GENESIS 45:1-8 STOP FEELING GUILTY2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Genesis 45:1-8 Stop Feeling Guilty

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015. Well, this morning, as we look at Genesis chapter 45, verses 1 through 8, I want to encourage you to stop feeling guilty.

Stop feeling guilty. This is something that God wants you to hear, to receive, and to live by today. We, on Wednesday, are going through the book of Romans, and we saw chapter 2 this last Wednesday, where Paul was talking about the conscience and making the case that every one of us

Jew, Gentile, believer, unbeliever, educated, uneducated, we all have a conscience. It's something that God has placed in us and established in us that we might know right from wrong. And because we all have a conscience, well, we all know what it is like to experience guilt.

Guilt is that awareness of wrongdoing and often accompanied by feelings of shame and regret. And we all know what that's like because we are all guilty of, well, quite a bit of things. And so we have this sense of guilt.

And oftentimes we carry this sense of guilt for way too long. And it's something that I believe God wants to speak to us about this morning and help us be delivered from.

One of the reasons why we carry about guilt so much is because of the society in which we live. And sometimes we get persuaded by the agenda of the world around us, which is seeking to declare that, well, what God says is wrong is not actually wrong.

And so you can do these things. They're normal. They're expected. They're not wrong. And the only reason why you feel like they're wrong is because your parents told you that or old religion declared that, but it's not actually wrong. And they try to persuade us that we don't have to listen to what God says. Now, even when we buy into that agenda in our minds, our conscience is not fooled. And so we engage in those activities, right?

And we find that we still feel guilty, even though we try to convince ourselves that it's okay to practice those things. But the reality is we're still feeling guilty because it's not okay. And God is letting us know through that sense of guilt that we need to address it, that something needs to change. And we're going to look at this morning in this passage, Genesis chapter 45, not focusing really on Joseph,

but focusing on the brothers of Joseph. Now the brothers of Joseph had did a great evil against him. They had betrayed him and sold him into slavery where he went to Egypt and through a course of events being a slave, then being imprisoned, but then by God's providence, he is now the second in command of all Egypt and

And his brothers have come to him for food because of the great famine that is going on. And they've come and they've gone and then they've come back now the second time. They don't know it's Joseph, but here in Genesis chapter 45, Joseph reveals himself to them. And as he does, we get to see evidence of the guilt that the brothers feel for what they did in selling Joseph into slavery.

And so we'll be looking at three points this morning out of Genesis chapter 45, verses 1 through 8, again, with the idea that God wants us to stop feeling guilty. The first point we'll look at in verses 1 through 5, and that is that feelings of guilt do not go away with time.

They don't go away just because time is passing. Look with me again, please, at verse 1. It says, Verse 2. And the house of Pharaoh heard it.

And so here they come before Joseph once again, and Joseph is overwhelmed.

He's been hiding who he really is in order to deal with his brothers, but now he can't take it anymore. And so he cries out for all the people in his presence to go, and he's left alone with his brothers to reveal himself to them. Well, as he does...

The brothers have a hard time believing it. And as they begin to believe it, they're really freaked out. And so notice verse 5. Verse 5 is the key here. It says, He tells the brothers, do not therefore be grieved.

In this idea, as he commands them not to be grieved or angry with themselves, we understand the guilt that they are experiencing. This word grieve, it means to be in pain.

He says, do not be in pain. It's a term that speaks to both physical and mental discomfort. And guilt affects us in both ways, both in our minds and actually in our bodies. And so he says, do not be grieved. Do not be in pain mentally, physically over what you've done to me. And he also says, and do not be angry with yourselves.

You can imagine as they are coming face to face with the one that they had sold into slavery, there's probably a whole lot of emotions going through them. They rejoice to see him, but they're terrified of him because he's very powerful now and in charge and he could take revenge against them. But they're also feeling that regret, that anger at themselves for what they did.

This word, to be angry, it means to burn, to glow with anger. And so there's this idea of this stirring up of anger that could be welling up within them. And Joseph says, don't let that happen. It's actually a command that he's giving them, or you could also look at it as permission that he's granting them. He is expressing here his forgiveness towards his brothers.

