You Are More Sinful Than You Know, More Loved Than You Imagine

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:05.000 | Casey in Michigan writes in with a very perceptive question, "Pastor John, I have

00:00:09.680 | battled depression for about two years. I have this view of myself as a vile,

00:00:14.160 | horrible, disgusting creature whose good works are filthy rags. When I sin, I tell

00:00:20.600 | myself, 'Of course I sinned. I'm a vile sinner. I don't know how to do anything

00:00:24.320 | else but sin. This is all I will ever do.' These views don't come out of nowhere. In

00:00:29.200 | fact, I always thought they were biblical views of mankind and that I was simply

00:00:32.920 | being humble, but reading the Word more and more, I see the Christians are

00:00:36.240 | supposed to have victory in Christ and they are beloved children of God." Yes,

00:00:40.840 | amen. "But I don't know how to view my sin in any other way than becoming

00:00:45.320 | completely depressed. So my question is, how do I balance being humble yet not

00:00:49.520 | completely disgusted with myself and knowing I have value in the eyes of the

00:00:53.680 | Lord yet not becoming prideful?" Casey's question is so well crafted there at the

00:01:01.080 | end that I can't help thinking she knows the answer. She really, that was really

00:01:14.280 | well said, and that's hopeful to me. That's hopeful to me. I mean, she is, I'm

00:01:18.200 | not making light at all, and I take her at her word that she feels paralyzed

00:01:23.640 | by a sense of self-condemnation. So let me see what I can say, and I really do

00:01:30.880 | believe that the Lord has the answer here and applies the answer. My words may

00:01:35.960 | be a means, but God is the one who lifts us out of these kinds of darkness.

00:01:41.200 | Tim Keller, I think, is the one who has made famous the gospel formulation. "You

00:01:47.640 | are more sinful than you ever thought you were." I'm gonna say that even to Casey,

00:01:52.880 | who's, you know, she stated her sense of self-disgust pretty strongly, but I would

00:01:59.120 | say Casey hasn't gotten to the bottom. None of us has. So the first thing he

00:02:04.240 | says is, "You are more sinful than you ever thought you were, and you are more

00:02:11.160 | loved than you ever dreamed you could be." And that's true for Casey, too. So

00:02:17.280 | the beauty of that statement is that it doesn't become unrealistic at either end,

00:02:24.800 | not the sin end or the grace end, and surely for Casey, believing this double

00:02:32.280 | gospel formulation—more sinful than we could know, more loved than we could

00:02:39.280 | dream—surely this gospel formulation is the key to both humility without despair,

00:02:48.040 | because that's what she said there at the end, "How do you know your sin

00:02:52.120 | without despair?" and at the other end, a feeling valued without feeling

00:03:01.320 | proud. So Casey, your sinfulness, which is worse than you think, is paid for at

00:03:10.680 | infinite cost, and God's valuing you is a free gift of grace that you don't

00:03:20.480 | deserve, but he delights to give. That's why he gives. He wants to value you. And

00:03:27.720 | so go ahead and let yourself see the fullness of the sinfulness of your sin,

00:03:36.160 | but with every glimpse remind yourself of the infinite cost that was paid so

00:03:45.160 | that you don't dishonor the beauties of the Lord's sacrifice by holding on to

00:03:51.760 | the guilt that he paid to remove. And every time there's the slightest sense,

00:03:57.600 | "He loves me. He values me. He's making me his daughter. He's taking me into his

00:04:03.080 | family," don't let that produce a big hit. It won't, because you don't deserve any of

00:04:09.800 | that. It is a free, blood-bought gift of grace overflowing from the heart of God.

00:04:18.280 | You didn't earn it. You didn't constrain it, but he loves to give it. Now that's

00:04:23.440 | the basic gospel answer to someone struggling like Casey, I believe. But let

00:04:30.360 | me say a little more, because I'm sensing as I hear the question that there are a

00:04:36.640 | few things that need clarification that just might be liberating for Casey. I got

00:04:42.880 | two or three. First, let's clarify this text about filthy rags. I have heard that

00:04:49.520 | text quoted since the time I was a kid. It comes from the King James Version of

00:04:54.640 | Isaiah 64, 6, and every time I've heard it used, it's used to describe Christian

00:05:04.640 | obedience. That is emphatically not what the text means, and it's wrong to

00:05:11.120 | describe Christian obedience that way. Here's the context. Let's read

00:05:16.520 | verses 5 and 6. I just want to liberate Casey from the weight of even

00:05:21.440 | thinking about her efforts at true Christian obedience being filthy rags.

00:05:27.240 | They're not. Verse 5, "You meet him who joyfully works righteousness." So the very

00:05:34.160 | first thing in this context is God loves and honors and sees real righteousness

00:05:40.520 | in his people. We'll come back in a minute to whether it's perfect or not.

00:05:43.880 | It's not perfect. "Those who remember you in your ways, behold, you were angry and

00:05:50.640 | we sinned. In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? We have

00:05:58.160 | all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a

00:06:03.400 | polluted garment, like filthy rags." Now, those righteous deeds are not righteous.

00:06:12.560 | They're not righteous. He's already talked about how he feels about

00:06:16.840 | righteousness. These righteous deeds are the kind Paul was talking about in

00:06:22.720 | Philippians 3, 5, where he says, "As to the law, I was a Pharisee. As to zeal, I was a

00:06:29.600 | persecutor of the church. As to righteousness under the law, I was

00:06:34.400 | blameless." So there's righteousness, and it's blameless, and what does he say

00:06:39.000 | about it? He says it's filthy. It's dung. But those were not real righteousness.

