Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

This is the fourth and the final week of our series called Identity Theft. This has been an amazing series because God has been revealing some powerful stuff to us. He has told every one of us who we really are.

Our true identity is found in this verse. Galatians 3:26: “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26, NLT)

For the last four weeks, we’ve been reminded that this is who we are. If you are in Christ, you are a son or daughter of God. You are a prince. You are a princess. Because you’re a child of the King. Jesus’ death and resurrection has completely cleansed you, totally forgiven you. And now, God sees you as His child, absolutely pure and perfect.

But this is the last thing that Satan wants for your life. He wants you to doubt your salvation. He wants you to question who you are in Christ. He wants you to wonder if you are really forgiven. He wants you to lose sight of the love and the grace that Jesus has for you. He wants to steal your identity away from you.

We’ve been talking about several of Satan’s most powerful weapons that he’ll use to rob us of our identity in Christ. Weapons like guilt and disappointment and criticism. Each weapon is different, but each one is effective.

Today we’re going to explore one last weapon that Satan can use to rob us…secret sin.

My little boy, Ryan, has to be the world’s worst secret keeper. I don’t think I’ve ever received a birthday or Christmas present from him that I didn’t find out about ahead of time. Seriously…be careful what you say around him, because the boy can’t keep a secret.

And actually, in one way, that’s kind of refreshing. Ryan is only four-years-old. He is so naïve and so innocent that he really can’t understand why someone would ever keep a secret. Why wouldn’t you always want to be completely open and honest? He really has no perception of that.

It’s a shame to know that he’s going to lose that as he gets older. Sure, there are some secrets that will be completely fine for him to keep. I’m sure that, sooner or later, I’ll receive a gift from him that is actually a surprise.

But unfortunately, as he grows up, he’s also going to learn the dark side of secrets. The ugly truth about some secrets is that they can kill us from the inside out. They can completely rob us of our identity in Christ. They can absolutely decimate our relationship with God. It happens when we keep the sin in our lives buried so deep that we believe no one can ever find it. Instead of dealing with the sin, our lives are all about keeping the secret. We don’t let anybody in. Not our friends. Not our church. Not even our God. And watch what that does to us.

In John 3, Jesus said, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:20, NIV)

When we allow secret sin to get a grip on our lives, it pushes us to move away from God. Scripture consistently portrays God as light. When we sin in darkness, we move away from that light. If we come to the light, our deeds will be exposed. And remember…life is no longer about dealing with our sin. It’s about keeping the secret. And if that means that I have to shut you out, I’ll do it. If I even have to shut God out, I’ll do it. Anything to preserve my secret.

Do you see how this robs us of our identity in Christ? Instead of being the forgiven child of God that He wants you to be, you run away from God. Instead of a forgiven life, you begin living a fugitive life. Always on the run. Never letting anyone get too close, for fear that they’ll find you out.

If you think that I’m overstating it, I’m not. Let me prove it to you. How do you think it would go over if I said, “I’d like everyone who is currently addicted to pornography to stand up?” How do you think that would play with everyone here today?

Now, in a room this size, there are people with a porn addiction. In fact, there are far more people in this room struggling with pornography than we’d ever imagine. But if I asked them to stand up, it wouldn’t happen. Why? Because life is all about preserving the secret.

And porn is just one example. What if I asked all the gossips to stand up? Or everyone who lied to someone this week? Or, you fill in the blank. You get the idea. Nobody would stand up, because we’re all about keeping the secret. We allow our identity in Christ to be stolen in the name of keeping the secret.

But look at this verse from Romans. “…God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ…” (Romans 2:16b, NIV)

Do you like that verse? I don’t. If you do like this verse, you’ve got issues. This truth from the Word of God really rattles me. God will judge my secrets. God will judge your secrets. The whole idea of a “secret sin” is really a misnomer. There is no such thing. That secret that you’ve kept hidden so well…God will judge that secret. And if that makes you uncomfortable, good. It should.

God showed his church very early on what secret sin can do to us. There is a story in Acts 5 that absolutely blows me away. God started his church in Acts 2. Listen to what happened, just three short chapters later.

People were generously supporting the church. Some of them were even selling pieces of property and then giving the money from those sales to the church. That’s what a man named Barnabas did. There was a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira that saw what Barnabas did, and they devised a little plan.

Acts 5 says, “Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.” (Acts 5:1-2, NIV)

These two had just seen Barnabas sell a field and bring all the money from that sale to the church. Now, this isn’t why Barnabas did it, but there’s no doubt that he received praise from a lot of people in the church. He was in the spotlight, even though that wasn’t his goal.

