Sunday Service

Notes

Corporately Unique-Gen 1:26

Individually Unique-Psalm 139:13-16

Spiritually Unique-Eph 1:3-14

Romans 12:1-8

Know your enemy. If we are unaware of how sin seeks to master us then we will be unable to crush it: flesh, world and the devil.  We need to not only read the Bible but be able to apply the truth that we find in there to our lives.

Self-worth = performance (last week) + others’ opinions (this week)

SELF-WORTH=KNOWING GOD+WHAT GOD’S WORD SAYS ABOUT YOU

The Blame Game-CH 7

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all tend to point an accusing finger, assigning blame for virtually every failure.

For every flaw we see around us, we usually search for someone to blame, hoping to exonerate ourselves by making sure that the one who fails is properly identified and punished. Rather than being objective and looking for solid Biblical solution to our problems, we often resort to either accusing someone else or beating ourselves.  Sometimes we blame others to make ourselves feel better.  By blaming someone else who failed, we feel superior.  The higher the position of the one who failed and the further they fall, the better we feel.  In some situations the opposite is true when a parent fails, a child often accepts the blame for that failure.

• 2 kids fighting over something-why do they blame each other-fear of punishment
• Look at politics-right blames the left
• Parents versus teachers
• Parents versus kids- One of the most common problems among parents of dealing with the misbehavior of their children.  It is tremendously painful for most parents to face up to the wrongdoing of their child.  But a primer reason the child’s misbehavior so painful and embarrassing is that parents tend to blame themselves for.  Mary said, “Mary wood and act like this if I’d been the mother I should have been.” Days, on the other hand ignored his sons misbehavior with the excuse that is boy was simply “going to a stage.” You rationalize two sons wrongdoing to seek and face the guilt of being a failure is apparent.  When children get into trouble, parents usually alternate between blaming themselves and blaming their children.  After all, someone has to be blamed.  The problem in either case is not that parents are living their children too much for too little but that their personal significance is wrapped up in the performance as parents.  Therefore, when the child does well, the parents feel good about themselves.  When the child is poorly however, they often blame each other on a child.  Beneath it all is the internal conscious belief that someone has to take the blame.
• Mom versus dad
• Parents divorce
• Late report

There have been many times in my life when I felt that God was going to punish me by causing me to lose all that I had, either because I’d done something I shouldn’t have or because I’d failed to do something I should have.  This erroneous perception of God has driven me away from him on many occasions when I’ve needed him most, and it is completely contrary to the one who call described as “the father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).  Look at how Jesus handled Peter after he denied him.

Some of you are still living under the guilt and shame of a mistake or sin that happened years ago.

Look at Hebrews 4:14-16

WHY DO WE LIVE THIS WAY?

Rooted in us from birth, we know that good deserves to be rewarded and evil deserves to be punished.  Now we may disagree what is good and what is evil but whatever we decide that it is I can assure that we are compelled to move in one of these directions.

Those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.

Fear of Punishment/Punishing Others Test

1. I fear what God might do to me.
2. After I fail, I worry about God’s response.
3. When I see someone in a difficult situation, I wonder what he or she did to deserve it.- homeless, drug addicts, people with HIV/AIDS, single moms. We are especially conditioned to believe that a person gets what they deserved.  If someone dies or gets hurt we often say to ourselves, “I wonder what they did to deserve that.” We believe that if a person works hard and lives a good life then they should be rewarded with happiness.  If a person doesn’t do the right thing the bad results that come from that are deserved.  From this it naturally flows that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. (Luke 13)
4. When something goes wrong, I have a tendency to think that God must be punishing me. Discipline is not Punishment (Hebrews 12:1-13)
5. I am very hard on myself when I fail.- Self condemnation is a severe form of punishment.
6. I find myself wanting to blame people when they fail.
7. I get angry with God when someone who is immoral or dishonest prospers.
8. I am compelled to tell others when I see them doing wrong.
9. I tend to focus on the faults and failures of others.
10. God seems harsh to me.

Those who fail are unworthy of love and deserved to be punished.

