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January 17, 2023
A. M. BREWSTER, president of Evermind Ministries, a biblical counselor, author, podcaster, & conference speaker, who will address:
“GROWTH REQUIRES SHAME & SORROW”
Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.
This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.
Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 17th day of January, 2023.
I am thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest, and in fact, he is now a monthly guest on this program. His name is A .M. Baruster, and he is president of Evermind Ministries, a biblical counselor, author, podcaster, and conference speaker.
He is also a sponsor of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program. Today we are going to be addressing what may likely be one of the most unpopular themes that you could ever hear addressed, but one that is vitally needed to be heard.
You will never hear this from the pulpit of Joel Osteen, and sadly, you will likely not hear it from the pulpits of even many theologically sound churches that in other ways are sound and faithful to the scriptures, and yet, this subject may be one that is shied away from by many men who should know better.
But the theme of today's program is, Growth Requires Shame and Sorrow, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, A .M. Baruster.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Looking forward to this conversation. You're right, it definitely is not a popular one.
Right, and let our listeners know about Evermind Ministries and your biblical counseling ministry in general.
Gladly.
So, Evermind Ministries was started a number of years ago as an idea that began as a blog that has grown significantly. Evermind Ministries exists to keep God's truth at the center of the human experience.
It's really too easy for us to go to church on Sunday and then to really not think about God too much more after that. Yeah, we do our token prayers, and we go back to church in a midweek service, but so often our daily life in our jobs and in our parenting, in our homes in general, in our entertainment, we really are exceptionally godless, if I can put it that way.
We're not thinking about him, we're not living for him, we're just doing our thing. To put it in the vernacular, you do you, and I do I. But the reality is, we need to have God's truth at the center of our experience because we're supposed to glorify God in all things, we're supposed to give him the preeminence in all things, give him first place, and so that needs to be an intentional reality.
So Evermind exists to do that. The second of the Evermind Ministries that came on board was Truth, Love, Family, which seeks to keep God's truth at the center of our life at home. And then from there, we've had other ministries started that identify key areas in our lives.
For example, the yearlong celebration of God is about discipleship and worship, not just on Sundays, but about every day of the week. We have Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship, which is a ministry dedicated to helping those who want help, either in what we might call crisis counseling, there's a huge issue in their lives and they need help understanding what God's word has to say about it, or they want to just grow in their discipleship.
And then we also have A .M. Brewster Ministries, which is the ministry through which I do most of my traveling and my speaking. And again, all of that, whether it's in the family or the church, at work or wherever, the goal is to make Christ preeminent.
And I know that one of your websites is TruthLoveParent .com, TruthLoveParent .com, and the other is, I believe, AMBrewster .com?
Yep.
And we also have CelebrationOfGod .com, and we're growing those dot coms as we have information to put out there. In fact, if you go to TruthLoveParent .com forward slash iron, you will find a lot of really helpful information there that will relate to Chris's and my conversations.
But I have to say, over the past week, we've been in a very difficult position. Our previous website host was transitioning the ownership of our website to another host. And in that process, our websites kind of got lost in the mix.
And I have not been able to access or log into those websites now for quite some time, which means that as of right now, if you went to TruthLoveParent .com forward slash iron, you're not going to find resources for this conversation right now already there.
But I promise you, by God's grace, as we are able to get access to that again, we'll have a lot of resources there that build off of our discussion today. So if you want to take this deeper, if you want to learn more about this, we'll have resources there that you can check out.
And then, of course, all of Chris's and my past conversations, as well as the resources for those conversations, are still there at TruthLoveParent .com forward slash iron.
And today's date, for those of you who are listening to a recording, you could be listening to a recording of this interview years after it has occurred. This is January 17th, 2023. So if you're listening to a recording, this all may have been cleared up by then anyway.
Lord will.
Yes. And we'll be repeating this information later on. And so this subject, for the sake of clarification, there are likely going to be many listening who might even be rolling their eyes and they may be thinking to themselves, you know, I have been trying to escape from the stereotype of Reformed theology, Calvinism, and Puritanism for a long time.
And here these guys are probably just going to be further instilling in the minds of people that we who are theologically Reformed are supposed to be walking around with scowls on our faces. We are supposed to be humorless.
We are supposed to be joyless. And if we are anything else, if we ever crack a joke, if we are ever heard laughing, and if we are walking around with a big stupid grin on our face, we are not as deep and as serious and as biblically minded as we should be.
So if you could clarify what exactly you mean at the outset by the fact that growth requires shame and sorrow.
Yeah, that's a fantastic observation, and I want to agree with those people in a certain.
Way.
Obviously, one of the key things that all Christians are called to have and to be is they're called to have joy, and they're called to be joyful. I believe with all my heart that Jesus Christ smiled, that he joked, that he had a good time.
A lot of people disagree with me on that. Some of the same people who would say what you just said, Chris, still get this picture in their mind of Jesus being very stoic. But I believe that he loved his creation.
He enjoyed his creation. Doesn't mean there weren't very difficult times for him, but Jesus had perfect joy, and we are called to have joy as well. I love to laugh. I love to smile. And in fact, quite often, I find all of the most inappropriate times to do that.
So I cannot necessarily be condemned in that particular way. But it's true to suggest that spiritual growth requires shame and sorrow. I'd be really easy to characterize that. And so I want to kind of just give your audience an idea of where this started for me.
It really started primarily with a study of shame. So as a biblical counselor, biblical family counselor, I keep my finger on the pulse of really what the world is saying about families and so on and so forth.
And that's a really depressing conversation. But a lot of the pop psychology, whenever else, a number of years ago, was really all hitting on this concept of the idea that shame, utilizing shame in our parenting is bad.
And that it is just really wrong for our children to feel shame. And so therefore, we need to do everything we can in our parenting to keep that from happening, to protect them from that. And I read one article in particular that really summed up the position that they were saying, you know, they summed it up well, it wasn't a good position, but they were summing it up how they wrote it.
And that started a little study of mine, which became a podcast episode, that podcast series, actually, that we looked at what their claims were. We wanted to understand it biblically. We wanted to say, OK, well, is this psychological idea accurate when we look at the concept of shame in scripture?
And the reality is, is that the word shame and ashamed and words like that actually do show up in scripture. And they're not necessarily what a person would expect to hear. For example, Second Thessalonians 3 .14 is a perfect place to start.
Paul says to the Church of Thessalonica, if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him. Now, why would Paul want us to do that?
OK, Paul tells us exactly why in the next phrase, so that he will be put to shame. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says we need to do these things because that person needs to be put to shame.
