FREED | Shame

You could remain standing for the reading of the teaching text tonight. Tonight's teaching text comes from John chapter seven verses 53 to John chapter eight verses 11. It says, then they all went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn, he appeared again to the temple courts where all the people gathered around him. He sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "'Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery, "'and the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. "'Now what do you say?' They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "'Let any one of you who's without sin "'be the first to throw a stone at her.'" Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left with a woman standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "'Woman, where are they?

"'Has no one condemned you? "'No one, sir,' she said. "'Then neither do I condemn you.' Jesus declared, "'Go now and leave your life of sin.'" This is the word of the Lord. So I invite you guys to remain standing real briefly. Quick announcement. Today is Pastor John's last Sunday preaching before he goes on sabbatical. So John and Christi have been in ministry for 30 years, been serving in New York City for 21 years now, and has not taken a sabbatical yet. Some might say it's overdue, but anyway, we wanna take a moment as a church just to pray for him. You're here for last Sunday, gonna leave it all in the field, a little window here, but if you would, if you're comfortable with it, stretch out your hand and let's pray. Father, we just thank you. Proverbs 11 says, "'Those that refresh others will themselves be refreshed.'" And so Lord, we just thank you for the refreshment that we have received as a group of people, 21 years in this city of faithfully serving your name, honoring your name. And so Lord, we ask collectively that you would refresh John and Christi. Lord, we just pray you would bless them.

Lord, we pray protection around them. Lord, we just pray for a divine sense of restoration, Lord, that you would, anything they feel like they've lost over the 21 years, Lord, you would restore to them the years that locusts have eaten. Lord, we pray just that you would minister them in a unique way, heal them in a unique way. Lord, we just pray life over them, life over their family, and Lord, we just pray for the next 20 years coming out of this. Lord, we just pray you would fill the tank of freshness and be ready for another 20-year run to see your name and your fame renewed and known in this place. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, thank you. Thank you, folks. This will be an awkward transition. I know. What is the most shameful thing that you have ever done? Don't say that out loud. What is the most shameful thing that you've ever done? And secondly, how has that impacted your life? If we could get everybody up one by one and just share to the room, here's the most shameful thing I've ever done. I think we'd just be amazed at what is in this room.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because I'm preaching on freedom from shame tonight, and I'm in no way trying to trigger you or bring anything up. You'll hear by the end of this talk, that's the opposite of what we're trying to do. But I wanna bring that up because so often we walk around like, everything's fine. And we don't acknowledge that in the subterranean levels of our hearts, many of us are absolutely controlled and riddled with shame. It's surprising, you never believed this, but we talk about shame in our culture so much today, but shame hasn't really been studied, except for in the church. Except for the last 60 years or so in its modern psychological context. It was just tucked away as one of the effects of guilt. But when shame was brought out, it was one of those reminders to us that this is one of the core human experiences. Anthropologists have studied. in societies around the world, and they have concluded that one of the defining features of every place they've ever studied is shame. Shame is not incidental to the human experience. In many ways, it is central to the human experience. I don't think if we were to ask people in New York City,

if we were to go outside, go over to Union Square and say, hey folks, let me ask you a question. Does the church help people with shame or shame people with shame? What do you think the typical person would say in response? Yeah, I don't know how we got this reputation, considering what our faith is actually about. And yet, here we are. Many, many people have been hurt by the church when it comes to shame. So preaching on shame is a challenge. I think in some ways, the world has overcompensated, and in many ways, rightfully so, with a kind of self-help view of shame. And this is what self-help attempts to solve shame do. They just say this, you're worthy, you're worthy, you're worthy, you are worthy. Now, if you've heard your whole life that you're awful and you're unworthy, that is a starting point to deal with the issues of your soul. But it's not enough to actually eradicate what it is that you carry, and maybe even what it is that you've done or what it is that has been done to you. And so as a pastor, I don't wanna just get up and affirm basic dignity and say, that is enough to get free from your same shame. On the other side, I don't wanna hold up a moralistic framework

that basically says, just try and do better and just do more Christian practices and be more disciplined in your life with God, because if you struggle with shame and then you can't live up to the spiritual standards that are set, all that will do is make you shame cycle and you'll think, well, I can't even bother, I can't even keep up with the standards that God's put here, why would I bother trying to practice these anymore? And then a lot of times, in churches like our church, which really has a high value for the Word of God, we think we can teach our way out of shame, and that is not enough, it is not enough. Shame, psychologists tell us, is not where it lives in us, it's not just in our thoughts, it's actually a somatic experience, which means it gets trapped inside of our bodies. To be healed from shame requires a holistic response to what is happening around us. So I'm gonna try and thread the needle tonight between self-help and morality and just show you the vision of how Jesus treats shame and how Jesus, more than anybody who has ever lived, can genuinely liberate us, heal us, and set us free from shame. So I wanna start with a definition of shame, so we're on the same page. Shame is the painful consciousness of unworthiness,

