Overcoming Shame

Well Spring is upon us it's a new day and uh wherever you're headed to uh school work some of your Social experiences I would say for all of us in a new season we just want to put our best foot forward make a good impression accentuate our best qualities all of us want to enter our social spheres this way but I have to say some of us no matter how hard we try to avoid it we'll have an embarrassing moment this season it's unavoidable somebody is going to wreck a scooter at an intersection someone's got to do it and one of us in this room you're going to be riding and hitting an uneven patch and try to correct and realize you can't and you're going to hit the ground and hopefully roll okay it's coming for one of us I don't know who but it's coming for you right uh others of us you're going to be late for work and you're gonna not maybe run but power walk and just trying to get there in time now we're back into the office and then when you get there you're like whoo I made it and as soon as you stop you can suddenly feel the heat in your armpits or the cold in the back of your uh shirt as it begins to pool with sweat and you're like no no no no no no no no no no no no no no I don't want to be that person whether it's just a fountain of water and it's coming for you and I'm sorry you're going to be the one for us right some of you may be like that student that I read about years ago that uh drank too much one night and drunk tested his drunk texted his professor and wrote you're a mother f and g and I'm sorry you're bold also I need an extension on my paper and somehow that text ended up on Reddit surprise uh the world got to see what you were doing on Saturday right uh or that kid in Taiwan I read about years ago that tripped like any of us do in a museum and put his hands through a 1.5 million dollar piece of art we've all been there but uh I remember free one of the uh times when I was leading Breakaway the college Ministry at a m uh we had a farmer's wife there we go um oh hey man I didn't even see look you got the shirt on uh we had a publisher come that wanted to talk about publishing books and I was very excited like oh my gosh we got to make a good impression on this guy so I told the team like let's host them really well and and I'm sitting by him so I decided I'm gonna take him out for a nice meal and I took him out to dinner and and then I violated one of my own personal rules never order Seafood when you're not on the coast but I ordered the fish and then we showed up at Breakaway and I had a guest speaker speaking and then while he was talking right in the middle of it I just felt my stomach like Lurch you know and then suddenly that cold sweat begins to start on my brow you know the thing would be like oh this is serious and it was like the little guy inside me was like he had the fish everybody we're gonna have to abort digestion abort evacuate everything I repeat evacuate everything I'm like no no no no no no no no no no and I'm just trying to make it to the prayer while the guy's preaching I'm like wrap it up wrap it up just realize I can't I gotta flea to the bathroom lock myself in and uh as I continued to stay in there I had to text a staff member saying hey can somebody please Host this uh uh publisher and get him where he needs to go and no answer so I had to text another staff member can someone please give this man a ride home and text another staff member and one by one I just had to text everybody who was in my phone and tell them I'm in the bathroom and can't get out and then by the end I was like please don't let them lock me in the arena because I may be here longer than everyone else in the ministry but we all got moments like that embarrassing moments and what can you do I got to tell you sometimes the best thing to do with embarrassing moments to defuse them is to laugh about them right uh that you know they can happen to everybody everyone's experienced something like that and so where it can feel sort of isolating socially when you talk about it it can actually be something that draws you in to a community because we all have stories of embarrassment like that right now why am I bringing this up because for some of us all of us we've had something embarrassing happen to us but all of us also have things that are embarrassing about us and that's different than for honest things about us that we wish weren't true that disappoint us about ourselves aspects of our personality we say I wish I could change that and I can't and I don't know how things you say in bed like why am I like this this is so stupid uh habits we can't break addictions we certainly don't want a room like this to know or something in our past that we think if these people knew this about me they wouldn't want me to be here anymore and maybe some of you that's why you judge people preemptively let me judge them and say they wouldn't accept me just so I can prejudge them before they risk judging me right or maybe we just get really busy to try to outrun the pain in our story I think this town knows some things about that inside we all feel that especially when the presence of people who excel at the things we don't I remember hearing a testimony of a guy once who who had a a sexually devastating past and the Lord had done a great work in his heart and in his life and and that broken Place had become a place of ministry and he was invited on a TV show to talk about