Shame

Turn please to Psalm 69. Psalm 69, I would like to look just a little for the closing part of this meeting at shame. Shame may be kind of linked with discouragement but in the same sense altogether different and we're going to look at shame and I guess what's motivated me to think about this today is the fact that sometimes when people are saved they come from a what we call a very rough life and they think that the things that they have committed in the past have ruined them for the future but when a person is saved they become a new creation in Christ and those things are put away and the devil the accuser of the brethren his desire is to shame Christians into idleness, idleness.

So we're going to look at Psalm number 69 and we're going to read together at verse number five. O God thou hast known my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee O Lord God of hosts be ashamed for my sake.

Let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake O God of Israel because for thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children for the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me.

When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting that was to my reproach. Drop down with me to verse number 18 or verse 17 and hide not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily draw an eye unto my soul and redeem it and deliver me because of my enemies thou hast known my reproach and my shame and my dishonor.

My adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart and I am full of heaviness and I look for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

When we come to shame and we think here of this messianic psalm and we are in our mind now we're considering Calvary and we're considering the Lord Jesus the one who had never sinned the one who could not sin the one who is altogether lovely and yet he knew what it was to feel shame. Shame had covered his face. We read we read in verse nine that a reproach and my shame and my dishonor and there it was not for his own sin but it was for sins of others the shame of Christ and so just for an encouragement that our great intercessor knows what it is to feel shame he knows he never knew what shame was before he come into this world he never experienced it but the fact that he came and that he suffered upon the cross and all of the nakedness and all the exposure he very truly felt shame and that's part of what he bore for us upon the cross he bore our shame he pour our iniquity he suffered every aspect as a human being could suffer and he suffered shame and so now we're going to go to the new testament and we're going to look at a couple pairs of things in the new testament concerning concerning shame we're going to go to first corinthians and chapter six verse number nine know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of god be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of god now that is a tremendous list of very vile and very wicked sins verse 11 and such were some of you but you are washed you're sanctified but you are justified in the name of the lord jesus and by the spirit of our god now under link with this keep your finger here with hebrews chapter 2 hebrews chapter 2 verse number 11 for both he that sanctifyeth now remember what we just read in corinthians that we are sanctified for both he that sanctifyeth and they who are sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren he is not ashamed to call us those the committers committers of those sins those that in our past life were servants to sin and chained in sin and now we have been sanctified and he is not ashamed now i'm going to before i continue i want to just make a qualifier here if you're a believer if you're a christian this morning and you're currently living in sin you ought to be ashamed if you currently find yourself in these things or any sin and the habitual sins that are all our little pet sins we ought to be ashamed because we would be ashamed if he would come and when he comes again and we would be in those acts of sin wouldn't we and so this isn't to comfort our comfort those of us that are christians that are currently living in sin we need to be ashamed for that that is wrong that is not right and our sins have broken communion with our with our god that's not the people i'm addressing just now although with repentance and confession you can move on as well and that's god's intention that we move on and not live in shame and not live in discouragement but what he is talking here to the corinthians they come from those things that's what they were that's what they were living for and for those of you that have come out of a lifestyle of gross immorality come out of a come maybe come out of drunkenness and those things that were were so binding to you there's no doubt that in our car in our mind maybe we feel like we're second-class christians we read together here that such were some of you but you are washed you are cleansed of those things have been washed those things have been cleansed we are absolutely clean in christ it is a tremendous truth to lay hold of that the sins that we have committed in the past and that we have been saved from we have been washed revelation chapter one unto him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood we are clean positionally absolutely pure powerful to think of that transformed by the blood of christ absolutely pure and clean there is no shame in being clean unless you're a little boy little boys love dirt or maybe a dog that has to roll in something stinky because it's a shame to be clean or maybe a pig in the mire but there is no shame to be in christ none we could go down a list of things here that that we're not ashamed of we're not ashamed of the gospel why are we not ashamed of the gospel for it was the gospel that was a message that had the power that when we were saved the gospel was a delight it was it was the saving message of christ dying for our sins and we're not ashamed of the gospel sometimes we're shy and we don't tell others like we would like to but we're not ashamed of it for it is the power of god unto salvation we're not ashamed of our hope and our expectation in god romans 5 verse number 6 we're not ashamed of that our expectation is in god and as william brought forth the things coming in the future you know that is an expectation god god is so kind to tell us ahead of time the things that are going to happen and when we start to see them happen it thrills us that god is still on the throne and we're not ashamed of our expectation in god and we're not ashamed of his testimony and we're not ashamed of the suffering so then what is it that will bring us to shame it'll be dwelling upon the past sins it'll be committing current sins and what we have read together here that we are washed we are cleansed i love that but ye but ye are washed such were some of you but ye are sanctified we are set apart holy unto god coming from such a place where