Help! Series: Guiding Guilt | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church here in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you for tuning into the podcast today.

Today we're going to continue in our series called Help Searching

for God's peace with him, with one another, and with ourselves.

Listen closely to what God has to say to you today.

Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for those who are

joining me live here for this episode and for those who are

listening on the podcast, we are so welcome and thankful that

you're listening. We I've heard testimonies of

people who are listening as they're walking.

I heard one story just today about folks who were were

sharing this on a job site. And because of that, some of the

work crews promised to be here in a worship service.

So we'll see what happens and pray that that'll come true.

Hope that everybody is able to listen along.

And I have heard that some are going back and listening because

I talk too fast, things like that.

So thank you so much. And if you are listening online

and perhaps you're listening and you you don't attend Englewood,

we would love to have you here. God's blessing.

We're going to baptize again Sunday and just continue to see

God bless in powerful ways this lesson tonight.

It may seem a little unusual, but this lesson tonight will

actually be perhaps one of the most freeing lessons for some

people that from the whole series.

And so I'm looking forward to sharing from God's Word an old

story about a woman who bought a parrot.

You've probably heard this before.

It's an old story, but I'm old so I'll share it.

So a woman purchased a parrot who's who's previous owner.

You know parrots, you know what they do.

My brother had a parrot one time.

I, I, I didn't like that bird. I've known missionaries who had

parrots. I didn't like those either.

So if you have a parrot, I'm, I apologize.

I'm sure it's your lifelong friend because they'll live to

be 3000 years old and you'll have to leave them in your

estate to your children. I've seen that story, too.

But my brother had a parrot or some bird like that, and Teresa

and I were actually staying over at his house one night and this

bird made the sound of a phone ringing, I mean, perfectly, you

know, mimicking a phone. So about 3:00 and we're up.

I'm trying to answer the hello, I'm trying to answer the phone.

It's a stupid bird. In Africa, the missionaries had

a bird, and that bird would just, you know, yell at you.

And I was just offended by it so hurt my feelings.

But this this woman had a parrot and the previous owner had

taught that parrot profanity. And no, I know, see, I know

horrible these birds, nasty things.

And she was trying to reform it. And so she caught him cursing

one day and grabbed him and said, I'll teach you to never

talk that way again. And she put him in the deep

freeze and shut the door. And a few minutes later, she

took him out and said, have you learned your lesson?

And the bird shivered and said, yes, ma'am.

And then a few days later, she caught him cursing again.

And she put him back in that freezer again, but she forgot

about him and he almost froze to death.

And she she got him out just in time and kind of leaned him in

his cage to thaw out. And she said, did you learn your

lesson this time? And he says, yes ma'am.

He says, but may I ask you a question?

I thought I knew all the bad words, but what did that poor

Turkey in there do? I see that story so old y'all

don't even know it. That's funny.

Somebody's laughing online right now.

They're walking down the road laughing, people staring at

them. So the bird paid the price for

being guilty. But at least the bird learned

his lesson. And we have lessons we need to

learn as well. And one of the lessons will have

to do with the proper balance of guilt.

That may sound like a weird thing to talk about, but I

promise it's not now. The next episode we do, the next

lesson, the next session we do is going to be about trapping

time. I'll talk about it some in the

live service on Sunday too. But we're actually going to talk

next time about how, what do we do about time that they

recognize that it's a part of the creation.

I'm actually going to explain predestination and election in

about 2 1/2 minutes in our next time together.

So I know volumes have been written and hundreds and

thousands of years of scholarship has tried to explain

this. I'm going to give it to you in

about 2 1/2 minutes. So you all TuneIn next time.

But for tonight we're going to talk about guilt and, and, and

we need to learn lessons. We want to find peace that God

has for us. We've been using the Hebrew word

Shalom because it means more than just peace.

It really does mean a wholeness. The idea is complete

satisfaction. We just don't really have an

English equivalent of this and this idea of how do I have that

with God? How do I have that with others

and especially with myself? And tonight there's going to be

a lot of self talk, I think probably.

And so we want to learn how to do that.

And as I say, in every single time we're together, I'm very

thankful for biblical counselors.

I'm thankful for professionals. I'm thankful for recovery

ministries and and in extreme cases, I'm thankful for medical

experts and even law enforcement in cases of abuse.

And you might find yourself in a life situation to where your

yourself doubt yourself. Guilt is so strong.

You need to talk to someone on a long term, deep level.

But all of us, regardless of where we are, need to know what

God's Word says and what God's will is about these things.

And that's what we're going to talk about tonight.

So this is an important message for somebody here.

It might be a message that you want to share with somebody

who's really struggling a little bit with guilt and with doubt.

So I want you to turn to two passages. 1 is familiar,

probably Psalm 51, and then the backdrop, Second Samuel chapter

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

12. So we'll be in the Old Testament

for the most part. There'll be some other verses

that we'll throw in here as well.

You may recognize the context of these two passages.

The context is that King David has sinned with Bathsheba, and

not only did he do that, but he had her husband killed in

battle. It was a horrible thing that he

did. You know, it's interesting that

we'll call people, but this is also worth noting, and it's a

testimony of the incredible grace of God that we also call

David a man after God's own heart, and he's in fact an

adulterer and a murderer. And so you can just see the

extent of grace and how far grace can go to cover us.

And so he has sinned against God and he has yet to acknowledge

that. He has yet to confess that to

God. So God sends the prophet Nathan

to confront him, which was kind of a gutsy thing to do, to be

honest with you, to confront the king who could very easily have

you killed in battle too. But Nathan goes in obedience.

And so in that process, David recognizes his sin.

He he doesn't fight this. It was just one of the

remarkable parts of the story that we'll see.

He acknowledges and confesses his sin and he calls upon the

Lord for forgiveness. And so we want to listen in

Psalm 51, first Psalm 51, verse one, and let's listen to the

king pray. This is David praying as he's

responding in this episode. So Psalm 51 has the context of

this other passage, and it says this.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast

love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my

transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my

iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my

transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you.

You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so

that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your

judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in

iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

We got a lot of theology here, but the first thing, the first

point, we're not going to be too creative with our outline in in

this time together. It's just the reality of guilt.

Guilt is real and we need to acknowledge that.

And there's a reason why we need to acknowledge it, especially

today in our culture, because our culture might argue about

that. If you watch television enough,

see enough TV commercials, you're supposed to be guilt

free. You deserve everything and

should buy four of them, right? And so here was a guilty man

freely admitting his guilt and seeking to do something about

it. So let's just start right there.

He he's not fighting God. He's not arguing about whether

he's guilty or not. And that's a key part of this

passage. He understands it.

