Sin is a Liar

On the tail-end of summer last year, my neighbor’s horse tampered with the lock on his paddock and escaped. With nobody else around, I took upon myself the task of catching him. To my pure frustration, every step I took toward him he countered with a move in the opposite direction. He wanted nothing to do with me.

In Romans 10:21 (ESV) Paul writes about God, “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’"

The book of Romans explains how Jesus ripped a hole in Israel’s idea of what the Messiah and salvation should look like. When Jesus revealed His identity as the Savior God had promised, Israel rejected Him. Israel countered every attempt Jesus made toward them with a move in the opposite direction.

The word contrary in Romans 10:21 comes from the Greek verb antilego and can also be translated as gainsaying (KJV). It describes hostility or opposition toward someone, refusal to obey, or refusal to even associate with someone. The mental picture reminds me of my neighbor’s horse, who resisted me in every possible way. My response was frustration.

But Christ’s response to Israel’s rejection is unexpected.

Romans 10:21

But of Israel He says: Israel is marked from beginning to end by the constancy and faithfulness of God. God chose this nation and set it apart for Himself. Figuratively, God pointed His finger at Israel and said, “No matter what you do, I will always be faithful to you.” And He continues to make good on that promise.

All Day Long: Actually, Romans 10:21 is a quotation, first recorded by God in the book of Isaiah. Long after its first appearance, this promise from God appears again in Scripture. And in its retelling, we glimpse a God of astounding patience. God has been waiting not for one 24-hour day, but for hundreds of years. Year after year, He is longsuffering, extending every opportunity for mercy. Waiting still.

I have held out my hands: The KJV translates this phrase as “stretched forth my hands,” and I love the physical effort illustrated in that wording. Not only is God waiting, but He’s also actively making an effort to reach us. He’s stretching out His hands wholeheartedly, anticipating our approach, surely longing for it—even knowing that some of us will never reach back.

To a disobedient and contrary people: All this time, this verse has been building up the portrait of who God is and the depth of His mercy and love. How can it all climax at the realization that He’s pouring out love on one who doesn’t even want it? But perhaps that’s the whole point. It’s a striking, dismantling picture of love—God’s love, relentless and unconditional. So drastically different from human love. But this is perfect love. God loves because He is love, not because we are deserving recipients of His love.

Substituting Jesus for Something Empty

Sadly, Israel didn’t want Jesus for a lot of different reasons. Israel’s problem was not with God’s love for them; Israel’s problem was with their love for themselves. They were gainsaying; they wanted something instead of God.

- They wanted to be able to do something to earn their own righteousness; they sought salvation “by the works of the law” (Romans 9:31-32).

- They wanted to be like the other nations, rather than being God’s people.

- They craved sin and the pleasure it seemed to bring to the pagan nations.

We don’t have to travel to Israel to find Paul’s description of a gainsaying heart, however. In fact, there’s probably one beating inside of each of us. Whether our hearts lean toward self-righteousness or a love for sin, both can cause us to reject Jesus for something else.

A Raging Battle

As humans, our default is a gallop toward sin, willingly and deliberately. Day after day, we find ourselves battling the sin nature we’ll carry all through this life. The Bible calls it “the flesh,” and it incessantly opposes God. Even as believers, we have a broken tendency to run from our Savior—back to sin, back to our plans, back to our will and own way.

We know what God says, but we still want what we want.

Romans 1:25 tells us something so key to understanding and overcoming our flesh:

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

Every time we sin (an act of rejecting Jesus to gain something else), we choose to believe a lie about who God is. Maybe we believe He is not good, and that’s why we try so hard to cling to things we think will make us happy. Maybe we believe He is not in control, and that’s why we get angry when life throws us a curveball forcing us to acknowledge that we’re not in control. Maybe we believe God is not our Owner, and fall into the trap of thinking we deserve more than what we have been given.

But when we exchange God for a lie, we end up empty every time.

If you’re like me, the sin cycle aftermath may look like this: you’re filled with guilt, furious with yourself, and overwhelmed by failure—wondering why you chose to believe a lie. Wondering why you ran from the One who cannot lie and who alone can satisfy your soul.

Let me tell you something, friend: sin is a liar. Whether you cling to the sin of self-righteousness or the sin of pursuing things forbidden by God, I can promise you that although sin might taste really, really good in that first bite, the aftertaste is vile. It isn’t worth it.

Breaking Free

When we run from God—whether it’s toward self-righteousness or straight for the sins we love—we’re in pretty bad shape. We’ve placed ourselves outside of God’s intended plan and have made ourselves extremely susceptible to the destruction of sin.

Here’s the good news. No matter what your sin struggle may be, and no matter how your gainsaying heart may manifest itself throughout your everyday life, the gospel that overcame your sin at salvation can overcome your present sin strongholds today.

And the gospel is simple: repent and believe.

1. Repent

Friend, the truth about lies is that they’re promise breakers and disappointers. You and I both know that, but we chase them anyway. Why? Because we’ve lost sight of something better. Someone better.

Romans 10:21 is just another beautiful portrait of the gospel—Jesus with His hands outstretched to sinners—to those who reject Him, to those of us that love our self-righteousness and to those of us who love our sin. This holy God who so strongly hates our sin so relentlessly loves us, extending forbearance in his desire for restoration and relationship with us.

If our self-righteous hearts will stop trying to build towers of works, and if our sin-loving hearts will stop chasing every whim—if instead we behold the beauty of the gospel—we’ll find that we cannot attain righteousness, and that sin isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. There’s danger in it. There’s pleasure that doesn’t last. It’s wrong, but it’s also unfulfilling.

God invites us to repent of the idolatry in our hearts. We can ask Him to forgive us for exchanging His truth and invaluable sacrifice for something lesser. As we’ve seen in Romans 10:21, God is so merciful to us.

Psalm 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

Psalm 51:1 “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

2. Believe

Instead of believing lies, we can choose to fill our minds with truth about who God is. We fight temptation by meditating on or memorizing Scripture about who God is. His character is changeless.

For me, so many of my sin struggles can be traced back to the fact that I don’t believe God 1) satisfies (Psalm 16:11—“In His presence is fullness of joy”) and 2) is sufficient (Psalm 23:1—“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”).

What truths are you not believing? Once you pinpoint them, you can fight back. So often, we don’t fight—and inevitably fail—because we don’t look back to the gospel. We forget God’s love. We forget who He is. We let truth slip through our fingers, and we are defeated.

Set your mind.

Instead of letting your mind dwell on what it wants, tell it what you’re tempted to doubt. You cannot reason with your flesh. Our flesh is very, very good at justifying sin. When temptation comes, you can have victory, but not by debating with your sin nature. But if you choose to set your mind on Christ, you will overcome sin.

Romans 8:6-7 “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.”

Tell God the lies you’ve believed about Him, and tell Him the truths you want to cling to.

Every time we actively set our minds on truth and wage war against sin, we tell God with our lives, “I value you more than I value myself. I choose to obey you because I love you. I want you, not my sin.”

Ultimately, it all comes down to love. Only love overcomes a gainsaying heart. Only love compels us to choose Christ. When we choose to love Christ, we will refuse to love our flesh.