Talk

How to Deal with Guilt of Sexual Failure for the Glory of Christ

John Piper

January, 4, 2007

Don’t throw your life away because of sexual sin in your past. John Piper walks us through how our redeeming God can heal guilt and shame from sexual failure.

Scripture References

6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

8Do not gloat over me, my enemy!

Though I have fallen, I will rise.

Though I sit in darkness,

the

Lord

will be my light.

9Because I have sinned against him,

I will bear the

Lord

’s wrath,

until he pleads my case

and upholds my cause.

He will bring me out into the light;

I will see his righteousness.

Israel Unrepentant

1“Come, let us return to the

Lord

He has torn us to pieces

but he will heal us;

he has injured us

but he will bind up our wounds.

2After two days he will revive us;

on the third day he will restore us,

that we may live in his presence.

3Let us acknowledge the

Lord

;

let us press on to acknowledge him.

As surely as the sun rises,

he will appear;

he will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.”

4“What can I do with you, Ephraim?

What can I do with you, Judah?

Your love is like the morning mist,

like the early dew that disappears.

5Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets,

I killed you with the words of my mouth—

then my judgments go forth like the sun.

6For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

7As at Adam, they have broken the covenant;

they were unfaithful to me there.

8Gilead is a city of evildoers,

stained with footprints of blood.

9As marauders lie in ambush for a victim,

so do bands of priests;

they murder on the road to Shechem,

carrying out their wicked schemes.

10I have seen a horrible thing in Israel:

There Ephraim is given to prostitution,

Israel is defiled.

11“Also for you, Judah,

a harvest is appointed.

“Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people,

8Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!

8Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

3For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,

14having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

John Piper

John Piper is the founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. He is the author of more than fifty books, and more than thirty years of his preaching and writing are available free of charge at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noël, have five children and 12 grandchildren.