The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - My Dinged Up Subaru and Sin

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

Do you ever get caught up in a sin, only to have it come back like a tyrannical ruler dictating the rest of your day, bringing you down, and not letting you move forward? Sometimes sin, especially when we fall into the same sin repeatedly, causes us to think of ourselves as “damaged goods” that we can never be the same again. In this episode, Jeff encourages you to start looking at yourself through God’s eyes. As long as there is life, there is hope. Let go of your past and walk with God into your future. We’d Love to Hear from You Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Use the comment box below, or email Jeff at [e-mail]. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode!

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Episode 57, My Dinged Up Subaru and Sin. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show.

Welcome to the show again this week. Glad you could join me. I hope you're having a good week, and I hope that you're walking with the Lord as a disciple and putting the fundamentals into play. That is reading the Bible, prayer, being cognizant of his presence constantly, and, of course, looking for opportunities to tell people about the Lord. Those are the important things that we try to talk about here on the Jeff Kaven show, talking about all things discipleship.

And I got to tell you, I'm having a little bit of a revival in my own life when it comes to walking with the Lord and being aware of his presence. And I'm just really enjoying it and getting up in the morning and reading his word and talking with him throughout the day. I feel like I'm on the Autobahn, you know, of discipleship, moving at 100 mile an hour. It's an awful lot of fun with the Lord. Hey, I want to thank you again for all of your feedback. It's so helpful. You know, your comments and what's happening in your own life is what a blessing to hear for me. And the fact that you have gone to iTunes or Google and made some comments about the show and rated the show has really helped the show grow.

I've got to tell you, I'm very grateful. I'm very, very thankful. And I consider you a true partner in this. I hear from Marisa and Christina, my two producers for the show, that quite possibly next week we'll tell you more about it. We're going to be introducing the automatic show notes delivery system where you will email me at the Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com stating, I want the show notes every week, and we'll just automatically send them to you. They'll be in your mailbox with a link to the show and everything and might make it a little bit easier for. you. Some people who are new at listening to radio on the web, such as my show here, I have a little

bit of a difficulty figuring out, where do you get the show notes? How do you do this? How do you do that? And we're trying to make it as simple as possible for you to listen to the show and to not have to write things down on the highway or taking, you know, laying down and taking an app, taking it easy. We're going to put the show notes together for you, and we're going to send them to you. It looks like that's what we're going to do. And I'll pull the trigger, sort of speak, next week on that and let you know. But once again, if you'd like that, you can go ahead and let me know this week. And you can write me at The Jeff Kaven Show.

That's The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And let me know. Yeah, you're interested in it as well. Hey, I'm really looking forward to the topic this week. It is one that really sprung, if you will, from a conversation I was having with a good friend of mine, Brian Gale. and he is just a superstar in the area of marketing and, you know, business, and he's become a good friend, and we were having breakfast the other day. And I, and we were talking about, you know, so many things about the Lord, and this topic came up,

and I was sharing some things with him, and I thought, you know, I'm going to share it with you, too. I want to share some of the things that I talk about at breakfast with my friends with you because you are my friend. And I have entitled the show this week, my dinged-up Subaru and sin. And here's where I'm going to go with it. I know that oftentimes people, when they get caught up in sin, whether it's something they did or something they said, a lot of times sin is like a tyrannical ruler and it comes back and wants to beat us. It wants to dictate the tempo of our day and what we think about ourselves. and we oftentimes get really down on ourselves because of the sin in our lives. And as a result of that, we don't make progress.

We don't go forward with the Lord. And I wanted to dedicate this show to you and encouraging you today about this condition where we sin and we think we're damaged goods and we'll never be the same. We can't go forward. And I want to address that today in your life. All right? And it's really started with some reflections as I was talking to Brian about my friend, about my history of buying cars.

Now, I'm not a big car guy. Actually, I like to ride motorcycles. I have a Harley. And this summer, in fact, we're going on a 4,000 mile trip in seven days, a bunch of guys and priests and deacons. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Pray for us. That's in August. But I bought a number of years ago, a brand new Subaru.

outback. A beautiful white, I call it the snow leopard. You know, it was a beautiful white Subaru outback. I had been thinking about getting a Subaru for a while. Now, this isn't a plug for those cars necessarily, but I'm in Minnesota, you know, deep in the woods in the cabin, and I need some reliability. I need to know that I can get around and I can, you know, rely on the car during the snow months and sleet and ice and all of that. And I did my, I did due diligence. I did the studies on different cars. And I, I decided I was going to get a Subaru and, uh, I was really excited about it.

