Christians in Crisis: The Lord removes your guilt

Isaiah 64:6-8 ⁶All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth. All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. ⁷There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt.

⁸But now, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.

You, the Lord, are our Father. Our Redeemer from everlasting is your name. (Isaiah 63:16) Amen.

Do you ever feel like a failure?

You work hard all day. You come home stressed. You don’t mean to, but you take that stress out on your family with your short temper.

You rush around all day long trying to go from one online meeting to the next, then helping your kids with their homework and then chasing them to their extracurricular activities. You’re too exhausted to prepare a healthy meal for your family. So, it’s chicken nuggets and fries again for dinner.

You know your friend is anxious. You appreciate that she needs more social support. You just can’t empathize with her like she needs you to.

You want to get together with your aging parents. You don’t know how much time you have left with them. They are lonely. But you’re concerned about getting them sick if you visit them.

Do you ever have days like this? Do you ever feel like this?

You don’t feel like you’re a good spouse, parent, friend or child. You feel like such a failure.

Today we begin a four-part series on Christians in crisis. This morning, we examine our guilt. When we fail, our failure produces guilt in us. That guilt can either drive us onto our knees before God, asking for forgiveness for our guilt. Or it can drive us away from God. Because, we know that sin cannot be in God’s holy presence.

Honestly, it is really hard to trust God when you feel guilty. You know how much you’ve failed him and failed those he’s placed around you. There is head guilt and heart guilt. In your head, you know you’ve broken God’s rules for godly behavior. But guilt is also the wretched feeling of shame and failure in your heart.

If we’re going to look for help in removing our guilt and encouraging us in our failures, it seems that the last person we want talking to us is Isaiah.

In speaking to the children of Israel, the prophet Isaiah reminds God’s people about their failures. He emphasizes their guilt.

Isaiah writes: “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth. All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt.”

What does God think of all your good deeds and righteous acts? “All of us have become like something unclean.” “All of us” – no one is exempt. Isaiah indicts all of humanity with these accusations. Isaiah isn’t talking about all the bad things we do. He is pointing out all the times we actually think we succeed in being a caring spouse, a loving parent, an empathetic friend and a supportive child. Isaiah judges our very best moments of being unselfish, considerate of others, reverent to God, kind, compassionate and caring. When compared to God’s perfect standards of righteousness, though, Isaiah renders a heart-wrenching allegation.

If we thought we felt guilty for our failures before, Isaiah makes us feel worse. We think our actions are good. God views them as “unclean,” “defiled,” “polluted.”  

“All our righteous acts are like filthy cloth.” They aren’t even clean cloth. Our best actions are disgusting, corrupt and soiled. They are the most disgusting of all our trash.

All of this sin, this failure, this guilt makes us like lifeless leaves skittering across the ground in an autumn wind. “All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.”

So what do we do? We do the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be coming to God in humility; speaking to God with repentance; pleading with God in our prayers. Instead, “there is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you.”

And what does God do in response? Isaiah says of God, “So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt.” God hides his face from us. He closes his ears and turns his head so he will not hear our pleas.

So, if you felt like a failure before, how do you feel now?

Better? Definitely not.

That’s why the next word in verse 8 is so exciting! “But.” “But” means the opposite is going to happen. “But now, Lord, you are our father.” In spite of our sins. In spite of our failures. In spite of our guilt. In spite of the fact that our best amounts to soiled rags. In spite of our lack of prayers before God. Still, God is not ashamed to call himself our Lord and our Father. He is “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and overflowing with mercy and truth, maintaining mercy for thousands, forgiving guilt and rebellion and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). He is not a harsh tyrant who is looking for ways to punish his underlings. He is our Heavenly Father who sees us as his dearest treasure.

“We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.” God takes us as useless lumps of clay and he molds us into beautiful objects of his love. He takes all your brokenness, all your heartache, all your pain – and he uses that to mold you into vessels to serve. Not just any old vessels. Vessels fit for the King of kings.

God expends so much effort making you into his new creations. “The old has passed away. The new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). You were once broken, useless clay. But God uses everything in your past. He uses your heartaches, your surgeries, your divorce, your depression, your debt. He especially uses 2020 -which seems about 5 years long right now - to mold you and shape you into God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works for God’s Kingdom (Ephesians 2:10).

You may see yourself as a failure. God sees you as his chosen piece of art. You are uniquely formed by trials and fire for his godly purpose. Though you may feel like no one values what you do, your heavenly Father is also your Creator and Potter. He forms you into something of eternal, infinitesimal value.

A value that no one could purchase with gold or silver. A value that is only worth the precious blood of the divine Son of God (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Do you feel like so much depends on you? To be a good parent, a good spouse, a good employee or good employer, a good friend, or a good caregiver to your elderly parents? And when you fail, you let everyone down?

Jesus does not demand that you accomplish all these tasks you set for yourself. Rather, he only asks that you put your faith in him who accomplished all the tasks for you. In a few weeks, we will celebrate the birth of the innocent Savior. He collected all your filthy tasks. He grabbed all your family failures. He carried all your guilt. He put it all on himself. He exchanged your filthy rags for the white robes of his righteousness. He “suffered once for sins in our place, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

On the cross, the Lord, the Heavenly Father, put every ounce of punishment for your sins on his Son. He crushed Jesus with his wrath so he could mold you with his forgiveness. He executed punishment on his Son so he could shape you as his sons and daughters.

Without Jesus, God turns his head away from you because holiness cannot look at sin. But with Jesus, the Lord makes his face shine on you in blessing.

Through Jesus, your sins are paid for, your failures are forgotten, and your guilt is gone.

Your identity is not what you’ve done or not done. Your identity is who Jesus is and what he’s done for you.

This is who you are. Not any of the roles you play. Not pastor. Not parent. Not employee. Not friend or child. These things do not define who you are. If these things define you, you will always find anxiety, because those roles can be threatened. They can change. So, you are not the roles you play.

You are clay. God is the Potter. You are the work of his divine hands.

Do not forget that. If your identity is mom, you will never escape the guilt of not doing enough for your family. If your identity is a pastor, there will always be more to do than can ever be done. If your identity is a “pretty good person,” you will fall when Isaiah reminds you that you aren’t as good you think you are.

But your identity is one that cannot be taken from you. It can’t be stolen from you because it’s not based on what you do or don’t do. It’s based on who Jesus is and what he has done for you.

Your guilt will make your mind believe that you can’t ever be forgiven for what you’ve done. Your heart will make you believe that, though you know you’re forgiven through Jesus, you don’t feel forgiven. To keep the feelings of guilt at bay, you need to keep hearing the facts of what Jesus has done for you. In the crib. On the cross. Out of the tomb. On heaven’s throne. Keep receiving the factual forgiveness Jesus gives you in his holy Word, in the words of absolution, in the waters of Baptism, and in the body and blood of the Lord’s Supper.

This is the path to emotional healing. Your mind will know forgiveness. Your heart will feel forgiven.

Friends, you will fail. Jesus is your success.

You will sin. Jesus forgives and removes your sins.

You will feel guilty. Jesus removes your guilt and replaces it with godly purpose.

You will feel worthless and useless. You are God’s clay. Every pain and pleasure, every guilt and joy, every depression and success is a part of God’s molding you, shaping you, firing you.

God doesn’t make junk.

You are his masterpiece. Amen.

But now, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8) Amen.