SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was in a wrestling match and losing.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe just enough so I don't knock them over.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me in your Bible to Psalm 34, the scripture reading this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 34, verses 1 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd encourage you to read along as I read this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 34.
SPEAKER_00: And if you need a Bible, there should be one located there right in front of you, and I'd encourage you to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: You can find the scripture passage on page 463.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't own a Bible, please at the end of the service, take that Bible home with you.
SPEAKER_00: We love to give away Bibles, and we would love for you to have that, so we encourage you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Take that home with you at the close of our service this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Join me as I read Psalm 34, verses 1 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: I will bless the Lord at all times.
SPEAKER_00: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: My soul makes its boast in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let the humble hear and be glad.
SPEAKER_00: O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
SPEAKER_00: I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
SPEAKER_00: Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
SPEAKER_00: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.
SPEAKER_00: O taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to talk about a topic of shame and honor.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what the psalmist writes here in verse 5 of chapter 34 Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And I trust this morning as we study the gospel together, that we can see how the gospel addresses not only the guilt of our sin, but also the shame in our lives, both shame that we do and shame that has been caused to us.
SPEAKER_00: Would you join me as I pray for us again this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we are wrestling with an issue that affects at some level each one of us, that we have been shamed.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe by people who we have associated with that were not respected or in disrepute, maybe because of something somebody did to us that we have no control over and we're the victim of, and yet we feel the shame of that event or those events.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was something that we did or something about us that we feel deficient.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, uh, we live in this fallen world and we experience the consequences of that, both in our own actions as well, as what happens to us.
SPEAKER_00: May we look to you and to the gospel to the cross to see how Christ bore our shame.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: What do you hide?
SPEAKER_00: What is it in your life that if others found out would cause you to want to run and hide?
SPEAKER_00: We all have things in our lives that we would be ashamed of if others found out.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some things about us, or things that have been done to us, or things that have happened to us, or things that are different about us that bring a profound sense of shame.
SPEAKER_00: Even as I say these words, your mind is going somewhere to something, to that thing that brings you shame.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it is something sexual.
SPEAKER_00: For others, it was that poor choice that you made that you live with the weight of that regret.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were the victim of abuse, and the shame of being dehumanized lingers.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had an abortion, and particularly in a day like today, when we recognize the sanctity of human life, that all life is precious and sacred and a gift from God, the weight of that decision crushes your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You never mention it and hope no one ever finds out.
SPEAKER_00: No one can find out.
SPEAKER_00: No one can know.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell anyone my secret.
SPEAKER_00: I must hide.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I want to answer five questions about shame and share how God brings healing in life and even in my own life in this area.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to address five questions.
SPEAKER_00: Not all of the questions will be of the same length.
SPEAKER_00: The first will be the longest of the five.
SPEAKER_00: But the first question I want to answer is what is shame?
SPEAKER_00: What is shame?
SPEAKER_00: Author Edward Welch in his book Shame Interrupted writes this.
SPEAKER_00: What is shame?
SPEAKER_00: Shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you.
SPEAKER_00: You feel exposed or humiliated.
SPEAKER_00: Or to strengthen the language, you are disgraced because you acted less than human.
SPEAKER_00: You were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Most of what I am going to share today is gleaned from this book, Ed Welch's Shame Interrupted.
SPEAKER_00: There are very few original, if any original ideas in here with me, and so I do want to make that note up front in case I don't uh give a quote at all times, but uh the book's name is Shame Interrupted by Edward T.
SPEAKER_00: Welch.
SPEAKER_00: Welch explains the shame and the disgust of shame.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he writes: shame connects three human experiences.
SPEAKER_00: You feel like an outcast.
SPEAKER_00: You don't belong.
SPEAKER_00: You feel naked.
SPEAKER_00: While everyone else is walking around with their clothes on, you feel exposed and vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: You are seen, and what others see is not pretty.
SPEAKER_00: You feel unclean.
SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong with you.
SPEAKER_00: You are dirty.
