(Author’s Note: I am writing this with a heavy heart over the recent scandals that have plagued the church over the last several weeks, specifically the fall of several high-profile ministers who have either recently fallen into sin or are facing the repercussions of sins from their past. This is a difficult subject, and I will tread cautiously as both a fellow sinner saved by grace as well as a Christian who hurts for the impact this has on the victims of these sins as well as the entire body of Christ.)

Why do we play video games? While there are a plethora of reasons that people are drawn to this hobby, at the heart of every gaming experience is one simple, universally appealing aspect that dragged us in and compelled us to keep playing… we get to make choices. Do you start the first level of Pac-Man going to the right or the left? Up or down? Grab power pellets indiscriminately or in a pre-planned pattern of attack? In our modern games this is even more pronounced… everything from where our character goes, what they say, what they are wearing while they say it, and how the story plays out all comes down to the decisions that we make. The “Choose Your Own Adventure” aspect of these games mixed with the incredible graphical capabilities that are now present can make it feel like we are watching a movie… except we get to determine the lines of dialogue, the responses, and the final outcome. The amount of player agency as well as the freedom to make choices and see them play out in front of us is the beating heart behind every great video game experience… and with the power to make these choices come consequences.

In our games, the choice to pursue a specific direction or make a particular dialogue choice can have a massive impact on that moment as well as the ending that we receive, and these decisions may not always reveal their full ramifications until much later in the game… long after we have either forgotten about them or thought that they had already been resolved. In Mass Effect, the ability to negotiate peace between the Geth and the Quarians was dependent on choices we made prior to the final conversation with Tali and Legion… and there were dramatic and permanent repercussions if we made previous decisions that didn’t support a peaceful resolution. And in our real world lives, our choices also carry ramifications that can either enhance our future options or limit them… like the infamous tagline for the original release of Fable, “For every choice, a consequence”.

As followers of Christ, we’ve all made choices in our lives that occurred before our conversion… and many of these were not decisions that we would make the same way if were given a second chance to make them. Additionally, we all continue to make decisions after our conversion that are not always congruent with our faith… and we call these times that we miss the mark “sins”. When we choose to repent of our sins and accept the forgiveness that Christ’s sacrifice has purchased for us, the eternal consequences of our sins are removed from our ledger (Psalm 32:5, Isaiah 1:18, Isaiah 43:25, 1 John 1:9, Ephesians 1:7, Hebrews 10:17)… they are forever blotted out and we are cleansed of the penalty of our sin, which is eternal separation from our Heavenly Father. BUT… and there IS a VERY IMPORTANT “but” attached to this, this does NOT mean that the earthly penalties that we have acquired as the result of our sins are automatically resolved or removed based on our repentant hearts and the forgiveness of our sins by the Father. As a matter of fact, there are multiple Biblical references that demonstrate that even though the Lord forgives us of our sins we have repented of (Colossians 2:14-15), He does not necessarily remove the consequence that our choices have brought upon us. Ready to get a little bit uncomfortable? Into the wormhole we go…

Let’s start with the man the Bible says has no equal (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)… Moses. Moses knew the Lord face to face like no other, but that didn’t make him immune to the consequences of his poor choices. Moses was tasked with leading the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land, but along the way he failed to follow the Lord’s guidance and struck the rock instead of speaking to it. The consequence? His entire mission in life ended with him gazing across the border at the land he was seeking… but he never got to enter it. He was forgiven and shown grace, but this chosen vessel of the Lord still had to stop at the edge of his goal without ever setting foot in it. Or what about David, the “man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14)? The man who wrote most of the Psalms (and the source of many of our modern worship songs) was also responsible for one of the most horrific moral failures recorded in the Bible… lusting after and coveting another man’s wife, getting her pregnant, and setting her loyal husband up to be murdered so he could take her as his own wife (2 Samuel 11-12). It was SUPER messed up… and this series of sinful decisions came with an equally horrific set of consequences. David would face the same shame of his wives being taken by another man, and the child that was conceived of this union would sadly pass away as a consequence of David’s sin. These are hard things to reconcile with these patriarchs of our faith… but they are true nonetheless.

