Sermon – “Overcoming Guilt and Shame”

once again the anger of the Lord burn against Israel when you know you those apprise right once again once again they stumbled but how often has God been said that to us there you go again stumbling again once again we messed up right but once again the Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he caused David to harm them by taking a census go and count the people of Israel and Judah the Lord told him so the king said to Joab the commanders and the commanders of the army to take a census of all the tribes of Israel from Dan in the north to perceive in the south so I may know how many people there are but Joe Average plied to the king May the Lord your God let you live to see a 100 times as many people as there are now but why. My lord the King do you want to do this but the King insisted that they take the census So Joab and the commanders of the Army went out to count the people of Israel So Joab he is the head commander of the army he would be like our secretary of defense in today’s world that’s what Joab was so there wouldn’t be too many people that would question the king when a king says or do something you just do it but he questioned it why miking Why do you want to do this thing Joab knew it was wrong that’s why I questioned it he knew it and he had the ability or the the guts if you will to question the king but the King insisted so when the king says people do what he says goes right so we’re going to skip the part where they go out and count all the people in from each region and tell us how many we’re going to jump the 1st 10

but after he had taken the census David’s conscious conscience began to bother him and he said to the Lord I have sinned greatly by taking the census Please forgive my guilt Lord for doing this foolish thing the next morning the word of the Lord came to the prophet dad who was David see here this was the message go and say Today vid this is what the Lord says I will give you 3 choices choose one of these punishments and I will inflict it on you so Gad came to David and ask him will you choose 3 years of famine throughout your land or 3 months of fleeing from your enemies or 3 days of severe plague throughout your land Think this over and decide what answer I should give the Lord who sent me.

David says I am in a desperate situation David replied to gad But let us fall into the hands of the Lord for His mercy is great Do not let me fall into human hands may God at His blessings to the hearing and reading of His Holy Word and let us pray Father God we do praise you and thank you for your presence in our lives Father I thank you that you are patient with us when we stumble and when we make mistakes I thank you Father God for your mercy and father though there is a lot happened in this passage we can see your mercy again and and father we just thank you that your merciful and gracious towards us and father just pray that your truth and your words be spoken today Father open our hearts to receive what you have force and follow God May we overcome guilt and fear and shame and pride in all those things in our lives by their help us to worship you with true hearts help us to be faithful to your God in all of our ways and for your glory in Jesus’ name amen

So David calls for Joe ab to go out and take a census so I’m not sure how long the census would take but they took the census so as soon as it’s done he began feeling guilty knowing that he shouldn’t have done this thing so he goes from counting people how many peoples in the land to all the sudden here comes his seer and he says you’re going to be punished there’s going to be punishment so now you get to choose kids have your parents ever let you choose their punishment when you’ve done wrong yeah yeah get to choose it about your little ones.

You never got to choose your punishment imagine 3 years of famine So David you know now I know how many people who are so busy figuring these head are at 3 years of famine I wonder how many people will lose in that famine Well you know we could go to distant lands and we might find some bread there but no I don’t know what could lose I might lose 100000 people so are 3 months of fleeing from their enemy the one being a funny the right or 3 days of severe plague So David says I know that my God is merciful whatever he Deans will be but don’t let me fall into the hands of man what a wise decision

70000 people lost their lives and then 3 days because of that severe play

probably was the best way I know it was a best thing for him to do to put it in the got put in God’s hands 3 days 70000 people died to the plague I read what comes after that and David

again listen to the Lord and God went to see him again he said Go and build an altar and seek forgiveness from the Lord so he goes to a care member the name of the guy goes and says I’d like to purchase your mill in your field and want to build an altar to the Lord and the guy says I’ll give it to you and David says no no no I’m going to buy it because I’m not going to sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing so he sought the forgiveness of the Lord and God relented and stopped the plague upon the people

guilt you know guilt it’s a fact of life

when we do something wrong or commit some kind of offense we will feel guilty right you know when a person is guilty.

