Andy Stanley - Guilt

TOPICS: Guilt, You're Not The Boss Of Me

So today we're in Part Two of the series we just began this past week called You're Not the Boss of Me. And the sub-title kinda says it all and kinda sets the direction for what we're gonna talk about these next few weeks, how, this is kind of a how to series, how to say no to the emotions that compete for control, how to say no to the emotions that compete for control. And if you missed last week, the best way to catch up is make sure you have your local church app 'cause all these messages are on the app. If you're traveling or you don't live in our city, you're not part of one of our churches, you can just go to my YouTube channel. All of this stuff is up there for free, but make sure you catch up because these messages are sequential and they kind of build on each other.

Now, I don't know if you've ever read one of these, but every once in a while they do surveys and they ask people a question something like this. They say, what would you do, what would you do if you knew you could get away with it? What would you do if you knew you could get away with it, you wouldn't be caught, there wouldn't be any consequences, you'd just get off Scott free, what would you do? And the answers, if you've ever read one of these surveys, the answers are terrifying, they're terrifying. Forget the millionaire next door. You have no idea who lives next door to you and what they would do if they knew they could get by with it.

So, to kinda get us moving in the same direction today as we talk about what I wanna talk about for the next few minutes, I want you to turn to someone, preferably someone you don't know and I want you to answer this question. What would you do if you knew you could get away with it? What would you? Just kidding, please don't do that because we don't even wanna know. In fact, we could probably guess. We already know that when the external filters are off, when the fear is gone, when we know we can't get caught, what happens in those moments and what happens in these surveys, this is what makes it so terrifying, is that our hearts are exposed. All of a sudden people discover what's in there. They just hadn't thought about it. And the people asking the questions discover what's in there and they're not even sure they wanna hear about it.

In fact, when I asked the question a few minutes ago something terrible came to your mind, didn't it? Horrible, yes, you're in church and it came to your mind. You couldn't even say I'm not gonna think about it now, I'm in church or I'm gonna listen to a preacher, right, it just popped up, right? And because of our childhood and our culture and because we're responsible people we learn to monitor our behavior like I said last time, in order to get jobs and get dates and get second dates and preferably second dates with the same person over and over. So, we learn to monitor our behavior, but no one's ever taught us, in fact we're not even encouraged to monitor what's going on in our hearts. In fact, worse than that, our culture often times encourages us to follow our hearts. Is that a good idea? It all depends upon what's in there. Jesus had this to say. He said this, don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? To which we say, yes, we see that.

In fact, we literally see that. And now that he has our attention he says this, but, the things that come out of a person's mouth, in those unguarded moments, even sometimes in those guarded moments, the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart. What comes out comes out because it's in there. And these things that come out defile them. That is, these things that come out put them at odds with God because the things that come out often times put us at odds with people and the best way to be at odds with God is to offend people or to hurt people that God loves. And then, Jesus went on and said this. For, and this is such a brilliant observation that it took us many, many millennia really or centuries to kinda figure out in terms of psychological terms. He says this. For out of the mouth, out of the heart rather, come evil thoughts, he kinda equates the heart with our thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person. He says, it's not what you put into your body that defiles you. It's what comes out because what comes out hurts other people and what comes out is what's already in there and where is it? He said it's in our heart and all of these actions and all of these words begin with a thought. They begin with something that's already in us.

Now this explains something all of us have experienced. This explains why seemingly and otherwise very nice people suddenly do or suddenly unexpectedly say horrific things. In fact, if you're dating someone right now, just a little sidebar information for you if you're dating someone right now, who on occasion does things or says things that seem to be out of character, especially when they are under pressure, you should pay attention to that. And when they say, oh, I don't know where that came from. You just lean in and say, well I do. It came from your heart. The reason it came out is because that's what's in there. This is a really, really, really big deal especially if you're in a serious relationship. Or, let me describe it this way. Shaking this glass container or tipping this glass container over does not determine what comes out. What is already in here determines what comes out of here. More importantly, does anyone on the front row want a Skittle? You probably don't.

Let me say that again. Shaking this does not determine what comes out of here. Shaking this exposes what is already in here. And so it is with you, and so it is with me, and so it is with us, and so it is with the people that you're in a relationship with and if you are moving toward a very serious relationship, a romantic relationship, pay attention to what comes out in those unguarded moments because again, we're all guarded. We've all learned to be on our best behavior, but what comes out of us is what's in us and it's something we all need to pay attention to.