You know, I went in and talked to the salesperson, Jane was her name. And, and we're starting to look at options and all these things. And I wanted this kind of seat and this color. I wanted a white one and, and, uh, these accessories and so forth. Well, anyway, uh, I had to order it and I had to wait, I don't know. two or three months before the car came, and I was really, really excited about getting my new white Subaru, which I was going to call Snow Leopard, you know, could go through anything. And so I remember trading in my old Camry.

It was quite beat up at the time, and I picked up the brand new car, and they gave me the, you know, the introductory lessons on how to operate this and that, and I had that smell and everything. I thought, oh, this is just fantastic. This is great. And, of course, that new car smell on the way home. gives you kind of this feeling of, yes, this is good, you know, I like it. Well, I brought it home, enjoyed it, and I parked it in the driveway.

And I remember one of my friends coming over, and I showed him the car, and I said, hey, there's my new car here, you know, and he's walking around it. There's not a mark on it. I mean, it's, you know what I'm talking about. You've got, probably bought some cars before where you experience this elation over perfection. And, well, anyway, I drove that thing. day one, day two, day three, four, and so forth. And there's something about driving a new car with no marks on it or anything that is really, it's cool, you know. I'm not a materialist. I'm a

minimalist. I'm not that hung up on it, but it was kind of fun. But then one day I was at the mall, and I tried to park away from everybody else because I didn't want my Subaru to be dinged. Well, I came out from the store, and I noticed this scratch on the side panel of the driver. side front door and my heart sunk and went no and there's no note there's no insurance note or anything like that somebody dinged my Subaru and they left and there I was staring at this beautiful car with this scratch across the driver's side made me feel sick and I started to adjust a little bit to it you know I thought well what am I going to do it's going to cost a lot of money to fix it and I don't have that kind of money just to go around fixing these cars. So I sort of put up

with it. And then as life went on, months went by, I got more dings. And I got, and I ended up backing into a pole. And my, my rear bumper was, was dented and the light was cracked on the back. And there I was, months later, sitting in the driveway, looking at my formerly beautiful, spotless, pristine Subaru Outback. Now had dings all over it. And it was interesting because I had to go through a process of how do I adjust to this now? I really wanted a car that looked nice and was perfect. And now there's dings on it. Now there's scratches and this light is cracked in the in the back and and there's been some rocks that hit the window and I had to look at it and think hmm I don't feel the same way about this car as I as I once did it's all it's all dinged up

and and it called for an adjustment in my in my thinking and and so I had to start to adjust my thinking that well I don't have a perfect car I have a marred car it's dinged up and then I I started thinking about my spiritual life and how when you start off with the Lord and you have this incredible conversion experience with Christ, you feel really great. My sins are forgiven, pristine, no dangs, it's just great, you know. And then life happens, and you find yourself in sin. You find yourself in sin and what you think and what you do, the way you treat people, perhaps. And all of a sudden you have this feeling like I had about my Subaru. And that is that I

have this desire inside to be perfect. But now as I look in the mirror and after 20 visits to confession after all these years or months or whatever it might be, I'm realizing I'm a dinged up person. And I don't like it. And I ask myself the question, why don't I like being a dinged up person? I think we all agree we don't like being dinged up, you know, marred and marked and scratched by sin. And in some cases, even incapacitated, the car can't even go anymore because of mortal dense. But we have a lot of venial dents, you know, in our life. And there's this longing saying, I wish I could go back to that time when the car was pristine and there was nothing on it, no marks at all. And in my life, I wish I could go back and I wish I could start over.

But I can't go back in time and I can't start over. At least I can't start over as a 15-year-old or a 17-year-old. But the good news is that I can start over. Now, just pausing there for a moment, I'm thinking to myself. why do I have this desire in my heart to want to be pure and perfect and no dings and no scratches, no marks, no flat tires? And I figured it out. Because God says in scripture, Jesus says, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And in the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, six times, It says, be holy as I am holy, says the Lord. Be holy as I am holy. You see, my friend, I really do believe that we are hardwired for perfection. We have inside of us in our spiritual DNA the desire to be perfect. Now, you can be perfect in the natural and try to be perfect in the natural. You can do it with your vitamins and your abs, your workout equipment, and you're running,

your psychological readjustments. And we try for perfection. We never make it in the natural. But deep down inside supernaturally, in the spirit, I think we have that desire to be perfect. Why? Not just because of ego, but because I think we're hardwired this way. We're hardwired to be perfect as God is perfect. And when we get a ding in our life, aka sin, it shakes us up.

It shakes us up the way I got shook up when I saw that scratch. on the side of my brand new Subaru, it shook me up. It shouldn't happen and shouldn't be there. Oh, I can't believe it. And when we are involved in sin, I think that shakeup takes place in our soul. And we become discouraged. And we're let down. And we're bummed.

