“Please Help! — I’m Wandering Away from God”

a podcast listener named Becky writes in with a level of desperation in her words to ask this passage on when I first came to Christ I was obsessed with him on fire and in love with him slowly that started to fade even though I wanted him so badly my husband deployed for six months we had a bad marriage and it's like I never knew the Lord at all a committed adultery turned to pornography began to do drugs and drink alcohol cut myself stop reading my Bible and stop praying God tested my faith and I failed miserably for those six months over a year of not feeling God's presence at all I can't even mentally journal or pray or read my Bible anymore I can't do it and nobody understands I feel that if I were truly saved my sin would have gotten smaller and less desirable as Jesus became more desirable but it didn't he didn't the thing is I know I loved Jesus now all I feel is separation from God I hardly even feel guilty for the things I did if at all I'm terrified of God I'm terrified for my salvation I want him I miss him I need him but nobody nobody understands me I want to be saved and I don't think I am I need help why is my heart so hardened why doesn't God want me back can you help me Becky your cry for help is mingled with evidences of hope like a want to be saved and terrors of hopelessness like I'm getting farther and farther away like a ship sailing to the end of the world or a boat going over a waterfall now from my distance here I don't know you well enough to have any clear sense of whether in fact you are born again but I I want to take encouragement from your own testimony that you once loved Christ is that so I want to take encouragement from that but whether or not that's true could been fake for all I know or even you know that's not the issue now I want to help you with this that's not the issue now the issue now is not the past the issue is the present and the future don't drive yourself crazy trying to analyse the authenticity of the horrible and glorious past you'll never figure it out that's just not where assurance is going to be found faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God faith comes from seeing God at work often in the lives of others so let me simply give you some beautiful truth from God's Word and then a few stories from God's faithfulness to people like you and I'm praying now that God might use this to miraculously because you deserve it or I'm effective but miraculously awaken new fresh sure faith so two passages of Scripture but just read them to you as you listen and pray that God would make them beautiful this is Micah the prophet Micah I sang a song yesterday based on this text who is a pardoning God like you and who has grace so rich and free and who has grace so rich and free that that song that I love very much comes out of this text it goes like this who who is a God like you pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression in other words Becky there's no there's no God like this he pardons iniquity he passes over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance he does not retain his anger forever because he delights instead fast love and I would add way more than judgment he delights in it this is his first choice he will again have compassion on us he will tread down our iniquities underfoot do you hear that Becky not read you down he will tread down our iniquities underfoot you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea you will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from of old so in Christ this promise is yours who is a pardoning God like thee and who has grace so rich and free that's Micah seven eighteen to twenty and here's here's the other text first Timothy 1:15 Paul says the saying is trust worthy and deserving a full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am foremost I think Paul is saying to you Becky there you're not the foremost I am don't compete with Paul here he is trying to make a case for why mercy shown to him can be mercy shown to you because he's the foremost thing he says I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those like Becky who were to believe in him for eternal life though they were sinners like me 4:17 to the king of Ages immortal invisible the only God be honor and glory for ever and ever amen indeed honor and glory for such patience so those are two passages Micah seven eighteen to twenty first Timothy 1:15 to seventeen meditate on them long and hard quick three stories 1975 music Munich Germany John Piper sitting in a German Church learning my German I was getting enough that I love this story I've never forgotten it a woman standing in white ready to be baptized she gave her testimony and her testimony was that she lived all her life as a jehovah's witness and she could never ever be sure that she was saved it was driving her crazy there was no assurance of salvation and she came to the point of deciding I cannot go on like this I'm still going to take my life somehow God put it in her heart that before she took her life she would kneel down and open her Bible and read one more time the Gospel of Luke right through and then she would take her life and she she said that as she got to the end of the book and she saw Jesus in the garden agonizing with sweating drops of blood to be obedient for sinners and pay their complete price God saved her soul and removed all doubt and gave her the gift that Jesus is real and he has covered her sin and she was standing there ready to be baptized two days later and I thought what a marvelous rescue and he can do that Becky here's the second story just this week I was talking to a PhD in theology asked him to tell me his life story and he told me that he grew up in a Christian home and when he studied in the university he threw it all away became a relativist a postmodern no truth and lived like it for five years and then he read for whatever gracious reason who knows God put him onto reading a book about the resurrection and God persuaded him Jesus really is raised from the dead I can't escape this and if Christ is raised from the dead everything changes and it did for him and I said how do you account for that and he got huge tears in his eyes I had no idea he was going to tear up in this conversation didn't seem like the person who would do that and he had no explanation except sheer intervention of divine grace and and the last story quickly in 1982 when I was two years into the pastor it I was reading in leadership magazine and there was an article there it's become iconic for many people it was called the war within and it was about bondage to sexual sin by a pastor and how for ten years he was an absolute hypocrite he would go to speak at spiritual retreats and between sessions he would steal away and actually go to strip clubs that's how serious the bondage was and the article was about how he read a novel and God used a novel about good and evil to open him up to the desire for purity like he'd never known and this is the one sentence I remember him and maybe this will will give some encouragement he wrote this I cannot tell you why a prayer that has been prayed for ten years is answered on the 1000th request when God has met it for the first 999 with silence and so Becky you can read that article I I mean some male mail-order in an article but it I just I just googled it leadership or within lust and there came up uh meki God may surprise you I'm praying that he will surprise you stunningly that a prayer you've prayed a thousand times will be answered on the one thousand and first time I don't know why he has delayed Becky I don't have an answer for your question about why does God stay far away I don't know why God's timing is the way it is I just know you're not the first you're not alone and Jesus in fact told you a parable to the effect this is Luke 18:1 he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart so Becky don't give up your answer may be just over the horizon that is a great word thank you for this hope Pastor John and Becky I pray that this episode will serve your soul in these few minutes together it's not uncommon for us to receive desperate emails like this one if you want to reach out to us with a question that we can air on the podcast please email it to me not especially on at desiring God org well tomorrow we return and we're going to talk about parents who feel the grandparents and seeking to spoil the grandkids are not serving those grandkids what our parents and grandparents to do there's a better way forward and we'll hear from grandfather John Piper on that tomorrow I'm your host Tony ranky thanks for listening to the ask Pastor John podcast you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 149,891

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Ask Pastor John, APJ, wander, lost, abandoned, doubt, sin, perseverance, help, hope, grace, forgiveness, love, Micah, pardon

Id: _islJhGB2xM

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 02 2017