1. The Sin of Not Trusting God
In the book of Exodus, God rescues the Israelites from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and then leads them into the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land.
To secure their release (while also showing His glory as the One True God), God performs astounding miracles.
Then, as He leads them into the wilderness, He continues to provide for them in supernatural ways–such as leading them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Despite this, the Israelites quickly begin to grumble and whine. To the point where they say that it would be better to return to being enslaved in Egypt! And, at the base of Mount Sinani, as Moses is meeting with God on the mountain, they decide to worship a golden calf instead of their Rescuer!
The core issue? The Israelites were not trusting God. Not for their daily well-being or their future.
And while God could have abandoned them, He didn’t. One, because that would go against His character. And two, He knew that the Israelites were in progress.
If you look at a map of the world at this time, it’s clear that God could’ve taken them on a much shorter and direct route to the Promised Land. Instead, He took them into the wilderness because while His kids were free from Egypt the place, they also needed to get Egypt out of them internally. And reacquaint themselves with God and learn to truth Him instead.
Thus, the Bible doesn’t end with Exodus.
2. A Sinful Past or Occupation
If you’ve been forced (either by circumstances or forces against your will) to do things that felt abusive, shameful, or “too sinful” to ever come back from…friend, there is no such thing.
First, let’s be clear on one major point: everyone is sinful. And while the Bible alludes to the fact that God hates a few specific sins more than others, it’s man that loves to create scales by which to judge sin–not God.
God is holy. Meaning He is 100% without sin. He also loves us. So, being the loving and holy Father that He is, He hates all sin because of what it does to us. Sin destroys and wreaks havoc.
Yet humans will create these scales of sin in order to make themselves seem better than other people.
Friend, don’t listen to those types of people or ideas. Listen to God.
Look at Rahab whom we read about in the book of Joshua. She was a prostitute living in Jericho.
From the world’s perspective, she should have been treated like a bug. Small. Unimportant. Dispensible. Too sinful to ever be redeemed, whether it was a life she chose or was forced into by circumstances.
Yet, what does God do? Not only is Rahab and her entire family saved from the fall of Jericho and brought into the Israelites, Rahab is grafted into the lineage of Jesus! She was the mother of Boaz whom we read about in the book of Ruth.
3. The Sins of Adultery and Murder
One could also categorize this as the sin of grievously failing as a God-appointed leader.
In 2 Samuel, we read the account of King David lusting after the wife of Uriah, a loyal soldier in David’s army who is away at war. David sleeps with Bathseeba and she becomes pregnant.
David tries to fix the situation by motivating Uriah to sleep with his wife. But Uriah is a good soldier and, coupled with certain customs at the time, refuses to do what David wants. As a result, David has Uriah killed during battle, thereby committing murder.
What makes this even worse is that the Bible calls David a man after God’s own heart. In 1 Samuel 13:14 (NLT) it says, “But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”
And in Acts 13:22 (NLT) we read, “But God removed Saul and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do.’”
Not only did David sin big time, he also fell far from who he was. And how God saw him.
Yet God (who exists in the past, present and future at the same time), knew what David would do. And He still called him that. Still made him king. And Jesus was born from David’s lineage.
4. The Sin of Not Believing God’s Promises
One could also say that this is the sin of taking things into one’s own hands.
In Genesis 15, God promises Abram (who would later be called Abraham) that he would have a son.
Yet despite this promise from God, in the next chapter we read how Sarah decides to take things into her own hands by having her maid, Hagar, sleep with her husband.
This creates a hot mess. (Which is usually the result anytime we disobey God.) Hagar gets pregnant, which causes her demeanor to change a bit because she’s now carrying her master’s child and, hopefully, heir.
Sarah doesn’t like her attitude, so she goes to her husband who allows Sarah to mistreat Hagar, sending her off into the desert.
Because of God’s character, He meets Hagar in the desert where she is frightened and despairing. And He also still gives Sarah and Abraham the son He promised, despite their disobedience.
How we sin–and the severity of our sin–may vary. But God always remains the same–loving, kind, gracious, and merciful.
And since God is all-seeing, omnipresent, and all-powerful, He is always bigger than our mistakes. We can’t ruin His plans, even if we make a mess of things like Sarah and Abraham.
5. The Sin of Persecuting God’s People
In Acts 8, we read about Saul who was vehemently persecuting the early church.
In verse 3 it says, “But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.”
A bit later in Acts 9:1-3 (NLT), it says, “Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.”
You can read more about Saul in Acts, but the main point was that Saul basically lived to persecute Christians. In fact, when Saul encounters the Lord in Acts 9, Jesus says just as much: “As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”
A rational person would assume that God would look less fondly on someone who harmed His chosen kids. To the point of even turning away from that person.
But God extends an invitation to everyone. Jesus died on the cross for everyone. Not just for certain people that God deemed worthy.
Also, God is capable of redeeming anyone. Maybe that’s one reason God saved Saul and transformed Him into the Apostle Paul–to serve as a powerful example of that.
Saul persecuted Christians. Paul wrote somewhere between 7-13 books of the Bible.
You don’t get more redeemed than that!