A Savior for the Guilty

A lot of humor surrounds weddings. Millions of anecdotes to witty

stories surround this whole magical thing of getting married. One
humorous story, which forms part of the rich folklore, which surrounds
weddings in South Africa, is the well-known incident regarding the
telegrams read at a reception. Before fax-machines and the general
availability of telephones, it was a custom to send a telegram to the
couple who was married.

At a certain wedding a telegram was sent meaning to read as follows,

dear, (couple’s names being married), best wishes for your marriage,
1John 4:18. This is a magical verse, which reads as follows: “There is
no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do
with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. “ In
this specific instance however, the Post-Office omitted the numeral 1,
resulting in John 4:18 being sent to the newly-weds. John 4:18
however reads as follows: ‘‘you are right when you say you have no
husband. 18 the fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you
now have is not even your husband. What you have just said is quite
true.”
It was this specific piece of humor that kinda got me thinking a little
bit more seriously about the intended verse, being: ”18 There is no
fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do
with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

The phrase “there is no fear in love.” conjures images of white pigeons

fluttering away in the sunset with violins playing in the background.
What does it mean? How is it possible that love can drive away fear?
Last time I preached on this topic of fear, guilt, condemnation, and
shame versus conviction, godly sorrow, and repentance, at least half
of you were moved to live differently and you were deeply touched and
moved to tears, while a few of you reduced the whole message to
semantics – you think I’m just being wordy. While you’re totally
entitled to your opinion, you are wrong. There’s some things I have an
opinion about. There’s some things I feel really strongly about. But Phil
will tell you that even if I feel strongly about something, I’m always
quick to change my mind when I see a reason to. But something I
never change my mind about is something that God specifically puts
on my heart. If you don’t think God can specifically reveal a truth to a
preacher by the Holy Spirit sometimes, well you’re wrong about that
too. Again, you’re entitled to your opinion – you’re entitled to be
wrong. But I’m asking you today to hear this sermon as something I
believe to be inspired of God – maybe not every single word (I’m not
writing a new chapter in the bible), but the overall message is from the
heart of God. So try to hear it and not dismiss it as semantics today.
Some would say that guilt could be considered good when it drives us
into sorrow over sin and into the arms of a forgiving God.
Unfortunately, that is all that feeling in the pit of your stomach was
ever meant to do. In fact, I’m going to go a step further into what
some churches would call blasphemy, but what God has revealed to
me through the study of His word and the knowledge of the Holy
Spirit. Under grace (some people say under the new law, there is no
new law – there’s one law and we’re not under it anymore, we’re
under grace – if all of that’s confusing to you, just talk to me later).
But under grace, in the New Testament, there is no good guilt for the
believer. Now, some ministers would say it like this: guilt is like pain –
we need it to realize what we are doing wrong, it alerts us that there’s
a problem just like pain does, but once we realize our wrong, we are to
repent and move on with life and not let it linger. I 100% agree with
that entire sentence except the first word. Now, some of you may feel
like this is just semantics, and maybe it is. But I am going to teach a
New Testament concept with biblical New Testament words. Guilt, in
the New Testament, is ALWAYS – I repeat ALWAYS listed as a negative
thing under the law that we have been set free from and no longer
have to live under with Jesus Christ. Guilt is never listed, as some
modern preachers would say, as a motivator to do right. Here’s an
example of how some people like to use guilt in modern-day churches.
There are hardly any scholars left anymore who think that all suicides
go to hell. Everyone who does any in-depth study on the topic realizes
that the bible really doesn’t teach that at all. However, many of these
same scholars who come to this conclusion think it’s a good idea to
falsely teach it that way so that people won’t commit suicide. And so
the people stay alive (at least physically speaking), depressed and
ridden with guilt. Here’s a question: why not just tell the truth, not lie
to people about what the word of God teaches, not take matters into
your own hands and teaching false doctrine – just tell the truth, and
trust God to keep them alive. If you want to be bold with them, why
not say “ya know, it’s never looked favorably on in the bible, but the
bibles really pretty silent on the topic, and there’s no unforgiveable sin,
even sins you don’t have time to repent for can still be forgiven, but
here’s the real issue Mr. Suicidal person: it is sin whether it sends you
to hell or not, life and death are in the hands of God and you’re trying
to take them into your hands, and that tells me that you need a better
understanding of who God is and what He’s about. Now, can I tell you
what He did for you because He loves you so much? Can I tell you
what God thinks of you? Doesn’t that sound a little bit more
appropriate if we want someone to move beyond the motivation of
guilt and into true love of God that casts out all fear? I’m tired of lame
excuses for lying to people about what God’s word teaches – let’s tell
them the truth, at least to the best of our ability, and trust Him to
bless it. Stop doing things that we think are effective and just do it