we were we were separated from god now we're brought nigh and we are sanctified and we are cleansed and because we are sanctified we are one with him that does the sanctifying and he is not ashamed to call us brethren i hope that brings a little encouragement to your heart today that the lord jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren oh when we think and we confess our sins day by day and we grieve because of our sin but what a marvel till we get done with that session is however short or long it might be in your life we can look back and we can read he is not ashamed to call me brother he is not ashamed that i am as in his family and we are sanctified and what else does it say here before we go on to the next it says but ye are justified declared righteous declared righteous every charge against us every charge for any of those sins we have been justified we have been declared right and there's no shame in being right unless you're proud about it declared righteous oh dear brother dear sister this morning no need to be ashamed remember i qualified that though no need to be ashamed of what you were before you were saved oh you'll think about that and that might bother you from time to time but just remember where you came from you are able to reach others what someone else cannot you are able to relate with others where someone else may be born in a christian home and pride and foolishness were and rejection of christ were were their things that they were ashamed of but you are justified justified by who the brethren no not the brethren by god ye are washed you're sanctified ye are justified now i go to another one in romans romans and chapter 6 verse number 20 for when you were the servants of sin you were free from righteousness what fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is death and so when we were the servants of sin we were free from righteousness we could not commit righteous acts we were servants of sin and as in those things in the fruit what fruit you had in them we're now ashamed as we look back for the end of those things is death now notice this it's not but ye but it's but now being made free from sin and become servants to god you have had your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life for the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord i would just like to say before we look at this is maybe there's someone here this morning and you're not saved and you're looking in your past and you are seeing a very black past and maybe you feel that you are unsavable you ever felt that i have sinned such great sins against god i have committed such wickedness in my life that i am an unsavable soul friend you are a savable soul there's salvation tonight i believe for every sinner on this side of hell from the vilest down to the littlest there is salvation and he says here what fruit had we in those things that we were now ashamed but now we are free from sin we are not under the power of sin as a believer we are not under the penalty of sin as a believer you we in our sins we were that we were the servant of sin it had the mastery over us it had power over us and we might be able to try to stop one sin but it would only lead to a worse or another sin and we were absolutely powerless powerless to say no but now we're free we're free have you noticed in your christian experience that when things pop up that used to ensnare you you can say no i don't need that no i'm not interested in that that is being set free but i want to say this there are some people that profess to be saved and they have no power over sin and they continue to revel in the things that the fruits out there of are nothing but shame and if there's someone here like that this morning bent on sin bent on feeding the flesh bent on the old things with no power over sin could i just encourage you to examine your foundation we need to be real about these things christians who have no power over sin who have never been sanctified who have never been set apart something is wrong something is wrong but now he says this you have been free from sin you have become servants to god and not serving two masters we cannot serve sin and serve god at the same time so we've been liberated from sin we've been set free from sin and we've been made the servants of god and not to have fruit and sin you have your fruit unto holiness unto holiness do you see the difference oh it is a shameful thing to be the servant of sin but what a blessed thing to be made a servant of god do you realize who you serve this morning you serve the god of heaven in whatever capacity he will he wants to use you every single one to do his good pleasure to be a servant of god what a place of dignity do you think it's a dignified thing to be a servant of god oh it carries with it all the dignity i often think of an ambassador from a nation you wouldn't send an ambassador from your country to a foreign country who was a slob because he's representing you he's representing your country but you would send a man who is a statesman or a stateswoman who moves in the dignity of the position that they are in that handles the message from the homeland with truth and with clarity and simplicity and with power and confidence that's you and i ambassadors of god to this poor groaning world to move with dignity to move with confidence in our god but i would like to just mention this that if we believe the lord is coming soon then that we are perhaps the last ambassadors of heaven to earth before the lord comes we're looking forward to him coming but until he comes you and i we are his ambassadors we are his representatives god help us to take our position seriously and our work solemnly for his name's sake we are the servants of god and i'd like to link with that hebrews chapter 11 hebrews chapter 11 verse number 16 well verse 15 and truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out we were just talking about the ambassadors they might have had opportunity to have returned but now they desire a better country that is a heavenly wherefore god is not ashamed to be called their god for he hath prepared for them a city god is not ashamed to be called our god the lord jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren that's sweet that amongst all of our failures still god is not ashamed to call us or to be our god and of all of our failures and of all of our problems god is not ashamed sometimes we're ashamed of our brethren aren't we he's not ashamed to call us brethren and we're judgmental and we're quick to point the finger but just remember this as a word of encouragement this morning you are washed you are sanctified you are justified don't bury yourself in the past forget the past and move on rejoicing in what you are in christ and just that for if we could revel in what we are in christ we would revel and we will revel and we'll enjoy the endless ages of eternity not ashamed enjoy it now dear brother and sister for his name's sake