his experience and he was like I'm willing to do that to share about how the grace of God has worked in me and they they brought him onto this show and the host was there and they sat him on a couch and then they sat a couple next to him who had never kissed somebody had saved even the kiss till marriage and they just talked about purity and the benefits of Purity and the beauty of Purity and all that's good and he said the more they talked about that and the host was amening him and the crowd's cheering him he said I just started to feel smaller and smaller and more like what am I am I just the person here to be the grotesque like when it's my turn look what I did and finally he told his story of the things done to him and the things he had done and he said the host looked at him and said I bet since you've come to Christ you probably never wrestle with those desires again and he said I had to look at him and go no no that's also not true uh I wrestle with him every day and scene credits roll and it was never not weird right and he said I felt ugly in that moment I felt embarrassed and and frankly embarrassed I don't think is the right word I think what he felt and what a lot of us feel is shame right Shane's a powerful force some people say it this way that guilt is uh I did something bad or I feel bad about something I've done shame says I'm bad there's something wrong with me right and listen our church like said just turned five years old and I've met with all kinds of people in here I've met with some big strong people and little petite people and movers and shakers and people just trying to crawl out of a crisis I've met with all kinds of people here and all of us have some things about our life where we feel some deep shame and here's the thing about shame when you feel it you want to hide it shame makes you want to disappear into hiding right embarrassment we can all laugh at and it can build connection shame makes you recall from the community right or if you have to deal with us that that hiding can bring some temporary relief but it brings no peace and so then what you end up having to do is go I'm going to put my best foot forward and hide this part of me I'm going to present this version of me to y'all but this other me I'm going to keep behind closed doors and the more we do that the more we feel disconnected we feel a bit like a fake like a masquerade like we feel disconnected from the people around us y'all don't know me no one understands me and so we can feel disconnected from God from other people even ourselves right and yet here's the interesting thing into that moment what we're going to see in these stories is Jesus rolls up and for many of us when you feel ashamed the last thing you want to meet is just a pristine pure beautiful person and yet it's interesting Luke is roughly chronological but he's not really hung up on chronology he likes to group stories thematically and and what he does in Luke Chapter 5 is he's looping up these stories where Jesus is coming to people when they're not winning and we're going to see how does he show up in their world and and let me just tell you we're skipping the first parts of Luke Jesus doesn't roll up in Luke like adorable and approachable when you see Jesus show up in Luke Heaven breaks open Kings bow Satan's defeated with a word Jesus casts out demons Jesus speaks with authority he reads a thousands of years old prophecy and says this is about me you don't see an adorable Jesus when he shows up in Luke you see an authoritative Jesus a holy Jesus and then when you get to him in chapter five you go what is that man do with somebody like me and we're going to watch his encounters with a number of people who are wrestling to various degrees with shame and we're going to see in this first story when he interacts with Peter that he can take it away and so if you caught the context it starts with him doing Miracles and crowds begin to gather they want to see this guy who can do amazing things and as they do that they're crowding him and he realizes I want to talk to everybody and so he sees the boat he gets on it gets a little off land so they can all see him and so the water can carry his voice and he teaches from the boat and after teaching from the boat this massive crowd that's gathered around he just looks over at Peter and goes hey why don't we go out fishing and when he does that I don't know if Jesus realizes it or not probably does because of Jesus but he just put Peter in a really compromised situation right because Peter has to say in front of God and everybody verse 5 Simon answered master we toiled all night and took nothing but at your word I will let down the Nets Peter has this Awkward Moment of having to admit something I would imagine you don't want to admit I tried and I can't ever been there hey Peter what do you do for a living who are you fisherman how's that going for you well uh the Fisher you know it's been a rough night and uh you know that doesn't feel good a lot of us have been there what do you do I'm a politician well what's the role you feel well you know I'm kind of in between rules I'm sort of I'm sort of surveying the environment you're like okay you're trying to put a spin on the fact that you ain't got a job like no one wants to do that right and so Peter's in this situation where in front of this big crowd why don't we go fishing because I I can't because I failed I had all