This is an episode for screw-ups. Not for people who think they might be wrong occasionally, maybe. No. This episode is for those of you who know full well that you were wrong. And wrong for a long time. Because there's a deep gut feeling many of you know well who have gone to church faithfully for a lot of your earlier years. The feeling that you get as an adult looking back on your life, for the grace that you spurned, the mistakes you have made, the people you have hurt, the sexual compromises along the way. You add up all the mistakes in your own mind and you just think to yourself, 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 any hope for a screw-up 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 is from a listener named Brandon. Pastor John, my name is Brandon. I'm 26 and really struggling with whether I can ever come back to God after how badly I messed up my life. I used to be really solid spiritually as 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 in the 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 where Pastor John responded to a very similar scenario a young woman named Kristen wrote in. 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 the reason for that hope and invite you into it, let me say something sobering that at first might make you feel worse. But I promise you that if you hear me all the way, it will be good news. You say that the reason you doubt God would have you back is that you've messed up so badly. sex outside marriage left the church got angry at God for your dad cancer and all that is right You right That terrible that you did that But you describe your previous condition as spiritually strong, active in your church community and experiencing joy in Christ, feeling the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 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, consider the possibility 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, singing. But when it came to the actual obedience, where you had to choose between the value of Christ and a boyfriend leading you away from Christ, you chose the boyfriend. your situation was like the Israelites. Deuteronomy 13, verse 1. If a prophet, not to mention a boyfriend, arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder that comes to pass, and if he says, let us go after other gods and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that boyfriend, for the Lord is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul. So in a sense, I am 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. But 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 got that? You might have to listen to what I just said over again. I'm suggesting that what's happened in the last months or years, I can't remember how long you have in mind here, he's not allowing you to lose a close walk with God, but rescuing you from a phony walk with God that 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. And now, through the miseries of that wreckage, he has awakened in you a heart, a new desire for him. And he's not inviting you back to the old kind of joy and singing and church life. No, no. The kind that concealed a heart that was ready to commit idolatry as soon as the boyfriend came along. He's got something way better, way better planned for you than that. He's rescuing me from that fakery. God is not restoring that. something so weak and so superficial it couldn't keep you out of a unbeliever's arms. He wrecked that and then spared you. He spared you from marrying that man. God is doing something far deeper and better than that. He is aiming, this is my interpretation now of what he's doing. 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 a Judas for a 30-piece silver boyfriend. Kristen, I can hear you say, whoa, those are tough words, Pastor John. And 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 your 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. 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. So I'm going to suggest that you read, and this is risky, the 16th chapter of Ezekiel. 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 But don stop reading Kristen Don't stop reading till you get to the last five verses. They come as a staggering, absolutely astonishing act of gracious forgiveness. I'll read them to you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you will 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. But 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. And here's the reason Paul gives, and it's written in 1 Timothy 1.16, for you. You need to hear this, for you. And I know it because you'll hear it. I receive mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to, put your name in here, Kristen, as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. So, 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. And I will pray with you that God grants you to see this and feel this and happily come home. It's a tough thing to hear, but full of grace too. Sometimes what feels like a total failure, total let down to God, is actually God's merciful rescue. Rescuing you from a phony walk with him. A shallow, superficial religion that concealed a heart ready to commit idolatry. That weak, surface-level faith. He wrecked it. And now in the wreckage, he has awakened a new desire for him. He is aiming for something way better for you. I love this episode. This is one of my favorites. Thank you for joining us today to relive it. Have a question to Ask Pastor John, find a link to email us and find our complete episode archive at the same place, askpastorjohn.com. Well, March is upon us, and for those of you reading the Navigator's Bible reading plan with us, it's Romans month. March is Romans month, and I have a question on Romans 1 for Pastor John when he rejoins us in the studio. I'm Tony Ranke, Pastor John, and I will see you on Monday. Thank you.
