Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 If I have not had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling, I'm the lead pastor here at the Village Church. We are in week five of our series on Leviticus. And, uh, something, something kind of funny has happened I think in the book of Leviticus. And, uh, one of the responses that I've, I've heard actually I think every week, but in maybe different ways, uh, it goes something like this. Are you aware of what's happening in my life? Because I feel like this sermon was pretty much directly about the circumstances of my life. And 99% of the time I'm like, I literally had no idea what was going on inside of your life and that this would apply. So we would take this book, like last year we decided to preach on it in January, we plotted out a preaching calendar and I'm like, I didn't choose this sermon for this moment in your life.
Speaker 1 00:00:57 Like this was set in stone a while ago. And uh, it's interesting cuz it doesn't just happen in the book of Leviticus, it seems that whenever the word of God is preached, there seems to be this like thing where the Holy Spirit, I don't know, moves and encourages and convicts and can even use Old Testament, Levitical offerings to do that. And so that's been my, my prayer is that, God, whatever we need through this, would you, would you minister to our minds and our hearts? Would you encourage us, our moms, dads, grandparents, teachers, youth leaders, babysitters, anybody who's worked with students, I have a question. Who is more likely to truly repent? A kid who confesses freely, or a kid who gets caught as a youth pastor? I was a youth pastor, I forget how many years, 19, a good decade. Plus I caught kids doing all sorts of things.
Speaker 2 00:02:04 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:02:05 A lot of you in this room, you've been le youth leaders and you know, it's like there are some kids and they're like, what can I get away with in this building? And when I would confront a student or catch them in something, repentance always depended on the heart. Hard hearts, they get caught and then they look for smart ways to sin tender hearts. They get caught and they look inward. And, and you could almost, almost always immediately tell who you are, who you're dealing with. And so what I had to do was I had to get smarter than the most devious hearts in the youth group. I'm not kidding. And then what I would've to do is I would've to have such a reservoir of youth leaders on a Thursday night that I had to make sure every single part of this building had a human watching it.
Speaker 1 00:03:00 And every door where they could get in trouble or go make out or something worse was locked retreats and events outside of the church. That was a different story. We had to be so clever all the time and, and never so clever that you, you forget to be kind and loving and present and to love them. But like I'm telling you, kids are smart. And so half of my time was just spent, what are all the ways that they can ruin their lives and this event and sin big and then trying to just get in front of it. It was exhausting, but totally worth creating unforgettable experiences for students to meet, to meet Christ. But one of the most beautiful things to watch was when a student confessed freely uncoerced without getting caught and then they would change by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:03:56 Let's talk confession, confessing sin when unprompted by others. It is one of the most admirable things that you can do. Typically, uh, people don't want to confess because there's this, this lie, this question in their brain, which is, if people find out what will they think of me? You guys know that feeling. If they find out what are they gonna think of me? And what most people don't realize is that our respect for people who willingly confess, it almost always goes up. We look at that, we say, gosh, I actually want to be more like that. And I'm gonna, again, I throughout pastoral statistics a lot, so take this for what it is. But I would say roughly 95% of the things that people confess freely you can recover from very quickly. And I do get that there is a 5% that has massive earthly consequences and, and you need to prayerfully think through that.
Speaker 1 00:04:54 But like I'm telling you, the vast majority of things that people confess to me that they are afraid to go apologize to the people they need to. I'm telling you, repair can be done so quickly. It is not going to be as bad as you think. When I'm in the presence of somebody who is confessing sin freely, that is a beautiful sacred moment. And, and in those moments, what I wanna do as a pastor is I really wanna partner with the Holy Spirit. Have you guys just noticed how patient and gentle the Holy Spirit is? Especially when you are like, God, I want to do the right thing. I want to have a tender heart towards you. I I I'm struggling, but like, show me the next step to take and, and what I've just found is the Holy Spirit is direct Hess clear, but he is tender and he is patient.
