The Devil Made Me Do It

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

I love coffee every single morning.

Actually, Andre gave me this French press.

Every single morning I get up, I have my routine, get up before everyone else.

I make a fresh pot of French press coffee.

I sit, I have my time with God, and then I dive into my work.

Now, I'm a particularly slow coffee drinker.

Anybody fast coffee drinkers here?

Yeah, my wife's that.

She just guzzles it.

Um I'm slow.

I one cup can last me a long time.

So you can imagine a whole thing like this.

So I I drink this over the course of the entire day, right?

And so I'm just enjoying it.

In fact, this is still leftover uh from this that early coffee session that I had this morning.

Now, um, one of the and so one of the things that I do love doing is then you know, taking my coffee with me to work.

I put it into a mug, I heat it up, and there's just something special about bringing that mug with me as I go up on my day.

I'm like, oh, this delicious goodness that started my mornings like with me, you know.

Um one morning, one morning I uh misjudged time, forgot about a particular meeting.

My, you know, alert shows up that I have this meeting in 10 minutes.

I'm stressed out, I'm running around trying to, you know, um to get everything ready, and so I'm like, okay, but I gotta have my coffee.

I pour it into the mug, I put it into the microwave.

Oh, we got a new microwave.

We used to have this kind of big microwave.

Um I thought it was great, but apparently I was told that it's probably not good for your health because it had peeling stuff on the inside.

I don't know.

Um, but we got a new microwave, it's small, it's cute, I'm told, but it's small.

And it takes a really long time, double the time to heat stuff up, right?

And so have this microwave, it's so small, like you can barely fit one dinner plate in there, right?

It's like, okay, shove it in there.

So I put my coffee in there, I hit the buttons, started, I'm running around, I grab the, you know, I hear the ding, I go to grab it, I open the door, I fling it open, and I'm as I'm not looking, the door swings back closed, knocks the cup out of my hand, a full, beautiful mud I add, cup of French press coffee slams to the ground.

Now, this was like a liquid fireworks display.

I gotta tell you, I've never seen a spray quite like this, and you probably never will ever in your life.

I mean, it didn't just go this way, it went this way.

Everywhere.

Still to this day, there are coffee stains on our ceiling.

I mean, like, not like one or two, stained.

Like, scrub them.

Jenny like was scrubbing them, still can't get them off the ceiling.

I'm gonna have to paint because of this.

I'm gonna have to paint our ceiling because of the coffee stains.

Now, do you know what my very first thought was when that happened?

My very first thought, why'd Jenny have to get a new microwave?

That was my very first thought.

Because if she didn't get a new microwave that didn't take longer to cook, you know, and I, you know, I wouldn't have slammed it.

I didn't know that I was so strong that it was gonna go this way and knock it out.

My very first thought.

Why is our first reflex when things go wrong to ask who blew it?

Whose fault is it?

We just immediately jump to pointing fingers, don't we?

But here's the thing: if finger pointing really fixed anything, why do we still see the same messes on repeat?

We point the fingers, we cast the blame, we think, oh, it's gotta be their fault.

I it's not my fault.

No, it couldn't be my fault.

It's the dog's fault, it's my boss's fault, it's my parents' fault, uh, it's my spouse's fault.

Oh, here's a good one.

They made me do it.

Right?

You ever said that?

I had no choice.

I couldn't help myself.

Like we say these things.

See, one of the things that we have to recognize and realize is that blame is actually woven into the fabric of our reflex, of how we respond when life doesn't go the way we thought it would when we do things we wish we did not do.

And yet the problem is what if blame is the very thing trapping me in my brokenness?

I mean, we say things like, I was put in an impossible situation.

We blame people, we blame circumstances.

I happened with my coffee to blame both Microwave and Jenny.

We passively aggressively pass the buck on the Slack feed at work so that people know, oh yeah, I may not have fulfilled this, but so-and-so.

What if blame is the very thing trapping us in our brokenness?

How do we break free from this blame game that actually is undermining your future, undermining your relationships, undermining your freedom?

Now we're in a series called Where in the World Did We Go Wrong?

We're in uh this ancient book, is the very first book in the Bible.

It's called Genesis.

Genesis just means beginnings, and we're studying chapter three, and chapter three is what theologians call the fall.

It's where it all went wrong.

