"The War On Shame" - Various Verses

[Music] oh man you guys are too kind thank you Darren thank you for the whistle I appreciate you while I get set up I've been coming here for a while and I got to tell you our praise and worship Squad is amazing can we give him another round of [Applause] applause right so good morning um Jesse let me come back believe it or not um I did learn last time that I'm a cameraman's nightmare cuz I walked all the yes right um so I'm gon to try and reel it in today um but in all seriousness um as a marriage coach we often hear that marriage is a battlefield and it certainly is but today we're not going to talk about marriage if we're being really real life is a battlefield and we are in a war and we've been in a war since the devil got kicked out of heaven and the garden came and with that in this war against evil every time we step out the front door every time we wake up even Even in our household spiritual tyranny awaits and boy can't wouldn't you say that we're we're going through some tyranny Tyrant times but the tyranny of the devil and his arsenal of weapons man oh man he's got a bunch and some of those weapons are tangible weapons some of those weapons are intangible but one thing is for sure his weapons are definitely effective in their destructiveness so before we dive in I want you guys to participate with me in an exercise group exercise some of you are like oh my gosh but no we're going to do this as a group I think we need to do this as a one as one body and as a unit so I want all of you to grab your bible take a second if you don't have a Bible there's one in the Pew in front of you if you can avoid using your cell phone for just this one exercise I encourage you to do that Marlin you're my guy now will all of you take a stand will you please stand with me for a second I know I'm that guy you guys it's like aerobics in here today so on the count of what I want you to do is hold your Bible with your right hand now not up yet your shoulder's going to get tired but I want you to hold your Bible down by your left hip I'll I'll help you out I see some of you right hand left hip right on the count of three I want you to raise your Bible on the count of three and I want you to hold it up for a second if some it's going to be a little bit of a shoulder exercise for you I know but just bear with me for about 20 seconds you ready one two three okay now I want you to take a second I want you to look around look around left right behind you and here's why this is important keep them up I think we know we have a God of Angel Armies but we're an army too and this is our sword some some of our swords have a lot of dust on them and so how can we go into spiritual warfare only on the defensive you can go take a seat we have power too church God gave us the armor of God but in that armor he also gave us a weapon and the greatest weapon is the truth because the spiritual warfare that we're in we're fed lies every day let's pray Lord thank you for this time thank you for this moment we welcome your Holy Spirit Lord have your way soften Hearts open minds and let Spirits be filled today let your Holy Spirit flood this room so we leave here with a better and deeper relationship with your son Jesus in Jesus name amen so when I came back to the Lord 10 years ago some of you know my stories something you don't I'll spare you but when I came back to the Lord 10 years ago Mariah and I started seeing a marriage counselor and that counselor told me some of the greatest nuggets that I still carry today and share with other people but one of the greatest things that he told me in terms of my spiritual walk was during our first session so much was revealed about me who likes to be told about themselves not me right but boy did I hear a lot about myself and the things that I needed to work on and I realized how much work I needed to do to better myself as a Christian as a husband a father and really as a man because at the time I was at best a 30-year-old boy if I'm being honest and he told me in my I think he can sense that I was overwhelmed and I was discouraged because I just knew here's where I was here's where I'm trying to go and that's a really big gap and that just seemed impossible and he said it's not going to happen overnight it's a process and I started to learn the sanctification process and what that means and and I was really going to do the whole the sermon today on sanctification process and then I realized whoa that is a whole series worth of stuff how do you how do you put that in 30 minutes but he said don't Focus focus on the things you can't do the things you shouldn't do don't focus on your past and that's tough a lot of us have a brutal past whether it's self-inflicted or we're a victim of circumstances but it's tough and then he went on to say just focus on spending time with Jesus focus on spending time in the word and fellowship and those other things of old well over time they'll flesh out automatically because you won't even be spending time on those things and you'll stop thinking about those things because you'll be thinking about Jesus and what he wants to do with your life and that's why today I wanted to talk about shame I think shame cripples so many of us I think it hinders us I think it bogs us down I think it overwhelms us and I think it makes from getting a to to B