night and couldn't catch a fish what do you want from me right and we don't know his tone we don't but it's interesting the National Institute of Mental Health did a study years ago and they found that as far as the brain's concerned physical pain and intense social rejection the brain registers in the same way that the emotional pain of Shame triggers the same reaction as physical pain namely fight or flight that when I suddenly feel shame in front of a group of people I either want to fight or I ever want to fly and so we don't know how Peter said this it could have been in a flight capacity why don't we go for a catch because if they're still alive and I got nothing look away oh we don't know if he said in a psychopathic well I'll tell you why because I fished all night and I didn't catch anything genius what do you do again Carpenter why don't you coach me up boss like we don't know if he sort of came out aggressively or maybe passive aggressively like I'll tell you what because we fished all night and caught nothing am I right who's with me James yeah who's this guy right like we don't know how he did it all we do know is that he didn't have to say it not relevant information yes or no let's go out for a catch all he had to say is okay but he's like well we fished on nine we caught nothing like you don't have to say that why do you say that because you don't feel good about where you are you don't feel good about this and here in this moment of vulnerability fishermen who can't catch fish Jesus calls it out it says let's try again and they do it and suddenly in this place where you it has power over you this is your job and you are powerless a man steps into your boat who has power over everything you're powerless over and he gives them a command to drop that net and so many fish come in it's swamping the boat right and in the midst of that moment how does Peter feel when you realize everything I can't control he can control everything that I say gives me an identity and a purpose I can't win at I'm not getting there and this guy it's easy for him you go wow that's neat look at all these fish yay for the community fish for everyone it says in verse 8 when Simon Peter saw it fell down on his knees at Jesus's knees and said depart from me for I'm a sinful Man O Lord he looks at him like a lot of people who feel shame what do you do when you're in the presence of beauty don't look at me get away from me unclean I'm a sinful man Lord I'm looking inside me by the light of your glory and I don't like what I see and I'm assuming you don't either so you'd best back away right but then it says so also with him in verse 10 where James and John the sons of Zebedee partners with Simon and Jesus said to Simon do not be afraid from now on you will be catching men and when they brought their boat to land they left everything and followed him isn't that great Jesus rolls up in your world when you're winning and he rolls up when you're not and when you're not winning and you show up in a room like this you don't want people to know let me hide certain parts of me okay yeah praise the Lord is that what y'all say around here yay Hallelujah okay just don't ask me too many questions and Jesus puts his hand right into their shame and Peter says I don't belong here this isn't my crowd you're not my people get away from me and I love Jesus's response no no I came for you and then he says and I am going to make you a catcher of men that great he says this shame you feel at being a lack of success I'm going to take that shame away notice he didn't say I'll make you a fisher of men fishing is trying catching as you got one and I love the way Luke says it no no no no no I'm gonna make you a catcher of men I'm not here to shame you Peter I'm here to give you purpose in your life that far exceeds what you're here to experience you need to trust me and come with me I'm here to take that shame away and lead you into the life you were meant to live that's what he's like Jesus Takes shame away he has the power to and not only does he have the power to he wants to that's the next story right uh the next story if there was a person Jesus should have gotten away from it's the next guy did you see it Luke rolls right into this other story in verse 12 and says while he was in one of the Cities there came a man full of leprosy that's not good right uh leprosy back then was was a term used for a variety of skin disease and ailments and leprosy made you a social outcast and it wasn't necessarily to be cruel it was because those diseases could be contagious and so if you have a community with limited access to all kinds of medical attention fresh water if somebody has a contagious disease you say hey you got to get away from us we got to cut you off from society but even though it may not have been mean-spirited it was still enormously difficult I mean we're made for intimacy and we're made for connection and so to be cut off from from physical touch to be cut off from a relational connection it's like a living death but the law commanded if you are physically unclean you have to be quarantined unless you become clean right and it's interesting because of that that sicknesses like leprosy started to get coordinated in people's mind with with sin right because sin in a sense is also damage to a community that has to be isolated like like if you step into our community and and murder us or if you drive through our