Respectable Sins (2)

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SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#9: Unthankfulness

Today, with God's blessing, we will return to our study and discussion of Jerry Bridges' new book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. As the title indicates, a 'respectable' sin is one we 'tolerate'. Other sins make us feel guilty; respectable sins don't. We confess and forsake other sins, respectable sins we can live with.

But we shouldn't live with them! Whatever else respectable sins are, they are sins, and this means God doesn't respect them, they weaken our fellowship with Him and they hurt other people. Lord save us from respectable sins!

Today's chapter begins with a story; it's one of my favorites, and one I told my boys over and over at bedtime. We called it, The Nine and the One.

THE STORY

There once were ten men in Israel who had leprosy. Leprosy was the most feared disease in the world at that time-and for good reason. Leprosy made your skin turn white as snow; later, it made your fingers crumble and fall off, your toes crumble and fall off, and, then, after many years of suffering, it killed you.

Leprosy made you awfully sick, of course, but it did more than that. It took you away from your family, from your job, and from the rest of your life. Worst of all, it took you away from the synagogue, from the Temple, from the holidays of Israel; in short, it took you away from the public worship of God, and cut you off from His people.

When lepers saw someone coming, they were supposed to shout, 'Unclean! Unclean!', so the person could go the other way and not be defiled by bumping into them or touching anything they touched.

But when the saw Jesus passing by, they didn't yell, 'Unclean', but 'Lord, have mercy!' He turned to the poor fellows and told go see the priest who would pronounce them 'clean'. This must have surprised them, because they were not clean, but why not? Off they trotted to the nearest priest, and before they got there, every one of them was healed! And all by the power and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What did the ten men do? One-Luke says-

Fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.

We have to wonder what happened to the others, and we're not the only ones. Jesus Himself said-

Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

I'm sure the nine were relieved and happy and excited to be lepers no more, but this is not all they were: they were also ungrateful!

THEIR INGRATITUDE-AND OURS

We shake our heads at their ingratitude. How can a man whose fingers and toes were falling off, who hadn't seen his wife in years, and who couldn't support his family, receive such a blessing-and not so much as say, 'thanks'?

It is easy to judge the Nine Ingrates as if they were the worst men who ever lived. But judge them softly, because we are as guilty as they were-if not more.

Jesus Christ healed their bodies and restored their ceremonial fellowship with God. He has done far more than this for every believer: He has healed our souls, and put us into a fellowship with God far deeper than what the Law of Moses provided. In a word, He has saved us, and Paul says-

Blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

How often do we thank Him? And, when we thank Him, how often do we mean it? How often do we say 'thank you' at the dinner table, for example, the way a parrot would if you taught him to say grace?

Apart from the words, 'Thank you', how thankful are we? Do we live gratefully? Would the people at work or in the neighborhood, or even your own kids, see you as a thankful person?

Maybe this doesn't apply to all of you, but it sure applies to me. Unthankfulness is one of my cardinal sins. When I think about it, it makes me ashamed, but there's the rub-I hardly ever think about it, and when I do, it's not for long. Lord, save us from unthankfulness!

THE SCOPE

Respectable or not, unthankfulness is a very great sin because our whole lives should be marked by thankfulness. Some duties are limited to particular times. You ought to go to church, for example, but not seven days a week; you ought to work, but not twenty-four hours a day-

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under

Heaven.

There's a time to work and a time to rest; a time to laugh and a time to cry. When is the time to be thankful? One day a week? Eight hours a day? At Christmas and Easter?

We ought to be thankful every time we receive a gift. This means: We ought to be thankful at all times because everything we have-oxygen, brainwaves, the sun, gasoline in the tank, a Bible verse in the memory-is a gift, God's gift, and given solely by grace.

At Athens, Paul denounced the idol-worshipping people for being ingrates. The favors they got did not come from the gods they set up all over town, but from the True God, the One not made with hands, the One-

In whom we live and move and have our being

(as your own poets have said).

Because all is gift and because we ought to be thankful for the gift, being unthankful is a sure sign of spiritual blindness and moral decay.

is a catalogue of human life without God. It starts with idolatry and moves on to perversion, and cheering it on. But smack-dab in the middle of the sickening list is-

Neither were they thankful.

foresees perilous times to come, times when men will be unforgiving, unloving, brutal, proud, lovers of money, traitors, and-

Unthankful.

Ingratitude is more than 'bad manners'; it's a sin, as terrible as it is common. If others have to be unthankful, let's pray for them, but we need to do more than pray for ourselves. We need to confess our ingratitude, find God's forgiveness in Christ, and do everything we can to live thankfully.

THE QUESTION

This brings a question to mind: Should we be thankful when things don't go our way? I don't exclude petty things from the list-like getting caught in traffic-but I mostly mean more serious things. Your husband is not the man you thought he was-should you give thanks? You've gotten bad news from the doctor-should you give thanks? Your daughter is living with a man she's not married to-should you give thanks?

In other words, is thankfulness tied to circumstances?

II Thessalonians 5:18 says-

In everything give thanks,

For this is the will of God

In Christ Jesus for you.

Preachers and other Christians sometimes misread the verse, as though it says, 'For everything give thanks'. They try hard to thank God for the death of a loved one, for the loss of a job, and so on, but they don't really mean it and this makes them feel guilty.

They shouldn't feel this way, for Paul doesn't say be thankful for everything, but in everything. I'm not splitting hairs. Of course we're not thankful that a loved one dies-death is an enemy, ours and God's! Sin is our enemy too, and so to give thanks that your son is throwing his life away with drugs, is no cause for giving thanks!

To be thankful in everything, as opposed to for everything means, at least this much:

God is with us in our problems, and closer to us then than when things are going well. For this we can be thankful, even when things are not going our way.

It also means our problems have not caught Him by surprise. He has brought them into our lives, is using them for our good, and will take them away when we don't need them anymore.

It means we are sharing in the life of Christ, a life shot-through with problems, and if when suffer we get to know Him better, and one day, we must reign with Him.

The Lord wants us to be thankful in everything, because in everything He is ours and we are His-

In every condition-in sickness and health,

In poverty's vale or abounding in wealth.

THE SOLUTION AND HELPS

How do we repent of our unthankfulness and live grateful lives? The big answer is faith in God's promises. No one who truly believes 'God is for him' can also be an ingrate-not at the same time, at least. That's the problem, isn't it? We believe God will give us everything He has promised at times, but at other times, we don't. This is why we become so resentful at what we don't have or pine for a better version of what we do have.

To help us live by faith, I offer three helps:

Read and meditate on the promises of God. They're all over the Bible, and it won't take you long to find them. Read them and remember they're for you.

Remember what you deserve. Ingrates are always proud. They feel cheated by God because they deserve more than they got. Is that true? Do you really deserve more than you have? Or is it the other way around?

Practice giving thanks. Words have a powerful effect on the people who hear them (that's why companies pay so much for advertising-say a thing often enough and people will start believing it!) Set times to give thanks; the Psalmist had seven times a day to do it-and he was as busy as you are. Find situations to give thanks for automatically-like every time you have a close call driving or when the caffeine kicks in in the morning! This can become a dead habit, I know it can, but it can also become a living habit! And that's another word for godliness.

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SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#10: Pride

Today, with God's blessing, we will carry on our discussion of Respectable Sins based on a book of the same name by Jerry Bridges. A 'Respectable' sin is one nobody takes too seriously.

Except God.

If you read the Bible, you'll find a few men and women who never did anything really bad, as far as we know. Joseph, Daniel, and Job come to mind from the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, we have the parents of John the Baptist, of whom it is written-

They were righteous before the God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly.

Did Christ die for them? He did. If they had been sinless, or if their sins didn't really matter to God, would He have needed to? He wouldn't have. But He did need to. Because even the most respectable sin is a real sin and every last one of them really matters to God.

If they matter to Him, they ought to matter to us; If He hates them, we ought to hate them; if He wants to free us from them, we ought to trust Him and do all we can to be freed from them.

