Breaking Bonds: Escaping the Chains of Guilt and Shame

Therefore refers back to the last 7 chapters of Romans. Paul lays out in Romans the in depth details of salvation. He basically saying, “because of everything I just said”. In the light of what Jesus has done there is now no condemnation (guilt and shame are included in this). You have been more than just saved from hell, your identity has been place in Him.

Paul roots the cause of this no condemnation is your identification with Jesus. 164 times Paul uses the words “in Christ” or variations of it. The ability to break the chains of guilt and shame is not found in what you do or have done, it is found in who Jesus is. So, what does it mean to be in Christ.

Romans 6:6–10 ESV

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Salt and water illustration

Guilt and shame attack who you are. They try to convince you that you are your sin. You are nothing more that what you do. The guilt tells you that the weight of your sin is too heavy. The shame tells you that no one will ever love you. God has dealt with both.

2. The Power to Break the Bonds Rest in what Jesus has Done

Romans 8:2–8 ESV

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You cannot break the bonds of guilt and shame.

Explain the law of sin and death, gravity illustration.

Everything that God has required has been fulfilled in Christ. God has done all the heavy lifting. Escaping guilt and shame has nothing to do with you and everything to do what Christ has done. The guilt of when you snapped at someone who was just trying to help. The shame of what you did with that guy or girl. The guilt and shame that causes you to self harm or to believe lies that maybe the world would be a better place without you. The guilt of what you do on the Friday or Saturday night before Sunday. The lies that says you are not faithful enough for God to love you. Every sin that brings in guilt and shame have been paid in full by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Romans 6:11 ESV

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Paul doesn’t tell us to do anything besides to look back at what Jesus has done and recognize the fact of our position. The only command in the passage is the word consider. Paul doesn’t say you must do this that or the other. Paul says to consider. Paul goes in depth with this in Chapter 8.

Romans 8:5–8 ESV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Most of the Christian life is a mental war of believing. Everything that Paul tells us to do starts in the mind. He tells us to consider and to set our minds upon the things of the Spirit. Paul isn’t asking us to do anything but believe and realize all that Christ has done for us. You are already dead to your sins and alive to God, you must realize it.

3. Breaking the Bonds has Everything to do with this Truth: Jesus Loves You

Romans 8:31–39 ESV

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Guilt and shame have no place in the love of Christ. No matter what you are doing right now or what you have done Jesus loves you. He has loved you from the very start. Jesus’s purpose when He came wasn’t to shame you of all your wrong. He didn’t come to condemn you to hell or to bring up everything in your past that you hate. He came to set you free. He came so that you longer had to live with regret and shame. He came to break the bonds. Guilt and shame are not of God. If you don’t believe me, believe Jesus.

John 3:16–17 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 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.

Jesus has come to give you you life.

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus is not looking at you with His arms crossed in the corner seeing if you will clean up your life. Jesus is not waiting on you to stop watching that to love you. Jesus is not waiting on you to stop drinking that to love you. Jesus is not waiting on you to stop doing that to love you. He loves you now. You are not too deep or too far gone. Jesus didn’t avoid the cross. He took it on to release you from you chains.

John 8:34–36 ESV

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.