Special Message

verse 25, because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the whole world.

by the whole world. by the whole world. by the whole world. by the whole world. by the whole world. By the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us

that in while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ

in whom we have now received the reconciliation. Father, as we ponder these words, as we explore them, as we unpack them together, would you meet us here? Would you speak to us here? Would you change us here? Would you draw us closer to you? Make us more like you? I pray that we'd leave this building more in love with you than we are even in this moment. Have your way with this time.

Speak to our hearts. In your holy name. Amen. Go ahead and grab a seat.

Dozen or so verses, Paul just laid on us a whole systematic theory of justification. As he wraps up this movement, this section, he talked about our need for salvation, our sinfulness. He talked about the means of our salvation, Jesus dying in our place. He talked about the result of it, peace with God. And he talked about our response to it there at the end,

rejoicing. All systematic theology in like a dozen verses. Paul, you're crazy.

And it's powerful. And if this were a psalm, instead of an epistle, this is where in your Bible it would say, Selah. Pause here. Rest here. Meditate. Savor what you just read. Just sit with it. Marinate in it. God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were still sinners, enemies of God, Christ died for us. That's just so good. How much does God love me

when I was, when I was his enemy, he sent his son to die in my place to save me, not because of what I deserve, not because I was almost there, but because I had absolutely no hope at all whatsoever without him. And he loved me too much to leave me in that place. If we scratch at that passage, I think there's something else the Lord would have us notice. There are many things probably.

It's so rich. But look with me at the verbs beginning in verse six. Little Bible interpretation tip. If you come to a passage that you're trying to unwrap or unlock or unravel, look at the verbs. The verbs will lead the way. And if you look at the verbs, especially the verbs having to do with justification, the past tense of our salvation, the verbs that describe it,

what do you notice about them? Don't think too hard. They're in the past tense. Starting in verse six, the verbs having to do with our salvation are in the past tense. Christ died, verse six. Verse eight, he died for us. Verse nine, we've been justified. Verse 10, we were reconciled. We have been reconciled. Verse 11, we have received reconciliation. All in the past tense.

What does that mean? What is Paul conveying with that? What's the Holy Spirit underlining for us this morning? Highlighting to make sure that we don't miss it. In God's eyes, our sin, the penalty for our sin is also in the past tense. Totalistai, Jesus' next to last words from the cross. It is finished. It is done. It is over. Our debt paid in full. Jesus paid it all.

Justification is the past tense of our salvation. Is sin still real? Do we still contend with it? Do we still inhabit bodies that have a sin nature? Sadly, yes. And so, we look forward to the future tense of our salvation, glorification, when we get rid of these sinful bodies. The present tense of our salvation, sanctification, we wrestle with sin in these bodies.

But justification, the erasure of our guilt, 100% complete. It is just as if, you've heard this, right? Justification, just as if we never sinned. It's blotted out. And because of that, there's nothing I can do this morning, today, this week, ever. There's nothing I can do to make God love me more. And there's nothing I can do to make God love me less. I've been adopted.

I've been adopted into his family. Why is the Holy Spirit underlining that? Why am I jumping up and down, emphasizing that this morning? Because a lot of times, I don't think we really believe it. That we have been justified, past tense. That we have been forgiven, past tense. And as a result, we are at peace with God, standing here in the present tense. Am I right?

Are there times that we doubt that? We know grace. We can teach grace. We share a gospel of grace. And yet, aren't there times that we question the effectiveness of grace in our lives? We know it's true for somebody else, but we're not sure it's completely effective for us. I know that this is forgiven, but I'm not sure this is forgiven. I know this was forgiven,

but then I did it again. So is it still forgiven? Did I undo the... And this, this that I did, that I don't talk about to anyone, not even when I share my testimony, I'm not sure that can be forgiven. Or if I'll ever really feel forgiven. Is it just me? I don't think it is, and I want to explore this a little bit this morning. Why don't we always feel forgiven?

