The Fallen Face | Kyle Idleman

you my name is Derek this is Brandon and Brandon we're at our prospect campus today yes it is awesome to be here this is actually my home campus so it's been nice to see everybody and just catch up with some old friends loving it today so guys we are so glad to be with you this weekend and we want to invite you you know every time we say this but we'd love to have you write in in the description of this video you'll find our address we'd love to know some of your story how we can be praying for you so be sure to get that address right to us we have a team of volunteers who would love to talk to you and to share with you and pray for you no doubt y'all we'd also invite you to subscribe to our Southeast Christian Church channel there's been over like 36,000 of you that have done that already so thank you we're glad that you're a part of that community because when you do that you get Bible studies and weekly worship services and then our pandemic system podcast that you'll see Brandon and I on it's a good time each and every week it is a great time so make sure you subscribe to our channel and today we are continuing on in our new sermon series senior pastor Kyle Eitelman it's continuous on in no shame November we're gonna be looking at Psalm 32 and when David is struggling with the shame of his sin with Bathsheba so it's a great message is a great reminder of what shame can do to us and how we deal with it really excited to hear it today absolutely also make sure that your hearts are prepared and you're settled in as we go and worship together oh the works your hands made who am I the human love me let alone accept my pray creation comes the ashes back to the grave every breath is all you give it so I'll return it back with pray and all the earth to clear his name how great our great as Yahweh Yahweh no other name this is our pray every strong mood every mountain felt like wax before the key if the rock shall your dominion how could I not stand and say and on the earth to clear his name how great our great is Yahweh Yahweh no other name we are we Yahweh Yahweh no other name faithful holy strong in mind all creation shall you see that righteous worthy none more deserving all creation shall you say faithful holy strong in mind all creation shall there's no more like a God righteous worthy none more deserving all creation shall there's no more like a God

faithful holy strong in mind all creation shall there's no more like a God righteous worthy none more deserving all creation shall there's no more like a God that all the earth to clear his name how great our great is Yahweh Yahweh no other name this is our pray and all the earth to clear his name how great our great is Yahweh Yahweh Yahweh ♪ No other names are so talkin' ♪ ♪ No other names are y'all and y'all and ♪ ♪ No other names are y'all and y'all and ♪ ♪ No other names are y'all and ♪ ♪ Y'all and ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ We love ♪ ♪ We love the national heart ♪ ♪ We love ♪ ♪ I hear the sound of heavy rain ♪ ♪ Flooding the air in very places ♪ ♪ Let it calm down ♪ ♪ Let it calm down ♪ ♪ I see a cloud ♪ ♪ I feel a change ♪ ♪ A sudden wind upon a prayer ♪ ♪ This is let it calm down ♪ ♪ Let it calm down ♪ ♪ Pour the arm of your name ♪ ♪ Holy Spirit over again ♪ ♪ Let it rain ♪ ♪ Let it calm ♪ ♪ Just calm your way ♪ ♪ We want it all ♪ ♪ Just let it rain ♪

♪ Let it calm ♪ ♪ Just calm your way ♪ ♪ We want it all ♪ (upbeat music) We know you, we know, so here we are We won't stop, just let it come down Let it come down, let it come down Just let it come down, let it rain Let it come, just turn your way We won't need hope, so let it rain Let it come, just turn your wings off We won't need hope We won't stop, just let it fall We won't need hope, so let it rain Let it come down, let it rain Let it come down, let it rain Come over again Come and have your way Oh, I wanna be your love, your day Holy spirit, over again and for the honor Of your day, holy spirit Please think so, young church Love your day, holy spirit Over again and for the honor Of your day, holy spirit Come and have your way For the honor of your day Holy spirit, over again and for the honor Of your day, holy spirit Over again

Let it come, just turn your way We won't need hope, so let it rain Let it come, just turn your way We won't need hope, so let it fall We won't need hope, so let it fall We won't need hope, so let it rain Let it come, just turn your wings off We won't need hope, so let it rain Let it come, just turn your wings off We won't need hope, so let it fall We won't need hope, so let it fall So let it rain, let it fall Just have your light, we want it all You know, as I was preparing for our time together, as we take communion every single week as a church, there's a really peculiar scripture that I felt like the Lord placed in my heart. It's in the Book of Jonah. I'll read it for us, it says, "Now the Lord God appointed a plant made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant, but when dawn came up the next day, Jonah appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered such an odd story. One moment Jonah is miserable, the next he's exceedingly glad because God has appointed a plant to give him shade, but then the next morning God instructs a worm to eat the plants. And the Bible goes on to say that Jonah actually wished that he would die. I think it's really easy to point fingers at Jonah and say that he's just emotionally unstable. I don't know about you, but how easy is it for my own peace just to come and go? I choose to put my peace in temporal things that just don't last, like things can go my way in one moment and all of heaven rejoices, but the very next, all of hell can break loose. It can feel like finances are going just right, but then the unexpected bill comes my way,