Bummed is Greek for disappointed. Kidding. Don't tell that to your bishop. But we're bummed. We're bummed that this has happened. But I got good news for you today. If that is you and you have experienced the disappointment from sin and the desire to want to go back and buff out those scratches and the dense and to be perfect as the car was created to be perfect, to be perfect as you are created to be perfect like your Heavenly Father, I do have a solution. And I want to talk about that solution on the other side of this break.

I want to talk about forgiveness and I want to talk about how your Heavenly Father is a father of second chances and that we have to persevere through this disappointment and be satisfied with his forgiveness, his mercy, and we have to start looking at ourselves the way he looks at us. not the way we see ourselves with our memory in the mirror, but how we see ourselves through his eyes, through righteousness, through his work on the cross. You see, being free from the pain of the dents and the scratches in your own soul is not so much a matter of your skill as it is his love and you accepting it in your life today. I know that oftentimes, these feelings of remorse, they stop us in our tracks and they compromise our ability to walk in our vocation as husband, wife, mother, father, son, daughter, teacher, employer, disciple of Christ. It compromises us because we think, you know what, I'm damaged goods. I'm not like I used to be

and I wish I was and I never will. And maybe people will find out that I did have a dent in my soul and it was buffed out, but somehow they knew, and I'll be found out. See, this is the inner talk that some of us go through, that we have to learn to deal with and push through, and that's what I want to do. I want to talk about that a little bit on the other side of the break. Once again, you're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. I'll be back in just a moment. It's hard to live out your Catholic faith on your own.

In fact, the Bible reveals that we need a community of people to help us on our children. journey of faith. If you're interested in finding that community by joining or starting a small group study, visit ascensionpress.com and sign up for a free Ascension account. With your account, you'll get all the tools you need to start walking with others towards Christ. Thank you for returning. I guess if you returned, you're still with me, that means you too are concerned about the dinged-up Subaru and the sin, the dinged-up heart, and how God still loves us and how we cannot allow that to be the desire of our heart and the gauge of our progress for the rest of our life. I was mentioning before the break that once I had

that brand-new Subaru a few years ago, the white snow leopard, as I called her, once she got dinged up five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times. I went through a period of, oh, I wish that wouldn't have happened. Oh, I'd like to go back to that nice looking car. But then I had to make adjustments. And the adjustment I made was, I'm just going to live with it. I'm just going to live with that. I'm going to live with the dings.

But when it comes to the spiritual life, we realize that we're dinged up and we have the marks, but we cannot come to the same conclusion with our soul that we did with the Subaru. And that is, I'm just going to live with this. So I'm dinged up, you know, so I had sin in my life. And I'm not as good as I used to be. I'm not as effective. And my utilitarian value is decreased. You can't live like that.

We must strive in the spiritual life to return to a place of, perfection. Now, am I saying I'm perfect today? No, I'm not, but I'm striving to be perfect, but I have to get over the defects and the things that have happened in my life. I like what scripture says in the Psalms, Psalm 32-5, I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. Then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Today, the good news for you is this. God loves you, and God has a plan for your life. And yes, sin has dinged your life. In fact, mortal sin, original sin has broke the entire car. But praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ. He has come and he has restarted the car. He has restored

us even to a better state, and we cannot continually look back on our mistakes. We must forget about the past and look on towards what God has for us in the future. So I love this text in Psalm 32-5. I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and then thou just forgive the guilt of my sin. If you feel like you're that dinged-up Christian, and you feel like, you know, what's the point of going on? I'll never be the woman of God that God called me to be. I'll never be that guy because I've got this and that in my life. We have to stop thinking like that and start looking at what God has given us in forgiveness.

Do you know that in baptism, when you were baptized either as a baby or as a teen or an adult, do you know that God forgave you of that original sin? He restored you to righteousness as his son, as his daughter. And listen to this. If God restored you to righteousness, it means you're good enough to drive. You are at a place where God wants you to be in that restoration. Sure. Do you see a few scars here and there?

You might. But you're restored. You're restored in his heart and in his love. And if you sin along the way, if you have that fender bender along the way, or, God forbid, a total wipe out and crash, mortal sin. Know this, as long as there is breath, there is hope. I mentioned that just on a show recently. As long as there is life, there is hope. there's hope

Hebrews 922 indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins and that's what Jesus did for you is he forgave you of your sins and he has restored you

I like what Jesus taught the disciples in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 6 he talked to he told us how to pray and told them how to pray and he said forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And this is what we're called to do

is that as God has forgiven us our debt and restored us to righteousness to the place where he wants us, we also must extend this forgiveness to other people and forgive our debtors, those who have trespassed against us. The work in the body shop of our soul that we receive from the Lord,

we have to extend that to other people. because they're struggling with the same thing you've been struggling with. They're struggling with the fact that they're damaged goods. Maybe they were fired. Maybe they have experienced a divorce. Maybe they have experienced a scandal of some kind and they think life is over. I'll never get this thing rolling again. That's not the way God wants you to live.