So, bottom line is we should heed Solomon's advice. Solomon was the king of Israel, lived way, way, way long time before Jesus and he made a whole bunch of extraordinary statements in this document called Proverbs that's part of the Jewish scripture and part of the Christian scripture and here's what he said. He said, above all else, and this is the most important thing you can do, I mean this is an extreme statement. Above everything else, and he talks about so many other things, but he says above all those things, even the things I've written about, guard your heart. Why? Because everything you do, everything you do, everything you say, ultimately flows from it.

So, in addition to monitoring your behavior we're all pretty good at that, right. In fact, today you will sit in rows and listen to me talk and think about something entirely different, most of you. It's okay, you're daydreaming, except now you're not 'cause I said that, right. But, you've learned to behave yourself. We all have learned to behave ourself. Solomon says it goes beyond behavior. Jesus says it goes beyond behavior. We have to learn to monitor our hearts because what's in here, what's in here, is eventually gonna be out there. Think about this. What your parents, what your parents carried in their hearts eventually spilled out on each other and ultimately spilled out on you. And as we said last time, what's in your heart, what's in my heart, what's in our hearts will eventually spill out on those who are closest to us. So, this is a big, big, big deal.

Now movin' on. Guarding our hearts, guarding our hearts involves a couple of things. Guarding our hearts involves cleaning the toxins out because we got some yucky stuff in our heart. Our hearts don't, many of our hearts don't look like this, right, it's not all sweet, is it? Guarding our heart involves cleaning out some toxins as well as keeping them out and that's what this series is all about. So I'd like to begin with one particular thing that all of us need to know what to do with that many of us have in our hearts. In fact, I think, I'm sure all of us carry a little bit of this. The question is, is it the boss of us? And what do we do with this thing that resides in us because we've lived long enough to accumulate some of it?

Today I wanna talk about this word, guilt. Guilt. Guilt is the emotion, because it is an emotion. You feel guilt, right, or you should when you're guilty. Guilt is the emotion that's associated with acknowledging, and we're gonna talk about that, when we've done something wrong. It's the emotion associated when we acknowledge, when it comes to our mind, that we've done something wrong. And there's lots of different kinds of guilt. There's false guilt, that is, you feel guilty and you're not guilty, you feel bad about something that you either didn't do or you feel bad about doing something that wasn't even a big deal. That's false guilt. We're not gonna talk about that today.

The guilt that we're most associated with and that we're most concerned with today is the guilt associated because you are guilty. You did something wrong. You did something wrong to someone and you've hurt someone and you rehearse it and over time if you're not careful, what you did in the past begins to define you. And then, there's the guilt that is real because we did something, but we don't feel it most of the time. There's the guilt that it was so bad, what we did was so bad in that season in that relationship, in that job, whatever it might be, and we did it, we're guilty, but it is so terrifying and it's so overwhelming that we just stuff it, we stuff it, we stuff it. We know we're guilty. And then every once in a while it comes looming up and when it does we all do the same thing.

We retreat to the narrative that we have created that allows us to carry our guilt without it overwhelming us, and we all have a narrative. The narrative goes like this. Well, it wasn't just me. Well, they participated as well. Well, I was only 20, okay I was 25, but I was only in my 20s, right. Well I was a college freshman. Well, it was my first job. Well, I didn't really know any better. My dad was that way and my grandfather was that way. I bet Adam was that way. I mean, yes I'm guilty. Yes, I did it, but we create a narrative and the narrative allows us to distance ourself from our actual guilt and we suppress it. Here's the thing and here's why we're gonna talk about this as uncomfortable as it is. Denying it, denying it well or excusing it, denying it or being defined by it always empowers it and guilt throws you and throws me off balance.

And when guilt throws us off balance in our relationships, especially the relationships most important to us, guilt becomes the boss of us and here's why. Because guilt creates what I refer to as a debt/debtor relationship, a debt/debtor relationship. Guilt creates a debt/debtor relationship within us, between us and ourselves and between us and other people. Every single wrong, and here, this is so important of where we're going in the series, every single wrong you've ever committed against another person there was a sense in which you took something from them. You stole something from them. It could've been a childhood. It could've been their time. It could be money. It could be reputation. It could be their self esteem. But every time you do something wrong to another person you take something from them. And because you took something from them, either something physical or mental or psychological or there are lots of different realms we take things from people when we hurt people. We create this disparity within them. When we take something from them we owe them.

