Freedom | Our Way

Welcome, welcome to Freedom Church.

Glad that you're here.

I'm happy to see all of you.

I've been looking forward to this.

We just kicked off a new series this last week and we're eager to jump into that.

But I want to just say a special welcome to those of you that are here for the first time and maybe checking out Freedom Church this weekend.

Thank you, B.

And um I just want to say we never take that for granted.

We're glad that you're we're glad that you are here.

In fact, there's a lot of things that are happening here at Freedom Church, lots of things that are happening behind the scenes.

Um a lot of you in the room right now, there's a lot of you that are really engaged in the series right now.

And so we're in a season where we are growing relationally, we're growing spiritually.

Our whole vision around our church is built around reaching people before Jesus and then building our lives on Jesus.

And that's what's happening here at Freedom Church.

And I'm so happy that if it's your first time that you would come in and check this out.

In fact, as a as a church, can we be the best welcoming committee we can?

Put our hands together, just tell everybody, thank you.

We're glad that you're here with us for the first time.

Like I said, we started off the series uh this last week, and we've had uh groups started meeting this week.

And uh and we said we we said this there's ways to take advantage of this season.

This is a spiritual journey that we have that we have started, and and it's exactly what the subtitle is.

It's it's a journey into the life that God created us to live.

And this is about 10 weeks long, and we're saying there's a few ways you take advantage of it.

One is you be here on the weekend.

The second thing you do is you is that you get a guide.

There's a guide for sale out in the lobby, and then we're saying that you gather with your group, a community group, and a lot of you are are doing that.

Now, I will say groups are very full right now.

In fact, I think the the majority of them are now closed.

There are a few, there are just a handful that are still open, but to be really frank with you, it's the it's the most people we've ever had involved in groups.

Great job for that.

It's the most groups we've ever had on top of that.

And so I'm really proud of you for trusting us and taking that step.

Good job.

Now, I will say this before we jump into this morning in the in our topic.

I I did get some feedback this last week that there was some confusion with the groups.

There was a little bit of confusion about what to do with the book, with the guide, the message.

Then, and then for the group leaders, people show up the groups, and their leaders had group guides, and everyone's kind of like, where did you get that thing from?

And so we decided, we decided that's on me for not communicating that well enough to you.

So we're gonna correct that this morning.

So I got put we got a new plan for you.

Ready?

Okay, here it is.

Um, we be here, we're gathering corporately as a group, right here.

So this there's it's three parts that this is so we call it a spiritual growth campaign, like it's a spiritual journey, because it there's three ways we participate at corporately, so you're doing that, you're here, and when you got when you came in, you got one of these group guides.

Now, whether you're in a group or not, you're gonna get a group guide, and then you can kind of see the content for today, the little summary for what it is.

Um, if you're wondering what questions, for those of you that are in a group and you're wondering what questions are we gonna talk about this week?

What what what's the structure of our group gonna look like?

It's right there.

It's all on the group guide.

This is what you're going to your group with.

And then on the back, there's a place for you to take notes with the message today.

And so as we go along, things that stuck out to you, you can do it.

And then the great thing about this is that you have this.

So you take this with you to your group.

You got notes, you got the content that you're gonna be discussing as a group.

Now, you go, well, what was the point of the book?

The the book is a oh, this is gonna drive me nuts, y'all.

Here we go.

That's some error to that, and here we go.

Stay.

There we go.

Okay.

The book, the book, so so you come in as a group corporately, you're going you're as a as a church corporate, then you're getting together with your group, that's in a community group, and then there's the private part of this, which is between you and God, and that's where this comes in handy.

This is this is four days a week of devotionals that are intended to follow along.

If you are really, if you are really a go-getter and you looked ahead this week and you went and did week two, and you saw, guess what?

It's what I'm gonna talk about this morning.

There it is.

And so hopefully you want to start week two today or tomorrow, however, that works out for your schedule.

And you're gonna notice as you go throughout this week, you're like, wow, this sounds familiar.

Yeah, because we talked about it on Sunday.

Are you following?

That's how this, that's how this works.

And so you get a guide, gather as on the weekend, grab your group guide.

There's your questions, you know what you're gonna talk about.

There we go.

I think we I hope that's I think that's all.

I see some key group leaders and they're shaking their head.

They're like, Yeah, that solves the problem.

Thank you very much.

Okay, good deal.

I'm glad.

Listen, by the way, there are still some groups open.

So if you're not in one, especially, I think there's specifically some men's groups that are open, so make sure that you you jump on there.

That is not going to stay open.

Hey, Wyatt, do you mind holding that for me?

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, we started last week um talking about two choices.

And we started in this story in the garden in Genesis, Adam and Eve.

And uh we're gonna go, we're actually gonna go back to that story here in just a moment.

We're gonna go to Genesis 2 and 3.

And we just said that that story of Genesis, the story of the garden, Adam and Eve, isn't just meant to be some child's story where we memorize the key characters and the and the key moments.

It's it's a blueprint.

It tells us something, not just about what happened one time, but it tells us what happens all the time.

