Hope for Screwups - Ask Pastor John

Video from Desiring God

Hope for Screwups - Ask Pastor John

Audio Transcript

"This is an episode for screwups. Not for people who think they may be wrong occasionally, maybe. No — this episode is for those of you who know full well you were wrong, and wrong for a long time. There’s a deep gut feeling many of you know well, who have gone to church for a lot of your earlier years: the feeling you get as an adult looking back on your life, at the grace you spurned, the mistakes you have made, the people you hurt — the sexual compromises along the way, even.

You add up all the mistakes in your mind, and you just think, “I screwed my life up so badly. I drifted away; I lived in sin; I threw away every good thing God gave me. He must be done with me. He’s never going to take me back. Is that why he feels so distant now? Because I made him mad? Is there hope for a screwup like me?” But what if that feeling of total wreckage isn’t God sending you away? What if it’s him actually bringing you home?

Today’s question comes from a listener named Brandon. “Pastor John, my name’s Brandon. I’m 26 and really struggling with whether I can ever come back to God after how badly I messed up. I used to be really solid spiritually, was a leader in my college ministry, felt super close to Jesus, experienced what I believed were the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I was constantly talking about God with friends, leading worship sometimes. On fire for Jesus. But then I started dating a young woman who was not a believer, and everything unraveled in my life. I compromised sexually with her, stopped being involved at church, and when things fell apart in my life, I became furious with God. I walked away from my faith completely. I was wrong. How do you come back from betraying everything you once stood for? Is there any hope?”

Brandon’s question reminds me of a deeply moving episode from back in 2018, when Pastor John responded to a very similar scenario for a young woman named Kristen. Here’s how he answered her.

Kristen, I have a great hope for you — I think a well-grounded hope for you. But before I give you a reason for that hope and invite you into it, let me say something sobering, which at first might make you feel worse. I promise you that if you hear me all the way, it will be good news.

Failing the Test

You say that the reason you doubt God would have you back is that you’ve messed up so badly. You had sex outside marriage, left the church, and got angry at God for your dad’s cancer and your own health issues. You’re right; that’s terrible that you did that. But you describe your previous condition as spiritually strong. You said you were active in your church community and experiencing joy in Christ. You said you were feeling the gifts of the Holy Spirit and talking and singing about God all the time.

Now, what I want you to do is consider the possibility, which I think is probably the case, that your spiritual condition in those good years was not as good as you think it was. You were having many religious experiences — church, joy, gifts, and singing. But when it came to the actual obedience, where you had to choose the value of Christ over a boyfriend leading you away from Christ, you chose the boyfriend.

Your situation was like the Israelites’ situation. Moses says,

If a prophet [not to mention a boyfriend] or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, “Let us go after other gods,” which you have not known, “and let us serve them,” you shall not listen to the words of that prophet [or boyfriend] or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 13:1–3)

In a sense, I’m making matters worse for you, right? This does not feel good, I’m sure. You failed that test. You chose the false prophet over Jesus.

Awakened to Something New

Let me tell you now why this may be really good news for you. You interpret the last years of your life as a terrible departure from a close walk with God, and I am suggesting that the Lord may be doing in your life something very different. I’m suggesting the Lord is not, in these years, allowing you to lose a close walk with God, but rescuing you from a phony walk with God. You might have to listen to what I just said over again.

I’m suggesting that, in the last months or years — I can’t remember how long you have in mind here — God’s not allowing you to lose a close walk with him, but he’s rescuing you from a phony walk with him. Your walk was very religious but not real. If you loved Jesus so little that a boyfriend was more important than Jesus, you did not have a close walk with God. Whatever it was, God wrecked it, right? He wrecked it.

“God is aiming at a deep, strong, doctrinally sound, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, unshakable, new you.”

Now, through the miseries of that wreckage, he has awakened in your heart a new desire for him. He’s not inviting you back to the old kind of joy and singing and church life — no. He’s not calling you back to the kind of faith that concealed a heart that was ready to commit idolatry as soon as the boyfriend came along. He’s got something way better planned for you than that. He’s rescuing you from that fake faith. God is not restoring something so weak and so superficial it couldn’t keep you out of an unbeliever’s arms. He wrecked that and then spared you. He spared you from marrying that man. What a gift.

God is doing something far deeper and better than that. This is my interpretation of what he’s doing, and you have to test this to see if it’s of God: He is aiming at a deep, strong, doctrinally sound, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, unshakable, new you — not a return to the old, religious you that sells Jesus like Judas for a thirty-pieces-of-silver boyfriend.

Kristen, I could hear you say, “Whoa, those are tough words, Pastor John.” I wrote them knowing they were tough, Kristen, because I want you to be tough. I want you to be tough, unshakable, unbendable in your allegiance to Jesus as your supreme treasure — no loosey-goosey, churchy, emotional stuff anymore. I’m talking major, deep-down, unshakable, authentic allegiance to your King and supreme treasure. I’m not interested in making you feel soft right now. I want you to be tough.

That’s my hope-filled interpretation, Kristen, of what God is doing in your life.

Hope for Coming Home

Now, here are a couple biblical reasons why you should feel hope instead of despair. The pain in your chest at church will, I think, go away when you take hold of these truths and knock Satan over the head with them. I’m going to suggest that you read (and this is risky) Ezekiel 16. It’s very long — 63 verses.

It is a horrible depiction of unfaithfulness between Israel and her husband, God. It portrays God giving her over. He gives her over to terrible, horrible judgments. Don’t stop reading, Kristen, until you get to the last five verses. They come as a staggering, absolutely astonishing act of gracious forgiveness. I’ll read the last two verses to you:

I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 16:62–63)

Even more to the point, Kristen, consider why God saved the apostle Paul only after he had become a Christian-killer and a persecutor of the church. Here’s the reason Paul gives, and you need to hear this for you: “I received mercy for this reason, that in me,” — put your name in here, Kristen — “as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16).

Kristen, God saved Paul from being the worst example of a legalistic, hateful Christian-killer so that you would feel Christ’s perfect patience and take heart to believe on him for eternal life. I will pray with you that God grants you to see this and feel this and happily come home." from the Transcript

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.

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