Community // Grace and Shame

Opening & Context

• Pastor Jonathan continued week four of the series on community.
• He briefly highlighted upcoming church opportunities, including the Passover dinner and the next spiritual formation class.
• His main text was Romans 5:1–5, especially the truth that hope does not put us to shame.

Main Idea

• Pastor Jonathan taught that community is opposed by both modern struggles and ancient spiritual realities.
• God’s desire is for people to live in deep relationship with Him and with others, not in isolation.

Modern Barriers to Community

• He named several current obstacles:
• Busyness
• Transience
• Digital distraction
• Flakiness
• FOMO and FOBO
• His point was that these habits make people less present and keep relationships shallow.

Ancient Barriers to Community

• Pastor Jonathan focused mainly on:
• Guilt
• Shame
• Condemnation
• He defined them this way:
• Sin: not experiencing God’s best
• Guilt: realizing sin is present
• Conviction: the Holy Spirit’s healthy response that leads to repentance
• Shame: unaddressed guilt that attacks identity
• Condemnation: believing punishment and hopelessness are what you deserve

Two Different Paths

• Pastor Jonathan described the destructive cycle as:
• Sin → Guilt → Shame → Condemnation → Isolation
• He contrasted that with the gospel-centered path:
• Sin → Guilt → Conviction → Repentance → Identity Reaffirmed → Communion with God and others
• His main point was that the enemy wants isolation, but God leads people toward restoration.

Biblical Emphasis

• Using Genesis 2–3, Pastor Jonathan showed that shame led Adam and Eve to hide.
• Using Romans 5 and Romans 8, he emphasized that through Jesus:
• believers are justified,
• deeply loved,
• and under no condemnation.

Practical Application

• Pastor Jonathan used parenting as an example: when he sins in anger, he can either spiral into shame or respond with repentance and repair.
• He stressed that healthy relationships are not built by never failing, but by repairing what has been broken.
• He also said confession in Christian community brings healing, not just forgiveness.

Closing Takeaway

• Pastor Jonathan’s message was that shame is not from God.
• The Holy Spirit brings conviction that restores, not condemnation that isolates.
• True biblical community helps people come out of hiding and walk in healing, repentance, and restored identity in Christ.

