Sermons
An Answer for Your Guilt
Sun, Jun 10, 2018
Teacher: Tom Blackford Series: Sunday Sermons PM - 2018 Scripture: John 8:2-11
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An Answer for Your Guilt
John 8:2-11
INTRO:
Good evening.
For our reference text this evening I am going to use John 8:2-1. As I proceed through this lesson tonight those of you who attended Bible class this morning will start to see a connection. From a preacher I know, I heard a story about a 16-year-old girl who was getting ready for her 1st date. The doorbell rang and her parents answered the door. At the door was this guy, probably in his early 20s. He had long stringy hair, his body was covered in tattoos and where there wasn’t a tattoo there was a body piercing. Her parents became quite nervous and they pulled their daughter aside and said, “Darling, we are a little nervous about this date of yours.” She said, “Why!?” Her dad said, “Well, we are just concerned that he might not be a nice person.” She turned and looked at him and said, “If he wasn’t nice, would he be doing 5000 hours of community service!”
Obviously both the daughter and her parents had made judgments from their experience... or lack of it... and the information they had. I’m not going to point out what is going on there, but I do want to point out that in this world we come to judgments about other people based on experience and the available information.
Sometimes we are quick to make judgments, sometimes quicker then we should be and some times we indulge in a form of judgment called accusation. Accusation is a skill that most people have mastered well. There is never going to be a shortage of accusers around. I imagine almost all of us have been on a guilt trip at some time, perhaps many times, in our lives, often motivated or pushed along the way by accusers.
I. The problem with a guilt trip is that it is a dead end. It’s not how God intended us to live. When we read in Genesis that God made the man and woman we find that after they were created they initially lived naked. The Bible tells us “They didn’t feel any shame.” Shame is not a part of how we were designed to live by God.
A. It wasn’t his idea for us, but notice, how soon accusation entered the human situation after sin entered. As soon as sin entered into the human story, the spirit of accusation followed and we all began pointing our fingers at each other.
B. Guilt trips do not become us and since they are dead ends, leading no where, they are of no use to the Christian. How do we stop taking a guilt trip? I would suggest the way to do that is to follow Jesus. Because he has the only words that I know that can silence even your worst accusers.
II. Let’s read a story about that, in John 8:2-11 (NKJV) – I’m sure we all know this story. “2. But early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. 3. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4. they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. 5. "Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?''
A. We are told next that they were using this question as a trap to find a basis on which to accuse Jesus. ... But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. 7. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.'' 8. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?'' 11. She said, "No one, Lord.'' And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.'”
B. I like the King James Version which puts that story in these words “Woman where are those accusers of yours?” If God doesn’t want us living with shame, then who is it that does? We have all been there.
C. We know that some people have become experts at shaming us with accusation and we know, thought we may hate to admit this, but we know, that shame is a powerful way to control people and to manipulate them.
III. We know how to shame each other and the truth of the matter is we have often become expert at shaming ourselves. Nobody shames me more than the shame I heap on myself. I want you to know that behind all of the guilt and the shame others have put on us, or that we have put on our self, stands—Satan.
A. The one that Revelation 12:10 calls “... the accuser of the brethren, who accuses them night and day,...” In other words Satan is behind us with accusation. Satan wants us to be like this woman. Embarrassed and ashamed in the course of condemnation, and like her, our acknowledged guilt leaves us powerless to silence our accusers.
B. What am I going to say when my accusers point out my sin? I can’t even silence my own conscience. We have all stood where she stood in some form or other. Even though we have asked God to forgive us, the charges of our accusers still ring in our ears. All of us know this.
C. When the memory and the pain of a sin in your past keeps coming up, and keeps haunting you and keeps weighing you down, that’s not from God. That is not from God because God is not going to haunt you with something that He has already forgiven. It’s coming from somewhere else. Our memories and our emotions, make us vulnerable to assaults from the accuser.