seem impossible and so if there's one key takeway that I would have you take home today it would be this if Christ lives in us then the power of Christ lives in us which means consequently sin no longer has power over us we just have to step in that power and then walk in it so when we do sin I think we get confused I think we're we're confused on how we're supposed to feel how we're supposed to respond how we're supposed to react and things alike and so I think we struggle with feeling a shame because we think shame and guilt are synonymous with each other and I can tell you right now without a doubt guilt and shame are not two and the same and I think people get this mixed up so I want to bring Clarity today guilt can be defined as feeling responsible or regret for a perceived offense real or imaginary it can be part of the grief reaction in other words guilt really comes off and is conviction probably heard that word before in our Bible in our sword and you've recognized the beauty of conviction is you've recognized you've done something wrong in the eyes of the Lord and you feel some type of way about it you don't feel the same you're no longer comfortable in your sin that's healthy that's really healthy and the Holy Spirit humbles us to return to God by way of confession ask for forgiveness and then repent that's the sign of spiritual maturity and that is what we are after for church we're looking for Spiritual maturity that is the goal of every one of us in here Acts 1:8 tells us you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you you shall be witnesses to me don't get me on the Holy Spirit definitely gives us discernment gives us wisdom but also the power of the Holy Spirit as our helper is to poke us when we need some poking holds us accountable to our sin but he does not rub our nose in our sin he calls us to be humble to say sorry to repent so that we can again spiritually mature and develop but then the devil likes to come in there and he likes to take he likes to hijack that shame or that or that guilt or that conviction and he likes to turn it into shame and shame can be defined as a painful feeling of humiliation or distress by the consciousness of wrong or foolish Behavior you know we don't serve a God that wants to humiliate us I can tell you that right now without a Ben without a shadow of a doubt he does not want to humiliate any one of you and so what I found interesting as I was putting this together is how close the words humiliate and humility are to each other and isn't that like the devil just to take a little something and spit put a spin on it just to just to be deceitful Satan loves to rub our nose in our sin he loves to beat you up over it he loves to make you feel Unworthy of your life he likes to make you feel Unworthy of your family of your kids he even goes so far as to make you feel unworthy worthy to be in the presence of God and then he takes our sin and he humiliates us with it so that we don't run to God so that we don't turn to Fellowship we don't turn to prayer but instead we run to the vice of Escape which is usually more sin or busyness to distract us from the sin from the accountability or from God himself and what happens with that now a good life coach marriage coach right so I'm always about selft talk shame will your selft talk oh my gosh it turns it it it makes it brutal and if it comes and shame comes from Satan so if it comes from Satan I think we can all agree Satan's a liar which means shame is a lie if it comes from the Devil Devil Himself who's the accuser and the shame definitely sounds like an accusation think about it shame on you you should be ashamed of yourself accusation followed with condemnation and when that influences your selft talk your selft Talk starts to go little something like this and it's loud it is so loud it's almost unavoidable one of the things you may hear this again really you're not worthy of God God's not trying to play with you again he's not messing around with you he doesn't want to hear about this again another thing he might say your loved ones don't deserve you they deserve better than you you'd be better off dead you should numb this pain by escaping through whatever form of Temptation he puts in front of you you should isolate you're an embarrassment you can't tell anyone about this and now you Harbor this shame because there's no release or Outlet by means of confession most people in their humiliation want to shut the voice of Shame up so bad that they turn to drugs alcohol pornography violence food isolation even to the point of suicide I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like Jesus to me so in that [Music] humiliation we enter this cycle that the Holy Spirit put on my heart back in 2015 and I was in this cycle myself and it's the shame cycle and so what this looks like yep it's crazy how this works so you'll send you'll feel conviction of the Holy Spirit hey you shouldn't do that wrong okay but then the then the the Devil comes and hijacks that conviction and he rubs your nose in it and you feel shame and then you want to shut shame up so bad that what do you do you usually don't turn to God because you don't feel worthy enough to go back to God so you go sin again and what what the way that looks like and then you feel guilty then the shamed then and you're just on this vicious cycle and I see