Speaker 1 00:05:47 And so whenever I'm in those moments, like these are sacred moments and, and you as a mom, a dad, as whatever, as just a friend, you're gonna find yourself in these moments when someone unprompted by you confesses sin, it's weighing on them. And I think you are in a sacred moment. And, and the question is, what would the Holy Spirit do in this moment? Think about the times when you've gone to the spirit and said, I feel guilty. What do you want me to do? And we get to act like the Holy Spirit in those moments. Let's start getting caught. I think getting caught can be one of the greatest gifts to a person because secret sins are exhausting. And I cannot tell you how many people want to get caught. They start getting lazy and it's almost like their soul wants to, wants to get caught, but their mind doesn't. Have you guys ever seen this? And and then all of a sudden it comes out and there is a freedom that this thing is no longer a secret.
Speaker 1 00:06:51 If, if people when they get caught are relieved, what you have to understand is if they could have gotten out sooner, they probably would have. And so even in those moments when you catch someone, the tenderness and the kindness, like in my brain, I don't imagine out gotcha, Jesus. But I imagine a Jesus who says, can we talk? And I'd like to, I'd like to show you this part of your life. And I imagine that in those moments when someone's caught, it's also a tender, sacred moment. Now, here's one of the hardest parts. When you catch somebody, how do you discern if their heart is trending towards repentance or towards a hard heart? And, and I just think this is really good for all of us. Whenever we confess sin or if we ever get caught in something, it could be very small or it could be very large.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Anybody have a propensity to defensiveness in this room? Just like maybe a third of us, right? Got it? Okay, sure. Alright. True, true heart repentance. Here's just a few symptoms. If you're trending that way, it submits to authority easily and quickly. It takes fair consequences without argument, discussion, yes, argument. No, it does not make excuses. It does not need to be coerced to get extra help. It makes sincere restitution to all parties. This is, this is a heart that is trending toward repentance. And this is the heart that we all want to have because guess what? We are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God. And once we start to see defensiveness rise up, it starts to slowly dismantle one or all of these and our hearts start trending in a different direction. Enter the guilt offering. God designed an offering for Old Testament Israel when they realized and they felt the weight of the guilt of their sins.
Speaker 1 00:08:58 Last week, uh, we looked at the sin offering, and by the way, this is the fifth and last of the offerings that we're gonna be addressing. And last week was the sin offering. If you remember last week, you would give a sin offering when you sinned unintentionally. And, and the cost for the sin offering when you sinned unintentionally was this, you would've to confess that sin, you would offer a certain animal and then you would be cleansed, you would be atoned, you would be forgiven, the blood would cleanse you. But the the guilt offering is a little bit different. The guilt offering is for sins, yes, typically not exclusively unintentional, but for sins that are hard or big enough that I'm sorry isn't enough. Because there are some things that people do to you or that you do to others where you don't have to just say, I'm sorry, but you have to go above and beyond and make right the things you have taken.
Speaker 1 00:09:52 That is what the guilt offering is about. So open up your Bibles, Leviticus chapter five. We're gonna start in verse 14. The guilt offering needs to be offered in two specific kinds of sin when they occur. The guilt offering is offered when someone realizes, number one, that I have hindered God's ministry. Leviticus chapter five, verse 14, the Lord, he spoke to Moses saying, if anyone commits a and I want you to just feel the weight of these words, a breach of faith and sins unintentionally. And that's important also in any of the holy things of the Lord. He shall bring to the Lord as his compensation a ram without blemish out of the flock, valued by the way in silver sheckles according to the sheckle of the sanctuary for a guilt offering. Let's look at some of these phrases here. Number number one, notice the phrase breach of faith.
Speaker 1 00:10:50 Whatever the sin is that has officially created an issue between God and this person that isn't small, can we just agree if somebody says this is a breach of our relationship, that automatically, you know, by the weight of the words that whatever we're about to talk about is big enough that a, a simple, I'm sorry, isn't probably gonna be enough. Something else has to happen to make this right. Verse 15 also says here notices that the breach here was done against the holy things. And, and the holy things are anything that has been consecrated or set apart to God or for the service or ministry of the priest. And this included objects, spaces, and people. So examples of sitting against the holy things would be offering unintentionally unclean or bad offerings. And if it was an unclean offering, we saw this in the past weeks, the Lord wouldn't accept it even if you didn't know withholding tithes and offerings.
