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[0:00] Well, glad to have you all here at Squamish Baptist Church as we exalt Jesus as King, equip his followers for ministry, engage the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[0:20] My name is Dave Nannery. I am the associate pastor here at this church and looking forward to delivering God's word to you today. So let me pray for us and then we will continue hearing this message from scripture.

[0:38] Thank you, Father, that we have your words which speak wisely. For there are many things about us and about our lives that we, that escape our notice or that we have deceived ourselves about or that just simply we have not been told, have not been instructed in.

[0:57] And so we need your help, Lord God. Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to understand all that you have in store for us today. Lord, I pray that you may grant me even above and beyond what spiritual help you've given me in preparing this message.

[1:16] May you grant me even more than that in delivering, Lord God. Lord, we need your help to be able to know and to understand what the gospel says to us and how it directs our eyes and our attention towards our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

[1:34] Amen. Well, last week we learned about the voice of shame and how we managed it. And if you were here, then you had that opportunity to do that.

[1:44] Our hope was to have a recording for anyone who didn't. But then we had some major computer problems. Recording is lost. So if you did not, if you didn't hear it and if you're like, hey, I want to know more about that.

[1:58] How, what is, what does shame look like? How do I identify it? How am I managing it in my life? Then just come up to me after the service and I'd be happy to email you a PDF of the sermon manuscript just so you can read through it in your own time.

[2:14] But one of the things we learned about shame is that whether kind of a gut feel or whether it's kind of a voice in our head, shame says things to you like you are not fill in the blank enough.

[2:25] You're not fill in the blank enough. It's that sort of sense of insecurity. Or in an even more intense form, it says you're just trash because fill in the blank.

[2:36] And that can be a more difficult, terrible sort of shame. Shame pushes you to be better, do better, so that you'll feel better about yourself, so that you can finally feel like you're okay.

[2:51] Shame, it exists in that psychological order of our mind, in the way that you think and feel about yourself. And shame also exists in the social order of your family and community, the way that others think and feel about you, what their voices say, what the way they treat you says.

[3:10] And the biblical counselor, Ed Welch, he explains, shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, because of something done to you, or something associated with you.

[3:25] You feel exposed and humiliated, or to strengthen the language, you are disgraced because you acted less than human. You were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.

[3:41] And this is really a big deal. We learned last week that the Bible talks endlessly about shame.

[3:52] Once you have eyes to see it, you can't unsee it. The Bible will not stop talking about it. God sees shame as a huge problem. And whether we admit it or not, you see it as a huge problem too.

[4:08] Because we spend a lifetime cultivating ways to cover your shame, ways to hide your shame, ways to point at other people so they don't see your shame, they see somebody else's.

[4:21] We live that way. We pour enormous amounts of energy into that. Sometimes we even hide it from ourselves. We don't even realize that's what we're doing. But in the end, shame traps you alone in the dark.

[4:35] You are convinced. You're the only one who feels this way. Shame weighs you down. Shame makes every step and every breath more difficult than it needs to be.

[4:48] You manage shame through all these sinful means. All that hiding, all that covering, all that pointing, and it just clings to you. And you can't seem to stop doing it.

[5:01] At its worst, shame leaves you exhausted, out of energy, miserable, hopeless, alone in the dark. All that you can see is yourself and your weakness.

[5:17] And to this, the Lord speaks these words from Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 2. He says, You see, God silences the voice of shame by commanding us, look to Jesus.

[6:10] Look to Jesus because Jesus is the one who silences shame forever. And these verses speak all about the shame that Jesus endured on the cross.

[6:23] Because there, Jesus Christ defied the power of shame on the cross. The cross, you know, it's a symbol that we have grown so familiar, so used to, because we don't use crosses anymore to crucify people, thankfully.

[6:41] We've lost, just through our sense of repetition, of seeing the symbol over and over and over again, and not experiencing what it actually was, we have lost our sense of what the cross really was, because the cross was the ultimate symbol of shame and reproach.

[7:00] The Roman Empire did not crucify people just to make them suffer, although you suffered a lot when you were crucified. But the suffering wasn't really the main point.

[7:13] Rome crucified people to shame them forever. That's what crucifixion does. Rome would crucify you to make sure that no one ever spoke about you in polite company ever again.

[7:34] If you kill someone, you might make a martyr of them. If you crucify them, no one ever wants to be associated with that. The scholar F.F. Bruce says, To die by crucifixion was to plumb the lowest depths of disgrace.