Now, guilt is defined legally as basically violating the law,

right? But we live in this society that

sends a message, a pretty strong message at times that that we

should be guilt free, that somehow we deserve not to

experience guilt. And that's one part of our

society. Now there's going to be almost

an opposite side we'll talk about later.

But there's this side that that almost says you, you don't

deserve to feel guilty. Nothing should make you feel

guilty in a sense. And and that's part of the the

reason we have sin in our society is because there's no

reason to feel guilty about it or conviction about it.

But the fact of guilt, regardless of that message, the

fact of guilt still exists and exists whenever we violate God's

word and God's will, we call that what?

What do we call that? Sin?

Yeah, we call that sin. And that's a, that's a word

that's normal to us, but it's not a word that's that normal to

this culture anymore. And it's certainly a word that

gets self defined. Does that make sense or

culturally defined to where they can define it any way they want?

And so whenever we do something. So here's the biblical

definition of sin, the ewardized biblical definition of sin.

Whenever we do something, whenever we say something, or

whenever we even think something that is contrary to the word and

will of God, we have sinned. And so we have all sinned.

And David even points out that that I was born in iniquity for

my mother's womb. I am this way.

So we are born with what we call a sinful nature.

And so we are born with this propensity, with this tendency

to sin that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, right?

One of the reasons, and I don't have time for this tonight, but

we'll certainly talk about this later, one of the reasons the

doctrine of the virgin birth is so important is because Jesus is

different. He does not have that sinful

nature in the same way that we do.

And So what we recognize is that we're born with this tendency.

You don't have to teach your children to sin.

They're going to do that on their own, even at a very young

age. And so that's why Paul can write

very confidently to the church at Rome and say of of one of the

most well known verses for a lot of Christians that we have all

sinned and we have hamartiyed, we have fallen short.

You, you all might know that Greek word.

It's the idea of an Archer shooting at the target and the

arrow falls short. We're we're just falling short

of what God wants. There's multiple, there are

multiple words for sin. That's one of them to where

we're just not reaching where God wants us to be.

And so we all fall short of that.

We're all guilty. So guilt is a reality.

So we sometimes feel guilty. You ready?

Don't. Are you sitting down and and are

y'all, whoever's listening right now, you might need to stop

walking because we sometimes feel guilty because we are

guilty. See, we're sinners and so we're

going to be convicted. We're going to have conviction

in our life and our sin separates us from God.

Now later I want to talk about the difference between this

healthy convicting guilt and what we're going to call toxic

guilt, which is not healthy. We're going to talk about the

difference later, but our sin separates us from from God.

So James chapter 2 verse 10 says this for whoever keeps the whole

James 2:10

law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

So we all are going to fall short.

We're all going to have a sin penalty.

We have broken God's law. Now there was an old

illustration that made was made famous by evangelism explosion,

which was a personal evangelism outline.

You learned to show the gospel with people.

That's where I probably first saw it.

It's been used multiple times since then.

But let's just think about sin for a minute.

Let's say that you only sinned 3 times a day.

OK, now you got to remember what the definition of sin is.

Sin is everything that I do or I say, but it's also what it's

also what I think. Now you think about this.

Maybe all you ever did was think something wrong so the people

around you would think you're perfect.

I mean, you would seem like an ideal angelic human being to

them, but in your heart you're sinning 3 times a day thinking

something because you know you're dealing with all those

other wretched people or something, maybe on a parrot.

So you're thinking things all day long.

Now in a year's time, three times a day.

In a year's time, you've broken God's law over 1000 times.

Now let's say you live to be 70, so over 70,000 plus times you've

broken God's law. So this misunderstanding of how

can God punish a quote UN quote good person?

How could a how could God send a quote UN quote good person to

hell? Well, you got to realize there's

no such thing. We're all sinners and if God is

holy and he's perfect, think about this.

A man breaks the law 70,000 times and he's taken before a

judge and the judge says, oh, never mind, don't worry about

it, just forget about it. You're go free.

Well, you know, we'd be in an uproar.

We'd want to impeach the judge. It's a horrible judge.

That's not just, that's not, that's not right.

And yet that's the same position.

Even the best of us, whatever that means, that's the best of

us. Put God in that.

God has to punish sin or he can't maintain His Holiness.

They go against one another. They're different natures,

they're different characters. So God has to punish sin.

So that old illustration helps us here.

We've all broken God's law. Now David isn't struggling with

that. And this is where his, his walk

with God is probably helping him in the sense of he has a strong

awareness. I, I have sinned.

He admits that he sinned in verse 5, that he's born that

way. It's a part of who we are.

And the reality of guilt exists, however, and it exists whether a

person feels guilty or not. By the way, you don't have to

feel guilty for guilt to exist. It's there, you're, you're

guilty whether you feel that way or not.

I mean, think about it. A hardened sociopath feels no

guilt, but that doesn't mean they're not guilty, right?

And so it's there. So David had no doubt about

this. It reminds me of a time at the

close of a church service one Sunday.

A man came forward during the invitation and he was really

disturbed. You could tell he was agitated.

In fact, he's being moved by his, by the conviction of sin in

his life. The Holy Spirit's all over him

and with tears flowing down his face.

He meant to say that his life was full of sin.

But what he said was, is my sin is full of life and I and though

his mistake was corrected, maybe he was really correct that maybe

that's a better way to say it. His sin was full of life, and

that's why his life was full of sin.

And so we give life to this, but before our guilt can be dealt

with, we must admit to its real presence in our lives.

It must be confessed. And you've heard me say this

word multiple times. I'll say it multiple more times

because it just has to appear so often in our conversations.

And that is the fact that we must homo Legia our sin homo,

same loggia Lagos word, same words.

So confess simply means I'm saying the same thing.

I think the same thing. I feel the same way about my sin

that God does. And so I'm not fighting this.

I'm actually embracing the guilt.

I'm embracing the conviction. We use the word conviction

because it's probably softer than guilt, but it's as that's

what it is. I'm being convicted.

Think about the word in a legal court, you're being convicted.

You are found what, guilty. So, so I'm being convicted, but

I'm embracing that because you're right, Holy Spirit, I

agree with you. Confession is an agreement where

I'm agreeing with God. All right, I pushed that hard

enough probably. So it must be confessed.

It must be acknowledged. Then then we can move on to some

some other thoughts. So then we have to understand.

So what's the purpose? What's the purpose of guilt?

Why? Why do I need to feel this way?

Verse 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and

you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

So you're teaching me these things and you delight in truth

in my inward being. God is going to use conviction

or guilt in a healthy way in our lives to teach us to obviously

point out to us our sin because we're, we're, we're sinners.