Speaker 1 00:11:58 Uh, here's another one. Putting obstacles in the priest ministry to make his ministry less effective. The these would be things that the Lord would step back and say, all of these are a breach of faith. So in modern terms, what I wanna do is I actually wanna take a moment, apply this to our context and then we're gonna come back to Leviticus. Uh, there are some really important principles that apply Nu number one in the new Covenant and the New Testament. Um, every one of us who have personally trusted in Jesus, we are called priests. In the old covenant, the priests were a unique group of people. The Levites, they had access to God, et cetera. We have one high priest, his name village Church is Jesus. And all the rest of us are priests who by the blood of Jesus have access into the holy of Holies.
Speaker 1 00:12:45 Every one of us is a priest with a ministry. Every single one of us who have, uh, trusted in Jesus Christ, God has called you to be a member of a local church and to be part of a ministry. So like this ministry, this is not my ministry. It is not somebody else's ministry. It is our ministry to together we are one body in one local church. We are a whole bunch of priests ministering for the sake of Jesus Christ. And can we just all agree that we can unintentionally make it harder for others in our church family to do the work of the Lord? Now, some of you're like, not me, I've been really easy to work with all the time. Here's some examples of how we can actually hinder ministry even in our own church family. One is by not following through on your word.
Speaker 1 00:13:45 If you don't show up consistently or even on time consistently, someone always picks up the slack always. And when they don't, someone complains and says, why isn't anybody doing X, Y, or Z? The way that church works is that like a Sunday morning requires roughly a hundred to 150 humans to make it function every single week. And there are some things, in fact, if this thing doesn't happen, the ripple effect is that other people then have to jump in and then fix things and everything undone. Every word not committed has a significant ripple effect and someone else has to bear on themselves the cost of that. That's a, that's a real thing. Here's another example where people unintentionally make ministry harder for others is simply by being lazy and not serving as unto the Lord. Or here's another one, by not supporting the ministry financially.
Speaker 1 00:14:43 So one person's greed or financial negligence, uh, has to be picked up by other people who go above and beyond. Or there are some things that aren't funded that should be funded. And at the end of the day that's, that's actually because some people are not doing what they should be doing. Another example is by not meeting the needs of others in the church. And so the Bible is super clear. If you're a Christian, you're in a local church and you have a ministry, you are a body part. And, and so if you're in a local church like, and you're not engaged intentionally in building others up and making disciples, there is a lack in your local church. If one person doesn't engage and faithfully use their gifts, then something is lacking. And, and then here's the secret about serving in church. 99% of the time we serve, it's not in our favorite ministry.
Speaker 1 00:15:38 The, the, the job of ministry is to meet the needs that arise and wherever the Lord is doing, we run into those places whether or not it makes us feel like a million dollars or not. And so it's interesting that like there are things in the old covenant that, that you could do to make the ministry that God called them to in the priest too harder. And it's interesting how this applies even in our context. Like there are things as priests, we have a ministry and we can actually create a, a hindrance to one another in our ministry. Now here's what I love about the guilt offering. The message is not in the guilt offering. How could you, that is not the message. The message is this, when you realize here's how to make it 100% right? So you don't have carry this guilt any longer and other people don't have to pick up the slack and God makes it so merciful, so kind, so gracious, so that maybe you're, you're sitting there watching something and, and maybe God's spirit brings something to your brain and convicts you and you're like, I I didn't mean to do it.
Speaker 1 00:16:44 I wasn't thinking this intentionally about it. And now I want to dig into this word unintentionally here in verse 15. And unintentionally might look like this, okay, it was wrong, but I didn't realize it in the moment. And and even though you can do the wrong thing with good intentions and it can still hurt, intentions do matter relationally, don't they? For sure it was wrong, but I never knew it was wrong or it was wrong, but I thought I was right or it was wrong. But honestly I just didn't think it was that big of a deal. There are so many ways with good intentions to sin unintentionally and then to impact others in a way that you never even quite realized. And that guilt offer is a beautiful reminder for Israel and for us, that the right blood can cover us and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can make right the things that we might have made harder on others.
