Spirituality Column #794

February 1, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

A Sinner’s Lament, Part 1

By Bob Walters

I’m afraid the day is coming, perhaps soon, when being a repentant sinner with church-going, praise-offering faith in Jesus will not be enough to call oneself a Christian.

In fact, I’d say we are living in a time of American Christian luxury in that “my sin” – our personal fallenness, repentance, redemption – stands front and center as the most important matter in church.  We should continue to have it so good.

Oh, we may not hear a lot of “Sin, Hellfire, and Damnation” from the weekly pulpit – that would be a bummer and make me unhappy – but sin is the overriding dynamic of the contemporary church narrative.  Want to test it?  Do what I’m doing right now, and note the horrified look on your faithful friends’ faces when you assert that sin is not the most important thing we as Christians have to deal with.

It’s not; though I daresay given many alternatives, sin is the easiest.

Hear me out.  We’ve all been sinners, we’re going to stay sinners, and given enough chances, our sin will wreck our own lives and perhaps the lives of others.  We are likely blessed to know people who seem far closer to eternal redemption than we might be, the Lions of the Faith who may be in our churches, prayer groups, study groups. I’m thankful to know and frequently see people who remind me of God’s truth, hope and strength, the examples of a redeemed, loving life in Christ. They’re out there.

Sin is awful, and our hope in Jesus isn’t just for His forgiveness – the hope for the help and truth of His strength to conquer our behavioral sin.  Maybe we can sin less, find joy, encourage somebody else, and allow the Spirit to comfort us in peace.  Still, sin is awful. But it shouldn’t be the only thing we talk about.  Denying Christ is worse.

Quick review … Jesus’s human life, death on the Cross, and resurrection established, once for all, forgiveness of our sin and sins.  The good news, Jesus came for everyone.  The bad news is, so did Satan.  Jesus came for God’s glory.  Satan came to destroy God’s glory.  But Satan’s trick isn’t to make us sin; it is to make us deny God.

Frankly, the more somebody talks about sin or tells me about my sin or tells me I'm going to hell if I don't stop sinning because I won't be forgiven, the less I want to listen to them.  They are saying salvation is a “deal,” not the pure love of God in Christ.

I’m not looking for a deal.  In Jesus I have found truth, and the greatest truth He brings is not that I’m a sinner – I already know I am and so does He – it is that Jesus presents me with an utterly unique opportunity to know and trust that I have found the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) into the Kingdom of God, and to say so.

My opening statement (above) about “the day is coming” when sin will be a secondary Christian issue is because of a couple things. 

One, I’ve been reading The Church History by Eusebius (c. 300 A.D.).  In those early Christian days of persecutions, martyrs, and heresies – you have to read it to appreciate it – you don’t read much about sin; there wasn’t time.  But you read a lot about people who denied – and more importantly saints who did not deny – Christ.

And two, Rod Dreher’s 2020 book, Live Not by Lies, is a reality dose describing America’s woke, coming Christian persecutions that will test our will to confess Christ.

Martyrs were not told to repent of their sins; but to confess against Jesus.  

Could you do that?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wrote about Dreher before and will again, next week.