The W.O.R.D Project

Have We Lost The Shame?

 

Heb 12:1-2
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
(NKJ)

 Have we lost the shame of our sin? I had this question weigh upon my mind this weekend. It happened after I had been envisioning Jesus and the painful passion of His brutal death, and it was in this verse in Hebrew's that revealed to me something that is terribly wrong today. We have lost the shame of our sin. No longer do we find our actions, our discussions, our entertainment offensive to God, but we don't even blush at the indiscretion of our own conscience. Human psychology reveals that we as human beings take the initial shock of lewdness, indecency, and even horrible atrocities with out right anger and opposition. Yet, when we are exposed to the same environment later on our defense are dropped. We seem to accept it and move on. It is a very sad to be in a culture that drives two cars, enjoys two careers, lives in homes that are twice as large, works twice as hard, plays twice as hard, watches twice as much television, and lives as if they are twice as entitled. We seem to have forgotten the pain of standing before Jesus who was shamed for our sake. In the same way we too have forgotten the shame of our sin.

When someone turns to God their first revelation must come at the crucifixion of Jesus. It is the foundation stone of our salvation. Consider it to be the starting point. It is the place were are sins are forgiven but it is also the place where you and I repent. With the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin but without repentance there is no hope for salvation. When I see the cross in our churches and in our Christian communities and circle of friends I don't see the shame in our hearts. Our passive endorsement for sin amongts those we love and even within ourselves has thrown out the shame. And why is that? Because we no longer want to stand before God naked and feeling ashamed. Instead our sin is called "Mistakes" or "Bad Choices." How can we even describe Jesus crucifixion as a mistake by Jesus. The Apostle Peter once rebuke Jesus for what Peter thought Jesus was about to make a "BIG MISTAKE" when Jesus mentioned that He was going to Jerusalem and will be crucified. No my friends the cross is not a big mistake. It is not the blunder of the world nor is it a place we need to avoid. It is the place where we must take the world to see. For if they do not see the shame of the Savior they will never see their own shame.  And It is here at the cross that I saw the most vital aspect of our salvation lost. We have lost the reflection or our Lords shame revealing the deep shame of our own sin.  

 For me this weekend, when I saw the cross I saw something that broke my heart. I saw my Lord Jesus ashamed. I never saw him in this way before. He was falsely accused in front of the very people who were exalting him just the day before. He was beaten by the Romans so brutally and then brought out before the people in the most week and powerless condition. He was cajoled and shunned. He was shouted at and spit upon. He was presented to those He loved as a fraud. Then the worst of all shame was laid upon Him when He was made a foolish spectacle. He was stripped naked and physically nailed to a tree so He could not defend himself. He was at this moment the weakest most pitiful and pathetic representation of a man, and a man who claimed to be one who was sent as a representative by God. Have we ever considered the shame Jesus experienced? What breaks my heart even now as I write this is that Jesus did not deserve to experience such shame. What did He do to deserve this shame? As he passed by the people who taunted him and came to the place of his execution our Lord was experiencing the deepest shame a man or woman could ever experiences. When he was pinned to that wooden cross beam if was forced to experienced wave after wave of shame crash upon His heart. And all for what? For you and me friends. He loved me so much that he swallowed the full cup of my own shame. But what shame am I talking about? The shame that I was to experience once my sin was exposed before God. This is where the true power of God was to be revealed to you and me. This is where the good news would be experience is apex in our hearts. This cross we now remove from all conversion with the world did not ashame Paul to preach boldly of in the streets and synagogues. This is where the devil lost His power and control over our souls. It was all finished at the cross because it all begins at the cross. At least for you and me. This is where my sin and my shame is exposed before God. And this is where we have lost the most crucial understanding of the cross.

