Owning Our Pitfalls | Unhindered

Greetings, friends.
Thanks for being back with us in our Pastor Talk podcast series,
Unhindered, as we finish today at least the assessment portion.
And as we kind of go through some difficult questions today,
as we have gone throughout
this series, we’ve been challenged at lots of levels to think about the way that sin,
that disobedience,
that selfishness works its way into our lives,
the way that that
gets in our way,
the way that it “hinders us” from our journey of discipleship and following Christ.
Today we look at some really specific examples.
It’s not that these are worse than other behaviors,
though they may be more dramatic in some cases.
They may have more impact on others.
But today we really finished this portion of the podcast series with a very challenging
look into our lives to see if there are major places.
You know, it is one thing to move ahead needing to deal with some of the small things in our
life, but really in some ways that can’t be done until we move some of the boulders.
And so I think,
Michael, it’s fair to say today we may be,
for some people at least,
talking about those large things that get in our way.
Right.
So this is a point where it’s worth slowing down and being intentional about how we proceed,
because the church does have a reputation of caring a lot about talking about sin.
In fact, there’s a sometimes deserved reputation of pointing that sin at others,
sort of taking the finger and wagging it.
And my experience is that we tend to be more uncomfortable talking about sin when we’re
thinking about other people’s sin,
when we’re externalizing it and we’re thinking about
the places where they’ve made moral misgivings,
especially the public expressions of that.
That is the kind of thing that we often find easy to talk about,
easy to point out.
When that conversation goes the other way,
when it becomes a task of self-reflection,
of analyzing our own hearts,
assessing the state of our own souls,
recognizing and admitting both to ourselves, to God, to others, those places where we fall short,
that tends to be ground that is more difficult to walk.
And I think we tend to even build barriers to keep us from doing it.
Some of us are more tempted to sort of fill our attention and our time and our little
life gaps so that we never have an opportunity to assess our faults.
But the reality is,
a life lived without assessment,
a life lived without some slowing down and
admission to ourselves that there are places where we fall short,
is a life that’s going
to fall far below what God has called us and intends and makes possible for us to experience.
And so, this is difficult ground,
I’m not going to lie about that,
but if we’re willing
to be courageous, humble and honest with ourselves in this process,
Clint, I think there’s a lot to gain.
Yeah, and as we move into this,
remember that the word sin simply means where we miss the
mark.
It is not an indication,
it is not an evaluation of our worth or our worthiness because we
all wrestle with our own brokenness.
We all have places in our life where we simply don’t measure up to the example set for us
in Jesus Christ.
That is a defining truth of the Christian life.
We all have far to go down the path.
Having said that,
there are some sins,
there are some things that I think can be particularly
damaging to our life of faith because they can move into our soul and compete for ownership.
They can, in some ways,
take over.
And think about your car.
You have lights on your car if a tire is low,
if the temperature is a little…
And then there are other things in your car that could happen that are catastrophic.
And I think today we’ll be thinking about some of those red flags that are serious warning
issues in our life of faith.
The kind of things that really the faith and those behaviors are going to come to blows
at some point.
And if we’d like to use the word addiction in some case,
that may be an appropriate word.
That’s a loaded word.
That’s a medical word, a psychological word.
I don’t know if it’s a word that we will do a lot with theologically because the truth
is all of our sins are addictions at some level.
We are addicted to sinning.
We’re addicted to selfishness.
But these are the kind of behaviors that I think can have serious repercussions in our
life.
And I think they are those that…
At some,
it’s interesting, Michael, at some level,
they may be the most obvious.
And in other ways,
they’re the ones we hide from the most.
And so I think we’re going to ask you to answer some difficult questions today.
And some of those questions may be for you an indicator that there’s a real need to get
serious about that particular issue.
So Clint, I actually think that that’s a dichotomy that I wanted to speak to just a little bit
at the front end of our conversation here today is because sometimes we get this very,
I think, unhelpful frame that sin is always flagrant.
That when it shows up,
the stuff that’s sinful is obvious and big.
That stuff is the stuff we see when a notable figure has a fall from grace,
right?
When it comes out,
wait, they were doing what?
And it is this big thing.
What we fail to realize,
I think, in our own lives is that sin is always missing the mark
in the small way that adds brick upon brick,
layer upon layer upon layer,
until we wake up one day and we realize the sum total effect that that sin has had in our life.
And that effect looks lots of different ways.
Sometimes that’s a breach of our human relationship.
Sometimes that’s a kind of breach of our relationship with God.
Sometimes that’s a breach of our own moral code and ethics,
sort of our personal commitment
that we’ve made.
You know, this is a line I would never cross.
We find ourselves not only having crossed that line,
but it’s almost like we put on
glasses and we see in a terrifying moment,
not only did I cross it,
I’m miles from it.
I’m a long ways down the way.
And that didn’t happen in one day.
Nobody wakes up and suddenly our sin is overtaking us.
It’s a small gradual process that almost inevitably was a fruit of years of slowly taking step
after step.
And the reason I bring this up,
Clint, is just to say that as we look at some of these
questions that we have ahead of us,
they’re phrased, most of them very carefully,
on a scale.