Especially the one we'll talk about today: Pride.

PAGAN PRIDE

The proudest creature we know of from the Bible is Satan. In urging us to choose mature men for the ministry of the Word, Paul says why-

Lest [they] be lifted up with pride and

Fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Satan fell away from God-and became His and our worst enemy-because of his pride. The pride he has he reproduces in his servants, some of whom are named in Scripture. Think of Pharaoh, sneering at Moses, Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? Or Nebuchadnezzar crowing, Is this not mighty Babylon, which I built by my power and for the honor of my majesty? Or Hamaan who would destroy a whole race of people because one of them wouldn't kiss the ground he walked on.

Theirs was pride writ large; they were men who made no pretense of humility. Maybe some of us are guilty of this appalling arrogance. We're not throwing out weight around nations and empires, but what about women and children? What about the people below you at work? What about your henpecked husband?

If you're guilty of this sort of pride, today's study is not for you; the time you spend listening to it would be better spent repenting of it. This kind of chest-thumping is not respectable-not even the world approves of it. It doesn't even sit well with Satan, it seems to me, because it makes him look so bad.

CHRISTIAN PRIDE

The pride we'll be thinking about today is more subtle than Pharaoh's. Outside of heaven, it's everywhere and practiced by both sexes, and all races, incomes, occupations, and so on.

Worst of all, it is held to and seen in religious people, like the Pharisee who marched into the Temple one day to give thanks to the Lord-

God, I thank you that I am not as other men are-extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all I possess.

This man and his partners were destroyed in 70 AD, but their spirit lives on, and some of it lives on-in us. It's Christian pride, and if ever two words did not go together, these are the two. Whatever else he is or isn't, a Christian is a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, who is-

Meek and lowly of heart.

FOUR KINDS

Jerry Bridges has listed four sorts of Christian pride. If we put some time into it, I'm sure we could come up with more, but, for now, these will do. They are:

Moral Self-Righteousness

Pride of Correct Doctrine

Pride of Achievement

An Independent Spirit

The author is a man who knows to whom he's writing. If you've gone to church for more than a week or two, you've seen these things in other people; the trick is to see them in yourself.

MORAL SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

'Moral self-righteousness' is the belief that you are better than other people-way better than unsaved people, of course, and a little better than your brothers and sisters in Christ. Maybe not all of them, but most of them, for sure. Some years ago, a survey found more than 90% of Americans consider themselves above average. Reading it made me laugh, at first, but then it made me wince. Surely, I'm above average, aren't I? And, if I'm not, then maybe it's my humility that's talking! And that makes me way above average.

Apart from ungodliness, Bridges believes this is the most common respectable sin, and we know why it is: the world is a moral mud hole. To name the sins is a waste of time: you see and hear them every day all around you.

Not one of us is entirely free from all these sins, of course, but their lordship has been broken by the power and grace of God. Such were some of you-Paul says-

But now you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

We ought to be thankful that God has saved us from what we used to be, and what others still are, but there's a fine line separating gratitude from self-congratulations!

Which are you? Are you full of thanks or full of yourself? The parable I referred to a few minutes ago provides a good test. It's found in . If you read only what the Pharisee said, you cannot fault him. If he isn't as other men are, it's because of what God has done for him-

God, I thank you that I am not as other men are.

He doesn't take credit for what he is; he gives all the glory to God. That's what his words say, at any rate. But the Lord searches the heart. He knows the Pharisee is self-righteous because he-

Despised others.

. Self-righteousness is always marked by scorn for people who don't measure up to you, or a lofty indifference to the ones below you. We ought to be mad at the way the world is-God is mad at the way it is-but this is not all He is. He is also moved with compassion at its plight. Instead of feeling superior to people who don't know the Lord, we ought to pity them-whether they want it or not, because God does!

How do we combat self-righteousness?

First, we remember that, if we are better than any others, it is only by God's grace, and not our nature or efforts, -

Who made you to differ one from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now, if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Secondly, we admit we have the seeds of all their sins in us. You haven't committed adultery? Have you lusted? Haven't killed anybody? Have you been angry? Never stole a thing? Have you coveted it? Why haven't the seeds grown up to full size? Because God has kept them from doing it. Even your own effort to not act on wicked impulses is the gift of God.

PRIDE OF CORRECT DOCTRINE

If some Christians are proud of who they are, others are smug about what they know. Jerry Bridges calls this pride of correct doctrine.

A handful of these people think if you do not believe what they do on every point of theology, no matter how fine it is, you cannot be saved. These dear people are very hard to talk to, and I believe praying for them is a better use of your time.

Thankfully, most are not this extreme. Of course you can be saved without understanding predestination or getting the doctrine of baptism right, but still, you don't measure up to my standards. I'm better than you are because you don't know what I know.

In a certain way, I'm right: you don't know what I know. This is not the problem; if it were, Jesus Christ would have been the proudest, most insufferable Man who ever lived, because He did have a monopoly on the truth. He did not have an opinion, He had the truth, or better yet, He is the Truth!

The problem is not knowing more about the Bible than others do, but what the knowledge does to you and what it does to others. Paul believed in knowledge, but he also knew it isn't enough. When it is not overlaid with love-

Knowledge puffs up.

Like self-righteousness, it makes us look down on other people. In church, it makes us look down on the other people Christ died for!

How do we resist the pride of doctrinal correctness?

For one thing, we admit the possibility we are wrong. People far smarter and more studious than you and I are have been wrong. As unlikely as it seems, we could be too.

Secondly, we remember what knowledge is for. It is for blessing the church, not dividing it into those 'in the know' and those 'out of the know'.

Thirdly, we remember that the knowledge of fine tuned doctrine is secondary to the knowledge of Christ. Retarded people cannot define supralapsarianism over against its rival, infralapsarianism. But they can know Christ-

Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants

He has ordained wisdom because of His enemies.

Fourthly, we remember that 'knowledge' without love does more harm than good. It causes-

The doctrine of God to be blasphemed.

PRIDE OF ACHIEVEMENT

The third sort of pride the author brings us is pride of achievement. Some people do more with their gifts than others do. They're not smart by nature or strong or active, but by willpower, they've done better than anyone could have expected them to do.

This is commendable. God wants us to make the most of what He gives us. But this leaves no room for boasting or despising others because---making the most of what we have is also His gift. The Lord gave His people a rich inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. As slaves in Egypt, the Hebrew could have worked himself to death for a measly living. In Canaan, the same effort would make him a wealthy man. And there's the danger-

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land.beware lest you say, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth', and you shall remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth.

Are we proud of how much we've done? How sculpted our bodes are? How sharp our thinking is? How consistent we are in our prayer lives? How fast we've moved up in the company?

We know we're proud of our accomplishments when we look down on people who haven't done as much with what they have as we have.

PRIDE OF INDEPENDENT SPIRIT

The first three headings have been pretty clear. Though we don't always recognize them when they're in us, we know what self-righteousness is, doctrinal pride, and pride of achievement. The last one, though, is a bit fuzzier (it was to me, at least). It is the Pride of Independent Spirit.

Some people have problems with authority. Either they reject it altogether, or they accept it in theory, but never in practice. Because they think they know more than anyone else, they are not teachable. My dad knew a lot of these men in the construction world, and I've met my share at church.

The foreman is not always right and neither is the pastor. Both need input and neither should resent it. Input, though, is one thing, and despising authority is quite another. Assuming what you're asked to do is not sinful, can you cooperate even when you'd rather do things some other way? Can you do it with a good attitude.

If you can, you've got a healthy independence-and God bless you! But if you're never content unless everyone is doing everything your way, what you've got is pride. This is not pleasing to the Lord.

To repent of this, you've got to trust God. He has put authorities over you to help you. When they tell you to sin, by all means, disobey them. But don't resent their authority and don't become one they'll have to give account for with grief.

Apply the Golden Rule. If you were the pastor or the boss, would you want people like you working for you? If not, become the person you'd like to lead.

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SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#11: Selfishness

Today we come to chapter 12 in our discussion of Jerry Bridge' new book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.