At least not with the peace, the solidity, the resolution that Paul tells us should be ours. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how that feeling will steal the joy that Paul just described for us in verse 11, and how we can deal with those feelings and begin to live in the freedom and the forgiveness Christ purchased for us at the cross. Three points to that outline.

If you caught them, feel, steal, deal, except I'm Calvary, so we don't do three-point sermons. So let's make it four points. Let's quickly review, and I'm sorry I don't have slides this morning. I've been at a youth camp. But let's quickly review what's real. That'll be point number one. Examine how it's at odds. It's incompatible sometimes with how we feel.

That's point two. How our feelings conspire to steal our joy. Steal will be point three. And how we need to deal with those feelings and get back to rejoicing. That'll be point four. Point one, what's real? What's real is what Paul just told us. When we were God's enemies, Jesus died in our place. That's the most important real thing in the world. C.S. Lewis called it the great exchange.

Others have called it the divine bargain. John Corson, one of the O.G. Calvary guys, calls it the great switcheroo. Whatever we call it, it points at the same thing. Jesus traded places with us at the cross, right? He took our sin. We gave him our, I'm sorry, yeah. Yeah, I got that right. He took our sin. He gave us his righteousness. That's how we're saved.

Jesus hung on the cross. God the Father looked at him, treated him, punished him as if he were us. As if he were guilty of our sin. As if he were our sin. And having done that today, the Father looks at us, treats us, blesses us as if we were Jesus innocent, sinless, blameless, righteous. When Paul gets to chapter eight, he wraps all of it up. He says, there's no condemnation, none,

ever, for those who are in Christ Jesus. And I gotta ask before I keep going, is that you? Are you in Christ Jesus? Is Jesus in you? I'm gonna keep going, but I gotta put it out there. When you stand before God, are you gonna stand before him forgiven or condemned? Jesus died in your place so he could offer forgiveness, but you need to accept the offer. Jesus says, hey, here's a free gift.

I paid for it. But like any gift, it has to be accepted. And coming to church doesn't accept it. Singing in church doesn't accept it. Saying amen at the end of the prayer. No. Paul says, believe in your heart, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And I don't know if that's a brand new idea for anyone, or maybe it's a familiar idea for some of you that you've never actually acted on.

That was me for two years. Again, we don't know each other, but I was convinced that the Bible was true and Jesus was who he said he was for two years before I knelt down and said, Jesus, I need you and I need your forgiveness. If you've been looking at the gospel from a distance and you've never made your mind up about it, I hope that you'll talk to me, talk to Pastor Robbie, talk to someone after this service. And I don't know who I'm appealing to, but if it's just one person, every soul infinitely precious, every soul is a pearl of great price in Christ's eyes.

If you were the only one who had ever lived, Jesus would have died on the cross for you. Let's get back to our outline. The great exchange is real.

Believe in your heart, confess with your lips, the Lord Jesus, that Jesus is Lord. You will be forgiven. When you die, you'll spend eternity rejoicing. If you don't, you'll spend eternity doing the opposite of rejoicing. That's what's real. The problem is, here's point two, our feelings don't always keep up. What we feel is often at odds with what the Bible tells us is real.

There's a word for that condition. For how we sometimes feel guilty, feel condemned, feel dirty, feel lost, feel forsaken, even though Jesus says we're not. What's the word? Shame. A couple of you said, okay, yeah. And some of you know where I'm going, but let's go there together. We often mention shame in connection with another word, guilt. And they're related, but they're also distinct.

They're similar, they're not the same. Guilt is a legal condition. Guilt is the fact that I did wrong. I stole, I lied, I raged, I gossiped, I hurt people. But for God and man, I am guilty. That's just a fact. Shame is the emotion that accompanies that fact. Shame is the emotion that goes along with guilt. We sometimes call it feeling guilty, but it actually goes beyond that.

Guilt is about what we did. Shame is feeling like we need to hide ourselves or cleanse ourselves because of how we feel about, well, we're wicked, we're dirty. I got to cover it up. I've, I've, or, or I might just roll, roll over and give up because there's no hope. My feelings tell me that I'm, I'm beyond help because of what we did or because of what was done to us.