Numbers 20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

Deuteronomy 34:1-4 Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”

2 Samuel 12:7-14 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’ ” So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.”

Now, I know what you are thinking… those are all Old Testament examples. We are under a new covenant, and that means we no longer have to deal with these problems, right? While that would be nice, that isn’t a Biblical concept under the new covenant, either. Let’s take a look at one of the most popular and beloved stories in the New Testament… the prodigal son. While we are all probably pretty familiar with this incredibly relatable bit of Scripture, it is the last sentence that is often skipped over when we celebrate the happy ending of the story… while the prodigal son is absolutely welcomed home with open arms, granted forgiveness by his father, and given restoration of his relationship, the story also makes it clear that he still wasted all that he was given… his inheritance. And at the end of the story, the father clearly states that while his son is being celebrated for his return home, the remaining inheritance now belongs to the son who did NOT make the same poor choices… meaning the prodigal son did not magically get his inheritance back simply because he was sorry. His repentance granted him forgiveness, and grace restored his relationship, but the things that he squandered in his pursuit of unrighteous living were not supernaturally restored.

Luke 15:11-32 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” ’ “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’ “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’ ”

Let me share something very openly and transparently… I have committed many sins in my life, made selfish decisions I am not proud of, and regret the impact of these choices. I have gotten a LOT wrong. And while the Lord has been faithful to cleanse me of those sins and grant me restoration in my relationship with Him, there have been MANY aspects of my life that have been impacted by those flawed decisions. I have lost relationships that cannot be restored, lost items of both personal and tangible value that cannot be recovered, lost time in my life that I can’t get back, and hurt people in ways that I can’t simply “undo”. While the Lord has been so incredibly gracious in giving me all that I possess, every sin I’ve committed still eventually comes due on this planet, because we all still reap what we sow. That is a Biblical principle established as part of the NEW COVENANT in which the Apostle Paul, speaking to a converted group of Christians in a church, explains in Galatians…

Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 

As we process the “Mass Effect” of these fallen pastors as well as the ramifications of our own struggles with living a life free from sin on the planet, here is the bottom line. While we are ABSOLUTELY and unequivocally set free from the eternal consequence of being separated from God by our sins when we accept the sacrifice of Christ as payment for our sins and repent, this does not mean we don’t still see the impact of our poor choices play out on this planet. The crimes we commit still require standing before a judge and paying for them… the debts that we accrue must still be paid to those we have wronged unless they choose to forgive us from them and release us from that obligation. Those we have hurt through our sinful choices are STILL hurt by them, and receiving Christ’s forgiveness does not mean that their pain suddenly disappears simply because we have received His grace. Both the Old and New Testaments speak to us about avoiding sinful desires because even sin that we have fully repented of still has consequences for the victims as well as the person responsible for the pain.

There is a MASSIVE EFFECT to every selfish, sinful choice we make… and that is why we must choose to intentionally yield our bodies to Christ daily. We can’t undo what any of us have done, and as Moses, David, and some people recently in the news can attest to, even repenting and seeking forgiveness does not alter the price that sin still requires from us on this plane of existence. Christ’s death gave us the power to be set free from the eternal death that sin requires (Romans 6:23), but His life gives us the power to live free from sin going forward (Romans 7:21-25, Romans 8:1-2). Let’s live today embracing the freedom He has given us from the sins of our past… and because we remember the pain that it inflicts, let’s make choices that avoid those outcomes in the future. We all have a “Mass Effect” in someone’s life… and our choices affect theirs. We can’t undo our old ones, and some of them WILL carry unavoidable consequences. That isn’t because we aren’t forgiven or restored… we are just reaping what we sowed. And with this principle in mind, let’s make the ones that remain before us something we will be proud of.

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