How's everyone doing this morning? Good, good, good, man, I am so excited to be here today. I'm excited about today's message. We are continuing our series on community. This is week four on our series on community. And man, if you've missed anything, you can go back and watch them. It's always a great time to be able to come back together. But a couple of things just to keep in mind specifically around some community events or community opportunities that we have that I'm really looking forward to. This Wednesday is the Passover dinner. And man, I'm really excited about it this year. If you have already got your tickets, man, be there. It's gonna be great. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, there's only a few left. I don't know, I mean, as of this morning, I think there was less than . I don't know where we're at, like for the total that we could sell. So they're almost all gone. So if you haven't done it, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be this Wednesday at p.m. I can't wait to share with you. It's gonna be a really good time. And then also we're already starting to announce our next spiritual formation class. Those meet on Wednesdays. They'll start the Wednesday after Easter. And it's a fourweek session where we'll be talking about community in depth and having everything. It's a really good course. It's challenging. There's a lot of thought provocation that happens in there. And so yeah, you'll really, really enjoy it. So it's gonna be good. But yeah, it's just a really, really fun opportunity to be together and to do this. So do this for me. If you can stand to your feet. I'm gonna read today's key scripture verse. It's found in Romans chapter five. We're gonna read verse one through five. And it says this. Therefore, since we've been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith and to this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Let's pray. Father God, we just thank you so much for today. We thank you for the opportunity we have to come to learn and to grow, to worship, to be in fellowship and community with one another. We thank you that your very presence, your spirit is here in this place, moving in our hearts and minds, Lord. Lord, open us up today to hear and to understand your word and to be challenged to grow, to become more like you. It's in your Holy Name we pray, amen. All right, you may be seated, you may be seated. Oh man, worship was good today. Wasn't worship good today? (Congregation Applauding) It was great. It was great. My dad was playing guitar today, that's always fun. My neighbors playing piano, that's always fun. They actually have a, this is like a shameless plug. Well, it's not, they actually have a gig tonight. They're playing a concert tonight at Courts and Commons at five o'clock over in Bixby. You can go watch it. I get % of the ticket sales, so that's why I'm promoting them. Now there are no tickets, because it's a free event, but one day, one day, I'm gonna get rich being a manager. It's gonna be great. It's really, it's gonna be fun. I don't, it's gonna be great. I'll be there, it's gonna be awesome. Hey, so here's what we're gonna talk about. We're talking about community, right? And we're talking about what it means to be part of a community. We've been looking at the idea of biblical community and what it means to be in these spiritual relationships. We've talked a lot about it. And today I wanna talk about one of the things, or a couple things, I guess, that can be in opposition to biblical community. And we're actually gonna look at two different things. We're gonna talk about modern oppositions to community, biblical community, but then also some ancient oppositions to biblical community. And we'll spend a little bit more time on the latter. But here's a couple things that are oppositions to being in community, to being in fellowship, to being in relationship, that we as modern day believers has to combat. And some of these things, there weren't even biblical precedents for because they didn't exist, but we can always use our imagination. So the first one is this. One of the big things that keeps people from being in community and fellowship and relationship with one another is busyness. We are all far too busy. It really doesn't matter where you're at. We all are and feel too busy. We are able to do and execute more things than ever. The other day I was with a couple of my boys and we were running a couple of errands around town and we were just going from my house to grocery store to another coffee shop to this thing. And it wasn't crazy. It was just going from place to place to place. But total, I think we drove in that hour around to miles between different places that we stopped and got something, stopped and got something. And I said, "You know, it's wild, "but just in this last hour, "because of our modern conveniences and everything "that we did, we were able to travel miles "and go to like four or five different stores." And historically speaking, if you had miles that you needed to go to do anything, that was like a multiday thing to just do, right? And we got it done in an hour. And so because we got that done in an hour, instead of being like, "You know what? "That was it for the day. "I'm gonna sit around, we say, "no, now I gotta fill up the other hours." And we're busy. We're busy with kid stuff. We're busy with sports. We're busy with church. We're busy with relationships. We're busy with food. Like we are just busy. We have so many things going on that we have to intentionally counteract busyness in our life and intentionally say no to certain things so that we can have the space and the time and the energy for things like community and relationship and church and different things. And so busyness is an opposition to us. Here's another thing that's an opposition. I think this is a little less true within here in our community, although I think it is true as a whole, which is the idea of transience. People move a lot more now than ever. And not just like I moved from st to st. Like they move from, you know, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma to Seattle to San Antonio to San Francisco to New York. Like they're all over the place. And they're moving typically in pursuits of their career. Usually it's career driven. They're moving from one city to the next city for that next job opportunity, for that next thing. And this is not necessarily a wrong, but one of the things that happens when you're every three to five years moving cities and uprooting from that place is you are losing the community you had and you have to go and start a new community and the place that you go. And sometimes God will call you and direct you to go to those places, but it