it I've seen it in my life and I see it in so many other people's life on a daily basis but back to the key takeaway if Christ lives in us then the power of Christ also lives in us and if the power of Christ lives in us then sin no longer has power over us but there's a caveat there if the power of Christ lives in us then sin no longer has power over us if we choose to believe it enough to walk in it God is a gentleman he's not going to force you to receive Grace he's not going to force you to come to confess he's not going to force you he is a gentleman so what I want to do today I know a guy I want to give you ample evidence to help you believe enough so you can walk in truth about how God sees you Galatians 2:20 says it is Christ who lives in me I am Cru crucified in with Christ and it's no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me I'm glad you're here craigy boy my buddy Craig taught me we were talking about C how Christ brings Freedom a couple years ago and it's really stuck with me and I share it with other guys all the time and I love that we sang the song about Freedom today so Craig told me a while back it's not not just about freedom from but it's about freedom to it's freedom from sin and shame freedom from bondage freedom from the shackles but when you're free from that means you are free to walk in Grace free to walk with Christ free to live according to your purpose so once you're free from you almost have this obligation to yourself really to be free to walk in those things but just because we accept Christ it doesn't mean think life gets easier I'd actually make an argument to the contrary I think it I think life sometimes gets harder when we go all in with Christ because this thing happens you have this heightened awareness about how much you need to repent and I guess the argument I would make is when you when you go all in with Jesus no life does not get easier and actually I do think it gets harder but it gets better and there's something to that James 1 2 through 4 it's one of my faves my brethren count it all joy when you fall into various trials time out it doesn't say if you fall into various trials it says when you fall into various trial it's an absolute statement right there cuz I I dare someone right now if you have not been in a trial yet raise your hand right but it says count it all joy when you fall into various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience what I love about that for a second just a side note 1 Corinthians 13:4 we don't have the slide don't worry Ness but 1 Corinthians 13:4 says say love is patient so if the testing of your faith is producing patience an element of love then let's read this again a little differently my brethren count it all joy when you fall into various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces love but let love patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete there's something about this struggle guys and let's let's be clear we're going to struggle in various ways to include sinning by way of self- sabotage that's what sinting is really we're not just going to struggle in in in spiritual warfare spiritual attacks and circumstantial hardship we are going to sin and that's why we're in the war against shame because we got to know what to do with that so here's some good news and there's plenty of it guys that's why we need this sword Romans 1011 anyone who believes in him will not be put to shame honestly I feel like I can just drop the mic right now and go home it's right there anyone who believes in him will not be put to shame caveat you got to believe in him which is why I'm here to give you as much evidence as I can to help you believe 1 Peter 4:16 yet if anyone suffers as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in this matter so that means we're going to suffer but there's something to the suffering it's it's it's necessary and if you're looking to just be comfortable as a Christian okay but I'll tell you straight up the comfort zone is where your dreams and your purposes go to die but in our suffering there's learning there's development and there's growth this is why I like 2 Timothy 1:12 for this reason I also suffer these things nevertheless I am not ashamed from for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep the Comm the commitment that I have given him today walk in it church he died for you not so that you can waste the cross on on shame the lie but walk in that obedient Freedom there's a paradox for you obedient Freedom that doesn't even make sense to the world but we as Christians we understand understand what obedience to Christ means because there's freedom from and there's freedom to when you go all in with Christ you know what's a shame killer I love killing shame I love helping people kill their shame Grace you ever been you ever been down on yourself afraid maybe nervous to go confess it to somebody whatever that may be and they hit you with arms open wide it just kills all your shame and you feel loved for a minute which is why I love second Corinthians 12:9 so much thank you Brad for bringing this to my attention like a year and a half ago when I did okay confession usually in the past when we're going to have a guest speaker that was a day off at church for me I didn't want to come and be the guest speaker because Jesse's my guy but the Holy Spirit put