He's saying, I'm giving you permission. I'm instructing you not to be angry with yourselves over what you did to me, over selling me into slavery. Don't be angry with yourself. Now, these brothers had carried this sense of guilt for quite a while. When they sold Joseph into slavery, he was probably about 17 years old.

Back in Genesis chapter 37, Joseph had those dreams about his brothers bowing down to him. And it caused them to be very jealous of him, along with their father being, you know, showing favoritism towards Joseph. And so he was about 17 years old, and they wanted to get rid of him. So they sold him into slavery. Now, since that time, about 20 years have passed, possibly 22 years to Genesis chapter 45.

Joseph at this time is 39 years old. He, over this past 20 years, has been a slave. He's been falsely accused and imprisoned for many years. But then through God's hand and what God was doing through the midst of it, he has raised up Joseph to be second in command of all Egypt. And as Joseph is second in command, he's going to be the second in command of all Egypt.

Well, he prepares Egypt for the great famine that is coming. And there was seven good years, and then the famine started. Now, this is two years into that famine. So again, about 22 years have passed. They have carried this burden. They've carried this guilt for 20 years, and it's still very real to them. It hasn't subsided just because 20 years have passed.

But actually, they are still feeling the guilt as if it had just happened. Would you turn back a couple pages with me to Genesis chapter 42? And you'll see an example of that there. Real quick, Adam, could you restart the presenter for me, please?

Genesis chapter 42, this is earlier in the account when Joseph's brothers come to buy food and Joseph is challenging them and giving them a hard time. And as they're experiencing this hard time, they say in verse 21, it says,

And so when they encountered some difficulty, when they encountered trouble, they said, oh man, this is because of what we did to Joseph. This is because of what happened when we sold him into slavery. Again, this is 20 years later, but when they have a hard time, when something difficult happens, they say,

They say, you know what? This is because of that. We're getting paid back for what we did to Joseph. And then in verse 22, it says that Reuben answered and said, did I not speak to you saying, do not sin against the boy and you would not listen? Therefore, behold, his blood is now required of us.

And so Reuben says, see, I told you so. I told you that we should not sell him into slavery or should not harm him. And so you get the sense that this has been going on for 20 years. They're still feeling guilty. And whenever something bad happens, they're feeling guilty over what took place. They're feeling guilty about what happened. And they're blaming their current circumstances on that. And so they are experiencing this guilt again.

even though 20 years have passed. Now, you know what it's like to feel guilt. Let's see if I, I still don't have it. Network problems. All right. You know what it's like to feel guilt. We're going to scratch the presentation, I guess. And guilt doesn't feel good. Now, David, the king in the Old Testament, the psalmist, he, of course, had some experience with guilt and doing wrong. And

he describes a sense of guilt that he had in Psalm chapter 38. You don't have to turn there, but let me read to you some of what David described, what was going on with him as he was experiencing some guilt. In Psalm chapter 38, verse 3, he says, "'There is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin, for my iniquities have gone over my head.'"

Like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness. I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the day long, for my loins are full of inflammation, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and severely broken. I groan because of the turmoil of my heart."

I think that we can all relate to what David is describing there. That sense of guilt that overwhelms us, that weighs upon us, the wounds being foul and festering because of our foolishness. We're familiar with that. He says, I'm feeble and severely broken. He describes this guilt and it's something that we can relate to. It doesn't feel good and it's not good for us.

Studies have been done to examine the effects of guilt upon us. And it does affect not just, it's not just a spiritual thing, but it affects your mind. It affects your body. There's, you know, mental issues that develop as this guilt is prolonged.

There's physical conditions that develop as this guilt is carried and prolonged. It produces this extra stress and trouble within us. And it's, you know, linked to heart conditions and situations that our body is deteriorating and our mind is deteriorating. And there's lots of evidence to show that it links back to this great sense of guilt that we have.

Now, because we have this guilt and because we don't like how it feels, we, well, we try to stop feeling guilty. We try to deal with it. And there's wrong ways to deal with guilt. Some of the ways that we do it incorrectly is, well, we try to pretend like nothing happened. We go into denial, try to imagine or pretend like, you know, we didn't do anything wrong. Or we try to blame something or someone.

