Say Goodbye to Guilt! - Romans 8:1-4 - Part One - Sermon in Outline Format

Say Goodbye to Guilt!

Romans 8:1-4

Salutations

·       Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

·       Welcome again to any Friends and Visitors

·       Read the Passage – Romans 8:1-4

·       Announce the Title – “Say Goodbye to Guilt”

·       Prayer

·       Humbly beseech the gracious bestowal of the anointing of the Holy Spirit who breaks every yokes that binds the people of God

·       With all due humility, I ask that I would decrease so that You may increase within me.

·       Open the eyes and ears of our hearts and reveal unto us Your “good, pleasing and perfect will” for our lives.

·       O most gracious and benevolent Master, give us knowledge of Your will for us and the mental willingness and spiritual power to carry it out.

·       May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.  Amen.

Introduction

·       Paint the picture of the sentencing phase in a criminal trial for a capital offense

·       The jury slowly returns to the jury box

·       The bailiff takes the sealed verdict from the foreperson and hands it to the judge

·       The judge asks the defendant and his counsel to rise.

·       The foreperson of the jury rises to read the unanimous verdict aloud to the packed courtroom

·       Cameras are clicking endlessly.

·       The news media is having a feeding frenzy.

·       Reporters develop writer’s cramp as they furiously attempt to capture each rich detail.

·       Then the stunned silence of the room as the words, “We sentence the defendant to a life sentence so that he may daily and repeatedly recollect his guilt.  Should he die and when he dies, he shall know that he is guilty.”

·       That drama or should I say melodrama recycles through our minds and hearts multiple times each day.

·       Because we feel guilty about unresolved issues, we awake each morning and re-sentence ourselves to a lifetime of guilt.

·       Unconfessed sin

·       Refusal to repent

·       Willfulness

·       Self-justification

·       Cringing upon the mention and recollection of a given person or incident

·       Thinking we got away but hoping not to be found out

·       Trying to think of yet another way to elude responsibility for our actions or having to face the consequences of our choices.

·       Hoping the statute of limitations runs out.

·       Hoping to ward off double jeopardy

·       Allude to Al Sharpton and his 68-count indictment

·       Allude to the story of prosecutorial vengeance – 168-count indictment

·       Yet, we play this game with ourselves when we refuse to repent and fully receive the forgiveness of Almighty God

·       As 2003 comes to a close in a few days and 2004 begins, I hope

·       that we will say goodbye to guilt.

I.  Page One – Problems in the Text – Romans 8:1-4

·       The Story behind the Text

·       A thorn in Paul’s side

·       Speculate about the thorn – heavily utilize imagination

·       Physical infirmity

·       Emotional

·       Psychological

·       The desire to preach in Rome

·       The desire to preach in every crevice of the Roman Empire

·       I suspect the memory of persecuting the Church persistently plagues Paul.

·       I imagine that he cringes each and every time that he thinks about it.

·       I posit that the memory of standing over Stephen’s dead body and nodding with approval and having his bosom swell with pride torments Paul.

·       Until the day he dies and transitions to eternal life, I imagine that Paul fights a daily battle to receive genuinely and completely God’s enduring and unquestionable forgiveness.

·       Paul awakes each day to the struggle of forgiving himself for such an egregious error.

·       His battle with this sin remains an open wound.

·       He festers like a thorn trapped in the skin.

·       I suspect that Paul’s unrelenting and tireless efforts to spread the gospel is a personal atonement of sorts.

·       Paul daily negotiates with this emotional pain.

·       Will he ever find relief?

·       Is inner healing and spiritual wholeness possible?

·       Why does God allow Satan to torment Paul in this way?

·       Why does God seemingly ignore Paul’s persistent pleas to remove this thorn?

·       Where is God?

·       Satan uses guilt to manipulate Paul

·       Accuses him each and every day

·       Memory

·       Guilt

• ·         The vivid and indelible images of persecuting the church and gleefully giving his assent to the death of Stephen and countless others.

