This week in our Life Group we looked at the difference between the symptoms of our sin (e.g. anger); the triggers that cause sin (e.g. pressure); and the root issue behind the sin (e.g. fear of failure).
If we’re to see lasting change in our lives we need to get good at looking into our hearts, to the root issue, rather than focusing on the symptoms and the triggers.
In chapter four of You Can Change, Tim Chester gets into what is going on in our hearts when we sin, highlighting that to see lasting change in our lives we understand what our heart worships (idols) and believes (lies), so we can repent (of our idols) and believe (the truth) and be transformed.
Chapter Overview: When do you struggle?
Chester reflects on Jesus’ teaching on the heart to show that all behaviour comes from the heart.
43 No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (Luke 6)
21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person. (Mark 7)
When the Bible uses the word heart it is not talking about the organ that pumps blood around the body, and it’s not talking about our emotions. It’s talking about our motivations, our desires, our belief-system. In short, it’s talking about who we really are. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that our hearts are thinking (believing) and desiring (worshiping). So underlying every sin is a lie and an idol. To see change, we need to look at each specific sin and discern the idol (so we can repent of it and treasure Christ), and the lie (so we can expose it and believe the truth).
So what of our circumstances? We often blame our circumstances for our sin (“if only she hadn’t done that”…”if only that hadn’t happened”) as a way to excuse and justify our sin. However in reality our circumstances only trigger our hearts which then choose to sin. James 1:13-15 is helpful here:
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me”. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
So if we’re going to change we need to stop making excuses, stop blaming our circumstances and start to examine our hearts and then allow the word of God and the Spirit of God to change us (which is where the book goes next).
Here are some quotes I found helpful
Our struggles and temptation often trigger sin, but they never cause it. The root cause is always the heart and its sinful desires.
I can’t say: ‘it was my upbringing, my biology, my personal history or my circumstances’. No; James tells us that what causes a person to be enticed by temptation is ‘his own evil desire’.
Jerry Bridges warns against using the language of ‘defeat’ to describe sin. It suggests being overwhelmed by external factors and can therefore suggest that we are not to blame. The language of ‘disobedience’ more accurately describes what’s happening.
Discussion and Reflections
Here are some of the things that came up as we chatted through the chapter and how we’re going to change. In no particular order:
(1) We talked about how we justify our sin – we shared that we justified our sinful actions in a number of ways:
- We had been working hard (and deserved it)
- The situation was tough (so give me a break)
- Other people are stupid (since they are annoying it’s okay to be rude etc)
- We are down-in-the-dumps (so leave me alone to do what I want)
- We were careless; we didn’t have our guard up to temptation (and we’re only human!)
(2) We talked about the desire and the lies behind our sin. When talking about choosing to sin we identified that we:
- Believed that this would be better than not doing it and the momentary satisfaction would be worth it (the lie)
- Wanted a quick fix and an easy escape (our idol)
- Want to impress others
- Didn’t want to take responsibility
- Did what we always wanted and enjoyed the most in that moment
(3) We talked about some breakthroughs
We were encouraged that we had seen breakthroughs through prayer, recognising the problem and having others to help us.