If you search the internet for the top ten “felt need” sermon topics, you won’t find “Rebellion” on the list. What you’ll find are topics like, anxiety, anger, fear, depression, stress, loss, friendship, and forgiveness.
I find this somewhat curious given that every believer regularly deals with the temptation to rebel against God and His ways. So why wouldn’t we want to hear a sermon or two about how to deal with rebellion?
Perhaps Christians feel that our thoughts of rebellion shouldn’t be discussed, for to do so would suggest that there is something deeply wrong with believers. But when we keep conversations and feelings about rebellion tucked away for safe keeping, we deny an important biblical truth – there is something deeply wrong with Christians, and for that matter all people, and that is we possess a sin nature that makes us rebellious towards God.
This truth is captured well in Galatians 5:17 (ESV):
“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
And in Romans chapter 7, Paul laments his own struggles with his sin nature:
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing (Romans 7:14-19 (NIV).
These verses detail that within the heart of every believer, there is a strong conflict going – one that Paul, a few verses later calls a “war”:
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me (Romans 7:22-23 (NIV)
So, rather than treat our rebellion as spiritual leprosy, we would do well to follow the advice found in James chapter five, where we are told to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another” and that “if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”
Rather than hide our rebellious ways, God calls us to share them with one another, that we may pray for each other and help each other come back from our wandering ways.
There is a familiar saying around churches which goes, “We all clean up pretty well on Sundays” which gets at the truth that while we all look like God’s perfectly obedient saints in church, the reality is that our sinful nature yields anything but squeaky-clean Christians. Therefore, when a brother or sister in Christ tells us about their struggles with their faith or sin, our first reaction shouldn’t be to cover our mouths and broadcast our shock, but open our mouths and pray for them, telling them we understand because we are just like them.