becomes hard and often it's a cost that's not counted. And their mind is like, hey, I got a new job, more pay, more this, so I'm going. And we don't factor in, but what am I losing whenever I leave this place? And the community that I have and being known and knowing others, and so that's the thing. This one shouldn't surprise anyone. Digital distraction. Jesus didn't have to talk to people about digital distraction. He didn't have to teach on it. Some of you are digitally distracted. As I'm speaking right now, I'm not gonna point them out. But I can see you from the stage. That's all I'm gonna say. Here's the thing. Digital distraction is a problem. Because, and we've talked about it here before, it is in front of you. It is easily available. It is addictive. What you think is gonna just be a little two minute thing all of a sudden can become an hour of wasted time. We are digitally distracted constantly. This can be TV, this can be Facebook, this can be the internet, this can be on your cell phone, this can be anything, but it's very easy to become distracted. And as a result of being distracted, it goes into our busyness mindset, and therefore we don't have opportunity for community. And one thing that that directly leads to, this is actually a technical term, but I actually laughed whenever I read it as an actual technical term, and it was the definition of flakiness. Like have you ever heard like, don't talk, they're flaky. So there's actually like a definition that they're calling flakiness, which is the idea, and social media has really contributed to this, but it's a bigger thing, which is where we have lowered the bar of what it means to make a friend, because now I can become a friend by saying, accept. And now we're friends. We've lowered the bar of what it means to be a friend, but then we're also, so it's easier to make friends, but we've also lowered the bar of what friendship looks like. So we said like, yeah, they're my friend. And it's like, cool, what's their name? What are they into? Where do they live? They posted this picture at this coffee shop though, and I really liked it. It was weird, so we're like tight because of that. So we've made friendship easier, but we've also lowered the bar of what friendship means. And so what that's done is it's created a culture where we believe that we are in community with people, but we are not. We believe we are in relationship with people because we're online or we're talking or we're doing something, and we are not. And it even is true in something that's a little more intimate, which is like the idea of something that is like, I'm not against this, but the idea of texting. Texting has been this thing that there's this illusion of intimacy, but it's not actually there. And the reason I can tell you this is this. If you are going to tell someone, I don't wanna hang out with you tonight, are you gonna call them or are you gonna text them? And the vast majority of you are gonna text them. You know why? Because it's easier. It's easier. Sorry, can't make it tonight. Fill in the blank excuse. See you next week, bye. And it's cool, because we don't have a conversation. Because if I told you the only way you could get out of that hangout was to actually call them, a lot of you would be like, well, I guess I'm gonna hang out. You would rather go and do the thing you don't wanna do than actually have to have the physical conversation to call. I read a thing that talked about this one person, this parents, who they force their kid every sentence sounds mean, but they force their kid every Sunday to call their grandparents and talk to them on the phone. Right? And they said, you can not do it, but you have to let them know that you're not gonna do it, and why? And by the way, your parents, their grandparents only have a landline. So to tell them that you're not calling them, you have to call them to let them know. And guess what? Every Sunday they talked to their grandparents for minutes, they never missed it. Because it was like, I don't know. So this idea, sometimes this digital thing has created this way where it's too easy to get out of something. And by the way, I'm guilty of this. Like I'm the master negotiator to get out of things. And text is a great way to do it. If you mix text with having young kids, you can get out of anything. That's like literally like you're get out of jail free card. My kids are getting too old, and now I'm all of a sudden like, I gotta find a new excuse. How'd I get out of these things? But here's the other thing that this has created. All of this has created two things, and you've heard me talk about these before. If you've been here for a while, they're some of my favorite acne rims. All of this idea has created these two ideas that we talk about, which is FOMO and FOBO. FOMO and FOBO is fear of missing out and fear of better options. Like this is a real thing that people are dealing with. They always feel like they're missing out on something. So wherever they're at, you're with a group of friends, you're having fun, and there's just this fear in the back of your mind like, man, I'm with my friends, and I'm here, and we're having this great time with this, but what if there's these other friends who are having a more fun time than we are right now, and I'm missing it? Like they're gonna get the better pictures, have the better experience, their meal is gonna be better. And so the whole time you're here, you're no longer present because you're sure you're missing out of something that's over there. That may or may not even exist. And then that also is the idea, it's a little different, which is FOBO, which is I'm not gonna commit to anything because what if I say yes to these friends, and then minutes later, someone else calls me with a better option. There's better options out there, so I better wait. I better wait. And the problem is FOBO always pulls you away from where you are, and FOBO keeps you stuck where you're at right now, and you miss it. And we deal with this all the time, and it's not just teenagers, adults, I have to tell you. Some of you are worse than teenagers. Some of you struggle with all of these things just as much, if not more, than teenagers. When I go out, I don't go out to eat very often, but when I do, I often just like to take a little time and look around the room. And the number of people who are sitting at the table, and all of them are on their phones, and no one's in conversation, it often just, it disheartens me. And it's not screenagers. It's adults. It's married couples who sit down and will have a minute meal, and they don't even talk to each other, the entire meal. It's groups of friends who sit there, and someone will say something, and the next thing you