February 2, 2003 Zechariah 3:1-10
¡§The burden of guilt¡¨ (pt. 2)
You may know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the writer of the Sherlock Holmes novels. But you probably don¡¦t know that he was quite a prankster. One day he played a prank on 5 of the most prominent men in England. He sent an anonymous note to these 5 prominent men and it simply said this, "All is found out, flee at once." Within 24 hours all five men had left the country. Doyle did not know what their secrets were, but he played on the assumption that all men have secrets, and those secrets usually lead to terrible feelings of guilt.
Guilt is like a cloud hanging over your head. It causes you to think something like this: "I just can¡¦t get on with my life because I¡¦m afraid somebody is going to find that skeleton in my closet - that deep, dark secret that I know about, and obviously God knows about, but nobody else knows about.¡¨ It carries a heavy, heavy weight.
When you feel guilt, you can either try to suppress it, or you can deal with it. ¡§One psychologist describes guilt as the red light on our internal dashboard. When the red light glows, you have a choice to make. Pull over, get out of the car, open the hood and see what¡¦s wrong; or you can smash the light with a hammer and keep driving. The first option [may not be pleasant or convenient but it] leads to fixing the problem; it makes you aware of the broken water hose or the cracked radiator. The second option only relieves the symptoms, but leaves you stranded further down the road.¡¨
Those who are willing to admit their guilt try to deal with it in a variety of ways. I came across a web sight last week that promises that if you air your dirty laundry there, then you will be freed from your feelings of guilt. Believe it or not, people really do it. Let me give you just a couple of examples to see if what they feel guilty about strikes home with any of you.
Guilt? Guilt is my middle name. I feel guilty for not being more than I am, for letting opportunities pass me by, for not having enough energy to do everything, for not being perfect, for spending so much time on the web! I feel guilty for not being best at everything, because merely being good at some things is not good enough. I feel guilty for being emotional and spacy and focused and eccentric rather than calm and cool and organized. I feel guilty for having a bit of an edge on my personality ¡K I feel guilty about having a daughter who refuses to wear dresses or a pink pony tail... I feel guilty about producing boys who aren’t great at sports, who are thin and wiry and freckled and spectacled¡K. I feel guilty about aluminum cans and eating meat and using cleaning chemicals and having three children and driving a car. But not guilty enough to change my bad habits. I feel guilty for liking myself even though I’m convinced I’ve failed completely at being perfect. ¡V Candice on http://www.sherryart.com/guilt/guilt.html
My parents always told me that guilt is a wasted emotion. But they’re awfully good at teaching me to waste emotions then! I feel guilty for not wanting to move back to my home town, for playing when I should be working, for working too hard when I should be socializing, for turning my cat into some sort of psycho-wimp (I’m sure I had something to do with it), for not cleaning my house, and for not getting my thesis finished months ago.¡V Kathy on http://www.sherryart.com/guilt/guilt.html
Other ways that people try to deal with guilt on their own are by running to a:
„X Psychiatrist (he¡¦ll help us excuse the guilt; ¡§mother¡¦s fault¡¨; ¡§you were born that way¡¨)
„X Priest (overcome the guilt with good works; ¡§Hail Mary¡¦s¡¨ and pennance)
„X Bar (hide the guilt behind alcohol; escape the guilt¡Kfor a while)
„X Buddy (we want someone to tell us it wasn¡¦t our fault, to agree with us that we were wronged maybe even to join us in our guilt [i.e. ¡§You think that¡¦s bad! Listen to what I did!¡¨])
Two problems with dealing with guilt on your own are that whatever solutions you come up with are only temporary, and you don¡¦t have the skills or the tools to properly deal with your own guilt. It¡¦s like me trying to fix my car. I have enough wisdom to know that my car is too complex, and my skills are too limited for me to fix it. I send my car to Roy whenever I have a problem with it. The solution I might come up with is probably going to be worse than whatever caused the original problem. That¡¦s what happens with guilt too. By trying to fix it my way, I compound the problems.
