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Regretting the Day I Was Born · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We hear often from you, from listeners or writing us.
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  Speaker 1: In a moment when life's pain is so sharp and
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  Speaker 1: so persistent that you look up at heaven and you
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  Speaker 1: want to yell out, maybe you do yell out, you
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  Speaker 1: say I wish I was never born lament. There are
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  Speaker 1: seasons to learn about lament, not seasons to learn about
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  Speaker 1: lament inside the pain that brings us near at the
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  Speaker 1: breaking point, but in quieter times, times to talk about
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  Speaker 1: lament when the pain isn't too sharp. Because the Bible
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  Speaker 1: seems to draw a very specific line. There's a holy
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  Speaker 1: lament and there's a wrong way to complain to God.
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  Speaker 1: So where is that line? It comes up in a
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  Speaker 1: question from Connie, who lives in Reno, Nevada. Pastor John
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  Speaker 1: chronic illness often makes me question God's love for me.
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  Speaker 1: In Jeremiah twenty fourteen, himself cries out, cursed be the
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  Speaker 1: day that I was born. Is such raw lament even
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  Speaker 1: permissible for the believer? Or is this blasphemous? I felt
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  Speaker 1: this same thought and bubble up in my own mind
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  Speaker 1: and heart, but I'm afraid to voice it seems greatly
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  Speaker 1: dishonoring to the Creator to wish to have never existed.
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  Speaker 1: How can I honestly express deep sorrow without doubting His goodness?
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  Speaker 1: Does lament deep in faith? Or does it risk leading
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  Speaker 1: me into unbelief? I long to grieve faithfully, but feel
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  Speaker 1: lost in the tension between pain and trust.
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  Speaker 2: There is a way to define lament so that it
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  Speaker 2: is a sin, and there is a way to define
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  Speaker 2: lament so that it is not a sin. So we
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  Speaker 2: can't simply endorse lament without defining what we mean. Me
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  Speaker 2: make five statements. I've been wanting to do this for
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  Speaker 2: a long time. I'm concerned about this whole frequency by
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  Speaker 2: which we talk about lament as though we know what
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about. Let me make five statements to clarify
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  Speaker 2: what is sin and what is not in the way
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  Speaker 2: we feel and think about God in the midst of suffering.
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  Speaker 2: And then I'll take them one at a time and
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  Speaker 2: try to show why they're true. Statement Number one, it
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  Speaker 2: is never right. It is always sin to feel or
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  Speaker 2: think or say critical things about God and his ways.
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  Speaker 2: Number two, it may be right to feel or think
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  Speaker 2: or express perplexity at God's ways and to seek help
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  Speaker 2: from Him, to understand as much as possible, to cry
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  Speaker 2: out for it. Third, it may be right to feel
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  Speaker 2: or think or express how painful God's ways are in
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  Speaker 2: your life, and to see God's help to understand and endure. Fourth,
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  Speaker 2: the sin of having critical feelings or critical thoughts of
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  Speaker 2: God is not made worse by the sin of expressing
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  Speaker 2: those words to him aloud. I'll come back to that. Five.
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  Speaker 2: God disapproves of being criticized because it dishonors him, but
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  Speaker 2: he forgives those who repent and trust Christ. Those are
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  Speaker 2: my five theses about lament. So let's start with number one.
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  Speaker 2: The reason it is always wrong and never right to
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  Speaker 2: criticize God is that he never does anything wrong. Everything
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  Speaker 2: he does is right and good and wise and holy.
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  Speaker 2: This rock His way is perfect. All his ways are justice.
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  Speaker 2: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity. Just and upright
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  Speaker 2: is he Deuteronomy thirty two four. All his works are right,
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  Speaker 2: and his ways are just. Daniel four thirty seven. All
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  Speaker 2: his work is done in faithfulness, Psalm thirty three four.
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  Speaker 2: Just and true are your ways, O, King of the Nations.
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  Speaker 2: Revelation fifteen three. Yes, Lord, God, Almighty, True and just
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  Speaker 2: are your judgments. Revelation sixteen seven. God is light and
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  Speaker 2: in him is no darkness at all. First, John one five,
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  Speaker 2: It is wrong to criticize God because he never does
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  Speaker 2: anything wrong. He never does anything worthy of criticism. To
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  Speaker 2: accuse him of wrong is to dishonor him, and dishonoring
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  Speaker 2: him is the opposite of righteousness. It is sin. Job
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  Speaker 2: said some terrible things about God. He said that God
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  Speaker 2: was treating him as his enemy. For example, he wasn't
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  Speaker 2: God was not. Job's indictment of God are never excused.
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  Speaker 2: On the contrary. At the end, Job repents in dust
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  Speaker 2: and ashes for what he said. I had heard of
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  Speaker 2: you by the hearing of the ear, but now my
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  Speaker 2: eye seize you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in
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  Speaker 2: dust and ashes, Job forty two, five and six. And
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  Speaker 2: when his wife suggested to him, indeed told him that
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  Speaker 2: he should curse God and die, Job himself said, you're
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  Speaker 2: talking like one of the foolish women. Only foolish people
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  Speaker 2: cursed God. In fact, Job was so concerned that his children,
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  Speaker 2: while they were living, might curse God that he got
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  Speaker 2: up every morning, it says, and offer a sacrifice for
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  Speaker 2: them lest they be found to have cursed God. It
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  Speaker 2: is so deadly when Jeremiah in Jeremiah twenty fourteen cursed
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  Speaker 2: the day on which he was born. He was sinning
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  Speaker 2: because of this. God had told him in Chapter one,
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  Speaker 2: verse five, before I formed you in the womb, I
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  Speaker 2: knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.
