Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / I Never Felt Like God’s Enemy — Was I?

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I Never Felt Like God’s Enemy — Was I? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We just started March, and that means we just started
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  Speaker 1: reading together the glorious Letter of Romans. And it is
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  Speaker 1: the greatest letter that has ever been written in the
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  Speaker 1: history of the world by anybody, Christian or non Christian.
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  Speaker 1: That was your claim last time, Pastor John. It's high
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  Speaker 1: praise from a man who has read and studied this
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  Speaker 1: letter countless times over more than sixty years. Coming up
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  Speaker 1: this Thursday, we find ourselves reading Romans five ten together specifically,
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  Speaker 1: and has led a podcast listener named Bethany, an eighteen
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  Speaker 1: year old woman, to write in to ask this very
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  Speaker 1: sharp question Pastor John, Hello and thank you for this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: She writes, I was given the great joy and privilege
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  Speaker 1: of being born into a Christian home and raised by
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  Speaker 1: godly parents, and I went to church every Sunday. I
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  Speaker 1: gave a credible confession of faith very young, and trusted
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  Speaker 1: in Christ for my salvation as long as I can remember.
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  Speaker 1: Add all of this up, and I'm having a hard
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  Speaker 1: time understanding how I was God's enemy. I know I
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  Speaker 1: was God's enemy according to Romans five point ten. I
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  Speaker 1: guess what does it feel like to be God's enemy?
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  Speaker 1: Trying to understand how he and I were opposed against
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  Speaker 1: one another. I know my salvation will be even more
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  Speaker 1: glorious if I can understand this better and feel it
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  Speaker 1: more deeply.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Beth is not alone. I'm in her situation.
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  Speaker 2: I have no memory of being God's enemy. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I'm seventy eight years old. I was saved, my parents
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  Speaker 2: tell me making a professional faith when I was six.
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  Speaker 2: I've been walking with Christ since then. The basic issue
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  Speaker 2: we face is are we going to learn our true
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  Speaker 2: condition before Christ and outside Christ from our memory and
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  Speaker 2: our experience, or are we going to learn it from
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  Speaker 2: the word of God. Are we going to feel it
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  Speaker 2: because it's in the Word of God and the spirit
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  Speaker 2: applies to us, Or we're going to try to drudge
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  Speaker 2: up some memory that may not exist at all and
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  Speaker 2: try to feel that. I don't think that's going to work,
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  Speaker 2: and even if it did work, it would be inadequate.
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  Speaker 2: Bethany refers to Romans five point ten. That's a good
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  Speaker 2: place to start. If while we were enemies, we were
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  Speaker 2: reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much
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  Speaker 2: more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved
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  Speaker 2: by his life? So she's right to conclude that before conversion,
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  Speaker 2: whatever age, before faith in Christ, we needed to be
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  Speaker 2: reconciled to God because we were his enemies. Now, that
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  Speaker 2: phrase I am his enemy is ambiguous, mean I'm angry
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  Speaker 2: at him, or he's angry at me, or both. I
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  Speaker 2: think Bethany is focusing mainly on how she could feel
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  Speaker 2: any enmity toward God. She's never felt any enmity toward God.
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  Speaker 2: Neither have I consciously. I've never consciously raised my fist
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  Speaker 2: in God's face. You're my enemy or I'm your enemy.
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  Speaker 2: So when she says she has no memory of that,
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  Speaker 2: as far as she knows, she means it, and she's
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  Speaker 2: never felt that way toward God. And I think she's
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  Speaker 2: aware that her enmity that she's thinking about toward God
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  Speaker 2: is only half the issue of being the enemy of God.
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  Speaker 2: The other half is that God has enmity toward us.
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  Speaker 2: She's not talking about that directly, but she does say
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying to understand how He and I were opposed
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  Speaker 2: against one another. Ah, She's onto it, right, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: The reconciliation has to go both ways, both directions, in
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  Speaker 2: order for us to have peace with God. He's angry
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  Speaker 2: at her and me and everybody because of our sin
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  Speaker 2: and we don't like him. That's our part.
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  Speaker 1: We don't like him.
