The Genesis Of Shame w/ Pastor Steve Treichler

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken PL and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ welcome back to another episode today I have with me one of my favorite top 500 people in the world it's Steve Trier or for those of you who know him as trike you'll hear me call him trike throughout this podcast but he is the senior pastor of Hope Community Church in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and for those of you I used to live in Minnesota for years and this is what I used to call my home Church uh trike I'm so excited to have you here it's a pleasure oh it's a pleasure to be with you my brother we miss you up here I cannot tell you how many times my wife and I talk and we're like we just miss Hope Community Church I wish we could just go back just for that church or bring you guys here hey we we'll move down to Nashville that's uh that's little climate change would be good for us yeah yeah exactly maybe that'd be a better win try to see if I could get you guys all the way here but today I'm excited cuz we're talking about the Genesis of Shame with no pun intended we're going to be talking about Genesis chapters 1 and 3 and how shame came about and uh I'm really excited because this is something that you've been passionate about and I'm just curious what Drew you into this topic and why do you think this is especially relevant to men it's a great question I think the thing that Drew me into this is the fact that if you break down all of scripture it it basically boils down to four sections you have creation then you have the fall of humanity then you have the Redemption story and then you have uh the restoration of all things right creation fall Redemption restoration and so if you read the first three chapters of the Bible you cover creation and fall and if you read the last two chapters of the Bible you read the restoration Story how things are going to be so in five short chapters you can read three4 of the Bible story however of course the Redemption story is a huge part of scripture I mean that's a very important part but I think having thought through like how did we get into the mess we're in has caused me and I'm being very serious here for about 30 years I have been thinking a lot about Genesis 1 2 and three and trying to find little pieces in there there's no magic here but just things that have me clued me into how the rest of scripture unfolds and I'll be honest with you there's a lot of the rest of the story that goes back to Genesis 1 2 and 3 and so as I look at the fall of humanity and that uh leads to our topic today I I think to better understand that helps us to understand how to overcome it been kind of my passion it's very relevant to men and women but this podcast is primarily for men and that's great so uh I just love to look at these three chapters of scripture yeah you know Tri I remember you know out when we were there in Minnesota and all the times we talked about you know creation and fall and we would go through that little creation fall Redemption restoration hope is known for using that like in every other sermon and you brought it up all the time but here's what I found so fascinating especially when you talked about Genesis 1 2 and 3 is that like every single time you brought a new insight and I'm like I've been here for seven years and I've probably heard you bring this topic up over and over again and I'm still like wow I never saw that and uh I have my mdav and I studied it I'm like H how does this guy just keep going deeper and deeper into this passage so it's fascinating that you're still able to pull that off yeah well thanks I don't know if I'm any smarter better looking than anybody else but I I do think I just have kind of this I have this fascination with the little points of scripture and to stop and say hey why is that there and I think that's led me to some observations that uh have kind of opened up the passage a bit so yeah so walk us through some of those because I know part of it is obviously in Genesis the story of Adam and Eve and particularly their transformation from being naked and unashamed to feeling exposed and covering themselves so just kind of walk us through those little nuggets that you have found so if you uh I'm gonna you know Genesis 1 is great Genesis 1 is where it all starts uh it talks about the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:27 uh it says so God created Mankind in his own image in the image of God he created them male and female he created them so there's something very unique about being made in God's image and there's a imagess and a likeness to God but we're not God it's very clear we are part of creation he is Creator there's a huge line between those two okay and that's very clear just in chapter one of scripture there's creation there's Creator but if you go over to chapter two then there's a more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve and if you just go over to chapter 2 verse 7 it says and and it seems like wait I thought we'd already did create Adam and Eve but chapter 2 is like a hyperlink if you were to click on Genesis 127 and it kind of opens up how it takes place in Genesis 2:7 says then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the Man became a living being okay this is not insignificant so again this is what I do okay so you're wondering well how do you keep seeing this stuff I ask myself the question what's the point the point is God creates Adam right but that's not what it doesn't just say God made a man and he lived it says God made him from dust and then he breathed into him now that's insanely intimate right I mean like it's not like God said from a distance hey hey hey piece of dust you know become life he breathes on it right so there's this the first thing his first gulp of air is this the exhale of God so to speak and it's like wow now that says something about Adam's relationship with God opens his eyes he sees his creator right he's then given a job I I won't go into all that that's a little beyond our scope of what we're talking about he's given a job in the garden so the fall of humanity is not the curse is not work the the curse is toil work hard work that's the curse we'll get to the curse in a bit but once we get to um the the uh part where Adam is told what his job is you're to take care of this Garden you're you're