In torqued our society today it’s the prosecution’s duty to prove a person’s guilt because we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty right doesn’t always work that way but it’s way supposed to be

but whenever we feel guilty why do we feel guilty because we have disobeyed our parents or we’ve broken the law or we have fallen short of some obligation that we committed to do we will feel guilty about it right so anybody with a conscience at some point in their lives have felt guilty Has anybody here never felt guilt

right I think we’ve all felt guilty at some point or another even these little ones right now don’t feel good never die they were wrong right

but you know what often causes us to deal what gets us in trouble the most

these tongues don’t pay we open our mouths when we say the wrong thing or we put somebody down or we hurt somebody then we’re going to feel guilty about it we could control these tongues we buy would experience near as much guilt would we but we have a hard time controlling these little things right I found an illustration about guilt by and Graham Lotz

many of the newer model cars today course probably most all of today are equipped with an anti theft alarm system right and the more sensitive the ones can be very a newly annoying out and in general public because some of them are so sensitive even if the wind blows hard there are they are the horns of blowing the alarms going off and you come out and I gather that’s my car you’re trying to get the alarm off it’s very embarrassing right so but the purpose of these noxious things is to keep unwanted entry into your car to keep people out of your car that you don’t want in there right well God has built into each of us an alarm system it is an anti-US in alarm.

To warn us of the On wanted entry of sin into our lives the norm system is called Guilt guilt can be our friend right think about that a 2nd guilt can be our friend without it we would go on sinning until we were dominated and defeated by sin in our pleasure seeking anything goes’ feel good society guilt is strongly disliked we run from it but we can’t rid ourselves of it the only thing that can wash away our sin and guilt before God is the blood of Jesus Christ

so guilt is or alarm system it can be a good thing on the back to 2nd SAME ONE verse one is said that the anger the Lord burned against Israel and he caused David to harm them by taking a census now clearly the sin was

which caused the guilt was the taking of the census

Do you really think that God caused him the god caused David to the call to do this sin

to God actually caused David to do this census

No

God does not cause people to send

he does not cause people to send Now he allows sinners to sin because the sin that’s already in them. You follow me he doesn’t put it in there but he might step back and allow that sinful thought or nature in you to be revealed by your actions that sin that’s already stored up in there he doesn’t put that sin in there James $11314.00 says that no one say that when he is tempted that I am tempted by God for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he himself tempt anyone but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed so that desire was already in David’s heart God didn’t put it there it was already there all God had to do was allowed to know the word said he made David do it but it was already there he disallowed that to happen he allows us to have the freedom to choose right and sometimes we choose wrong I have choose drawn before David chose wrong we do choose wrong he allows Satan to whisper in our ears to entice us there is a scripture that backs up the reveals who the culprit was in 1st Chronicles $21.00 verses one in 2 it says now Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel

very clear say stood up against Israel and moved David so say his want to put the sin in his heart to number Israel so David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people go in number Israel from Berseba today am and bring a number of them to me that I may know it it’s very clear who the culprit was the same one that whispers those things that we shouldn’t do in our ears but we have to stand against it in the name of Jesus Christ.

So what tool did that the devil used to cause David to do this sin because really you think about it to take a census Come on now that doesn’t really seem like a great evil does it to take a census of the people to see how many there are in the Book of Numbers a lord commanded a census to prepare an army to conquer the promised land so therefore a census in a number itself is not always a wrong thing to do it’s not always a bad thing there are many reasons why a nation will take up a census and a couple reasons that our nation will take up a census for one that will help determine how many seats in the House of representatives each state will get

it will determine how much federal money your state may get when I take up a census and I know this is a real spiritual but it is facts and it helps here to show that a census is not always a bad thing it’s not always an evil thing

the only way to understand whether a thing is a sin or not a sin is to determine the cause of it why why did David want to take up the census it wasn’t to prepare an army because they were experiencing a time of peace so it wasn’t so they could gather the army together knew how many they had the reason for the census so that it was so that they would could glory in the size of his nation that he could glory in the size of his army did you get that his army so he could say oh I look great and large my nation is look how great my army how powerful my army is that was the reason for a census that’s why the Census was a sin