The point here isn’t,
are you all in on that thing or are you not doing that thing at all?
The question is,
are you participating even in small measure in that thing?
Because we often find ourselves waking up later,
realizing that these things have been
sneaking up on us for a long time.
We never shined the light of reflection upon it.
We never invited God to show us it.
And it becomes for us a weight that builds over time until finally that weight is undeniable.
It’s too big to ignore.
The problem is, once we’ve reached that point,
Clint, we’ve caused real substantial damage in our lives.
Yeah, there’s a wonderful Christian named Samuel Johnson who once said that the chains
of habit are too light to feel until they’re too heavy to break.
And what he meant,
I think, Michael, was exactly that.
We build those chains a link at a time.
And in the early parts of that struggle,
it doesn’t feel heavy.
But increasingly,
they become directive in our life.
They become the gravity in our life.
And that’s the reason we’ve been very intentional about using the word confession.
Far too often,
Christians think that the key to my struggle with sin is that I’m going
to be strong enough.
I’m just going to stop doing that.
I’m going to stay away from that.
I failed in that area many times.
But now, I just have to be stronger and keep myself from it.
And I think it’s helpful at that moment to remember that Paul gives us some very beautiful and wise counsel.
It’s in our weakness that we find our strength.
And what does that mean?
It means that when we admit we’re struggling to make control in an area of our life,
that is when we’re ready to begin making pathways in a new direction.
It is not being strong enough.
It is not being some sort of super-Christian who gets to the level of simply being able
to walk away.
It is admission.
It is confession that I think this is becoming a problem for me.
I think that I am now burdened with these chains of habit that I’m not sure I’m strong
enough to break, and I now need an intervening grace.
I need some help.
And I think that that’s an important place to start,
Michael, because it is just far
too often.
We think we are the answer to our own sin.
And theologically,
it is not only untrue, it is dangerous.
So you point out,
I think some of us,
the temptation is that idea of strength,
Clint.
I think for some of us,
it’s the idea that I need to be able to resist,
stand up to, I’ll have a straight spine to and keep this thing from happening.
For some of us,
if we are unable to do that,
it feels like we’ve lost control.
And that feeling is,
maybe for some of us,
a feeling of danger.
It feels like we are in a position where we are threatened.
If that is your case,
then the process of admitting fault,
the recognition that you
indeed do have weakness is an unbelievably difficult journey to take.
And I just want to encourage you that you don’t need to take that journey all in one
day.
One simple paper assessment that you’re going to take is not going to bring you to the end,
but it may be a start.
And there may be some fear in taking that first step.
And you can trust that the very God who has been with you up to this point will carry
you beyond to the next point.
The other frame I want to offer here is some don’t
come to this because they have a sense
of strength.
For some,
it’s the idea of appearances,
that the reason why we don’t engage with our darkness
or we don’t admit our weaknesses or we don’t look back to see this chain that we’ve made
link by link is because we don’t want others to see it.
We want to preserve this image of a person who lives without sin.
For some of us,
it would be shameful if we showed that part of us to others.
For some of us,
we feel that we would be rejected by those that we love or people who
were trying to impress.
If for you, image is the thing that dominates this idea of sin and confession.
The Christian practice of confession is going to break that down because when we confess
to God, we must also confess to ourselves.
And in the Christian tradition,
we also do confession to those that we have hurt,
those who our weakness has caused pain and brokenness.
That is what missing the mark will achieve.
So,
the process of restoration,
of confession is going to be difficult if for you the image
is the thing at play.
And once again,
it’s going to require taking a bold step.
It’s going to require some trust and humility, but Clint,
we as Christians are called to
do this because of our conviction that this is the only way to find wholeness.
There is this beautiful theological idea that has said that that which isn’t assumed by
Christ, that which we don’t give to Christ is not healed by Christ.
And if we’re unwilling to admit that we have things to give to Him or things that we need
to repent of and confess,
then we will not receive the fullness of the salvation that
is an offer in Him.
And I think maybe one last word before we move to the assessment could be helpful,
Michael, and that is just an encouragement that we understand not everything that we’re going
to talk about is considered by the Presbyterian Church or by Michael and myself as inherently sinful.
It’s a matter of degree.
It’s a matter of dependence.
We in the human experience,
we have this amazing capacity to make an idol out of almost anything,
to give it our attention,
to give it too much importance,
to give it our allegiance.
We can do that with our homes,
we can do that with our automobiles,
we can do that
with our families, we can do that with our jobs, with money.
There is no end to our ability to put something in the center place of our life which should
be reserved for Jesus Christ.
And as we struggle with that,
that really becomes a thing.
So there are things on this list that for some Christians are simply not an issue and
there are things on—the very same thing on the list for another Christian may be
a devastating, lifelong struggle.
And so as we undertake this,
it is with the grace to say that we all wrestle with something
and we do so in the encouragement of the grace of Christ that what God wants for us is for
us to be unhindered,
for us to finally be unchained from that thing that we drag around with us.
And the possibility and potential of that,
I think, is why it is worth having conversations
that at some point may make us uncomfortable.
Yeah.
So let’s turn our attention here to the assessment.
