Contrite Courage: How the Guilty Lean on Grace

1:36 I shall look upon his vindication. So the message today is about brokenhearted boldness. Brokenhearted boldness is the phrase I hope you'll remember. The main point of the message is that since we sin against God every day, we should be brokenhearted. and since the throne of God is a throne of grace, we should be bold. You don't have to be brash to be bold.

2:20 You don't have to be coarse to be courageous. let's pray Father create in your people broken hearted boldness a new kind of people the world doesn't know this kind of people and it needs to so badly create them here right here this morning I pray this in Jesus name Amen So in one sense you could say this message is an attempt to put biblical foundations underneath one of my favorite quotations from Jonathan Edwards. Here's the quotation from his religious affections. All gracious affections are broken-hearted affections. A truly Christian love to God or men is a humble broken-hearted love.

3:21 Their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, brokenhearted joy. You got a category for that? If you don't, get it. Get it. Plead for it. Brokenhearted joy. and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior. So far, Jonathan Edwards. So our theme is brokenhearted boldness because the reality is that Christians sin Amen. God's people, Old Testament, New Testament, doesn't matter.

4:17 They sin, we sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. His truth is not in us. 1 John 1.8. So look at verse 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. So I think this is a godly confession. It's a good thing that he said that. It's inspired by God. It's the way we ought to talk. I think this is the way a justified New Testament sinner talks. the blood of Jesus you know covers all the sins of all the saints in the New Testament and the Old Testament that's the point of Romans 3 25 Christ died to show God's righteousness in passing over the sins of Micah and his people.

5:24 And he died to cover our sins. So I take the testimony here in Micah 7, 7-9 as a testimony of a godly person. His sins are covered by the blood of Jesus 700 years before Jesus died. I take this testimony in Micah 7, 7 to 9 as a testimony of a person who can say there is now no condemnation to those who trust God in the Old Testament. Therefore I take these verses as a model for you and me. I have sinned against God. This is the way Christians talk. This is the way Christians talk. I have sinned against God.

6:22 I will not try to defend myself. I will not try to lessen my guilt. I will bear the indignation of the Lord. He has every right to be angry with me. His child. I will put my hand on my mouth. I will bear my back to his rod. for I have sinned, and the Lord of glory is angry with me, and I am brokenhearted. I have sinned against my Savior. I have sinned against my Father. Then look at the next two lines of verse 9. Until he pleads my cause, I will bear the indignation of the Lord until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.

7:33 This God, the same God under whose frown I feel so brokenhearted. I'm saying, and I'm going to stay right here, my hand on my mouth, right on my back, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me, not against me. This is the way you talk with your guilt. You could call it gutsy guilt. I debated whether to title the sermon Gutsy Guilt or Brokenhearted Boldness. Whatever you like. I have sinned against him, and so I am brokenhearted under his holy indignation.

8:29 But this very God, this very same God, will plead my cause. He will take my side. He will vindicate me. And so I will be bold. I will be bold before him in his grace. broken under the indignation and bold under His grace. This sermon is an effort to help you experience gutsy guilt,

9:02 brokenhearted boldness. What's remarkable about verse 9 is that these two things are so closely held together. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, and he will plead my cause. There's a lot of you, a lot of us, who feel, I can't live that way. That's a contradiction in my personality. I can't do it. Keeping those two things so close together, if we think God is angry with us, we collapse in despair. If we think we don't have any sin, we deny the truth. So we either think, well, there's no place for brokenheartedness in the Christian life, or some naive notion of how sin should be treated.

10:07 You see, you know, I consider it precious beyond description that I am justified by grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of the righteousness of Christ alone, for the glory of God alone. I love that truth. It's not an accident. I've written two books on justification by faith. I love the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. We got that clear? It's my life, your life, our life. That, however, does not mean God doesn't have fatherly indignation toward his children. It just doesn't mean that.

