Sermon Tone Analysis

Doug Bullock

October 20, 21, 2007

IN n the jungles of India , in logging camps, there are many huge elephants chained to a tiny stake.

If you chain a baby elephant to a stake that it absolutely cannot move and keep that poor animal chained to different stakes AND follow with diligent punishment of the elephant every time that he even thinks about pulling against the stake THEN by the time the elephant is full grown at 2 or 3 years old, you will be able to chain him with stake the size of a big toothpick ... /for the other 60 or 7o years of the captive elephant's life /... he will not pull up the stake ... in fact, that elephant cannot be trained to pull up the stake.

How does this happen?

Elephants never forget.

And as a baby elephant grows older, she never forgets the failure of freeing herself from being tied down.

She remembers the pain.

And so, even when she grows up and finds that she is anchored to a spot again, she would think that its impossible to become free, and not even try to break free!

But as they grow bigger and stronger, they are mentally still tied to that stake

\\ The problem is, every human is also affected by some such "elephantal stakes.

Emotional and spiritual barriers that keep us from experiencing the life God wants for them to have.

What are your stakes?

Today I want to talk about one powerful and prevalent stake.

It is shame.

Shame keeps us tied to the past, and it prevents us from moving ahead.

Today I want us to read a passage from Romans 7, and then to address the issue of shame.

Doug, this passage does not mention shame.

You are right.

But it does mention condemnation.

/Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,/

/ /

Shame comes because we feel under condemnation.

If in chirst we can live a life without condemnation, then we ought to be able to live without shame.

If we can get to the place where we know how to deal with the condemnation we feel, then we can be freed from shame/./

/ /

/Lets read Romans 7:15-8:5- out of the message/

 

Do you feel like you live under a continuous low flying black cloud- that sounds like shame.

How do we deal with it?

How do I deal with shame?

The first thing do is ask myself the question*,  Have I sinned?.*

I don’t mean in a general way, because we have all sinned, but the question is, is sin, causing me to feel shame.

Unless I have sinned, I don’t want to feel shame.

A lot of people feel shame, but they have done nothing shameful.

Let’s say the answer is yes.

*Yes- *

*/Identify the sin/*

Put a chapter or a verse on it.

It is very important to be able to clearly identify the sin.

Sometimes it is easy.

I violate a clear scripture.

/Eph 6:4 //Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them /It is easy to see when I have done this.

I do something boneheaded and they get angry.

Sometimes it is not clear.

/Romans 12:10  Honor one another above yourselves/

/ /

You cannot deal with a sin unless you can identify it.

You cannot identify a sin unless you can put a chapter and a verse on it..

 

*/Take responsibility for it/*

If I have a sinned, I think it is helpful just to take time and admit it.

To let it sink in.

/14 //We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do.

For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do/

 

I sin.

I did this.

I am dealing with shame.

But I t did it.

*/Proclaim forgiveness /*

/Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… 3 For what the law was powerless to do/.

It was powerless to make me right with God.

It was powerless to deal with my condemnation.

But god did it.

How?

….

/God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering./

The law was powerless to make me right with god, but god did.

I am forgiven.

For all my sin.

By God.

Forever.

Proclaim it.

/Romans 4:5 But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.

(NLT)/

 

If you stay in shame you are making light of what Christ has done!

*/Confess it to others/*, especially those affected by it

 

/James 5:1`6  16 Therefore confess your sins to each other/

/ /

*/Make amends/*/ as much as possible./

/ /

Stealing a blanket from the salvation army

 

When your shame is caused by sin, this will help you to deal with it

 

But it is possible we can feel shame and we have done nothing to cause it.

The answer to “have I sinned?” is a “no”

 

NO- there are sometimes when I am unable to identify anything that I have done wrong.

Yet I feel shame

 

I think that there are two situations

1- abuse – very often when people are being abused, physically, emotionally, and sexually they have a sense of strong and powerful shame.

Maybe some of you are there.

You  feel ashamed guilty, dirty.

You  don’t know what you  have done wrong, but you figure you must have done something, or else you would not feel such shame.

These feelings are often wrong.

If you were abused as a child physically or sexually, you did not do anything that was deserving of this treatment.

Shame about that treatment is totally inappropriate.

/Remember, too, that the shame has been carefully implanted in you by the perpetrator.

/

/There are two reasons for this: first, that is how he got his pleasure; by making you feel ashamed.

Second, that is how he hoped to keep you from reporting the act to someone who had power over him.

/

/No matter what the perp said to you, it was wrong.

Nothing he said was true; everything he said was a lie to serve himself.

It made him feel good and it made him feel safe.

As long as the shame persists, it is giving him power.

If you reject the shame, you are taking a major step in fighting back.

If you reject the shame, you will make him feel bad, and you will make him feel unsafe.

If you reject the shame, you will be taking power away from him, and empowering yourself.

/

/Talking about abuse is never easy.

But if you talk to an expert, the expert will know that there is no guilt on your head, and no shame either.

The expert will know how deeply you have been wounded, and will know how completely unfair the situation was to you.