Listen to the Voice of Truth
I was pondering on a question this week. The question was, “What does it take for a Christian to please God?” Some people might say, “That’s not a good question to ask,” or something like that, but with all this baggage we have been talking about I wondered if our baggage pleases God. My final answer is no, it doesn’t please God. God doesn’t want us running around in life weighed down my different issues that He can actually take care of for us. God doesn’t want us to be weighed down by pride, worry or any of the others that we have talked about. God wants us to live full, rich lives. He wants us to be out enjoying the world and fulfilling the purposes He has for us. We still haven’t reached the answer yet, “What does it take to please God?” We do find the answer in the book of Hebrews 11:6 (read).
So the answer seems to be that in order for a Christian to please God, we must live our lives full of faith. How many of us live our lives full of faith? Chapter 11 goes on to list many people who did live their lives full of faith. Men like Moses, Abraham, Joseph and Noah. The list continues even with women who had lived their lives full of faith, Sarah and Rahab. Look at the example that they have left for us. The earth had never seen rain ever, and Noah starts building a gigantic boat in case of rain. Everyone makes fun of him during the whole time that he is building the boat. He lived his life in faith, knowing that God was going to send rain the way He said He was. Noah was rewarded for that. And the list goes on and on. You have all heard their stories, stories of triumph through their faithfulness. Chapter 11 is full of amazing biblical characters that lived their lives full of faith. Do you think if the writer of Hebrews was alive today, he would be able to include your name in this list? For most of us I would have to say, “Probably not.”
Then I ask myself the question, “What is it that keeps us from that level of faith?” What keeps us from going to the most powerful people in our world and demanding things the way Moses did to Pharaoh? What is it that keeps us from having a level of faith that would allow us to walk through the Red Sea? What is it that keeps us from living lives full of faith? The answer is just another form of baggage. This time the culprit for our not living lives full of faith is guilt. One of Satan’s favorite tools to use on us is guilt. It weighs us down. It consumes us. It is with us all the time. Guilt stalemates us in our spiritual lives. We can’t move forward, sideways or backwards. We just sit and grow stale in our Christianity because guilt prevents us from moving.
It is guilt from that decision you made back in college. It still haunts you today, what you did 5, 10, 15 or even 25 years ago. Because of something you did, you feel that you can’t be close to God and that He surely doesn’t love you anymore. Therefore you might as well not even try to step out on faith anymore, because God isn’t there for you anyway. You have just made too many mistakes. You seem to fall to the same sin over and over. You know it’s a sin, but you just can’t seem to get away from it. You have prayed for forgiveness, you have prayed for strength in overcoming it, but you just can’t do it. This means God must have abandoned you and you are all alone. The guilt for that sin you have committed comes back to you and it freezes you right where you stand. Now you can’t move forward in your faith because there is no way that God wants to love or talk to someone who can’t even overcome this one little sin. Guilt is a barrier. It is the barrier we must walk through in order to develop a stronger faith. Satan uses this road block because so many times Christians get to it, they look at the size of the barrier and rather than by faith walking through it, going around it or pushing it over, we just stop in our faith journey, and stare at the barrier, feeling hopelessly lost because we just can’t do it. Satan is really good at making us feel like when we get to one of those barriers, when we are dealing with that guilt, he makes us feel as if God is no longer there for us. And that makes us stop and ponder, “What if God doesn’t love me anymore? If He doesn’t, then there’s no reason to go on from here.”
We talked about worry last week and worry makes us living half way in the future and half way in the present. We guilt does something similar it makes us life half way in the past and half way in the present. When we are living our lives full of guilt, we can’t see the future. We can’t move past what we have already done. We just stop.
I want to briefly share with you a couple moments in Scripture when a barrier could have kept someone from moving forward in their faith, a time when most people would just stop and throw in the towel. He was just a boy, around the age of 13. He was a shepherd who took care of his fathers flock. His brothers were in the king’s army and they were off at battle. His father decided to have the boy take his brothers some roasted grain, so the boy did so. When the boy got to the camp, he gave the food to his brothers and they gave him a hard time for being there. Just a young boy, wanting to see a fight. While he was there, something unusual happened. A giant from the other army stepped forward and made a challenge. He would fight any man, and the winner would take the other army home as its captive. The boy, David, stepped up and said, “How come no one has taught this guy a lesson yet?” And the entire Israelite army was afraid of him, even King Saul. So David, at his young age, asked permission to fight the giant. King Saul granted his request. Let’s read what happens next in 1 Samuel 17:40-51 (read). I especially love the way v. 48 is worded. David could have looked at this giant as a barrier and said, “No way. No one can beat him. I guess God has left us to deal with this ourselves.” David could have given up hope like the rest of the Israelite army, but he doesn’t. And by not allowing this barrier to get in his way, by faith David was able to accomplish something the bravest men in the army couldn’t accomplish. Our giant that is in our way is the giant of guilt. And it keeps us from experiencing the best God has for us, just like it kept the Israelite army from experiencing God’s victory through them.