And last week we looked at Adam and Eve, they're tempted, the serpent is tempting them, this tree, the knowledge of good and evil.

There's you can eat of any tree in all of the garden, but not one tree, and the serpent tempts them, entices them, and then they look, they take.

I can't quite, I'm gonna try it.

Actually, never mind.

It fell on the ground.

I shouldn't have done that.

It fell um I dropped it on the way in on the concrete out or in the street outside.

And do you know whose fault that was?

It was my fault.

Um 30-second rule, that's right.

And last week, where in the world did we go wrong?

Because we can't actually begin to put things right until we understand where we went wrong.

Last week we said this we where we went wrong is we believe the lie that we could actually be better, we could be happier without God.

And today we are gonna dive into this reality of blame that is so pervasive in our lives, in our world, that is actually keeping us stuck.

The sermon title is simply this The Devil Made Me Do It.

Go ahead and turn to your neighbor and say, The devil made me do it.

Uh, if you got your Bibles, open up to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

If not, it's in your notes, it's on the screen behind me, or you can open up your phones, however you read today.

Genesis 3, verse 8 begins this way.

Genesis 3:8

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the cool of the day.

And that's an amazing picture, by the way, about how we're designed.

We're designed to be in community in relationship with one another and with God, a type of intimacy and life where God is walking with us in the cool of the day, like he's present in our daily lives.

Now, this is uh interesting though, verse 8 continues on.

And they what?

Hid from the Lord.

Uh-oh, something happened.

They never hid before.

They would hear him and they would come to him, they would go to him.

Now they hear him and they hid from the Lord among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, and I love this.

Where are you?

We'll talk about this as we close out the series, The God Who Pursues.

Um, I love this because God doesn't shame them.

Does God, did God know where they were?

The answer is yes.

He's God, he knows everything.

Uh it's a little bit like a kid playing uh think uh peekaboo and like closing their eyes and going, You can't see me.

You know, that's what Adam and Eve are doing in this moment, right?

It's like you can't see me.

He's like, No, I see you, but you know what he didn't ask?

What did you do?

That's a shame question.

He asked, where are you?

That's a relationship question.

Something shifted, something changed.

Our normal way has changed.

He asked, where are you?

He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was what?

Afraid.

It's the first time they've ever been afraid in their life.

Because I was naked, so I hid, I was exposed.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat?

The man said, The woman you put here with me.

First response to a question, have you eaten?

The answer, the woman you put here with me.

She gave me some fruit of the tree and I ate it.

Okay, who is he blaming?

Woman, yeah, and God.

He just decided to go everywhere.

He's like, you know what?

The woman, yeah, I don't she has a name, but right now I'm so mad I'm kind of kind of just calling her woman at this point.

They're gonna have a whole conversation later about that.

The woman you put here.

Uh-oh.

Why?

Because our natural reflex when we are exposed is to deflect it.

That's blame.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done?

I love it.

God just leaves it hanging.

He doesn't like correct it, he leaves it hanging.

And then what does the woman do?

The woman says, The serpent.

And we just are passing the buck down the line.

And when blame enters the story, it creates fractures in relationships.

And so today, what we want to do is simply just three things.

We want to talk about and identify like where did this reflex of blame come from?

What is the high cost of blame?

What's the impact of it?

And then how do we uh you know experience the antidote uh so that we can break free from the cycle of blame?

Okay, you with me?

You ready?

Hmm.

You with me?

You ready?

Let's go.

Come on.

You're like, I don't know.

I didn't really, I don't feel like it, Ryan.

It's about blame.

I it's a little too convicting.

How do we break free from the cycle of blame?

Experience freedom and growth.

First, the reflex of blame, it's what we've done from the very beginning.

It's our natural instinct.

I like how Dr.

Brene Brown says it.

Blame is simply discharging of discomfort and pain.

That's what Adam did.

That's what Dee did.

Uh, Eve did in the moment.

I'm discharging my discomfort, this question, instead of me saying, Yep, I ate it.

Uh the woman you put here.

Why do we do this?

First, uh, the why do we have this reflex?

First, we have a destructive belief.

It's simply this failure equals unlovable.

If I fail, I like how uh Robert McGee he wrote The Search for Significance, great book, classic, deeply formational in my 20s and early 30s.

He wrote this those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.

