Do you find this time of year makes you thoughtful about your relationship with others and your relationship with God?
Well, you're in good company. Today, John is going to answer some thoughtful questions about why believers feel far from God. And one of those questions is: is God angry with me when I sin? We hope this sermon is of great encouragement to you. Let's listen now to: Is God Angry with Believers When They Sin?
Is God angry with believers when they sin? I want you to think about that question. Is God angry with believers when they sin? The answer to that question, the short answer, I'm going to give you now, and then I'm going to give you the long answer. The short answer is this: Is God angry with believers when they sin?
The answer is yes. And no. And the yes and no, as you're going to see this morning, are infinitely different. But yes, God is angry with believers when they sin. And the answer is no, God is not angry with believers when they sin.
And that is not a contradiction from Scripture nor from me. And I want to help you see that this morning. This question is a common question that. plagues the consciences of many believers. It's because of this ongoing battle with sin.
Many believers live with doubt and anxiety concerning their relationship with the Lord. Many believers doubt God's favor towards them because. of their ongoing shortcomings in obedience to the law. You know what you're supposed to be doing every day. But yet you're not doing it.
And so this is a huge pastoral problem in the church. Evangelicals have their way of dealing with it, and so one of the things that evangelicals are popular for is that they float from church to church. They're just church hop. They constantly read how-to books. How-to book after how-to book, and attend all the latest popular conferences and seminars.
And yet after all of that stuff they do, They lay down at night and they know in their heart of hearts the sin. That they struggle with or particular sins that they struggle with are still there. And so they begin to wonder: well, am I really a Christian? Keep doing these things. I try to stop and I can't.
What's wrong with me? I take one step forward and three steps back. Am I out of fellowship with the Lord? Have I fallen out of God's favor? Is God angry with me?
Now the answer to this dilemma rests And understanding this distinction, which we're going to talk about the rest of the time. Here's the distinction. You have to come to be able to distinguish in your Christian life between. God's vindictive wrath. and his fatherly chastisement.
Now, to help you understand this distinction, I'm going to give you this morning three realities concerning your relationship to God and His law as a Christian. Three realities about your relationship to God. and his law as a believer. And this will help you. understand the distinction between God's vindictive wrath and his fatherly chastisement.
And so here's the first reality. The first reality that you've got to understand, if you want to understand this question, is God angry with believers when they sin? Is this. A Christian is dead to the law as a covenant of works. Look at Galat, let me just give you an example.
Look at Galatians chapter 2. In Galatians chapter 2, Paul says this. He says in verse 19, for through the law I died to the law. If you're a Christian, you have died to the law. And I'll talk about what that means, but I just want to give you some verses.
For through the law, I died to the law.
So that, what is the purpose of dying to the law?
So that, listen. I might live to God. You cannot live the Christian life and. Properly Until you've come to understand you're dead to the law.
So, as a Christian, listen, the first reality that you've got to understand is that you are dead to the law as a covenant of works. We read this morning from Luke chapter 10, where Jesus told the lawyer, do this and you will live. And so, what we have learned from our study in Galatians is that the believer is free from the law as a condition of life for obedience. You are free from the requirement, do this and live. Also, listen to what you're free from.
You're free from the law as a condition of death for your disobedience. Do this or else be damned, cursed. Genesis chapter 2 verse 17. And the day that you eat of this, you will surely die. Deuteronomy 27, verse 26 says, Cursed be every man who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.
That's quoted in Galatians chapter 3, verse 10. And God says, if you don't keep the law, you will die because I, as a lawgiver, will execute you. You're free from that as a believer because you're dead to that law. You have died to it. And so what we're saying is this, and we say this repeatedly here, but you can never repeat it enough because we confuse it daily.
What we're saying is that you need to understand the proper distinction between the law and the gospel. The ground of your freedom in Christ is that the law is a covenant of works. Listen. No longer condemns you because Jesus has come and perfectly fulfilled those requirements of the law in your place. I'll give you two examples.
Turn to Romans chapter 5. And look at verses 19 and 20. This is what Paul says, Romans chapter 5. Listen, verse 19. For as by the one man's disobedience, that's Adam.
The many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, that's Christ, the many will be made righteous. Galatians chapter 4 verse 4. Listen to what Paul says. He says, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, and here it is, born under the law. Jesus in his incarnation was the perfect man, the perfect law keeper who kept all these requirements of the law.
