Well, hey everybody, and welcome to Highlands Fellowship! It’s so good to be with all of you today. I’m excited that we get to talk to so many people in many different places and venues—from here in Abington to Bristol, Bluefield, out in our country venue, and also in the chapel, to all of our cafes. We just want to welcome each and every one of you here, no matter if you’re joining online or on TV. You are part of what we’re doing, and we’re excited that God has brought you here today, and we get to share God’s word with you.
We’ve been in a series called "It’s Time to Prune," and as we’ve been moving from one season into another, I really do believe that it’s a great time for us to consider the things in our lives that we need to cut back or cut out. So it’s time to prune so that we can get ready for the growth that God desires for us in this next season of life. I really do believe with all my heart that God desires for us to grow and for us to produce fruit. But before we can actually experience this growth, we’ve got to go through a process, and it’s called pruning. That means letting go of what no longer serves God’s purpose in our lives.
It can be painful, it can hurt, and we know that. But just like a gardener cuts away dead or overgrown branches to make way for new life, God lovingly removes things in our lives that hinder our spiritual growth. What’s so important for us to remember is that pruning is preparation for growth—it’s God shaping us, refining us, and making us ready for greater things in the future. It is not punishment; that’s what we have to understand. It really prepares us for the growth by cutting away the things in our lives that keep us from taking the next step in that faith journey that God desires.
We see this very clearly in John 15:1-2, where Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." So we need to prune some things out of our lives, right? This is a necessary process for spiritual growth. Together, we’re learning to embrace this process, to trust in God’s timing—not in our own—and to step boldly into this new season that He’s calling us into. So let’s get ready to do some pruning so that we’ll be ready for the growth that God desires for us.
We’ve already talked about pruning and overcoming some of the small offenses that weigh us down and hold us back in life. Last week, we talked about some of the bigger betrayals—when someone lies to us, lies about us, deceives us, or does something extremely hurtful that causes us significant pain, and how we forgive that. Today, I want to talk to you about pruning the shame out of our lives. As we do, I just want to encourage you—we have what we call Celebrate Recovery at our Bristol campus on Tuesday nights. We start with dinner at 6:00, and we have our service at 6:30. This is a place where people can come and deal with their hurts, habits, and hang-ups.
So often, we think, "Well, this is just about addiction." But only one-third of the people who come to that are actually dealing with addictions to some chemical substance. This is a place where anybody can come and deal with the offenses of life—the grudges that we hold, the shame in our lives. We’re going to talk about a couple more things before this series is over, but we really want to make that available to you and for you to understand that it is a place for you to come and deal with those hurts, habits, and hang-ups that you may struggle with in life. We want you to find healing, to grow in your relationship with Christ. We understand that it takes healing to get there.
Let’s prune some of these things out of our lives. I believe that’s a place where you can go and find the healing and prune in a way that God will be glorified, and you’ll be able to use your story for His kingdom, for His glory. So check that out—again, Tuesdays at our Bristol campus. We’d love to have you there. But as we talk about this idea of pruning the shame out of our lives, really this idea of shame is about forgiving the person that may be the most difficult for many of us to forgive—and that is forgiving yourself.
How do you forgive yourself when you let yourself down, when you know you let God down, or when you hurt somebody that you love? When you think about it, this can actually be so difficult because we know what we did. We know what we did that we shouldn’t have done. We know what we wished we could undo. We know the words that we said that we really didn’t mean—maybe we kind of meant them in the moment at that time, but we didn’t really, and it’s not really our heart. We said it, and now we know that it really hurt somebody. We know what we think about when nobody else is around, and we carry that shame with us. We carry the guilt.
How can I forgive myself after what I did, after who I was in this particular situation? Guilt and shame—we carry that with us. We carry the weight of the guilt and shame, and it weighs so heavy on us. I understand the forgiveness of Jesus—I know that He’s forgiven me—but I just can’t seem to forgive myself. What’s wrong with me? Maybe Jesus has forgiven me, but I just can’t seem to forgive myself. I don’t know what it might be for you—I’m not sure—but maybe you drank too much one night and you did something that you can’t undo, or you said something to somebody that you can’t unsay.