God’s way. There are 2 words used to describe what is good and pure
in the life of a believer in the New Testament: conviction and godly
sorrow. I believe a Godly way to think of this is that conviction stops at
awareness. Conviction’s aim is to make you aware of sin, and to bring
about repentance – so it’s purpose has been served when you have
become aware of your sin. It was never meant to linger. When it does
linger, that is what the bible calls guilt, and the bible says we don’t
have to live under it any longer. Paul says it like this: “There is NOW
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
You see, that lingering guilt not only traps you. It kills your spirit. Paul
gave a sermon one time that I think would benefit us to hear. Actually,
it would be more like family time than a sermon – it was a time that
someone could come in and give an encouraging word. I’m going to
skip most of it due to time, but it’s out of Acts 13. Paul boldly stands
up and goes through the whole history of the Old Testament and ties
everything in with Jesus, then He tells them that they need to trust
this Jesus person with their lives, and He concludes his sermon with
these words that he wants to stick in their minds: Everyone who trusts
in him is freed from all guilt and declared right with God – something
the Jewish law could never do.
Hmm. Maybe your pastor’s not so crazy after all. Maybe I’m not
supposed to live under guilt. Conviction will come when God’s Holy
Spirit puts it there, but once I’m aware of my sin I know that
conviction stops at awareness, and so if I still feel guilty, that’s the
enemy trying to tell me that I’m still under the law, like I was before I
knew Jesus. See, there’s no condemnation for those IN Christ Jesus. If
you’re here today and you’re not in Christ Jesus, I’ve got 3 sets of bad
news and one set of good news for ya: 1) You are under the law 2) You
are guilty of breaking it, and you should feel guilty, because you are
still living under a law of guilt that you’ll never live up to 3) The
penalty for breaking the law is death – eternal death – eternal
separation from God, and it’s your fault and it’s your sin, and you
should feel guilty – Now, here’s the good news: Jesus already knew
about every sin you have committed to this day and every sin that you
will ever commit for the rest of your life, He’s already paid the price for
those sins, and you too can be free of all guilt and condemnation and
begin living for Jesus today. Why would you choose anything else?
Let’s look at one more, just in case one scripture from the word of God
isn’t enough for some of you. This is Hebrews 10:1-3, but I want you
to look it up later and just listen right now:
1 The old system in the law of Moses was only a shadow of the things
to come, not the reality of the good things Christ has done for us. The
sacrifices under the old system were repeated again and again, year
after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for
those who came to worship. 2 If they could have provided perfect
cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would
have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would
have disappeared. 3 But just the opposite happened. Those yearly
sacrifices reminded them of their sins and of their guilt year after year.
This is what we no longer have to live under. If you are using guilt as
your motivating factor to do things, you are not living as God intended
a Christian to live. See, that’s the difference between conviction and
guilt. When Holy Spirit conviction comes upon you and you realize you
have done something against God law, you then repent because you
love your Lord and you want to serve Him. You know full well that you
are not under that law, but that law is a guide to walking in the
presence of God, and that’s what you WANT to do. Guilt is that leftover
stuff that hangs around for a few years telling you that you’re still
under the law and that since you have broken it God wants nothing to
do with you.
Shallow religious “experts” think that a luscious helping of lingering
guilt is good. But God doesn’t agree. Guilt doesn’t bring us closer to
him; it drives us away from him. It ushers in ulcers and sleepless
nights. We begin to wonder if that chronic cramp or that broken bone
is God’s way of letting us have it. Maybe he’s giving us what we
deserve. Guilt destroys people and families. It even kills. People often
answer lingering guilt with greater guilt. I know someone who felt
guilty about being raped so she slept with men to make the pain go
away. The alcoholic feels guilty because he’s drinking his life away, so
he drinks his life away to feel better. Or a man feels guilty because
he’s a failure so he beats his family to feel better. Maybe that’s you,
maybe you’re not that extreme, but maybe you have other tricks to
bury your guilt. We beat ourselves up by donning depression and
despair. We figure that if we beat ourselves up enough, the guilt will go
away. Other times, we lash out at others. For instance, we’re feeling
guilty about not spending much time with the kids. Our spouse leaves
a mess on the table and we blow our top. The mess isn’t a big deal,
but the guilt needs to come out somewhere, right? Any of this sound
familiar?
And there are other ways to deal with it. Maybe we try to purge our
guilt by making up for it. If only we throw a few more bucks in the
plate, maybe we won’t feel so bad about cheating on our taxes. Maybe
we try to keep our lives so busy that we don’t have time to
contemplate our guilt. It doesn’t work very long, it usually catches up
with you.
So, how do you get rid of it? How do you move from guilt over sin, to a
life of peace in loving service to a loving God? That’s a question which
finds its answer in a sermon preached by Jesus’ enemies. Yes, I did
say that Jesus’ enemies preached a nice little sermon - this one while
he was hanging on the cross.

