After reading Robert Schuller's interview, I needed to cleanse my spiritual palate by listening to this 1982 sermon by John Piper on Isaiah 41:14 "Fear Not, You Worm Jacob!".
Here are excerpts (emphasis mine):
What, then, shall we say about our own day and the dominance of the gospel of self-esteem—the teaching that traces our problems back to the fundamental cause that we don't regard ourselves highly enough? What can you say to the American church where by and large the ultimate sin is no longer failure to honor God but the failure to esteem oneself; where self-abasement not God-abasement is the ultimate evil; and the cry of deliverance from this evil is not, "O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?" but rather, "O worthy man that I am, would that I could only see it better"? What shall we say?
The first thing I would say is this: Jacob is a worm. And until God has completed the miraculous work of our sanctification and made us perfect, we will still have in us enough of our old corruption to keep us poor in spirit and walking in all lowliness. I do not dispute that Christ has paid for our redemption and that the Holy Spirit has entered our lives and begun to transform us. But what needs to be emphasized is that to take this unimaginable divine condescension, this utterly free and unmerited grace by which God exalts his all-sufficiency, and to turn it into a story whose theme is my worthiness is a travesty of biblical revelation. What's more, it is not a contradiction of the atonement when I, a child of God, feel like a rotten worm for sinning against the God who died for me. I ask you, what should I think about myself when I sin? How should I regard my heart when it does not love mercy, is not aflame with righteousness, feels no compassion for the lost, takes no delight in the Word, recoils from prayer, harbors lustful thoughts, cherishes the praise of men? What adjectives shall I use to describe this heart?
You may say to me: Call it forgiven. And I answer: I do. O, I do. I do. But listen, forgiveness will not cause a ripple in the pool of my emotions unless I smell the stench of corruption in my heart. What is missing in the gospel of self-esteem is a vivid and horrid portrayal of the corruption remaining even in the Christian heart. C.S. Lewis said, "When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less." And John Murray wrote, "As long as sin remains there must be consciousness of it, and thus conviction of our own sinfulness will contain self-abhorrence, confession and the plea of forgiveness and cleansing." I think these men are absolutely right. And therefore the only way that I know how to account for the ease with which Christians accept the summons to self-esteem is that their sin has ceased to be hideous and revolting in the eyes of their hearts. And sin has ceased to be hideous because God is no longer God. He is not the all-glorious, sovereign Judge of history whose eyes are too pure to look on evil. Instead he is a vague, sentimental granddaddy who somehow functions to help us find self-worth.
Does this mean that God aims for us to cower before him and be incapacitated by guilt and depression and fear? No. (And this is the second point from our text.) "Fear not, you worm Jacob!" It does mean that we will be broken and contrite in spirit. And this brokenness will permeate and humble all that we do. But it is not the enemy of joy and courage. Jonathan Edwards, in one of my favorite portions, wrote,
'All gracious affections that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is an humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is an humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is an humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to an universal lowliness of behavior.'
To know that there is corruption left in our hearts and that our feeble affections dishonor the God who loved us does not mean we lie still, wallowing in the mud of guilt. It means we flee to Christ and cling to the cross and take refuge like little chicks under the wings of divine mercy. And there we gain courage to love, not because we regard ourselves highly, but because we regard grace as our all-sufficient supply.The word to worms who will admit their corruption, humble themselves, and take refuge in Jesus is, "Fear not, you worm Jacob."
Here are excerpts (emphasis mine):
What, then, shall we say about our own day and the dominance of the gospel of self-esteem—the teaching that traces our problems back to the fundamental cause that we don't regard ourselves highly enough? What can you say to the American church where by and large the ultimate sin is no longer failure to honor God but the failure to esteem oneself; where self-abasement not God-abasement is the ultimate evil; and the cry of deliverance from this evil is not, "O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?" but rather, "O worthy man that I am, would that I could only see it better"? What shall we say?
The first thing I would say is this: Jacob is a worm. And until God has completed the miraculous work of our sanctification and made us perfect, we will still have in us enough of our old corruption to keep us poor in spirit and walking in all lowliness. I do not dispute that Christ has paid for our redemption and that the Holy Spirit has entered our lives and begun to transform us. But what needs to be emphasized is that to take this unimaginable divine condescension, this utterly free and unmerited grace by which God exalts his all-sufficiency, and to turn it into a story whose theme is my worthiness is a travesty of biblical revelation. What's more, it is not a contradiction of the atonement when I, a child of God, feel like a rotten worm for sinning against the God who died for me. I ask you, what should I think about myself when I sin? How should I regard my heart when it does not love mercy, is not aflame with righteousness, feels no compassion for the lost, takes no delight in the Word, recoils from prayer, harbors lustful thoughts, cherishes the praise of men? What adjectives shall I use to describe this heart?
You may say to me: Call it forgiven. And I answer: I do. O, I do. I do. But listen, forgiveness will not cause a ripple in the pool of my emotions unless I smell the stench of corruption in my heart. What is missing in the gospel of self-esteem is a vivid and horrid portrayal of the corruption remaining even in the Christian heart. C.S. Lewis said, "When a man is getting better, he understands more clearly the evil that is still in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less." And John Murray wrote, "As long as sin remains there must be consciousness of it, and thus conviction of our own sinfulness will contain self-abhorrence, confession and the plea of forgiveness and cleansing." I think these men are absolutely right. And therefore the only way that I know how to account for the ease with which Christians accept the summons to self-esteem is that their sin has ceased to be hideous and revolting in the eyes of their hearts. And sin has ceased to be hideous because God is no longer God. He is not the all-glorious, sovereign Judge of history whose eyes are too pure to look on evil. Instead he is a vague, sentimental granddaddy who somehow functions to help us find self-worth.
Does this mean that God aims for us to cower before him and be incapacitated by guilt and depression and fear? No. (And this is the second point from our text.) "Fear not, you worm Jacob!" It does mean that we will be broken and contrite in spirit. And this brokenness will permeate and humble all that we do. But it is not the enemy of joy and courage. Jonathan Edwards, in one of my favorite portions, wrote,
'All gracious affections that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is an humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is an humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is an humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to an universal lowliness of behavior.'
To know that there is corruption left in our hearts and that our feeble affections dishonor the God who loved us does not mean we lie still, wallowing in the mud of guilt. It means we flee to Christ and cling to the cross and take refuge like little chicks under the wings of divine mercy. And there we gain courage to love, not because we regard ourselves highly, but because we regard grace as our all-sufficient supply.The word to worms who will admit their corruption, humble themselves, and take refuge in Jesus is, "Fear not, you worm Jacob."
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