Maybe it was years ago, and you did something as a teen—or maybe you didn’t do something as a teen. I don’t know—maybe you were in your early 20s or something like that, and in a desperate situation, you made a decision that you thought was right at the time, but you have regretted it ever since. Maybe in the name of loving your family, you did what you thought was best and poured yourself into your work, saying, “You know what? I’m going to be successful. I’m going to be a provider. I’m going to provide for my family by being successful in my job.” Then years went by, and suddenly you’re disconnected from your kids, and you think, “What in the world did I do? Why did I do that? The whole time, the most important thing was right in front of me, but I poured my life into my work instead.” You just can’t get over the guilt that you neglected your family.
Maybe you found yourself in a really odd spot in your marriage, and instead of stepping into your marriage, you actually stepped out of your marriage and did something—you betrayed your spouse—and you just can’t get over the guilt that you feel. Maybe it’s the clicking—maybe you’re looking at some things that you know you shouldn’t be looking at, and you really do love God, and if you’re married, you really do love your spouse, but you just keep going back and going back and going back again. The shame and the guilt are just overwhelming.
What do we do when we are haunted by what we did in the past, when the guilt just simply won’t go away? Well, that’s why I want to talk to you today about pruning shame and pruning the guilt out of your life. Why can’t I forgive myself? What do you do with the shame and the guilt? I want to start today by acknowledging something that I think is very important, and that is that not all guilt is the same. Some of you are living under what we might call a false guilt—in other words, you’re feeling guilty for something that you should not feel guilty about.
I don’t know what it might be for you—maybe you were a kid or a teenager, and your parents divorced, and you feel like somehow, in some way, that was your fault. “I shouldn’t have done something—if I had whatever, my parents would still be together. It’s all my fault that they got divorced.” That is not your fault. I want you to understand that today—that is not your fault. That is a false guilt that you are carrying. Tragically, I come across a lot of people who were victims of someone who abused their power. There might be those of you that someone you trusted and loved took advantage of you—maybe physically or emotionally, in some way they abused you—and so often, it’s so tragic and sad that the victim feels the shame and, in some way, feels like, “I must have done something wrong.”
I’m here to tell you today—it was not your fault. Don’t buy into the devil’s schemes; don’t buy into the devil’s games of shaming you with false guilt. False guilt is always dangerous, and it’s never ever productive—it’s not from God, and we need to let that go. So here’s something that I think is so important to remember: not all guilt is the same. There’s another type of guilt, and this guilt can actually—believe it or not—be a gift when you let it draw you closer to God. The right type of guilt can actually be a gift when it draws you into the presence of God.
In fact, 2 Corinthians 7:10 tells us, “Godly sorrow brings repentance”—a sorrow that says, “I wish I hadn’t done that; that was not the right thing to do. I dishonored God, I hurt somebody, and I sinned.” Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. A Godly sorrow is what leads to repentance, where it’s like, “I’m so, so sorry.” It brings about salvation and leaves no regrets. Wouldn’t it be nice to live a life that had no regrets? Well, God can give that to us.
There’s another type of guilt or sorrow that’s a worldly sorrow, and worldly sorrow brings death. So let’s talk for just a minute about Godly sorrow. This is a feeling of conviction—it’s like, “Oh my goodness, I did something that was not right. I did something that I should not have done, and I’m so, so, so sorry about it.” This type of conviction can actually be a good thing and can be helpful because it can take you off of the wrong path and set you on the right path. This is a Godly sorrow that says, “You know what? I don’t want to live that way anymore. I don’t want to say what I said anymore. I want to change directions. I want to change my behaviors. I want to apologize, and I want to live in the freedom that God desires for me to live in. I want to express God’s love and heal from what happened in the past.”
