The Balm of Grace for Your Broken Life

THE BALM OF GRACE FOR YOUR BROKEN LIFE

Learning to Live in the Freedom of God’s Forgiveness

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: June 15, 2025

Series: Key Teachings for Your Spiritual Health

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

This morning I would like to address a common problem that Christians often have in their spiritual experience. The sermon is titled: “The Balm of Grace for Your Broken Life: Learning to Live in the Freedom of God’s Forgiveness”.

The impetus for today’s sermon is a few conversations that I have had with some of you over the past two weeks. Two people, one older and the other younger, asked me: ‘What should I do when I cannot forgive myself?’ Then two other people told me that they are presently unable to forgive themselves, although they hope that they might get to that point eventually. So in just two weeks, four people have indicated that this is an issue that they struggle with. I don’t think this problem is limited to those four people. It is quite likely that many people among us are dealing with this weighty issue.

People who claim to believe that God is merciful and forgiving may nevertheless be stuck in the memory of their past sins. If this is you, you live with regret, guilt, and shame. You replay your sins over and over again, you feel terrible about yourself, you feel defined and paralyzed by the remembrance of your past sins, you feel uncomfortable in your own skin, and you try various remedies to manage your guilt. At times you may feel worthless, useless, hopeless, and unlovable.

Sometimes you hate yourself, you hate what you’ve done, you hate what you’ve become, and there seems to be no way out. The prospect of walking emotionally and psychologically in the freedom of God’s grace, of your soul resting in God’s forgiveness and applying His forgiveness to yourself, seems like a pipe dream. You have no idea how to be kind to yourself. The memory of your sin has a tighter grip on your soul than the promise of God’s forgiveness.

If that’s you or sometimes you, this sermon is dedicated to you. This sermon is dedicated to everyone who, when you look into the mirror, you see a shattered soul and disfigured image, you see spiritual and mental ruins, you see agony and desperation, and you see no way out. Frankly, you’re disappointed that you have to live with yourself. You wish you were someone else, someone over there who seems to exhibit peace and joy. This sermon is designed to give you hope. My aim is to help you see your own beautiful but broken story in the light of the larger story of God’s redeeming race. Perhaps God might be pleased to shine a little light into your soul today.

The format of this sermon

What I’m going to do is to take a little bit less than the first half of this sermon to preach the gospel message that I’m always preaching. Then in the second half of the sermon I’m going to be applying the gospel message precisely in view of the particular problem that has come to my attention.

TRACING YOUR STORY

Where your story begins

First, I want to remind you where your story begins. Your story begins as a human being made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). The Creator’s likeness is imprinted and stamped upon you. God knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16). You are beautiful and special. You possess dignity and worth.

Sometimes in our eagerness to preach about humanity’s sinfulness, we forget to tell people that they are valuable. Satan likes to blind people from their value and worth as God’s image-bearers. Sometimes people grow up thinking that their life is a biochemical accident or a cosmic joke. Sometimes people are told that they are worthless and they are treated like they are worthless, and so it’s no wonder that they internalize this message and are haunted by the thought that they are a cheap, no-good, unloved conglomeration of dirt. They don’t know that there is a loving and tenderhearted Father in heaven. Perhaps in part because they didn’t have a good earthly father. Beautiful children enter into the world, but their innocence and dignity and voice are stolen from them, and they conclude that the whole thing is their fault. Satan, “the father of lies” (John 8:44), always comes to steal and destroy (John 10:10), and then he abandons you to the broken pieces of your soul.

I am sorry for every time that someone communicated to you with words or with actions that you aren’t valuable, that you aren’t worth it, that you don’t matter. And I’m here this morning to tell you that your life is priceless, your personality is uniquely special, and your potential is vast. The holiest Man who ever set foot on this planet consistently communicated the value of people made in God’s image. Jesus conveyed grace to children, women, fishermen, Jewish tax collectors, Roman soldiers, lepers, people troubled by demons, and even to the theologians who should have known better.