They need to experience that. So as I grappled with that, and as I studied more scriptures, I started to see that shame can be a very, very good and necessary thing in our lives. In fact, it is a necessary thing in our lives.
However, there is good shame and there is bad shame. And we need to understand the differences, and we need to be able to respond to them correctly. And so from then, from there, the Lord led me into other studies of the scripture.
Again, being a biblical counselor, I oftentimes meet people at the darkest times of their lives, the hardest times of their lives, and I'm able to see oftentimes them in that sorrow and see what God is able to accomplish in that sorrow.
And many theologians, men wiser and smarter than I am, have made the observation that really the greatest times of spiritual growth for most people, most Christians happen in times of sorrow, difficulty, hardship, darkness, pain.
And to be completely honest, all we have to do is turn to Matthew chapter 5 or any other passage of scripture that references how we come to know Christ. And that starts, that relationship starts with pain.
In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, who recognize their spiritual depravity, and subsequently those who mourn over that, who are grieved over that. If I don't recognize my sin, and when I finally do see my sin for what it is, if I've not grieved over that, I will not humbly go to Christ and ask him to forgive me.
I will not be seeking for a Savior because I'm fine the way I am. I came to know Christ because I was grieved over my spiritual condition and my lack of relationship with him. And James tells us the exact same thing.
It tells us if we want to change and we want to grow, you know, I don't have the passage right in front of me. I think it's James chapter 4. Am I thinking correct? Yes, James chapter 4 verse 7, submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
We like that. We like draw near to God and he will draw near to you. We like that. We're okay with cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. But the next verse says be miserable and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
Why?
Because God is a killjoy? No, because that is the response of a person who sees his sin the way God sees his sin. But the beauty of sorrow, the beauty of shame is that God does not intend for us to stay there.
Shame and sorrow is the doorway through which we walk as we mature in Christ. That's the doorway that we need to walk through in order to grow in our maturity. So today as we have time, and I'd love to take questions from your listeners, but as we have time, I'd really like to talk today about five different kinds of biblical sorrow and which also is going to include shame.
And to see how these sorrows and shames are different from each other, what they're intended to do, how some of them are good and how some of them are bad, how to embrace the good sorrow and the good shame so as to grow spiritually, and how to reject the bad sorrow and the bad shame.
Well, that's excellent. Why don't you start with the first example?
Okay, perfect. So one of the links that I hope you'll be able to access at truthloveparent .com forward slash iron is another podcast called Truth in Love. It's the podcast of the American Association of Biblical Counselors, and a gentleman named Nick Ellen and the executive director, Dale Johnson, was having a conversation about sorrow.
In fact, I've had the privilege to hear Dale in person speak and a really powerful speaker.
Yes, amen, amen. His ministry is so instrumental in my own life for sure. So Nick Ellen was on there and he outlined, I think, six or so different kinds of sorrow. And I think that that podcast is a great building that takes you to the next step for what we're going to talk about today.
I'm going to present it differently than Nick presented it, but I think he has some really great insight. And the first of these sorrows, the first sorrows that people tend to experience in their life is what I'm just going to call daily sorrow.
Okay, this is the sorrow that's associated with the pains and the trials and the difficulties and the temptations and the testings of life. We live in a fallen world because of sin in the world. God cursed the world because of that.
We languish. We die. Things are difficult. My grandmother passed away in December and we just had her memorial service yesterday. It was a time of joy. She is with her Savior. So we're thankful for that.
But we had to watch her deteriorate over time and slowly slip into eternity. And that is one of those daily sorrows. And I think the thing that most perfectly encapsulates the idea of sorrow is the idea of loss.
To lose something, whether it's time or a person or money, loss results oftentimes in sorrow. So the defining feature of daily sorrow is that there is no sin involved in this sorrow. Okay, the sorrow is not a result of sin.
The sorrow is not a sinful response. There is no sinful response to the sorrow we're experiencing. It's just a result of having lost something. And we see in Scripture that Jesus exhibited this kind of sorrow.
In Luke 19, verse 41, we see him experiencing this particular sorrow as he laments over Jerusalem. We see him having similar sorrow when he wept in the face of Lazarus's being dead. So Jesus exhibited the sorrow.
I mean, it's not necessarily something of sorrow that we should say, oh, that is a sin. Oh, definitely not. And we know from Romans 8, 28 to 29, we know from James 1, 2 through 4, 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 18, 1 Peter 1, 6 through 7, we know why these trials and these temptations and these testings come.
God's using the loss of friends, using the loss of money and health and safety and security and pleasure for a purpose. And what is that purpose? To conform us into his image, to sanctify us. So these difficult experiences are difficult, but they are for our good.
They are to mature our faith. And for that, we can be thankful. A lot of people say, you know, do you run towards sorrow? Do you look for sorrow? Do you plan sorrow into your life? And I say, no, you don't have to.
We're surrounded by it. It's everywhere. You don't have to do that. And we're not celebrating the sorrow. We're celebrating what God is doing through it. And that's the key thing. And if a person experiences daily sorrow and they respond to it correctly by acknowledging and resting on the sovereignty, wisdom, love, and purpose of God, then everything's going to be okay.
But the second kind of sorrow starts to come up when we don't acknowledge those things. When we don't rest in his sovereignty, his wisdom, his love, and his purpose. When we deny what he's saying he's trying to do through the daily sorrows, we will slip into this next category, which is called discontented sorrow.
These are all going to be Ds, by the way, just so you know. Daily sorrow, discontented sorrow. Hopefully, it may be a little bit easier to remember and categorize for ourselves. The discontented sorrow is a sorrow motivated by discontentment that oftentimes leads to the grumbling, the murmuring, and the complaining in our lives.
Now, we don't have to dig deep into the scriptures to recognize the fact that discontentment is a sin, okay? It is a sin. So that makes this category different than the daily sorrow, even though initially the daily sorrow and the discontented sorrow may grow from the same things, okay?
Because it's similar to daily sorrow in that this person is sad about the circumstances, the loss, the trials, the testings. But instead of resting on the provision and promises of God, they reject it or they neglect God's will for their lives, and this leads to the complaining and the protesting about the situation.
They're not accepting what he's allowed for the reasons he's allowed it. First Corinthians 10 .10 gives us an example of this. It says, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
In that passage, Paul's referencing the Israelites grumbling against the Lord in Numbers 16 and 17. And Numbers 16 .41 reads, but on the next day, all of the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, you are the ones who have caused the death of the Lord's people.