Speaker 1 00:17:45 Now verse 16 makes God's expectations crystal clear when we realize that we have hindered God's ministry. Verse 16 says, he shall also make restitution for what he has done, amiss, that's kind of a funny word, amiss and the holy thing. And shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest. The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering and he shall be forgiven. And what makes the guilt offering different from a sin offering is this idea that the sin, it's big enough that it is a breach of faith. And and I'm sorry, and a sacrifice won't make this thing right. What's actually required is restitution. And so restitution is, is very simply, it's the thing taken is made right, fully plus losses. But the Old Testament makes it very, very clear what the expectation is. Old Testament restitution is the thing taken is made up fully, it's made fully right, plus 20% for losses.
Speaker 1 00:18:52 I don't know how to apply that in the new covenant context. I'm just gonna lean on you in the Holy Spirit to figure out what that means. But it's interesting that the concept ist just give back the thing that was taken, but it is give back the thing that was taken plus some to make it right. Now look at, look at verse 17 with me. I think this is really important. If anyone sins doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity. Look at this last phrase. He shall bear his iniquity and here's what it means. I know, I know you didn't mean it, but you're still guilty and responsible to make it right. And so the blood covers you before God, but restitution allows you to be fully reconciled to the person that you unintentionally impacted by your maybe negligence.
Speaker 1 00:19:54 And here's the idea, nobody can fix this for you. Only you can make right the things made wrong only you. And so I wanna just take a moment and uh, I want to ask you just to pray with me. I want to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal in each of our hearts if there is a way that we have hindered the ministry that he has called us to Holy Spirit. Have I hindered your ministry by something I have withheld Holy Spirit. Have I hindered your ministry by something I have stolen? Holy Spirit, have I hindered your ministry by something I have said, holy Spirit, have I hindered your ministry by something I haven't done but should have? Holy Spirit, if there is something I need to make right? Would you bring it to mind and give me the strength to take the next step?
Speaker 1 00:20:51 Amen. Village Church. Amen. Look at verse 18. He shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish outta the flock or its equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he made unintentionally. And he shall be forgiven. It is a guilt offering. He has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord when you just love to have the weight of that feeling of guilt permanently totally removed. And what I love is that God does not desire that anybody carry the weight of that on their soul. What a gracious thing of God to give them a tangible, measurable, clear next step where they can know without a shadow of a doubt God and I are okay and the person I hindered, we are okay? So the guilt offering needs to be offered in two specific circumstances. The first is that is when I realize that I've hindered God's ministry.
Speaker 1 00:21:53 And here's the second, it also needs to be offered when someone realizes that I have personally harmed my brother. Look at chapter six, verse one. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord, now just pause for a moment. If you didn't read on, you would expect that he's gonna continue to talk about maybe these sacred things, the spaces, the people, the objects, et cetera, but he doesn't. So whatever is said next, I want you to notice this. Whatever is said next is first a sin against God. And here's what he says. How do you, how do you commit a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor at a matter of deposit or security or through robbery? Do you start to see now we're moving from unintentional to intentional? Or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it?
Speaker 1 00:22:52 There's a couple people in here I am positive that just struck you. You're like, Ooh, I did that swearing falsely in any of the things that the people do in sin, thereby just notice two things here. Number one, sin against your brother is first a sin against who God. Number two, sin against your brother or your sister is called a breach of faith. What does a breach of faith mean here? It means to sin against somebody in your spiritual family because we agreed not to do this. Like by being a Christian and by being a part of this family, I'm agreeing, I I am not gonna sin against you on purpose, but I am also affirming I probably will sin against you on accident. And when I do sin against you on accident or God forbid on purpose, I will make it right. It it's interesting, this is, again, this isn't a sin that requires just a sin offering.
Speaker 1 00:23:55 It's not just a, Hey, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? Yes, I forgive you. Are we good? Awesome. It's sort of like new. This is actually something that is deeper and bigger and requires some level of restitution in this situation. Restitution would've been made in the following circumstances under old covenant law. So violation of another's property, leaving someone legally responsible for something they didn't do through false testimony, stealing property, failing to report, finding lost property, oppressing a neighbor knowingly or otherwise. I I wasn't gonna say anything and I didn't have time to talk to my wife about this. So she's in the back. I know what I'm preaching on this morning. I am aware I have prepared and I pull out of our driveway and our cousin lives with us and her car perfectly parked and I bump into it and I'm pretty sure I scratched the front end of her car and now her car has scratches all over it.