Where you story gets lost

Second, I want to remind you where your story gets lost – where you get lost. Ever since Adam and Eve plunged the human race into sin, we are all born with a hereditary and deadly disease called sin. Every single one of us is a sinner by nature and by choice (Romans 5:12-21). Apart from the redeeming grace of Christ, we are all caught up in the insanity of sin and enslaved to sin’s enticing power. In and of ourselves as sinners, each one of us is radically and pervasively messed up: “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10); “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Sin is rebelling against God, transgressing God’s commandments, violating God’s boundaries, bowing down to idols, chasing folly instead of wisdom, pursuing lies instead of truth, preferring the domain of darkness instead of the light from heaven, putting ourselves at the center instead of God, using people for self-serving purposes instead of serving people for God’s purposes. We get enamored by sit-coms and game-shows, but we ignore the God who made us. We scroll through endless social media posts, but we refuse to meditate on the Word of the Lord. We pull up moral filth on our electronic devices in order to get cheap pleasures. We walk away from the people that we had promised to protect and serve. We let things happen that never should have happened. We manipulate other people to get our own way, but we are unwilling to lay down our lives in order to genuinely serve another human being. We are fond of collecting all those pieces of paper and metal that say “In God We Trust” on them, but what we really trust is Cash not Christ. We hurt other people, verbally, emotionally, and physically. We don’t show up when we should show up. We don’t speak up when we should speak up. We don’t defend the welfare and honor of our weaker brothers or sisters. We are self-protecting cowards who take the easy way out. We prey on the weak. We look the other way. We wink and we nod. We pretend to be something we’re not. We always blame everyone else for our troubles.

Sin is suicidal

Now I want you to think about something: sin is fundamentally suicidal.[1] And every time you pursue the path of sin, you are being unkind to yourself. When you walk away from the light, you bring the darkness upon yourself. When you walk away from the truth, you envelop yourself in deceit. When you walk away from the beauty of holiness, you dance with the selfish, the ugly, the satanic. When you walk away from the green pastures of God’s grace, you end up in a barren land, a desert land, a wasteland, where there is no water, no rest, no hope. When you walk away from the Author and Sustainer of life, you end up traveling down Death Boulevard. Sin is suicidal. Your world collapses. Deep darkness overshadows you. Judgment is coming. So it is with all who never escape the lostness of their sin.

Where your story gets redeemed

But escape is possible! So third, I want to remind you where your story gets reclaimed – where you get found again in your beautiful and broken story.

Ultimately, you cannot bear the weight of your own sin. You cannot bear the guilt, the shame, and the judgment of God. And yet the sin is painfully there, pressing down on you, causing you distress.

Some people cover their guilt with pseudo-righteousness

Some people know that they cannot bear the weight of their sin, and they deny it. They attempt to build a worthy life on their own. They fabricate self-righteousness, put on a churchy mask, and pretend to be a holy person. They know the right words; they know the respectable image to project. But they will never let other people into the depths of their heart; they will never let their questions and insecurities and doubts rise to the surface; they have to keep up appearances, after all. They have to polish the way they present themselves to the world, like whitewashed tombs.

Some people translate their guilt into unhealthy conduct

Other people know that they cannot bear the weight of their sin, and they enter into persistent despair, anxiety, neurosis, depression, addiction, mind-numbing entertainment, and a whole litany of bad habits and anti-social behavior. They are negative, cynical, and miserable people. Instead of trying to cover their shame with a good outward appearance, they translate their shame into unhealthy outward conduct. Or like Judas, they go and hang themselves.

We must let the good news sink into our hearts

Both self-righteous and self-loathing people try to deal with their sin in unhealthy and unproductive ways. Instead, we must become people who hear the good news of God’s grace and let this good news sink into the depths of our heart. The good news of the gospel is that God bears the weight of our sins.

The Son of God enters into our story as a fellow human being – truly human, and yet truly God. The divine Word became human flesh. He embodies grace and truth, steadfast love and faithfulness, mercy and kindness (John 1:1-18). He didn’t come to beat us over the head for our sins, but He came to release us from our sins. He didn’t come to berate us, but to apply the healing balm of His grace to our sin-sick souls.

Religious sinners and secular sinners have this in common: everyone likes to beat other people up for their sins. People who are lost in the sinful part of their story love to condemn and punish their fellow sinners. Sinners relishing the opportunity to condemn their fellow sinners reveals the pride and hatefulness of sin.

But not Jesus. The Holy One. The Righteous One. The Sinless One. The only sinless Man in the world delights to show mercy to sinners. He says to the paralytic: “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:5) He says to the woman who had a bad reputation: “Your sins are forgiven…. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:48, 50) “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned” (John 3:17-18a). Jesus comes to clear the guilt, clean the slate, cleanse the heart, redeem your story, and write a new script for the rest of your life.