We're, we're imperfect. We're going to sin.

God's helping us by saying no, no, just like you'd help a

child, just like you'd keep that child from walking into the

street touching the hot stove. You correct.

No, no, no, no. In the same way, healthy

conviction, healthy guilt is steering us in the right

direction and hopefully we're learning.

So OK, next time I don't walk in the street, next time I don't

touch the stove, next time I don't say cuss words didn't get

thrown in the freezer. So I'm learning.

So he does this to protect us. You can understand that, that,

that, that, that we could, we could get involved in so much

greater moral, emotional, physical and spiritual harm if

if we don't acknowledge what he's doing right.

There was a time in my life and, and someday I'll share more of

my testimony. It's a little scary.

So I was sharing this at a in fact, I had this conversation

today with somebody. I was sharing that my sort of

full testimony. I'm, I'm beating around the Bush

here on purpose at a, at a wild game dinner at a church in the

area. Some of you were there.

I don't know if you're here tonight, but some of you were

there and I really didn't do a very good job because I was to

be honest with you. And this is my fault.

Totally my fault. I was moving, I was kind of

distracted and I thought this was an all man thing.

I did one of these a few months ago and it was like 1000 men,

right? And 500 of the men were lost and

a lot of them were cadets. I've mentioned it before from

the Citadel. Well, the other night, this was

a mixed crowd, little bitty kids and ladies and stuff.

And my testimony, you got to edit my testimony a little bit.

It's just a little scary. I'm that probably makes you want

to hear it more, but shame on you.

But anyway, so and so I was kind of trying to work through this.

And part of my testimony is a massive prodigal experience,

which is not something I'm proud of at all.

But part of the misery of that experience for me was the

conviction. I knew I knew better and, and I

found myself in the pig pen, so to speak, knowing better and,

and God had to Get Me Out of that mess.

And I love him for him. But, but, but God does this to

protect us from even greater harm.

And so God brings Nathan to David, right?

And he reveals his sin to him in second Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

So let's look at it for a moment.

I'm sorry about flipping back and forth a little, but let me

just share with you that story for a few minutes.

It's worth hearing and I'll, I'll move through it quickly.

It's a, it's about 13 verses. So hang in there.

And the Lord sent Nathan to David.

He came to him and said to him, there were two men in a certain

city, the one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor

man had nothing but one little you lamb which he had, which he

had bought. And he brought it up, and it

grew up with him and with his children, and it used to eat of

his morsel and drink from his cup, and lie in his arms, and it

was like a daughter to him. And now there came a traveller

to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own

flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him.

But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who

had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly

kindled against the man, and said to Nathan, As the Lord

lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall

restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and

because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, What's

the great line? You are the man.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the

hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house, and your

master's wives into your arms, and gave you the House of Israel

and of Judah. And if this were too little, I

would add to you as as much more.

Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil

in his sight? You have struck down your eye of

the Hittite with the sword, and if taken his wife to be your

wife, and if killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house,

because you've despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the

Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I

will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I

will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your

neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of his

the sun. For you did it secretly.

But I will do this thing before all Israel before the sun.

And David said to Nathan, no, don't do that.

That's not right. I don't deserve that.

I deserve a new car. That's not what he said.

He said I've sinned. I can imagine the emotion of

that moment. I've sinned against the Lord,

full admission. And Nathan said to David, the

Lord has also put away your sin. You shall not die nevertheless,

because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord.

The child who is born to you shall die.

Then Nathan went to his house. And then verse 13 again David

said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

And Nathan said to David, the Lord has also put away your sin.

You shall not die. Horrible story.

And remember, what was David's background as a child?

What was it? He was a shepherd.

So a story about a lamb. It wasn't just a the story.

This was would also have hit home with his entire life,

something he would completely relate to.

He grew up raising lambs and sheep and goats.

So it hit home. But healthy guilt or conviction,

the, the, it's, it creates the uncomfortable awareness in us

that we violated God's law. We need that while we're still

here. We need that now.

God, God has saved many of us. But listen to this, and you've

heard this before, probably he is saving us still.

He sanctifies and he will save us.

And what he'll eventually save us from is the presence of sin.

He saved us from the penalty of sin.

And eventually he'll save us from the power and the presence

of sin where we won't have to do this anymore.

We won't have to have conviction in heaven.

We'll we'll be perfected. But for now, this healthy guilt

is produced by the conviction of the Holy Spirit and by the

conscience that God has also designed in each of us.

It's a part of us and God uses that awareness to remind us not

only of our sin. Don't, don't, don't look at this

just on the negative side. Look at that on the positive

side. It's not just so that we'll see

the wrong, it's so that we'll understand the right.

It's so that we understand his purpose, that we understand his

will. I need to be convicted.

I need somebody to say don't do that.

That's wrong. This is what you ought to be

doing so that I have an awareness of that.

And then what we also see in this passage is, is that only

God can really forget sin. It it's going to be etched into

our brains and memories. And we'll talk more about this.

But in Isaiah 43 verse 25, it says I, I am he who blots out

Isaiah 43:25

your transgressions for my own sake.

I will not remember your sin. I mean, what a gracious thing.

I mean, he ought to keep a scoreboard.

I mean, you know, humanity, we keep score tabs and score

sheets. I remember what you did to me

back when, you know, and I'm going to get you.

You know, God allows us to remember our mistakes to remind

us to teach us to help us to get to to keep us on track, to

remind us of how vulnerable we are that and how much we need

him. But there are lessons that we

can learn to help others avoid those pitfalls as well.

And that's part of what we need to talk about too.

So God uses healthy guilt to get our attention, to refine us.

In fact, an illustration that's often used, and it's a good one

if you can kind of relate to it, it's, it's, it's not something

as familiar to us as it probably once was, but that's the idea of

the engravers acid. So people who engrave metal,

especially artisans who do this will use a small amount of acid

to help etch designs into the polished metal.

And the acid will, will smooth out the rough edges and it will

help define the delicate line that they're engraving in there

and that they're very measured. So the master engraver uses

these small doses of acid to do that.

In the same way the master engraver, the Lord uses guilt in

this, in these measured doses. He shapes, he molds, he

convicts, he teaches, and, and, and we are his work of art.

That's part of what Ephesians would call us.

Where is workmanship? Where is poetry?

Where is works of art? And guilt is just one of the

tools that he uses to shape us. So the Holy Spirit brings our

sin to our attention so that we might repent, so we might be

purified. Just like, just like acid, guilt

burns. Conviction hurts.

It's not something we enjoy, but it's also helping us.