I know I say this almost every week, but today I'm sure of it: No sin is more common or deeply rooted or hard to be rid of than the one we'll look at today. It is as easy to spot and abhor in other people as it is to ignore and justify in ourselves.

THE MEANING

What is selfishness? It is putting myself before you. It means my time and my money, and my opinions, and my things, and my wishes are more important than yours.

Not all selfishness is equally bad. On the more innocent side we have the inattentive man. He would help other people if he noticed them, but he is so wrapped up in himself, he doesn't notice them. This is selfishness because, though there is no malice in the man, there is also no love.

On the other extreme, you have the bully, who may or may not notice other people, but whether he does or not is immaterial because he doesn't care what they need or want, but expects them to serve his needs and wants. He is not only indifferent to other people and their needs, but scornful.

If not all selfishness is equally bad, all of it is bad. Because no form of selfishness resembles our Lord Jesus Christ in the least. Paul sums up His attitude in -

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

How that, though He was rich,

Yet, for our sakes He became

Poor,

That we, through His poverty might be

Made rich.

Unlike the inattentive man, He noticed our poverty, and unlike the bully, He set aside His own riches so that we might share in them. This is religious poetry at its best, but it is not only poetry.

If you read the Gospels-especially Mark-you'll see He lived this way in real life. In , for example, the people have Him and the disciples so busy they don't have time to eat. To get away from the crowds and relax a bit, they sneak off to a deserted place (under the cover of darkness, I suppose), but no sooner do they get there than they're mobbed by people who did not mind their manners! Very pushy; very rude; very noisy!

If it had been me, I'd have sent them off with a good scolding! Or, if I were too shy to do that, I would have smiled, all the time resenting their intrusion. Our Lord does neither. What He feels for the pushy people is compassion, and what He does is cancel His day off and spend the whole day teaching them the Word of God, and then, for good measure, He feeds them all, and sends them home with full bellies.

His is unselfishness writ large. We will not live up to it; we cannot, for only Jesus is without sin. But we also cannot ignore His example and live contrary to it. Not if we want to be His disciples, for whatever else a disciple is, he is one who-

Denies himself, takes up his cross daily, and follows Christ.

On a theoretical level, selfishness is putting yourself before others; more personally, it is living unlike Jesus. This is what it is.

THE VARIETY

You can be selfish in a great many ways. You can be generous with your money but stingy with your time. A man may work overtime at his job without complaint, but resent every minute his family wants from him. Marriages often break up because mothers who give and give to their children have nothing for their husbands.

We ought to think about the ways we're selfish, confess them to the Lord, receive the mercy He offers us in Jesus Christ, and become the giving people He wants us to be. We can talk about these ways later, if you want, but for now, we'll look at the four areas of selfishness Jerry Bridges names in his book. They are:

InterestsTimeMoneyInconsideration

INTERESTS

A selfish man is keenly interested in his own interests, and nobody else's. In one of the most candid confessions I have ever read, Bridges says his main interest at the moment is his grandchildren. They're the best-looking kids who ever lived, and everything they do is amazingly brilliant or 'precious'. Every chance he gets, he breaks out the latest photographs and goes on an on about their teething or first steps or bowel movements!

It's hard to fault a man for being proud of his grandchildren, but Jerry does just that. He sees that, though the proud grandpa is as American as apple pie, prattling on about the kids is self-centered, and shows a lack of concern for the interests of other people, who somehow or other, are not as fascinated by them as he is.

Some people are this way about their health, others about their work, about their hobbies, about sports. Now, there's nothing wrong with discussing your health sometimes, but you've got to limit it to sometimes. The same is true with sports or movies; if your friends share your interests, by all means talk up a storm, but if you see them glazing over at your mention of Barry Zito's ERA of the Oscar-worthy acting of Jessica Alba, you're being selfish!

The fault is not easy to identify in ourselves (in others, it's easy!). To help you do it, two questions may be helpful.

Before going off on your special interest, how often do you ask the other person about his? For every time you call a friend to say you're sick, how often do you call him to ask about his health? After your next long conversation, ask yourself: How much did I talk compared to my friend? In a healthy relationship, it should vary-maybe not 50-50-but not 90-10 all the time either.

If, in everyday conversation, my interests are always more important than yours, I can be sure I'm a selfish man, and selfishness is sin, for in , Paul offers a list of ugly sins that will characterize the Last Days (including then and now), and one of them is-

Men will be lovers of themselves.

TIME

Time is a second area in which we can be selfish. We all have things to do and only so much time to do them. If you ask for some of my time, I won't have as much as I thought I would and things will be left undone or not done as well as they could have been had I had had more time to do them.

Some people cannot say no to anything, and in giving in to every demand, fail to do their duty. This, however, is a minority problem. Most of us are the other way around: we're only too happy to say no, or otherwise get out of doing things, or do them with a rotten attitude because they're cutting into my time.

I have just stated the problem and the solution. Your time is not your time! Whether it's TV time or reading time or exercise time or nap time. All your time belongs to God and He wants you to use it, not only efficiently, but compassionately.

No one did more than our Lord Jesus Christ, and if you read the Gospels you will see most of it was thrust onto Him-a woman grabbing at the hem of His garment, mothers asking Him to bless their babies, a letter rushing Him to Bethany before Lazarus dies. Instead of seeing these things as interrupting His life, He saw them as His life. Not messing up His plans, but fulfilling His Father's plan.

God is not only the Giver of Time, but also its Lord. The time you give to others is not wasted, nor will it keep you from doing the things you really need to do. There is a Proverb to this effect, referring to material things, it also applies to time, 11:24-

There is he who scatters and yet increases;

And there is he who withholds more than in right,

But it only leads to poverty.

MONEY

A third thing we are selfish about is money. Most Americans are very giving if their feelings are whipped up by the media. Remember the appalling images we saw of 9/11 or of Hurricane Katrina or of the tidal wave that crashed down on Indonesia. Huge sums of money were donated to help the survivors rebuild their lives-and God bless the people who gave to these worthy causes!

We are less generous with the people we know, our families and our brothers-and-sisters in Christ. But these are the very people the Lord wants us to take care of. Paul tells us to not support lazy Christians, but I fear we are far more sensitive to this one command than we are to the dozens that urge us to help the needy.

The Lord and His Apostles gave alms to the poor, and what makes this remarkable is: they themselves were poor. They might have been on the other side of the alms giving, but they were not. They live frugally so they could help their brethren, and they did this because-other than Judas-they were unselfish with their money.

Unless you have a lot more money than I do, most of your money is spent on yourself and your family. There is nothing wrong with this. But, of the money that could be spent on entertainment or charity, which one comes out on top most months?

Your answer may say more about you than you wish it did.

INCONSIDERATION

The last way we can be selfish is by being inconsiderate. Millions of Christians live and die with hardly a thought of how what they do affects other people. Examples are easy to come by:

You don't pick up after yourself at home because you know your mother or wife will.

You're rude to a clerk or a waitress or act as if she should have the attributes of Divinity-omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.

You treat everyone the same, not allowing that some people can take candor or jokes better than others.

You talk too loudly in public places or about things that are better discussed in private. You play your music too loudly; you let your dogs bark all night; you don't replace the muffler; you let your house become an eyesore. Some of these things may be unavoidable, but a little unselfishness would go a long way toward fixing most of them most of the time.

An inconsiderate person is a selfish person. Good manners can mask the problem, but only grace can solve it. Speaking of which.

THE ANSWERS

How do we overcome selfishness?

First by admitting we're guilty of it, and by not adding a long list of 'buts' to the confession, -

He who covers his sins shall not prosper,

But whoever confesses and forsakes them,

Shall have mercy.

We meditate on the Golden Rule-

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Identify people who are not selfish, watch them carefully, and do what they do, -

Brethren, be followers of me, and mark those who so walk as you know you have them as examples.

Mostly, meditate on Christ whose life is the model of unselfishness, and whose will is to make you like Him.