exposure, and broken relationships resulting from sin. Now, I think it is important to put sin in our understanding of the experience with shame, otherwise we're not gonna properly diagnose the root of where our shame comes from. Ed Welch wrote a book called Shame Interruption. He's got another definition, he says this, shame is a deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something that you're associated with. That is also very, very helpful. You've heard this a million times, but guilt, I did something bad, it's a focus on behavior and action. Shame says, I am bad, it's a focus on identity and the self. Kurt Thompson, who's a wonderful, wonderful Christian author psychologist, was here in New York last week, said this, guilt is something I feel because I've done something bad, shame is something I feel because I am bad. Now, where does shame enter the human story? It's important to diagnose this and to also make sense of it. We were having dinner as a family, just to eat a very casual steak in the Upper West Side, and I asked one of my classic table questions, do you ever do table questions? A lot of times they're kind of light-hearted, you know, like in the third grade,

what was your favorite drink, you know? I did a cold opener with, do you have a shame-based identity and where did shame enter your life? And I just went in, and one of the things that was, and then what you don't wanna hear is, it entered my life because you're my dad, that's not the kind of feedback that you're looking for. But it was amazing to me, even in our own story, our family story, to realize that all of us have an entry wound of shame. In the Bible, shame is mentioned in the Old Testament over 300 times, and there's 10 different words. Hebrew words that are used to describe the experience of shame. In the New Testament, less words but strong meaning. It was the subjective feeling of being disgraced or the objective loss of honor or citizenship. So, I want you to see the multi-dimensional nature of this shame. There is subjective shame, that's the inner sense of feeling shame, our personal estimation of ourselves. There's the objective shame, which is the experience of a loss of estimation in the eyes of others and often this results in shameful conduct, actions that bring shame or things that we are ashamed of. And a lot of us feel trapped in that dynamic, which is internally I feel shame, therefore I act in ways that make others treat me shamefully and then I spiral and do more shameful behaviors that just reinforces the system that I am a part of. Sylvia Tompkins was a psychologist who studied shame and she tried to understand is there a universal bodily expression of shame and it turns out across cultures and across time there is. What do you think it is? Just do it right now, what do you think the universal expression of shame is? It's exactly right, it's the head bowed, it's the hands covering the face. I did a little search on shame, here's just a couple images I think in so many ways, we're going to do a little visio divina, but in so many ways I think point out our experience of shame. Shame that distorts us, we're hiding but we feel like we've been deeply affected. This is the Upper East Side kinfolk version of shame, this is like very prim and proper but just quietly hiding in the corner. Next, doesn't matter what culture you come from,

the same response when we have this sense there's fundamentally something that is wrong with me. Next slide, this one here man, I've done something and I can't get rid of the effects of it and I'm hiding but even in my hiding people can see what I've done. I think many people tonight may feel like that. Next, this one here maybe something has happened to you where you feel held hostage by shame. That's a heavy image but I think there's many people here tonight, this is their experience. Next slide, this is an art piece that was done on shame and one of the things I think is so remarkable about this, trying to highlight the distortive effects, the diminishing effects on our humanity of what shame does to us. This is another one, they all show the same thing. Next slide, which is people heading down. Now this pitch is fascinating to me because this is how so many people function in New York. They figured out a way to show up and come from a good background, have confidence, pretend they've got it all together but they are still just hiding their high functioning shame. Maybe you came to church like this tonight, here everyone can see you but you are hiding in the midst of us all. That one looks almost demonic so next let's just go to the book cover. The first book I read on sort of the effects of social media and creating shame was this book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. I think it came out 2011, 2012 and let me just say if you're reading the book okay, what you do on the internet will last forever. Don't do dumb things on the internet and you don't know what is dumb, so get ready. That's the summary of the book. Shame wrecks people's career. For a lot of people to be cancelled, I've had a couple friends be cancelled, when somebody is cancelled the offence is momentary but the damage is permanent. 59% of American teenagers report being cyber bullied which means people and you know how this works, part of the ways that we we moderate and act when you're in the presence of somebody else is you can read all these clues about their response and their face and their body language but when you're just in, when you're piling on in the comments section we can be doing incredible damage to people and be unaware of it. Shame is such a damaging force. It hinders our spiritual progress. You won't have a free heart before God if shame controls you. Did you know shame actually, if you have a shame-based view, if you have a fear of God that He's going to judge you all the time, it actually results in cortical thinning which changes the structure of your brain. It actually means that you can never fully relax, that the amygdala is kind of always on, and so you live in a heightened state that produces a performative spirituality,

worried that if you screw up, God will reject you. It hinders our spiritual growth. It stops our psychological development. There'll be parts of our lives that are not fully integrated that we can't be our full selves. There'll be image management, there'll be strain in the way that we react. Damages our relationships. One of the great journeys I've had in my marriage, my sweet wife is over here, my daughter's here, my son is here, Tyson Family Reunion, downtown tonight, great, great night. But one of the challenges of our marriages is learning to let go of shame and risk your heart of being vulnerable with one another. And if you've got so much shame, you won't put yourself out there because you will fear rejection. In the book, The Body Keeps the Skull, which I'm certainly sure you've heard of, they say one of the hardest things for traumatized people is to confront their shame about the way they behave during a traumatic episode, whether it is objectively warranted as in the commission of atrocities or not as in the case of a child who placates the abuser. The traumatic event becomes in the survivor's autobiographical memory, evidence of selfhood, which means the trauma we've been through