We don't like it. But if we're pliable, if if

we're like David and and we're, we're pliable and submissive.

If we learn to listen to convicting guilt and respond to

what God is trying to tell us, we can learn lessons and we can

avoid the same mistake again and and we can avoid that sin again.

The acid like guilt we experienced helps us to make us

what we need to be and will equip us to help others.

I want you to listen to an actual letter written by a death

row inmate. He wrote it to his girlfriend

just before his execution. And it says, it seems that I

know evil more intimately than I know goodness.

I want to get even, to be made, even to be made whole, my debts

paid, whatever it may take, to have no blemish, no reason to

feel guilt or fear. I'd like to stand in the sight

of God, to know that I'm just and right and clean.

When you're this way, you know it, and when you're not, you

know that too. It's all inside of us, each of

us. So what do we do with guilt?

So we need to find point #3 we need to find this.

We'll spend most of our time the forgiveness from guilt.

Again, verse 13, David said to Nathan, I have sinned against

the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the

Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die.

David understood that he was really, truly guilty.

He also knew that only God had the answer and was the only

place to find it. So back in Psalm 51, let me

reread some of that and read on a little further, starting in

verse 7. Purge me from with hyssop and I

shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter

than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness,

let let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins and bought out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit

within me. Cast me not away from Your

presence and take not Your Holy Spirit for me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a

willing spirit. Now listen to this.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will

return to you. Deliver me from blood

guiltiness, oh God, oh God, of my salvation.

And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice or I'd give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and

contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.

So the actions of religious ritual, going through the

motions aren't enough. Something has to happen inside,

something real, something authentic, something true,

something honest has to happen in your heart.

And we see David accepting this. Some will not accept, some will

not receive God or His answers ever, and some would just always

reject the idea that they're even sinful.

Part of what we'll do later this year, believe it or not, and

don't run out the door in panic, but part of what I'm going to do

later this year is I'm going to share with you and teach some

personal evangelism training. Now don't let that sound weird

or boring to you. Be excited about it.

Here's how I'm going to teach it.

I'm going to teach it as if you've never, ever shared your

faith before. You've wanted to do this, you've

been scared to do this. You've wanted to do this.

You didn't know how to do this. You've always wanted to be able

to do this. But you, it seemed awkward to

you. It seemed weird to you, and you

don't know how to do it. And I'm going to show you from

point A all the way to point Z, step by step by step.

How do I develop that relationship?

How do I guide a conversation? How do I pray?

How do I get to move talking from the weather to talking

about Jesus? We're going to take it step by

step all the way through because one of the things that we have

to do in our culture today, believe it or not, in the old

days, you could start with what was called the Roman Rd.

You know, you could just start in the book of Romans or the

book of John and start writing the gospels and go forward

because people had a common knowledge of scripture and a

common knowledge of certain verses.

Today we have to start in Genesis.

Today we have to say this is who God is.

This is the God I'm speaking. This is the God I'm talking

about because they might say which God?

And the reason I'm saying that is just we're going to have to

define sin. We just can't assume that

there'll be any kind of common understanding of.

So we're going to walk through all that piece by piece by piece

later this year. So you got you got time to

panic, but it'll be good. You'll enjoy it.

It's what I teach at the seminary as well.

So so some are going to reject this.

They're going to reject conviction because they reject

the very notion that I could do anything wrong or that there is

anything wrong. You understand, I get to define

wrong. No one else defines wrong.

There's there's the Bible doesn't define it God, I get to

define it right. So let me tell you a funny

story. You'll remember this is almost

as good as the Filipino fairy story.

So here you go. So, so there was when I pastored

in Arizona, we were the hub of church planting in Northern

Arizona and we had a huge Community College there.

And there were people at the Community College who are

members of the church, the basketball coach.

So I was chaplain of the basketball team, all kinds of

stuff. Anyway, there was a Christian in

a comparative religions class and they needed a Christian.

They needed a token Christian to come talk to the comparative

religions class. So so basically, here's what

they said. We got 150 students in this

Amphitheatre type of room, undergrad students, we need you

to come and talk about the basic characteristics of Christianity.

So I said, so you want me to share the gospel with 150 lost

people? Gotcha.

I'll be there. So I show up.

Big amphitheater room has a big lab table at the front.

I set my Bible down. I'm supposed to talk for 20

minutes about Christianity. Then I'm supposed to take

questions for about 20 minutes. That's what I'm supposed to do,

lay my Bible there. I'm standing over here on the

side and the professor comes up. Here's my introduction.

Well, such and such is here from such and such and it says I

can't wait to hear this guy. He actually believes this

ancient document is the literal word of God and this ancient

document defines truth instead of our culture.

I can't wait to hear this. And he walks off.

Howdy, right, That's my intro. So I know that I need to start

at a different place. Here's why I believe the Bible

is the word of God. I had to start at the point of

authority to say This is why I believe, and I'm going to share

a whole thing with you all about how do I articulate why I

believe the Bible is the word of God?

We'll do that later too. That's coming.

Why I believe Jesus is who he says is.

I'm going to give you apologetic Bible doctrine and Christology.

We're going to cover all these things, but I'd explained to him

from the beginning. So I'm, you know, 20 minutes

ticking, then I go get OK, so now I'm in the grand meta

narrative. So in other words, and this

whole book work tells a story from Genesis to Revelation about

a person, right? Share the gospel.

I've shared the gospel. Time for Q&A.

First question, little girl in the back.

Now you got to understand, and I'm not knocking a place.

I get in trouble every time I talk about a place because

somebody here is from that place.

God bless you. I'm from, I'm from a place too.

I'm from the Ozarks. I'm a hillbilly from the Cookson

Hills where Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and and used to

be moonshine. Now some of the best marijuana

in the world has grown. So that's where I'm from.

So there you go. Throw what you want.

Northern Arizona is a Mecca for New Age movement.

It's a, it's Mormon dominated and a lot of new Ages because of

Sedona and the Canyon and whatnot people.

We had tree huggers, crystal liquors, you name it, we had it.

People getting in touch with the vortex of the red rocks, right?

Witches, warlocks, Wiccans, every shape tribe you can

imagine. We also had some brilliant

Christians. It's a beautiful, beautiful

place, wonderful place for ministry.

We were seeing so many people saved.

We had to baptize on Wednesday nights to keep up with the

baptisms. A lot of Latter Day Saints come

into Christ, but this room is filled with a new Age cult.

Most of these students are part of a new age cult, and the high

priestess is also in the room. So this young girl stands up and

this is her question. Why do you Baptist believe Jesus

hated women? Now, I hadn't said anything

about, you know, but I knew she was getting it.