SPEAKER_00: Even worse, you are contaminated.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between being a bit muddy and harboring a deadly contagious virus.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between guilt and shame, and oftentimes we confuse the two, even when we're looking at our own hearts and trying to understand why we feel the way we do.
SPEAKER_00: Guilt can be hidden, but shame feels like it's always exposed.
SPEAKER_00: Guilt is about what you have done.
SPEAKER_00: Shame is about who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Even as little kids, we understand the idea of shame.
SPEAKER_00: We say things like, oh, that's gross.
SPEAKER_00: Or kids say, Well, that's yucky or ick.
SPEAKER_00: And they run away as if they're going to be contaminated.
SPEAKER_00: Shame says you are not acceptable, you are a mistake.
SPEAKER_00: The judge may say not guilty and take away the penalty of your guilt, but you still feel like scum.
SPEAKER_00: And the verdict doesn't bring much hope.
SPEAKER_00: We don't recognize it often, but the Bible has much to say about shame.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, throughout the entire Old Testament and New Testament, the Bible over and over again deals with the issue of shame.
SPEAKER_00: The outcast, the leper, the unclean, the slave, they all live with shame.
SPEAKER_00: Shame comes into our lives in a variety of different ways, and I've already alluded to that.
SPEAKER_00: And let me paraphrase some of the things that Welch notes in his book.
SPEAKER_00: He says, shame can come into our lives through something we do.
SPEAKER_00: Addicts live with shame.
SPEAKER_00: Sexual sin leads to shame.
SPEAKER_00: Anything that you do that is seen as scandalous brings shame.
SPEAKER_00: But not only can shame come into our lives through something we do, shame can come into our lives through something that someone did to us.
SPEAKER_00: Women and children who are sexually violated feel a deep sense of shame.
SPEAKER_00: They were treated as less than human.
SPEAKER_00: A wife that is abandoned by her husband after he's had an affair feels the shame of it even though she did not commit the sin.
SPEAKER_00: Shame can also come from being different from others.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a racial minority and you're one of few, often that one will feel the shame of being different from all of those around him.
SPEAKER_00: Those with a physical handicap often feel the shame of not being whole.
SPEAKER_00: People who struggle with being overweight feel the shame about their bodies as they look around and hear the constant messages of how they should look.
SPEAKER_00: But we can also feel shame sometimes through our associations.
SPEAKER_00: Your group of friends are the losers on campus.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you lived on the wrong side of the tracks, and the people in your neighborhood were looked down upon by those of a better class, of a better neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your father went to prison.
SPEAKER_00: And you live with the shame of not wanting anyone ever to find out what happened in your family.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a brother or sister committed suicide, and it's the secret that your family hides.
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the words that describe shame?
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the words that we use?
SPEAKER_00: Inferior, alienated, embarrassed, ridiculed, weak, powerless, a failure, different, insulted, rejected, inadequate, humiliated, ignored, loser.
SPEAKER_00: But really those words aren't strong enough.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole level of words that really describe the heart of what shame feels like.
SPEAKER_00: Unclean, dishonored, filthy, shunned, disgusting, defiled, outcast, unlovable, discarded, repulsive, disgraced, worthless, loathed, scorned, vile.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between embarrassment and shame.
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassment is for a moment, but you don't carry the scars with you for life.
SPEAKER_00: With embarrassment, you can laugh, at least eventually, you can laugh along with others.
SPEAKER_00: What causes you embarrassment has been felt by everyone else at some time in some way.
SPEAKER_00: But shame afflicts your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Shame becomes your identity.
SPEAKER_00: You never laugh at shame.
SPEAKER_00: You never get over shame.
SPEAKER_00: We see shame in the opening pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 2.25, it says, And the man and his wife were both naked and they were unashamed.
SPEAKER_00: But you turn over to the next chapter, and what do we find?
SPEAKER_00: After they had sinned, their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that they hid themselves.
SPEAKER_00: We see that they tried to cover up their shame by making clothes out of fig leaves, and fear replaced fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 3, verses 9 and 10 says, The Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.