So Ananias and Sapphira started thinking, “You know, we could do that. We’ve got some property we could sell. We could get the attention, we could grab the spotlight. But I bet we could do it a lot cheaper than Barnabas did.” So they sold their property and they claimed that they were bringing all the money from the sale to the church. But in reality, they kept part of the money for themselves.

Look at what happened. Pick it up in the next verse: “Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?

And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4, NIV)

Peter was reminding Ananias that no one forced him to sell his property. It was his and he could do whatever he wanted with it. And even after he sold it, he didn’t have to give any of the money to the church. Or he could have given part of it. Even that would have been fine. But instead, Ananias sold the property, kept part of the money for himself, and then claimed that he was bringing it all to the church.

One little white lie. What’s the harm? The church gets some money. Ananias keeps some money. And he gets the praise and the accolades of the people in the church as long as he can keep his little secret. Sounds like a win-win situation, except for one thing. Peter reminded him, “You have not lied to men but to God.” And God takes secret sin very seriously.

How seriously? Check out the next verse.

“When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.” (Acts 5:5-6, NIV)

Dang. This just blows me away. Remember that verse that says that God will judge our secrets? In the case of Ananias, that judgment came through express delivery. But we’re not done yet. God turned Ananias into worm food, but we don’t know what happened to Sapphira yet.

Pick it up in verse 7. “About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.

Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.” (Acts 5:7-11, NIV) 

Not to sound like a broken record, but dang! God took down a husband and a wife in tandem for their secret sin. God doesn’t kill someone unless He really means business, so we’d better sit up and pay attention to the truths we see in this story.

Ananias and Sapphira were worried about keeping up appearances. They were looking to impress the other people in the church. They wanted to receive the same praise that Barnabas received, but they didn’t want to make the same sacrifice that he made. So they put together a plan to keep their secret, because they were all about impressing people.

And it’s there that we find one of the ways that secret sin can rob us of our identity in Christ. Secret sin makes you worry about saying and doing the right things, while ignoring the crisis in your heart. Because remember, life is all about keeping the secret. Your mission is to keep the outside looking good, so no one will ever question what is happening on the inside. Say the right religious words. Go through the right religious motions. Jump through the right religious hoops. As long as you look squeaky clean on the outside, as long as you can fool everyone with the mask that you wear, you can ignore the sin that is killing you from the inside out.

Jesus had something to say about this when he was talking about the Pharisees, who were the elite religious leaders in his culture. He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.

In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matthew 23:25-28, NIV)

Now, don’t overlook the fact that Jesus said this to the Pharisees. Jesus spent a lot of time hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors, who were notorious con men. But he always seemed to save his harshest words for religious people. And this is no exception. Because, generally speaking, it’s not lost people who struggle with secret sin. If someone is outside of Christ, they have no reason to hide their sin to impress a bunch of Christians. Most lost people don’t care what Christians think about them, anyway.

But, for us who are in Christ, it’s a different matter. It’s so easy for us to begin to believe that we’ve got to put up a front to impress other Christians. And so, instead of allowing God to deal with the sin in our lives, we suppress it. We hide it. And we concentrate on making sure that the outside looks good. Jesus said it’s like slapping a fresh coat of paint on a tomb. It looks nice and pretty on the outside, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a reeking, nasty decomposing corpse on the inside.

But some of us are ok with being dead on the inside, as long as we never get found out. We paint up the outside to look nice and pretty and religious, and we’re good with that because we believe that our secret will never be revealed. I mean, yeah, Peter exposed the secret sin of Ananias and Sapphira, but that was then, this is now. I can keep my secret.

No you can’t. The Bible says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13, NIV)

What is hidden from God’s sight? Nothing. Not a single thing. Everything you do in secret is going to be laid bare before him, and you will have to answer for it. No secrets. No skeletons in the closet. No shadows to hide in. It’s all going to be laid out in full view.

In Luke 12, Jesus told his disciples, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.

What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (Luke 12:1b-3, NIV)

There is nothing concealed, nothing hidden that won’t be made known. Every word you and I have whispered in secret will be shouted from the rooftops.

Last week we talked about criticism. Some of us, even after hearing that message, spoke very critically about somebody else this week. It was done in secret. Behind closed doors. In a whisper. But those words aren’t gone forever. They’re going to come back to you…only this time, they’ll be shouted. You can’t even say a word in secret that won’t be revealed when you stand before God. How’s that for a warm and fuzzy thought?

Ananias and Sapphira thought that their secret was safe. All they had to do was put on a show…make the outside look good, and their secret would be safe. But they were found out. Their secret was revealed, and they died.

Well, at least we don’t have to worry about THAT, right? At least we’re not going to die. Well…not so fast there, compadre. Check this out from the book of James.