neighborhoods drunk and threaten Our Lives you're a risked to the community you can hurt us and if you persist in that activity we have to distance you from the activity if we got a group of friends and we're hanging out and you persistently lie to us and steal from us at some point you go these are Community destroying activities you either need to stop those activities or we have to distance you from the community these don't build us up they tear us down so we have to distance ourselves from the physical and cleanness that can make it sick and the sinful and cleanness that can make us corrupt and disintegrate this community right and the Bible is very clear beginning in Job that God does not draw a straight line between sickness and sin it's not oh if you're sick it's because you did X it doesn't do that and yet it was common in the ancient world to sort of connect those things right and so here we got this leper and we don't know if it's from something he did or from just something that happened to him but he's got to be isolated you are unclean you can't be near the community right and many of us if I can be honest you got to struggle the ego I didn't pick I didn't vote for this I don't want to feel this way I don't want to struggle with this and you feel like it's isolating you and we carry some things that we feel are pushing us away from Community some of you took a lot of courage to even show up here and I just want you to know I'm really glad you did and yet this man hears about Jesus and did you notice in verse 12 it says he came to him this guy summons the courage to risk to risk exposure to risk being seen if you were a leper you were supposed to get away from society hide out in caves and if anyone got near you yell unclean but this guy hears there's somebody who can maybe solve this so he does something crazy he risks I'm in a risk exposure I'm going to exit the cave I'm going to risk being seen I'm going to move towards someone something I'm not supposed to do I'm going to risk humiliation how vulnerable is this some of us are ashamed we're so good at hiding nobody knows you got such a polished image some of us you can't hide it it's obvious and this man he can't hide it and so he's got to walk out where all his shame is exposed his saddest most broken parts are made available to the community and oh God I'm going to put myself in a situation where I might be rejected by the best guy Among Us that is so scary and this man risks the terror of breaking protocol and coming to Jesus and you see he makes the request and when he saw Jesus he fell on his face and he begged him Lord if you will you can make me clean notice the humility there he bows he begs he is Shameless in exposing his shame God I'm in need I can't hide it and then he acknowledges Jesus's power he calls him Lord and he says you can make me clean that's pretty wild we blow through that you go I believe this man has power over the thing that dominates my life I believe this man has the ability to wipe it away to neutralize it to change things to alter history to objectively change the world I believe you have World shaping power in your hands but notice what he's unclear about whether or not you want to get involved with a person like me if you will and that word will is the word desire I know if you desire to you can make me clean what he's uncertain about is do you desire to get involved with somebody like me in verse 13 it says in Jesus stretched out his hand and he touched him saying I will be clean and immediately the leprosy left him this man falls on his face and says if you will you can make me clean and Jesus does something did you notice what he did it says he stretched out his hand and he touched him now if you're new to Jesus you need to know he doesn't have to do that right he can heal people without touching them Centurion came to him says my servant's sick and Jesus like I'll go and the centurion's like I know you don't even have to go you can just say he's healed Jesus like that's right healed all right yeah go check it out he's fine and they have to go back to the other Town they're like he is man Jesus doesn't need to even see you so why does he do this because anyone who touched that man would be made unclean and that man hasn't been touched in so long and he's sitting there saying I don't know if you want to get involved with someone like me and Jesus looks at him craps and says I have the power to heal you and then this is what the man needed to hear and I want to I want to be healed some of you know that God has the power to forgive he's God and you know that he will that's his job but you don't think he wants to not you and what I love about this moment is Jesus doesn't just have the power to take shame away he wants to we got a picture of a man uh vinicio Riva I probably said it wrong but he's lived a difficult life I mean at 15 years of age he was diagnosed with neuro fibromatosis type 1 a disease that spreads painful boils all over the body and as you can see it's impossible to hide and so as you can imagine it leads to strong reactions from people his father refuses to touch him strangers on the bus have yelled at him get away from me don't stand next to me and he's gotten a memo over time you are unwanted and the psychological effects of a disease like that are often far more painful than the physical pain and so most people who deal with it that condition end up never