The Burden of Shame | Let It Go | Rick Atchley

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome to the Hills. My name is Rick. It's my privilege to be the teaching minister of our church. I greet our online family. This Sunday, I'm privileged to preach at our campus in Keller. Shout out to all of you in person in North Richland Hills, Dallas, and West Fort Worth. And isn't it nice to be in person? Last week, we all met online because of inclement weather. It was the right thing to do, but it's just good to be together, isn't it? I hope you survived the week well. It had its challenges, but it also had its moments that were fun to remember. For example, last Tuesday afternoon, I said to my wife, Honey, I've got to go to my office and do some work on my sermon to meet some deadlines. I got out on icy roads. I drove carefully. And on the way, I thought, I'll stop and get a bite to eat. So I went to McDonald's. Don't judge me. And I saw a man in the parking lot that he appeared to be homeless. As I was coming back to my car, he approached me. And he said, Forgive me. Listen, I'm not a drug addict, but I don't have a job. And would you buy me a fish sandwich? Well, I reached into my wallet, and I pulled out a $20 bill. Okay, stop. Everyone under 30.

That's something called cash, okay? Old people carry it around. I gave him a $20 bill and said, God bless you. And he was so thankful, he blessed me back. And then he smiled and said, Go Seahawks. I love that. Now, of course, if he had said, Go Eagles, I would have taken my money back, right? Because my memories of being against the Eagles and for the Cowboys go all the way back to my earliest childhood memories. And childhood memories are precious, aren't they? Last week, in our online service, Bailey and Drew said, Am I going to break it out in the song Let It Go? Because we're in this series. Listen, I missed the Frozen generation. My kids were in the Lion King and Little Mermaid generation. If you want to go back to my childhood, then let's go back to Julie Andrews and the greatness of Mary Poppins. I could break out some supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, if some of you can remember what that is. But I love the memories I have. I love the gift of memory and those sweet things we can treasure. But memory has its shadow side, doesn't it? I want to ask you this question. Do you remember the first time you truly felt ashamed of yourself? I do. I'm not saying it's the first time I did something shameful. But the first time I truly remember feeling ashamed of myself, I was in elementary school. My father was off to work every morning before my brother and I got up. My mother worked, too. But she would make sure that we were up, we were dressed, had breakfast. She would make us a sack lunch. And by each sack lunch, she would leave seven cents, a nickel and two pennies, to buy a carton of milk. And then she would leave, and then we would walk or ride our bikes to school. One day, I'm ready to go to school before my brother.

I don't know why. I just thought two cartons of milk sound good. I took my seven cents. I took his seven cents. And I did not feel bad about it. Until that evening. When my brother asked my mother why she did not leave him milk money. And she insisted she did. And she looked at me, and she said, Did you take your brother's milk money? And I looked right at my mother. I can still remember her face. And I just lied. I just lied. I think she knew I was lying. But I went back to my room. And I was overwhelmed with this feeling. It was stronger the guilt that I did wrong. It was shame. I did not like myself. I think later I went back and told my mother what I had done. And she forgave me. But the feeling was still there. And I've had that feeling many times since. And you have too. Every one of us has these moments in our lives where we wish we could just have a do-over. It may be a moment. It may have been a season where you look back and you think, What was I thinking? And it weighs you down.

Scripture acknowledges this. David, after a season of grievous sin, wrote this. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. All of us have carried the baggage of shame, and we know how heavy it is. And we also know it's hard to just let it go. 60 Minutes, the news program, did a series a few years ago on this topic of superior autobiographical memory. It's this very rare condition where some people can literally remember every detail of every moment of their lives. They interviewed a woman named Jill Price that the University of California has been studying for six years. And since she was 14, she could tell you every single detail of every moment of her life. Now, if you have a bad memory, you'd think that'd be a blessing. It's not a blessing because she can't forget a single insult, a single humiliation, a single embarrassing moment, a single bad choice. She cannot sleep at night because the past tyrannizes her presence. This is the power of shame. It is real. It's real heavy. It's much heavier than guilt, as I found out as a boy. Guilt says you did bad. Shame says you are bad. Shame is this sense of knowing you're just not the person that you know you ought to be. What do you do about it? I can repent of doing wrong. I can't repent of being me. And have you ever thought that this thought never crossed the minds of our first parents before they sinned? God made Adam. He made Eve. It says in Genesis 2 that they were both naked, and notice, and they felt no shame. They lived completely transparently before each other. There's nothing about me. I am afraid for you to see or to know. They weren't embarrassed to be completely known by the other until they listened to another voice. And shame showed up, and they did what we all want to do. They hid.

