Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Unashamed, Part 1: Unashamed

Episode Date: October 21, 2018

You know the feeling. The one you get when you think you’re not good enough. The one that convinces you you’ve done something too awful to forgive. That’s shame holding you back. And it’s time to break free and start living Unashamed. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Life Church, before we dive into today's message, I want to tell you about what's coming up next week. We're starting a brand new message series called One Minute After You Die. Kind of creepy, you're all going to die. Guess what? How you live now impacts what happens eternally. We're going to talk about some really important stuff, like what happens after you die? What about the judgment? What's a great white throne judgment? What is the judgment seat of Christ? What is hell? Is it real what happens there? What is heaven like? I promise you this message here starting next week. It's going to stir your faith spiritually. You're going to want to bring people like crazy because we believe God's going to do amazing things. Today, you're going to be so excited. One of the all-time most requested speakers to come to our church is one of my dear friends impacting the world through propel women, teaching leadership to women at conferences all over the world.

rescuing women from human trafficking through A-21. Christine Kane is a New York Times best-selling author. She is one of the greatest preachers of all time. She is a dear friend to my family and one of the favorites from our church. We are incredibly blessed and honored to have her back today. All of our life church locations could you show a little bit of love to our dear friend, Christine Kane? So fired up to be here. I feel like I'm home.

Pastor Craig and Amy are like family to Nick and I and our girls, Catherine and Sophia. I'm telling you, when he was introducing next week for church, you don't want to miss next week, church. This church is a little bit like God. You're like omnipresent. I'm talking to you all over. It just keeps growing everywhere we go. But I remember a few years ago I got a cancer diagnosis, which, you know, nobody wants to hear those words, Chris, you have cancer.

And, of course, before you all start freaking out by the grace of God, you know, I took out half my thyroid and took out a lump that was benign. So thank God I'm cancer-free. That's fine. But I want to say this thing. When the doctor called to say, Christine, you have cancer. I know she was starting to kind of sound like she was freaking out. So I thought, I'd better go into pastoral care to make sure that, you know. And I remember saying to her, Leslie, it's okay. Cancer can't kill me. Life will kill me. You just need to live long enough and you'll die. I don't know anyone that's gotten out of life alive. So death is the ultimate statistic. One out of one will die. So you. you don't want to miss this series is all I'm saying. I'm going to be tuning in as I do every week to

your pastor. I'm pumped up, fired up and ready to go now. You all know I'm both Greek and a woman. So I only speak three ways, hard fast and continuously. So strap yourself in and no matter where you are at any one of our life church locations, if you need an interpreter, this is an Australian accent. This is how the colonies speak. You threw the tea out in Boston, but the rest of us, we actually speak the Queen's English. So this is what it is like and you will catch up. I want to share my heart. I'm with family today and this church is like home for us and I want to share with you some thoughts about the subject that I have struggled most with. I turned 52 recently and that is awesome. It's a great milestone. My father died when he was 52 and so for me to reach the age of 52

was very, very significant and every day is a gift from God. But there has been one issue more than any other issue that I've had to struggle with most of my life. And I have to still make a daily conscious decision to really not spiral down into this issue. And, you know, I think it's one of the most important issues that Scripture talks about. I think there's not one person that's listening today that this won't pertain to. And we're going to turn to the book of Genesis because why not start at the beginning? We've got a whole 30 minutes together. So if I read really fast, we'll get to Revelation by the time that I'm done.

and you've got nothing better going today anyway, so I know that that's happening. But Genesis chapter 2, and we're going to go to Genesis chapter 2 verse 25 right through to Genesis 317. Now that could be more Bible than some of you have read all year. I know that, but that's okay. I'm going to catch you up to your Bible reading plan that I know that you're on, so you would have gotten through in a day. But we're going to go to Genesis chapter 2 verse 25. The Bible says, and the man and his wife were both naked.

I've got some of you right there. You've never been in church before and you're like, they talk about this in church. Yes, it's in the Bible. There you go. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, everyone said, God said. But God said. You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. Is that not the desire of most of humanity, knowing good and evil?

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. and she also gave some to a husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you? You were naked. Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman. I'm just saying very few things have changed in life. You'll do what you want with that, but there it is.

The woman, whom you gave to be with me. She gave me the fruit and I ate. So it wasn't just the woman's fault. It's now God's fault because God gave the woman to the man. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? the woman said, the serpent deceive me. And I, if you're kind of wondering where the origin of the blame culture is, it didn't just start today on Twitter. It was right there in the Garden of Eden. It is not my fault. It is this person's fault. It is the system. It's anybody's fault but my fault.

