Shame Week 2

Jake

Shame • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

Genesis 3:8–15

Shame

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The Gospel provides a means through which we can battle shame

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Shame

We spent some time talking last week about the pervasive role that shame plays not only in our society, but also in our own lives. We talked about the reality that Shame affects everyone we encounter.

We defined shame this way:

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

We talked about the reality that shame doesn’t give us a pass to say that we’re all just fine the way we are and so we don’t have to care about the way we act. We recognize that as followers of Jesus, we are always being called to die to ourselves and conform more to the likeness of Jesus.

That being said, we do believe that Jesus wants to set us free from the feeling that because we are flawed or broken, we can’t be accepted or loved and don’t belong.

So what we did is looked at the opening pages of Scripture to see how God designed things, but also how things went wrong. The first humans were created good. They had a purpose to rule and reign with God in taking the world somewhere.

We saw that this found its’ culmination in the phrase, ‘they were naked and felt no shame.’ The word naked meant exposed, bare, having no barrier between oneself and the outside world

In light of that, we see the crafty snake. I didn’t touch on this last week, but the word naked and crafty sound almost exactly same in the Hebrew language. It’s Arum and Aram.

SO what the author is trying to get our attention in was to say that the snake was crafty and was going to mess with the nakedness.

So we saw this play out in that the snake begins to question what God says, lies to the woman, which in turn caused them to sin which leads to the feeling of shame and causes them to hide.

What once was unexposed and bare and led the people to feel no shame was now something that led to them feeling the need to cover up and hide.

So we synthesized this into three statements about what shame does in us;

1.) Shame questions what God says.

2.) Shame distorts the truth.

3.) Shame causes us to hide.

This week we’re going to talk about how we can battle those things. What we’re going to do tonight is continue the story in the Scripture and see more about how God wants us to address and deal with our shame. As we read the Scripture, we see that the overwhelming reality is that God wants to set us free from shame.

Here were some of those statements:

What we’re going to do tonight is continue the story in the Scripture and see more about how God wants us to address and deal with our shame. As we read the Scripture, we see that the overwhelming reality is that God wants to set us free from shame.

You are His child-

You are his workmanship-

You are a new creation-

1. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. -

2. God loved the world so much he gave His son.

3. I’m going to die for you even though you’re a sinner-

Live in the light-

Confession-

Experience Community-

As we read the rest of the story, we’re going to see three things that God has done so that we can be free from shame. Then we’ll talk about three things we can to partner with Him in fighting that in our own lives.

1.) God meets us in our sin.

2.) God saves us from our sin.

3.) God calls us His children.

4.) God calls us to be open with each other.

So let’s take these one by one as the story continues and work our way through.

Let’s pick it up in

Genesis 3:7 ESV

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

We talked about this last week and about the reality that their nakedness was distorted and changed into something that led them to cover themselves.

Let’s keep going.

Genesis 3:8–13 ESV

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:8–11 ESV

1.) God meets us in our sin.

Ok so there’s a lot of things going on here that we need to talk about. We need to zero in on a couple of things.

How many of your have heard the saying, ‘God can’t be in the presence of sin?’

That statement works until you read the Bible. What do we see happening here in the garden?

The humans ate of the fruit, they’ve sinned. As a result of their sin, they feel shame about their nakedness, cover themselves, they hear God coming and they hide.

What does God do with their sin? He comes to them. He meets them. He calls to them.

Some of us need to hear that tonight. Maybe you’re at a place where you feel so engulfed in a pattern of habitual sin, where you can’t seem to pull yourself out of it.

Maybe you’re absolutely addicted to pornography.

Maybe you can’t stop having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Maybe you can’t stop lying to your parents.

Maybe you feel like you can’t be forgiven for the things that go through your head.

Maybe you’re hiding something that feel that if anyone knew about, they would disown you or wouldn’t talk to you.

Wherever you are in the pattern of habitual sin, you need to take what God has just done to heart.

Rather than running away, he steps right in and calls to them.

This is really important to recognize because everything in us when we feel overwhelmed by shame wants to run and hide because we fear that what we’ve done or who we are might be exposed.

Regardless of that… God comes.

How does God want to free us from shame, He comes to us. He meets us in our sin.

2.) God saves us from our sin.

Let’s keep reading.

Genesis 3:14–15 ESV

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:

This is a crucial part of the story here because if we just do a cursory reading, we could miss something huge.

