Sin, Sorrow, and Joy in the Life of a Christian
I must tell you at the beginning that writing on the subject of the paradox of the relationship of sorrow and joy in the life of every Christian has been troubling. Thinking about the sorrow I should feel over my sins has been painful. Why? Because the Bible powerfully teaches that when we confess our sins, that admission must be accompanied by sorrow. When David confessed his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba in his prayer in Psalm 51, he said that the outward sacrifice of a bull or lamb was not enough: “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (vv. 16–17). David was a wealthy man. He could have gone to the temple and offered one hundred bulls as sacrifices. Everyone would have probably marveled at his repentance. But all those sacrifices would have meant nothing unless they were accompanied by genuine sorrow. God would have seen right through his hypocrisy.
That is my dilemma in writing this article. As I look at the sins in my life, remembering thoughts and actions, I have no problem seeing the transgressions. Yet I do not see the appropriate sorrow that God demands. Sorrow, in and of itself, has no power to take away sin. But sorrow does authenticate the genuineness of the confession. Every sinner has had the experience of confessing a sin yet still holding fondly to the sin in his heart. If the sinner is to experience the grace and joy of forgiveness, his confession and repentance must be accompanied by true sorrow. That is where I find myself lacking. As I look back at my individual confession of sin, I see a lack of sorrow. Do I have some kind of sorrow meter? No, but this biblical truth has forced me to seek sorrow all the more.
The road of sin and genuine sorrow for that awful sin ends with joy through the great sacrifice of the true Lamb of God.
I don’t believe that I am alone in this lack of sorrow. As we observe the evangelical church in our culture, we see a lack of preaching that confronts sin in the lives of Christians. The subject is avoided. In my own life, I have been blessed to sit under preaching in which the convicting power of the Holy Spirit was so evident that people in the congregation openly wept about their sin or even kneeled and prayed without being told to do so. We need more of such preaching.
As important as sorrow is to the confession of sin, it is not the end that God has set forth in His Word. The Christian is not to live in the city of Sorrow. In David’s psalm of repentance, he prays for the Lord to restore his joy: “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. . . . Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Ps. 51:8, 12). Some Christians and churches seem to want to always live in the city of Sorrow, but the second characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit is joy. Paul tells the Philippian church that it is to be known for its joy: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). This is not to say that the Christian is to rejoice even in his sin. That is the mark of the world. The world actively seeks out sin in its rebellion against God. It advocates for sin. It loves sin and fights for its right to live the way it wants in opposition to God’s reign. So the Christian does not rejoice in the sin itself. The joy for the Christian is salvation from the power of sin and salvation from God’s judgment of sin.
This salvation is found only in the atoning death and resurrection of Christ. In Romans 5:8–9, Paul writes: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” How can a just God declare the sinner justified? Only through the blood of Christ. On the cross, Jesus took our sin, our guilt, and our punishment on Himself. He stood in God’s courtroom guilty. The punishment that we were due fell on Him. Can we be sure that His death atoned for all our sin? In the resurrection of Jesus, God declared that our debt to the perfect justice of God had been paid in full. Then Paul concludes in verse 11, “We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” We do not rejoice in our sin. No, we hate, loathe, and despise that sin. We rejoice in our salvation through Jesus Christ. That is the reason for our joy. In the death of Christ, we were saved once and for all time. On every occasion when we repent in sorrow for the sin we have committed, we have the opportunity to rejoice again. Satan will certainly come and accuse us with that sin. We will answer with the joyful boldness of Paul: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? . . . Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died” (8:33–34). What an incredible paradox. The road of sin and genuine sorrow for that awful sin ends with joy through the great sacrifice of the true Lamb of God.
Listen to John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress describe Christian’s coming to the cross and the burden of his sin falling from him:
Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.” Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his Burden. He went, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.
Something of that first experience of Calvary should return to us each time we kneel at the cross, sorrowfully confessing our sins.
Rev. John P. Sartelle Sr. is senior pastor at Christ Covenant Reformed Church in Memphis, Tenn. He is author of What Christian Parents Should Know about Infant Baptism.
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