It's Not All Your Fault Part 2

Looking to Jesus.

When you hear shame for something you did not do the same is there a less thankfully the Bible gives us a way to be free of guilt. We did not cause today more about maintaining a clear conscience amid circumstances that we could not have control the Moody Church in Chicago this morning with Sir clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Estimates are any of us feel shame for things we did not do this you will know when a child is brought up in what I call shame-based because of poverty actions, you name it they abuse the child will inherit shame though be ashamed of their family will be ashamed of themselves. Through no fault of their own. And that's why we need to deal with these issues when we talk about the power of a clear conscience. I want to say a word to our many listeners have you ever wondered how the gifts that you give to this ministry are translated into change lives.

I have in my hand a story by someone who was talking about this series of messages the power of a clear conscience and this person says this is the message I needed today. It touched my heart.

It struck me in the heart.

The importance of this truth in my life and all lives is astounding. We exist for the transformation of lives would you like to help us.

Would you consider becoming an endurance partner somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com's RTW offer.com. Click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337 and now let us listen to God's word and how it can free us from our past.

What does God have to say about all this. There are two passages I want you to turn to very briefly. One is found in the book of Isaiah Isaiah chapter 1 Isaiah chapter 61. You'll notice that God hears speaking to Israel and I understand that this application goes to Israel first, but I think that this is what God does for his people. Even in this age. You remember that Kmart put ashes on her head. It was a sign of her humiliation. It was a sign of her helplessness and she felt herself locked into that lifestyle so she lived desolate for the rest of her life, but notice what God says in verse three. In this follows the words of Jesus.

Most of these words were recited when he was in the synagogue about the spirit of the Lord being upon him to anoint him and then it says in verse three to grant to those who mourn in Zion to get them at beautiful headdress instead of ashes, God says the shame of the ashes can be taken away and you have a beautiful beautiful garland to wear, which is really what the Hebrew text means the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Want to see yourself here.

Think about you being in that state of shame. And God says you don't have to bear that because I'm covering it. I am giving you a garment at beautiful garment and goes on to say, but you shall be called the priests of the Lord.

Verse six they shall speak of you as ministers of our God. Verse seven instead of your shame. There shall be a double portion instead of dishonor.

They shall rejoice in their lot there you are. The shame is taken away, and then you'll notice in verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, let me simply encourage you by saying this that God in his mercy and grace knows your need.

He knows the part that you played in your shame and in your guilt, which would be objective. Shame and guilt, and he also knows the part that other people and he knows that it's not all your fault and today no matter what the purpose or rather the source of that shame and guilt may be I want to encourage you to see God bigger than that. I want you to understand that in his grace and in his mercy he can meet you in your need so that you would have a pure conscience and as sincere faith. I want you to take out your Bibles and turn to one other passage today and that is found in the book of Hebrews Hebrews chapter 12 where the Scripture says these words chapter 12 verse one therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him in you word the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. What the writer of Hebrews is saying is that when Jesus died on the cross he scorned the shame connected with the cross as he was hanging there. He knew that it was a shameful experience.

He knew. In fact, that he was being cursed because person is everyone who hangs upon a tree. But just like he was bearing our guild. He was also bearing are Shane. He was bringing about a deliverance that would go down into our hearts so that we would be free and say we no longer. I was speaking to a woman recently who was telling me how that even here in church. She walked around with this heavy weight of shame that she could not see herself as a worthy person. She could not see herself as a daughter of God and then as God began to lift the shame. As he began to realize that she can walk around and I encourage her to do that is indeed someone who has value. Someone for whom shame is not the last word that can happen to you as well.

You'll notice that Jesus Christ bore at Rodney Clapp some time ago wrote these words speaking about this passage, he says does shame bind us. Jesus was bound does shame destroy our reputation what he is despised and rejected of men does shame reduce us to silence.

He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth does shame expose our apparent weaknesses. He saved others. The crowd mocked himself.