If you haven’t already,
we would encourage you to download it,
print it maybe, or have it on another device.
You’ll find that in the description of this podcast,
wherever you’re watching or listening to it.
As we turn our attention to it,
you’re going to see at the very top here,
we have eight different things here that we’ve laid out.
We’re going to go through them here in turn.
But the first is we’re asking on a scale of one to five,
one being a strong yes,
have you struggled in the past or in the present with—and the first thing is have you struggled
with alcohol and drugs?
And I think, Clint, that this is maybe example par excellence to just get this conversation
started of one of these topics that for some,
drinking a glass of wine with a meal is a
simple part of life.
And for them, it’s just another beverage.
For others,
alcohol as a particular thing has literally destroyed their life.
It has broken down their relationships.
It’s taken away their agency.
They find themselves a slave to that substance.
And so this is,
I think, a great example to start this conversation of it’s not a matter
of the thing itself.
It’s what role we give that thing in our life.
Do we serve it?
And we’re asking you here to be honest and reflective,
has a substance—and this is
a particularly timely moment to have this conversation in which lots of people have
dealt with lockdowns and societal stress and pressures of all kinds.
Thanks, Clint.
There are some who alcohol maybe has become a more normal part of your life,
and this would be a good moment to step back and ask,
“Am I serving it,
or does this just remain
a healthy part of a normal life?”
Yeah, and all of these questions are going to demand a significant commitment to honesty.
And so maybe another way to get there is you might say, “Well, no.
I don’t have any problem with that.
I haven’t struggled at all.”
And the reality is those around you might say a very different thing.
And so if you have heard concern from others in regard to these things as well,
that might be worth thinking of,
because as we increase our dependence on something,
that something will inevitably try to protect itself from criticism.
And it will seek to become front and center in our life to the exclusion of everything
else eventually.
And that is a long,
painful process that fortunately most don’t have to go through.
But there are stages.
Nobody starts there.
And so what we’re asking is,
on this scale of,
“Yeah, I think so.” And no,
I don’t think so.
How prevalent,
how important,
how much do you rely on some substance?
How much has it become a part of your life?
Is it significant or is it marginal?
And we’re not telling you what the right answer is.
We’re not telling you what three,
four, five mean.
But if somewhere in your mind and in your heart you say,
“Yeah,
probably is more than
it should be,” that’s something to think about.
I think all we can do is ask these questions and let each of us wrestle with them in a
way that might point us toward the next step.
I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that somehow our spiritual life is
completely disconnected from our physical life.
And this is a particular example of where that breakdown is not helpful,
because the alcohol and drugs can become a chemical dependency,
can become a part of the actual fabric of
our biology, our bodies.
It’s not just spiritual.
It is all of these things combined.
And when that happens, Clint,
it is not just a matter of being honest with ourselves and
being spiritually present with God and with others and recognizing the impact these things
have.
It also includes other people who have other expertises in the midst of that conversation.
People who can deal with our bodies.
People who know,
especially when we look into the world of drugs,
what processes might even
be necessary to help you chemically be removed from the physical dependency you have upon that thing.
Our spiritual lives are connected to our physical bodies,
to our physical experience.
And so if you find yourself in a position where even your biology has become dependent upon a thing,
then friends,
you’re going to need to in time include others in that conversation.
Maybe you’re not ready to do that right now today to pick up the phone,
but I do believe
as those who are walking through this spiritual assessment together,
we need to recognize
that the path that this may take us on may require bringing others alongside of us.
And I think this is a really good example of one of those, Clint.
Absolutely, Michael.
I think that,
you know, it’s particularly a struggle because in the case of drugs,
you have legalities that help us.
For the most part,
those who participate with drugs are doing something that society has said,
you know, we really think that’s on the other side of wise.
We really think that’s on the other side of good communal behavior.
However, in the case of alcohol,
it is very prevalent.
It’s everywhere.
It’s accepted.
It’s legal.
And so there is not,
you know, it’s not so much the case in our own tradition.
There are traditions within the Christian family where alcohol is considered unacceptable
behavior.
Drinking of any kind is considered sinful.
In the Reformed Church,
I would say on the whole,
certainly in the Presbyterian Church,
that hasn’t really been the case.
So it is not an uncommon occurrence for there to be very committed Christian people in our tradition
who also take alcohol,
who drink wine with dinner,
who have a beer while they watch a game,
who whatever that looks like while they’re on the boat.
And they do that in a healthy way.
They do that in a way that doesn’t harm anyone.
They’re conscious of those around them.
They make good decisions.
And what that means,
I think, is that unfortunately for those who struggle,
there is always that opportunity to be drawn deeper in.
And so I think,
you know, the same thing could be said about other things we do for our body.
Probably, you know, we can,
there are many ways to abuse our physical bodies,
and we are to be
good stewards.
And so again,
if we feel like there is a substance that is getting in the way,
it might be worth thinking that through. So I think that leads us here to the next question,
which is quite diversion maybe
from your expectation, because we move from talking about alcohol and drugs,
a dependency upon that,
to looking here at anger.
Clint, have we seen and found anger to be a substantial part of our experience?
And I think this is an interesting conversation to jump into. Yeah, I think anger is an inevitable part of life.
