Bridges on Respectable Sins

Jerry Bridges has been writing thought-provoking, challenging, stimulating, exhorting books for believers in Christ for about 25 years.

Several of his books have been at the top of my "recommended reading" books for many years:

• The Pursuit of Holiness
• The Practice of Godliness
• Trusting God (republished in a shorter version as Is God Really in Control?; the first book is better because it is more comprehensive).
• Transforming Grace

And in the past couple of months, he's written another book that is sure to remain on that reading list for years to come: Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.

The book was written because of his observation that

…the concept of sin among many conservative Christians has been essentially redefined to cover only the obviously gross sins of our society. The result, then, is that for many morally upright believers, the awareness of personal sin has effectively disappeared from their consciences. But it has not disappeared from the sight of God. Rather, all sin, bot the so-called respectable sins of the saints, which we too often tolerate, and the flagrant sins of society, which we are quick to condemn, are a disregard for the law of God and are reprehensible in His sight. Both deserve the curse of God. [p. 22]

So what kinds of sin does he address as being overlooked as insignificant?

• ungodliness
• anxiety and frustration
• discontentment
• unthankfulness (even in difficult circumstances)
• pride (evidenced in moral self-righteousness, pride of correct doctrine, pride of achievement, and an independent spirit)
• selfishness (with our interests, time, and money, producing inconsiderateness)
• lack of self-control (with our eating an drinking, temper, finances, television and hobbies)
• impatience and irritability
• anger (ultimately, towards God)
• weeds of anger (resentment, bitterness, enmity & hostility, grudges)
• judgmentalism (over differing convictions and doctrinal disagreements, producing a critical spirit)
• envy and jealousy (and their related sins of competitiveness and a desire to be controlling)
• sins of the tongue (like gossip, slander, lying, and harsh words, sarcasm, insults, and ridicule)
• worldliness (in relation to money, vicarious immorality, and idolatry)

I approached this book with anticipation, selecting a few things from that list that I thought might be of some help to me. Yet as I read, I found in each chapter insights that convicted me of lazy attitudes and sloppiness towards sin. And in the discussion of each sin, he is careful to offer hope (chapter six — "Directions for Dealing with Sins" — offers a six-fold direction to apply to all subtle sins), and to also deal with the sin at a root level, not just superficial circumstance or action (e.g., anger is ultimately not just anger, but anger and discontentment with God, and must be confessed as anger against Him).

In spite of the number of topics addressed, the book is very readable devotionally (21 chapters, 181 pages) — reading one chapter a day along with one's regular Scripture reading is very doable. In fact, the brevity of the book is related to my only mild criticism of it — it's too short! Often after concluding a chapter I would find myself thinking, "tell me more — I need to hear more of the Biblical truth on this subject!" Yet the book's brevity also makes it accessible to virtually every believer in Christ.

In the plethora of new books being continually published, this is an important one, worthy of being read by any follower of Christ wanting to initiate serious confrontation of sin in his life. If you were to read only one book this next year, should this be the one? I'm not sure — there are many worthy candidates. But if you were to read only five books this next year, should this be on the list? Absolutely.

On the reasons for great sin

Dwight Edwards was the pastor of Grace Bible Church in College Station, TX until he failed morally and resigned several years ago. In the great grace of God, repentance was wrought in his heart, as he recently shared in his testimony (search using his last name to find the audio).

What contributed to his failure? Lack of gratitude:

This, for me, has been very important. Cultivating a grateful spirit to the Lord is not important. It’s critical. It is so critical. If I had to pinpoint one thing where I would go back, is that somewhere in the craziness of my thinking I became angrier and angrier at God for what I thought He owed me, I thought He wasn’t giving me, and increasingly I lost gratitude and thankfulness for the immense blessings that were there and I just wasn’t seeing.…We either go through life grateful to God or angry at God…for me it’s a very short step when I stop being grateful to God for what I had to being angry at God for what I [thought] He wasn’t coming through with.…Romans 1 makes a lot more sense to me…“when they knew God they glorified Him not as God nor were thankful,” and then it’s just a slide right down into sin — that’s what happened to me.

As we approach the holiday of Thanksgiving, we do well to be intentional in cultivating gratitude because, 1) it is the fitting response to the recognition of God's work in our lives, and 2) it is difficult to sin when we are genuinely grateful.


