soft on sin, honey for hearts.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but somewhere along the way many pastors stopped talking about sin. In some sense, I get it. It’s kind of a downer to call someone out on their sin, and it doesn’t always fill up auditorium seats. So they choose popularity over Biblical theology. They sacrifice truth on the altar of perceived unity. They don’t want to offend or step on toes, so they water down the Gospel until it looks more like a “believe in yourself” message than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And then they replace Jesus with what they want Him to represent. Frankly, it’s not a good look. This form of ignorance cheapens the cross of Christ.
Here’s the fallout I’m noticing: the good news doesn’t seem so good if the bad news doesn’t seem so bad. To say it another way—if we don’t believe in our totally depraved sinful nature, then why would we need Jesus Christ? Why would God send people to hell if we’re all just doing the best we can?
The natural progression of not calling out sin for sin is an inaccurate view of love and hell. If we don’t have a devastating view of our innate sinfulness, then it’s no wonder we don’t understand the eternal devastation in store for those who reject Christ as Savior. It’s no surprise that the lies of universalism are sweeping over our churches. It’s no surprise that opinions are rampant while wisdom is scarce. It’s no surprise that these progressive idealists are laughing in the face of people who are holding firm to the Bible while calling us “bigoted Bible worshipers” and claim that “a loving God would never (fill in the blank here with anything that goes against culture).”
While these messages that neglect to mention sin are honey for our (depraved & sinful) hearts, they are completely out of line with Truth. We must not fall in line with the world’s definitions of sin, love, Jesus, or eternity—regardless of the names we’ll inevitably be called for going against the grain.
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Christian women, pull up a seat. I want to speak directly to you for a moment. Because there are an extraordinary number of women’s books, conferences, and ministries that seem to be focusing on solutions to our self-esteem issues. They teach self-help, self-care, and self-love as a way to experience grace and freedom in this life.
Girls, we can wash our faces, dare greatly, and repeat the steps to be fierce and full of fire all we want—but these temporal methods will not save us. We do not have a self-esteem problem. We have a self-obsession problem. We have a SIN problem.
Lest I sound like I’m taking the moral high ground in some Pharisaical approach, let me assure you that I have none. I have read the books and tidied the closets and done the cleanses. I have discussed my Enneagram number at length and dissected my appearance and made the vain resolutions. It. all. comes. up. short. These things are not worthy of my devotion and they have never brought sufficiency. I am not just a sinner in need of a new haircut; I am a sinner in need of a Savior. I identify with Paul’s statement to Timothy, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Timothy 1:15). Until we repent and turn to Jesus as Lord, we are spinning our wheels in futility.
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I know this all may sound harsh to some of you. While I would love to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with all the people, I refuse to forsake the Gospel to do so. Jesus Himself says that there will be a separation between those who follow Him and those who love the world, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). James also writes about this division, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
So we have to step back and say, “What are we unifying in? Is it real and true or is it a false gospel?” On Christ the solid rock we must stand, all other ground is sinking sand. And we can know the real and true Christ by opening up His Word.
Maybe I’m being too blunt and repetitive these days, but for the love we cannot keep compromising the truths found in Scripture. I am not a Bible worshiper, but I am a Truth teller and there is only one real source of Truth: the Word of God.
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So just in case no one has told you the truth lately, I’ll keep stepping on the toes. You are a sinner. If you do not have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ then you “walk as [an enemy] of the cross of Christ” and destruction is your end (Philippians 3:18). You are not just kind of broken or messy-but-in-a-cute way, you are D-E-A-D in your sins apart from God. Jesus tells it like it is after casting out some demons, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Luke 2:23). You don’t just have some quirky flaws; you are a child of wrath (see Ephesians 2:1&3). Your heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), and there is nothing good that dwells in your flesh (Romans 7:18). The world, your flesh, and the father of lies (aka Satan) will entice you with compelling promises, which seems fun, because they will give you what you want: a life lived your way with utmost priority to your feelings. (You won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not on the “do whatever feels right” train.)
And yes, Jesus loves you unconditionally. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image (Psalm 139:14; Genesis 1:27). This is beautiful news, and I do not want to skip over this. Your life is valuable; it matters to me and it matters to God. But you are also dreadfully broken. Apart from Christ, we all are. I am not here to judge you, but I am here to tell you that God will. This is not a scare tactic; it’s just the honest-to-goodness truth. Unlike the narrative of the current culture, God’s love does not automatically mean approval. The Bible is clear: God hates sin (e.g. Proverbs 6), and He is perfectly righteous and holy. He is a jealous God who is after His glory (Exodus 20:5; Isaiah 43:7).
If you have no desire to live a holy life on earth, then what makes you think you would even enjoy heaven? Maybe you don’t actually want perfect holiness in heaven. You want fleeting happiness here on earth. Just a thought for anyone who blatantly disregards the Bible’s commands.
Listen, I’m not here to make you sit in self-pity or self-loathing. I don’t think that would be productive, and I really do care about your feelings. But I care more about where you spend eternity. I care more about loving you by telling you the truth. If I go to my doctor and he finds a life-threatening tumor, I want him to tell me about it. I don’t want him to smile at me and say, “You look perfectly healthy!” for the sake of my feelings. We need to know about this sin-disease we were all plagued with.
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On the flip side, some of you might be all too familiar with your shortcomings and you might be sitting in guilt over something you’ve done. Lean in closely for this word: your sin is not too big for God. His grace is sufficient; His forgiveness is waiting for you. Drop your pile of baggage at His feet and let Jesus do the lifting. There is so much freedom waiting for you if you surrender it all to the King of kings. While God (through the Holy Spirit) does bring conviction, perpetual guilt is a tactic of the devil. Satan might try to convince you that there’s no way you could enter the presence of a perfect and holy God, but he is lying to you. The blood of Jesus has made the way and paid the price! If you “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). But this confession and belief is not just a checklist to enter heaven, it’s a total heart replacement. It’s the regeneration of your entire life that Paul talks about in Ephesians:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).
Christians are a bunch of dead people that the Lord has brought to life. What in the actual world. Our lives should never be the same after this encounter. We do not keep on living the way we used to (because we were really dead in our sins all along, y’all). We do not haphazardly follow the ways of the world, the flesh, or the devil any longer. We submit to the higher and better Authority. This does not mean we no longer sin, but the Holy Spirit continuously convicts us of our sin, which brings about repentance.
An unrepentant Christ follower is an oxymoron, because God is constantly making His true disciples look more like Him. How amazing is that??
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I say all of this not to dwell on God’s disapprovals or the places He says “No,” but to highlight His better “Yes.” By grace, through faith. So yeah, the bad news is pretty bad: we’re all born depraved sinners destined for hell. But this bleak reality is what makes the good news so very good! God, in His great love and rich mercy, has made a way for all of us undeserving fools through the death and resurrection of His only Son—not just to experience true joy and sanctification here on earth, but to spend eternity rejoicing in Him.
Oh, how He loves us.
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Friend, if you are living for yourself and your desires, come to the foot of the cross (If you don’t know if you are sinning or not in a particular area, look to Scripture. God has the answers, and He has revealed His will through the Bible). Ask forgiveness from the One who paid the price and turn from your old way of living. Start living for God who loves you so dearly. There is more forgiveness and grace waiting for you than you could ever imagine. Let go and let God take the wheel.
Following God and surrendering to Him as Savior will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
Next time: I’ll be jumping back into my “Common Questions” series, which will be all about why we should believe the Bible and submit to it as authority—feel free to send me additional questions concerning this matter in the meantime!