203. [Lent Study] From Moralism To Holiness

What if the reason we feel stuck isn’t a lack of effort, but the wrong target? We take a hard look at moralism—the checklist faith that rushes people through spiritual “levels”—and show why it can’t heal the heart. Instead, we trace a slower, deeper path where sin is seen as disordered love and distrust of God, and where union with Christ restores what rules cannot.

We start by challenging the fast-track myth and naming pride as the root that feeds so many branches of sin. From there, we reframe three everyday struggles—envy, wrath, and greed—through a practical, pastoral lens. Envy often hides a lie about God’s love; we counter it by celebrating others from a place of secure affection in Christ. Wrath thrives on control and vengeance; meekness becomes strength under God’s justice, refusing to multiply harm. Greed promises security through possession; generosity, sourced in Jesus rather than habit, trains our trust and loosens our grip. Along the way, we explore how culture normalizes the “religion of self,” why private choices aren’t really private in a communal body, and how virtues lose power when detached from the Vine.

My hope is that this podcast helps grow your faith and equips you to accomplish your dreams and goals!

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Transcript

Moralism Versus True Discipleship

Sin As Wound To Christ And Community

Holiness Over Cultural Goodness

Sin As Distrust And The Limits Of Lists

Envy Reframed And The Virtue Of Love

Wrath, Control, And Christlike Meekness

Greed, Security, And Surrendered Generosity

Prayer And Closing Invitations

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today I'm going to be sharing a teaching that I recently did at our staff chapel. My hope is that this encourages you and that your love for God's word deepens. Okay, um, we are in week three of our Lint study. And um I feel like I pray that this is like making you be contemplative as we are going to the cross. And um to kind of piggyback on what we talked about last week um in our time together, about how most of the time we don't even know what sin is. Like, and we um because of our culture society, um, we have a profinity to want to do everything really fast. And I talked about this a while back that as our culture continues to accelerate, your spiritual formation will not accelerate. It's not going to. Literally had a lady that went through um fast track and was crying because her and her husband went through fast track. It had been two months, they had gotten in a group, and she's crying because she's frustrated. Because spiritually, she wants to be at a different spot. And she goes, I don't understand. I did fast track. And I was like, Well, we can express you onto a team, but it doesn't mean God's expressing your spiritual maturity. And Teresa Avila talks about this in her book, Um Interior Mansions or Interior Castle. And she talks about how we can't bang a door down to get into the next level of spiritual maturity. But what we've done as a culture society is we don't want to disciple people. Um, we don't like it, we don't like the process. Um, even pastoral ethics, um, it's easier for us to sit down and legislate morality to someone than it is to take them on a spiritual journey. So we have this measure of what a good disciple is. And typically that measure is predicated upon what we're living or what we aspire to live. And we give them a list of what we think they should do to obtain this level of spiritual maturity. So, what the church has done, instead of spiritually forming people, we moralize them. Most sin talk is moralization, it's not even addressing the sin. And so nearly all we think and say of sin is moralistic and moralism. Whether obsessed with religious orthodoxy, social respectability, political alignment, or therapeutic authenticity, it's fantasy. And here's the thing: is that purity culture doesn't make people pure. Only Christ can make someone pure. But instead of taking people on a journey to make them fall in love with Christ, who then makes them have the desire to be pure, we give them a list of what is impure and what is pure. And to do that, that person now has to go to Lily every time they have a question about impurity. They don't go to God. And if and if that's the discipleship model you have, you're moralizing people. And moralism is disconnected from the spirit and it connects you to a person. And you got to keep in mind, think about the original sin that Adam and Eve sinned, but yes, they ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, but they wanted to be like God. And when we moralize people, we are attempting to be like God because we want to be Lord of their life. We want to tell them the car they should buy, the house they should live in, the person they should marry, the decisions they should make, the clothes they should wear, the movies they should watch, the music they should listen to. Are y'all following me right now? All of that is moralism. Moralism understands sin in relation to some man-made moral order, but sin is meaningful only in relation to God. Against you and you only have I sinned, says Psalms 51, verse 4. That is to say, the wrong I do