begins to shape our sense of who we are. Like we deserve the things that have happened to us. And as a result, it makes us fundamentally believe not that things were done to us, but things are our fault, and therefore we must carry this over the course of our life. Dan Allender in his book, The Wounded Hearts, said the trigger, and this in terms of theology is extraordinary. The triggering event and resulting shame is worse than being rejected because rejection assumes a path by which you can return to acceptability. The fear involved in shame is that of a permanent abandonment or relational exile that you can never come back from. How do we deal, people carrying this into church tonight? How do we deal with shame? What's your instinct when you do something shameful? It's the same instinct that we find in the book of Genesis. And you know what it is? Hiding. Starts with my little kids, doesn't it? When you're a little kid, when you do something wrong, what's the first thing you try and do? Cover it up. Lie, hide it, or hide yourself. Ever walked in and there's your kid hiding in the corner pretending you can't see him? They're looking for psychological relief

that says if I can't see you, at least I can get by. Genesis 3 says the eyes of the, well, they're in the garden, they're naked, and they're unashamed. But then when sin comes, they sow up fig leaves to try and cover themselves, and then they hide from God. One day, they're naked and unashamed, walking with God joyfully. The next day, shame enters in. They're hiding from what used to bring them delight, and they're covering themselves because they experienced some kind of fundamental deficit. All of modern society, for the last couple thousands of years, is people hiding and covering up their internal sense of inadequacy. Fearful that they'll be discovered for who they are. Sometimes people try and numb their shame. Jay Stringer, another New York pastor and therapist, that shame says I'm bad, not just I did something wrong. This internalized shame often drives people back in the very behaviors they want to avoid. This is so true. I'm bad. This is how I deal with my feelings of being bad. Doing it makes me feel more bad, and I realize that I'm not good, and so let me do more bad things

because I'm bad anyway, and then, woo, there you go. Numbing our shame. Some people blame other people. Here's a point. Jung mentioned this, but what you criticize in others is a fascinating mirror of what you perceive to be wrong with yourself. Next time you're listening to someone criticize, just step back and just go, huh. I wonder what's happening in their heart. You know it's not a shame talk with that little Brene Brown. Some of you have been like, is he gonna drop Brene Brown in? Here's your moment. First of many. We judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency. In order for me not to be the target of the criticism of others, to fend this off and not become vulnerable and experience further shame, it's them, not me, them, not me. If I can discharge that criticism to somebody else, maybe I can feel relief. I think sometimes another way,

this I think is a big one in New York, is we just try and get competent and fix our. Shame, I can deal with this, no problem. Watch the late night YouTube podcast thing, I'm good. I've processed my shame. Ah, great. You've just become a perfectionist and you're just trying to do it in your own power. And if you had enough power, it probably wouldn't have happened in the first place, so you may think to yourself. So powering up is really the way just to do it. I understand the instinct, like why be miserable? At least try and improve the condition. But we need something deeper than just our own effort. Brene Brown again, when perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun and fear is that annoying backseat passenger. If you ever experienced that, some of you are like, I've never driven because I'm from New York, that's okay. Shame is riding shotgun, when you're driving along, all you're hearing is how bad you are and there's somebody in the backseat trying to control you out of fear. There's gotta be a better way than this and this is what Jesus offers us. I want you to see this. This may have never occurred to you before,

so I want this to hit you, if possible, with revelatory power. Shame and the removal of shame is a central, not peripheral, story and goal of the Bible. It's not, we talk about sin, yes, I believe in penal substitutionary atonement. I believe in the doctrine that Christ bore our sins on the cross. But I do think that we have failed to talk about the centrality of the removal of shame in the Christian story. I love this quote from Ed Welch. Listen to what he says. He basically makes the argument, the whole goal of the Bible is Jesus coming to heal and love shamed people. Look at what it says. We were originally created without shame. Shame came into the human condition. Now the entire Bible becomes the story, trying to answer a question. What do I do with the fact that I feel naked and unclean and cast out? Can we pause for a second? Do you think most people out there think that the central question the Bible is trying to ask is what do I do with the sense that I feel exposed and unclean and rejected? I don't think people know that that part of the human condition

is what the Bible came to address. From the animal skins God fashioned for Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to the white robes of the saints in Revelation 7, 9, Scripture chases a single storyline. God is clothing the naked and the shamed in righteousness and glory. That is the story of the Bible. Now, when Jesus, slowly working our way to the text, when Jesus came to offer dignity to shame people, he stepped into a culture. Pastor Sam talked about this a couple of weeks ago in his sermon on free from sin, on the dynamics of an honor-shame culture. Jesus stepped into a culture built on honor and built on shame. Honor and shame were the primary social currency of the Mediterranean world. The Torah had teachings about honor and shame. There was a rabbinical tradition that guarded the teachings of the Old Testament. Then you had Roman occupation and then cultural norms that bled through and reinforced honor and shame in all of those social systems. There's a very rigid hierarchy for those who had high status and those who were shamed. Gender roles were strictly enforced. Women carried the threat of more cultural shame, shame primarily through sexual purity.