So far, so good. Guilt is fact, shame is feeling. The first place we see shame in scripture, anyone? Garden of Eden is right. First place in scripture, first place in history, obviously, Adam and Eve. They did not start out that way. The first time we see Adam and Eve, Genesis, Genesis 2.25 describes them as naked and unashamed. They were innocent, no guilt,

and they felt innocent, no shame. But then on the other side of the apple, the apricot, the pomegranate, whatever the fruit was, on the other side of that, what are they doing? Sowing fig leaves together to hide their nakedness. They were guilty of disobeying God. That was a fact. God said don't, serpent said do, Adam and Eve did. They were guilty. And they felt guilty, they were ashamed.

And immediately they begin trying to cover up their shame. Instinctively, they tried to hide who they really were, even though the only person to hide from was God and he already knew. That's how deep shame can go. We hide from people who know everything and we hide from people who would never know anything. That's how deeply it affects us. That's how compelling shame can be.

Don't look at me, I'm dirty, I'm gross, I'm disgusting. I'll never be clean again. Guilt and shame both began that day. But they're two different things. They're twins, but they're not identical twins. They're fraternal twins. They were born at the same time, but they're also pretty different. Guilt is an objective reality. The facts say I did something bad.

Shame is a subjective belief. My feelings tell me I am something bad. Do you see the difference? I'm camping out here because it's really important. Guilt and shame, two different things. Come into the world together. They don't always travel together. They don't always travel together. It's possible to have guilt without shame. When I was in my 20s, I wasn't saved.

I was running around sinning a lot of sin with a guy. But even as an unsaved guy, I was sort of shocked and appalled to discover my friend, my drinking buddy, was a stone-called thief. He'd steal anything from anyone. It took me a while to figure it out because he didn't steal from me. He liked me, I guess. But anything that wasn't nailed down, he'd shoplift.

He'd walk by cars. You remember when we were kids, you used to walk by a payphone and check to see if there was any change there? He'd do the same thing with parked cars. He'd just walk through a parking lot, see if a door would open, see if there was anything good in there. He'd steal from his job. And at one point, I confronted him. And I'll never forget this.

I confronted him. I said, that's not yours. That belongs to someone who probably needs it. And he shrugs and he said, if they don't want me to take it, then they should take better care of it. He was shocked. He was shameless. He was guilty, but it didn't feel wrong to him. He had no shame. So it's possible to have guilt without shame. Turn it around, it's also possible to have shame without guilt.

Remember, guilt is I've done wrong. Shame is I feel like I am wrong. And it's possible to pick that up secondhand. We can pick up shame because of what we've done. And we can also pick up shame up shame because of what was done to us. We can pick it up from being sinned against. When people hurt us, when people sin against us, we can end up convinced something bad happened to

me because I'm bad. Or something bad happened to me and now I'm bad. As a result, I'm bad. I'm no good. I'm wretched. And I need to hide. I need to cover it up or I'll be rejected by everyone forever because who could ever love someone as disgusting and disappointing as me? You can have shame without guilt. You can have, well, you can have shame without guilt as a result of being

sinned against, I guess is my point. But the bigger point is that shame and guilt don't need to go together. They can travel separately. And here's the big idea. The children's church curriculum we use up in Wichita, every lesson in big bold, it's a different font and it's boxed. It's got graphics and stuff. Here's the big idea for today, kids. This is our big idea.

