Audio Transcript

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the podcast with us. We appreciate that you listen along each week. On this Monday, Pastor John, I want to look at Psalm 111. There we find a great promise for life: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). I suspect this is a line that a lot of us know well — we know by heart, likely. A lot of listeners have memorized this verse over the years. Many of us have underlined or highlighted it in our Bibles, tweeted it or shared it online at some point. I’ve seen it on coffee mugs and wall hangings. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

But there’s a Christian Hedonist spin to this text I hadn’t noticed until I saw something you said about it a few years back. You quoted the text and then you said, “As so often in Scripture, what happens in the heart governs what happens in the mind.” So here, fear in the heart leads to wisdom in the mind. We so often approach things the other way around: from our head into our heart, getting things from our head into our heart. Explain how this works in the other direction — how our hearts govern what happens in our minds.

When I say that the heart governs the mind, I don’t mean that when our minds are renewed by the Holy Spirit, they can’t exert good influence upon our heart. I don’t mean to exclude that. They do. Renewed thinking helps renewed feeling. That’s true. All through the Bible, right knowing has the purpose of producing right feeling as well as right acting. We know God in order to love God.

Ten times in 1 Corinthians, Paul says, “Do you not know?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 5:6; 6:2, 3, 9, 15, 16, 19; 9:13, 24) — with the implication, “If you knew rightly, then you’d think differently, feel differently, act differently about what you’re about to do.” And in 1 Thessalonians 4:5, Paul says to not give yourself over to “the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God,” implying that a right knowledge of God would have a subduing effect upon the passions of our heart. So, I’m not denying that God has given us renewed, Bible-formed reason as one way of shaping the emotions of our heart.

Power of the Heart

Where do I get the idea that it works the other way around as well — namely, that a heart whose desires go after evil will be blinded from seeing the truth about God in his ways and works, and a heart that desires to go after God and what is good will see the truth more easily? In other words, the condition of the heart and its desires have a huge effect on whether or not we will be able to see God and his ways and his works for what they really are.

Let me just give some Bible passages that point to this power of our hearts — our desires over our mind’s thoughts.

Darkened Love

In John 3:19, Jesus says, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light.” They don’t come to the light. They reject the truth. They don’t embrace the truth with their minds. And the reason Jesus gives is not that they don’t have sufficient light or sufficient evidence or knowledge. The reason he gives is this: they love the darkness. Why don’t they see the light? Because they love the dark. It’s a love issue, right? It’s a heart issue. This is what I mean when I say the heart governs the mind. What the heart loves can blind the mind to the light, the truth.

Hardened Heart

Here’s the way Paul gets at the same thing. He describes the Gentiles who reject the gospel like this: “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:18). He moves toward the bottom of our problem, passing through four layers. Where does it end? What’s at the bottom of our problem, our darkness?

He says darkened, alienated, ignorant, hard. The bottom of our problem is not ignorance. There’s something beneath ignorance that brings about culpable ignorance and holds us in the dark prison of ignorance — namely, hardness of heart. That’s not primarily an intellectual problem; that’s a desire problem. Hardness of heart is stiff-necked resistance to God because we love our independence from God. We hate the idea of being under absolute authority. We love our autonomy, our self-sufficiency, our self-direction, our self-exaltation. We bristle with hardness, stiffness against any suggestion of absolute dependence on another, especially God.

Paul says that the effect of this hardness of heart is ignorance and alienation and darkness. But the root issue is not intellectual. It’s a love issue. It’s a desire issue.

Bent Will

Or consider this amazing word from Jesus in John 7:17: “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” This is one of the clearest statements in the Bible that right-willing precedes and enables right-knowing.

“Since proud hardness of heart is the root problem, God-given humility is the remedy.”

I remember hearing that for the first time in a chapel message at Wheaton College. I think it was 1966. I remember thinking, “That’s amazing.” I remember walking out thinking, “That’s amazing that my willing has to be changed in order for me to know the truth.” It’s not just the other way around. My whole mindset was that it’s the other way around. Knowing will change my will. “I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know.” Well, actually, no. Right-willing will enable right-knowing.