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SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#12: Lack of Self Control

Today we come to part 12 in our discussion of Jerry Bridges' new book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. The author is a big fan of the Puritans and this comes out both in the content of his book and also its title-but, thankfully, not in its length and wordiness!

Puritan titles were not chosen to sell books but to explain what's in them. This is what the title of our present book does. What are Respectable sins? They're the ones we tolerate. Why do we do that? Because they don't make us feel guilty, nobody calls us on them, and we don't expect to answer for them on the Day of Judgment. Respectable sins are the sins we can be guilty of and still be respected at church. This is what the book is about.

The title also tells us what it's for: confronting the sins we tolerate. In other words, not tolerating them in ourselves; not respecting them; and not thinking they don't matter to God. They do matter to Him and this means they have to matter to us and that we are obliged to do something about them. We need to confess our respectable sins; we need to seek their forgiveness through God's mercy in Christ, we need to resist them, and when we fail, to confess them again, find God's mercy again, and keep on resisting them, till God takes them away once and for all-either in this life or in the life to come.

Because respectable sins are so easy to get away with, they're hard to get rid of. But get rid of them we must, and we shall be rid of them because Jesus is on our side and He got His name because-

He shall save His people from their sins.

Nothing cuts the nerve of holiness like despair or giving up. You know why we give up so quickly-because we have failed so often. Time and again we promised to 'never do it again', but we did. Or we promised to 'do it every day', but we didn't make it through the week. Hanging holiness on our own promises is like hanging bowling balls on scotch tape!

But what if our holiness did not depend on our promises? What if it depended on the promises of Christ? Would we then be safe and have confidence to keep on keeping on? We would.

This is what the Gospel says. Of course we try to live holy lives, but holy lives do not depend on our puny efforts; they depend on the almighty efforts of our Lord Jesus, both on the cross where He died to take away the penalty of our sins, and now in heaven where He is praying to take away the power of our sins.

You have your share of respectable sins and so do I. Though they don't make us feel too bad, they are still shameful and dishonoring to God. But this is not all they are: they're also defeated in principle, and as we trust the Lord and live in His fellowship, they will be put off and put to death.

Including the respectable sin we'll think about today, which is a lack of self-control.

THE TEXT

A few minutes ago, I read -

Whoever has no rule over his spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

This is a comparison saying. The man who lacks self-control is like the city that lacks walls. In the ancient world, walls protected a city from armies bent on conquest. If the walls were high and thick and well-maintained, the armies would break on them and the city would be spared. If they were broken down, though, the enemy would have an easy time of it-plundering the wealth, abusing the women, taking the men off in chains.

In the same way, a man who rules his spirit (or practices self-control) can resist the temptations all around him, while the man who doesn't becomes an easy prey to them, and is ruined.

The verse does not contain a full theology of self-control; what it does is highlight the danger of lacking self-control.

We don't live in walled cities anymore, but nearly all of us have computers. Just imagine what would happen if we didn't have programs to fend off viruses and spam and spyware. Our computers would be open to every bad thing every pimple-faced geek could dream up.

Self-control is to us what walls were to ancient cities and firewalls are to computers.

THE TERM

What is self-control? Not what it sounds like. Bridges says-

Self-control is not control by oneself through one's own willpower, but rather, control of oneself through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, in practicing self-control we are not controlling ourselves, we are submitting to the control of the Holy Spirit. In the words of Paul, we are-

Walking in the Spirit [and in this way] not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.

There is something to be said for the other kind of self-control; without it, the world would collapse into chaos as every hostile thought or unclean desire was put into practice. As needful as this is, however, it is not what we're talking about today. The self-control we have in mind is, to quote Jerry again-

Dependent on the influence and enablement of the Holy Spirit. It requires continued exposure of our mind to the words of God and continual prayer for the Holy Spirit to give both the desire and power to exercise self-control.

This means the source of self-control is not yourself, not your willpower, not your resolutions, or even the help you get from your recovery or accountability groups. The source of self-control is God; if it seems paradoxical it is also true: The only way to control yourself and to really do what you want to do is to submit your will to God and do what He wants you to do.

To prove this, I have no argument, but something far better: an example. No one was more self-controlled than our Lord Jesus Christ, but the highest mastery of Himself came when He prayed-

Nevertheless not my will,

But yours be done.

THE EXTENT

Self-control without God is selective. Professional athletes, for example, are famous for their work ethic (you don't get to the top on DNA only) and for their womanizing. The man who says no to sleeping in every morning cannot say no to sleeping around every night. Within his sport he has self-control; outside of it he has none.

Is this what we're looking for? It isn't. And, more to the point, it is not what God is looking for. He wants us to be holy through and through, and this means He wants us control ourselves in every part of life.

THE EXAMPLES

I have chosen four parts of life that need special attention in our time and place. They are-forgive the alliteration-

Overeating

Overspending

Over-talking

Over-looking

OVEREATING

We start with overeating, which must not be identified with obesity. They often go together, but not always. A close friend of mine looks a middle-weight boxer and eats like a sumo wrestler! The great evangelist, George Whitefield, was the other way around. He ate like a jockey and looked like a horse! So, please, in the words of our-

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

From the Bible's point-of-view, overeating is not a medical issue and has nothing to do with 'body image'. When it tells us to exercise self-control at the table, it is not thinking of our blood pressure or looking good in a bathing suit!

It is a spiritual issue. Many overeaters (like myself) look to food to give us what God promises. We overeat because we're worried; we overeat because we're depressed; we overeat because

we feel rejected; we overeat because we're overweight.

This is why our diets always fail in the long run. They don't look at overeating for what it is: idolatry. Looking for comfort in a late night snack; looking for peace with a third slice of pie; thinking, 'Let the whole world hate me; my beloved Cheetos will never let me down!'

OVERSPENDING

To say 'Most Americans overspend' is like saying, 'Most basketball players are tall'. Of course. The average American has $7,000 on his credit and paying interest through the nose every month. In a few cases, the debt is run up because of a crisis. But for most people, their debts are the fruit of no self-control. Look at the statements and you'll find more restaurants than emergency room charges.

Why do people overspend on things they don't need, things that will soon be in storage and then at the garage sale? For the same reason overeaters overeat: because they're-

Looking for love in all the wrong places.

There's an emptiness inside them and they're trying to fill it with material things, with cars and computers and clothing or whatever their thing is.

This is why financial counseling or bankruptcy are no more effective than diet books-because they treat the symptoms and not the disease. You'll never get your spending under control until you can feel the truth of -

Let your conduct be without covetousness,

And be content with what you have, for

He has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake

You'.

OVERTALKING

Over-talking is another example of no self-control. The Proverb says-

In the multitude of words, there does not lack sin,

But he who refrains his lips is wise.

It is hard to bridle your tongue even if you don't talk much; if you talk a lot, it cannot be done. Non-stop talkers usually fall into gossip, and even if the talk was perfectly edifying, it would still show a lack of concern for others (who might have something to say if they had the chance) and too much concern for yourself.

Forgive me for repeating myself, but over-talking is also a spiritual sickness: good manners may treat it, but only God can cure it.

Over-talking covers up our insecurity; as long as we're controlling the conversation, we're 'somebody'; let others do the talking and we fade into nothingness.

OVERLOOKING

The last example is over-looking, by which I don't mean ignoring people or forgetting their feelings, but the temptation most men face, especially when the weather becomes warmer and pretty girls trade in their turtlenecks for tanktops. I mean ogling women, and all the lustful thoughts that go with it.

I hope no one here is 'a dirty old man' leering at girls, but you don't have to be this bad to still need some self-control. Our Lord said-

Whoever looks at a woman with lust in his heart has committed adultery with her already.

Why do men do this? Everyone knows the surface answer. But under the surface, men look at women and long for them for-not carnal reasons-but spiritual ones. In our fantasies, they promise to make us happy, to make us significant, to give us something to live one, one author (an atheist by the way), says they justify us.

Snicker all you want, but it's still true: In looking at beautiful women, hungry men are looking for God! And that's what makes ogling so bad: like overeating and overspending and over-talking, it is idolatry! It is looking for God in someone or something not God.