There was some stuff in the news about some of our Baptist faith

and message stuff. And so I said, I know what

you're talking. This is what you're talking

about. But then I actually talk about,

I say, listen, you need to understand something the New

Testament. Don't then don't walk out of it.

You got to hear the whole thing. Don't walk out after the first

sentence. That the New Testament is one of

the most radically feminist documents you'll ever find in

ancient history. Here's what I mean.

First of all, there were women who are a part of the ministry

of Jesus. There were women who are part of

the ministry of Paul and for the first time basically in human

history, a individual woman had standing before God.

She could go to God directly. She didn't have to go through

her husband. She didn't have to go through a

priest. She didn't have to go through a

veil. She actually could do that.

I said, but that's not what you're talking about.

You're talking about Ephesians 5 wives submit to your husbands

because that's what was in the news.

So I then I explained a very conservative normal.

Hopefully I don't have time tonight.

View exegesis of Ephesians 5. That's not the point of the

story. I promise.

There's a point. The high priestess raises her

hand. I should have known she was the

high priestess. She looked like a high

priestess. She had on a Cape.

Now, you don't wear capes in Arizona.

She stood up. I mean, it was really pointed

her finger at me. And she said, Sir, I have a

question. The room goes quiet.

I mean, Yoda is getting ready to speak, so the whole room's just

silent. I have a questions, actually,

she said. I actually have a comment

instead. Now listen to this.

All due respect to her. For the first time in my life, I

now understand why people who call themselves Christians and

people who say they believe the Bible is the word of God must

believe the way they do. Thank you for helping me

understand that she and I could have sat down for herbal tea and

talked about Jesus. You know what I'm saying?

So stand your ground. Understand there's truth here.

Just like I said on Sunday, not everybody's going to believe it.

So we've got to start at a place to help them understand This is

why we believe what we believe. But for you and you're dealing

with guilt. Don't reject God, don't reject

his grace, don't reject his forgiveness because he's got a

plan for you. So what happens with some

people? Listen.

And some of you may be in this room, and this is the most

important part of tonight. Probably some of you here create

your own standards of right and wrong, and you're living by your

own holy scales. And so you either remain lost

and unforgiven, searching aimlessly for Shalom somewhere

and you're never going to find it somewhere because it doesn't

exist somewhere, it exists in someone, or you're searching for

purpose. But others.

This is some of you church members.

Maybe some of you claim to know him but then don't accept His

grace. This is where we start getting

into toxic guilt which leads to all kinds of problems.

You don't allow God to just etch your life with that small dose

of acidic guilt and conviction and then receive His forgiveness

like David did. What you do is you reject His

forgiveness, often by not forgiving others or not

forgiving yourself. And, and you hold on to your

guilt and you won't let it go. And then you hold on to false

teaching about God's inability to forgive you for what you've

done. And, and you allow guilt to

overpower grace as an extremely dangerous place to be.

And so you leap, or you know people who leap into an entire

VAT of acidic toxic guilt and they immerse themselves in

corrosive, destructive emotional thoughts and actions where

they're constantly submerging themselves in a pity party of

this toxic guilt and will not accept help.

And as the acid of toxic guilt eats into them, it creates even

more self defeating, self blaming, self shaming sin.

So toxic guilt can blind us to true conviction and to the true

source of forgiveness. And we become so obsessed with

our guilt that we don't even recognize our true sin anymore.

And we become so focused on the past we can't look forward.

And we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are worthless

and beyond help. I run into these people.

I know these people. Some of them become suicidal,

some of them become very depressed, and most of them are

very obnoxious to be around very difficult people.

Sometimes it's a dangerous thing to hang on to sin after God's

grace has been extended. Don't ever forget that.

It's important line. You and I won't grow if we're

not sensitive to sin. We've got to be sensitive to it.

We've got to understand conviction.

We've got to understand true, healthy guilt.

But we also won't grow unless we focus on the Savior rather than

our sin. Guilt ridden people have trouble

fixing their eyes on Jesus. The recognition of sin should

certainly carry with it strong feelings of of remorse and

should certainly lead us to true confession and true repentance.

It certainly did for David. What a what is example for us of

a horrendous thing. I mean, I, you know, we don't,

we don't rank sin, but we rank sin.

Murder's high up there, murder and adultery pretty high up

there, even though we're not supposed to rank them.

Sin can't be taken lightly. Sin is sin is a stench in the

nostrils of God. Almost sound King James there

for a minute, didn't I? Yeah, David knew what to do.

But I know people who get paralyzed in this and they're in

the cannibalistic cycle of toxic guilt and suddenly their

impression of themselves is not true anymore.

Satan leaps on this. He'll, he'll pile onto this and

he'll, he'll help you never get out of it.

And if you're in that place where you can't forgive

yourself, if you're here live or you're listening to this and

you, you, you, you've done so much bad, you think that there's

no way out of it. You're just not focused upon the

truth. You're listening to the father

of lies who wants to destroy you.

You got to let it. You got to let him.

You got to let him bring you freedom no matter what you've

done, you've got to let him forgive you and accept his

grace. So David knew what to do.

Listen again. Listen.

He says in verse 7 again, I know this is redundant, but it needs

to be purged. Me with hyssop and I shall be

clean. Notice this verb tense.

There's no question you, you do this and I will be, I'm, I know

it. Wash me and I shall be whiter

than snow. I just murdered somebody, but

I'll be whiter than snow. Even our society would have a

hard time with that. Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face for my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Created me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit

within me. Cast me not away from your

presence and take not your Holy Spirit for me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a

willing spirit. There's no relief without the

satisfaction of the demands of a righteous God.

We have to take care of business.

We must confess, we must repent, we must be willing to do

everything with his help to change and to live differently,

to not repeat that action again or that thought or that those

words. But we serve a God.

We serve a God who's gone way out of his way to be satisfied.

Think about what he's done. We have to satisfy Him, but He's

gone way out of the way to be satisfied on our behalf.

No other faith system teaches that.

Nobody. I've shown you this before, but

I've got to show you this time and time again.

Every other faith system says I've got to work my way up to

somehow, maybe, hopefully, pleasing the divine truth says

why we were yet sinners. Christ died, for He went out of

His way. He became one of us.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld as glory

glories of the only begotten, full of grace and truth.

See, grace, That's what's the difference.

That's what this world doesn't understand.

They, they have a hard time. They want, they, they want to,

they want to figure out their own system of justice.

They, they have a hard time with grace.