It doesn't just tell us what happened to those people, it tells us what happened has happened to us people.

It's it's for all of us.

It's a story arc of what of what humanity has looked like, where we were and how we got to where we are.

And that's an important question to ask.

Where are you?

Where am I?

We've said that we're starting this freedom journey, a spiritual journey into the life that God has designed us to live.

But in order to know the correct way, you have to know where you're at currently.

And then we have to be honest about that.

That requires that requires some introspection.

That requires some humility, and it requires some honesty about where we're at.

And I think we're well, let's go to Genesis chapter two, and as we kind of pick up in this story, some of this we read last week, we're gonna go back and read it again.

I think we're gonna we're gonna be able to see where they're at, where this, where these people were, this Adam and Eve character, where they were in in this story, and and how they got to where they where they were, and and I think that'll give us some insight to where we're at and how we got to the place that we're at.

Make sense?

So let's read this.

This is Genesis chapter 2, verse 15.

Genesis 2:15

Verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die.

Now that's not a real burdensome command.

It's like you can there's lots of trees, you can eat from any tree.

It's a good, it's a great garden.

Just don't eat the if you remember here last week, don't eat the don't drink the poisonous chemicals under the sink.

Like though they're poisonous.

They look pretty, but they'll kill you.

Like that's what he's saying.

It's it's not it's not a real burdensome thing.

It's just like don't don't drink, don't eat poison and enjoy the garden.

And you got a job, do your job well.

It's they're in a great place.

That's a great starting point, right?

Of course that quickly devolves.

And uh we go to chapter 3, verse 1.

It says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden?

The woman said to the serpent, We may eat from we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you'll die.

You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman.

Skip down to verse seven.

Of course we know how the story goes, right?

She she eats it, right?

Adam eats it, he she does.

We've you're all familiar with the story.

Skip down to verse seven.

Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they realized they were naked.

They sowed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and so and so I hid.

So here they are, what began as honestly, uh not not a real complicated question from a talking snake.

I really feel like that should have cued her in from the very beginning between you and me.

Snake is talking.

I shouldn't, yeah, I don't know about that.

I shouldn't, I should reconsider the source of the questions, you know.

But she doesn't.

She engages with the talking snake, and so there she is.

And it starts with just some like questions, and of course, that kind of like that goes a little farther, and now it's not just a simple question, it's like questioning God's word.

Did God really say this?

There's a there's a there's a progression to this, right?

It wasn't just out of the box, hey, just disobey.

Like it wasn't that, it was a progression of things that started happening that began with a with a with a simple question.

Years ago when I was in the Navy, um I was I was only in for maybe a few months, and I was in a room, I and I I don't remember the exact context of it, but I just remember there was quite a few of us, more than a couple dozen of us in the room, and and the instructor had something he wanted to teach us in that moment, and so they decided they were gonna have us play the telephone game.

Everybody knows the telephone game, right?

It's funny, it's a funny game.

You know, you say it to that person, you get to the end of it, it's wildly different than what was originally said, and everybody laughs and it's all fun.

But you know, this was the Navy, so nobody's laughing, and so we got to the end, so they say we're gonna play the telephone game.

We're like, okay, you know, play the telephone game.

And so we get to the end of it, and it's you know, it's wildly different, and everyone's ha ha ha ha.

And then then they when then we got the then the physical beatdown began because we got it wrong.

I was like, man, this doesn't seem fair.

Everybody knows that you don't win, like there's no winning.

They're telling right that you don't win the telephone game, and so it was a bit confusing at first, and then we did it again.

Of course, we messed up, and it was funny the first time, sort of, and then we were like 20 plus times into it, and we were in pain, and we're like, This is is this the Twilight Zone?

You know, like nobody wins this game.

I don't know what they're wanting.

We're all looking at each other, like, what do they want from us?

You know, I don't I don't understand this.

And then finally, one of the instructors, you could tell he was as irritated as we were because he wasn't getting beat, but he wanted it to end because he probably had somewhere he wanted to be.

And so he's like, My goodness, this has to end.

So he finally, just like in an exasp moment of exasperation, he's like, The only rule is you have to whisper it.

That's it.

That's the only rule.

We're like, Oh.

And then finally, some guy in the class, one of the smart guys, which was not me in the moment, it was somebody else.

So he got real smart about what to do, and he gets up and he comes out in the front of everybody, he goes, All right, I know what to do, everybody.

He says, Whisper, he tells him to whisper.

And then the guy's about to pay, goes, No, no, no, no, no, whisper it back to him.

Is that right?

He goes, No, that's not right.

Well, tell him in his ear again.

So he does and he whispers it back, goes, That's it.

Now you can tell the next guy.

And so they did this.

He did this the whole way through.

And what did you know?

We got to the end of a couple dozen plus people in the room, and it was accurate.

It was accurate.

You know, when I read this story, here's Eve in a garden.

You know what?

She her response to the talking snake is actually not a bad response.

This is what God said.

Maybe did she add something?

Did she not?

I what that's beside the point.