So, there's this debt/debtor relationship. In fact, we even have, we've created terminology for this. We use it all the time. We say, I owe her an apology. I owe her, I took something and now I need to give her something back. I can't give her back what I took exactly. I can't give her the time back. I can't give her the life back. I can't give her the self esteem back. I can't give her her husband back. I can't give her the time with her children back. But, I owe her something. Or, I don't know how I can make it up to them. Somehow I owe them, I'm in debt to them. But here's the trick and here's what makes this so difficult. We don't experience guilt as debt. We don't experience guilt as debt. We experience guilt as a weight, a weight that throws us off balance.

In fact, some of you because of your unresolved guilt that we're gonna talk about in just a minute, you are off balance in your parenting. You over parent or you're a permissive parent as you're responding to something in your past, you are too aggressive in your relationships, you're too timid in your relationships, your ability to forgive, your ability to love, we're off balance because of this debt/debtor relationship and because we experience it as a weight, an unnecessary weight that throws us off balance, specifically in our relationship to ourselves and our relationship to other people. Again, we have terminology for this. When you finally resolve the guilt, when you finally get rid of guilt, how do you feel? This is the terminology we use. We say, you know what? I just feel like a weight has been lifted off of me.

But here's the other tricky thing about guilt. We carry the weight everywhere we go. You may have picked up your weight at work, but then you brought it home. You may have picked up your guilt weight in college, but then you took it into the next season of life. You may have picked up your weight of guilt on a business trip, but then you brought it back home to your city. Your guilt, my guilt, it travels with us. And if we don't resolve it and if we don't connect some dots that we're gonna do in just a few minutes, guilt evolves into something very different and something very sinister. Guilt evolves into anger because at the end of the day, you're angry with yourself. And I'm angry with myself. I did not live up to my expectations. And the problem with anger is that anger leaks. You've disappointed you, but now you're constantly disappointed with the people who are closest to you. You didn't live up to your expectations and now nobody else can live up to your expectations either.

See, guilty people don't feel the debt/debtor relationship. Guilty people feel the weight and the weight throws us off balance. But here's the really difficult part of this and then I'm gonna get off this psychology thing and I'm gonna tell you something that Jesus said. This is so powerful. Here's the last thing on this. Guilty people, guilty people, and we're all guilty. Guilty people rarely ever make this connection. Guilty people rarely ever make the connection between their guilt and their anger. They are rarely able to put their finger on the source of their fury and when anybody ever points it out they are quick, or you are quick, to point out what's wrong in the other person. And consequently, their failures, my failures, your failures, disappear into the recesses of our hearts while everybody else's failures are so plain and evident to see.

Now, there's a really good reason why we don't wanna face our guilt. There's a really good reason why we suppress it, why we come up with a narrative, why we have a story, why we sand off the rough edges and why we don't just face it and embrace it. Because to face it and to embrace it leaves us with no recourse, it leaves us standing condemned. There's no recourse. There's no way to undo the past. You can't go back and be a freshman again, right. We can't undo, we can't unsay, you can't unleave, you can't be un-unfaithful. You can't undrink too much. You can't unwork too much. You can't return child's childhood. You can't return his or her first marriage.

So again, we create a narrative and we just try to move on. Except you can't really do that either because your past, your past, my past, the past, was not designed to be left completely behind. It's your story. It's part of your story and as much as we wanna distance ourself from it if you don't resolve it, it travels with you.

Here's the great news and here's why I thought I would spend the first 10 minutes depressing you as much as I possibly could and bringing back to mind all those things you never wanted to think about again, you do not have to be defined by your past and neither do you have to spend this season of your life denying your past. There is a third option that Jesus offered and someone who experienced this third option in a way that we can't even begin to imagine is the one that put it into words best. The apostle Paul wrote something I wanna read to you in just a minute, but real quickly, this is so important, when I read what I'm about to read that he wrote, if you grew up in church, I don't want you to hear me reading the Bible. And if you didn't grow up in church and you don't have much use for the Bible, I definitely don't want you to hear me reading the Bible.