and I just, I don't know what to do. We're better yet, maybe a candidate wins and you feel like all is right in the world or maybe a candidate loses and you feel like heaven has no more resources. Like, it is so easy for our peace to come and go. What I love about this story is that God wasn't trying to trick Jonah. He wasn't. What he was trying to do was he was trying to show Jonah that he was believing and trusting in an insufficient Savior and something that couldn't hold the weight of his life. And so every week here at Southeast, we come together and we take communion and it's such a powerful time where we remind our hearts where our hope can lie, where we remind ourselves about the hope of Jesus and what we're doing as believers is we're declaring to our own hearts and we're declaring to the church, there's more peace in the shadow of the cross than any relief that we can find in this world. There's more peace in Jesus, so I don't know what you're putting your trust in today. It might be here in this moment, but the next, it might be gone. Today as we take the cracker that represents Christ's body that was sacrificed for us and as we take that juice that represents Christ's blood that was poured out for us, would we focus our hearts on the cross? Would we put all of our weight on Jesus, on Christ and Him crucified together as we worship? Let's worship Jesus. You can take communion whenever you're ready. [Music] [Music] ♪ Choose to grace the world that you're so loved ♪ ♪ The hands that turn the universe ♪ ♪ Surrender to the cross ♪ ♪ Despite the sin that separated us ♪ ♪ You took the false and parole ♪ ♪ Salvation's in your blood ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪

♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ You deserve the praise ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ Oh, you deserve the praise ♪ ♪ Give me the glory, Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, we're all too cold to resurrect ♪ ♪ And be the gravest you were raised ♪ ♪ The first one from the dead ♪ ♪ To everything you have created ♪ ♪ My best ♪ ♪ The first to last the great I am ♪ ♪ Beginning in the end ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ Oh, you deserve the praise ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ Oh, you deserve the praise ♪ ♪ Only Jesus ♪ ♪ On your head the victor's crown ♪ ♪ Every trace in heaven shouts ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Praise and keep the righteousness ♪ ♪ These will bow in tongues confess ♪

♪ At the name ♪ ♪ Sing your name ♪ ♪ On this drop the church will stay ♪ ♪ Songs of joy will rise again ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Christ will reign forever for ♪ ♪ All the saints in age are born ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ Oh, you deserve the praise ♪ ♪ What a worthy name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Son of God ♪ ♪ I lifted up ♪ ♪ Oh, you deserve the praise ♪ ♪ All your head the victor's crown ♪ ♪ Every trace in heaven shouts ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Praise and keep the righteousness ♪ ♪ These will bow in tongues confess ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ On this rock, the church will stand ♪ ♪ Songs of joy will rise again ♪ ♪ At the name ♪ ♪ The holy name ♪

♪ Christ will reign forever for ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ The name of Jesus ♪ ♪ Goodnight, my mom, Cheer ♪ Because you were worthy of it all You were worthy of it all For from you are all things To you are all things you deserve the glory Sing that again You were worthy of it all Yes you are You were worthy of it all For from you are all things To you are all things You deserve the glory For from you are all things To you are all things To you are all things You deserve the glory For from you are all things To you are all things You deserve the glory For from you Jesus we declare together that your name is worthy It is worthy of our worship and our trust It is worthy of our surrender This past week God our country spent a lot of time thinking about names Names on yard signs and names on ballots

Names and commercials telling us who to trust and who to fear But we walk into this room And we remember there is only one name that is worthy Only one name that won't disappoint There's only one name that heals There's only one name that rescues And it is the name above every name Because there is no name on any ballot that can save us There's no election that can forgive us There's no candidate can heal our souls Only you can do that Jesus And so we pray together For those who have been elected Every one of them We pray that they would turn to you We pray that they would walk with you We pray that you would give them wisdom and humility And you would give them courage And God we pray in our nation for repentance And we pray for revival But we know revival has never started at a ballot box It's always started with humility and confession So let it start in this room And let it start with us It is in the worthy name of Jesus we pray Amen, you may be seated Well welcome back to no shame November I want to start today by sharing something kind of personal with you When I shared with my family they laughed at me

But I sure you it's very real I have a medical condition And the episodes can be quite debilitating It's called sphenopalotene ganglionarala It is a condition that causes sudden and intense pain In the front of my head And I've dealt with it for years Since I was a kid And I don't want to throw my family under the bus But it's kind of sad that they find it entertaining When I have these painful episodes Some of them I think look forward to watching it I should tell you something about this condition It's actually triggered by popsicles Because the layman's term For sphenopalotene ganglionarala Is brain freeze It's very real And it's challenging for me Because I also have an addiction to popsicles And so the good news is I know how to prevent it Bad news is I've kind of ruled that out as an option Because I eat popsicles by the box And when I have a popsicle I bite into it With my front teeth Because I eat it like a real man And my family just watches