¡§An initial sin or mistake leads to regret ¡K which is followed by some destructive coping mechanism ¡K which brings more sin and mistakes ¡K which prompts more regret. On and on the downward spiral goes
¡§Some of the coping mechanisms we turn to include "drugs, alcohol, overeating, gambling, pornography, escapism, or inappropriate relationships. When we rely on these things to cope with guilt and hopelessness, we find that regret begets regret - and the cycle continues." - Susan Wilkinson, Getting Past Your Past, 40
Last week, as we began to discover God¡¦s answer to how we get rid of our burden of guilt, we looked at two of the means God has given us to find release. The first was to:
1. Re-examine God¡¦s statements about you. (vs. 1-2)
In the final analysis of things, the only one who has a right to judge us and point out our guilt is God ¡V not our families, not our co-workers, not our neighbors, not even ourselves. But once we have admitted our guilt to God and sought His answer for it, He washes our guilt away. He considers us guilty no more. He considers us justified, clean, forgiven.
2. Remember God¡¦s choice is you. ¡§chosen¡¨
God chose you, and He chose me. He didn¡¦t choose us because of something great within us, but in spite of all our mess ups and all our failures. He knew about them from the very beginning, and He still chose us. And even after we come to Him and we fail Him, He doesn¡¦t reject us. He still wants us as His own.
That brings us to the next three means God gives us to get rid of our heavy burden of guilt.
3. Receive God¡¦s forgiveness toward you. (vs. 3-4)
¡§It isn¡¦t enough to simply know God¡¦s choice of us, we also need to experience God¡¦s forgiveness. "3Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4The angel said to those who were standing before him, ¡¦Take off his filthy clothes.¡¦"
¡§I want you to notice two things about what happens here. First of all, his clothes really are filthy. That is, his sin is real. The word that¡¦s used actually means dung-spattered. Our translation has sanitized it for us. The result is that as high priest Joshua is unable to serve. Nothing unclean was allowed anywhere near the Sanctuary, so the result of his sin is that he¡¦s unable to act as high priest, and as a result it means that the people have no way of being made right with God. So as is often the case, this sin, this uncleanness, has wide-reaching [effects]. But secondly, notice that the sin is portrayed as being like an outer garment. It¡¦s something that can be removed, It can be cleansed. Joshua can be made acceptable to God again. The sin isn¡¦t part of who he is. Do you ever find yourself saying something like: "Oh I¡¦m a terrible person. I can never do anything right." Generalizing statements that move from what you do, to what you are. Telling yourself that sin is what you are, rather than what you put on. Sin doesn¡¦t make the person. No one is irredeemable. Our sin doesn¡¦t stop us from being in the image of God, it simply soils that image. "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9 NRSV) That¡¦s all unrighteousness. Even that sin you¡¦d rather no one knew about. Even that sin that you find yourself doing over and over again. There¡¦s a story of a time Martin Luther had a dream of Satan reading a long scroll with all his sins on it. Finally Luther jumped up and said ¡¦It¡¦s all true, Satan, and there are many more sins that only God knows about; but write at the bottom of your list, "the blood of Jesus Christ, God¡¦s Son cleanses us from all sin"¡¦ and at that Satan fled.
¡§Before we move on, notice that the removal of sin is done at God¡¦s behest, not Joshua¡¦s. Joshua could no more cleanse himself than we can. Someone had to take the filthy clothes from him, and that someone is God himself, through his Son Jesus Christ.
In order to get God¡¦s forgiveness, you don¡¦t bargain. ¡§God, if you forgive, I¡¦ll never do this again.¡¨ Barring a miracle from God, yes, you will do it again. You don¡¦t bribe to get God¡¦s forgiveness either. ¡§God, if you forgive, I promise to do a bunch of good things. I¡¦ll go to church, I¡¦ll tithe, I¡¦ll do whatever you want me to do.¡¨ You don¡¦t even have to beg. There is no need.