you're to tend it but then you're 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 that's the that's what is told to Adam the next verse then goes into and saying it is not good for the man to be alone right it's this fascinating thing and then this whole narrative about the creation of Eve happens right and it's fascinating why doesn't God just create Adam and then just get some of the dirt and create Eve and why well it says it's not good for the man to be alone I'll make a helper suitable for him so you think the next thing that's going to happen is god making this this this this my version says a helper this suitable helper form but he doesn't the next thing he does is it says that he took the animals before Adam and he asks them to name them and you're thinking wait what happened why are we you know if this were a movie scene it's like wait was there a glitch here in the movie did I miss something but if you look at here it says he brought them to the man to see what he would name them and whatever the man called each living creature that was its name so the man gave names to all the livestocks the birds of the sky and all the wild animals but for Adam no suitable helper was found now so that's fascinating so what's God doing here God is Not Just naming animals and having Adam show his Dominion or his I like to say stewardship of the animals in that way and he is doing that but Adam it says that they were looking for a suitable helper by all of these animals right now I ask I use this passage for all my pral counseling I've never had a couple get it wrong I say big theological question for you here do you think God knew that all the animals would not suffice for being a suitable Helper and they go yes God knew that well then why do this because Adam didn't know that yeah and God is a master teacher he doesn't just tell hey Adam you're alone he brings every possible if he'd have told Adam that Adam would have said what do you mean I'm alone I I got so many an I can't get any sleep I got all these animals around right but one by one he brings the animals before him say this big gray thing with a long trunk he says obviously elephant I don't really want to hang with the elephant right and pretty soon what God does in his wisdom he's a master teacher he heightens Adam's awareness of his aloneness so then when he creates Eve it's this huge deal right and he makes Eve out of Adam only thing in all creation only thing in all creation that is made not from the dust or from nothing but she's made from part of him and then God brings her to Adam from wherever he created her he brings her to them and Adam then now speaks the first words man you need to write this down the first thing that Adam says to Eve is poetry okay so you might brush up on your poetry there a little bit this is now bone of my bones and Flesh of My Flesh she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man right and so what the unique thing here is is that God's bringing things to her and he's naming so he names her as well woman but means out of man or whatever okay and then it says this whole passage that is why whoever wrote this Moses certainly had influence whether he wrote it completely or not but that is why he's speaking to the people who are reading this a man leaves his father and mother and he is United to his wife and they become one flesh right because of what God did with Adam and Eve and then it says this passage Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame there's that word shame it's very hard to even think of a world like that right yeah where they are it is Shameless completely and they both have this intimate relationship with God both of them upon their creation the first thing they see is God right uh and then they come together and it says they were naked and I know it means physical nakedness I get that because later on the passage and we're going to look at that just a minute that they realize they're naked and so they put clothes on I understand that but it means way more than that it means every area of their life they held nothing back and there wasn't any shame so if you want to if you want to have one clue as to when the restoration of all things happens in the back of the book pardon me those people who are either brand new to the Bible or maybe aren't yet a follower of Christ but I'm going to tell you how it ends it ends where it starts it says no long longer will there be any curse and then in Romans excuse me Revelation 21 it says multiple times that God will be with them and he will be their God so what's Heaven ultimately it's a place where there's no curse there is no shame and we have this very face-to-face relationship once again with God and a United relationship with one another because of what happens in Genesis chapter 3 and I won't go into all of it again it's beyond our scope but the serpent comes along dece Lees Eve and before we get too hard on Eve guys Adam is right there he's right there in this whole conversation because it says in verse six when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it so what's he doing in this whole thing he's like watching flipping Sports SPN channels or I don't know he's totally checked out lar Krab has written a great book I've never read the book The Silence of Adam The Silence of Adam it's a great cover but he goes into that men that's our thing we will withdraw and we won't engage it's the sin of Adam here and he deliberately disobeys yeah I I remember reading that book and uh it was probably my first man book that I read and he talked about passivity and I was like it Rock my world I was like oh my gosh no one's ever show me that but it was so true it's so true so if you look back here when the Serpent's tempting them he says did God really say Don't eat from any tree and of course he's trying to confuse them and again I know we're going to talk more about this but the the way that Satan tempts us is never with an outright LIE there's certain elements that is out to confuse or to change things or it's it's Hal true so he says did God really say Don't eat from any tree in the garden well no he didn't say that he said you can't eat from One Tree and then if you do you'll die and then Satan fullbore lies he says you certainly won't die and he says for when God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God knowing good and evil okay so what's Satan saying here he says