Shame

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. This woman represents somebody who feels shame because of something that has happened to her, a disease she did not choose, a suffering, but in the bigger picture she also represents the shame that we all feel because of our sin. The point is whether our shame is legitimate, shame that we have brought on ourselves, or whether it is illegitimate, shame brought on by things done to us, Jesus is the solution. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You're joining us today in the final couple days of our teaching series on difficult emotions titled Smoke from a Fire, or to change the analogy, each of these emotions that we've been through, depression, anxiety, anger, envy, and now shame. These things all function like warning lights on the dashboard of our hearts, indicating what is going on in the engine of our souls. Are you seeing a little smoke under the hood of your life?

It is time to get a tune up. So grab your Bible and let's join Pastor J.D. in the book of Luke.

Luke chapter eight, if you got your Bible this weekend, and I hope that you brought it, we are on our last last weekend in our series called Smoke from a Fire. And this weekend, I want to talk about a pretty heavy one, and that is the emotion of shame. Now, all of us at some point know what it is to experience shame.

It can range from the simple embarrassment to something much more serious. I read a book a while back where a guy told a story from his childhood that I really identified with. Maybe some of you who are about my age can identify with as well. And by my age, I mean late 20s, early 30s.

He said this. He said, Because of my family's financial status, growing up, I never had the coolest name brand clothes. One year, my parents bought me two pair of Sears tough skin jeans for school, a brown pair and a blue pair. How many of you children of the 80s out there remember tough skin jeans from Sears? You remember those? Yes, I had some of those as well. He said all the cool kids had Levi's with the silver or red tabs.

I hated those kids. I had two pair of tough skins that had to last me all year long. For me, it always went along with the shoes. All the cool kids in my school wore Nike shoes. And I remember when I was in sixth grade, that's when the Air Jordan came out and all the cool rich kids had the Air Jordans. And I was stuck with my Stridewright and kids that I had to wear. Maybe it's why I wear Air Jordans now, as I'm still making up for insecurity that I had when I was a kid. My wife, these I've told you the shoes I have on now are a gift from Pastor Chuck. And my wife told me when I was giving them, she said, I'm pretty sure you're not cool enough to pull those off, but you honor the giver by trying.

And so that's what I'm attempting to do. But this guy goes on. He said, Even worse, when my jeans started wearing out and getting holes in them, my mom, who was big into cross stitching, made a huge, huge Indian head on the leg of my brown jeans to cover the hole and an American flag on the rear end of my blue jeans. I can still hear kids pledging allegiance to my rear end and calling me Tonto. I vowed that I would never have to face that kind of shame again. So most of us know at some level what it's like to experience shame, but most people don't understand whether it is good or bad or what role it plays in our lives. People tend to think of shame as primarily just an extreme form of guilt, maybe guilt on steroids. Guilt, you know, we think is like feeling bad about something that you've done. Shame is when you feel really bad about it. But while it is true that guilt can produce shame, shame is actually quite different from guilt. Guilt is focused on the what. Shame is focused on the who. Guilt says I did something bad.

Shame takes that to say I am something bad. Now, like I mentioned, shame can certainly arise from feelings of guilt. We see that in the Garden of Eden, right? After Adam and Eve sinned, it was the first emotion that they felt. They felt shame because of their nakedness that had been caused by their sin. That is the first time shame is mentioned, and it has been an inherent part of the human condition ever since the Garden of Eden. But shame can also be triggered in our lives by things that have nothing to do with choices that we have made. We might feel shame because of something not that we have done, but because of something done to us. For example, for many people, shame comes from something traumatic that happened in their past. You were abused physically or sexually or verbally. You were taught to or treated in ways that communicated that you were worthless or you were bad.

You were damaged until eventually those things seeped into your soul and made you believe those things about yourself. Or maybe that feeling of shame comes from something about you over which you had no control. A disability that you were born with or that you've developed in life. Maybe a chronic disease or some kind of weakness. Maybe infertility. Maybe you were divorced and it really was through no fault of yours.