Say Goodbye to Guilt - Romans 8:1-4 Part One - Sermon in Outline Format

Say Goodbye to Guilt! – Romans 8:1-4 – Part Two

II.  Page Two – Problems in Our Lives and the World

·       Guilt

·       Secrets

·       Memories

·       Unconfessed sin

·       “Down low”

·       Petrified sin

·       Thorn

·       Ghosts – Ebenezer Scrooge

·       Past “rap sheets”

·       Failure to extend and receive forgiveness

·       Trampled upon other people and their feelings

·       Unrequited love

·       The duplicity of love – the number of people who stayed together for the holidays but will break up before Valentine’s Day

·       We are more like Jacob than we care to acknowledge – we have used people

·       Jung’s idea of the shadow

·       “If you can name then you must claim it.”

·       Check our motives – those dangerous ulterior motives which go unfulfilled

·       Secrets – “You are as sick as your secrets.”

·       Unconfessed sin – “Your sin will find you out.”

·       Willfulness

·       Refusal to repent

·       Arrogance of self-reliance

·       Self- justification

·       Rationalization

·       Guilt

·       We hope never to be discovered

·       Don’t want to be found out

·       Our guilt manipulates us

·       Guilt and fear tag team us

·       We are afraid to reach for certain positions

·       Some people forego public life

·       Some people isolate

·       Some people never get close to other people for fear of being found out

III. Page Three – God’s Grace and Redemption in the Text

·       Return to the courtroom scene.

·       The verdict and sentence are announced.

·       Yet, someone walks in and insists that all of the evidence is not in!

·       Allude to the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53 – quote it

·       We have an advocate and an excellent defense counselor who has never loss a case.

·       Experience the grace of God

·       “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

·       because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death

·       For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,

·       God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

·       And so he condemned sin in sinful man,

·       In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us,

·       Who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”

·       “The gospel through grace was able to due what the law could not do.”

·       Christ removes our guilt!

·       Rejoice – we are free in Christ

·       Romans 8:31 – “What, then, shall we say in response to this?  If God is for us, who can be against us?”

·       Romans 8:33 – “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies. 

·       1 John 1:9

·       Hebrews 4:12-16

·       1 John 2:1-2 – We have an Advocate in Christ Jesus, our Lord

·       There is no remaining guilt or condemnation for anyone who is on Christ Jesus!

IV.  Page Four – God’s Grace and Redemption in Us

·       Experience the liberty from guilt, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, manipulation, emotional extortionists, and fear that Christ offers.

·       Tell the story of the image of the weight on the shoulders and using it to balance one’s self to reach the other side of a stream with a fierce current

·       Similar to crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land

·       Practical steps

·       Confession

·       Repentance

·       Forgiveness

·       Live into it

·       Daily grace

Conclusion

·       Say goodbye to Guilt!!!

"Of His Increase, There Shall be No End" - Isaiah 9:1-7 - Part One

“Of His Increase, There Shall be No End” – Isaiah 9:1-7

Imagine on Tuesday morning that you found a few gifts from heaven underneath the Christmas tree for you.  What would they be?  How would they look? Who would have brought them?  How would you ascertain their authenticity?  What would you want from heaven?

Imagine further what the ideal gift for each member of your family would be.  Would you like for each person to be totally debt free?  Would you desire the latest technological gadget?  What about the most impressive designer clothing wardrobe that there is?  How about a 2008 model of a luxury sports car?  Then, there is the dream house that all of us would like to have some day.  Again, what would the perfect gift be for each member of your family?

The crass commercialization of Christmas, specifically, and the holiday season inclusive of Chanukah and Ramadan which our Jewish and Islamic brothers and sisters celebrate respectively, generally, greatly eclipses the spiritual and religious nature of these celebrations.  We risk becoming robotic consumers incessantly swiping plastic in devotion to the god of commerce and in narcotic obedience to the wizards of Madison Avenue rather than disciples of our Lord who are truly grateful for the gift of eternal and abundant life which His birth offers us.  Dwelling upon the possibility of material acquisition obscures our ability to desire gifts of eternal value.  The true eternal riches of life are faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, joy, kindness, love, peace, patience and self-control, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Additionally, there is truth, honesty, integrity and justice.  Imagine receiving these as gifts under the tree on Christmas morning rather than earthly and material items that moths and dust corrupt and that thieves assuredly will break in and steal.  Consider the possibility of receiving inner healing and wholeness for a Christmas gift.

