The weariness of hiding our sin

My friend Whitney just posted a transcript of something that Derek Webb has said many times before in his concerts. It is an absolutely amazing, gospel-centered idea that I can't help but post. How would you feel if all your most hidden sins were broadcasted on the evening news?

I think that we often believe, if we’re really honest with ourselves, that the Christian life is about how well we can learn to hide our sin. I mean, honestly, I think a lot of us, and I do this all the time, we think that we are able to measure the growth of our spirituality by how little we are sinning. Or maybe at least how little we can convince everyone, ourselves included, that we are sinning. But the Christian life is not about hiding! It’s not about living in fear! Gosh that’s what we all do, though, is it not? I mean, we just live in fear all the time that we’ll be found out…I’m telling you, the best thing that could happen to any one of you in this room, the best thing, is that your sin would literally be exposed on the five o’clock news. Your deepest, darkest, most embarrassing sin, the one you work the hardest to hide would be broadcasted on the five o’clock news; best thing that could ever happen to you, best thing that could ever happen to me.

Because I am so weary, I am so tired of hiding my sin from people. I’m deceiving people of who I really am. I’m tired of it! I just wish my sins could be exposed! I wish there were huge screens that would just show you the truth about me. All the way down to my core. In order that you would know me for who I really was. And that I could not, I, … I did not even have the option to hide from you anymore. In order that I would have nothing but Jesus to grasp on to because that’s all I’ve got anyway! Cause the truth is, your sins have been exposed as if they were on the five o’clock news. They’ve been exposed to Jesus. He knows you better than you are even willing to admit to yourself. But He’s forgiven you! Take joy in the fact not that your sins are not real but that they are real and that your Savior is real. I cannot tell you this enough times in hopes that any of us, one of us, even me might believe this. I’ll never tire of saying this to people! I’ll never tire of hearing this myself because by the time I go to sleep tonight I’m not going to believe it again. I’m going to be thinking of ways to hide my sin from people in hope they might like me, or something. But that’s not what my Christian life is all about. That’s not what sanctification is all about. That’s not what growth as a believer’s all about. It’s about coming to grips with who you really are and being willing to admit that to each other!

In order that that might happen in your community that others might come and say, “You know, I heard you talking about this sin and that was bold of you brave of you to admit that! You know what, I,… It’s kind of leading me to repentance as well, I, I… I want to tell you something… I want to invite you into where I hide in hopes that I might not hide there anymore. Make it harder for me to go back there. Because the light switch has been turned on.” Please, please begin preaching the Gospel to each other in a way that you might actually believe it, a way that you might come out of hiding and that it might change our communities. I mean, am I the only one sick of living in American, sub-culture Christianity where we encourage each other to hide, encourage each other to put on these faces? That is not what the Christian life is all about! It’s no wonder statistically our church is losing relevance by the day. It’s no wonder we’re so stagnant! We don’t believe the Gospel. It has not failed us, we have just failed to believe it.