II Peter 2:22: What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
It’s hip to wallow. There seems to be a breed of evangelical that glories in it’s transparency of sin and struggle to the point of never finding the way out of the grime. As a friend of mine expressed, it is like embracing the first three beatitudes (blessed are the poor in spirit/blessed are those who mourn [their sin]/blessed are the meek) but never getting to the last five (hunger and thirst for righteousness, showing mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, even suffering persecution because of the practice of righteousness). See Matthew 5:1-12.
“Confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16) becomes like the Roman practice of vomiting after meals to make room for more delicacies (enter 1980’s SNL sketch or Monty Python’s, Mr Creosote). The pleasure of the “getting our sins off our chest” and the competition of “No . . . I am the chief of sinners” holds an attraction. It can be extremely freeing as a person sees that he is not alone in his deep-rooted struggles with sin, and once you start confessing it’s hard to stop.
This wallowing in open confession probably stems from a Christian culture that has been steeped in covering our sins with a false religiosity. Where once a person was prideful over their outward religious performance, this new found openness presents a new pride in lack of religious performance and poverty of any good whatsoever; i.e., the first three beatitudes.
Certainly we are to confess our sins! And certainly we are to be a transparent people. We have long fostered a pretense of what it means to live for Christ by keeping our sins to ourselves and encouraging others to do the same. We put up a good front but eventually “our sins will find us out” and often great harm is already done which could have been avoided if we were willing to express our sins and struggles and have others come alongside to help us.
To express our sins and struggles is not the end of the restoration of a sinner. Repentance is two-sided, or maybe two-staged. A good definition of repentance is first that a person comes to grips with the reality of his or her sin. Grief and hatred of it is good and healthy. This is where a wallower stops. They glory in the self-pity. But then there is a second part to repentance. There needs to be a right apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ so that, by the mercy extended to the sinner, the sinner turns from the sin to lovingly trust God. This in turn leads to a new obedience not based on religious performance of duties, but based solely on the kindness of our Savior to not count our sins against us (Ephesians 4:17-24).
Several years ago, after pastoring a church for about five years, I came to the realization that I did not love the people in my congregation. I was angry with them because they were not performing according to my desires. Each person became a roadblock in my path rather than a work of God’s grace. My whole identity was wrapped up in how the people of the church were performing, and because they were not (so I determined), I was angry.
One Sunday morning I took what was for me a great risk and leap of faith and told the congregation as much - that I did not love them. I openly and publicly confessed my sin to them. It was incredibly freeing. The openness and honesty drew hugs and verbal applause from the members after the service. But is that it? What if week after week I expressed my lack of love, and displayed for them over and over how much I failed them with no attempt to actually love? It would be wallowing in sin without the hope of a Savior!
But what followed was a glorious transformation of my heart. Because of a God-given apprehension that my sins were not held against me because of Jesus for me, I began to desire to tangibly learn to love the members of the church in ways that I had never experienced before (Romans 12:1-2). Yes, I still saw their sin and lack, but my sin and lack was just as sinful and lacking! I became more transparent but with a longing to bring the grace of Christ into their experience as well. Instead of transparency being self-consuming, true repentance turned transparency into active love.
Please don’t get me wrong. I still have a long way to go in learning how to love. I have years ahead of me of confessing my sins and repenting. I still do not fully love. I will be an actively chiseled sculpture in God’s hands for many years to come.
Romans 6 challenges us to see our sin buried with Jesus, but also to see new life produced by virtue of our union with Him in His resurrection. To remain stuck in the mire of sin and dread is to deny half of what Christ has accomplished and desires to accomplish in His people. Oh! that His daily mercy would lead us by the hand to see our sins put to death and new life in Christ produced!
Psalms 69:14: Deliver me
from sinking in the mire . . .
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