Maybe it is even because you possess an unwanted attraction. A Christian counselor named Ed Welch describes it this way. He said, shame is the deep sense that you are inherently flawed, unacceptable, and unworthy of love because of something that you have done, something done to you, or something associated with you. Brad Hambrick, who is our own pastoral counselor here, says that you can think of guilt like staying on a shirt. That stain can be washed even though it may prove difficult to remove. Shame, by contrast, would be more like a disfigured face. It feels like a permanent part of who you are now.

And if you had a disfigured face, even if the disfigurement had nothing to do with choices that you have made, you still would not want to show your face for fear of what others might say or do in response. Shame says, I am defective. I am damaged. I am broken.

I am flawed. I'm dirty. I'm ugly. I'm impure. I'm disgusting. I am unlovable.

I'm weak. I'm pitiful. I'm insignificant. I am worthless. I am unwanted. If you are sitting here struggling with or in shame today, you don't need me to stand up here and say, hey, is this you?

Think about it. Is it you? Because you've heard or thought these things about yourself so many times that they are now an inexorable part of how you see yourself. For many of us, others have attempted to control us through shame. Maybe it was your parents or a friend or a boss.

Maybe a pastor or a church leader. Maybe your professor that tried to make you feel bad about yourself as a way of trying to coerce you to do what they wanted you to do or be what they thought that you should be. And so they said things to you like, you're lazy. You're no good. You're ignorant. You're a bad student. You're a tramp. You're a racist.

You're not a good father. Brene Brown, who was a research professor at the University of Houston, who has written and spoken a lot about shame and whose TED Talk on shame, by the way, is one of the most top five most watched TED Talks of all time. She said that the dilemma, the dilemma is that shame-based motivation often works, at least in the short run. She cites a study done at a college campus in which participants in the survey about campus life were given a chance toward the end of the survey to cheat the researchers out of some money. But on some of the surveys, they had a question on there that asked, how common is cheating on this campus? And then there was another version of the survey, same survey, but the only difference was they changed the question to how common are cheaters on this campus? So in other words, one described the action, cheating, one talked about the person, the cheater, and what they found was that when you frame the question in terms of cheaters as an identity, you had a much lower rate of stealing from the researchers than those who simply had to identify cheating as a problem. In other words, those people who thought of cheating in terms of something they did were much more likely to do it than those who had to identify a cheater as something that they were.

So it works many times in the short run, but even though it might work in the short run, it can have devastating effects in the long run. Pastor Craig Groeschel points out that living with shame leads to, he says, first of all, hopeless perfectionism. We attempt to overcome our shame through flawless performance. We find it difficult to ever admit failure because that would just confirm the judgment that our shame and other people have declared over us. If we perform at the highest standards, we think, then we're going to be able to say one day, there, I did it. I proved it. I exceeded everybody's expectations.

I conquered, and therefore I have worth after all. He said, the second thing you'll see happening is you'll develop really harsh criticism, both of yourself and of others. People suffering from shame are really hard on themselves because deep down they nurse a dislike of who they are, which makes them hard on everybody else too. So when they see their own faults mirrored in other people, they become really judgmental as a type of self-loathing. You might see people like this as arrogant or self-righteous, but in reality, they are dealing with deep personal dislike that comes from secret shame. You might've heard this phrase that hurt people hurt people, and that is what is happening in their lives. They are critical of others because of the dislike they have of themselves. Lastly, he says, shame produces helpless feelings of despair. People with an overwhelming sense of shame tend to focus on the worst possible outcomes.

They say things to themselves like, I know, I know this bad thing is going to happen. That person's never going to like me. We're never going to have a good relationship.

It's just going to fall apart too. I'll never get the promotion. I'm never going to amount to anything.

