How Should we Respond to Shame and Guilt

We are in a series of messages right now we're calling uncommon unity.

The word community is a compound word, common unity.

And so communities are supposed to be unified.

Unfortunately, they're often not.

So we're looking at what would it look like to be a community that was freakishly unified.

Um, it's worth noting that as being a part of the body of Christ, you are a part of a community within the community.

So we are citizens of a city and a state and a country.

We have a government, we thank God for that.

But aside from that, we are citizens of the kingdom of God.

And in fact, what happens here should be done in such a way, we should treat one another in such a way, and we should function in such a way that it would be a great representation of Jesus to the world.

In fact, the world, whether they believe in God or Jesus or any of that, should really be studying how we do community so they can know how to do it better.

And in fact, if we're in disorder in that way, uh it's a really, really, really poor witness.

But I I think God's up to something here.

I think we have a beautiful community, but I think it can get even better.

So we're putting definition to it so that we can um hold ourselves accountable.

I'm gonna do a quick bit of backtracking, not because I want to rehearse old messages, but I want to build on them.

So I want to start last week.

I talked about purity, and um, I talked about that purity is really things being in order, right?

Impure would be out of order.

I use the concept of bacteria in your gut.

There are some bacterias in your gut that are supposed to be there, they actually help you.

Um, but if there's other bacteria that aren't supposed to be in your gut are there, they would make you sick.

Okay?

So that's the that's a concept of order.

God created the heavens and the earth, he put it in a certain order.

Things, certain things belong certain places, they don't belong other places.

So we know that with the ecosystem, but that's also true of us and behaviors and attitudes and and and all kinds of things that uh in our lives we have to keep those things in order so they can function in the way that God intended.

This is really helpful because if you get things out of order, they will be impure.

Okay, we defined it last week as the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

Right thing, right time, right reason.

If we get those things out of order, it's good to think of them as out of order versus icky, right?

Impure often we think of as icky, gross, nasty.

Well, if I if if I think God thinks I'm icky, gross, and nasty, then that's gonna affect the way I come to him for grace.

Okay?

God doesn't look at you as icky, gross, or nasty.

He knows exactly how you got to where you are, and he wants to help you get your life back in order so you can live the way he intended for you to.

And so our community should think the same way.

We don't build walls to keep icky people out.

We bring people in, however disordered they are, to help them get in order so that they can be all that God has designed for them to be.

All right, so in order.

The other one is, and I might misspell this, but I'm gonna do my best.

Reciprasi.

Alright, which basically means give and take.

Okay, circular relationships, love one another.

So we know what it would look like to deplete the actual ecosystem, but this is how you deplete the relational ecosystem if you're just a taker.

If all you do is take, take, take, no matter how long somebody loves you, they will eventually burn out if you don't give back.

Even like moms and dads, right?

Babies are born, they're total takers.

That's all they are.

They're just takers.

There's no, they had no value of them being cute.

It's it.

The rest of it, they interrupt your sleep, all right?

They just want they're hungry all the time, they cry, they can't even tell you what's wrong.

You know, it's like, come on, you know, what's going on?

You know, just tell me.

They can't tell you, all right.

They gotta be carried everywhere, you gotta do everything for them, but God designed it in such a way that's a season.

Because they knew mom couldn't do that forever, okay?

Eventually, mom's gonna go, look, you start making your own peanut butter and jelly, okay?

It's time for you to get yourself up, brush your own teeth, all right?

Because you can't do that forever.

And so, reciprocity, we don't want to deplete the ecosystem.

All right, so so the idea of give and take.

And by the way, it's great joy to give, and it's great joy to receive.

And so you want to be in those type of relationships.

Now, today what we're gonna talk about is what we do with guilt and shame.

What do we do with guilt and shame?

Because often what happens is we get things out of order, and when we get things out of order, uh often we make decisions that end up causing us guilt and shame.

And when you actually think about guilt and shame are bad feelings.

They're bad feelings.

And there's kind of a spectrum of reactions that people have to bad feelings.