to others, to myself, and to the non-human creation around me, is seen for what it is only when it is seen as essentially directed towards the Father's love. Just as crime only has meaning in relation to law, swimming and drowning only have relation to a body of water. So sin meaning in relation to the will and the nature of God. If I don't connect somebody to the heart of God and why it matters, I'm moralizing. Are y'all following me? Is this okay? Sin wounds Christ, who has bound himself to everyone and everything as their logos. That is why it defaces and dispirits us. It violates and spoils nature, ruptures and eats away at the integrity of our common life. So sin at its very nature, it's it's harming Christ Himself. And when I see that, and when I see again, all of Pauline literature is you no longer, the minute you get saved, you no longer have an individual walk with God. You now have a communal identity. And when I begin to connect that as I'm sinning, I'm not only hurting this relationship with God, I'm hurting the community that I find myself in. There is no such thing. Culture says that your personal private life has nothing to do with your communal identity. It's just me. Let me do me. I'm gonna do me, you do you. No, that's there's no such thing as that because this is my family. And when how I live and how I conduct my life, it hurts my first family. And it hurts my God. So we are called not to be moral, to be moral, but to be holy. Good, not by the standards of our day, but good as God is good. So there's a difference in teaching people how to be good people, teaching your kids how to be good kids, then to make them holy. If I'm just teaching my kids how to be good, then it's always subjective to whatever culture says is good at the time. But if our heart is, God, make me holy as you are holy, then he purifies, and his standard doesn't change with culture. His standard doesn't change with legislation from the White House, his standard doesn't change with whatever hashtag movement is going on. His standard is his standard. So what is sin? At the root, it's distrust. It's distrust. It's I can't trust God to get me what I need, so I'll do it myself. There are, of course, sins, transgressions, trespasses, fallings, impurities, but the sin is not the action. It's the motive behind the action. And again, because we want to disciple people fast, it takes time to understand the driving desire behind why you're doing. And we want to fix somebody's entire life journey in one coffee. And we don't want to have to meet with him again. But spiritual formation, it I literally had a meeting with someone uh yesterday before teaching at the college. And with tears, he was crying and he was telling me about how he's been a leader within the church for years and that God's used him in great and mighty mighty ways. And he leads a community group, and he's like going through the list, and he goes, and yet I haven't received my prayer language, and I have shame around this. Like, what's wrong with me that I don't have it? And I was like, here's the deal: it's only as the spirit wills. And if your measure, if you've got a list, because we think in lists again, is I'm only good when I get to this mark, then you're always going to be dissatisfied with where you presently are. But instead, maybe exactly where you are is exactly as the spirit wills. And maybe you don't have your prayer language yet because God hasn't opened up that door to you yet. Maybe it actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with God. Maybe there's something in you that's a sin. Are y'all following me? That's causing you to be dissatisfied that that room hasn't been opened to you. And it's not that you're bad or dirty or wronged, or that you need to now do a list of things if you pray, if you seek God, if you does this make sense. So, what does it mean to be a sinner? Again, it's it's falling, it's the state of the original sin is what made us sinful. You were sinful from birth, it's in your nature. We need Christ. So we must say that being a sinner means both that we cannot help but sin, and that we sin because we do not want to be helped. So you can't, it's both are true at the same time. You cannot help but sin. And so, meaning there's nothing you can do to help your sin problem, that's moralism. I need Christ to cleanse me from my sin. So the more I'm connected to Christ, the more the fruit of the spirit begins to be made manifest in my life. I cannot say, okay, Shaq can't decide, okay, next week I am gonna get over envy. And so these are the 10 steps, three ways. I'm gonna read this book, listen to this podcast, I'm gonna do it, we're back into moralism. So even in identifying the sin, she's now attempting to moralize herself instead of be connected to Christ. And the the truth is, I can know the virtue that is gonna counteract that sin. But if I'm doing the virtue disconnected from Christ, there's no power because only he has victory of sin. So, example would be the counter to greed is generosity. There's a lot of generous people in the world, but they're not connected to Christ. So there's no power to overcome that area in their life. So they're manifesting the virtue, but the virtue doesn't have the