As I take a bite And then like I stop talking And I close my eyes And then I hold my forehead And then I like press my thumb Up into the upper roof of my mouth Because someone at some point told me that that works And my family Like they know what's happening They're like well watch this, watch this And the brain freeze doesn't even slow me down As soon as the pain turns manageable Take another bite And so at some point You know it's probably not so much a medical condition As it is like a character issue That probably needs to be addressed But I'm sure there's an explanation for how this works But I've never understood how eating something cold Can create pain in your forehead behind your eyes Like the pain is showing up in a place that seems Disconnected from where you expect it There's actually a name for that Refered pain is when you feel pain in one part of your body, but the source of the pain is actually somewhere else. And it can be way more serious than a brain freeze. So someone having a heart attack, they might have experience in their pain in their jaw. Someone having a gall bat bladder pain, wherever that is, I don't know where that's at,

but they might feel pain in the right shoulder. And your brain doesn't always correctly identify where pain is coming from. And so a problem in one part of your body can produce pain somewhere else, which means that you can spend all your time treating the place that hurts and completely missing the place that's injured. You're treating the symptom instead of the source. And that's a physical phenomenon. But I wonder how many of us have been doing something like that emotionally or spiritually for years, trying to address your anger or your porn problem or your perfectionism, trying to figure out why you're so defensive or why you have such a hard time disappointing people. You've been trying to stop scrolling at one in the morning, trying to figure out why you keep having that same fight with your spouse. And I'm not saying those problems don't need attention, but what if the thing you've been fighting like the last few years is connected to something you believed or something that happened or something you did or something someone said to you 30 years ago? Like what if the anger is the jaw pain? And what if the drinking and the defensiveness and the need to control everything? What if those are the places where something deeper is showing up?

So sometimes we need to pay attention to the thing beneath the thing and more often than we might guess. That thing is shame. Here's what I mean. Like nobody walks into a counselor's office and says to the counselor, I'm here about my shame. There's no box on the intake form, Mark's shame. Instead, they'll say things like, "I can't stop yelling at my kids." Or, "I can't stop drinking." Or, "I can't sleep." Or, "I keep sabotaging relationships "like right when they start to get good." But sometimes underneath those struggles is shame. The symptom is real and it needs attention. But the symptom isn't always the source. And so in Psalm 32, David describes how shame is showing up in his life. He has thought to have written this psalm after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. And if you're not familiar with this story, David is the king of Israel. And one evening while he's on his roof, he sees Bathsheba bathing and he sins for her and he sleeps with her and she becomes pregnant. And this isn't just an affair. Like this is a terrible abuse of power because David is the king. And yet he takes another man's wife and then he reaches for some fig leaves

because he's got to cover this sub and he has her husband killed. And then he marries her. And David's shame causes him to do his best to hide. And he might think he's got this whole thing handled, but there's some things happening on the inside. Psalm 32, David describes it. Verse three and four. "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away "through my groaning all day long. "For day and night God, your hand was heavy on me "and my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." So first thing we see about shame showing up here in Psalm 32 is it shows up somewhere else. David gives us this physical description of shame. His bones wasted away. He's groaning all day long. His strength is just completely sapped. And so he's describing something that's happening in his soul that is affecting his body. Like he's exhausted and he's depleted and he's worn down and it's all connected. Verse three says, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away "through my groaning all day long." And so his silence, listen, his silence leads to groaning on the outside. He's silent and things seem normal and you can get through your day okay. But on the inside, like on the inside,

there's this constant groaning and nobody else can hear it, but it is deafening to your soul. And then David says, "My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." If you're a runner, you know that the same distance can feel completely different depending on heat and humidity. Like the route doesn't change and hills haven't changed. But what felt manageable on a cool morning can drain you on a hot afternoon. And David says, "Yeah, that's it." That's what this is like, this season of shame that I've been in. I can get through the day that I'm exhausted. Now to be clear, sometimes you're tired because you need sleep and sometimes you're anxious because you got a medical condition. Like these verses aren't meant to be like an official medical diagnosis. But David is revealing something that we sometimes forget. Our spiritual selves and our physical selves are way more connected than we realize. And so David says, "God's hand has been heavy on me." And what he's talking about there is conviction. And conviction is an invitation to confession. But David stays silent. And that conviction turns to shame and it affects him physically. So let's talk about some other places that shame shows up. We touched on it last week, but shame loves to show up as anger. I think that's part of what David is describing when he says this groaning, because that word for groaning is also translated as roaring. It's a word that's used for like an angry lion's roar.

David says, "That's what's happening below the surface in my life." And we see this come out in 2 Samuel 12. It's been like a year-ish since he's had the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. The baby has been born. David thinks he's moved on. And then the prophet Nathan comes to see him. And Nathan tells David a story. He said, "Hey, David, I want to tell you about this incident. There's this rich man in the kingdom. And he stole a poor man's only lamb. This rich man with lots of sheep stole the poor man's only lamb." And the Bible says that David was furious and he declared that man is going to die. Over sheep, he's going to die. And that kind of overreaction is a shame giveaway, because what's happening here? David is furious at someone else for the very thing he's hiding. A man stole a sheep. Yeah, you stole a wife and you took a life. But this is what unresolved shame does. It puts you on edge with everybody else's failures and shortcomings, psychologists call it projection, where sometimes we are the hardest on other people who are dealing with the very thing we haven't faced in ourselves. And so we say, "Well, at least I'm not that guy." And so David can't bring himself to condemn his own sin, so he condemns it in someone else. And to him, like his outrage felt like righteousness or justice, but actually it was a cover. So when you feel anger or disgust for someone else, one of the questions I want to challenge you to ask yourself this week is, "Why does that bother you so much?" Like, where's that anger and that disgust coming from? Sometimes it is your own shame feeling better about itself by getting upset with someone