Many years ago, executives of the Time-Life publishing organization discovered that the company¡¦s profit margin had shrunk to an alarmingly low level. They discovered that one way they could cut costs was by reducing the staff in the renewal department. There were 350 people working full time sending heartbreaking pleas to readers whose subscriptions were about to expire. (For example, "Will you dare face your children without "Time" magazine on your coffee table?") It was calculated that if a machine could be found to replace the manual labor, millions of dollars in overhead would be saved. IBM came to the rescue with an enormous computer.
The name of each subscriber was put on a separate little plate and run through the vast machine. Whenever a nameplate came along that was within six weeks of expiration, a series of dots and dashes at the top of the tab triggered an electronic impulse that caused it to drop into a slot. The name was then affixed to one of the "heartbreaking" letters which was then folded, stuffed into an envelope, labeled, stamped, and dropped down a chute to the basement where a United States Branch Post Office was set up--all without a single human hand touching the operation.
The system worked flawlessly for a while, until that fateful, hot, humid, sticky day in New York City when one of the nameplates stuck in the machine. A few days later a lone sheepherder in Montana received 12,634 tear jerking letters asking him to subscribe to "Life" magazine.
The sheepherder, who hadn¡¦t received a letter in years, took his knife, carefully slit open one of the mailbags and began reading his mail. Three weeks later, red-eyed, weary and up to his hips in 12,634 opened pieces of mail, he made out a check for $6.00, filled out a subscription coupon and sent it to the President of Time-Life personally, with the following note: "I give up!"
That¡¦s a story to remember when you begin to wonder about the limit of God¡¦s mercy. You don¡¦t have to plead or beg for it. You don¡¦t have to ask Him 12,634 or 1,000 or 100 times for it. [You just have to ask once for it.] God has already said, "I give up: I love you; I forgive you.¡¨
Both offering and receiving forgiveness are acts of faith. When I offer forgiveness, I, in faith, believe that God is better at fixing the messes and the hurts of my life than I am. And when I receive God¡¦s forgiveness, I am placing my faith in the multitude of promises that He has made that when I confess and repent, He will forgive.
I may not always feel forgiven, but the Christian life is not based on feelings. Someone asked Martin Luther, a great theologian of the past and the father of the Protestant church, ¡§Do you feel that you have been forgiven?¡¨ He answered, ¡§No! But I¡¦m as sure as there¡¦s a God in Heaven. For feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving; my warrant is the Word of God, [nothing] else is worth believing.¡¨
Jesus has already paid for your sin. (Heb 10:10 NIV) ¡Kwe have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Guilt is a way of continuing to punish your self for a sin that has already been washed by the blood of Jesus. Why are you still punishing yourself for sins that were paid for on the cross? That¡¦s like saying that Jesus¡¦ payment was not sufficient. Jesus offers forgiveness but you must accept it.
Before her death, Judy Lawson became a spiritual Mother of scores of hardened criminals. "On her last Mother¡¦s Day," according to Bill Myers, "she received 40 Mother¡¦s Day cards from men whose life she touched." Her prison ministry began eighteen months after her son was brutally murdered. She knew it was God¡¦s will for her to forgive the murderer, and she had spoken the words, but she continued to harbor ill will toward the man who robbed her of her son. She had agreed to never say "no" to God, so when she heard Him saying, "I want you to love the man who killed your son" she had no choice but to fight the natural rage boiling up and to practice Christian love and forgiveness.
While visiting a prison to support a friend at a parole hearing, she came face-to-face with the murderer. She fought God, but soon, in faith gave in to His leading to speak to the man. "Richard," she said, "my name is Judy Lawson--you murdered my son and I want you to know that I love you and I forgive you."
The man began sobbing and the prison guards removed her from the facility. She sent the murderer letters. He sent them back. She continued to write. Her family said stop. Her pastor said stop. But her God said continue. Soon, God¡¦s grace broke through and the vicious killer and the victim reconciled and began a ministry together proclaiming grace and forgiveness to inmates. - SOURCE: Fresh Illustrations.com.
We, like that criminal, are guilty, but God is ready to forgive if we are willing to receive His forgiveness.