Now I ask you. Have we lost the shame? Do we look upon Jesus with just a passing glance? Do we pass our salvation off as just a short prayer and a " I believe Jesus died for me" statement. If you or I have never experienced the shame of our sin then we have never been to cross of Jesus. To look at Jesus on the cross is to see our shame face to face! When I saw Jesus and what He did for me I was ashamed. Not because I understood that He was dying in my place. No-No it was because when I stood in the presence of Jesus himself I was ashamed at all that I had done in His very presence. I was living in the presence of God and my life was laid naked and bear before Him. I never realized that all that I did in secret believing no one would know, or all that I did and thought in my heart was done in the very presence of God. Now I was looking at Jesus and He was covered in shame in the very presence of everyone. Now I saw what was truly happening. Jesus was bearing the shame that I would have experienced if my life if it was open before God. If God would have come to me before I had come to Jesus and His cross, I would be the one naked, powerless, before God. It is at this moment when I was standing at the cross that it wasn't Jesus who was experience the shame but me. He just took my shame upon Himself. And what I was looking at was a reflection of my sin in the face of Jesus. I was now the weakest most pitiful and pathetic representation of a man who. A man who had claimed to be good person and believed in my mind that I was going to be with God in heaven forever. Just thinking this caused me to be filled with shame.

 But this is the good news. He took that shame that day. He despised it but he took that shame so I would not have to experience it in the presence of God on judgement day. So when I see the cross I see shame. My shame. When I see sin in my life I experience the shame that hangs on the cross with Jesus. There are two places in which we can stand before Jesus in shame. One leads to forgiveness and hope the other to an eternity separated from Him. But both inevitable expose you. And in turn bring upon your heart shame. When I came to the cross of Jesus I fell to my knees ashamed of my life and the sins all done in my heart and what I thought was in secret and hidden. When I saw Jesus all my sin was exposed before Him. And I was broken with shame. This is the good news my friend. Instead of judging me there at the cross He revealed that He was dying for me in the presence of the Father. Why so my shame would be taken away and my sin would be removed in the sight of God the Father. From here Jesus promised to raise me to eternal life so I could live forever with Him and without shame. 

If we have lost the shame then we have lost the hope. And one day we will be standing before Him. However, remember this, on that day He will be dressed in glory, holiness, and righteousness and we will be the ones covered in the dark, filthy and tattered rags of our lives. Then it will feel as if we are the ones who are naked and laid bare and pin to a wooden beam. And all of heaven will look upon you and see you as the weakest most pitiful and pathetic representation of a man who claimed His own righteousness before God.

As for me I have turned to cross and accepted the fullness of my shame in the face of One who loved me...enough to take my shame for me. 

 Gal 2:20
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
(NKJ)

 

 

  

TODAY's CLEVER IDEAS ARE DESTINED TO BE YESTERDAY's FADS

I am not so sure that our current focus on creativity and cleverness should be considered as viable "tools for today." Now after much throught and overtime I see that we have sold out to technology and replaced hard labor with quick slick events and mind buzzing entertaining presentations. I must admit to myself that a lot has changed in me since I started out on this mission called ministry. I just turned 39 and I can say with assurance that I have been through the firery furnace of the refiners fire. 14 years ago Jesus entered into my life in glory and sovereignty. I bowed my knee to Him and offered to Him my life. I turned from the world in which I was living in and for, and stepped fully committed into the kingdom of the Son of God. In the beginning I sought to do as much as I could for Him. I offered every gift I had to my pastor in service to my King. I was not raised in the protestant/evangelical/pentecostal culture. So for me I had no baggage. I was a clean slate ready to set my heart a blaze for the one who redeemed me. And in those first 5 years I was used of God to bring a fresh fire to the pentecostal lifers who had been through the carpet changes of church. It never dawned on me that what I had in Christ and what Christ Jesus had set in me was not fully enjoyed and celebrated by everyone who names the name of Jesus. I am glad for those formative years. We were crazy about Jesus. We didn't run out and hand out bottles of water with our church name on it. We didn't go out and clean public bathrooms for nothing. We were different. We prayed with our co-workers and asked them if they wanted to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We opened our mouths and proclaimed Jesus to muslims in carryouts. We prayed hard and fasted often. We bent our knee and pounded our fist on the altar in intercession. We were at war with the enemy and offered peace to those around us. It was not clever or genius. It was labor. In other words it was work. HARD work! But something has changed in the last 10 years. It may have been changing well before that but I have seen the paradigm shifting drastically and evermore rapidly recently. It is like we have lost our grip, or better yet our influence, in the culture. And we, the church ministry, are frantically trying to reach out and regain a grip by any means possible.

