An Informed Approach
If we want to help a sinner stop sinning, we need to study sin. We can do this by studying our own sinful hearts and the way sin begins, develops, and expands there. Though probably not on our summer reading list, we can also study sobering and searching books on sin.

• John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen
• Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices
• Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins
• Jeremiah Burroughs: The Evil of Evils

A Humble Approach
Remember that you are a sinner. Before we start rebuking sin in others, we must rebuke it in ourself first and most.

A Gentle Approach
Whether the person has asked us for help, we are offering help, or a friend has asked us to help, we need to approach humbly, quietly, and lovingly. Raise the subject in the context of the Gospel of Grace and our own need and experience of it for our own sins and struggles (Gal. 6:1).

A Hopeful Approach
Although the sin may be wide, deep, high, and long, the Gospel is wider, deeper, higher, and longer. The goal is to help the sinner see the seriousness of sin, the misery of sin, and all that God can offer through the Gospel to conquer both.

A Biblical Approach
Phrases to avoid: “I think…In my opinion…I don’t agree…”

Phrases to use: ‘The Bible says…God’s Word tells us…The Scriptures are clear…”

A God-Centered Approach
We cannot fix anyone; only God can. Point the sinner away from yourself and to:

• God’s sovereignty: He is in this, is in control, this is part of His plan, and He can even work it for your good.
• God’s holiness: This is both our model and our motive (1 Pet. 1:16).
• God’s wisdom: God knows all the answers and has a solution.
• God’s power: especially when we feel our powerlessness.
• God’s love: Willing to forgive, heal, accept, restore (1 John 1:9).
• God’s Son: Show them the suitability, sufficiency, willingness, and ability of Christ to save.
• God’s justice: He won’t stand by and see His law broken and smashed to pieces. 

A Realistic Approach
Be realistic about the sin. Call it what it is. Don’t soft-pedal or soft-filter it.

Be realistic about time. Rarely will a person change immediately or perfectly.

Be realistic about the difficulty. There’s going to be resistance, pain, failure, and disappointment along the way.

A Wise Approach
Choose the right place (not Starbucks).

Choose the right time for you and the other person (not too little time, not too late, not too busy and stressed).

Choose the right words: take account of the person’s world, vocabulary, education.

A Questioning Approach
It’s often better to question than to accuse, at least to begin with. Try to get the person to supply the answers and draw the conclusions rather than you telling them. Tomorrow, we’ll look at some good questions to ask when trying to help someone stop sinning.

A Prayerful Approach
Pray without ceasing: before the conversation, during the conversation, and after the conversation. Pray for the person and with the person.

What else have you found helpful in these difficult though necessary conversations?

However, sin is the greatest enemy to our happiness, as the Puritan Ralph Venning convincingly demonstrated many years ago. His teaching is summarized below, but his aim in it all was to show that sin is directly “against man’s good, both present and future, here in time and hereafter to eternity, in this life and world which now is and in that to come. It is against all and every good of man, and against the good of all and every man.”

1. It is against God and therefore against ourselves. Sin is our enemy because it is against God, and separates us from God, who is our greatest good and joy.

2. It is against the good of our body. It has corrupted our blood, made our bodies mortal, rendered us liable to and thereby vile. Before this body is laid in the grave, it is languishing, in a continual consumption, and dying daily, besides all the dangers that attend it from without.

3. It is against the good of our soul. A wrong done to the soul is much more to man’s hurt than a wrong done to the body. Nothing but sin wrongs a man’s soul, and there is no sin which does not do so.

4. It is against our well-being in this life. It deprives us of our livelihood, and of that which makes it worth our while to live. Sin is against man’s temporal good, either in taking it from him, or cursing it to him.

5. It is against our rest and ease. It increases our work, makes it harder, reduces our rest, and disturbs even our sleep.

6. It is against our comfort and joy. Both work and children, areas that should have been full of satisfaction and joy, produce sorrow and toil all our days.

7. It is against our health. It is the source of all diseases and sicknesses.

8. It is against a quiet conscience.  Its guilt pierces deeply and painfully.

9. It is is against our beauty. There was no such thing as vanity or deformity till sin entered; everything was lovely before, and man above anything in the inferior world.

