Week 2: The Garbage of Guilt

Today we're gonna be talking about some heavy topics. I say 'heavy' topics because they are things that tend to weigh us down. They weigh heavily on our hearts and minds and even our souls. But that said, I don't want it to feel HEAVY while we're talking about it. I want you leaving here feeling lighter.

We're talking about two things that get in the way of our abundant life that we need to leave in the garbage. Time to bin it up and take it out - that's guilt and shame. And there is a difference. In fact, there's even a difference between the types of guilt we can experience. So let's start there.

Guilt - is not automatically a bad thing. In fact, guilt, experienced at the right time for the right reasons, can be extraordinarily helpful to us. Guilt can make us better human beings. Guilt can be useful.

See the underlying message behind guilt is "I did something bad." And if you did something bad, if you're doing something harmful to yourself or others - well, you oughta know. Guilt, when it's working correctly kind of works like one of the dashboard lights in your car. If a warning light comes on for your battery or low oil or even "Service needed soon." That's a hint that something needs to be addressed. And if you address things and make them better - you address the problem and correct it, then that light goes out and the warning light has done its' job. Now, on the other hand, if those dashboard warning lights come on and you just ignore them…let me tell you as someone who has learned the hard way, that is not a helpful or effective strategy. That is not gonna go well in the long run. If you're just driving along and the CHECK ENGINE light comes on…but you keep driving… every day - you're gonna be thinking about that. Every bump, every weird noise you hear, every weird smell you smell whether it's from your car or not - you're gonna be focused on that instead of enjoying the ride or thinking about your destination. Even if there are no funny smells or weird noises, that light is gonna be staring you in the face when you're looking for something else. You look to check your speed - there's the light. You look to see if you need to get gas or how many miles you have left before you have to charge - and there's that indicator light staring you in the face saying "Hey! You gotta do something about this! When are you gonna do something about this?!" But if you ignore it - all you're doing is probably making the problem harder to fix, the damage worse - and until you deal with it, it's gonna be a nagging distraction that saps the enjoyment from your ride and takes the attention away from things you'd rather be focusing on. And that's what guilt does to your life too. Healthy guilt lets us know there's something we need to take care of. Something is wrong. We did something wrong. We need to address something. And until we do, if we just try to ignore that guilt - it messes with our ride. It drains our joy. It drains our energy. It drains our ability to be productive. It drains our ability to be present in the moment.

In Psalm 32:2-5, a Psalm attributed to David - who knew a little about guilt. More than a little. And probably not just about the Bathsheba and Uriah thing, but a number of things in David's life. Which means he's probably speaking from a place of experience when he says,

Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, "I will confess my rebellion to the Lord." And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.Psalm 32:2-5

David says that the toll that guilt was taking on him - was literally damaging his body. His heart was heavy. He carried around this guilt and felt physically and emotionally like he was withering away.

But even when we sin, even when we mess up and miss the mark - in big ways and small ways - it is not God's desire for us to wither away and go through life chained with heavy burdens of our own making. Guilt does it's job when it motivates us to do something or more accurately - DO THE RIGHT THING. And it starts with confession. Listen, if you've done something wrong, and you know you've done something wrong, you're never gonna get rid of the weight of that guilt by pretending that you didn't do anything wrong. If you're conscience won't let you off the hook, ignoring your guilt isn't gonna make the guilt go away.

There's an old saying - "confession is good for the soul." It's an old Scottish proverb, actually. But it perfectly aligns with Biblical principles. And I think, scripturally speaking, confession is the first step we need to take in order to get rid of the guilt, bin it up and roll it away. David says

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, "I will confess my rebellion to the Lord." And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.Psalm 32:5

CONFESSION ROBS GUILT OF ITS POWER

And really, the confession - it probably needs to be dual in nature to be most effective. It starts with confession to God. Taking our actions or even thoughts and feelings before God and saying, "I messed up. This isn't aligned with your perspective. This isn't how you see things. This isn't what you would have me do." And when we do that, 1 John 1:9 tells us that

If we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.1 John 1:9

And that cleansing - it's real and it's permanent. As humans, sometimes, we may have a hard time letting go of all the guilt. I mean, truly, I did some stuff and said some stuff decades ago - and I have confessed it to Jesus and I've even gotten the opportunity in some cases to confess it to the individual or individuals I feel I hurt and I've asked for forgiveness and received it - but when I think about some of those things in the past - I still feel a twinge of guilt. That's very human I think and natural - but here's the good news. In Psalm 103:12 we read that

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.Psalm 103:12

When we confess our sins and repent - turn from our sins, change our way of thinking to align with God's - we do not need to feel the weight of guilt anymore because the gift of Jesus has truly removed any long term spiritual ramifications. God looks at us and does not see our sin or guilt because Jesus has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