else. And some of you felt it this week, like somebody posted something or they said something or they voted for someone or they reacted a certain way, and what came out of you was bigger than the situation. And you told yourself, "That's righteousness." You told yourself, "It's just justice." Now what if the volume of your anger is actually trying to drown out something that you still haven't named and you still haven't dealt with in your own life? Another place that shame can show up is with control. Some of you don't think you're controlling. You just happen to know the right way everybody needs to do everything. And so you control the schedule and the plans and the details, and you control how things get done. If something goes wrong, it feels like it's part of your identity. It says something about you, so you're really controlling. And so David as a king, I mean, he understood this. He's used to controlling whatever he wants to control. And so when Bathsheba sends word that she's pregnant, he goes into full control mode and he calls Uriah home from the battlefield to sleep with his wife. She refuses. It doesn't work. So he sends him home with the gift, and that doesn't work. So he gets him drunk, and that doesn't work. And so when that doesn't work, he sends a letter arranging for Uriah's death, and he has Uriah carry it to the front lines of the battle himself. And then he spins the news, and he marries Bathsheba, and he does it quickly, so the timeline looks right because that's what shame will tell you to do. You've got to control what people see. And it convinces David the worst thing. The worst thing is for people to see and to know and for him to lose control of the situation

or the position or the narrative. So David says, look, all this controlling, it's just worn me out a day and night. I'm just laying awake thinking about, okay, what do I need to manage? What do I need to control? He's always stressed, and he's always anticipating, always managing, always spinning. Another way that shame can show up is this pressure to prove ourselves to others. if you walked in with that, like you feel this. I think David felt this from the time he was young. When Samuel came to anoint a king, and David's dad lined up all the sons, but didn't even bother calling David in from the field. Or when he shows up to this battle with Goliath, his older brother makes fun of him, and he spends years waiting to be king, he's always trying to earn his place. And when your over looks long enough, you start to get this chip on your shoulder. Something's wrong with me. I'm going to prove everybody wrong, that's shame. It's putting this pressure on you. The only way to fix it is to prove people wrong, to earn it. It's this constant pressure to prove yourself, and no matter how successful you are, you still feel that weight. And you say yes to things you want to say no to. And you say you agree when you disagree, and you avoid difficult conversations, and you apologize for things aren't your fault, it's an exhausting way to live. Sometimes, I mean, shame shows up in our distractions like we scroll and we binge, and we keep the noise turned up, because shame's worse fears that you slow down enough, and you're quiet enough that it exposes it, so you're never really alone with your own thoughts, you reach for your phone when you wake up, get in the car, and you turn on a podcast. You get home, you binge watch TV, you go to bed scrolling, and sometimes that's just a way of avoiding what's underneath. Which brings us back to Psalm 32. Because David identifies what's keeping him under the weight of shame.

He said it was his silence. He says, "When I kept silent, this is how I was living." So second thing we learned about shame is that shame grows in silence. And verse 3, David says, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away." He doesn't say that shame happened when everybody found out what I did. He says, "Shame grew in the silence," because shame loves secrecy. There's a psychologist named Michael Sleppian who spent years studying the psychology of secrets. He says the average person keeps like 13 or so secrets. But one of the most interesting findings about this is the way secrets burden us. It's not limited to these moments where somebody asks you a direct question and you have to lie or you have to hide behind something. His research revealed that whether you know it or not, the weight of your secrets never leave you. It's always there. And so you're driving or you're at work or you're laying awake at night and you've gotten used to the weight, but it's there. It's kind of like picking up a weight and carrying it around. First it's not too heavy. You think, "I can carry the secret? I'm fine. It's not going to affect me." But you keep holding it, even a small weight, like your arm starts to shake. Sometimes it's not how much it weighs. It's how long you've been carrying it. And so maybe some of you, you've carried a secret in here with you today, and you've been holding it this whole time. You held it while we worshiped. You held it while we sang about freedom. And people around you, they don't understand.

Like why you always seem distant, why a question about something can make you defensive or why you pull away, but what they can't see is that shame that you're carrying. That's secret. You think you're getting away with it. But it's keeping you at a distance from other people and keeping you at a distance from God. And you just don't even know what it feels like to not carry that. And you've kind of said to yourself, "I guess I'm just this way. I'm just kind of anxious or I'm just kind of a loner. I'm just an angry person. I'm just an exhausted person. But what if some of that is coming from this weight that you're underestimating? This secret." David says, "When I was silent, my bones wasted away." And so this is part of what's called the shame cycle. I'm going to throw this up on the screen here. It's how shame cycles, how it works. Number one is exposure. Something happens to expose us. A failure, a comment, a memory, a picture that gets posted, a build that comes due. It's something that feels like exposes you as a failure or an adequate. Step number two is identity. You take that exposure and then you turn it into a verdict about you. You don't say that went badly. You say, "Well, that's who I am." You don't say, "I made a mistake." You say, "I am a mistake." And so the event or the failure, that comment becomes a verdict on your identity. Number three is hiding. You hide.