Some people, um, on one end of the spectrum, they think all bad feelings are bad.

So they won't let anybody ever make them feel bad about anything ever.

And anybody that makes them feel bad about anything, they call them toxic and they push them away.

So they don't want to feel, they don't ever want to feel bad, but that's a mistake to think that way because there are some bad feelings that aren't bad.

Okay, they're uncomfortable, but they're not bad.

And we're gonna talk, I'm gonna get more into that in a little bit.

But that that's a mistake to just think that all bad feelings are bad.

Um, then there's other people on the other side that they've actually developed like a some sort of unhealthy attachment to shame.

Like it's familiar.

Maybe you felt shame all your life.

In fact, that your identity, it's what you see when you look in the mirror, it's how you imagine yourself in your mind's eye, is shame.

And maybe it was because of the way you were treated.

You were treated maybe by someone at some point, or maybe all your life as if you had no value, or maybe you made a catastrophic mistake and error that you can't let go of.

And because of that, every time you look in the mirror, it's like I can't work it off.

It's just there.

And so you you see yourself that way.

And often people stay stuck in that because your brain um burns neuropathways, you have neuropathways of familiarity, and often we stay in what's familiar, even if it's dysfunctional, because it's familiar, right?

So, like, this is why if you grew up in a dysfunctional family and you happen to marry into a family that's a functional family, they are weird.

You go to their family functions and you're like, dude, I don't know what's up with your family.

They compliment each other.

I don't know what's up with your family, they share their feelings.

It's weird, they communicate.

It's odd.

I don't know why they communicate so much.

Because your normal is dysfunctional, so when you get dysfunctional, it's weird.

And so often people develop a dysfunctional connection to shame.

This is what I see when I see myself sort of let go of it.

I wouldn't even know who I am, so they stay connected to it.

We're gonna get out of this.

We're gonna get out of this.

Okay, let's start with this.

What would a great life, a fulfilling life, look like?

All right?

This is what it would look like.

We'll talk about four relationships.

The first is your relationship with God, that your relationship with God was in order.

And it and it was great.

Like you didn't, you had no, you didn't have shame and guilt when it came to God.

Um, you were learning new things about him all the time.

You feel very connected to God.

Okay, um, think about this: the spirit of the law in the Old Testament, the the Ten Commandments, the first, the first law, the first rule, have no other gods before me.

Why?

Because Matthew 6 33 says, seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, and then all the other things will be added to you as well.

If I get the vertical correct, the horizontal is drastically affected.

So getting my relationship with God in order, having good theology, being at peace with God is huge.

And so let's imagine that we had that relationship in order.

The second, I'm just gonna write, I'm gonna write closest.

So this would be the closest people to you.

If you're married, this is your spouse.

If you're not married, it's your closest friends, it's it's your confidants, it's the people close to you.

If you have a good marriage that's fulfilling, it's in order, and there's reciprocity.

We're giving and taking.

Sometimes I give a little more than I take, sometimes I take more than I give, but we are giving and taking with one another, and we're it's it's a fulfilling, it's intimacy, it's into me.

See, you see me, you know me as really as I am, you accept me in that state, and we're it's it's highly fulfilling.

In fact, what happens is you get the right dose, and I'm gonna misspell it, but you'll get the idea.

Dose, okay.

Uh um, okay, we we have we have I know it's not how you spell it, but you got it.

Okay, it's uh serotonin, okay, adrenaline, oxytocin, dopamine.

All right, we're going biological for a minute.

These are your brain chemicals.

This is what gets released in good relationships.

This is what gets released.

Uh, these things shoot off in all kinds of ways.

These all go off when you're having sex or when you're at the end of having sex.

These um the oxytocin goes off when a woman gives birth to a baby, her body shoots off oxytocin to bond.

This is the bonding.

When you feel lonely, so let's say you're married, but you feel lonely in your marriage.

You either don't feel safe or you don't feel seen, or for whatever reason, yeah, we committed to one another, but we're not close.

You are craving oxytocin, you might try to find it somewhere else.