So, as a covenant of works, do this and live, Christ gave perfect obedience in our place so that you are free. from the curse of the law, and you are free from having to give perfect obedience for life from the law. Because Jesus did it for you. This is what John Owen wrote about this. He said that the whole Power and sanction of the first covenant was conferred upon Christ and in Him fulfilled and ended.
Christ fulfilled the whole thing, and so that the whole thing ended. In terms of your obligation to keep it for life, and in terms of your punishment for death for disobeying it. In Matthew chapter 19, verse 17, which is a parallel passage to Luke 10, Christ says to the rich young man, He says to Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? He says, I want to talk about law. I don't want to talk about the gospel.
I do not want to talk about grace. I want to talk about law. What must I do? Jesus says, Okay, let's talk about my law. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
Please understand this very carefully, or else you'll never get the gospel. If you want to enter life. You must keep the commandments of God. Salvation is by works. And I know all of you are sitting there going, what in the?
I'm out of here. No, listen carefully. Salvation is by works. If you would enter life, keep the commandments, the keeping of God's commandments. Listen is the means of entering life.
The reward for keeping God's whole law is eternal life. But here's the issue. You can't do that. And so God's commandments must be kept either by us or by Christ. This is why God the Father sent God the Son.
To be born under the law to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Because God's justice must be upheld. His law must be fulfilled. God has never ever forgiven any man just because he could say, You're forgiven. Nobody would want that kind of judge.
If the judge downtown in Jacksonville looked at An arsonist who burned down a whole neighborhood and killed everybody in the neighborhood and said, you're free to go, you're pardoned, all is well. We would throw that judge out of office. God doesn't forgive like that. God forgives on the basis of his law being upheld and his justice satisfied, and that's why Jesus came. to keep the requirements and to bear the penalties on the cross so that justice is fully satisfied.
And so if we seek salvation in works, we must keep God's entire law by which it instructs us unto perfect righteousness. But since we cannot do this, We must seek out a remedy in somebody else totally outside of ourselves. and the perfect righteousness of Christ alone. And so here's the glory of the gospel: that the moment you are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit through the gospel and faith. Christ's law-keeping, the perfect fulfilling of the condition of eternal life.
is imputed to you. You are reckoned by God. As if you yourself have given perfect obedience to the law, to his law. And so Paul says, in Romans chapter 10, verse 4. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, not who works.
And so the freedom of the Christian lies in the fact that you're not obligated to obey the law as a condition of life. Neither are you, listen, obligated to bear the penalties and the threatenings of the wrath and curse of the law for your disobedience. Because through union with Christ, you are dead to the law and are not under it to be either justified or condemned. This is why Paul writes, for example, in Romans 8, verse 1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And the words of Charles Wesley's great hymn, And Can It Be That I Should Gain?
He says it like this: No condemnation now I dread. Jesus in all in Him is mine, alive in Him my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne. and claim the crown through Christ my own. And so the importance of the believer's death to the law cannot be overstated.
This has everything to do with the question, is God angry with me? Under the law, you're in bondage. Let me give you a couple of examples. First, you're in bondage to the command of giving perfect obedience for eternal life. You have to pull it off yourself.
Second, you're in bondage to the curse and threatening of the law for your disobedience. Even if you've broken it only one time, you're liable for the whole thing forever. Because of that, you live in bondage and fear of God's vindictive wrath and judgment. And quite well so, because apart from Christ, there is nothing but condemnation. There's nothing but guilt.
But in Christ, the believer possesses this glorious freedom from the curse and threatening of the law. Through faith in Christ, the believer's status is changed forever from guilty to justified. We're no longer under the law, Romans 6:14, we're under grace. Colossians chapter 1 verse 13, by grace believers are rescued, listen, from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son. And so because of that, listen carefully to the law now.
The law and the hand of Christ no longer condemns you. The law in the hand of Christ no longer condemns you. The law in the hand of Christ no longer threatens you with vindictive wrath. You have no fear, no reason to fear judgment. 1 John 4, verse 18: There is no fear in love.
This is in God's love, not your love for God, but in God's love for you. There is no fear in love, but perfect love, God's love through Christ, casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. Whoever continually lives in just continual fear, oh, God is out for me, God is going to destroy me, God is going to punish me, God is vindictively angry with me, you have never tasted the gospel.