Well, okay, there definitely was daily sorrow involved in this because the ground had opened up and it swallowed a number of their friends and relatives. But they were also mad at God for doing it. They didn't acknowledge that those people had received the just condemnation of God for their sins.
They weren't seeking to grow and mature from the loss. And so in that, so that what could have just been a natural daily sorrow that God used to mature them because they rejected God's plan in it, it became a discontented sorrow and it became a sin.
By the way, the sorrow is made deeper and stronger by the fact that we are sinning through it because sin multiplies the experience of sorrow. Listen very carefully, friends today, please listen to me carefully.
Sorrow is a very real thing. It's not always bad, but sin multiplies sorrow. If I'm experiencing daily sorrow that is hard, I lost my grandmother. That is hard. Okay, I love my grandmother. But if I were to have a sinful response to this, why did this have to happen?
Why would God allow this to happen? And on and on and on, I'm going to become more sorrowful because I'm filling my head with lies and it makes it harder to bear the original daily sorrow. So this sorrow is primarily a sinful sorrow.
Now, hopefully this individual then will experience the third kind of sorrow. Now, Chris, you stop me when we need to go to a break or something like that. Can I go to the third kind?
Sure, we have time for that.
Awesome, okay. Now, praise God. He doesn't leave us there, right? If we slip from the daily sorrow into discontented sorrow, something else, we have another sorrow. It's called divine sorrow. This is the sorrow of God that reproves and disciplines us when we are in our sin.
This is the sorrow of the Holy Spirit, of which the Lord speaks in John 16, 8. And he, referring to the Holy Spirit, when he comes will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
John 3, 12 says, for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. It's our natural human condition that we are sorrowful and we don't like and we feel guilt and we feel judgment and we feel conviction and we feel shame when we are reproved and disciplined by God.
And that's what the sorrow is. It's the discomfort of being told that we're wrong. It's that feeling of shame and guilt. So this is where that good shame comes in. But again, as I mentioned earlier, there is a bad shame.
This means that shame and guilt are not inherently bad things to be avoided. In fact, if it's the good shame, then it's part of the divine sorrow God graciously brings into our lives when we sin. So let me give you a good example of good shame.
Ezra 9, verses 3 -7, when I heard about this matter, I tore my garments and my robe and pulled some of the hair from my head and from my beard and sat down appalled, Ezra says. Then everyone who trembled at the words of God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening's offering.
But at the evening offering, I rose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the Lord my God, and I said, Oh, my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens.
And what's interesting is that this wasn't even Ezra's sin. Ezra was having this response to the sin of the children of Israel, the exiles. A chapter, a book that we don't read as often as we should, Obadiah 1 .10, because of violence to your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and you will be cut off forever, says the Lord.
First Corinthians 1 .27, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. Later in First Corinthians chapter 15, verses 33 and 34, do not be deceived.
Bad company corrupts good morals. Become sober minded as you ought and stop sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. So, my friends, listen carefully. When we sin, it's completely appropriate to experience shame and it's completely inappropriate to celebrate the sin that God is trying to convict us of.
We should feel bad about being bad. So, now, I do want to, just before we move on, I want to talk really quickly about bad.
Shame.
One form of bad shame is when we feel bad about doing right. The world tries to make us feel bad about doing right all of the time. You should never feel ashamed of doing what's right. That's a shame you don't have to bear.
The inverse of that is when we feel bad about not doing bad. The world tries to push that on us all the time. Do as we do. Accept what we accept. And we go, no, I can't do that. And then we feel bad because, you know, they're trying to make us feel bad.
That is not a shame you have to bear. That is a sinful shame. That is a bad shame. You reject that. We should rejoice that God has helped us to do right in the face of temptation. We should praise God for the spirit control necessary to eschew evil, right?
But that doesn't mean, just because that type of shame is shame that you don't need to experience, doesn't mean that all shame is that way. Divine sorrow that brings the conviction, guilt, and shame of God is a good thing.
And that's the third type of sorrow. We got the daily sorrow, the discontented sorrow, and the divine sorrow.
Well, that would be the perfect time to go to our first station break. If you have a question for A .M. Baruster, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.
Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
And as with most of Aaron's subjects, since he is a biblical counselor, I could readily see there being many people in the Iron Sharpens Iron radio audience listening who do have personal and private questions and do not want to identify themselves because they are such a deeply personal and intimate nature.
We fully understand that, and we will grant your request to remain anonymous if you indeed are in that category. But please, if it's just a general question, a general question on what the Bible has to say about shame and sorrow, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.
Don't go away.
We're going to be right back right after these messages with more of A .M. Baruster, and our theme, Growth Requires Shame and Sorrow.
I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministry. And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration.
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And please don't forget, folks, that royaldiadem .com is still offering Iron Sharpens Iron Radio 100 of the profits from any sale of jewelry to our listeners, as long as they mention Chris Aronson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when making their purchase.
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I've seen what they do. They are absolutely mind-blowing when it comes to the custom-designed jewelry they create. They created a custom-designed pendant for a necklace for one of the sons of the woman that led me to Christ.
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That's royaldiadem .com. And also, if you are registering for the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, don't forget to use the discount coupon code, or the promo code, G3ISIR, G3ISIR, and you will get 30 off the registration fee.
We're now back with Aaron Brewster, and he is a monthly guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. He's also a sponsor of this broadcast. And we are discussing Growth Requires Shame and Sorrow. We have a listener in Metro Manila in the Philippines, and his name is Ramon.
And he said, here's my reaction to what A .M. Brewster has taught me. I am very grateful for what he has just taught me. To be honest, I haven't heard teachers preach about shame and sorrow before, which is much needed today.
I hope he can give some advice on how to comfort those who are suffering from sorrow over the loss of a loved one. I also have a question about Jesus. Why is Jesus called the Man of Sorrows? Okay, two very good questions, Aaron.
Yeah, it's a fantastic question. Yeah, Jesus in Isaiah, the suffering servant, was referred to as the Man of Sorrows. And the reality is, to be honest, I can't unpack that passage the way that I wish I could.
And Chris, you can feel free to jump in on this as well. But the reality is that Christ's entire life, his earthly life, was very much, it was sorrowful. It was a life of rejection. It was a life of pain and being shunned by his own creation.
He was coming. He came to save his creation. And yet they rejected him. They murdered him. And so knowing that, obviously, by God's grace, prophesying that the Messiah would be a Man of Sorrows is very much part of his life.