See, that's why this culture has become so ungracious, so toxic,

so raging, so cancelling, right? He arranged for the payment of

his own penalty. So when we trust Jesus Christ as

Savior, the blame for our sin has been removed, the charges

against us have been dismissed. That's why He can blot us from

the text. That's why our sin is blotted

out and doesn't get remembered anymore, our slates wiped clean.

God forgiven, unconditionally accepted, declared completely

righteous by Him. It doesn't get any better.

There's nothing higher, there's nothing stronger, there's

nothing more important. So forgive yourself when God

Forgives you. And that doesn't mean one ever

sin again, but it does mean that we have appropriated God's grace

by faith in Jesus Christ to cover those sins and to grant us

pardon. And I can confess my sin and

he'll be faithful and just and forgive me over and over and

over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Now He may teach me lessons. David had a price to pay.

There were lessons that he had to learn.

There were repercussions in real life because of his sin, right?

There were things he had to do. After the Lord brought me back,

after I ran home to the Father, after the pigpen, I had to go

find people and apologize to them.

I, I actually had to go talk to law enforcement about some

things and make sure it was OK for me to be free.

That'll tell you something about my testimony.

But God was gracious. So how can I truly be forgiven,

right? How do we get through that?

So Psalm 51, verse one again, have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant

mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me

thoroughly for my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I

know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

So once again, first of all, we must confess we agree with him.

I've already shared those things with you in desperate need of

divine forgiveness. We can do nothing but cast

ourselves on God's mercy. We've sinned.

I we blew it, we missed the mark.

We intentionally did something, we unintentionally did

something. We've messed up.

We've got no excuse. I need your grace.

So forgiveness is this act of divine grace whereby sin is

blotted out and the sinners cleanse.

Now there's only one person who can do that.

And so as we take the lid off of our lives and we openly and

honestly confess to the Lord our sins are, our burden of guilt

can begin to dissolve. So that's the first step to true

forgiveness. And that's why I quoted first

John 19 a moment ago. But we cannot confess that of

which we're not aware. So we must pray.

Pray for the sensitivity, pray for the awareness.

The Holy Spirit's going to help us with this awareness.

But this is one of the things that Martin Luther was mocked by

his, his priest confessor when you know, as a, as a monk, he

would go to a priest to confess his sins when he was still a

part of the Catholic Church. And, and he would confess all

these things he was doing. And his, his, his, his priest

confessor would say, Luther, those aren't even sins.

He was overworking the list. So make sure you're being

biblical, but God can handle it and the Holy Spirit, I help you.

Secondly, then we must correct. So verse 12 restore to me the

joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will

return to you. Deliver me from blood

guiltiness. Oh God, oh God of my salvation

and my tongue will sing a lot of your righteousness.

Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

We have to embrace the new, but we also, we also should be

changed by forgiveness, right? So, so if, if we're, if we're

sinning this a a certain sin and we confess that and seek his

forgiveness, and then 2 seconds later we're sending that same

sin again. We're not learning enough yet.

We're not really correcting, not sure we're really confessing

yet. We don't understand the severity

of what's going on. Forgiveness should change us.

But it in this case, as you see with David, it ought to lead us

to worship. It ought to lead us to

discipleship. It ought to lead us to service.

That's what he's saying here. If you do that, I'm going to

teach other people, I'm going to praise you.

I'm going to serve you. I'm going to be who you want me

to be. So there ought to be a change.

This is what I've said in one of the very first sermons I ever

preached at Inglewood. It's replacement.

I've got to take off the old, I've got to put on the new.

I've got to replace it. If you don't and you leave that

void, you're going to refill it with acid and sin you will.

That's the pattern of addiction, where somebody feels bad about

their addiction, they say they're never going to do it

again. And then two days, two weeks

later, they're doing it again. It's because they're not

replacing the void with something positive.

And so we need to seek forgiveness.

We need to mean it. We need to truly repent and then

we also need to grant forgiveness as well.

So we need to seek forgiveness from God, but also from others.

Maybe I offended. Maybe I need to seek forgiveness

from some other people in the process too.

Maybe that's part of maybe that's part of what needs to

happen. I, I need to seek forgiveness

or, or maybe I need to extend forgiveness to someone.

See, I'm hanging on to something I need, I need that I need to

their forgiveness, but also need to extend forgiveness.

We can't simply ignore it. That's that's why Matthew 5 says

what it says in Matthew 523. So you're, if you're offering

your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has

something against you, leave your gift there before the altar

and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and

offer your gift. So if I know that I've offended

somebody and I know that I'm going to, I'm never going to

have a clear worship path. I'm going to have a hard time

with my prayers. I'm going to have a hard time

with my spiritual life until I clean this up.

I need to seek forgiveness. I need to extend forgiveness.

Now as I've shared with you, either you've heard this or some

of you don't know anything about me, but but I've dealt with a

lot of conflict. That's professionally, I teach

PhD level seminars on conflict. But but one of the things that

I've done especially for the last 10-12 years is I've dealt

with some of the most dysfunctional conflict filled

churches and church leaders that you can imagine.

I mean physically going after each other, verbally going after

each other, spiritually going after each other.

I mean, jumping on top of each other sometimes with me and with

me refereeing, and I don't have a whistle, but I got a good left

hook. So it's amazing how my life has

paid off so many times in ministry.

So my bouncing days have become more profitable in some of this

work than you could ever imagine because I was a bouncer for a

while. But anyway, it's another story,

part of the testimony that I can't share in a mixed audience.

But but here's the point I'm trying to make that that what

happens is I've seen people with such bitterness toward other

people. Now listen, and, and I won't get

graphic here, but folks, I've, I've dealt with rape, I've dealt

with murder, I've dealt with manslaughter.

This might be a little too hard. Let me, let me be careful here.

I've dealt with a toddler leading to the death of his baby

sister, all kinds of things. So how, how can I get through

that? How do I forgive my rapist?

Seriously, it's a real story, you know, and I'm not saying

that you forget. I'm not saying that you, you,

you like the person. I'm not saying you're going to

be their best friend. I'm saying that somehow you've

got to work through the load of pain because it's not hurting

them, but it's going to hold you back your whole life.

Now that didn't, that's not a, that's not an instantaneous

thing. That's not a momentary

experience. That's, that's a, that's a,

that's a, that's a process, sometimes a lifetime.

But I've also seen pastors mad at each other.

And I had a pastor ask me about this passage and they said, so

this pastor did this and I've done this and I want to go and I

want to try to reconcile. I want to live out Matthew 5.

This person had good intentions. They really did.

I knew him well. I want to do this now.

And then next phone call. Well, I tried, but they wouldn't

accept it. Now what Matthew 5 says, it says

that if I remember that my brother has something against

me, I leave my gift there before the altar and go first.

