How many of you have ever felt guilty? Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” is an intense tale of passion, love, guilt, and revenge. It involves the struggle between two men and their love for one woman. In this novel, Hawthorne exemplifies the effects of guilt in not only Hester Prynne, but also in Arthur Dimmesdale through the development of their characters. Hester Prynne reveals the many effects of guilt caused by her passionate sin throughout the novel. After having been publicly humiliated for her sin, Hester withdraws to a small cottage on the outskirts of town where she and Pearl decide to stay. By choosing to live in this small cottage, Hester shows that she feels the guilt from her sin and knows her place in society. She feels that even though she has paid the price of her sin, she can never escape its habitual torture. Studies of consistently revealed that guilt is one of man’s most powerful emotions. The Dictionary of Psychology defines guilt this way. "An emotional state produced by the knowledge that one has violated moral standards. Most authorities recognized an emotional state as guilt only when the individual has internalized the moral standards of the society; thus it is distinguished from simple fear of punishment from external source—guilt is in a sense a self-administered punishment." Guilt can rob us of our peace, it can cause us to live in a constant state of fear and ultimately destroy our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Today we want to look how Christmas made it possible to be set free from our guilt.
I. Understanding that the feeling of guilt is universal.
A. Guilt comes from the knowledge that we have violated a moral standard.
1. Regardless of if we believe in God or not everyone has some perceived standard of morality.
2. As Christians we believe that God has clearly outlined His moral standard in the Ten Commandments.
3. Non-Christians also have a set of moral standards that they live by.
4. Guilt comes from the knowledge that we have violated the perceived moral standards that we live by.
a. We realize that we have disappointed God.
b. We realize that we have disappointed others.
c. We realize that we have disappointed ourselves.
5. We immediately condemn ourselves because of the disappointment that our failures have caused.
B. Regardless of how hard we try we cannot shed the burden of guilt that we carry.
1. We know that failure to live up to these moral standards cause destruction.
2. The violation of these moral standards is what God considers to be sin.
3. Paul made it clear that we all fail to meet the standard, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23—NIV 2011)
4. Our failures have the ability to destroy relationships.
a. Sin can destroy our relationships with others.
b. Sin can destroy our relationship with God.
c. Sin can destroy our relationship with self.
5. When we sin the Holy Spirit uses that immediate feeling of guilt to cause us to seek forgiveness from God.
6. Guilt becomes a problem when it continues to overwhelm us after we have sought forgiveness from God.
II. Understanding how God made the removal of guilt possible.
A. Christmas showed that God was aware of our inability to shed the burden of guilt.
1. The angel said that the child was to be named Jesus which is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua (Yeshua) which means “Jehovah is salvation.”
2. The significance of the name was because this child would ultimately save His people from their sins.
3. The central part of the Christmas story is not the virgin birth but God becoming man so that He could undo the mess that we had made.
4. The angel with these words announced that the Messiah would not restore Israel physically by overthrowing Rome but He would restore His people spiritually by undoing man’s alienation from God because of sin.
B. Christmas was the announcement that God was going to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
1. Regardless of what we try there is nothing that we can do to remove our guilt and restore our relationship with God.
2. No amount of apologies or good works can restore a broken relationship. The one that has been wronged must decide to allow the relationship to be restored.
3. Our failure to measure up to God’s standard caused us to be unrighteous. Unrighteous people cannot have a relationship with a holy and righteous God.
4. Paul states this fact when he quotes from Psalm 14:1-3. “There is no one righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10—NIV)
5. Since we could not save ourselves God unfolded a plan that would send us a Savior.
C. Christmas provided man with the freedom that he had not enjoyed since the fall.
1. In Genesis we read of man having a close intimate relationship with His creator.
2. We also see the results of sin. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8—NIV 2011)
3. Ever since sin entered the world we have been hiding from God and one another.
4. We must take note of an important fact. Jesus did not come into the world to simply help us to be able to save ourselves. He came into the world to save us!
5. Once again we enjoy an intimate relationship with our creator. We can stand before Him righteous and guilt free.
6. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2—NIV 2011)
III. Understanding how to take the message of Christmas about guilt to heart.
A. We must realize that Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins.
1. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:12—NIV 2011)
2. Through Christ God brought an end to the provisional forgiveness that was offered through the Old Testament sacrificial system.
3. When Jesus laid His life down on the cross it was a sacrifice of sufficient worth to bring about complete forgiveness of sin.
4. Regardless of how bad we think we are if we come to Him there is no sin that His blood cannot take away.
B. We must realize that through Christ we are no longer condemned for our sins.
1. We are our own worst critic. We have the bad habit of continuing to beat ourselves up for the sins that we have committed in our lives.
2. Since we often view ourselves as unworthy of forgiveness, guilt is the way that we can continue to punish ourselves.
3. As we mentioned earlier, Paul in Romans 8 reminds us that there is no longer any condemnation through Jesus Christ.
4. We have been made worthy to stand before God through the blood of Christ.
C. We must realize that the majority of our guilt feelings are self inflicted.
1. Have you ever wondered why we still feel guilty over things that God has already forgiven?
2. Satan uses our ability to feel guilty over everything we have ever done to keep us from being effective for the Kingdom of God.
3. As long as we continue to beat ourselves up we cannot fully focus on the task that Christ has called us to.
4. The vast majority of the time the only one that is condemning us is our self.
D. Remember these five things that are made possible by Christmas.
1. Christ has made it possible for our relationship with God to be restored.
2. We can live at peace because our sins have been forgiven and the guilt has been taken away.
3. Through Christmas God unmistakably showed the love that He had for mankind.
4. Christmas has made it possible to look forward with a great hope for the future.
5. Christmas has shown us that God loves each and every person in the world, even me.
George Sweeting, in his book The No-Guilt Guide for Witnessing, tells of a man by the name of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1968, Currier’s sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the farmer for whom he worked had died.
Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned about Currier’s plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He was a free man.
Sweeting concluded that story by asking, “Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message—the most important in your life—and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?”
We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others still enslaved by sin. Are we doing all we can to make sure that people get the message?