We'll come back to this. But listen, Samuel Rutherford. Great, great Scottish theologian who I encourage you to read. Listen to what he says. The gospel forbids nothing under pain of damnation.
who a justified believer more than to Jesus Christ. You understand what he's saying right there? Because of your faith in Christ, who has fulfilled the law and its requirements and in his penalties on the cross, in his life. and on the cross in his death. The gospel announces that you are under no more threat.
Of being eternally condemned than Jesus is. Do you think Jesus is going to be eternally condemned? I hope not. And if you're trusting in Jesus. You're not either any more than he can be.
That's the glory of justification. This is the glory of the law and the gospel properly understood. And so does this then suggest that sin in believers is less serious than sin in unbelievers? Absolutely not. Which leads us to our second point.
Here's a second reality. A Christian is not subject To vindictive wrath, but loving discipline. Because the believer is dead to the law as a covenant of works, he is no longer under the vindictive wrath and judgment of God. Yet, this does not mean that God is indifferent to your sin as a believer. This does not mean that God will no longer discipline you for your sin.
Sin, whether it's in believers or unbelievers, is always a serious offense to a holy God. Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 13 says that you who are of pure eyes tend to see evil and cannot look at wrong. God cannot look at your wrong any more than He can look at the wrong of an unbeliever. And indulge it, say, oh, that's okay. God doesn't think your sin as a believer is okay.
If he did, Christ would have never died on the cross.
Now, there are examples all over Scripture of God being angry with his children. and disciplining them. I'll just give you a couple of examples. We could look at a bunch. Let me just give you a couple of examples.
Hebrews chapter 12. Just look there for a second. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5 to 11. The author of Hebrews is quoting the Proverbs. And he says that, for example, in verse 5, he says, Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
And he quotes the Proverbs here from the Old Testament. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves. And chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.
For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which you have all participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and res and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them.
But he disciplines us for our good. That we may share in his, listen. Holiness. And then he says, for the moment, all discipline seems painful, and it is. Rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
to those who have been trained by it. Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter 11 to help us think about the Lord's Supper this morning. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And listen to what the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthian church. He gives this sobering warning.
He says in verse 28, Look, let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why, listen, that is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined.
So that we may not, listen, be condemned. Along with the world.
So there is a judgment that God gives to believers, but it is not a judgment of vindictive wrath and punishment as a judge and you as a criminal because that has been taken care of. But there is a judgment called discipline, fatherly chastisement, by which God is training us to stop hanging on to our sin and to flee to Jesus.
So that we can share in His holiness. And the author of Hebrews says: when the father does this to his children, it is painful, it is not pleasant. It is very painful at times. But this sober warning that Paul gives He says that the Lord will discipline those who dishonor the Lord's Supper, and therefore it should not be entered into lightly. Paul says, verse 30, listen to some of these consequences.
That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. The discipline of the Lord has real consequences in life. He does not indulge believers' sin. He does not like it. Turn back over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 5. The Apostle Paul commands the Corinthian believers to deliver the sinning man who's guilty of. flagrant sexual sin in the church. He commands them, listen, 1 Corinthians 5, verse 5, to deliver the sinning man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. That's a good thing.
That's a good thing. Delivering him over to Satan probably is probably referring to removing this man from the church. Church discipline. Because those who are outside the church, the Bible describes, I don't have time to look at it, but the Bible describes as being under Satan's realm, like in Ephesians chapter 2, for example. And though not always the case, but sometimes personal sin can have grave physical consequences.
And the purpose, listen what Paul says here, the purpose of such severe discipline, this young man, listen, was not to punish him like a criminal with vindictive wrath by God, but it was rather to effect his restoration to the church and his salvation, he says, so that his spirit may be saved. Even in such severe cases of discipline, there are examples all over scripture of it. This is what we have to keep in mind. That God's fatherly anger and discipline. Is infinitely different from his vindictive wrath as a condemning judge.
Infinitely different. Listen to Ralph Verskin. He preached a sermon called Law, Death, and Gospel Life. And he preached this in the 17th century in Scotland, and this is how he was helping his church understand it. He says, quote, though the sins of believers deserve hell, And the intrinsic demerit of sin is still the same.
Yea, I think the sins of believers being against so much love and so many mercies, they deserve a thousand hells where others deserve one. Yet Being dead to the law. He hath no vindictive wrath to fear. While we were sinners, Christ died for us, and much more, now being justified by His blood, we are saved from wrath through Him. And sure, he is not to fear that which calls him to believe he is saved from.