Jews and Gentiles were sharply divided. Gentiles were categorically shamed people, according to the Jewish community. Rich line cleanliness created a ladder. The purest were at the top and the impure are on the bottom. So to be sick, poor, foreign, or female was to put yourself in a place of vulnerability to shame at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees come along, start with good intent, take it too far, become self-righteous, and then weaponize the concept of honor and shame, and they became the self-appointed guardians of honor and shame in their society. So the purity laws that were originally meant to set us apart and consecrate us to God were weaponized to social laws to facilitate exclusion of shamed people. To be declared unclean was to be declared unwelcome by God and everybody else in the community. Shame wasn't just a private experience. It was enforced publicly, institutionally, and was fundamentally connected to the practice of religion. Now, the Pharisees, so imagine this. You're young, right? You go to school, and in school you ask, because everybody's trying to ask this question, who are the good people and who are the bad people? You do this, you read the New York Times, and you're like, I'm a good person,

and they're the bad person. Every one of us is trying to figure out how to situate ourselves in the world as being the moral people as opposed to being them. the other category. So imagine being born in a Jewish community, a Pharisee, zealous for God's law and for the coming of the Messiah, and you're taught when you're little, who do we shame and who do we stay away from? Well, number one, sexually impure women. Number one, stay away from sexually impure women. Number two, stay away from tax collectors. They've got double dishonor because not only have they identified with the oppressor, now they're oppressing on behalf of the oppressor, taxing the people of God on behalf of the enemy. The sick and the unclean, stay away from them. The purity system of second temple Judaism created these categories of the richly unclean. Lepers, wherever they went, think about this, they had to yell, unclean, unclean. They had an emotional field around them of sickness and shame. Nobody would go near somebody with leprosy, the poor, in a patronage society. The poor had no patrons and therefore nobody to honor. So poverty wasn't just economic hardship, it came embedded with social shame. And the ultimate people, the ultimate threat of shame for a Jewish person was being crucified by the Romans. Like whatever you do, do not die of crucifixion. So you imagine being a little kid in the third grade, okay, Hezekiah, just want to do your little test here, so that you can grow up and be a good person. Who do we shame? Impure women. Who else do we shame? Tax collectors. Who else do we shame? The poor. Who else do we shame? The ceremonially and physically unclean. Fantastic, way to go. So you grew up, that stuff pre-loaded in your head. You're going to create a culture where you would do anything to avoid people in those categories. Now, has it hit you yet? Has it hit you yet, who Jesus spent His time with? Has it hit you yet, why the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus? When Jesus shows up in an honor shame culture, Jesus stands up and gives His manifesto in Luke 4, and He says, I'm the one that Isaiah prophesied about. I am the one you've been waiting for. And they're like, oh heck yes. And then Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners and replaces social exclusion with table fellowship and belonging. He honors children who have no social status. When Jesus takes the children into His arms, so controversial. Children had no social value. It was only like mothers and servants who would look after kids. The disciples were right to shoo them off. And then Jesus stops and says, no, bring

them to me. It says He took them in His arms and He blessed them. And He said, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. I mentioned this during our Advent series, but why did Jesus say you have to change and become like a little child? You have to change and take on a position of having no cultural honor. Because Christ, who was the Lord of glory in the incarnation, changed from the God of glory into a child in Mary's womb. And that was born into the world as a vulnerable child. He restores a woman caught in adultery, refusing to add to her cultural shame. And when Jesus dies, He is crucified. This is unbelievable. The whole ministry of Jesus is about helping those who are trapped in a system of shame, recover their dignity and their agency, and to become the beloved children of God. The woman in Luke chapter 7, when Jesus is eating with a Pharisee who comes in, the sinful woman. And He says, if you were a prophet, you'd know what sort of woman this is. And then remember what Jesus tells the Pharisee? Story time. There's two people. One of them owes $40, and one owes $400,000. Their benefactor is in a good mood, and He forgives both of them. Who do you think was a little happier at lunch? And he's like, well, the person that got all their college debt forgiven. I mean, that's obvious. And then Jesus says, look at you, mate. You're so full of self-righteousness. You've done nothing for me. But this woman who's been forgiven much, loves much. Jesus loves sinful women. The Samaritan woman, John chapter 4. You want to talk about a shame-based identity. This is like, come up with a hierarchy of shame. And this woman is like bottomed out in every shame category. So she's a Samaritan. She's an outsider shamed by the Jewish community. She's a woman already experiencing shame, but she's shamed by her people. She's been married five times. Hasn't worked out. She says, stuff it. I'm not even going to bother with marriage. I'm just going to live with a guy. Hopefully he'll be kind to me. Jesus goes to Samaria because He's led by the Holy Spirit. What does He do when He interacts with her? He doesn't say, I don't know what's wrong with you, home girl, but you've been through five guys and you're with another guy. right now. You know what he says? Wow, you must have a deep need in your heart for belonging. And he offers her living water. And remember this, I've said it so many times, but in light of Jesus dealing with shame, it's remarkable. She says, come see a man that's told me everything I've ever done. Jesus helps her reinterpret her story of shame as a place of mission to go and reach other people. And the first place the move of God breaks out in the ministry of Jesus is through a shamed woman who gets her dignity back and becomes a witness to a community that is an