The high point of the gospel story is when Jesus bears the penalty of our sins on the cross. The Righteous One who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). As our priestly representative, He took all our sins upon Himself, He was crushed as an offering for sin in our place, He suffered the death that we deserved, and He went into the most holy place in the presence of the Father, and sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat. Jesus offered Himself willingly and lovingly as an atonement for sin, and the Father was perfectly pleased and satisfied with His Son’s sacrifice (Ephesians 5:2).

When Jesus died, the Father’s just sentence against us for our sins was completely satisfied. Paid in full. Debt cleared. When Jesus died, the Father separated our sin from us: “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). When Jesus died, the Father “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). The sea of forgetfulness, our sins buried in the ocean of God’s infinite grace. The Father put all of our sins on the holy Lord Jesus, so that they could be definitively addressed and ultimately forgotten: “I will remember [your] sins and [your] lawless deeds no more.” (Hebrews 10:17)

On the basis of Jesus’s sacrifice on your behalf, you who believe are forgiven and cleansed, restored to peaceful fellowship with God, clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, and holy in God’s sight. You are beloved in God’s sight: in fact, you were beloved in God’s sight before Jesus died and rose again on your behalf, because it was God’s prior love for you that motivated Him to send Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for your sin (e.g., John 3:16). And now in Jesus Christ, “[you are] a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

APPLYING THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL

This is the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the wonderful gospel that has been preached in the world for two thousand years, the life-giving gospel that has been preached in this church since 1885. But what I want to do is to take this gracious gospel and apply it to you who are struggling to rest in the freedom that it brings. For there are people who will say, ‘I believe all that you have said, but I still can’t forgive myself.’ What would you say to someone who is stuck in this way?

Emotional and psychological rest

So, let me give counsel to those of you who are stuck in the inability to truly rest emotionally and psychologically in God’s gracious forgiveness. It is very intentional that I say ‘emotionally and psychologically’. Sometimes doctrinally serious churches like South Paris Baptist Church can be imbalanced to the point of separating the life of the mind from the life of the soul. When Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30),

He wasn’t inviting you into a life of theoretical and merely intellectual rest. We shouldn’t say things like, ‘I am intellectually and spiritually at rest, but emotionally and psychologically I am a basket case.’ If you are emotionally and psychologically distressed, then your soul is not at rest, even if your doctrinal convictions are spot on. I don’t say this to condemn you or to increase your anxiety level. We all struggle at some level to let the objective truth transform our subjective experience, so you’re in good company. But I want you to realize that when Jesus invites you into the life of faith, into life with Him, He really wants to breathe grace into the fullness of your soul, to the point that you are mentally and emotionally and psychologically at rest in Him. The Holy Spirit indwells God’s people precisely so the objective truth of the Word would bear good fruit in the soil of our heart.

The counsel that I now give you is essentially this: you need to let God’s big sky story of redeeming grace define and transform your story. This requires you to own your own story in view of God’s larger story. Let’s retrace our steps with a view toward personal application.

Own the wonderful beginning of your story

First, you must own the wonderful beginning and vast potential of your story. Remember, your story begins as a precious and valuable person made in God’s image. You’ve got to own that. You are “God’s offspring” (Acts 17:29). God has given you life (Acts 17:25), and He has so arranged the details of your life for the ultimate reason “that [you] should seek God” (Acts 17:27). Own your beautiful beginning and the noble purpose for which God made you.

Own the tragic part of your story

Second, you must own the tragic part of your story that is the cancer of sin. Your story plunges into the darkness because of sin – Adam’s sin, other people’s sin, and your own sin. You are a beautiful creation who lost your way, like a sheep who goes astray, like a prodigal daughter or son who travels to a far country, like a blind person who can’t see where to go, who keeps stumbling, who is always hitting your head against a wall. Don’t live in denial. Don’t attempt to cover your guilt and shame with a veneer of niceness, religiosity, or social respectability. Don’t translate your guilt and shame into disrespectable behavior, either. If religion is your drug of choice, or if drugs are your religion of choice, you’ve got to let it all go. Instead, you need to learn to look at yourself honestly.

We need to slow down and ponder this. I don’t want to give the impression that the secret to applying God’s grace to yourself is to skip over your sin and jump immediately to quiet rest. When the Bible invites us to repent of our sins, confess our sins, put away our sins, and pursue a lifestyle of holiness and gratitude to God, it is required that we first see the sinfulness of our sin. There is no successful quick-fix formula that bypasses this part of the journey.

