On Sin: Big and Small, Public and Private

Responding to well-known moral failures:

I have to begin by saying my title is somewhat misleading. The biblical Christian really does not believe that sin is small, or inconsequential, or no big deal. All sins are serious. All sins sent Christ to the cross. All sins result in alienation from God. And all sins must be dealt with – and that Christ has done, for those who avail themselves of it.

But I want to discuss something that has been making headlines for over a week now – at least here down under. Most Australians – certainly those who are AFL fans – are aware of the five Sydney Swans footballers who have been caught out in some pretty unseemly behaviour.

Their early morning booze-up and romp with strippers has resulted in them being left out of the rest of this season’s games. And the club itself, indeed, the whole league, is now asking hard questions. Of course right now police investigations are going on concerning some pretty serious accusations made by some of the women.

So we must let all that play itself out. But the footy world has been rocked, and the repercussions have been pretty serious so far. As I say, the five will not be playing any more games this season. Given that the Swans were second on the ladder, and had every chance to go on to the Grand Final – and win it – this is certainly serious stuff at least in terms of the footy.

But how many partners and family members have been impacted by all this? One player – I believe the captain – was due to be married. It seems that marriage might still go ahead, but it has been deferred. It would be pretty tough being that fiancée right now.

So relationships are now in shambles. Careers are in chaos. Reputations are on the line. The consequences of this go on and on. What the players – and their defenders – may have thought, that this was just letting off a bit of steam or having some fun, seems to be well off the mark.

Of course while the media is all abuzz about this situation, it is obviously not going to use the ‘S’ word here. It will not be talking about sin. It will not be thinking about this as an affront to a holy God. Sure, they will talk about how women have been hurt and so on, and that is all true. But the bigger issue is the sin issue.

Christians know that this is what really matters. And several scriptural passages immediately come to mind here. One of course is Numbers 32:23: “be sure your sin will find you out.” And what Jesus warned about in Luke 12:2-3 also seems quite relevant:

“Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.”

Another text that I often think about in these circumstances is what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 5:24: “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.” I have discussed that text before, as in this piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/14/on-hidden-faults/

Subtle sins?

And another thing the believer must consider is the fact that it really is unwise to wrongly compare ourselves with others. Some Christians might think they would never do something as shameful and immoral as these five footballers.

But the real deal Christian knows that he needs to nip that sort of thinking in the bud early on. He is aware that Jesus told us that looking lustfully at a woman is the same as committing adultery, just as hating someone is the same as murdering them (Matthew 5:21-30). So we need to take care here.

Indeed, related to all this is the idea that some sins are obvious no-nos, and yet we allow far too many “respectable sins” to live and grow within us. That phrase comes from a book Jerry Bridges wrote back in 2007. It was a terrific and very helpful volume, and I have discussed it before:

Around six years ago Jerry Bridges penned an important volume entitled Respectable Sins. In it he rightly pointed out how most Christians think they are doing pretty good because they avoid the really ‘big’ sins. They think that since they have not murdered anyone or raped somebody lately they are actually pretty decent people.

 

But they tend to forget that there are all sorts of other sins which God equally frowns upon, such as gossip or impatience or gluttony, and so on. Says Bridges, “The motivation for this book stems from a growing conviction that those of us whom I call conservative evangelicals may have become so preoccupied with some of the major sins of society around us that we have lost sight of the need to deal with our own more ‘refined’ or subtle sins.”

 

We look at a Hitler or a bin Laden or a Charles Manson or a notorious drug dealer and think to ourselves, ‘I am so glad I am not as bad as they are’. But we are as bad, at least when compared to a righteous, holy and perfect God. Our regular sins of back-stabbing, anger, pride, and the like are equally offensive to the God with whom we have to do.

 

I have often written about these less talked about sins. For example, based on Revelation 21:8, I have discussed how cowardice is an equally big sin. When we refuse to stand up and speak out about that which really matters because of fear of man or the desire to avoid controversy, that too is grievous sin. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2013/09/26/the-curse-of-complacency/

To say all this is to try to get the biblical balance right. By reminding us that we all have our “small” sins or secret sins, is NOT to minimise or make excuses for the “big” sins or the public sins, such as these Swans stars were involved in.

What they did was wrong. And it does need to be called out. And in due course we will learn more from the police investigation. So the Christian wants to say a strong “no” to such behaviour and activities. But he also wants to always keep in mind the old maxim, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’

We all sin, and we all have areas in our life that need real work on. We may have not been caught out like these five were, but we still are works in progress. And the good news is, Jesus HAS dealt with the sin problem. He has taken the punishment that we deserve, so that we might be made right with God.

When we come to him in faith and repentance, he can declare us righteous in God’s eyes because of the substitutionary death of Christ. This is what we call ‘justification’. But that is the first step in the rest of our Christian journey, as we seek – with the Spirit’s help – to become more and more godly, more and more Christlike. That is called ‘sanctification’.

So when a story like this one about the Swans breaks, the Christian should have at least two responses. One is to look within. Psalm 139:23-24 is a good place to begin:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

The closing chapter of Bridge’s book is called “Where Do We Go From here?” A few quotes from it are worth sharing here:

So we need to be honest and humble enough to admit our subtle sins in order to experience the love that comes through the forgiveness of those sins. But we must face them in order to deal with them. The worst sin of all, in practical terms, is the denial of the subtle sins in our lives. We cannot deal with them until we admit their presence. The first step in dealing with any sin is to acknowledge it and repent in one’s attitude toward it. This doesn’t mean we will make rapid progress in getting those sins out of our lives. The flesh doesn’t give up that easily. Rather, to use Paul’s term, these subtle sins must be “put to death” (Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5). Furthermore, we have developed habits of sinning. We have developed habits of ungodly thinking: anxiety, self-indulgence, critical attitudes, gossip, and the like….

 

Remember that our progressive sanctification – that is, our putting off sin and putting on Christlikeness – rests on two foundation stones: the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Always look to Christ and His perfect righteousness for your standing and your acceptableness to God. Remember, if you are united to Christ, God sees you clothed in His perfect righteousness. And always look to the Holy Spirit to enable you to deal with sin in your life and to produce in you the fruit of the Spirit.

And the second thing we should be doing when things like this come to light is to pray. Pray for these five men, and all those associated with them. They will sure need our prayers right now. And pray especially that all this will lead them to know the love, forgiveness and new life offered in Christ.

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