For some of us, it’s our wheelhouse.
We can get there easily.
We can get there often.
It’s fascinating from a physiological standpoint.
There is very good research of that repeated anger harms our body.
It does so at a chemical level,
at a hormonal level,
at a stress level.
Being angry often is literally hard on us.
And yet for some of us,
it is our default reaction.
Whenever something doesn’t go our way,
when somebody does something that we don’t like,
when a project doesn’t go well,
we can get almost enraged.
And the Scripture is pretty clear that a life of unchecked anger is not really in keeping with
our discipleship, that we are to keep a rein on our temper.
That we are to be people who aspire to be gentle,
who aspire to be communal,
who aspire not to fly off the handle.
And I think this is one of those,
again, that demands some honesty.
If you have to think here,
how often am I angry?
And what am I angry about?
How regularly do I experience losing my temper,
or being frustrated,
or just feeling that sort of welling up inside of wanting to explode?
And if that’s happening repeatedly,
again,
that I think can be for us,
one of those warning lights on the dashboard.
Hey, there might be something here that needs unpack.
Right, because fundamentally our anger is a destructive sin
that eats away at the foundation of our relationships.
It may work within us.
It may be a kind of fire that burns,
but it won’t be long until that fire starts burning the very thing
that connects us to others who we love.
And so we have to be very careful,
because if we see anger rising,
it’s not to say that there’s not justified anger,
that there’s not times where the Christian is called to stand up.
And maybe even when we get emotional in that process,
that’s not what we’re saying.
When we find ourselves responding in situations
in which we skip beyond reason,
we go directly to maybe even a kind of vindictive response to others.
That is a sign on that dashboard to use that language, Clint,
that it’s time to be a little more reflective
about what is the thing burning behind the surface,
because that fire left unchecked will burn down the building.
It’s really not even a question of if it could,
it’s a question of when it will.
And so Christians must return to that central tenet of the gospel,
the idea of peace and grace,
repentance, forgiveness.
These are the things that will ultimately help us address that thing,
but we first need to be honest to see
if this has been a major part of our experience.
And I think it’s an important moment for us to think that through,
Michael, because I think culturally,
we have lived in a season of anger.
Media is angry.
Politicians speak in angry rhetoric.
Health people,
the various crises that we’ve navigated,
the way we’ve drawn up teams and declared enemies,
the way we talk about one another,
there is just this sort of festering,
smoldering anger that is a part of 21st century America right now.
And Christians have to be very careful not to be drawn into that,
particularly Christians who are predisposed through whatever reason
to internalize it and to externalize it without much control.
And so I think it’s a good challenge for us right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
That’s a good word.
I think, okay, so moving on to our next topic here,
you’re going to see,
we ask you,
have you struggled in the past
or present with pornography?
And the reality is,
this one might be simply answered
by going to your browser history, potentially.
The reality is we live in a moment in which it has never been easier
to get access to media.
And I once read a really interesting article.
It was in, I think, Wired magazine,
and it was all about how every major wave of distribution technologies, TV,
and then VHS, and then DVD, and then virtual reality,
how most of these new advancements were pushed along by the pornography industry,
that there has been such a substantial amount of desire to consume that content,
that it just simply is the thing that sort of drives the bleeding edge
of that kind of adoption.
And the reality is,
Clint, that sex sells, and that we are drawn to that kind of physical attraction,
to that kind of feeling.
It’s wrapped up in both our biology,
and for most of us,
it’s also connected to our own sense of worth
and our own sense of sort of making it along.
If this has been a problem for you,
if you have been drawn to pornography as a source of escape,
then this is a place where there’s certainly
some substantial self-questions to ask.
And this isn’t about the church moralizing, and blaming,
and dumping on a person.
This is fundamentally about asking,
why would you need that if you were whole?
If God has made you a person and called you good,
then you don’t need to add this into your life.
And if this is a part of your experience,
it’s a place where you can be made one in Christ,
and there is place for you to grow and be whole in it.
Yeah,
certainly we are sexual creatures.
We are created with sexuality.
We live in a sort of sexually obsessed culture.
And as you’ve said,
Michael, there has never been in the history of the world,
a time where pornography and sexuality
has been more explicit and more available,
on phones, on computers, on TVs.
You don’t have to go anywhere.
You don’t have to buy anything.
And for those who struggle with that,
that is a constant battle.
And it’s well-documented that pornography has,
for many people, a progression.
It starts with one thing and moves to the next,
and to the next,
and it becomes kind of consuming.
And Christians are not exempt from that.
The vast majority of Christian men have viewed pornography.
Many have struggled in that with a kind of compulsive,
addictive relationship with sexual material.
And again,
this isn’t about being prudes.
This is that Jesus wants to set us free from that,
that that is not honoring behavior,
that it’s not in keeping with who we aspire to be in Jesus Christ.
And it may be a significant struggle
to lessen and leave it behind, ultimately,
but it’s one to which we’re called.
And so if you find yourself,
and this is not only a problem for men,
I don’t mean to say that,
but it is predominantly a male struggle.