It was two years later, Tony — it was two years until my first year in seminary, where all the pieces fell together, and I realized we have to be born again. We have to have a new will, a new heart. Something has to happen to us to change us from the inside so that we can know things the way we ought to know them, which means God is sovereignly in control over rescuing me from my sinful heart, my bent will. I cannot will myself out of willing the wrong thing. It’s not going to work. My will is bent by nature. It’s called original sin. I love the wrong things, and I need God to intervene to change my will so that I can know God rightly.

Gift of Humility

So, the lesson is: apart from God’s Spirit, all of us have sinful hearts that are prone to take our minds captive and make them produce arguments that justify the sinful behaviors that we love. That’s the kind of control I’m talking about. We are all prone to self-justification — all of us. I really, really want to do something that’s sinful, so my desires exert a powerful influence on my mind to create arguments that show me it’s not sinful; it’s okay. That’s the way it works. That’s the way it’s working all through our culture today.

And since proud hardness of heart is the root problem, God-given humility is the remedy. Psalm 25:9 says, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” So, we ask God to break our hardness and replace our pride with humility, and in that way make it possible for us to see God — to see his ways and his works for what they really are. When God changes our hearts, then our hearts serve the mind rather than blinding the mind.

Audio Transcript

Are there morally neutral areas of life? That’s the first question on the table as we begin this new week together. Welcome back to the podcast, and thank you for making us a part of your weekly routine.

The question is from Mary Beth, who lives in Arkansas. She writes, “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. A question has been troubling me for a while. It’s this one. I’m wondering if everything in life is either a good thing or a sin. Or are there some ‘okay’ things that aren’t sin, but aren’t exactly good? Sometimes I do things that don’t seem beneficial. I can’t tell if I need forgiveness for them. I usually ask for forgiveness anyways. I guess basically my question boils down to that. Pastor John, yes or no, are there morally neutral areas of life?”

I can’t give a yes or a no answer until I clarify some terms. So what is sin? What is the moral good? What does morally neutral mean? This is one of those great illustrations of how simply defining our terms virtually answers the question. It’s a great lesson to learn. I recommend it to everybody. I find that most arguments people are having go round and round because the terms are not defined with any biblical precision. And the reason I say biblical precision is because if you don’t have an authority that you can both agree on, then you probably won’t even be able to define your terms in a way that you both can agree on, and you’ll just be stuck.

Our culture right now is stuck because we don’t share much common ground under our disputes. And a stuck culture is a dangerous thing, because if there’s no agreed-upon arbiter of truth claims, then what comes in to fill that void is usually raw power. If some common ground doesn’t decide what’s right, then might makes right. Or more to the point here, if a shared authority, like the Bible, does not decide the definition of our terms, then the one with the most power will decide how words are going to be used. And that’s how the Holocaust happened. That’s how race-based slavery happened. That’s how abortion happens. The powerful decide how the word person is going to be used and who fits with it and who doesn’t. And without an agreed-upon authority to arbitrate, the powerful define the terms to suit their preference.

Well, that’s way more than Mary Beth asked for. In fact, she didn’t ask for that at all, but now and then I like to explain on this podcast why I make such a big deal out of defining our terms.

What Is Sin?

So here’s my effort to clarify the terms of Mary Beth’s question. “Is everything in life,” she says, “a good thing or a sin? Are there morally neutral areas?” That’s her question.

So what is sin? There are at least two passages in Paul that I think get at the heart of what sin is. One is Romans 1–3. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of [or literally, lack] the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And I connect that statement with Romans 1:23, where humans exchange the glory of God for the glory of created things, including the human self, my glory (Romans 1:23). That’s my favorite idol, right? So I think what Romans 3:23 means is that all human beings sin in that we prefer created glory over God’s glory. We exchange God’s glory for something we prefer. We lack or fall short of the glory of God.

So sin is first — this is my definition drawn from Romans — the disposition of the human heart to prefer human glory, especially self-glory, over God’s glory. And then secondarily, sins (plural) would be the attitudes and words and actions that stem from that disposition. That’s my definition of sin from Romans 1–3.

The other passage that defines the heart of sin is Romans 14:21–23, where Paul is talking about eating meat and drinking wine. And he says, “Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Wow. That’s pretty sweeping. Paul is willing to define sin as whatever is not from faith, which I think — when you analyze it carefully, down to the bottom — is really the same as the definition in Romans 1–3.

“If the disposition of our heart is not to receive Christ, then what comes from that heart is sin.”