Her response really isn't that bad of a response.

You know what the problem is?

Is that she's engaging with a talking snake about God and never has a moment where she goes, you know what?

Let's talk with God.

We we spend all our time talking about him.

She obviously has a relationship that would allow her to go, you know what?

I walk with him in the cool of the morning in the garden.

Let's go ahead and start a conversation with God.

God, is this what you said?

Isn't that a novel thought?

But she doesn't she doesn't do that.

She see, here's what happens in this moment.

For her, God's word turns out isn't the final authority.

Her her and Adam's interpretation of God's word and what makes sense to them is the final authority.

And see, this is one of the things you have to understand.

It's like as we move forward, as we contemplate God's word in our life and the and the invitation to the life he's actually calling us and has designed us to live, one of the things that we have to settle from the very beginning is what's my final authority.

And for us at Freedom Church, and what we're saying through this series is we're saying this the Bible is the final authority.

The Bible is that final authority.

So we don't just spend our time talking about God.

We actually go to him and we go, God, what did you actually say?

We talk with God.

This is gonna be a key part of taking steps through through this spiritual journey.

And sorry, in this story, you know what it starts with questions and eventually turns in from innocent questions to just blatant lies, right?

God is actually holding out on you.

Again, because because when your interpretation of what God has said, not what God has said, becomes your final authority, you become more susceptible to the lies that are coming at you.

God's got a hand behind his back, God is holding out on you.

God didn't really mean it when he said that.

God really meant something else.

And then we're open to all these, and of course, we know the story.

Here's Adam and Eve, what do they do?

They eat the fruit, and then they and then all the shame and all the guilt comes on them.

It all just comes like flooding in, and of course, we read it.

What are they doing?

They're hiding.

They're hiding in in the bushes.

There they are, they're they're they're they're at a distance.

The shame, the guilt starts setting, setting in.

Tell you another story.

By the way, if you I'm used to being in the military, and so you always can tell, like, there's a military guy who wants to tell you stories because it usually starts with like, so there I was.

That's usually how the story begins.

And so there I was.

Uh I just come back from I've been back, I don't know, eight months from Afghanistan, and I was on my second team, and we were on a workup.

It was a pretty small team, and um, it's not Christmas time, it's it's a workup, it's not undeployment, so a little bit, there's a little bit more flexibility, and so Christmas time rolls around.

I was gonna take like a week and a half, two weeks off, something like that.

And I remember I'm getting ready to leave, and as I'm about to leave, um my lieutenant and my chief they call me into the office, they're coming, we want, we want, we need to talk to you.

I was like, okay, what do you want to talk about?

I gotta go, you know.

And they're like, hey, listen, uh, you got an attitude problem.

I was like, you got an attitude problem.

I think I really said that.

I was like, I ain't got no attitude problem.

And uh they're like, no, you do.

And this is your this is your opportunity to self-correct, you know.

Of course, in that moment, I'm just like, who do you think you are?

I had all these like thoughts going through my head.

I was started, I started replaying my experience versus their experience up to that point.

Started started just like, who do you think you are telling me I got an attitude problem?

I'll put yourself on check, you know.

What are you?

But in the moment I figured out real quick, I better say what I need to say because in the Navy or the military in general, they don't actually have to let you go anywhere.

They can keep you home, keep you there all they want.

So I was like, these these brothers ain't even gonna let me go home for Christmas.

So I better, I better change my tune, you know.

So I did in the moment, and so they I said what I had to say and they let me go.

And uh when I when I left, I spent the next couple weeks just kind of like replaying that.

And I was so furious.

Who do they think they are?

Telling me I got an attitude problem.

My goodness, I started replaying this a little bit.

I started saying things like, man, they're over there making me feel guilty about stuff, and started saying all this stuff.

As I went along for the next few days, I started thinking about it, and I was like, man, I hate to admit it, but they might be right.

I got it, I don't got a little chip on my shoulder, I got a big chip on my shoulder, and it wasn't just in the things I was saying, I just started to realize it started like I had all these thoughts, you know, come to my mind, all these ways I've been treating my teammates.

I was like, I was like, yeah, that's not that's not very good.

And then I was like, yeah, but that's where you're making me feel guilty about it.

Then I had like a revelation.

You know what the revelation was?

And it was you feel guilty because you are guilty.

That's a novel thought.

You feel guilty because you are guilty.

Don't make me feel guilty.

Well, I am guilty, therefore I feel guilty.

So here's Adam and Eve.

They feel guilty, but they hide, they say they do something different.

Believe it or not, God can work with we all can work with guilt.

Everybody can work with guilt.

I'm guilty.

I did something wrong.

I sinned, I blew it, I failed, I messed up.

I should have done something different, but my ego got the best of me.

I failed.

Guilt.

We can work with that.

Like there's a pathway forward with with guilt.

Like there's a way to move, there's a way to progress, there's a way to move past that, there's a way to heal from that, there's a way to invite redemption into that and to make things better, even maybe even better than they were before you made the mistake.

Like there's but see, shame's something different.