it on my heart like no dude you're part of this church you're part of the ministry you need to go participate and support whoever the guest speaker is it happened to be Brad that day and he I sat in the back row which you guys know I don't I always sit right up here right but I sat in the back row because I just wanted to hide CU I was just in a foul mood I was overwhelmed shame was crushing me and Brad brings up this verse and really he went through the whole I think it was 7 through n talks about the thorn Born In the Flesh and Paul's asking hey God please take this thing from me and the Lord says nope because Jesus said my grace is sufficient for you this one's for my addicts I'm one I hear you bro if we're being real right now we're all addicts I think think we just associate addicts with drugs and alcohol and I get it drugs and alcohol have a more egregious and a more immediate impact on our life our family our kids our health etc for sure I won't make an argument against that but I do see on a daily basis how much marriages and families are being torn apart by this new drug the cell phone relationship killer I can't tell you how many couples Mariah and I coach the phone the my goodness the phone but not only is it a relationship killer it's a date night killer it's a physical intimacy killer because of the access to porn and things alike sugar major addiction television sports Youth Sports knowledge is an addiction some people are so addicted to knowledge that they never take the time to act out that knowledge and turn it into wisdom some people are addicted to therapy I see it some people are addicted to sleep some people are addicted to the weekend if you're like me you're addicted to time and exercise how many of you you don't have to raise your hand kind of rhetorical because I know I can probably I know it's most of us right but how many of you tried to quit something or throttle back to moderation what is moderation right it's so subjective how many of us have asked God to take that thorn in our flesh away but he hasn't why why doesn't he take that thorn away I think it keeps us coming back to him Keeps Us humble don't get me wrong you guys and the last thing I want you to think of when I'm up here talking is that his grace is a license for you to go sin that is not what I'm saying his grace should actually encourage you to repent which we'll get to in a few just so no one feels condemned by me that's the last thing I want you to feel when I'm up here I'll just tell them myself for a second I like to do that apparently I have an addiction to exercise now it's like I've gone from one addiction to the next I think that's what we all do right and I think if we're all being honest we all struggle with idolatry in some way because I think we all struggle to keep Jesus at number one in our life because there's something else that's competing with that and idolatry is a form of addiction and addiction is just a form of idolatry so they kind of T in the same so for me I'm an exercise guy and it's it struggles with becoming an idol I struggle with exercise being more of an outlet than prayer and sitting in God's presence and Grace than I than I do just just I just do that instead of going always going to swim laps or lift weights and God humbled me I'll to be honest because I refused to humble myself I was pushing my fitness journey onto my wife I was pushing it onto my kids all the meanwhile my body is crying for rest and I'm just like terrible selft talk but don't be a right suck it up let's go guess who got injured this guy and it slowed me down so that I can connect with my wife and kids it slowed me down so that I can can connect with the Lord and slowed me down so that I can connect with me and really do some self-inventory and self in inspection and the devil and I was feeling guilty and the devil definitely wanted to try to hijack that and turn it into shame side note I think some of us sit in shame because we think we need to show others that we're aware of our failures I know I've been guilty of this I would hang my head for a couple of days in humiliation so that people would know that I have an understanding of where I fell short but that's not Christ at all in fact according to Hebrews 2:11 and I love this both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are the same family so Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters Jesus is not ashamed to call you brother or sister Jesus ain't ashamed of you so you shouldn't be ashamed of you Jesus knew you'd sin over and over and he still got on that cross will you allow yourself to be free by seeing yourself to the lens of Christ I hear people in their prayer life say help me to see so and so through the lens of Jesus help me to see these people through the lens of Jesus and I challenge you to ask God to help you to see yourself through the lens of Jesus changes the game will you allow the Holy Spirit to comfort you in your learning experiences and shortcomings notice I didn't say comfort you in your failures I think if we learn from these mistakes they're just learning opportunities so that means you just have wins and learning opportunities winds and growing pains do you even know what the Holy Spirit sound sounds like when you make a mistake or you just hear the shame I'm going to help you out cu it's taking me a while to get here Holy