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  Speaker 2: I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah's birth
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  Speaker 2: and the purpose of it was not his or any
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  Speaker 2: man's idea. It was God's idea, God's design, God's purpose
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  Speaker 2: to curse. God's purpose is sin. This doesn't undermine our
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  Speaker 2: love for the infallibility of the scriptures. By the way,
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  Speaker 2: scripture is not sinning when it reports sin. Scripture is
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  Speaker 2: not lying when it reports lies. Scripture is not blaspheming
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  Speaker 2: when it reports blasphemy. And there are always enough clues
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  Speaker 2: in the context so that we know the difference between
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  Speaker 2: what is being reported and what is being commended. So
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  Speaker 2: it's never right. It's never right to feel or think
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  Speaker 2: or say critical things about God. But there's nothing sinful
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  Speaker 2: about a humble, finite person like Marry the mother of Jesus,
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  Speaker 2: to be utterly perplexed at the ways of God, like
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to have a baby and I'm a virgin.
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  Speaker 2: Total confusion with God's ways, and when she asks God,
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  Speaker 2: how can this be, He's very happy to answer her.
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  Speaker 2: You're going to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. So
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  Speaker 2: it's not wrong to be perplexed by God and to
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  Speaker 2: ask him what's going on. Nor is it wrong to
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  Speaker 2: say to God about some painful providence in your life. God,
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  Speaker 2: this hurts, Please take it away. Isn't that what Paul
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  Speaker 2: did in Two Corinthians twelve with his thorn in the
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  Speaker 2: flesh three times? Take it away, take it away, take
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  Speaker 2: it away. That's not a sin to tell God it
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  Speaker 2: hurts and to ask him to take it away and
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  Speaker 2: then submit to whatever he decides. Jesus knows what pain is.
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  Speaker 2: He suffered more deeply than any of us, so he
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  Speaker 2: can sympathize with us when we cry to him for
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  Speaker 2: deliverance and for sustaining grace. That's very different than telling
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  Speaker 2: him he's wrong and making a mistake. He's not. He's
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  Speaker 2: never wrong. And since God knows all your feelings and
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  Speaker 2: all your thoughts before you express them, you might as
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  Speaker 2: well express them. If you're feeling critical of God, the
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  Speaker 2: sin has already been committed in your heart, and He
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  Speaker 2: sees it, and he knows it. It may be that
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  Speaker 2: when you express it out loud, you will hear how
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  Speaker 2: horrible it is to tell the infinitely perfect God that
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  Speaker 2: you know better than he does how to run the world.
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  Speaker 2: And finally, criticizing God is not the unforgivable sin. Oh
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  Speaker 2: my goodness, if it were, we'd all be undone. I
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  Speaker 2: suppose Job found mercy in the eyes of the Lord
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  Speaker 2: when he repented, and that's true today. And maybe one
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  Speaker 2: last pastoral word here. Timing really matters in how you
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  Speaker 2: teach believers how to lament. You teach them before they suffer,
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  Speaker 2: not in that horrible moment of pain and tragedy and loss.
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  Speaker 2: That's not a pedagogical moment. That's a moment for hugging
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  Speaker 2: and weeping and sympathy and much silence. The time to
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  Speaker 2: help people suffer well is before they suffer. And if
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  Speaker 2: they sin in their suffering, we will wait patiently, and
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  Speaker 2: when they have gotten their bearings again, as the months
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  Speaker 2: go by, it may be that we won't even have
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  Speaker 2: to say anything, because they will themselves have already begun
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  Speaker 2: to regret the things that they said.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, very pastorally tough idea. The concept of timing that
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  Speaker 1: you have to teach people how to suffer well before
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  Speaker 1: they actually suffer, not in the moment. Think of Pastor
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  Speaker 1: John for saying that if we're doing that very thing
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  Speaker 1: over these many decades, Connie's question reminds me of all
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  Speaker 1: the ground that we've covered on the podcast. How do
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  Speaker 1: I honor God in my chronic pain and chronic fatigue
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  Speaker 1: and in permanent disability? And did my sin cause my suffering?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, those are the types of key themes in
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  Speaker 1: the podcast that come up all the time. I put
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  Speaker 1: together a digestive episodes covering those topics to help you
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  Speaker 1: see with the ground that we have covered in the
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  Speaker 1: Ask Pastor John book. You can see that on pages
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  Speaker 1: three seventy four to three eighty one for more. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us today, have a question to ask Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: Find a link to email us and find our complete
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: episode our if at the same place Ask Pastor John
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: dot com. Well. As you scroll Instagram, you see a
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  Speaker 1: stream of perfect shots, perfectly edited, perfect music, overlays, perfect lives,
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  Speaker 1: perfect relationships, perfect health, perfect backdrops, and you gradually begin
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  Speaker 1: to feel the weight of something build on you, A
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  Speaker 1: specific kind of pressure that comes from the internal voice
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  Speaker 1: that says my life is a failure. I must be
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  Speaker 1: doing it all wrong. The Gospel of Gorgeous. That's next time.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Raig. You will see you back here on Monday.