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  Speaker 2: We consider him an intrusion upon our self determination and
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  Speaker 2: our self exultation. That's our enmity toward him. So it
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  Speaker 2: goes both ways. To see these in the Bible, so
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  Speaker 2: people don't have to take my word for it. Look
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  Speaker 2: at the amazing connection between Romans five to eight and
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  Speaker 2: Romans five nine. It's amazing. Verse nine says, since we've
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  Speaker 2: been justified by his blood, much more shall we be
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  Speaker 2: saved by him from the wrath of God. Okay, so
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  Speaker 2: there's enmity toward us, wrath of God, saved from wrath God.
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  Speaker 2: Our biggest problem is that God is our enemy. Our enemy.
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  Speaker 2: He's got enmity toward us. He has a legitimate, just
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  Speaker 2: wrathful disposition toward us because we deserve his judgment as
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  Speaker 2: God hostile sinners. Now here's the preceding verse verse eight.
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  Speaker 2: God shows his love for us. He can take take
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  Speaker 2: a step back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoah. I
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  Speaker 2: thought he was angry. God shows his love for us
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  Speaker 2: in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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  Speaker 2: So before the problem of our enmity toward God is
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  Speaker 2: overcome while we were still his enemies. God does what
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  Speaker 2: must be done in order to remove his enmity toward
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  Speaker 2: us by sending Christ. This is what must be done.
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  Speaker 2: He sends his son Christ, who bears our punishment so
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  Speaker 2: that we might be forgiven and justified. So God, unilaterally,
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  Speaker 2: quite apart from anything we do, or say, or think,
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  Speaker 2: even our existence, God unilaterally on the cross, satisfies his
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  Speaker 2: own justice and wrath in the death of Christ, so
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  Speaker 2: that there is no condemnation towards those who will believe
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  Speaker 2: in him. But Bethany's question is, what about my enmity
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  Speaker 2: toward God? I don't remember ever feeling that. How should
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  Speaker 2: I think about it? How should I feel it now?
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  Speaker 2: The first part of the answer is that Bethany is
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  Speaker 2: only different in degree from the person who was saved
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  Speaker 2: at age thirty five, having had illicit sex over and over,
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  Speaker 2: been in jail, done drugs, and every other manner of
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  Speaker 2: evil you can think of. She's only different in degree
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  Speaker 2: as to whether she or that person could feel enmity
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  Speaker 2: toward God. And what I mean is that that person
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  Speaker 2: looking back knows a little bit of how bad sin
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  Speaker 2: is and what their condition was and would be outside Christ.
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  Speaker 2: But the memory of all those outward acts and even
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  Speaker 2: the impulses that cause them, does not go to the
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  Speaker 2: root of the matter. You can only know the root
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  Speaker 2: of your condition outside Christ by learning it from the Bible.
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  Speaker 2: God must reveal to us the nature and the depth
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  Speaker 2: of our corruption and our sinfulness and our enmity to God.
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  Speaker 2: Experience can only take us so far, but not far enough. Now,
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  Speaker 2: Bethany surely has been tempted to sin. I assume she's
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  Speaker 2: a human being. She has been tempted to sin, and
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  Speaker 2: she can imagine some of what her corruption would be
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  Speaker 2: like if she gave into it repeatedly. And that person
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  Speaker 2: who has saved it age thirty five has a clear
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  Speaker 2: sense of what sin is like. But it's only a
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  Speaker 2: matter of degree that separates them, because neither neither of them,
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  Speaker 2: none of us knows the depth of our condition if
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  Speaker 2: we don't learn it from God in the Bible. Since
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  Speaker 2: I think Bethanie and I have basically the same issue, namely,
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  Speaker 2: a Christian background in which we don't have any memory
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  Speaker 2: of being enemies of God, consciously, let me use myself
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  Speaker 2: as an example of how I gain and feel a
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  Speaker 2: true conception of my edition before I was a believer,
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  Speaker 2: say at age four or five years old, and what
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  Speaker 2: I would be now age seventy nine without Christ in
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  Speaker 2: my life. Here's what I do. I immerse myself in
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  Speaker 2: what God says I was, what God says I would
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  Speaker 2: be outside Christ. I make the touchstone of my identity
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  Speaker 2: outside Christ, God's word, not my memory. For example, here's
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  Speaker 2: what I preach to myself Romans three nine. Both Jews
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  Speaker 2: and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none
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  Speaker 2: is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, No one
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  Speaker 2: seeks for God. That's me. No understanding, no seeking, no desire,
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  Speaker 2: no righteousness, under the dominion of sin.