11:03 It doesn't mean God doesn't have displeasure toward his children. It doesn't mean that God doesn't get angry at us. He disciplines every child that he receives. You have not yet resisted under the shedding of blood. Hebrews 12, 6. Justified saints can please God and displease God. You did yesterday, this morning. Colossians 1.10 That holy God of indignation, that Father, that Savior. never rejects us, never is contemptuous toward us.

11:59 I don't know if you know that word. Never is contemptuous toward us. You're contemptuous toward your kid if you say to him, you're just a jerk. You'll never amount to anything. I don't know why I even have you. God doesn't talk like that. He will never condemn us. and he will only do what's good for us, only and always. So, the message today is keep two things together which many feel like they can't keep together. I just can't. I can't deal with those two things. Grace of God, displeasure of God, indignation of God, mercy of God. I can't keep those together.

12:53 And I'm pleading with you, keep them together. It's biblical to keep them together. It's mature to keep them together. It's holy to keep them together. They're not opposites. When we sin, let's accept the indignation of God. Let's not deny it. Let's not hide ourselves from it. Let's be bold, however, and believe. Let's believe this very God will plead my cause. He will plead my cause. He will vindicate me. He will bring me out to the light.

13:31 Broken-hearted boldness. Let's step back now and get the big picture in Micah. We need a bigger setting here to feel the force of this in his and our situation. So here's Micah, Judea, southern kingdom, and he's prophesying during the rain according to verse 1 of chapter 1 of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This is about 700 years before Jesus, 2,700 years before this moment. The great political enemy of the time is Assyria. Micah saw Assyria wipe out Damascus and the northern kingdom, and he is watching the threat against the southern kingdom where he is ministering.

14:30 However, the most destructive enemy five minutes out of time. of Israel is not Assyria. It is Judea's sin. My wife and I have lived in the same house for 42 years. Our neighborhood is considered challenging, and we have prayed on our knees at our bed. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say thousands of times. Father, as we go to bed tonight, protect us from sin and Satan and sickness and sabotage. And I realized later I was leaving out storm, natural disaster.

15:27 Sabotage is when they set your house on fire and sickness. You know what that is? And that is in the order of their danger. the greatest enemy of the Piper family on that corner is John Piper's and Noel Piper's sin it's not anybody in the neighborhood nobody goes to hell because of somebody else's sin you go to hell because of your own sin that's the great danger in this room right now you're all sinners and therefore you need to learn how to deal with this let's just assume you're all Christians I wouldn't change anything I just said So Assyria is not the main problem.

16:20 Those hordes are a piece of cake. 185,000 fell in one night. Snaps his finger, Assyrians are dead. 185,000 soldiers in one night. These are not the problem. Assyria and Babylon was not the danger. It was the sin of the people. So look at chapter 2. Let's get specific. Chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil upon their beds. When the morning dawns, they perform it because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and seize them, the houses, and take them away.

17:18 They oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Covetousness, greed, love of money, fraud, abuse of power, oppression of those without any power. This is all the effort to find their happiness in what stuff they can get, stuff they can buy. The happiness of having and they'll do anything to get it. Chapter 6 verses 11 and 12, another example of the real enemy in Israel, in Judea. 611. Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales, with a bag of deceitful weights? Your rich men are full of violence. Your inhabitants speak lies.

18:16 Their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. So the businessmen and the entrepreneurs are deceitful and they're violent. Their business dealings are fraudulent. They trick people. Their weights are hollow. You put a five ounce weight on the scale, hollowed out, it balances with three ounces of cornmeal. The widow pays for five ounces, and you devour her house, Jesus says.

18:54 That's very common today. If someone threatens to expose them, you got enough power, you just have somebody beat them up in the alley and say, just keep your mouth shut. We can ruin your life. it's not just business people look at chapter 3 verse 5 it's the preachers it's the pastors the prophets the clergy this too we see today chapter 3 verse 5 thus says the Lord concerning the prophets that'd be me that'd be me Thank you. who lead their people astray, who cry peace when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing in their mouths.