We can have shame without guilt after our guilt has been removed, after our sin has been forgiven. We can still carry shame with us for a long time. Let's go back to what is real for a second. In Christ, we're justified, right? And it's more than that, but let's concentrate on the forgiveness part. Psalm 103, 12. God has removed our sin from us. How far? As far as the east is from the west. What does

that mean? It means it's gone forever. How far is east from west? They never touch. That's real. That's true. That's factual for those who are in Christ. But our feelings don't always keep up. Our guilt is gone. Our shame goes on. Not always, but not never. In God's eyes, we're spotless, but in our eyes, we see ourselves as inadequate, as undeserving, as dirty, as disgusting, especially, listen,

especially if we've ever been told that. And some of you have. Some of you have heard that. It stays with you, doesn't it? It affects you. Once that belief sets in, it's very difficult to shake. Whatever else we believe to be true, we can cling to shame. That'll affect us. That'll drive all kinds of decision-making. I remember counseling a young man who had tried to kill himself. And as we started unpacking what

brought him to that point, he had sexually abused, he was a young man, late teens, and he'd sexually abused a younger teen. And as we unpacked it still further, he had been sexually abused. And you can just see how that unfolded. The shame that he carried from being abused helped turn him into an abuser. And the shame that came upon him, and by the way, the rest of the story is he went from that incident,

that episode, straight to the church, and broke down and confessed. The shame from it, he didn't think there was any solution, any remedy, any healing, any forgiveness for it, because he was convinced he was a monster. People had told him the person that abused him was a monster, that there was a special place in hell. And he was convinced that he was a monster. And

he was convinced that there was a special place in hell for child molesters, and that there was no forgiveness for them. He internalized that. The whole time I knew him, there was a war going on inside his heart, even from that point forward. There was a war going on between the fact of his forgiveness. He knew it. He could explain it. He loved Jesus. But what his feelings were telling

him was true, that he was a monster, that he was stained in a way that not even Christ's blood could wash away. Except what does Scripture say? It says that he was a monster. And he was a monster. What do we read again and again? Jesus died for our guilt and shame. One more time for the people in back. Jesus died for our guilt and shame. How do I know? Those who look to him are radiant,

Psalm 34.4, and their faces are never covered with shame. Fear not, Isaiah 54.4, you will not be put to shame, and lots of other places. It's possible. In fact, it's factual, because at the cross, we see Jesus taking our shame, bearing our shame. Isaiah 53, a passage most of us know well. Jesus was despised and rejected. What's another name for that? He was shamed. Visualize everything about the cross. Every

aspect of the cross was an exercise in shame. He was mocked and ridiculed and spat upon. He was shamed. He was crucified between two thieves. That was a statement that he was the lowest of the low, loathsome and despicable. He was crucified naked. Ignore every Catholic church that you've ever been inside. He was crucified naked. And if you do a word study of naked in Scripture, it consistently points to

this idea of shame. But what was his response? For the joy set before him. This is where we come to our text, Hebrews 12.2. For the joy set before him, for your sake and my sake. Jesus endured the cross. What's the rest of the verse? Despising the shame. And despising in that context means he shamed shame back. Scoffed at it. Mocked it. He was shamed. He was shamed. He was shamed. He was

shamed. He refused to succumb to it or submit to it because he knew it had no power. He knew in death he would defeat it. One pastor expresses it this way. Jesus on the cross said, listen to me, shame. Do you see that joy in front of me? Compared to that, you're less than nothing. You're not worth comparing to that. I despise you. You think you have power compared to the joys before me? You

have none. None. You have nothing. You have nothing. You have nothing. You have nothing. You have none. Joy. Joy. Joy. That is my power, not you, shame. You're worthless. You're powerless. You think you can distract me? I won't even look at you. I've got a joy set before me. Why would I bother looking at you? You're ugly and despicable and you're almost finished. You cover me now as a

shroud. But before you can say so there, I'm going to throw you off like a filthy rag and put on my royal robe. You think you're great because even last night you made my disciples run away. But you're a fool. You're a fool. You're a fool. You're a fool. You're a fool. You're a fool. You're a fool. Shame. You're a despicable fool. That abandonment, that loneliness, this cross, these tools of yours

are my sacred suffering and they will save my disciples, not destroy them. You're a fool because your filthy hands today fulfill holy prophecy. Farewell, shame. It's over. Even as he hung on the cross, Jesus knew his death would remove our guilt and destroy any reason for shame because of the fact that our guilt is removed, then the feeling is obsolete. There's no purpose. There's

no reason. Jesus knew it. Jesus said it, which is why Paul just said it. Look back at verse five. I was reading from the New King James. But most other translations where we have a New King James, hope does not disappoint. Translate that sentence. Hope does not put to shame. And Paul says the same thing in chapter 10, verse 11. Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame.

