Whatever Happened to Sin?

That's the headline on the back cover of Jerry Bridges' book Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. Often, it seems, Christians focus on the "big" sins of our time - abortion, crime, divorce for example - and neglected or forgotten about our own "smaller" personal sins. In his book, Bridges "addresses clusters of 'acceptable' sins that we tend to tolerate in ourselves - such as jealousy, anger, pride, unthankfulness, and judgmentalism." He does so not from an ivory tower or pedestal, but from "the trenches of his own battles with sin."

We are currently recruiting others to join us for our latest reading project, in which we will go through Bridges' book together. We are planning on reading two chapters each week, and posting a discussion/summary of each chapter on this blog. If you'd like to read along, discuss along, or even just read the posts, please join us! We are planning to start reading the week of March 31.

You can pick up a copy of the book here or here, or if you like supporting the bigger retailers, here. You can also read a good review of the book here. (Note: I nearly bought the discussion guide for this book accidentally - you can distinguish them because the guide has a tan cover and the book itself is pictured above).

After an introduction on the role of the gospel in our lives, Bridges devotes the rest of the book to confronting these "respectable sins." They include:
-Ungodliness
-Anxiety and Frustration
-Discontentment
-Unthankfulness
-Pride
-Selfishness
-Lack of Self-Control
-Impatience and Irritability
-Anger
-The Weeds of Anger
-Judgmentalism
-Envy, Jealousy, and Related Sins
-Sins of the Tongue
-Worldliness

May this be a time of giving glory to God, being strengthened in our faith by the Holy Spirit, and fellowshipping with fellow believers.

Jesus' Finished Work & Our Unfinished Work

Yesterday Joe preached on "The Finished Work of Christ." What a difference it makes to understand this!

One of my favorite Christian artists is Keith Green. He was one of the pioneers of contemporary Christian music in the 1970s, he had a large heart for ministry, and a heart for the Lord that was evident in his lyrics. The music sounds dated now, but I still love it.

However, Keith Green's theology wasn't perfect. (Neither is mine.) One of his most famous songs is "Pledge My Head to Heaven," and the rumor is that Bob Dylan plays harmonica on the song. Not sure if that's true, by the way. Anyway, the refrain in this song is:

I'm your child, and I want to be in your family forever
I'm your child, and I'm going to follow you no matter whatever
The cost
I'm gonna count all things loss...

I'm not sure this was intentional, but Keith Green expresses more confidence in his following of God than in his relationship to God! He wants to be in God's family forever; he is going to follow him "no matter the cost."

Almost two decades later, another of my favorite Christian artists covered this Keith Green song. However, he changed the refrain to this:

I'm your child, I'm gonna be in your family forever
I'm your child, I want to follow you no matter whatever
The cost
I want to count all things lost.

Notice how Steve Camp reversed things. There is a confidence concerning his relationship to God, and a humility concerning his own performance.

What a difference this makes as we seek to follow the Lord. We need to know for certain we are in his family. Then, with humility, we seek to follow him - knowing that he's with us no matter what.

Keith Green died in the early 1980s in a plane crash. He died with imperfect theology and imperfect works. I expect the same will happen to each of us. Maybe a Steve Camp will come along to clean up some of our rough edges, or maybe not. But what we can know for a fact is that Jesus' work is finished, making up for our lack!

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(As a side note, did you ever notice that contemporary Christian music introduced the words "gonna" and "wanna" into the musical vocabulary? I don't think you find these words in the hymns of Charles Wesley. But I'm gonna keep listening anyway, no matter the cost!)

No Night There

I'm not sure why, but I woke up this morning with the hymn “No Night There” going through my head (#730 in the old blue Trinity Hymnal, not sure what number in the newer red one). I haven’t sung this song in church in who knows how long, yet I easily recalled the words.

As I grew up, my dad would sing this hymn to us Pearce kids as we fell asleep. Its soft, soothing melody and rich, heavenward lyrics made for the perfect lullaby. As I sang it to myself this morning, I couldn’t help but smile and get a little emotional as I thought of Dad softly singing about what heaven will be like.

I look back on those moments now, and realize that this hymn was a perfect choice for my dad to sing to us kids – and not only for the lullaby-esque quality of the hymn. Its words, while meaningful to an adult, are simple enough for a child. Years ago while lying in bed, I would hear Dad singing this song and try to envision what heaven would be like –no tears, no pain, no night, golden streets, gates of pearl...

While looking at this hymn now as an adult, it has even more meaning to me. I understand the last verse even more now than I did then – the Lamb (Christ) is all the light in heaven – no sun, no moon. How great it will be when there will be no night because we will be forever in His presence.

#730 “No Night There”
In the land of fadeless day
Lies the city four-square.
It shall never pass away,
And there is no night there.

Refrain:
God shall wipe away all tears;
There's no death, no pain, nor fears;
And they count not time by years,
For there is no night there.

All the gates of pearl are made
In the city four-square.
All the streets with gold are laid,
And there is no night there.

And the gates shall never close
To the city four-square.
There life's crystal river flows,
And there is no night there.

There they need no sunshine bright,
In that city four-square.
For the Lamb is all the light,
And there is no night there.

Second Take

Some phrases from the Bible are quite familiar to us, and for good reason. They zero in on our experience, or our need, in a succinct and powerful way. Yet sometimes these become a little too familiar. For that reason, it's nice to see new shades of meaning in even the most familiar verses of God's word.

Here are two examples, both from the minor prophets - both verses that many readers probably know quite well.

The first is from Habakkuk 2:4, where the familiar words "the righteous shall live by faith" are first recorded. Did you know that the entirety of this verse is actually as follows: "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith." I think we see more clearly what faith is - and isn't - when we see that the context is a statement against human pride.

The second is from Malachi 7:19, where we read, "You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." This same phrase is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, and pictures the breadth of God's forgiveness to us. Have you ever considered that this speaks not only about our forgiveness, but God's own hatred of sin? He removes our sin first and foremost for his own sake! Through Jesus we are recipients of his mercy for sure, but it's a mercy combined with God's own zeal to wipe the creation clean of its stains.

This point was made by a friend of mine who sends out daily thoughts based on Scripture; he calls this the "Verse of the Day." He wrote in an email concerning Malachi 7:19, "I'd like to ...point out that there is an element of God's anger in these verses - anger that is triggered by our sin. Yes, we are forgiven. Yes, God pardons us. He removes our sins. We could not stand if He did not do these things. But let us not forget that our sins cause God grief. Let us not take advantage of His grace, but rather turn from sin and live for Him."

Let's think more deeply about these passages. And every part of Scripture we read!


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NOTE: If you'd like to receive that "verse of the day" on an ongoing basis, let me know and I'll put you in touch.