19:50 They preach for hire. They preach for the rich people in the congregation, so they meet the budget and build the building quicker, and the pastor eats fine. It was an evil day. It is an evil day. Micah had an unpopular job to do, warning the people of the real problem, the corruption, business, commerce, religion, politics. They're all shot through with sin, and God's going to bring judgment. at verse 10 of chapter 4. Chapter 4 verse 10. Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion. So that's the people of Israel in the southern kingdom. Like a woman in travail, for now you shall go forth from the city and dwell in the open country.

20:53 You shall go to Babylon. Babylon is just the rod. It was the sin that sent them to Babylon. So how should how should those people respond to that kind of preaching? Full of indictment, warning about judgment. Now, before I show you what the answer to that question is, how should they respond to that preaching? Let's just make sure we know that the question is, how should we respond to that preaching? That's the real question, because the church today needs the warnings of Micah. I don't want to overstate the case, okay? I'm at Capitol Hill. I think there are churches that are well taught growing in grace relatively mature and godly and holy a city on a hill but there are churches where the level of holiness is such that the worship leader is sleeping with his girlfriend, I say that just because I'm in a small group with my two friends, and one of them leads another small group that welcomes people besides his own church, and that's what he's dealing with in Minneapolis.

22:29 And the guy's indignant. But 1 Corinthians 5, he's just proud of it. And David's kind of jaw-dropped, like, what? There are churches where the elders have hidden lives of lust and lewdness. There are churches where the pastors have lost all sense of urgency for the lost, all sense of passion for Jesus. They spend more time carving ducks in their basement than they do praying for their people. There are churches where the missionaries have been sent out and they're telling the church, we have 30 unreached people groups that we can drive to within two hours, and they want missionaries. And so when the churches send over inquiring part-time, short-term teams, they go home and say, it's too hot there.

23:26 The medical facilities are too far away. So they stay unreached. There are churches with saints who aren't reading their Bibles. They're just watching the same sin-soaked television shows that the world watches. There are churches where the pride is high, that they have personal holiness, and nobody feels any compassion for the poor. It's just not the thing you do in that church. So the question, how do you respond to Micah's preaching, is not just how should they respond. The question is how should we respond? How should America respond? How should lots of Christian churches respond? There's no one, there's no Christian who does not need to deal with ongoing repentance.

24:32 None. Now Micah shows two kinds of responses. One's good, one's bad. And they both depend on grace. Okay, so you can respond leaning on grace. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms on your way to hell. Yes, you can. I'm going to show it to you. So there's a wrong way to lean on grace. There's a right way to lean on grace. They're both here in Micah, and they're really, really important for you to grasp, lest you find yourself leaning the wrong way. So look at chapter 3, verse 11.

25:13 This is the wrong one. This is the wrong way. Chapter 3, verse 11. He's speaking to the judges and the priests and the prophets. He calls them heads, the heads. So verse 11, chapter 3. its heads, Jerusalem's heads, Israel's heads give judgment for a bribe. Its priests teach for hire. Its prophets divine for money. Yet they lean upon the Lord and say, is not the Lord in our midst? The midst of us. No disaster shall come upon us. What? What's that? they respond by saying, we're secure. Why do they think they're secure?

26:10 God is in our midst. There's the temple. You know what's in that temple? The Ark of the Covenant is in the temple. You know what the covenant means? We're the people. Abraham is our father. It's a covenant of grace. We're leaning on that. Well, they cheat. God has been very good to me over the years, and one of the ways he was good to me was when I was a senior in college to lead me to Bonhoeffer's cost of discipleship. before I say what happened let's look at chapter 2 verse 6 So what do they say to Micah?