4. Revel in God¡¦s acceptance of you. (vs. 5-6)
God wants to do more than forgive you. ¡§Look at what happens now. "to Joshua he said, "See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festal apparel." 5And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with the apparel; and the angel of the LORD was standing by." Not only is Joshua cleansed from sin, but now as a sign of God¡¦s acceptance he¡¦s clothed with rich apparel and a clean turban is put on his head. The turban is part of his high priestly outfit. It had a plaque on the front of it that read ¡¦Holy to the Lord¡¦ as a sign that the high priest was set apart for the task of bringing sacrifices for the sins of the people. So Joshua not only has his sins forgiven, he¡¦s also reinstated as the high priest. So can you see that for the people this is a twofold remedy. As their representative, his sins being forgiven also signifies their sins being forgiven, but his reinstatement also means that their access to God is now restored.
¡§This idea of putting on new clothes as a sign of acceptance is an idea that, you may remember, Jesus uses in the parable of the prodigal son. [When the rebellious son came back home, his dad had the dirty clothes that he was wearing removed and replaced them with clothes that were proper for a son, not clothes that were fit for a slave.] It¡¦s not just that we¡¦re forgiven, you see, but that God accepts us back. That he restores us to where we were before. Here¡¦s how Paul puts it in 2 Cor 5:20-21 "So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." God has not only taken away my sin and your sin, he¡¦s replaced it with something else. What is it? ¡¦so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.¡¦ He¡¦s clothed us with the righteousness of God.¡¨ In doing this, He has made us ready to serve Him again.
When Isaiah, the prophet, stood in the Lord¡¦s presence, he realized his own guilt (Is. 6:7) before God. God cleansed him of his guilt and then gave him an assignment. Isaiah wasn¡¦t ready to accept the assignment until he was freed from his guilt. If we admit our guilt to God and seek His forgiveness after we mess up, He doesn¡¦t set us on a shelf somewhere for us to live out the rest of our earthly years in uselessness to Him and His kingdom.
You may remember a guy by the name of Peter who boldly proclaimed that he would never deny knowing Jesus and promised that he would fight to the death by Jesus¡¦ side. The Scripture records that, only a few hours later, he was weeping bitterly because he had betrayed his master and friend. Jesus forgave him, but He did more than forgive him. He restored him. It was Peter that God used to be His spokesman on the Day of Pentecost resulting in the salvation of several thousand souls. Doesn¡¦t sound to me like Peter got put on the shelf. If God can restore Peter, He can restore me. And He can restore you.
I believe that some of you have been and are still allowing your guilt to keep you from getting actively involved in service to God in this church and in His kingdom. You feel unworthy. You feel dirty. Who are you to be a representative for the holy God of the universe? Who are you to share your faith, to teach a Sunday school class, to participate in a mission trip, to sing in the choir, to become a member of this church? Do you want to know who you are and what qualifies you to serve in whatever capacity God calls you to ¡V you are a forgiven and restored child of God! ¡§But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become sons of God¡K¡¨ (John 1:12) That¡¦s who you are! Revel in that! Do what the prodigal son and his dad did when he realized that he could be restored to all the rights of a son. Have a party!
¡§So when you¡¦re faced with feelings of guilt, stand before the Lord [and re-examine His statements about you], [remember] God¡¦s choice [is you], receive God¡¦s forgiveness [of you], and just as important, [revel in] God¡¦s acceptance [of you]. Know that he¡¦s made you righteous in his sight.¡¨ He has restored you to a place of usefulness in His kingdom.