Then there was that loud and obnoxious guy in the New Testament. His name was Peter. Peter had a very flamboyant personality. One night though, Peter had a chance to really step out and grow in his faith. It was a stormy night, Jesus had just finished up some preaching the day before. Jesus knew they needed to cross the lake by boat and so he sent His disciples on ahead of Him. Jesus went up the mountain and spent some time in prayer by Himself. The evening became early morning hours and a storm had set in over the lake. The disciples were having trouble with the boat somewhere between 3 & 6 in the morning. Then they notice something on the water. Maybe it was the loch ness monster, maybe it was something else. As the image got closer the disciples were afraid and proclaimed the object a ghost. That’s when Jesus cried out, “Take courage. It’s me, Jesus. Don’t be afraid.” Jesus had come to his disciples by walking on the water. Here they are out in the middle of the lake, in the middle of a storm, and Jesus calmly walks to them on the water. That’s where we pick up the story with Peter in Matthew 14:28-31 (read). Peter walked on the water. He stepped out on faith and he walked on water, in the middle of a storm, toward Jesus. His faith was strong, but not strong enough. Shortly after walking on the water, he became frightened and went under the water. Jesus instantly grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Jesus teaches him a lesson and says, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”
We might look at these stories and say, “These have nothing to do with guilt. What’s the point?” As you continue on your journey as a Christian, there are times when you want to grow in faith. There are times when you feel like you are growing in your faith. Then something happens. Satan shows up to push you back down. He begins throwing images at you of your past failures. What does that look like for us? It looks like a giant standing in the way of our growing in faith. We want to grow spiritually, but we can’t because our barrier, that giant, is in our way reminding us of our failures. He laughs at us and mocks us, as Goliath did, telling us we have failed and we can never win. We are sailing along smoothly in our spiritual walk, then suddenly Satan sends a storm. We know we need to step out on faith because Jesus asks us too, but the waves remind us of all of our past failures. “Remember last time you tried to walk on me? You failed. You sank. I won. You might as well not even try, because you can’t do it.” So we stay in the boat. Content with our lives of spiritual mediocrity, we just sit in the boat and we don’t fight the giant. It’s too big of a barrier to overcome.
I want to play a song for you guys. It’s entitled “Voice of Truth” and it’s written by a band called Casting Crowns. The words will be up on the screen and I’d really like for you guys to listen closely to the words of the song. (Play song).
“Oh, God will never want you back. You have sinned too many times. Remember all those bad decisions you made a few years ago? God gave up on you then. Don’t even try to be spiritual. Don’t step out on faith anymore. God’s not there. He gave up on you.” Isn’t this the conversation you have with yourself? The guilt prevents us from moving forward in our faith. But I would encourage you not to listen to that voice. I would encourage you to listen to the voice of Truth.
What voice of truth? What is that anyway? It is the voice of God talking to you today. It is God telling you that He still loves you and cares for you. It is God trying to tell you that nothing you can ever do will separate Him from you. That nothing you do will ever make Him stop loving you. You are His prized possession. It’s God reminding you that you are a forgiven person. That you don’t have to live in the past anymore, because the past is no more. There is only the future now. Back in the past, all your sins were taken care of on the cross. Forgiveness of all the things you and I do wrong, is available through that cross. Jesus was on the cross and the last thing He said was, “It is finished.” The plan to bring man back to God was done. And when Jesus Christ becomes the Lord of your life, your sins, through His work on the cross, are covered. They are taken care of. Do you still need more proof? Listen to these verses.
Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Hebrews 7:27 says, “…who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” Hebrews 10:10 says, “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Do you know what sanctified here means? It means purified. Part of the original meaning of the word literally means, “free from the guilt of sin.” By Christ’s work on the cross, we can be free from the guilt of our past. We don’t have to live in it anymore. It is taken care of by Jesus Christ Himself. Still need more. Okay, what about 1 Peter 3:18 which says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put tot death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”
You see, Jesus has washed away our past. When you make Christ the Lord of your life, you are also saying “Goodbye” to your past. You are a new person in Christ, the old is wiped away, and it’s gone. Yet many of us still choose to live in our guilt. We allow it to keep us from moving forward. Is there anyway to stop guilt from holding us back? I believe so. You can find the answer to that question in a couple of verses. The first is Psalm 32:3-5 which says, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your had was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord”’ and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” Through confessing our sins to God, God will wipe away your guilt. When you go to God and are honest with Him about your sin and your past, God is faithful and will wipe it away from you. Some of you are living with guilt because you never took it to God. Take it to Him and allow Him to get rid of it for you. Another verse is 1 John 1:9 which says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You see, through confession, we are set free. Christ’s death on the cross gives you the opportunity to take your sin directly to God, confess it to Him and leave it at His feet to take care of for you. And all because of the cross, you can be set free from the guilt you are experiencing.
Don’t allow Satan to keep convincing you that God hates you or that God never wants to hear from you again. That is absolutely wrong. God is so in love with you and wants you to talk to Him about it. When you talk to Him that is where you will find freedom. Don’t keep hiding from God and trying to deal with your guilt on your own. The more you hold on to your guilt, the bigger the barrier it will become. Know today that forgiveness is available through Jesus Christ. The Bible says if you hear the Word, you believe it, you confess Jesus as your Savior, you repent of your lifestyle by turning toward God, are baptized in the water then forgiveness is yours. You just have to choose to accept God’s gift that He is offering to you. The voice of truth is telling you that you are forgiven through Christ. The voice of truth is telling you that God is in love with you and nothing will ever separate you from that love. Will you choose to listen and believe the voice of truth or will you continue to allow the barrier of guilt to hold you back from the life God wants you to have? What will you choose?