Speaker 1 00:25:01 And I, I had this thought, I haven't talked, I tell you, I sent her a text this morning, so she should have gotten that. But I had this thought I can pull away. She'll never know <laugh>. Well, look at her car, there's just bumps and scratches all over it, right? Or I can have integrity and say, it doesn't matter if the car has bumps and scratches all over it, I did it. I'm responsible. And let me tell you like I have wanted to, I I, in my brain, I was like, oh man, do I just drive away? And I'm like, the holy Spirit's like you hypocrite. You are literally preaching on this very, very thing. Like since when does Old Testament Levitical law pierce my hearts? And then I'm thinking back to like years ago I was at the gym, like this is my, my brain was just like, and I, I pulled into a parking spot and I bumped this car in front of me, same situation, scratches and everything all over.
Speaker 1 00:25:59 And then I'm like, I don't know this person. Do I wanna leave him a note? And it was years ago I couldn't even tell you what, and I didn't, I just drove away and I'm like, nothing happened. I mean, maybe there's a, I don't know, I didn't look like it. And these are these moments where I'm like, wow, what do I do? And to today, the Lord was like, do you, you want me to be with you when you preach? Because like, like you gotta do the right thing. And I'd be lying to you if I if I didn't tell you like I didn't wanna do the right thing, but did it. My heart has problems. Let's be honest for verse four is gonna tell us a little bit more. If he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he is taken by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him, or the last thing that he found or anything about which he is sworn falsely, I want you to notice four words if he will restore.
Speaker 1 00:26:56 Sometimes Christians won't make it right, and when we don't make it right, there is a breach of faith that persists. Now, as I say, I wanna make something really, really clear. I'll give you an analogy and then explain it. Your relationship with God is like marriage. When you trust in Christ, this is like your wedding day and you are legally married, okay? That is official. And if you go home and you get in a fight with your spouse, does that negate the legal reality of your marriage? Of course not. You are legally married. So when you, when you trust in Christ, you are forever saved. You can't undo it, okay? It is, it is permanent is the most secure part of your life done. And at the same time, you can have a relationship with God that is 100% secure, where there is no condemnation, where you will not lose your salvation, where the Holy Spirit isn't gonna like leave you and walk away, right?
Speaker 1 00:27:56 You can know that can you and God not be on good terms relationally for sure, just like you and your spouse can be on relationship or have a rocky ground for a little while, even though the marriage is secure. And so in this moment what's happening is like God's not saying, oh, you're not saved. What he's saying is there's a breach of faith and there is a relational issue. And this thing needs to be repaired. It's not jeopardizing the legally for sure thing your salvation, but this thing needs to be, it needs to be repaired. Six five continues, says he shall restore it in full. And, and here's the, here's the restitution, and she'll add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs. Watch this on the day he realizes his guilt that I wanted to drive away when I hit my cousin's car today and tell her later.
Speaker 1 00:28:58 And then I thought to myself, I might give myself too much time to talk myself out of it because of all the other bumps and scratches on the car. And the Holy Spirit was like, the day, Michael, the moment <laugh>, you realize your guilt do something about it. Now, if you are familiar with Old Testament law and penal code, you are already thinking to yourself, and actually Pastor Michael, this doesn't feel consistent with the Book of Exodus. And you are correct because there's actually something interesting here, because in the, in the book of Levi or Exodus chapter 22, verse nine, I want you to read this for every breach of trust, this is the similar language, whether it is for an ox for donkey, sheep for a cloak, or any kinda lost thing of which one says this, is it the case of both parties shall come before God, the one whom God condemns or finds guilty shall pay double to his neighbor.
Speaker 1 00:29:57 In other words, when you know it's sin, you have two options. You can confess and pay 120% or the whole thing plus a fifth. Or if you think you can trick the Lord and go to the judges and make the elders of, of the congregation discern that, that God's gonna show them what's real and you're gonna have to end up paying double. So guys, what's cheaper, confess or go to court, it's always cheaper to confess. And so I I love even in the law, the little incentives that God puts. He's like, guys, don't, don't make us go that route. If you were wrong, you were wrong. Just deal with it, confess it, make it right, or you're gonna lose big. And God's not gonna let you get away with it on the day he realizes his guilt. I want, I wanna just take a a moment.