You assume the worst is going to happen because deep down you believe you are the worst and you deserve the worst. Today, I want to walk us through the story of a woman who was overwhelmed by shame, and I want to show you how Jesus lifted her out of it. It is the answer for all of us that are consumed by shame, whether that shame in our lives is brought on by sin, as in something that we've done, or whether it has come upon us by suffering, that is something that has been done to us. Now, let me know, this will be a very heavy message for some of you today. I realize that, but I've also been praying that this message will point you toward hope.

Okay. Luke chapter eight, let's begin in verse 40 and let's take a look at this story. Now, when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus who was a ruler of the synagogue.

This woman's story doesn't even start with her. It starts with a man named Jairus and he is put forward to offer a very important contrast with her. You see, Jairus was a very respected man in the city. He held one of the top positions in the city. He was the ruler of the synagogue, which meant he was a spiritual leader and he was a government and a civic leader. But falling at Jesus's feet, he implored Jesus to come to his house. Grown men in Jewish culture would never just fall at somebody's feet. Men like this wore long robes. They walked slowly and stately.

They were very staid in their emotion. They would never run or appear to be in a hurry and they certainly would not prostrate themselves at another man's feet. Yet this man was desperate because he had an only daughter, one little girl about 12 years of age, and she was dying. And so he implores Jesus, the healer, to come to his house and heal his daughter. And Jesus consents to go.

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for about 12 years and though she had spent all of her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anybody. Having a discharge of blood is a very polite way of saying that she had a disease that produced an uncontrollable menstrual flow, which meant that not only was she sick and likely suffering from severe chronic pain, she was also unable to have children. And according to Jewish law, she was ceremonially unclean. That meant she was not allowed in public. It meant that she could not go to public worship. She could not go into public in general for 12 years.

It means that no one has touched this woman for 12 years, lest they become unclean. For 12 years, nobody's hugged her. Nobody's laid a hand on her to pray for her. She is outcast. She is lonely. At one point, she had had so many hopes about her future.

She wanted to get married and she wanted to have children and she wanted to engage in the community, but all those things seem like they are over now. Luke, who is the author of this story, the author of the book of Luke, was a doctor by trade and Luke tells us that according to the medical opinions of the day, she's incurable. What's more, he tells us she spent her family's entire fortune trying to get cured, only to find that nothing helps. She is hopeless. I'll give you one last observation about this woman and it comes from a detail that Luke intentionally leaves out. She's nameless. She's nameless. In contrast to Jairus, whose name everybody knows, Luke leaves this woman's name out because nobody knows who she is anyway. That's intentional because she is hidden. She is invisible to people. Nobody knows about her shame or her pain. That's as much her choice, by the way, as it is anybody else's because shame does that to people. It makes them want to hide, lest they simply get exposed and humiliated even more. She has a disfigured face, so to speak, that keeps her out of public, behind closed doors.

She doesn't want to even be seen or known. Do you see the contrast that's been set up with Jairus? Jairus is the ruler of the synagogue. She's not even allowed in the synagogue. He was respected. She rejected.

His is a household name. Hers is a name nobody knows, but both of them need Jesus just the same. He's got a daughter, the apple of his eye, the joy of his life, who is 12 years old and deathly sick. She has been an outcast, dead to community, dead to her dreams for more than 12 years because of her sickness. By the way, in this story, you see illustrated, I think, what keeps different kinds of people from Jesus, and both kinds are here this morning. You see, what keeps people like Jairus from coming to Jesus is usually pride, feeling like they don't need Jesus' help.

A lot of times it takes a severe tragedy like this one to get their attention, the death of a loved one, some kind of failure, some kind of relational tragedy, a job loss, a health scare. Through these things, God is gently waking you up saying, you really don't have it all. You really don't. You're not as secure as you think you are. And I wonder this weekend, maybe that's happening to some of you right now. And you're wondering what's going on, but you realize, or I hope you realize that God is just shaking.

You're trying to wake you up. It's like a friend of mine says, God is putting you flat on your back, so maybe at last you will look the right direction. That's what keeps people like Jairus from Jesus. But what keeps people like this woman from coming to Jesus is different, right?

