Dealing with the Feeling

Healthy Dealing

Nobody is perfect.

I have recounted for you, over the years, a number of my bone-headed decisions that have led to me having to apologize and make things right.

Sometimes it ended in stitches, sometimes it ended in tears, sometimes both.

I’m an idiot. Not a day goes by when I don’t thank God that you hired me anyway.

I got this quote from a friend of mine, “I am the world’s foremost expert on my own opinion.” Just ask me. I’ll explain everything.

Not only that, I am intimately aware of my own imperfections. More so than anybody else.

Specifically, the times I’ve mess up, bad.

A million little things. A few big ones.

And, it’s the big ones that haunt me.

When I take the time for honest self-reflection, I can face the realities of all my shortcomings.

You really don’t need to point any of them out. I know it’s tempting.

Okay, and maybe one of my shortcomings is a blind spot toward some of my shortcomings.

So, I feel guilty about the things I know I’ve done and the things I know I don’t know that I’ve done.

If I focus on my past blunders, it can shut me down. It doesn’t matter how long ago they occured.

You know that little voice inside your head that whispers reminders about how messed up you really are.

If everyone knew the truth they’d have nothing to do w/you.

Your wife would leave you.

Your kids would hate you.

Your church would fire you.

We have to be able to deal, in healthy ways, with the guilty feelings we all inevitably feel and not let that little voice wreck us.

Nobody is perfect. Our imperfections produce guilty feelings.

And those feelings, tied to those memories, prompted by that little voice, can mess us up.

So how do we deal w/ it?

My grandfather was a good man. A godly man and a moral man, mostly.

He was a car salesman. Sold Chevys.

He won all the sales contests.

Beat all the other salesmen combined.

Frigidaire appliances all over the house.

Silver serves, tea sets, chaffing dishes.

He is a believer.

When I became a Christian as a teenager, I had that conversations w/ him. I am confident he is in heaven right now and I am looking forward to the reunion.

He was on the board of his church.

I don’t think he was deeply spiritual. But a saved man.

I remember my grandparents putting together bushel baskets during the holidays w/ hams or turkeys, fruit, canned vegetables, pie filling for families who couldn’t afford it.

He was always helping his friends w/ projects, donating time and energy to help.

As the all-star chevy salesman he could borrow a used pick up when a friend needed to haul a cord of wood.

He was a good man. But he was a good man who had one very serious character flaw.

He was also deeply racist.

I can remember him saying this:

It’s a known fact blacks brains are not as big as whites. They are uneducated and uncivilized. The drink too much, fight all the time. Their music comes from Satanic tribes in Africa and their women walk around half-naked.

I’m embarrassed and it offends me today to repeat his words. I absolutely do not agree.

So what do I do w/ that? He was a role model for me.

Do I throw out all the good he did? He stepped into my life when my dad stepped out.

He was good man.

How do I deal w/ the feelings I have about his flaws?

We have to deal w/ our feelings about our own guilt. And, we have to deal w/ out feelings about the guilt of those who’ve gone before us.

I’m not responsible for his sins. I can’t repent to God nor apologize to anyone he offended.

I doesn’t work that way.

Our culture is struggling right now w/ this very issue on a grand scale. I understand it.

Statues of good ppl are being torn down. Ppl who had serious flaws, who accomplished good things, while at the same time doing bad things.

Founding fathers who fought for our independence, established our form of govt that has done more good for the entire world, including us, including the church. owned slaves.

Some are dealing w/ this by re-writing, or erasing history.

We are losing the good w/ the bad.

All in an effort to try to deal w/ how we feel about everything they did.

The bible is full of good people who had glaring flaws for all to see.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the fathers of Israel all lied, cheated, and deceived at different times in their life.

In fact, the name Jacob, means deceiver.

Peter denied knowing Jesus at a very vulnerable time for him.

Paul, before he was the apostle Paul, still Saul, was a deeply racist man.

He would not even enter the home of a non-Jew. Certainly wouldn’t eat at their table. He called them, dogs.

Uncivilized, uneducated, unrefined, brawlers. Dogs in heat, and all that that implies.

He was commissioned by the Jewish leadership to exterminate every person; man, woman and child who wasn’t Jewish b/c they believed Jesus is the Messiah.

Almost, Hitlerlike.

Paul, when he wrote to Timothy, he called himself the worst of all sinners.

He wrote much of your NT and we study it all the time.

Should we throw out Paul’s letters like others are throwing out statues in our parks?

How do we deal w/ what we feel in a healthy way?

Jesus has given us a way to deal with how we feel in a healthy way so that we can celebrate the good we do, forgive the bad, and move on.

Today, we have a much clearer picture of how to let these things go than those who lived before Jesus.

It was there, it was just harder to see.

B/C the law pointed more directly to the problem, not the solution.

The Problem

Hebrews 10:1–4 NIV

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Not just be guilty b/c of their sins. But, feel guilty for their sines.

Feelings. B/C our feeling can kick our tails, beat us up and beat us down.

