Have you ever noticed how most peoples' homes have a distinct smell? You smell it when you walk in the door, and often on their clothes when you see them around. Sometimes it can even come back home on something you loaned to them. The strange thing is, I don't think my home has a distinct smell. I mean, I suspect that it must, but I don't notice one. Maybe when I come home from vacation I notice a faint something when I first open the door, but it goes away quickly. Isn't it strange that we can be oblivious to something so intimately associated with us, when it is so obvious to everyone else?
We are the same way about sin. Your sins are obvious to me, but I can be strikingly oblivious to my own. And I suspect it works the same way for you. Part of it is that we are so accustomed to our own sins that we have stopped noticing them. Another part of it surely has to do with pride. I think I have good reasons for my sins; I have come up with justifications for why they are actually virtues. I'm not sinfully angry, I am righteously indignant. I'm not proud, I am just honest about my many strengths. I am not envious, I just see clearly how wrong everyone else is with their money. I am not self-righteous, I just like to talk about my goodness to set a good example. I am not lazy, I just know how to rest better than others. I am not lustful, I just admire beauty in all forms. I am not a drunkard, I just like to have a good time. I am not an idolater, I just embrace all spiritual paths. You get the idea, you know how it works.
And even though our sins are obvious to each other, we don't like to point them out. We tell ourselves it's because we are nice. Maybe we have tried hinting at them, but the person was too thick to listen. After all, our wall of justifications is pretty thick. We have been working on it for quite some time.
At times we have gone beyond hinting and pointed out the sins of others quite plainly. Often this happens because we are in close proximity with them, and their sins began to encroach on our happiness. Something had to be done. This happens in marriage, doesn't it? Eventually we get quite bold in pointing out the sins of our spouse that bother us the most. This is a painful process, but with lots of grace and love it can help us become better people. The problem is that when we do it this way, we are not acting in love for the other person, we are acting primarily in our own self-interest. Your sin bothers me, so I am going to tell you about it. If we really want to hurt the person we won't tell them at all, we will tell others. We might couch it as a "prayer request" or a "concern."
But there is a better way.
It begins with each of us admitting to God, to ourselves, and to each other that we need to hear about our sin; that we tend to be blind to our own deepest and most persistent faults. It begins with admitting that we need others to point out our sin to us so that we can see it, confess it, and fight against it. And the best way for this to happen is not when you have had enough of me and can't stand it anymore. It best done because you love me and you know that my sin is my great enemy.
This will happen more as I welcome it from you, and you from me. It will happen when we humbly invite each other in to point out our sin in love. No one does that. But we can.
We will become increasingly open to this as we grow to delight in getting rid of sin and growing in love. We will become open to this as we come to believe that continuing in sin is worse than the shame we experience from having it exposed. And we will be enabled to face that shame the more we believe that Jesus' death is sufficient to take all our guilt and shame away. It will happen as we learn to rest more fully in our justification in Jesus' death on the cross alone. The more we believe that his death fully justifies us for every sin, all the way down to the bottom, the more we will be ready to kick down our walls of self-justification and stop trying to excuse our own crap. The more we believe and rest in him, the more free we will feel to not only let our sin be exposed, but to ask for it to be.
This kind of thing is best invited instead of pushed. The best way to start down this path is by asking others to confront us about our sin. What might God do if we started trying this?
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