SPEAKER_00: Is there ever legitimate shame and guilt?
SPEAKER_00: I believe there are.
SPEAKER_00: When we do something sinful and wrong, we ought to have a sense of guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And in that instance, guilt is a good thing in that it drives us to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, when we sin, we recognize that we have dishonored God.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an appropriate sense of shame so that we respond in repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the key.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Even though we can know that we're forgiven, we oftentimes still carry the weight of that shame in our lives for years.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we feel shame for things that others have done to us or things we are associated with or things that are different about us that have nothing to do with anything that we have done or any sins we've committed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a second question I want to answer, and this one will be brief, and there's much more that could be said about this, but how do we falsely deal with shame?
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things we try to do to remedy shame in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: Well, oftentimes we try to give ourselves pep talks and have positive thinking or to talk ourselves out of it and just keep telling ourselves over and over again it doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference, we're okay.
SPEAKER_00: Just think on the good side of life, don't focus on those things.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't erase the pain of the shame that you feel.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we mistake shame with the feeling of guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And we feel the weight of the what we think is guilt, and we confess our sins over and over and over again, thinking that by doing this that it will remove these feelings, but we don't recognize that what we're experiencing isn't the guilt of our sin that Christ has forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: It is the shame that we falsely carry with us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we deal with shame by turning against ourselves in self-punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Often shame is behind anorexia and bulimia and reckless behavior or cutting.
SPEAKER_00: And underneath those actions and those behaviors, those dangerous choices, is somebody who is trying to deal with shame in his or her life.
SPEAKER_00: Others self-medicate through drugs or alcohol or activities or relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Others try to dull the pain or mask the pain or drown the pain out.
SPEAKER_00: Some try to find another person who will make them feel better, who will fill this hole, who will soothe this ache in his or her heart.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's through the busyness of activities or what are often called addictions, but behind those are addictions, are an attempt to self-medicate, to deal with the shame in a person's life.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ways that we falsely deal with shame in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a third question I want to answer.
SPEAKER_00: And that question was how does Jesus deal with the issue of shame in the lives of others in the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: How does Jesus approach shame?
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if we look through the ministry of Jesus and we begin to think through the lens of shame, we see over and over again that Jesus is addressing not only the guilt of sin, but the shame that people carry with them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just share a few encounters.
SPEAKER_00: We won't look at them in detail.
SPEAKER_00: But for instance, in Luke chapter 5, verses 12 through 16, you remember the story, there's a leper who is coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's crying out to Jesus, and you know that the leper is one who has been rejected by society, not because of anything that he has done, but because of the reality that was in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He is unclean.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, he's put to public shame and rejected being put outside the camp.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody talks to him, nobody associates with him, nobody treats him as fully human.
SPEAKER_00: He is other.
SPEAKER_00: He is less than.
SPEAKER_00: And the only people that will associate with him are the others who are less than human, the other lepers.
SPEAKER_00: He is garbage, a waste.
SPEAKER_00: But he cries out to Jesus and Jesus touches him.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Here is this man for perhaps years or decades or maybe most of his life that no one who wasn't unclean would come into contact with him.
SPEAKER_00: And now here is the Son of God who reaches out and touches him and heals him and restores him.
SPEAKER_00: That was a public shame.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing that this man could do to hide it.
SPEAKER_00: But there were some that could at times hide their shame.
SPEAKER_00: And think of the woman in Luke chapter 8, verses 42 through 48, who had an issue of bleeding for 12 years.
SPEAKER_00: She was ceremonially unclean because of this issue of blood.
SPEAKER_00: Because of this ongoing problem.
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't come in contact with people.
SPEAKER_00: Her family would have known perhaps if she was married, her husband would have distanced himself from her.
SPEAKER_00: She would have had those who were closest to her who knew about it, who would have been the ones to avoid her.
SPEAKER_00: And she could have gone out into the community, but she only had one of two choices.