because that thing rose up in him called. Pride what use are on top of it the day pride pride was a sin pride is probably the most commonly use snare of the devil

here me pride is posed probably the most commonly use I didn’t find out from some commentary it’s probably the most commonly used snare because I’m telling you

is anyone never had pride rose up and all right I didn’t forget seeing hands go up again now

even godly people struggle with pride

all the time we always have to be alone or defense against pride

in is so difficult to define the pride it may come because listen to me there is good pride but there’s also bad pride

now

what is good pride

I’m going to define good pride and sense of already use the newest ration Graham Lotz from using a car we’re going to use a cars again so let’s just say you’re driving down the road Barber going home from church to your car all the sudden you hear a clunk and a bang and the smoke rolls out the tail pipe and smoke rolling out from under the hood your car just blew up. It just drop the piston Now some would say what’s a piston display just understand it’s very important in your car because without your piston the engine is not going to run it’s very bad so you take your car down to the garage and I got a couple mechanics there and this one mechanic takes a lot of pride in his work a lot of pride whenever he takes your car in air he’s going to tear it apart when he goes to put it back together he’s going to make sure that every part is cleaned and Mike and it’s to the specs when he goes to putting it back together he’s going to get his torque wrench out he’s going to tour every single boat to make sure it’s to perfection when you look at his work be there in the garage all the the wrenches are nice and orderly the screwdrivers are another George nice and orderly everything’s clean and neat he takes great pride in his work in great pride in making sure that your car is going to run well when he’s done working on it then there’s the other mechanic will call him Messy Marvin when you look at his work day there’s all parts laying around probably that he forgot to put on the car before you look in his tool box everything just throw it in there in a mess when he goes to work on your car when he goes put it who needs a torque wrench this is close enough he’s only interested in get the job done get nice pay it it may run OK and it may not which one do you want to work on your car

the one it takes pride in his work well of course so friends there is a good pride pride taking pride in what we do for our employers or for what we do for God but there is a good prob but there is also a bad pride right there is a bad pride here’s where the bad pride comes in when we measure our goals and our achievements against someone else

yeah.

I’m guilty

and all we ever done at will

I’m a better painter and him

I’m going to pickle myself

I’m a view just before I don’t know but working with a guy at work you know I’ve painted for a while I’m not pain anymore but I’d painted for 39 years so I mean I should have been good at it right I had one shame on me but you know save your pain something you know I usually would be nice and even and I straight strokes Well another guy’s like he’s already placed you know I’m just like oh my goodness I can only stand this that watching him you know

but I should have been comparing myself to anyone else we should know on the better teacher and the teacher down the hall

I’m a better secretary met other secretary were in a corner I’m a better mechanic than another guy yet maybe they are but the sin comes when the pride wells in up up in us and when we compare ourselves to the other

that is sin that is pride the pride that we should not have yes we should do the best that we can do with the abilities that God gave us but not look down and build ourselves up in front of others

that sin that pride is bad that pride is sin the pride of the comparison so I hope when you leave today you have a different mindset about compare maybe you don’t struggle with that hopefully you don’t but don’t compare yourself with others just do the best you can be the best you can for God with the talents and abilities that he has given you for His glory not Troon Proverbs 112 says when pride comes then comes describes but with humility comes wisdom.

After David’s pride to act verse 10 said David’s conscious began to bother him and he said to the Lord I have sinned greatly by taking the census Please forgive my guilt Lord for doing this foolish thing

you know just as with pride there is good pride and bad pride there are times when guilt is good and times when deal is bad

the same with pride

when we have an unrepentant sin in our lives God can use guilt to help us see our need for repentance So you see guilt can be good

God used guilt in the lives of Joseph brothers in Genesis 4221 and 22 then they said to one another we are truly guilty concerning our brother for we saw his ank the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us and we would not hear therefore the stress has come upon us and Rupert answered them in saying Did I not speak to you saying do not sin against a boy and you would not listen Therefore behold His blood is now required of us

I’m sure that most remember the story Joseph the next to the youngest son of Israel

had visions and dreams and he would share these visions and dreams to his older brothers visions that they would bow down to him Well they didn’t want to hear that so just a very abbreviated

part of the story they sold him into slavery that person intended to kill him but one brother talked him out of that he sold into slavery he became 2nd only to pharaoh in Egypt

so there was a day when his brothers did bow down to him but here they have that guilt and shame for what they have done to their brother God can use guilt

to cause us to see that we need to repent. Feel sorry for what we’ve done.