So God deals with the snake.... that sneaky Nahash. Then he talks about this enmity (or strife) that’s going to occur between the woman’s offspring.

That word offspring there means seed. If we trace that word throughout the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, we find that this theme continues to grow and develop.

God promises Abraham that he will bless the world through his family, through his descendants, which ultimately leads us to Jesus of Nazareth.

As we look at the Gospel of John, we read about what Jesus did.

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Again, God doesn’t stay away from sin, but steps right in by sending His son. Jesus lives the perfect Spirit-filled life, dies a horrendous death, and rises from the grave.

In Jesus, God has provided a way for us to be saved from our sin.

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:6-

Shame is an intense feeling that we are flawed and unlovable.

What’s God’s response to our sin and rebellion? Coming and dying.

So what does this have to do how we respond to shame? Let’s keep reading in Romans.

Romans 5:9–11 ESV

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

So this is so crucial for us as we think about shame because it attacks us at the core level of who we are.

So the voice of shame says, ‘There’s something wrong with you. You are not enough.’ The voice of shame is right in that statement and yet Jesus answers that by saying that He’s enough on Your behalf.

Because of what Jesus has done, you are now declared not guilty of your sin, which leads to shame.

You are now declared not guilty.

The implications for this are huge.

You don’t have to be defined by your sin.

You don’t have to be defined by whether or not people accept you.

You don’t have to be defined or ashamed of what you look like.

You don’t have to be someone who walks in shame about what you’ve done.

Jesus has set you free from that.

So what does God want to say to you as we seek to become people who develop a resiliency to shame? You are forgiven. You are not defined by those things.

Rather than being rejected because of your sin and shame, Jesus has made you acceptable. To be accepted flies right in the face of what shame wants you to feel.

So let’s keep going.

3.) God calls us His children.

You guys hear me say this all the time, but we need to remember that in light of what Jesus has done, God has now saved us and called us to be a part of his family.

1 John 3:1 ESV

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

This is so crucial for us to remember because their’s safety in that family. For some of us, family may bring up the very notion of shame or worry or the opposite of safety.

God is a loving Father who’s illustrated that through giving us Jesus. Because of his sacrifice, you are in the family of God. There’s safety. There’s security. There’s freedom from shame. There’s freedom from fear.

Ok. So we’ve talked through the reality that because God has done these things, we can be people who walk free from sin.

Now, we want to work through some practical ways that we can work through shameful thoughts as they come to us.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but I think there are three things that will help us as we seek to become people who are resilient to shame

1.) Conversation with God.

Romans 8:12–17 ESV

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

:12

When we’re in the midst of feeling overwhelming amounts of shame, we need to stop what we’re doing and tell God what’s going on in our hearts.

Take some time to get quiet, take a deep breath and simply talk to God. We see that Jesus made this a regular rhythm in his life. All over the place, we read that Jesus would wake up early or would escape to a place to pray.

Part of what it means for us to go to war with our shameful thoughts means that we need invite God into it. We allow Him to speak to us. This takes intentionality.

Dallas Willard describes prayer with God this way.

Prayer is an honest exchange between people who are doing things together. God and I work together, and I need to invoke his power in that activity. Joint activity is a key to understanding how conversation flows.

SO GOOD!

“Prayer is an honest exchange between people who are doing things together. God and I work together, and I need to invoke his power in that activity. Joint activity is a key to understanding how conversation flows.

1.) Conversation with God.

2.) Put Scripture to Memory.

One of the things that we constantly run into in life is that we are forgetful people. It’s so easy for us to go through life and forget bout who we are and about what God thinks about us.

Think about how great it would be if we were in the midst of a shame storm, if we were to call to mind a passage about how God feels about you.

What if when I started to have the thought, “Jake, you’re such a screw-up. You can’t do anything right, if I were to rehearse this truth over my heart.

Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Or What if I start to believe that no one could love me because of what I’ve done or the thoughts that I have… What if in that very moment, I spoke this over myself

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Or what if I just can’t get over the feeling of shame and guilt about who I am. What if in that moment, I spoke this over myself:

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This may seem like such a simple thing, but you guys! What a cool thing that we don’t have to question how God feels about us. He’s given us His heart. he’s communicated with us. We can rest in that.

Part of how we can battle shame in our lives is by remembering the truth of what God has said about us and how He feels about us.

I’ve printed off a number of different passages and verses that would be beneficial for us to put to mind and memorize as we’re seeking to be people who are free from shame.

1.) Conversation with God.