leaving their home it's just easier I don't distress y'all you don't have to message me and I don't have to mess with you right and yet he made a decision several years ago to go with his aunt to visit the Pope and they didn't expect to get anywhere near the pope uh but when he arrived they ushered his wheelchair forward in this crowd and and He adjusted his expectations and he told reporters I expected the pope to uh touch my aunt's outstretched hand maybe she's reaching for the pope and incidentally I'm not trying to make a big point about Catholicism or protestantism or our theological differences in some respects I know we in a crowd this size we love mixed feelings about the pope I'm not worried about any of that my point is for this man it was significant for him to show up and when he got there he fully expected this man to touch his aunt but not somebody like me and then the article said what he got was entirely unexpected the pope walked straight towards him and hugged him for a full minute and his aunt said he held him so tightly I thought he would never give him back to me and then with his hands on his head he kissed him and when interviewed about it later the man says he still feels the effects of that kindness today he said I felt like I was in Paradise right and it changed the way he sees himself and interacts with the world I know you can heal I know you have power over what dominates me but I don't know if you want to mess with someone like me and Jesus puts his hands on this leper not only can I take your shame away I want to I want to see see the law can tell you you're dirty but it can't make you clean physically and in sin if you look in the Old Testament you could just identify the unclean and you got to go that's why Jesus told him later if you made him clean hey don't start running around town yet you're going to freak some people out do what the law says go to the priest let them pronounce you clean that's what the law can do it can tell you you're dirty and it can tell you you're clean but it can't make you clean it's like an x-ray when I broke my femur and they x-rayed it and saw that the bone was here supposed to be one but these pieces aren't touching the doctor didn't say well let's x-rayed a few more times that should work it out x-rays don't do that they just show you you're broken you need a physician to make you whole and the law can show you your sin but you need a hero to take it away and that's who Jesus is he can take your shame away some of you wonder if that's even possible you think we're all here to just try to turn over a new leaf and make the best of it you know we come in here and saying whether we can hide it like Peter and just hope no one asks about how the fish are biting or whether we can't hide it because we've devastated our marriages and our friendships and our lives and our bodies whatever your thing is Jesus can take shame away and he wants to and you need to know that I will be clean there's a movie Shenandoah that I have not seen starring Jimmy Stewart but I've heard this one line and I love it he's talking to a young man who wants to marry his daughter and he says do you like her Sam and Sam says I love her and he says I didn't ask you that I asked if you like her and some of us when I say God loves you you're like yeah I know he loves everybody that's his job but I say no but he he likes you he doesn't have to heal you but he likes you he made you and you need to know that I can and I will but I'm gonna deal with you deeper than you think that's the next story obviously healing a leper makes Jesus very famous not just in the leper Community but in the whole sick community and so he gets very popular and the crowds begin to throng he can't go anywhere he's having to hang out in desolate places he's like Taylor Swift dropping by forever 21. it's dangerous no one can get anything done he's having to hang on the outskirts of town right and yet he shows up at a house and he begins to teach and what happens they throw him the house they're pressing in somebody show up with a paralyzed guy they can't get him in they're like let's go to the roof and rip the roof open and drop him down like you do and so they do it and they bring in a paralyzed guy Jesus has been healing people Jesus can take paralysis away Jesus does not do it they dropped the guy and Jesus decides to make an example here and Jesus says young man your sins are forgiven it's not what he asked for that's not the obvious presenting issue I got a physical problem I want you to remove I want to move this arm I want to move these legs I've got a presenting issue I just need you to solve Jesus solved my problem no no no stay paralyzed for a bit go with me here your sins are forgiven it's not what I asked for and it's not even the presenting issue you can see but it's way deeper than that in Genesis it was sin Rebellion against God that broke the world so your individual sin is not what made you individually sick sin is a sickness that's infecting us all right and the root of sin is I don't trust you God I'm going my way God you put these parameters around sexuality I think that's going to cheat me not enhance my relationships I'm going my way God you've got a way to to serve and be generous that'll bless the community but I may lose I may not get all that I need so I'm going my way God you say to trust you and pray for comfort no I don't trust you to deal with the