We talked about this last week, but you cover up and you pretend and you don't tell anybody like this is the silence. You say, "I'm fine." You post a picture so everybody knows, "Hey, it's great. Everything's great." You reach for relief. This is the drink or the doom-scrolling, the work, the food, the porn, the fantasy. It's something that quiets that feeling of shame, even if it's only for a little while. And then number five is new evidence, new evidence. Now you're not just ashamed of the original failure, you're ashamed about how you responded to it. You're ashamed of the drinking, ashamed of the porn, you're ashamed of losing your temper, you're ashamed of the things you said. And now you're right back to where you started, except now shame has more material against you. Now that weight is even heavier than it was before. And so shame doesn't just make you hide. It makes you ashamed of the things you do while you're hiding, which makes you hide, which makes you ashamed of what you did while you're hiding, which makes you hide. And that cycle just keeps feeding itself. Like this is where shame can sometimes show up in addictive or maybe compulsive behaviors. I'll be careful here, like addiction is first or complicated, it can involve a lot of factors. But at the very least, shame is what reinforces addiction

and strengthens its grip on our lives. Because here's what happens. You feel shame because of your addiction and then you use your addiction as a way to treat your shame. So you reach for, again, alcohol or porn or food or shopping or gambling. And now you're not only carrying the original shame, but you're also feeling ashamed of what you did to escape the shame you felt. That's the shame cycle. Here's what this might look like in real life. A guy makes a mistake at work. His boss corrects him. It's number one. It's the exposing event. But he doesn't hear you made a mistake. He hears you're a mistake. You're incompetent and that's the verdict. Number two, it's his identity gets wrapped up in it and maybe his dad's made him feel that way his whole life. He doesn't tell anybody about it. He just goes home angry and he's sore with his wife and he snaps at his kids. That's number three, it's the hiding. Keeps it a secret, doesn't tell anyone. Later that night he feels terrible about how he treated his family and how he's ashamed of being a bad husband or a bad dad. So he withdraws and he gets online and he visits a website that he promised himself

he'd never visit again. And that's number four, it's relief. And now the thing he did to escape shame becomes another reason to feel shame. So like in that scenario, what's the problem? Is it his boss? Is it his anger? Is it his marriage? Is it his temperament or his communication skills? His green habits? I mean, okay. Yeah, all those things. Several of those need attention. But what if there's something underneath all of it? What if shame has been telling him his whole life? You're a disappointment. You're not enough. And I'm not saying he doesn't need to manage his anger or improve communication or have accountability in his life. I'm saying that if he just keeps pushing the shame underneath, he'll stay caught up in that cycle or some version of it. And so the first step then to breaking this cycle is to break the silence. David looks back and he says, "All of this was happening when I kept silent." Silent is what keeps the cycle cycling. Third thing we see here is that confession breaks the shame cycle. So how did he do this? Well, Nathan comes to him, tells him that story

about a rich man who stole a poor man's lamb. David's furious and he tells Nathan, that man deserves to be put to death. And then in second Samuel, 12, seven, Nathan looks David in the eye and says four words, says, "Hey, hey, David, you are the man. "You are the man in the story." And he's confronted with this truth in his life that he's been avoiding. He's been caught up in this shame cycle. And then he says in Psalm 32 verse five, "I acknowledge my sin to you, God, "and I did not cover up my iniquity. "I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, "and you, God, forgave the guilt of my sin." And the whole Psalm turns on this moment where David says, "I acknowledge and I confess." When I was silent, all these happened, things happened, but now I confess. And that word means making something hidden known. And that's what David does. He stops hiding and he stops pretending and he stops trying to manage what God already knew. And he confesses the truth. In second Samuel, 12, his confession, I mean, if you look at it, it's really brief. He just says, "I have sinned against the Lord." But Nathan could see his brokenness. And he says to David, "The Lord has taken away your sin." And look, this didn't erase the consequences of his actions.

And it didn't undo what happened to Uriah. But David no longer has to hide. That weight is no longer on him. He can be forgiven." There's a beautiful verse here, verse 1, Psalm 32, "Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are covered." And then in verse 5, he says, "I didn't cover up my iniquity." So here's what you see. When he stopped covering up, he experienced God's covering. He stopped covering up, and he experienced God's covering. That's how it works. In the verse 2 of that same Psalm, "Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and whose spirit there is no deceit." Like the blessed person in this psalm isn't the person with nothing to hide, it's the person who stops hiding. And so breaking the silence breaks the grip of shame in our lives. And I want to say something here that's important, like this isn't just true when it comes to something you've done, but it's true when it comes to something that's been done to you. Because for some of you, that's the secret that has been weighing you down. That's your shame. And maybe you need to break the silence not by saying I was wrong, but by saying I was wounded. Like, to be clear, there's a distinction here. You confess sin that you committed, and you tell the truth about harm you suffered. If I could put it another way, you repent of what you've done, but you reveal what's been done to you. You uncover something that's been hidden, whether it's a sin you committed or something that's been done to you. What breaks the shame is making something known.