They tried to put together some fig leaves to cover this feeling they had. God said, where are you? He knew they were hiding, and he confronts their sin, and he announces harsh consequences because of their sin. Because sin brings death. But then God did something else. He made garments of skin to cover their nakedness. And this starts a theme that runs all through the Bible, that God is willing to cover sin and shame. That you shouldn't say, well, shame is a good thing because I fear God and I'm a religious person. No. Shame is a burden God never gave you to carry. He didn't design this for shame, and he doesn't desire that we continue to carry it. So why can't we just let it go? Because we listen to another voice. Our emotions and our memories are susceptible to constant assaults on our minds by the one that is known in Revelation 12 as the accuser. The Satan. The great dragon. And what he does is he sows these thoughts of judgment using the voice of others and sometimes using our own voice to go over that moment we can't do over. And just weigh us down. The brilliant Charles Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts has a panel where the kids are playing baseball. Charlie Brown is on the mound. A ball is hit to the outfield. It's very catchable. And Lucy misses it. And she explains to Charlie Brown, I thought I had it. But suddenly I remembered all the other times I missed it. And the past got in my eyes. And this is what the accuser tries to do. You understand that if you're in Christ Jesus, if you've confessed him as Lord, you've been baptized into his death and his resurrection, you understand he cannot steal your salvation. What he can steal is the joy. Of your salvation

He can't steal the assurance of your salvation. He can't steal your witness You've never met a person full of shame and full of boldness now the thing is we read our bibles And we see the bible is full of faith heroes who had what were you thinking moments? Abraham was a liar and moses was a murderer and david was an adulterer and peter was a denier And we see and we read and we celebrate their redemption stories And we can't believe that we could have one We hold on to shame When we don't grab hold of the full message of the gospel. That's what we're going to do today The bible says that jesus came to destroy The works of the devil and at the top of that list includes the weight Of shame he wants to help you get over what you can't do Over so we're going to go over the gospel again today And it's going to start in a place where we don't always want to start especially if we feel shame And that is that we agree with god about the reality of our sin See what we want to do is deny the reality or the severity of our sin There's a big stream of counseling today that says just get over it and forgive yourself It wasn't that big of a deal. Did you know there is nothing in the bible? about forgiving yourself When peter denied jesus what he didn't need was a therapist to coach him on self-affirmation You can't forgive yourself because you're not judged Only god is judged. So pardon is only his to offer you can't bestow it on yourself Now we need to understand this because if we don't we're going to read the gospels and only get part Of the picture of who jesus was Jesus never loved a sinner by pretending that their sin didn't matter He insisted that sin that is not covered by god leads to condemnation Luke 13 he gave two examples from their everyday world He talked about a tower that fell down and killed some people about some folks that got executed by pilots He said you think those folks were worse than you if you don't repent you're going to have the same thing happen

You will perish Jesus Prioritized reaching sinners, but he never minimized sin To do it. In other words, jesus never said just put a few fig leaves on it So when god is in the garden Saying where are you? Do you really think the almighty didn't know he is not asking for information He's asking for confession And this is where the journey to freedom from shame begins John writes if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness You see god has something better than fig leaves for those who are willing to acknowledge they're naked Yes, so we start there and we just agree with god. That's what confession means. I agree with I agree with what god says about my Sin, but the next thing we do is we agree with god about the remedy for our sin Because when you feel ashamed you're going to do something You might deny it You might play the victim card. You might put on the fig leaves of virtue and good works What you do about your sin and shame reveal what you believe about God But running all through scripture is this thing god Wants to cover your sin and shame, but it's going to mean a sacrifice When god took those skins something died so that shame could be covered The This is something that makes the christian faith hard for others to grasp It's even why sometimes the gospel is called offensive. Why does anyone need to die because of sin?