What I want you to hear are the words of a man who had more regret than everybody in this room combined, a man who carried more guilt than everybody in your room combined, a man who carried more guilt and more regret than we can even begin to imagine. This was not theory for him. This wasn't preacher talk. This wasn't, well, what can we put in the Bible? I've got an idea. This is a man whose life experiences left him so broken and so ashamed and so guilty, because the apostle Paul steps onto the pages of history, as most of you know, as Saul of Tarsus and Saul of Tarsus began arresting, torturing and in some cases, imprisoning and in some cases, executing innocent men and women in the name of God. And later in his life he would face the parents of children he'd arrested. He would face the children of parents he'd arrested and have executed. Later in his life he was engulfed and immersed in the very community of people whose fathers and sons and cousins and aunts and sisters and mothers and daughters he had had arrested, imprisoned and executed in the name of God.

I can't imagine the horror, the terror. He heard the screams and he had regret we can't even imagine and here's the amazing thing about his story. He didn't deny his guilt. He didn't sand off the rough edges of his guilt. He documented it. We know his story because he tells us his story. But instead of allowing it to define him and instead of spending every minute of his day trying to distance himself from it and deny it, the apostle Paul, when he became a Jesus follower, he discovered this third way. And so, in a letter he wrote to Christians living in Nero's Rome, here's what he wrote and here's what he wrote to them. And here's what he wrote for you.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation. Therefore, something new has happened. It's a new day, it's a new era. It's a new Covenant. God has done something new and as a result of what God has done there is therefore now no condemnation. There is a space, there is a place, there is a space, there is a place where the actual past, where your actual past, is neither forgotten nor condemning. It can be faced, even though it can't be erased. It can be embraced and you can live without condemnation. You no longer have to pretend it didn't happen. You no longer have to live with that narrative that gives you excuses. You can face it and yet not feel the terrifying consequences and condemnation, either self condemnation or condemnation from God.

Where is this space he tells us? Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Those who are willing to face the condemning truth about themselves, acknowledge it to God and surrender to the Lordship or the boss ship of his Son, stand uncondemned and are able to regain their balance. And why is this true? He tells us. He says, because through Christ Jesus, that is through a relationship with Christ Jesus, through embracing everything God through Christ has done for us, through stepping into this new Covenant relationship with God that has different standards and different rules and a different way of thinking and a different relationship with God. He said, through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life, I'll come back to that, has set you free from this other law, the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is simply this, that when you sin you're stuck, that when you hurt somebody you're just guilty and you're guilty forever and there's no way to go back and undo it.

There's nothing you can do about it. You can grovel in it or you can deny it, but you're stuck. Guilt is the boss of you. He says, but the law of the Spirit of Life has set you free from that. How? He says, let me tell you how. For what the law was powerless to do, see, your rules, your personal rules of behavior, how you should've behaved in that relationship, how you should've behaved in that marriage, how you should've behaved at work, how you should've behaved with him, with her, with them, how you should've parented, the law whether it's the federal law, the state law, the municipal law, the laws of marriage, whatever it might be. The only thing laws can do are set the standard as low as we can go and then once we go too low, it simply condemns us and in some cases it punishes us.

But the law can't restore you and the law can't set you free from your past. The law is a constant reminder you're just guilty. Good luck with that. Live with it, deny it, come up with some narrative, but live the rest of your life limpin' around and live the rest of your life off balance. And Paul discovered that when Jesus came to create this brand new kind of relationship with God that God through Christ did something even the best law in the world cannot do, for what the law, the rules, whatever it was that you violated that dinged your conscience, what the law was powerless to do, are you ready for this? This is such good news. God did. How'd he do it? He says, hang on and I'm about to tell you. By, means by which, by sending his own Son, his own perfect Son, who wasn't guilty of anything, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful death, of sinful flesh, and this is so powerful, that God became flesh and dwelt among us.

This is why the fact that God came to live among us in the person of Jesus, this is why this is so extraordinarily important, that God didn't send Jesus down here just to show us how to live, though he did, just to show us how to love, though he did, just to show us what God was like, though he did, he sent him in the form of sinful flesh to take upon himself what you deserved and what I deserved so that we could be free and so that we wouldn't be trapped between either facing it and being defined by it or denying it and living a lie. He said, what the law couldn't do God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering, that at the cross Jesus took what you actually deserved on himself, that at the cross Jesus took exactly, precisely what you actually deserved on himself and do you know what he took on himself?