And you might need some help from a counselor or a wise and trusted friend, kind of understanding what you need to own and confess, and what you need to reveal, and how to do that in a healthy way. You might need some help understanding how what happened to you, like has taught you to believe some things about yourself, but look, it just all begins by speaking some things out loud. And my guess is that when most of us confess, we confess the symptom, right? And so we might say, "God forgive me for losing my temper with my spouse," and that's a good confession. Like, you should for sure do that, but I'm saying go deeper, confess the shame underneath it. God, I keep losing my temper because I'm scared. I can't troll my spouse's feelings for me, and you finally break the silence. It begins to break the shame. And that's the last thing I wanted to point out from Psalm 32 is that God lifts the fallen face. One of the ways that you can recognize shame is it has a posture to it. We even have a phrase for this. We say someone's hanging their head in shame, their eyes go down and their shoulders fold in, they look at the ground. There was an interesting study from 2008 about athletes from the Olympics and Paralympics. They studied the body language of athletes after they lost a competition, and they found that losing athletes often displayed this recognizable posture associated with shame. Some shoulders looking down at the ground, but here's what was interesting about that study. Athletes who had been blind since birth did the same thing, meaning they never learned that posture of shame by watching other people. That posture is just the body's natural response to shame. When I was a junior in high school, there was a young lady there that was a year or two ahead of me in school who got pregnant, kind of a small town, relatively small church.

She hadn't come to church much before she got pregnant, but she started coming a little more often, and then she started to show, and a few of the parents in the youth group felt like it wasn't appropriate, and their kids shouldn't be exposed to that at church. I don't know if she was asked to stop coming or whether she just heard about the complaints and stopped coming, but I do remember, one Sunday morning, some months later, she had stopped coming to youth group, but she came into the main sanctuary, came in with a friend. She was clearly showing now, and I watched her come in and sit and pew a few rows in front of me. There were a couple of ladies behind her, and I couldn't hear their exact words, but they were talking about her coming to church and her condition, shaming her, and their conversation loudly enough for her to get the medicine. And I remember watching as the head went down, she wiped away some tears, and she got up, and she quietly walked out, her head down. That is the fallen face posture of shame, and it's not the last time I've seen that posture in church like some of you walked in with that posture today, but how you walked in isn't how you have to walk out. Like, you've been living with your head down for a long time, maybe because it's or something somebody said. I want you to see another prayer that David prays in Psalm three, verse three, listen to this. He prays and he says, "You, O Lord, are a shield about me. "You are my glory and you are the lifter of my head." And David wrote that when he was fleeing from his son, Absalom. Absalom had led a rebellion against his own father, David, and he was forced to leave Jerusalem in humiliation. Like he's experienced betrayal and rejection and so much shame. It's like this family crisis being played out on a national stage and the person who caused all of it is his own son.

And so, 2 Samuel 15 describes David in this moment. He's going up the Mount of Olives with his head down, the Mount of Olives with his face fallen. This is the king of Israel, the defeater of Goliath. He's led armies, the man who's ruled the nation and he's walking up the Mount of Olives and he's weeping this posture of shame head down. But it is here that David declares, "Defiantly God, you are the lifter of my head." God doesn't say to David, "Hey, keep your head up, buddy." He lifts his head. David says he's the lifter. This is more than David just describing something that God can do, but this is who he is. He is by nature, a lifter of heads. You think about what a good parent does when a child is hanging their head in shame, a parent walks over, gets on their level, lifts their chin up. This is who God is for you this morning. And it's because of what Jesus did on the cross. Again, David's fleeing from Absom. He's going up the Mount of Olives. His head is covered down, weeping. 1,000 years later, another king called the son of David, climbing up the same mountain, Mount of Olives, Jesus. And he's going to the Garden of Gethsemane. So hours before he would give his life on the cross and in the garden there, the soldiers come later, they would spit on him and mock him, shame him. And he takes it all so that he can be the lifter of your head.

So your failures don't define you and your wounds don't identify you and your shame doesn't get to have the final word over you. Psalm 32 says blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven. And that word forgiven? Also translated as lifted, lifted and carried away. And so this is what David does in Psalm 32. He breaks the silence. His bones were wasting away. His strength was sapped. It wasn't working. And he breaks the silence. And so we want to take some time to do that at all of our campuses last week, last week after my sermon. I was having a conversation with my wife. And she was encouraging me about being vulnerable in that sermon, but she also pushed me a little bit. Because she's-- listen, she's my Nathan. She'll tell me what I don't want to hear. And she said something like this. She said, hey, I think it's great, Kyle, that you talk about something you struggled with. That's good for our church. But I think what might be even better is if sometime you talked about something you're struggling with. And at first, I was a little defensive. My shame response was, OK, I'll tell them what I'm struggling with.