That is the blame mantra.

When we fall under this, we're believing this destructive lie that when I fail, I am unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.

And so as a result, uh, what do I do?

I deflect responsibility.

If I truly believe that if when I fail, I'm unworthy of love and deserve to be punished, and so do you.

One, I'll let you know it because you deserve to be punished, but I'll deflect responsibility.

Why?

Because if love is earned by perfection, performance, or approval, then any crack in my image must be covered.

Blame becomes camouflage for a soul terrified of being inadequate.

And so we deflect responsibility.

The way psychologists say it is that we have a self-serving bias.

We have this self-serving bias, the cognitive reflex that credits me for my successes and excuses me for my failures.

So when you do something really great, you're like, yeah, that was me.

Woohoo! I almost fell off the stage.

Uh that was me.

When something goes wrong, that was their fault.

We just begin to look for someone to point the finger at.

Here's what's interesting, by the way.

Um, we see the problem in everyone else but ourselves.

A 2025 survey of U.S.

employees found that 61% say they've been thrown under the bus.

The interesting part.

Yet 73% insist they've never done it to anyone else.

The math doesn't add up.

Why?

Because we have a self-serving bias.

We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

We excuse our bad behavior, we justify our reasoning, and yet we uh condemn or pass the buck to somebody else.

Carol Taveras, uh psychologist, she wrote a book called Mistakes Were Made, but not by me.

In it she writes, most people, most people, how many?

Most! When confronted with evidence that they're wrong, justify themselves all the more.

It's the blame reflex.

It goes back to this belief that fail if we fail, we're unloved, and so we deflect responsibility.

Uh why?

To create distance.

Again, Dr.

McGee says this blaming others helps us put a safe distance between our failure and our fragile self-worth.

In fact, neuroscience uh studies show that blame lowers stress temporarily, it gives us this immediate hit, this immediate relief, it lowers stress temporarily, but then later spikes when relationships suffer.

It's that short-term gain for long-term pain.

The truth is, blame doesn't protect your heart, it only hardens it.

So, what then is the cost of blame?

There's this high cost of blame.

We have to understand it so that we break free from it because if it's like, oh, it doesn't really cost me that much, and I no, no.

Listen, we know this, we get this.

The first cost of blame is isolation, it distances us from others.

Can you imagine?

I just I don't know.

We don't have it recorded, but I'm curious how the conversation went with Adam and Eve after that moment.

Did you eat of the fruit?

The woman you gave me, it fractured their relationship.

It put distance between his relationship, their relationship with God.

Interesting thing about blame is it not only creates isolation, which in a world where we're struggling with an epidemic of loneliness, we might want to examine some of the root causes, this blame.

Second, is it creates stagnation.

We stop growing when we stop owning.

When our natural reflex is it's not my fault, I don't have to own anything, and we pass it up, then what happens is we stop growing until we can deal with reality, until we can go, that was my fault, until I own it.

I can never move forward, I can never change, I can never grow.

In fact, studies show that uh blame culture in workplaces, it stagnates creativity and productivity and creates a suspicion-based culture.

So the high cost, isolation, the high cost stagnation.

Then what happens when we allow this to just kind of operate in our lives is then there's escalation.

It grows, it increases.

Blame doesn't just stay blame, it leads to bitterness, resentment, and hostility.

Fascinating.

The Gottman Institute did this longitudinal study, and they could predict with 93% accuracy which couples would get divorced.

Nine out of ten.

And by the way, they would do this with only observing a 15-minute interaction with the couple.

They would have this thing, they had they have not have this thing called the Love Lab.

I know it sounds like a cheesy um Netflix series, uh, the Love Lab.

Uh, and they would have a couple in this observation, and after 15 minutes of watching them uh in conflict, they are able to predict whether that couple will get divorced or not.

And the root issue goes back to what they would call the four horsemen of relationships, the four things that take you down.

Criticism.

Criticalness, blame.

Um I'll just read them for you because I was contempt.

See, blame builds into criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and then stonewall.

There's this escalation.

The reality is blame is corrosive to relationships.

We think it saves us in this immediate, but it undermines everything we absolutely want.

Because here's here it is.

Think about this.

We know this to be true.

Blame never healed a marriage, repaired a friendship, or built a meaningful life.

Right?

