Introduction:
I. Our base text for this morning is found in James, chapter 2, verse 10 -
A. In the New American Standard it reads like this - For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all
B. In the New International Version is reads like this - For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
C. If you prefer the King James, your translation reads like thus - For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all
II. The basic idea is this, you can keep every one of the laws that God has set down, except one, and you would be just as guilty as if you had broken every law.
A. So what is the good of attempting to keep the law?
1. None, if you are keeping them with an eye towards getting into heaven.
2. For there is no man able to keep all of them.
B. That is the very reason why we need Jesus Christ.
III. So what purpose does the law serve, if it does not make us holy?
A. God’s law shows us our guilt, and need.
B. It is that very guilt feeling that reminds us of our need for something, or someone much larger and more perfect than ourselves to make us right before God.
IV. No matter how good you are, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, HE HAS BECOME GUILTY OF ALL.” You are not good enough.
V. True story from a court room in San Diego, as reported in the San Diego Union newspaper.
A. Two men on trial for armed robbery.
B. The prosecutor calls forward his first witness to the stand,
1. “Were you are the scene of the robbery sir” Yes I was, came the reply.
2. “Did you see a vehicle driving away at a high rate of speed.” Yes Sir, I did.
3. “Did you see plainly see two men in that vehicle as it drove away?” Yes I most certainly did, the witness replied.
4. “And are those two men present in the courtroom this morning sir?”
C. And before the witness could say a word, the two men at the defendant table stood and raised their hands, indicating that they were indeed the two men.
D. Case closed, trial basically over, the guilty parties confessed.
VI. But is that a typical response from a guilty party? No!
VII. This morning we are going to look at “Guilt and the Grace of God.
A. We are going to talk about what guilt is,
B. We are going to talk about the most probable response to that guilt,
C. And I want to conclude by looking at two ways to manage guilt.
VIII. Let’s look at Genesis chapter 3, beginning with verse 7 - “7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
IX. The first man and women in all of creation.
X. The first and to date, only perfect relationship between
A. Man and God,
B. Man and women, and
C. Man, women and God.
XI. Prior to this date, however long that may have been, Sin, let’s call it disobedience to God had not yet entered into the world.
A. Perfect relationships between even the lion and the lamb.
B. But then sin and guilt.
XII. Why must we recognize and know how to deal with guilt?
A. Listen to the words of David.
B. "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear." Psa. 38:4 (NIV)
What Is Guilt?
I. My dictionary says that the definition of guilt is “a feeling of having done something wrong or failed in an obligation.”
II. In this definition, the key word is “feeling.”
A. Feelings
B. I have basically zero training psychology that word “Feeling” has to do with our mental or emotional state.
III. Our mental/emotional state may cause us to have a physical response, but those physical responses are the result of our “feelings.”
A. I am not going to apologize to someone for offending them, until I have an emotional need to do so.
B. I may change an action, but while the saying is “Attitude follows action” it is probably more true or at least just as true that “Action follows Attitude.”
IV. Guilt then begins with an emotional or mental response to sin.
V. Do we have anything to feel guilty about?
A. Perhaps it would be fair to say, only if scripture is true.
B. What is our base text again?
1. James 2 verse 10, which reads - “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all”
2. If this is true, then it would be a lie to say that I have not “done something wrong” or “failed in an obligation.”
C. In fact John writes,” If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
VI. And you say, but pastor, I didn’t feel guilty until I came here.
VII. In a moment you will know how to deal with that feeling of guilt, but first I would like us to consider three typical responses to sin, that result from a feeling of guilt.
VIII. Consider again our passage from Genesis chapter 3. Three Responses to Sin (Genesis 3:7-13)
I. We know, Adam and Eve in an idyllic setting.
II. We know that God has given them specific instructions on what is permissible, and what is not permissible.
III. We know that Adam and Eve essentially said, “I don’t care what God has said, I want to do this” called sin.
IV. Now, having committed this sin, what is their first response upon knowing that God is coming for a visit, actually even before they hear the steps of God.
Shame
V. Verse 7 states that “Then” as in immediately their eyes were opened, “...they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”
VI. They don’t hear God coming until verse 8, yet as soon as they sinned, they had a realization that they had just crossed the line.
VII. Their “eyes were opened”, another way of saying,
A. They realized or
B. They had an emotional/mental response to sin, which caused them to take a physical action.
VIII. Some people talk about sins of commission as opposed to sins of omission, as in sins that we do and sins that we don’t do.
A. The idea being that we might be sinning, without even knowing.
B. I really do not believe that to be true.
C. Even those sins that are the result of what we do not do, I believe we know we should be doing them.
IX. There was no doubt as to whether their actions were right or wrong, they realized what they had done.
X. Adam and Eve’s sin, resulted in their realization that they had sinned, which resulted in an emotional response, call it sin, which led to a physical response.
XI. We often try to cover our sins, but eventually they will become known, and that knowledge results in the feeling of guilt.