I'm struggling with a wife. Like, I-- [LAUGHTER] But then I asked the question, why does that bother me? Because I realized what she was saying was right. Like, shame in my life is OK talking about struggles in the past tense. But it resists talking about struggles in the present tense. Shame is way more comfortable with me saying, I struggled than saying, I'm struggling. And yet I so want for us to be a church where we can do both, where we can say, I struggled. And that takes courage. And part of what shame is one you to do is not talk about what you struggled with. But can this also be a place where we can say, I'm struggling. I just need somebody to walk with me. And so down front here in just a moment, we'll have some of our elders and ministry leaders and their spouses. They'll be available to pray for you. Last week, we were out for dinner. And I met this young lady who came forward at one of our campuses for prayer, to be prayed for. And she said to me, that was the first time in my life I'd ever had someone pray out loud for me. And I just couldn't get over it. And if that's true for you, do not leave here without letting someone pray out loud for you. But look for anyone who needs some prayer,

anyone who needs to break some silence. Shame's going to tell you, "Hey, no, no, no, stay where you are, be quiet, but listen. You don't need to listen to shame anymore. You don't have to come and give a speech or explain your whole life. Just give an honest sentence. I'm struggling. I'm struggling with anger. I've been hiding something or something happened to me. I've been trying to deal with this on my own. I don't know how to talk about this, but I don't want to carry it alone anymore." That's fine. And so in a minute, we're going to do that. On Thursday night, we did this, and I went down front not to pray for people, but to be prayed for, because like I recognize, it's like what my wife has said is true. I wanted to share something that I hadn't just struggled with, but what I was struggling with because my wife was right. But also I don't have to do it in front of 40,000 people, but I do need to share it. Maybe I'm not alone. So if you're struggling to, I hope you'll come forward and confess it. I hope you'll let God be the lifter of your head. Father, you know what we've been carrying, and you know what we've been hiding. And you know the sins that we need to confess, and you know the wounds that we need to acknowledge. Lord, we've been trying to cover ourselves, and we're asking you to cover us with your grace. We've been hiding from you, but we want to find our hiding place in you. And so would you forgive our sin and the guilt of our sin like you did for David? Would you give us courage to name what we've done and not make excuses, help us take responsibility for harm that we've caused to receive the forgiveness you offer through Jesus? So God, would you meet us where we've been wounded? God for the person who's carried shame for a long time over something done to them.

God, I pray so, so much that they could be set free from that today, that what they walked in here with they could leave here and they could walk out and not have to carry that weight any longer. God, I know a lot of us have convinced ourselves, hey, it's fine, and we're fine, and we don't think that the secrecy or the shame is having much effect, but in reality it's having a lot of effect. And we can make it through a whole life's carrying that weight, and yet it keeps people at a distance, and it keeps us at a distance from you. And so Lord, would you give us the courage and the humility in these next few minutes to make hidden things known, trusting that Your grace covers us, trusting that You are the lifter of our heads. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So I'll ask some of our ministry leaders and spouses to come down front, and again, we just want to give you an opportunity to be prayed for, or maybe you would just want to talk to someone about making this Your church family. We can encourage each other. I would love to have you as part of our church, or if you're ready to step over a line and be covered by Jesus, to receive forgiveness of your sins, to let Him take away your guilt and shame. You can go to our next step room, it's right over here on the first floor. We'd really love to have the privilege of talking to you, praying with you. But again, just want to invite you to come forward for prayer. And listen, it may have nothing to do with this sermon, you might have gotten some difficult news this week that you just need to share with somebody. You might have something happening in your life that you just need to ask for prayer over. We would be privileged to pray for you, honored to do that. We'll stand together and let's worship. You can't go back to the beginning, you can't control what tomorrow will bring. But I know here in the middle is the place where you promised to be, not enough, unless you come, will you meet me here again?

Will you meet me here again? ♪ As I walk now through the valley ♪ ♪ Let your love rise above every fear ♪ ♪ Like the sun, shaped in the shadow ♪ ♪ In my weakness, your glory appears ♪ ♪ Whoa, not enough ♪ ♪ Unless you come ♪ ♪ Will you meet me here again ♪ ♪ 'Cause all I want ♪ ♪ Is all you are ♪ ♪ Will you meet me here again ♪ ♪ Not enough ♪ ♪ Unless you come ♪ ♪ Will you meet me here again ♪ ♪ 'Cause all I want ♪ ♪ Is all you are ♪ ♪ Will you meet me here again ♪ ♪ Whoa, not enough ♪ ♪ Or out your spirit on ♪ ♪ You've failed the road ♪ ♪ Now for a minute ♪ ♪ Was I forsaken the Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ Come holy spirit ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ Now for a minute ♪ ♪ Was I forsaken the Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ Come holy spirit ♪

♪ Your eyeball's awake again ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ The Lord as in this place ♪ ♪ Here's your one ♪ ♪ For a minute ♪ ♪ The rest is long ♪ ♪ For a minute ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ I'm the one ♪ ♪ Not enough ♪ ♪ Will you miss your car ♪ ♪ Will you need me here again ♪ ♪ 'Cause all I want ♪ ♪ Is all you ever ♪ ♪ Will you be me here again ♪ ♪ I'm not enough ♪ ♪ I'm not enough ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're calm ♪ ♪ Will you be me here again ♪ ♪ No, Lord ♪ ♪ All I want ♪ ♪ Is all you are ♪ ♪ Will you be me here again ♪ (audience applauds) (gentle music) ♪ God, you're so great ♪ ♪ All I want ♪ ♪ All I need ♪ ♪ Is your present ♪ ♪ You give life ♪

