Respectable Sins | Episode: How Much Can A Christian Sin?

That if we have the Holy Spirit, how is it that someone who has the Spirit can perform such horrible acts of sin, and then not only that, but repetitive acts? I'm going to put this out there for someone who's listening and maybe even struggling and judging us at the moment.

What's interesting to me is that someone who's very quick and there are several camps out there that are very quick to judge people who basically don't overcome sin quickly. Let me point out your acceptable sins, the sins that it doesn't bother you that you sin repetitively over and over and over again.

These are the acceptable sins, the sins of judgmentalism, the sins of laziness, the sins of lack of faith would be one, or the sin of gossip. Can I keep going? These are the sins that we yeah, come on, jump on in.

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The Problem of Respectable Sins

We've commented on this before. I've said something about this before, I think in the members area, and I'm going to go ahead and say it now for all to hear. One of the respectable sins that everybody commits, that everybody is pretty happy to admit they struggle with, is pride.

If you ask somebody, hey, tell me what you're struggling with, to a man, almost every person is going to say, well, pride. It's very interesting to me that in the circles that you're pointing out, where we're very quick to tell somebody, like the guy that says, I've been struggling in a battle against sexual sin, like in the form of pornography, for 15 years.

Well, the response of most people in that scenario is going to be, you've been battling against pornography for 15 years, and you don't have victory over that yet. Are you sure that you're even a Christian?

Because if you had the Holy Spirit in you, you would see victory over pornography by this point, 15 years in.

Turning the Question Back on Pride

Okay.

I would want to turn the table on that.

Man or woman.

I mean, here's the thing. The reality is that's not gender anymore.

No, no, no. I agree. I was just illustrating.

No, I agree.

Yeah.

It could easily be a female, not a male. I would turn the tables right then in that moment. The person that is saying, how do you know you're a Christian if you're still struggling with porn after 15 years, I would say, well, okay, how long have you been a believer?

Let's just say, I've been a believer for 20 years, and you told me just a minute ago that you still struggle with pride. Well, yeah, I do. Okay, well, you've been a Christian for 20 years, and you don't have victory over pride yet.

Are you sure that you're even a believer? And if you're in ministry, it gets even worse. If you're a pastor, and you're like, yeah, I've been in the ministry for 30 years, and I'm still struggling with pride.

My response there is, okay, you've been battling pride for 30 years, and you're not victorious over it yet. Maybe you should question your salvation. Two, you're in the ministry. Maybe you should resign, because God says that humility is a prerequisite.

For real, if we want to really nail this stuff to the wall, that's how we would talk. And of course, we don't talk that way about respectable sins. Jerry Bridges talks about respectable sins. We don't talk that way about respectable sins, but the heinous ones, of course, we do.

The sexual sins and stuff that's very demonstrable in public and nature, like, well, you should be looking differently than you are if you're going to still continue to claim Jesus. All the while battling pride, gossip, malicious talk, all those things.

The Double Standard About Sexual Sin and Hidden Sin

Go, John.