Speaker 1 00:30:48 I wanna, I wanna parse three concepts that I think probably all of us are familiar with. And here's, here's the first shame, uh, definition of shame I've appreciated is, uh, it's a deep sense of personal inadequacy, unworthiness or disgrace that arises when one recognizes a violation of relationship, particularly with God or others. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, but my guess is there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians who live in a space of shame. Shame says, Ugh, I can't believe I did that. I cannot look at you or myself. I have never found shame to be helpful. I have not found it to be something, a tool that the Holy Spirit has in his arsenal. I find this to be more the domain of the, of the evil one and a mental trick that we fall into. Now, there's another word here which is guilt.
Speaker 1 00:31:43 This is a feeling of remorse and responsibility that arises from the recognition of specific actions or behaviors that violate God's moral standards or the trust and wellbeing of others. And guilt says this, oh no, I feel terrible. I hope I don't get in too much trouble. And guilt has a, has a place, right? Guilt, guilt hopefully. Like I, I'll be honest, this morning I was like, Ooh, if I drive away and I don't, and I don't say something to my cousin, man, I'm gonna feel guilty. I don't, I don't like that feeling. Anybody else like that feeling or have like having it around you and there and there is like a reality and this is the flash. It's like, how can I get away with it? How can I get away with it and do my responsibility, but pay the least amount of money? Sure, there's a better word here and I just, I appreciate the word conviction.
Speaker 1 00:32:34 A profound inner awareness prompted by the Holy Spirit. The one is sinned against God, resulting in a deep sense of personal need for repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Conviction says, oh no, I have sinned or made a mistake and I need to make it right. That's the space I want to live in. The the devil tempts me with shame. My flesh tempts me with guilt, but I wanna live in a space of conviction. And here's what you see, that God res God values responding immediately to conviction. I wanna go back to chapter six, verse 12, something really beautiful happening around the fire of the sacrifice. Chapter six, verse 12 says, the fire and the altar, it sh it shall be kept burning on it. The fire and the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn on it, the fat of the peace offerings.
Speaker 1 00:33:42 Look at verse 13. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out 24 7 day or night whenever you realized uhoh I have to make something right. Whether it was a sin offering or whether it was a guilt offering the fire, the smell, the smoke and the glow was a constant reminder that God's hand was extended to you. An invitation, you are welcome anytime without condemnation to come near to make it right, to have your sin covered, cleansed, as we saw last week with the sin offering, they would take the, the animal outside of the holy area. And what they would do is they would burn it completely as a symbol that your sins and your guilt is forever, completely consumed, destroyed, and removed. And it is away from my presence that this fire was a constant communication to the people of God.
Speaker 1 00:34:55 That God is always available and willing if you want to come to him to make things right with God or with other people. And we see the same thing today because of the blood of Christ. God as always has his hands extended, willing to receive anybody who wants to make things right with Him and his word and the Holy Spirit stand ready to support you and champion you and strengthen you to do the hard thing to make things right with people that maybe you just don't need an, and I'm sorry with, but maybe there's some restitution that needs to be made. Do you guys remember the burnt offering? Some of you were like vaguely. God is saying, I'm always ready when you are ready to rededicate your life to me, the grain offering, I'm always ready to receive your gratitude, the peace offering. I'm always ready to rec, to celebrate our shalom, the sin offering.
Speaker 1 00:35:57 I am always ready to cleanse you. And now the guilt offering, I'm always ready to forgive you two. So whats number one? True repentance doesn't just stop with the person you've wronged. Psalm, Psalm 51 is the Psalm of David, and this is what he wrote, um, after conviction of sinning against Bathsheba. Um, what's interesting about the sin with Bathsheba is that it was, um, against a woman, against her wife. It was against, um, relatives in the family. There were so many people that were wronged in the David and Bathsheba instrument incident. But I want you to listen to this really interesting verse. This is his prayer to God. Psalm 51, verse four, he says to God against you, you only have I sinned technically. Is that correct? No, he had a lot of restitution to make with others around him. But what he understood is that before I deal with anybody else, I have to make things right with God.