know, they're all, it's like, what just happened? And this is not about creating any guilt or condemnation to you, that's not what we're talking, in fact, we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but this is a reality, we have to battle against these things, because all of these things are against God's desire for you to have deep, meaningful relationships. God does not want you to be in the presence of your friends, having a meal, enjoying time, and all of a sudden be struck with like, what if there was something better? God does not want you to have an invitation from people to say, hey, do you wanna come over on Friday night, have dinner, and to think, ugh, that sounds really great, but, I could get a better invitation, so I better say no. That is not God's ideal, he does not want you to be busy, he does not want you to be scatterblind, he doesn't want you to be flaky, he does not want any of those things for you. He wants you to be able to be in deep and personal and intimate relationships with your family and with others. And so here's the problem, those are all very real things that we have to battle against, that we have to struggle against as modern people. And maybe you could sit there and say, I'm doing really good on all those, and I hope you are. Or maybe you're like, okay, me and Jesus, we're gonna knock those out, that's great. But even if all of a sudden we could all snap our fingers and we don't have to deal with any of these modern, oppositions to community, we are still gonna be faced with three ancient oppositions to community. And these three things are this, you've probably heard all three of these in words, guilt, shame, and condemnation. Now those are not the three words you wanna hear the preacher say when you go to church. Guilt, shame, and condemnation. These are as old as time itself. These resonate in the very core of human existence and they are the very things that create separation, that break relationships, that create isolation and depression, and that create the idea that you are incapable of moving forward. And so these things today are what I wanna spend the rest of our time focusing on. Because just like those modern oppositions are not the heart of God for you and me, these three things and the results that they create in our relationships between God and men and women is not God's heart for us. But before we get into this, because these words can be really, you may already come to the table with some definitions about those words. You already know what they mean or at least what they mean to you. And so before we do this, this is always important for me when we're talking about some of these kind of that can be charged or can have some background is the idea of defining of terms. Anybody ever take debate class? Anyone on the debate team? Anytime you're having debate, anytime you're setting up something, the first thing we have to do is we have to define terms. Because if you and I have different definitions of something, we can actually mean the same thing, but think we're on opposite sides. Or we can be on opposite sides and find out we actually mean the same thing. So we have to define some of these terms and we have to know what they mean. And for me, when I'm defining terms and as many opportunities as possible, I wanna use and allow the Bible to define the terms that we're gonna talk about. So that we can have a better understanding, a deeper understanding of what each one of these things mean. So there's a few little terms I wanna define so that we can move forward. And the first one, and listen, all these words are a little heavy because what we're talking about is something that's heavy and it's intentional. These words are intentional and they're heavy because things that break relationship are meant to make you feel like you can't be in relationship. It's a heavy burden. So all these are a little heavy, but we're gonna talk. So the first one, and we could spend a whole lot of time on this one, but we're gonna just give a really simple definition. The first one is sin. Sin is one of those things where you're like, yeah, I know what sin is. And then when you try to define it, it's like, well, what is sin? But here's how we're gonna define sin for today in the broadest sense. Sin is not experiencing God's design or best for us. And this can happen in one of three ways. This can happen because of a choice that I make myself. So I choose to do or not do something, and as a result, I don't experience God's best for me. That can be sin. It can also be experienced by a choice that someone else makes towards me. So maybe I didn't make the choice, but someone else decides to do something towards me, and it is not God's best for me, and I have the result of that. And then the third category, which is a little broader, which is the fact that we live in the fallen world and sin exists around us, and being just in the presence of the fallen nature has a toll and a weight that it does to us. And we experience that in the community that we live, that is just the part of what we get to do, the fallen world around us. So this can be choices made by us, things that are done to us, and just things that are done around us, right? We are not experiencing God's design and God's best for us. And a lot of times people like to say, that's a sin, and we wanna give different characteristics, like lying, that's a sin. And the answer is yes, lying is a sin, that's the truth. Why? Because when you are a liar, you are not being, speaking the truth, you are not able to be able to one who can be trustworthy, you are breaking relationships, none of that is God's best for you, nor is it the best for others. So when you lie, you're hurting both yourself and the person you're lying to, because you are no longer being truthful and upright, and just like God, you are portraying yourself differently, probably because of some kind of fear that you have, or some desire that you have, and you are breaking relationship with the person you're lying to, this is not God's best, this is not how God wants people to be in relationship with, and so therefore, it is a sin. But a lot of times we wanna look at these actions and say like, these are the dos and these are the don'ts, and that's what sin is. And sin is so much greater than what that is, it is the thing that takes us away from God's great desire for us to be prosperous in everything that we have. And so, that's what sin is. Now, the next one we're gonna define is guilt, and guilt is the realization that I am experiencing sin. Guilt is the realization that I did something, or someone else did something, or I'm experiencing something in this community that is sinful, that is not God's best. And I'm coming to the realization