And if you find yourself thinking,
“Yeah,
I regularly leave the computer thinking,
I shouldn’t do that,
I’m not going to do it again,
and I find myself back there.”
If that’s the case,
clearly, it’s a moment to begin thinking about what it would look like
and what the path would look like to leave that behind.
In the same way that pornography has been transformed
in its sheer availability in the modern age,
I think the same can be said of our next topic, which is gambling.
With the advent of online gambling explicitly,
now there are actual casinos that are actually online
so that you can find them
and you can engage in them anywhere.
But it’s actually gone even farther than that now.
There are games that are built in
with the principles of gambling built in,
that if you play this game enough,
that this thing might happen.
And there’s really been a kind of move
to hook into that human biology,
that part of us that wants to get the flashing lights
and to get the win and to get ahead.
And what might be around the next corner?
If you find yourself really hinging a lot of your decisions
and free time upon what might happen if you did this thing,
that is a sign that you may be controlled by this thing
other than you taking agency.
There may be some thoughts and processes happening there
that do require some more thoughts,
some more reflectiveness.
And this doesn’t just look like,
I want to be clear,
this isn’t just do I go to the casino every weekend,
gambling now has a much wider,
I think, breadth.
And if you find yourself caught up in that,
that’s the thing to be reflective about.
Yeah, and this is another one of those,
that’s a good example,
Michael.
There are Christians who may go to Las Vegas
and play some of the games,
may go to their local casino,
may have poker night with their friends, money changes hand.
That’s not in itself a problem that I would argue that
it may not be the wisest thing in some instances,
but it’s probably not what we would call sinful by definition.
However,
it is well documented that gambling
hits those buttons inside us,
those endorphins, those dopamine and give us that brief sensation of satisfaction
and bring with it a repeat message.
And it can be for many a very compulsive thing
as they get drawn into that.
And so clearly it’s something in our culture
that many, many wrestle with.
And so if you find yourself thinking,
and yeah, I’ve got a particular vulnerability in that area,
or maybe I find myself drawn to that,
or I look back and see that I have increased
my relationship with those things.
Again, we can only say that might be worth thinking about.
That leads us here to our next conversation,
which is about dishonesty.
Have you found yourself struggling with dishonesty?
And Clint, you may disagree with me,
so push back if you do.
It seems to me we live in a moment in which we culturally
are tempted by this idea that the ends justify the means,
that we do have this temptation to divide up into teams
and do whatever it takes to help our team win.
But I just want to be straight with you.
I want to be honest with you that as Christians,
we have very little wiggle room as it relates to being people of honest,
truthful character.
In the Gospel of John,
we’re told that we are witnesses
to the good news of Jesus Christ,
and a witness is only valid or helpful to the extent
to which they tell the truth about what they see.
And that includes telling the truth about who we are
and our own weaknesses and our own lack of insight
and our own inability to know everything,
to tell the truth about when we have an opinion
that’s not rooted in facts that we know to be the case.
My point here, friends, is simply to say,
if you find yourself exaggerating,
if you find yourself stretching to make points,
if you find yourself willing to cut corners
because you believe it will serve an end goal,
even if that end goal is worthy,
Christians are very, very, very deeply connected to this idea of honesty,
of being of good character,
of reflecting what we know to be the truth,
and we should be incredibly suspicious.
We should have all of the warning lights
on the dashboard of our soul going off
if we find ourselves in a situation
where we are actively choosing a dishonest path.
I’m not saying that there’s not some fringe case
where maybe that is a conversation that needs had.
Maybe we talk about Bonhoeffer and saving the Jews.
I’m not saying it’s not out there, but, Clint,
99.99% of the time,
honesty is required in our Christian conduct.
Yeah, we are called to be truthful people.
Having said that,
we are not, as Christians,
called to beat people with the truth,
or especially our own truth.
There are those who are blunt and even cruel,
who hide under the guise of,
“Well, I’m just being honest.
I’m just telling you the truth.
You’re going to get the truth from me,
and I don’t mix words,
and I don’t pull punches.” That’s not this.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
This is a commitment to not only tell the truth,
but to live truthfully,
not to try and make ourselves look better before others,
not to need to be the center of attention.
And, Michael, I think I would say,
in regard to dishonesty,
it’s interesting.
Its place on this list is interesting
because, unlike gambling or alcohol or pornography
that are kind of the thing in itself,
dishonesty is often related to another thing.
It’s often our quest to be important,
our quest not to get caught doing something.
Dishonesty is sometimes a tool we use to hide other things
that are also part of the problem.
But if you look at this question,
and you have to admit to yourself,
if you’re being honest,
“Yeah, I’ve been pretty loose with the truth regularly
in the recent past,”
then, again,
that’s an indication.
This is a spot I can grow.
This is a spot I can put some work in.
This is an opportunity for me to clean up my faith life
in some sense and try to move forward.
You know, Clint, I think that sin is a little bit
like a bacteria that grows in a petri dish.
And when you never address,
honestly, the things that are happening in your life,
when you never shine the light of truth on it,
you never get rid of that thing that’s festering and growing.
That’s how it builds and grows,
is that it goes without being seen.
But the moment that a thing is seen,
then the gospel can be heard,
then forgiveness can be spoken,
and you can put a thing behind you.