He never walked away after that and went, oh man, my marriage is stronger.

Friendship, you know, is better, more meaningful.

Alright.

Reflex.

High cost.

So what's the antidote?

How do we begin to break free from this blame cycle, which is our natural reflex?

Let me just give you a couple of thoughts here.

The first is we have to name the narrative.

Name the narrative.

What story am I believing in?

What story am I telling myself?

Back to the coffee.

What story am I telling myself?

Right?

I was telling myself the story that this small, cute, small microwave that my wife bought is the reason why I had.

A spectacular spill.

It's the mediate thought, the immediate reaction.

It's where I just jumped to.

It's the story.

We have to name the narrative.

I was not, you know what story I did not tell myself?

Was wow, I overlooked that meeting and was inattentive to that.

I mismanaged my time.

I was in a hurry.

And as a result, I was moving too quickly, not focused or uh attentive.

I was being too rough with this small microwave.

And because of those things, I dropped the microwave.

Or not to drop, I kind of wanted to.

The cup.

See, friends, the first thing you have to do is you just have to pause, name the narrative.

You jump to blame, he jumps to these areas.

What is the story that I'm telling myself?

And is it true?

Is it a small microwave?

Yes, that's true.

Did my wife buy the microwave?

That indeed is true.

Did she cause me to drop my cup?

That part is not true.

Not anywhere close to true.

You begin to name the narrative.

What story am I believing and beginning to operate off of?

Now here's the good news.

The good news is that reflex, and I'm so grateful, this is like one of those little redemptive things.

God's growing me, I'm changing.

Uh after 22 years of marriage, I'm like, okay, there's growth here.

Because there would be times in our marriage where I would lash out and blame.

Like she's walking in, she's like, what in the world?

What?

Oh my goodness.

And it creates this incredible fight, you know, and rightfully so.

But you know what?

I only thought that thought for maybe 30 seconds.

30 seconds.

And then I realized that's not true.

Name the narrative.

But then what do we have to do?

We have to own our junk.

We have to own our junk.

I chose blank and it cost blank.

I did this and it cost this.

The consequences were this.

I was in a rush.

I um was not paying attention.

I did not actually manage my time well.

And you know what?

I dropped the cup.

That we have to own it.

Now here's what's amazing.

If I had responded in blame, that could have ended.

You know how it ended, and maybe not well.

That reframing of it.

Jenny hears it, she says, What happened?

And you know, my first response wasn't like your stupid microwave happened.

That's what happened.

Thank God that was not my first response.

Jenny, I'm so sorry.

I was in a rush.

I'm running late.

And and I wasn't paying attention, and I I I should have been, and I just dropped it, and it's a full cup.

And look, oh my goodness.

At the time, I didn't even know it hit the ceiling.

I just was trying to wipe it.

She's like, that's okay, I'll take care of it.

And then she tells me it even like, I mean, isn't it?

It's like artwork up there.

The antidote for blame is first we gotta name the narrative, own our junk, and then confess in community.

Confession, like that word, just means to agree, like when we talk about it biblically, means to agree with God.

Maybe another way to say it if we want to take out uh the biblical lens, is just to agree with what's true or reality.

Blame is passing what's true off to someone else.

It's discharging my pain and comfort, as Brene Brown says.

Confession is like, okay, I confess, like, I really agree.

And we do that in community.

People help us, people help us see our blind spots.

James would say, confess your sins one to another, that you might be healed.

John would say it if we confessed our sins, he's faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Like it's the powerful practice that we've lost in the church, but it's not as scary as I think we like have built up in our minds.

Like somehow the picture of confession is I'm gonna sit down at some solemn moment and I'm gonna like bear my all of my soul to you.

Well, one, there are some things that you probably need to share to a counselor or to a really close friend that you shouldn't share with other people, but then there's just some things that like this is just life and that we talk about.

Yeah, for example, I notice something in me.

And so here's the deal.

I'll uh if I can confess up here, can we confess in community?

This means yes.

I noticed this in me.

Um a few weeks ago, there was a delivery person who came by, um, interrupted.

I was in the middle of stuff, um, frustrated.

I'm like, God, you know, there's a ring, you don't do the ring, you don't walk, anyways.

I came out, I I responded short, I should responded annoyed, and and I probably responded unkind.