You might find it from artificial means or even sinful means, things that are out of order, but what you're really hoping for, you're really wanting some oxytocin.

Or some uh uh adrenaline is passion.

I want some passion.

I just want to feel good.

Serotonin makes you feel good.

Um, dopamine helps you feel peace and it relieves pressure.

Okay, so so in my closest relationships, if I was getting all of this and I was reciprocating, my behaviors were in order and there was reciprocity, that would be really good.

The next then is what what I'll just call community, okay, or we'll just talk about our friendships, right?

Okay, so so think of it like this seek first the kingdom of God, then second, um, oh yeah, Ecclesiastes 4.

Ecclesiastes 4 says, two are better than one.

Two are better than one, for they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, then another can reach out and help.

Someone falls alone, they're in real trouble.

Likewise, two lying together can keep warm, but how can somebody keep warm alone?

And a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but if you stand back to back and reciprocate, you can conquer together.

Okay, that's that's an awesome in and court of three strands is not easily broken.

That's here.

Community, okay.

Community, these are your friends and the people around you.

Maybe not your ride or die like this.

Like these people here, if you go to prison, they're going too.

You know, it's like we're going together.

Like, I ain't leaving you or anything.

It doesn't matter how low I'm I love you, I'm always going to be for you.

These people, though, are the people within your community.

And this is why Paul talks in Romans 12.

He says, hey, uh, be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep.

Uh last Sunday after church, my daughter and I went to the visiting hours for one of her classmates, a young man that rides or rode her bus, and he passed away in his sleep, and his family was grieving.

And we walked in, and frankly, I didn't know anybody at this event.

I didn't know anybody there.

And yet the family was there, and this family saw tons of people they didn't know.

This wasn't just their family, it was classmates, it was friends of their son who they had never met.

It was people that rode the bus, but the community showed up to weep with someone who weeps.

But also to celebrate with those who celebrate, to be able to be happy for other people when they're going through something good.

You ever had something going good and you just want to call somebody and celebrate with you?

That's cool.

So when you have a community that celebrates you and that cries with you, that's good.

It's reciprocity, it's in order.

The last is then your relationship to your work.

Ephesians 2.10 says we're God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works that He prepared for you, for me to do.

So then even the nature of your work, what you're doing, your 40, 50, 60, however many hours a week you work, you're taking your body, your mind, your gifts, your talents, and doing some work.

You like the nature of the work, I enjoy the work, and I know how it's affecting the community.

I see that it's bringing a result.

So if you work your tail off and you're really stressed out, but there's a payoff of some sort of reciprocity, even if it whether it's gratitude or you see a result in some way, then you're in balance.

Then, hey, I really like my job.

I like the way it makes me feel.

I like being good at what I'm good at, and I like the result.

Now, let's say you had a great relationship with God, your theology was on point, you had a great relationship with the intimacy in your marriage or the people closest to you.

You were in a great community that was healthy and weeping with you, and you were weeping with them and celebrating together, and you were doing a job, giving your energy to good work that you believe in and that you're good at, even though it's hard sometimes, there's payback.

That is the dose of all the brain chemicals you're supposed to have, and that's a really good life.

That's a really fulfilling life.

And what you'll find is if you had all of those things in order and reciprocal, you'd find yourself not all that tempted.

You'd be less vulnerable to temptation if you're getting all of the chemicals you're supposed to get in the right way, the way God designed it in order.

How do we end up out of order?

Well, a breakdown somewhere here.

My marriage is bad and I hate my job.

My marriage is bad and I feel alone at home and I go to work and I don't think I can do this anymore.

I don't even like this job, I don't like this place, I don't have any support with the people, and I don't even know what I believe about God.

Oh, for four, I'm gonna find myself tempted to try to find some dose, an unhealthy dose by artificial means.

Even if you have the willpower to bite down and not do it, because you know it's taking you to a prison or it's a bad decision, it's still kind of a miserable life.

Paul talks about this in Romans 5 uh 7, 21 through 25.