Really, there’s a big difference between Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. A good example of Godly sorrow is Peter in the New Testament, and many of you can probably relate to Peter—I know that I can. Peter was a guy who had so many great qualities, and then all of a sudden, he would just do something that was like stupid on steroids. You know what I’m talking about? How many of you guys can relate to that? I know that I can. You’re going in the right direction, you’re honoring God, you’re doing good things—you’re in the zone—and then one day it’s like, boom, dumber than dumb. Where did that come from? Well, this was Peter, and unfortunately, this can be me too.
Peter, you know, he’s kind of bragging on himself: “Jesus, I’m your guy. I got you.” He walks up to Him and gives Him the dab and the half bro hug type of thing, and he’s like, “Come on in here. Everybody else—they’re going to leave you, they’re going to deny you, but not me. I’ve got your back. I’m in your corner. I’m always going to be there for you. If everybody else lets you down, hey, I’m going to be here for you. If you go into battle, you want me on your side. I’ll never let you down.” Then Jesus, He kind of sees straight through his pride, sees through his weakness, and Jesus said—really, what He’s doing is He’s prophesying—“Hey, Peter, calm down a little bit, because before the rooster crows, you’re actually going to deny me three times.”
And that’s exactly what happens. Jesus gets arrested, and a little girl walks up and says to Peter, “Hey, weren’t you one of those guys that was with Jesus?” And Peter’s like, “Jesus who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Another woman comes up to him and says, “Hey, weren’t you one of the disciples? Weren’t you walking with Jesus?” And Peter’s like, “I don’t know who Jesus is. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t there—I was home fixing my fishing nets or whatever.” He makes up some excuse. Then we read in the scripture about a third person that confronts him in Luke 22:59-62: “About an hour later, another person asserted, ‘Certainly this fellow was with Jesus,’ speaking of Peter, ‘for he is a Galilean.’ And Peter replied, ‘Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed.”
Now, I’m going to show you a little portion of this scripture that you may not have noticed, even if you’ve read through it before—you may not have paid much attention to it. But just at the moment that Peter denies Jesus, scripture says in verse 61, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.” He looked straight at him in the moment that Peter let Jesus down. Peter looked at Him and caught Him straight in the eye. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly. He wept bitterly—this was a Godly sorrow.
“I cannot believe that I did what I just did. I am so, so, so sorry. I was so stupid.” Have you ever felt like that? I know that I have. You’ll say, “I’ll never do that again,” and then a short time later, you do it again. “I truly love this person with all my heart,” and then in a moment of anger, you say something that you’ll regret for years and years and years to come. You promise yourself that you’ll always—and then you don’t—or you’ll never—and then you do. You wake up and you’re like, “I can’t believe what I did. Why was I so stupid? How could God love somebody like me that never ever gets it right, that always falls short, that hurts somebody that I love in such a significant way?”
The moment you’re there, the moment you get to that place in your life, that is exactly where the devil wants you to be. The moment that you’re dwelling on the shame, your spiritual enemy has you in a corner—because shame is the devil’s playground. But there’s a big difference between Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow is what we call conviction. Conviction says, “I did something bad”—that’s what conviction says, like, “I did something that was wrong, but it’s a separate act; it is forgivable.” But shame says, “I am bad”—like, “I’m a bad person.”
What the devil does is he tries to connect your actions with your identity to create this sense of shame. From this moment forward, the devil wants you to believe that you are pathetic, that you are worthless, and that you are useless. “God will never use you again after what you thought, after what you said. You’ll never be happy, you’ll never be blessed, you’ll never measure up, you’ll never have a real ministry, you’ll never have a great marriage, your kids are never going to honor you, you’re never going to have a great legacy. You’re always going to be marked by that thing that you did because you are a bad person. The pain you’re experiencing—well, that’s just payment for your past, and you deserve every bit of it.”
