Grosey's Messages

Cybersecurity has a term for its hooded hackers – they're called "bad actors." You can now read how government and online communities are plagued by "bad-faith actors." In lay terms, these are people who do mean and selfish things. What's fascinating is that the preferred shorthand for these villains is a type of actor. It infers they are playing a role, rather than actually being bad themselves. 

Language reflects culture; in this case, a culture that has abandoned the category of sin. We can admire the impulse toward linguistic restraint. It stems from a moral reasoning that avoids judgmentally-sweeping statements about a person's character. We often don't know enough about a person to assign them a moral category. All we know is that here, in these particular places and times, this person acted badly when they scammed people for millions of dollars.

Though moderation is healthy, the philosophy behind this terminology, however, is based on a desire to separate being and doing. We have to make moral judgments and call certain actions bad, yet we refuse to imagine a world where someone (including me!) might actually be bad. We believe the humane and humble attitude is to assume that everyone, deep down, is really good. We just act bad from time to time. 

The trouble with this, of course, is that as long as people subscribe to a "bad actor" perspective, they'll be shocked and confused by those bad actions. It will appear as if people are continually breaking out in random anomalies of destructive insanity. Describing people as "actors" implies a dangerous detachment from the outset. It's the idea that my behavior (my words and deeds) is some outward performance that may or may not be linked to my always-good inner person.

Into this confusion, Tim Keller's latest book – "What Is Wrong with The World?" (Zondervan, 2025) – serves as a gentle guide of counter-therapy. It provides categories to help people in the 21st century understand sin not as some archaic religious points system, but as a complex cancer that explains my deepest problems – why I am unhappy, addicted, and stuck in dysfunctional relationships.

It is easy for a seminary-trained pastor to circumnavigate a text with sound theology and then pull on some general redemptive thread – "This is sin. We sin in a similar way. Jesus died for that. Trust Jesus more." We can trace through a progression of covenants. We can connect to Jesus' threefold fulfillment as prophet, priest, and king. What all of these protect us from doing, however, is the hard and painful work of heart-reckoning. 

One of Keller's greatest preaching strengths was his steady and patient hand as a spiritual surgeon. He took the time to cut deep instead of prescribing the pills of pat answers. Based on a series of sermons Keller preached in the 1990s, "What is Wrong With the World?" does this slow work of reflecting on human nature to show why sin is still the issue. We may start by seeing ourselves as "occasional bad actors," but if we're willing to do an inward dive, we will discover a heart poisoned by sin. It's only when we find that root problem that we can do real repentance and then get real healing. 

 Keller identifies several thematic lenses the Bible uses for portraying sin, and they can surprise us enough to change how we see ourselves. Sin is a predator, self-deception, leaven, mistrust, self-righteousness, leprosy, slavery, and pride. If we have eyes to see it, we will notice that our lives are riddled with sin. 

But I don't want to merely observe this phenomenon like a disinterested scientist. I want to practice what Keller is preaching and do the work on my own heart in order to find healing. 

I'll start with a sin that comes naturally to me: self-righteousness. I'm a pastor, which though a noble calling, also gives me plenty of reasons to view myself as more righteous than others. It is a thought I harbor though it's not something I would verbalize. My calling requires me to sacrifice time and money for God. I spend hours studying the Bible and caring for other people. I might not be perfect, but I've got the inside track when it comes to holiness. 

That's self-righteousness. That's sin. Self-righteousness is one of the easiest ways sin creeps into the hearts of those in ministry. And it doesn't stop there.

I'm a pastor in a particular denomination, in a particular church, with a particular vision and values. Those can be more layers of self-righteousness. Being in the PCA is the right denomination. I am one of the few church leaders who have struck a perfect balance between high church and low church, between living in the freedom of grace and the constraints of God's law, between robust theology and a love for people. We're doing it right! We're part of the inner ring. We don't say it, but we all know we stand a few spiritual inches taller than everyone else. 

In one of his sermons, Keller notes that one of the first signs of repentance is that your sense of humor starts to return. You're able to laugh more quickly and easily at yourself, and then you discover more healthy laughter more often (instead of sickly snickering). When you place the burden of fixing you onto Jesus, you become less fragile. Instead of taking your failures so personally, you take them to Christ. You can be so much more than a bad actor; you can be a bad person. But on account of Christ, you can still live with comfort and confidence.

We never stop needing to repent because we never stop grabbing for self-righteousness. Just like Harold Abrahams in "Chariots of Fire," I wake up every morning training for some sprint in which I hope to save myself—the "ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence." In "What is Wrong With the World?" Keller defines sin as merely "putting our roots into something besides God" (59). And roots are always growing, and new ones are always beginning.

Here's some diagnostic questions Keller suggests to find sin in your life:

• "What do you worry about most?
• What scares you the most?
• What would make you feel like you didn't have substance anymore, or that your life wouldn't be worth living?"

What other religions are you practicing?

Keller spends so much time identifying the problem because the solution (repentance and intimacy with God) happens more quickly and easily the better you get at identifying the problem. You will never get to repentance if you do not see anything you need to repent of. 

Do you still sin? Of course you do. We have no problem admitting that. But let's press on from doctrinally acknowledging this reality like it's the hypostatic union. Let's engage in the healing heart work of seeing specifically where you and I want to put our hope in something other than Jesus. Then let's walk through the daily process of repentance so we can enjoy intimacy with God. 

As we engage in that process ourselves, we will have more relevant and powerful gospel hope to share with others. We will know what's wrong with the world because it's the same thing that's wrong with us. And you will have a solution that didn't come from way back one time in Bible camp, but one you received yesterday.