He cannot say that shame lead to abandonment while you think of the words of Jesus Christ on the cross, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me. Does shame diminish us, he was crucified naked and exposed for gawkers to see he bore our sins, he bore our iniquities. He bore the weight of our guilt and the weight of our shame. So I would say that the first thing that we have to understand as the bottom line is simply this, that shame loses its power in the presence of the cross and I would like to encourage you and I know that this is difficult to do. You know, in a congregation where everyone is present when you should do is to get alone with the Lord and claim the fact that shame no longer has to bind you no longer has to debilitate you, whether that's justified shame because of your sin or someone else's sin. The fact is that the Lord is with us to help us and give us the sense of dignity and self-worth that he created us to be. Of course, in the process. What you're going to have to do is to forgive those who had done wrong against you.

And remember this that when you forgive, you not only our blessing these people with the blessing that the Lord is given to you, namely the gift of forgiveness but also you are releasing them to God. Perhaps your parents are dead and you say will I can't connect with them anymore. I can't be reconciled to them. That's true, but there comes a time when you submit your anger and your shame and your resentment and you give that to God. There was a woman who is in one state, and she took a train to another state where her mother was buried to stand there at her grave and simply let it all spill out. Her mother actually was a prostitute. So here's this young woman getting rid of all this standing there saying God I give this to you. I can't bear it anymore and she need not buried.

It wasn't even hers that was imposed upon her to stand there so that she can walk away a free woman. So the first thing that's very important is to come to the cross and to receive the forgiveness of God for guilt and also the covering and the help and the deliverance from our shame and I want to say this, that if God doesn't totally deliver you if you still struggle afterwards.

You should not feel guilty about that God uses all kinds of people were still struggling with these issues, but you and I must be willing to see God is greater then whatever may be going on within our hearts. So first of all, shame loses its power at the foot of the cross and secondly our self-worth, our self-worth is not based on how we feel your self-worth is not based on how you feel. It is really based on who you are in Jesus Christ. If you received them as your Savior. It is based on the work that he has done and who he calls you to the a son or a daughter of the most high and you and I must know that our feelings and all of the things that happened to us oftentimes distract us from that. But God wants you to be free to serve him with joy. The goal of our instruction is love that flows from a good conscience and a pure heart want you to visualize for a moment that I had appear a silver dollar, I don't, but we've all seen silver dollars, let's suppose you're walking along and you see this little glimmer in the mud and you find out what it is and it's a silver dollar. The silver dollar is all muddy and you look at it and you think to yourself, how can this thing possibly have value. But you and I know that if you take that silver dollar and you wash it. It has just as much value as a newly minted silver dollar that you might find in Washington.

One of these days because its value was not diminished by where it was found, or it's a dirt and I say to you today that whether it is because you through the silver dollar into the mud or somebody pushed you into the mud. Either way, God's wonder and God's grace can rescue you. If you're willing to come to him and to receive the gift of eternal life and the gift of forgiveness that he gives to all those who come to him. You don't need to be a victim of shame. God can set you free today number of years ago I had a friend who committed adultery is that horrible situation.

I mean, he lost his wife. Of course, in the sense that they were divorced in, set his kids off on a bad trajectory as your message that you can clean up but yet at the same time. He loved God and he he so sought God's forgiveness and then the mass and that's what we have to do David after the greatness that he made. He says Lord restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He said I can rejoice in God.

Again, I can't clean up the mess all of my tears cannot bring back Uriah back to life all of my tears cannot restore the purity of Bathsheba, but if God comes and takes all that shame and guilt away my July 8 can actually be restored. David could live again with a good conscience if you can imagine it and that's where some of you may be at, but I remember riding with my friend in a car and he was weeping even though it was years afterwards he was reliving the mess that he made that he had in his car a CD by Dave Boyer, Dave Boyer is saying here at the Moody church a couple of years ago and his signature song is Calvary covers it all. And instead of the word stain which is in the song I'm going to substitute the word shame and see if I remember the words Calvary covers it all. My past with its sin and shame, my guilt and despair. Jesus took on him. There Calvary covers it all. And even in the midst of brokenness and relationships that cannot be put back together here was a man who found his joy in God because God says I will make you clean and I will deliver you from that bad conscience today. God is saying that to you and some of you have never trusted Christ as Savior. By the way this message is a little awed because you have struggled with shame.

You've struggled with guilt and some of you may be running and not knowing exactly where to go and what to do with this message. If your confidence is not in Jesus.