10. It is against the loving and harmonious co-habitation of soul and body. They were happily married, and lived lovingly together for a while, till sin sowed discord between them, and made them jar. There is now many a falling out between body and soul, between sense and reason; they pull in different directions; there is a self-civil war.

11. It is against our relationships. Our comfort or sorrow lies much in our relationships, but now that which was made for a help proves only too often a hindrance.

12. It is against our being. Sin aims not only that we should not be well, but that we should not be at all. How many it strangles in the womb! How many miscarriages and abortions it causes! Man no sooner begins to live, but he begins to die.

13. It is against our moral good. It has defiled and debased our body and soul, using each for filthy purposes.

14. It is against every faculty, sense, and member of our body: It is not any one faculty only that sin has defiled, but, like a strong poison, it soaks and eats through them all; so that whereas all was holy, and holiness to the Lord, it is now evil, and evil against the Lord.

15. It is against our memory. How treacherous is our memory as to good! but alas it is too tenacious as to evil!

16. It is against our understanding. It has blinded our understanding, and made us ignorant. It has depraved our understanding, and made us fools.

17. It is against our good in the life to come. If sin had only wronged man in this life, which is but for a moment, it would not have been so serious. But sin’s miserable effects are everlasting: if mercy does not prevent, the wicked will die and rise to die again, the second and a worse death.

You want to be happy? Target sin as your greatest enemy, not your greatest friend. It is the greatest obstacle to your happiness in every way.

And that is why we LOVE the name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21)! No one in the universe has done more to promote happiness than Jesus. He saves us from the greatest enemy to our happiness, and saves us to holy happiness and happy holiness forevermore.

1. We are humbled: When we fall into sin we realize our pathetic weakness and vulnerability. We are not as strong and impregnable as we thought we were.

2. We are sensitized: We often fall into sin when we are spiritually hard and cold, but when we are humbled and broken by the Holy Spirit, our spiritual senses are revived and re-stimulated, making us tender and sensitive again to God’s Word and Spirit.

3. We are silenced: We so easily get arrogant, self-confident, and full of ourselves, with an opinion on everyone and everything. But when we are convicted of our sin, we talk less favorably of ourselves and less judgmentally of others.

4. We are drawn nearer: Having wandered slowly and imperceptibly away from the Lord, we are now shocked to see how far we have travelled, how distant we have become. We find ourselves longing for the nearer presence of the Lord again as He begins to woo us back to Himself.

5. We are dependent: Sin is usually the result of relying on our own strength and wisdom and failing to pray, “Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.” When we are convicted by God’s Spirit, we learn to depend on the Lord like a little baby on her mother. Looking away from ourselves, we do nothing without seeking God’s help and blessing.

6. We are careful: Often our sin comes about when we have been spiritually careless. We’ve played with temptation. We’ve walked too close to the edge, then fallen over. Now, our scars and memories make us much more cautious about letting even the first thought of sin to lodge in our minds and hearts. We run away from the edge of the cliff.

7. We hate sin: When we see the evil of sin and the misery it produces, we no longer view it as harmless or humorous. We hate it with a passion and want to kill it at the roots.

8. We fight the devil: Looking back on our sin, we see the role that the devil played. He was well-disguised, for sure, but now we seem Him unmasked in all his hideous ugliness. We resolve to go to war with him, and never again to let him seduce us.

9. We are disciplined: When we re-trace our steps, we realize that we had become irregular and half-hearted in our Bible reading, prayer, family worship, and church attendance. We now realize how much we need to use these God-given means to keep us on the right track and become much more regular and disciplined in our daily and weekly use of these resources

10. We love Christ: Whether or however we loved Jesus before, we love Him all the more now. He who has been forgiven much, the same loves much. We are even more thankful for Christ’s atoning work and gracious salvation. We love His cross, we love His mercy, we love His love.

11. We are helpful: Having experienced the power of the Gospel to forgive and restore, we are better able to draw alongside others and humbly apply the Gospel to their sinful failings and faults.

12. We long for heaven: Oh to be free from sin, to never want to sin, to be with and like Jesus!

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). The mourning is essential, but it’s not the end, it’s not the destination. Comfort is. And part of that comfort is seeing how God can bring spiritual good from even our worst sins.