that I have some part in that. Okay, so that's guilt, it's the realization that I'm experiencing sin. Now, we're gonna define all these and we're gonna talk how they interact, right? The next one is the word conviction. And if I had time, I would get in all of like the Hebrew and the Greek and all that stuff, but unfortunately, we don't have three hours today. I wish we did, because I had a great time studying. Okay, conviction, you've probably heard that word, you're convicted. Conviction is a healthy result of guilt, meaning a healthy result of experiencing that I'm doing something that's not God's best for me. This is the Holy Spirit calling us back to His best. It leads to things like confession and repentance, repair of earthly relationships, the reaffirmation of our standing as children of God and His love for us. You see, conviction leads us to restore something that is potentially broken. Now, sin will never break your relationship with God. That is completely stable because of the work of the cross. But you producing a sin towards someone else may put a rupture in your earthly relationship. And when you realize that you were guilty in the way you treated them, and you realize this and the Holy Spirit convicts you, that this is the conviction, not that you are a failure, but that your righteousness in Christ is greater than the action that you just did. And He calls you back to be a son or a daughter of God and saying, this is not who you are, and how you behaved and how you treated them is not your true identity that leads you back into relationship to go to that person and say, hey, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? And it leads to the repair of relationship, conviction. Now, the next two are negative. The next one is shame. And shame is the result of unaddressed guilt. Shame will attack your identity. Sin becomes who you are or who I am. It leads to the hiding and isolation from God and others. You see, where conviction leads you to go and to find and pursue restoration or repair of a ruptured relationship, shame begins to change who you are and it creates the fear of rejection and that the very identity of who you are is not gonna be loved by people. And so what it creates is isolation. And in fact, it's this really sick, twisted point of the enemy is you do something wrong, you're ashamed of it, you believe that that's your very identity of who you are, and you think if people really knew who I was, they wouldn't accept me, so I can't be honest with them about who I am. And so as a result of not being able to be honest about who you are, you then become more and more isolated and you no longer can be in relationship with people, which was the very thing you feared in the first place. And then the last one is this, condemnation, which condemnation % has to do with the punishment for sin. And it's the belief that sin not only defines who they are, but that the punishment of that sin is what they deserve. And when you believe that that's what you deserve, that the things that you're experiencing in life is a result of your choices and your shortcomings and your failures, there's no hope. And it will feel like God has abandoned you, that you are condemned. And so this creates a loop, the enemy has this desire for you to be in a loop, which is you experience sin, which by the way, the Bible is very clear, all will experience sin, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You will experience sin all throughout your life, whether it's things that you're doing, things that people are doing to you, or things you're experiencing around you, that will be experienced as long as you're walking on this earth until we receive that resurrected body that Christ promised us, like that is the thing that we'll do. But what it does is it takes sin, which leads to guilt. And it's like at this guilt moment, we have this decision, am I gonna believe who God says I am or not? And if I decide to turn in on myself, sin will lead to guilt, guilt will lead to shame, shame will lead to condemnation, and condemnation will lead to isolation, which is the enemy's ultimate desire for you. And you say, why? Do you know that the enemy's greatest desire for you is not that you are sinful? The enemy's greatest desire for you is that you're alone. The enemy's greatest desire for you is that you're alone. Why? Because God said, it is not good for man to be alone. So let me make him a helpmate, that they will never be alone again. The enemy knows that the greatest detriment to your ability to be a son and daughter and walk in the identity that God has called you to, to accept the work of the cross, and to walk in the grace that God has for you, is for you to be alone. If you are alone, then you are fully vulnerable to all of the lives that the enemy has over your life. And you will begin this loop over and over again. That sin, sin, that leads to guilt, that leads to shame, that leads to condemnation and isolation. And every time you try to pull yourself out of it, you will fall short, something will happen, you'll be reminded of a past sin, and it will start over and over and over, and that loop will keep you isolated, and you will begin to be further and further and further away from people who love you and who want the best from you, and you'll believe more and more that God is upset with you, that God is distant from you, and that God does not want anything to do with you, and you are alone and isolated. That is the enemy's desire for you. But here's the thing, God knew from the very beginning that this would be the battle that we as his sons and daughters needed to partner with him and trust him in. So listen, I got a couple of verses, just listen to that. Genesis chapter two, verse , a famous one. It says this, and this is after he met Eve. It says, "Adam and his wife Eve were both naked, "and they felt no shame." Now, we could extrapolate this, and we could talk about this a lot, but here they were, what is basically the saying is, "They were together, and they were fully vulnerable "and open to one another, "and that never led to shame, "which led to condemnation, which led to assassination, "in fact, being vulnerable and open to one another, "it led to relationship, it led to life, "it led to children, it led to friendship, "it led to all of these things." But if you jump down to the fall, just a little bit longer, chapter three, verse seven, it says, "In both of them, "the eyes of both of them were opened, "and they realized they were naked." So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from him among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" And he answered, "I heard you in the garden, "and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." And