, God. I’ll get right on that. Obviously, God’s command to be holy is impossible to obey on our own. And the bad news for us is that the “payment” for our sin (what we deserve) is death (see Romans 6:23). I’m talking about eternal, separated-from-God, backing-off-a-cliff, mangled-SUV death. And I don’t want you to be blind to the danger you’re in. We’re like Rita, with two wheels dangling over the cliff, and if God hadn’t intervened on our behalf, we’d all —each and every one of us —be destined to hit the bottom and shatter.

But God did intervene. Praise God, He did intervene! Jesus Christ made a way for us to escape the death we deserve. And here’s the best part: He offers it to us for free (see 6:23). We don’t have to jump through hoops, do penances, or get our acts together before we can receive God’s grace. Grace is, after all, getting something really good when we deserved something really bad. You can’t earn something like that.

Romans 5:8-10 sums it up beautifully:

God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.

Turning Around

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the payment for our sin has been made. God offers us forgiveness for free, but it doesn’t come automatically. This isn’t like a direct deposit you set up with your bank. God expects something from us before His forgiveness takes place. Acts 3:19-20 says, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord” (emphasis added).

Notice the order there? If you want to be restored and refreshed by the presence of the Lord —His presence that was banished by our sin —first your sins have to be wiped away. And your sins are wiped away after you repent and turn to God. Turning to God is at the heart of repentance. When you repent, you stop running away from God and start running to Him instead. You do a 180, a U-turn, a complete direction reversal.

We’ve talked about turning to God before, haven’t we? Way back in chapter 1, we discovered that turning to God was the antidote to shame: “Those who look to him [Hebrew: nabat] for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces” (Psalm 34:5). Remember how we said that looking to God meant more than just gazing up at the sky hoping for a miracle? Instead it means that we show regard for, pay attention to, and consider Him in all our ways. Similarly, just mumbling a halfhearted “I’m sorry, God” isn’t true repentance. We have to repent and look to God. We’ve got to say we’re sorry, yes, but we also have to start showing regard for God by seeking holiness, paying attention to Him by listening to His voice, and considering His heart before we break His laws.

Isaiah 55:7 says,

Let the wicked change their ways

and banish the very thought of doing wrong.

Let them turn to the LORD that he may have mercy on them.

Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.

Changing our ways is a necessary step in turning to God, even if we’ve been a Christian as long as we can remember. And when we turn to God, His mercy flows wide and His forgiveness overflows generously.

Now, back to hamartiology. Understanding our sin doesn’t only lead us to deeper faith in Christ; it should also help magnify just how sweet God’s grace is.

Refreshing

The best news for humans since Adam and Eve first took bites out of that forbidden fruit is that God forgives sin. Hands down, this simple truth is at the heart of the gospel (which literally means “good news.” And boy is it!).

When Rita accepted that she was in danger, she went from being annoyed (at having to back up her SUV) to being afraid. And when she finally got smart, unbuckled her seat belt, practically tumbled out of her car, and saw exactly how precarious her situation had been, her fear morphed into euphoria. Standing on solid ground again, she was almost giddy, shaky with thankfulness that her life had been spared. “Saved Rita” was a different woman than the person I first talked to.

Grace does that. When we understand just how much danger we’re in because of our sin, God’s forgiveness moves us to elation. It makes us want to shout, “I’m alive? Seriously? Ahhh-ha-ha! Woo-hoo!” while we twirl around with our hands up in the air. (Well, that’s how I respond anyway. But then, no one has ever accused me of being too reserved with my emotions!)

The gospel is good news, my friend —very, very good news for those of us trapped in sin. As we read in Acts 3:19, God wipes away our sins when we repent. But there’s even more good news. Let’s take another look at verse 20: “Times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord.”

Have you ever been thirsty? I mean really thirsty? I have —in fact, just last week.

I was never much into plants or gardening or anything like that growing up, but for some reason, the older I get, the more I have this weird desire to be a farmer. (After conferring with friends, I’ve found I’m not alone in my strange fixation with dirt, seeds, and making things grow. There is, in fact, a whole subculture of normal women who just happen to turn into closet Little House on the Prairie wannabes in their twenties. Who knew?) So, given my new affinity for all things rural, imagine my excitement when I got a flyer at a local farmer’s market that read, “Be a Farmer for a Day.” Yes, please! So off I went, my two daughters in tow, to a farm on the outskirts of town.