Speaker 1 00:37:11 Like this is one, this is the most important thing. And what we saw, uh, with this point number two is that, um, when you sin against somebody else, it's first a sin against God. And, and, and so you might be sitting here and thinking to yourself, yeah, what have I done to God? Like who, why is it a problem with me and him if I sinned against somebody else? And and we just pull back and say, all sin, no matter who it is against is first against God and all sin has separated us from God. And the only way any of our sin will ever be made right? Cleanse a tone forgiven. Whatever Old Testament or New Testament word you want to use, the only way it will ever be forgiven is through personally trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And so, if, if you're here and you've realized, oh my gosh, I definitely have sinned against other people, but maybe you didn't connect it to God and you've never asked him to forgive you and save you, today's a wonderful day to do it.
Speaker 1 00:38:07 Like today, do you believe that you're a sinner, not just against people, but against God? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? Who he died for your sins and was raised from the dead? And are you willing to look at him and say, God, I am sorry I have sinned. Forgive me. Anybody who asked him for forgiveness is 100% forgiven that day. Your guilt is removed and all of your sin is paid for and you'll be given the Holy Spirit who will empower you to begin the process of making things right with the people in your life that you have sinned against. One. One of the most beautiful things that when you watch a a, a person truly repent and come to Christ is they don't just repent to God. They begin the process of making things right with those in their life. Which brings us to the second to sell what true, true repentance.
Speaker 1 00:39:03 It doesn't just stop with God if you want to be free. Don't get me wrong. When you trust in Christ, you're free from guilt before God. But if you wanna be free from the other stuff, I wanna encourage you with a, a little man named Zacchaeus. Luke 19 one through three, he entered Jericho was passing through Jesus. Behold there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich by the way. How do you become rich as a tax collector? You extort people and he was seeking to see who Jesus was. Then we get down to verse eight says, Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. And now you're thinking just half. What do you do with the other half? And if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.
Speaker 1 00:40:01 Which actually for what he did is, uh, perfectly applying Old Testament restitution laws in his case. And Jesus said to him, today's salvation has come to this house since he is also a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. And what you saw is that his repentance towards God was real and it was validated by his restitution with others. So what I wanna do to close this is I want to invite my wife up and I want her to share, um, something with you. And um, she's a therapist and so she has a project that I'm gonna let her explain. And it's something that she does when she is working with, um, clients who need to make restitution. And she was actually, I didn't know about this. And then was it yesterday we were in the car? Yeah. And then I was like, I feel like you should share this with the church because it's actually really special.
Speaker 3 00:41:04 He also said there was a 50 50 chance I'd come up here and it'd be during the so what? So I already decided I wasn't coming up, but here we are.
Speaker 1 00:41:12 I didn't know how long the sermon would be. And, and
Speaker 3 00:41:14 So I got like 30 minutes. Um, yeah, you're good. That's what I'm hearing. So we call it the repentance and restitution project because I believe in my whole heart that as bearers of the gospel, um, that to the degree that we understand how we have sinned is the same degree that the grace of Christ meets us in that. So if we're really shallow or like cheap and like, oh yeah, I did that, but oh, I'm sorry, and we just try to move on, it's the same kind of like shallow opportunity that we have to be able to understand what we've been forgiven. And so this project, we basically take two columns and we're like, column one, this is what I've done. And then we sit with it for like a month and every day we're like, Lord, show me more. Because if you ever cleaned out your couch and you're like, oh, that's a little dirty, and then you look in between the cushions and you're like, Hey, and then you like move the couch back and you're like, we're disgusting <laugh>, maybe that's just us.
Speaker 3 00:42:13 I dunno, <laugh>, it's kind of sometimes the same thing when you're looking at your own heart to be able to understand, Lord, what is going on in here? And at first look you're like, it's okay. And after a while you're like, Ooh, actually there's more. And so as you sit with it over the course of the month and you just ask the Lord all the time to be revealing, like, what does this look like to you? And then you go and you begin to ask the people around you, because we all have blind spots, right? And you're like, okay, what is, what does this look like to you? Tell me more about what I have, what I, what I need to repent of what I need to understand, what is the full weight of the actions that I've taken? And then after that, it's being able to say, okay, now how do I restitute this?