Well, you got to understand the basic definition of forgiveness Is absorbing the cost of someone else's act of injustice Uh Let's imagine there is a gazillionaire and He's heard me preach Online and decides I'm going to give that guy a gift and he gives me a two million dollar Ferrari which To think about it. It would take my whole salary just to pay for the insurance for the thing But let's suppose he gave it to me and I have it and you're my friend But something crazy comes over you you steal my Ferrari and you wreck my Ferrari and you don't have insurance Now I've got two options Option one is to take you to court and Let there be a court mandated payback plan. You're going to be in debt to me for the rest of your life a Debt, you can never pay back option two I Could pay the enormous deductible myself and forgive you Forgiveness doesn't mean there wasn't a dad. It means I'll pay it instead of you And so I pay it and then I say and I want to be your friend again This is what God is offering Salvation is not God ignoring sin Salvation is Jesus becoming sin for us. He didn't send his son to condemn the world He sent his son to be condemned for the world Jesus bore the full weight of our sin Including its shame This is something that was so hard for the first century world of grass, it's why Paul calls the cross offensive Because this idea of a humiliated God was absolutely unfathomable It's not that ancient religions have never heard of a god dying Osiris the Egyptian God died So did Dionysus the Greek God they died quickly. They died heroically, but no God has ever died

painfully the history magazine did a A Research project on this and that's what they concluded that most people do not understand that crucifixion wasn't just about executing It was about humiliating You stripped the person you nailed to that cross. They were naked I'm sorry, that may be all the pictures you've seen of Jesus on the cross, but that's what happened You stripped them and you made sure they were on that cross for hours in Excruciating pain because you weren't just killing them. You were humiliating them. It was a shameful way to die And Jesus knew it The Hebrew writer says for the joy And I think that means for you and me For the joy set before him he endured the cross scorning its shame The word atonement literally means covering And this is what God is doing at the cross He's covering sin and shame You don't escape shame by promising never to do it again. Has anybody else been there you had that deal with God It's a fig leaf approach. I promise I'll just never do it again. You don't escape shame that way you escape it by accepting What Jesus did for you that he never needs to do again? Some years ago I Was being assaulted by the enemy And carrying shame it was over something that had happened a couple of years earlier with some friends of mine And I had acted in complete self-centered pride They would say Rick you're making too much of it. It wasn't that big of a deal. It was a big deal It was wrong and I asked their forgiveness But I couldn't escape the shame every time the memory came back. I felt completely worthless and

One day who knows how it is. You know what how the enemy works you're you're taking a walk You're you're in the shower this day. I was in the car and the memory came back and it just overwhelmed me and And I'm listening to a Christian radio station and a song came on and the funny thing is it wasn't even a new song But I had never heard it. I had never heard this song It was called what sin Let me read the words to the song It happened so long ago I cried out for mercy back then. I pled the blood of Jesus, begged him to forgive my sin. But I still can't forget it. It just won't go away. So I wept again. Lord, wash my sin. But this is all he'd say. What sin? What sin? Well that's as far away as the east is from the west. What sin? What sin? It was gone the very minute you confessed. Buried in the sea of forgetfulness. The heaviest thing you'll carry is a load of guilt and shame. You were never meant to bear them. So let them go in Jesus' name. Our God is slow to anger, quick to forgive our sin. So let him put them under the blood. Don't bring them up again. Because he'll just say, what sin? What sin? Well that's as far as the east is from the west. What sin? It was gone the very minute you confessed. Buried in the sea of forgetfulness. Now you know me. I'm not a real touchy-feely person. I don't know if I've ever done this before.