But the beauty is that Christ suffered that sorrow so that we wouldn't have to. There are certain sorrows, like, for example, eternal suffering, that because the sorrow that Christ suffered, we don't have to embrace that sorrow to praise him.
So, yeah, the idea of Christ being a Man of Sorrows is that much more amazing when we recognize the fact of why he did it. He did it for his glory. He did it for our good, which is, by the way, everything that comes to our lives is for his glory and for our good.
Now, when it comes to counseling somebody who is going through a time of sorrow, it can be hard, especially because we've created an idea in the church that to quote the scriptures or to reference Job, for example, is inappropriate when another person is experiencing sorrow.
In fact, I just saw something on Twitter recently. Some heretical individual—I can't remember who it was. Don't have time to remember it—was saying something about how inappropriate it is to mention Job when talking with somebody else who is going through sorrow.
But listen, it is always appropriate to speak truth in love. When Martha had lost her brother Lazarus, and Jesus came into town, and she's pleading with him, if you had been here, Jesus didn't try to do any of the things that we're told that we need to do for somebody in sorrow.
He wasn't tactless. He wasn't rude. But he pointed her mind to the theological truth that was going to set her free, the truth about the resurrection and the life. And in fact, later, who knows, a few minutes later, when he says, roll away the stone, and Martha goes, no, don't do that.
There's going to be a bad smell. Jesus says, basically, weren't you listening to what I said about resurrection and life? She didn't get it. She didn't understand. And had she done that, that would have changed her entire perception of the situation.
So going to Romans chapter 8, going to James chapter 1 is appropriate. Now, you want to—I believe they say that prose are words in their best order, and poetry are the best words in their best order. I believe it's wise for biblical counselors, for Christians to really strive to speak the best words in the best order, right, to do so with the best love of God.
And that may change the timing of when I bring up Job. It may change the timing of that. There may be a time where I sit and I weep with them, where I hold them. But that's a subjective concept. The truth is that we do need to get back to the truth at some point, because it is the truth that sets us free.
And so it is a difficult time. And to be honest, a lot of people in their sorrow—remember I said earlier that sin multiplies sorrow, okay? If a person has moved from daily sorrow into discontented sorrow, and then anything that I say or you say starts to layer on the divine sorrow, okay, we're adding to that sorrow.
If they continue to sin, if they continue to respond incorrectly, they may push back against all of it that much harder. So that's just something that you have to learn to work through, to recognize, and to be able to assist.
Chris, you want to add anything to that?
Well, the only thing that I can think of that immediately popped in my head when you were describing why Jesus is called in the scriptures the man of sorrows, who's acquainted with much grief. In fact, one of my favorite quotes by the great 19th century Reformed Anglican bishop J .C. Ryle, which is found in his booklet on sickness, which I believe is extracted from his larger book, The Upper Room, if I'm not mistaken.
But J .C. Ryle said, Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. None have such an opportunity to learn the mind of a suffering Savior as suffering disciples. So I was always impacted profoundly by that whole concept.
But as far as the rejection you were describing of Jesus, it was even multiplied many times over when it was his own people, the people of Israel, who rejected him. So that's the only thing I could think of, how profoundly agonizing it must have been knowing the very people from whom he came, his mother being an Israelite and, of course, his adoptive father, as it were, being an Israelite and the very people who were in the Old Covenant prophesying of his coming and the reason for his coming, their progeny were the very ones rejecting him, crying out for Barabbas to be set free instead of him and crying out for his death as a blasphemer.
All of this must have been just magnified infinitely, the pain that he experienced.
You know, as Chris was saying that, I went back to the passage in Isaiah 53, and honestly, I'm just rejoicing over it. I want to read it, just our minds have been turned to it. Starting in verse 3, it says, He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows.
And that Hebrew word refers to pain more often than anything else, pain, things being painful, and acquainted with grief. This word grief is the idea of sickness, affliction, illness, disease. And like one from whom men hid their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely our griefs, the same word that they just used, our griefs, he himself bore, and our sorrows, same word, sorrows, our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced through for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging, we are healed. All of us, like Sheba, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.
Praise God for the man of sorrows.
Hallelujah.
Well, we have to get to our midway break. Please be patient with us. It's the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize Iron Trump and Zion Radio and all their programming.
Geographically to Lake City, Florida, and they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air in the middle of the show, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.
Folks, we could not exist without the financial support of our sponsors, which comes through their advertising. So please try to purchase their products, use their services, and visit their churches whenever you can.
But when you can't do any of those things, at the very least, please contact them using the contact information they provide in their commercials and thank them for sponsoring Iron Trump and Zion. If indeed you love the show and are grateful to God that there are individuals, businesses, corporations, churches, and parachurch ministries, and private practices like law firms and so on, knowing that there are people who love this show so much that they are sharing some of the wealth that they have been blessed with from God with us.
They're sharing that with us to keep us on the air. So please thank them if you love the show. And also send in your questions to AM Brewster, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least.
City and state and country of residence. We'll be right back. Don't go away.
James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.
That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.
Go to g3min .org. That's g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God.
Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor Booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 discount off the registration fee.
Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth, Love, Parent and host of its award-winning podcast. I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s. And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.
That's why Truth, Love, Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.
Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long-time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. They specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable for everyone.
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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith-insulting materials promoted by the secular book vendors.
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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.
I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina. And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers. One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is Daniel P. Buttafuoco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.
To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition 1611 King James.
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Visit historicalbiblesociety .org. That's historicalbiblesociety .org. Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.
Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study? So often we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's Word in those smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.
It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the Word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the Bible.
Hi there. My name is Jordan Too and I am the Executive Director of the Baptist Publishing House. Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources. Our quarterly curriculum is titled The Baptist Expositor and for good reason.
We are Baptist and we exegete the scriptures. If you want to have a curriculum that teaches your people how to study the Word of God, I invite you to go to our website, download a free study, baptistpublishinghouse .com.
May God bless you.
It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world. Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.
I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Attawai in County Kildare, Ireland. Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan.
Area.
Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr. Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight-volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.
For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, have them.
Joe Roydigan, Iron Sharpener's Iron radio listener, from Attoy in County Kildare, Ireland, send you.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.
Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.
You need to read.
Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.
Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God-centered, Christ-exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid-ground-books .com. That's solid-ground-books .com, and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from Solid Ground.
Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpener's Iron radio.
Should be your very first stop for all your gift-giving needs. They bring back into print and publish for the very first time, nothing but the finest, the very finest in Christian literature, and they are the perfect place to go when you're purchasing gifts, not only for your brothers and sisters in Christ and replenishing your own library, but also to purchase gifts for the lost that you know.