[7:55] It was a punishment reserved for those who were deemed most unfit to live, a punishment for those who were subhuman. Crucifixion makes sure everybody knows you are less than human.

[8:11] You are unworthy. To even bear the title human. The Gospel of Mark tells us all about this shame that Jesus endured during his trial and his crucifixion.

[8:26] Because one of the main themes in Jesus' trial, his crucifixion, all that he went through, is that Jesus was humiliated and Jesus was made into a joke.

[8:39] Think about that. Picture that in your mind. Picture the shame of being humiliated, ridiculed, made into a complete joke in these scenes. As I read them from Mark chapter 15.

[8:52] The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is the governor's headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

[9:06] And they began to salute him. Hail, King of the Jews! And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.

[9:17] And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

[9:36] And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

[9:47] And they crucified him. And divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him.

[10:01] And the inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers. One on his right and one on his left.

[10:13] And those who passed by derided him. Wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself and come down from the cross.

[10:26] So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others. He cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.

[10:41] Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. You see, the cross, it brought to Jesus terrible suffering. But it was what made it so bad, beyond the suffering.

[10:56] Something that can be even worse than the sheer physical suffering itself. This was the shame that Jesus endured. He humbled himself, as Chris read earlier in the service.

[11:10] He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Not just any death. Even death on a cross. Jesus was brought so low.

[11:23] Do you notice in this passage? It does not get any lower than that. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. You're less than even the other people being crucified.

[11:37] He was made the scum of the earth. He was made the laughingstock of the world. How do you endure the cross?

[11:53] How do you endure such an overwhelming storm of shame? When you are plunged into shame this intense, there is no amount of covering that works.

[12:07] I mean, they stripped him of his garments. He didn't even have that as a covering. There is no hiding when you are raised up on a cross at a major crossroads and everyone passing by can see you.

[12:19] There is no pointing because everyone is pointing at you. Shame can no longer be managed away.

[12:35] Jesus chose this. He chose not to manage away shame at all. He chose even, by the way, you'll notice they will, one of the things is they offered him wine mixed with myrrh to dull the experience for him and he wouldn't take it.

[12:52] He would not hide from the experience of shame. No covering for Jesus. No hiding for Jesus. No pointing for Jesus.

[13:02] He did not manage his shame. He did not sin in that way. Not even once. 1 Peter 2, Peter writes, He committed no sin.

[13:17] Neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

[13:35] He did not manage his shame, but entrusted himself to the vindication of God. There on the cross, Jesus defied the power of shame.

[13:51] That's why Hebrews 12 verse 2 says that, For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame.

[14:02] He did not manage the cross. He endured it. He walked right through it. He disregarded its power over him, and he silenced the voice of shame and the voice of the cross forever.

[14:20] How did he do it? There is only one way to answer mocking and ridicule. That is what's so hard, is when people are mocking you and ridiculing you, you tense up, you get so defensive, you get overwhelmed, because what do you say to the mocking and the ridicule?

[14:37] What do you say when you are the butt of the joke? There is only one way to answer mocking and ridicule, to answer scorn and contempt. When a professional athlete is ridiculed by the media, when he is shamed, there is only one way to silence all those voices of shame.

[14:57] He silences them all by winning. He wins, and they are put, they themselves are put to shame. He turns everything around.

[15:10] All his accusers are silenced. And so it is with Jesus Christ. Jesus silenced the scorn and the shame, and he did it by winning.

[15:21] He silenced the accuser by rising from the dead. Nobody who had been crucified had ever done that before. That is why all this mocking, we read it right now, and it holds no power over us, because all that mocking means nothing at all when Jesus Christ rises from the dead.

[15:47] He despised the shame. He showed it was not a threat to him. He showed that it could not deter him from the joy set before him. Instead, Jesus died, and he rose again, triumphant, just as he said.

[16:03] Jesus ascended into heaven, and Hebrews 12, verse 2 says, he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

[16:17] Who now can shame the triumphant, victorious Son of God? Jesus is the one and only champion.

[16:29] Jesus wins the victory over Satan, and he wins the victory over death itself. And he does it through his love of the Father and his dependence on the Spirit.

[16:42] Jesus' secret was he had this union with God, this oneness with God, that allowed him to endure the cross and to despise the shame.

[16:57] You get to have that too. If you are a Christian, the joy that was set before Jesus is a joy that he shares with you.

[17:15] You win the victory. You don't win the victory through your own triumph. You don't win the victory through your own triumph. When King Saul and the people of Israel faced the Philistines and their champion Goliath, the Israelites did not win the victory through their own superiority.

