Jonah (Part 4)
Read John 8:2-11
“At dawn he (Jesus) appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stoneat her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Can you just imagine how that woman felt after being caught? Frightened, humiliated, exposed, dirty, and I’m sure plagued with guilt. Today I want to talk about dealing with guilt from our past. One reason this topic is so important is because a lot of people aren’t as effective as they could be in their life, whether it be serving Christ or somewhere else, because of some guilt or shame they may be holding on to because of a sinful past. They think that somehow their sin automatically disqualified them from serving God, or helping anyone else in a meaningful way. But as you study the life and teachings of Jesus you realize that isn’t so. Jesus encouraged all sorts of people to follow Him that had all kinds of sins in their backgrounds.
In this story of the adulteress woman, we see Jesus forgive this woman and I believe He also wanted to free her from the guilt she probably felt! Why? Because guilt can be such a burden. It can and will cripple us if not dealt with properly. I believe that God designed us to feel guilty to bring us to repentance, but then after we deal with the sin, we have to learn how to deal with or put away the guilt.
The following is from an article from a life coach, Audrey Marlene which I found on the internet. She wrote: “A chronic guilty conscience has the ability to hold one back from achieving their goals in life. As you hold on to the guilt it can slowly undermine your capacity to think and function on a normal level. You may begin to act in ways that are uncharacteristic of you. You may even undergo personality changes, believing something is wrong with you. Here are some ways that guilt can sabotage your future. It can
· destroy your self-esteem
· erode your self confidence
· cause you to lose self-respect
· distort your perception of self
· obstruct your ability to make decisions
· create self-doubt
· cause you to be unforgiving of self
· bring about fearfulness
· cause irrational thoughts
· cause paranoia
· cause you to ignore self
· cause feelings of worthlessness and shame
· send you into a state of worry
· generate anxiety and panic
· trigger depression
This list are only some of the psychological effects that guilt can have on you. This does not even take into consideration how this emotional state of mind can also affect one’s physical health.”
But before we get into this any farther; over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at Jonah and his amazing story. God gave Jonah a mission to do but he didn’t like it because of who he had to preach to. And so he turned his back on God, he rebels, and literally runs in the opposite direction.
And as we looked at him in our last lesson we saw that it wasn’t until he was down in the belly of a great fish for three days and nights that he actually had a change of heart. Maybe it was the anticipation of being slowly digested by this great creature that finally brought him to his senses. But he is finally humbled and offers up a sincere prayer to the Lord. And it isn’t until then that the Lord has the fish regurgitate him up on the shore someplace.
I can’t image how traumatic of an event that had to be, both emotionally and physically. If you think about it, Jonah probably had to feel a little guilty about turning his back on God. He rebelled against the very One who blessed him so much in the past. He probably had to deal with some guilt because he had sinned like he did. The question for today is, “How do you get Past Your Past”; because we all have one.
Cyrus Curtis, who once owned the Saturday Evening Post. He had a sign hanging in his office that said, “Yesterday ended last night.” It was a powerful reminder that every day is a new day and a new beginning.
That idea also resonates with Lamentations 3:22-23 it says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”
I believe there are a few things we can learn about God from both of these stories, from the adulteress woman and Jonah
1. First of all, In spite of your past, God is not in a hurry to give up on you. The woman put before Jesus was guilty of adultery, and Jonah ran from the Lord, trusted in those pagan sailors to help him escape, and then chose to die rather than repent. But our Lord still chose to forgive them both because He wanted to use them in some way.
It’s a shame that so many people out there think that God has given up on them, because they’ve blown it, or started to sin. Some think that God doesn’t want them anymore. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Some of the most famous Bible characters we read about in Scriptures also “blew-it” at one time or another and found that God didn’t give up on them. For Example: Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samson, David, and even some New Testament characters like, Peter who denied even knowing Jesus three times. But in spite of their rebellion and sin, our Lord was not ready to give up on them as quick as we would, or even as quick as we would give up on ourselves. So God is not in a hurry to give up on you!
