Understanding Those Guilty Feelings - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, March 14th. How do you tell when guilt is valid or not? Today's podcast helps you distinguish false guilt in part one of Understanding Those Guilty Feelings. When you violate your conscience, how do you feel? You say, well, I feel guilty. Well, do you ever have those guilty feelings when you haven't violated your conscience?

Well, oftentimes people do. They just feel guilty. And if you ask them, well, why do you feel guilty?

They can't really and truly tell you why. Guilt is something all of us have to deal with in our life. And unless we understand the real true nature of guilt, how to handle it, what the source of it is, and what God says about it, it can absolutely devastate a person's life because the consequences of feeling guilty not only affect us, but affect the people who are around us.

And so what I want to talk about this morning in this message is understanding those guilty feelings. And I want you to turn to James, chapter two, and just want us to read one verse in James, because it's not my purpose to expound this particular passage of scripture, but just to mention this particular verse in this second chapter of James. And he says in this tenth verse of James, chapter two, for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. Somebody says, well, that in itself should be enough to make me feel guilty the rest of my life because certainly I have violated God's law and I certainly am guilty. Well, really what he's saying is simply this.

It doesn't take but one. In other words, the law of God is the law of God. One sin makes us a sinner.

And so oftentimes a person may read this verse and say, well, you know, I've sinned against God. I've broken the whole law. I'm guilty of it all. So why could I ever think about not feeling guilty?

So if you talk to someone oftentimes and you say to them, well, how do you feel? So I just feel guilty. Well, what do you feel guilty about? Well, you know what? I'm not really sure. I just feel guilty. Well, when did it start?

It's been there a long time. Well, well, like what? Well, I don't know. I just I just always seem to feel guilty. That is false guilt. That is psychological guilt. That is not a godly guilt.

And so I think a lot of people live under a cloud of guilt. They don't know why. They don't know where it started. They don't know when. They don't know what to do about it.

They just feel that way. And so what I want us to do is to look at this whole issue of guilt and think about in this term, in this light. That is understanding those guilty feelings.

That's the title. Understanding those guilty feelings. Where do they come from? Why are they there?

How do I deal with them? So let's think about this whole idea from one of the three aspects of guilt. And the first is civil guilt. Civil guilt is the fact that I have violated the law, human law. Biblical guilt is I have violated divine law. Psychological guilt is I could have done better. I should have done more.

I failed at this point. And so when you think about it, civil guilt is I violated a law. I went speeding and I got caught or I stole something or whatever it might be. Biblical guilt is violating the law of God.

Remember that. Biblical guilt says you have violated some principle, some law of Scripture. Psychological guilt is false guilt. It's not real.

It does not have a foundation, a biblical foundation or basis. It's a feeling we have, whether it is real or imaginary. Real or imaginary guilt will have the same consequence in a person's being. If I imagine myself and see myself to be guilty even though I'm not in the eyes of God, it'll have the same effect upon me.

And oftentimes it can be devastating to a person or to relationships or whatever it might be. Now, when you think about how it affects us, what I'd like for us to do is to look at this whole idea of guilt from two perspectives. One, from the person who is a non-Christian. And secondly, for those of us who are Christians or are believers in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. So let's think about for a moment the person who is not a believer. And so he or she says, well, I feel guilty, right, because you are guilty.

And here's the reason. The Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. He says, if we say that we have not sinned, we make God alive. So the truth is every single one of us have been guilty of sin against God. The whole world has been declared guilty because everyone has sinned against God. Therefore, when a person who is not a Christian says, well, I feel guilty, I have a right to feel guilty. Well, I'm guilty because here's what I've done, right? Because guilt is a reality in the life of a person who's not a believer. Now, what I want you to think about for a moment is what happens to a person when they sin and therefore they feel guilty.

I want to give you three words. You might want to jot them down because this is the consequence of living in sin. First of all is degradation. And that means something begins to happen inside of a person. That is, their nature is corrupted. When a person is living in sin, their very nature is being corrupted by sin.

So something real is dying on the inside of them continually. And sin is taking its toll and permeating every aspect of their life. And so not only do we have a person who is guilty, who is living in degradation, but they're also living in condemnation.

That is, they are condemned. I want you to turn to one of our favorite passages of Scripture that everybody has, and that's the third chapter of John. And if you'll notice in this third chapter what he says. He says, of course, in John 3 16, we all know that one by heart, but I want you to look at 17 and 18. He says, for God did not send the Son of the world to judge or condemn, is the same Greek word, condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him, that is in Christ, is not judged or not condemned. He who does not believe has been condemned or judged already because He's not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

So when a person says, well, I'm not a Christian, but I feel very condemned, you have a right to feel that way. Because the Scripture says, you are already condemned. Now listen, God didn't condemn you, sin, the result of sin is condemnation.