IV. This happens to all of us. You can be taking a shower, driving down the road in your car; you could be cooking your dinner, or trying to go to sleep at night and suddenly you are overwhelmed with the painful memory of something in your past. Something that you thought you put behind you, but they come out again and you feel ashamed.
A. Why does Satan bother to accuse? I want you to know that any accusation of his cannot affect your standing with God. If you’re standing in Jesus Christ and you’re sins have been forgiven, Satan can accuse all he wants but you’re relationship to God hasn’t changed. Yet we need to understand something about Satan. He accuses not because he believes he can steal your salvation. He accuses and condemns because he knows he can steal your joy and your effectiveness as a Christian. He can steal your ability to edify and teach your brothers and sisters.
B. I remember one time I was eating and spilled something on my shirt but Nina assured me that she could probably get it out. She soaked it and did all the things that she knows to do. When she was through and gave me that shirt back, the stain was “almost” invisible. I really had to strain my eyes up close and barely make out the circle of where that stain was. People might look at that shirt later and they wouldn’t even know there was a stain there in the first place, but I knew it was there. I could see that stains location from 10 yards away, it was big and bold and ugly and that shirt stayed in the closet.
C. That’s exactly what Satan is trying to do to us. Even though God has washed that stain away, Satan will say, “I can still see it, can’t you see it? Everybody can see it.” He wants us to try to keep our life out of sight, stay in the closet you might say. That’s why he accuses and he’s not going to let up, so why don’t we just give up? I want you to know something. You can’t silence our accuser but Jesus can.
D. Did you notice how quickly Jesus moved in to shield this woman from the accusing crowd? He takes the attention off of her and he puts the attention on himself. That is exactly what He’s going to do when Satan accuses you. If Satan is behind you in accusation, Jesus is between you and condemnation.
1. Someone might be thinking to themselves, “Her accusers spoke the truth!” Have we not understood that shame and condemnation, are the just consequences of sin? This is very important. I want us to realize that Jesus has no intention of defending or excusing her sin. He has no intention of excusing our sin here. He doesn’t even ask her side of the story.
2. She must have had a side to her story. I might want to know where the guy is, how come he not has not been caught? Jesus doesn’t even get into all that. Again someone might ask, “How can he show mercy then?” If this woman is justly condemned, how can he show mercy to her without contradicting God’s justice? I think the answer is, He can stand between her and condemnation because He was willing to pay her penalty. By hanging on the cross, Jesus has forever condemned the spirit of condemnation. This woman who came fully expecting to meet a judge and deserving to meet a judge, left knowing a savior. The Bible says in Romans 8:1 “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
E. The question we should ask ourselves is: will her story be my story? There is really only one way to deal with accusation and that is to understand and trust the gospel. That’s what we are going to take a few minutes to look at.
F. I’m hoping this evening that we will understand the gospel a little more fully, see the good news more clearly than we ever have. If we are going to be able to resist a spirit of condemnation and stand against a spirit of accusation, we are going to have to know and believe with all our heart the good news.
V. Let’s take a look at 3 statements. The first is that forgiveness is available because Jesus took my guilt and shame upon himself.
A. Certainly we see condemnation does have grounds to assault us. Satan does have conclusive evidence that we have all violated God’s law. When he accuses us of sin, he is not lying. He’s the father of lies and he’s good at it, but when it comes to making a case against me as a sinner, he doesn’t need to lie. He’s got all the evidence that he can use. My defense lawyer, the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn’t plead extenuating circumstances, he doesn’t argue for my innocence.
B. The good news is that Jesus substituted His own sinless life for mine and took upon Himself everything my sins deserve. Romans 3:23-25 – (NKJV) “23. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24. being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25. whom God set forth to be a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,” “Everyone has sinned and is far away from God” “but by... God’s grace all are put right with him through Jesus Christ who set them free, ... His blood is the means by which people’s sins are forgiven.”
C. We need to understand that on the cross; Jesus took on everything our sins deserved. When I say everything, I mean more than just the penalty of death that our sins deserve. Jesus took upon himself all the guilt and all the shame that we deserved because of our sin. He took all of it. He took everything that is ugly and painful and shameful about our sin on Himself at the cross. Why? So it would be remembered no more.
