Getting Rid Of Guilt

Lord, please help the Cambridge congregation to know our freedom from a guilty conscience.

Two points – the first from the discussion yesterday and the second from my devo reading this morning

1. When I mess up, I automatically want to make it better by what I do. I want to make restitution, do more good works, make myself more holy – in order to get myself back to the place I was.  Even in order to retain the status of 'saved'. While restitution, good works and cleansing self are good in and of themselves, it is a huge mistake to want to do them coming off the bat of sin. They must come off the bat of our belief in Jesus and understanding of his grace. We must fight our urge to make things right in and of ourselves. We must do the unnatural – to re-believe in Jesus. We have something in common with non-Christians. We, and they, don't want to go to Jesus for forgiveness and healing. We all want to make it right ourselves. When I ask forgiveness of Jesus and understand his grace then I will make restitution, do more good works and make myself more holy. But this time it is a response to the hope that we have in Jesus and his faithfulness, rather than an effort to provide our own hope and get to heaven by our own faithfulness. What we need when we fail is not a hard work ethic, but a reminder of the gospel. May God gives us minds to know that the gospel does NOT = us working our way to heaven. In short, the order of life must go 1) Sin 2) Re-believe in Jesus work 3) Make restitution, do good works and be holy.  NOT 1) Sin 2) Make restitution, do good works and be holy 3) Re-believe in Jesus. 
   And this brings us to the second thing. What do you hold in your hand as your ticket to heaven?
2. Hebrews 10:22-23 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
   What are you holding on to? What is your ticket to heaven? Is it your good works? Is it your own accomplishment of holiness? Is it that you are better today than you were tomorrow? This scripture says that our hearts were sprinkled and bodies washed. I take these to mean baptism. Baptism cleanses us, but from what? Sins? Yes, but more. It cleanses us from a guilty conscience. It frees us from the bondage of our sins, yes, but the conscience bondage of our sins as well. What are you holding on to? What is your ticket to heaven? Vs. 23 says to hold unswervingly to – what? Our holiness and good works? Our faithfulness? No - our hope; the faithfulness of Jesus. This is where our confidence comes from. Vs. 19 says we have confidence to enter the most holy place by – what? Our holiness and works? No – by the blood of Jesus.
   And 2 Timothy 2:12-13 “12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless...” What do you think the next line will say? Do you think it will say, “he will be faithless?” It doesn't. It says he remains faithful. If we disown him, he will disown us. Disowning is not the same as being unfaithful. If I disown Heather I divorce her; leave her; we are no longer one. I make it officially over. If I am unfaithful, I mess up; I briefly and temporarily sever our relationship but it is not over – unless she chooses to make it over because of my mess up. If we disown Christ, he will disown us. If we are faithless, the scripture says, “he will remain faithful”. Christ can't disown himself. Christ = faithfulness. If Christ were a husband, no matter how many times his wife cheated on him, he'd still take her back. Why? Because he is ignorant and needy and crazy? No, because he is absolutely dedicated, gracious and faithful. Sometimes we think that Christ's faithfulness is conditional upon our faithfulness. But it is not. It is only Christ's disowning of us that is conditional upon our disowning of him. This a logical necessity because when one person files for divorce and makes sure to go through with it, the other person's hands are tied – they can't put a stop to it.
   So what was said yesterday is right: “The fact that I am continually bothered by my sin shows something.” It shows him that he has been unfaithful only and hasn't yet disowned Christ. So Christ remains faithful. May God grant us the ability to abide in Christ's faithfulness more and more while abiding in our guilt less and less. This is what it means to know the gospel. And this is the way to a sin free life. “Remember Jesus Christ”! (vs. 8). It doesn't say, “Remember your sin”. If you beat yourself up over your sin, you will find no change. If you thank God for His faithfulness, you, by the help of the Spirit, will enable change in your life.
   Vs. 14 – Paul tells Timothy to keep reminding people of these things. So there you go. 
   One last thing.  Someone will want to point out Hebrews 10:25 and 2 Timothy 2:21.  These verses COME AFTER the verses we have looked at.  The verses we looked at are the 'HOW TO'.  So, yes good works.  And yes cleanse self.  But how do we do these things?  See point #1.  Don't bother aiming for good works and a cleansing of self if you haven't yet re-believed in Jesus - or as Paul puts it, remembered Jesus Christ. We hold in our hand Jesus Christ's work on the cross.  That is our ticket to heaven.  Have you ever had a ticket for something huge and you looked at it a couple times before you went to the event?  Look at this ticket.  It reads, '(your name), a sure hope because of Jesus Christ's work and his promise keeping faithfulness to see you in heaven'.