outcast community. What sort of ministry is Jesus doing here? Jesus has not come to make prideful people improve their lives. Jesus is not here to optimize emotionally healthy people to become more successful. Jesus is here to take shamed people and give them dignity and restore their lives. Jesus does this with Zacchaeus. It says, Jesus set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem. Jesus is going to die. And he's coming through Jericho. And when he's there, there's a tax collector, a small man has to get up in a tree. He's the chief tax collector. Like he is the linchpin of systemic oppression for the people of God. And Jesus looks up and he goes, how's it going for you up there mate? He's going, view's better up here. He's like, you know what? Let's go and have some lunch. And everyone's, they murmur. You're gonna eat with a sinner. And you know what Jesus says? The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost. And then what does he do to that whole system of oppression? Deconstruction by having lunch with one shamed man. He's going to go die for the sins of the world, but first he's going to have lunch with an outcast and impact the entire city. The prodigal son. What a story! The prodigal son, what a story. Luke 15 may be the most beautiful chapter of literature ever written in the human race. You should probably memorize it. It's the story of the prodigal son. And why, you've probably heard this, why does the father run to the son? Because he committed an offense, not just against the father, but against the community. And if the father didn't get to the son first, the community would have shunned him and not let him get home. And so father runs to make sure. And then what does the father slaughter for the feast? What is it, do you remember? The fattened calf. He doesn't, listen, I had lunch yesterday at five guys, okay? You do you. Double patty, small fries, Cajun. I'm full. When you're going to throw a feast, if someone said, hey John, we've slaughtered a cow for you, I'd be like, bro, I can only eat a double patty, small fries. What's this an indication of? He's being restored to the village. There's a feast to let the whole village know, I'm not shaming my son. I want him welcome back into the community. Folks, I hope you understand this. Folks, I hope you understand this. If you are shamed, if you've done something shameful, if you feel like you have no hope because of what you have done, you are the very one that Christ has come for. The very people Christ could not stand. Religious, self-righteous, prideful,

those who caused shame. I love how Dane Orland put this in Gentle and Lonely. Look at what it says, time and again, it is the morally disgusting, the socially reviled, the inexcusable and undeserving, who do not simply receive Christ's mercy, but to whom Christ most naturally gravitates. The posture most natural to Him is not a pointed finger, but open arm. If you were there tonight, sitting where you are, and you finally had the courage to bring before God the most shameful thing you've ever done, and you're waiting, what do you think would happen? You would find Jesus moving to award you in mercy, to award you in mercy, to cover you, and to set you free. Jesus doesn't just affirm dignity, and He just doesn't just reverse social hierarchy. Jesus dies to take our shame, that we may go free. Hebrews 12 says this, and let us, this is death for the shamed, let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfect. effector of our faith for the joy set before him he endured the cross and what does that say next scorning the shame and he sat down on the right hand of the throne of god i can't believe this here is god almighty creator of heaven and earth angels crying out holy holy holy creatures in heaven in awe of the son of god and now the shock and the horror here is christ who has descended to the lowest place in human culture stripped naked abandoned rejected he's on the cross they're saying to him before the son of god come down he says i can't come down because if i come down they have to get up and pay for their own sins so i'm not getting down and it says he did that for the joy set before him that maybe one day a couple thousand years later in lower manhattan you would find out that god doesn't hate you for your shame but he loves you enough to die for you to take it away he's on the cross god oh dear god please don't let them walk into the summer full of shame let him know that i died for them let him know this could be a summer of freedom let him know they don't have to carry that guilt that shame that condemnation anymore on the cross he hung naked publicly displayed declared cursed mark forsaken he got buried in a borrowed tomb jesus is the shame absorber of humanity jesus despises our shame he says he it didn't it didn't bother him that he had to experience this because he believed that we were worth it and there was a day of joy when he believed that the message of freedom from shame would ring out through the world and people would be delivered from it but then not only that jesus is not ashamed of us

