How Does God Respond to My Sin?

I want to speak to you if you're a Christian and you're discouraged because of a battle with sin that you currently can't seem to win.

Who knows what it is? It might be a struggle with some habitual sin or behavior that you feel like, man, this is just so dishonoring to the Lord. I'm so discouraged that I haven't been able to conquer this particular lust yet. And when we experience this as followers of Jesus, we can start to feel condemned as though God is not for us, as though our situation is hopeless. So I want to give you encouragements, four encouragements in particular, about what God is doing after you've sinned to bring you back to Him. One of the verses that's been so encouraging for me in my relationship with the Lord is in 1 John chapter 2 verse 1. And what John says there is that after you've sinned, God is advocating for you. In particular, Jesus, the Son of God, is your advocate. Listen to this passage. This is 1 John chapter 2 verse 1. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. How often do we think after we've sinned, man, God is in heaven just shaking His head.

He probably wants nothing to do with me. I've failed once again. And yet, John says actually that's not what Jesus is doing. If anyone sins, you have someone in your corner, John says. You have Jesus as your great advocate before the Father who is pleading your case.

He's rooting for you. And this is massively encouraging because if you think, man, I'm struggling with sin and God Himself is against me, you're going to be hopeless. But if you recognize in the battle against sin that God is for you and that Jesus is your advocate pleading your case before the Father, there's a massive amount of hope. When you sin, Jesus is advocating for you.

And He isn't just advocating for you. Here's another beautiful thing that we find. The Lord Jesus Christ is the great high priest of His people is also praying for you. That is, praying for you to conquer sin, to be sanctified. This is what the author of the Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 7, a really beautiful passage emphasizing Jesus as our great high priest. Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25. Consequently, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them. You see this theme also in Romans chapter 8, Jesus praying for His people, Romans chapter 8 verse 34. You have a very clear example of it in the Gospels. Do you remember when Jesus told Peter, Peter, Satan wants to consume you, to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you.

You are going to be restored. That great hope that's given to Peter based on what? Peter's strength, Peter's obedience?

No. Based on the fact that his great high priest Jesus was praying for him. Well, brother or sister, Jesus Christ is praying for you even when you've sinned that you might be restored, that you might grow in grace and in sanctification. Here's the third thing that God is doing when we've sinned and we can be confused about this sometimes because it doesn't feel great, but in reality it's a sign of God's love. When we sin, God as our good Father disciplines us. You see this in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

The passage I want to look at is in Proverbs chapter 3 verses 11 and 12. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. God disciplines us in the Christian life when we've sinned against him, when we're turning away from him, not in order to cast us away or to just sort of rub it in our face, you're such a failure, but because he wants to draw us back to himself, he wants us to see the bitter taste of our sin and the consequences that sin brings. Not so that we'll be condemned in the end, but so that we'll be, again, restored so that we might know, man, God is good, he loves me, he keeps me, and one of the ways he does it is through his fatherly discipline. And so Jesus is advocating for you when you've sinned, he is praying for you as your great high priest, and the heavenly father disciplines you when you've sinned.

Here's the last thing that I want to highlight for you. If you're a follower of Jesus, wrestling with sin, wondering, okay, what is God doing for me here to bring me back to him? When we've sinned, God offers to feed us. Maybe it's the greatest sin in the Bible, I don't know, but sometimes people will point to when Peter denied the Lord three times while Jesus was on the cross, in this moment of great, great need, what does Peter do? He curses Jesus, he curses himself, he says, I don't know the guy, and in an act of cowardice, he denies the Lord. You imagine the shame and the guilt that Peter must have felt.

If anybody should know better, it's Peter. He's been walking with Jesus throughout Christ's earthly ministry, he's heard the powerful sermons, he's seen the miraculous things that Jesus has been doing, and yet there, in Christ's hour of need, Peter denied him. He probably felt a great sense of hopelessness, and yet when Jesus rose from the dead, and Peter heard about it, and he ran to the Lord Jesus, do you remember what Jesus did for him? He made him breakfast.

He offered to feed him. It's a story that we find in John's gospel, in John chapter 21, verse 9, when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread, and Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish that you have just caught. And so Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish, 153 of them, and although there were so many, the net was not torn, and Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast. It's there that Jesus says just a few verses later, in verse 15, these powerful words, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you, and he said to him, feed my lambs. Two other times Jesus does that. It's sort of parallel to the three times Jesus was denied by Peter, now here three times calling him to himself saying, feed my lambs, do you love me? When we've sinned against the Lord, Jesus offers to feed us.

Feed us with what? To feed us with his very body and blood in holy communion. When you go to church on Sunday and you hear the gospel preached and you see the table set with bread and wine, these gifts of God's grace, signs and seals of the promise of the gospel for you, it's God inviting the broken, the contrite, repentant sinners to come and be fed by him. Even after you've sinned, God sets the table for you to come in faith and to receive his grace and his mercy.

So don't believe or disbelieve and think God is not for me. He's abandoned me. I'm hopeless.

My situation is hopeless. Know that Jesus Christ is your advocate in heaven who is praying for you and that God, the good father disciplines you and offers to feed you when you've gone astray. Go to him in faith. Have you ever wrestled with knowing what God's will for your life is? For many Christians, this question can feel impossible to discern. This month at Sola, we're offering our listeners a booklet called, What is God's Will for Me? Written by PCA Elder Jordan Dahl, this 60 page booklet gives a thoughtful and accessible exploration of important doctrines around the will of God. What is God's sovereign and eternal will? What is his revealed will and his law?

How can these teachings shape our spiritual growth and trust in God? You can get What is God's Will for Me for a donation of any amount. Just give what you can and we'll send you a copy. Get yours today at solamedia.org forward slash offers. That's solamedia.org forward slash offers.