because there certain parts of this are true and certain parts that aren't for God knows the when you you eat of it your eyes will be open 100% true they'll see you're going to see that right and that you'll be like a God okay Adam and Eve were thinking listen here where creation there's a line and there's Creator and Satan is kind of say dude if you just eat this you go above the line now you're like God that's a lie that's a totally lie a total lie and then he says and you will know good and evil and that is true so it's like ah right and she of course gets tempted by this she sees it she desires it and she takes it okay now here's what happens they immediately it says then the eyes of both of this is verse seven then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked but now they're not not naked without shame this time they're naked and they want to cover it up that's what shame does right Shame Shame always wants us to cover it up to lie about it and it says so they sewed fig Lees together and made coverings for themselves next verse 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 again Ken this is kind of my thing there's no wasted these images are not wasted what's happening God is going to be walking and he was this was a normal time when they would walk together when in the cool of the day the evening after you've done your day's work you got a nest tea in your hand and you're walking and you're walking at a slow pace and you're just flat out enjoying one another and uh when God would come and they would hear that they would run to them kind of the way my children would run to me when they were little and tackle me you know when they got older you know I'd walk in they go hey Dad you know whatever uh or even it's kind of a grunt you know but but when they're little they him running you know them and their golden retriever all tackle me and we'd wrestle and that's the way normally it was when God would show up God shows up in the cool of day going to talk this time it says and they hid from the Lord God Among the Trees of the garden now a lot of people have looked at this passage and said you know I think the serpent was right the Adam and Eve they did die they a death came in but that was going to be quite a long time later my contention is they died right there what was true life a relationship with God unfettered unhindered no sin no shame just talking about anything like little children and now it goes from that to hiding and that's the death is right there and it's the probably the most tragic verse in the Bible where they hide and God calls to the man he says Where Are You Again God knows full well where he is it's like a you know like a pregnant woman time to hide behind a stop sign not gonna be this a guy's one I can say that I'm not going to get any emails but you know God knows where he is but he wants Adam to fess up what's going on and he says I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so I hid and then Adam says God says to him who told you that you were naked there was nothing wrong with this before all of a sudden now and he says have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from this is a yes or no question have you eaten it's like your kid are those Oreo cookies on your Oreo crumbs on your face from the cookie jar right a yes or no question and it's very very telling what Adam says next the first two words out of Adam's mouth are the woman have you eaten from the trie commanded you not the woman but the ultimate the ultimate dis is the third word he says the woman you put here with me dude he blam and then accuses blame shift and accuses you you you gave faulty this is this is on you God this isn't on me I've had a mentor for about 30 some years and he always loves to tell me whenever you can handle the shame you always move to blame you always move to blame because it's it well certainly it's not all my fault I mean I was doing everything right and and and this and I was doing everything fine all of a sudden God you came in and said there was a problem brought this woman and now look what happened yeah and you made me aware of it you made me aware that I was alone you made me aware of all these issues you got to take a lot of responsibility here God okay that's what Adam's saying and then Eve does a little bit better job when uh God confronts her and says uh what is this you have done and she says the serpent deceived me and I ate right so at least she fesses up that and then comes the curse right then the curse comes first to The Serpent and we see in that in Genesis 3:15 the first Declaration of the gospel and it says I'll put em to between you and the woman between your Offspring and hers he will crush your head and you will strike his heel right and so if you're just reading the story for the first time by the way you're thinking to yourself there's going to come an offspring from the woman and he's going to take out the serpent and it says in fact that this Offspring will crush your head well she does have an offspring she name's Cain and he does crush someone's head but it ain't the serpent this has now gone to his brother he kills his brother Abel whoa so the story has to mean more than just the immediate descendants because that didn't work at all well right and then he says your to the woman he says I'll put emnity or excuse me uh I'll make your pains more in childbearing but I'll also change your relationship with your husband and it says uh your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you and that word desire is not a positive word I kind of wish it was translated more like it means your will be trying to control him and he will try to control you and what marriage will look like now is constantly like this because you're not naked and unashamed you're constantly covering your shame you're constantly shifting the shame to someone else and then Adam he gives the curse and he says uh your cursed is the ground and you're going to die we do not live in the right place right now we live in a place where we were created for perfect relationships and meaningful work uh uh uh not fruitless work and we are in a world where we have no perfect relationships even as a follower of Jesus Christ I only have one half of one perfect relationship and that's his to me it's not I'm not even perfect in my relationship with him and my work is good it's still meaningful but it is is filled