He says, I've discovered this principle in life that I want to do what's right, I want all that in order.

Inevitably I do what's wrong.

I love God's law with all my heart, right?

So, in other words, I get it, I get what in order is, and I love it.

He said, But there's another power within me that's look at this, look, look, look, at war with my mind.

I'm craving oxytocin, I'm craving serotonin, I'm craving adrenaline, I just want to go feel good, I just want to go forget about my pain.

I just want to go numb myself, I just want some peace.

So I find myself at war in my mind.

He said, This power makes me a slave to sin that's still within me.

Oh, what a miserable person I am, with miserable life.

Even if I could bite down real hard and fight through my with my willpower, I feel myself slipping.

Who will free me from this life that's dominated by sin and death?

Thank God.

The answer is Jesus.

Jesus, oh, you didn't listen to it on Spotify?

That's cool.

Go check it out.

Answer is Jesus, one church music, it's a real song.

Um He said, I'm miserable, and this is how it works.

This is how it works.

If I'm if I have these areas in order, reciprocity, I'm less tempted.

But when one of these or two of these, God forbid, four of these, are out of order, then I find myself really vulnerable to temptation, and so do you.

And so when we find ourselves vulnerable to temptation, now we have decisions to make.

So either I'm just gonna try to do the right thing and be miserable, or maybe some people, in an effort, in a moment of weakness, make a decision that I regret, that you regret.

And so now you have with you the burden of guilt and the burden of shame.

Um let's think about this.

God has designed us psychologically with a fear of rejection, and that fear of rejection is part of what deters us from shameful behaviors.

Like I know that I have certain things going for me in the world that if I act antisocially or selfishly or I do shameful things, I could lose relationships, I could lose respect, I could lose my job.

And so, even in times where my flesh might feel tempted, or I want to do something short-sighted, I have this fear of rejection that's in me that's not all bad.

That's like, hey man, if you do that, it'll really cost you, better not do that.

And so there's something that's going off in there, and in a sense, that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing.

Because we understand in order for our culture and our society and our community to work, people need to behave in ways that aren't shameful.

If everybody starts acting shamefully, the whole thing implodes, it falls apart.

And yet, what do we do with people that do something shameful or they're guilty of something so that they don't have an unhealthy relationship or an improper relationship to it and carry it around for the rest of their lives?

All right?

So here's here's how we deal with it in the right way and get out of it.

Again, if you're walking through today, you're going, I I either feel this at a deep level based on the way I've been treated and devalued, or maybe you made a decision for one of these reasons.

I wasn't getting my right dose the way I needed it, and in a moment of weakness, I did something shameful.

How do we get out of it?

Okay, imagine this for a moment.

Imagine that you ingest some poison.

Depending on how big you are and how little of a dose you ingest, you can poison in certain dose won't kill you right away.

But what it'll do is it makes you sick.

You start to feel symptoms.

You feel bad.

I feel I don't feel so good.

And if you take enough of it, not too much, but enough of it, it'll make you really sick to where you vomit.

All right.

The reason, I know, I I want to give you a headache right now.

I want to burn this in your brain.

I'll do whatever it takes for this lesson to stick because I love you truly.

What's what the bad feeling, okay?

If I'm one of these people go, I don't want to feel anything bad, I never feel anything bad.

What the bad feeling is telling you is something is out of order.

It's impure.

There's something in you shouldn't be there.

You did something you shouldn't do.

And we'll call we'll call that guilt.

All right?

I feel guilt.

Now, if you just have this aversion to bad feelings, all bad feelings are bad, what you'll try to do is block it out, okay, act like it didn't happen, move on the next day.

You wake up.

You're so crazy, arsenic.

Oh, you're so you're poison, you're so crazy.

And then you go back and do it again.

Um, Proverbs 26, I believe, 11.

Proverbs 26, 11 says, as a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.

So what would be the best use of this bad feeling and this experience?

It would be this.

Burf your guts out and look at it.

Because there's a party that doesn't like bad feelings and bad smells and bad taste, but you had poison in you.