He wants you to live in hope. He wants you to live in forgiveness. He doesn't see you as just a thing. He sees you as a son. and as a daughter. And if you have a son or you have a daughter and they came to you broken and wishing that they could be

in right standing with you, would you deny them? Would you push them away and say, no, no. You only get one shot with me. You only get one opportunity to prove yourself to me. You blew it. You didn't come home on time. You're out of favor with me, and that's just the way it's

going to be. And you're going to live with that the rest of your life. Can you imagine being a father like that or a mother like that? that would be so cruel. God is not like that. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is faithful. He is merciful.

He is just. And you can throw your life on his mercy because he's merciful. And this is the hour of mercy in our lives right now where God wants to extend that to us. I'm reminded of Ezekiel chapter 33 in verse 6. 10 says, and you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, thus have you said, our transgressions and our sins are upon us and we waste away because of them. How then can we live? How then can we live? Our sins are upon us. We're wasting away. Sounds like a rusting old car, doesn't it? How can we live? We can live as we bring this old soul into God's body shop, into confession. And to be honest with the

Lord and allow his grace and his power and his love to restore us in our lives. Nobody has gone too far where Jesus can't reach. Nobody. Nobody. You know, every 50 years in Israel's history in the Old Testament, kind of an interesting thing. Every 50 years, they had what they called the Jubilee. And the Jubilee was a year where if you had slaves, you had to free them. If you had held debt from somebody else, you had to forgive the debt. You had to give back property. It was a beautiful time because every 50 years, Israel had to do to their neighbors and other people exactly what God did for them.

He released them from bondage and sin and from darkness. He freed them on eagle's wings out of Egypt. And now he's saying, you do that to other people. That's the way you need to treat other people. I love that. Catechism says in paragraph 545 that the supreme proof of his love will be the sacrifice of his own life for the forgiveness of sins. And that's what God did for you.

He sacrificed his own life for the forgiveness of sins. So as you look in that mirror and you think yourself, you are stained and you are dented and what would God have to do with you? and how can I go out there and honestly be a father? How can I go out there and with integrity be a mother, knowing what I have done? You can because he died for you to forgive you of your sins. Don't rip God off.

Don't rip them off. Accept that forgiveness. Walk in it. Accept the smile. and accept the arms of love around you from the Lord. Accept it. You'll find a new freedom that maybe you've never known before of love with no boundaries. No boundaries.

He loves you just the way you are. You know, I'm going to give you another reading here from the Catechism. Because it talks about learning this kind of love in the family. It's paragraph 1657. It says, it is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family, exercised the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way by the reception of the sacraments, prayer, Thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity. Thus, the home is the first school of Christian life and a school for human enrichment.

Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous, even repeated forgiveness. And above all, divine worship and prayer and the offering of one's life. Isn't that beautiful that it's actually the home, that's the school where you learn in a repeated way, forgiveness? Now, that's a challenge to you. It's a challenge to me because if we don't think that the Lord can repeatedly restore us and bring us to a place of righteousness and love in his arms, if you don't believe that, it might be because you didn't learn it in home, at home. You know, maybe you were a victim of the type of family that if you blew it once, you're on the outs.

But that's not the way it is in God's family. repeatedly he will forgive you. I remember one guy telling me that he went to confession repeatedly over and over and over for the same sin. And he went into the priest and he said, Father, he said, I don't know why I keep coming back here. I keep struggling with it. And the priest said to him, he said, never, ever give up on this sacrament of healing. Any guy said, God, give me one more chance. give me one more chance to which the priest said on behalf of the Lord

give me one more chance and see what I can do in your life you know one of my favorite stories in the Bible is Matthew chapter 18 it's a long story and maybe you

maybe you have you've read that story before it's a story of the the unmerciful servant, the one who was forgiven of so much. Do you remember that story? Every year we know when that, when that story comes around, I'm reminded of it. And it's in response to Peter asking the question, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? And you could easily put yourself in this story yourself and say, Lord, how often shall I sin and you forgive me? You know, is it 10 times?

Is it, is it seven? What is it, you know? And Jesus responds to that question, and he said to him this story. You know, he says, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven. Now, 70 times seven means something in the Jewish background of teaching. And it literally means forever. It's forever. You just keep on forgiving.