Speaker 3 00:42:55 How do I repair? I believe with my whole heart that if we were a culture who understood the value of cleaning up the messes that we've made, of repairing the things that we have damaged, that it would be a light of the gospel. Like probably not many people have seen before. And that we don't have to be scared of going and, you know, giving someone a new bowl when their bowl falls in our hole. But we could be able to be like, okay, this is what this looks like. And so for an example, I had a student who did this with me. I think she was in college and she would keep her mom up every night just with her generalized anxiety, just making her listen to her. And then this could happen, and then this could happen, and then this could happen. And her mom wanted to be that safe place for her.
Speaker 3 00:43:34 And so for years they would just stay up all night long just processing and listening to her worry about all the things that could go wrong. And when she got to this project, she was like, listen, my anxiety has not just taken things from me. It has taken things from my mom, it's taken things from my friends. If I aggregated all the time that they've had to listen to this, I have stolen days of their lives, right? And I said, what else? How else do you feel like this has affected your mom? She's like, her hair has gone really gray in these last two years. I said, what does it look like for you to rest destitute this? What does it look like for you to repair? What does it look for you to clean up the mess that you have created by the sin that has gone unharnessed?
Speaker 3 00:44:18 And I love watching the creativity that a lot of times the Lord brings to people's minds in this project. And she was like, I gotta get my mom's hair dyed and <laugh>. And I was like, that's right girlfriend. And she saved up her money to be able to, to take her mom to the salon, to be able to have her mom's hair dyed, to have her have this time of peace, to be able to repent and to be able to say, mom, I have taken so much from you. It's had a physical toll on your actual gray hairs, and I'm sorry for that and I wanna repair that. I can't repair it, right? Can't go inside your little hair cells and make them turn color again. But as an act of ownership, she's able to go and pay for her hair to be colored. And so that's just one of my favorite stories and what that looks like.
Speaker 3 00:45:01 And I think sometimes for us, you know, I love being able to see what it looks like to take this for our stories, to be able to be like, okay, what do I need to sit with? What do I, what messes am I making? What do I need to be responsible for cleaning up as a result of that? And so I hope that as you guys just process your next step and you're so what, and that it's an opportunity for you to be able to sit with that, to ask the Lord to show that to you, reveal what else is under the couch, um, and be able to take your next step to be able to repair. So
Speaker 1 00:45:30 Thank you. Amen.
Speaker 1 00:45:37 I think the best way to close this message is I wanna pray for all of us and that the Holy Spirit would, um, encourage, convict and empower us to take a next step. Let's pray. Father, um, we all have very messy couches. And Lord, it's really, really easy to lean so heavily into your grace and your mercy that we don't go as deep as we need to to really uncover some of the junk in our own hearts. And I, I just know, God, I stand guilty that there are parts of my heart I need to go deeper in. But Lord, I also know it's, it's a lot easier just to say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me and leave it. But Lord, maybe there are things that we actually do need to make right? Because in our sin, in our selfishness, we have taken and so God, um, I I pray that your Holy Spirit would give us a sense of gentle conviction, clarity as to a next step.
Speaker 1 00:46:39 But God, there might be some of us in the room who are gonna be on the receiving end. Maybe some of us are being sinned against. And there might be somebody who comes to us and wants to make restitution for something. And God, I pray that our hearts would just be so tender and gracious that we would be quick to forgive and Lord, that we would also allow them to make the restitution that they feel by the prompting of your Holy Spirit is right. And Lord, I I pray that this would more and more become a culture of unbelievable grace, but also digging into our hearts so that we can weed out the sin that we all have. Lord, I want to thank you for what you have modeled for us in the cross. I wanna thank you what you have modeled for us and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:47:30 I I cannot even imagine how many hours, holy Spirit, you've had to listen to me just process. And you have been so gracious and I pray that we would be able to model for one another what you have modeled for us. And I, and I thank you that the fire is always burning, that there is never a moment where we cannot run to you where forgiveness is not offered. And God, I pray that our hearts, that we would be open to that anytime so that we can be a, a community and a culture of not just peace but restitution. Lord, we love you. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