♪ You are love ♪ It's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, we pour out a praise, it's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, you hold me in. Create all you know, you give life, you are love, you bring life to the darkness you give on, you restore every heart that is broken, it's great. Create all you know, Lord, it's your breath, it's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, we pour out a praise, it's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, you hold me in. Your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, we pour out a praise, it's your breath, in our lungs, so we pour out a praise, you hold me in. ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ Our hearts will cry ♪ ♪ These bones will see ♪ ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ Our hearts will cry ♪ ♪ Let them feel great ♪ ♪ All the earth ♪ ♪ All the earth ♪ ♪ And all the earth will shout your praise ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The great ♪ ♪ All the earth ♪ ♪ All the earth ♪ ♪ Your prayer ♪ ♪ In our hearts ♪ ♪ We pour out our praise ♪ ♪ We pour out our praises ♪ ♪ Your prayer ♪ ♪ In our hearts ♪ ♪ So we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ The only ♪ ♪ Is Your prayer ♪

♪ In our hearts ♪ ♪ So we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ We pour out our praises ♪ ♪ Your prayer ♪ ♪ In our hearts ♪ ♪ So we pour out our praise ♪ ♪ I feel love, come what you think ♪ ♪ The great are you Lord ♪ ♪ So great ♪ ♪ It's great are you Lord ♪ ♪ So again ♪ ♪ Oh, great are you Lord ♪ ♪ And great are you Lord ♪ ♪ So go praise to the love most high ♪ ♪ Oh, praise to the one who saved my love ♪ ♪ For praise to Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ And no praise to the love most I give ♪ ♪ And praise, oh praise to the one who saved my life ♪ ♪ Oh praise to Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ My King of heaven, my King forever ♪ ♪ You're my King, you're my King, yeah ♪ ♪ One surrender, can we sing ♪ ♪ I lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I lift my head to blame my whole life down ♪ ♪ My whole life down before you ♪ ♪ I lift my hands up, I lift my whole life down ♪ ♪ My whole life down before you ♪ ♪ Hey I lift my hands up, I lift my whole life down ♪ ♪ My whole life down before you ♪ ♪ I lift my hands up, I lift my whole life down ♪

♪ My whole life down before you see my praise ♪ ♪ And no praise to the love most I ♪ ♪ Oh praise the one who saved my life ♪ ♪ And no praise to Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ My King of heaven, my more time oh praise ♪ ♪ And no praise to the love most ♪ ♪ Oh praise the one who saved my life ♪ - Thank God, we praise your holy name. (gentle music) God, you are worthy of all of our praise. And we thank you that when our shame and our guilt become so heavy, God, you take that weight and you lift our head and you have grace and you have love in your eyes God and you are a good, good Father. - God, we give you all the praise today. We thank you for Jesus. Send His name, amen. - Well, welcome back, Pando family. So glad that you were joining us today for worship. And I loved Kyle's message today as he walked us through Psalm 32 and talked about some of the ways that shame can affect us, not just emotionally, but also physically. And I know that for so many of us, we hold that shame in, we try to hold on to it and it just affects our mood, it affects our bodies, it drags us down with it. And like Kyle told us, the way out of that cycle is through confession, is by sharing our shame

with the people around us. And I just wanna encourage you, whether it's somebody you trust around you, whether it's the chaplain in your prison, find someone that you can talk to about those things that you're wrestling with, that shame that you struggle with, and release that, let it go, find that restoration, that healing, that's only available in Jesus Christ. It's a busy month here on the Pando app for SE Online, and I just wanna remind you of a couple of things we have going on. The first is our new Bible study, Chasing the Vapor. We've been walking through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, talking about why life can be so frustrating, what life looks like in a Genesis 3 world. And I just wanna invite you to join us, we are in the middle of that Bible study, it drops every Wednesday, so be sure to check that out, check out the study guide on the Pando app. Also, we have a Pando exclusive podcast that drops every Thursday, where Derek and I talk through the message, and we've had a lot to talk about in this series, No Shame November, so I wanna invite you every Thursday, join us on that podcast, and we'll go deeper into the message

and talk about some of the ways it applies to us, some of the ways it applies to you, as you seek to live out the truth of God's word in your own situation. Let me pray for us as we close up this morning, as we think about how Kyle has been leading us through this No Shame November series. Let's pray together. Father God, I thank you for the men and the women joining us on the Pando app. Father, I thank you for their heart, their desire to know you, Father, to follow you more deeply. And God, we all hold on to it. wandered away from you. And Father, no matter who we are, no matter where we're at, Father, we know that you know our shame. You see our shame. You see, Father, how it affects us. And I pray, Father, that just in this week, you would give us the strength to hand that over to you, to confess that to you. And Father, let Jesus do His restorative work in our hearts, in our minds, and even in our bodies, Father, from what shame has done to us. Father, help us to see that you are the one who lifts our head, that you're the one who cares for us, who wants to take our shame away. And we thank you in the name of Jesus, who makes all of that possible. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Pando family, thank you so much for joining us this week. We'll see you next week as we continue on in our series, "No Shame, November." We'll see you then. Bye. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]