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What happens when God shows you something about yourself you don't want to see?
Our instinct is often to defend.
Explain.
Distract ourselves.
Push it away.
But what if the uncomfortable truth is actually an invitation to transformation?
In this reflection on Psalm 32, John Ortberg explores the relationship between pain, honesty, forgiveness, and genuine change.
John begins personally, describing a conversation in which a longtime friend helped him recognize uncomfortable patterns of comparison, envy, and competition in himself.
Instead of defending himself, John is learning to say: “Yep. That's me. God, I need Your help.”
Psalm 32 describes the blessed person as someone “in whose spirit is no deceit.”
Then John tells the extraordinary story of Tom Tarrants, a violent white supremacist and KKK terrorist who was imprisoned in Mississippi.
In prison, Tarrants encountered the words of Jesus: “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
His life began to change.
The man who once participated in racist terrorism eventually devoted himself to forgiveness, racial reconciliation, and serving the very people he once hated.
How far can somebody fall and still be changed by God? Maybe much further than we imagine.
So when your conscience shows you something today, don't immediately run.
Don't defend.
Don't hide.
Ask: God, help me see the truth about myself.
And then: Would You change me?
In this episode: - Psalm 32 and honest confession - What happens when we become defensive - Dallas Willard on pain and reality - Why hiding the truth fragments us internally - David, Psalm 51, and forgiveness - The story of Tom Tarrants - Radical transformation from hatred to reconciliation - What it means to have “no deceit” in your spirit - How to respond to conviction - Why God's grace can change anyone
Scriptures: Psalm 32 • Psalm 51 • Psalm 1 • Matthew 16:26 • 2 Samuel 11–12
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00:00 The Power God Has to Change You 00:36 When Someone Tells You the Truth About Yourself 01:00 Stop Defending Yourself 01:26 What Do You Do With the Pain? 01:49 Psalm 32 & David's Repentance 02:20 Blessed After Going Down the Wrong Path 02:27 Forgiven and Changed 02:50 In Whose Spirit Is No Deceit 03:13 Pain Is Running Into Reality 03:34 When I Kept Silent 04:00 Why Sin Divides Us Inside 04:20 Confession & Forgiveness 04:36 How Far Down Can Someone Fall? 04:52 The Story of Tom Tarrants 05:26 A Violent KKK Terrorist 06:00 A Bible in a Mississippi Prison 06:29 Jesus Changes a Life 06:55 Enemies Praying Together 07:14 A Fraternity That Transcends All Others 07:37 The FBI Investigates His Conversion 08:10 From Hatred to Reconciliation 08:41 Forgiven People Can Help Others 09:03 The Truth About Me 09:21 The Lord's Unfailing Love Surrounds You 09:43 Don't Push the Truth Away 10:05 God, Help Me See Myself 10:23 Can God Change a Heart of Hatred? 10:33 Only God
SPEAKER_00
At Become New, get 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Ortberg.
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I want to talk to you today about the tremendous, unique power that God has to change a life. We're going to get to a story about that. But uh along the way, we're looking at pain and how you might think about pain differently, and what pain might have to bring into my life if I stop defending myself against it. I was talking to a friend in Northern California I've known for quite a long time. And in the conversation, I just got these little pinpricks of this person's able to see the way that I compare myself to others and envy other people and compete in wrong kinds of ways. Because he said to me, you know, you compare yourself to others and you envy others and you compete with them. He didn't say it in exactly those words, but in his words like, oh. And as long as I push against it, resist it, try not to think about it, uh, it lingers and it aches and it is non-productive, and I get stuck and I stew. And when I can just stop defending and say, Yep, that's me. God, I need your help. Uh, where I can be not crushed by those observations, but not resisting those observations, open before God. God, I need your help to change. Then something can happen. And uh so when pain in that way at that emotional, spiritual, moral level comes in, how do I respond to it? Here's the psalm we're learning from the psalmist, uh uh how to be real before God, and then I'll get to the story that I want to tell you. Psalm 32, a psalm of David. And it is sometimes thought that when Psalm 51 is expressing David's sense of repentance as he is repenting from uh his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband, in verse 32, he's kind of looking back. What can I learn from this? Blessed, the psalm starts. You might remember the very first psalm. Blessed is the one. And uh there it's talking about somebody who is entering into a wise way of life. Here it's talking about somebody who has been down the wicked path. Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them. All these three statements are looking at the fact that God will forgive my sin. But then the fourth statement has to do with change within, in whose spirit is no deceit. So my problem when I'm defending myself is in my spirit there is deceit. And I have to get to the place where, as honestly as I can, as God helps me, I say, okay, I will look at the truth, I will acknowledge the truth. Now, pain, Dallas Willard used to say sometimes, is what you experience when you run into reality. And that's especially true when it comes to um my heart and my moral condition. And so here the psalmist is willing to run towards reality, in whose spirit is no deceit. And there's going to be some pain in that, but it's good pain. Can be if I receive in the right way. Now, here's the contrast. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy on me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Eleanor Stump writes about this in her book, Wandering in Darkness. This is why it's impossible for a human being to experience harmony or integration or unity of purpose around sin. Because at some level, my conscience knows it's wrong. So I have to hide it from myself. I have to try to hide it from other people, I have to try to not think about it, I have to become false. When I kept silent, there's just this pain. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of all my sin. How great is God's power to do this? How far down can somebody fall and God still change their life? Here's the story. This is from Dr. Amy Orr Ewing's book, Forgiveness. And she writes about a man named Tom Torrance. As a young man, Terrence aligned himself with Sam Bowers, who was later convicted for his part in the murder of three civil rights workers. The story fictionalized in the movie Mississippi Burning. Tom Terrence bitterly opposed the movement towards racial equality back in the 60s, directed his hatred, especially towards the Jews, who he believed were part of a communist plot against America. The FBI referred to Bauer's group, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, as the most violent right-wing terrorist group in the nation, and Terrence became their operative, bombed synagogues, churches, homes. In a shootout between Terrence and law enforcement officers, his female accomplice was killed. He was shot 19 times. Began a 30-year sentence in Mississippi State Penitentiary. He escaped and got other people to rejoin the Klan. Was apprehended after another shootout that took the life of another accomplice of his. This is what Amy writes. His only diversion from prison was reading. He asked for Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, which rather concerningly they had in the prison library, and read it in one day. And then, on another day, he asked for a Bible, picked it up, and read the words of Jesus. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? And many, many decades later, Terence was telling Amy about this at a dinner they had together. Alone in his cell, Terrence renounced his racism and hatred and committed his life in service to Christ and humankind. He was soon at a prayer meeting where he was introduced to a former member of the Black Panthers, Eldridge Cleaver, who was also a new Christian. And I remember when I was a student at Wheaton College, Eldridge Cleaver came and spoke and told us about how Jesus had changed his life. Chuck Colson was present. Remember when I was at a church in Menlo, and Chuck came and spoke and talked about his time in prison and how Christ changed his life. Colson noted, What a strange collection of people. Here were men who represented opposite poles culturally, politically, socially. It would be unthinkable in the world's eyes that they could come together for any purpose. Yet on this night they prayed together, wept together, and embraced, joined together by the power of the Holy Spirit in a fraternity that transcends all others. When the head of the FBI, Jagger Hoover, heard of Terence's newfound Christian faith, he thought it was a ploy. Jailhouse conversion, attempt to get his sentence shortened. So he sent an FBI agent who had overseen Terence's arrest to investigate. The FBI agent was amazed by the change he saw in Terrence. As a result, he too became a Christian. The FBI agent and his wife, along with others who had been targets of his hatred, were then instrumental in speaking up for Terence in his parole hearing. When he was released from prison, Terence committed his life to sharing the message of forgiveness and reconciliation and advocating for civil rights for those he had once hated. Terence is in his eighties now. And the last time I had lunch with him, he was glowing with the grace, goodness, and kindness of God. It is hard to imagine him as the hateful terrorist he once was. The forgiveness and grace he received transformed him into a person who could give spiritual counsel and guidance to others. And it's so striking in uh this Psalm 32 that David ends up by saying, uh, not only has he experienced this change, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. And then he ends, many are the woes of the wicked, many are the woes of the wicked. Because as long as I'm trying to push away the truth about myself and the Holy Spirit is convicting me, or my conscience is telling me, yep, this is the truth about you. Uh uh, I get clutching on to stuff where by this time I to be generous with it, and I'm not in ways that I just look at and I think that is so foolish and so not who I want to be. When I come to the end of my life, I don't want people to think that way about me, but that's the truth about me. I need help. God, apart from you, this is all I can do, this is all that I am. Many are the woes of the wicked. But the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. So that's the invitation today. When those little pricks of the conscience, oh, I don't like thinking about myself this way. I don't like getting this message, I don't like seeing this. Instead of pushing away, defending, don't want to think about it, distract myself, escape, evade. I sit with it. I actually invite, God, would you let me see whatever I'm able to see today? I will acknowledge it to you. I will seek to be one in whose spirit is no deceit. I will seek to not cover up the wrong that I say and that I do and that I want. God, will you forgive me? This is your time to pray right now. God, will you forgive me? God, will you help me to see the truth about myself? God, who can reach into a prison cell in Mississippi and take a hateful, murderous, racist criminal and change him into a heart of love. Would you do that work in me today? Only God, only God, that's our journey.
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Let's just make that our prayer right now. Wherever you're at, wherever you're watching or listening, God, would you forgive me? And would you open my eyes to show me how much I have been forgiven? I was reminded during this teaching of the story in Luke 7 when Jesus is addressing the woman that washes his feet with her tears and the perfume and says, um, for those who have been forgiven little, love little. And then the inverse of that, of course, is those who have been forgiven much love much. And if we could just see the great forgiveness of God, how our hearts would be filled with gratitude and with love. And so that's my prayer for me and for you today. That our eyes would be open, that we would come face to face with just how loved we are, because we can see how much we've been forgiven. Thanks for tuning in at Become New. We distribute teaching like this every weekday, all for free. We're a nonprofit. I'm Tim, the channel host. If you want to find out more about Become New, just head over to BecomeNew.com. We make an email, we've got a text reminder if you want that. It's all yours if you want it. Also, one of the most important things we do at Become New is meet to pray every weekday. As a team, we pray for you. We pray for the viewers, the listeners, we pray for people who chime in in the comments on YouTube, we pray for people who text and email us their prayer requests. You can text your prayer requests to us at 51504 or email us at connectedbecome new.com. But if anything else, you can just pray with us when you're watching these videos, listen to this podcast. Just join us in prayer, and we'll know that you're with us. Thanks for tuning in. Looking forward to next time.
