A sermon on two wrong ways Christians respond to sin: dismissing it as no big deal, or spiraling into shame. The answer is godly sorrow—feeling genuine brokenness over hurting the Holy Spirit, then repenting and trusting Christ's sacrifice to cover it.
There are 2 very unhealthy responses to sin. Obviously, there's no room for sin in the life of the believer. We have to be of that mindset. But you will make mistakes. And so there are 2 unhealthy ways to respond to those kind of mistakes. On one side, they can be so dismissive of sin that they don't even think about it. They say, oh yeah, I messed up, but, you know, everyone messes up, so let me just keep moving forward. And it's good that you want to move forward, but is there no grieving or brokenness over wrongdoing? And shouldn't our hearts be broken when we break the Holy Spirit's heart? I believe that as Christians, we ought to live shame-free lives. But when we sin, the scripture is clear that godly sorrow worketh repentance. There's a moment where sorrow and shame is a part of the process. Now, once you've turned from the sin, repented, okay, that's one thing. But we should sense a brokenness over our sin. We should sense the weight of that wrongdoing. We should be sensitive to the darkness of sin as people surrender to the Holy Spirit. And then on the other side, there seems to be this despair that many Christians fall into. they tell themselves things like, well, I've lost everything I have with God. Surely the Holy Spirit has left me. Surely I've lost my calling. Surely this was my final mistake and I'll never recover from this. And they just get so stuck in shame that they never move on to repentance. And, and they don't even want to look at God. They don't even want to talk to God. They don't want to pray. They don't want to read the Word. They don't want to go to church. They just kind of retreat into the darkness of that shame, not realizing that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And so those 2 extremes are unhealthy. Instead, we have to live in repentance. That is, we have to live in the posture of acknowledging when we've done wrong and also acknowledging that He's made the sacrifice that ultimately pays the penalty for that sin. And we live with soft hearts, tender hearts toward the Spirit.