Let’s let our minds wander as we further consider this question.  In the approximately fifteen hospitals in our area, what do you think that all of the patients would like for Christmas?  How many persons living with cancer would like a clean bill of health?  How many parent of young children at Monroe Carroll Hospital in Nashville and St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital in Memphis would like the gift of a completely healthy child?  How many of those children would prefer the gift of health to enable them to ride a used bike instead of a sparkling new one that they could only visually admire?  Now, let’s travel to the thousands, perhaps millions, of houses where broken, divorced and dysfunctional families will gather for Christmas.  How many children will whisper silent prayers to the baby Jesus asking Him to repair the torn relationships in their families?  With the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, we can take the mental flights to places of bereavement, failed businesses, automobile accidents, psychology and psychiatric wards, termination from employment, and the myriad rejections and thwarted attempts to accomplish a longstanding heartfelt goal or dream.

"Of His Increase, There Shall be No End" - Isaiah 9:1-7 - The Conclusion

“Of His Increase, There Shall be No End” – Isaiah 9:1-7 – The Conclusion

We can expand our imagination to national and global dimensions.  How many military families would like to turn on the television on Tuesday morning and learn that Iraq conflict is over?  How many of them would like a date for the complete withdrawal of all American troops?  What about ending the strife in Northern Ireland, the genocide in the Sudan and Somalia, the pervasive Middle East turbulence inclusive of the Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs, the tragedy of Darfur, and the protractible economic injustice in Central and South America?  What if all of a sudden the Christmas spirit permeated the minds and hearts of Western disciples and motivated them to share food, medicine, clothing, technology and other resources with the developing and impoverished countries of “The Third World?”  What if the global church saw it as its mission to resolve the HIV/AIDS scourge that takes the lives of tens of thousands Africans each day and orphans countless children?  What incredible gifts these would be on this Christmas morning?

Speaking many years before the birth of Christ, the prophet, Isaiah, offers the Lord forthcoming birth as the solution to all of the foregoing problems, individual, familial, national and international.  In the opening verse of this enduring passage, the prophet asserts triumphantly “There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress.”  The coming of Christ offers humankind the ultimate solution to all of its problems.  Consider this bold pledge articulated to an audience who has experienced the colossal lost of everything that they held dear.  Solomon’s great Temple which symbolized Yahweh’s presence and contained centuries of their religious worship, rituals, literature and history was destroyed summarily by the Babylonians in 587 BCE.  Their culture was nearly lost as King Nebuchadnezzar subjugated the “middle class,” learned and trained professionals by coercing them into service of his empire.  One imagines that extreme disillusionment and seemingly infinite emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual distress that they suffered.  Yet, Isaiah promises the dawning of a day in which their agony will cease.  This brilliance of this day will forever eradicate the deep shadows under which they lived for seventy years.  In the birth of the long awaited Messiah, Almighty God would restore the dignity, respect and rule of Israel.  She would be great again!

Consider that these people expected a gift from God for many years.  They did not want something material per se.  They greatly desired the restoration of their way of life.  A price tag could not be placed upon that dream.  Each day, they rose with the heartfelt prayer that perhaps this would be the day that Messiah would be born.  The very news of His birth suffice to reassure them that Almighty God had not abandoned them in the midst of their deepest distress.  Messiah’s coming would signify the beginning of the reversal of the tragedy of exile.

The latter half of Isaiah 9:1 contains a very significant footnote of sorts.  Contrary to the popular anticipations that Messiah would be born in a setting that would facilitate his ascension of a successful military career, Isaiah informs His audience that God envisions a different purpose.  Instead of a palace or noted city, Messiah will actually be born in “Galilee of the Gentiles” adjacent to the Jordan river.  Imagine this incredulous possibility that the Jewish Messiah will be born among the Gentiles!