Psalm 38:1-8

There are times when you have to experience Psalm 38:1-8 –

¹ O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
    nor discipline me in your wrath!
² For your arrows have sunk into me,
    and your hand has come down on me.

³ There is no soundness in my flesh
    because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
    because of my sin.
⁴ For my iniquities have gone over my head;
    like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

⁵ My wounds stink and fester
    because of my foolishness,
⁶ I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
    all the day I go about mourning.
⁷ For my sides are filled with burning,
    and there is no soundness in my flesh.
⁸ I am feeble and crushed;
    I groan because of the tumult of my heart. (Psalm 38:1-8)

Ezekiel 36:31-32

There is a time when you have to experience the lament and sorrow of Ezekiel 36:31-32. The Lord describes what His redeemed people will experience after they have received His grace:

³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. ³² It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:31-32)

This experience of remembering and loathing our past iniquities is not meant to be a perpetual experience (e.g., see Philippians 3:2-16), but it is an important step on the pathway to abiding peace and joy.

James 4:8b-9

Turning in the New Testament, there is a time when Christians get so deeply ensnared in present sins that the only way forward is humble acknowledgement and repentance:

^8b Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (James 4:8b-9)

That sounds gloomy. But remember the hopeful context that surrounds that instruction. “God… gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10)

You have to own the sinfulness of your past and present sin, the brokenness of your soul, and the impossibility of fixing it on your own.

Own the grand story of God’s saving grace for His people, including you

Third, and most importantly, you must own the grand story of God’s saving grace for His people, including you. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the transcendent grace of God touches and transforms your soul, your vision, your outlook. This is nothing less than the call to faith: by faith we receive the grace of Christ and let it wash over us, renew us, change us (Ephesians 2:8).

The power of the cross

Ultimately, you must reckon with the power of the cross. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) The message of the cross “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). It is schizophrenic to intellectually affirm the power of the cross while remaining in emotional and psychological bondage to the memory of your past sins. You cannot live in that schizophrenia forever. Either the power of the cross will loosen the grip of your past sins, or the grip of your past sins will push faith to the periphery of your life.

Let God be God

If you are stuck in the feeling that you cannot forgive yourself, I fear that you may be attempting to fix your broken story in some way other than God’s way. The question is: will you let God be God? Think about it like this: if you managed to forgive yourself for your past failures, but God didn’t forgive you, what good would that do you? In that case, you might feel better now, but you would still be under God’s judgment, you will still be on the path to ultimate destruction in hell. But if God has forgiven you, what is the point of resisting the impact of that reality by holding onto the memory of your sins and refusing to forgive yourself – which is really a refusal to let His forgiveness govern and shape your own self?

Picture yourself standing before the Holy One, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Light of the world and Great High Priest, the only Sovereign over heaven and earth, the Shepherd and Overseer of your soul, and He says to you, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven and forgotten. And now you are free and complete and safe in My arms.’ Are you going to turn to the Good Shepherd who is holding you in His loving hands and say to Him, ‘But I can’t forgive myself. I can’t forgive myself. I can’t forgive myself.’ If you speak like that, you are dishonoring the Lamb of God who loves you and who shed His blood to set you free. If you speak like that, you are saying that your own verdict of self-condemnation carries more practical weight in your soul than God’s verdict of forgiveness and acceptance. You see, the way that this is supposed to work is not: God cleanses me and then I’m supposed to perform a second act of self-cleansing (i.e., forgiving yourself) – that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Instead, the way it’s supposed to work is: God cleanses me and I realize, ‘Wow, I’m clean. I’m forgiven. I’m free. I’m washed in the blood of the Lamb.’ So if you speak as if ‘I can’t forgive myself’, you ultimately have a god-complex and you are not letting God be God over your soul. 

If God remembers your sins no more, why are you so determined to keep remembering and replaying your past sins? Are you holier than God?

If God separates your sins from you, why are you so determined to keep your past sins close to you and attached to you? Are you wiser than God?

If God is absolutely pleased and satisfied with Jesus as the perfect remedy for your sin, why are you looking for another remedy? Why are you looking for the magic of self-forgiveness? Why are you looking for the tonic of feeling better about yourself? Fix your eyes on Jesus, the Lover of your soul, and let His gracious gaze melt your resistance and quiet your soul.