It's not pride. It's her shame that has led her to a subtle despair. It's not that she does not know that she needs Jesus' help. She just thinks that if he knew the truth about her, he'd never want to help her anyway. By the way, do you remember that I told you that shame can come from things that we've done or things done to us? Well, I believe this woman and her exchange with Jesus is supposed to represent both kinds of people.

Watch, follow me here. In one sense, she's a victim, right? That means she didn't choose her disease.

She's not suffering because of something that she did. But at the same time, when you step back from the story, we see that biblically she is supposed to represent an uncleanness that we all have. You see these Levitical laws about uncleanness that keep this woman separated from society were supposed to have given Israel, they were given by God to give Israel a picture of the uncleanness that we've all brought upon ourselves through sin, an uncleanness and a corresponding shame that goes back to the Garden of Eden. So in the immediate sense, this woman represents somebody who feels shame because of something that has happened to her, a disease she did not choose, a suffering. But in the bigger picture, she also represents in her uncleanness the shame that we all feel because of our sin. The point is whether our shame is legitimate, shame that we have brought on ourselves, or whether it is illegitimate, shame brought on by things done to us, Jesus is the solution.

Let's watch verse 44. She came up behind him and she touched the fringe of his garment. The Gospel of Mark tells us that she had heard about Jesus, and this made her want to try this.

I have to wonder when I read that, like what did she hurt? We do know that there was a legend going around Jerusalem at that time that when the Messiah came that he would have healing in the wings of his clothing. It went back to a prophecy in Malachi, Malachi 4.2, that when the Messiah came, he would rise with healing in his wings.

And so they were saying it must be that you could just touch the wings of his garment and you could be healed. Maybe that's what she'd heard, and maybe she thought this is him, this is my chance, and if I can just get up and brush the hem of his garment, I might be healed. But here's her dilemma. Remember, she's not even supposed to be in public. And if people see her in public, they'll scorn her and they'll reject her.

And then there's the question of what is Jesus the holy man going to say, right? I mean, what is he going to say when he sees her in her uncleanness? Is there a way, she thinks, to just sort of steal this miracle? And so clandestinely, she makes her way through the crowds. And as she gets up close to him, she gets down on her hands and knees and pulls her, whatever, something over her face so people can't see her face.

And as she passes by, she reaches out her hand and she grabs hold of the hem of his clothes. By the way, that word in verse 44, touched, literally means clutched. It means she reached out and she pulled it like it was a rope. And when she did, verse 44, immediately, her discharge of blood ceased.

It was like she'd pulled the rope of a bell and healing just rang out of Jesus. And Jesus said, verse 45, he stopped and he said, wait, who was it that just touched me? Now, here's a question you've got to ask when you're reading a story like this one. Does he really not know? I mean, surely if he's God, or even if he just has the power to heal like this, surely he could figure something simple out like who touched him.

So why, if he knew this already, why did he ask? Well, here's how I see it. Probably it's pretty simple. When my kids were younger, I'd come down and lit us off the cookie jar. And there are my four kids sitting there watching TV, but one of them has chocolate all over their face, right?

And so none of them are making eye contact with me. And I say, who opened the cookie jar? It's not that I don't know. It's that I'm giving one of them a chance to identify themselves, right? Well, Jesus is saying, identify yourself because I've got something even more amazing for you than that healing that you just received.

You say, well, what could possibly be more amazing than the healing? And just when you're about to find out, just when this is about to become the most amazing story in the New Testament, Peter steps in with his requisite dullness. Verse 45, master, the crowds are surrounding you and everybody's pressing in on you. Peter has got this ability to respond in profound moments with profound stupidity. Jesus, you know, everybody's touching you, man.

I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. Somebody touched you. This is a crowd. And you can almost hear Jesus say in response like, thank you, Peter.

