Putting Down the Bag of Guilt
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Baggage Series…
Tonight we will talk about the baggage of guilt… or shame.
Too many believers struggle with the guilt factor ... It will weigh you down.
I don’t know what kind of church experience you had when you were young… it could have been good or bad… and it impacts you today.
Some churches see God as an angry God. I remember a VBS, and I thought I had been drafted… VBS is supposed to be fun...
You may see God like he is a policeman waiting to catch you having fun… ticket story… that sign says stop… not slow down.... Some of you view God like that… like he’s keeping score
10 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.
Shame is like a self imposed prison… when you carry around these unnecessary weights. The guilt I am talking about is really shame.
Inmates go to prison to pay their debt to society… but so many of you are in self imposed prisons. You are trying to pay your debt back to God… that doesn’t work.
Shame brings death.
Baggage
Baggage
Here’s what Jesus says…
28 “Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.
Some of you are tired. You are going through life without God and you are trying to fix your life with out him..
Some of you are running away from him.
Run to God… when you are tried. He loves to help you when you are exhausted and spent.
We were never meant to carry guilt. Guilt will wear you out. We are actually killing Jesus when we carry guilt.
Another scripture that relates to this baggage thing.
4 My guilt overwhelms me— it is a burden too heavy to bear.
Some of you have made a mistake… and you hit the ground and you want to get up, but you can’t.
ILL of mistake… maybe you have fallen back to an addiction… moral failure…
At first, you may be embarrassed about what happened, but at some point you just want to get back up and get right.
Sometimes when you fall, you want to get back up, but you can’t. You need some help. That’s what God does… that’s what the church does. If you are in a church that doesn’t help like that... you need a different church. You need to get to this place in your life… where you don’t care who knows what, you just want to get back up and get right.
The good news is that, as it relates to guilt, you don’t have to work on it for years. You can get back up today.
All of the Heroes of the Bible made mistakes but they also did great things. Whenever they let their guilt at failing overwhelm them, they could no longer do what God wanted them to do. They would begin to feel like God couldn’t use them.
In Genesis … First order… If you want to know the purity of an idea, look at the original intent.
The original intent of why God created you was for you to be able to walk around with God. They had an innocent relationship with God.
25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
They had no guilt or shame. They were innocent.
God wanted us to have a child like relationship with him… an innocent relationship. child like… not childish...
When Adam and Eve fell, they hid… because of guilt. After sin and guilt, that changed. They pointed at each other… she did it… not he did. Before they had an innocent relationship with God.
Shame causes you to want to hide. In order to get rid of it, you can’t hide.
Shame causes you to want to hide. In order to get rid of it, you can’t hide.
God wants you to get rid of guilt and be free.
1 So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.
Jesus set you and I free from guilt and shame.
Why did Paul warn against going back into slavery to the law? Because we have a tendency to go back. We have this tendency to go back and try to earn God’s love.
Here is why…
So many people, deep in their heart, would say, I know Jesus loves me and forgives me, but there are 1 or 2 things that I know he won’t forgive me for … they feel shame. This is what happens when guilt holds onto you...
Happens in church world too. Some come because they feel guilty. Others come because they want to be in God’s presence. They are here because God’s here and they want to be around the God that loves them.
Some people read the word because they are supposed to, others just because it’s good.
Guilt will hold you down.
What are some weight contributors?
What are some weight contributors?
1. You carry the weight of shame
When you have painful regrets
When you have painful regrets
We all have regrets. We keep score in relationships and we think God does too.
We all have the same choices every day. We can go towards the world or towards God.
wide road… narrow road… Going towards the world will be fun… for a minute. Then you will find out that it was false advertising. God just says trust me.
I have never heard anyone that served the Lord express regret that they didn’t sin more. But I have head all sorts of regret from the other side.
You can see it in Paul. He was a terrorist towards Christians. He over saw the murders of Christians… Stephen.
54 The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 56 And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!” 57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him 58 and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Paul should have had tons of regret. He hated the church, but then loved it more than anyone. But he had an encounter with Jesus so he could write…
1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
When you feel condemnation, it’s because it’s illegally attached to you.
You carry the weight of shame
When you hold onto it
When you hold onto it
17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
The facts may say that you did something wrong… condemnation tells you that you are wrong.
You may have failed at something… condemnations tells you that you are a failure.
The enemy sees that you lied and says you are a liar… HS says don’t lie… tell the truth.
The conviction of the Holy Spirit always restores and give you a way out of guilt.
You carry the weight of shame
When you don’t allow God to forgive you and cover your sins
When you don’t allow God to forgive you and cover your sins
Every sin has to be paid for. Guilt is you trying to pay for your sins. Are you going to let God pay for your sins? Jesus is very good at forgiving people.
A lot of people are running away because they don’t know that God wants to forgive them. They struggle with allowing Jesus to forgive them.
9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
A lot of us can know that God forgives us, but many of us have that one thing that we can’t allow God to forgive us for.
Maybe you let someone down… went through a divorce… lost a job… were harsh with your kids… had a moral failure… fell back into an addiction … maybe you said something that hurt someone …
None of us deserve to be forgiven. We try to work for it. We think that we have to fix ourselves then we can serve him. We just need to get on our knees and ask forgiveness. Even THAT sin is forgiven.
6 And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
Believe that God loves you based not on what you have done, but based on you believing that he paid the price.
GRACE is not based on what you do, but on what Jesus did.
GRACE is not based on what you do, but on what Jesus did.
There is nothing you and I can do to earn it. We can crawl from here to Kenner on our knees and it won’t help. You can’t pay him back.
Relate how I felt when I got saved… I was forgiven… I felt forgiven… lighter.
Why is that he peak of our relationship with God. It should be. It’s the peak because we allow guilt to build up.
37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Before Paul wrote Romans 8, he wrote Romans 7
15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. 18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
Then he was able to write this in Rom 8:1..
1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
How do we put the bags down?
How do we put the bags down?
When you put down the bag of shame,
1. It changes how you relate to people
1. It changes how you relate to people
Don’t think that guilt doesn’t impact your relationships at home… at work… everywhere. Adam was married to the most beautiful woman in the world… then one day, they began to point their fingers at each other.
Adam and Eves kids… one killed the other.
Guilt controls how we treat other people.
1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. 3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
When you put down the bag of shame,
2. It changes you you relate to God
2. It changes you you relate to God
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
He went to the cross for one reason… to destroy shame in your life.
When you put down the bag of shame,
3. It changes how you are used by God
3. It changes how you are used by God
Rick - story of his daughter running away… if she had never come back, he would never have stopped looking for her… never moved…
God wants you to be forgiven and put down the weight of guilt. When you put down the weight of guilt, you begin to see people they way he does and you begin to want to see people set free.
What can we do?
What can we do?
What can we do? Give all your shame to God
What can we do? Give all your shame to God
No magic formula… Give your shame to God.
Altar time
If you are here and you can’t say with total confidence that you are forgiven, I want to pray with you.
Salvation… rededication.