His slavish fear, therefore, listen, is from unbelief and weakens his hands in duties. Slavish fear will keep you from pursuing sanctification. It will cripple your desire to live and obey. God, slavish duty, slavish fear, doubts concerning the Father's favor arise from failing to properly distinguish in your life the difference between vindictive judgment and fatherly chastisement. This distinction is only possible by keeping the gospel central in your mind and affections every day.
Vindictive wrath. The judgment of God is given to those who are under the law and alive to the law. Those who are seeking their righteousness by their own efforts. But fatherly chastisement is applied to those who are alive in Christ and dead to the law. Fatherly chastisement is not the punishment of a God who is angry with us in listen, a condemning way.
God no longer condemns his children. Fatherly chastisement is simply the chastening of a loving Father who is reconciled to us through Christ, and it is an expression of love.
Now, as Ralph Erskine says, to be sure, your sins deserve eternal hell and vindictive wrath. The intrinsic demerit of your sin is exactly the same intrinsic demerit in the sin of an unbeliever. But listen, because of Christ, God will always find in believers, listen, not only just reason for disciplining them, but because you are in union with Christ, dead to the law, received perfect righteousness through imputation. There's no more reason to fear God's judgment. Charles Spurgeon said it like this.
He says God never punishes his children in the sense of avenging justice. He chastens us as a father does his child, but he never punishes his redeemed as a judge does a criminal. It is unjust to exact punishment from redeemed souls. since Christ has been punished in their place. How shall the Lord punish twice?
For one offense. Amen. That's good news. You do not have to fear that which God calls you through Christ and the good news to believe that you're safe from. And you have been saved from this eternal judgment.
As I read this morning, Whoever believes in the Sun... will not come into judgment but has passed from death. Polite. Third. The third reality that you have to understand is God angry with believers when they sin is this: that a Christian cannot lose fellowship with the Lord.
but rather the sweetness of this fellowship. There is often taught today a very popular notion that when believers sin, they're out of fellowship with the Lord. Listen carefully. That is absolutely false. You can never be out of fellowship with the Lord.
Because fellowship Particularly, like, for example, in the book of 1 John, is a synonym for salvation. You're never out of fellowship with the Lord. To be out of fellowship is to be out of salvation, which is not possible for a believer. But it is possible for a believer to lose the sweetness of that fellowship. I'll show you a couple of examples.
Back in Hebrews chapter 12, look again in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 8. In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 8, the Lord's fatherly discipline is actually evidence of favor and fellowship with him. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 8. If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. The fact that you, as a believer, are going through discipline is evidence that you're in fellowship with him.
and that you have his favor. But the Lord, listen, because you're in Christ, He moderates His fatherly anger and He reminds you of His gracious favor. Listen to Psalm 20. Psalm thirty verse five. For his anger is but for a moment.
And his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Even in discipline, as the author says, times is utterly painful to go through. But even in that moment, the Lord desires for his people to perceive that his favor belongs to them. He never ever will discipline you to the point where he'll never reintroduce his favor.
And so when believers sin, they don't lose the fellowship with Christ, but they can lose the sweetness of their fellowship. Here's another example: Psalm 51 in David's famous confession. In Psalm 51, verses 8 and 12, listen to what David prays. He says, Let me hear joy and gladness. You know this: when you sin and you really are blowing it in your fellowship with the Lord, you are losing out on joy and gladness.
Right? David says, let Let me hear it again. Listen to this. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. All of us know what it feels like to spiritually have our bones broken by the listen, Holy Spirit convicting us sometimes very deeply of gross sin in our life.
And David says, Let these bones that you have broken rejoice. Look at verse 12. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. He does not pray, restore to me the salvation that you took, that I lost. He says, restore to me the joy of it.
You can't have joy in your fellowship if you're groveling in your flesh. And so, of God's fatherly chastisement, listen to Ralph, what Ralph Erskine says. This is kind of a long quote, but I did it today, and I know it's long, but it's just so helpful. And you can get the notes and read it tomorrow if it's too long.
So just listen. Ralph Verskin says, Though I will not send them to hell, nor deprive them of heaven, no more than I will break my great oath to my eternal Son. A steadfast love of Christ endures forever, right? He says, Yet like a father, I will chastise them, I will correct them for their faults, I will squeeze them in the mortar of affliction, and press out the corrupt juice of old Adam that is in them. Yea, I will hide my face.
