Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
KEY EMOTION: Guilt
Wash away my guilt (2).
Indeed I was guilty when I was born (5).
Blot out all my guilt (9).
Save me from the guilt of bloodshed (14).
What is guilt?
— Psychologically speaking
Psychologists put guilt in the category of ‘sad’ emotions.
Alongside agony, grief, and loneliness.
Sigmund Freud taught that guilt is a primary building block in our decision making.
Guilt allows us to feel how awful our awful desires really are.
ILL: When you ‘guilt’ someone into doing something.
From a cognitive point of view, guilt is an emotion that people experience because they’re convinced they’ve caused harm.
ILL: A sociopath is someone who commits socially inappropriate behaviors and doesn’t experience guilt.
Emotionally healthy people experience guilt whenever they do something that conflicts with their moral beliefs.
Sometimes our desires result in guilt even if we don’t do anything.
ILL: “I wish he would get hit by a bus.” — Then you feel guilty, because, what if he does get hit by a bus, then maybe on some cosmic level, I caused it!
People who suffer from chronic guilt usually suffer from this sort of guilt, where they didn’t really do anything, but they are afraid they may have made something happen.
It’s not as if you’ve done something wrong, just that you are wrong.
The most common type of guilt is the kind of guilt that comes from things you have actually done.
You can see that in the words of the Psalmist.
But you can also see that the Psalmist sees guilt as part of his identity, that there is something intrinsically wrong about his being.
That is to say, he is guilty because of who he is as much as he is guilty because of what he has done.
Wash away my guilt.
(v. 2)
Indeed I was guilty when I was born.
(v.
5)
Blot out all my guilt.
(v.
9)
Save me from the guilt of bloodshed.
(v.
14)
Today we’re going to ask three questions about guilt that I think will give us a healthy view of our own guilt.
The first is…
Today we’re going to ask three questions about guilt that I think will give us a healthy view of our own guilt.
The first is…
Who’s Guilty?
(The Reality of Sin)
There’s a trend in Christianity to focus more on the global and universal destruction caused by sin more so than our individual sin.
It’s true that there is a curse on the entire creation that causes societies to be self-destructive, ecology to decay, and life to fade.
But, we have to remember that at the root of this universal destructive pattern is individual sin.
The keyword in this part of the passage is, ‘My’ — The Psalmist is highly aware of his own, personal guilt for sin.
The Jews used on the day of atonement to remind the congregation of their individual guilt before God.
The Psalmist wrote about David to give an example of corporate repentance for each individual in the community (cf.
The promise of the Day of Atonement:
Atonement means reconciliation to God.
Being at one with God (at-one-ment)
Finding favor with God
The basis of favor with God is recognizing your guilt before Him.
— Jesus told this story
The principle is simple.
Tax collector and a Pharisee
No one is good enough for God.
Everyone is guilty.
But God has mercy for the guilty if they will recognize their sin.
The foundation of our favor with God is not our goodness, but our confession of sinfulness and our focus on the mercy of God.
EXPLORE: Is it always necesary to recognize your sin?
What about after you are saved?
So, who is guilty?
The answer is surely everyone.
That’s the assumption of the Psalmist.
The next question is…
Guilty Of What?
(The Offense of Sin)
…precisely.
Judgment is from God (pt 4) (vv.
3-4)
There’s a paradigm we see in scripture
: Jesus teaches that we love God by loving people.
Here: Opposite.
To sin against man is ultimately to sin against God.
ILL: David, Bathsheba, Uriah — Nathan’s accusation
., )
When Nathan called out David on his sin with Bathsheba and his sin against Uriah, his response was, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
— His guilt was before God, more so than men.
We still sin against other people.
EX
We still need to confess sin to reconcile relationships.
EX
But, sin is ultimately always against God.
Sin is a theological category — it is defined by how God sees it
We couldn’t define sin against man if we didn’t have a theological category for it.
It would just be nature.
(ex.
adultery would be no different (no less natural) than a cheetah eating a gazelle).
In fact, there are adulterous and promiscuous animals in the animal kingdom and we never conclude that the animals sin; only for humankind.
For humans to sin against each other requires a theological category—it requires that we defy God’s moral standards.
So, then sin against fellow man is secondary, because sin is first and foremost against God.
Importance: Why bother with this discussion if it’s both?
Secret sin: It doesn’t hurt anyone
maybe, but Why does it still result in guilt?
Is sin of the mind and heart even sin?
[ILL: Guilty conscience when you aren’t speeding.]
— our guilt is with us even when we arent sinning
When we see sin as ultimately against God then we can even be free of guilt for sins of the mind and heart.
ILL: , Jesus says that to lust is to make you guilty of adultery in your heart
When you lust you feel guilt whether you commit adultery or not
You worry someone saw you take a second look
You begin to worry that you may say something inappropriate to someone
Your looking turns to fantasies of doing and you begin to experience not just guilt but, shame.
And properly speaking you should never experience shame for something you have not done, but you do, because your sin is not merely against man, but it is ultimately against God.
Deep down you know that He has seen your adultery and you are guilty and ashamed.
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