Are you Guilty? Open 70 rr 751 c-528 In the spring of 1959 a United States Air Force Major entered a Texas mental institution for the second time. Twice he had tried to commit suicide and he had been arrested for forgery and robbery. He had been drinking heavily for years, and his marriage was demolished. Fifteen years before he had been a model officer headed for a promising career. What happened to him? He had flown in the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during WW II. People are constantly dealing with feelings of guilt. They are reflected in such statements as "You ought to clean your plate. Just think of all the children in the world that are going to bed hungry tonight? Anyone ever heard that? Anyone ever said that? At this point you might be feeling a little uneasy. or might be wondering what a subject like this had to with the Christian life and the word of God. I want to show over the next few talks that the type of psychological guilt that we often let motivate us is not encouraged. Christians are not commanded to live in fear of punishment, a sense of worthlessness or a feeling of rejection. As a matter of fact, I believe in all of these cases the Bible encourages just the opposite. The word encourages us to rejoice in our judgment (We'll talk about that more later) It teaches us that we are infinitely valuable, that we are accepted. Unfortunately religion has tended to use the Devil's tool of psychological guilt to bind people to certain beliefs and doctrines. And I must confess that certain of those who hold our faith have used the same techniques. And being human, we all will have a tendency to use guilt manipulation to move others to follow our ideas, approve of us, or otherwise modify their behavior. But that is not the way of the Lord. The only problem with that is that it tends to backfire on the person using those techniques. Then there are those who cannot say no to any cause out of feelings of psychological guilt. And which of us husbands or wives has not given the other a gift after being particularly hard to get along with? And how many parents have given their children money instead of the attention they really wanted. And how about exchanging gifts. If anyone really wants to prove he's free from psychological guilt, let him not give any gifts this Christmas to those that he had always given gifts to. We also have the constant critic. This dear soul is often trying to cover his own guilt by loudly proclaiming the guilt of anyone else. One area in our society that gets to all of us is in the area of money. even among us too often the judge of a person is his financial status The successful man has money. A husband feeling financial pressure may feel guilt for being an inadequate provider. When a wife asks for nicer things it is taken to mean, "You are not a good provider." In almost every area of our life we confront the wreckage caused by guilt. It binds us down, It pressures us, It robs us of freedom and joy. And none of us is free of guilt's influence. Look around. See the aggressive, driven businessman, the insomniac, the obsessive straight A student, and the constantly searching religious person, all partially motivated by hidden guilt. Each of these is trying somehow to develop a sense of self acceptance. If you were to ask several hundred people how they reacted to feelings of guilt you would find 3 predominant reactions: a fear of punishment, feelings of depression and worthlessness and lowered self esteem, and a feeling of isolation and rejection. What brings these feelings about? What influences shape our emotional lives. To state it briefly, we get feelings of guilt when our thoughts or behavior falls short of our ideal situation. From birth we develop goals, behaviors, ideals, and hopes. We learn the desired behavior from our parents and society. These are generally good directions but they may not be. One other force shapes us and it is inescapable. The Bible indicates that there is some kind of universal awareness of basic moral standards. Paul talks about this in Rom 2:14 "for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves," Rom 2:15 "who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)" We have guilt feelings when we work against this innate revelation of the will of God in us. So we learn from our parents, our culture, and our inborn knowledge, a knowledge of what we feel that we should be, at our optimum performance. When we do not live up the these things we experience guilt. We learn from these three factors also to expect punishment for wrong doing. Our parents usually reinforce this in us, when we look at the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, I'm sure that part of the reason that they hid themselves was that God had promised them that if they partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would surely die. They had fallen short of the standard that they had been taught and they expected some kind of dire results. We are no different than our first parents, because each time that we fall short of one of the standards that we have grown to perceive as normal or right, we learn to expect punishment. We say to ourselves, "When I do wrong, I'll be punished. This makes me anxious and upset. Once my punishment is over, I'm again at ease. I've paid my debt and can operate without fear." To speed the process of finding self-acceptance, we find many ways to punish ourselves. This can be an emotional process, or a physical one. Let me