That makes sense, right? If Jesus has removed the fact of the sin, there's no longer any need to feel anything about our sin except thankfulness and joyfulness. Thankfulness for the cross, joy in our forgiveness. That's what's real. What happens when we forget that? when we neglect that when we pay more attention to our feelings than our forgiveness what happens is that shame robs us shame steals here's point number three

our joy our peace our freedom how does it do that if i'm not convinced my shame was dealt with at the cross i'm gonna try to deal with it myself if i'm not confident that shame is covered in christ's blood i'm gonna try to cover it myself what does that look like it can look like a lot of different stuff but broadly speaking if i'm carrying shame around i'm gonna do one of two things i'm gonna cover up or i'm gonna give up if i'm carrying shame around if i'm convinced that i'm ugly because of what i did or what was done to me i might try to conceal it i might try to distract from it like a magician pay attention over you here don't look at what's going on over there i might try to keep the perfect house

build the perfect body try to find the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend raise the perfect child me when when this was me carrying along a a big old sack of shame i tried to hide behind education i tried to hide behind athletic accomplishments things that translated into the approval of others later i caught myself throwing myself into ministry trying to win the approval of god and i would tell people there's nothing you can do to make god love you more and yet i was still trying because i had this shame that i needed to compensate for there's a lot of ways to try to cover up or compensate for shame they all have one thing in common none of them work go back to the garden very first efforts the very first humans made to cover up to deal with their

shame fig leaves you've heard sermons about this i'm sure you have what do you know about fig leaves the first is they only work temporarily before long they get brown they dry up they blow away and you need new ones fig leaves are in constant need of replacement second thing robbie said they're rough they're uncomfortable wearing fig leaves that's like wearing sandpaper and those same two things are true for everything we try to hide behind everything we use to try to conceal or cover up or compensate for our shame whatever we try just like fig leaves a it won't last two it will become frustrating if i'm trying to hide from shame in my job it's not going to be long before i need another job

why because it's not going to be enough and it's somebody's fault that it's not enough and i might blame my boss or the customers or the the building or the work i'm doing or the work i'm doing or the reality is when i figure out that the job isn't healing my pain but i can't admit that i'm in pain i gotta go try something else somewhere else and that then that same pattern in any other coping mechanism if i'm running from shame in relationships one of two things either they won't last and it'll go relationship relationship relationship relationship or or when i realize my partner isn't fixing what's wrong with me i'll get i'll get stuck and dug in and i'll make sure both of us are good and miserable

if i'm running from shame in ministry i'll get mad at my overseer i'll get mad at the pastor i'll get mad at the people or i'll just cut to the chase i'll get mad at god look at all i'm doing to serve you why aren't you fixing this because he already did i could keep going but i think you get me variations on a theme fig leaves hurt fig leaves don't last covering up doesn't work with shame the other big category i said there were two cover up give up and you've seen this i know you have where shame is a self-fulfilling prophecy i'm filthy i'm unholy it is what it is there's nothing i can do i'm a stinking rotten sinner i'm i'm dirty so i'm i might as well be dirty i'm a sinner

i might as well sin and so people go and roll around in the middle of the night and they're the mud raise your hand if you've seen that play out in somebody's life is there anything more tragic is there anything sadder than watching somebody that jesus died for work so hard to not believe it work so hard to prove that they're still

dirty jesus wants so much better for us than that the cross made us so much better than that so what do we do we decide to believe what's real we decide to believe the cross we choose to believe jesus how do we deal with shame by realizing we can't but christ has go back to the garden one more time adam and eve trying to frantically sew together sandpaper underwear what does god do genesis 321 for adam and eve the lord god made tunics of skins and clothed them so they wouldn't need to cover their shame anymore they wouldn't need fig leaves anymore adam and eve couldn't deal with their shame just like you and i can't not in any real effective way so god dealt with it for them he covered them with his love love in the form of animal skins