And see, and that's what they do.

See, they they hide.

It's not just that I feel guilty, it's that it's that they take it on to something else.

They they run into the bushes, they try to cover up all their stuff because because they can't admit that they're guilty, they have to pretend.

See, I can't, I don't want to be guilty, I don't want to be around the guilt because what does the guilt say about me now?

Are you seeing that?

Like if I if I acknowledge that I'm guilty, what's that say about who I am as a as a person, as an individual?

What's that mean for me at the deepest core of my identity and what it who I am, not just as a Jesus follower, but as a man, as a woman, as a wife, as a husband, just as a as a person who's uh who wants to go out there and make something of their life.

What's that say about me?

If I acknowledge that, see, there's a tension here between the the guilt and the shame.

And see, the shame, the shame will lead to some behaviors, to some things that you and I will do that don't necessarily God from walking into our mess and looking for us.

But definitely keep God at an arm's length while we hide in the in the bushes of our work, in the bushes of our egos, and the bushes of the lies and the stories we tell other people to make it look like everything's really good and we're not as guilty as we as we actually feel.

And that's shame.

And see, shame keeps you trapped.

There's not a pathway forward out of shame.

Like guilt, you can work shame, shame just keeps you, it keeps you in a in a cycle.

And it's not a cycle that just gets better on its own.

It's it's a seed that grows into something and often begins to look like things in people that you never thought it would look like.

Like it grows into some things.

By the way, shame is not like a it's not a disposition.

I think sometimes we think like, well, I'm not dealing with shame, but I know some people are because I can see it all over them.

It's like, oh, it takes on all kinds of different forms.

It looks it looks different in all kinds of different people.

And and and and we we we we're making decisions out of shame in all different walks of life, in all different seasons of life.

Maybe one of the biggest ways that shame is dealt with around here, I run into it, it seems like every week, is religiosity.

I run into it all the time.

Religiosity.

Instead of being honest about the guilt and the things that that are real in my life, it's just like I I kind of adopt a new language, adopt a new way of living my life, and I adopt a new a new course of action that will allow me to live a certain way and talk a certain way, so I have to actually talk about what's really going on on the inside of me.

That's called religiosity.

It kills you.

It does.

And and and it sounds so noble and so holy, and everybody, and everybody gets to go, well, that's such a godly man, that's such a godly woman.

And it's just like, yeah, they are dying inside.

It's not real.

Again, the root of that is is shame.

We start lying, we start telling.

We don't just come out and necessarily like blatant lies, but we it's subtle, it's more subtle than that.

It's the stories we tell ourselves, it's the stories we tell other people about how our circumstances of our life.

Isn't it convenient?

That we never actually it's like how many times has this happened?

We conveniently leave out some very key details about stories that have happened maybe to us or around us.

And we add, we emphasize the ones that kind of help our case, help us a little bit.

It's called lying.

That's what it that's what it is.

We make promises, we get confronted with our shame.

We we we swear we're we won't do this and we will do that moving forward.

For a lot of us in our shame, we get caught up in in our sense of value as around what we're doing and what we're adding in our lives.

You know what it ends up, what it often looks like is there's certain like transitions in your life.

Because I I know I I I've been I've been in this boat too.

I mean, I'm I'm I've had to deal with my own level of shame over the years of my life, just like anybody else.

And and and usually goes back to things that are that are really subtle, not not normally things that.

You that you're consciously thinking about all the time.

You know, I see it in men's lives all the time.

It's like go through a career transition.

You'll find out real quick if you're building a career out of shame or not.

Because boy, it makes you real insecure.

You tell yourself that real men make a certain amount of money.

Well, what happens when you can't?

You tell yourself that that this is you you built a life around you.

It's just like, oh, it's going to be a family, and we're going to have kids, and my kids are going to do this, and they're going to be nice, godly children.

We're doing everything right, and then they go sideways on you.

And when you go, what does that say about me as an individual?

All of that, all of that is hitting on some shame there.

That's what that is.

That somehow, when your plans for your life either are disrupted, or your plans don't go the way you thought they would, or your plans turn out to not be great plans, what do you do in that moment?

What motivates you in that in that moment?

Some of us we get super sin focused.

Sin focused.

I hear this a lot too.

It pains me.

Who come to me, come to me fairly consistently, like, oh Pastor, I'm dealing with this again.

I don't know why.

I keep trying to stop.

I don't want, I just don't know why.

I'm told I told God I was done last week, and here I was this week, and it was over, and it was just like, I get it, I get it.

I get wanting to like create new habits, I get wanting to like leave your old life behind, and I get, you know, but don't forget, Jesus did die for you.

We're so focused on, yeah, but I did that.

It's like somehow we're subconsciously going.

If I just let everybody know and let God know that I feel absolutely terrible about the sin in my life, he'll know that I'm taking it serious.

Oh, he knows he knows it's serious.

That's why Jesus died.

And I'm just saying, we get super sin focused when we're caught up in our shame as opposed to going, you know what?

It's guilt, but I'm Jesus focused.