It started right there. But I think it's really interesting that we start. Genesis chapter 2, verse 25, the very last verse in the Bible, before we step over into humanity's fall is a very, very important verse. Because God wants us to know there is one thing I'm going to take the time to put in holy writ. I'm going to write it in there so that you, my people, created in my image, are going to know that there is one thing I created you to never know what it feels like. There is one thing that I created you to never know the burden of. The Bible says, Adam and Eve were naked and they knew no shame. Is that interesting to you? The God could have said they knew no fear, they knew no fear. They knew no joy, they knew no peace, they knew no doubt. I mean, he could have picked anything out of the

plethora of human emotions to put in there. And he puts only one thing in scripture before the four, I created you to never know the burden of shame. So if I was the enemy, which I'm not contrary to what some might think, but if I was the enemy and I wanted to take out the only thing created in the image of God, then I would want to make sure I put on them the one thing they were never created to bear the burden of so that they would be rendered ineffective, so that they would be rendered fruitless, because the enemy is after your fruitfulness. See, if he can't get you, if you are saved, if you are born again, if you are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, the enemy is not going to get your soul.

But if he can heap shame on you, he will render you in a human. effective so the people on the other side of your obedience will not be reached with the gospel. It is about our fruitfulness. So much of what is happening in the world today is an attack of the enemy on our fruitfulness. And I'm going to show you this from scripture. So the enemy comes into the garden and here he comes in and the very first thing in the Bible, the very first words that we read from the enemy in scripture is a question. And the question that the enemy asks right here in the book of Genesis is pertinent to us today in 2018 across the earth.

The enemy comes into the garden and he asks that one question that begins at all, did God really say? You see, when the enemy wants to untangle your life, he will begin by undermining the authority of the world. Word of God. He will always begin by questioning, did God really say? Is that really in the Bible? Is that what really God says about marriage? Is that what God says about monogamy? Is that what God says about family? Is that what God says about society? Is that what God says about the best way to, did God

really say that? Or perhaps if we take it and put it in the washing machine and the dishwasher and the dryer, turn it upside down, translate it from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic and make it say what you want to say, did God really say is the question for every generation. Oh, it's the question on the table for this generation. Did God really say scripture is in error? Did God really say Jesus is the only way to God? Surely there are so many other options. Did God really say that that is relevant in 2018? I mean, really, Christine, culture is so different today. So, I mean, there was no technology. There was no internet. How could God have known the internet was going to be? Did God really say is the foundational question that if you don't get that answered, your whole life will begin to unravel in so many

ways. The way we see so many things unraveling in society today, in every sphere, politically, morally, socially, environmentally, economically, we see it in every sphere of society. It is beginning to unravel because people don't know what God really said. Now God's saying, I created you to never know shame. If you don't know what I said about you, if you don't know how I created this world and the order I created, then I'm telling you what is going to come upon you

will be a great shame because if you don't know who you are in whose image you are created and what you are on the earth for, you're going to spend all of your life chasing the wrong thing, feeling like you're not good enough, feeling like you don't measure up, feeling like somehow you are deficient and everything in society is created to echo that message. You're not enough. You're not smart enough. You're not good

enough. You're not talented enough. You are not enough of whoever you are. The only problem is if you don't know who you are and whose image you're created in, you will constantly be trying to get your significance, your security, your value and your esteem from other people or things and they were never created to satisfy you. And the inevitable consequence of it all is that you will end up full of shame. I wonder what it would be like to not know shame because I personally don't know any moment in my life. I was the kid that was left in a hospital unnamed and unwanted, rejected by my biological mother. I don't even know who she was or my biological father. My birth certificate doesn't have a name on it. It says child's name unnamed. I grew up in the poorest zip code in my state

in Australia, second generation migrant Greek, and that was before my big fat Greek wedding when it was not cool to be Greek in Australia, so marginalized because of my ethnicity, my gender, in a culture that did not esteem women, where, you know, I was always told, Christine, why can't you be like all the other girls? You know, my mother would drop me off to ballet classes and come and pick me up and I'd be on the soccer field playing soccer with all the boys or drop me off to play with Barbie dolls in Kama and I'd be reading books. And it was like, Christine, you're not enough. Christine, no man's ever going to want to marry you if you're smarter than him. No man's ever going to want to marry you if you don't want to dress like this, look like I never felt enough, always shamed because I was different.