God has very often throughout the centuries used excellent Christian books that are Christ-focused and gospel-saturated to lead the lost to Christ, and this selection that you will find at solid-ground-books .com has many titles that would be perfect for the saved and the lost alike.
Go to solid-ground-books .com. Always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio when you make a purchase. Before I return to my guest, Aaron Brewster, we have a couple of very important announcements to make.
If you really love this show, you don't want it to disappear, please, I urge you, please go to ironsharpeneriradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.
If you prefer sending in a physical check to a physical address, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpeneriradio .com. If you want to advertise with us, just like my guest, A .M. Brewster, is doing, please send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.
As long as whatever it is you want to promote is compatible with what I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible, whether it's for your business, your church, your parachurch ministry, your professional practice like a law firm or medical practice, or just a special event you're having.
Send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Also remember, I never want anybody in my audience ever to give less money to the church where you are a member. In other words, to cut into the money that you have set aside for your weekly giving every Lord's Day in order to give Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio a financial gift.
Don't ever give your own church less money to give us something. Also, if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet, please, we ask of you to wait until you are more financially stable and back on your feet before you send us a financial gift.
Two things that are clear in the scriptures about finances is that we are to provide for our church where we are a member and to provide for our households, our families, our wives and children. Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show and you are financially blessed enough where you have extra money collecting interest in the bank, you have extra money for benevolent, recreational and trivial purposes, please share some of that money with us so that we can continue to exist if indeed you love the show and don't want us to disappear.
Go to ironsharpenersironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ-honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally solid, theologically sound church, no matter where you live on the planet Earth, I have extensive lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe and I've had many people in the Iron Sharpeners Iron Radio audience from all parts of the planet Earth contact me and I have found many of them churches, sometimes within just a couple of minutes from where they live.
So that could be you too if you are without a church home, go to Chris Arnzen, I'm sorry, send an email address I should say to chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.
That's also the email address where you can send a question to AM Baruster today regarding our subject and that is a very important subject, growth requires shame and sorrow. Send that to chrisarnzen at gmail .com, give us your first name at least, your city and state and your country of residence.
If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if you are asking a question that is intensely personal and private. We have, let's see here, Thomas in West Islet, New York, who says, Brother Brewster, earlier you were giving an analogy of what is sinful sorrow.
You were saying, for instance, that after your death, after the death of your grandmother, if you were to be crying out to God, why did that happen? Why, why, why? That that was an example of sinful sorrow.
But how then do you categorize those who actually breathed out the very words of inerrant scripture, such as we have Jeremiah crying out to God, why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
You have planted them and they have taken root. They grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips, but far from their hearts. And also Job crying out, why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?
And we find these types of sayings being cried out to God by the psalmists, et cetera. Were they in sin when they were saying these things?
That's a wonderful question. I'm so glad you asked it because it really gets to the heart of the most necessary thing in our lives. It's not what we say. It's not what we do. It's the why behind it. I'll use scripture to demonstrate my point.
In Luke chapter one, Gabriel goes to Zacharias to foretell the coming of his son, John the Baptist, who would foreshadow the Messiah. And after being told by Gabriel what happened, Zacharias asks, how will I know this for certain?
For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years. Skip forward, Gabriel also went to a young lady by the name of Mary and told her that she would be conceiving the Messiah. And Mary also responds with a question.
I'm looking forward here. I want to quote it and I, oh, here it goes. She says, how can this be since I am a virgin? They both asked a question. And really, from the sounds of it, from books of the words, they're both asking a very similar question.
Zacharias is saying, how can it be that I'm going to have a son? My wife and I are too old. And Mary's saying, how is it going to be that I'm going to have a son? I am a virgin. I've never had intercourse with a man.
Now, Gabriel responds to Mary by answering her question. He says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, power of the most high. And he tells her about Elizabeth. Nothing will be impossible with God, right?
Beautiful. How did Gabriel respond to Zacharias? Very differently. Gabriel basically doesn't answer his question. He says, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. And I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time. Now, if it weren't for Gabriel giving us this context, we wouldn't understand the difference, why he responds to them so differently.
Zacharias' question was a question of unbelief. He doubted the words of Gabriel, which in that presence, Gabriel starts with, I stand in the presence of God. I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news.
He says all that, not to name drop, but so that Zacharias would recognize, you're doubting what I'm saying. You are doubting God. And because you are doubting God, there is going to be a consequence. On the other hand, though, Mary didn't receive a similar response because when Mary asked the question she asked, it wasn't a question of doubting.
It was just a question of curiosity, which is why Gabriel is absolutely fine answering her question. And there is no condemnation for what she did. Now, I will not, what the scripture doesn't tell us, it's very difficult for us to judge another person's motivation for what they said.
When I said earlier about, had I said when my grandmother died, yes, it was focused on the words that I said. And I guess I should have been more specific. I try to be more specific as I explain that it comes down to whether or not we're trusting in God, whether or not we're leaning on God, whether we're believing him.
And if I'm asking questions of why this isn't, you know, I'm saying, I'm feeling things like this isn't fair, this isn't right, this shouldn't have happened. Why did you let this happen? It's an accusatory question.
It's a disbelieving question. That heart issue is the key. But yes, I think it's completely appropriate. And I think the Psalms do it. I think other examples that you gave do it well, where people are genuinely curious, Lord, what is going on?
I trust you. I believe you. I know you're in control. I don't understand. Please help my unbelief. I think those types of questions are completely appropriate, and it all comes back to the motivation, which is why I said that what makes discontented sorrow different from daily sorrow really has everything to do with what we believe about God, what we believe to be true about him.
We can have those questions, and those questions in and of themselves are not inherently sinful, but the doubting behind it is what ends up being the simple thing when we call God's character and his truth into question.
Now, I think it's also really important at this point to mention the fourth type of sorrow. We've talked about the first three, the daily sorrow we all experience, the disconsented sorrow, which, again, comes because we're questioning God.
Then there's the divine sorrow, the guilt and the shame that God brings into our lives because of our sin, but our response to that divine sorrow isn't the same. We're going to look at the good response first.
The good response to that sorrow is the disciple's sorrow, the disciple's sorrow. That's where we looked at before. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Be miserable and mourn and weep.
When I'm confronted and convicted and I'm ashamed in my sin, it's kind of an ambivalent shame to a certain degree. I can choose to get mad at the conviction of God. I can choose to embrace the conviction of God.