2.) Put Scripture to Memory.

3.) Practice Vulnerability with Safe People.

This is a big one! And may be one of the hardest for us to practice. It’s no wonder that this is the case because again, we live in a society that applauds having it all together.

We wouldn’t think about sharing with everyone the deep things that are going on in our heart because that would betray the mask or the facade that we put on far too often.

So I want to break this one down. The first word.

Practice. This isn’t something that’s going to come easily. It takes effort and intentionality to open ourselves up to people.

Like everything we’ve talked about this year, things won’t just happen to us. We need to give ourselves to trying these things and we’ll see that our capacity grows.

Vulnerability.

This is one of those fun words that makes some of us cringe in the way the word naked does.

To be vulnerable is to share your story, your fears, your doubts, and your shortcomings.

It’s funny because the idea of being open with somebody about our stories, our fears, our doubts, and our shortcomings seems to be so backwards.

And I understand it because this makes sense. One Psychiatrist puts it this way:

To expose our real self-our weaknesses, flaws, mistakes and brokenness, along with our desires, needs, and hopes- to others who may hurt us involves the risk that we may be criticized, judged, and dismissed.

Another researcher defines vulnerability this way:

Uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

We’re so terrified that if people knew who we were and what we struggle with that they would leave.

So the question I kept coming back to as I thought about this is what’s so good about vulnerability? Why is it a good thing for us to be open about our failures and who we are?

So I think about the phrase in where the writer says they felt no shame. They knew who they were. They knew what their role was. They were exposed to each other.

As sin enters the picture, this is all distorted and thrown out of whack.

So I think about what the man and woman’s first response is to their mistake. They cover themselves from each other and hide from God.

So as a result of shame, they have not only isolated themselves from each other, but they’ve sought to isolate themselves from God.

As we’ve talked about the truth of what God has done tonight, we also want to recognize that God created us to be in relationship with each other. Shame would love nothing more than for us to remain isolated & feeling alone.

So part of what God is wanting to do in us is not only restore our relationship with him, but also with one another.

Part of how we find healing from shameful thinking is by opening ourselves up; recognizing that we are broken, but also recognizing that God is doing in other people as we share with them and hear their stories as well. That brings us to our next word.

WITH.

God has called us into his family. If we are followers of Jesus, then we don’t get to walk through life alone. We need other people.

I love the way Curt Thompson says this in regards to healing our shame

Hence, when shame is being exposed and healed in the person revealing it, God simultaneously makes possible the healing of shame for all persons intimately participating in that person’s story-telling effort.

I love this! As we share and open with others, not only is it a healing process for us, but it can also be a means through which others can find healing.

SO GOOD!

SAFE PEOPLE

This is one of the biggest things we can talk about when it comes to sharing our story and finding healing from shame.

There are two facets to this.

We don’t want to be flippant with our stories and things that we are wrestling with. There is such a thing as over-sharing. I’m not recommending we go out and share all of our deepest darkest secrets with everyone. Please don’t do that!

As you’re thinking about your life and who you want to share these things with, you want to make sure that these are people that you can trust and who will listen to you without fear that they will share your information with others or will respond in a way that leaves you feeling more shame than before.

The other side is that we need to be safe people.

I want to spend just a minute talking about this because this is really basic to what it means to be a community or a family. Some of us have a problem with keeping the information shared with you to yourself. I just want to be honest and come out and say that when we betray trust and share information that’s not ours to share in the first place, we are actively fighting against what God is wanting us to build.

If this is you or has been you in the past, I want to encourage you to spend some time with Jesus talking about why you feel the freedom to share information that’s not yours.

Maybe this is a chance for you to repent.

Maybe this is a chance for you to seek the forgiveness of a brother or sister whose trust you might have betrayed.

I want you to know that this is the very reason that we have small groups structured in the way that we do. We believe we need each other and are fighting to be a safe place where we can wrestle with questions, doubts, struggles, fears, and shame. We are consistently fighting to be a place where shame is battled.

So… you guys.

This has been a lot. Shame is one of those nasty elusive things that isn’t always easy to identify or figure out what’s going on.

As questions come up, would you reach out to one of your leaders? You can always reach out to me as well. We believe that God wants us to walk in freedom from shame and like everything else in our relationship with Jesus, that takes intentionality. It won’t just happen.

We have to go to war with it.

Jesus wants us to walk in freedom from shame.

This comes through a personal relationship with Jesus and & an invitation to share with one another.