You say, well, he took my sin, he took your sin. But it's even better than that. He took on himself the condemnation associated with your sin. He took the divine condemnation. He took the self condemnation. He took all the condemnation. And when Paul recognized this and stepped into this and began living this, he said, church, Christians, those of you who are almost as guilty as me, those of you who are less guilty than me, if it's possible, to be more guilty than me, when you step into and receive what God has done for you in Christ, there is no condemnation. He says, come on, bring your guilt to me with your eyes wide open, no stories, no excuses, no narratives, no blaming, and together, God says, together you and I will agree that you are guilty. You actually broke his heart. You actually betrayed her. You lied to get your way. You were irresponsible with your body. You knew better but you did it anyway.

So let's own it. You are guilty. But you are not condemned. God says, when I see you I don't see that and I don't want you to see it either because I want you to see you the way I see you and I don't want it to stop there. I want you to see her the way I see her and I want you to see him the way that I see him. He finishes with this. He says, so, God condemned something, but not you. God actually condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us. You know what that means? That means that God has restored you to guilt less relationship with him in spite of your actual guilt, that God chooses to love you and to listen to you and to relate to you as if it never even happened. You're guilty because you did it. But you're not condemned because Jesus took your guilt upon himself.

Now, is this just a bunch of theological gobble de goop? It's like Andy, I don't even understand what the verses said. You kinda smoozed right over. I know because Paul was very complex in his language. Is this a big deal? This is a really big deal. And this is a really big deal for you and it's a really big deal for everybody close to you. Four big implications I want to share with you real quickly. Because this is true, when you step into a relationship with God through Christ, when you step into this new Covenant relationship that Jesus came to inaugurate for everybody on planet earth that wants to take advantage of it, four things happen.

Number one, you actually forfeit the right to condemn yourself because you are not yours to condemn. Let me say that again. You forfeit, when you become a Christ follower, you give up your right to condemn yourself because you don't belong to you anymore. Guilt is not the boss of you. You don't get to be the boss of you. You got a brand new boss and your boss says you are not condemned. Which means, you can tell that voice of shame, hey, I know I'm feelin' it again, I'm reminded again. In fact, Andy just brought it up in church for me. Yeah, I know, but let me just tell you something shame, let me tell you something, guilt. Yes, I'm guilty, but I'm not condemned. Yes, I'm guilty, but I've lost my right to condemn myself because I have been purchased with a price. I have been purchased with the blood of Christ. I am not my own. I lost my right to condemn myself. Yourself is not condemned because the one who purchased you declares you guilty, it's in the past, it's paid for. You are not condemned.

Number two, your guilt will remind you, but it will not define you. You did it, but you are not what you did. God condemned sin, he did not condemn you. Your past, this is what's so powerful, and this is where I hope that all of you can get and all of us can get and I know the process I had to go through to get here personally. This is not you, you, you, you, you. This is us, us, us, us, us. You can imagine to stand up here week after week after week and tell everybody how to live their life and tell everybody what God want's 'em to do. Can you imagine that when my past rises up how big and ugly and awful it gets especially in comparison to what I do for a living? Your past, this is what makes it so powerful, your past, your guilt, your worst sin, your worst day ever, your worst spring break ever, your worst moment ever, becomes a pivot point for you, not to condemn yourself, but to look up in gratitude for God.

One day Jesus was teaching and at the end of a little encounter with a woman who embarrassed his guest, the people who were hosting him, he said, look, the person who is forgiven the most loves the most. The more you've been forgiven, the more you have in your past to be embarrassed of, the more that there is that you hope nobody finds out about, but suddenly you're free to talk about it. He says the more of the stuff like that there is the more your capacity is, the greater your capacity is to love and the greater your capacity is to be grateful. In fact, sometimes when you're in church and there's a man or a woman somewhere around you and the songs playing and their hands are up in the air, one hand's up in the air and they're just weeping and you think. I guarantee you that's somebody with a story and when they see certain lyrics and when they hear certain lyrics and they hear certain songs they are reminded that I am forgiven. That is not who I am. Where would I be, how badly would I be off balance if it weren't for the grace and the love and the cross? Because your past is a pivot point to look up and to express your extraordinary gratitude to God.

