 Guilt can play a positive role in your life. Second Corinthians chapter seven verse 10 says this, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. So it's a good thing if you sense shame over shameful acts. It's a good thing if you sense shame over shameful thoughts. It's a good thing if you sense shame over shameful attitudes. We should feel guilt when we're guilty. We should feel the need to repent. Godly sorrow works repentance. So guilt does have a positive role. It can have a positive role. Your conscience is to your mind what pain is to your body. If you didn't have any physical pain you would never know if you had some disease that needed your attention. You wouldn't know if you experienced some injury that could kill you. You need pain because you need something to indicate to you when something is wrong. And that's what the conscience is. What pain is to the body, the conscience is to the mind. And so God has given us all a conscience so that when we violate His holy standards, when we violate His spiritual and moral laws, we sense it. We can be affected by it emotionally and mentally and we start to sense this heaviness for our wrongdoing. Now it's dangerous if you allow yourself to get to a point to where you're no longer sensing anything in your conscience. That is what it means to sear your conscience. In other words, you've abused your conscience so badly you've done things so long that it no longer even bothers you and you don't care that you don't care. Now if you care that you don't care that means you still care. So don't allow yourself to be paranoid about that either because I know I might get some messages saying Brother David a part of me allows compromise. Well, yes, of course, all sin is a choice but we have the power to also choose holiness. So the Holy Spirit convicts us when we do wrong. He also convicts us unto righteousness. Watch this in John chapter 16 verse eight. And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment. So here we see that the Holy Spirit convicts not just of sin, but also of God's righteousness and the coming judgment. In other words, He doesn't just tell us when we're doing something wrong, He helps us to aspire to all that God created us to be. So it's not like He's just condemning you. The Holy Spirit will correct you. But please don't mistake the Holy Spirit's correction for his condemnation. The Holy Spirit only corrects what He wants to heal. He only corrects what He wants to help you overcome. So if you're being corrected by the Holy Spirit, if you're sensing conviction, if you sense that strong weight of His hand coming down upon you because of the decisions that you've made, that's a good thing. God corrects those whom He loves. Conviction is not a punishment. Conviction is God's grace. Conviction is not just God judging you. Conviction is God's power. Conviction is God's love. Conviction is God's mercy and compassion because He loves you too much to leave you to your own compromise. So the Holy Spirit convicts us of God's righteousness. He calls us to higher places. Now, if you're constantly focused on sin, what not to do, you live in condemnation. But if you begin to lift your eyes and look to the Lord and see what you can become in Christ, well, then you begin to sense real freedom from sin because you actually have a standard against which you're measuring your life. You're actually aspiring to something greater. You're aspiring to be more Christ-like. You're aspiring to God's standards of holiness as opposed to just fretting about the sin. Now, I wanna say this again because I need to make this clear. I am not saying you can compromise. I am not encouraging you to sin. I'm not saying sin doesn't have consequence. I'm not saying that sin won't destroy. Sin will destroy, sin has consequences. God will judge sin even in the life of the believer that's a different lesson for a different time. It's exactly how He does that. But I will say this, some believers live so weighed down by their own mistakes that they continue to condemn themselves even after God has forgiven them. So I'm not talking to the Christian who just is allowing compromise in this season of their life and they don't care. I doubt that that person is even safe to begin with, but if there is a believer, if there is such a believer who is allowing compromise doesn't care, well, then I'm not talking about that person. I'm talking about the individual who is wrestling with that sin nature, who is doing all that they can to aspire to God's standard of holiness because that's what true Christians do. True Christians desire to be truly holy. And if there's no desire for holiness in you, that means that the nature of your desires has yet to be changed, which could be a sign that you've not yet really received Christ. Now, that's another lesson from the time maybe we'll address that at some point. Here's something I wrote. Condemnation is not of God. Conviction is of God. Condemnation tells you that you are a mistake. Conviction tells you that you made a mistake. Condemnation pushes you away from God in shame and fear. Conviction draws you to God in repentance and humility. So again, let's balance this. On one side, there are believers who allow compromise in their lives and they're not exactly attempting to overcome that. Whether or not they're true Christians, that's debatable, that's a different conversation for a different time. But then on the other hand, there are Christians who are condemning themselves for sins that God has already forgiven. And that's just not productive. Look, don't mistake self-hatred for humility because there are certain doctrines and certain, how shall I say this, theological persuasions that equate self-hatred with virtue, that equate self-hatred with humility. In other words, if you look at yourself as this groveling worm, if you just see yourself as this depraved, horrible, evil, wicked