Under the Surface 4

Intro

We are continuing our under the surface sermon series

What I want to talk about is our emotions that we face

How many of you have ever had an emotion before?

I thought so

We aren’t just talking about random emotions

But I want to talk about the emotions that can be so strong

But not always seen by everybody else

What do you mean by that Adam

How many of you guys have ever been asked like

“Are you okay?”

or maybe just

“How are you doing?”

And you say

“I’m Good”

When in reality you are like anything but

Maybe you are super:

Angry

Scared

Sad

Lonely

Right the list can go on and on

But these are the kinds of emotions that I want to talk about today

The emotions that we often can be feeling

Under the surface

People see us one way

When in reality we are dealing with this or that

The emotions that I want to talk about today

Is Guilt/ Shame

How many of you guys have ever felt guilty about something before?

I want to look at is what does the Bible say about our guilt and shame

How do we deal with it?

What should our response be?

I think more anything this morning hopefully is a tool for you

Not just some stuff to learn

But helpful for you when you feel this emotions

1. Don’t confuse conviction with Guilt

2 Corinthians 7:10–11 “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.”

How many of you have been to the doctor in here?

How many of you have had to go more than 1 time for the same thing

For those of you that have experienced that

I want you to think about something

Imagine you go for the first time

And the doctor finds out what is wrong with you

And he says OMG WHAt DID YOU DO

THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

DON’T COME BACK

Could you imagine if it was like that?

If we just got told to leave

We found out what was wrong and we had to go after

FOR MANY OF US

We think that God will do the same thing in our relationship with us

We think that God is going to pull the plug on us

Like God is going to have enough of us

And be done

To be honest

Many times we get it wrong When we think about how God views our failures

Here is what i want you to hear

Conviction brings you closer to God. Guilt pushes you farther away

Don’t get it twisted there is a right and wrong way of life

God has called us to live a certain way

But when it comes to how the Lord directs us when we sin

God is not trying to push us away from him

But he wants us to keep coming to him

Just like the doctor right

That don’t want you to hear

There is something wrong with you

and then you stop coming to them

Very often we do the same thing when we sin

When we sin

usually tend to feel convicted

“Man i shouldn’t have done that”

“That wasn’t right”

“I should have said that to them”

But at the same time that we sin

the devil also tries to get to us

“You are such a failure”

“Did you really do that again”

“You are some dumb”

“God is going to be so frustrated with you”

And that second voice is guilt

And to be honest

Many times we can mix these two up

Or worse

We think that God views through lens of Guilt

What does our scripture say

“For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow.”

“There is no regret in this sorrow”

I know it uses the word sorrow

which can be confusing

But it says “There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow”

In other words

There is guilt and shame attached to this

We Don’t need to carry that with us

Conviction is not a bad thing

It’s God’s way of correcting us

Bringing us back to him

The Holy Spirit Moving us in the right direction

It doesn’t condemn us

2. Shame grows when its concealed

1 John 1:7–9 “But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

How many of you guys have ever done something wrong before

BUT then didn’t tell anyone about it?

Like you hid it

And I don’t just mean like still no one knows

But you tried to let anyone know?

Or you hope they don’t find out

*Get balloon*

This happens to us right

We hide this thing

We start feel bad about ourself

Shame starts to grow

“Man I am so stupid”

“I hate that about myself “

“Man if I just wasn’t like this I would be such a better person”

And these feelings about ourselves

Grow and grow and get worse

Until eventually

Now why do I give this visual??

I think it is important for us to see

When we live in our shame

After long enough

It can break us

Our brains, and our hearts

Are not meant to care the weight of sin that we carry

“So Adam what is the solution????”

Here is what I want you to hear

Confession can cut through the condemnation

Living in our shame leads us to condemnation

Its the constant

You are not good enough

You messed up too far

There is no going back

You messed up too bad

It makes us live in a state of being condemmed by God

But when we are able to confess our sins to the Lord

And to each other it can cut through that condemnation

What does our scripture say

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

When we confess to the Lord

We can lay down condemnation for forgivness

We don’t need to keep caring that weight

All that being said

If you are carrying that guit or that shame

Stop trying to keep it to yourself

Don’t let the lies of the enemy allow that sin to evolve and become so much worse

3. Your past doesn’t have to be your future

2 Corinthians 5:17–18 “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.”

I feel like I have used alot of these illustrations now

But how many of you guys have been to cedar point before?

How many of you guys like the millinem force?

I love the Milliniem

Its one of my favorite rides

Just the other day we went to Cedar point With our schoolers.

It was alot of fun

Someday you guys will hopefully get to go for a CSM trip

When we were just there

One of the rides that I wanted to ride is the milliniem

Maybe you guys have had a different experience than me

But every time I have ever gone there to ride the milliniem

You gotta wait

And it usually isn’t a short wait

To be honest we got there and I was just expecting that

its gonna take a while

Thats just the way it has always been

But get this

We get to where the ride is and

And guess what

10 mins

I am not joking

We waited in line for literally 10 mins to ride this ride

WHY DO I SHARE THIS STORY

For starters its crazy right

But I share it because I had this expectation right

This is the way that it has always been

So its going to be like that again

This is how it always happens

So I just asssumed thats how it is going to be again

Even though I was so conditioned to it being like this

It didn’t have to be right?

For some of us this is how we view our pattern of sin

Man I always make that same mistake

I always mess that up

Or just like me with the ride

I think back to how it has been in the past

“It was like this last time”

“so it is going to be like that again”

“I screwed that up last time”

“So it has to happen again”

We do this all the time

And we give the devil this foothold over us

And what he does. HE HOLDS THE PAST OVER OUR HEADS

So we are constatnly thinking about our past sins

He wants to stay in this loop in cycle of reminding us of our past sins

But what does scripture say:

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

The old is gone

There is no record of it

God is not saying

“Oh you remember that one time”

NO

When we come to the Lord

And repent of our sins

We are forgiven and it is wiped clean from us

Here is what I want you to hear

What you have done doesn’t define you

God doesn’t determine the person that you are soely by your actions

And I can I say

“thank you God that you don’t”

I have said things

Done things

If that is how God Judged me. I’d be in trouble

But Jesus took our place

He took our sins upon him

And because of him we get a clean slate

God still wants us to live Holy lives

He still desires for us to live righteously

But we are not conifned to sins of our past

I want you to know that this morning

4. Now walk in freedom

Galatians 5:13 “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”

How many of you guys are exctied to get your drivers license some day?

Like driving is something that makes you exctied

How many of you are nervous about the thought of driving

Well very soon you will get to be driving

I know it feels far away

But soon you will get to

Who knows what you have to do to be able to drive?

You get a permit

You take drivers ed

You have your driving test

Once you are done with all of these things

You are given the freedom of having your drivers license

And to be honest It really is a freedom

You now have a car and you can go wherever you would like to go

Now here is the deal

When they give you that drivers license

Are they just like:

“HERE YA GO”

“GO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT”

Of course not right

You are given this freedom

But there are some expectations right

There are rules for how you drive

Walking with Jesus is the exact same way

I want you to understand

God has given you freedom

You don’t need to walk in guilt or shame anymore

You don’t need to carry the weight of it anymore

You can live freeley

But at the same time I want end today with this understanding

The Lord’s freedom comes with a responsability

God has not given us his freedom for us to live however we want

Its not like we won a get out of Jail free card in monoply

There is a way of life that God wants us to live in

Just like I shared before

God doesn’t want us to live in guilt or shame

But at the same time we are supposed to reflect the goodness of his son

We can’t just drive however we want to