THE HELPS AND THE CURE

Jerry Bridges offers several hints for holier living in this chapter. Of course, if you're tempted to overeat, don't buy the foods you're most likely to pig out on; if overspending is your problem, throw out your catalogues and make a list when you go shopping and buy only what's on it; over-looking? Stay away from provocative photos and immodestly dressed girls, when you can. Pray, of course. Seek the counsel and help from the church. Sure.

But you need something more than helps. You need something to take the place of the things that try your self-control, and what you need is the Gospel.

Why do I need comfort foods late at night when I have the Comforter, whom Jesus Christ sends to me in His Gospel?

Why do I need to validate myself through the tasteful and expensive things I buy when God validated me when He raised Jesus from the dead?

Why do I need to control the conversation and let everyone know how smart I am, when, in Christ, I possess all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?

Why do I need to gawk at women, when the happiness they promise, but cannot deliver, is both promised and delivered by my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ?

All this means, Respectable Sins, like the other ones, are only overcome when we live by faith, a faith in the God who is focused in the face of Jesus Christ. To fortify this faith, read the Bible, pray, hear the Word of God, submit to baptism, take the Lord's Supper, and do what you do not feel until you feel it.

TEXT:

SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#13: Anger

Today, with God's blessing, we will move on in our discussion of Jerry Bridges' book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. There is a place for confronting the sins of other people, and if need be, very firmly. This, however is not what our study is about: it's about confronting our own sins-calling them what they are and doing what's necessary to be rid of them.

Before going on, I've got to ask you: Have you been doing this the last few months? When we talked about selfishness, for example, did you identify those parts of your life where you are selfish? And, if you did, did you do anything more than 'identify' them? Did you confess them to the Lord? Did you pray for grace to live for Him? Did you stop serving yourself in any meaningful way to serve others?

If the questions make you squirm-believe me-I squirmed first. Still, we have to ask ourselves, 'Are we doers of the Word or nothing more than hearers?

Hearing the Word only is not an option for disciples of Christ. We will always hear far better than we do, but allowing for that, are we making a real effort to follow the Lord Jesus, even in-and out of-our respectable sins.

Near the end of his book, the author devotes three chapters to anger. The first is impatience and irritability, the next is called, anger, and the third is the weeds of anger. I'll do my best to cover all three topics in one short talk.

IMPATIENCE

He starts with 'impatience' which is on the low end of anger, but still needs confessing and forsaking. What is it? It is being annoyed at people for relatively innocent faults, minor defects of character, or for habits that you don't like.

People are impatient about various things. Some are this way about time; they'd rather be an hour early than a minute late. This is a very good quality, one I used to have, but don't anymore. The problem crops up, however, when you're married to someone who isn't this way! Or have kids who put everything off to the last second. What are you going to do-wait for them as calmly as you can, or be aggravated with them every time you've got to go somewhere? Children can be trained to be on time, of course, but try it on your wife, and you'll wish you hadn't!

Others are impatient about listening. They're not against listening to people, as long as what they say is to-the-point and interesting. But not everyone is both, and many are neither.

A few weeks ago my wife and I had lunch with a couple and all the way to the restaurant I was praying the other woman wouldn't break in to one of her stories, which I knew would be long, pointless, and punctuated by laughter at things that are not funny!

No such luck. As she went off on something or the Emergency Broadcast System in my head went off---beeeeeep. It was the boring alarm, and never has it rung more truly than that day.

To say some people are impatient with other drivers is like saying some sumo wrestlers are overweight!

The most shameful impatience that I can think of is directed at the handicapped. My dad's stepfather was hard of hearing, and when my dad was young, it made him mad. My dad is hard of hearing, and when I was young it made me mad. Now, I'm hard of hearing and it makes my kids mad. Someday, I suspect, they'll be hard of hearing and it will make their kids mad!

We can feel this way about people who are slow of foot, who cannot make quick decisions, who drive thirty miles an hour on the freeway, and then there's the mentally challenged.

This is impatience; we've all felt it from time and time and maybe some of us are characterized by it.

IRRITABILITY

When impatience is given into over a long period of time it becomes irritability. Which I define as, impatience on steroids!

It's hard to believe anyone could not know if he is irritable, because it is so easy to read in the faces and actions of the people around you.

If they're mild-mannered most of the time, but aggravated when they're with you, it is likely because you're irritable.

If they walk on eggshells around you, you can be sure of it.

Nothing is more contagious than irritability. This is one reason the Bible says, for example-

Make no friends with an angry man, lest you learn his ways and get a snare for your soul.

It is better to live in the corner of a roof than with a contentious woman.

ANGER

'Anger' is noisier or more violent. It includes yelling and screaming (v.31 calls it 'clamor'), physical abuse-grabbing, punching, pulling hair (if you're a girl), and also the threat of physical abuse, which is sometimes spoken and sometimes not. Some women live in mortal fear of their men, even if he never raises his hand to them. Intimidation might be the word I'm looking for. This is anger.

BITTERNESS

If 'anger' is a volcano erupting, bitterness is the lava bubbling underground. Some people go through life with a chip on their shoulder; they've always got a good reason for it, but I wonder how many of them ask the Lord to sign off on it?

Some bitterness is laced with malice; it wants the offending person to suffer for what he did. The Bible word for this is vengeance. Some bitterness doesn't want the offender to be tortured so much as he wants to be rid of him once for all. The problem with this attitude is, We are our brothers' keeper. And Jesus Christ does not allow us to skip out on our obligations.

THE FRUITS

The fruits of anger are many and every one of them is poisonous. Anger hurts the one who entertain it, who dwell on it, who won't let it go, or think-under the circumstances 'blowing up' was the right thing to do, -

For wrath kills a foolish man,

And envy slays the simple one.

Anger hurts the people at whom it directed, -

Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Screaming at your husband promotes death and so does muttering at your wife. The sarcasm you use on your children takes away a bit of their life, and a bitter teenager hurts her parents more than she can imagine. Just the other day a woman told she was estranged from her father when he died; I knew the man well and no wonder-he was a rotten guy. But still, as cancer ate away at his body, I wonder if his daughter's grudge didn't have the same effect on his soul?

Is this what God has called us to-to be part of the problem? To add resentment and wrath to a world boiling over with them already?

Anger breaks up community, including God's community, the church. When you hold a grudge, think of the position you put other people into. They've got to side with you, which means, they've got to side against a brother or sister in Christ. Or, they take the other person's side and now you hate them too. It is not good enough to think about our own things, to mind our own knitting. Paul says-

Let each of you look out, not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Worst of all, anger dishonors Jesus Christ. Yes, He could be angry, but, seriously, was His anger like yours? Was He bitter? Did He nurse old wounds? Did He rehash every bad thing Peter ever did to Him every chance He got?

THE CURE

In its milder forms, anger is a Respectable Sin, but what man respects, the Lord abhors. He wants us to put off the angry person we are and put on the love and patience, forgiveness and self-control He has for us in the Gospel.

We will never do this, however, until we face our anger issues. The loud ones that make us kick and scream, the quiet ones that make us churn on the inside, and the religious ones, in which our own wishes and reputations are confused with God's will and glory.

The Bible says examine ourselves, and more than that, it wants us to ask God to do it-Search me, O God, and know my heart. Are you willing to do that, or will you remain in denial-anger is his problem, her problem, their problem, everybody's problem but mine!

Having faced it, we have to stop justifying it. As I said a minute ago, there is such a thing as righteous indignation, but is that what you're feeling? If your anger is out-of-control it isn't; if it leads to malice it isn't; if it makes you wish you weren't married it isn't. If it makes you see yourself as a (nearly) sinless victim and the person you're mad at as more sinful than Satan, it isn't. Most of all, if it is not eager to make up it is not what Jesus felt the day He cleansed the Temple, but rather, what James calls-

The wrath of man [that] does not work the righteousness of God.