The apostle Paul puts it like this -

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.Romans 8:1

I think it's important to clarify something here because it explains a few things. Just because there is no condemnation from our Heavenly Father - doesn't mean there aren't earthly consequences. There are murderers who are sitting on death row or who are serving life sentences right now who have confessed their sins to Jesus. And I believe that if they have done that and meant it - that their sins are truly removed as far as the east is from the west. And without going into long discussions and speculation on things like mental health, environment, or even the effects of lead paint, spiritually speaking - that there would be no eternal condemnation, that these criminals are freed from the power of sin that leads to death - I understand that makes people feel some kind of way. I understand why a victim's family would hear that and still want them to rot in hell regardless. That's why grace is so scandalous. THe grace of Jesus - the sacrifice of Jesus - the forgiveness extended to everyone - murderers like David and Paul and Moses included…. Is scandalous. But it is also the concrete results of the Hope of the World on our hearts. Because if murderers can be transformed to the point where they have something to offer that we still talk about thousands of years later - because when their chains were removed they chose to become a slave to Christ - and point to His goodness and His love as a way to live - then there is hope for all of us who have ever sinned and felt the weight of guilt to be set free and transformed and put right too. But the lack of spiritual condemnation does not mean a lack of earthly consequences.

You can do things, be forgiven and people may still avoid you or think you're a jerk or not invite you to parties because of what you did. Forgiveness does not always equal reconciliation or trust, acceptance or even access. Our actions have consequences even when the condemnation is removed.

Now, I hope none of you are murderers. But I don't know what you're carrying around that you may still feel guilty of even if you confessed your sins to Jesus and asked for His forgiveness. But to speak to that idea- how come I still carry a twinge or even a lot of guilt after I've confessed my sins to Jesus - well, I think that can be part of the natural consequence. The human consequence. We should look back at things that were harmful to others and feel some kind of way about it - but it should fade - it should lose its power over time. And I think there's two ways that that happens. One, we just, we make a natural transformation from feelings of guilt and the weight of that guilt and despair over that guilt - to over time, realizing that God freed us from the condemnation, lifted that weight off of us, those feelings diminish - they might go from despair to distress to disgust to discomfort. And it loses its power, the more we admit that what we did was wrong, the more we recognize repentance - that we wouldn't do it again - not intentionally. When we use it as a teaching moment where we own our stuff and tell others - I made a mistake, don't do the same thing I did. And finally where we can defeat those feelings when we can use our experiences to point people to the love of Jesus and our past mistakes become a present teachable moment and reminder of our need to Love God and Love People as Jesus did.

Here's the other way that I think we finally lift the remaining guilt - it's not just confession to God, but confession to people - and by that - I don't necessarily mean just anybody randomly, though you can if you think it's helpful or if it's something God's putting on your heart - especially in one of those aforementioned teachable moment type things. It's not confession to a priest. All believers are priests according to 1 Peter 2. You don't need human absolution when you have already experienced God's forgiveness and grace. But what can be really helpful is confessing to those you've hurt or sinned against. Now - you may get that opportunity. You may not. You may have lost that opportunity as a result of earthly consequences. So much time may have passed that they aren't in your life and you can't track them down. That can be a thing. And in some rare cases, you may need to have the wisdom to realize that even confessing to the one you hurt and asking for forgiveness ends might do more damage to them than good, or it might open you back up to attachments or old ways that you're better off being apart from. Cases like that require prayer and wise counsel and tough decisions. But on the ones that don't. The ones who you can reach. The ones you can talk to. And especially the ones you can make it up to. Confession to the ones you hurt can help remove the guilt. But I think if you truly want all of it gone - or to diminish over time - confession isn't enough. You need to make amends. You may not be able to undo what you did, but you may be able to do things that help now. You may not be able to make what you did go away, but you may be able to make it up to them with how you treat them now.

For scriptural evidence of how this might work out, I submit to you the interaction between Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax collector and Jesus. We read about it in Luke chapter 19. Now in verse 7 we see that the people called Zacchaeus a notorious sinner. And Zacchaeus admits as much in verse 8. Zacchaeus dines with Jesus at Jesus' insistence. And we don't know the conversations they must've had - but we know what Jesus taught. We know what Jesus stood for. We know how Jesus said that we would experience life and have it abundantly. I imagine, that Zacchaeus was not a sociopath. I imagine that even though he was a notorious cheat and tax collector that he felt guilt about at least some of what he had done. But at the end of their interaction we read

Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, "I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!Luke 19:8

Zacchaeus confessed to the Son of God, but He was about to confess and make it right to those who he harmed. In fact, he wanted to do more than make it right. He wanted to make it better.