When I embrace the conviction of God, that actually also tends to add to the amount of sorrow I'm experiencing because now I'm overwhelmed by my sin before God. I love 2 Corinthians 7, 8 through 11. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, Paul says, I do not regret it.
Though I did regret it, for I see that the letter caused you sorrow, but only for a while. He says in verse 9, I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance.
For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation.
And in Acts 26 through 37, we read, therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ to this Jesus, whom you crucified. Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do?
Repentance is a change. And when we experience that divine sorrow, where we're feeling that shame that conviction for our sin, we need to, by God's grace, have a disciple sorrow. We need to embrace that.
We need to agree with God about our sin, and we need to seek to change. Disciples sorrow always leads to repentance. It leads to changing. This is why the people in Acts said, brethren, what shall we do?
Tell us how we need to change. It's a beautiful thing. But there is the temptation to a fifth type of sorrow. I've got discontented sorrow. I'm upset. I'm convicted by God through divine sorrow. I could have disciple sorrow, but I don't.
Instead, I respond with what I'm going to call a deadly sorrow. This sorrow is also mentioned in 2 Corinthians 7. I stopped reading before we got to that part. I started reading in verse 10 for the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation.
But the sentence continues. But the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold, what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you. It goes on to say in verse 11. The sorrow of the world produces death.
The world does experience a sorrow when they are confronted in their shame, when they're experiencing good shame, shame that's designed to turn them to God in a disciple sorrow. They oftentimes don't respond by submitting to that truth.
What happens instead? They have a sorrow that produces death. This is the sorrow that says I'm sad because I have regrets. I'm sad that I got caught. I'm sad that I'm experiencing the consequences of my choices.
I don't like this. This is not a fair. They're not really focused on how they've sinned against God and others. They're just consumed with what's happening to them and the fact that they don't like it.
Now, this is different than daily sorrow because sin is involved in this process. Daily sorrow is something, you know, some loss has happened and there's a response to that. But it's also different than discontentment sorrow because it's not something that's happening to them due to no fault of their own.
This sorrow that they're experiencing is happening to them because of their personal choices. The deadly sorrow grows because they reject the divine sorrow that God would have lead to repentance. They don't like what's happening to them, but they also don't think they need to change.
We call it deadly sorrow because if the person doesn't deal with their sin, that sin leads to death. But of course, as I said, there is hope. Instead of responding in deadly sorrow, we can respond in disciples sorrow.
So as a recap of these five sorrows, we all have experienced daily sorrow, but many of us allow the loss through which the Lord desires to refine us, instead to tempt us to discontented sorrow. We doubt God.
We call him a liar about what it is he's trying to accomplish in our lives through the daily sorrow. Now, excuse me. Thankfully, the Lord's gracious and he provides divine sorrow that shows us the ugliness of our sin.
Then, of course, we have a choice whether we will respond with disciples sorrow or with deadly sorrow. So those are the five main sorrows that we see in scripture. Obviously, you know, that was a cute, alliterated way of going about it and no doubt you could put them into different categories or subdivide them or who knows what, but I think it gives us a good overall digestible picture of the different forms of sorrow and how some of them are completely appropriate and should be embraced and others of them need to be rejected because they will only lead to spiritual death and immaturity if we keep rolling around in them.
Same thing with shame and guilt. Shame and guilt is necessary for spiritual growth. I love that passage in 2 Corinthians chapter seven. You were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. He goes on to say, you were made sorrowful according to the will of the God so that you might not suffer loss for the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation.
This is how we come to know the Lord when we're in justification. This is the necessary process of sanctification to be broken over our sin, to be grieved over our sin, to turn from that and to go to the Savior.
OK, we have an anonymous listener who asks, when can we know that our shame over past sin is going on too long and is too far too great in our minds and hearts, affecting even the way we live? Because if we carry on with shame, especially over past sin, we are giving evidence that we are not trusting in the finished work of Christ to cleanse us from that.
100 true. I agree completely, and I would say that the shame ceases when we respond in repentance and are forgiven. If I am in sin, and I can pull up so many different examples of my life of various sins that I have been enslaved to and have given myself over to.
Early on in my life, and especially through high school, I viewed pornography and it was a wicked, terrible thing. And by God's grace, I started to recognize, I knew it was a sin, let's be honest, I wasn't kidding myself, but I started to see how that was an affront against my Savior, how it was completely disrespectful to those women, how it was a sin against my future wife, a sin against myself, disobedience to my parents, all of this.
And I started to come to the place where I was desperately ashamed and I was convicted of that. Now, breaking that, and as Chris knows, coming through his physical addiction and his addiction to alcohol, it's a long process and there is temptation and there's falling back into it.
We all experience that. But the question at this particular time is, when do we stop carrying that shame? And the reality is, I could stop feeling that shame in the moment, no matter how long I had looked at pornography.
I go to God and I say, God, this is a sin, it is wicked, I am broken, I need your forgiveness, I can't do this on my own, please forgive me, please help me. And I know from what scripture says that he does forgive and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses that, not just in salvation, but as a Christian, as we sin, Christ's forgiveness still covers that.
And so in that moment, that shame needs to cease. I, at that moment, am a different person. I'm repenting, I'm moving in a different direction and there is no reason to experience that shame. For a person who continues to experience that shame, days, weeks, months, years afterward, they are not believing truth.
They're not believing that they are truly forgiven. They're not accepting the fact that they've moved on past that and oftentimes, let's be honest, I can say this, biblical counseling is oftentimes the case, if a person is still experiencing shame over what happened to them, oftentimes of what they did, excuse me, oftentimes they're still involved in it to a certain degree.
They just haven't quite admitted that yet. That's oftentimes a possibility. Sometimes people have had something happen to them that they feel shame over, but they feel that shame because they haven't come face to face with the freedom that comes through Jesus Christ.
Now, were I to go back and to look at pornography again, guess what? I need to feel shame again. But when I go to Christ, 70 times, seven times in a day, and I ask him to forgive me, each of those times, I can be free from that shame because of who he is and what he has done in my life and the fact that I am now moving in repentance away from that.
So we do not need to be shackled by the shame. And oftentimes I believe that the people who are shackled by the shame are that way because of either ignorance of the truth that they have been freed from that, or they are tied to it because they're still too self-focused.
Instead of looking to Christ and embracing the forgiveness that he gives, they're myopically just, I'm such a terrible person. And please understand, pride goes both ways. Pride is not just, hey, look at me, I'm so amazing.
