How To Find Hope In God's Love After You Sin
As Christians, how do we battle against the low grade guilt many of us walk with because of our sinful mistakes? Is there any hope for our Christian story?
Regrets from Choosing Sin
If we are really honest, sometimes we choose sin not because we are so enticed against our wills, but because we desire its forbidden fruit. Have you ever felt the pain of incomplete sanctification? That sadness and guilt that comes from the desire to honor Jesus with your actions, but the absence of perfection this side of heaven? I have. I feel it often.
Where do we go for hope after we’ve sinned and the pain of dual desires chokes the hope from our hearts? One of the sweetest Psalms for my soul when I feel the despair of my own sin, has been Psalm 103. I encourage you to read it in it’s entirety on your own, but I will outline a few verses below:
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy
Scriptures for the guilty
This Psalm is for when you feel dirty, ashamed, embarrassed because of your sins. The lord forgives all of your iniquity. Notice the word all. There is no exception clause here. Every. Sin. Period. Forgiven. Can you allow the Lord to lift the burden of your sins off your back? 1st John 1:9 says if we confess our sins he is just and faithful to forgive us of all our sins. God delights to forgive you. God can, and does, forgive you of your sins. If you confess them to Him. He will lift that burden off of you, if you let Him.
Not only are you forgiven, but the pit you’ve put yourself in, God will redeem you from. (verse 4) And not only are you forgiven, redeemed from your own mess, but then you are crowned with steadfast love and mercy. This is stunning. Though I have sinned against God and belittled His name. Though I have not trusted Him. Though I have spat in His face with my rebellion. He is tender towards me. He doesn’t hate me. He won’t distance me because of my sins. He is gracious with me. He crowns me with steadfast love and mercy. Jesus received a crown of thorns, though he deserved a crown of glory. I receive a crown of gentleness and mercy, though I deserved the crown of thorns. Let that sink in when you wonder if God really loves you after you’ve sinned.
Finding the balance of hatred of sin but not hatred of self
For a lot of us, we struggle with finding the balance between knowing the weight of our ugly sin and also knowing how loved we are, despite our sin. These feel like contradictions. If we want to see our sins as bad as they are, we feel like we can’t embrace forgiveness because it feels like that’s lessoning our sin or abusing grace. But if we think of our sins as heavy, we wonder how grace plays into it. Is God mad at us and yelling? Hating us for a period until we get our act together, then we are forgiven? How are we to make sense of this seeming contradiction between grace and the seriousness of which God views our sins?
8 The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
We go to the cross, for there we find the reality of verse 8—and that reality solves the seeming contradiction. There we see how ugly and weighty our sins truly are. It’s not just that we did bad, neglecting some abstract standard of morality, but that we’ve rebelled against God. That’s what makes sin so evil. That we spat in His face with. We walk our own way saying, “I don’t care what you say God, I know what’s best for me.” And we run to porn, sex outside of marriage, selfishness, greed, laziness, gossip, cheating, crude language, idols. As we run towards these things, we run away from God. The one who has only loved us and done what is best for us.
Who have we sinned against?
To understand the weight of our sins we must recognize that our sins are against God— and that Jesus is on the cross because of them. My sin put Jesus on the cross. My sin drove the nails into His hands. Sin is not small. It’s an active proclamation that I don’t care about God or his authority over my life.
But notice, who is receiving the punishment for our sins at the cross? It’s not us. It’s Jesus. Notice this. As we see the evilness of our sin, so the beauty of God’s grace and forgiveness becomes clearer and clearer. A $50,000 debt paid on your behalf is mind blowing. A $100,000 debt paid on your behalf, even though you cheated the person who paid it is un-believable. How much more the debt your sins have caused, paid with by the blood of Jesus? The Lord is merciful. Gracious. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. At the cross we see the evilness of our sins and the beauty of God’s grace showing us to what lengths God is willing to forgive and be merciful to sinful people. The seeming contradiction, met in a beautiful exchange. Our sinfulness, exchange for the righteousness of Jesus.(1 Corinthians 1:30)
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
This truth has meant more for my soul in the dark nights than perhaps anything else. God will not deal with me according to my sins. When I am choked by my own guilt and shame over what I’ve done. Feeling beyond unworthy of God’s love and grace, this verse screams to my soul: “I will not let you go. I will not let you go. I will not turn you over to what you deserve, but lavish my grace on you. I will walk with you. I will not leave you.”
Grace at the bottom of the pit
I know the pain of guilt and shame after sin. I know the temptation to dwell in that pit of despair, because it feels like you deserve it. But the Gospel doesn’t ask you to dwell in those feelings, but gives us hope for a brighter tomorrow. Jesus has taken your punishment on the cross. He’s absolved your sins and given you His righteousness needed to be with God. (2nd Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”)
Finding Hope despite Your failures
To find hope after you’ve sinned, go back to the cross again and again. Get on your knees and look up. See Jesus. Body broken for you. Blood shed for you. Life sacrificed for your sinfulness. He didn’t die for the good and perfect you. (Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”) Christ died for the sinful you. The struggling you. The broken and dirty you. Go to Him as you are, perhaps for the hundredth time. He will be there with open arms.
Why? Because His love for you was never given based on your goodness. He loved you, wanted you, and sent His son to die for you while you were rebellious. He’s not going to leave you now. There is massive hope for you, struggling Christian. Keep going back to the cross. To the one who does not deal with us according to our sins, but abounds in steadfast (long suffering) love and mercy.
Trusting Jesus to cover all my sins with you,
Josh.
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