“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:13-15, NIV)

Ananias and Sapphira died because of their secret sin. Now, it might be a little bit more delayed in our case, but the result is the same. Sin brings death. Secret sin, if left unchecked, will eventually rob us of our relationship with Jesus entirely. And without Jesus, there is nothing left but death, here and in eternity.

There are at ton of us in this room right now who are dying inside. Secret sin is slowly killing us. Maybe you feel like you would rather die than have your secret revealed. Well, if you continue on your current course, you’re going to get both.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve been hammering pretty hard this morning…to the point where you may be wondering if there is any good news. No…I really don’t have any good news for you. I have some GREAT news for you. The great news is that, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, everything can change.

Listen to what the Bible says in the book of 1 John. This is a little long, but there is so much good stuff here that I just couldn’t condense it.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5-7, NIV)

Jesus purifies us from how much sin? All. Nothing held back. The cross is big enough, his blood is powerful enough, and his love is strong enough to forgive you of anything. But John warns us that we can’t claim to walk in the light if we secretly walk in darkness. Once again, there’s that Biblical illustration of God as light and sin as darkness. If it appears that we’re walking in light on the outside, but we’re hiding darkness on the inside, we’ve got big problems. Listen to what John says next.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 5:8-9, NIV)

If we quit trying to hide our secrets and instead openly confess them to God, there is an incredible promise that follows. God is faithful and just and he will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Not some. Not most. He will forgive us purify us from ALL unrighteousness. All we have to do is come clean in confession and repentance.

But what if we’d rather keep the secret? Listen to the next verse in 1 John. “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:5-10, NIV)

There is a high price that we’ll pay when we simply refuse to give up the secret and confess our sin to God. But our confession doesn’t stop with God. Check this out.

The book of James says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16a, NIV)

This is one of the most ignored commands you’ll ever find in the Bible. God doesn’t just command us to confess our secret sins to him. He commands us to confess our secret sins to one another. But most of us would never dream of actually doing that. In this instance, we’re content to disobey the Bible, which is a sin in an of itself.

And here is where secret sin does even more damage. Not only does it rob us of our individual identities, but it robs the church of her identity. God designed the church as a place of authenticity and honesty. But it’s become a place for a religious masquerade. Like Ananias & Sapphira, we just try to keep up appearances at church instead of honestly admitting our struggles.

“But I’ll be rejected if I actually admit my secret sins.” Listen…the only people who will reject honest confession and repentance are hypocrites. Why do you care about pleasing them?

The church was designed by God to be a place where we can safely admit that we’re not perfect. Where we can confess our specific sins to each other, so that we can pray for each other. The Bible says that this is how we are healed. This is how we make progress in our walk with Christ. This is how we stop allowing Satan to rob us of our identity and instead start becoming who God created us to be. But it starts with a willingness to be vulnerable, honest, and real.

Maybe it is a confession in front of this entire church so you can enlist the prayers of all the believers here. Or maybe it’s an honest confession with a few close friends who will keep you accountable. The number of people isn’t as important as your willingness to humble yourself and openly admit the sins that have been killing you in secret.

I’m not saying that some people won’t reject you. But what I am saying is that those people aren’t worth worrying about. They have bigger problems. They have a secret sin called pride that they need to deal with. But you can’t let those few stop you from following this Biblical command.

In the book of Proverbs, the Bible says, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13, NIV)

Have you ever heard the old axiom, “Confession is good for the soul?” It’s cliché, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s true. Satan wants you to live your life in hiding. He always wants you to be looking over your shoulder, wondering if you’re going to get caught. He wants you to live a double life…the life that you allow everyone to see…and the life you keep hidden from view.

Wouldn’t it feel good to drop the charade? How would it feel if you never had to worry about getting found out? Instead, you could just live your life as a forgiven and free child of God. That’s who you are, but Satan has taken it away from you. You’re a slave to your secret.

It doesn’t have to be that way. God already knows your secret sin. Maybe he is currently the only one who knows about it. And he still loves you. He wants to forgive you. He wants to empower you to overcome your sin. That’s why he died for your sin. Jesus’ death on the cross is powerful enough to overcome any addiction. It trumps any secret sin.

So which is it going to be? Saved, or enslaved? Fugitive, or free? Don’t let pride stop you from being set free. Don’t let the opinions of a few hypocrites stop you from finding the freedom that comes from confession and accountability. That’s the church as God designed. Most of all, don’t let some secret keep you from fully embracing the love and the grace and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. He knows your secrets. He died for them. And He wants to set you free.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: accountability, authenticity, confession, Identity Theft, secret sin, sin