Forgiving Grace

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Sermon Series

All Have Sinned–But, There's Grace! – Part 5

"Forgiving Grace"

Pastor Jerry

Genesis 3: 8-13; James 2:10

 

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For the past four weeks we've been looking at the grace of God in a series called “All Have Sinned…!”  Let's admit it. The truth is, all of us at some point in our lives have to honestly say "I did it." There are things we've all struggled with. We're all in the same boat. James 2:10 "The person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is." Recognizing the fact that whether it's one sin or many in our lives we've all slipped, we've all sinned and we're all in the same boat. Let's deal with this together today and recognize that God has an answer. The answer is God’s Forgiving Grace. What I need for you to do today as we begin this message is to make an assessment of your situation. Before you can come to see your need of Forgiving Grace, you will need to see that you have slipped, that you are guilty. So, first, we're going to be talking about guilt today. Obviously, there are different degrees of guilt. But there is real guilt…and…a false kind of guilt.  So what is real guilt? What's the difference between real guilt and false guilt? We need to talk about how our ways of dealing with guilt differ greatly from God's way of dealing with guilt. WHAT IS GUILT? Do you know what guilt feels like? Perhaps, this verse in the Bible will remind us what it feels like, "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear." Don’t you know that overwhelming, burdened feeling? That feeling of, "I hope nobody finds out." But is that all there is to guilt? Is that what God means it to be? Is it some kind of punishment that He sends into my life/your life when we've done something wrong? He says "OK, you did something wrong. Live with this for a while!" Does He mean for us to do that, for a while or the rest of our lives? No! The purpose of guilt is not just to make you feel bad. He has a greater purpose than that. Guilt is actually a warning light. Picture it that way. It's a warning light that goes off that says, "Something's wrong. Something needs to be fixed." It's like the warning light that goes off on the dashboard of your car which says something's wrong. We've got lots of different ways of dealing with this warning light that God sends into our life. We try to ignore it or pretend it's not there. But the truth is, if something really is wrong, the best thing to do is to get it fixed. I could try to fix the car myself but I'm not very good at that. So I need to take it to someone who knows how to work on cars, like Roger, or take it back to the manufacturer. That's what we need to do with our lives. That's what the warning light is saying. It's saying, "You need some time with God. You need God to heal this." That's the warning light that God's bringing in. Before we look at the difference of how we try to deal with that warning light and how God's able to deal with it, how we try to fix ourselves and how He's able to fix us, we've got to make a very important distinction. There's an important distinction to discover about guilt. There's two different kinds! There is genuine guilt. The real deal. We've all dealt with that, the genuine guilt that comes from the fact that we've all done wrong things that have hurt ourselves, hurt others, and hurt the heart of God. That's the honest truth. Unless we're perfect (and none of us are) we've all had to deal with this real thing of guilt. This feeling of genuine guilt. There's another brand of guilt that is very important to understand if you're going to find God's grace in the midst of it. That is false guilt. That's thinking that maybe there might be a light on the dashboard that might come on and you're so worried about it that you worry yourself into a guilt. That's feeling like, "If a light on the dashboard ever came on, what would people think of me?" There's many people who deal with this false guilt. So, how do we know if it is real guilt or a false guilt? Well, there is a way to tell. There are three tests that will help you and I determine, discern whether this is true guilt or false guilt. (First Test):

1. Is the focus on People or is it on God? "False guilt is that which comes as the results of judgments and the suggestions of men." True guilt is that which comes as a result of divine judgment, what God thinks about the situation. If you're struggling with false guilt, you're going to find yourself striving a lot for approval. You need other people's approval to make you feel better about yourself.

(Second Test):

2. Is it Vague or is it Specific? Sometimes people will say, "It's unclear... it’s like a fog." and they don't know how to get rid of it. When asked “what's the struggle they're facing?” And they really can't say. Almost all the time when it's the vague, foggy feeling of guilt, it's Satan talking to you and not God. God, when He wants to tell us we've done something wrong and help us get it right, He does it like a pinpoint of light, not some vague cloudy thing. Maybe I hear a sermon, or, I turn on the radio – and hear a song, or, watch a movie and – in each of those experiences I’m struck with conviction! God does that. So is it this vague feeling of guilt or is it God's pinpoint of light of truth?

(Third Test):

3. Is it Rules or Relationships? When you're struggling with false guilt the big feeling is, "I broke the rules." When you're struggling with genuine guilt the feeling is, "I hurt someone. I hurt my wife/husband/children/the heart of God because of what I did." That's the difference between the two. The rules become more important than the relationship. In church it becomes duty rather than desire. False guilt blinds us to the miraculous work of God. We need to get this clarified, is it true guilt or false?