And then I was sexually abused most weeks of my life from the time I was, before I went to school, right through into my mid-teen years. And so many of us today, all across every campus know exactly what that is like. We have a world venting so much angst and pain and shame that has come because of the injustice of abuse, whether it's sexual or emotional or physical, verbal. But most of us in some way, shape or form know what that is like. The word abuse means to use an object for a purpose for which it was never designed. And all of us in some way, shape or form by this world have been used for a purpose for which God never designed us. As a result of that, shame has come into our soul, this sense that there's something wrong with me.

And we have a world that is full of anxiety, that is full of fear, a world that is medicated at unprecedented levels, because people feel fundamentally there's something wrong with me. I don't measure up. You see, when you first begin to be abused, you think what is happening to you is wrong. But when it continues to happen and nobody stops it, you then begin. to believe the lie that there's something wrong with me, that's why it's happening. I cannot remember a time in my life where I did not think there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with me. And if I am not consistently in the Word of God, and if I'm not consistently renewing my mind

according to the Word of God, I'm only ever one thought away from going back into that way of thinking there's something wrong with me. My default, if I don't arrest it, is I must have done something back. There's something wrong with me. And so many of us fundamentally feel this sense of longing that what is wrong with me, what can fix me. And there is only one that can do that. And his name is the Lord Jesus Christ, because you and I were created by God for a relationship with God. And it's Jesus that connects us to God. It's Jesus that connects us to the grace of God. You and I are created in the image of God. This might be revelation. for some of you because you may not know this. You may have grown up like I did in Australia.

We grew up in a school system where this is what they taught us. Now you have to be highly educated to believe this. You have to have a lot of letters after your name. But in my school system in Australia, they taught us that many, many moons ago in the eternal nothing of the nothing. Two nothings came together and went bang! And there it was my great-grandfather, the cockroach. It was awesome. And then that cockroach just walked around. planet Earth for a while, it had a genetic mutation. It went bang, and there it was the frog. Then the frog just hopped around planet Earth. It had a genetic mutation. It went bang, and there it was the ape. And the ape was walking around Oklahoma City on a really hot summer's day.

And it went to the hairdresser, had a cut shave and blow dry, and here we are today. It was awesome. You need a lot of faith to believe that, but essentially we have raised a generation by telling them that you came from nothing. You live for no reason. And you are going nowhere. Now, if you tell a generation long enough that they came from nothing, that they live for no reason and they're going nowhere, why would you be surprised when they begin to live like they came from nothing? They live for no reason and they're going nowhere. But I've got some good news for Life Church today. You didn't come from nothing. You are created in the image of Almighty God. You are filled with God given destiny. You are filled with God given purpose. God has a planned purpose and destiny for your life. Genesis 1, 26 and 27 has probably never been more important. in light of current debates in society. In his image, he created them, male and female. We are not genderless. God went to the trouble of telling us

that he created us in his image on purpose and for a purpose, no matter what's been done to you, you are created in the image of God. He loves you. He's got a plan and a purpose, and a destiny for your life. So the enemy comes into the garden and he says, did God really say?

It's important that you know what God says. In our day of social media and 24-7 news cycles, oh, most of us have got an opinion about what everyone else is saying, but do you know what God said? Do you know what God is really saying? And it's time to turn down the voice of the world and turn up the voice of God.

Thank God that out of this house the U-Versian Bible app has gone around the world to 28 billion gazillion people, thank God, and counting and growing every day, because our world needs to know what God said. And then the enemy wants to get his way and heap shame on the world. And they call us the shaming culture. They wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling us the shaming culture. You just have to be on social media for 10 seconds to understand that that's true. Everyone calling everyone else out, everyone's shaming everyone.

It's an outrage culture. It's a shaming culture. And God says, I actually created you not to know what shame is. I actually set up a method in my Bible of how you address conflict and how you talk to one another and how you honor one another and how you cover one another. But it's like we've forgotten all of that when it comes to the shaming culture. The world itself calls us a shaming culture.