And so we try to pass off our guilt onto somebody else and try to convince ourselves that it really wasn't our fault. We're not to blame. Somebody else is to blame. Of course, you know that started all the way back in the garden, right? Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. It was what they did to alleviate the sense of guilt that they had.

Others try to drown out the guilt that they have, you know, with intoxication, entertainment, you know, pursuing all kinds of different things to distract them from this guilt that they feel. Sometimes we try to deal with our guilt by doing good works. And so in doing so, we try to, you know, pay back the wrong that we did by making up for it with good behavior or doing good things.

And then others will even take it farther and do worse things in an attempt to get punished so that then they'll feel better because they'll feel like they've received some penalty for the guilt that they feel. Those are not good ways to deal with guilt, but those are ways that we often try. The correct way to deal with guilt, there's two things. Number one, confess your sins.

We try to get away from it. We try to ignore it. We try to explain it away. We try to do all kinds of things. The thing that we would think would not help with our guilt is the thing that God has designed to help with our guilt, and that is confession. David, in Psalm chapter 32, talks about this. He says in verse 1, "'Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.'"

He goes on to describe again some more effects of sin. He says, And then he says in Psalm chapter 32 verse 5,

I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. David says, I acknowledged my sin to you. My bones were growing old. I was overwhelmed. I was burdened by this guilt. And then I acknowledged my sin. And he says, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. You forgave me.

Now, we also have this carried on into the New Testament, right? In 1 John 1, verse 9, John tells us, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we confess, he is faithful to cleanse us. And so to deal with our guilt, it starts with confessing our sin, acknowledging our sin, accepting the blame for our sin.

accepting the responsibility, not trying to cast it off on somebody else, not trying to ignore it or pretend like it's not there, not trying to convince God that what we did wasn't wrong, but just owning it and acknowledging it before God and saying, God, you're right. What I did was completely wrong. It was my responsibility. It was my fault. Confession.

is how we stop feeling guilty. Then the second thing is repentance. First, we confess our sin, and then we repent of our sin. The word repentance, it means to stop practicing that sinful thing. It reminded me of the woman who was caught in adultery in John chapter 8. You might remember this situation where the religious leaders...

grabbed this woman and threw her in front of Jesus. And they tell Jesus, here's this woman. She's caught in the very midst, caught in the very act of adultery. The law tells her, or the law tells us, that she needs to be put to death. And they look at Jesus and say, what do you say? She's guilty, Jesus. She deserves death. What do you say? They were trying to trap Jesus.

And Jesus ignores them. And they get infuriated and they challenge him. What do you say? And he says, well, let whoever is without sin cast the first stone. And he bends down and he begins to write on the sand. And it doesn't tell us what he wrote on the sand. But as he wrote on the sand, the crowd, one by one, begins to walk away. And it tells us from the oldest to the youngest. And so it seems like Jesus is writing down

what they're guilty of. So they're acknowledging, I'm not without sin. I can't cast the first stone. Until the very end where it's just Jesus and the woman. And he says to her, woman, where are your accusers? Does no one condemn you? And she says, no, no one condemns me. And in John 8, verse 11, Jesus says to her, neither do I condemn you. He says, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. This is repentance.

Jesus says, I'm not going to condemn you either. You are guilty, but I'm not going to condemn you. But go and stop practicing that. Don't live in that any longer. Don't continue on in sin. And so in order to address our guilt, we need to, first of all, confess our sin, and then secondly, repent of our sin. And in doing this, well, it's the first step, really, of dealing with the guilt that we have. Now,

Joseph goes on here in Genesis 45, and he doesn't tell them just to stop feeling guilty. He also tells them why, and this is really helpful for us as we have to deal with or try to deal with the guilt that we have. It brings us now to the second point. Again, looking at verse 5 and then on to verse 8, point number one, by the way, was feelings of guilt do not go away with time. Now, point number two, you have good reason to stop feeling guilty.

You have good reason to stop feeling guilty. And that's what Joseph explains to his brothers. Look again at verse five. He says, but now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you to preserve life.