He Jesus died for me.

Let me let me tell you the the real solution to shame, really the only solution to shame.

There's some faux solutions.

I'm talking about the real solution to shame is this seeing yourself as God sees you.

That's the answer.

To begin to see yourself the way God sees you.

What does that mean?

It means God is not unaware of our guilt.

God, God is God is fully aware of the kind of person that you are.

He's fully aware of your history and your thoughts, and he's fully aware of that.

And and yet he's moved toward you in spite of all of that.

In fact, he's moved toward you in certain ways because he knows that about you.

So again, the the way out of shame is to begin to see yourself as God sees you.

Or you can do the Adam and Eve thing, right?

It's called the shame and blame game.

Shame and blame.

Because at some point, when you wallow in your shame, when you embrace your shame, when you when you don't, when you don't choose to deal with your shame, when you begin to, when you hang on to that, shame says it's not me, it's gotta be somebody else, so you gotta start blaming somebody.

We call that victimization.

Well, you it's the it's the cultural song of the day.

In fact, whole platforms in our country are built on victimization.

I don't have to focus on what I have done wrong.

I don't have to focus on my own shortcomings.

I don't have to focus on any.

I can just I can make an entire platform out of what you did wrong and what what's wrong with you.

And and and by the way, it doesn't have to be some big national platform, it could just be you can find a subculture of any group of people you want anywhere who will all come together and will be like, that's right.

Can you believe these people did this to us?

We get real focused on other on other people, victimization, focused on other people's sin.

Part of that too is like there's something about acknowledging guilt.

Why is that so hard for us?

That's hard to do.

And and listen, if you don't start young, it just gets harder the older you get.

It's like I'm it's hard to get my kids to admit they did wrong sometimes.

Well, the really little ones, the older ones, they they do a pretty good job.

But they get really younger ones, and it's like like you just say you do, well, it's like what are we doing here?

Everybody knows, okay?

You lied, you know.

But it's hard then, and it's like some of us, it's like we struggle.

It's like, yeah, because you you never made a habit of it.

It's like being able to like, it just gets harder the older you get.

And I you know what it is, you know what it is?

There's a there's a sense of rejection in there, too.

It's like, yeah, but if I admit that, we feel like we're being rejected.

Like what what we like the person that we presented is somehow that's that it that's no longer accurate, and so now I'm gonna be rejected as a result of it.

There's a sense of rejection, there's a seed of rejection for some of us.

The the shame that we carry in our life goes back to rejection that we felt years ago, and we spent our whole life trying to cover up for that, make up for that, prove somebody wrong, prove somebody right, live up to a standard we've decided for ourselves something along the way.

That's all shame.

It's all shame.

By the way, this is one of the biggest ways that narcissism starts out in people.

This is how narcissism develops.

It's like we get super self-consumed, and we start to we begin to see our circumstances as the most unique circumstances.

My challenges are the hardest challenges.

My way of life is the least understood.

Nobody's gonna be able to understand.

It's seeds of rejection and narcissism starting to develop, and it all starts with this like shame that we want to hang on to.

They're married for, I think, almost 16 years, and and just kind of like, you know, the people everybody thought they wanted to be, but this is a this story is like a made-for-tV kind of story, you know, and so if this was Netflix, it would be like, and then you find out nothing is as it seemed, you know.

It was one of those kinds of things, and so here they are, and um basically, you know, she had been mistreating him for a long time, he was mistreating her.

It's a saga.

I tried to read the story, by the way.

I found an LA Times article that did that.

It was so long, I didn't even finish it.

I was like, I don't even, I don't even know.

I can't do this.

It was so much there, it was crazy the things that they were doing.

I mean, he ends up leaving her, he runs off with his secretary, she's over here.

She just feels she just feels like she got the raw end of the deal, uh like on nearly everything.

She's so bitter, she ends up vandalizing things, she tries to drive a vehicle.

I think I read that correctly, drives a vehicle through through like the door of his house at some point, just insane stuff.

Just it just and it just escalates and escalates, and restraining orders and police are involved, and then one day she just had enough, and so she heads over to his house where him and his girlfriend are at, and he walks into their bedroom and he shoots them both and he kills him.

She kills him.

And uh you're like, wow, well, kind of kind of saw that coming, you know, a little bit when you read the story, you're like, Yeah, that's insane, you know.

But then she goes to court, right?

She's on trial, and her whole defense was he treated me so badly, it was so bad, I was so mistreated.

He was only giving me sixteen thousand dollars a month to live on.

It was so much.

I mean, I perspective, I guess.

I don't know.

Maybe La Jolla cost that much.

I don't know.

But it was just like I was so mistreated, and she was to be fair, she was mistreated.

I'm not minimizing that.

There's real there were some injustices there, and then her whole defense was I need to be let go, I'm actually innocent because that premeditated act of going into their room while they were sleeping and shooting them was an act of self-defense.

That's real, that's her whole case, and of course nobody bought that.

But isn't it amazing what shame will do to you?

What rejection will do to you when you hang on to it, you'll start telling yourself, I deserve it.