sometimes i think many of us have a view that god has to put up with us because he's god like that annoying kid that you can tell the parents hate but they're parents kids are awkward they're embarrassed of the kid that you know they've got headphones in at the games blah blah blah i think well that's what god thinks of us i mean he has to love him he's god a lot of times i don't think we have a sense that god likes us you know what the bible says he delivered me because he delighted in me he will quiet you with his love he will rejoice over you with singing this is amazing how many of you in enjoying the worship tonight i think god liked it but um did you see corinne with her daughter or baby evangeline she's quieting her she's singing over her i'm thinking we don't know it but if we could hear below the worship here is god trying to quiet you with your shame and sing over you with his love what is this gospel who is this man where does this love come from how can we act so casual about the greatest news that every single one of us need freedom from our shame is gone and then the ultimate proof of this the ultimate proof of this is jesus willingness to identify with us look at hebrews 2 in bringing many sons and daughters to glory it was fitting that god for whom and through whom everything exists should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family so jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters he's not ashamed of you he loves you willing to call you his brother and sister jesus rises from the dead to prove his back he's back greatest event in human history and who does he pick now listen have you ever said i love a good court drama i love a good court drama man and uh the goal in a court is to get the most credible witnesses possible to sway the jury no one's like well uh he is uh low functioning life skills so bring him in bring him in no lawyers doing that i got jury duty when i get back from sabbatical and i know they're not gonna pick me nobody wants this evangelical pastor great you you want credibility in the courtroom and and here's jesus credibility hey mary magdalene I'm going to use you as my number one witness for all of human history that I'm back from the dead." And she's like, I had seven demons in me. And he goes, they're not there anymore, are they?

Come out. No. It's like, no, I think we got them all. You good? And he's like, come on out. This is partly why I believe the Bible is true because nobody trying to create a hero myth takes a woman with seven demons and says, well, she saw me. Do you know what I mean? You don't build a story like that unless it happened, and you don't use character like that unless you're trying to tell this shamed world that Jesus can resurrect you out of your shame and use you as a witness of his glory to bring hope to other people. How does the Bible end? What's your future going to be like? Imagine not knowing about the grace of God. Imagine carrying shame your entire life and then hoping at the end maybe people will forget or forgive, dying with guilt. Or imagine this. In Genesis, we hid from the presence of God and we covered our inadequacy. But when you get to the end of the story, we're clothed in righteousness. It says we're going to see him face to face. There will be no more curse. This glorious garden city is not going to need light because the lamb will be the light. And we will see his face, the face that we have hidden from in our shame. We'll see it in glory. And it says we will rule and reign forever and ever and walk with him in glory. Only God can undo the effects of the fall. It says in the book of Revelation, there will be no more curse. And we shall reign forever and ever. Jesus came to break the cycle of shame and free you from it. Here's this woman caught in adultery.

Do you remember where in that passage it says this happens? Could you pick that detail up? Anybody? Just say it, that was not rhetorical, anybody? In the temple grounds, at the center of the religious system. And they're like, we got him. He's teaching. The whole world's going to witness this. We got him. Go get the fellows with the rocks. So they bring this poor woman, I mean, ever had a bad meeting with your boss? Got dragged in or something? Even as a kid, like you're in trouble with your brothers and sisters, you're having a heavy meeting with your parents. Not a good vibe. Here comes a woman that's been caught having sex with someone who's not her husband. And what's the first category of shame people at the time of Jesus? Sexually immoral women, like we got one live. They bring her in. We don't even know if she's fully dressed. This shame of being known in front of the whole community, in the temple, and you've got to be thinking, my life is over. I cannot recover from this. This is how my story ends. This is the end. Get dragged before Jesus, and here's Jesus. What happens next is weird. They're like, Jesus, the law says kill her. What do you think? Now, imagine being in a courtroom, and the judge just like stops in the middle of a hearing.

Just walks over and gets his iPad out and starts like drawing the skyline of Central Park on his iPad. Everyone's like, what are you doing? He'll be like, oh, sorry, if any of you are without sin, why don't you go ahead and launch that first stone? I'll just be right here. And Jesus is kneeling down, drawing in the dirt. This is so awkward. He's like, you guys good? What about the other? Hang on, I'm busy. As it says, one by one, they drop their stones. First the older folks are like, oh, gosh, man, I got a track record of stuff. We good. Finally, even the younger folks, and then you're in this moment, you're in the temple grounds. This woman thinks this is the end of my life, and now she's left with the one man who's actually sinless and has the right to stone her. Talk about a tense moment. And what does Jesus say? Woman, where are those who have condemned you? And she looks around, and there's no one. I've been hearing this. Well, I don't condemn you. Hang on. What do you mean? You're not going to kill me? No, man. I didn't come to kill people. I came to bring life. Now he says this, go and leave your life of sin. He's like, this dumb crap is going to kill you. This is not who you are. You're born for more than this. So I'm going to disrupt this cycle of guilt. I'm going to give you a chance. He didn't say you're worthy, you're worthy, you're worthy.