SPEAKER_00: Either she hid the reality of her uncleanness and isolated herself from others if she was going to be obedient so that she didn't bring other people into contact with her, or else she would have to lie and pretend that everything was okay.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't have too many choices.
SPEAKER_00: But she does in this passage, the unthinkable.
SPEAKER_00: She comes up to Jesus in the midst of this crowd and touches the hem of his garments.
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating what Jesus does here because he asks the question, who touched me?
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples they say, Lord, how can you ask who touched you?
SPEAKER_00: There are people crowding in all around you.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many people touching you.
SPEAKER_00: How can you ask this?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus turns and publicly exposes this woman.
SPEAKER_00: But not to shame her.
SPEAKER_00: She had been healed.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us she had been saved.
SPEAKER_00: She already had faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus turns not to shame her, but to honor her and restore her in the eyes of the community.
SPEAKER_00: He publicly declares that she is clean, not because she needed to know what happened.
SPEAKER_00: She knew the moment that she touched Jesus what happened.
SPEAKER_00: But so that everyone else around would know.
SPEAKER_00: Or think of the woman in John chapter 8 who was caught in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees wanted to publicly shame her and to use her as a force.
SPEAKER_00: To try to trap Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they drag her out into the public.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps she was clinging on to one of the sheets in the bed to cover herself up.
SPEAKER_00: Without a shred of dignity, she is paraded to Jesus and thrown in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: What would he do?
SPEAKER_00: The sinless Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: What would he do?
SPEAKER_00: When you read that story in John chapter 8, you find that he shames the shamers.
SPEAKER_00: He reminds them of their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You who is without sin, cast the first stone.
SPEAKER_00: And one by one, beginning with the oldest, they all walk away.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's only Jesus and this woman.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells her that she's forgiven and he restores her dignity and says, Go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: Or we could recall the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: And we can think about this story of what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was reclining with all of the respectable people at a dinner party that they had invited him to.
SPEAKER_00: And this woman comes in, already moved by her faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She comes in there and she begins to weep at Jesus' feet so that her tears begin to fall at his feet, and the dirt that was on his feet from walking in the dusty, filthy roads begins to wash away in her tears.
SPEAKER_00: And then she begins to dry his feet with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: The religious leaders there knew the word to describe this woman.
SPEAKER_00: The word was whore.
SPEAKER_00: And they looked at Jesus and said, He must not be a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: If he was, he would know what kind of woman was touching him.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus knew exactly who she was.
SPEAKER_00: And he tells them that not only is she forgiven, but Jesus uses her as an example of one who loves much because she has been forgiven much.
SPEAKER_00: And compared to them, they didn't know love at all.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't understand the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us Jesus not only removes our shame, he brings honor.
SPEAKER_00: The king left heaven to rescue you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the message of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He came and when he did, he came on a rescue mission and he had you in mind because he knew you before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He came and he touched you and he cleansed you and he healed you and he forgave you and he gave you his identity as his child.
SPEAKER_00: He calls you his own.
SPEAKER_00: You bear his name.
SPEAKER_00: You are not only forgiven, you are honored.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he says, You will be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: There's a fourth question I'd like to answer.
SPEAKER_00: How does the gospel remove our shame?
SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth question I'd like to address.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus took our guilt on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about this two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: The reality that the penalty for my sins was paid for by Christ, and that he took my sin, he took the guilt and the penalty and the punishment for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: All of the wrath that I deserve was poured out upon him.
SPEAKER_00: There is not one drop left in that cup that is reserved for me.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Bible tells us he clothed us with his righteousness, the perfection of his life that he lived in obedience to the Father, and fulfilling everything that we could not fulfill, he did, and then he gave that to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it was credited to our righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible tells us that Jesus also bore our shame.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2 says this: looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
SPEAKER_00: Welch writes this: the Son of God, while on a rescue mission of love, was misunderstood, insulted, betrayed, denied, mocked, spit on, cursed, abandoned, stripped and crucified.
SPEAKER_00: When we think of what Jesus did, crucifixion was intentionally dehumanizing.