Now I doubt anybody here is contemplating murder, right?

And that you're you're carrying shame, you're contemplating murder.

If you are, we have a prayer team after service.

They would love to connect with you.

Make sure you talk to somebody before you leave here.

So I doubt we're contemplating that, but we contemplate other things, right?

Because those lies start setting and we start telling ourselves, I I deserve it, or or my pain is so unique and so challenging and so un under misunderstood that my pain gives me a right to certain things.

My pain gives me permission to do something.

And the truth is that there's no amount of being sinned against that gives us permission to sin.

That's a that's a lie.

That's not real.

But see, when you believe this, when you when you buy into this, people, the people in your life, they all become obstacles and objects.

You your your boss just becomes a barrier to the influence and the pay that you feel like you have a right to.

Your coworkers are just are just nuisances that need to be tolerated.

You're you drive to work, everybody on the road is just an obstacle in your way.

You you go home and you're and your kids, they're there to be quiet and not get on your nerves.

And as they get older, you see them there as a way to like fulfill and to live into your vision for your life and and your spouse, that's great, as long as they make you happy.

See, we have all these things that we tell ourselves this is this is this is what shame leads to.

We see people as obstacles and objects, and the reason is because either you're not good enough or I'm not good enough.

We create this tension.

And here's what I want to tell you this morning.

There's a better way.

There's a better way to deal with this stuff in our life.

There's a better, there's a better way.

This is David in Psalm 51.

If you don't know the story of David, I mean, he's like the king of getting it wrong.

He abdicates responsibility, he ends up having an affair with a married woman on top of that who ends up getting pregnant, and in his attempt to cover that up, he murders her husband.

And then as a result of that, he ends up hiding and covering up stuff, and basically the consequences are dire as a result of that.

He's finally like confronted in all of that.

And I listen to how he responds.

Psalm 51, verse 1.

Psalms 51:1

It says, Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your unfailing love.

Listen to what he's saying, according to your unfailing love, not according to the have mercy on me, according to I've decided to go back to church regularly.

Have mercy on me according to the fact that I've decided to set these things aside for you, God.

Have mercy on me, God, because I've decided I'm done with that.

If you'll save me, I'll put this aside for the rest of my life.

Nope.

Have mercy on me according to your unfailing love.

This is God's character, according to who you are, according to the person that you are, the person that we know you to be, God, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Well, I know you can relate to that.

My sin is always before me.

That's shame.

What are you doing with it?

Skip down to verse 16.

He says, You do not delight in sacrifice.

Get a hold of this.

He doesn't delight in sacrifice.

Well, I told God if he would save me, I would stop, I would just, I wouldn't take, I wouldn't do, I wouldn't do that anymore.

I'm done with that because I made a deal with God.

I told God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start getting my life together.

I'm I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna treat them better, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get my act together.

I he says, you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it.

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

So, what does God want?

What does he want from us?

My sacrifice, oh God, is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

You, God, will not despise humility.

Some of us, some of us need to stop playing doctor with your soul.

I know, I know I've messed up, I know I'm wrong, I know I'm guilty, I know, but I know how to move forward.

Really?

And and and who's who who did you consult about that?

Well, I know, I know the pathway forward, I know what I gotta do, I know what I know what I need to do.

Hold on a second.

A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise.

You know, this is not just for those who don't know Jesus, this is for all of us.

Like if you're not in Christ, if you are in Christ, if you are a Jesus follower and you're dealing with shame and guilt, there's a pathway forward, and the way that you receive, there's a way that you go, I got Jesus says, my yoke is is easy and my burden is is light, and it's like, how do I get that yoke and that burden?

How do I get that?

Because because what I have right now is not light and it's not easy.

So how do I get that?

Like the shame and the guilt.

That's it's it's weighty.

So how do I get a hold of that?

Can I let me tell you something?

The way you receive salvation is the way you receive everything from God.

You need to understand this.

The way you receive salvation, how do you receive salvation?

What does that look like?

Well, it for a lot of us it was a it was initiated with a with a prayer, and not some magic spell prayer, but but a moment where you you you verbalized an inward allegiance to somebody.

Like I pledged my allegiance to a person, to Jesus.

And and it wasn't just some lip service, it means it means I say my my way, my my thoughts, my my behavior is now going to align with the person I've committed my uh allegiance to.

And I and I believe, I believe that what they say about my soul in return, that that I will actually spend eternity with them, that I that that I can have hope for the other side of eternity.

I believe that that is real, and I but and I and I trust that.

See, do you see this?

It's allegiance, it's trust.

And then how do I receive it?

How do I receive salvation?

Well, it's just that by faith, by faith I believe, and I trust that what he says I have, I have.

And I go, I got it.

And so when the lies come and go, you're not really saved, you don't know.

You're not really in Christ.

If you were, you would behave differently.

You go, oh no, no, no.

I receive that by faith, not according to my good deeds, but according to the grace that he extends me, so I know that I have it, and so I can hang on to it.

See, do you see that?