D. That’s something about the cross we really need to understand. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:2 – (para) “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame.”
E. What we have done in this world is so desensitize ourselves about the cross, that we have emptied it of its shame. Now someone might ask, what is more shameful than standing in a court of men after being caught in adultery? I’ll tell you, it’s hanging naked on a piece of wood in front of the world, because that was the cross, the death of a common criminal.
F. The Living Bible says, “He endured a shameful death on the cross”. Jesus didn’t just take your penalty for sin on the cross with him; he took all the guilt and all the shame that accompanies your sin upon Himself on the cross.
1. That is what Jesus did, but Satan comes along and says, “Yeah, he paid for your sin. Oh, but the shame of it, you’ll have to carry it forever.” Don’t let Satan tell you, you owe something if Jesus took care of it.
2. There is a story about Robert Bruce, the Scottish leader of independence in the 14th century. He was being pursued by the English and they set his own bloodhounds on his trail. His servants said, “We’re done for.” But Bruce said, “It’s going to be alright.”
3. They ran into a forest and Bruce found a stream and traveled in the stream some distance. When his own bloodhounds got to the stream, they lost his scent because the water had taken it away. A few days later the Scottish crown was on Bruce’s head.
G. We have all felt the condemnation that sin brings to us and seen the accusations from ourselves or others before we have prayed for forgiveness. Satan wants to set those bloodhounds of condemnation and accusation on our trail. He wants them to follow us all our life, barking and accusing and chasing. Folks; that cleansing stream, the blood of Jesus, has washed it all away. There’s nothing left for them to follow.
H. That is truth that we need to believe, not just nod our heads to it but let our hearts believe it. His blood doesn’t just wash away the record of our sin. It washes away the stain of our shame. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it?
VI. Second I’d like to make a point about the gospel that is believable, because it’s based on His merit and not mine.
A. One reason shame haunts us so much is because it is a struggle for us to accept the gospel of grace. That’s why Christians for over 2000 years have been so vulnerable to legalism. That is why so many of the doctrines like Calvinism got such a successful grip. We studied this is our evening worship at the beginning of the year. We continue to feel that we’ve got to do something to help God, or to make a deal with God, work out something so that we can deserve this incredible deal that heaven keeps talking about.
B. I want to tell something folks, for over 2000 years of Christian history, legalism and judgementalism have always gone together. Where there is a spirit of legalism, you will always find an increased spirit of accusation.
C. What do people do who just can’t accept grace? I’ll tell you what they do; they start to bargain with God; Oh, God if you could just forgive that error, I promise I wont miss church again, even Wednesday nights. God, I promise, just take care of that one. God if you would cover up that one, I’ll even teach in Sunday school, and our favorite, Oh God, I promise that I’ll never, ever, ever do that that again. Then suppose we do commit that sin again, what happens to the shame factor?
D. Perhaps some of us may not have seen our self this way because most of our life, we’ve gone to church, we’ve been a descent, moral person, but we need to see ourselves right now, like that woman, in that court. That’s who we are. She did not have an offer to make Jesus, and we don’t either. We don’t have anything to offer God.
E. We’ve got one hope and that’s just to accept the offer that God made. Salvation isn’t based on our ability to improve ourselves. It is based on the capacity of God to keep His promise. On my part it is based on my capacity to trust on the merit of Jesus. The Bible says in Ephesians 1:7 – (para) “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.”
F. We must also understand that when I say salvation is free, I never ever mean that it’s cheap. That’s something that a lot of people struggle with.
1. Some of you may remember this story told by G. Campbell Morgan about preaching in an open air revival. A miner came up after a sermon on grace and said in effect, “That’s just too easy, I can’t trust that.” Morgan said, “Were you in the mines today?” He said, “Yes.” Morgan asked, “How did you get out?” He said, “Well, I came up the elevator shaft.” Morgan then asked, “How much do they charge you to ride?” He said, “They don’t charge anything, it’s free.” Morgan observed, “Oh, so it cost nothing to build that thing?” He said, “Oh no, the company spent...” and then it hit him; just because his ride was free, didn’t mean it was cheap.