And

Jesus responded, "Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost."Luke 19:9-10

RESTITUTION OFTEN LEADS TO FEELINGS OF ABSOLUTION

"Salvation has come to this home today" is what Jesus said. The Greek word that we translate to salvation can also be used to mean "rescue" or "safety." And I believe that Zacchaeus was not only rescued from a life of sin and bad choices - but he was rescued by the guilt that must've weighed heavy on him. You think Zacchaeus even when he was paying back 4 times as much and making restitution - you think he still felt a little guilt sometimes - felt bad about what he had done? Maybe. It's human. But here is the good news and we need to remember this and celebrate this and CLAIM this truth that the author of Hebrews writes -

For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us cleanHebrews 10:22

So that was one type of guilt. Healthy guilt. And I think we have a clear path toward putting it in a spiritual and psychological Hefty Sack and putting it out in the bin on the curb. But I want to talk about a second kind of guilt.

FALSE GUILT

There's a quote in one of author Maureen Johnson's novels - "Guilt isn't always a rational thing. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not."

See - Healthy guilt is a feeling that we're supposed to carry for things that we DID. Or DIDN'T DO as the case may be.

But False Guilt - Unhealthy Guilt - well - that can come from a lot of places. It can be handed to you by someone else. You don't deserve it. You haven't earned it, but man is somebody gonna try and make you feel guilty. Usually to get something THEY WANT from you. Or to get you to do something THEY WANT YOU TO DO.

Anybody here have parents, spouses, kids, siblings, cousins, family members of any kind really, friends/frenemies, bosses, work colleagues, acquaintances with no boundaries, neighbors, or even pastors, small group leaders or your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ - don't look around, don't name names.. resist the temptation to lip somebody's name right now - anybody here have any of those people who are so good at giving out guilt trips that they oughta have a little box-office they travel around in giving out tickets for a guilt-trip? Yeah… a lot of expectation they put on you but not a lot of understanding when things don't go their way or you say no? God help you if you set a healthy boundary.

Let me ask you something - is saying no a sin? I'm not saying - saying no to God, okay - you aren't Jonah. This isn't that lesson today. Is saying no, generally speaking, a sin? So why do some of us feel guilty when we say no? Where is that coming from?

Is setting healthy boundaries a sin? No. So why do some of us feel guilty when we set healthy boundaries?

Can you meet everybody's expectations all of the time? Of course not. You're human. You weren't designed to. So why do some of us feel guilty when we can't live up to everyone's expectations all the time?

Maybe because somebody's selling us a round trip ticket to Guiltsville. Sometimes the people who we're setting boundaries with or whose expectations we didn't live up to will say things that reinforce feelings of guilt. And if we grew up in an environment where guilt was prevalent, we can feel guilty whether we should or not. Even if we're saying no to something unhealthy. Or - and this is also entirely possible - we're booking it for ourselves. Real quick I think it's important to note that Inappropriate or what is termed excessive guilt is listed as a symptom of depression by the American Psychiatric Association. And I will tell you right now - I am just as much of an advocate for psychological counseling and professional help as I am for spiritual counseling and pastoral help. God gave us a brain, God gave us medicine, God have us great minds that have devoted their lives to making our lives better - let's use them as we also approach the throne of grace and ask for guidance from our Creator.

Now it's not always linked to depression - but get enough false guilt on board and that can actually trigger depression. Some of our false guilt originated during childhood - during developmental phases in our lives and what we experienced or didn't experience from trusted loved ones and authority figures. And some of it is freshly served - hot and piping, available 24 hours a day from people in our present.

False guilt can rob you of your abundant life just as much as legitimate healthy guilt. If not more. And the hard part is - with healthy guilt - there's reasons. It makes sense. And there's a clear path to shake that guilt off and throw it in the garbage. But with false guilt - man - some of it we carry even though we were never meant to. Some of it - we're not even sure how it got here. We're just carrying it around. But it has all the power and characteristics of real guilt. It robs us of our joy, our focus, it takes us out of the moment, it gets us feeling weighed down and gets us down on ourselves. It diminishes us and causes us to wither under the weight. And you can't have abundant life under those circumstances. Don't get me wrong, you can go through hardship and still have abundant life. You can struggle and still have abundant lie. But you can't have things sucking away your will to live and your ability to flourish and weighing you down spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and physically and experience true abundant life.

So I've rounded up some tips to help you get rid of the false guilt in your life.