SPEAKER_00: There was a story I read in the paper this week about an execution, and the reality of it was that as people evaluated it because of the new chemicals that they used, they said this was cruel and inhuman punishment.
SPEAKER_00: But for the Romans, that was exactly what they wanted to do was to dehumanize the one, to heap shame upon the one after mocking and scourging and beating.
SPEAKER_00: They paraded Jesus through the streets so that everyone would look on him with scorn.
SPEAKER_00: And then they hung him on the cross and they hung him naked to be shamed as he died.
SPEAKER_00: Worst of all, of all of that, worst of all, and more than all of that combined, Jesus was rejected by his father on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the only time Jesus doesn't call God his father is on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: When he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus experienced the Father turning his back on him so that we will always be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: It says that for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to despise?
SPEAKER_00: To despise means to give no mind to, to look down upon, to be unencumbered about.
SPEAKER_00: And Welch writes, Jesus absorbed the shame of the world and despised it by never being controlled by it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looked down on shame.
SPEAKER_00: Why did God do this?
SPEAKER_00: He did it so that he could put us in a favored status as his beloved sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: He identified with our sins.
SPEAKER_00: He was unclean so that we could be made holy.
SPEAKER_00: He was naked so that we could be clothed with the righteousness of Christ and we could wear the royal garbs of his children.
SPEAKER_00: He was punished so that we could be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: He was rejected so that we could be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: He was shamed so that we could be honored.
SPEAKER_00: He was forsaken so that we could be pursued.
SPEAKER_00: He was alienated so that we could be reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: He was an outcast so that we would gain a favored position as his child.
SPEAKER_00: He was treated as a slave so that we might be royal sons.
SPEAKER_00: He was made ugly so that we might be made beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 84,11 says, For the Lord God is a son and a shield.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord bestows favor and honor.
SPEAKER_00: One final question briefly, and I'll talk more about this next week.
SPEAKER_00: But how do we appropriate grace at the point of our shame?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it begins by looking to the cross of what we've just talked about, of what Jesus did, not only of bearing our guilt, but also our shame, to know that you are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: More than forgiven, you are accepted.
SPEAKER_00: More than accepted, you are honored as his child to be the recipient of his grace, to be an heir according to promise.
SPEAKER_00: You are his treasured possession.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I would say, come into the light of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: Find some safe people who understand grace to share your hurt, your pain, and your struggles.
SPEAKER_00: Begin to allow others to minister God's grace and love to the deepest wounds in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And continue to look to Jesus and the gospel to define who you are in Him.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your shame is, but I know well the things I speak of.
SPEAKER_00: So what about you, Dave?
SPEAKER_00: What has brought shame in your life?
SPEAKER_00: I share with fear and trembling, knowing that anything I share could be misunderstood, twisted, or distorted.
SPEAKER_00: But I do want to honor God by sharing how his grace has touched the deepest shames in my life.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a confession of moral failure, so please don't think I'm going there.
SPEAKER_00: But it is deeply personal.
SPEAKER_00: I shared a little bit about my relationship with my father last week, so I won't repeat those things here, but that also bears on what I share this morning.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a child, I had a relative who was very close to me in age, almost identical in age.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't find out this about him until many years later, in fact, until he was a teenager and had tried to commit suicide.
SPEAKER_00: But he had been sexually abused by a member of his extended family, an older man.
SPEAKER_00: I had no contact with that individual because he wasn't in my family.
SPEAKER_00: So how did that affect me?
SPEAKER_00: When we were children, this relative would come over often and occasionally sleep over.
SPEAKER_00: I was maybe five or six years old at the time, I don't recall exactly.
SPEAKER_00: But during one of those times, he initiated physical contact with me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand the wrongness of it at the time.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I can't tell you how long that went on, whether it was weeks or months or years, but eventually I put a decisive stop to it.
SPEAKER_00: However, these events, along with many other dysfunctional situations in my family, had a deep and lasting impact on me.
