My Sin Feels Good in the Moment — Why Stop?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | We recorded this episode early
00:00:05.320 | because by airtime, Pastor John,
00:00:06.760 | you'll be ministering somewhere in Hong Kong
00:00:10.000 | and you'll be there between May 20th and May 26th.
00:00:14.160 | And of course, we welcome and ask for all of your prayers
00:00:17.680 | on behalf of Pastor John as he ministers in Hong Kong.
00:00:20.440 | Those would be greatly appreciated.
00:00:22.440 | Today's question comes from an anonymous man.
00:00:24.680 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:25.500 | There's something I've been struggling with
00:00:27.040 | and that thing has been not feeling convicted for my sin.
00:00:32.040 | I know that as a believer,
00:00:33.640 | I should feel bad for indulging in sin,
00:00:36.260 | smoking pot, watching porn, lying.
00:00:40.000 | Every time I do those things that I should not do,
00:00:42.920 | I never feel convicted,
00:00:44.080 | nor do I feel like God is punishing me
00:00:46.180 | or is angry with me for my sin.
00:00:48.400 | In fact, those things make me feel good in the moment.
00:00:51.160 | I guess my main thing is that I don't know how to hate sin,
00:00:53.560 | especially when I don't feel any immediate backlash
00:00:56.240 | from God for indulging in it.
00:00:58.360 | It's almost like God is giving me a free pass.
00:01:01.280 | And I just am wondering why that would be.
00:01:04.080 | How do I learn, Pastor John, to hate my sin?
00:01:08.300 | - First, let's be really clear
00:01:13.940 | that this man is absolutely right
00:01:18.480 | that he needs to hate sin, hate sin.
00:01:22.960 | This is not optional.
00:01:24.400 | It's commanded in the Bible, not suggested.
00:01:28.320 | And the command is not merely to flee evil,
00:01:33.120 | but to hate evil,
00:01:34.440 | just like the command is not merely to do mercy,
00:01:38.920 | but to love mercy, love righteousness.
00:01:42.840 | So he has his finger on the very essence of the change
00:01:47.840 | that needs to happen to every fallen, sinful human being.
00:01:54.520 | Jesus put it like this
00:01:56.120 | when he was describing his own coming.
00:01:58.800 | This is the judgment, this is John 3:19.
00:02:01.300 | This is the judgment that light has come into the world
00:02:05.980 | and people loved darkness rather than light
00:02:10.480 | because their works were evil.
00:02:13.200 | For everyone who does wicked things hates the light
00:02:18.040 | and does not come to the light
00:02:19.920 | lest his work should be exposed.
00:02:21.920 | So our problem is not that we don't have light,
00:02:26.560 | but that we love the darkness.
00:02:28.920 | We love it.
00:02:30.200 | And our friend who sent this question in
00:02:33.480 | bears witness to why we love it.
00:02:36.680 | He says, "Every time I do those things that I should not do,
00:02:41.680 | "they make me feel good."
00:02:46.800 | The Bible calls this the fleeting pleasures of sin
00:02:51.680 | in Hebrews 11, 25.
00:02:53.920 | Of course sin feels good.
00:02:55.840 | Nobody would do it otherwise.
00:02:58.400 | Nobody sins out of duty.
00:03:00.520 | We do it because it feels good.
00:03:03.420 | And the reason we don't hate these behaviors
00:03:06.520 | is because we love them.
00:03:08.100 | They feel good and we like to feel good.
00:03:13.000 | So we like them.
00:03:15.440 | We're like children who find the taste of poison sweet.
00:03:21.120 | And pleasing.
00:03:22.800 | And we have to be taught first
00:03:26.040 | that the bottle with the skull on it is deadly.
00:03:30.640 | The big S-I-N on the bottle means it will kill you.
00:03:35.640 | Don't drink that.
00:03:37.640 | Avoid it.
00:03:40.280 | But more deeply, we need to go deeper
00:03:43.600 | than to have a sign out front
00:03:45.300 | that keeps us from doing what we really,
00:03:47.000 | really, really love to do.
00:03:49.160 | We've got to go deeper.
00:03:50.280 | Our tongues, the tongues of our soul,
00:03:53.800 | have to be put out of taste for the bait of the devil.
00:03:58.720 | I love that quote from a Puritan.
00:04:00.800 | I don't remember who said it, but they said,
00:04:02.680 | "Oh God, put my tongue out of taste
00:04:06.320 | for the bait of the devil."
00:04:09.020 | It's exactly what has to happen.
00:04:12.080 | We can't just constantly love evil and not do it.
00:04:16.360 | We have to start hating evil.
00:04:18.400 | And to do that, we need new spiritual taste buds.
00:04:21.720 | We need the miracle of new birth.
00:04:25.760 | So how do we get these new spiritual taste buds?
00:04:29.080 | That's his question.
00:04:30.920 | And we start by realizing that we must get them.