5. Reflect on God¡¦s sacrifice for you. (vs. 7-10)
As he studied the book of Romans, Martin Luther, the theologian I spoke of a few minutes ago came across a verse that created a lot of conflict for him. It was Rom. 3:26. In that verse, Paul describes God¡¦s plan ¡§to demonstrate his justice¡¨. He calls God ¡§just¡¨ which is another way of saying that He properly rewards the righteous for their actions and properly punishes the guilty for theirs. God is right in how He dispenses His justice. None of that gave Luther any problem. What created a conflict for him was that God is also called ¡§the one who justifies¡¨. How could God be just and forgive the actions of Joshua, the Israelites or you and me? To put it in terms that you and I can identify with, let me suggest a situation for you. A mad man has killed your son or daughter. That man stands before the judge who is about to pass sentence based on irrefutable and undeniable evidence. At the last moment, that man asks for the judge¡¦s forgiveness. Amazingly, the judge gives forgiveness and lets the man go free to rejoin society in the same position that he had before his crime. He justified the guilty man ¡V he made it possible for him to be treated as if he had never done the crime. How would you feel about the judge and his actions? Would you consider him to be just? And yet, with one variation, that is exactly what God has done for us. How could He? How could He set aside our guilt and our punishment? Only one way. Somebody else paid the punishment in our place. And that is where Zechariah¡¦s vision of Joshua takes us next.
¡§We¡¦re now given an insight into how [this cleansing is] to come about. "Then the angel of the LORD assured Joshua, saying 7¡¦Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. 8Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch. 9For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. 10On that day, says the LORD of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.¡¦" Suddenly we discover that Joshua and his colleagues are an omen or a symbol of what¡¦s to come. Yes, God is about to restore Jerusalem as his dwelling place, but he has a far more glorious plan in mind.
¡§From a vision of Joshua the high priest being reinstated we jump to a series of references that can only point to the coming Messiah. He¡¦s ¡¦my servant,¡¦ a term that¡¦s used some 20 times in Isaiah alone to refer to [Jesus,] the Messiah. He¡¦s the Branch, that is, the one through whom all the promises of God to David would be fulfilled. So as the branch he¡¦ll be a king from the line of David.
¡§But then there¡¦s this reference to a stone with 7 facets. This might literally be the stone that will form the foundation of the temple that Joshua is helping build. But the stone is also an idea that is used to refer to the coming Messiah: (Isa 28:16 NRSV) "therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic."" So this stone with seven facets, a sign of perfection, is again a pointer to something, someone, that is yet to come, who will remove the guilt of the land in a single day. Well, you don¡¦t have to be too clever, this side of the cross at least, to work out that he¡¦s referring to Jesus Christ, do you? What we¡¦ve seen take place in the vision, is a foretaste of what God would do on that first Easter day. For Joshua, the cleansing is contingent on him and the people walking in God¡¦s way and keeping his requirements. But now the cleansing that Jesus brings is final. On that one day, his death and resurrection removed our guilt.¡¨ (2 Cor 5:21 NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Through His actions, Jesus opened ¡§the way for us to enjoy God¡¦s presence with us forever, which is the meaning of each of us inviting the other to come under our vine and fig tree. It¡¦s a picture of living a life where we enjoy God¡¦s blessing [forever].¡¨
Whenever the accuser whispers in your ear and tries to remind you of all those past sins that you have done, reflect on what Jesus Christ did for you. Think about how He took your guilt and your punishment and paid that debt that you owed by nailing it to the cross. Your debt is paid in full. That¡¦s what Jesus meant when He cried out from the cross: ¡§IT IS FINISHED!¡¨
CONCLUSION
¡§So what we find here, ¡Kis that the promises made through Zechariah point us forward to the things that God will do through Jesus Christ. What we discover here is the gospel of Jesus Christ in fact. More specifically, we find the freedom that that gospel brings. Freedom from guilt, freedom from the pressures of those around us, ¡K freedom to serve God, knowing that he¡¦s forgiven our sins, that he¡¦s accepted us for who we are, that he¡¦s clothed us with his righteousness, and that he now enables us to serve him freely. How will you respond, next time you¡¦re feeling guilty? Stand before the Lord, let him examine you; [remember] that he has chosen you to be one of his people; [receive] the forgiveness that he offers; [revel in] his acceptance of you; [and reflect on the work of] Jesus Christ [that paid your debt in full].
INVITATION
What is our proper response to what Jesus Christ has done for us? Three things ¡V thankfulness, praise and service. Are you still carrying around your guilt? Get rid of it. Lay it at the cross of Jesus. Then leave it there.
*Note: unless otherwise noted, all quotes are taken from a sermon by Chris Appleby entitled ¡§Dealing with guilt¡¨