SPEAKER_00: My sinful nature reacted in certain ways, responding to them.
SPEAKER_00: I struggled with depression.
SPEAKER_00: And I can remember even as a middle school child wondering why life was worth living.
SPEAKER_00: As I got older and started to go through puberty, I found myself struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something that I wanted or asked for, but these struggles were there nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: Around that same time I came to know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But coming to Christ did not eradicate these temptations I was facing.
SPEAKER_00: The church I began attending was very strict, legalistic, and knew very little of love and grace.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't take me long to realize that there are some issues you don't talk about and some struggles you never share, ever.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime these issues came up, I sensed a level of contempt and disgust that reminded me very quickly and decisively to stay silent.
SPEAKER_00: High school was a confusing time, and I began to struggle with alcohol, in part to fit in and in part to self-medicate the pain.
SPEAKER_00: I walked away from the church, but my Savior never walked away from me.
SPEAKER_00: By God's grace, I was spared from actively pursuing these desires.
SPEAKER_00: Two years after high school, God dramatically got a hold of my life.
SPEAKER_00: My heavenly father wouldn't let me go.
SPEAKER_00: But I knew I had a decision to make.
SPEAKER_00: Would I turn to the world and pursue my desires, or would I turn to Christ?
SPEAKER_00: I knew I couldn't have both.
SPEAKER_00: The love of my Savior was too compelling for me to do anything else.
SPEAKER_00: At the Christian college where I attended, I met with two different Christian counselors as well as the campus pastor.
SPEAKER_00: But deep in my heart lurked the abject shame of this struggle.
SPEAKER_00: I could never admit to my friends what I was dealing with.
SPEAKER_00: Even my closest friends didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: I felt isolated and alone, but I felt I had to remain silent if I was going to be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: I knew in my heart it would be the only way that anyone would love me.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago I told you about a friend of mine, Joe, who came to me during college for prayer because of this struggle that he had.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm ashamed to admit I did the very same thing to him that I feared others would do to me.
SPEAKER_00: I turned away and distanced myself from him.
SPEAKER_00: And only in the last few years have I tried to reach out to him to minister and encourage him.
SPEAKER_00: God has brought deep and significant but not complete healing in this area of my life.
SPEAKER_00: At some level, it will probably be a struggle I'll have to deal with by God's grace for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: But God is doing an incredible work in my life through the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He's showing me who I am in Christ and the great love that He has for me.
SPEAKER_00: He is showing me that Jesus has taken my shame and given me honor.
SPEAKER_00: In God's great goodness, he's brought a beautiful woman into my life that I fell in love with and married.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that isn't the experience of everyone who struggles with these issues in life, but it was in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Over the years at faith, I've had the opportunity to share with many close friends as well as the pastoral staff and the elders about these areas of my life for encouragement and prayer and continuous support.
SPEAKER_00: I don't share these things to draw attention to myself, but to share the power of the gospel to address not only the guilt of our sin, but also our deepest struggles with shame.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your shame is.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you hide from so that you'll be accepted.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is able to deal with the most serious, shameful secrets in your life.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel gives life.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel gives forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel redeems and cleanses and restores.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel transforms.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel gives you entrance into the extravagant love of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: In just a moment, we're going to play a song and a video is going to play.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you are in your life or what shame it is that you carry.
SPEAKER_00: It may be something that I've mentioned over the course of this sermon, it may be something completely different.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to ask the elders to come, and if there is something in your life that you would like prayer for, I'd encourage you while the song is praying to please come forward.
SPEAKER_00: You may be at a place in your life where you're not even able to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: But you can still come and ask for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And so while the song is playing, I want to encourage you to listen to the words, to quietly pray if others are coming forward.
SPEAKER_00: And at the conclusion of the song, if you would quietly leave if others are praying.
SPEAKER_00: But now, if you would uh join with me as we listen to this song and meditate on the words.
SPEAKER_00: And if and as the elders come now, if there's something that you need prayer for, I encourage you, please come forward, and we would love to take the opportunity to pray with you.