thing, then of course that is spiritual virtue. That right there is true humility. Now again, we have to balance this because I'm not saying that we weren't depraved. I'm not saying that sin isn't ugly. Of course, sin is a violation of God's holy standard. We understand this. We understand that before Christ, we were depraved. But even though we still make mistakes today, our identity is no longer sinner. Our identity is saint. No longer slave, but sons. Now that we've stepped into this new identity, when we make mistakes, we recognize that it's not a part of who we truly are. It's an aspect of an old nature with which we are still wrestling. We are still trying to overcome and fight. Yes, we are in that battle against sin, but please avoid those two extremes. The extremes of apathy, where you don't care about any compromise in your life, but then also don't go to the other side of the spectrum and be filled with self-hatred. Don't allow yourself to condemn yourself for past mistakes that God has already forgiven, from which you've already repented. Once conviction has served its purpose, it's time to move on. Once conviction has done its job, it's corrected you, you've dealt with the issue, you've confessed to God, you admit that it's wrong, you turn from it, that means that's what renounce means, to turn from, to forsake. You've forsaken it now, you've repented, you've changed your mind about it, and now you're moving forward. This is where many believers fall into the trap of self-condemnation. As I said, some teach that this is somehow spiritual virtue. What it really is is a lack of faith in God's work. What it really is is self-reliance. It's a form of pride. Well, God may have forgiven it, but my standards are so much higher that I can't forgive myself. What kind of an ego does it take to say, well, God can forgive it, but I can't? Well, God can let it go, but I can't. Well, God can choose to forget about it, but I can't. What ego is that? In other words, you're saying my standards are higher than God's standards. Now, again, for the third and final time I need to balance this. Yes, sin has consequences. No, sin does not belong in the life of the believer. No, the believer should not compromise in any way. True believers will have a desire to be truly holy. But again, I'm talking about this extreme that many people fall into, and it's religion, it's legalism, it's a works-based view of salvation. The Bible says this in Romans chapter eight, verses one and two. So there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Wow. So even though we fight temptation, even though we every day resist the desires and the cravings of the flesh, we don't live under the condemnation of our mistakes so long as we continue to walk with the Lord. So long as we are agreeing with God, walking in that repentance, so long as we are forsaking our sin, walking in what we've renounced, walking in that renouncing of what God hates, so long as we are aligning ourselves and saying, Lord, I want you to work on me. Lord, I'm surrendering to your will. Lord, help me to obey you. Lord, give me the desire to live right so long as we are with him on this, so long as we are surrendered to his process of sanctification, it's not a matter of perfection but progress. Don't condemn yourself because you lack perfection. Instead, simply submit to God's process so that you see progress. We're no longer living under the power of the law. What does that mean? Does that mean we're free to live how we want to? No, it means that we live in Christ. Christ fulfilled the law and I live in Christ. Christ stands in perfection and I stand in Christ. And so I trust him as I'm being redeemed, as I'm working through mistakes, as I'm seeking God's grace to help me overcome sinful living, as I'm seeking God's power to help me overcome compromise, I also recognize that he who began the work is faithful to complete it. He's gonna complete the work. He's going to finish it. Look, when you are saved, you are justified. Justification means that you are set free from the penalty of sin. And you are now in the process of sanctification. Sanctification is the process by which you are being set free from the power of sin. But one day, when you stand before God and you cross over into the other side of eternity, you will stand in glorification. And glorification is freedom from the presence of sin. One day, we will throw off those chains completely. One day, the presence of sin will be completely gone. But for now, we do as Galatians says in chapter five, we were fighting flesh against spirit, spirit against flesh. And as we're doing this, we have to realize that it's counterproductive to walk in condemnation. Now, if you're continuing in a sin, you haven't repented, you haven't got things right with God, you're still doing those things that you ought not to do without any regard, without any attempt at changing it. Okay, that's not for you. You should sense a heavy, heavy conviction. And I pray that that conviction will become more intense until you can't stand what you're doing anymore and you have to turn. God loves you that much. He won't let you just live in that compromise. But I'm talking to that one, perhaps it's you, and you are struggling. And every day, you're just saying, Lord, help me do this, help me do this. And you agree with God, this is wrong. You're doing all that you can, everything in your power to transform, to change. And you're cooperating with God. You're in the word, you're praying and you're saying, Lord, help me overcome this. There's grace for you. God's not gonna abandon you. He's not gonna leave you to do that on your own. He's gonna help you. But here's one of the keys. This isn't the only key, but this is one key that you need. You have to remember that once you've repented of something, truly repented and renounced it, and you confessed it