Giving up hard feeling demands two more practical steps, and they're very hard for some of us. You've got to overlook the transgressions you can (cf. ), and if they're too big to overlook, to confront the offender with a gentle firmness (cf. )-

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore him in a spirit of meekness, considering yourselves lest you also be tempted.

Most of all, repenting of anger and bitterness and the like takes meditating on the character of God which is focused in the Gospel.

What kind of God do we worship? Is He quick to judgment or slow? When sinners repent-and never perfectly-is He easy on them or hard?

Why did Jesus come into the world? To weld our sins onto us and His memory or to remove them from both? It is impossible to believe in this God and this Christ and to stay mad and bitter and hateful-

Be kind to one another and tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us.

TEXT:

SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#14: Sins of the Tongue

Today, we will move on in our discussion of 'respectable sins' based on a book by that name written a couple of years ago by Jerry Bridges.

Respectable sins are the kind we don't feel guilty about, the kind no one ever calls us on, and the kind we don't repent of. But repent of them we must, because they displease God, they disfigure His image in us, and they hurt other people.

The sins we will look at today very often dealt with in the Bible, but hardly ever dealt in the church. If anyone in this room is innocent of them, I thank God for you, because most of us are not. What are they? They're-

Sins of the tongue.

SOME NOT RESPECTABLE

Some sins of the tongue are not respectable-at least not in the church. I'm no church lady, but if you say the F-word, I'm going to call you on it. Or if you take the Lord's name in vain all the time, or if you describe women in lewd ways. Believers can say these things, of course, but we don't like ourselves much when we do. We feel guilty, we confess our sins to the Lord, and we try not to do it again.

These are sins of the tongue, but they're not respectable, and I'll say nothing more about them for now.

RESPECTABLE SINS OF THE TONGUE

Respectable sins of the tongue include gossip, slander, lying, critical speech (even when true), harsh words, insults, sarcasm, and ridicule. These are the examples our author gives, and we could add to the list if we wanted to.

They're the sort of things we routinely say without feeling the pangs of guilt. I wonder, though, if we would say them if Jesus Christ were standing next to us? To be honest, I don't 'wonder' that-of course we wouldn't cut people down and lie about them if the Lord made Himself visible to us.

There's the rub: we're called to live by faith and not by sight. We have to remember Jesus is next to us all the time, listening to everything we say, and not liking a good deal of it. He forgives our foolish and mean words, thankfully, but He does not approve of them, and-as disciples of Christ-we want to please Him. Or, we want to want to.

IMPORTANT TO GOD

Our words often don't matter to us. I wouldn't hit a man over the head and run off with his wallet, but why don't I feel the same away about mugging him with my words and stealing his good name? The only thing I could come up with is: I've got more fear of the cops and the courts than I do of God. This cannot be right.

Our words matter very much to God. More than sixty verses in the Book of Proverbs touch on the sins of the tongue. Here's a small sample (and notice, nothing is criminal or notorious, as we define it)-

A soft answer turns away wrath,

But harsh words stir up strife.

A whisperer separates the best of

Friends.

A man who flatters his neighbor

Spreads a net for his feet.

Do you see a man hasty in his words?

There is more hope for a fool than for

Him.

Unless you got yelled back at, or worse, when was the last time you confessed your rudeness? How guilty do you feel when you whisper a bad word about somebody now and then? Or when you flatter someone to get what you want from him? Or when you run your mouth before engaging your brain?

We may see these as social mistakes, as bad manners at worst, but do we see them for what they really are? As sins against God and really hurtful to each other.

I know we can be over-conscientious, worrying about every word and inflection and apologizing for things that offended nobody. We had a dear lady in church this way many years ago. About once a week she'd call me to apologize for saying something wrong or at the wrong time or in the wrong tone of voice, and I'd forgive her-without once having any idea what she did wrong!

This is a possibility; some people are this way, but most of us are not. Too many of us are like that man in the Proverbs-

Like a madman who throws firebrands,

Arrows and death,

Is the man who deceives his neighbor,

And says, 'I was only joking'.

Put into our time and place, what we have here is a man who walks into Walmart, opens fire with an automatic pistol, tosses a few hand grenades, and then says, 'Just kidding!'

This is what we do when we tear people down either behind their backs or to their faces. If God does not approve of the gunman at Walmart, He doesn't approve of the gossip at church.

The sins of the tongue matter to God, and they should matter to us because, one day we will have to answer for them, -

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

THE KEY TEXT

Assuming you don't approve of blasphemy or perjury or cussing a blue streak, what kind of speaking should beware of? And what should we be saying instead of it?

For Jerry Bridges, and me, the key text of Scripture is the one I read a few minutes ago, -

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

The verse is in the middle of a paragraph on living the Christian life, which demands putting off some things and putting on others. Or, you might say, replacing bad habits with good ones.

The bad habit we're to break is corrupt communication. In English this sounds like dirty words, and they are dirty, but not in the way we mean that. They're the kind of words that hurt people, that tear them down. The most important word in this verse is-

No.

.Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.

He doesn't say limit your gossip, your sarcasm, your slander, but eliminate them. I talked to a Christian man who was once hooked on pornography, and now, he stays a hundred miles away from it and everything that reminds him of it. Good for him! The choice he made to clean up his mind, we ought to make in cleaning up our mouths!

If we cannot say bad things, what do we do? Silence is one option, and to some degree it's a good one-

Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise.

This, however, is not the complete answer. Paul tells us what it is, 'Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.

But what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace in the hearers.

Before saying something, ask yourself: Is it is it, good? Is it edifying (or build people up)? And, Does it impart grace? Is he a better or happier person for hearing what you have to say?

If you apply this rule, it will make you slower to speak, and James says that is not a bad thing! Keep it up and it will become a habit; you'll be a blessing to every room you enter, instead of a curse.

GOSSIP AND THE OTHERS

Gossip has got to be the Number One sin of the tongue. What is it? It is passing around information that doesn't need to be passed around. Once-in-a-while the gossip is true, most of the time it isn't, ranging from half-truths to flat out lies. How can the God of Truth and Love find pleasure in our lies and hate and contempt?

Slander is gossip on steroids. It is lying about people on purpose and to hurt them. Some of it is made up out of thin air and some of it is based on a knowledge we do not have, for example, not only what a person did wrong, but why he did it.

Critical speech is revealing the faults of other people without needing to and without sympathy and kindness and the benefit of the doubt.

Flattery is saying good things to people to get something out of them. It's a kind of theft and usually a lie.

THE SOURCE

Why do we badmouth people as often as we do? We do it because everybody else does it, and if we don't do it, we're boring. We do it because it makes us feel better about ourselves: 'I'm no saint, but at least I don't do what he does'. We do it because we have fallen into the habit of doing it. We do it because nobody calls us on it. We do it because our consciences are not as tender as they used to be.

Mostly, though, we use bad words because we have bad hearts, -

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

The reason we cut people down is because we're proud of ourselves, because we're angry or bitter or self-righteous; and because we don't them as we ought or fear God either.

THE CURE

This means the cure for bad speaking is not practicing good manners, but getting new hearts, and when get them from God through His Gospel.

The Gospel tells us we are accepted by God for Christ's sake, and being accepted means, I don't have to put myself above other people. The Gospel tells us the people we run down are loved by God, too, and if He loves them who are we not to? Best of all, the Gospel takes away our guilt and renews us to live for God.

Spurgeon called it, the one cure for many ills.

HELPS

To help us apply the Gospel, four things may be helpful:

Examine yourself. Are you a gossip? Does cutting other people down make you happy and feel better about yourself?

Ask others to honestly evaluate you. Do they think you're mean or sarcastic? They may not be right, but their opinion is worth hearing.

Ask God to reveal you to yourself.

Pray -

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

TEXT:

SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#15: Judgmentalism

Over the last few months we have been working our way through Jerry Bridges' little book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. I wish he had added the words, 'in ourselves', because-the truth is-we don't tolerate them in other people. Pride, envy, selfishness, ingratitude, and gossip are ugly and hurtful sins when others are guilty of them, the trick is to feel the same way about them when the sins are my own!