anointing because it's not connected to Christ. So, in other words, as I'm doing the practice of generosity, if I'm connected to Christ as the source of my generosity, are you following me? Then I'm overcoming the power of greed in my life. However, if I'm doing generosity to make myself pure, are y'all following me, of greed, I've lost all power and it has no authority in my life. So this, I think, I think this is like a thing, a pattern that I see in culture society. So I want you to consider that most of what, not all, but we see in billboards most of culture, most of society have these sins that are thrown at us all the time. These the seven deadly sins. They're in most of our marketing. There's most of things. In fact, one of the things, one of the reasons why I'm not a TikToker as much as I was, is because how many times does the person, like right when you slide up to the next video, they go, You have to have this. You're never going to believe your life is incomplete without this. And what are they doing? It's greed. It's like it's everywhere around us. Oh, you that you have to, if if you're ready to go to the next level, you need this. What is that? Pride. Like you can exalt yourself, you can make yourself whatever. So all of these things, all the sins, are all shown to us in culture and society all around us. Now I want you to consider the virtues as we go through them. The virtues, if that was put out in culture and society, people would say you're pushing your religion on me. Like, don't push your religion on me, don't push your beliefs on me. Oh, but I want you to see that you do have a culture and a religion that's being pushed on you all the time. And it's the religion of self, the religion of self-exaltation. Okay, so think about it like this that if we have a tree, here's the roots of the tree, and the green grass grows all around and around, and the green grass grows all around. And so we've got a tree, and then we have branches. This tree, the root is pride. I took the most time last week to talk about pride because it literally is the source of everything. Literally, all roads lead to pride. And just like in my yard, whenever I'm trying to fix a weed problem, I want to trim these. I want to trim the branches. I want to like cut off there. But if the root's still there, it's what's gonna happen. It's gonna keep coming up. All of your life, you will be battling this pride problem, like all of your life, because self wants to exalt self. It's just it's in us, it's a sin nature. It's uh, it's just part of it. Okay, so we have pride, and pride says this I define myself. I define myself, I get to define who I am, I get to define my success, I get to define my worth, I get to define my value, I get to define myself. And so the counteract, the Christ's virtue is humility. So we have pride and the opposite of that, humility. So then we have the next is envy, and envy says I deserve what they have. I deserve what they have. It's that I deserve it mentality. You don't deserve anything, you didn't, but hell. Well, I worked a lot of hours, don't they recognize me? Did you work for man or did you work for God? Uh I I did I did so good and nobody nobody applauded me. Did you do it for man or did you do it for God? You see somebody get a car and you think, I deserve it. How long have I been driving this beat-down hoopty? Not long enough, I guess. Maybe be a better steward of your money and you'll have a car. Anyways, all right, no, sorry. So the gospel pattern is this is that sin distorts love, Christ restores love, and virtue grows through union with him. So we have sin distorts love. Then we have uh Christ restores love. And then finally, we have virtue grows through union with him. Okay. What it does in envy in all the different sins is it's a distorted love of God. So when you're in envy, like you have this mentality of um, I deserve what they have, but at the purest sense, it's God doesn't love me enough to give to me what he gave to them. It's a dis it's a distorted view of love. And and the problem is not the car, the problem's not the house, the problem's not the position, the problem is not fill in the blank, the problem. Are you following me right now? It's at my purest. I don't believe. I've got a distorted view of God's love for me. And I think that God loves Hudson more than he loves me, and God will do for Hudson more than he'll do for me. Now, the virtue of um envy is love. Is love. Thomas Aquinas says it this way envy is sadness at another's good, insofar as it is perceived as diminishing one's own glory. And so when I say, when I'm gonna act in the virtue of love, I'm saying I can celebrate where you are, because I celebrate God's love and goodness on your life, because I trust his love and goodness on my life. Envy that I deserve what they have. Envy is sorrow at another person's blessing. It cannot replace, uh rejoice in the good of others because it sees life as a competition for worth and for value. Think about Cain and Abel. Think about Cain and Abel. What was the problem with Cain and Abel? At his purest, he didn't want to change how he was living to get connected to the love that God had for his brother. He would rather kill his brother to try to circumvent