Be reconciled to your brother. Then come and offer your gift.

I can't force my brother to reconcile with me.

Does this make sense? All I can do is my very honest,

authentic best to grant forgiveness and to seek

forgiveness. If that person refuses to give

me forgiveness, at some level, I've done all I can do now.

I'll be available anytime you want to talk, anytime we can to

talk about this again, We can do that.

But you're now the one holding the luggage.

I don't have the burden anymore. Does that make sense?

But we have the responsibility. You're mad at somebody in this

room. You can talk to them.

You're just, you're just going to hit a ceiling and you're

going to be carrying weight. You might not even be aware of

the weight, but it's there. Then we have to help others do

the same. Verse 13 again.

Then I will teach transgressors their ways and sinners will

return to you. So we see that I'm intentionally

then helping people look at Jesus and not at their sin.

This is one of the best ways to help them through their healing.

And this is where testimonies are powerful.

You know, when I teach, and we'll do this later in the

personal evangelism, I want to teach you how to share a good

testimony. And the emphasis in the

testimony is what's happened now not happened before, what

happened before. So I was a rock'n'roll drug

addict before I met Jesus. Then I was saved, and then now

I'm just kind of going to church.

That's not a very good testimony.

What we want to talk about. You can talk about whatever's

going on before you meet Christ. But one of those points that I

make students write out, it's actually a paper you have to

write in seminary is. So what does the difference that

Jesus makes in your life today? You might have been saved and

baptized when you were 8. Great fun part of the story.

Wonderful part of the story. Incredible.

So thankful that you were saved that young.

I wasn't. Teresa wasn't so thankful you

were. But So what in the testimony,

because that person listening to you in our culture today is

going to say, well, that's really swell for kids.

But if, but if I'm living it today, which means that I'm in

the word today, I'm in prayer today, I'm walking with God

today. It's fresh.

Let me show you the freshness of what it means to trust in Christ

right now, just this morning. That's, that's the part of the

testimony. When I'm on an airplane or on

airports or wherever I'm sharing the testimony.

That's the powerful part. It's just this morning God

showed me, see, so I want, I want, I want to teach others

and, and, and we need to help one another and, and gang, I

know you may get tired of me saying this, but you're going to

get really tired of me saying this because I hadn't even

started yet. You need to be in a connect

group. If you're in this church, you

need to be in a smaller community.

You can try to do this by yourself, you can try to Lone

Ranger this all you want, but that's not the biblical image of

the body. You need to be in a smaller

community, in a church this size where you can help one another,

you can share with what, you can cry with one another, you can

laugh with one another, you can hold people up and you can fall

down and be held up getting a connect group.

So thirdly, then we must claim. Now, I wouldn't start there.

We'd just be naming it and claiming it, wouldn't we restore

to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing

spirit. Verse 12 says listen, we must

not waste time ignoring our sin. Makes no sense.

Don't waste time ignoring your sin because it's going to be

there. You got to deal with it.

But we must also not waste time and valuable spiritual and

emotional energy punishing ourselves over actions for which

God has already forgiven us. We've got to accept grace.

That doesn't mean that I'm not. There might be repercussions.

The child's going to die. We know the end of the story in

David's life. There's repercussions sometimes.

Or I need to go and seek forgiveness.

I need to. I need to apologize or I need to

extend. I've, I've been, I've been

holding onto a seat of bitterness towards you and I

need to let that go because all that's doing is hurting me.

It's just giving Satan a stronghold.

Remember anger. I'm just giving Satan an

opportunity. But at the same time, I can't

just hang on to it because at that point I am declaring to

God, you are not capable. Your grace is not good enough.

Your sacrifice doesn't count. The cross is worthless.

You will literally quench the Holy Spirit by reliving and

focusing upon past sin like that.

False guilt denies the power and grace of God because God has

chosen to release us. Jesus did not say to that woman

caught in adultery go and feel guilty.

That's not what he said, did he? And she was obviously in sin.

I don't think there's ever a part of the story that doubts

whether or not she was caught in adultery.

Now we often wonder, where's the where's the stupid man?

Why didn't he being stoned? But that's not what Jesus says

to her. What does he say?

Go. And what there is your lesson,

Learn. Grow from this.

Be appreciative of this moment. You were not stoned, you're

still alive. Now go live a different way and

don't dwell on the past. Quit living in defeat.

Quit living. Quit living in self

condemnation. Accept his gift of grace.

Be forgiven. Be set free because the cross of

guilt, it's too heavy for you to bear.

Think about that. It was always designed that way.

You can't bear the cross of your own guilt.

That's the whole point. Jesus had to do that.

Jesus had to bear that cross because you can't.

We can't. We're not worthy of it.

He already bore it for us. So we have to confess our guilt

to Him and allow Him to remove that burden from our shoulders,

right? But at the same time, don't skip

through life thinking you should never feel guilty about anything

because if you sin, you should be convicted.

You should embrace it, and you ought to even thank God for that

conviction. Thank you for stopping me.

Thank you for correcting me. Thank you for teaching me.

Thank you for keeping me from walking out in the middle of the

street and making a fool of myself.

Thank you, Father. So part of my testimony, and I

almost brought it in here with me, but I thought it would be a

little too dramatic. The other night really did

bother me. Teresa, I'll tell you, I've been

in a pity party. But there's the hypocrisy of

Ewart. I guess I just felt like I wish

I'd done something else with the kids and the anyway, although

today somebody told me they were there or their family was there

and they were talking about how God used it.

So I don't, I don't know, anyway, in my office and I can

show it to you sometime, I don't want to really do that.

I really don't like glorifying this part of the experience.

But in my office, I have a baseball bat.

It's a junior bat. And there's a reason why it's a

junior bat. It's exactly the length of my

arm because I used to put it up my coat sleeve.

And so I've been a bouncer, I've been a boxer, and I've been what

you call a bag man, and the bag man's the guy that collects.

And if you don't pay the bag man, the mechanics come to see

you. I had two full blood Cherokee

brothers, Max and Sam Chuka Late, that if you didn't pay me,

the Chuka Late brothers would come see you.

Boss Vance, my grandfather owned the slums and I was being

groomed to take over the empire. And so I was a man child as a

teenager, and as a teenager, I'm collecting rent with a baseball

bat, the poorest people in our city who couldn't afford it

sometimes. And I could pull that bat out

like a switchblade if I needed to.

I could pop it out. I can still do it.

The staff seen me do it, pull that thing out.

It's got chunks out of it that's not from hitting baseballs.

I've removed people from their property and I've removed

property from people in my life. A lot of stuff back there After

God got a hold of me again later, I had a big dumpster

fire. That's probably illegal too, by

the way, and I saved two things. Now that dumpster fire.