And God says, I didn't make you to know what that is. So he says, did God? say, she turns around and says, well, you know, God said that we shouldn't eat from this tree or we're going to die. And here comes the enemy. You will not die. He will always try to undermine the character of God. He will make you think that God is a killjoy, that God is trying to rip you off. You can do what God said not to do. You're not going to die. You go to the nightclub and snort what you want, you won't die. You go and sleep with whoever you want, you won't die. You marry whoever you want, you won't die. You go and cheat on your tax return. You won't die. You go and gossip and

slat. You won't die. Oh, the underpinnings of the enemy are always there. God knows that you're going to be like him. God wants to rip you off. That's why God doesn't want you to go and get stoned and drunk and sleep around with everybody because God's such a killjoy. And he just really, really wants you to miss out on the fun of lying, waking up in your own vomit, of waking up next to someone. You don't even know who their name is. That's right. God's such a killjoy. And he tries to take the things that God does to protect us and to dignify us and to help us live a flourishing, fruitful life. The enemy says, oh, no, no, no. God actually just wants to rip you off. So he's undermining the character of God that God truly is good, that God does good. That's what

Psalm 119 tells us. And that anything God asks us to do, even if we don't understand why he would want us to withhold from a certain pattern of behavior, or perhaps not go down a certain track, it may not make sense to us in 2018. But will we trust God when we don't understand why God has asked us to do something? That's the issue that's on the table. Will you trust the character of God? And what happened here is Eve didn't. She ultimately didn't trust that God is God is good and that God does good. And so the enemy will always say, no, no, no, that really won't destroy you. Just go and click on that website. It's not going to hurt your marriage. Just go and have that extra glass of water. It's not going to hurt you. It's not going to turn you back into an

addict. He'll always just try to make you go just that little bit more. Just compromise this word just that little bit. It's not going to kill you because all he wants to do is kill you. You go, Christine, what's the scripture in verse for that? Read your Bible. John 10-10, the enemy comes to do one thing. Steel, kill and destroy. That's all he wants to do. He wants your fruitfulness. If he can't get your soul, he wants your fruitfulness.

So what he's going to, so much of what we're talking about in society today, it's not an issue of salvation. It's an issue of fruitfulness. Can you go and do it? Knock yourself out, honey. But you will not be fruitful for the glory of God. And John tells us it is to our Father's great glory that we bear much fruit. The enemy is after the fruitfulness.

of the church. So he gets us arguing about theology and doctrine and is this, can you do this, and how close to the line can I get? And are you saved if you do this? And you know what? It's very rarely a salvation issue. It is a fruitfulness issue. Obedience to God is a matter of fruitfulness. And so then she says, but God did say. See, you can be in church every week. You can do Bible study. You can be able to quote the word of God, but it will be of no effect if you don't do it. She knew what God said. She said, God did say, don't eat of it. But she did what God said not to do. If you do the antithesis of what God tells you to do, what is the point of all of this? We come and we sit in church every week. We do Bible studies. We download podcasts. But if you're not going to do it, faith without works is dead.

And there's so many Christians with an ineffective faith that doesn't work because they're not putting their faith to work by obedience. obedience is not legalism. Obedience will lead to a flourishing life. God is not trying to restrict you. God is trying to launch you into your destiny and your purpose. There is nothing greater than obeying God. And so she says, God did say, he says, no, it won't. Here's where the problem starts.

Don't have a big dialogue with the devil. When he starts talking to you, do not sit there. And then what happens? For God knows you're going to be like him. Here is the deal. She had forgotten. She already was like God. Genesis chapter 1, she was created in the image of God.

See, when you forget who you are, whose son you are, whose daughter you are, in whose image you are created, you will end up doing things contrary to God to become who you already are. But when you know who you already are, you can stand up to the enemy and go, no, I know who I am in him. I'm a son or a daughter of the king. And so I'm going to obey the word of God. And so what does the Bible say? They ate of it and then they realized they were naked. And here's the difference between shame and guilt.

See, guilt says, I did something wrong. And when we do something wrong, the first place we should run is to God. But shame says you are wrong, so it makes you run away from God. And so there is a difference between your who and your due. What you did is not who you are. And every one of us, the Bible says, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I need to be running to God for the, you know why His mercies and you every morning? Because I need them every morning.

Why I need His grace every day. Confession is not a legalistic thing. It is such a gift that I can go and pour my heart out before God and know that He is faithful and justify, I confess my sins, to forgive me of my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. There is no better feeling than the feeling of freedom and cleansing. gospel message is so much more than just trying to make us live good and be good and just hang on until the rapture. It's to live free and shame free every day. It's so liberating. It's so life-giving.