Spirit we went over shame and Satan selft talk what that sounds like the Holy Spirit inspired selft talk it's a little better it's a little Kinder it's a little softer it's a little gentler is that a word when one thing he'll say there's about six things he'll say when you mess up come to me I love you and my grace is sufficient he gives you a gentle invitation he'll say I'm not asking for Perfection Own It confess it and repent from it there's gentle instruction he'll say talk about it with somebody to someone you trust in who you love and loves on you Gentle Direction then he'll say things like this is why you accepted Christ in the first place because you need a savior and you'll always need a savior is a gentle reminder another thing he likes to say is no one's too far gone from God gentle truth and one of my favorites a righteous man falls down seven times but gets up again and that's a Proverbs there's gentle encouragement without belittlement I'm pretty good at encouraging myself but there's usually some belittlement in there don't be a beep don't right i' I've beat myself up sometimes in my encouragement and I've had to learn that that's not Christlike so why would I talk to myself in a way that Christ isn't going to talk to me why would you talk to you in a way Christ isn't going to talk to you these are some things to listen to when you feel conviction after you sin it's not loud and condemning like the like Satan and shame it's gentle and encouraging and so as we begin to wrap this up okay we're going to stamp this one with some positive and some encouraging scripture then we're going to give you a chance to welcome Christ into your heart so that you can be freed from shame and be free to live freely Isaiah 544 I didn't even know it said all this when I knew the first part I didn't even know the rest but in my version okay my version it says do not be afraid you will not be put to shame do not fear disgrace you will not be humiliated didn't even know that word was in there until I got to the end of this and I thought that was really kind of cool little wink from God but then there's this really cool part later on in Isaiah it goes on to say Isaiah 617 instead of your shame you will receive a double portion and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in inheritance and so you will inherit a double portion in your land and everlasting Joy will be yours man Everlasting Joy I can't but I know a guy and so how do we break the shame cycle how do we break this sin guilt shame sin guilt shame how do we get off that hamster wheel of just shame starts with repentance there confession then there's repentance and I don't know if everybody in here knows that the word repent means so I don't want to just assume but just bear with me if you already know but to repent means to literally turn away you're going this way towards your sin and you just make a 180 and you go the other way and it's a decision it's not a oneandone decision it is continual it is continual it is continual Galatians 51 tells us it is for Freedom that Christ has set us free he wants you to be free stand firm do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery his yoke is easy repentance is not one and done takes a minute sorry it takes a long while to learn new habits to build new habits give yourself some Grace Jesus is give yourself some love Jesus is give yourself some gentleness Jesus is listen Jesus died for you again knowing what you would do all your days on this Earth he's not caught off guard at one time God sent his son just for you he doesn't make mistakes and if he doesn't make mistakes and he allowed you to have life that means you're not a mistake quit treating yourself like you're a mistake you're going to stumble you're going to struggle you're going to make some bad decisions along the way join the club it is a very all-inclusive Club everybody is is part of this club but Jesus and the cross so will you leave your shame here today will you leave your shame here today will you take your guilt to the cross and confess it and repent will you receive Grace will you walk in obedient Freedom will you choose to no longer let sin have power over you because you've had invited Christ Christ to live in you will you break this cycle of shame in your life and when you sin and you feel the Holy Spirit poke you and bring conviction will you choose to confess it and repent from it so that you can grow from it and spiritually become mature let's not waste another moment of this precious life that God has given us let's not waste a cross on shame the enemy wants to shame you he wants to humiliate you he wants to condemn you but instead I hope that you guys choose to allow Jesus to liberate you is there anybody in here today who's struggling with shame yeah yeah would you guys have the courage to come up here and get prayed for real quick come on this what we do as a body guys we're a unit we're a church when they say call in the calvary when they say call in the we're Calvary I need all my prayer team if we can get people up here to lay hands on these guys and I'm going to close us in prayer and then we'll invite the worship team to come up and do their [Music] thing

Channel: Calvary Chapel North Phoenix

Views: 217

Keywords:

Id: JdCWImm8Pes

Length: 35min 40sec (2140 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024