This takes honesty before the Lord and openness to friends, and others, who criticize us. When you think of bravery in the Bible, who comes to mind first? David, Joshua, Daniel, Mordecai, John the Baptist, Paul? Men of rare courage, willing to stand up for God and to die for Him if necessary. As intrepid as they were, however, the man who impresses me most is the composer of -

Search me, O God,

And know my heart!

Try me

And know my thoughts!

See if there is any wicked way in me;

And lead me in the way everlasting.

Can you imagine how painful it is to be thoroughly searched by God? The God who sees through our lies and half-truths and excuses? The One who knows us for what we really are and not what we meant to be or hoped to be? We may have quoted the verses to God, but did we ever mean them? Have we ever been fully open to God?

I suspect most of us have not been, because we don't have the stomach for it. We will never be rid of our respectable sins until we do. What Jesus said to the Ruler, He says to us-

Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.

To see our respectable sins for what they are, we have to be honest with God and to be honest with God we have to trust Him with our secrets, which He knows already, but wants us to tell Him so that we can be healed.

We need to be healed of our respectable sins, of our self-righteousness, of our grudges, of our pride, and the others. Including the one believers are often accused of but rarely take to heart: judgmentalism.

THE NON-MEANING

What is 'judgmentalism'? For most of us, it is a sin (1) other people commit when they (2) disapprove of us or criticize what we do. The world is brimming over with judgmentalism, but next to nobody thinks he himself is that way.

If you go to a big book store, you'll find magazines celebrating every vice known to man-from sexual lust to the love of money, to gossip, to gluttony, to drunkenness, to vanity, to laziness, to snobbery, to violence-you name it and there it is!

Except the vice we're talking about today. There is no such publication as Judgmentalism Today and its knockoffs, Teen Judgmentalism or Big, Beautiful, Judgmental Women.

THE MEANING

If 'judgmentalism' is not any and every criticism directed at me or what I do or fail to do, what is it? It is an eagerness to find fault with other people, coupled with a slowness to find fault with yourself.

We started with and the famous words-

Judge not.

At first glance, this appears to be a blanket statement telling us to never judge anyone for anything. The problem with this interpretation, however is, it cannot be squared with our Lord's own example and teaching. For example:

He Himself often judged people. He said the Pharisees were white-washed tombs; He said Herod was a fox; He said the disciples were fools; He said Peter was a Satan! Now, of course, one could say He had the right to pass judgment because He is God and we're not. Very true, but in leaving the final judgment to Him, does Jesus really want us to pass no judgment of any kind on anybody or anything?

He tells us to beware of false prophets, but how do we know they're false prophets unless we judge the content of their teaching? He tells us to not cast our pearls before swine, but how do we know who the swine are unless we pass some judgment on their character? He tells us to rebuke brothers who sin against us, but how do we rebuke their sins without first judging what they did is sinful?

The fact is, is not hung on a sky-hook; it is in the Sermon on the Mount, one aim of which is to contrast the righteousness of God's Kingdom with what the scribes and Pharisees call 'righteousness'.

What kind of judging did the scribes and Pharisees do? Eager, harsh, and blind to their own faults. It's not easy to see a speck in a man's eyes-you've got to be looking for it; when they saw it, they pulled it out with a pair a pliers! And for all their fussiness about specks in eyes, they never noticed logs in their own eyes!

This, I think, fits our definition to a t. Judgmentalism is not every disagreement and every criticism; it is an eagerness to correct others coupled with a slowness to be corrected.

The poet, James Russell Lowell, mocked the reformers of his time as-

Eager to reform everything but themselves.

This is what it means to be judgmental.

THE SUBTLETY

No sin is harder to identify in yourself than judgmentalism because it always feels like godliness, and, for some people, it seems like brotherly love!

The argument goes something like this: (1) we ought to be eager to do God's will-God loves a cheerful giver; (2) Rebuking people is God's will-If your brother sin against you, rebuke him, (3) therefore, we ought to be eager to rebuke people.

What's wrong with this argument? From a logical point-of-view, nothing. The syllogism is valid. But there's still something wrong with it, and here's what it is: There's more to God's will than rebuking people! Overlooking their transgressions is also His will (); as is forbearing with them (); and so is covering a multitude of their sins (), and keeping no list of their wrongs ().

A loving person strikes a balance and always in favor of grace; he obtains his attitude from God who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and delights in mercy. He is willing to call someone on his sins, but he is also slow to do it and gets no kick out of it. Most of all-and again, he gets this from God-he is for the person he is correcting and not against him. Correcting him is an act of love and not of venting his spleen or getting his way!

Under the sovereignty of God, faultfinders may help us see the error of our ways and live better lives than we would without them, but-say what they will-'help' is not what they're really after: what they want most is control, they want us to do what they tell us to do, when they tell us, and how.

THE LOCATION

What can a person be judgmental about? That's an easy one: everything! Much of it is in matters of personal preference. I disapprove of you because you do things I don't like. Underline the word, 'I don't like'. Of course I always have good reasons for not liking the things I don't like, and to some of them I can attach a Bible verse or two which seem to support me (if you don't look too closely).

If I don't approve of drinking or smoking then drinking and smoking are sinful; if I can't dance, you better not either! If I prefer pianos and hymns to guitars and choruses, guitars and choruses are irreverent; if I come to church in a suit and tie, you'd better not come in a tanktop and shorts!

Not one thing on this list is commanded in or forbidden by the Bible. Maybe some are better than others, but if we cannot prove it to the one who disagrees with us, we must not force compliance or try to by harping on it day and night!

The same is true of non-essential and difficult doctrines. Can we lawfully 'ride herd' on people who do not agree with us on predestination? Or the Sabbath? Or the Millennium? Is getting these things wrong incompatible with discipleship? George Whitefield (who was right on predestination, I think) thought his friend, John Wesley, was a far better disciple than he-even though he was as far off on the doctrine as he could be!

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Setting aside these secondary things, what about the things that are primary? Is it possible to be judgmental when it comes to the deity of Christ, let's say, or being faithful to your wife?

It is, but not in the way some people think. A Christian church is defined by its beliefs and practices, neither of which is ever what it should be. We all think wrong thoughts and do wrong deeds.

But the woman who denies the deity of Christ cannot be a member of the church because she is not a member of Christ-even if she's a sweet and generous lady. The man who lives in adultery and has no mind of getting out of it cannot be in the church for the same reason. Such people need to be judged with wisdom and firmness, and if not sorry for what they've done, to be put out of the church.

But even to them, we cannot be judgmental! What, judge them without being judgmental? Sounds like a word game. It isn't.

Go back to the definition and you'll see what I mean. We are judgmental when we are (1) eager to find fault, and this means 'too quick' or 'too happy', and when (2) blind to our own faults, that is thinking while others fell into scandal or heresy, it could not happen to us. It could. And knowing our own weakness will make us as patient and gentle as we can be, but not lax or lukewarm.

WHAT TO DO

How do we overcome judgmentalism in ourselves?

It starts with recognizing it. 'Am I a judgmental person?' I don't think I am, but I don't leave it here. I pray about it, I read the Bible to find the truth about myself, and-gulp, gulp-I ask someone who knows me well and loves me enough to tell me the truth.

From there, we confess it to the Lord; judgmentalism is a serious sin, both because it hurts other people, and it infringes on the rights of Jesus Christ. God has appointed Him judge of the living and the dead-not I!

We accept the forgiveness God offers us in His Gospel.

We apologize to the people we have judged too harshly.

We keep in mind what we are-not the sinner's judge, but a sinner guilty of the same sins (or worse) than he is, and every bit as dependent on the grace of God.

Finally, we mediate on the character of God and start acting like Him-

Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

TEXT:

SUBJECT: Respectable Sins

#16: Conclusion

For the last few months we have spent our Sunday afternoons discussing Jerry Bridges' little book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. Two or three people have told me how much they've enjoyed the study-well, 'enjoyed' may be the wrong word: how much they have profited from it may be the word I'm looking for.