I receive it by faith.

How do you receive light burden and easy yoke by faith?

How do I receive that?

I receive it because I go, I know that I don't have to live in my shame.

I know that I can bring that which is in the dark into the light.

Look at Acts 4.12.

Salvation is found in no one else.

For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.

There's there's the salvation part.

Look at Colossians 1.

Through him, that's Jesus.

God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

And this includes you and I, who were once far away from God.

You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.

I think there's a question that we have to we have to ask.

And it's not just it's not just for one group of us, it's for all of us, those in Christ and those who still haven't decided yet.

We haven't, we're not sure that.

We're we're we're we're maybe we've we've we've felt compelled, but we're not really, we're still kind of resisting.

We don't really know.

We're we're on this side of the some of us are on one side of the line of faith, and some of us are on the other side, and regardless of what line you're on, every one of us has to ask the same question.

And it's this do you believe him?

Do you believe him?

That's the question.

That's the question from the garden.

Do you believe him?

Or are you hiding behind being a good person?

Do you believe him?

If you're not in Christ, do I believe him?

Do I believe that he died?

Do I do I might am I?

Do I believe that?

Do I believe what he said about me?

Do I believe that I don't have to find some special path to make myself closer to God, that he actually moved toward me in the person of Jesus?

Do I believe him?

And for those of us that are carrying guilt and shame, which I would dare say is probably a lot of us.

I'm carrying the weight of things in my life, things that I've that I've failed to live up to.

Promises I've been trying to keep since I was a kid.

I've been I've been trying to live into an image and live into an idea of what success means for all my life.

And it's like, and I'm carrying that with me.

Hold on a second.

Do you believe him though?

Do you believe him?

Yes.

For your eternity, yes, yes.

So that so that you can physically be with Jesus one day.

Yes, absolutely.

But it's not just for then, it's for now.

It's for the light burden and the easy yoke that he invites you to participate in with him now.

Do you believe him though?

Do you believe that?

Or are we still carrying guilt and shame?

You know, one of the ways, because if you're if you're wrestling with that, do I have shame in my life?

Let me tell you one of the quickest ways to discover whether there's shame in your life.

Are there areas of your life that are totally off limits?

Like everybody just knows we we don't talk about that.

Everybody knows that, yeah, we're just we just don't, we just don't even go there.

Even your spouse, they just go, no, we don't, we don't talk about that.

In fact, our job is to pretend like that never happened.

I'm telling you, as long as things stay in the dark, God's in the garden, he's going, Where are you at?

That's an invitation.

Come out of the dark, come into the light.

Let me heal you, let me redeem you, let me clothe you, let me cover up the shame of your nakedness, and let me redeem that in your life and make you whole again.

But he but he's not gonna force you.

You got you gotta actually take it from the dark, and you actually gotta you gotta bring it into the light.

It really will.

It'll make you invincible.

You know, I think about how I was 20 plus years ago, 20 years ago, even.

And it's like I was an I was a jerk and an idiot.

I'm not exaggerating.

Yeah, I was professing Jesus.

Yes, I knew how to talk, I knew all the right things to say, I knew how to make you think that I was something special.

I could figure all that out, but let me just tell you something.

Behind the scenes, I was horrible to people.

Horrible to people.

The things I justified.

Boy, you treat me, I I, you know, I can I can I'm talking is a gift.

I don't know if you figured that out yet.

Okay, so I can talk, right?

Well, I talk anybody into a corner.

I was ready all over you.

I said, and I say it all, nothing was awful.

If I felt like I was wrong, I I could justify anything, say anything.

The things I would, the way I treated people, the way I would drive, it makes kind of for funny stories now.

But when I'm if I'm really honest with you, when I look back on it, there are people in prison who just were not as lucky as I was.

And I just go, man, by the grace of God.

I got on, I just unbelievable because I didn't see people as people, I just saw them as objects and obstacles.

But you know what?

Here's the thing, it makes you invincible when you come out of the dark into the light because somebody could come to you and be like, Do you know what your pastor used to be like?

You'd be like, Yeah, I kind of think I remember him saying something about that on a Sunday morning one time.

Yeah, boy, do you do you have any idea what he did?

Well, you know, now that you say it, I come to think of it, I think I did know that.

Makes you invincible.

One of the things I've had the privilege of doing over the last five and a half years here is is developing a lot of men here.

We got a lot of men that have gone through a process of development, lots of men now.

It's amazing.

I, you know, some of the stories they share with me.

You know, some share stories they never share with anybody, never have shared with anybody.

Then they say them, and it's just like in and they're shocking.

Some of them are shocking.

Somebody come to me and like, do you got this person in your church?

Did you know that this person's in your church?

By the way, I have had people do this to me over the years.

Do you know who goes to your church?

Do you know what they are doing?

I know things about that person.

Like, you know what?

Now that you say it, actually, I do know all about that.

What's your point?

Amen.

That's good.

Like, what's your point?

Like when you're willing to get out of the dark and into the light, I'm just telling you right now, it makes you invincible.

When you you got nothing on me.