cite two examples of what I am talking about. You have all heard of the great reformer, Martin Luther. When fairly young he became convinced that he was evil and was going to burn in the fires of hell. This was the sort of belief that the church did nothing to discourage, for fear of punishment by an avenging God was one of the best sources of income. In his quest to find peace in his soul, he studied, fasted, beat himself until he fainted, and in short nearly killed himself. He reports on his feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. In studying the theology of Luther it is extremely important to remember this point. While the first reaction to the guilt emotion is expectation, there are two others. One of these is loss of self esteem, the other is a fear of reject and isolation. One of the surest ways of getting a required behavior from any one that you love or that loves you is to use the withdrawal of love to enforce the desired behavior. Unfortunately for true love, we all have probably practiced this at times. And unfortunately, too often we see God as loving us in the same way. Is it any wonder that there are so many with an unhealthy images of God. But this is not the God that my Bible describes. My Bible tells of a God who loved and loved and loved, even to the point of loving those who were killing him. And while my God allows things to happen that are the direct result of our sinning, I believe that he sorrows over the suffering we have because of our own actions. Even when he must step in and finally stop the sin and destruction in this world, he does so in sorrow, but he knows that the actions that he is taking are the only ones that can cause the removal of sin for eternal Guilt being a way of life, as it is with all of us to some extent, we try to make the most of it. Have any of you ever used a guilt trip to get something from someone else? You know, we have guilt games that we play, and if we study these we find that they fall into four basic categories, or games. DIAGRAM Human Sin and Imperfection v Specific Acts or thoughts of wrong v I give up<------------>I'll show you- discouragement v rebellion more and depression v wrongs / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ I'm not that bad- I'm sorry, Don't punish (self deception, me (Superficial blame someone confession without else) proper motivation) First is "I'll just give up." When this happens, you will become depressed. Second is "I'll show you." This one is played in different ways. One may be to say yes, and then do nothing. If you recall the parable that Jesus told about the two sons that were asked to working the vineyard, you remember that one of the sons agreed to go and work. But he didn't do it. Another way that someone may "show them" particularly in the field of religion, is to become the super Christian. They follow the standards to the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t". But as they push on, on their own, they see that they cannot measure up, and their guilt becomes greater, so they become agnostic, or atheists and live it up. "If you can't beat it join it, right?" Others rebel by giving verbal assent to the Christian faith but fail to get really involved with it. Paul talks about rebellion against the law with those strange texts in Romans 5:20 and 7:7,12 that tell us that the law came that transgression might increase. Lets turn to those texts and read them. You might compare the law to a "WET PAINT DO NOT TOUCH sign. The immediate response is to make us want to touch the forbidden spot. God knows that we are inwardly rebellious even when we don't recognize it, and the law exposes our rebellion in outward sins. That doesn't mean the law creates something, but rather that it drags our rebellion out into the open so that we can realize it's presence. Paul explains how threats of the law and guilty feelings often bring about increased rebellion. The third basic reaction to guilt feelings is to deny them. In this routine begin to rationalize away our faults. I couldn't help that. I just can't quit that. I've tried and its too hard. You know how it is. I did the best I could. Well, I did a lot better than so and so did. Our grandfather Adam was a good example of this. Saul, when he preserved the lives of the Amalakite king and the flocks blamed it on the people, and besides he was doing it for the Lord. The fourth guilt game is begging forgiveness, and trying to avoid punishment. Are we trying to avoid punishment, or are we really sorry? Isn't much of our confession done to relieve our sense of guilt rather than to alter our behavior for the good of others? All of this brings us to the conclusion that guilt does not work. But there are some who will say, "The Bible promotes guilt." They will go on to point out the many things that have happened in their lives that will support that conclusion. But why would a God of love want us to live in that kind of an emotional state, when it is counterproductive and sick? We need to understand the types of guilt. There is a civil guilt or legal guilt that is the violation of human law. When we rob a bank we are guilty of breaking the law, whether we feel guilty or not. The robbery is a fact, it is not a feeling. The same applies when we discuss God's law. When we break God's law that action is a historical fact of which we are guilty, regardless of the way we see it. Of course we know that the Bible teaches that each of us sins and falls short of the divine