The fall day started out pleasantly cool, but by the time we arrived midmorning, the temps were rising. And by the time we got into the fields at noon, we were already starting to sweat. With three hours of picking and only one water bottle between the three of us, I should have added two and two before we boarded that flatbed-trailer-turned-shuttle, which took us on a three-hour veggie tour. Yeah, we ran out of water right about at the cabbage field.

The rich smell of the soil was invigorating, but breathing in all that dust while we picked potatoes, carrots, and squash in the hot sun hardly helped our dry mouths. A smart person would have called it quits and gone back to the car, but not me. I was intoxicated with the open fields and scratching my primal itch, remember? And I may have been just plain greedy to go home with as much free food as possible. So, fifteen grocery bags of vegetables later (no joke), our tongues were sticking to the roofs of our mouths like we’d eaten peanut butter on bananas with a side of caramel. Hot, dirty, and incredibly parched, we stammered back to the farmhouse. We had one thing on our minds: water.

I’ve never been one to pay money for things I can get for free, but I think I shelled out three bucks to Farmer Dale for some ice-cold bottled liquid. Having been on the verge of heatstroke, water never tasted so good! We were refreshed as we literally guzzled three bottles of water, feeling the icy sting from our throats all the way down to our stomachs. Ahhhhh.

That’s what I think of when I read about “times of refreshment” in Acts 3:20. It’s as if God is saying, “When you repent and turn to Me, I’m ready to hand you an ice-cold spiritual drink to refresh your parched, weary, sin-stricken soul.”

But practically speaking, what does God’s kind of refreshment look like? For the answer to that, let’s head back to Psalm 34 (see pages 11–13). As you read it this time, keep an eye out for all the benefits of repentance and being right with God.

What did you find? How does God refresh His daughters when we turn away from our sin and turn toward Him instead? Here’s what I found. God refreshes His daughters with:

Did you find any others?

I’m afraid the downside of ink on paper is that sometimes we gloss over some very powerful truths. I hope that list doesn’t seem dry or impractical. Let’s think about this for a minute. Let’s really try to grasp just how refreshing those benefits of repentance are. For a soul parched by sin, freedom from fear (such as fears of failure, loneliness, rejection, and loss of control) is like a bottle of water after farming in the sun for hours. To a life on the verge of spiritual heatstroke, just knowing that God is there, that He cares, and that He promises to be close to us when we’re at our lowest is like a lemonade stand in the Sahara. To a girl who can’t stand to look at herself for shame over what she’s done (again), God’s promise of radiant joy is like jumping into a pool after hiking all day. God’s promises are real. His refreshing is real.

Do you need that kind of refreshing today? Does your dry, raisin-esque heart crave Living Water? If it does, you’re in luck. Jesus said that the water He gives keeps us from ever thirsting again, and it “will become in [us] a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14, NIV).

But to reap the benefits of that water, you’re first going to have to call sin sin, repent, and turn to God. When you do, God says,

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.   EZEKIEL 36:25-27

All in favor of a new heart say amen! How many of us need to let Him replace a rock-hard, stubborn old heart, dried out by too much sin, with a tender, responsive, obedient and refreshed heart, soaked in God’s Living Water? And how many of us need to start living like we understand the insane truth that God’s Spirit lives inside us? He’s there to help us follow God’s ways —His best plan for our lives —part of which means kicking our secret sins to the curb.

As if it couldn’t get any better, there’s one more benefit of repentance, and I have to tell you, I’ve saved the best for last. In fact, I get so excited about this next aspect of God’s refreshing that I’ve dedicated an entire chapter to help us drink it all in. It’s coming up next. I can’t wait!

Father, Daddy, I’ve spent too long ignoring the truth about my sin, too long thinking I can fix it on my own. But now I see that my sin is serious and I’m in danger of hurting myself big-time. Give me the courage to forgive the people who first made my sin so tempting. I accept responsibility for my own sin, and I ask You for forgiveness, God. Will You please forgive me? I’m ready to turn to You, instead of to my sin, for a way out of this pain. And I’m ready for Your refreshing! Let it fall on me like Living Water, giving new life to my soul. Amen.

Discussion Questions

  1. What is sin?
  2. How is sin physically, emotionally, and spiritually dangerous?
  3. How has God made a way for us to escape the spiritual consequences of our sin?
  4. Has your own sin ever blinded you to just how much danger you were in?
  5. Was the sin you’re trapped in today first tempting because of someone else’s sin? If so, why is it important to forgive that person (or those people)?
  6. What does it mean to repent from our sins, and why is it so important we do so?
  7. According to Psalm 34, what types of refreshing does God give us when we repent from our sins? Which of those promises means the most to you? Why?