He didn't need to. He showed it to her by giving her time and space. And he didn't just affirm her. He cracked a pathway open in the middle of her life that she thought was open so she could walk forward and be free. I can't wait to get to heaven and find this woman. I'm going to be like, where is she? Where are you? Come on. What did you do with the rest of your life? How good was it? I think we forget how extraordinary Jesus is to shamed people. He doesn't just empathize with her condition. And he doesn't condemn her for what she's done. He creates space between the accuser and the penalty for mercy to open, to give her a new life. Do you want that? I have seen Jesus do this in the lives of thousands of people. People in our church who thought, holy crap. I cannot undo this. It's over. The life as I know it is over. And they think there's no moving forward and they bring it to Jesus and the miracle of mercy appears and they get their life back. I want to say this to you. If you've done something from which you think you cannot recover, you can recover because of the grace of Jesus. And I hope tonight, even while I'm speaking, a path of mercy opens in your mind and you see it and you say, shame will not be the defining reality of my life. I'm going forward into the mercy of God. That can be your story tonight. It's extraordinary. So how do we then help people get free from shame?

If Jesus came for the shamed, if shame is one of the fundamental things that define us that we wrestle with, how do we get free from it? How do we apply what Jesus has done? First thing, you've got to get the gospel into the deepest part of your heart. It's not just, listen, enough with the podcast, folks. Another podcast is not going to break you three from your shame. Content will not do what an encounter with mercy is. You've got to get to the deepest stuff in your heart and you've got to bring it to the person of Jesus. You will not think your way into freedom from shame. You've got to have an encounter with God. I love how Keller says this. He says, if you're filled with shame and guilt, you do not merely need to believe in the abstract concept of God's mercy. You must sense, and I love this phrase, on the palate of the heart, the sweetness of his mercy. Let me give you a test to determine whether or not you really understand how Jesus feels about you. When you screw up, is your first instinct, oh crap, I've got to come up with a management plan to hide this. It was your first thought, I've got to get this to Jesus because he will forgive me. The instinct that says, I'm bringing this to Jesus, he will help me, shows us to the degree that we understand the beauty of the gospel. Listen, I've got a lot of things wrong as a dad, okay? Both of my kids are here tonight. We're not going to interview them, okay? You've just got to trust me. One thing I said to my kids again and again, I am here for you.

I'm here for you. I remember saying to Nate, Nate, listen to me, man. I'm your freaking dad, bro. I am here for you. I am for you. I am a force for you in your life. If you're hanging out with kids in New Jersey, and they're driving around smoking the wacky weed in New Jersey, those Jersey kids with the weed, and you get pulled, if you get pulled over, this is before they legalized it in New York, before, if you get pulled over, the first thing I want you to think in your mind is, I better call my dad. My dad can help me with this. I want to be the person that you think my dad will help, not, oh, gosh, he's going to kill me. It took so much of my teenage years, and Nate really tested me to see whether or not we would live this practice out. And great young man, going to be a dad this week. He's going to have to do this all by himself. He's going to have to figure this out. I remember in the 12th grade, Nate's 12th grade, he's having problems with a kid. One of the greatest moments of parenting for me, he comes to me, dad, there's this kid at school that wants to fight me and you told me that you would help me with this. What do I do? And I was like, bro, we're going to come up with a plan, man. I've been waiting my whole life for this moment. And then the best thing ever, when my sweet daughter would sometimes try to be a little

sneaky, Nate on his own would go to her and be like, don't do that, just bring it to mom and dad. They're pastors, like they hear from God anyway, do you know what I mean? Just bring it into the light. I remember Nate actually was like, Nate actually said, they were youth pastors too, which means they know dumb stuff that people our age do. Do you believe when you sin that Christ is for you? Do you have an instinct of I got to get this to the cross for mercy, or I got to manage this and hide this myself? That's the degree to which you believe the gospel to be true. If you believe this, that God is for you, there will be a freedom and confidence in your walk with God you cannot comprehend. Look what C.S. Lewis says, to please God, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work, or a father in a son. It seems impossible, a way to burden of glory, which the thoughts can hardly sustain, but so it is. Do you believe that? He will deliver you because he delights in you. Next, so we're going to get that right with God. Next. By the way, again, listen, I'm a Christian as opposed to any other religious tradition. Do you want to know why? Because no other religion has a man of mercy like Jesus. Go look at any other philosophy or plan, and I promise you the essence of that plan is do better. The essence of the Christian is Christ has done it for you. Come home and receive his grace. I challenge you, go look at any other religion or philosophy, and you will not find somebody who takes the seriousness of what we've done seriously.

