Shame, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Right now you're sitting there wondering what it's going to be like to be exposed in all this mess before Jesus. And the answer is it's safe.

In fact, it's the only, it's the greatest safe place in the universe. He wants you to know that you are not damaged. You are not second rate.

You are not unworthy or unloved. You are a precious and beloved child whom He has created and redeemed specifically for His purpose. Welcome to another week of gospel saturated teaching here on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. Today is the last day in our short teaching series focused on difficult emotions. The idea behind this series is that our emotions function like smoke from a fire.

And just like you can follow a trail of smoke to figure out what's on fire in your house, you can follow the trail of your emotions to figure out what is on fire in your heart. If you missed any of the previous messages in this series, you can find them free of charge at jdgreer.com. Here's Pastor J.D. concluding his teaching with the message on the difficult emotion of shame. Luke chapter 8 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. So 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. It reminds me of what I once heard a family who was adopting a baby. I told me one time when they found out that the baby was going to have severe special needs.

When they had been matched originally, they didn't know that. And then the adoption agency came to them and said, look, we just in some testing, we found out this baby is going to be born not just with a few special needs, but severe special needs. And they said, we understand if you don't feel like your family is up for this, that's not a shameful decision to back out of the process and be matched up with somebody else.

And so this husband and wife, they prayed about it and came back to the adoption agency and says, we just don't feel like this is the best thing for our family. Then this wife said, she said a couple nights later, she said, I went to sleep and had this dream that she said I have to conclude was from God. She said, in this dream, she says, my husband and I, we were standing in this gigantic auditorium with thousands upon thousands of people. And down in the middle, children would be brought out one by one, beautiful children. And they would hold them up and they'd say, who wants this one?

And somebody in the audience would stand up and say, I'll take that one, I'll take that one. And she said, eventually after a parade of children, they brought this one child that was ugly and it was deformed and could tell that it was broken and so many things wrong with it. And they held it up and they said, who wants this children?

And the whole place, she said, just went deathly quiet. And she said, for several awkward moments, nobody said anything until finally, she said, a man behind me stood up and said, I'll take that one. And she said, I turned around and I looked and she said, it was Jesus. She said, and Jesus went down and he picked up this child. And she said, then in my dream, I was able to get close to look at this child and look into the face of this child.

And she said, it was my face when I was a kid. And she said, I was realizing in this moment, this is what Jesus had done for me. And so the next morning I told my husband, we have to adopt this baby because this is what Jesus has done to us. Now I want you to hear me very clearly.

I'm not saying that every family that is in that situation, that's what you should do. What I am wanting you to see is that there is this sense and that's what Jesus has done for us. He took those that nobody else wanted, those that everybody else had passed by, those who were disfigured, those who were unwanted. He found us in our pain and he calls us beloved. And he makes us sons and daughters. He lifts our heads when we cannot lift them for ourselves. And so Jesus said to her, he said, go, go now your faith has made you well, go home in peace.

You know, there's something here that you and I as Americans typically miss. I used to love sharing this story with Muslims when I lived in Southeast Asia as a missionary, because whenever I'd share this story with them, they would immediately start picking up on stuff that as an American I never picked up on. They would always be a little scandalized because you're like here, you've got a ceremonially unclean woman who is now touching a clean, not just a clean man, but a holy man. In our, you know, religious expressions, we don't have a lot of cleanness, uncleanness, you know, kind of concepts for religion. But Jewish people, Muslim people, they got those concepts.

And so when they read this story, they're like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. What typically happens when an unclean thing touches a clean thing? The clean thing doesn't make the unclean thing clean. The unclean thing makes the clean thing unclean. I mean, think about it in terms of sickness, right? That's what we Americans, because right, we carry around Purell bottles, we're trying to cleanse all the time.

That's probably our world. What happens if a sick person comes in close contact with a healthy person? The health of the healthy person does not pass into the sick person, right? If anything, the sickness of the sick person passes into the healthy person. None of you parents out there are like, wow, my kid is sick.

Man, he's been throwing up all night. I should probably take him off to the church nursery and drop them off. Let all the healthy kids have their wellness rub off on my kid. If that's the way you think, let me gently encourage you to visit another church for the next several weeks, okay? In the same way, when the unclean thing touches the clean, the clean thing becomes unclean. But here with Jesus, when the unclean thing touches the clean thing, the unclean thing becomes clean. So you got to ask what happened to the uncleanness? That's what the Muslims always ask.

What happened to the uncleanness? That's the million dollar question of the gospels. And the answer is that though you cannot see it, Jesus silently takes that woman's uncleanness into himself. You see, he is on his way to die on a cross where he will bear our sin and our shame. Isaiah said that he would be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, which meant he would die for our sin. But he would also, Isaiah said, carry our shame.