he said, "Who told you you were naked? "Have you eaten from that tree "that I commanded you not to eat from?" So I want you to picture this. Adam and Eve, they said they eat from that tree, and it says, "Immediately, their eyes were opened "that they were naked, and they were ashamed." And what they immediately do is they try to cover their shame with the very root of the sin that they just did. Now we know moving forward, God, I showed this a couple weeks ago when Vivi and I were sharing, moving forward, we know that God says, "Hey, I don't need you "to cover your shame and your guilt and your sin "with more of the thing that you were trying to do. "In fact, I'm gonna cover your sin and your guilt "and your shame with the very thing "that's gonna bring life and forgiveness." And so he killed an animal and he gave them animal skins before he banished them out of eating it. But it says right here, "They sowed themselves with victory "and then they hid themselves "from the thing that could bring forgiveness "in the very thick place and the very garden "in which they found the sin itself. "They covered themselves with leaves "and then they tried to hide in the garden. "They would try to isolate themselves "because they believed that God "would not accept them anymore." But we just read earlier in Romans chapter five, and I love this, I'm gonna just pick up on verse five. And it says, "And hope does not put us to shame "because God's love has been poured into our hearts "through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have been now justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if while we were once God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life? Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. One last verse, or it's a couple of verses, but Romans seven, we're gonna go through the first two of eight, it says this in . "So I find the law at work, "although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. "For in my inner being I delight in God's law, "but I see another law at work in me, "waging war against the law of my mind "and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in me. "What a wretched man I am. "Who will rescue me from this body "that is subject to death? "Thanks be to God who delivers me "through Jesus Christ our Lord. "So then I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, "but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. "Therefore there is now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus, "because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit "who gives life has set you free "from the law of sin and death." You see church, we have the good news of Jesus. Here in just a few weeks, we're gonna get the opportunity to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. And the resurrection of Christ is the gospel, the good news, it is the grace that goes forth, that you are now free from the penalty and the punishment of sin. And therefore you are justified through Christ, which means you have a right standing with God, which means, just like what it says there in verse one, "There is now therefore no longer any condemnation "for those who are in Christ." So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for us who will experience sin in our life, that you will experience sin? What is the process that God invites us to, to be able to not go into this negative thing in which sin leads to guilt and then the shame and then to condemnation and isolation? If that's not the process for us, what is the loop? What is the way in which God wants us to be able to handle these things? So here's how it looks differently for believers who wanna process things healthy. Sin happens, and I'll give an example of this after we look at it from a different level, sin happens. And some people, because everything is so negative, they'll say, "Hey, if you're a Christian, "you no longer have to be guilty ever again. "You no longer have to feel guilty ever again." Now, again, we'll preface this, definition of terms. If guilty is condemnation or fear of punishment for God, then yeah, absolutely, you don't have to be fearful of punishment ever again in the day in your life. Jesus already took that punishment. But if guilt is the realization of, "Ooh, I missed the mark. "I didn't treat someone like Jesus would have treated them, "and that's who I am," then what guilt leads us to sin leads us to guilt. This is actually produced by the Holy Spirit inside of you. But the Holy Spirit is producing guilt not to bring condemnation to you, but to bring the conviction of His righteousness in you. And so what happens is I sin, then I experience guilt like, "Hey, I missed the mark." And at this point, instead of turning to allowing that to be my identity and shame, I say, "Oh man, that's not who I am. "I need to repent." The Greek word is metanoia. I need to change my mind. That's not who I am. That's not how I behave. That's not what I'm supposed to do. And in repenting, sometimes that means I need to ask for forgiveness to someone. Sometimes that means I may need to confess to God, like, "Hey, I did this, or I thought this, "or I didn't, and that's not who I am." Sometimes that may need, I need to find a trusted person who I can confess that to somebody else. But I get to repent, and here's what happens. So instead of sin leading to guilt and shame, it leads to conviction that the Holy Spirit is invited to saying, "Hey, don't you want to come back "and be who you truly are? "Don't you want to come back and be who you really are?" That's not who you really are. And then the conviction leads to repentance. And then repentance, guess what happens at the end when you repent and you say, "Sorry." It reaffirms the identity that you've had all along, which is I am no longer a slave to sin. I am a slave to God's righteousness. I am a child of God. I am just like Jesus, and as he is, so am I in this world, and I am gonna live that way. My identity is reaffirmed. And in the reaffirmation, what is brought to my heart and to my spirit is the realization that I am no longer shamed by God. I am actually honored by God because of what Jesus has done for me. And from a place of honor, now, do you know what I get to do? I get to do what the Bible says. I get to boldly enter into the throne room of grace and be in communion with God. So what the enemy intended to make me isolated, which is sin that leads to isolation through the work of the cross. When I sin and I properly bring it to Christ, sin that was supposed to make me feel separated is actually the very thing that drives me into the throne room of grace, into the presence of God to be affirmed at my identity, and I am now closer to God because of sin than if I had never sinned