The Feels // Guilty as Charged

By Chelsy Kessler, Resonate Moscow

The worst feeling is the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know you messed up. Why? The gospel is clear that we are made new, freed of debt, claimed righteous, and covered in the guiltlessness of Jesus. But if all that is true, then why do I still feel guilty?

Short answer: because we still do wrong. Jesus is clear that sin is a heart issue that produces wrong actions when unchecked. We feel the weight of our sin through our guilt. Worldly guilt leads us to run, hide, and pretend we’ve done nothing wrong. Godly guilt is what sets us free from sin. It leads us to confession, repentance, internal and external change, and living free in the light. 

Worldly guilt leads us to toxic shame. This shame tells us our identity is in our sin. It tells us that we could never approach the throne of grace. It says, “Jesus died for their sin, but not yours; yours is too much.” That guilt asks for pity, not repentance. It asks for fig leaves to cover up. It asks for darkness to hide in. 

As believers, we condemn worldly guilt because worldly guilt does not account for grace. To better understand this, let’s turn to 2 Samuel chapters 11 & 12 to look at David’s story of how he had godly and worldly guilt.

At this point, David is the king of Israel. His army is fighting on his behalf, and out of his sin, he stays behind. He sees a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing on a roof and calls for her. She was married to an honorable man named Uriah. David, a man after God’s own heart, knowingly and openly sins by sleeping with her anyway. Bathsheba becomes pregnant, and this fills David with worldly guilt. However, rather than leading him to repentance (for now), this guilt fills David with shame and leads him to more sin. 

Like David, our use of sin to hide his guilt only leads him down a path of more destruction. Worldly guilt leads us to sin, which leads to heavy chains of slavery. It never leads to freedom. It only leads to more sin and more darkness. 

How much more sin could he do? He tries tricking Uriah into sleeping with his wife to pass off his baby as Uriah’s. But when that does not work (because Uriah is honorable and his honor only highlights David’s wickedness), when David’s schemes fail, he sends Uriah to the front lines of war, essentially ordering his death. Then as David’s plans finally work out, Nathan the prophet comes to call David out: 

And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:1-13)

As Christians, we often admire David. He is painted as honorable, a key figure in the bible, and the one who was promised the lineage that will produce the Messiah. BUT, this story highlights the very wickedness of humanity through David’s sin, guilt, and shame, the very reasons for Jesus’ coming. 

Here are three things we learn in this text:

1. We are quick to judge others sin but hide our own

David worked so hard to hide his sin. Yet, when he heard of this man who stole another’s lamb, he was outraged and said, “the man who has done this deserves to die.” (2 Samuel 12:5b) Are we not like this too? Quick to judge and be outraged at injustice, but when we are the source of that injustice, we run into the darkness, hoping it will cover our guilt and shame. Humanity was in trouble. If the very man who God proclaims is a man after his own heart is also an adulterer, liar, and murder, how can we believe that we can save ourselves? 

“I mean, yeah, David messed up, but I have never murdered anyone.” In Village one night, we were talking about forgiveness. I asked the question, “Is there anything unforgivable?” and almost every single person in that room said murder. I bet some of you reading this are thinking, “Uh yeah! Murder is THE WORST”, but did you know that every single one of us is guilty of murder? Jesus says:

You have heard it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and who says, ‘You fool!’ will liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22) 

See it so clearly here—Jesus cares about your anger as he cares about murder, and he says both are going to be liable for judgment. Not only that, who nailed Jesus to the cross? I did. You did. She did. He did. They did. We did. No matter how much we wash our hands, scream for the spot of Jesus’ blood to go away, it’s there. While the world may tell us to ignore it, deny it, or run from it, our God has a very different answer—repent and be forgiven. Jesus says, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) and wipes away the very charges against us. Godly guilt leads us to repentance and freedom. Stop running. Stop hiding. Confess, and be set free by walking in the light. 

2. Repentance is better in community. 

David was fine hiding his guilt. He probably even thought himself clever for tidying up his mess. Without Nathan’s obedience to the Lord, confronting David, David would have taken a much more challenging and longer road to repentance. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, as one man sharpens another,” which is precisely what Nathan is doing. Is it easy? No, of course not. Now, this is projection, but I am assuming that Nathan wrestled with this, watching his friend and King sin, after sin, after sin that led to this moment of picking God’s truth over comfort. It is much more comfortable to sit passively and watch someone else’s destruction unfold. It is one of the very first sins. Adam passively watched Eve be deceived and eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden. We cannot be passive Adams. We must be bold Nathans. And boy, Nathan does not hold back when he says, “You are that man! You are the one who stole what was not yours, who killed out of guilt instead of pursuing the Lord’s heart; you are the one who forgot the Lord’s mercy on your life.” 

And how does David respond? Confession and repentance. He does not defend himself, nor get angry at Nathan, nor does he even run. He confesses and repents. 

Let’s take a beat here. I want us to understand that we have to remember some things before we go pointing out each other’s sin:

• We first pray and seek the Lord’s wisdom and discernment. When we look at Nathan, he points out God’s truth. He does not speak out of his hurt. 

• We use the language of forgiveness. “What you did is not okay. But that is not who you are. You are forgiven.” When someone comes to you and repents to you, say, they are forgiven. We often say things like, “it’s okay. No worries. You’re good.” That is worldly language that slaps band-aids on festering wounds. We are to emulate Jesus and speak out forgiveness. Deep clean those wounds, if necessary, have some conflict around it. But let us people who end with, “Jesus has forgiven you, and I forgive you too.”

• We stick around to help each other believe the truth of the gospel. We are not people who point out sin and then leave. We help each other by speaking love and truth amid battles against our flesh. We help carry one another’s burdens. We help by taking each other’s hands and walking away from sin together. 

3. True repentance starts internally and moves towards the Lord. 

Jesus talks about this all the time. David responds to Nathan with a confession that he sinned against the Lord. His sin started in 2 Samuel 11:1, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” David disobeyed God’s call in his life to be the King of Israel. Unconfessed and unrepentant sin only births more sin. This is a turning point for David; Nathan helps David brings his sin into the light, and it is there that David is overwhelmed with Godly guilt, understanding the weight of sin and its offense towards God. 

Church, this is vital for us to understand. Our sin offends God to his core because it is everything God is not. God is not fooled by our embarrassingly sad attempts of hiding our sin, guilt, and shame. In Luke, Jesus reminds us that "nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:2) David records how his godly guilt leads him to remember the Lord and his mercy in Psalm 32. Psalm 32:4-5 says this, “For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” Repentance starts with understanding God’s holy and forgiving character. That is why we repent, knowing that the gospel is the good news that we are forgiven and freed from our sin because of what Jesus has done for us. 

Confess, repent, and be free. Be people who feel guilt, letting it lead them to turn to the throne of grace on which Jesus sits on. We do not allow our guilt to lead us to dead works trying to please God into forgiving us. The gospel tells us that the work of forgiveness is finished (Hebrews 8). Jesus has completed it, sitting on the throne, readily extending grace upon grace upon grace to us that we may enjoy the freedom of being in a relationship with him.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)