will. Isaiah puts it so accurately when he says, stall we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way. We may not feel this condition consciously, but the Bible teaches us that is our nature. So we are legally guilty before God. The guilt which we have discussed so far today is psychological guilt. As we all know, it is a feeling, it is the realization that we have fallen short in some area. However it is possible to be legally free of guilt and go around as if we are guilty and punish ourselves with all sorts of semi-destructive acts. Or we may be guilty theologically and legally and run around feeling no psychological guilt. There is an option to the psychological guilt. If there were not we would all be doomed. That is what one man has termed constructive sorrow. There are two good examples of this in scripture. The first is in the 51st Psalm The other in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10. These are the only kinds of a reaction to wrong-doing that produce lasting change for the right reasons. No games are played. And it is very interesting, that as we go through the word of God we find discussion of legal guilt. We find discussion of theological guilt, but nowhere does the word encourage the follower of Christ to feel psychological guilt. True we have texts like James 2:10 That tells us anyone who keeps the whole law but is guilty in one point is guilty of all, but that is a theological fact of guilt. Jesus said in the sermon on the mount that whoever said to his brother you fool, would be guilty enough to burn at the end of time. These and many other passages show an accountability for the violation of divine law. We are all theologically guilty. But not once does the Bible encourage believers in Jesus Christ to accept a psychological guilt trip. Never once are we commanded to have a fear of punishment, a sense of worthlessness, or a feeling of rejection. This is Good News which we will look at closer later. In fact as we study, I think that we will discover that the Christian is told to take just the opposite tack when he is looking at himself. For the Lord takes away our fear of punishment. Our sense of worthlessness, and our feelings of rejection. If you want to know how, tune in next week. In summary, the Christians feelings of psychological guilt are always destructive. This guilt is one of the major causes of spiritual deadness and defeat. Often in our desire to help people break away from their problems, we unknowingly heap guilt upon them, leading them to deeper wrong or more self-deception. At first this may seem real far out. Most of us have been brought up on a steady diet of guilt. If we haven't been told that God makes us feel guilty, we have assumed that he did. and I suppose that suggest that this guilt does not come from God might cause some of us to lift our eyebrows. But I believe that as we study further in to the plan of salvation more carefully, that we will find that psychological guilt has been masquerading among Christians for centuries as a wolf in sheep's clothing, and we need to be freed. I believe that instead of creating psychological guilt, the Bible offers the resolution of the human guilt dilemma in the life death, and resurrection of Jesus, Christ. Not only that, as we understand better the processes that are going on as we near the end of time, we will discover that God is indeed creating a way so that his people can live victorious lives as they are freed from the bondage of guilt. and I say, that's beautiful, don't you. Isa 6:5 "So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts."" Isa 6:6 "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar." Isa 6:7 "And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged."" Isa 6:8 "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."" Are You Guilty? 1. People constantly deal with feelings of guilt. 2. This effects our Christian life 3. Does the Bible encourage feelings of guilt? 4. Types of guilt: --Psychological guilt --Theological guilt -or- legal guilt --Sociological guilt 5. Common reactions to feelings of guilt: --fear of punishment --feelings of worthlesness, depression and low- ered self esteem. --Feelings of isolation and rejection. 6. Universal awareness of morality. --Romans 2:14,15 7. Guilt Cycle: I did wrong-I need punishing- I can accept punishment, punish self-my debt to society is paid-I can operate without fear. 8. Guilt games: --I'll give up. Jonah. --I'll show you. "I'll be super Christian." --Denial. Saul and Amalakite King. --Beg forgiveness. Do we confess to avoid pun- ishment or to reconnect with God? 9. Bible offers solution to guilt. Isaiah 6:6-8 Are You Guilty? 1. People constantly deal with feelings of guilt. 2. This effects our Christian life 3. Does the Bible encourage feelings of guilt? 4. Types of guilt: --Psychological guilt --Theological guilt -or- legal guilt --Sociological guilt 5. Common reactions to feelings of guilt: --fear of punishment --feelings of worthlesness, depression and low- ered self esteem. --Feelings of isolation and rejection. 6. Universal awareness of morality. --Romans 2:14,15 7. Guilt Cycle: I did wrong-I need punishing- I can accept punishment, punish self-my debt to society is paid-I can operate without fear. 8. Guilt games: --I'll give up. Jonah. --I'll show you. "I'll be super Christian." --Denial. Saul and Amalakite King. --Beg forgiveness. Do we confess to avoid pun- ishment or to reconnect with God? 9. Bible offers solution to guilt. Isaiah 6:6-8