So you can just get this away from me, which is that's a human instinct.

Wisdom would do the counterintuitive thing.

Look at it so you can learn from it.

You do something that lands you a night in jail.

What is your instinct?

Call the first person to bail me out as quick as they can.

The counterintuitive thing that might actually be wise would be for you to sit there for a night and stare at the confinement.

And to go, if I keep ingesting poison, because here's what happens: you ingest a little bit of poison, you feel bad, and you vomit.

You ingest more, it does permanent brain damage.

You ingest more, you're dead.

You die.

So the wise person would get a night in jail, and instead of calling the first person to bail them out, ASAP, would sit there and to stare at this and to imagine this being my whole life.

I'm gonna look at it so I can learn from it, so I can let it go.

You gotta understand the difference between guilt and shame.

Guilt is feeling bad about what I've done.

Shame is feeling bad about who I am.

Guilt, there's an appropriate connection to guilt.

I shouldn't have done that.

If you did something, you knew better, you knew the Cost, you knew the risk rationally, but you did it anyway.

And it ended up with collateral damage to just push all of that out of your head and move on to what's next, and sun will come out tomorrow.

And anybody that makes me feel bad is toxic and they're a hater.

No, you need to sit and think about what you did.

You need to sit with a proper amount of guilt, not so that you can carry it around for the rest of your life and misdiagnose your identity as shame, but so that you can look at it long enough to learn from it so that then I can let it go.

Um last year I took my family to Kalahari, indoor water park.

You know what I'm talking about?

Sandusky.

You go, it's awesome.

Big huge water slide.

Take my three kids, we go to Kalahari.

And on the way home, we're driving through Mansfield, and so we had just had this great time on all these water slides, and I decided, you know what, I'm gonna take my kids to the Mansfield prison.

This is a true story, I'm not making this up.

So any of you seen the Shawshank Redemption?

It was shot at the old Mansfield prison, and now it's still open as a museum.

So my daughter and I had watched that movie and she really liked it, and I was like, you know, I'm taking my kids.

They're gonna, you know, life's not a water slide, you know, you gotta know about prison.

So my sons have autism, they're like, what are we doing?

Like, if you keep cussing at the bus driver, this is where you're gonna end up.

I'm not kidding.

I didn't judge me if you want, I don't even care.

Got a great relationship with God.

I know about his grace.

He knows my heart.

And uh so so so we go in, okay?

If you some of you maybe have uh been, it's it's it's the place they shot the Shawshank Redemption.

They shot it there and they've they've they've left it, you know.

And so we go in, and I'm walking, and my daughter, you know, she's 14, she's like a good kid, an honor student, but I still don't want to miss the lesson.

So we're walking through, and she looks in the cell and she wants to keep walking.

Hey, get back here.

Come inside this, come inside this cell.

Go ahead and I I took pictures.

I took actually a bunch of pictures, but here's just a few, okay?

This is so so we I said, Hey, can you can we go to one that's open?

I said, Yeah, go ahead and go to the next one.

So they take me to an open cell, and we go in there, okay?

Tiny, tiny.

And she just wanted to go.

Like, let's get out of here.

I said, no, stay here, look around at how small this thing is, and I want you to close your eyes and imagine 10 years, 20 years, 25 to life.

Imagine, people have lived this, and so could you, and so could I.

She's like, Dad, I haven't even had attention.

I was like, Yeah, I don't care.

Smell the smells in here, breathe it in, look around.

I text her the pictures, don't ever forget.

Because the reality is how you respond to guilt, it's a slippery slope, dude.

It's a slippery slope.

James chapter one.

James chapter one talks about this.

It says, temptation comes from our own sinful desires.

It comes from our own desires.

Temptation comes from our own desires.

You have some good desires and right dose, there's fulfillment.

Sometimes this stuff gets off, having nothing to do.

Like it's not like you even necessarily made it get off, but it's off.

And if you're not smart enough to know, if you're not wise enough to know the temptation that you're under, he says, guess what?

It can entice you and drag you away.