Whatever kind of guilt we're dealing with -- true guilt/false guilt -- we've got ways of dealing with it and God's got ways of dealing with it. First let’s look at our ways of dealing with guilt, and then, we’ll look at God’s way of dealing with it! OUR WAYS OF HANDING GUILT Back to the light on the dashboard: What are you going to do when that light goes off? How do you handle it? It's amazing how we have common ways of handling these feelings. They go all the way back to the first man, the first woman, the first sin. The ways they dealt with that first sin are pretty common today. Probably all of us can relate to them. Genesis 3 the Bible tells us that they first sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves. Then they hid from the Lord God. Then when challenged, Adam said, "I was afraid because I was naked. She gave me some fruit from the tree, so I ate it." Three ways that are indicated in the way they responded and the way we respond today too.

1. (First) We often respond with shame. We feel bad about it. If you think you can feel bad enough about the wrong things you've done to make them ok, probably most of you have already discovered that doesn't work. I sure have. Shame doesn't work. They felt ashamed, sewed fig leaves together, and ran away.

2. (Second) Hiding. They hid in the bushes from God, as if God couldn't see them there. That's like trying to put your hand over the light on the dashboard that's going off, pretending that nothing is really wrong. It doesn't work. But they tried that one. They hid.

3. (Third) Blame. This is a popular one. It's sort of a tragic, humorous story what happens in Genesis. You've got Adam and Eve and the serpent standing there and God comes. God asks Adam, "Did you eat of that fruit of that tree?" Adam took it like a man and he blamed his wife. He points right at Eve, "She did it. It's her fault. She gave me the fruit." So Eve's standing here, blames too. She points at the serpent, "The serpent made me do " Of course the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on... Isn't it easy to try to blame your way out of the wrong things that have happened? We all do this.

Listen to this story of my son’s car’s when he was a teenager. He was driving his car to school one day. On the way he heard this incredibly terrible sound. He pulled over, looked the car over. The car looked OK to him, but it sounded bad. He thought, well the car looks fine, he thinks he can make it to school and then he would take care of it later. He didn’t make it to school -- the car broke down on the side of the road. What do you do when you break down? When you've looked at life & said, "Everything looks fine &I think I can make it a little bit further." Then it doesn't work anymore. All the blame, & hiding, all the shame, all the ways we've got of dealing with guilt doesn’t work. What do you do when that happens? God has a way of dealing with guilt, too. Very different from our ways. GOD'S WAY OF HANDLING GUILT is the GRACE of FORGIVENESS In 1 John 1:9 we are given three parts in the way God handles Guilt: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." The first part of dealing with guilt is “to confess our sins". The second part is God’s faithfulness: "He is just”. The third part of dealing with guilt is God’s Grace: “He will forgive us". That's how we need to deal with the guilt that makes us sick & breaks us down & tears us apart.

1. Confess your sins. What does that word mean -- sin? Sin is all about my way. It's all about me saying to God, "You might not like it, but I'm going to live my life my own way.” It's like my son looking at the car and saying, "It looks ok to me so I'm doing it my way." That's what it's all about. Sin is doing it my way and leaving God out. It’s ignoring what God says is truth!

How do you confess your sin? You tell God the truth. Why not be honest about it? Psalm 69:5 "God you know what I have done wrong. I cannot hide my guilt from You." Telling God -- confessing to God -- means more than just admitting. It means "agreeing with God about what God thinks about sin.” That it's wrong and that it destroys lives. You can confess to God now. You can do it through prayer. You can talk to God even right now where you're seated. Just tell Him about the things you've done. The first part of dealing with guilt is “to confess our sins". The second part is …

2. Trust God's character. Many people confess their sins …but really never get to know the God who can forgive them. They don’t experience that "... He is faithful and just..." Let me tell you you the truth--You can count on God. You can count on His faithfulness. When you get close to the God who loves you, who gave His life for you in Christ, when you get close to Him, you really sense what His forgiveness is all about. You don't become the person God wants you to be through feeling sorry for yourself, or through your guilt. You become the person God wants you to be through His grace. It's grace that allows you to become all that God wants you to be. You can trust God. He is faithful. He is just.

The third part of dealing with guilt is God’s Grace: “He will forgive us".

3. Accept God's forgiveness. If we confess our sins, He's faithful, He can be trusted to forgive us our sins and the verse ends by saying, "... and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He will! He will purify us from all sin. Grace is not about us or what we’ve done. Grace is all about what God is able to do!

When we believe in Christ and trust what He did for us on the cross, the Bible says you're not judged guilty. I'm sure there's some of you who are struggling with this. It's a big struggle to recognize how great God's grace is. God not only wants to free you of your guilt, He wants to use you in a new way. Give you a new life! That's the good news about grace. I have a verse I want to leave today with you. Psalm 32:5 "I finally admitted all my sins to You and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, `I will confess them to the Lord.' And You forgave me. All my guilt is gone." Incredible! Some body here today needs that. Somebody needs to say, "God, I admit it! I need Your forgiveness. I'm tired of trying all my ways of making up for it." Recognize that God is the God of grace who wants to forgive and shower grace upon you. Why? Because you deserve it? No. Because He loves you?