at all. That is why the Bible says where sin abounds, grace super abounds. And Paul's not like saying, he has to be like, I'm not telling you just to sin because it's a good thing. That's stupid. I'm telling you that when you sin, you have the option to realize that when the guilt comes to say, oh my gosh, this isn't who I am. I'm convicted that this is not my identity. So I will repent and I will change my mind. And I will then be able to realize that I am an honored son or daughter of God, and I will boldly enter into his presence and his community. And I will surround myself with others who are living and believing the same way. And so you see where sin can make you isolated from community and God's perfect way, sin actually drives you further and deeper into community with God and with others. But here's the thing. We must realize that we have that moment that we get to choose. Am I gonna believe what God says about me or am I gonna believe how I'm feeling right now? I mean, I have like a million examples that I could use, but I'll give you one that happens more frequently than I would like. More frequently than I like. I'm living my life. I've got a beautiful wife and four wonderful brothers and four wonderful boys, and they're amazing. But sometimes all of them annoy me so much. And it's not their fault. It's my fault. But they sound not just whatever. And so one of the boys does something and I have an option. Do I respond to them how the heavenly Father will respond to me or respond to them? Or do I respond to them the way that I feel right now? That's my choice. That is where I am faced with the opportunity of do I behave like God or do I sin? And we have to just be real comfortable with the understanding of when I do not act like God and his character, that is sin. It doesn't make me evil. It doesn't make me disgusting. It doesn't make me broken. It makes me not behaving the way that God has created me to be. That I'm no longer being an image bearer of him and what is the deepest desire of my life. I'm behaving in a different way but that doesn't represent him and it actually doesn't represent me. And so one of my children does something that's annoying and I decide to lash out in anger and say something mean or rude or demeaning or hurtful. And I know you can't imagine it but I'm really good at it. And then I finish my tie raid and I walk away and because, not because of my sin, but because God loves me and because he loves them, because he loves them, the Holy Spirit comes and begins to produce biblical guilt in my heart. Hey, that's not how you wanna behave. That's not how I would behave. So that's not how you would behave. Do you want to make that right? Wouldn't you rather be like me? And I love you so much that I'm not going to allow you to behave that way and believe for one moment that that's who you are. And at that moment I have an option. I can allow that guilt to produce conviction in my life and when I allow that conviction to be there, I can then go to one of my children, whoever I just heard and say, hey, I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry I spoke that way to you. What you did was still annoying, but I shouldn't have responded that way. And I'm sorry. Will you forgive me and mean it and offer a chance for the relationship that was ruptured because of my behavior to be repaired and restored. Because sin always ruptures relationships. That's what it does. And sometimes, parents listen to this, this is important. Sometimes we are so fearful of hurting our relationships. We like walk around in eggshells and we think like, I can't say anything, I can't do anything because I don't wanna mess up the relationship. I don't wanna like make a mistake. I don't wanna do it, which is, listen, you shouldn't just be looking to make mistakes. But there was this massive study done on familial bonds and they were trying to figure out what is the great, what creates the greatest sense of family and the strongest bonds of relationship. And the original hypothesis was the basically the better parents, the ones who messed up less, the ones who were less traumatic for their children would probably have the greatest bond with their kids as they entered into later teenage years and early adulthood and moving forward. But what they found was actually that wasn't the case at all. The strongest relationships were not the ones who had the least amount of failure or what we would consider relational ruptures. It was actually the ones who had the most relational ruptures but as a result, they had the most repairs. So meaning, yeah, the parent made a mistake but they went back and they fixed it. And that is actually more powerful than not making the mistake at all. Because the repair, it both exudes humility and transparency but also how relationships will actually work. Because sometimes parents avoid having any kind of conflict or issue with their children because they're so afraid of doing it wrong. They then never model what it means to make it right whenever you do make it wrong and then they go and get in a marriage and they have no clue how to repair a relationship when it becomes ruptured. Because it was never modeled for them by their parents who could say, I blew it, will you forgive me? So good news, me and my kids' relationships are so tight because I've broken it so many times and I've apologized so many times. We're like that bone that can never break at this point. But here's the thing, when I repent, I'm reminded you're a good father because Jesus is, in you and his father is really good. And I believe that about me and it makes me walk into community with God and walk in community with my children. But what if I did the other? What if I blew up at my kids and guilt begins to rise up and instead of saying, that's not who I am, I embrace that, I think, oh my God, you did it again, you idiot, you're such a screw up, why can't you just control your temper? Why are you always flying off the handle? They don't deserve someone like you. They deserve a father better than you because you will never amount to being the father that they deserve and should have and you are constantly one who is ruled by your anger and you will never be freed from it. This is the person that you've been, who you are and who you will be. And if you continue to do this, you're gonna lose everything that's near and dear to you. So you should do everyone a favor and just be quiet and stop being part of their life. And I embrace that and I'm so ashamed. And I can maybe even believe, well, maybe God would forgive me because he has to, because he's God, but my kids will never forgive me, so I'm not even gonna bring it up to them because they won't forgive me because I've heard them too