These desires give birth to sinful action, and you're gonna have a bad feeling and a bad night and symptoms, but if you keep doing it, it creates long-term damage.

He said, when it's allowed to grow, it'll create brain damage and death.

Brain damage and death.

I was I was watching the um the Murdaw trial, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna retry the Murdaw trial.

And if you haven't been watching, I'll just give you a quick summary.

If you had this guy, I believe it was South Carolina, he was a lawyer.

Okay, this guy had large income, a lot of influence, came from a good family, all this stuff, or at least a renowned family.

And so he develops an addiction.

Something was off here, and so he started getting doses of um opiates to where he was taking 30 to 60 opiates a day.

30 to 60.

And is because his body was begging for brain chemicals, so he's that's all these drugs make you do stuff to yourself.

So he's taking them 30 to 60 a day, and so he started doing things that were antisocial and out of order, but because he was an attorney and he was skilled, he was able to hide it.

At one point, he actually it appears they he killed their nanny and made it look like it was an accidental death, like the dog knocked her down the steps.

She died, and so he goes to her family, he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry, it was such a tragedy.

Tell you what, I'm a lawyer, I'll help you out, I'll take care of your life insurance.

And so he exploited them.

They didn't see one dollar of their mom's life insurance, so he killed their mom and then took the life insurance behind the scenes to feed his opiate addiction.

It got so bad that he eventually, long story short, killed, murdered his wife and son, his own family.

And he lied, lied, lied.

No, it wasn't me, it wasn't me, I wasn't even there.

Then, but then they have evidence that he was there and all of this.

All of the evidence in the world points that this dude, okay, it's you, bro.

You're guilty.

You did it.

The jury went away for like five minutes.

They came back guilty.

Okay, it's done.

So he's standing now for sentencing in front of the judge.

And he is maintaining his innocence.

Dude, I'm innocent, I couldn't, I wouldn't.

And so he stands there.

Now, by the way, my man, you are sober because you're incarcerated, so now you've sobered up, and he's either in denial or he doesn't remember or he's lying.

But all that to say, he's standing there and he goes and he looks at the judge at sentencing and he says, Judge, I couldn't murder my wife.

I couldn't murder my son, I couldn't.

I love them too much, I couldn't do it.

And after all of his pleading and begging, the judge said, You might be right.

You maybe couldn't.

But the monster you became having a life so out of order.

If you had stopped the first time you had a bad night and vomited and felt sick, and you'd stared at the vomit long enough, you wouldn't have returned to it.

If you'd stared at it long enough and smelled it as awful and sick and gross, and as much as it makes us cringe to think about it, go ahead, friend, and cringe.

Cringe.

Because my license to let go of the guilt that is designed to keep me from shame, the guilt is designed to keep me from becoming that monster.

The same with you.

The license to let go is my willingness to look at it long enough to learn from it so I can let it go.

What does this have to do with community?

Well, this has everything to do with community.

Paul talks about this in Ephesians 6, verse 1.

Ephesians 6:1

It says, Dear brothers and sisters, if any if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly, look at this, you who are godly, you you who are spiritual, you who are mature, should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.

Your community should be designed in such a way that when somebody is out of order, that those who are mature, instead of pushing them down or expelling as a first resort, you should give every effort you can to gently and humbly.

And the gentleness and humility comes from the fact that we all understand this and we understand how you can get there.

And all of us have been there in some way, whether whether it caused us to do something short-sighted or made us live miserably like Paul did, you know, just out of not in order.

So he said that those experiences, that maturity should give you a gentleness and humility to help that person back onto the right path.

And he said, and be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.

Share each other's burdens, and in the same way, obey the law of Christ.

If you think, look at this verse 3, if you think you're too important to help someone, you're only fooling yourself, you're not that important.

So, how do we properly respond to shame and guilt?

The first thing is this: see it as a gift.

I know it doesn't feel like a gift, it feels like vomit, it feels like sick, it feels ugly it's a gift.

Hebrews 12, 5 says, My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline.

Don't give up when he corrects you.

