Sin under sin

Prior to Jesus’ ministry, we saw the prophet John calling people to repent and prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, see Matthew 3:1.  His ministry brought the first prophetic voice to be heard in Israel for a long time.  For about 400 years prior to John’s Spirit-breathed proclamations, there had been a divine silence.  The Old Testament prophets had closed their communication with the anticipation of the coming Savior.
Just prior to the Savior’s arrival we saw John come into the picture and proclaim a baptism of repentance.  He declared that to prepare for the Kingdom, people must repent.  Repentance is a confession of and turning away from sin.  It is an acknowledgment that we have not lived up to the perfect standards of God.  It is an agreement that we deserve God’s judgment.  Until we really understand that we are in a desperate state, that we are people who rightly face God’s wrath and there is nothing we can do to make up for our violations of his will, we will never fully understand or embrace the work of a Savior.  Until we understand that we need to be rescued, we will ignore the Rescuer. Repentance then, is an important concept in the gospel, worth exploring for a deeper understanding.
I was just reading through chapter 12 of How People Change and the authors give a good explanation of what is involved in true repentance.
Repentance is a Godly sorrow, not a worldly sorrow.  Worldly sorrow is common and easy to identify.  It’s a sorrow based on the effects of my sin on “me”.  I may be sorry for a sin because I’ve been caught in it and embarrassed by it.  Embarrassment is a self-centered emotion, it’s based on my desire for people to like or respect me.  When I’m caught in a sin, I expect people may think less of me and I’ll be embarrassed because of that.  All of the focus is on “me”.   Godly sorrow, on the other hand, is a sorrow because we understand that our actions are not bringing glory to our God, we are not honoring him, we are disrespecting his Word through our disregard of his commands.  Godly sorrow also realizes that the effects of our sin hurt others and continue to corrupt all of creation.
Repentance is seeing the sin under the sin.  Our external sins are easy to see.  We might have an explosive temper, drunkeness or addiction, idolatrous fascination with entertainment or sports figures, debt-inducing covetness for the latest and greatest “things”.  These are all sins that should be recognized and repented of without any attempt to minimize their seriousness.  At the same time, our repentance of these external sins should cause us to look deeper and see what internal sins may be at their root.  These sins under the sins are what we might call “identity sins” because they deal with how we see our value or our identity.  As followers of Christ, our true identity is that of chosen, adopted, beloved, and righteous sons and daughters of the all-powerful God.  Our internal sins are a corruption of this identity, as we try to find our value in other ways.  We may seek our value through our accomplishments, our social standing, our intellectual ability and knowledge, our ability to maintain order and get things done, etc.  In doing so, we sinfully reject the absolute value of God’s acceptance.  Rather than worship God as the one who gives us an identity, we turn to idols and pursue them to find our worth.  In doing this we are effectively telling God that his approval, and the righteousness that we have received through Christ’s substitutionary death, are just not enough for us.  We tell ourselves the lie that God’s grace isn’t sufficient, that we can find more worth by pursuing an identity other than the one God gives us.  Ultimately we exchange our worship of God for the worship of ourselves and our work.  These sins which lay beneath the surface of our external sins must be addressed.  We must repent of these internal sins and turn back to Christ, embracing the identity He alone can give us and truly enjoying the relationship which He alone has made possible.