I think much like what you said
as it relates to dishonesty,
that it often serves another purpose.
So the same, I think, with conflict with others.
I think we often find ourselves in conflict with others,
but generally not for the sake of having conflict.
We generally don’t wake up wondering,
“Who can I get into a fight with?”
We generally end up in those positions
because we find ourselves crossways with someone else.
We feel like they’re not pursuing an action
or a path that suits our interests,
or we find ourselves selfishly believing
our way is the only way to do a thing.
We often find other values expressed
when we find ourselves engaging with others in conflict,
especially when that is regularly
and with lots of different people.
And that’s a place we should slow down
and start asking questions,
not just about why is this conflict happening with them,
but where is it growing out of my own heart?
Yeah, we talked about this a little bit last week
in the sense of our relationship with others,
that if we find ourselves in regular conflict,
we have to say,
“Do I have something to do with this?
Is there something about my effect on others?
Is there something about the way that I engage other people
that leads itself to…
Am I insisting on my own way?
Am I irritable?
Am I looking for fight?
Am I lashing out at people?” And I think,
again, if you say, “Yeah,
I’m crossways with people a lot,”
we should think about why.
How is that the case?
That brings us to our next one,
which is a kind of repeat,
gambling, shopping, and spending.
And this really just has to do with how we use money.
Gambling is a behavior in itself.
I would say in this context,
it’s more the sense of,
“Are we using the way we use money to hide from something else?”
When we don’t feel good about ourselves,
when we’re having a rough day,
is it,
“Hey, I’m heading to Amazon and I’m hitting that buy button.
I’m going shopping.
I’m headed to the mall.
I’m going to play a few games of cards.”
This isn’t about the thing itself,
really.
This is about using the thing to kind of manage and moderate.
So some people go to the fridge for beers.
Other people go to the computer for shopping,
and I think the idea here is not a repeat of gambling,
but a different way that we can use spending money in general
to hide from the things that are really going on in our life.
I think that does connect to maybe even a deeper conversation
about the ways that we pursue a kind of public presence,
a kind of appearances that we put on.
If you find yourself regularly putting on makeup
or regularly putting on your best clothes,
and the honest truth is you haven’t wore good clothes all day,
but you’re doing this because you want to be seen.
You want others to know about your status.
If you show up driving a particular car
because you were thinking about what you want others to know,
Clint, I think that that is a kind of sign or symbol of our motivation,
and what the ancient Christians knew and wrote about frequently
was how often it’s not the sinfulness itself,
but rather the seedbed of our hearts
that that sinfulness is growing that causes the real danger.
So if we find ourselves using our money,
if we find ourselves using our appearances,
if we find ourselves using our family,
I mean, this goes very far out.
It’s very wide ranging.
If that’s happening, then this is a place
that we’re going to want to exercise
some real careful spiritual discernment.
Right.
I think if we are making decisions
based on what we hope it will say to others
about what we own,
where we live, what we have,
then clearly we have some questions
about why we’re focusing on the wrong things.
That leads us here to our final question.
We ask you about depression,
sadness, and despair.
I want to be clear here.
We’re not suggesting that depression is a sin
or that you’re committing sinfulness,
especially if someone is clinically depressed.
That’s a medical treatment oriented sort of diagnosis
that you need to have other people involved
in the conversation.
What we mean by this is there is a moment
in one’s life experience where the ebbs and flows,
the ups and downs are dominated more
than they should be with the lows.
And there requires a kind of honesty,
quite frankly, with ourselves to say,
I’m not doing well.
I have not laughed in a long time.
I’ve not let my hair down with the people that I love.
I have been tightly wound.
I have been unable to see light.
I’ve not been unable to see sort of the good things
that have been happening.
I’ve been dominated by criticism
or frustration or complaining.
If that has been your experience,
then that is a place of honest admission.
That’s what we mean by confession.
By recognizing the truth of how things have been,
that then opens a window,
a gateway.
Quite frankly,
it opens your heart to invite Jesus
to come in to make a new path possible.
And so that’s really what we mean by this section here.
Obviously, most of us have been there.
We’ve had those days.
We didn’t want to get out of bed.
We had a hard time laughing.
We didn’t feel great for whatever reason.
That is a part of human life.
And to be honest,
it’s not a bad part of human life,
though it’s not an enjoyable one.
We need the valleys to help us gain some strength
and perseverance and to help us enjoy the mountaintops.
But when that becomes our sort of dominant experience,
when that’s the lens that seems to be
what we’re looking through every day,
when we feel not only sadness,
but numbness, when we just simply find ourselves thinking, “I’m done,”
then this is a very clear sign
that it’s time to talk to somebody.
It’s time to maybe make some changes of patterns.
It’s time to think about,
are we taking care of ourselves?
What are the steps on the path to move out of that?
And again, Michael,
I think in terms of timing,
this is big right now.
We’re in the winter.
It’s dark.
It’s cold.
There’s a seasonal thing.
But also, there’s a cultural thing.
These have been a hard couple of years,
and they have worn some people down.
And there is no shame in saying,
“I’m at a place where I think I could use some help.”