27:07 What do these people leaning on the everlasting arms of the covenant say? They say, do not preach. Thus they preach. One should not preach such things. Disgrace will not overtake us. What did Bonhoeffer call that? I'll bet hundreds of you know the answer to that. Anybody want to? He called it cheap grace. You know who Bonhoeffer was. Not everybody in this room probably knows who Bonhoeffer was, but he was hanged at Himmler's demand in the Second World War, April 9, 1945, in Flossenburg Concentration Camp. And he had written, I think, eight years earlier, yes, it was 1937 that he wrote the book, The Cost of Discipleship. And I had my copy. I got it out.

28:06 I thought, bring it along, but because it says, written right on the front, $1.45. I thought, that'd be cool. Just hold that up. You could buy a paperback for $1.45 when I was a senior in college. And that was one of the best dollars I ever spent. Here's what he said. Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. Our church meaning the church just about to be in the grip of Hitler, 1937. Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, It's baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. The only man who has the right to say that he's justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.

29:10 That's what I was reading as a senior in college. What a gift. What a gift. to be shaken, just shaken at 21 years old because it was the fall of 67. Just shaken. Don't do that. Don't be like that. Don't waste your life on that kind of crummy grace. Come on, wake up, Piper. What a gift. They lean upon the Lord and say, Is not the Lord in our midst? No disaster shall come upon us. Chapter 3, verse 11. In Bonhoeffer's day, he said, we Lutherans have gathered like eagles around the carcass of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ.

30:08 Today, it is, I think, rampant among American evangelicals. I don't think we have a category for the kind of grace that breaks your heart and makes you brokenhearted and bold at the same time. It's not wrong to lean on grace. Right? There's two ways to lean. Thank you. So, what's the other way? What's the right way? That's what this sermon is about. What's the right way to lean on grace? It's the way of brokenhearted boldness in Micah 7, 7 to 9. This person talking here, it's probably an embodiment of the faithful remnant of Israel, the believing remnant.

31:04 the right way is brokenhearted boldness. So let me sum it up in four steps and just point to the text because it's just so obvious how the text tells us how to respond to our sin and God's grace. Number one, brokenhearted boldness begins with the unshakable solidarity with God. I get that from verse seven. Look at verse seven. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God, my God will hear me. Wow, that's bold. Like really? Who do you think you are? He's my God. Can you say that? I hope you can. So we begin there.

31:56 It's the way a traitor, which we all were, Thank you. responds when suddenly he's awakened to his danger and the greatness and beauty and wonder and worth of the rightful sovereign. And the traitor lays down, he lays down the weapons of his opposition. He accepts the terms of pardon. He falls on his face. He takes the oath of allegiance and he says, my king and the king says, my son, that's where it starts. If you have never done that, if you've never come to that point in your life, you've thrown down all the weapons of your resistance to God, just throw them down. Just throw them down. That's why you're here this morning. I'm done. I'm done fighting God. I'm done making any kind of excuses for my sin.

32:59 just lay them down. What are the terms? Come to Jesus. Trust Jesus. Embrace all the forgiveness that there is in Jesus. That's step one. My God. Number two, brokenhearted boldness accepts the indignation of God when we sin against this Savior, this sovereign that we've bound ourselves to, and he's bound us to himself. We don't minimize the ugliness of our sin. We don't make excuses. We don't deny. We don't play games. We just accept it.

33:46 We don't say, God can't get angry because I'm justified. I'm in Jesus. I'm in Jesus. I'm perfect in Jesus. He sees me in Jesus. So he can't get angry with me. You got half the story. Yes, he can. Without showing any contempt, without rejecting you, and working everything together for your good at the same time. Yes, he can. And he does. He does. So we don't say he can't get angry with us. Instead, we tremble at his displeasure. We're broken by our sin. We're contrite. We're remorseful. So I get that from verse 9. I'm giving you a verse for each of these points. You can test whether you think it's in the Bible or not. Verse 9, I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. I just think that's one of the greatest needs of Washington, D.C.

34:42 Everybody works in these big white buildings. Everybody in this room. I will bear the indignation of the Lord. No excuses. I will humble myself. I will go low. I will acknowledge that I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. I will sit quietly. I will sit humbly in the ashes of my horrible behavior yesterday.