(HT: Unashamed Workman)

Enduring with Christ When Others Sin Against You

At the recent Desiring God Conference, "Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints," Jerry Bridges addressed the topic of how to endure, even when others sin against you:

“Life is frequently difficult, and it’s sometimes painful. And if you live long enough, you will experience both difficulties and pain. And if you want to endure to the end, if you want to stand firm in the face of life’s difficulties and pain then you must have a firm belief in the sovereignty and love of God, and we could add, the wisdom of God. Not only believe that God is in control of every event in His universe and specifically every event in your own life, but God in exercising that control does so from His infinite love for you. [In Lam. 3:37] the prophet says, ‘who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it?’ This verse affirms God’s sovereignty over the actions of other people. So much of life’s pain is caused by the sinful actions of other people. And if you do not believe that God is sovereign and in control of those, then you’re tempted to become bitter, and when you become bitter, then you begin to peel off, and you will not stand firm. You will not endure — if you let other people’s sinful actions cause you to be bitter. And one of the ways that we can keep from becoming bitter…is to realize that God is in sovereign control, even over the sinful actions of other people.”

The rest of this message, along with the others from that conference are well worth hearing and heeding.

God, sin and sovereignty

One of the repeated questions people (both those who believe in Christ and those who do not) have about God is the relationship between sin and suffering, and God who is sovereign over all things. How can those seemingly contradictory statements co-exist and God still be God?

In his most recent sermon, John Piper addresses that question and after building an extensive argument, says,

I conclude, therefore, that God permitted Satan’s fall, not because he was helpless to stop it, but because he had a purpose for it. Since God is never taken off guard, his permissions are always purposeful. If he chooses to permit something, he does so for a reason — an infinitely wise reason. How the sin arises in Satan’s heart, we do not know. God has not told us. What we do know is that God is sovereign over Satan, and therefore Satan’s will does not move without God’s permission. And therefore every move of Satan is part of God’s overall purpose and plan. And this is true in such a way that God never sins. God is infinitely holy, and God is infinitely mighty. Satan is evil, and Satan is under the all-governing wisdom of God.

The important sentence there is, "If [God] chooses to permit something, he does so for a reason — an infinitely wise reason." There is a purpose in all of God's dealings with all men — even when sin intrudes into our lives. And that purpose could be stated succinctly as, "His purpose in His dealings with unbelievers is to bring them to Christ (1 Tim. 1:15-16; 2:6; 2 Pet. 3:9 — or to leave them without excuse for their rejection of Christ; Rom. 1:20); and His purpose in His dealings with believers is to conform them to the image of Christ (e.g., Rom. 8:28)."

So, when confronted with evil, we should respond in these ways, Piper notes:

How then should we relate to evil? How should we think and feel and act about Satanic evil — the death of little Zach at the attack of a pit bull? The deaths of three more miners trying to save their buddies? Five hundred dead in the Peru earthquake? The evil you confront in your own lives? Here is my summary answer. Eight things to do with evil. Four things never to do.

1. Expect evil. “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).
2. Endure evil. “Love bears all thing, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7; cf. Mark 13:13).
3. Give thanks for the refining effect of evil that comes against you. “Give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:18; Romans 5:3-5).
4. Hate evil. “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9).
5. Pray for escape from evil. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13).
6. Expose evil. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).
7. Overcome evil with good. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).
8. Resist evil. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

But, on the other hand:

1. Never despair that this evil world is out of God’s control. “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).
2. Never give in to the sense that because of random evil life is absurd and meaningless. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Romans 11:33, 36).
3. Never yield to the thought that God sins, or is ever unjust or unrighteous in the way he governs the universe. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways.” (Psalm 145:17).
4. Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ. If you trust him with your life, you are in Christ. Never doubt that all the evil that befalls you—even if it takes your life—is God’s loving, purifying, saving, fatherly discipline. It is not an expression of his punishment in wrath. That fell on Jesus Christ our substitute. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6).

While listening to this sermon this morning, I thought back to one of his sermons that made a great impact on me, his exposition of Rom. 9:19-23, "How God Makes Known the Riches of His Glory to the Vessels of Mercy." Both of these sermons are helpful in understanding God's sovereign and glorious purposes in allowing sin into the world in general, and into our lives in particular.