And so what happens is they hid from God. And then to me, one of the saddest questions in the Bible, the first question we see God asked in scripture, the Lord walks into the garden. Now, can you imagine? He's always walked in and Adam and Eve would be there and he walks into the garden. And here is the question of God in scripture. Where are you? I think God's still asking humanity that question today. Where did you go? Now, when God asks where are you? It's not because he doesn't know. He's omniscient. He knows everything. So there you go. That's not the issue. But what happens is when we do stuff wrong, we normally run from the presence of God and some of you are watching this today. And you're here in church or you're watching online. And you think that what you've done is

unforgivable, you think that you have just messed up so royally and you've been hiding from God. And some of us are hidden in plain sight. You're hiding at the top of your corporation as a CEO. You're hiding behind your money. You're hiding behind your assets. You're hiding behind your image. Some of you are hiding behind drugs. Some of you are hiding in someone's bed, jumping from bed to bed, trying to numb your reality, trying to numb your pain, trying to numb the memory of what you've done or what was done to you. And God's saying, where are you? Where are you? When we mess up or something has happened to us, this is the time to run to God, not from God, but the enemy will try to make you run from God every time.

First conversation between man and God in Scripture, this is what Adam says to God. I was naked and afraid and so I hid. Fear, shame, hiding. First conversation in the Bible. And for so many people, that's exactly the conversation that you have with God if you ever talk with Him. It's full of fear, it's full of shame, it's full of hiding. Some of you did everything just to kind of turn up to church today and you hear, your body's here. But you're hiding from God in your heart.

You've pulled back. And I believe by the grace of God today, you're going to know the love and the forgiveness and the mercy and the grace of God. And to me, the saddest question in the Bible is next. One passage, three questions. The three questions that I believe are as pertinent in 2018 as have ever been. Did God really say, where are? you? Some of you are hidden in plain sight. Where did you go? And then to me the saddest question. And I could imagine God asking Adam this with tears streaming down his face, saying,

who told you? Who told you you were naked? At what point did you believe the lie? When did you elevate someone's voice above my voice? At what point did you believe that you're too dumb, that you're too stupid, that you'll never amount to anything? They'll like, always be addiction in your family, they'll always be divorce in your family, that you can't go to college. Where did you believe the lie? What uncle, what teacher? Who told you? Because so many of us are living so far beneath what God has for us, because we've elevated the voice of the world, the voice of social media, the voice of our teachers, the voice of a parent above the voice of God. Who told you is critical. At what point in your life did you believe the lie that

crippled you and paralyzed you and kept you so far beneath the will of God for your life. Who told you? The best way for me to exemplify this is my daughter, Catherine. She's 16 now, but when I took her to kindergarten, you know, she'd grown up in an environment like this with us and ever since she was born, I would always speak over her. Catherine, Bobby, you are the head and not the tail, you're above only and not beneath, you're a leader and not a follower, you're a woman of God, you're a woman of prayer, You're a Holy Ghost terrorist.

You are going to grow up and you are going to marry a very, very, very wealthy Christian man. I've told her since she was born. I'm a Greek mother. I'm into a range marriages. Send me an email. So there you go. And her daddy ever since she was born over both my daughters.

Every day, every night. Doesn't matter where we are in the world if we're not with them. He will set an alarm for 3 a.m. if it is to wake up so that he can pray for them before they go to bed. I sleep, but he does that. And so he, but he'll do that. And he's always spoken over her, Catherine, Catherine, Bobby, you are intelligent.

Catherine Bobby, you are strong. Catherine Bobby, you are courageous. Catherine, Bobby, you could do anything God's called you to do. You can be anything God has called you to be. You are beautiful, and he'll always say beautiful at the end, so that she knows that she's intelligent, that she's strong, that she's capable, that she's courageous, as well as beautiful. And, well, you know, you get told that,

and there's a sense of confidence and strength in your identity. Well, I took Catherine to kindergarten, and how many know that the kids at school are not quite as nice as mum and dad? You know, they're not going to say the same thing. Well, I went to pick Catherine up from kindergarten, and her teacher said this to me. Her teacher goes, Christine, there was a little fight today at school. And she said, you should have seen what happened.

The little boy, there was this little boy, and he wanted Catherine's teddy bear. So he ripped Catherine's teddy bear out of her arms at lunchtime. And he said these words to her. As he took the teddy bear, he said, Catherine, Bobby, you are dumb and you are ugly. And you could imagine, I'm thinking, how would my daughter even know what those words meant? And the teacher said, oh, no, Christine, don't worry, you don't need to panic. And she said, you should have seen your daughter.

She just eyeballed this kid. she put her shoulders back and like I was so pumped I thought she was going to tell me and she king hit him I'm like yes yes please do not send me emails I'm not going to read them we breathe them tough in Australia I'm like yes

that is my daughter extra Christmas presents if she did that for sure and she said no Christy she put her shoulders back she looked at that kid in the eye and she said to him no I'm not I'm not dumb and I'm not ugly.