The moment you start dwelling in the shame, your spiritual enemy has you exactly where he wants you. You can almost imagine what the devil would have been telling Peter about this time: “Peter, you blew it big time. Jesus trusted you. Jesus, out of all the people in the world, selected you to be one of His disciples, and you went off bragging about how good you were and all this sort of thing—like you’d be there for Him—and you let Him down. You betrayed Him, you fell short, and just to top it off, Jesus saw you. He looked you right in the eye when you did. And guess what, Peter? All of the disciples—they’re going to know about what you did, and you’re never going to have credibility ever again. Your life is over, your integrity is shot, your ministry is ruined. Peter, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Because shame—it’s the devil’s playground.
So what does your spiritual enemy want to do? The devil tries to use your shame to drive you away from God—like, “You’re not good enough for God. You’ll never measure up after what you did, after the way that you thought, after the way you behaved, after what you said. God could never really love you.” That’s what he wants you to think. So the devil wants to use your shame to drive you away from God, but listen to this: God wants to use conviction to draw you to Him. I believe somebody will hear this today, and they’ll feel it in their hearts, and it’ll change their life.
Can you feel the power of Godly sorrow in you saying, “I don’t want to live that way anymore”? Like, “I have a safe place to turn. I have a God who loves me, a God who still cares about me, a God who receives me despite my faults. His mercies are new every single morning.” The devil wants to use your shame to drive you away from God—like, “You’ll never be successful, you’ll never be fulfilled, you’ll never have anything significant or meaningful in your life.” But our God—our God is good, and He actually wants to use Godly sorrow, like a healthy conviction, to draw you closer to Him and closer to His grace, so you receive His mercy and you’re free to do His will.
Think about this—it’s very similar to comparing what Peter did and what Judas did. They essentially did the same thing. If you don’t know Judas’s story—just like Peter denied Jesus three times, well, Judas betrayed Him one time for 30 pieces of silver. Instead of having a Godly sorrow, Judas had what many of us have—shame. In his shame, he had a worldly sorrow, and he’s like, “I’m busted. My life is over. I got caught. I’m so embarrassed, I’m so ashamed, I can never face anyone ever again.” So what did Judas do? In his shame, he separated himself from God, and he took his own life. Shame is the devil’s playground.
Then there was Peter, who essentially did something very similar to Judas, but instead of worldly sorrow, he had a Godly sorrow. He’s like, “I’m so sad that I did this.” He wept bitterly: “I was wrong. God, would you forgive me?” A Godly sorrow leads to repentance, and repentance basically just simply says, “Changing direction.” “I’m simply turning from the way that I’m going. I’m going some other direction, and God, I’m sorry. I don’t want to ever live like that again. I don’t ever want to talk like that again. I don’t want to treat people like that again. I want to live Your way. I want to find freedom in You. I want to be a blessing to others, and I want to be a voice of hope so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can continue to move forward.”
It’s a Godly sorrow that leads to repentance: “I acknowledge that I sinned. God, I am so sorry. I’m not making any excuses for what I did or what I didn’t do.” It’s a Godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Jesus went on to give His life—why? For the forgiveness of our sins. The one who was perfect became sin for us on a cross. He died in our place, and the world went dark. Three days later, when some women went to the tomb to check on things, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, and the Son of God, Jesus, was not there—but God had raised Him from the dead so that we can be forgiven and so that we can experience His grace.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 21, you can read this powerful story. Jesus shows up to Peter—the one who had failed Him three times and denied Jesus right in front of Him. Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter’s like, “Yes, I love you. I did something stupid—it wasn’t what I wanted to do.” Isn’t that the way it is sometimes? “Yes, I love you. Yes, I want to do what’s right. Yes, I messed up, and no, I don’t know why, but I did. But yes, I love you.” Let me tell you what Jesus did not say. Jesus didn’t say, “I told you that you were going to do that,” did He? He didn’t say, “I want you to dwell on your past for a little while—I want you to think about it, like you’re in spiritual timeout.” He didn’t do that either.
