Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction of clip:

The song that we Just sung, Amazing Grace, was written by the captain of a slave ship who gave his life to Jesus after a fateful night, his boat being torn apart during a storm, almost on the brink of sinking, he called out to God for mercy and God rescued him.

I would like to tell you he did a 180 that night, but it took another six years before he gave up slave trading and began to fully give his life to God, becoming an Anglican priest.

It was during this time that our clip from the movie, Amazing Grace, is found.

Please watch with me...

Show Clip.

A man who admittedly brought 20,000 men, women and children to the shores of Europe to be sold into slavery, through the power of the gospel, became an influence in seeing slavery become outlawed in England.

He said a great thing that I would like to share this morning as we start our journey.

"I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am."

- John Newton.

Chris spoke about last week the Holy Spirit.

In it He mention John 16:8-9

Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit tells us that the Spirit will prove the world to be in the wrong.

Notice here is does not say sinners.

It does not say unbelievers alone.

It says He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin.

Today, we live in a world where we are told to just be happy.

To live our truth.

To follow our heart, but sometimes our hearts get us into trouble.

Sometimes our truth is not God’s truth and sometimes our happiness puts us at stake of losing eternal life.

So, Jesus here in John 16:8 tells us that one of the jobs that Holy Spirit does is convince us of our sinfulness and he uses guilt at times to do that.

I appreciate Nikolai, reading the words of Psalm 51.

These are are the words of David after Nathan presents his sin to Him after he slept with Bathsheba.

David did not try to justify His sinful actions, but in this Psalm he lays out for God his guilt and seeks to be reconciled to Him.

Guilt is a good emotion for it signals for us when we have committed an offense.

A sin.

Maybe, you lied to someone about something meaningless.

It just slipped out before you thought.

Maybe, you got in a fight with your spouse and it got heated.

Before you knew you said things that were meant to hurt and wound.

It was in the heat of the moment.

Maybe you came home from a hard day at work at your kids meet you excited at the door.

They have news about their day that they have been waiting for you to get home, so they can share it and in a moment of stress, you snapped and bit their head off.

You just wanted a few minutes of alone time to recover.

Maybe, you want him to know how much he means to you and you want it so desperately that you gave yourself to him.

You just want this relationship to last.

In those moments afterwards, God’s Spirit begins to work on us.

Now understand God guilt is meant to bring you closer to Him, to help you heal the brokenness from you actions.

When we we respond to that guilt we receive forgiveness and God works with us to help us heal the damage we have done.

Understand their are consequence for our actions, but God will be with us through our healing.

But Satan wants us to respond differently.

Satan wants to use our guilt to drive a wedge between us and God.

He wants to remind you of how you failed again.

He want to remind you that your words are meaningless and your promises to change are a joke.

You can’t change.

He wants you to feel unloved.

By your earthly friends, family, brother and sisters.

But most of all he wants you to feel unloved by God.

Believe me Satan wants you to buy His lies, so you will walk away from God.

When we but into Satan’s use of guilt.

It does things to us.

It hurts us physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually.

Researchers and Psychologist tells us that the effects of holding onto and living in your guilt cause all kinds of problems.

We are told physically it can cause us not to sleep, issue with your stomach, muscle tension.

Research shows it leads to depression, anxiety, paranoia, sometimes even anger.

These lead to us retreating from valuable relationships that can help us return from guilt.

sometimes leading to unreconcilable relationships.

Spiritually, it causes us to walk away from the God that Satan has convinced us doesn’t want us around and we leave the church community because we lose connection.

So, why?

Why does God use guilt if Satan can spin it for His own use.

Paul answers this question in a round about way in talking about the law and the tension that he lives with in his own life.

If you will look with me at Romans 7, beginning in verse 7.

See, like the law, which pointed out when the Israelites were sinning.

Today, God uses guilt brought about by the Spirit to help us see our sin.

Paul, the pulls back the curtain in His life to tells us about he wrestles with sin.

We could replace the word law here with the word guilt.

Paul uses interesting language in the section as he struggles with the hold sin has on his life.

He uses warfare language his audience would have understood, but he also uses the language of slavery, because in his day those that lost the war, became slaves.

Also, understand that as we look at his struggle Paul very much relates his serving sin as something that is forced upon him, by the grip that Sin has on his life.

I imagine most of us can relate to this at least once in our life.

Sin enticed us so much, that it felt like an addiction.

We rationalized it need.

We knew it would not end the way we hope it would, but for some reason we fell into its grip.

Listen to the words of Paul as he wrestles with this.

IF you can understand this struggle, look at your neighbor and say “the struggle is real.”

Sin can take hold in our life, when we do not listen to the prompting of the Spirit to help us release the grip sin has in our life.

But Paul, gives the the answer to our struggle.

A wretched man is how Paul describes himself.

For us that might think Paul is wrestling here with one Sin, the wording in this passage paints a daily battle and I imagine it was.

I can imagine Paul waking us in sweats having dreams of those Christ followers he imprisoned and murdered before he came to know Christ.

I imagine he wrestled with sins of the flesh when he was working in Corinth, a place full of temple prostitution.

It isn’t hard to imagine his anger getting the best of him at times, especially when he speak of those agitators of Galatia, wishing they would emasculate themselves.

Paul wrestled with sin.

He felt the Holy Spirit using it to help him recognize his sin, but He put above all that the deliverance that comes through a relationship with Jesus.

But, I want to end this lesson helping us understand that their is an answer to our struggle with remaining in guilt, instead of allowing it to work the way God intended.

Romans, chapter 8, begins with these word.

How much condemnation is there for those in Christ Jesus?

NONE.

Look at your neighbor and say, “you are not condemned.”

Why?

Because the Law of the Spirit who gives you life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Look at your neighbor and say “I’m free.”

That’s right!

See the Spirit help us recognize our sin, by using guilt to help us recognize that we have sinned.

That guilt makes us uncomfortable, it make us think about our decisions, our actions.

But then, we realize that we have been set free from sin and we don’t allow it to have a hold on us any longer and we let it go by repenting for our actions and making them right.

Yell out, “I’m free.”

the rest of Romans 8 tells us of this redemption and how we can adjust our mindset to bring it inline with the Spirit.

But, what I want you to know…is that satan does not hold power over you, unless you give it to him.

Guilt does not have to wreck your life because you refuse to let it bring you back to God.