Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, with scripture, prayer and meditation, and then continue that conversation with him throughout your day. Your hopes to strive to squine you, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season, the podcast will going to be digging deeper into scripture each and every day, exploring new ways that we can encounter Jesus and build our relationship with him. So grab your pen, Bible, and a cup of coffee, and let's welcome Pastor Travis.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the daily Together on Mission podcast. This is Travis and it's great to be with everyone. The title of the podcast this morning is Rescripting.
We're talking about Rescripting our mind specifically when it comes to the power of guilt, because there's a power in guilt and the power of forgiveness, which is more powerful than the power of guilt. And that is the point. So the title is Rescripting. Now, we often think here and maybe are consumed by thoughts like these.
How could I have done that? How could I have kept doing that? I can't believe that I did that. I can't believe that I didn't do that.
How could I have not seen that or how could I have not seen that for so long? Why was I so? It's my fault. I can't believe I didn't stop doing that or I can't believe I didn't stop that person from doing that when I had the power to stop it and I could go on.
These are all what might be called shame phrases or guilt phrases or the lines of condemnation. These comments, they roll around in our mind and in our heart rather regularly, especially when the soil of our soul is guilt, shame, condemnation. And we try not to think of these things, but they just seem often to consume us. And to be completely honest, these phrases are way too common for those that are in Christ Jesus.
And what often makes things worse is that people in our lives, even people that love us the most, since we're all broken, people that are in our lives can remind us of things from the past or even use phrases with us like the ones I mentioned earlier. And maybe they're not intending to exacerbate the phrases of shame and guilt and condemnation but it often has that effect. And here is the crucial point. The actual problem is not the power of God's forgiveness.
The problem is our unwillingness to receive and walk in the power of God's forgiveness and the result of refusing to walk in the forgiveness of God is that we experience all kinds of symptoms like self-hatred or sadness or insecurity or overcompensation as a result of guilt or codependency or just repeating patterns that we feel guilty about because we already feel guilty so why not just repeat the pattern or defensiveness? And we could go on, but most of us will recognize at least a few of those symptoms. And again, the problem is not the power of the cross. The problem is our unwillingness to walk in the truth of indeed what is true.
And as we search the scriptures, we find words and phrases like cleansed, forgiven, white as snow, justified, sanctified, made righteous. And I could go on, these are all words and phrases from scripture that communicate the reality and the power of the depth and the victory of God's forgiveness. And then Paul says it best there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. And so what do we do?
Maybe we've heard this before. How do we participate with truth, the truth of God's forgiveness so that the truth of God's forgiveness becomes the reality in our lives. And there are probably quite a few answers to this question, but the one I want to go after this morning in this text, which is Psalm 32, is this idea of rescripting or to use maybe a more common word for it, meditation. I want to do that this morning.
And so in Psalm 32, we begin reading in verse one, blessed. And that word, blessed is the idea of truly happy. Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them.
The Old Testament points to this reality, the power of God that's going to deal with the problem of sin. And so we get all these words and phrases in the New Testament cleansed. No matter what's been done, no matter how long it was done, forgiven. Why does snow justified, sanctified, made righteous?
The power of the forgiveness of God. Meditation sitting with this passage is something that we can do. And what meditation does is it indeed rescripts our mind. It is the action that we can take in the transformation of our mind, which then will transform our life.
And most of us could probably recite commercial ditties and sit com tombs because they're things that we've heard over and over and over and over again and the repetitive nature of it scrips our mind and we remember it. Meditation is a rescripting and it does take some time and it does work and it is something that we can actually do and it is worth it because those symptoms that I mentioned earlier are soul killing and their relationship killing and throughout the history of faith. Meditation has been a key element in living the truth that is actually ours. And so when we go to this passage, blessed, happy is the one whose transgressions are forgiven.
Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and we can just allow that to roll around in our mind as it rescripts our minds to live alive and free and with joy, which we'll get to in just a moment. Think of meditation like savoring the bite of a great steak. It's like you don't want to swallow it too quickly because that steak is so flavorful and you want your taste buds to be able to enjoy it as long as possible or a great dessert or a sip of great wine, right? Think about it in that way, kind of chewing on it and keeping it in our mouth for a moment in order for the potent and exquisite taste to settle in and be enjoyed.
Meditation is resting in a truth, allowing the potent and exquisite reality of that truth to soak into the soil of our soul, to to rescript our minds and notice the last verse in the Psalm verse 11, rejoice in the Lord and be glad you righteous, right? You ones that have been made right because of what God has done through forgiveness. Rejoice you righteous ones. Seeing with an upright heart, you see the result of rescripting our minds by the power of the Spirit.
The result is joy. The result of the reality of forgiveness becoming our reality is that we might rejoice. And I love this point and I'll end with this point. The New Testament is a book of joy.
It truly is. The Old Testament is a book of hope. God will. God will.
God will. God will. And we hope in the promises of God. The New Testament is a book of joy.
God has. God has. God has done it. Technolesti it is finished.
It is accomplished. It is done. And so the New Testament is a book of joy and rejoicing. It's a central feature in the New Testament.
That's why when people encounter Jesus or encounter the gospel. There's joy and there's rejoicing. Right? Be glad all you righteous because you are righteous because you have been made righteous.
So living in forgiveness is the antidote for guilt and shame and condemnation. And the result of that forgiveness is joy. Now let's just take a few moments. Maybe three minutes.
Let's go to a quiet place. Let's close our eyes. Let's think. Let's savor.
Let's allow the power of God's forgiveness to overpower guilt and shame and condemnation because as John says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overpower it. Here's the truth that we're going to meditate on this morning. The light of forgiveness has shown in the darkness of guilt and the darkness cannot overpower it. We'll talk soon.
Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries, or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram. Or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.