My guess is that person walked away, uh, definitely not feeling like, oh, he's a nice human, uh, but maybe just like, oh, that guy's a jerk.

And I walked away from that uh instance and immediately I like had this like spirit conviction, like that wasn't right.

But then I'm like, you know what?

I'm stressed.

I've been sick for like five weeks, um, you know, got a lot of things going on, and and they should have.

What I because we blame all our circumstances on all these other things all the time.

And then about two weeks later, um, there was a door-to-door salesman.

Ignore it.

Doorbell.

Ignore it.

Dogs going crazy.

Can't ignore it.

I go out, and the guy's like, oh, hey, I'm you know, trying to sell me high band whatever internet.

And I'm like, I'm in the middle of some not a good time.

I'm like, again, short, annoyed, unkind.

Like I would be just ashamed if they found out I was a pastor, right?

They're like, that's not, that's not, you're not.

Uh this last week I was with uh a guy in our church.

We were having coffee, and uh, one of the questions I love to ask is just, hey, what are you learning?

What is God's teaching you?

And he is answering, and then he flipped it on me.

Uh, and I was like, Oh, I should have thought of an answer before I asked the question.

Um, and then you know what came immediately into my mind were those two guys.

What is God teaching me?

Gosh, there's something in me that responds to people, at least to people, in a way that's just not kind.

Jesus would say that, like, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So actually, this is more of a heart thing.

There's something going on in my heart that I would allow and speak to someone and respond in a way, and I can I can justify it in so many different ways that are like, you know, I was busy, I'm stressed, I'm sick.

Does that give me an ability or like it's okay to respond short and kind uh to a person?

The answer is no, thank you.

At least one of us, right?

Just because you're hangry, does it give you a right to treat someone poorly?

No, it doesn't.

And so in that moment, I wasn't planning on it, wasn't thinking about it, but I just told them, like, here's what God's teaching me, and all of a sudden, communicating that out loud in community began some of that healing, some of that awareness, some of the story that I'm telling myself, some of the junk that I'm owning.

Now I'm telling it to all of you people.

It's so corrosive.

To you, to your relationships.

So I want to close just simply with this.

It's an ancient practice.

It's called the prayer of examine.

This is a practice that you can do daily.

You can do daily on your drive home, on your commute home, you just driving.

You could do it before you go to sleep.

Um and it's just a practice that helps us uh in prayer begin to allow the Spirit of God to reveal those things in us.

Where we begin to develop a sensitivity to the Spirit of God where his prompt is like, oh, that wasn't good.

Oh, that attitude, oh, that response, oh that.

We begin to allow him to build that in us, and then we respond to him in it.

And so I just want to invite you, if you just relax and sit back and take a moment.

If you want, you can take a deep breath, you can close your eyes.

In the prayer of examine, the first step is just replay the day, and our day is relatively short, you can replay the weekend.

Invite the Holy Spirit to guide you.

Holy Spirit, would you would you guide me as I invite you into yesterday?

Invite you into this weekend.

And in the process of replaying the day, you see those moments that you're grateful for and you rejoice.

You thank God for obvious and even mundane.

Like, God, you gave me a new day.

There's breath in my lungs.

I have a roof over my head.

Just begin to thank God for all the things that He's worked in your day.

And then there's this movement then to repent, to confess attitudes, responses, actions.

Take a moment.

The Spirit of God is bringing a conversation.

Slack thread, an email, just a heart response.

Maybe nobody even knows the blame or the bitterness you've been hiding that.

But it's there.

And you just begin to confess it.

Gotta give you that attitude of I'm sorry for the way I responded.

And then the final step of this examin, this prayer of examining is to renew.

We replay, we rejoice, we repent, and we renew.

Look towards tomorrow, deciding to live that day for Jesus.

Look towards this afternoon.

Inviting him into all that you do.

It might mean making some repair with some people as well.

If the Spirit brings that up, I'd encourage you to do that.

Might be a phone call, might be a text, it might just be a time to meet with them.

God, we just confess that our natural reflex is to blame.

Pass the buck.

And we realize now that it's costing us more than we could ever dare realize.

Holy Spirit, would you come?

Would you work in our hearts, in our lives, that we would be a people that move from blame to grace because we live under your grace that we're fully loved, fully accepted.

Daughters and sons.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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