00:04:35.840 | They're not optional.
00:04:36.660 | We must.
00:04:37.500 | This is not peripheral, marginal,
00:04:39.480 | icing on the cake to Christianity.
00:04:41.320 | This is necessary.
00:04:43.800 | We must get these new taste buds,
00:04:46.520 | and we can't get them by our willpower.
00:04:49.520 | That's what we got to realize.
00:04:50.800 | We must, because God commands us to,
00:04:54.360 | "Oh, you who love the Lord, hate evil," Psalm 97, 10.
00:04:59.360 | Or Paul, in Romans 12, 9,
00:05:02.200 | "Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil."
00:05:06.720 | It's a command.
00:05:07.960 | It's not an option.
00:05:09.320 | Hold fast to what is good.
00:05:11.300 | So he doesn't just say, "Leave evil, reject evil."
00:05:14.040 | He says, "Abhor it."
00:05:16.180 | But you can't get hatred for evil by an act of willpower.
00:05:20.360 | You know you can't.
00:05:21.200 | He wouldn't even be writing in if he could,
00:05:24.000 | because we are spiritually dead,
00:05:26.940 | and we need a new moral life in our taste buds,
00:05:31.940 | the taste buds of our soul
00:05:33.840 | that tell the difference between good and evil,
00:05:35.800 | about how horrid sin tastes and how sweet holiness tastes.
00:05:40.800 | So Ephesians 2, 3 sets up the awful problem.
00:05:45.920 | We all once lived among the sons of disobedience,
00:05:49.720 | in the passions of our flesh,
00:05:52.540 | carrying out desires of the body and the mind.
00:05:56.780 | We were by nature children of wrath,
00:06:00.200 | like the rest of mankind.
00:06:02.300 | But God, being rich in mercy,
00:06:05.640 | because of the great love with which he loved us,
00:06:08.580 | made us alive.
00:06:11.700 | That means taste buds that abhor sin came to life.
00:06:16.700 | Taste buds that delight in holiness came to life.
00:06:24.380 | That miracle has to happen.
00:06:28.380 | We need to be given life,
00:06:31.420 | a new heart that's alive to the horror
00:06:35.080 | and the outrage of sin,
00:06:37.180 | and alive to the sweetness of holiness,
00:06:39.740 | has to come into being.
00:06:42.500 | Just before Paul said in Romans 12,
00:06:44.940 | "Abhor what is evil,"
00:06:46.260 | he said, "Do not be conformed to this world,
00:06:50.580 | "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
00:06:55.580 | Now that transformation is a gift of God,
00:06:59.500 | and so we must cry out for it and desperately long for it
00:07:03.780 | and not be cavalier about our deadness to it.
00:07:08.780 | And the great thing is God has not left us
00:07:13.340 | without clear guidance and strong help
00:07:17.780 | as we pursue the gift and the grace of this transformation
00:07:21.860 | and this love for holiness and hatred of sin.
00:07:25.620 | God hasn't walked away and left us helpless
00:07:30.380 | as if there's nothing we can do,
00:07:32.060 | and we just say, "Well, it's a miracle.
00:07:33.660 | "I'll just wait till it happens."
00:07:35.940 | No.
00:07:36.820 | And the main gift that he's given us is his word,
00:07:40.420 | the Bible.
00:07:41.260 | This is the main instrument that the Holy Spirit uses
00:07:46.260 | to give the love of holiness and the hatred of sin.
00:07:50.960 | This is the work of the Spirit,
00:07:52.460 | and his instrument is the word.
00:07:54.580 | You can see this, for example, in Psalm 119, 104.
00:07:58.980 | It goes like this.
00:07:59.940 | Through your precepts, I get understanding.
00:08:05.460 | Therefore, I hate every false way.
00:08:10.460 | Wow.
00:08:12.900 | What a therefore.
00:08:14.260 | What a therefore.
00:08:15.860 | Through your precepts, I get understanding.
00:08:20.180 | Therefore, I hate every false way.
00:08:23.900 | Hatred for false ways comes through gaining understanding
00:08:28.860 | through the precepts of the word of God.
00:08:31.840 | And that word functions at two levels.
00:08:34.900 | And just mention these.
00:08:37.060 | First, it threatens and warns us
00:08:40.940 | about the dangers of loving sin,
00:08:45.140 | and shakes us into seriousness,
00:08:47.740 | which the Holy Spirit can use to open our eyes
00:08:51.480 | to what's truly valuable.
00:08:54.020 | When I read this man's words that he sent to us,
00:09:00.060 | it's as if the scriptures were specifically written
00:09:04.940 | to answer him.
00:09:06.260 | It's amazing how tailor-made the scriptures are,
00:09:09.180 | because here's what he said.
00:09:10.340 | He said, "Every time I do those things that I should not do,
00:09:15.340 | "they make me feel good in the moment.