People would hide their faces from him and consider him cursed by God. Jesus took this woman's uncleanness into himself. She went home in peace, restored to her family, and he headed toward the cross where he would die for sin, be hung up in shame and forsaken by his father.

It's like that scene in that movie Green Mile, if you remember that from a decade or so ago where Tom Hanks plays a police officer and this is criminal or what everybody assumes is a criminal who can heal people of disease, but in order to do it, he's got to take it into himself. That's what Jesus is doing with this woman is he's taking her disease into him and he's going to go die for it on a cross and she's going to go home in peace. So to those of you whose shame comes from something you've done, from mistakes you have made, Jesus offers cleansing through his substitutionary death on a cross.

He went to a cross 2,000 years ago so that you could go home in peace. And when you touch Jesus in faith, he will take the guilt of what you have done and the penalty for your sin like this woman's disease and uncleanness. He will take it into himself and his righteousness and his new life will pass into you. That's why here this church, we love that old song, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. The sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day and there may I, the vilest he, wash all my sins away. I touch him and my uncleanness passes into him and he calls me by a new name. I am no longer referred to by what I have done. I am now what he has declared over me.

I am son, you are daughter. I heard about a guy that was saved out of a really bad lifestyle. There's lots of immorality and lots of crime and after he'd been walking with God, been saved and baptized and walked with God for a few years, he ran into a woman from his past. And this woman came up to him and began to touch him and try to just seduce him back into it. And he kept trying to get away and she said, she kept saying, Jack, it's me, it's me.

And he said, the only thing I knew to say to her was I looked back and I said, but it's not me. It's no longer me. I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. It's not I, it's Christ who lives in me.

I'm not that guy anymore. I am a new creation because that's what Jesus has made me. So those of you who shame comes from things, something that you've done, Jesus takes it to the cross. And to those of you who shame comes from something done to you, you need to also hear Jesus's response to this woman and her suffering, because see it is his response to you as well.

He calls you daughter, precious daughter. And see that new identity outweighs any other identity put upon you by anybody else. You are no longer what others have said about you. You are not what others have done to you. You are what Jesus has declared over you. Right now, you're sitting there hiding in the crowd, wondering what it's going to be like to be exposed in all this mess before Jesus. And the answer is it's safe.

In fact, it's the only, it's the greatest safe place in the universe. He calls you daughter. He wants you to know that you are not damaged. You are not second rate. You are not unworthy or unloved. You are a precious and beloved child whom he has created and redeemed specifically for his purpose. You are precious enough that he poured out his blood to buy you back. Then he put his spirit inside of you. And then he destined you to rule and reign forever with him. One day Hebrews says, he's going to put you on a throne with him that will make you literally higher than the angels and all of creation will shake their heads in wonder at the love that God has bestowed on you and the honor and the esteem with which he now holds you. It is time that the shame that others have put on you gives way to the honor that he has declared over you. This woman went home in peace and you can also stop listening to others. Stop listening to your past. Stop listening to those voices and start listening to Jesus. So what's all that mean for those that are stuck in shame?

What's it mean? Christian counselors say the person held captive by shame needs three things and it's just amazing because all three of them are right here in this story. Christian counselors say you need number one. Those in shame need to have their story heard. You need to come out of the shadows like this woman. Shame thrives in secrecy. You have to take the chance of exposing yourself.

Here's the thing. Most of the people around you who love you are going to be so glad that you did because they love you and they want to help you. In fact, most of you will be surprised at the compassion that you're met with.

I can assure you that Jesus is ready to meet you. Brene Brown, who I referred to earlier, calls this speaking your shame. She says that verbalizing shame diffuses it of a lot of its secret power. Maybe some of you just need to tell somebody for the first time about past abuse. Maybe you need to reckon with words or insults that you endured or talk about how that diagnosis of infertility made you feel.

You need to expose or verbalize those thoughts of self-doubt, those insecurities that come from your disabilities, those secret fears you have about your life and your future. Maybe you need to be honest about temptations you're dealing with and attraction that you don't know how to process. You know, in churches like ours, we have people who experience things like same-sex attraction and they just don't know what to do with it. I've met a number of these people in our church over the years who just who lived in secret and they felt this shame about it and didn't know what to do with it because they thought, well, I just can't be like this in the church. The church should be the one place where it is most safe to talk about that because we understand that everybody's broken and we understand that we're all broken in different ways and that Jesus came for broken people. This church is not a trophy case for the righteous, it's a hospital for the broken. Maybe you got a secret sin to confess or a weakness or a prolonged addiction that you can't shake. Can you think, well, people around me knew they'd walk away from me, right?

