Harmless Sins

Last night, Coleton taught on sin at our youth group. My small group girls wanted to talk all about it. They were nobly trying to defend God when He tells us not to do things, rightly noting that He is not just trying to steal all the fun and never let us do anything. A big part of what they talked about was the consequences of our sin and how God is actually trying to protect us from those negative repercussions when He tells us not to sin. Right they are. They listed liver disease when you drink. Loss of respect when you lie. Loss of family trust when you sneak out. Hurting other people when you gossip. Etc. it was very important to them to identify consequences for the sins that God tells us to avoid. My impression was that, in their minds, they wanted to justify this behavior on His part.

I happen to think this plan is a pretty good one. If the identification of consequences helps you to see some loving logic behind God’s commands as a measure of keeping from resenting Him or the Christian walk in your own heart, then I think that’s a pretty fine plan. The problem is, what about those sins that don’t have readily identifiable consequences? Sins that, if you look, really don’t impact anyone or make that much difference at the moment? A lie that you can tell won’t hurt anybody and will just help you out? A bit of gossip that will be a great dinner party anecdote, that really isn’t that big a deal? A little bit of harmless manipulation that helps you get your own way and really does no damage? Do sins like this exist? I really think so. So how do we make sense of God’s commands to avoid sins when we CAN’T see the reason behind it, because it really doesn’t do that much damage?

I think the answer is that one of the reasons God asks us to avoid sin (in my opinion, maybe the biggest reason) is that each sin is not autonomous. It does not exist in a vacuum so that it has no impact if it doesn’t do any immediate harm. Each small, simple, harmless sin is, in fact, a small step, a tiny contribution, into the mix of who we are. Lie doesn’t have to hurt someone or us for it to be hurtful. It has inherent (if immediately invisible) consequences because it takes us one more tiny lie towards being someone who generally uses lies to deal and to cope. Even if we can’t see any other effects of our sins, they are contributions to patterns. Every decision is one more drop in the bucket of who I am generally becoming. Every small instance of lying or telling the truth – even if it didn’t matter at the time – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: when pushed, am I someone who lies when in a tight spot? Every small instance of either gossiping or staying quiet – even if it didn’t ever hurt anyone – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: am I someone who uses my mouth or bless or to curse? Every time we let ourselves smile too sweetly at a cute man in public when our spouse bugged us – even if it never came of anything at all – made a small contribution to shaping the long-term answer to this: when my marriage isn’t perfect, do I consider turning to someone else? Each little thing matters, not because we are perfection-demanding legalists serving a black-and-white God, but because each little choice is one pebble into what will one day be a huge hill of our own character. One drop into a cup of what will one day fill up and be a cup full of who we actually are. This is why sin does not have to have immediate consequences to be dangerous, and why God needs no immediate circumstantial evidence to justify His commands that we avoid these things. We want better days for ourselves. He wants a better life.