Our perception of success and failure is often the primary basis for evaluating ourselves and others. If we believe that performances reflects one’s value and that failure makes one unacceptable and unworthy of love, then we will usually feel completely justified in condemning those who fail, including ourselves. And this may include self condemnation such as name calling, making self deprecating jokes or statements, or simply never allowing any room for error in our performance.  With others, we may be harsh or relatively subtle in the way that we disapprove of them by physical and verbal abuse or by being sarcastic and silent.

We often make two major errors when we punish others for their failures.  The first is that we condemn people not only for genuine sin but also for their mistakes.  When people have tried their best fail, they do not need our biting blame.  They need our love and encouragement.  We often tend to blame others because their actions (whether they reflect overt disobedience or honest mistakes) make us look at our failures, and our own failure is unacceptable to us.  Husband and wife, parent child, and employer employee relationships are especially vulnerable to one’s been brought by the failure of another.  People generally experience difficulty in dealing with their sins; let’s not compound their problems by condemning them for their mistakes.

A second major error we often make by condemning others is believing that we’re Godly agents of condemnation.  Unable to tolerate injustice, we seem to possess a great need to balance the scales of right and wrong.  We are correct in recognizing that sin is reprehensible and deserves condemnation, yet we have not been licensed by God to punish others for their sins.  We don’t even have the right to punish ourselves for our own sins.  Yet people do this by saying, “I just can’t forgive myself.” This results in us having a higher standard that God. Judgment is God’s responsibility, not man’s.  In the case of the woman caught in adultery we see that we should lead righteous condemnation and punishment in the hands of the one worthy of the responsibility.  Our response should be love, affirmation, and compassionate correction.

If someone’s been rude and inconsiderate to us and we passively accept their behavior in an attempt to avoid upsetting them two things we usually happen: we develop resentment toward them, and they never have to come to terms with their negative impact on others.  In this case we prolong their hurtful behavior.  All of us fail, but this does not mean that we are failures (Prov 24:16).  We need to understand that failing can be a step toward maturity, not a permanent blog on our self esteem.  Like children first learning to walk, we all stumble and fall.  And just like children we can pick ourselves up and begin again.  We don’t have to allow failure to prevent us from being used by God.  We should experience remorse when we fail or rather than hiding from God, fearing his punishment, we should approach Him with appreciation for what his love has accomplished for us.

Effects of the fear of punishment and the compulsion to punish others

The logical result of Satan’s deception is fear: fear of failure, rejection and punishment.  When we base our security and value on how well we perform and how we want others to perceive us, failure poses a tremendous threat to us.  When threatened, we’ll often withdraw from the source of our fear and become very controlling of ourselves and others.  For example, in an attempt to avoid failure, we may adhere to a fairly rigid schedule in which we’re fairly certain of success and avoid those activities that are most promising.  Because of our insecurity, some of us are so self-protective but we are rarely able to perceive of ourselves as being in the wrong.  We may be quick to pinpoint and condemn the weaknesses of others, but in our own self evaluation, we may be effectually blind to faults and frailties.

Self induced punishment: many of us operate on the theory that if we’re hard enough on ourselves, then God will not have to punish us.  We fail to realize that God disciplines us in love and never punishes us in anger.  Because God loves us unconditionally and does not punish us, we don’t need to punish ourselves.  Another effect is bitterness, passivity, punishment of others, and fears of all sorts.

BITTERNESS

PASSIVITY

PUNISHMENT OF OTHERS

FEARS OF ALL SORTS

God’s Answer: Propitiation-CH 8

There is nothing anyone can do to you (lie, rape, murder, steal) that can compare with what Christ has forgiven you for doing.

To be true to his holiness God punishes those whose righteousness is not the same as his.  Only if we understand the horror of coming under the wrath of a holy God for our sins will we appreciate what Christ did on the cross.  Every day our lives should be overwhelmed by thankfulness for what he did on our behalf.  Christ died on the cross, he was our substitute.  If opponents self the righteous wrath of God we deserve. The depths of God’s love for us as revealed by the extremity of his actions for us: the holy son of God became a man and died a horrible death in our place.  (Isaiah 53:4-6 and 1^st John 4:9-11) (Romans 5:7-11) This tremendous truth of propitiation clearly demonstrates that we are truly and deeply loved by God.  His perfect love cast out all fears as we allow it to flood our hearts (1st John 4:18).