to God, that God forgives you. Here's what the Bible says in 1 John 1, verse nine, but if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness or some translation say, unrighteousness. Many believers get stuck in what I call OCC, obsessive compulsive confession. And they constantly, just like, and I'm not mocking, I'm using it as an analogy, just like someone with OCD will wash their hands or maybe someone who struggles with a germophobia. They wash their hands so much that their hands begin to bleed. And again, I'm not mocking that. It's a good analogy. It serves as a good analogy. They wash their hands to the point where their hands begin to bleed. Some of you, that's how you confess sins that have already been forgiven. And you won't let yourself let it go. You won't let yourself walk in the freedom that God has prepared for you. You won't let the joy of your salvation fill your heart again. Well, what does Psalm say? Your hand weighed heavily upon me. I confess my sin to you. And then the scripture talks about the fact that the Psalmist wants to receive joy again. Okay, yes, you weighed down on me. My strength is gone. But give me back the joy of my salvation now. And here's where some of you get stuck. Because in a way, you're trying to pay penance for your past sins by punishing yourself mentally and emotionally. Please, I need someone to hear this. You're trying to pay your penance because it's a workspace mentality you have. You're trying to pay your penance by punishing yourself mentally and emotionally. You won't let God bless you. It's very hard for you to receive blessing because you know you don't deserve it. It's very hard for you to receive miracles from God because you're constantly living in the memory of your sin. It's very difficult for you to even expect that God would use your life. Why? Because you're stuck in the memory of who you were. And you won't allow yourself to begin to enjoy your life. You won't allow yourself to enjoy blessing. You won't allow yourself to enjoy the company of friends or the presence of God or a good worship service. You think, and this is not everyone, but there's somebody watching, you think that even though you've been forgiven, you deserve to have at least some of that still lingering in your mind and weighing over you, even just subtly for the rest of your life. And you're not called to live in that. You're not called to live in self-condemnation. You realize that self-condemnation, once you've repented of a sin, let me make that clear, once you've repented of a sin, do you realize that self-condemnation is going to prevent you from being able to walk in holiness? When you condemn yourself after God has forgiven you, well, now you have a real issue because you're living still under the guilt and the shame, and that guilt and shame actually drives you further into compromise. But when you know you've been forgiven, when you receive the forgiveness of the Heavenly Father and you've been released of it and you know that you know that you know that you're free not just in a small way, not just proportionately to how you repented and how you grow, not, well, proportionately, yes, to repentance, but sometimes we mistake our imperfection and we take our imperfection to mean that we don't deserve any of God's forgiveness. Well, we don't deserve it anyway from the start, but if we repent of a sin, we renounce that sin, we can turn from it. And this may seem like a simple truth. This may seem very basic, but you would be amazed at how many believers are condemning themselves and they're not able to enjoy the freedom of their salvation. They're not able to enjoy the freedom of God's forgiveness because they are so stuck on what they did. They're so wrapped up in the emotion and the shame and the guilt of something that God has already forgiven. You should feel guilt for sin. I'm talking about after you've repented from it, it's time to be released from it. Allow yourself to sense that conviction and then say, I'm gonna change these things. I'm gonna change these things and the Lord is gonna help me do it. So Father, I give you the praise that you've given us the grace to overcome every problem of the flesh. Holy Spirit, help us to see ourselves the way you see us. Help us to turn from self-condemnation after we've received your forgiveness. Come on, just begin to ask Him to help you with that. To help you receive the forgiveness of God, because many of you have been battling with this for years and years and years and it's time now you be set free. Be set free from the power of that deception and receive the forgiveness of God. There are things you've been caring, wow, there are things you've been caring possibly for over a decade, some of you and it's time to let that go. Come on, receive this prayer now. Lord, help them to move past that and show them in your word after they've repented, you've forgiven. Thank you, Father, I love you. And Lord, we ask that you forgive us for rejecting the legitimate loving correction of those you've placed in our lives. Father, we lay our ego down. We lay our pride down before your word, before your loving hand. Say this out loud, say, Lord, I receive your correction in whatever form it comes. Say it again, Lord, I receive your correction in whatever form it comes. Receive that now, thank you, Jesus. I give you the glory and the honor. Give you the praise, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Come on, just continue to pray right now. And I want you to also repent for not taking responsibility for those things in your life that you know you're responsible for. Time to stop shifting the blame. Take the responsibility now, that's how you grow. Take the responsibility. Say, Lord, I repent for not taking up my Christian responsibility. Help me to do it in the mighty name of Jesus we pray. I want you to say it because you believe it, say amen.