If God has put all of your sins upon Jesus, who are you to keep putting your sins back on yourself? When you beat yourself up over your past sins, you are basically saying that it wasn’t enough for Jesus to be beat up for your sins. But Jesus made atonement for your sins, because you could never make atonement for your own sins. Jesus was crushed so that you don’t have to be crushed, so stop crushing yourself. Jesus was punished so that you don’t have to be punished, so stop punishing yourself. Jesus was whipped and flogged and dehumanized so that you don’t have to be treated that way, so stop treating yourself that way. Stop dragging your soul through the wringer of accusation!

Look at the loving face of Jesus

Earlier I said that this sermon is dedicated to everyone who, when you look into the mirror, you see a shattered soul and disfigured image, you see spiritual and mental ruins, you see agony and desperation, and you see no way out. The gospel is the way out. So there you are, looking into the mirror, and you see a shattered soul, as if the glass were broken into a thousand jagged pieces. But then Jesus comes beside you and says, ‘My child, let me take this burden from you.’ And He draws your attention away from the broken mirror, and you see His loving face. The loving face of the One who was shattered for you. The loving face of the One who had thorns pressed upon His head for you. The loving face of the One who was disfigured and exiled for you. And He says, ‘It is finished. The ransom has been paid. You are reclaimed. You are mine.’ And as you behold the beauty of the loving face of the One who died for you, you begin to get healed, and you begin to reflect the glory of His love, and the thousand broken pieces of your soul begin to get put back together again, and His love becomes the anchor of your life.

Learn to depend completely on divine grace

There is a part of you that wishes that you could pull yourself up by your own moral bootstraps, and that you didn’t need indescribable and amazing grace. But you do need indescribable and amazing grace, and that grace is yours through Jesus Christ.

There is a part of you that wishes that you could be your own savior, but you do not have the wisdom, strength, or authority to save yourself. You have to renounce this thought and own your weakness. Only “the Son of Man has authority… to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10) and to redeem sinners, and He does it gladly!

There is a part of you that feels like it is only fair for you yourself to atone for your sins or to somehow make yourself worthy of forgiveness. How many people think, ‘I’ll pay for my sins for a while, and I’ll make myself a better person, and then perhaps I’ll finally become a worthy recipient of God’s grace’? That is rubbish! You cannot atone for your sins in the sight of an infinite holy God, and you can never make yourself into a worthy recipient of God’s grace. God’s grace is precisely for those who don’t deserve it and could never repay it! That’s what it means to be a debtor to infinite grace, a beneficiary of infinite mercy.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Troubled hearts, I encourage you to be kind to yourself, to be kind to yourself by putting your weak and fragile and doubting heart into the stream of God’s kindness. Remember how unkind to yourself you are being when you forsake the Lord, “the fountain of living waters”, and make for yourself “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Yes, forsaking God is wickedness against the Lord, but it is also the most profound unkindness to yourself. We chase “after things that do not profit” (Jeremiah 2:8). We change “[our] glory for that which does not profit” (Jeremiah 2:11). Returning to the Lord who alone is able to profit you and bless you and enrich you, is the most kind thing that you can do for your poor soul.

All throughout the Bible, God appeals to your own self-interest, to your own well-being, as in Isaiah 55:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)

These are the spiritual, psychological, and emotional realities that God wants for you: soul-renewing water, soul-exhilarating wine, soul-nourishing milk, soul-strengthening bread, soul-satisfying food, at no cost to you, paid in full by the Savior who invites you, even you, to His banquet table right now.

And just a few verses later:

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)

And there in God’s rich compassion and abundant pardon, your anxious soul is quieted, your weary soul is unburdened, your self-condemning thoughts give way to the good news that the Father has accepted you, and the insecurities give way to the stability of being loved by God. He knows you all the way down; nothing is hidden from His sight (Hebrews 4:13); and yet He loves you with a perfect and everlasting love that draws you into His family and will delight over you and sing over you forever.

So I say to my Christian brothers and sisters, stop being so hard on yourself. The Father is quite fond of you. Live in the freedom of His extravagant grace.

And if anyone is listening and at this very moment you are outside of Christ, I invite you to come in. Christ has a gracious and warm heart – He is ready to receive you, forgive you, and put the broken pieces of your life back together.

ENDNOTES

[1] Many years ago Pastor John Piper helped me to see and understand the suicidal nature of sin.