For the Lord dis disciplines those he loves and he punishes each one he accepts as his own child.

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children.

Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means you are illegitimate and not really his children at all.

In other words, it's a gift.

That bucket is a gift, that sick feel, that bad feeling, the feeling of guilt is a gift to keep you from shame.

He says, since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the father of our spirits and live forever?

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how, whether they were good at it or not.

But God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness, so that we might live pure, we might live in order.

No discipline is enjoyable while it's happening.

No, it feels terrible, it's painful, but afterwards there will be a peaceful harvest of right, in order, reciprocal, proper dose living for those who are trained in his way.

So here's what it looks like to get out of this.

It starts with a vision for your life beyond shame.

To understand that you're not icky, but you may be out of order.

And to sit with the guilt just long enough to learn, to look at it long enough to learn from it so that you can let go of it and detach from it, which means that you're going to have to have a new vision for yourself other than what you currently see when you look in the mirror, which is shame.

And here's what it is, and this is what's amazing is if you walk this out the right way and you learn what you need to learn, you actually end up a better person than you were before you screwed up.

The catastrophic error, the dysfunction, the moment of weakness, it's horrible.

And there's a there is a hopeless feeling that I'm gonna have to spend the rest of my life trying to work this off, and and this is gonna be a boat anchor on my life that I have to drag around and I'll never get over it.

It is not designed for that.

Guilt is designed to keep you from that boat anchor and dragging it around in shame for the rest of your life.

So if you have had the courage and the wisdom to stare at the vomit, to look at it long enough, to learn from it, now it's time to move on.

And when I move on and I let go of shame, what do I pick up?

Is a new view of myself.

I'm better now than I was before.

I'm better now than I was before.

God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him or called according to his purpose.

Even that horrible mistake, you'll be one, you'll be counted in the number of people that say, I don't ever want to do that again.

I really learned my lesson.

I would never want to walk another mile in those shoes, but I wouldn't change who I am now.

I'm built different now, I see different now, I'm deeper, I'm wiser, I'm stronger, I'm tougher, I'm a better man, I'm a better woman than I was before, even before I made the mistake.

It's redemption, it's resurrection.

It's beautiful.

So now I have a new image of myself.

And so you gotta let go and you gotta pick up something new.

And then we as a community of uncommon unity have to be the place.

We've got to be the place in the people that are a part of helping somebody else get back in order, somebody that might see themselves as icky.

And this is the beauty of when the Lord brings you all the way through this healing, you now become one of the gentle restorers, one of the humble, gentle people that understands footing because I've I've I've slipped before.

I've been there before, so I know what it's like, I know that look, I've I know that feeling, I know what the vomit smells like.

I've lived there, but friend, you don't want brain damage, and you definitely don't want death.

And if we can get you back in order the way God designed for you to be, you'll get the right dose and you will live a rich and satisfying life.

You'll live a great life, an abundant life, a fulfilling life that God intended for you the whole time.

Let's be a place of uncommon unity that can help deal with shame and sin and guilt in the right way to help restore what was lost.

Let's pray.

Jesus, we come to you.

We thank you, God, that you have a way of taking even the darkest moments of our lives and bringing light into that darkness.

Lord, I thank you even just for the practical understanding that we looked at today of how we even get into these shameful behaviors, where these temptations even come from.

Lord, you've given us a vision for the right relationship with you and the people closest to us and our community and even the work that you've designed for us to do.

So, God, I pray that you would help even those who are tempted and struggling and feeling alone or feeling hopeless, God, that you would give them a fresh vision of what their life could be and help them to build this life the way that you've ordered for it to be built.

Lord, I pray for that one today who has such a negative reaction to any bad feeling, that Lord, that you would that you would give them a perspective to actually sit with the guilt long enough to look at it and learn from it so that they can let it go.

Lord, I pray for that one that's so bound in shame that they don't even know who they are if they didn't have shame.

Lord, help them to see as you see them and to fan the flame of hope inside their heart today.

We love you and praise you in Jesus' name.

All God's people said, Amen.