Number three. You forfeit the right to condemn others because that would make you a hypocrite. When you finally get this you forfeit the right to size folks up and just write 'em off. In fact, I would just say this. My experience is this. The more judgmental you are the less aware you are of your own sin. In fact, the more judgmental you are the more likely it is that you have some big sin, that you've created a narrative for and all that energy and all that guilt that you've never faced up to, it's just gone somewhere else. Because the people who are confronted with and embrace and face their past and their failures and bring them eyes wide open to God, they find it almost impossible to judge anyone else or to condemn anyone else because they know what a hypocrite that would make them. You are perfectly positioned when you get this, you are perfectly positioned to love the unlovable. You are perfectly positioned to forgive the unforgivable. After all, you freely received. How could you not freely give? Look, that one idea changed the world once. Last one is this.

Now, you're free to make restitution without expectations and without excuses. Let me tell you what's not Christianity. Christianity is not this. I hurt you. I betrayed you, then I went home and I asked God to forgive me and now things are good. That's not Christianity. That's somethin' else. Christianity is this. I hurt you. I face my guilt. I ask God to forgive me and he gave me what I don't deserve so the least I can do is come back to you and give you what you do deserve, that's Christianity. Your new Covenant, your new Covenant marching orders is to love as you have been loved and God in his perfection humbled himself through Christ to give you what you don't deserve. How dare we not go back and make restitution to the people that we have hurt. But, when we go back we don't go back with our narrative. We don't go back with our excuses. We don't go back with our stories. We make restitution freely because of what God has done for us freely.

In fact, it's gonna be a whole 'nother sermon, I'll just mention it and move on. Your restitution, your apology, your willingness to go back and confront the person, not confront, but approach the person that you hurt, the person you took from, the person you robbed a childhood from, the person that you whatever you did, your willingness to go back may unlock a vault of bitterness that's been eating them alive from the inside. Your willingness to step into this new kind of Covenant relationship with God where you bring all that junk up and say, I did it, I'm guilty, no excuses, but I am accepting the fact that in you not only am I forgiven, I am not condemned, I'm not gonna condemn myself. In fact, every time I remember my past it's gonna remind me of how much you love me. I'm not gonna condemn myself. I'm not gonna condemn others and now I'm free to go back and make restitution and approach the people that I've hurt and I'm not gonna make excuses and I'm not gonna say yeah, but you had a part and yeah, I was young. I'm just gonna go back.

And it's possible that your humility as you model the humility of Christ may be the thing that allows them to deal with stuff in their heart that they don't know what to do with. So I hate to ask you this question, but maybe this is the reason you're watching today. Is somebody waiting for you to make the first move? Is somebody waiting for you to make the first move? Is there somebody from your past and they're carrying the shrapnel of what you did to them or around them or what you didn't do for them? And they're just hoping and waiting, they think it'll never happen because they've written you off and you've gone on and you're successful. You live in a different state. You got remarried. You got a second family. You've gone on, you've got a new job. You know, they think you don't even have a conscience, it hasn't bothered you a bit. And they're churning on the inside.

Is there someone waiting on you to make the first move? Is your pride keepin' you from makin' it? Is pride the boss of you? Jesus humbled himself for you and now you're free to humble yourself for others. So, are you ready to stop tellin' yourself that same old story? Are you ready to stop the excuses? Are you ready to get honest with God and maybe get honest with others? I understand the tension. We fear the consequences of confession more than the consequences of concealment and this is a mistake, because this just makes shame and guilt and denial the boss of you. My past will remind me, it will not define me.

I want all of us, even if you don't think this message is for you, to read this out loud together. Are you ready? My past will remind me, it will not define me. One more time: My past will remind me, it will not define me. And then, all together, ready? Guilt, you are not the boss of me. I'm gonna face my past. I'm gonna own it. You're not gonna control me any more. It's embarrassing, but embarrassment, you're not the boss of me either. I have a relationship with God where I can find a place where I am no longer condemned and guilt, you've never offered me that. Shame, you have never offered me that. Embarrassment, you have never offered me that. Pride, you have never offered me that. Only through Christ, only in Christ can I stand guilty, but not condemned. So, here's some good news. If you're having a hard time forgiving yourself the good news is this. Your self has already been forgiven. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because what the law could not do God already did. And now, he invites you to step in to it.