The study has done you no good if you have seen only how it applies to other people. To say, 'That man is angry, That woman is bitter, That family is selfish' says more about you than it does them. It says you're self-righteous, the sin Jesus condemned more than all the others put together.

If this is what you have thought as we worked our way through the book, it's time to confess your sins to the Lord-not mine or his or hers or theirs-but your own. Being self-righteous is really, really, really bad, except for one thing: Jesus died for Pharisees as much as He did for publicans! If you could only see that your Respectable Sins are as numerous and as bad as everyone else's, you too would have a place at the party alongside your loving father and runaway brother now come home.

The more Respectable a sin is the more dangerous it is because it looks like what it is not. Judgmentalism looks like 'high standards'; pride looks like 'self-respect'; anxiety looks like 'concern'; impatience looks like 'efficiency'; and gossip? That often looks like a prayer request!

We need a Savior! A Savior to save us from our sins, and not only the ones we're ashamed of, but especially the ones we're not!

Thank God! What we need He gives. He gives us a Savior who dies to bear the penalty of our sin, who lives to make us holy, and who will come again to-

Present us faultless

Before the Presence of His glory

With exceeding joy.

A book on Respectable Sins can become a long, hard bawling out. But Jerry Bridges has not done this, and I hope I haven't either. Preachers sometimes bring up sin to manipulate their people; I have done it to free you-for the lives God wants you to live, and in your better moments, you want to live as well, but don't because you're so encumbered with.Respectable Sins.

This being the last part of our study, we will break no new ground, but quickly go over what we have learned, and then discuss it.

WHAT IS A RESPETABLE SIN?

What is a Respectable Sin? In the first place, it is a sin, either because the Bible plainly forbids it, or because it is not consistent with wisdom or Christian love.

Many sins are spelled out in the Bible. In , Paul gives a partial list-

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like.

Without a closer study, we may not be able to distinguish between, let's say, 'uncleanness' and 'licentiousness', but, still, we have a pretty good idea of what the verses mean. It is impossible to worship idols innocently, or to commit adultery, or murder somebody.

These sins are spelled out in the Bible, and the 'situations' around them don't matter: Sorcery is always wrong, even if you're doing it to make your voodoo neighbor feel welcome!

If some things are always sinful, whatever the context, other things may be innocent in some situations, and sinful in others. The New Testament example of this is eating meat sacrificed to idols. Paul makes it clear the meat is God's gift and can be eaten with thanksgiving to the Lord. But he also knows that-in the First Century Roman Empire-most people did not know this, and a good many of them were believers. To them, eating meat offered to idols was a way of worshiping false gods, and when they saw other Christians do it, they were tempted to join them-with a bad conscience.

To the Christians who know the truth about his meat Paul says-'Get your priorities straight!'-

Will you destroy one for whom Christ died

For the sake of meat?

The Gospel does not forbid eating meat sacrificed to idols, but it surely forbids leading other Christians astray! Had the Romans and the Corinthians been wise and loving, they would have known this, and put their brethren before their bellies!

A sin, therefore, is what the Bible forbids or what is not consistent with wisdom or brotherly love.

If a Respectable Sin is a sin, it is a particular kind of sin. Bridges tells us what kind on the book's cover-

Sins we tolerate.

I wish he would have added, 'in ourselves'. Most of them are intolerable in other people. Nobody wants to live with an angry husband or a judgmental wife or kids who practice no self-control. The sins are not respectable in others, but for some reason, when they're our own sins, they not too bad at all!

This is what a Respectable Sin is-a sin we tolerate in ourselves, either because we think it's not a sin at all, or if it is, repenting of it is not worth the time and effort.

RESPECTABLE SINS AND CULTURE

Respectable Sins differ from culture to culture. When I was in Russia, I was surprised to see how dishonest the disciples of Christ were. Nearly everything was done 'under the table' and nobody seemed to think 'bribery' was a bad word. Why are the Russians this way? Because they grew up in the Soviet Union where you could not survive without 'working the angles'.

When our Russian friends came here, they were equally surprised at our inhospitality and lack of concern for the poor. Are Americans more wicked than Russians or Russians worse than Americans? No. We're both wicked but in different ways, ways shaped by our different cultures.

What are America's Respectable Sins-I mean the non-Christian part of our society? What do people do all the time, and, as far as we can tell, without guilt or remorse?

The list is endless! Here's what I came up with: Taking the Lord's Name in vain; pre-marital sex; pornography; the love of money; covetousness; vanity; gossip; and extreme self-righteousness (seen for example in demonizing people for smoking, being fat, driving SUVs or voting for candidates you don't agree with).

Thankfully, some of these things are not respectable in the Church. We may fall into them, but we don't approve of them, and we pray and struggle to get out of them.

RESPECTABLE SINS IN THE CHURCH

This does not mean no sin is respectable to us; some sins are tolerated in ourselves, and lived in as though God is okay with it. He isn't okay with it; He calls us to repentance, and not just from the big ones that land us in jail or break up our marriages or cost us our jobs, but all sins. Including the Respectable ones.

The ones we have looked at during this study are: ungodliness, worry, frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, a lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, and judgmentalism.

Maybe no one here is guilty of every one of these sins, but I'm sure no one is innocent of them all.

How do you look at the brother or sister who does not live up to your standards? Do you see him or her as a member of the Body of Christ, someone as dear to God as you are-and as someone you need as much as he needs you? Or do you scorn him, or pat him on the head?

How do you look at food or wine or movies or exercise? Are they gifts of God to you, or substitutes for God-saviors from anxiety or meaninglessness; the things that justify your existence.

How do you feel about the future?

Your answers tell you a lot about yourself. They expose your respectable, some of them, at least, but that's not all they do. They also reveal your Savior, who loves you enough to hate these sins and to call you out of them.

SERIOUS

Respectable Sins are not respectable to God-and not because He is quick to find fault and enjoys doing it. Jeremiah says-

He does not afflict willingly.

God hates respectable sins because they hurt people. Most of all the people guilty of them. We are made in the likeness and image of God, and He is not selfish or discontented or impatient. This means, when we are these things, we are untrue to Him and ourselves. His image in us is marred-and this cannot be good or safe.

They also hurt other people. Think of the damage judgmental parents do to their kids. They provoke rebellion, as nobody wants to live under a regime that picks him apart whatever he does; they make kids sneaky and deceitful, knowing whatever they do will be criticized, and so do it secretly and lie about it when caught. Most of all, they make them afraid to make a decision, and this is a catastrophe for later in life.

Christians hurt the unsaved by our Respectable Sins. Instead of showing the world what God is, we show them what He is not. This gives them further excuse to reject Him and live with the freedom Satan gives them (which is bondage).

Worst of all, Respectable Sins hurt God. The philosophers made the gods impassible, above human pain, but the prophets knew better: God is above the world, but He is also in the world, sharing in our suffering-including the suffering Respectable Sins inflict on us.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT RESPECTABLE SINS

What do we do with our Respectable Sins?

We confess them to God and to ourselves, and when needed, to the people we have hurt by them. There is no cure for sin until we fess up to it.

We take them to Christ for pardon, and we take the pardon He gives us. Guilt is good until our sins are confessed, but not after. If the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, we walk away from our confessions forgiven, and we should know it and feel like it.

We trust the power of the Holy Spirit to change us. Most churches do not celebrate Pentecost Sunday, but maybe we ought to, because that day the Kingdom of God came with power, and the power can change lives! Maybe you're an angry man or a worried woman or a self-righteous Christian. You don't have to stay this way! Jesus has been glorified, the Spirit has been given, and the New Covenant is in operation.

While trusting in the Holy Spirit, we also accept responsibility for our sins and take the measures necessary to resist them. No lying around, waiting for God to zap us! If you're a gossip, spend less time on the phone, tell your wife to stop you when you start it, apologize to the people you've backbitten. Find the parts of the Bible that speak of gossip and meditate on them.

Over all things, pray without ceasing.