[17:35] Saul was a tall man, but he wasn't that tall. They won the victory through the Messiah, the anointed one that God gave them through David.

[17:45] You win the victory, not through your own triumph, but through faith in the victory of Christ. Because on your behalf, Jesus defied the power of shame on the cross.

[18:02] And as a result, there are at least four images that God uses in the Bible to show you how Jesus Christ can silence the voice of shame for you.

[18:14] Four ways that God shows us that his heart is to shut down the voice of shame forever. First, God silences your shame by giving you a better name.

[18:27] God silences your shame by giving you a better name. God, by raising his son to life, shows glory and honor toward his son.

[18:42] That is his heart. He loves his son. He made this whole world in order to honor and glorify and elevate his son. That's the whole reason we exist is because the father loves his son and made this world for his son that he would be honored.

[18:56] And here is how the apostle Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter one. Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus and he's praying for you that you may see clearly in your heart, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

[19:13] What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe?

[19:25] What sort of power? What sort of glory? What sort of riches? According to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

[19:54] And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

[20:08] You see all this talk of riches, glory, greatness, power, might. These are honor words. Raised from the dead, seated in the heavenly places, far above.

[20:20] And he gave him to the church, to you and me. When it says he is above every name that is named, it means that the honor, the name, the reputation of Jesus Christ will forever, far exceed any other name.

[20:42] There is no other name under heaven by which men will be saved. And then Paul says, yes, and that name is for his church.

[20:53] It's for you and me. A few verses later in Ephesians chapter two, he says, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

[21:15] Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

[21:38] All the same language that he spoke of about Jesus Christ, he now speaks of about you. Because his great name above every name, you get to share that name.

[21:55] Christ has conquered death and shame. He is now raised to honor and glory and by faith in his name you are saved. Not confidence in yourself and your own name and what you can do and what you bring to the table.

[22:10] No. It's what he brings to the table. It's his name, his honor, his glory and guess what? When you are united with Christ by faith that means wherever Jesus goes you go to.

[22:23] Wherever he belongs you belong there to. Seated with him in the heavenly places. In Christ you overcome shame.

[22:34] You rise to victory. And so you share his glorious name. That's what we are told in Revelation 3, verse 12. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

[22:50] Never shall he go out of it. And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven and my own new name.

[23:08] That is what Jesus Christ says to you. By faith in Christ you have the name of God written on you. You have the name of Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.

[23:21] And you are adopted into that royal family of God and you receive the royal family name. Last week we learned that one of the ways that shame can get to you is by association.

[23:40] Even if you've done nothing bad yourself, even if nothing bad has been done directly to you, you can still experience shame by association.

[23:53] Shame apart from anything that you have done. You might be a wonderful, lovely person, but if your family name is Hitler, none of that matters.

[24:07] You're going to experience shame because of your bad name. But there's good news because it works in reverse too.

[24:21] Glory and honor can come by association too. You can receive that glory and honor apart from anything you have ever done because what if the family name that covers you is the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

[24:42] What if you are baptized into that name? God silences your shame by giving you a better name. Second, God silences your shame by clothing you in glory.

[25:00] Last week we saw how Adam and Eve felt exposed by their nakedness. The eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

[25:16] You see, they tried to cover themselves with clothing, but that clothing that they tried to make was just not enough.

[25:29] The problem was not that they wanted clothing but they just really ought to have been running around naked. You know who runs around naked and unashamed? Little kids, right? Like a one-year-old. You know, they run around naked and not ashamed.

[25:43] But they're meant to grow up and to put on good clothes. And so it is with Adam and Eve. They actually were not meant to remain naked for all eternity.

[25:58] In the new heavens and new earth, we don't have a picture of people running around naked. We have something better for them, something grown up, something mature. because the picture that we have is that they are clothed in the royal garments by God.

[26:13] We have a royal family name and we have royal garments that we are meant to wear. The dignity and the glory of good clothing. The problem is that we try to clothe ourselves, but it is God who wants to be the one to clothe us.

[26:32] We saw that in Genesis chapter 3 last week when God begins his work, this shame-saving work by clothing them in animal skins.

[26:43] That was a much better covering than what they had made for themselves. But he won't stop there because God has something even better in store for us.

[26:56] In Zechariah chapter 3, the prophet Zechariah is given this vision and he has shown this power of Satan to stand and accuse. You see, shame, as we saw last week, it was Satan who, through his deception and through his lies, he introduces shame into the world.

