Rebuilding Broken Relationships

Generally speaking, Christians know how to deal with sin. We confess our sin to God and to whoever we sinned against (1 Jn 1:9), we repent and ask for forgiveness (Lk 17:4), we forgive, and then we hug (hugging is very important).  But does all this mean that everything is automatically back to the way it was before? Or did the person’s sin do any damage to our relationship that will continue into the future? And if so, what does it mean that one has repented and the other has forgiven?

Most of us would answer these questions based on a sliding scale of how horrible we thought the sin against us was. If someone did something to us that we thought was inconsequential, or maybe something that we do all the time also, our relationship will easily go back to what we call normal. But if the sin was something we view as major, letting the relationship going back to normal becomes something incredibly difficult. In both cases, the result is tied to our trust of the sinner to not do that particular sin again. So, forgiveness, in these cases is tied to our ability to trust the person who sinned against us. If the sin was great, our trust is lost, and it becomes virtually impossible to “not remember” (Heb 10:17-18) their sin in the future.

There is confusion here. For one thing, there is a difference between sin and consequences of sin. Confessing and repenting of a particular sin does not say anything about the consequences of sin. The Bible distinguishes between forgiveness (a commitment to not remember the sin—and consequences of sin. And sin always has consequences. The consequences aren’t always the same size, but they are always there and they always last.

This is most obvious in the large sins. Suppose a man beats his wife with a big stick. Even though he crawls on his hands and knees in repentance, there are residual consequences: bruising, stitches, deformity, and fact that he hit her itself. The bruises will go away, but the scars (both internal and external) will always be part of their relationship. She might truly forgive him and not hold it against him, but the event has changed them and their relationship forever. The consequences of small sins aren’t as obvious, but you know this principle is true when you link several small sins together and over time notice that there is indeed a change in your relationship. Suppose your wife complained about you for not taking out the trash when she wanted you to. Then, she realized that she was being naggy and confessed and repented of that sin. Then, the next day she did the whole thing again. After about a week of this, the relationship with your wife will begin to feel the strain of the nagging—even if you forgave her every time.

So, here’s the first thing. Sin always has consequences, even after forgiveness and reconciliation. The two of you are not the same people you were before the sinful event. As an example of a positive event changing us we read that when Paul visited heaven in II Corinthians 12, he was not the same man when he got back as he was before the visit. And in order to keep him humble, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. The point here is that everything in our lives changes us. Sin changes us and our relationships and good things change us and our relationships.

There are two ways people typically deal with the changes that sin produces. First, people simply drift apart. Sometimes the drift can happen quickly and not be related to sin at all. When two friends crash into sin, they just don’t hang out anymore. Sometimes married people, who can’t physically drift apart, still drift emotionally and physically. One gets into golf, the other into wood carving, for example. But they aren’t the friends they were before. They just don’t get along anymore. There isn’t necessarily any sin between them, but things have changed. I don’t know that this drift is always sin or sinful, but it might be.

There is another, better and more Biblical way to deal with this consequence of sin. That is always to go to the Bible and see how this works in our relationship with God. Does our sin affect our relationship with God? Well, the Bible tells us that God is grieved when his people sin (Eph 4:30). It tells us that he is deeply affected by our sin (Gen 45:5). It tells us that because of our sin, he sent his Son to die in our place (1 Jn 2:2). So, our sin does affect our relationship with God. None of this changes God, however. God doesn’t change (Jas 1:17). He has always known us, even better than we know ourselves. But our sin does change us. The more we sin the more we know our own hearts and the more we know we are but worms.

We are worms. Hey, that reminds me of a hymn I used to sing: “Alas! And did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” He died for a worm. He died for a bunch of worms. But here’s the thing. He doesn’t leave us worms. He doesn’t leave our relationship, destroyed by our sin, a mess. He actively reached out to us in the death of his son to repair the sin and the consequences of our sin. He doesn’t leave us nasty old sinners after we have come to Christ. He loved us on the cross and he continues to love us now.

Now, love is never an emotion, an empty gooey feeling. God’s doesn’t go all weak in the knees when he thinks about us. God’s love does things to the beloved. He changes us by loving us. His love is efficacious. This means that while our sin messes up our relationship with God, and it changes us, making us more ugly, God’s forgiveness and cleansing and what he does with us afterward changes us and makes us better than we were before our sin. So, with regard to our character and our relationship with God we aren’t where we were before the sin, it is better now.

This means we don’t go back to “normal” (whatever normal means) with regard to our relationship, God changes us and the relationship so that it is better than it was and is getting better as we go.

When we repent, God not only covers our sin because of Jesus, he re-clothes us in Christ, sees us in Christ, and changes us into Christ’s likeness. And as we acknowledge that renewed relationship and let the knowledge of that mercy and grace sink into our minds, Christ grows in our estimation and our hearts are transformed.

That transformation not only makes us more like Christ, it makes our relationship with God better and better. So, God uses our sin to make our relationship better than it was.

This is not to say that sinning makes our relationship better than it would have been had we not sinned at all. I don’t believe that. Nor do I believe that sinning is a good idea because our walk with God is made better. It isn’t better than it would have been had we not sinned. But it does mean that God uses even our sin to glorify himself and make us more like Christ. Praise God!

Now back to our sin against our friend, wife, husband, son, daughter, neighbor, enemy, etc. What does all this have to do with the mess their sin has made of our relationship? I’ve already said that sin messes things up. It creates a new environment because it changes people and it changes our relationships. I’ve also said that even though we are in fellowship, in many cases we might drift apart because of the sin, as part of the consequences of sin. But I think there’s a better way. And this better way is very helpful for those who can’t, for whatever reason, get away from the people who sin against us.

Ephesians 5:1 told us, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Paul went on to list a number of things we should do or should stop indulging in. He concluded the letter by telling the readers all sorts of things they should be doing with one another. To summarize it I would say that Paul is telling us to imitate God in all our relationships. Because the center, beginning, and constant presence in our life is God’s working in us to bring us into an ever-closer relationship with God, this section of the letter is telling us to do the same thing with one another.

So, when someone sins against us, it is true that they have altered, forever, our relationship with them. Even if they ask for forgiveness and we grant it, things are different. We can leave it like that—spoiled, or we can do what God does with us and love that person so that he or she will be transformed by our love (and God working through us) into a different person. This different person will be different in a godly way such that our relationship will not be what it was before the sin, it won’t be what it might have been without the sin, but it will be better than it has ever been.

It might even be better than it might have been without the sin. Our relationship might have gone limping along for years because we weren’t working on it at all. Now, because of the sin, we’ve had to pour ourselves into that other person in a way that we wouldn’t have otherwise. And this love, attention, caring, grace, mercy, etc. will change the other person and thus the relationship. Without all this work you might not have drifted off anyway. Now, because you are loving them, you will begin to like them.

Two more things before I go: First, remember that God is in everything we do. When we love someone, when we give them grace and mercy, when we imitate God, God is in it with us, working through and in us to accomplish his will. We are never alone, and we are never doing anything in our own power.

Second, when we are doing evangelism with a co-worker, for example, we will pour love on them in the same way I am describing here. It will be through our love and witness (which is living Christ in front of them) that they come to Christ. So, nothing I’ve said here is any different from what the Bible tells us to do with non-Christians.

I hope this helps.