hurt in my whole I'm going I'm holding my heart I'm going to this beverage this addiction this relationship these people I'm going my way sin is a rebellion I push away from you and it broke all of this it broke our relationship with God broke our relationship with the world broke our relationship with us and Jesus steps in and says let me just not deal with your presenting issue I got to deal with this anger issue I gotta deal with my eating issue I gotta deal with I drink too much I gotta deal with like no no no no there's something deeper than that we can get you sober but what made you drink like that to begin with we can get you out of this toxic relationship but why do you keep going back to relationships like that hey we can deal with some of the Brokenness in your body but what's leading you to treat it this way and to never stop working why is rest anathema to you some of us come to Jesus with our presenting issues and he wants you to but when he does he takes the scalpel and goes a lot deeper than you want him to go you just need to know he's like that heal this paralysis no I got to get deeper into the pain than that sins now the religious leaders in the back don't like it they say that's blasphemy who can foresee forgive sins but God Alone Jesus says your sins are forgiven he can't do that you're not supposed to talk like that right when you sin you sin against the person you hurt and The God Who made them right like let's say you two are fighting right not getting along and it started on text a little passive aggressive then it got aggressive you're trying to poison each other's Social Circle it's turned dark okay now imagine I came up and said hey I forgive you and all that you've ever done I absolve you you'd be like who the heck are you like you're not in this and you're not my daddy like you are you are a third party you're not a part of this you're not the authority to do that and here Jesus looks at this guy and says I forgive you and the Pharisees in the back are just flowing throwing penalty Flags like he can't talk like that can't say that so Jesus asked him a question which you think is easier to say your sins are forgiven or say to a paralyzed guy get him and walk which is easier yeah if you notice in the text they're as quiet as you are uh let me give you the answer the answer is both neither I mean in one sense saying your sins are forgiven is easier because who knows if it really happened saying get up and walk to a paralyzed guy is harder because we're all about to know if you got the juice to pull that off but on the other side only God can actually forgive sins infinitely harder and so Jesus says so that you know that I have the authority to forgive your sins get up and walk and he ties them together and the guy gets up and walks out of that place now I want you to notice if Jesus would have said God forgives you they wouldn't have gotten upset they're like well God does forgive TBD if he forgives that guy but sure God forgives if Jesus said I love you they'd be like okay well whatever he loves all kinds of people but when Jesus says your sins are forgiven they say you can't talk like that and then he shows them oh yes I can I am the solution for your sin I can take away your shame I can deal with your presenting issue what brought you to church I just got to get my life wired I got to get things together I got to sober up I gotta whatever yeah yeah all that's probably true but there's some deeper things going on here deeper personally and deeper at an elemental level all of us are made in the image of God and all of us are desperately broken by sin and we don't need Jesus to just solve some of our external problems so we can go on destroying our lives he needs to do a deeper work I need to put my hands on the place of shame I need to put my hands on the Deep sin that has alienated you from yourself and the community and God I want to put my hand there and heal you deeper than you even know right and I'm the one who can do it he can take shame away he has the power to he wants to he has the will to but he will work on you deeper than you're ready for him to work but you got to let him and acknowledge that you're sick that's the last story it says after this what's this the claim of authority to forgive sins and kind of backing it up and everybody freaking out about this guy remember that story ends but they were all amazed we've seen amazing things so right after this this crowd is floored great finale to a good show it says when they're walking out when all eyes are on him you saw it says and he went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth now that word saw uh is uh means to look at or observe uh to consciously identify right uh we we differentiate in our inflections you know you see that guy did you see that guy see we sort of emphasize a word to say it was a little bit different in Greek they had different words the language this was originally written in it's not just that Jesus saw that guy because Jesus eyes work that's the word observe it means a conscious choice to notice something right that's the word Luke chooses Jesus walks out of this crowd they're all freaking out and they're in this throng of people that all want to be around him he sees that guy and he sees that guy in the booth and there's no mistaking who he is that's a tax booth that makes you a tax collector that means everyone in this crowd hates you you