And in your life, when you keep coming back to the Lord with, you know, I bumped into another sign. You know, I scratched the car again. I got a broken windshield. He keeps forgiving you and forgiving you. And then he goes into the story. He says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000. talents. And as he could not pay, his Lord ordered him to be sold with his wife and children

and all that he had and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the Lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But that's, you know, the pause there a minute in the middle of the parable here, 10,000 talents. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's hundreds and hundreds of years of employment. This guy owes a lot of money and he implored the, the, the Lord, you know, and said, the master and said, please forgive me, I'll pay this back myself. And he was released and forgiven the debt.

But that guy that was released from the debt and forgiven, he went outside and says, But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari. And seizing him by the throat, he said, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, have patience with me, and I will pay you. But he refused. And went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. And, well, bad news for this guy is that somebody else was watching. When his fellow servant saw that he had, what had taken place, they were greatly distressed.

And they went out and reported to their Lord all that had taken place. And then his Lord summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you besought me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I. had mercy on you and in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers till he should pay all his debt now that's wild i mean it's like it's like i've got five million dollars on my visa card and i don't know what i'm going to do about this and the CEO of visa calls me up and says we're going to release you from the five million dollars it's your debt is for And I'm like, what?

Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine the freedom that I might feel? Have you ever been in debt before? I have financial debt. I remember after we got married, we seemed to think we needed everything, so we went and bought it. And then I lived under that debt, and it was like a tyrant. And when I finally got out of debt, you talk about freedom. Well, if suddenly you could be out of the debt of $5 million on credit card, you'd feel so free.

Well, if that happened to me, and then I went out and found someone who owed me 50 bucks and I made them with my hands around their throat, I made them pay me. Can you imagine that? That didn't sound right, does it? And it's because it's not right. And it says that he delivered him into the jailers till he should pay all of his debt, the $5 million back. Parable over. Listen to what Jesus says. Parable over.

After the parable is over, Jesus says, So also, my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. You see, forgiveness is powerful. It's powerful. Jesus forgives you. You really are forgiven. You really are his son and daughter.

He really loves you as a father and accepts you. and doesn't define you based on your sin, but on your relationship with him. But if you are not going to extend that to others, and you will constantly put your hands around their throat saying, you did this 10 years ago, you did this to me, and you owe this and you owe that, you will forfeit the freedom of forgiveness. And you don't want to do that. You want to extend it. And the way we extend it is we accept it first in our own lives.

Yes, Lord, my Subaru was pristine and perfect. And yes, I did bump into a lamp. And yes, I did get it scratched. And yes, the windshield is broken. And yes, I bumped the rearview mirror coming out of the garage. But you have restored me. You have restored me in my life. And out of that point of restoration, out of that place of reconciliation and acceptance,

I'm now going to treat other people the same way. And I'm not going to put them in a box. And I'm not going to constrain them that they are useless and they can't go forward. And they're, they are ruined material. Damage goods. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to overlook that and I'm going to see them as the person that you created. So my friend, this week I want to encourage you that if you have felt like that dinged up Subaru,

and you wish you could be back in that state of perfection. The way back into being perfect as your Heavenly Father is, perfect is confession, it's responsibility for your sin, and it's the responsibility to accept his forgiveness and his love and his mercy extended to you. Stop the habit of thinking negatively about yourself and that you can't move on and do what God has truly called you to do because of what you've done. Accept it. accept his love.

Wrap your arms around him and get a new start. Get a new start today. I'd like to pray with you and pray that the Lord would move in your life in a powerful way. Remember, I'll put these texts that I just, I read to you. I'll put them in the show notes. And if you want the show notes starting, I think, next week, You just let us know by emailing me at the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com. Let's pray.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friend listening right now and the struggle that they're going through, the struggle with their own thoughts, their own life, their own sense of perfection, their own way of dealing with damaged goods. And I pray, Lord, that they will reach out to you and accept through. the sacrament of reconciliation to accept your forgiveness, to accept your restoration, and to accept the new life you're offering them. Lord, may we do what the apostle Paul said, may we forget about yesterday and strive towards the future and what you have for us. We know, Lord, that you're the same yesterday, today, today, and forever. And we know that you want us to be perfect as you are perfect

and to be holy as your holy. Lord, we're going to take that step this week. We're going to take that step this week. We're going to stop focusing on our own dings. And we're going to look at your righteousness. In Jesus' name we pray. And dear mother, our blessed Mother Mary, the perfect creation of God.

Pray for us. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. God bless you. We'll talk to you next week.