Matthew 27:41-42 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers
of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 "He saved others," they
said, "but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come
down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. (NIV)

Jesus saved YOU.

In almost every action movie, about 20 minutes before the end, what
happens to the good guy? He gets caught, beaten up and bound in a
seemingly impossible situation, right? Then he fights his way out and
saves the day. But, is that what happened to Jesus on the cross? Let’s
think about it.
The chief priest, the teachers of the law and the elders were right;
they understood that Jesus had saved many others. You will notice all
throughout the Gospels that Jesus’ enemies never once questioned the
authenticity (the reality) of his miracles – not once. Sometimes they
said He was doing it by demons, which Jesus quickly refuted but they
believed in the miracles; they just didn’t believe in Jesus.
But that’s where their understanding ceased. They concluded that even
though he saved others, he couldn’t save himself now. They were dead
wrong. For weeks already Jesus had been predicting the details of his
death down to the murderers, the whips, and the cross. Before he
even walked into Jerusalem he said, “I lay down my life willingly; no
one takes it from me (John 10:17,18).” We don’t like to think about
what it took on that cross to forgive our sins – it’s heartbreaking – but
we like when Jesus talks with this kind of authority. “I lay down my life
willingly; no one takes it from me.” And his prophecy came true in the
Garden of Gethsemane. When a mob came to arrest him, he calmly
questioned the group: “Who is it you seek?” “Jesus of Nazareth.” “I am
he,” he said. Then, when Peter attempted to rescue Jesus by cutting
off one man’s ear, Jesus stopped the brawl and healed the servant’s
ear. Then he calmly handed himself over to execution.
Why do I tell you this? Because I want you to understand that he
didn’t have to do any of it (He says I’m laying down my life willingly) -
the rejection, the whips, the slaps, the thorns, the nails, the hell –
none of it!
So, then, why did he do it? That’s where you come in. He could have
saved himself, but he was in the business of saving you. The king of
heaven willingly gave up the crown of heaven for your crown of thorns.
He donned your guilt and let God beat him up instead of you. Now
church, He took your guilt on the cross with Him for a reason, SO IT
COULD BE CRUCIFIED THERE WITH HIM! YOUR GUILT HAS BEEN
CRUCIFIED! Forgive yourself, for crying out loud, Jesus already did!
But that is not good enough for many of you. You are convinced that
Jesus died for everyone else. You are convinced that you must have
pushed it just a bit too far. You are convinced that I would agree if only
I knew what you’ve done – or what you keep doing and saying you’ll
never do again. Jesus cannot forgive me. He cannot love me that
much.
How many of you saw “My Big Fat Greek Wedding?” Why is Tula so
upset throughout most of the movie? Because her Greek family is
being such a pain in the butt about her non-greek fiancé. There is one
particular scene where she can’t handle it anymore.
In exasperation she finally blurts out to him, “Why? Why do you love
me?” He immediately responds, “Because I came alive when I met
you.” It’s a line that moves wives and girlfriends everywhere to dab
their eyes with saturated hankies, but it’s actually pretty lame. You
see, Ian loves Tula because she does something for him. She makes
him come alive. Human love is kindled by kindness; it does not act on
it’s own. But divine love is greater. It acts when the beloved doesn’t; it
acts even when the beloved isn’t worth acting for. When Jesus met
you, he didn’t come alive; he died. God punished him for your sins.
Did you deserve that? No. Did you earn it? No. But it’s yours. That’s
divine love. That’s Christ’s love for you.
Jesus has not accepted you under protest; he doesn’t love you
because he has to. He loves you in spite of your past, in spite of your
dumb choices, in spite of your foolish years.
God has already forgiven you. Now it’s time to get busy forgiving
yourself. I know, it’s difficult to look at yourself, thinking, “If I hadn’t
been such an idiot to begin with, this wouldn’t have happened. If I
hadn’t been sleeping around, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. If I
hadn’t been drinking so much, I wouldn’t have ruined my life. If I
hadn’t been so self-centered, etc. on and on the list goes. Maybe God
can live with me, but I can’t live with myself.”
Well, don’t be so arrogant. Maybe God can live with me, but I can’t live
with myself?? What? Are you greater than God? - “God’s not good
enough for me. I’m the one who has to forgive around here.” Don’t be
so foolish. If God doesn’t even remember it, if he has tossed it into the
sea of forgetfulness, why is it still putzing around in your brain?
Rebuke that crap in the name of Jesus. Throw the demons in the