Notice what he said. He said, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And then he says, God did not send the Son of the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, but those who do not believe in Him are already condemned. Listen, condemnation doesn't begin at the judgment. Condemnation is here and now when a person sins against God, chooses to sin against God, they're living under the wrath of God, living under condemnation.

And so that is a legitimate feeling indeed. So first of all, there's degradation, then there's condemnation, and thirdly, there's separation. When a person lives without God, they're going to be eternally separated from Him when they die. He says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die, the wages of sin is death. There's a spiritual death that goes on now. There's a physical death that goes on later.

There's eternal death, the second death the Bible calls it, which lasts forever. Absolute total separation from God. When a person has violated the will of God, violated the principles of God, violated the truth of God, rejected Jesus Christ, they are guilty in degradation, under condemnation, and separated from God and will be eternally separated from God.

A legitimate right to feel very, very guilty. Now, what about the person who is a Christian? What about the person who is a believer?

One who's trusted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. I want us to see what happened to your guilt and mine as believers. And I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Peter, move on over to 1 Peter, the second chapter, and I want you to look at just one verse in this chapter. We can look at others, but let's just take this one verse. In the second chapter of 1 Peter, very, very important verse.

We come to it often because it's so important, want it riveted in your mind, etched in your thinking, driven into your heart, penetrate your soul, so that you understand this very, very vital truth, because so much hinges on this verse of Scripture. And listen to what he says, beginning in verse 24. And he himself, speaking of Jesus, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross in order that we might die to sin of that sinful life and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you and I were healed. Now, what is he saying here? He himself bore our sins in his body on the train. Now, watch this carefully. When you and I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, here's what God did.

But let's go back beyond that. He says he sent his only begotten Son into the world in order to die on the cross for your sins and mine. What did he do when he went to the cross? The Bible says that God placed on him all of our sin. Now, if he put our sin on him, with that sin went all the guilt. In other words, if he put all of our sin upon him, he put all of our guilt upon him. So when he died on the cross, God the Father placed upon him all of our sin, with that all of our guilt. If he had not placed all the guilt there, we wouldn't be any better off if he had not died. So all of our guilt, all of our sin went upon him.

Here's what God did. God made Jesus Christ, listen, he made him our guilty substitute. He became sin in our behalf. God made Jesus Christ our guilty substitute. Was he a sinner?

No, he was not. That's why he came as the Lamb of God in order to die for the sins of the world. He came as a substitute. He took our place. God placed upon him all our sin, all our guilt.

What effect did that have upon us? Here's what God was doing. He was making it possible for you and me to be saved from our sins and our guilt and be made righteous persons. You say, well, when do I become not guilty? The moment you place your trust in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, in that moment, watch this now, in that moment you change positions. You declared no longer guilty and now your position before God is not guilty. Does that mean that you'll not sin again?

No, it doesn't mean that. We're talking about your spiritual position before God. You can call it your judicial position, whatever. Your spiritual position before God, having trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, when he died on the cross for your sin, he took your guilt. He is the only one who could have died for your sin.

He's the only one who could have taken your guilt. Therefore, if Jesus Christ's death on the cross did not take care of all my guilt and all my sin, I could not do it. Therefore, every single one of us would be eternally separated from God with all of our guilt, all of our sin, all of our unrighteousness, all of our disobedience, all of our rebellion, and we have absolutely no hope whatsoever.

So he did it. Now, there is only one hope of salvation. There is only one hope of eternal life.

There is only one hope of forgiveness. And the Word of God is absolutely crystal clear. He says, much more than having now been justified, declared not guilty, by his blood, through his blood at Calvary, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his light. He says, listen, when he died, we trusted him as our Savior.

We were declared not guilty. God says, I've brought you back, I've reconciled you to your position, to your place of sonship. But there's one little truth here I want you to notice. Romans chapter four. Go back just one chapter.

Look at this. Now, in this particular chapter, he's talking about Abraham and so forth. Then he comes down to verse twenty-two. Look at this twenty-second verse.

Here's what he says. He says, therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness, not only for his sake was it written that it was reckoned to him, but for our sake also to whom it will be reckoned as those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our sanctification, that is, God has raised him up proof of our sanctification. Now watch this. What in the world does he mean by reckoned? Here's what it means.