than to have to change his own behavior. Are y'all following me? And God still loved him, even though he didn't look on his um gift with like a pleasing, but all he had to do is shift, but instead he envied, and that envy led to murder. So Christ's love celebrates the flourishing of others and gives himself for their good. John 13, 34 says, Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus replaces, rejoices in the Father's will and lays down his life for others rather than competing with them. This looks like celebration of others, self-giving, um, self-giving love and gratitude. Christ shows us that another person's blessing is not your loss. It's not your loss. And when you feel that pain, it's like, it's okay, it's good. Meet it with curiosity. God, connect me back with your love. Where have I distorted the view of love? Where and again, Christ restores that love. So as I'm connected to him, as I'm honest about where I have distorted view of love, Christ restores that view of love in my life. And then there the virtue grows through union. My I begin to have love for that person. As I'm put taking that thing to God, God remove this out of my heart. He's now doing it. Okay, the next thing, next little branch we have here is wrath or anger. Wrath, anger. And this um it says, I will assert myself. I will assert myself. And then the the cure of this, the virtue, is meekness. And anger, anger always says this, you owe me. You owe me. And so you're trying to get them, you're demanding a payment from someone that can't repay you. Like anger, nobody can repay me for the childhood I endured. Nobody can. But if I'm trying to make Salem pay for it, she's never gonna be able to pay me back for the years of my childhood. But that anger where meekness comes in in a low place and it's it has a different heart posture. Okay, so uh anger is uh wrath is disordered anger that seeks vengeance or control rather than justice and reconciliation. So it seeks vengeance or control. It doesn't trust in God's justice and reconciliation. So I'm gonna assert myself. I'm gonna speak what I'm gonna, I need to speak up for myself. Um, my sister, there was like um my biological dad went on like a tirade on social media a couple years ago. And he was saying all this blasphemous things about me. And my sister was like, Aren't you gonna say something? Like, stick up for yourself. Like she was so mad, angry, and she was trying to assert herself. And she was like, Somebody needs to stick up, stick up for you. And I was like, No, God sticks up for me. I don't have to defend myself. And when you get in that angry stance, you feel like you have to defend you. Where meekness trusts God's justice. So think about Jonah and Niven Nineveh. Jonah burned with anger when God showed mercy to his enemies. Why? He wanted his plan for those people to be prevailed. And what is it? It's disordered love. And his whole thing was how am I so righteous, live so holy, and now you're going to do this good thing for these people? No, I want your justice. And justice to him look like condemnation, look to look like total destruction. Like he wanted total annihilation of a entire people group. Y'all, that's gross. Um, and Christ continually attempted to restore that love, like restore him back to, hey, Jonah, as I've loved you, I've also loved them. But he wanted control of the situation. And man, how many times do we do this when we're walking in anger? But meekness and patience is what we see in Christ. Christ possesses perfect power but refuses to retaliate. The Bible tells us that he went like a lamb to the slaughter and he said not a word. If Jesus didn't defend himself, why do you always feel like you have to defend yourself? Well, speak your truth, girl. Say it. Sometimes I think we just shouldn't. Let God defend you. He's way better, but it takes longer. And when I'm trying to control, and when I'm trying to control the narrative of what people think about me, what people are saying about me, are y'all following me? What is it? It's disordered love. At the purest thing, I don't believe God will defend me. At the purest part of me, I don't believe that things are gonna work out. So I have to do it myself. I'm gonna assert myself. Um, 1 Peter 2 23, it says, When he was rivaled, he did not rival in return. On the cross, Jesus absorbs violence rather than multiplying it. He exhibited to us what patience looks like: forgiveness and peace. We see it most in while he's on the cross. We see this. Meekness seems crazy. Not standing up for yourself seems crazy. The world thinks this is wild. And I can be again, I can be meek and it's not connected to Christ. It has no power. It's when my meekness is attached to Christ that it has anointing. Okay, let's do one more and then we'll call it a day. Um, greed. Greed, another little branch on our tree. Our tree is getting so big, it's like spring has bloomed. It's growing so many things. And greed says, I will secure myself. I will secure myself. And the way to do the virtue that's connected to this is generosity. And I think about this whenever um we think about the parable of the talents, the man that hid the talent, I would just like to implore you to consider this that he was greedy. He wanted