basement and pound the door shut with three bloody nails from the
cross — for good this time.
He’s forgiven you; forgive yourself and get on with your life of service
to Jesus. Amen.
You see, when we live under the law of guilt, we speak guilt and
shame and condemnation into the lives of others because it’s all we
know. We’re the ones (those of us living under guilt and shame) who
never know how to answer someone when they ask us what God’s
doing in our lives, because if we told the truth we’d say “making me
feel like crap.” Then, as we focus on the worst things about ourselves,
the bible and psychology both agree that we automatically become
judgmental and focus on the worst things about others. Most of the
time it’s the very things that irritate us about others that irritate us
about ourselves. Find someone you consider to be an “angry” person,
and rather than getting angry at that person (which I am so often
convicted of), try praying for and seeing the best in that person.
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of a fellow officer in
the Confederate Army who had made some derogatory remarks about
him. Lee rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked
the question seemed perplexed. "General," he said, "I guess you don’t
know what he’s been saying about you." "I know," answered Lee. "But
I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!" Ya see, when
we set ourselves free from guilt and shame, and begin to see
ourselves as God sees us, we’re not worried so much about what other
people think of us anymore, and despite what they may do or say,
because we are viewing ourselves correctly we can now see the best in
them. Because, you see, when Jesus said to love others even more
than you love yourselves, He’s taking for granted that you know how
to love yourself correctly. When you realize about yourself that you are
a chosen and royal priesthood, that the cliché about Jesus dying for
you if you were the only person to ever love Him is actually true, when
you realize just how precious you are in the sight of God, then and
only then are you in a place to interpret correctly “now go love others
more than yourself.” I don’t want to be misunderstood in this, so let
me be very clear: the degree to which you comprehend God’s love for
you which drives out fear, erases shame and condemnation, deletes
guilt – the degree to which you understand that is the degree to which
you are capable of loving others. It’s not just about loving yourself in
order to love others, it’s about realizing God’s love for you. You ever
try to do something for someone that you don’t think God would want
to do for you? Do you really believe that God would wash your feet if
he were here today? If you can’t picture Jesus washing your feet, then
do you really think you’re going to do it for others? If you can’t picture
Jesus doing that for you, if you can’t picture Jesus dying for you, if you
can’t picture Jesus serving you, then to be frankly honest: you can’t
picture Jesus. Those are the things Jesus does. And when we realize
His love for us, those are the things we do for others.
Maybe today you’ve decided that you need Jesus in your life so that
your sins can be forgiven and you can get out of the guilt that you
deserve to feel, maybe today you realize that guilt is your main
motivator in your walk with God and you want to have a loving
relationship with Him instead, maybe today you realize that you have
preached or spoken words of guilt into someone else’s life, and you’d
like to repent for that and then be free of it. A pastor friend recently
told the true story of one of his church members, an attorney, who
after meditating on several scriptures, decided to cancel the debts of
all his clients that had owed him money for more than 6 months.
He drafted a letter explaining his decision and its biblical basis and
sent 17 debt canceling letters via certified mail.
One by one, the letters began to return, unsigned and undelivered.
Perhaps a couple people had moved away though not likely. 16 of the
17 letters came back to him because the clients refused to sign for and
open the envelopes fearing that this attorney was suing them for their
debts.
How profound! We owe a debt for our sin and God is willing to cancel
it, but our view of Him is so messed up that we won’t even open the
letter that explains it.... I want to tell you guys: I’ve opened the letter,
or rather the book, and I’ve seen what it says – You are a chosen
people, a royal priesthood, there is no condemnation for you, the law
has been nailed to the cross, His yoke is easy, come to Him and He’ll
replace your worry with rest and peace, you are no longer under guilt
and shame, and God loved you so much that He sent His only Son to
die for you. For most of us, opening the letter doesn’t just mean
opening our bibles because everything I just said is familiar with our
minds, I challenge you today to open the letter with your heart. Pray
about these matters, seriously take them before the Lord, and see
what He tells you. Come forward and pray with me now.