35:08 Under the cloud of God's disfavor. and I will bear his indignation with patience. That's number two. Number three, brokenhearted boldness never loses confidence in the grace of God, but boldly believes that this very God of indignation will plead my cause.

35:35 He will bring us out of the darkness of our guilt into the light of life. So, the rest of verse 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. Not against me, for me. He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his vindication. Gutsy guilt. it's not brash, it's not coarse, it's not harsh, but oh, is it bold? You can't break it.

36:19 There's just so many people today, you think you've got to be ugly and brash and coarse to look bold. I hate that. Where'd that come from? Jesus was bold. childlike boldness is a reality. It can be done. We need another way to be bold.

36:46 I sure hope you believe that. You don't need to be a willow branch in order to be meek. Don't. Just read it. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him. I'm sorry. I'm such a sinner. I'm sorry. and my God is coming for me. He's going to show up.

37:18 He's going to vindicate me. He's going to bring me out to the light. That's number three. So, let's look at verse eight as well before I go to number four. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

37:42 The difference between cheap grace and brokenhearted boldness is that we take our sin seriously. It's just horrible that I sinned. Why am I like that? I mean, the Apostle Paul said, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I will bear the indignation of the Lord. I will sit in darkness, verse 8. I will patiently wait until he comes. I think if you don't have that category of brokenhearted boldness, you're going to become a shallow and inauthentic person. You just won't take sin seriously and your joy will be glib.

38:26 But there in the ashes of his regret, there's this flame of boldness that never goes out. Sometimes it might flicker. I mean, Satan's number one strategy is deceit, right? And he lies to you. He deceives you. And one of the lies he's going to tell is, you blew it again. You're not a real Christian. You're not a Christian. You can't live the Christian life. It's an impossible life to live. That's the talk of Satan. And when this man hears that, he says, enemy, when I fall, I will rise. What an amazing statement. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. So you can just go to hell, Satan. That's where you belong. Not in my living room, not in my bedroom, not in my kitchen. You just get out of here because when I fall, I will rise.

39:23 Finally, number four, the mark of brokenhearted boldness, the right way to lean on grace. Since we believe that God is our only hope and that he's angry at our sin, we just keep scanning the horizon for God's timing of relief. I don't have any formula for how long the darkness should last.

39:57 When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. he will bring me out. How long is that? Five minutes? Maybe. That's okay. If it's real, a day, a year, seasons of darkness. I surely don't want them to last. I'm not even advocating that they last. I just don't know how long it might last. I just say, when you're in that moment of, I have blown it again. and I'm not going to make any excuses, I'm a sinner, I need a Savior, I feel rotten for what I've done against you, Lord, then you scan the horizon for his showing up. He's going to show up. It says so. He will bring me out to the light.

40:48 So, closing. Capitol Hill and guests bear the indignation of the Lord when you sin against him boldly believe that he's going to plead your cause he's going to plead your cause he's going to bring you out to the light look to him wait for him call him my God that's my closing question can you say that can everybody in this room sitting back there this balcony here called us the West Wing that balcony there all the way around can you say he's my God I have embraced his son who made a way for me as a sinner to be his subject, his son he is my God so with an unshakable solidarity between you and him which isn't inherited, it's just embraced as a free gift.

42:02 So let him break you. Let him bless you. And let him make you bald. Father, I pray that there would be a rising tide in our day of brokenhearted boldness. Everybody knows who cares about biblical truth that we need boldness today. It doesn't seem to me that as many people care about brokenheartedness or lowliness or meekness. So God, I plead with you. There is coming a day in heaven at the second coming when we will sin no more. That will be a good day. There'll be no more brokenheartedness for sin. We're not there yet.

42:57 And since we're not, would you teach this imperfect people, this sinning people, and me? how to be brokenhearted and bold for the glory of Christ, we pray in Jesus' name.