were held in the lowest esteem In This Crowd right Tax Collectors secured contracts to the government to extract taxes from the people and their payment was I get to mark up the taxes and take the profit so if you're working hard I get to decide how much of your things I want to take and you can't do a thing about it and it was a reminder particularly to the Jewish people that you were dominated by a foreign power of Rome so this is one of your brothers that went to work with your oppressor and he was holding you down and he can extract from you as much of your money as he wanted and you couldn't do a thing about it you can't appeal to the government he works for the government you can't do anything except make sure that at a personal level that guy feels most unwelcome I may not be able to physically hurt you but we're gonna all make sure you are canceled there's no dinner parties for you no eye contact for you we're going to make sure you feel from all of us we don't like you not welcome here right and then here's the crazy thing he's not a chief tax collector that's what Zacchaeus Was Right that means you're higher up in the ranks this is just a regular tax collector that's who sits in the booth Chiefs don't sit in the booth regular guys sit in the booth we all know this that's how the world works right and so you're not just a bad guy you're low on the wrong bad guy you are in cop movies you know there's the the guy they grab at the beginning that works for the big drug dealer that they shake down you know the scum they pump for Edge information he doesn't even have the good qualities of the top bad guy as Sinister as he is at least he's you know courageous Brave creative you're just you're scum you're nothing we shake you down and throw you loose your garbage that's who's working at the booth right and Jesus season walks over to him initiates and says follow me he doesn't say I need you to do some things for me he says I want you to associate with me I want you and verse 28 says in leaving everything he rose and followed him I remember when I was a kid I would read verses like that and Jesus walked up to Levi and said follow me he left everything and followed him and I'm like fake like who does that like honestly who if you walk up to him and say drop everything you've ever known come with me like okay I ain't got much going on you're like the people real people don't do that but they do in this situation when everyone hates you and you feel it when there's no hiding anymore and it's not just that I feel ostracized you are ostracized and yet the hero in the story walks out with a throng around him sees you breaks stride walks straight to you in front of God and everybody and says I want you Jesus already preached the sermon leave I don't need to hear anything else you serious you're gonna Park the waters and come to me I mean you have an understanding of who you're dealing with here well forget this Boozled yes I'm coming and Levi does what any of us would do in a moment like that he throws a party because when Grace comes to you when you know you are guilty you celebrate it becomes worship you don't have to fake it and he throws a party and the Pharisees grumble I love it because the word grumble in Greek is in onomatopoeia onomatopoes are words that sound like what they are like bam and pow it's the word so because it sounds like grumbling it isn't the Pharisees that's what they do because they're like what is this why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners why are you hanging out with those people don't you know where they were last night they were at the Howard and they were not worshiping and I love Jesus answer he doesn't say like y'all need to relax all right just be cool man what we're doing is awesome to each his own and Jesus doesn't go like oh gosh you're right sorry Matthew look what did Jesus say they're sick I'm the physician that's why I'm here so he doesn't affirm their lifestyle he says what they're a part of is broken and it's not working for him but I'm not here to shame them I'm here to save them so I'm not moving away from them I'm moving towards them because if you're just a normal guy back then and you touched a leper you didn't make them clean they made you unclean if you hung out with a sinner you didn't make them clean they made you unclean but Jesus puts himself in a different category I'll tell you why I'm with them it's because I'm the one who can make the unclean clean I'm the one who can take shame away I am in a category all my own I remember the church I went to Growing Up had children's church during the Gathering at the beginning they would call all the kids down front and they would have one of the Elders of the church come and do it like a little mini lesson for the kids before they released us to Sunday school right and I remember one year they invited one of the elders to speak and he got up there and he sat down and he pulled out a fishbowl filled with water and says what's this we were like water and then he pulled out this picture full of dirt what's this dirt they dumped the dirt in the water stirred it up what's that mud and then he pulled out a white tube sock Ed it on his arm dumped it in the mud and he pulled out this muddy sock and he looked at his kids and he went why did the sock get dirtier but the dirt not get suckier ask your parents then he woke up and to my knowledge he was never asked to do children's