Vicarious Faith: Testing whether your faith is your own

When you experience something vicariously, you experience it through another person.  This is the beauty of novels or movies – we get wrapped up in the characters and the storyline and it gets to a point where whatever they want to happen; we want to happen.  Whatever they feel; we feel.  I walked out of 300 feeling like a warrior.  But I was still regular Greg.  If you put a sword in my hands, I wouldn’t have done better with it than before I watched the movie.  I was inspired, but I received no training.  Feeling like one of them didn’t make me one of them.

Does this happen when we experience sermons or songs?  We are inspired by the message or idea, but are we still our regular selves?  I don’t feel like my regular self.  But I will be soon enough – and when I settle back in to my normal life, how much better of a person am I? How many times have I heard Casting Crowns “If we are the body...” and I sing along with the band “Why aren’t his arms reaching?” but then in my own life I don’t reach out? 

Would you agree that inspiration is not the same thing as training?  Motivation is not the same as doing?  Intention is not the same as action?  Would you agree that feeling a certain way doesn’t make you a certain way?  This is what I mean by vicarious faith:  That my faith is wrapped up in the heroes – the great Christian authors, presenters, and artists.  I periodically take the great Christians out of my life in order to test how wrapped up I am.  I shut the laptop, close the books, turn the phone on silent and get on my knees.  This is a great litmus test to see where I’m at with the real thing: God.  If I desperately want to open the laptop and experience God through facebook or youtube sermons, I have failed the test.  I am living a vicarious faith.  It is not my own.  This is a simple test.  I’ll give one more.   

We are in to experiencing these days, which I am not attacking.  My question is, do you experience your own or another person’s faith?  Are you merely inspired or are you trained?  Are you walking away from sermons feeling like a better Christian or becoming a better Christian?  Tricky question, because I am sure most feel like they are becoming a better person.  Hmm.  How do we test whether it is just feeling?  How do we know if we are actually becoming?  

The answer to this is tied to training.  I know I am not a Spartan, but if I were to get someone to teach me how to sword fight, I know that I am heading in the right direction.  When it comes to Christianity, what is training? It seems to me the scriptures say that teaching is how we get trained.  “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  (2 Tim 3:16-17).

Scripture, teaching, rebuking, correction, training and work.  How often are these words said?  Scripture is our teacher and so our trainer.  This is the second test.  When you are on youtube, talking to your friends, or whatever, how much scripture is being used?  How much teaching is going on?  What about rebuking and correcting?  These are how a person trains in righteousness. 

What does the Bible say is needed to be trained in righteousness?  Inspiration or teaching/training?  I think there is a difference between worship and teaching.  Worship inspires.  Teaching matures.  I find that Christian culture is heavy on worship.  Even speakers do their message with worshipy content.  I’ve heard of 7/11 songs – same 7 verses sung 11 times.  There seem to be some 7/11 sermons – same 7 lines said in 11 different sermons.  “God loves you.  God forgives you.  God will never let you go.  You are unique.  You are valued.  It’s you...and God.  God...and you.”  There.  Inspired?  Maybe.  A better person?  Yes, if ‘better’ = feeling better. 

What is the purpose of Christianity?  To feel good in faith or to attain the full measure of Christ (Eph 4:15-16)?  Isn’t it to be perfect as God is perfect (Matt 5:48)?  Isn’t it to be sanctified (1 Thes 4:3)?  Perfectly holy exactly like Christ.  Man, those are high standards.  So high that I need a little more content in order to get there.           

So I will:

1)      Test whether I have a vicarious faith by putting aside all of the Christian heroes temporarily to spend time alone with God

2)      Test whether I have a vicarious faith by using scripture as the measuring rod as to how my faith is doing, not feeling     

3)      Actively pursue training through scripture