Now watch this. When Jesus went to the cross and he bore our sin and took upon him our guilt, and we trusted him as our personal Savior by an act of faith, he declared us no longer guilty. But he did something even beyond that. He says he reckoned to us.

Look at this. And he reckoned to him as righteousness. What does he mean by that?

Here's what he means. That he placed to our account, that is, no longer guilty and now placed to our account the righteousness of Christ. That is, that means his holiness and his righteousness so that when God looks at you and me as his children, if you were to look at his, if he has one of these books, of course, let's say he has this book and he has your name in it and all the things in your life and all the things that you've ever done and so forth.

But now declared not guilty. And not only that, he says on your account, he has made it very clear you have been made righteous. You may be the worst sinner on the planet. God loves you anyway. He doesn't love you on the basis of your conduct and your behavior.

He loves you on the basis of his nature. It is his character and nature to love all of his creation. Now that doesn't mean that you're saved simply because he loves you. Until you receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you're lost. Doesn't mean he doesn't love you.

So he loves us. Very difficult for some people to ever accept the fact that they're genuinely and truly loved by Almighty God. The second most difficult thing is to believe that they've been made righteous. How do we get the gift of righteousness? We didn't work for it. How can a sinner become righteous?

Cannot. It was the death of Jesus Christ declaring us not guilty, justifying us, reconciling us into himself. And he says, I've given you the abundance of God's grace, the overwhelming abundance of God's grace. I have made you the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, we as believers, positionally, we are not guilty. That isn't me declaring somebody not guilty. That's God declaring us not guilty. Listen, if not guilty, not condemned, and no wrath for the children of God.

Okay, now all right, what about my daily life? All right, our position is absolutely not guilty. In our walk, sometimes we're going to feel guilty when we're not guilty. And sometimes we're going to violate the law of God. Now I like to think about it in two lights. Now think about this, and you may not agree or you may, but I'll leave it up to you.

The end result is the same. As a believer, having been declared not guilty by Almighty God, I could look at the conviction of the Holy Spirit as conviction. That is, the conviction of the Holy Spirit is God through His Spirit making me aware of sin, making me aware of disobedience, making me aware of failure, making me aware of some area in which I am incomplete and over here, or something deliberately, willfully I've done wrong. That is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is going to make me feel sorrowful because I've sinned against God, I've sinned against myself or sinned against someone else. So I am under conviction. I'm going to sense that and feel that. So somebody says, well, and what happens is the Holy Spirit convicts me and I feel guilty. I do understand that. So a person says, well, I'm guilty because I violated the law of God.

That's true. On the other way you can look at it is this, that I am under deep conviction because I violated the law of God. I disobeyed God. Listen, if you feel I'm just bad, that's not God. Well, I've done wrong, that's not God. The Holy Spirit never convicts us in generalities by saying you're just bad. You were bad today.

You just blew it today. You're just an evil person. You're a bad person. He doesn't say things like that. He says, you lied, you stole, you cheated, you coveted, you were lustful, you hated, you gossiped.

It's always something very specific. Somebody says, well, when I get under conviction, I feel guilty. I understand that. Or you could say, the Spirit of God has convicted me of this. I feel sorrowful and remorse about it.

I have to deal with this. But positionally, you are not guilty before God. In your position, in our daily walk, you could say, yes, in my daily walk, I'm guilty of this and guilty of that and guilty of that. The Spirit of God's convicting you. And if there's no conviction whatsoever and you can live in sin day after day with no conviction, whatsoever, more than likely you need to ask yourself the question, am I a Christian or am I not? So that as believers, we're going to do things that are not right.

And so what happens is the Spirit of God convicts us. We ask Him to forgive us of it because we do feel sorrowful and remorse about it. And now listen, not only just confess it to Him as we have explained over and over again, confession's more than just agreeing with Him because the truth is if it's genuine agreement, I'm going to do something about it. If it's genuine agreement that it shouldn't be in my life, He just wanted my life, and I'm going to be obedient to Him, then I'm going to deal with it.

I'm going to separate myself from it. And so as believers, while we are positionally not guilty, in our daily walk, we can dirty up our lives with sin and so we say, well, I feel very guilty. We can feel guilty because we violated the law. It is the Spirit of God convicting us.

Listen, so that we just don't walk around feeling guilty, we should, upon conviction, do something about it instantly. Now, if we don't, we're going to get that guilty feeling. Oh, I've disappointed God. I've done wrong. Well, what am I supposed to do?

I'm to do something about it. Positionally, I am forever saved. In my daily walk, I can sin against God and have to deal with those guilty feelings. Thank you for listening to Understanding Those Guilty Feelings. For more inspirational messages like this, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.