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  Speaker 1: That's me.
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  Speaker 2: And I meditate on that.
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  Speaker 1: What is that?
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  Speaker 2: What does it look like? What is sin? Romans two.
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  Speaker 2: Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
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  Speaker 2: glory of the immortal God for images. They exchanged God
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  Speaker 2: for images Verse twenty eight. Since they did not approve
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  Speaker 2: of having God in their knowledge, God gave them up
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  Speaker 2: to a debased mind to do what ought not to
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  Speaker 2: be done. Sin is exchanging God for the treasures I
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  Speaker 2: prefer rather than God. I prefer to eat of the
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  Speaker 2: tree of the garden of Eden. I prefer my way
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  Speaker 2: toward money, my way toward power, my way toward fame,
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  Speaker 2: my way towards sex. And God is in the way.
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  Speaker 2: I don't like it. I want him out of the way.
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  Speaker 2: I want to do what I want to do. That's sin.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to be subordinate to any authority outside myself.
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  Speaker 2: That's what Paul means by enmity towards God, and all
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  Speaker 2: of us can feel it. Crouching at the door. Without
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  Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit in Christ, it would take over. That's
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  Speaker 2: me apart from sovereign grace. What about Roman's eighth seven?
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  Speaker 2: What it adds is I'm a slave without Christ to
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  Speaker 2: my arrogance. I'm a slave to my self determination, my
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  Speaker 2: self exaltation. It says the mind of the flesh is
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  Speaker 2: hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law. Indeed,
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  Speaker 2: it cannot, And that word cannot is crucial My condition,
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  Speaker 2: apart from sovereign grace. God's work in my life is
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  Speaker 2: not just that I don't please God, or even that
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to please God, but that my not
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  Speaker 2: wanting to please God is so deep I cannot please God.
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  Speaker 2: That's my condition. We can only learn that because God
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  Speaker 2: reveals it to us in the Bible from experience, whether
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  Speaker 2: you were saved a six or saved at sixty. So, Bethany,
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  Speaker 2: We're all in this together, whoever we are as Christians,
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  Speaker 2: we are all seeking to know who God is, what
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  Speaker 2: Grace is, and who we were and would be without Him,
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  Speaker 2: and what we are by grace. And we can only
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  Speaker 2: know these things rightly, deeply, not because of our memory
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  Speaker 2: or our experience, but because of God's word.
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  Speaker 1: Amen. Yeah, you can only know the root of your
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  Speaker 1: condition outside of Christ by learning it from the Bible
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  Speaker 1: and quote specifically in Romans, a book that answers some
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  Speaker 1: of the most important questions we have about our own lives.
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  Speaker 1: If you missed it, make sure you go back and
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  Speaker 1: listen to APJA twenty one to twenty eight. Pastor John's
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  Speaker 1: advice on reading Romans after sixty years of experience twenty
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  Speaker 1: one twenty eight. Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for
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  Speaker 1: joining us today. Ask Pastor John your own Romans question,
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  Speaker 1: find a link and email it to us, and find
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  Speaker 1: our complete episode archive at askpastor John dot com. Askpastor
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  Speaker 1: John dot com every episode even APGA twenty one twenty
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  Speaker 1: eight with audio and full transcripts available for you and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: ask pastor John dot com. And speaking of reading Romans together,
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  Speaker 1: we're reading Romans fives together right now if you are
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  Speaker 1: following along in the Navigator's Bible reading Plan with us
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, and that means reading Romans five
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  Speaker 1: two together. That verse really stands out for us here
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  Speaker 1: on the podcast. Rejoicing in hope, Rejoicing in hope. Our
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  Speaker 1: present rejoicing is a hoping joy, an anticipating joy, a
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  Speaker 1: desiring joy for something to come, something we don't have
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  Speaker 1: yet in hand, a hope in future glory that sustains
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  Speaker 1: our present joy right now, this glorious promise in Romans
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  Speaker 1: five to two. He is up next. I'm Tony Ricky.
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  Speaker 1: See you on Thursday,