Then there’s bad guilt

this is the kind that we as believers need to overcome

bad guilt friends as that ball and chain that we keep dragging around rendering us weak and ineffective for the service of God

and the service of others because we just can’t seem to let go of that past sin we just will come to the altar we’ll go pick will get up and we’ll take that ball and chain with us we keep dragging it along we’re guilty all on so bad God can’t forgive May that sin with us so bad act just can’t be forgiven I can’t get past it we think we aren’t good enough we think that we’ll never be good enough we keep wallowing in or guilt in our shame thinking we can’t be forgiven that little voice keeps telling you you aren’t forgiven you’re a sinner it’s right Satan is that little voice of keeps telling you you can’t be forgiven you’re not good enough you’ll never be good enough you are unreliable on and on and on he wants you in distress and he wants you to doubt

Soames 381 through 4 says the NOR DO NOT rebuke me in your wrath nor chasing me in your hot the displeasure for your arrows pierced me deeply and your hands pressed me down there is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger nor any health in my bones because of my sin provided it would days have gone over my head like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me when we attempt to deal with our sin on our own

they are going to be over our head they’re going to be that ball and chain because we cannot deal with the donor own

we cannot face them alone or.

We must take them to him and accept his forgiveness Isaiah 4325 says I even I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins friends God says I will blot out your transgressions and I will not remember your sins so if we ask for forgiveness and God promises up that he will not remember them why in the world do we remember them let them go to see receive that word today let them go if you’re walling in guilt and shame let it go because God wants to set you free

Hebrews 8 verses 7 through 12 for in the in that 1st covenant no me back up I read it wrong for if that 1st covenant had been faultless then no place would have been sought for a 2nd because finding fault with them he says Behold the days are coming says a lord when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah not according to the covenant that that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant as I disregarded them says the Lord for this is a covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my laws in their hearts and write them put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people none of them shall To each his neighbor and none his brother saying no the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will be merciful to the 2 they are yeah to their own righteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more our God is a merciful God.

He has a loving God You know one of the main themes at the conference was identity knowing who we are in Christ Jesus

that includes knowing the fullness of His forgiveness that includes knowing the fullness of His righteousness because it is by his righteousness not our own

and it till we understand that we will be able to let go of that guilt and that shame will move until we know that it is HIS righteousness by which we are saved by which we are set free it is by him that we are forgiven friends we do not have to carry that ball and chain any longer let it go Romans 8 verses one through 4 it says there is therefore Now now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to The Spirit for the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus had made me feel has made me free from the law of sin and death for the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus for the law could not do what it could not do and that it was weak through the flesh I can’t read this morning God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin he condemned sin in the flesh

that the righteous requirement of the law might do for fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit we are not to walk according to the flesh but walk in the spirit allow His Holy Spirit to guide you to comfort you to give you strength but allow that spirit also to set you free set you free from guilt set you free from shame because it’s his righteousness he paid the price yes.

There was a debt there was a debt for our sin

there was a penalty for David sin for taking that sense of 70000 people lost their lives there was a penalty for our sins for my Asin and your sin but Prince Jesus Christ painted

he paid it that we can be set free no longer happen to suffer with guilt and shame and thinking There’s plenty Sh’ma come in

we set you free you are free indeed 1st Someone 9 What’s a say if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness not just some of our own righteousness but all of it

be free receive that freeness that God wants you to have so that you can enjoy peace in your life and it you can serve Him with all of your strength

because when you’re weighed down with that bone chain you cannot serve him or others with all of your strength with all of your heart soul and mind so be set free Amen.