He didn’t say, “Well, you need to wallow around in your sin for a little while and drown in your guilt because, you know, you’re going to go to hell where worms never die and there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.” He didn’t do that. No, no, no, no, no. I want you to feel the power of this. I want you to feel the love of Jesus. He says, “Do you love me?” “Jesus, you know that I do.” And I can imagine Jesus smiling and saying, “Then feed my sheep.” Feed my sheep—in other words, “Then go and do my will. Go show my love. Finish your assignment.” “Do you love me?” “Yes, I do.” “You’re forgiven. Go and do what I created you to do.”
And let me tell you what Peter didn’t do. Peter didn’t say, “I just can’t receive your grace. I’ll never get over this. I don’t deserve it. Jesus, your grace may be enough for John, but it’s just not enough for me.” Peter didn’t do that—but that’s exactly what we do sometimes, isn’t it? “God, you can’t really forgive me. I deserve to live in shame for the rest of my life.” No—He acknowledged his sin, He apologized, He repented, He received the forgiveness of Jesus. I don’t know what you’re holding on to—something you didn’t do years ago that you maybe should have done, or something that you did that still weighs on you, something that you said, or something that, in a moment of stupidity, you did, and it wasn’t good.
If you’ve confessed that to Jesus, it is forgiven, and it’s time to let it go. Just let it go. God’s Word says in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness—all unrighteousness. So it’s time for us to confess our sins to God. If you’ve taken it before God, Jesus has covered it, and God doesn’t hold it against you any longer. He’s forgotten your sin—you’re free from it. So don’t let the pain of the past rob you from God’s calling on your future. You’ve got to let it go—the neglect, the lies, the words that you said, the thoughts that you had. Confess it, because you need to acknowledge the truth.
No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you will it or how much you want it, you cannot change your past. But the good news is our God can change your future. So I want you to get this today: You can’t change your past, but God can change your future. Confess your sin and let it go. You did something that you wish you hadn’t done—you’ve got to let it go. You betrayed someone—you’ve got to let it go. Spend the rest of your life being faithful—that’s great—but you’ve got to let it go. Maybe you got hooked early on something that you wish you had never been hooked on, but you’re free now. Live and walk in freedom and help others find that same freedom that you’ve experienced.
“Do you love Him?” “Yes.” “Well then feed His sheep.” Maybe you let God down, maybe you let yourself down, maybe you let somebody that you love down. I want to assure you today that it’s covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, and don’t live in the past—you’ve got to let that go, whatever it is. Here’s what’s going to happen, though, and I want to warn you—your spiritual enemy is crafty, alright? Every now and then, he’ll bring up your past: “Well, you did this, and you thought that, and you said that, and you weren’t there for them, and you let them down, and you can never undo that.” Anytime the devil brings up your past, you just remind yourself that he’s bringing up your past because he is intimidated by the future that God has for you.
God’s hand is still on you. His grace still covers you. His power still works through you. So just remind yourself that your enemy is trying to talk you out of God’s potential for your life. Think about Peter—who did God choose to be the keynote speaker at the day of Pentecost whenever God poured out His Spirit? Well, God chose Peter. And what was Peter’s message? It was very, very simple and unbelievably powerful. Peter said, “Repent of your sins—just turn away from it. Call on the name of the Lord, call on the name of Jesus, and you will be saved. You will be forgiven.”
Think about who God chose to do His will, to preach His truth, to lead people to grace. He didn’t choose somebody who was perfect, right? He chose the one who was forgiven of some major sin. He chose the one who had experienced the grace of God. “Do you love Jesus?” That’s the question. “Well then do His will.” You are not what you did—that was something that you did; that is not who you are. The devil wants to connect your actions to your identity—like you did something that was bad, the devil wants you to believe that you’re just a bad person, that’s always going to be who you are. But Jesus makes all things new.