And maybe that's because you have been rejected in your past. I hope, I pray you will not experience that in this church. I can tell you it is certainly not true of Jesus.

He will not walk away. Like this woman, He is calling you to speak your shame in the church that bears His name. It is okay not to be okay.

We understand here that Jesus only saves broken people because that's the only kind of people that there are and it's okay not to be okay here. You got to speak it. You got to come out of the shadows. Second, counselors say that you need to have your head lifted. We need to have our head lifted. In this story, Jesus takes the initiative, right? He raises her head before she can even raise it on her own. She's still looking at the ground in fear and shame when He says, look at me, precious daughter.

I don't see you like that. Psalm chapter three, David calls God the lifter of my head. Can I give you the greatest gospel secret you'll ever learn? Listen, the greatest gospel secret is this, the power of new life begins with a new identity. This is what differentiated Jesus's message from that of every other religious message in the world because every other religion tells you change, become better. And if you do, God will accept you. The gospel, Jesus reversed that.

He flips it upside down. The gospel is that God declares you righteous, not because you change, but because of what Jesus did for you. And when you believe that and receive it, He bestows that identity on you as a gift, an identity you don't really deserve. And then you change in response to that new identity that God has given to you.

Beware of any spiritual growth strategy that does not make that central because it is not from God. You see, most people assume that whenever they feel bad about their sin, well, that's gotta be God. That's gotta be the Holy Spirit making me feel bad about my sin, but I got news for you. Satan also loves to talk to you about your sin.

Do you know how I know that? He's called the accuser of the brethren. What do you think he's accusing you with?

He's not accusing you for being too goody-goody. He's accusing you because of your sin. He will talk to you about your sin night and day if you will let Him. But see, there's a fundamental difference in how Satan and the Holy Spirit talk to you about your sin.

If you're taking notes, write this down. When Satan convicts you of your sin, he starts with what you've done and tears down who you are. He takes guilt and turns it into shame. Three times, Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness. Every single time he begins his temptation with this phrase, if you are the Son of God.

If? You know, it's ironic because in the previous chapter, that's exactly what God the Father had just declared over Jesus. You're my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And now Satan is beginning his temptation strategy by questioning the identity that God has just bestowed. That's what he does for you.

Before Satan really tempts you and destroys you, he weakens you up by making you doubt what Jesus has declared over you. Are you a child of God? Because really I think you're just a failure. You're a cheat. You're a liar. You're no good. You're damaged goods. He starts with what you did, guilt, and he tears down who you are.

That's shame. You see, the Holy Spirit by contrast starts with what you are, what he has made you in Christ, and then rebuilds what you did. In other words, he addresses your sin. He shows you how it is inconsistent with your new identity, and then he helps you repair the damage that has been caused by your sin.

And you have to know the difference because one will lead to destruction and the other will lead to victory in life. I've told you this story before. When my oldest daughter was seven years old, my second daughter would have been five at that point.

Two of them were riding with me somewhere in a car, and we were going to some event where there was going to be some kind of rides or something. And my oldest daughter has always had a problem with trying new stuff, especially when she was younger. And I got her permission to share this story. She just was very timid. And I was always trying to like, hey, if you don't try new stuff, then you're never really going to get to succeed. You got to try stuff.

And so I tried coaching. I mean, it was very frustrating because I don't want to put all this pressure on her, and she just never tried new stuff. She wouldn't go scuba diving or skydiving or anything. So anyway, so on the way to this place, I was telling her about all the stuff that was going to be there. And I could see this look of fear come on her face.

And I was like, there it is. She's not going to do any of this stuff. And I said, Kara, sweetheart, you're just going to have to, you're going to have to develop some courage because if you don't develop courage, then you're just never going to, you're never going to do anything. And she says, and she looks down and she says, I know daddy. She says, sometimes I think I'm just a big scaredy cat. And I said, that's exactly right. You are a scaredy cat and you're going to have to change.

Otherwise, you're never going to succeed in life. This was not my best parenting moment. Okay. I look over and in the rear view mirror, I catch my other daughter, Allie, her eyes, looking over at her, at her sister, eyes really big. And she immediately says, oh, no, Kara, you are not a scaredy cat.

You are my big sister and you can do anything. And I thought, Oh, Allie is the voice of the Holy spirit. And I am the voice of Satan to my daughter, because what Jesus does is he starts with this identity that he's given you. And he says, this is who you are.

This is what you would have made you. And when you believe that, well, you know that song we sing, he breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free. You ever wonder what that means? He breaks the power of cancel. Canceled sin means Jesus has already died for it. It's no longer part of my identity, yet it still has power over me. And it is when I embraced this new identity in Christ that my faith in him breaks the power of canceled sin. Jesus didn't just die to release you from the penalty of sin. He died to release you from its power.