If the disposition of our heart is not to receive Christ — I’m thinking of what faith is right now, namely, to own Christ as our supreme Savior and guide and treasure — then what comes from that heart is sin. That heart is the same as the heart that prefers created glory over God’s glory.

Acting from Faith

Now, with that definition of sin, the definition of what is morally good follows as the flip side of sin or evil. Moral good is the disposition of the heart to prefer God over all, or to treasure God in Christ over all, so that the attitudes and words and actions that stem from that heart are good, morally good.

Now, there are two other ways to describe this moral good, because they result from acting in faith or a preference for the superior worth of God in Christ. One is to say that the moral good is those attitudes and words and actions that God has commanded (1 John 5:2). The other is to say that the moral good is attitudes and words and actions that aim to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31). So we’re actually on safest ground, I think, to say that what is morally good has all three of these traits:

It comes from faith.
It accords with God’s commands.
It aims to glorify God.

That’s the moral good.

For His Glory

So here’s the implication about whether there are neutral areas of life, because that’s what she’s asking about. If we mean, “Are there actions considered without any reference to humans doing those actions, just actions in the abstract?” the answer is yes. There are thousands of such morally neutral (in that sense) actions, like walking down the street, drinking a glass of water, or putting on your shoes.

“If you do something from faith that’s not forbidden in the Scriptures, it has moral goodness, no matter what it is.”

It’s not so much that they are morally neutral, though — I’m a little skittish about that phrase — but that they have no moral standing at all until a human being is doing them. As soon as someone does them, no matter how simple, no matter how supposedly neutral, they cease to be neutral. They become moral because, Paul said, “Whatever you do, do all” — put on your shoes, walk down the street — “to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And either we do that or we don’t. And that criterion makes them either sin or not sin. And in the same way, we could ask, “Did we do them from faith?” Whatever is not from faith is sin. Did I put on my shoes from a disposition of faith? If not, Paul says, it is a sin. You can put on your shoes rebelliously. You really can.

I think what this means for Mary Beth’s concern is this: if an action or attitude is not forbidden or commanded in the Bible, then the question for her (and for all of us) is, Am I moved to do this action by faith and by a desire to glorify God? If so, then she invests that seemingly neutral act with moral goodness. If you do something from faith that’s not forbidden in the Scriptures, it has moral goodness, no matter what it is. And if not, then no matter how neutral the act may seem, she makes it a sin because it’s not done in reliance upon Christ or for his glory.

If you were teaching the Lord’s Prayer to someone for the first time — a child, a neighbor, a co-worker, or friend — which line would you feel the most need to explain?

Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come,your will be done,     on earth as it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread,and forgive us our debts,     as we also have forgiven our debtors.And lead us not into temptation,     but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9–13)

As you rehearse those familiar lines, which one begs for more explanation? Maybe it’s the first, Why do we call the God of the universe “Father”? Or perhaps the second, What does it mean to “hallow” something, much less a name? What about the will of God — what is it and how would we recognize it on earth? Or that haunting last line, What kind of evil is surrounding and threatening us?

However we might answer, we have Jesus’s answer to the question. He chooses to say more about just one line, and it’s not the one many of us might think.

Do You Pray for Your Sin?

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he started with the kingdom of God, the will of God, and the glory of God — you can almost hear the replies, Amen! Amen! Amen! And then, as suddenly as he entered the manger, he climbed down into the nitty-gritty of our earthly lives: “Give us this day our daily bread . . .” Give us all we need for today. Who could refuse such provision?

The next line, however, may have been more jarring:

. . . and forgive us our debts,     as we also have forgiven our debtors.

When you pray, Jesus says, remember how you have offended God. Remember how you’ve failed him again today, how far short you have fallen of his kingdom, his will, his glory — and then ask him for forgiveness.

Whatever else you pray, he teaches, make sure you pray for this. Each day that you wake up, you will need to eat and you will need to be forgiven. Your stomach will rumble and your soul will rebel. So pray and live accordingly.

Hunger Pangs of the Heart

Most Christians pray daily for bread (if not for God to provide it before it comes, then to thank him once it’s on the table). How many of us, however, pray as persistently for our sin as we do for our meals? Why might that be?

Well, for one, because we viscerally sense our need for food. We ache. We may be able to skip meals here and there, but not many and not for long. And when we do, our bodies let us hear about it. We take it for granted, but there’s a magic tying our brains to our intestines, telling us when we need to eat. We don’t have to constantly record what we eat to survive; our bodies push notifications when it’s time for lunch or a snack or a drink of water. We’re less likely to forget food because our hunger eventually shouts over everything else.