What would I do without all of your amazing insights into what is happening? By the way, this is the man that Jesus is going to choose to lead his church one day. And you get the impression that Jesus is going to determine to build his church, not because of the acumen of his leaders, but in spite of it, which is not really encouraging for me, who has also been appointed to be a leader of the church. And that's what Jesus thought about me. But anyway, verse 46, Jesus said, no, no, no, Peter, somebody touched me because I perceive that power has gone out for me. Lots of people were touching Jesus that day. See, but this was the touch of faith.

And that's a whole different thing, y'all. And by the way, I realized that every single weekend, we have a lot of people come into this place and they touch Jesus. You touch them a little bit in worship. You touch them a little bit during the preaching. But then there's a handful of you here that reach out to clutch a hold of him in desperation of faith.

And that's a whole different thing. Verse 47, and when the woman saw that she was not hidden and could not be hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him. And she started to tell her story and she started to expose her shame and how she had been immediately healed. Get a picture of this woman now trembling and terrified. She just had wanted to steal her miracle and get home.

The last thing she had wanted was to be exposed in public again. And now, now in front of this famous rabbi, the question she's asking is, am I just going to be humiliated and rejected again in front of everybody? Y'all, what happens next might be the most profound moment in all the gospels because I believe it answers the most basic question of all religion.

What is it like to be exposed in all of your shame and all of your ugliness and all of your uncleanness and all of your mess before a holy God? Verse 48, and he said to her, daughter, not stranger, not ma'am, not even sister or friend, but he used the term of the most intimate endearment, daughter. Tim Keller says, you should probably read it something like sweetheart. By the way, it is the only place in the gospels where Jesus ever addresses somebody this way. It is the kind of word that you would never use of somebody that you've just met. And Jesus is meeting this woman for the first time.

I want you to think about what is happening. The girl that nobody wanted, Jesus refers to as precious sweetheart. The girl that nobody else would touch is now being embraced by the strongest and most tender arms in the universe. The name that nobody else knows, Jesus knows. In fact, he's not even on just a first name basis with her. He's already skipped that stage and gone to the tender nickname stage.

Do not miss the contrast. Jairus is a dad who is pleading the cause of his 12-year-old daughter before Jesus, a powerful man pleading the cause of his 12-year-old daughter. But this woman for 12 years has had no father to plead her cause. To Jesus, the most powerful man ever pleads it for her. And he will not just let her steal a miracle in secret. Because yes, as much as he wants to heal her, and as great as that healing would be, he also wants her to know the even greater thing than the healing. And that is that she is loved, she is accepted, and she is cherished. So Jesus says, I want you.

That's what Jesus does with the unwanted, the disfigured. He finds them in their pain, calls them beloved, and makes them sons and daughters. You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of J.D.

Greer. And if you happen to join us late, you can always listen again online at jdgreer.com. When you join our mission and donate at the suggested level of $35 or more today, we'll say thanks by sending you a 10-day devotional and scripture guide as a companion to our series also titled Smoke from a Fire. It's okay to express emotions to God. Faith starts with honesty before God. This resource is designed to help you pray desperately and honestly, sharing your deepest feelings with the one who made you. It really hits home with all of us in one way or another as we look at emotions like anger, depression, anxiety, envy and shame. The wise thing to do with these emotions is not to try and dismiss them away or suppress them to medicate them or even to manage them.

The Bible tells us first to read them as indicators of what is going on deeper within and then respond with the gospel message in mind. Ask for your copy of the devotional and scripture guide when you give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or it might be easier to give and request the resources on our website. That address again is jdgreer.com. If it's easier to mail your donation, our address is jdgreerministries p.o.

box 122 93 Durham, North Carolina, 27709. By the way, if you haven't checked out Pastor JD's newest podcast called Ask Me Anything, you'll want to do that today. Pastor JD gives quick, honest answers to tricky questions, and you can find it online at jdgreer.com or through your favorite podcasting app.

I'm Molly Vidovitch. Thank you so much for being with us this week for some emotional moments in our time in God's Word. I'm inviting you to join us again next week for the last message from our teaching series called Smoke from the Fire. Enjoy worship with your church family and join us Monday here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.