The Midwest is very tough in this regard,
because if we feel sick,
most of us go to a doctor.
But when we feel down and depressed for days and weeks on end,
we say, “Well, I just have to grab my bootstraps and pull myself up.”
We have that sort of mythology that we wish was true in the Midwest, but it isn’t.
For some of us,
it’s going to mean getting some help.
And that’s a hard thing to admit.
It’s a hard thing to do.
But if you are in that place,
man, is it important.
It’s time to think about getting out of that place.
That’s really well said.
There’s nothing to add to that other than, yes,
100%.
This is our temptation,
especially if you’re a Midwesterner.
Please take these signs seriously,
because beginning the process of confession earlier,
as hard as it may seem,
is going to be better
than it will be farther down the road.
Yeah, and you know, one other thing, Michael.
We didn’t put this on the list explicitly,
but this is a place it might fit to think about
our physical relationship with something like food.
You know, we’ve had here drugs, alcohol,
some of the things that people reach to in times of sadness.
And I think food is another one of those physical
parts of our life that sometime become a crutch
or an addiction or a problem.
You can relate that to body image,
to body size.
You can relate that to health.
There are lots of ways to think about it from different perspectives.
But if we find ourselves turning to the junk food every time,
you know, it’s like those dogs that were trained with a bell.
Every time I feel sad,
I just hit the cupboard.
And that’s going to have an impact on me.
Not just my physical health,
but my mental health.
Again,
well-documented, well-researched.
And so I think we want to be careful here
because we all need food,
and this isn’t a judgment on any person of any body type or size.
It is to say that food can be one of those indicators for us.
What we eat, when we eat it,
why we eat it,
can be a light for us that says,
hey, there may be something deeper here.
I’m going to let you fill in any details here,
Clint, that you might want to add.
I think I’m only going to say here in this next section,
we’ve identified some places where I think it’s very easy
to talk ourselves out of it.
In other words, I think looking here at alcohol use, we asked,
have you used or drank alcohol frequently or heavily?
And has that been hidden?
We already talked about alcohol.
That was the very first thing that we talked about
in our conversation here today.
But this and some of the things that have followed
in these questions, I think for us,
are important spark notes conversations.
They’re another lens or perspective that we can bring.
If you answer yes to one of these,
then I might go back to the previous questions
and analyze that scale.
Maybe even look at how much did I do this thing in the past
and how much am I doing it now?
Is that different?
I will say there are some sins,
Clint, that just embed themselves in our soul.
Your example of food,
I think, is one of those examples
because that is, for most of us,
completely thoughtless.
It is built into a habit and routine.
We just find ourselves doing it
and we would say at the other end,
we see the empty bag
and we say, how did that happen?
I didn’t plan to do that.
I didn’t choose to do that.
It just happened.
I think so the same with these other things, alcohol,
drugs, pornography,
lying,
fantasizing, stealing, all of these would be physical things
that if we’re honest, we couldn’t deny.
But when we see that,
then it’s gonna prompt us
to look deeper at what’s happening there.
I think most of these things are sort of
the classical expressions of masking a hidden pain.
They typically,
psychologically and spiritually, have their roots in something that’s going on in our spirit.
They’re not the thing in itself.
They are pointing to the thing.
It’s very interesting.
The church fathers are spiritual fathers,
the spiritualists out in the desert,
they didn’t consider things like drunkenness and sexuality.
They considered them sinful,
but they didn’t consider them the most serious class of sins.
They considered them expressions of things like pride,
of things like despair,
of things like arrogance,
of things like relational issues.
And I think when we treat them as symptoms,
it can be helpful to understand
that usually if we’re willing through time and work
to get beneath them,
there may be something there.
And so in my mind,
Michael, these next six questions,
these last six questions,
they’re very simple.
They’re kind of pass/fail.
They’re not really along a degree.
If you answer yes to one of these,
the truth is we should circle it and we should look at it.
I mean,
have you hidden alcohol use?
Have you used illegal drugs?
Have you used pornography or viewed pornography?
Have you lied to your spouse or a family member?
Have you pursued or fantasized
about a relationship that’s inappropriate?
Have you stolen something?
If you have to write yes to answer these questions honestly,
this isn’t a value judgment.
This isn’t a sign that you’re a bad person, nothing like that.
This is why,
when,
how,
we would encourage you.
This is a clear indicator in my mind.
There’s something going on in that area.
That’s why, Clint, I think these next two
and final questions are critical.
I think these are mission critical to this entire task.
So let’s look at them quickly.
What is the sin you feel you struggle with the most often?
This to me is a question of discernment and identification.
That’s the whole point of an assessment,
right?
Is to identify what is the thing
that stands at the crossroads of my soul right now?
What is the thing that maybe I have been aware of
or maybe I have become aware of that is most dangerous
to my own sense of self,
to my own relationship with others
and then ultimately my ability to connect
with a loving, gracious God.
Once that’s been identified,
it opens this opportunity to ask,
what effect does it have on you and others?
And Clint, I cannot emphasize enough,
I think how important this last question is
because the temptation of sin,
the story that we tell ourselves with sin is,
it is only for me to know
and it has no impact on any other part of my life.