to protect what he had, he wanted to do money his way. Refusal to tithe is I am Lord of my finances. I want to do it my way. But on the flip end, some of us, the world would call us generous, but we're still in control of how much we give. Because you can also get into the pattern of generosity. Does this make sense? And it's no longer, God, what do you want me to give? It's I've already fulfilled my commitment. Are y'all following me? And then so you could be giving the 10%, but still be greedy. Because you're no longer submitting it to God, and you've got this religious standard, this moralism of good or bad, generous, not generous, and you're no longer saying, God, what do you want me to do? And when the camp announcement comes of like sponsor a kid for camp, you're like, I already give my money, the church already has enough, I already did my part, that's somebody else. That's greed. Even though you're claiming generosity. Okay. Thank you. And so the the thing in greed is I will secure myself. And again, greed is the belief that security comes from possession rather than trust in God. And you believe that you are a better provider than God is. It's distorted love. It's I if I have enough, if I have this much money and savings, then we'll be secure. If I make this much money, we'll be secure. If I have this much things, I'll be secure. People hoarding toilet paper in COVID, right? Why? If I amass enough toilet paper, I'll be secure. What is that? Disorder, distorted love. And the truth is, is that God knows what I need before I even need it. And so if he has to wring down Charmin toilet paper from heaven, he will do it. Like, and if I don't have it, I don't need it. But greed is this, and it doesn't know a money marker. And I think a lot of people think when I make more money, greed will be broken off my life. That's not true. I've known millionaires that are the most greedy people. And and they give, but they give as they are Lord over it. Even just think about this. The giving talk that we have at the end of service should not persuade you into generosity. You should come in already wanting to be generous. Does this make sense? If you have to be persuaded into it, I'd just submit that you're still greedy. Okay. Um, the rich young ruler exhibited this in Mark. And again, it says that he went away sorrowful for he had great wealth. Culture says if you have great wealth, you'll be happy. The thing about the rich young ruler that I think we miss a lot of times, he had the wealth and he was sad. But he had the wealth and he was sad because he was greedy. And that is what greed does to us. It separated him. He had a distorted view of love. So the cure in Christ is generosity. Jesus demonstrates radical trust in the Father and gives everything. Everything. So as I give, my trust in the Lord increases. Every time you give, you say, God, you're my provider. I trust in you. And I just believe that there's times and seasons that God asked for an extravagant gift to break that pattern off of us. It's like, where I'm not Lord of it, I'm not, does this make sense? I'm not just doing this as a pattern, but I'm breaking it, trusting God. And it also is shown in stewardship. Your lack of stewardship is because you're greedy. You see your 10% as fire protection, and you're going to consume everything and not steward well with the money you have. So you could be like, oh, I'm giving, I'm good. I'm checked, check, like filled that. Again, we're back in moralism. But are you stewarding what God has? If he asks you to pay for another kid's camp, do you have the reserve to do it? If he opened a door for you to go on a missions trip to, let's say, Azbakistan, and they opened the door and you prayed the prayer, God send me. Financially, could you do it? And if you're like, well, Crystal, you don't understand. No, when we're good stewards, God can open a door and I don't need a miracle for it to happen. But when I consume everything, I'm doing it out of greed because I'm getting more clothes, more shoes, nicer car because I'm greedy. So we'll stop there. Father, we just thank you that through these, Lord, show us, God, where culture has been shaping us. Lord, show us where we have a distorted view of love, where we've trusted ourselves above you. God, where we've amassed things to please the culture that we live in instead of cultivating our hearts to please you. Lord, we repent for any sin in action or in thought. And Father, I just thank you that you're connecting us to the true vine who is Christ. Lord, make us holy as you are holy. Father, I thank you that we lead our church and we lead the people you've entrusted us to, not into moralism, but God into holiness. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Somebody believe this said, Amen. Love you guys so much. Thanks so much for hanging out here on my podcast. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button if you haven't done so already, so you never miss out on anything here on my podcast. Also, one of the best ways for us to begin to reach other people is by you sharing. So if you can do me a favor and share this podcast with a friend, family member, or maybe on your social media, help us get the word out so we can help others.