I had to pull off the road. I had to just pull off the road. And just get a hold of myself for a minute. But it was tears of thankfulness. God, thank you for reminding me. Thank you for silencing the voice with a better word. See, God is never going to haunt you with the memory of a sin he's forgiven. That's what's so powerful in Jesus' tremendous story about the prodigal son. You remember that he's coming home. And the father races to him. And it wasn't just to embrace that boy. The father had an agenda. Put a ring on him. Put shoes on him. Put a robe on him. He comes back stinking and smelling like a pig, slop-covered rebel. But the father's not going to let him come home that way. He's covering the shame of his son. And this is what God has been doing since the garden. Let me cover your shame. What does Scripture say, Galatians 3? All of you that were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. And when God sees the believer, he doesn't see shame. He sees Jesus. And this is why Paul could just so brazenly proclaim in Romans 8. There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. See, better than a do-over is a go-over. Go over the gospel. Preach it to yourself every day. And then when the enemy tries to get you to take back the baggage, you know how to talk back to him.

And that's the next thing you do. You silence the voice of accusation with the word of the cross. Remember, that voice might sound like your own voice. That voice might be the voice of others. But you don't have to allow what anyone thinks of you to discredit what God has done for you. You see, shame wants to say, you're not worthy. Well, guess what? We're not. That's not the question, am I worthy? The question is, is he worthy? And heaven has answered that question pretty loudly. John has this revelation, and he sees this scroll, and no one can open it, and he starts to cry. And inside, John says, but I saw one come forward. He looked like a lamb. Well, not just any lamb. He looked like a lamb that had been slain. And here's what he saw. They sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You've made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. Who are these people? Well, later, John says, they're wearing white robes. You have never met anyone God can't fit with new clothes. And you've never met an accusation that cannot be silenced by the cross. Listen again to Paul. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies who then is the one who condemns. No one, Christ Jesus, who died, more than that, who was raised alive, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. You've got to listen to a better voice. Martin Luther tells of a time when he had a dream. And in this dream, he's on a road, and Satan appears with a parchment, and on the parchment is all this.

The sins he says he has recorded Luther doing and Luther responds to Satan. I don't know I've sinned more than that and so the enemy adds even more sins to the list and Luther said good now right in ready The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin Satan had nothing to say You can be released from what you cannot Rewind the gospel turns stains of regret into stories of redemption. I Came across one of those stories recently Her given name was Hawa Ahmed. She lived in a Muslim nation she went to university and was exposed to some Christian literature and And in time she became a believer and follower of Jesus in fact She renamed herself faith But she knew she would have to go home and tell her family her father was actually an official in the Muslim faith And he exploded in a way she never expected He and her brothers stripped her put her in a chair put a metal plate in her lap and planned to electrocute Her she asked if they would put a Bible in her lap They were only so happy to do that so that they could show that she could die with her false religion They plugged it in four different times. They tried different cables and the Current wouldn't work. So the father stood her up Hit her in the face tossed her out naked in the street completely humiliated and disowned her And so she has to run a pretty good ways down this crowded street to a friend's house Her friend took her in and Clothed her but the next day neighbors came by Who is that woman that was running to your house? And she said oh, that's my friend. I know that had to be so awkward her being completely naked. They said no naked She had on a beautiful white dress We couldn't understand why is she running in such a beautiful white dress? They didn't see shame

The father had covered her And the father wants to cover you Stop being chased by what he's erased Stop being ashamed of what God has covered. Let it go and Remember this God will never let go of you. Would you bow our heads with me? Take a moment? Do this for a moment? if you have the courage just go ahead and let a Memory that continues to bother or assault you come to mind Just let it come to mind And so father Many of us right now are thinking about those. What was I thinking moments? Shaking our heads Wishing we could have a do-over, but we can't And so father we need you to cover it over and we need you to convince us that you've covered it over I want you to imagine right now. I want you to imagine a Red carpet just covering your hands and just covering that shame and father help us to hear a better voice the voice of the gospel the word of the cross and Help us Holy Spirit to believe the father is completely Satisfied with how we look because he himself picked out and paid for our clothes And we receive this good news in Jesus name Amen