Introduction to Respectable Sins

Our ladies group started a study by Jerry Bridges called “Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate” and I have decided to keep a running commentary on the blog about the study. This is the first study I’ve lead since “the” incident, so part of me is freaked out, and part of me is really excited because the topic is one that is very close to my heart. (The blog on Peter is coming I promise!)

I began preparing for the study by praying (duh? Right?) and then the ideas began to form.

In my minds eye, I saw all the sins we commit every day written in bold black letters framed by black hung up everywhere, and an image of a woman all alone, surrounded by dropped rocks has haunted my dreams.

So I typed up the sin words, and my children helped me cut them up and threw them into a big pile. There were two different fonts, and while ~I~ had no plan for putting those words in any particular order, I just wanted opposite fonts on the page. (you know, it’s the OCD) It was interesting to me how they ended up on the pages. Words like “stealing” and “impatience” were randomly plucked from a pile of freshly printed and trimmed sins, another card read “foul-speech, unsubmissive, unteachable” and so on.

I am one of those women who prays all day every day.

No, I am not on my knees 24/7. I have bad knees, but my heart is continually and constantly bowed before Him. It is just that my mind is so filled with “stuff” that I am always talking to my Father. That? Or I am repenting to Him.

See, from what I have learned, we will continue to struggle with sin until we die. It should get better the more mature we get, but we.will.always.struggle.

None of us arrives until, well, we arrive.

That’s what Paul meant when he wrote Romans 7. His pitiful lament in verse 24 is sometimes my heart’s cry. Is it ever yours? That is what Mr. Bridges’ point is, I think, as he introduces this study to us. As the church universal, Christians are famous for shunning those in sin and unfortunately equally famous for being hypocritical. The world expects Christians to be perfect. Largely due to our “do as we say not as we do” attitude. That whole list of do’s and do not’s that obviously is not being kept.

It’s quite off-putting to non-believers, and to those trapped in their sin.When they come across a believer who refuses to hurl the stone at them for their sin, who offers them compassion instead of judgment, they are confused, they are grateful, and they want to listen to what it is we have to say.

Many of us may never deal with the larger “life dominating sins” that some of our brothers and sisters deal with. Sins like homosexuality, pornography, adultery, and maybe even murder. However, the question becomes, when you encounter someone who has committed one of these sins is, HOW would YOU respond? Unless you’ve properly confronted your own sinfulness, unless you’ve come to realize that YOU are no different, no better, and no more beloved by God than this dear one entangled by the cords of sin, then you will be UNABLE to offer them hope. YOU will have remained in your own sin and they in theirs and the body will have remained just a little more dysfunctional, just a little more fractured, and a whole lot more undesirable to a lost and dying world.

You see, Galatians 6:1 tells us: “Brethren, if any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of superiority and with all gentleness, keeping an attentive eye on yourself, lest you should be tempted also.”

GENTLY restore AND reinstate him.

The reason we (collectively, you and I) don’t go to church and tell all our business is because THIS does not happen. At least I’ve not seen it happen. I can say that I have seen it attempted once. The person in question rejected all attempts to be helped. They didn’t believe they were wrong. It was my former pastor. The men who tried to help him (even after all he did) lived out this verse until it became evident that he would not repent. But I digress…

Philippians also reminds us to put OTHERS ahead of ourselves.

“Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself [thinking more highly of one another than you do of yourselves]. Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]

Humility is our goal.

The purpose of this study is not to point out the many sins we commit each day and yell “ah ha!” The purpose of this and every study is to cause you (and me) to examine ourselves. To cry out to the Lord to search our hearts for any thing that may be lurking there in the recesses and to use the scalpel of His word to remove it. Psalm 139:24 says it like this: …“see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”

The law was given to us as our tutor, and part of its function was to show us our complete inability to keep it. In our failing to do so, we become acutely aware of our need for pure righteousness that is only found in the Righteous One, not in anything we can do - even on our 'best' day. We have been given Christ's righteousness through faith so that in HIM we might be justified. (Galatians 3:24) And yet, many of us have fallen into a trap of believing that there is a list of “do’s” and do not’s” that we can somehow perform to please God more than He is already satisfied in His Son.

Isaiah tells us even our very best deeds are like filthy rags when we present them to the Lord. A friend of mine said it like this: We are so deluded that we run around filling wheelbarrows with used menstrual cloths and bring it before the Lord as an offering and raise our eyes heavenward and shout HALLEJEUAH! Expecting Him to be pleased with our offering. Casting Crowns has a song that they sing ‘Come to the Well’ and one of their lines depicts Christ saying, “I’ve done all the work, but you keep on working…”

We MUST rest in the Gospel. In Christ alone our hope is found.

BUT you may ask:

Does this mean we don’t EVER DO anything?


Aren’t there things we SHOULD NOT do?


Well, now you’re just being silly.


That is definitely a topic for another day but for now, I will leave you with what Jesus said when the Pharisees tried to get Him to validate the Law:

“When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees they came up to Him in a body, and one of them, an expert in the Law, put this test-question: “Master, what are we to consider the Law’s greatest commandment? Jesus answered him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’. This is the first and great commandment. And there is a second like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. The whole of the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments.”

 Matthew 22:35-40

If we DO that? We’ll stay plenty busy….