2. Another thing we learn about God from these stories is that; God won’t look down on you just because you messed up in the past. He will not turn your back on you just because you messed up!
3. Look at verse 1 & 2 of chapter 3. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
If you just pick up this book and began reading it, starting right here in chapter 3 for the first time, you would never suspect that Jonah had ever fallen from God. That’s the way God works – When you return to Him after falling away, you’re not treated any different from those who never fell away.
Jesus honors that woman with the same respect. He give her a chance to hold her head up and start over showing her that no one is without sin, not even those pious religious leaders who wanted to stone her.
Later in Luke 15:11-25 He gives us that wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son, which shows us how Father God will honor those who return to Him in faith, not as a slave or servant like the man expected, but rather as a son. Even Peter was reinstated after denying Christ three times.
So, for every person who has ever failed in their past, there is true forgiveness! God doesn’t hold anything back when you come back to Him.
So how do we deal with guilt from past behavior
#1. No matter what your past sins are, you need to believe in your heart that that stopping it is what you need to do, and is the right thing to strive for. If you don’t stop doing what you were doing, you won’t be able to be completely free because you will keep giving yourself something to feel guilty about.
In the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, this principle is seen in the last thing Jesus tells her. After being publicly humiliated by the hypocritical religious leaders and after Jesus outwitted them, showing them that they were also sinners, Jesus told the woman, “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11b,)
Christ didn’t give this woman a free pass to keep doing what she had been doing just because He was willing and able to forgive her. He was calling her to change her lifestyle.
In Jonah’s case this is what he prayed in 2:9 “But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
So if you want to get free of your past, then leave it in the past and choose a better direction. Don’t give your conscious anything to fuel new guilt.
#2. Don’t make the mistake of shying away from Christ because of your sin and the guilt that comes with it. Don’t think He hasn’t heard it all before.God gives us guilt to acknowledge and see our wrongdoing, but after we do and receive His forgiveness, we no longer need to carry that guilt around anymore; it’s done its job.
If someone forgives you of a debt or anything else, you are feed from it. If you sin and then confess it and repent of it, and God forgives you, you are free from it. It is behind you.
1 John 1:9 says, “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”.
In John 8:36 Jesus said, “36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Don’t let your sin and guilt keep you from coming to Christ. He has the only effective answer for handling the sin, guilt and shame. After He has forgiven you, don’t let that past guilt and shame continue to affect you. Don’t stay captive to or feel guilty about what you have been freed from.
#3. We also need to Trust in God’s mercy not our merit. We can go on carrying our guilt around long after God has offered His forgiveness because sometimes we misunderstand how God operates.
When that woman was brought before Jesus what He said and did was a perfect picture of redemption! He neither condemned the woman to be stoned to death nor did He excuse her from the liability of her sin – He simply set her free and chose to take her guilt upon Himself! She did not earn that forgiveness, it was a gift, or what we call of grace (unmerited favor).
Trying to justify our self or do something to redeem our self will always fall short and sometimes make us feel even guiltier.
God’s mercy and forgiveness are prompted by His perfect love for us. Because of His love He can and will truly forgive us and set us free from the sin and the guilt that sin produces. Therefore like Jonah whose sin imprisoned him but then was set free, we too can be set free from not only our sin and rebellion, but also from that guilt that accompany our short comings.
So, do you have a problem with guilt. I guessing you either have one of two possible reasons for that:
#1. You are doing something you shouldn’t be doing, something you know that displeases the Lord. That will make you feel guilty. And if this is the case you need to stop what you are doing, repent and choose to do what is right. Or…
#2. You simply may not have chose to let go of your guilt. Maybe you did something in the past which produced that guilt, but you don’t do it anymore. You’ve confesses it to the Lord, He has forgiven you, but you just won’t forgive yourself or let go of those guilty feelings. Grace, mercy and forgiveness are gifts from God, not something you have to earn. You just need to accept what God wants to give you, and then let go of that unnecessary guilt. He wants to set you free.
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