Pride's also, hey, look at me, I'm so terrible. True humility is not thinking that we are worthless or thinking quote unquote low about ourselves. True humility is just not thinking about ourselves. When I'm not thinking, hey, look how amazing I am or look how bad I am, but I'm focusing on, look how awesome God is.
Look what he's done for me. The salvation he's given, the overcoming sin, all the promises in scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't have time to think about my stupidity and the foolishness in my own heart anymore as I'm moving toward Christ in that way.
So we need to get, in either way, we need to get our eyes back onto the truths of scripture. We need to recognize that we can be set free from that shame. We need to embrace the forgiveness, move toward repentance.
That's a very key part of it. True disciple sorrow moves toward repentance, and then that shame will fall away. I can promise you that by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We have another anonymous, excuse me, listener. The anonymous listener.
Says,.
Listening to the previous question and even hearing your answer reminds me of the fact that I have confided in brethren over my own shame, especially in regard to past sins. But I have often heard the refrain from solid Christians and unbelievers alike that I need to forgive myself.
I don't find...
I'm sorry, Chris.
I'm sorry.
You can read in a second. I had to laugh out loud. I try, I was threatening to mute myself. I had, I'm so glad this came. I'm really, I'm so glad this came. I'm so glad they asked the question. Finish it.
Sorry, I couldn't control myself.
I've often heard from believers and unbelievers alike that I need to forgive myself. I don't find that anywhere in the Bible. Is there something else that is biblical that they may be attempting to say, but they are clumsily saying it wrong?
Oh, it's an amazing question. And you know what? That idea, you know, you have to forgive yourself. It's so unbiblical.
Okay. No.
I, yes, I am going to get to the point. I'm going to answer the question to the degree that I do believe some of those people are well-meaning and they have a decent idea in mind, but still it is so incredibly wrong.
There is nothing good in me. My permission, my righteousness, my forgiveness, my anything. There's nothing good in me. All that is good in me is there because of God's grace. I don't save myself. I don't forgive myself.
I respond to the truth of God and the problem is, again, we human beings are so incredibly myopic. We are so self-centered. We are self-worshippers. We are idolaters. And we're so stuck on, we have to do this thing to feel this way.
I have to do this thing. It creeps into our views of justification. It creeps into our views of sanctification. I've got to do this thing. Now, the Bible does have responsibilities on us. Be holy as he is holy, but we believers who recognize God's sovereignty in all of this also recognize the fact that God is doing this work through us.
I can't pat myself on the back because I've done these works to earn my justification or my sanctification. And so this idea of needing to forgive yourself really comes out of secular pop psychology. It has worked its way into the church because it feels so good.
When I can just do the thing, speak the mantra, whatever self-centered liturgy that I need to do to make myself feel better and release myself from my past really is tragic because it's, again, it's all on self and it doesn't acknowledge the fact that God, I mean, I'll put it, sometimes I do put it this way very strongly to people.
How dare I, how dare I think that I can't experience the freedom of forgiveness until I do something because what Jesus did wasn't enough. Now, if I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt,.
And I do,.
I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't think a lot of these people recognize that what they're saying is wrong and I think they are trying to be helpful. I tend to want to believe that they are basically just trying to say, you need to accept reality, okay?
They should say, you need to accept reality that if you truly are forgiven, if you truly have repented and you truly are turned, then you need to get, acknowledge that fact and move on, right? Make that choice in your own head.
They also sometimes may be alluding to the fact that sometimes we say that we've confessed, we say that we've put off sin and we're still struggling because the reality is we haven't, not really, and we're still struggling with that.
And people might say, you need to forgive yourself. And there's a little bit, if by that they mean, you need to complete the process, man. God has a plan. Work the plan. Okay, fine. But the idea that somehow there's a special step that you need to take that is going to free you from the shame, that the divine shame that God brought into your life, the Holy Spirit brought into your life and that there's something outside of what is recorded in scripture that you need to do in order to release yourself from that, that is not helpful.
And we need to stop lying to our brothers and sisters in Christ who are feeling that shame.
We need to point them.
To what the scripture clearly says about how we respond to that shame and how we respond to that sorrow.
Yeah, it reminds me of the constant regurgitation of not only pop psychologists, but even many Christians and preachers and teachers and pastors and Christian authors and televangelists that you've got to love yourself because the Bible commands us to love your neighbor as yourself.
So therefore, it's also a command to love yourself. No, it's actually a recognition that we already do love ourselves.
And in fact, there may be people who seem the outward evidence and you could correct me if you think I'm wrong here, but the outward evidence would lead us to think, wow, this person really hates themselves.
If you look more deeply into the situation, is that they really just hate an experience or a situation they are in, like they don't think that they are handsome or pretty enough. They don't think that their physique is beautiful enough.
They don't think that they have a job that fits within what they have always dreamed to do for a living. And they're really so much in love with themselves that they can't move on and put their lives to active use and helping others.
They're focused on themselves, which is a reflection that they love themselves. Am I right here?
Yeah, I would say 100%.
Scripture is very clear in Ephesians 5, 29, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. The problem is that what some people do, what they believe they need to do in order to nourish and cherish their body doesn't fit into the context of what we think we would do to nourish and cherish our body.
Some people cut themselves. Some people try to take their lives, but they do that because they are trying to gain satisfaction. They do that because they are trying to cherish themselves. That's 100 true.
Now, the only thing that I will disagree with, and it's not really a disagreement, because I agree 100 with everything you said, this idea of loving ourselves. If we define the word love biblically, which by the way, would fix so many problems in the church, there's actually nothing wrong with that.
If loving you, Chris, is I am working toward God's best interest in your life, I'm wanting and working toward God's best interest in your life. And that is the biblical definition of love. That if I'm wanting and working toward God's best interest in my life, that's the most loving thing I can do for myself.
I can, quote unquote, love myself in that way. The problem is that self-love is selfish love. Oftentimes, self-love is the love of trying to get what I want, despite what God has said. I'm not working toward his best interest in my life.
I'm working toward my best interest in my life. And so we have these messed up terminology sometimes when we just get our phrases and our vocabulary mixed up. But yes, true love is working toward God's best interest and his best interest for everybody else, whether that's us or everyone else.
And I think that's the whole goal in all of this is that we're recognizing I'm experiencing this sorrow right now. I'm going through this and this conviction or whatever the situation is in my life for God's glory.
Am I going to embrace that truth and work along with it? Or am I going to fight against it by doing my own thing, following my own paradigm, leading on my own understanding? And we know that never works, ever.
