Sermon Tone Analysis

Nothing To Be Ashamed Of

If you have friends around the country, hey, put a group together.

Get them out here.

I gave my life to Jesus at summer camp.

There's something about that experience under the stars.

There's something about that.

But then the corporate worship, and just it gives me chills every time

Help you understand if you've made a decision for Christ.

What it means to grow and move forward.

What it means to wear the armor of God.

What a spiritual battle looks like.

Why praying is important and what does it mean to pray.

How do you pray?

As tangibly as why does a church matter?

Can I just follow Jesus and then just go about my merry little way?

Why would a church matter?

Why would small groups matter?

Why does generosity matter?

That's all going to be in Rooted.

This is 10 weeks that will change your life, I guarantee it.

And we want everyone in the church, no matter how long you've been saved, because doing something for a long time is no guarantee of progress in it.

And we all need a refresher from time to time.

Our staff, everybody, all of us were just raving about it.

We did a pilot program with us together before we offered it too.

Kind of like Nehemiah, the cupbearer, if we got sick, we weren't going to give you the cup.

So it's awesome.

We can certify it.

USDA-approved awesome.

Get signed up for Rooted.

Your host will tell you how.

Next.

We're going to be taking some of the most used and abused verses in the Bible and discovering the verses that come right before them and right after them.

And we're going to try and figure out if any of the meaning changes when you study it in its natural habitat.

right?

So basically, I'm going to be picking on all those verses your grandma had crocheted on the wall in her house and trying to figure out what the next verse is or the verse before it that gives us any clues as to its actual meaning.

I'm really excited for it.

And I hope you'll come back.

That's the Sunday after Mother's Day.

But right now, I have a Bible study I've put together.

So please grab your seats, your pens, your copy of the scriptures, your mobile device.

Thank you so much, team.

*** (If you do have your own Bible, Matthew 5 and Acts Chapter 5) ***

And we ask the question, ) *** (why the cross?) ***

Why couldn't God just say, I forgive you, I love you, and let that be that?

Why this messy, gory, necessary step on the way to Easter?

And we answered that question to the best of our ability in the message It Had to be Done.

You can look to that on YouTube.

But at the very end, I said that on Easter, I wanted to talk about how we can get our confidence back.

And I really do believe this is a moment in history where God is trying to breathe confidence into his church, confidence that we can be confident as followers of Christ.

Not cocky.

Don't mishear me.

Confident.

There's a difference.

We don't need to be jittery.

We don't need to be nervous.

We don't need to be worried.

We can have the calm confidence, shock absorbers on that God is in control and He is up to something.

I believe that's a word for us today.

And this message, in addition to the message I'm going to preach on Sunday, May 1, is my trying to be obedient to help facilitate that in our church, how to get our confidence back as we address the topic today head-on this Easter of shame.

Let's talk about shame.

The Goonies said, shame, shame, we know your name.

And we want to talk about shame.

Hey, you guys.

You young people don't even know.

The title of my message is "Nothing to be Ashamed Of".

Nothing to be Ashamed Of.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Nothing to be Ashamed Of.

Matthew 5 and Acts 5. A little context before we jump in.

Jesus died, was buried, spoiler alert, rose from the dead.

That's good.

And then he left, and he had told his disciples he was going to.

And this dovetails with the last verse we quoted from on Good Friday.

He said, it's to your advantage that I go, because if I go, I'll send you the spirit.

And if you all, in your various places where you live, serve, do life, all get filled with my spirit, then it's not just twelve apostles who get their own personal Jesus, because every Christian will get Jesus in them.

And then, he said, here's the quote, you will go on collectively to do greater things than I've done that you will do if you're filled up with my spirit sent out into the world.

It's pretty awesome.

And of course, it's not just any one of us that would do greater things than Jesus.

He's saying, all of you collectively will do greater things.

And disciples were like, game on, let's go.

So what do you want us to do?

And he said, all right, here's what I want you to do, go to the whole world and tell them how awesome I am, and tell people they can have forgiveness.

Tell people they can know me.

Tell people they can be baptized and come out of that water believing all that sin gone, all that unrighteousness gone, because it was paid for by Christ.

Teach them and command them everything I told you, and then tell them to go and do the same thing.

This will become a global movement if you do that.

And so he said, I want you to start out where you are.

Any of us start out wanting to do that, start out where you are.

"Go into the whole world" doesn't just mean geographically.

I'm thankful that as a ministry, we get to touch into war-torn Ukraine.

I'm thankful we get to send our hard-earned dollars to help deliver food under the shadow of a former Nazi concentration camp oven.

What are we talking about here?

This is what we live for.

Come on.

To help the hurting, to alleviate suffering.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, friends.

Our work in Afghanistan, and our work in the 10-40 window of Asia, our work in Israel.

We are literally supporting church planning and missionaries being sent to Israel.

The Bible says, you bless Israel, you bless the heart of God.

We take that literally.