Yeah.

I'm broken, I'm guilty, I messed up.

Welcome to the club.

And it's not us winking an eye at sin.

We're not sitting over here going.

And hey, you know what?

We're going to pretend like sin's not that big of a deal.

No, it's as deadly as it could possibly be.

We're not pretending like it doesn't have some potency and some teeth to it.

We're not pretending like sin won't kill you.

What we're saying is that when you get it out of the dark and into the light, it loses all its potency.

It loses all its teeth.

And it no longer becomes a thing that's going to kill you from the inside.

It becomes a thing that God redeems you from, makes you whole, heals you from, and can actually be the catalyst for the rest of your life.

It's like somehow it's a secret.

It makes you invincible.

It's like it's a secret that these are the realities of our lives.

It's not a secret.

This is what Jesus died for.

The only way to get a hold of it is you got to accept that Jesus really has done everything.

Like you cannot do anything to sort of ease the blow.

I'm bad, but I'm just not that bad.

I'm not like them.

You can't ease the blow.

And when you get a hold of that, it means this.

It means you can actually move forward.

You can move forward in your war with Jesus, obeying him from a totally different motivation.

It becomes about, I want to, I'm on a delight.

I delight in following the ways of the person who gave their life for me.

It's not about acceptance, it's not about it's not about approval.

Listen, I love you, but you ain't died for me.

You didn't die for me.

And you did.

You didn't, you're not resurrecting on this side of eternity.

But even if you did, you're not perfect and you didn't take my place when I deserved it.

And when you get a hold of that, that that's a person who did that for you.

Obeying becomes something not burdensome, not heavy, and actually becomes going.

I am glad to model my life after that person.

I am happy to model my life after that person.

It is the way that leads to life and life abundantly.

Do you believe him though?

Do you believe him?

Let's pray, Jesus.

We need your help.

We need your help.

I think of, I'm sure we're we all have things going through our minds right now.

Shame, guilt, some of us.

If I had to guess, there are things in our life that have robbed us of our sleep for more nights than we would care to acknowledge.

For some of us, it goes back to being a kid, it goes back to being our teenage years, it goes back to being a young adult.

For some of us, for a lot of us in the room, a lot of us here, we're new to faith.

A lot of you are new to faith.

A lot of you, a lot of you, you've been you've only been following Jesus for a short period of time.

It's only been maybe a few years now of following the Lord.

Maybe less, maybe a little more, but relatively new to all this.

And so you you get Jesus finally got a hold of you into your adult life, and so there's a large part of your life that you just go, boy, there's a lot of regret, and there's shame there.

And God's in the garden of your life right now, and he's inviting you to come out of the bushes, he's inviting you to bring that which is in the dark and bring it into the light because he wants to heal you, he wants to redeem you, he wants to set you free.

I want to do this.

I we do this every now and then.

I think it's appropriate this morning.

I want you to, I want you to.

This is just between you and God, but right in your seat, I want you to take your fists and I want you to like squeeze tight, both fists.

I want you to squeeze your hands, make a fist, and hold them right in front of you like this.

And I want you to think about it.

I want you to, I want you to think about the shame.

I want you to think about those things that you feel shame about.

I want you to think about those things that you're carrying, the guilt and the shame of, those things that you've allowed to dictate decisions, those things that you've allowed to control you, those things that you've you've allowed to keep you up at night, those things that you thought that you were, you thought if you just kept it off limits and in the dark, then maybe God won't even see it.

Like whatever that is.

And I want you to give it to Him and just open your hands, just release it, and just say, Jesus, I give it to you.

I believe you that not only that you want to save me for eternity, but you want to set me free from the get from the shame and the pain of my guilt that I carry.

And so I give it to you.

I give it to you.

Heal me.

Some of you have this is your moment to cross a line of faith.

You've been on the fence, you've been contemplating it.

The the the sheer fact that you are here is evidence that God has been coming after you.

And and and here you are in a moment where you've been on the fence about saying yes, and this is your moment.

And and for you, and for you, it's it's it's shame and it's and it's guilt, yes, but but for you, it's it's it might be your entire life.

That's what's in your palms right now.

That's what's in your hand.

And when you open your palms, it's you going, it's the humility, it's the broken and contrite heart, and you're going, God, I release my whole life to you.

I give you my life.

I believe you that you died for my sin.

I believe you that you rose again from the dead, and that you said you would raise me to new life with you.

I believe you.

I believe you that your way is the way that leads to the life I deepless, I deeply desire.

I believe that your way is the way that leads to the life that you made me to live.

I believe you.

I give you my life, I give you my ways, I give you my thoughts, I give you my habits, my opinions, I give it all to you.

I give it all to you.

I refuse.

I re I say no to the guilt and the shame, and I say, Jesus, thank you for taking it.

And I say yes to the light burden and the easy yoke that you said I could have.

Thank you.

Thank you for saving me.

Thank you for setting us free.

We love you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Everybody says, Amen.

Come on, church.

Let's put our hands together.

Tell Jesus thank you this morning.