Hiding
XII. What was the second response?
XIII. Verse 8 says that upon hearing God waling, “...the man and his wife hid themselves from ...God.”
XIV. My father used to keep a loaded 38 Special in his dresser drawer.
A. I don’t know why, I never saw him fire it.
B. But he was old school, and had decided that he needed to keep a gun for protection.
XV. One day I decided to take a closer look at his gun, so I took it out of his dresser.
A. God must have been watching me that day, because as I looked at the gun, it went off and put a hole in their mattress.
B. What did I do?
1. I took the sheets off the bed.
2. I turned the mattress over, to hide the hole,
3. I took the empty shell casing and threw it away, as if, “He’ll just think he left one chamber empty.”
C. I tried to hide my sin.
XVI. That’s Adam and Eve, hiding their sin, and that is often our typical response to sin.
A. If I just hide it, it will go away.
B. If I just ignore it, it will be like it never happened.
C. But it did, and one day we will have to answer for it.
Blame Shifting
XVII. Here is our big, strong, protective husband.
A. He already failed by allowing his wife to speak with the serpent.
B. Now he is about to compound his sin.
XVIII. God says, “Who told you, you were naked.”
A. All Adam had to do was tell the truth, but what he did was this - 12 And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
B. It would be a bit like my father saying, “Who’s been playing with my gun?”
1. At the very least, I would have probably stood there mute, or said, “not me” or maybe even something like, “The gun wouldn’t have gone off if you didn’t have it in your drawer.”
2. Adam says,
a. God, it’s your fault.
b. You gave that WOMAN to me.
3. Eve says,
a. God, it’s your fault,
b. You allowed that snake to come into the garden.
4. And the old joke is, “The serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on.”
XIX. David has already told us that guilt can get in the very way of life.
A. Remember he said, “I am overwhelmed.”
B. This is just too much for me.
XX. And yet often we seem to believe that if we can only cover our guilt up, it will disappear, or
XXI. If we can hide from it, maybe just ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, it won’t.
XXII. For many of the most often used technique is to blame someone esle.
A. It’s not my fault, she made me do it.
B. I didn’t mean to drink that, but they put it in front of me.
C. I didn’t mean to go their, but ...
XXIII. If we don’t feel guilty from time to time, it’s still our fault for not being honest with ourselves.
A. But I don’t like this feeling of guilt.
B. I don’t like walking around like this.
C. What can I do about it.
XXIV. Please allow me to give you three steps to dealing with guilt.
Three Steps for Dealing with Guilt
Confess to God -
I. 1st John 1:9 reads - “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
II. Someone once asked, “Does that mean if I don’t confess my sin, God won’t forgive them.
A. No.
B. All you sins have already been forgiven by Christ at the cross.
III. But there is something that takes place when we confess our sins to God.
A. The Bible teaches that before we can come to faith in Christ, we must recognize our need for a savior.
B. If we can’t see our need for Christ, we will never be able to confess our dependence on Him for our salvation.
IV. I think it is much like that with confession.
A. In order to confess, we must first recognize the fact that we have fallen short someplace.
B. In order to be released from our guilt, we must first
1. Understand and admit that we are guilty,
2. Look for the source of our guilt.
C. What is confession? It is agreeing with God on a matter.
V. Are you feeling guilty, talk with God.
Confess to Others
VI. James 5:16 reads - Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
A. In this passage, James is instructing those that are sick to call on the elders for prayer.
B. James states that they should call the elders and confess their sins, so that the elders will pray, and make them whole.
C. I personally believe that this passage is not talking about physical illness, as much as spiritual.
1. If a person was physically ill, they could call a doctor.
2. If a person was spiritually ill, calling a doctor wouldn’t help much, unless of course that physician were a believer.
VII. What God is saying here is,
A. Your not alone.
B. You don’t have to fight this battle alone.
C. There are people that love you and want to help.
VIII. Feeling guilty,
A. First confess to God,
B. Second, call someone to help.
Trust the Character of God
IX. Let’s go back and look at 1st John 1:9 again - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
X. He is faithful and righteous (or just) to forgive us and cleanse us.
A. What God says, He will do.
B. Are you feeling guilty?
1. Have you spoken with God?
a. Asking Him for forgiveness
b. Asking Him to guide you as to what repairs you may need to make?
c. You have taken the first step.
C. Have you spoken with others?
1. Asking them for help or advice?
2. Maybe speaking with the person you might have cheated or offended?
3. You have taken the second step.
XI. Now all you have left to do is trust God at his word.
XII. Why don’t we admit it when we make a mistake at school; at work; or in our relationship with others.
A. Isn’t it because we are afraid of the repercussions.
1. I might lose my job; you might,
2. I might get detention; you might,
3. They might be mad at me; yes or even worse.
B. We don’t admit to our mistakes because we don’t want to face the consequences.
XIII. Many of us don’t want to admit to sin, because we fear that God will be mad, maybe even somehow punishing us.
A. But God says,
B. Confess your sins, and I will forgive them, and cleanse you in Christ.
XIV. The third step is to trust that what God has said, God will do.