For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt."

Here is Joseph addresses his brothers. He makes it clear that he is not pressing charges against them. He says, I give you permission to stop feeling guilty. Don't be grieved. Don't be angry with yourselves. But here's why you can do that. And Joseph goes on to explain that really it's been God who's in control of all of these things. And he says three times, God is the one who sent me here.

You didn't send me here. God sent me here. Notice in verse 5, at the end, he says, for God sent me before you. And then in verse 7, and God sent me before you. And then in verse 8, so it was not you who sent me here, but God. And Joseph is explaining here that God is on the throne and he is in control and God has worked out their sinfulness to accomplish something great.

Now, this is a hard truth. And sometimes it's hard for us to accept and it's hard for us to believe, especially because, well, we usually cannot see the whole picture. Again, it's one thing to read it, you know, in the scriptures that we know the story from front to back. But in our own lives, often we don't get to see the end result of all the things that God is doing. And yet in the midst of wherever we are,

We need to be able to look and recognize that God is on the throne and he is in control. And so Joseph is able to tell his brothers, you thought you were doing that and you did wrong in doing that. But God used that wrong to do something good. We have a similar verse that we look to in Romans chapter 8 verse 28. It's a verse we quote often because it's a great promise.

There Paul says, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. He says, here's what we know. Everything works together for good. All things, the big things, the little things, the good things, the bad things. God has a way of working out all those things together for good. Now that's pretty amazing. How can God do that? How could he work out

our deficiencies, our failures, our rebellions, how could he work that out for good? I picture it kind of like a painting. If you were able to walk up behind God and there he is painting a masterpiece and you in your sinfulness decide, you know, I'm gonna mess up that painting. And so you just mess it up. You take some paint, you're splattering, take a knife, you cut out pieces of the canvas because you're sinful. Then God says,

is able to take that mess that you've made of his painting and he incorporates that into this masterpiece that he's creating. God is able to take the mess and make it a masterpiece because he's that big, because he's that good, because he is God and he's on the throne. He works all things together for good. And so you have good reason to stop feeling guilty. First of all, you need to confess. You also need to repent.

But a lot of times, once you've done that, although as far as God is concerned, you're no longer guilty, but you'll carry on that sense of guilt, even though you've been forgiven. And so you need to know, you need to remember that God is able to work all things together for good, to help you deal with that sense of guilt that is no longer real. You still feel it, and so you need to be reminded, yes, you failed, right?

Let's not try to pretend like it never happened. But let's acknowledge that the mess that you've made isn't the final part of the story. But God's going to incorporate that mess and make it a masterpiece. And he's going to work it together for good. Now, sometimes we will be tempted then with a wicked thought. And that is, if everything works out for good, then why not just live however we want? Why not go ahead and practice sin? Because God's going to work it out for good.

Now that's a wicked thought, but we will be tempted with it. But the condition that Paul gives there in Romans 8, verse 28 is, all things work together for good to those who love God and who are the called according to his purpose. And so as long as we're loving God and not just, you know, saying the words, I love God, but actually living out a life of love towards God, his promise is that he will take all those mistakes, all those failures, all those terrible things that we've done, and

and work something good out of them, just like he did in Joseph's life with Joseph's brothers. If Joseph's brothers had not sold Joseph into slavery, God would have worked out this whole scenario some other way, I think, because God's plan was to bring his people into Egypt for a time to develop them as a nation.

And so Joseph could have gone to Egypt on his own. He could have been kidnapped by the Ishmaelites without his brothers being involved. Anything could have happened. God could have worked it out any other way. My point in bringing that up is, so Joseph's brothers were part of getting Joseph to Egypt and they were guilty as a result. And so for 20 years, they've been carrying that burden. Now, if they hadn't have done that,

then Joseph probably would have still been to Egypt. God would have still done that, but they would have been delivered from having to carry that guilt for that great amount of time. And so it's a wicked thought to say, well, hey, if God works out everything for good, why not just do bad and God will work it out for good? Well, even if he does, because you love him, he will, you can save yourself a lot of hurt and a lot of pain, a lot of agony, if you will not continue to practice sin.