he covered their shame for them in a lasting way in an enduring way things i believe that i can't prove things that i think are true that i can't prove are true i think he covered them with lamb's skin i think that was anticipating the lamb of god covering our shame with his skin the skin of his hands and his feet where the nails went in the skin of his side where the spear pierced him the skin of His back, when the torturer's whip laid him open. The skin of his scalp, when those thorns drove in like fish hooks. All to clothe us in his righteousness. All to cover what we couldn't cover ourselves.

Isaiah 61.10 Speaking of Israel's righteousness, but ours too. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He's covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. How do we deal, last point, with the shame that we all feel at times?

The temptation to hide, to deflect, or just give up. How do we deal with it? We don't. We can't. What we do is remember Jesus can, and he did. He has clothed us. He has covered us. He has freed us. And the best way to remember is to read God's word and see that again and again and again. And let God's word speak to us and convince us. Because the Bible is one story of grace from beginning to end.

What does God do with David? David, wrecked with shame for more than a year after sinning with Bathsheba, after murdering her husband. What does God do? Forgives him. Calls him a man after God's own heart. What did Jesus do with the lepers? Ostracized by society. Leprosy, a symbol of sin. And by extension, shame. What does Jesus do? He heals them. What did Jesus do with the woman with the issue of blood?

Unclean. Shameful in Jewish. He made her clean. What did Jesus say happened to the prodigal son? The father lifted him up out of the mud and embraced him and said, You never stopped being my son. You have no reason to be ashamed. What does Jesus do with the woman caught in adultery? He refuses to condemn her. He says, Your past is in the past. Your shame is in the rearview mirror.

What you do now is what matters. Go and sin no more. What does Jesus do with Peter after Peter denies him three times? After Peter is condemned, convinced that there's no redemption for him, Jesus in Scripture, Jesus that we see, never speaks of it. There was no need to. It was dealt with. And instead we see Jesus commissioning Peter, Feed my sheep, tend my lambs.

What does Jesus do with the woman at the well? With the husbands and the boyfriend? After he goes out of his way to find her, he detours from the route that he should have been on, to specifically have this conversation with her. He sends her, Hey, go tell people about the forgiveness you found in me today. I could keep going, but every one of them brings us back to the same point.

When Jesus removes sin, he removes shame. If the fact of our guilt is gone, the feeling can go with us.

But as we wrap up this morning, I want to go back to that, to the lepers for a moment. And would you turn with me to Mark chapter one?

We've begun our initial, make sure your seatbelts are fastened, put your tray table in the locked and upright position. We're going to be landing shortly, but before we do something precious that I want you to see with me. Mark chapter one really pulls together everything that we've been talking about. Look beginning at verse 49, verse 39. He, Jesus was preaching in their synagogues and throughout all Galilee and casting out demons.

Now a leper came to him, imploring him, saying, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm kneeling down to him and saying to him, if you're willing, you can make me clean. Now think about this for a moment. Leprosy was not the result of sin, symbolized sin in scripture, but the leper wasn't guilty of anything.

Nonetheless, he was unclean. Just as you and I, because of Christ Jesus are no longer guilty, but in our shame, sometimes believe we're unclean. You see the parallel? Now go with me on this. What does Jesus do? First thing is what he doesn't do. He doesn't pull away. He doesn't say, ooh, it's filthy.

No, Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hands and touched him, stretched out, went to him and touched him. And I don't think it was one of those.

I can't prove it. I think Jesus put his arm around him, hugged him, embraced him in some way, and said to him, I'm willing to be cleansed. And as soon as he had spoken, verse 42, immediately, dramatically, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. But here's where things get good. Are you ready? Verse 43, Jesus strictly warned him, this leper who is no longer a leper,

and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way. Show yourself to the priests, because that's a rule. The priest has to note, hey, a miracle was done here today. And offer for your cleansing those things, which Moses commanded as a testimony to them. Don't tell anyone except the priest. You got to tell the priest,

because it's part of the law, and Jesus isn't going to break the law. So tell the priest, keep the law. Don't tell anyone else. Near reader's voice, the man told everyone else. Verse 45, he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter. And as a result, Jesus could no longer, openly enter the city, but was outside in the deserted places.