Today, I invite you to do that because his death on the cross was a sacrifice for such as sinners and you know he did. He anticipated your sin, your mass, your dysfunction, your guilt and your shame he anticipated at all. And Jesus said that when I die, I despised nice score. The shame and settled bear yours if you believe on me. Let's pray together. Father I pray that you might take this message and I pray that it may be applied to whom ever needs it which really probably all of us. I pray father that within the community of God's people.

We might hear at the Moody church have safe places in our small groups in our TMC communities where people can, they can be honest and they know that they are not going to be judge that they're not going to be despised because all of us are broken in one way or another. Make us father as a church, a healing community where knowing that shame cannot ultimately destroy us. We can be honest about our relationships and where we are at and we shall be accepted and received and prayed for grant that a lord now before I close this prayer. I wonder what you need to say to God today. What did God say to you, you talk to God about whatever it is that God is talking about.

And if you've never believed on Christ. Even while you are listening to this you can say Jesus I'm a sinner and I receive you as my personal savior for as many as received him to them. He gives the authority to become the children of God, even to those who believe on his name today. Father, I believe on you, but just have a moment of quietness while you talk to God. Father, I want to claim the promise from the book of Psalms that he binds up our wounds and we pray today Lord, that whatever wounds we may have because of the sin of others in our own help us to know that you bind them up and you want to restore us so that we can know that we belong to you with a sense of dignity that we are daughters and sons of the most high God bring deliverance to your people. Whatever it is that you are saying to us, Lord, grant us the ability to do and help us to remember that there is power in the cross pray in Jesus name) pastoralists are. I wish that I could stand on the house top and shout to the entire world. Calvary covers it all. For those who believe in Jesus Christ.

They received God's forgiveness they receive his grace, they receive his mercy. We hear it running to win exist to help people to understand the wonder of the cross and then to live it out in their families and their communities and wherever they find themselves want to thank the many of you who help us do that. I've written a book entitled the power of a clear conscience let God free you from your past for a gift of any amount. This book can be yours. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or in a moment I'm going to be giving you a phone number give you time to get a pencil or a pen to write this down. Meanwhile once again I want to thank the many of you who stand with us and it's because of your support that messages like the one you have just heard can go around the world. Here's the contact information.

RTW offer.com and then that phone number 1-888-218-9337 ask for the book the power of a clear conscience RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 it's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor lutes or a question about the Bible or the Christian life can we achieve sinless perfection in this life.

Mary lives in Madison, Illinois, and here is running to win on W MBI here's her question. How can we be both sinners and saints. I heard you say on the radio that we sin every day. I don't believe that's true. If we make Christ the Lord of our lives, how can we still sin your question is excellent, but let's take a deep breath and think about this because it is so important, the question is, can we still sin. As believers, the answer is yes, you asked the question if we make Christ Lord of our lives, how can we still sin well my dear friend. We do the fact is that we are redeemed we belong to God, but we still have the sin nature.

In fact, if you want to read that Romans chapter 7 I think the apostle Paul's struggle there where he talks about that which he would like to do that he doesn't have the power to do and so forth. I think he's talking about himself as a believer so I have to ask you very honestly, have you not send since you've come to know Christ as Savior. I sometimes say when I meet people who say they haven't sinned.

If I meet a man who says I've never sin. I always want to ask his wife as to whether or not she agrees, so we can sin and when I made the statement that we are both sinners and saints, and by the way, the person who made that statement was Martin Luther, because what Luther was saying was this that when we receive Christ as Savior we are credited with the righteousness of Christ. In that sense we are saints we meet all of God's requirements.

Because Jesus meets those requirements for us so we are saints, but at the same time, we still struggle with sin, you know, when James makes the remark, purify your hands, ye sinners. I think that's in chapter 4 I remember correctly I think he's talking about Christians. So at the end of the day.

I do believe that we are both saints and sinners should we continue in sin that grace may abound God for bid and if we persist in our sin without a sense of conviction without fighting it and may well be that we've never really believed on Christ. I hope that this helps. God bless you and I hope that all of us will be victorious in our struggles with sin. Some counsel for Mary from Dr. Erwin lutes or thank you Dr. lutes or if you'd like to hear your question answered. Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor lutes or or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614. It's tough to live or work with someone whose conscience is dead or defiled.

How do we cope with people seem to be beyond hope next time I'm running to win a look at narcissists. People with hardened consciences. Thanks for listening.

This is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church