And the way he breaks the power is by you owning what he has declared over you. And you say, I'm no longer that I am now this. Satan has hold many of you captive by getting you to believe that you're still something that God has declared that you are not. And he uses shame-based thinking to keep you under the power of sin.

The only way to heal from shame is to shift your focus from what you are or are not to who Christ is and what he has believed about you and declared over you. Who are you? So you got to ask yourself that, who am I?

And you got to say to yourself, I am not what others say I am. I'm not who I think I am. I'm definitely not what somebody else did to me. I am not defective anymore. I'm not damaged. I'm not broken.

I'm not flawed. I'm not dirty. I'm not ugly. I'm not impure or disgusting or unlovable or weak or pitiful or insignificant or worthless.

And I am definitely not unwanted. Who am I? Who am I? I am who Christ says I am. I am forgiven. I am free. I am redeemed. I am healed.

I'm brand new. I'm chosen. I'm changed. I'm blessed. I'm beloved.

I am complete. I am a child of God. You are not what others have done to you. You're not what others have said about you. You're not what the voices inside whisper about you. You are what Christ has declared over of you. The good news I have for you this morning is that wherever you are or whatever situation you walked in here with, the lifter of your head is here. And he does the same thing that he did this woman 2,000 years ago.

He just reaches out and lifts up your head and says, daughter, son, this is not what I have for you. Now I'm tempted to stop right there and I'm done. I guess one more thing. This might be the most important thing. So hang on with me.

Okay. Number three, to be restored to loving community. This is such an important step because feeling the embrace of Jesus will give you the courage eventually to re-engage with the community. We got every reason to believe that Luke included this story because he knew this woman because she was part of the first church. See Luke tells us that he wrote his gospel after doing a bunch of personal interviews. So he got to know this woman in the church, which is pretty cool when you think about it. The first preacher stand up, like, you know, they stand up like me and they're preaching. And as he's telling the story that, you know, somebody's like, Hey, he's talking about Sue Ellen over there. Sue Ellen's kind of sitting there like, yep, that was me. I was the woman reached up and touched him and stole the miracle.

Right? Now here's, what's awesome. I want you to think about this. Here's a woman who used to be confined by shame, living in secrecy, now a thriving, healthy charter member of the first Baptist church of Jerusalem. The church, by the way, the launch of the most powerful movement in history. This is what God wants for you also. He forms his churches, not from champions, but from broken people, guilty people, people overwhelmed by shame.

He declares them new creations and endows them with purpose and power, his purpose and power. Church, are we the kind of church where people that are not okay find Jesus like that in this church? Are you the kind of person that others feel open and comfortable with speaking this shame that they live with? I'll tell you this, I've known this, learned this now for 16 years as a pastor, people around you are suffering.

Most of them silently. And what they need is they need that invitation where you can say it's okay not to be okay. Your story is safe to share here. The road to healing from shame begins the moment that you speak it. As you come out of the shadows and you speak it, you will hear the voice of your savior and your shepherd saying, my daughter, my son, and his declaration will heal those wounds. And if your shame does come from things that you have done, then he will take that disease, that uncleanness into himself and he puts it away on the cross of your new creation in him. Whatever the source of your shame, the answer, the answer is the declaration of the death of Jesus Christ. I am a daughter of the king. Concluding our teaching series on emotions called Smoke from a Fire, you're listening to J.D.

Greer and Summit Life. If you missed any part of this study, or if you'd like to share it with a friend, the whole series is available free of charge at jdgreer.com. St. Augustine once said that our deepest emotions often function like smoke from a fire. They can indicate what is going wrong in our hearts before we can usually articulate it. In this series, we talked about how the aim of the Bible's teaching on emotions isn't to suppress them or even to manage them, but to read them accurately, express them honestly, and allow the gospel to reshape them completely. We have a new devotional book and scripture guide directed at the difficult emotions we deal with, shame, anger, depression, anxiety, and envy. Like the teaching series we wrapped up today, it's also titled Smoke from a Fire, how our emotions reveal what's really going on. We created this study because no matter how strong our faith is, we all have moments when we come to the end of ourselves.

And if we're honest, we aren't sure if God can meet us in that place. But if we offer our desperation to God, we will find him eager to listen, eager to forgive, eager to heal, and eager to step in and help. This new book includes 10 days of daily scripture readings and five additional devotionals from Pastor JD that are specifically directed at the difficult emotions we've discussed here on the program. Ask for your copy of Smoke from a Fire when you donate today. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or you can give and request the book online at JDGrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich inviting you to join us again tomorrow as we begin a new teaching series through the book of Colossians. That's Tuesday on Summit Life with JD Grier.