Hello again, and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime author and pastor John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions about what it means to live as a child of God. We go from being a rebel against the king to becoming a child of the king.

So how does God's disposition toward us change in the process? And specifically, is God angry at His children when they sin? It's a question from a listener named Kathleen. "Pastor John, hello. As a born-again believer, is God still angry at me when I sin? I believe God's wrath is real, and I have embraced Christ's propitiation for my sins, but I struggle to understand the differences between God's wrath and anger over my sin before and after my justification.

I personally hate my own sin and want to be done with it all, but for now, does Christ's death for my sins and subsequent propitiation mean that God is never angry at me when I sin or just that His final wrath on me was satisfied? What is God's affectional disposition toward me in Christ when I stumble and sin in my life right now?" It might be possible to put in a sentence or two the complex affectional disposition of God toward His children in this age, but it seems to me that such effort to do is less than what the Scriptures actually do when we read them regarding God's disposition toward us.

It gives some help to try to synthesize those words. I do this all the time. That's what preaching and theology is, is the effort to make sense out of all the passages of the Bible. But when it comes down to it, early in the morning, late at night, when we need some word of truth and firmness and helpfulness and encouragement, it isn't so much the syntheses that have power in our lives, but the very words of God Himself in Scripture.

So let me do both, but really put the emphasis on the Scriptures. Let me say just a short word of synthesis and then refer, Kathleen, to the very specific passages of Scripture. Here's my synthesis. God's punitive—that is, punishing or condemning—anger is completely absorbed by Jesus when He died. He became a curse for us.

He bore our sin. But God may still be angry and displeased and grieved toward His loved children in a disciplinary sense rather than a condemning sense. Or let's put it positively. Whereas before we were believers, we could not please God—Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith you can't please God." Before we could not please God, but were by nature children of wrath.

Now that we are believers, we do please God, and He feels great delight in us as His children. So that's my synthesis of what I see. So let me turn to specific Scriptures so that these can just sink in. Let's start with the fundamental truth that God is a very happy God in providing gospel hope to sinners.

First Timothy 1:11, Paul refers to the gospel of the glory of the blessed or happy God. We just have to be sure that we rid our minds, we just get rid of a gloomy picture of God whose Son somehow finagled a way for us to sneak into heaven and stay out of His way, just to slap us around like maybe our Father did.

We got to be done with thoughts that God is disinclined to save sinners. Luke 15:7, over and over, like four times, "Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who have no need of repentance." And we know it's talking about not just angels throwing a party, but God Himself, because in the parable of the prodigal son, that's in fact what He does.

He runs out, He grabs His son, hugs him, throws a party, and says, "Come on, come on, older son. He's home, He's alive." I mean, this Father's just oozing gladness, not begrudging, "Well, I guess I have to save my son who wrecked all my property." It's just not like that.

So He does hate sin. I mean, we're not going to gloss over, God hates sin, including mine, my regenerate John Piper sinning. God hates sin, not only because it dishonors Him, but because it damages me, it damages us, Christians. So Ephesians 4:30 says that we can grieve God with our sin, and 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says we can quench His Spirit with our sin.

And it's plain from 1 Thessalonians 4:1 that some behaviors please God and some behaviors displease God. And probably the most important text on feeling the tension and getting it right is Hebrews 12, where it says, verse 5, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or be weary when reproved by Him, for the Lord disciplines the one He loves." This is what is hard for us to feel when we're being disciplined, because the discipline here is physical suffering at least.

It may be other things as well, because He said you haven't yet resisted unto shedding of blood, so we know what kinds of things He's talking about. And He chastises every son whom He receives, and the Proverbs says every son He delights in. God—I'm still reading now—verse 10, "God disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Here's what we have to affirm and see texts. In and through and under all of this grieving and quenching and displeasing and the resultant discipline, under, in, through, all of that, we must not lose sight of the following text.

So let me just read them. They're glorious. Bathe in these. Romans 8, 1, "There is now no condemnation, none, for those who are in Christ Jesus." That is gone. It's over. No guilt, no condemnation, no punishment. Christ took it all. Romans 8, 31, "If God is for us," which He is, 100%, "who can be against us?

He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Him graciously give us all things?" God is bent on giving us everything that is good for us. Ephesians 2, 4, "God being rich in mercy because of the great love," that's the only place in the Apostle Paul where that phrase is used, "great love," which He loved, "the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead and in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ." If you're alive in Jesus, which means if your heart is alive to Jesus, loving Jesus, trusting Jesus, He has great love for you, and that's the evidence of it.

Or Psalm 103, my favorite gospel psalm, I think, "He does not deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us." And here it gets really tender, sweet.

"As a father pities or has compassion on his children, so the Lord pities, has compassion on those who fear Him." Or Zephaniah 317, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by His love.

He will exalt over you with loud singing." Can you hear God singing? No, you cannot, because you don't have glorified ears yet, and you wouldn't be able to take it. "He will sing thunderous loud." Luke 12, 32, "Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Oh, I love that verse.

Your Father, little flock. So He's a Father, He's a shepherd, He's a King, and He's not giving us the kingdom merely. He's loving to give us the kingdom. He's finding good pleasure in giving us the kingdom. Or Psalm 147, 10, "His delight is not in the strength of a horse.

His pleasure is not in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love." And the reason I think that's precious is because you might say, "Well, I've got strong legs. I can run. Why isn't God delighting in my strength?" This text is written for the last hour of your life, man.

I mean, you're going to have no legs. You're going to be lying in a bed. You're going to weigh 85 pounds. You're going to be in a diaper. You're going to be breathing through your mouth, and you're going to be wishing you were dead, and nothing is required of you but hope for Him to delight in you at that moment.

So that's good news. That is really, really good news for helpless people, and all of us are going to be helpless sooner or later. And the last text, one of my favorite new covenant promises, Jeremiah 32, 40, "I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them.

And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, and they will not turn from me." And here it comes, "I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land with faithfulness, with all my heart and with all my soul." Maybe one last summary word that might help put God's displeasure with our sinning together with His delight in us as His children.

Even though God is displeased when we sin, He never looks on us with contempt. I remember talking to a woman some time ago who was struggling with feeling the affections of God because of a sense of continual disapproval, and when I introduced the distinction between the disapproval of the behavior of one you love and contempt for one you find disgust in, she felt something run off, something clicked in her mind, and maybe this would help you as well.

He never looks upon us with contempt because He's always for us, never against us. He will always restore us and bring us unfailingly to an eternity when there will be no grieving Him, no quenching Him, no displeasing Him anymore. Really good, so precious. Last week I was reading an old Puritan book on fellowship with the person of the Spirit, and there the author made the point that an enemy can be slighted, but only a friend can be grieved.

That's good, that's good. Only a friend can be grieved. That's really good. So good. Similar to what you said. Thank you, Pastor John, for those very helpful words, and thank you for listening to listen to our past episodes or send us a question of your own. Go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

Friday we return to address the important question over whether or not God created all of His creation because He needed it. If He couldn't have displayed His glory without creation, does that make Him dependent on what He has made? And of course that is problematic if that's true, God in need of creation.

It's a tricky and weighty question. It's up on Friday for Pastor John. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. 1 Desiring God 1 Desiring God 2 Desiring God 3 Desiring God 4