That's why God calls it sin and tells us to stop doing it, because it's hurtful, it's painful, it's destructive. And so you have good reason to stop feeling guilty, because God is able to take all your failures, all your mistakes, all of your sin, and work it out for good. Feelings of guilt do not go away with time. You've got to confess. You need to repent.

Sometimes though the feelings will linger. And so you need to know that you have good reason to stop feeling guilty because God works all things together for good. But those feelings will come back up from time to time. And so the third point this morning is to stop feeling guilty for good. Stop feeling guilty ongoing. Look with me at verse 24 here of Genesis 45.

Here, Joseph, he's reconciled with his brothers. He's sending them back to their dad to bring back the family to live in Egypt. But as he's sending them on their way, it says in verse 24, he sent his brothers away and they departed. And he said to them, see that you do not become troubled along the way. That word troubled, it means to quake, to be disquieted, to be excited or perturbed. He's not worried about

bandits, or he's not talking about that kind of thing. He's talking about their hearts. He's saying, as you go back, there's going to be the temptation to start feeling guilty again. I've already expressed to you my forgiveness. I've already expressed to you that God has worked this out for good. But as you go back, you're going to want to be troubled. But see that you don't become troubled.

Pay attention and take care. Don't let yourself go to that place again where you carry the burden of guilt for what you did. It's going to be brought back up and there's going to be a temptation to carry on that guilt, but don't do it. Joseph knew they would struggle in letting go of this guilt. So he tells them to let go, but we find that Joseph's brothers actually held on to that guilt and it was brought back up.

Many years later. Would you flip over a few pages to Genesis chapter 50? In Genesis chapter 50, we come to the end of the book of Genesis. And Jacob, the father of Joseph and his brothers, has just died. This is 17 years after what we just read about in Genesis chapter 45.

And in Genesis chapter 50, I want to read to you verse 15 through 21. It says, when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, perhaps Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. So they sent messengers to Joseph saying, before your father died, he commanded saying, thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin for they did evil to you.

Verse 20. Verse 20.

Now, therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones. And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. It's 17 years later, almost 40 years after they had sold Joseph into slavery. But now their father has died and it's stirred up within them again, the sense of guilt, this great fear as a result. Maybe Joseph is going to pay us back.

Maybe he's going to try to make us suffer for what we did to him. So let's come up with a plan. Let's make up a story that dad said, Joseph, your brothers did evil to you, but you should forgive them and don't torture them. Now, Jacob probably would have said that, but it doesn't record it that way that he actually said it. It's that they're trying to make up something to, again, address the guilt that they feel. It's already been addressed, but

17 years earlier, Joseph said, don't be grieved. Don't be angry with yourself. God worked this out for good. But you can see that they were still struggling with it because, well, not only did this fear come back up, but they're sending messengers to Joseph, their brother. They're sending messengers instead of talking to them or talking to him themselves. There's still this disconnect. There's still a break in the relationship.

Not from Joseph's part, he's forgiven them. But because of this sense of guilt. And you see, that's the problem with guilt. Guilt in your life will keep you separated from God even when God has forgiven you. Because it's you removing yourself, keeping yourself. And you can be paralyzed by guilt in your relationship with God. And it affects not just that, it affects your whole life. But specifically in your relationship with God, there's this disconnect, right?

And you can be stuck in a condition of immaturity. You can be withholding yourself from the presence of God. You can be withholding yourself from serving God, from participating in his work, from doing what he's called you to do. He's forgiven you. You confess, you repent. He's faithful and just to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He's forgiven you. But sometimes we hold onto that guilt and we allow that to keep us separate from God.

And sometimes it's 17 years later. It's still affecting us. It's still keeping us separate. Sometimes it's 40 years later. We can carry this for a long time if we don't address it. We need to stop feeling guilty for good. It needs to be permanent. And how do we do that? Well, you got to understand there's different reasons for the feelings of guilt that we have.