2. That’s what Morgan wanted him to see and what I hope we all understand today.
3. God paid the greatest price in eternity to make you this offer. The price that God has paid is a rebuttal for which your accuser has no answer.
4. If salvation was up to me, guilt and shame would be my constant companion and the voice of accusation would constantly ring in my ears. Its not up to me, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.
VII. The last point is, the gospel is reliable because it is given by the one who is in authority.
A. I think my favorite part of this story is the way the accusers back down in the presence of Jesus. It’s amazing how many people are ready to accuse you. What Jesus taught in this story is that there are a whole lot people, who are not qualified to condemn, yet who are ready to do it. The only man who ever lived who is qualified to condemn, doesn’t do it.
B. Notice this He doesn’t even accuse the accusers. He stands between us and condemnation. You know that every time the accuser speaks against us, Jesus stands to defend us. He’s got something to say that shuts the accuser up. The Bible says in Romans 8:34 – (para) “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also (doing what?) interceding for us.”
C. Satan says, “You are guilty.” Jesus says, “It’s paid for.” Now whose testimony are we going let carry the most weight in our life? I’ve got to tell you folks, I believe in letting Jesus have the floor when He stands to speak.
1. I heard this story. It is about a student who was writing a paper on the confession of sin. He made a statement in his paper, if we confess our sins, God moves to take away our guilt, but instead of hitting the “g” on his keyboard, he hit the “q”. It read, “God takes away our quilt.”
2. When he got his paper back he was amused at what his teacher wrote on the side, “Fear not little one, you will not freeze, He gives us another comforter.”
D. God gives us a comforter. One of the ministries of the Holy Spirit when the accusations and condemnations start, is to remind us of what Christ has done and even to speak to our hearts the kinds of words that the Son speaks to the Father.
E. Words like Hebrews 10:17 – (para) “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." Or maybe he whispers in our ear from Psalm 103:12 – (para) “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Perhaps it maybe the next time the spirit of accusation attacks you; if you listen closely the Holy Spirit will whisper these words from Jesus. “Neither do I condemn you, go your way and sin no more.”
F. I wonder when Jesus said, “Woman, where are your accusers, has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” I wonder if maybe for the 1st time she included herself. He totally silenced her accusers. He wants to do the same thing for you. The question is: Who are you going to listen to?
CONCLUSION:
You see when that voice of accusation begins to point its fingers at you; you’ve got to ask, “Who am I going to listen to?” Who’s got the answer for this spirit of condemnation? Here’s what I want you to think about as we close.
I want us to decide today that we are going to refuse to let the voice of the accuser drown out the promise of the savior. I want you to say to yourself that you are not going to live your life in a closet. I want you to say that you are not going to let your life be weighed down by the shame that Jesus took with Him to the cross. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I’m not someone who listens to contemporary music a lot but there is one song by Morgan Cryar which has lyrics I really like.
It’s titled “What Sin”.
It happened so long ago
And I cried out for mercy back then
I plead the blood of Jesus
Begged him to forgive my sin
But I still can't forget it
It just won't go away
So I wept again, "Lord wash away my sin,"
But this is all He'd say
CHORUS
What sin, what sin?
That's as far away
As the east is from the west
What sin, what sin?
It was gone the very minute you confessed
Buried in the sea of forgetfulness
The heaviest thing you'll carry
Is a load of guilt and shame
You were never meant to bear them
So let them go in Jesus' name
Our God is slow to anger
Quick to forgive our sin
So let Him put them under the blood
Don't bring them up again
Cause He'll just say
What sin, what sin?
Lord, please deliver me
From my accusing memory
Nothing makes me weep this way,
Then when I hear you say
What sin, what sin?
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We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins... If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.
Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.
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Reference Sermon
Mike Glover
Where and when we meet
Chardon, Ohio 44024