Talk (Guilt and forgiveness)

Talk Introduction

• In our day to day lives, we experience loads of different emotions and feelings, some are easy to cope with, but some are hard.
• Tonight we are going to be talking about two things that I think a lot of us find hard to cope with: "Guilt and forgiveness"
• In a minute, we're going to watch a clip from a video, but before we do that, I'd like us to think further about what those words mean
• Guilt
  • What does that make you think of?
  • What words come to mind?
• Guilt "2. A feeling of responsibility or shame for wrongdoing etc."
• Forgiveness - ditto
• Forgive "1. To give pardons for a fault etc. 2. To cease to resent: 'to forgive one's enemies'. "

The middle bit

• Video: Forest Gump (11 mins).

The clip starts just before the gun fight in the jungle - it stops raining, and ends when it cuts to Forest at the bus stop.

• Lt Dan (Daniel Taylor)
  • "Just leave me here"
  • "I can't leave the platoon"
• Do you think Lt Dan was suffering from guilt?
• What kind of things can we feel guilty about?
  • Things we have done that have gone bad
  • Things we have not done
• Anybody ever thought, if only I'd have done this, then such and such would have happened?
  • Breaking up relationships…
  • Parents divorce…
• What about group "guilt"?
• It goes without saying, guilt and shame is very powerful feeling
  • It messes with the things that make us who we are
• Do you think God wants us to feel guilt?
• What about the Ten commandments?
  • Exodus 20 Page 78
• Can guilt end up controlling our lives

The Bible bit - Psalm 32 v1-7 Page 499

• Verse 3: "When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long"
• Are you the kind of person who keeps stuff to themselves
• Do you feel that you can talk to God?
• I moaned…do you, like me, think to yourself "oh no, I didn't say that did I…"

• Verse 5: "…I will confess my sins to the Lord and you forgave my guilt"
  • We are told this all over the Bible
  • What ever it is we are carrying around…God can help us with it
  • So why do we carry guilt around with us?
• We don't want to admit it…has anybody ever tried to kind yourself?

Conclusion

• There are things in all of our lives where we need to seek Gods forgiveness
• You know what they are
• But the problem is that sometimes these things we keep locked inside, may be because we don't want to say anything out aloud…
• So I thought we'd try something a little different…
• [hand out big lumps of blue tack]
• I'm going to give you a couple of minutes, and want you to make something that to you expresses where you are at…and then we will pray…
• [Pray]

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Copyright 1998-2004 Nigel Coates