00:06:44.600 | That was pure, self-reliant legalism. That righteousness is dung. That

00:06:51.480 | righteousness is filthy rags. That's not the righteousness that Paul was talking

00:06:57.060 | about in chapter 1 of Philippians when he prayed, "Oh God, grant that they would

00:07:01.680 | be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus

00:07:05.320 | Christ to the glory and praise of God." Christian obedience in the power of the

00:07:10.840 | Holy Spirit is not dung. It's not filthy rags. It's the answer to prayer. It's the

00:07:15.180 | work of Christ. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's wrong to describe the

00:07:19.960 | beautiful work of the Holy Spirit as filthy rags. The fruit of the Holy Spirit—

00:07:24.720 | love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, meekness, faithfulness, self-control—

00:07:28.840 | are not filthy rags. Now, second clarification. Casey might be helped in

00:07:36.880 | being reminded that while every good deed that we ever do is imperfect—

00:07:43.000 | that's what's tripping her up here, I think. She knows that and feels that, and

00:07:47.360 | I do too. Our motives, John Piper's motives, in my best moments are never

00:07:53.600 | completely free from indwelling sin and some kind of selfishness or pride is

00:07:58.760 | creeping in there, and that sinfulness, I must remind Casey, is covered

00:08:05.720 | by the blood of Christ, which is why Christ can delight in the good deed,

00:08:12.440 | because he covers the aspects of it that are not good. And Casey might have the

00:08:19.800 | unconscious sense—I think a lot of people do—the unconscious sense that

00:08:24.520 | Christ died for her bad deeds, but the good deeds are so imperfect that they

00:08:31.160 | leave her defiled and hopeless. This notion that, "Well, if I really sin, he

00:08:37.200 | might cover that, but my good deeds, those are supposed to be really good, and

00:08:41.760 | they're not really good, and so nothing is covering those, and I just want to

00:08:45.160 | cry out from the housetops that Christ died for my good deeds. He died for my

00:08:52.040 | good deeds so that they could be acceptable, so that all the contamination

00:08:57.040 | in them could be covered. And if you need a text for that, consider this.

00:09:02.280 | 1 John 1:7, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light"—now that'd be good

00:09:09.200 | deeds—"if we walk in the light as he is in the light"—doing good things—"we have

00:09:13.440 | fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin."

00:09:18.800 | Well, now, wait a minute. You just said you were walking in the light. What's

00:09:21.960 | this "cleansing you from all sin" stuff? Well, he means none of our walking in the

00:09:27.720 | light is sinlessness. The next verse says, "If we say we have no sin"—and I would add

00:09:33.920 | while we're walking in the light—"we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in

00:09:38.880 | us. But if we confess our sins"—which is part of what it means to walk in the

00:09:43.560 | light—"he is faithful and just to forgive our sins." So I just want to make

00:09:47.240 | crystal clear, the blood of Jesus is given to cover our bad deeds and cover

00:09:54.920 | our good deeds so that it is possible for the living Christ in infinite

00:10:01.640 | holiness to delight in the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our life, even though

00:10:06.560 | Casey and I see every day that it's not what it ought to be. And here's the last

00:10:12.560 | thing that she might need to hear, because I've talked to people

00:10:15.560 | recently about this. God's disapproval of our imperfections, which Casey feels in a

00:10:21.680 | paralyzing way—God's disapproval of our imperfections, which are real and daily,

00:10:28.080 | is never a contempt for us. His disapproval of things in us is never

00:10:34.680 | contempt. So Hebrews 12 speaks of discipline, right? He's disciplining us,

00:10:39.080 | even bringing about suffering in our lives, because He disapproves of

00:10:42.680 | something in our hearts or in our behavior. He disapproves of it. And what

00:10:47.520 | are the words used to describe that? Verse 6, "For the Lord disciplines the

00:10:52.360 | one whom He loves and chastises every son He receives." And Proverbs that's being

00:11:00.240 | quoted here is even stronger. It's more paradoxical. The Lord reproves Him whom

00:11:06.000 | He loves as a father the son in whom He delights. Now Casey needs to get a handle

00:11:13.320 | on that. She knows the Father is reproving her. She knows He disapproves

00:11:18.440 | of her sin and the good deeds that are contaminated, but she's dropping

00:11:24.600 | this verse halfway through because it says He's doing that to people in

00:11:29.920 | whom He delights. Now most people did not grow up in homes where this was modeled.

00:11:37.360 | That is, a dad or mom with strong disapproval of things in the children,

00:11:43.200 | attitudes in the children, or behaviors, and a strong sense of being dad's delight,

00:11:49.160 | mom's delight. Those things feel separate to most of us, and so we have to

00:11:56.160 | re-school ourselves with texts like this for God's children, God's children, even

00:12:03.560 | while He is spanking them, even while there is a frown of disapproval on a

00:12:09.560 | behavior or an attitude. He never holds them in contempt. He never ceases to love

00:12:15.240 | them. He never ceases even to delight in them as His children. So Casey, let's you

00:12:22.240 | and me, and everybody else because we're not by ourselves, let's dwell on the

00:12:27.360 | wonders of grace. Let every sense of unworthiness, which come daily, hourly

00:12:33.700 | maybe, let every sense of unworthiness send you higher into orbit of praise for

00:12:40.360 | the infiniteness of the price paid for you. It is your Father's good pleasure to

00:12:47.640 | give you the kingdom. Brilliant. That is counsel we can all take every day of the

00:12:53.440 | Christian life. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, for everything you need to know

00:12:56.800 | about this podcast and to send Pastor John a question, a carefully crafted

00:13:01.280 | question like this one from Casey, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:07.720 | I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.

00:13:12.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

You Are More Sinful Than You Know, More Loved Than You Imagine

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