What just happened? Jesus and the leper traded places. Before, the leper couldn't enter the town, had to hide from people. Now the leper's free. But Jesus couldn't enter the town. Now, because the leper ran his mouth, Jesus had to hide from people. Jesus had taken the leper's condition, his shame upon himself, because that's what Jesus does. He trades places with us.

We're forgiven, because he was forsaken. We're accepted, because he was condemned.

I'm going to ask the worship team to come back up. Jesus' cleanness. This is Sam Albury. He's an Anglican pastor whose writing I love. Jesus, Jesus' cleanness is far more powerful than any dirt we can bring to him. There's always more that's right in Jesus than there is wrong in us. More grace in him than offense in us. More forgiveness in him than sin in us.

The very worst in us cannot compete with the best in Christ. We can't dirty him. He can only purify us. However deep our mess goes, his holiness goes deeper. We will never exhaust it. And when we read God's word, we're reminded of that. Read God's word. You can't help but be reminded of that, because it's one ongoing story of grace. It's one ongoing story of Jesus erasing shame.

We need to read the truth and keep letting that truth speak louder into our ears, speak louder into our lives than the voice we allow our feelings. Jesus has to have a louder voice in our lives than the voice we allow our feelings. That we give our shame. Shame says you're wounded, you're broken. You need to hide. Follow me into darkness. You'll be safe there.

Jesus says, no, you're healed and you're holy. You're perfect and precious in my eyes. Follow me into the light. You'll be free there.

I brought you guys up too soon. Bear with me. Forgive me. Because I need to ask before we close. And our time together this morning, it's possible that the Holy Spirit has been nudging you. Elbowing you in the ribs. You looked over at your wife, at your husband. It wasn't them. But it's possible the Lord is speaking to your heart and saying, hey, you carried a burden in today

that I didn't intend for you.

You're hauling around a dump truck load full of shame that I already dealt with for you. And if that's you this morning, if that's you right now, I want to pray for you. Really, I want to pray with you. That you'd leave it here. That you'd leave it at the foot of the cross. That you'd leave it with Jesus.

And walk out today in the freedom that he purchased. Heavenly Father, you know every heart. You know every hurt. You know every burden. You know. every testimony you know the sins that we sin you know the sins that were sinned against it against us but you also know grace so much better than we do who can comprehend the love that sent his son to die in our place we can't fully understand it lord but we can we can rejoice

and it paul tells us to paul tells us we should we get to joy is our birthright joy is who we get to be having been born again lord would you remove the stain the shame the feelings of horror and disfigurement because of the past we might walk in joy and gladness and thankfulness that joy would overflow to the world that people would see the lightness of our being and ask what is the reason for the hope that's within you your yoke is easy your burden is light or show us the burdens that we need to lay down and where my words have failed holy spirit convince us that we can lay them down that it would bring joy to you if we did lay them down oh father move you i ask in jesus name amen thanks for inviting me out this morning such a blessing to to

be part of an extended family we need to let the reality of jesus speak louder from the word than our feelings do we also need to let our rejoicing in jesus sing from the spirit louder than our feelings do zephaniah 319 one of robbie's favorite books one of my favorite books zephaniah 319 19 in the NASB translation, God promises to change our shame into praise. Let's prove that true right now as we stand and close in worship.

But give me Jesus, Jesus, give me Jesus, you can have all this world, but give me Jesus. When I come to die, oh and when I come to die, oh and when I come to die, give me Jesus. Give me Jesus, give me Jesus, you can have all this world, you can have all this world, but give me Jesus. Yes Lord, yes, give me Jesus. So Father as we go now from here Lord, walking with you day to day, as you allow experiences

in our lives,