And going back to forgiving yourself, wouldn't it be better said if you're speaking to a Christian, you're confident that person is a genuinely regenerate person because we don't know the hearts and minds of men like God does.
But if they are giving evidence that they are truly a repentant individual, we have to remind them that they are forgiven by Christ, not that they are to forgive themselves. And if you're speaking to a lost person, somebody that is giving evidence that they're unrepentant, we are to tell them you must repent because you must not have comfort in being forgiven by God until that happens in your life.
And that's 100 right. I have had people come to me for biblical counseling where they're saying, Aaron, I'm having a hard time forgiving myself. And I don't lean into them and bash them or anything like that in that moment.
That would not be appropriate. They're coming for help and they recognize there's an issue. It's just they're very confused about what that is. And by the way, that's what happens in most biblical counseling.
Most people believe that they know their problem is, if only this one thing were different, everything would be okay. But the reality is that they don't see it the way God sees it. So literally everyone comes for counseling and help not truly understanding what the real issue is.
And that's fine. Obviously not looking down on those people. But when they come to me and they say, I need help forgiving myself. We talk about the fact that what would that actually accomplish? What would that mean?
What would it be to forgive yourself? What's interesting is that nobody really knows what steps need to be taken to forgive oneself and for it to actually stick. And I just, by asking questions and pointing them to intelligent observations, they start to realize that there's no guarantee that any type of whatever forgiving themselves is going to work, which is then when we turn to the truths of scripture and we see how the forgiveness of God takes every time, it works every time.
And that's ultimately what we're all looking for, what we all need.
Okay.
We have to go to our last break. It's going to be a lot briefer than the others. So don't go away. We're going to be right back.
James White of Alfenbega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.
That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on the sovereignty of God.
As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations. A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.
Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship God in spirit and truth.
Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God-centered focus, reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.
Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace .com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654. Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
I'm Dr. Joe Morecraft, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word, and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have. For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.
That's hopereformedli .net or call 631 -696 -5711. That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
This is Pastor Bill Sousa Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee. Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.
Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God. If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior.
Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin. Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org. This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.
If you love Iron Sharpens Iron radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers. One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is Daniel P. Patafuco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.
Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission? To foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts along with a fascinating presentation by Mr. Patafuco demonstrating the reliability of scripture.
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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the Iron Sharpen's Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity.
He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.
I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.
I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting Iron Sharpen's Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one-time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?
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I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s. And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.
The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once said, growing a beard is a habit most natural, scriptural, manly, and beneficial. Grace and peace to all the Iron Sharpens Iron listeners. This is Tony with.
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You have to use the promo code IRON when you're checking out. That's promo code IRON, and that's thestandardbeardcare .com. We have another anonymous listener. I knew that we would be getting anonymous questions in.
We have a listener who says, I know my catechism very well, and we are promised in the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
I am finding a very difficult time to enjoy Him always because of the fact of the weight of my shame. How do these things go together?
Powerful question. I'm glad you asked it. There's a concept in society about self-esteem, right? We need to build up your self-esteem. But the only true way to have joy is to recognize that there is nothing in me to esteem.
I am a wicked sinner who only ever does wrong, who is an abomination before God as I run after my own self-pleasure. And that right there gets us, right? We're supposed to feel grief about that. That's the whole point that leads to repentance.
But it's that reality that actually brings us joy because remember what I said earlier about discomfort and pain and sorrow. We don't celebrate the sorrow. We don't run toward the sorrow. We praise God for what He's doing in the sorrow.
And the same is true in our sin. I'm a wicked person. That should cause me to grieve. And by God's grace, it does. But the other side of that coin is that there is forgiveness with Christ, that He is so amazing and He is so wonderful and He has a plan to use this current sorrow in my life, whether it's daily sorrow or it's divine sorrow, bringing conviction of my sin, to make me more like Him.
And that requires us to stop looking at ourselves. Again, the resounding theme, my repeated mantra chorus through this whole time has been we have to take our eyes off of the sorrow. We have to take our eyes off of ourselves and we have to focus on the biblical truths.
What is God doing here? He's trying to purify us. He's trying to lead us to repentance. He's trying to sanctify us. He's trying to mature us that we will grow spiritually, mature spiritually. And that is a wonderful thing that brings us to joy.
So yes, for the Christian, it's a tad paradoxical. The best way to feel, the best way is to recognize how terrible I am, but not focus only on that, but to allow that to remind me of the fact that God created me for a relationship with Him, sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for me.
And now is every, all the blessings of redemption I see in Ephesians chapter one, the new life I see in Christ. And that just in a moment, my entire outlook changes. And I'm excited and I'm overjoyed because of what God is trying to do in me.
We have the wrong types of sorrow and we stay too long in sorrow because we're not focusing on who God is and what He's trying to do in us. So the five types of sorrow, daily sorrow, discontented sorrow, divine sorrow, disciple sorrow, deadly sorrow.
We are all going to experience daily sorrow, but let's not be discontented. Now we're all going to sin. And when we do sin, whether it's discontented sorrow or something else, we're going to experience divine sorrow.
Praise God for that. Respond with disciple sorrow. Do not embrace deadly sorrow. And that daily sorrow and that disciple sorrow are focused on God and what He's trying to accomplish, not focusing on us and what we're feeling.
Do you think, a good passage to remember in regard to what this exchange we just heard, when we get to the root of it, when Jesus in Luke 7, 47 forgave a woman, He says, for this reason I say to you, her sins which are many have been forgiven, for she loved much, but the one who is forgiven little.
Loves little.
That's how we can feel shame and yet glorify God forever. Am I not right?
Yeah, you're 100 right. And look at what she was doing. Yes, she was crying tears, but I don't think she was crying tears of guilt and crying tears of remorse. She was focused on her Savior. She didn't hide herself away in some corner lamenting the terrible life she had lived up to that point.
She was praising the one who forgave her. That's where her focus was. And I think that is a really important lesson for all of us. I'm glad you brought that up.
Well, I want to make sure our listeners have all the information they need to benefit from your ministry. Once again, we have TruthLoveParent .com TruthLoveParent .com. And we also have A for Aaron, M for Michael, Brewster .com.
And Brewster is spelled B as in boy, R-E-W-S-T-E-R. Any other contact information you care to repeat?
You can also check out CelebrationOfGod .com. All of those will link you to very similar places and I'm really excited, Chris. Being on your show has introduced me to a bunch of new people who've been reaching out.
And thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with your audience. Amen.
I want to thank you so much for once again being a phenomenal guest as you always are. I want to thank our listeners, especially those who took the time to write. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.
Amen.