So, not only do we need to deal with what we do and make up for the damage, we need to deal w/ how we feel.

Right and wrong, morality, is a God question. It is a spiritual/religious issue.

Morality is not up to popular vote or up to who has the biggest stick.

Wrong is wrong even if the majority thinks it’s right or the Nazis do.

When we violate God’s moral law He has wired to feel something.

And that something we feel can be debilitating, cause other emotional issues, if we don’t know how to deal w/ it in healthy ways.

The men would go to the beach, and the law would be right there.

Don’t lust....But...

The women would go to the shops.

Don’t covet the stuff....But....

Remember where these c.1 Xians were. The persecution was ramping up. They were losing jobs b/c of their faith. Losing money. Losing their homes.

Their kids were losing friends and changing schools.

They lost their religious connection b/c they were not welcome in the synagogue any more. Not that they wanted to go b/c they had a church to attend.

Their friends who had not become Xians still had all their stuff.

Don’t be jealous....But.

Love God above all your stuff.

That’s easy when you have stuff.

Or, is it.

What happens when you lose your stuff?

You find out how much you love it and everything else.

Prior to becoming a Xian, all they had to do was sacrifice a lamb at Passover and a goat on the Day of Atonement.

When the other goat ran away they were told it took their guilt w/ it.

Maybe for a day. But then the feelings would come back.

Another goat, another lamb.

But the feelings would keep coming back.

Now what? Ignore them? Compartmentalize them? Go on w/ your life as if they are not really there? But, then they come back.

They’re not gone.

“Remember that time you stared at that thing then took it?”

Stole something, affair.

“Remember what you said and how hurtful it was?”

You know the feelings are always there, under the surface if not on top.

No one is looking for nor expecting sinless perfection. Nobody is perfect, ever.

But what they wanted, us too, is the removal of guilt which allows free access into the presence of God.

That’s what the preacher means when he wrote that these repeated same sacrifices could not make them perfect.

Killing those animals did not remove the guilt therefore they were not allowed into the presence of God.

And it’s in the presence of God where all the good stuff is found and rec’d.

No presence of God, no fruit, no power, no wisdom, none of that.

It’s double negative. The guilt beats us down and not having the peace, joy, wisdom and courage beats us up.

We need to deal w/ the guilt and the guilty feelings to get the good stuff God offers.

The OT law couldn’t do it. But Jesus did.

He explains that next, even from the OT where He quotes Ps. 40.

The Solution

Hebrews 10:5–10 NIV

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.’ ” First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The picture of the solution was in the OT all the time. But they focused too much on the law and missed what Jesus would do.

For this reason, Jesus’s body was prepared for this. That is the body Jesus got at Christmas that grew up and became the body they crucified at Easter.

God knew all along this would have to happen. Jesus knew it, too.

When the question is asked, who killed Jesus. The answer is God. He used the human agents to get it done.

But God so loved the world that He gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will never die. Jn 3:16

It was His will all along to remove the guilt, allowing ppl free access into his presence.

All the animal sacrifices did not please God. Technically, he wasn’t displeased.

If the ppl did it w/ the right heart condition it pointed them to the coming Messiah. Most didn’t, however.

God wanted their hearts. He wanted them to surrender their lives to Him trusting by faith that He would make a way that the animals they sac’d could not.

The law was never designed nor intended to do this. The ppl elevated its importance.

It was something they controlled. Something they could do to make them feel better at the time.

The problem was, it didn’t do anything w/ the guilt. Which then piled on even more.

So, when Jesus took this away they got mad. They were forced to face to the fact they had no control and had to trust Him to do what they tho’t they were doing for themselves.

We have to be made holy by God. We have to be cleaned up on the inside and we can’t do that no matter how many animals we slaughter or how many worship services we attend of bible verses we memorize.

There is a branch of Christian theology that tends toward a position that believes if a person declares something then they can make it happen.

Name it and claim it.

But it doesn’t work. No matter how hard you try to believe you can make it happen, you can’t.

But God can. If God names something and claims it, He gets it.

He has named us his children and He has claimed us as holy.

Nothing we do makes that happen. What He does, does.

Not that we sinless and perfect.

We are not. But deficits we have created w/ God have been made up for by Jesus, evening our score w/ Him.

We have to accept that by faith, admitting we didn’t do anything to make it happen.

Then we can stand in God’s presence.

1 time, for all time, for all sins every committed.

Jesus did his job, then He sat down.

You can’t sit down until the work is done. The OT priests could never sit down b/c they never finished the work.

Jesus is sitting down right now.

He Sat Down

Hebrews 10:11–18 NIV

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Notice the contrast. It’s intentional.

The OT priests never finished the job so they could not sit down.

Just like a parent of toddlers, they never get to sit down. The work is never done. When the kids nap, all that stuff they couldn’t do while they were awake has to get done.

When the kids finally go to bed at night, there’s still work t/b done.

Now that we’re empty nesters, we sit, a lot.

Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He completed what needed to be done so we could deal w/ how we feel about the mistakes we make.

In Romans 7 and 8 Paul gave this personal account about how he had learned to deal with this.

Before he became a Xian, while still a Pharisee, he had position, wealthy, authority, and influence.

He partied w/ all the right people. He didn’t have to drop names, they were there when he spoke.

When he became a Xian he surrendered all that. He willingly gave up everything to get Jesus.

For a time, he became a tent-make to support his missions habit. Then he became dependent on the support from the ppl he led to Jesus and the churches he planted.

He ended up living on the support of the Roman gov’t as a prisoner.

During his missionary days he looked back at all his old Pharisee buddies who still had all that wealth and influence. They still had their big houses in the valley and a nice summer home in the mountains.

They had 2 camels in every garage. A sporty 1-hump model for dad. And a family SUV 2-hump model for the soccer moms and kids.

As a Xian, Paul brought some of his old Jewishness into his new life.

We still obey the OT law. His old habit crept into his life and it messed him up.

The law said, don’t covent.

So he concentrated on it. Don’t covet your old friends stuff.

Don’t covet.....

At the end of the day, all he did was covet and the guilt messed him up even as a Xian.

As he grew in his faith, the application what Jesus did came home to him. The law could not do this.

In ch.8 he said he learned to walk in Christ and live in the spirit.

The more he focused his energy, intellect, mind on the things of Christ and less on the law, the more peaceful his life.

IOW, when he focused on the law and the negative all he did was sin.

When he focused on the positive of his relationship w/ Christ, he realized at the end of the day he hadn’t coveted at all.

Not only did Jesus take away the guilt and the guilty feelings, He provided a way for Paul to mess up less and cause less guilt.

He surrendered to Jesus and dealt w/ his stuff. He surrendered every day and avoided more bad stuff.

That’s maturity in our faith and our walk w/ Jesus.

The OT addressed the Nation.

The NT addresses individuals.

We, individually, need to deal w/ our own stuff before God.

When I deal w/ my own stuff my guilt is relieved. It’s not mind trick or the power of positive thinking. It goes away.

And, if you know I have dealt w/ my stuff and God has addressed my guilt w/ me you don’t need to feel responsible for reacting to anything I’ve done.

Abraham and Isaac cried out to God and He responded by forgiving them.

Jacob wrestled w/ the Lord on the river bank.

Peter feel at Jesus’s feet the first time he saw Him after he disowned him and Jesus lifted the burden of his guilt and restored the close bond they had.

Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and realized his mistake, owned it, apologized for it, Jesus took all the guilt away. He killed Xians. He was deeply racist. And God lifted that burden from him to love everyone and accept everyone as Jesus accepted him (Rom. 15:7)

My g-father surrendered his life to Christ and I am confident God dealt w/ his racism. B/C of that I can accept all the good he did in my life w/out holding anything against him.

I know they all dealt w/ their stuff and I’m good with that.

I understand it b/c I’ve had to do deal w/ my own. I know what it’s like t/b held accountable by God and have to face every little detail of my sin. And, I know what it’s like to be graciously forgiven b/c Jesus accepted my punishment for me.

He accepted me as I am so I accept Him as He is.

The guilty feelings go away b/c the guilt goes away.

I’m not perfect. But I have a way to deal w/ how feel in a healthy way that allows me to move on and do good and allows you to accept the good that I do w/out having cover for the bad that I’ve done.

Applications

Deal

Deal w/ how you feel. The number 1 rule of holes is when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Put the shovel down.

Realize nobody else dug that hole. You’re responsible. You’re guilty.

Own it. Apologize for it, Receive God’s forgiveness for it. Move on.

Don’t listen

There is a little voice inside us that is not from God that will bring these things back.

It whispers reminders in your ear trying to make you feel guilty again.

Guilt beats us down. Either go into a shell or we present to others an image of ourselves that is not genuine.

Either way, relationships don’t last, influence wanes. Nobody wants to follow or hang out w/ a phony.

When that little voice brings back those memories, send it back to where it came from.

Once you’ve owned it, apologized for it, and surrendered it; it’s gone.

Don’t listen to that little voice and don’t take that guilt back.

Our own stuff

Don’t try to apologize for anyone else’s bad behavior. It doesn’t work.

Don’t expect anyone to apologize for anyone else’s bad behavior.

We all stand on our own before God.

Whether we do it willingly or not, every knee will bow before Jesus and make an account for their behavior.

Let God handle it. You be the best follower of Jesus you can be and don’t get hung up expecting to apologize for or getting an apology from anyone who hasn’t personally hurt you.

So what do we do w/ the guilty feelings we have or the guilt we may feel from the bad behavior of those who’ve gone before us?

Jesus has given us a way to deal with how we feel in a healthy way so that we can celebrate the good we do, forgive the bad, and move on.

Be the best follower of Jesus you can be and own your own stuff. Let everyone else own their stuff, too.