One of them was the bat. I've had that bat in every

office I've ever worked in. And on that bat I have 2nd

Corinthians 517 written. If anyone is in Christ, he's a

new creation. The old things have passed away.

All things have become new. So when I stand up here and I

say if God can forgive me, he can forgive anybody, you have no

idea what I've done. I do, and I have to live with

it. But I don't dwell on it.

I've worked through the process of seeking forgiveness.

I've gone back to homes, I've gone back to people.

I've gone, like I said, the law. I've gone to all over the place

asking people to forgive me, restoring what I could.

But the biggest hurdle was looking in the mirror and

knowing that I hurt people for money, power, things of this

world but aren't worth anything. But I'm so thankful.

And so when I talk about being saved, I believe that I have

been saved and I don't want to ever survive my salvation.

The old person died and who I am now is so far away from that.

Hard to imagine anymore. But I keep the bat.

Kind of like when they cross the Jordan.

They piled up stones. Remember they have memorials

every now and then. Remember, don't let your don't

let the generations forget. Pile the stones up.

Remember what happened here. So that bat's just a pile of

stones for me. Not in a bad way.

Doesn't bring back bad memories. It brings back memories of grace

and forgiveness. I remember being absolutely

shattered by God and forgiven. I was trying to kill somebody at

that moment and you stopped me. It's a whole nother part of the

testimony. Scared the little kids.

One day maybe I'll share it all. When you make a movie, remember

the book title. He ain't always been a preacher,

so, but I tell you what it does help me with, I've been in a few

situations in ministry and life and maybe I don't scare quite as

easy as some people do. And so anything that you have,

you want to bring to me that you need to talk about, I bet we can

handle it. I bet we can handle it because

we know God can, right? So don't do it alone.

Let us help you even tonight. If you want to talk to somebody

before we close here in just a moment, if you want to talk to

somebody, come talk to us, right?

And come and come help me. And let me just close with this

thought. My mother died dramatically, and

that's a story I've mentioned a little bit.

But when she died and we were finally at that final place, my

brother's this medical doctor. I'm going to tell a whole story

about his testimony someday. But we were standing there at

her bed, just the two of us. And you got to understand that

at that moment, in that moment in life, my brother and I

weren't very close. I wasn't close to anybody in my

family, very close, some a little better than others.

But at that point in time, he and I just did not we, we really

grew up separately. And my brother just broke down.

I'd led him to the Lord of several years earlier, but he

had not really walked with the Lord much.

And he'd been through some things of divorce and some other

stuff in life. And he just broke down at mom's

bed. And he said, Johnny, because

that's all I am back home, Johnny, I've been living for all

the wrong things. Now this is a multi millionaire

who was about to build a hospital.

He owned a mansion. He owned the mansion, the yacht,

the sports cars, everything you can imagine.

And he loses it all. And he said, I've been living

for all the wrong things. And my brother is now an elder

at his church in Kansas. And he preaches every time the

pastor's gone. And if that's not grace, see, he

has a plan for you. He has a purpose for you.

So let him help you with your stress.

Let him help you with your anger.

Let him help you with your guilt.

Let Him help you with your difficulties.

We're going to keep talking. Talk about time.

What do we do with that thing? Time.

Let's pray together. Father.

All we can do is rejoice in the joy of your salvation.

That's what we do. We acknowledge who you are, Your

awesomeness, Your greatness, Father, it, it, it's hard for us

sometimes because the way you are is so different than the way

we are. That's why the world's going to

struggle with you, Father, because they're, they're so

different than you are. The concept of grace is like a

foreign language, the concept that you could forgive somebody

who did something horrible, that you could restore a wretched

Sinner like David or like me. It's just foreign to the sense

of justice, the sense of balance that this world tries to create

by itself. So, Father, I thank you that

we're an unbalanced people, that, Father, we don't live in a

balanced way at all. We live in a mystery.

That's what it is. That's what Paul calls it, isn't

it, Father? It's a mystery, this thing

called the gospel. The fact that you chose to do

this. You knew all this was going to

happen. You knew how we would be.

You knew what we would do. You knew what we would say.

You knew what we would think. And you still created us.

And then you did more. You did it all.

You came and paid the price. Not for your sin, not for

something you did wrong, not for your mistake, not for some error

you committed. But but for us, that's your

capacity of love. That's your capacity of grace.

Help us in our feebleness. Help us in our weakness to be

able, first of all, to confess to you that we desperately need

you. There may be someone here or

someone listening right now, and they've really never trusted in

you as Lord and Savior. There's no other way.

They can't handle the weight of this on their own.

They were never created to do that.

So, Father, help them to know the truth.

Help them to know you're real and that you love them so much.

You created grace. A foreign thing to our human

minds, something we try to learn, something we try to

extend, I pray, something we appreciate.

And so Father, if there's someone here who knows they're

guilty, who feels that guilt, and perhaps Father, they just

can't let it go. They just keep self defeating

themselves. They have such a poor self

esteem and such poor self worth that they're just trashing

themselves constantly and beating themselves up

constantly. Father, help them to know that's

not the way, That's not what you created.

That's not your workmanship. And help them, Father, to turn

to you, to surrender to you, to forgive themselves.

Maybe, Father, they have to forgive someone else who did

something really horrible, really, really horrible to them.

And Father, I know that'll be hard and I know it'll be a

process, but Father, as they begin to work through those

steps, probably with help, Father, help them to gain

freedom. And for many of us, Father, who

go through life stumbling and mumbling our way, not intending

to sin, Father, we start the day with the goal of, of not

sinning. It's like, it's like the soldier

going into battle. My goal today is not to get shot

at all. I'm not going to sin today.

And then we do, we stumble and we fall.

Father, thank you that we can come to you immediately upon

that awareness. Father, convict us, send Your

Spirit to show us, and then immediately let us go to you in

prayer. Seek your forgiveness and you'll

make us clean again. Let us learn from it.

Let us not trip on that same place again.

Let us avoid that rock. Let's avoid that root.

Let's avoid that whole. Father, let's not give Satan a

stronghold. So Father, wherever we are,

whatever state we're in here for those listening, Father, I pray

we'll accept grace and that grace will replace guilt.

But Father, we also thank you that you love us enough that you

correct us, You discipline us, you convict us.

You show us so that we might learn, so that we might mature,

so that we might become better disciples, so that we can teach

others and help them too. Thank you for the thing called

the church where that can happen.

Thank you for this time together in Christ's name, Amen.

God bless you all. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening today.

And I also hope that you'll go to

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other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.