many times. I've done this before, I said I won't do it again. And so now I'm ashamed and I embrace that shame of who I am and then I continue and my kids begin to be distant and they don't wanna talk to me anymore. And I say, you know what, I deserve it. This is the punishment for who I am. Jesus is great, but he's not great enough to forgive this because I already did it. And now not only is my relationship with my children broken, my relationship with God is broken because I embraced a shame that was never mine to embrace. So now guess what, I'm without my kids, my kids are without their dad and now I've created separation from God. And you can say, John, this seems really extreme. This is the reality of how life works and it does not take long for this to happen to anyone. But just like it can go negatively very quick, the good news and the power of Jesus Christ and the grace of what he brings us is, it can go the other direction really quick. Your identity can be restored really quick. That he can temporarily, one of the nd Corinthians says, in fact, let's just read it, nd Corinthians , he wrote this letter to the Corinthians, he was really mean to them because they were being really bad, they were naughty. And he said this, he says, "Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, "I do not regret it, though I did regret it. "I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while. "Yet now I'm happy, not because you were made sorry, "but because your sorrow led to your repentance. "For you became sorrowful as God intended "and so were not harmed in any way by us." Listen to this, "Godly sorrow," or guilt, "brings repentance that leads to salvation "and leaves no regret, "but worldly sorrow brings death." Brings death. Everyone here, you will fail, you will sin, you will fall short of the beautiful image of Christ that we are all attaining to be bearers of. And because God loves you, He will confront you with His wonderful loving spirit, which it says that His kindness is what leads you to repentance. Even the way in which the Holy Spirit confronts you is kind and loving and pure and true. And you know what, it's even so good that His kindness to you may not be kindness to me. He may come to you in a really kind and cheerful and loving and upbeat way, and He may come to me with the verbal equivalent of a punch in the face. And you know why? Because that's what I need sometimes, and that's kindness. It's kindness that leads us to repentance, to not allow you to slip into shame, which will slip into condemnation, because there's no longer any condemnation for those of us who are in Christ. Shame has been put to death at the cross. You do not need to bear shame, because that is no longer yours to bear. It says that Jesus went to the cross, disregarding the shame, carrying the shame, so you don't have to. So will the Holy Spirit come to you and say, "Hey, you blew it." Yeah, because He loves you that much. The Bible says a father corrects the child that he loves. If he does not correct the child, He does not love them. If He lets you act like a complete fool and didn't correct you, that would mean He does not love you, but He loves you so much. (Soft Music) So church, what does this all have to do with community? Sometimes we believe that God will forgive us when we fall short, but that others won't. That humans won't. That our earthly relationship will not forgive us. And so maybe we're okay with God, but we slowly go through this very same loop in our earthly relationships. And you begin to break relationship with friends or family or loved ones, because you're ashamed of what you did and it leads to kind of, and you find this whole different thing. And God has this antidote of what we can do as believers that one of the very reasons we're in community, and we'll talk about this more as the weeks go on, because I don't have time to unpack it now, I'm already over. But the variability where we're able to, in the language of James, confess our sins to one another, to be able to say exactly what we've been talking about. Hey, I made a mistake, I missed the mark. And I think God forgives me, but I'm struggling to believe if this other person can do it. It says that when you confess your sins to one another, it doesn't say that you find forgiveness, James says that you find healing. Because when you expose brokenness to the light and healing power of Christ, it is repaired. And when you expose your shortcomings to a fellow believer who is imitating Christ and has the very spirit of God living inside of them, and they are partnering with God, and you expose them to them, they're able to say the same thing about your sin that Jesus says, which is that's missing the mark, but Jesus paid the price for it. You are forgiven, go and sin no more. And you wouldn't believe the relief of just telling someone the right one, not the checkout person at the grocery store. They don't want you to unburden. But a trusted friend, a pastor, or you can just say, I just need to, I need to not carry this burden. It's a beautiful thing. It's a powerful thing. And we'll talk about it more as we keep going. But I'm out of time. Like I always am. I know % of you are very sad. % of you are hungry. So stand with me. (Soft Music) Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you. That you love us so much. Thank you that we stand justified because of the work of the cross. That there's no longer any condemnation for those of us who are in Christ. That we never need to embrace shame. Because you fully bore it for us. We have a new identity that we embrace. That your Holy Spirit is constantly convicting of us. So when we make mistakes, when we fall short, when others commit sin against us, thank you that we can not embrace the shame. But we can embrace your conviction that leads to repentance. That leads to our continual embracing of our true identity in Christ. So that we, as your honored sons and daughters, can have deep communion with you. You are the goal. And we long to be in your presence. Help us walk in that today. It's in your Holy Name we pray. Amen and amen. Hey, last thing church before we dismiss two things. One, if you need prayer for anything, maybe you're here and you're like, I've got questions, I got prayer for someone. It could be about salvation, it could be about healing. It could be any questions you have. Our prayer team is gonna be down here at the end. OW is ready to talk with you. He would love for you to come down and have a conversation with him. And if you're here and haven't got the chance to meet you yet, I'd love to meet you afterwards in the green room. But other than that, you guys are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday and we will see you next week