church again but I never forgot it and you could look at that and go well some of that is was to illustrate that bad company corrupts good character right if you go and hang around with some bad folks it's going to rub off on you the Bible talks about that right and so if you're like I'm Gonna Save All My Friends by getting drunk with them what's happening you're probably not going to win that one and yet what happens here is Jesus flips the script Jesus says yeah but I'm something else uh the dirt doesn't make me dirtier I make the dirt sock here that's who the king is I didn't come for the the clean I came for the dirty I didn't come for the well I came for the sick because I'm the great physician I can heal what's broken I can clean what's unclean I can fix you that's who I am that's our King I went to the aquarium in uh Atlanta years ago and they were showing us these Mandrake trees that that grow big and tall and they grow in the salt water and they were asking us how did these trees grow so much when I don't know and they were like how does the tree grow in salt water salts that level of salt will destroy trees they said this particular type of mandrake tree is interesting because it draws in the water it needs to win but the water's been so um so infiltrated with salt that will poison the tree they said so what the tree does is it it's extracts the salt isolates it and pumps it all into one branch and she said go look at the top of the tree and then this big full tree there was one branch way at the top that was completely dead with brown leaves hanging out the top said that tree absorbs the salt so the tree can live Jesus says I can take your shame away and I want to I'm going to work on you deeper than you think and you have to admit your need but how does he have the right to be the one who makes the dirty suck here how can he do that Hebrew says therefore since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the founder and Perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame in a seated at the right hand of the Throne of God I remember I had a young man come to me and say you just keep saying Jesus will forgive anybody but you don't know what I've done I'm not like these people and I said man if you think I'm up here just saying oh yeah Jesus will just forgive you he said you're missing it Jesus didn't just say ah it's no big deal God doesn't wink at your sin and dismiss it he says your sin is a violation of of the community I've built it violates me and it violates other people in my image and there's no excusing it and there's no hiding it shame exposed and yet rather than destroying you with that I'm sending my son to put his hands on you and say I'm making you clean I'm making you right I'm making you whole how am I doing that because he who knew no sin is going to become sin on that cross I will take your shame I will absorb it like salt extracted from the Tree of humanity I will take on your death on that cross scorning that shame and I'll bury it and when I Rise Victorious I offer hope to you and to all who will come and fall down before me admitting their need Jesus isn't like it everybody else he's not just a good teacher he's not a moral influencer he is the Holy One of God come to take your shame away because he's got the power to do it and the will to do it but he's got to deal with the deeper issue of your sin against the holy God and you gotta let him and the message of Christianity is not turn over a new leaf and try harder it's admit your need and let him change you from the inside out I will make you a cat I will make you something new George just passed away this week he was the founder of operation mobilization one of the greatest influencers for Global Christianity and generations mobilizing Christians for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ for the lost and the hurting was speaking at a conference in Washington DC years ago and they said what's the greatest threat to missions to people it's been extending the grace and love of God to the hurting he says you know what keeps so many young people from leveraging their lives extending the love of Jesus Christ to a hurting world it's their shame particularly over sexual failure and so they just hide in normal Little Lives I'll be a decent moral person and I won't believe God can use somebody like me and I just want to tell you you don't drop the mission of the Savior Jesus Christ you drop the shame at the feet of Our Savior Jesus Christ and we've joined him in his rescuing work that's the story here today so if you came in here and you're not pristine and clean and pure nobody in here is but we are sick people coming to A Healer we are lost people coming to a finder we are people coming to A Savior and a rescuer who will forgive us cleanse us make us right before God and then to send us out to be catchers of men and women for his glory she got to say yes and it'll be scary but I promise you he is not shunning the shameful he is reaching out

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 9,472

Keywords: Passion, Passion City Church, Passion Sermons, Ben, Stuart, Washington D.C., Passion D.C., christian, sixsteps, (six), passion conference, passion, passion city church worship, passion church, passion music, worship, jesus, ben stuart, DC, Shame, Guilt, Luke

Id: L2I9U_7FhoQ

Length: 45min 27sec (2727 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2023