What Should We Do With Sin? (And How God Takes It Away)

I was about six or seven years old, sitting in the back pew of our church with my buddies while my mom and dad were sitting up near the front. Now, I was trying to pay attention to the preacher, but he kept throwing out this big rhetorical question: “What should we do with sin?!” He was one of those old-style preachers who liked to repeat himself, and I just sat there looking around thinking, Man, an adult ought to help this man out. One of his own kind ought to come through for him!

Nobody said a word. My little heart went out to him. I didn’t want to speak out loud, so I stood up and tried to lip-sync across the sanctuary: “We don’t know!” But he didn’t see me. Sure enough, he cried it out a second time, even louder: “WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH SIN?!” I stood right back up, gesturing even bigger this time: “I don’t know! They don’t know! Only God knows!”

I told myself, If he asks that one more time, I’m going to answer him in the voice of Don Knotts—ol’ Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. When you’re a little guy with a little bit of attention deficit, a thought like that pops into your head and you just think, That’s it. This is how I help the man.

Sure enough, the third time around, the preacher leaned in and whispered dramatically: “What should we do with sin…?”

I stood straight up and hollered in my best Barney Fife voice: “NIP IT IN THE BUD!!!”

Man, people almost went charismatic right then and there! And in the twinkling of an eye, the next thing I knew, I was being marched down the aisle to sit squarely between my mother and father.

Looking back, ol’ Barney’s advice is funny, but when it comes to the real burden of sin, simply trying to “nip it in the bud” on our own strength never works. We can’t willpower, hide, or discipline our way out of our mistakes.

The incredible news of the Gospel is that we don’t have to solve the problem of sin on our own—because God takes it away completely.

• He removes it entirely: Psalm 103:12 promises, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
• He washes us clean: Isaiah 1:18 reminds us, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
• He offers a fresh start: Through Jesus, God doesn’t just manage our past; He forgives it, wipes the slate clean, and covers us in His grace.

You don’t have to shout from the back pew or try to fix it all yourself. Hand your burden over to the One who has already carried it away for good!