As I had mentioned earlier I have been changed by the way I see church ministry. Let me briefly elaborate. After my first ten years of serving in ministry, my wife and I took a call to take over a church that had been abandon and pastor-less for 4 years. We were given advise at the time by those in leadership to do whatever it took. We were in our early thirties and childless at the time. We moved to a city we both were not originally from and we both had to seek employment. We worked both our full time 40 hour a week jobs to make ends meet and we also offered the other 40 hours of the week to revitalizing this church. Now most stories you read about in best selling books start off with these types of stories and end up telling you that through pain, sweat, blood, and tears God came through the church exploded in growth and our prosperity was a roller-coaster of blessings. Well done though good and faithful servant, right? Not this story. This was different. This is the story of the other 9 out of 10 churches that don't get written about. Both Jen and I had many talents and gifts. We both had experience working in large churches. We both have musical backgrounds and evangelism backgrounds. We had planned, started, and engineered outreaches of all kinds. We were fresh with ideas and dreams. For the next three years we threw everything we had at making our presence known in our community. We had other churches helping us with our events. We had hand made billboards, handed out flyer's by the thousands, wore handmade event t-shirts and publicized our church and its events by every clever means imaginable. Not only did we fill our front lawn with multiple 3 story high inflatables we made major changes to our small brick building to offer an appealing curb side appeal to the tens of thousands of cars that passed by our church every day. Because you all know that it's all about location, location, location. These are just a few of the ideas we had. I could mention many, many more that we produced all for the sake of turning this church around and to see God bless us with a growing fruitful ministry. Those were fun times and we had a lot fun. But as for results? Well that is where the story takes a turn. Our results were awful! What can I say? Maybe we should have had a profession ministry coach come in and lead us to the superbowl of church ministry.   

Was I changed because I tried and I failed? Or maybe I was changed by my feelings towards the ministry? Maybe it was my approach. Or possibility I didn't do my research to understand the demographics and my community. Maybe there is merit in all of these questions. However, in my heart of hearts I know that the answer is no to all of these. Actually what has changed are the methods and means by which Jesus desires to use to draw people into His Kingdom and out of the kingdom of darkness. Clever ideas and creative presentations are quick flashes intended to implant an experience but it fails to acheive the deep inward penetrating work that Jesus desires to work in the soul or heart of a person. These self promoting ideas are like fireworks we see on the fourth of July which are exhilarating for a moment to our senses but within minutes they are fading sparks fizzling into a faded memory. We are building peoples memories with events and not the one and only event that they will never forgot. The day they came face to face with Jesus! We even draw people to our music shows called worship services with the hook that they will have a God experience. How can you sell that to someone? I knew to young priests, called Eli's sons, who did that and God made sure they died in battle that very day.

Now after these years I have now seen pure and perfect fruit in the true labor of ministry and I am so thankful that Jesus has allowed me to fail. For I see more clearly than the day I started out on this mission. And that is Jesus has many He has called but few He chosen. I have been laboring in the fields along side the Holy Spirit and the harvest is ripe. However, I have noticed that the harvesters are either in their nicely built barns coming up with new and creative ways to get the people to visit their barns, or they have come out into the fields without a sickle and instead have notepad and pen handy to jot down what types of barns do the wheat like to sit in.

To end this post I would like to say that clever ideas and creative ministry is an american church paradigm. It was not so in the beginning. Paul never thought about using his tent making skills to create a beautiful cool hand made tent backdrop that he could use when he went into the marketplace to preach. It may sound like I am strongly against clever ideas and creative ways to reach our generation. And your right! If we want a quick draw, flash and lights, shock and awe type of ministry then we are in the wrong business. Lets leave that to the american idols. The real light show and shock and awe is seated on the throne. And when Jesus reveals himself to someone believe me it won't be because of your clever idea. It will because there heart was ripe, the Holy Spirit was present, and you were laboring  and battling the devil to help bring that soul into the Kingdom of God.

 

Acts 26:16-21
16 'But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.
17 'I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you,
18 'to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.'
19 "Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,
20 "but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.
21 "For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.
(NKJ)