Let me run through them really quickly. Number one, you feel guilty because you are guilty. That's the first, that's the most basic, right? You've done something wrong and that's why you feel guilty. And that's when you go to confession. I don't mean go to confession like Catholic church, but you go confess your sin to God and you repent of your sin. You go back to that because you're guilty. And so repent, confess, acknowledge your guilt.

And God forgives you. He's faithful to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. This requires faith. It requires faith. You really have to trust God that he's going to be faithful to his word, that if you acknowledge your sin to him, that he's not going to just strike you down right there, but that he's going to forgive you. It requires faith. You have to trust God and he is faithful to his word. And so you might feel guilty, number one, because you are guilty. Number two, you might feel guilty because your heart condemns you. God doesn't condemn you.

but your heart can condemn you. The apostle John speaks to this in 1 John 3, verse 20. He says, for if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Sometimes your heart is not in sync with reality as far as God is concerned. And this can happen because, well, you see the damage from your sin. You're forgiven when you repent, when you confess. You're forgiven, you're cleansed.

But that doesn't mean that none of the consequences are there and none of the effects are there. No, many times we'll see the consequences of that for years to come. And as we see the damage that we've caused because of our sin, it can stir up within us this sense of guilt where our heart begins to condemn us as we're reminded of what we did. Sometimes there's people around you that are quick to remind you of what you've done.

Because often our sin doesn't just affect us, it hurts the people around us. And not everybody's like Joseph, who says, hey, don't worry about it. I give you permission to stop being angry with yourself. Not everybody is quick to forgive. Not everybody represents the Lord as well as Joseph did. And sometimes people, they got their fingers in our face and they're saying, look what you did to me. Look at the hurt that you caused. Look at what happened. And it can stir up within us

this condemnation, this guilt, and our heart begins to condemn us. But John says, God is greater than our heart. God is greater. And you, you have to trust God. It requires faith, but you might feel guilty because your heart is condemning you when God is not. Thirdly, you might feel guilty because Satan accuses you. The name Satan means accuser or adversary. He's called the accuser of the brethren.

And he loves to stir up guilt within our hearts. And so he'll bring accusations and he'll bring reminders and he'll shoot darts into your mind of condemnation, guilt, because he wants you to get caught up in guilt. He wants you to be overwhelmed because it causes you to be separate, just like Joseph's brothers were with Joseph. Joseph forgave them. They're still not in that relationship the way that they once were.

You might feel guilty because you are guilty, because your heart condemns you, or because Satan accuses you. Now, when you are guilty, you repent and you confess, and you're right before God. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's God's promise. Romans chapter 8 verse 1. No condemnation for a believer in Jesus. But still you might feel guilty from your heart, from Satan, and you have to continue on.

trusting God. It made me think about the Apostle Paul. How did he get over his past behavior? Because before he was known as the Apostle Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus, who was the persecutor of the church, who destroyed people's lives, who went in and attempted to get people to blaspheme the name of Christ and renounce their faith and turn away from Jesus. He tortured people. He was absolutely wicked. How did he

move beyond that? How did he not live out the rest of his life just overwhelmed with guilt, sitting in a corner, not doing anything because of this great burden that he could carry? How did he do that? Well, he talks about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul says, I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

So first you see, Paul doesn't try to pretend like he didn't have that past life. He says, I'm the least. I persecuted the church. I'm not worthy to be called an apostle. He acknowledges his sin. He's not trying to hide it. He's not trying, you know, he didn't change his name so that people wouldn't make the connection. Okay. No, no, shh. Don't, don't call me Saul no more. Call me Paul. I don't want people to know that I used to persecute the church. No, no, no. It wasn't like that.

That's not what was going on. He wasn't trying to pretend like it didn't happen. He wasn't trying to keep it secret. Nobody can know what I did. No, he was opening up front about it. This is who I was. But then in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 10, he says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me.