I will deny them that communion and fellowship with me that sometimes they had, and give them terror instead of comfort, and bitterness instead of sweetness. A filial fear of these fatherly chastisements will do more to influence the believer to holiness and obedience than all the unbelieving fears of hell and wrath can do. Fear lest he want or lack that sweetness of God's presence, which sometimes he hath had, will make him say to his sins and his lusts, as the fig tree in Jotham's parable, Shall I leave my sweetness and be king over you? Oh, shall I leave all the sweetness that I have enjoyed with God, and take on with base lusts and idols, and hence when the believer hath gone aside and backslidden What is it that brings him back to God? What is it that brings a backslidden believer back to God?
Listen. He finds the Lord breaking him in many ways, and he reflects through grace upon this sometimes. Oh, how I am deprived of these sweet interviews that I once enjoyed. Therefore, I will go and return to my first husband. For then it was better with me than now, yea, his freedom from law, freedom from threatenings, and being only under fatherly correction.
And when he sees this, it breaks his heart and melts it more than all the fire of hell could do. This slavish fear of vindictive wrath discourages him, weakens his hands and duties, and makes him run away from God. But this filial fear is a As a child to a father, this feeling of fear. Of God's fatherly wrath, which is kindly. Is a motive of love that encourages him to his duty.
Which of these motives think you will work up the believer to most obedience? This legal one, oh, my wrathful judge will send me to hell if I do so-and-so. Or this gospel one. Oh, my God and Father in Christ Jesus will be angry at me and deny me his love tokens. I suppose the former works up enmity and raises it.
But this, the gospel one, works upon love. and inflames it. Whatever. Beautiful statement. Nothing.
infinite difference between a vindictive judge Who curses you by his law. And a loving Heavenly Father who has reconciled and redeemed you through Christ and is training you now. to become just like his son. Infinite difference. And so, our Heavenly Father, even though he may discipline us for our good, he delights in us because of Jesus' saving work.
Psalm 30, verse 5. Listen, though weeping may tarry for the night, joy will come in the morning. Even though there are times in our lives as believers where we sometimes, because of our sin, have incurred the displeasure of the Father. The Bible says because of Christ it will come to an end. It will come to an end.
But if you're not in Christ, It never comes to an end. Never. And John Owen in his word Communion with God. Says that the great discovery of the gospel is to learn as a believer. that the Father desires to bring you into an everlasting increasing knowledge.
of his love for you. And that comes right out of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3, 14 to 19. Listen to what John Owen says, and we'll finish with this. He says Eminently. The Father himself loves you.
Resolve of that, that you may lay hold of communion with him in it. And be no more troubled about it. Yea, as your great trouble is about the Father's love, so you can no way be no more troubled or burdened or burden him than by your unkindness and not believing of it. Through Christ, Ephesians 1, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We have laid hold of a perfect righteousness.
And so we are dead to the law as a covenant of works. We are no longer subject to vindictive wrath, but loving discipline, so that we will become like Christ. We cannot lose the fellowship with the Lord, but rather the sweetness of this fellowship. And even though we lose the sweetness for a time, it won't last forever. Because through Christ We have been redeemed and purchased as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
And so that brings us this morning to the Lord's table. And this is what the Lord's Supper does for us. It puts us in constant remembrance of the benefit of Christ's atoning death on our behalf. It reminds us, listen. That God is now and forever our loving Father, who, as Owen says, is imminently loving toward you.
And will never ever from this day onward for all eternity ever be your judge who will condemn you ever again. That's what this table does for you. The Lord's Supper is not your gift. To God. It is not your service to God.
It is not your primarily act of showing how committed you are to God. The Lord's Supper is first and foremost a means of grace whereby the Lord and servant Jesus himself sits you down at his table and says, let me serve you. You sit and receive, and I will serve you well. And so we come to this table not as givers, but as receivers. We come to this table with no notion of judgment or debt in our relationship to God.
But we come with thanksgiving rather than reluctance and a slavish fear precisely because all has been fulfilled in Christ who is the Lord and servant of the whole covenant. And so the Lord's Supper reminds us of this: that God's steadfast love. endures forever. and that we can love God because he first loved us. Amen.
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