For various reasons, though, we often have a harder time hearing the rumblings of our sinful hearts. The heart has its own voice, but it doesn’t physically overwhelm us like hunger can. The pangs of the heart reveal as much or more as hunger, but we learn to live with them. Restlessness. Anxiety. Irritability. Sluggishness. Impatience. Grumbling. If we notice them at all, we learn to excuse them instead of addressing them.

The symptoms of remaining sin are saying what Jesus clearly taught: We need to be forgiven — and far more often than we want to acknowledge. The prayer, “Forgive us our sins,” is an honest, gracious, and daily reminder of a constant need.

Isn’t Forgiveness Finished?

We also might not pray more often for forgiveness, though, because we assume we’ve already been forgiven. If our debt is already paid in full, why would we need to keep asking God to forgive us? When Jesus died on the cross, he announced that his atoning work was complete: “It is finished” (John 19:30). So why would he teach us to pray as if forgiveness was somehow an ongoing need?

Justification — full acceptance with God, through faith alone — is not a new need each day, like our need for daily bread. If you’re justified by grace through faith today, you do not need to be re-justified tomorrow. “Since we have been justified by faith,” Romans 5:1, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since we have been justified, we have peace with God — and that peace isn’t undone by today’s or tomorrow’s sins. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Eternal condemnation isn’t a weed that creeps back into the garden overnight. For those truly in Christ, it’s dead and gone for good.

“By regularly asking for forgiveness, we draw the finished work of Christ into today’s temptations and failures.”

Still Jesus teaches us to pray (and keep praying), “Forgive us our debts.” Why? Because justified sinners are still sinners, and sin still disrupts our communion with God. Sin cannot damn the truly justified — their debt has been canceled, their curse lifted, their wrath removed. That doesn’t mean sin isn’t offensive or damaging to relationships, including with God. By regularly asking for forgiveness, we draw the finished work of Christ into today’s temptations and failures — and we renew and sweeten the fellowship we enjoy with him because of that finished work.

We see this dynamic when James exhorts us, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). These believers have already been justified, but they’re still sinning and still feeling the awful consequences of sin, which leads them to pray, confess, and ask for forgiveness. And as they pray, they push back the painful havoc sin causes. In this case, they’re healed.

How Not to Be Forgiven

We still haven’t heard Jesus explain this line in the prayer, though. After he finishes the prayer, he specifically returns to the petition for forgiveness:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14–15)

He doesn’t dig further into God’s will or shed light on the dangers of evil; no, he impresses on them how spiritually urgent it is that they forgive. He warns them that their prayers — all their prayers for everything else — will fall on deaf ears if they harbor bitterness and withhold forgiveness. The warning’s baked directly into the prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” The prayer for God to forgive presumes we’ve already done forgiving ourselves — so have we?

At least as often as we’ll need to eat, we’ll need to be forgiven. And almost as often as we’ll need to be forgiven, we’ll need to forgive. And we won’t be forgiven if we don’t go and do likewise. So who do you need to forgive? We cannot pray the rest of the Lord’s Prayer in any meaningful way if we refuse to forgive like he does.

Forgiveness Makes Prayer Possible

Jesus’s simple prayer reminds us that our sin problem is a daily problem. Every day, we do what we shouldn’t and don’t do what we should. We say what we shouldn’t and don’t say what we should. We think what we shouldn’t and don’t think what we should. The Lord’s Prayer exposes the rotten leftovers of our mutiny against God. And it reminds us, as often as we pray, that God still forgives — even today, even you, if you’ll humble yourself and ask him to.

“Even before Jesus received the nails, the thorns, the beams, he was teaching his friends how to receive the cross.”

Jesus didn’t say, “Remember your sin and wallow in shame and guilt.” No, he taught them to bring their sin and expect forgiveness in return. And why could they presume to be forgiven? Because, he knew his wounds would soon make this kind of prayer possible. He didn’t just teach them how to pray; he would die to give their prayers life and power before the throne. Even before he received the nails, the thorns, the beams, he was teaching his friends how to receive the cross.

So, when you pray, plead boldly for forgiveness in the name of Jesus. And before you pray, forgive like God so gladly forgives you.