[27:16] And Satan, to this day, will use the voice of shame to get to you. He knows exactly how to play you like a fiddle with the voice of shame.

[27:31] And he uses that same voice of shame to accuse the high priest of Israel in Zechariah chapter 3. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

[27:53] And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?

[28:07] Now, Joshua was standing before the angel clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garments from him.

[28:21] And to him he said, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will clothe you with pure vestments. And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head.

[28:35] So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. God will not leave us naked and exposed.

[28:47] God will not leave us to our own devices to clothe ourselves and cover ourselves in fig leaves or in filthy rags. God, his heart is to give us clean and beautiful royal clothes to wear.

[29:03] This is what he does for his church, for the bride of Christ, those who are made for Christ. In Revelation chapter 19 we read, let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

[29:23] It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

[29:35] God silences your shame by clothing you in glory. That is your destiny if you belong to Jesus Christ.

[29:47] God silences your shame by washing you clean. If you want to learn all about being unclean, read the book of Leviticus.

[30:01] It's a tough read, famously. There, turns out, there are seemingly a million things that make you unclean. You get overwhelmed, you're like, how in the world do you even go through life without getting unclean?

[30:16] It's terrible. And what's terrible is it's not just impossible to not get unclean at some point, but to be unclean means you are unacceptable.

[30:27] All the signs over and over, well, you need to wash yourself and you're unclean until the evening. You can't go into the temple, you can't be around other people, you can't touch other people. Some of the worst parts of it are, you know, all these, there's like two whole chapters about, well, what about things like mold and leprosy and skin diseases?

[30:45] That makes you unclean. Leviticus 13 says, here's what a person who's got this leprosy-like disease has to do. The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, unclean, unclean.

[31:05] He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.

[31:19] Man, you thought being under quarantine for COVID was bad. This is so much worse. To be unclean is a terrible experience of shame.

[31:37] And we have done things that made us unclean. We have had things done to us that make us unclean. And we are associated and contaminated by things that are unclean.

[31:51] You know it. You feel it, don't you? In your conscience, in your heart, in your gut, you know what it feels like to be unclean. And we live in a culture that is obsessed with trying to clean up our uncleanness.

[32:08] Well, we never use that language, but that's what we do. We throw parades. We try to boost self-esteem. We try to do all these things to get respected, to get loved, to get all these things that we think will make us feel clean.

[32:27] We are trying to live a shame-free life. Our culture is obsessed with shame and honor. We never use that language, but we are. We're pouring enormous amounts of energy. How can I live a shame-free life?

[32:39] How can I make sure I never experience shame? And Leviticus says, that's impossible. You cannot live a life in which you do not experience shame. You cannot live a life in which you don't get unclean.

[32:52] You get unclean constantly. Shame is everywhere. care. We said last week, you can't go through life without getting dirty.

[33:08] But you can always know where the soap is. And in Mark chapter one, we're told about a leper who knew exactly where he needed to go to get clean.

[33:21] A leper came to him, came to Jesus, imploring him and kneeling, said to him, if you will, you can make me clean.

[33:38] Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean.

[33:51] And immediately, the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them.

[34:14] The leper says to Jesus, if you want to make me clean, you can do it. You can make me clean. That's faith.

[34:27] That's confidence. And Jesus responds. He doesn't respond the way he should have, which is with disgust. Jesus instead responds with compassion.

[34:44] He does, Jesus does the thing that you are not supposed to do. He reaches out his hand and he touches the unclean man.

[34:59] And rather than becoming unclean and contaminated himself, you know what happens? Jesus makes the man clean. His cleanness transfers over to the man.

[35:15] By association with Jesus, by connection with Jesus, he is made clean. And Jesus says, yes, that is what I want for you.

[35:33] Be clean. And then he gives the man instruction, here's how you can now be acceptable in your hometown again.

[35:46] It is the heart of Christ to give you a better name, to clothe you in glory, and to wash you clean. He does not do it begrudgingly, but from a compassionate heart.

[36:01] He wants to save you from your shame, just as he wants to save you from your sin. that is who he is, at the core of his being.

[36:17] Finally, God silences your shame by welcoming you into his home. God silences your shame by welcoming you into his home.

[36:30] Sometimes when people experience shame, it shows up as an overwhelming urge to run away, to get out, to avoid people.

[36:42] Stay far away so you don't contaminate the ones you love. I think of Peter when he, one of his early encounters with Jesus, when Jesus performs a miracle in front of him, Peter says to him, depart from me for I am a sinful man.

