Follow Along with the Message

Guilt Trip

Pastor Tom Lundeen

The reality is that every single person...is driven by something.

Drive = to , control, direct. 

Recognizing what drives us is important, because God actually wants our life to be driven...but by His /purposes/passion.

Many of us at various times in our lives are driven by: 

1.  

When guilt guides, controls and directs us, it produces many unhealthy life . 

There are those who spend much of their lives running from their  or hiding their shame (note Genesis 3:8-10).

Guilt-driven people are dominated by their past and spend their lives manipulated by their ...

Guilt  our past to control our future...

2. Understanding What Jesus Really Said About   

    (note Matthew 5:3-4)

The pathway to experience freedom from guilt actually starts by recognizing our spiritual  and need. 

Jesus isn't saying that His followers are to be sour-faced, miserable, grumpy individuals...(note Matthew 5:3-4).

Mourn = penthos = an external  of an internal reality.

As I confront God and His holiness, and  the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness...I must mourn about the fact that I am like that. (Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones). 

Guilt is God's   to people with spiritually defective DNA.

It is spiritual  to warn us that something is wrong, that something we're doing needs to stop. 

 insensitivity....

Those who are able to let the despair they feel within come to the surface will discover Christ's comfort. Only those people...Some of the most unhealthy, unhappy, hard to be around people are not necessarily  people. But for whatever reason - perhaps a family or a church context - they never gave themselves permission to get outside what was going on inside. They are extremely  because of this sense of being "bottled up." (Johnson)

The great irony of Matthew 5:4 is that the most  people are those who don't mourn, who haven't been turned inside-out by God's Spirit. 

So by not mourning, guilt becomes a  instead of the cure God designed it to be. 

WHAT'S DRIVING ME?:

• Note Psalm 32:1-5
• We will experience God's love, comfort, and grace when we are  about our sins, hurts, pain, and discouragement inside. 
• So let God's purpose for guilt do its job to turn your  to Him. 
• Let the Holy Spirit turn you inside-out, and discover guilt doesn't have to  your life. 
•  comes from this kind of mourning (note Psalm 32:11).

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