How did Paul get beyond this sense of guilt over what he had done? He says it here, grace, grace, grace. He trusted in the grace of God. He believed God at his word and received his grace. And so he says, by grace, I am what I am. I'm not worthy to be called an apostle, but by God's grace, I am an apostle. I'm not worthy of it, but God's goodness towards me

resulted in, well, he called me to be an apostle. And then he says, and his grace was not in vain. It wasn't for nothing. It wasn't worthless. Paul says, I wanted to make sure it wasn't worthless. I wanted to make sure that I just didn't get God's grace, get delivered from my sin and my guilt and all those things. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just that, but that I wanted to contribute to

back to God. I wanted to work for God. And so he says, I labored more abundantly than they all. But then he makes sure to point out, yeah, not I, but the grace of God, which was in me. I put God's grace to work, Paul says, to serve God, to accomplish things for his kingdom, because I didn't want his grace towards me to be in vain, to be worthless, to be meaningless. I wanted it to mean something. I

And so I served God more abundantly. And I think that is great insight into how to stop feeling guilty. Number one, you confess your sin. Number two, you repent of your sin. But then as those feelings come back, as you're reminded, as your heart condemns you, as the enemy accuses you, then you press forward in the grace of God, serving God by grace.

Serve God. Live for Him. Devote your life to His purposes. It's not that you're trying to pay back for your wrong. It's trying to make sure that God's grace towards me, He's so good, I want to make it the most it can be. I want to make the most of the goodness that God's given to me. And so I'm going to serve Him and do all that He's called me to do. Don't let guilt paralyze you.

in your relationship with God, in your serving of God. Don't carry it around for 20 years, letting it destroy your mind and your heart. Stop feeling guilty. The enemy wants you to feel guilty. He's the accuser. But for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. There's a difference between condemnation and conviction. Condemnation is that accusation. It's the pronouncement, you are guilty with judgment.

That's what the enemy brings to us. Conviction, on the other hand, it's the same type of thing in that, hey, this is wrong. You're guilty. But condemnation says, get away from God. Stop walking with God. Stay away. You're not worthy. Stop doing anything. Live a miserable life because that's what you deserve. That's condemnation. Conviction says, well, it's like Joseph. When he revealed himself in chapter 45, he said to his brothers, come closer to me.

That's conviction. You're guilty. You sold me into Egypt. Come close to me. That's God's attitude towards us. That's God's heart towards us. Draw near to the Lord. That's his desire. He wants to forgive you. He wants to set you free. He wants you to stop feeling guilty. And so we learn this example from the brothers of Joseph who didn't do it well, but we have great opportunity to do it much better today.

Because we have an incredible Savior, Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for our sin. He received the full penalty that we deserved there on the cross so that we could come to him and be completely forgiven. Another term for that is justified, which means that you are treated by God as if you had never sinned, not even once. Now, this requires faith constantly.

It requires faith to believe, to know that God treats you as if you had never sinned. It requires faith because you know you're guilty. It requires faith because you feel guilty. But God calls you to him. He invites you to relationship with him. He invites you to serve him. He invites you to walk with him as if you had never sinned, not even once in your whole life. That is amazing grace.

And that is the grace that God extends to you and I. We want to conclude the service today with a time of worship. And so the worship team is going to come up and close us in a couple songs. And here's what I'd like for us to do. As you consider this whole idea of feeling guilty and God's call for you to stop feeling guilty, sometimes these things can be buried deep in our hearts. And this may be something that you've struggled with for a long time.

And so I want to offer some help. There's going to be a few people up here available. As they lead us in this song, they would love to pray for you, to join with you in agreement that God would help you to believe him at his word and stop feeling guilty, that God would help you to confess and repent. Now, that doesn't mean you have to come up and tell them everything that's happened in your life. If you want to, they'll listen. But if you want help

in being delivered from the guilt that weighs upon you, then I would invite you anytime during these last two songs that they're gonna do, come on up and receive prayer. Respond as God is speaking to your heart. And even if you've carried it around for 40 years, God can deliver you from that guilt. He can set you free. He can cleanse your heart. That burden, that weight can be lifted if you want God to help you with that.

you can call out to him right where you're at. But if God's prompting your heart and you want help in that, you need some help in that, they're going to be up here and they'd love to pray for you. And so let's worship the Lord together. Let's call out to him. Let's release our guilt, confessing, repenting, receiving the grace of God. And if you want prayer, come on up and they would love to pray with you. Let's worship the Lord together.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.