[37:01] Please get away. My sin has brought me so much shame, I'm going to contaminate you. Go away, please. You feel like an outcast, like you don't belong, like no one wants you around, just like a leper.

[37:22] Worst of all, maybe God doesn't want you around. I mean, yeah, okay, yeah, he technically has to let you into heaven, okay?

[37:34] The Bible says he has to forgive you, you have faith, so you get in on technicality, but he's not going to be there to welcome you in. He'll send somebody else to do that.

[37:48] Psalm 23 speaks words of hope to you if you feel like you just can't have a home with God. Psalm 23, that is one of the most well-known Psalms in the Bible.

[38:02] When I was a younger man, I used to have a little bit of, I mean, honestly, I kind of rolled my eyes a little bit of it because everybody, oh yeah, everyone loves that Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd.

[38:13] Everyone loves, you know, that talk about being a shepherd. The older you get, the more you realize it's so good. It's so good. But some of the best lines of the Psalm are saved for the end.

[38:28] You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.

[38:39] My cup overflows. We're meant to use our imaginations. We're meant to picture this. You are in the house of the Lord.

[38:55] You are a guest. at his table, at his feast. He has prepared for you the place of honor.

[39:10] It's not just you and him. You know who else is here? Your enemies. Right? All the bullies, all the people who hate you, all the people who look down on you and treat you with contempt, all the people who joke about you, ridicule you, make you feel less than, and they are going to stand there and watch what the Lord does for you.

[39:38] The Lord looks them in the eye and he takes that flask of oil that you used to anoint the honored guest and he pours it all over you. He takes your cup and he's got the best wine.

[39:53] I just love to picture the Lord just taking the wine and pouring it into your cup, making eye contact with your enemies and he just keeps pouring and pouring and pouring and it overflows and pours down the side of the cup and all over the table and he just keeps pouring and pouring and pouring, looking them in the eye.

[40:12] He lavishes honor upon you and in so doing he puts all of your accusers to shame. anyone who accuses you, even Satan himself, he vindicates you in front of all of the ones who hold you in contempt.

[40:36] Not because you're glorious but because he is. It is his goodness and his loyal love that are just relentless.

[40:48] fearless. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. The word, by the way, is not just follow, it's pursue. Surely his goodness and mercy are going to chase me down all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

[41:15] It's good to be an honored guest. But the evening ends and the honored guest goes home. But the Lord says to you, stay here forever.

[41:30] Why? Because you're in his family. Because you're part of the royal family. You belong with Christ.

[41:43] He is the royal son and you're with him. so you belong here in the house of the Lord forever. This is your home now.

[41:58] You belong somewhere. To find your home in a glorious place with a glorious family, a home where anything shameful is driven away forever.

[42:13] forever. This is the picture of our future when Christ returns. The picture of our home, the new Jerusalem.

[42:27] What's the deal with all the streets of gold and all the jewels and precious stones and everything? It's glory and honor. That's the deal. That's what that's all about.

[42:38] God will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. In Revelation 22, we read, no longer will there be anything accursed, nothing shameful.

[42:55] But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. They will see his face. His face will not be turned away and you won't have to avoid his gaze face to face.

[43:14] They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more darkness, no more hiding in the darkness.

[43:29] They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. Do you see it?

[43:42] Do you see the heart of God to save you from the voice of shame forever? There is a day coming we live in a world full of uncleanness, dirtiness, and shame.

[43:55] There is a day coming when all of that will be gone forever. When you are set free.

[44:08] It is the heart of God to give you a better name, to clothe you in glory, to wash you clean, to welcome you into his home forever. God to God. This is our God.

[44:20] This is the God who saves. And he is the only one who saves. The joy of knowing all this is that when you have eyes to see this, the whole Bible comes alive.

[44:38] We could literally just sit here for hours looking through the Bible, finding verse after verse about the honor and the glory that is God's. And that can be ours when we are with him.

[44:49] Verse after verse about all the shame that we know is there, but we know God has taken care of. The sheer quantity of scripture about this is meant to overwhelm you because the voice of shame, one of the ways it gets to you is just by repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, over and over and over and over and over in your mind and your gut.

[45:16] And the voice of God's honor and glory must speak over and over and over and over. Do you know how your father speaks? You need to keep reading your Bible because you need that voice to speak louder than the voice of shame.

[45:31] You must know your father's voice and you must know that when Satan accuses you, you can be like, that's not what my father sounds like. I know that voice. how do we take it to heart?