As His follower, I’m a child of God. Yes, that was a bad chapter in my life, but my story—it’s not over yet. God is still writing my story, and I’m confident of this. Paul said this in Philippians 1:6: “You can be confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” So whatever it is—the weight, the guilt, the shame—take it to the One who died for it. Confess it to Him, turn from it, and find freedom and prune the shame out of your lives, because it is hindering the growth that God desires for you.
Would you pray with me today? God, we come before you today, and we want to get rid of the shame that is in our lives. Today, we recognize that not all guilt is the same. Some of it is conviction, which is a Godly sorrow that comes from the Lord. It comes from the Holy Spirit to help guide us to do what is right, to do the things that you’ve called us to do, or to not do the things that we shouldn’t do. But then there’s another type of guilt, and it’s called shame, and that is directly from Satan himself. The enemy uses that to keep us down, to kick us when we’re down, to put his foot on our throat when we’re down, to keep us from doing what it is that you’ve called us to do.
We’ve seen directly from your Word the differences of a Godly sorrow and a worldly sorrow in Peter and in Judas’s story. One outcome was absolutely wonderful, and it was the story of redemption—and that was the Godly sorrow. The other one, the one that Judas experienced, it was a worldly sorrow, and he could not come out of it, and he ended up taking his own life. Today, we desire the Godly sorrow that you give. We know that it comes from the conviction in our hearts.
Here’s the deal—when we repent, it takes a time of confession, and we’ve got to confess our sins. As we do, scripture teaches us that God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness—or all impurities. I know that’s hard for us to believe at times, but that’s what His Word teaches us. So right now, what I want to give you is an opportunity to repent of your sins, to confess those things to God, so that we can find healing and we can get rid of the shame once and for all and we can move forward in growth.
We’re going to prune the shame out of our lives right now. So I’m going to give you a moment—take the time to confess your sins, to repent, which means you’re turning from your sins and you’re going toward God. Let’s take the time to do that right now. [Pause for reflection]
God, we come to you today, and we are sorry for the sins that we’ve committed against you and against others. Today, we recognize our depravity, and we’re coming to you for healing. We’re coming to you for forgiveness, and really, we want to experience the freedom that you promise in your Word that we will have if we follow you. Today, I know that there are some who have experienced this freedom, and I am so grateful for it. I’m thankful for the freedom that you’ve given me in my life.
There are days when these things come up over and over and over again, but give us the confidence to say that you are continuing to work these things together for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose, and that you’re completing the good work that you started long ago, and you’ll continue to work on us each and every day. Help us to keep things current with you by confessing the sins that are in our lives so that we don’t carry the shame and the guilt with us in the way that the enemy would have us do, but we would be convicted of the sin in our lives—whether it be sins of commission or omission, whether we do or don’t do something that you’ve called us to do—and we would feel the conviction of that, and we would change and go after you.
God, we’re asking you to do work in us that we can’t do in ourselves, but guide us by your Holy Spirit to do what you’ve called us to do. If there’s somebody here today, and you would say, “You know what? I want to confess my sins to the Lord, and I want to follow after—I want to be saved,” we would love for you to do that. You can pray this prayer: “God, I believe that you sent your son Jesus Christ to die for my sins because I’m a sinner, and today I recognize the freedom that I can find in you, and I want to accept that free gift of grace that you give to me that I do not deserve because I want to live for you. God, thank you for the freedom that you’ve given, and I want to follow after you with everything in me. My life is no longer my own—I give it to you to follow you and to do what your will would require.”
God, we thank you for times like this where we can look in your Word, and it’s not always a warm and fuzzy feeling, but it’s one of those things that we know we need, and we have to teach the truth in love. So God, help us to prune out the shame in our lives and to move forward, understanding that we can’t change the past, but we’ve got a God who can change our future. God, we love you, and we praise you. It’s in the name of Jesus we pray, and everybody said, “Amen.”