Propitiation means that the wrath of someone who has been unjustly wrong has been satisfied.  To be true to his holiness, God punishes those whose righteousness is not the same as his.  Our sin deserves the righteous wrath of God.  He is the almighty, the rightful judge the universe.  He is absolutely holy and perfect.  Because of this, God cannot overlook sin, nor can he compromise by accepting sinful behavior.  For god to condone even one sin would defile his holiness like smearing a white satin wedding gown with black tar.  Because he is holy, God’s aversion to sin is manifested in his righteous anger.  However, God is not only righteously indignant about sin, he is also infinitely loving.  In his holiness, God condemned sin, but in the most awesome example of love the world has ever seen, he ordained his son would die to pay for our sins.  God sacrificed the sinless, perfect savior to turn away, to propitiate, his great wrath.  Who can measure the fathomless depth of love that sent Christ to the cross?  While we were the enemies of God, Christ averted the wrath we deserve so that we might become the sons of God.  Propitiation means that Christ satisfied the holy wrath of God through this payment.  There was only one reason to do this: he loves us.  We no longer have to fear punishment for our sins that Christ paid for-past, present, future.

Potential Obstacles to Receiving this Truth

Poor Patterns of Motivation

Holding on to Unforgiveness

• The offense was too great
• He won’t accept responsibility for the offense
• He isn’t really sorry
• He never asked to be forgiven
• He will do it again
• I don’t like him
• If I forgive, I’ll have to treat the offender well
• Someone has to punish him
• I’ll be a hypocrite if I forgive because I don’t feel like forgiving
• I’ll forgive but I will never forget

How should we respond when another fails?  If the person who fails is a Christian, we need to affirm God’s truth about him or her: he or she is deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted by God, and complete in Christ.  This perspective can eventually change our condemning attitude to one of love and a desire to help.  By believing these truths, we will gradually be able to love this person just as God loves us (1 John 4:1), forgive him or her just as God has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32), and accept him are heard just as God has accepted us (Romans 15:7).  This does not mean that we will become blind to the faults or failures of others.  We will continue to see them, but our response to them will change considerably over time from condemnation to compassion.  As we depend less on other people for our self worth, there stands in the states will become less of a threat to us, and we will desire to help them instead of being compelled to punish them. It can be very helpful if we compare the failure or sin of others with our sin that Christ died to forgive: there is nothing that anyone can do to me that can compare with my sin of rebellion that Christ has completely forgiven. That should give us a light of perspective!  We should leave righteous condemnation and punishment in the hands of the one worthy of the responsibility.  Our response should be love, affirmation, and, possibly, compassionate correction.

Discipline is a result of grief over sin punishment is the result of anger over sin.  We should never respond in anger but in grief.

COMMON CAUSE GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. 1. Do you spend much time thinking about your weaknesses and failures?  If so, why?
   2. Does condemning yourself help you become a better person?  Why or why not?
   3. Does condemning other people help you become a better person?  Why or why not?
   4. After sinning, do you ever believe you have to feel bad about yourself before you can feel good about yourself?  In what ways have you done this?
   5. If something goes wrong, do you assume the Lord is punishing you?
   6. Does god punish his children? Answer for group leaders-(Hebrews 12:1-13) No, God does not punish his children, but he does discipline them.  Discipline is rooted in love.  God disciplines us because sin is destructive, and he does not want us to self-destruct.  The goal of his discipline is to restore, develop, and perfect.  Punishment, on the other hand, as retaliation and is used to impose a penalty.  Christ has born your punishment and blame for sin.  It is crucial that you understand the difference between discipline and punishment.  God’s discipline can be severe, but it is prompted by grief, not anger.  His willingness to discipline you is indicative of his love for you.
   7. Define propitiation.
   8. Read 1 John 4:9-10.  Are you loved by the father?  How do you know you are loved?  Do you feel loved?
   9. The more we understand God’s love and forgiveness, the more we will be willing and able to forgive others.  Are there any sins (or even personality differences) that you have difficulty forgiving?  If so confess your lack of forgiveness to God.  How do you plan on repenting of this?
   10. How do these things compare to your sins that deserve God’s wrath but instead received the payment of Christ’s substitutionary death?