[45:49] It's one thing for all this to sit on our heart, but how does it soak into our heart? Read a lot of scripture, quantity, quantity, quantity, and look for these things, for the glory and honor that are yours in Christ.

[46:06] Look for all the ways that God silences the voice of shame to get this into your heart. You also, this is so important, you need to repent of all your shame management that we talked about last week, all the covering and the hiding and the pointing that we learned about, because as long as you keep doing that, you will not hear your father's voice.

[46:30] You will not, it just won't get to you, the words that he says. To experience and enjoy the glory of Christ, you have to walk in the footsteps of Christ by not managing your shame, but by entrusting your shame to your father in heaven, that he will be the one to make a name for you, and you're not going to make a name for yourself.

[47:00] That's what Jesus did. That's why we read in 1 Peter chapter 2, to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

[47:18] What were his steps? No shame management. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

[47:35] He let God take care of that. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, the right way of living.

[47:51] When you let God make a name for you, by his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

[48:09] How do we let him seek him as the shepherd and the overseer of our souls? Well, we have to be attentive to the shepherd's voice. Last week, I talked about identifying and writing down those shame messages that run through your head, that you feel in your gut, all the ones that say, you're not fill in the blank enough.

[48:29] You're trash because fill in the blank. You should be fill in the blank. All the ones that make you want to cringe and to compensate and to lie and to blame and to give up and to hide and to run away.

[48:44] Write them all down. Get them on paper. Get them out of your head and onto paper. Those words that Satan uses to weigh you down and to defeat you and to sin in order to manage them.

[48:56] For each shame message, have them all written down in front of you. As many as you know. And I want you for each one, just think through the Bible verses, the scriptures that you know.

[49:10] If you don't know a lot of scripture, just start looking. Find a verse that, and go with your gut here, okay? Find a verse that on a gut level, you just have the sense, this seems to answer the voice of shame.

[49:26] This somehow confronts that voice of shame. Somehow it challenges that voice of shame. Maybe you don't even know how it does or why it does. It just somehow seems to speak to that.

[49:39] Great. I find invariably when we do this, and maybe we need some help from other people, but invariably when we do this, God's spirit guides us to what we need to confront that voice of shame and not let it have the final say.

[49:54] Okay. Because the verse you find will take your eyes away from yourself and instead is going to lift your eyes to look at Jesus Christ, to look at the name that is above every name.

[50:12] Those verses, memorize them, repeat them, understand what they are doing. You might need some help, because in those moments of shame, boy, we get messed up, we get emotionally compromised, it's not good.

[50:32] And so you need to make plans to hold this truth, to remember it, to know what to do in those moments. Prepare yourself. Be ready to take action.

[50:44] Strap on that armor in advance so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. only a fool straps on his armor mid-battle.

[50:59] Put on the armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you can stand your ground. Prepare. Prepare to confront the voice of shame.

[51:10] Prepare to know what your father says when Satan accuses you and tempts you to despair. go to a wise, trustworthy Christian friend.

[51:23] Share these messages. This is what these messages are saying to me. Share with them these verses. Ask for help to find more if you don't know any. Talk about these things with them.

[51:34] Pray together. Ask, would you pray for me? Do you want to know what the gospel for shame is?

[51:45] It's summarized in James chapter four. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

[51:57] Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. In other words, pride tries to manage its own shame.

[52:09] Humility lets go of shame management and says, it is yours Lord. You do the saving work. I entrust myself in body and soul and life and death to you.

[52:26] And it is his name that will exalt you. God scatters the proud and brings down the mighty but he exalts those who are humble.

[52:36] The Bible says this over and over and over again so clearly that is the heart of our God. God and by saving us in this way God shows himself great and he shows himself holy and merciful and strong and for God to be exalted and glorified honors is exactly what you need if you are called by his name.

[53:02] So to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen? Father I thank you that you are a God who is good and who is glorious.

[53:15] You are great and you are good and you are with us. You are exactly what we need. You are the victory.

[53:27] You are the one who overcomes. You raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He is ascended into heaven. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

[53:46] This is his victory and his glory. There is no other name as great as his. We honor his name today.

[53:58] We exult and celebrate his name. We boast in it. It is our joy and our confidence and glory. Oh Lord God, help us to remember.

[54:12] When we look at ourselves, we pretty quickly know that we're unclean. When we look at Christ, we know that he is glorious.

[54:28] And so, we draw near to him. we sit down and we feast at his table because he has given us all the glory and honor that we could ever need.

[54:41]  Amen.