The first tip is to

RECOGNIZE WHY YOU FEEL GUILTY

Guilt is a feeling, not a fact. Okay. So we need to be specific in figuring out the source of our feelings. For example: asking the question - "Why do I feel guilty?" Answer: I'm feeling guilty because I said I was going to help at the church event and I was so exhausted emotionally and physically after work that I just didn't have it in me, so I sat at home eating Doritos and watching Is It Cake until I drifted off.

I said we needed to be specific. We were very specific. This was in no way autobiographical. Similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. When I was telling this story - I gotta know - my eyesight isn't that great - was anybody out there gulping a little harder than normal. Anybody feeling guilty cause this one hit too close to home.

Why?

We recognize the specific situation over why we feel guilty. But guilt implies that we did something wrong. Did we? We had good intentions. At the time we thought we were gonna show up. But life happened and you're human. You only have so much in the tank. You instinctively knew that you needed rest. And you took it. So ask yourself this follow up question when you're feeling guilty -

WAS THAT A SIN?

The answer is no. You had good intentions. Plans changed. Life happened. You didn't leave people hanging. There were other volunteers. It would've been nice for you to be there in a best case scenario for you and for everybody else - but it didn't happen. Is that a sin?

No.

DID I DO SOMETHING GENUINELY WRONG?

And by that - I don't mean 'wrong' in someone else's eyes. I mean - did I violate something that Jesus' taught - or did I violate my own moral code? Did I intentionally harm someone?

And if the answer is 'no.' Then that should ease the guilty feeling. You should realize that you are feeling guilty about something that you shouldn't feel guilty about.

Now that doesn't mean that someone might not try to guilt you over it. Someone else still might try to make you feel guilty. But you know what?

NOT ALL GUILT IS HOLY

NOT ALL GUILT IS USEFUL

Sometimes the guilt we feel is about pleasing people. And you can't please all the people all the time. Sometimes you shouldn't even want to - because sometimes people are pushing personal agendas that don't line up with the love and understanding of Christ and that don't take your thoughts and feelings into consideration. I know it can be hard - some of us grew up being people pleasers for a myriad of reasons and that's a hard habit to break. But I'm gonna give you a verse you can keep in your back pocket. Maybe it puts things into perspective for you. At the very least, I hope it makes you laugh and throw the guilt in the garbage. It's something the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 1:10

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.Galatians 1:10

Now obviously, you can't take that TOO out of context. We should seek to LOVE people and do things for the good of other individuals and mankind. Its not a call to live lawlessly or selfishly or just say "whatever, I do what I want" with regard to people's feelings and needs. But I think Melody Beattie, an expert on co-dependency has a quote that might help us understand where the limits of people pleasing are. She wrote, "Guilt can prevent us from setting the boundaries that would be in our best interests, AND IN OTHER PEOPLE'S best interests." And that includes false guilt too.

And so we need to recognize when that guilt is not holy and not useful, and if it is not good guilt - it is unhealthy or false guilt - then we need to bin it up and throw it out. That can be hard - again - depending on our dispositions or how we were raised - but again - here's a tip that may help.

PRAY ABOUT IT

Seriously. Thank God for allowing you to see it for what it is. Maybe a prayer like - "Dear Lord, thank you for opening my eyes to see where this comes from. Thank you that I don't have to earn your love to receive your grace. Now break the grip of false guilt in my life and let me rest in your abundant life. Continue to heal my mind and heal my heart and show me what you want from me. In Jesus name, Amen." That's just a suggestion. You can put it into your own words, of course. But I guarantee you that Jesus does not want you carrying around the burden of guilt. Because carrying guilt does not allow love or work or purpose to flourish. Carrying guilt does not lead to abundant life. You know what else carrying guilt doesn't do? Carrying guilt doesn't transform you. If it did, it would've done it already. Guilt doesn't make things holier. It makes things heavier. Some of you know that. Some of you came in today carrying the weight of guilt. And it's old guilt. You've been carrying that weight for a long time.

Today is the day to drop that bag of guilt into the garbage so you can embrace the love and grace that Jesus has for you. You don't have to carry that guilt anymore. This series is not called "Try Harder and Hate Yourself" it's called "Leave It To Love It." And Jesus is calling you to drop that weight and accept the grace that He is showing to you. To let His love transform you. To make you NEW. If you're here today and you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life - let me tell you - it's true, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Your eternal future is secure. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you when you leave this world - and one day you're gonna meet Him there in a place with no sin, no shame, no sorrow, no guilt, no garbage. Just the everlasting love of the father and fellowship of those who love Him. That's your future. But in the present, Jesus wants you to let go of the weight of the past and embrace His teachings - taking His yoke upon us which is light. Learning to love God and love people and experiencing the abundant life that comes as a result of following Jesus.