We really believe the idea that we can firewall
and contain our brokenness.
We can keep others from seeing it
and we can keep it from impacting our lives.
That is the fundamental lie of the human experience.
We cannot contain the thing that we do not give up.
The thing that we do not know and readily admit
is not a thing that we control.
And so if you can frame your sinfulness honestly,
what happens is not a process of moralization,
not a process of shaming.
It’s not about that you’re not a good person.
It’s not that you are unworthy of anything.
This is a narrative, unfortunately,
that at times Christians and religious people at large
have sort of used the topic of sinfulness as a weapon.
That is not this.
It is if we can admit where our sin is most impacting us,
then we will be able to be empowered
to create relationships of meaning
where this sinfulness doesn’t as readily leak in
or to make choices that we can legitimately make a choice
to not do a thing as opposed to living
by the habits that we’ve created.
So, Clint, this is about establishing an opportunity
to be free people with real agency in our choices.
It’s not about us being beaten down
with what we shouldn’t do,
you know, bad dog kind of situation.
I think, Michael,
there’s been an unfortunate tendency
in the modern Christian church to treat sin
as the things we do,
as if the act itself is our sinfulness,
without understanding that historically
what Christians have always tried to understand
is that our sinfulness is what lies beneath what we do.
The things we do are the expression,
but they are not the sin themselves.
They are the places we fail.
They are the places we struggle.
They are the things we do that are outside God’s will for us.
But underneath them is our pain,
our brokenness, our struggles,
our willfulness, our disobe…
That’s really what we talk about
when we talk about human sinfulness.
The various ways that it spills out into our individual lives are important.
They matter because they point us toward struggling
with the real issues in our soul.
Yes,
if I’m struggling with alcohol,
and that is taking an increasing role in my life
and harming my relationships with others
and hurting my body,
that needs to be dealt with.
But underneath of that is something
that my life is trying to tell me,
something that my spirit needs me to know,
something that God wants me to understand
in order to be a part of getting set free from that.
And so I think we’ve sometimes moralized sin
and made it about the actual thing.
And I don’t think historically,
I don’t think that has been entirely helpful.
The thing matters,
but the thing behind the thing matters more, I would argue.
So if that’s been your experience,
and if Clint’s words there resonated with you
that you believe in your experience,
the acts committed have been lifted up
as the definition of sin
and not the central underlying things
that live underneath it,
then I just want to encourage you,
in a few short weeks here,
we’re going to begin a new series
where we’re going to be walking through
some of the Christian churches,
the ancient Christian churches’
understanding
of those things that live underneath the surface.
So definitely make sure that you subscribe and stay tuned
because those are the conversations
that are going to sort of flesh out
those different parts of our experience.
But suffice it enough to say,
I think my final word here today on this topic at least
is just to say that as we talk about the idea
of self-awareness,
of confession,
and even repentance,
what we have in that conversation
is an opportunity to enter into a new day.
To walk across a threshold,
to admit a thing that we know is true
or that we’ve come to know is true
or that we’re afraid might be true.
And in that process,
to then throw ourselves into the open,
loving hands of grace
that we find in Jesus Christ.
That is ultimately what happens to this process, is reconciliation.
We find that there is nothing,
nothing on your list.
You can take this paper,
hold it in your hand,
and put it into the hands of Jesus Christ himself.
And when you do that,
he will not turn you away.
There is nothing on this paper
that will keep you from the next step,
which is a kind of clean heart,
rejuvenation.
We in the church call it salvation.
This is the gift that we’re given in Jesus Christ.
And if you’re but brave enough to be honest
on this assessment, which is for you alone,
not to be given to another person,
then that is, friends, I believe, the first step towards experiencing a thing
that may be more freeing and agency-giving
than you can possibly imagine.
The last word I would offer,
Michael, is just an encouragement.
And it is a kind of challenge to say,
if you find yourself in an area of your life
struggling with something that has long roots,
it has been over years.
It is persistent.
It is constant.
It is well known to you,
whether you admit it or not.
I think it very unlikely that we are going
to all of a sudden possess the fortitude individually
to simply stop doing it.
Most of the things on this list,
if they have become problematic for us,
if they are becoming problematic for us,
are going to necessitate a mentor,
a counselor, a support group,
some break in the pattern,
because we have essentially minimized our ability
to deal with it ourselves through the kind of repetition
over time that has probably happened
in developing that habit.
Again,
the chains of habit are too light to feel
until they are too strong to break.
And when they are too strong to break,
very unlikely that we break them ourselves.
Get some help.
If you find yourself being convicted in one of these areas,
consider what it means to reach out to someone
for some guidance, for some assistance,
and moving forward unhindered,
unchained to that thing,
which won’t be an easy struggle,
but it is possible and it is what God wants for each of us.
We just want to express our gratitude
that you be with us in this conversation.
Not easy at every point.
We realize that.
Thank you for sticking with us here to the end.
We hope that in the midst of it,
there is some encouragement and that there’s also a sense
that in this courageous honesty that we find a way forward.
We hope that that will be the case for you
and I would love to see you as we continue on
with our conversation next week.
Thanks, everybody.