He takes our moral choices seriously, and you will not find someone so forgiving for our failures of those moral choices. There's nobody like Jesus. But then the church then should be a place where community embodies a hatred for shaming people. We've got the church should be like Jesus. Did you know in the basement down here, that this church where we are right now, is where AA was started? Right here, just down here, this little plaque. We met in another church many years ago, and they had AA meeting, and the time of the meeting overlapped with the church. I remember one day I wasn't preaching, I was like, let me go see what they're talking about down in the basement. We're doing like great worship upstairs, greeting teams on point, it's like church plant A+. I was like, let me go see what's happening down there, and I get down there and the meeting starts. I'm like, yeah, anyway, I get in this meeting, and the stuff they're sharing, I'm like, oh my gosh. If we had an open sharing time upstairs, I think they'd cancel it. I think like, thank you very much, we don't know how to handle that. And the whole time I'm thinking, dear God, make us a church where the stuff they're willing to share in the basement is the stuff we're willing to share upstairs. You got to bring it into the light. James 5 says, confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. You were not designed to carry the burden of shame on your own. Quote Thompson says, when we experience shame, we tend to turn away from others because the prospect of being seen or known by another carries the anticipation of the shame being intensified or reactivated. But it also carries the possibility of you being loved and forgiven and cared for. Henry Nowen, what seemed a reason for shame and embarrassment becomes instead the basis

of community. And what seemed to separate us from others becomes the basis of compassion. When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become, and this is what the world is aching for, wounded healers. I don't think we want the... Testimony of like, hey, let me tell you my testimony. I'm awesome. I'm awesome. You know the Christian life? I'm freaking killing it. No one wants that testimony. It's been said a hundred times, we impress with our strengths, we connect with our vulnerability. And what we want more than anything, this was the insight of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill's desperate for a drink, and he's got a thirst for the addiction. And here's his revelation. I don't need another drink, I need another sinner. And that's how A.A. was born. I need someone else who knows what this is like. And that's the church at its best when we're honest with the things we've been through, when we're honest with our struggles, when we're honest with our sin. Some of you are like, can you please do one more Brene Brown quote before you go on sabbatical, man? Just sneak one more in.

I got you. If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially. Secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you douse it with empathy, it cannot survive. Shame loves secrecy. The most dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury a story. When we bury the story, shame metastasizes. And that's why, friends, the central sacrament or ordinance of the Christian church is communion. Because you know what we're doing when we receive the Lord's Supper? We're taking the man who is willing to go through a shameful death for us. And he's ministering to us from this table of remembrance to the shame parts of our bodies and our hearts. And when we eat the bread and we drink the blood, we're not just celebrating we're forgiven, we're celebrating we're free from shame. That he, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Glory, was willing to die on the cross for sinners and give his body and shed his blood to be shamed that we might go free. The communion table tells us of the cross. It tells us the story of resurrection. And it's a remembrance of his suffering and his shame for our freedom and our acceptance.

If you've ever been around me when I take communion, I don't take communion like a lot of other pastors I know. I don't, I'm not super reverent. I know there's that passage of 1 Corinthians 11 about being reverent, but I think that's because they're doing church wrong. Some people are getting drunk and eating all the food and then poor people would show up and there's drunk rich people eating all the food and they're shamed. And Paul's like, your gatherings do more damage than good. No, when I take the bread, when I take the wine, I raise it before all the voices of accusation and shame and all the things I've done wrong in my life. And I say, this is the land, Paul says this, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And I just hold it up to the enemy and say, nothing you say is true about me anymore. I'm under the blood. And I hold the cup up and I say this, if you've heard me say it, I say, this is the bread of life. This is the cup of salvation. And I drink this in spiritual defiance of the shame that wants to drag me back into my past. And it is a refreshing grace as I walk into the path of mercy God has made for me. Tim Keller says this, to be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. Nothing worse than being in a relationship and the whole time thinking, if you know what I've done,

you will leave this thing. To know I love you is like, you don't love all of me because you don't know all of me. It's comforting, but it's like not deep. To be known and not loved, that's our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved, well, it's a lot like being loved by God. It's what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles out of our cliche self-righteousness and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us. Friends, I'm not gonna see you till September. And it would be a tragedy to me if you walked in with your shame, heard about Christ who came to set people free from their shame, said it's too late. good to be true, picked your shame up at the door and chose to struggle and wrestle alone all summer. That woman was in the middle of church when she had a moment of mercy, and this could be your night to have a moment of mercy too. Anybody want to be free from their shame tonight? Anybody in their heart see this man of mercy coming for you? Romans 10-11 says everyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame. So I just want to remind you, brothers and sisters, I just want to remind you, Christ came to save shamed sinners, and if that's you, He's come for you. Father, we thank you that the message from the cross is not try harder. The message from the cross is it is finished. Jesus, thank you for your blood that covers all of our sin. Jesus, thank you that you were willing to hang on the cross, naked, vulnerable, mocked,

and shamed, that we could be clothed and accepted and loved and welcomed. Father, I just want to pray against a spirit of shame even now that makes people think that's not for me. Lord, I just want to pray against a spirit of shame that says if they knew what I had done, they wouldn't welcome me. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray a spirit of liberty, a spirit of mercy. I ask for grace. Lord, I just pray that the blood of Jesus would speak a better word than the word of shame, that tonight your sons and daughters would be set free. They would go and sin no more and enter into the life that mercy has made for them. And we pray this in the name of Jesus and everybody said, amen.