My daddy says that I am intelligent and that I am beautiful in church. Why am I telling you that this morning? I'm telling you because the most important thing you can know in the day and the age in which we live is not what social media says. It's not what your friend says. It's what does your daddy say. Your daddy says that you are a son or a daughter of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. My daddy says I can do all things through Christ Jesus.

who strengthens me. My daddy says I am cold. My daddy says I am chosen. My daddy says I am redeemed. My daddy says that I am loved. My daddy says that I am a child of God created in his image. My daddy says there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. My daddy says, I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me. The greatest thing you will ever know on this side of eternity is who you are in him and what he says about you and to you, did God really say, where are you?

Who told you? The three questions for our generation. Your God is for you. Let me pray for your church. Father, I thank you for this amazing church. I thank you, Lord, for your word. I thank you for your promise. I thank you that as we live on this side of eternity in this thing called time and space,

Father, there are so many voices shouting at us, telling us who we are not, reminding us of our failures, reminding us of our flaws. But I thank you, Lord, that you have given us your word, and your word is full of life, and your word is full of hope. And I thank you that we are sons and daughters of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, and where the enemy has declared, shame on you, on any person. under the sound of my voice, I've come to Life Church today to declare and decree in the name of Jesus Christ, shame off you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, church. Come on, church. Aren't you glad you came

to church today? What a powerful world. Let's just continue in an attitude of prayer at all of our locations. God, we thank you for that word. God, I thank you that that was very very. very specifically for certain people, God, that you would impart truth that would transform hearts, God, and heal our souls. All of our churches, nobody looking around. I wonder how many of you, maybe like me, you've heard that lie. Did God really say you found yourself in some place you never wanted to be? And then the voice of shame came in. Who do you think you are? God doesn't love you. You're dirty. You're no good. God couldn't use you. All of our churches, those who say, yes, You may have been a victim of something, or you may have been the one who did something wrong,

but you've been under that pain of shame. Would you lift up your hands right now? I just want to take a moment and pray for you. As they're hands going up all of our churches, God, we receive that word. When the enemy says shame on you, God, we know that you say shame off of us. Roll the shame away, God. Bring healing. I pray, God, today that there would not be a single person under the, the, the truth.

truth of your presence that would believe a lie, God, that you would help us to know who we are in Christ, redeemed, forgiven, healed, free. God, we pray that you would bring healing where the enemy has tried to rob, that you would return, God, seven times over what our enemy is taken. God, set us free from the curse of shame. Help us to see that we are free in your son, Jesus. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, there are some of of you, you feel very much under the weight and guilt of sin. What do we know? The truth is that all of us, every single one of us, we've done something wrong. We often feel ashamed of that. Why do we feel this way? I believe it's because we're created with eternity in our hearts, that we have a conscious

that helps us know. There is a right and there is a wrong. And when we do wrong, we feel guilty. And the enemy comes in and says, you should be ashamed of yourself. But the good news is, God came in and said, I love you so much that I'm not going to let you die in your sin, but he became one of us. In the person of his son, Jesus, Chris talked about Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God, born of a virgin who lived without sin, perfect in every way. He was the sacrifice who died in our place so we could be forgiven.

Jesus became sin on the cross. Died on the third day. When the stone was rolled away, he was not there. Why? because God raised him from the dead so that anyone, and this includes you, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter how ashamed you may feel, anyone who calls on that name, the name of Jesus, would be forgiven and made new. In all of our churches, there are those of you, you recognize your need, you acknowledge your sin. When you turn from that sin and turn to Jesus, he will hear the cries of your heart. He'll forgive every sin you've ever committed.

You won't just be different. You're going to be transformed by the grace of Jesus. You become a new creation in Christ Jesus. All of our churches, those who say, I need that grace. I need his forgiveness. Today I turn from my sin. I turn toward him. I give my life to him.

That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now? All of our churches say, yes, lift your hands and say, I give my life to Jesus. As we see hands in all of our different churches, let me just tell you at church online, You click right below me, and we're going to celebrate and worship God for His goodness in new life in Christ. Would you all join me in praying? Nobody prays alone. Simply pray, Heavenly Father, forgive all my sins.

Make me new. Jesus save me. Fill me with your spirit so I could follow you. My life is not mine. It's yours. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus' name I pray.

Hey, could somebody celebrate Big. Let's worship God today for New Life in Christ.