00:09:21.220 | "I don't feel any immediate backlash from God
00:09:28.200 | "for indulging in it.
00:09:30.200 | "It's almost like God is giving me a free pass."
00:09:35.200 | Wow, what telling words.
00:09:39.640 | In the moment, it feels good.
00:09:42.100 | No immediate backlash.
00:09:44.880 | Almost a free pass.
00:09:47.260 | In other words, God has taught this man,
00:09:50.240 | God has taught this man that the good feeling
00:09:54.060 | that comes from sin will not last.
00:09:57.840 | He's taught this man that the good feeling is in the moment.
00:10:02.340 | He's taught this man that the backlash is not immediate,
00:10:07.060 | but it will come.
00:10:09.060 | He's taught this man, almost it feels like a free pass,
00:10:14.060 | but it most certainly is not a free pass.
00:10:18.800 | So he knows, he knows the truth.
00:10:22.060 | The scriptures are crystal clear.
00:10:24.360 | Job 20, verse five, "The exalting of the wicked is short,
00:10:29.360 | "the joy of the godless, but for a moment."
00:10:33.780 | James 5, verse five, "To the self-indulgent,
00:10:37.340 | "you have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.
00:10:40.760 | "You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter."
00:10:45.660 | This is coming, it's coming.
00:10:47.020 | It's not, there's no way out for the one who loves sin.
00:10:52.860 | Paul mentioned sexual sins and others,
00:10:55.120 | and then says, "On account of these,
00:10:56.580 | "the wrath of God is coming."
00:10:58.160 | Galatians 5, 21, "I warn you, as I warned you before,
00:11:01.900 | "those who do such things won't enter the kingdom of God."
00:11:06.180 | Matthew 5, 29, "If your eye causes you to sin,
00:11:09.320 | "tear it out and throw it away,
00:11:10.340 | "it's better for you to lose one of your members
00:11:12.860 | "than that your whole body go into hell."
00:11:16.240 | So the word of God is filled with bright red flags waving,
00:11:22.640 | in this man's face, in all of our faces,
00:11:25.940 | telling him and us, "Stop indulging in sin,
00:11:30.940 | "and make him serious enough that the Holy Spirit
00:11:33.680 | "might take that seriousness and drive it down deep
00:11:37.060 | "to the transformation that has to happen,"
00:11:39.240 | which leads us to the last way that the word works.
00:11:43.800 | Not only does it warn us, but the main way
00:11:47.920 | that the Holy Spirit uses the word of God
00:11:50.240 | to create love for holiness and hatred for sin
00:11:53.540 | is by showing us God himself in his infinite worth
00:11:58.540 | and beauty and the sufferings of Jesus
00:12:02.480 | that he went through to purchase our holiness.
00:12:05.840 | Proverbs 8, 13, "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil."
00:12:10.840 | In other words, when the word reveals
00:12:16.000 | the infinite value of God and awakens reverent
00:12:20.040 | awe of him, the reflex is, "I hate evil
00:12:25.040 | "that is against this God."
00:12:28.000 | And Paul puts it positively like this,
00:12:30.380 | "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory
00:12:34.280 | "of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image
00:12:39.280 | "from one degree of glory to another."
00:12:41.600 | This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
00:12:45.100 | So transformation into the kind of person
00:12:48.360 | who loves holiness and hates evil
00:12:51.760 | comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit,
00:12:56.760 | but he does it as we behold the glory of the Lord.
00:13:02.280 | So that's what I urge mainly.
00:13:06.400 | Every day, every day, pour over the scriptures,
00:13:11.400 | looking for the beauty of Christ
00:13:13.960 | and the fearsomeness of God,
00:13:16.240 | and crying out for a heart that loves holiness
00:13:20.360 | and hates sin.
00:13:22.340 | Amen, thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:25.320 | It's questions like this one,
00:13:27.640 | even anonymous questions like this one,
00:13:30.000 | that are incredibly valuable to us
00:13:31.920 | in directing this podcast and where we go in the future.
00:13:34.440 | So thank you for the many questions
00:13:35.760 | that you have sent in to us over the years.
00:13:37.240 | Please keep them coming.
00:13:38.840 | And this is my chance to let you know
00:13:40.160 | that you can subscribe to our audio feeds
00:13:41.660 | and search our episode archive,
00:13:42.860 | and even reach us by email with that difficult question
00:13:44.960 | that you're facing in life.
00:13:45.840 | We do all of that through our online home
00:13:47.520 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:50.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:52.520 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:13:53.840 | And again, please be praying for Pastor John,
00:13:55.680 | ministering now in Hong Kong somewhere.
00:13:58.320 | He will be there between May 20th and May 26th.
00:14:01.120 | So thank you for your prayers.
00:14:02.000 | We'll see you on Wednesday.
00:14:03.360 | (upbeat music)
00:14:05.940 | (upbeat music)
00:14:08.520 | [BLANK_AUDIO]