with toil it is filled with fruitlessness okay so if you just follow if you just keep going through the story of how this spreads through sin and what sin does in people's lives is it moves them towards shame and the shame then covers dude all kinds of things I mean you can just walk through the story of the scripture all the way till you get to King David and King David has an adulterous Affair but he doesn't fess up about it he ends up committing murder to cover it up why can't handle the shame you move to blame and you will do whatever you can to get out from underneath it and so I think in order to really understand like where does shame come from what's the PO point of it all Genesis I think is really clear that the there wasn't the Bible makes real clear the man and his wife were both naked and had no shame and then in Genesis 3 they do they have shame so so I just find that to be fascinating if you want to start to unpack some of that and start to move backwards in that I think you need to start there I I'll stop there and let you take our conversation where you want to go Tri I mean you know me I love whenever I get a chance to hear you just unpack scripture uh and just the nuances of it and I want to look at that because at the beginning you said they were naked and unashamed they were Shameless in this section right it to me it infers that there was this vulnerability that no matter what happens like when I think about people being naked there's always these insecurities uh you're always looking but now it's just like there's none of that walk us through a little bit of like what does that unashamed look like because you said earlier we none of us know what that feels like we always live in this constant place of Shame yeah and I I I think there's the problem in scripture at least is you don't get many views of it right we get chapter 2 of Genesis we get Revelation 21-22 where there's a little bit talking about God's relationship and this beautiful wedding ceremony that's going to happen and there's a lot of metaphors that are used but then there's also the person of Jesus Christ and he felt absolutely no shame at all until he did but the shame that he felt was not because he was deficient it's because he took our shame see one of the things I think a lot of folks like how do I get over my shame I have the shame about what I did or I have this sin issue or whatever and I think you have to put it in there that shame is a byproduct of sin and the answer to sin is not don't sin okay I'm not advocating for what I'm saying but the answer to sin is Jesus Jesus is the answer to sin Jesus is the savior in theology they talk about you know what happened at the Cross of Christ there's a lot that happened but there's two big things one of which in Protestant circles we spend a lot of time on and that's what we would call either propitiation or justification or it's the uh debt repayment and Hey listen that's amazing I'm not down playing at all it's what the Protestant Reformation was founded on and that Christ paid my penalty it wasn't because of works that's very true but there's something else that Protestants have been a little bit especially if you come from more a bib believing maybe a little more conservative view uh scripture than those who would have a liberal view it's the word experation and how expiation got a bad name is when they redid the RSV version of the King James they got rid of the word propitiation and they put in the word experation that's how they interpreted it so in other words experation means that Christ it's used in the Old Testament to talk about the goat that was brought and then they would lay their hands on it but they wouldn't kill it they would just send it and it would take all of Israel's shame and guilt and it would then live with it right uh and it's really a bizarre thing like how is that goat what is that well it's a metaphor for talking about what Christ did right when Christ goes to the Cross he pays the penalty and this is something I think we've pushed aside because for years people who come from the liberal persuasion would say Jesus didn't take our punishment for and that's divine child abuse that's the father beating on the son it's like no the son willingly lays down his life it's not divine child abuse he lays it down for that and he does take the wrath of God for us and he also takes experation which is the taking of our shame which is he was the one that they put hands on the goat Hebrews 12 right for the joy set before him Christ endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the father right so it's really important that I I think we as Christians don't try to say I need to beat my shame I just need to think differently about myself and it's like yeah it's only going to get you so far because the real answer to sin and taking care of it is in Christ and he completely takes the shame he takes it all we're going through the book of Isaiah right now or kind of we're spending about 12 weeks looking at select passages and I uh last week I got a chance to preach through Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 6 is just this amazing metaphor where it's the call of Isaiah but I uh Isaiah after he sees this beautiful picture of God looks at himself and says I'm Toast Man I'm a sinner I I and I don't know why he picks his unclean lips must had a potty mouth or he was a liar or who knows what but he says I'm a man of unclean lips and I love among a people of unclean lips and one of the sarapin comes and grabs a live coal touches his lips and it says see your sin has been atoned for and your guilt has been taken away boom there it is both propitiation or justification or debt repayment and your guilt is gone somebody took it and so I think uh Genesis starts to lead us a certain way then the rest of scripture unfolds it that we've got a problem that we owe a debt to God but we also have this lingering const sense of not measuring up we have shame and guilt upon us and I think there's a lot of good strategies to think about that and to think accurately to know who we are in Christ those are really important things but at the end of the day Jesus is the one who just flat out took it and he just flat out removes it from you so yeah I I just think about that and it's like the more I can remember that he took away my guilt and shame the more I could live in Freedom 100% And I I think it then the trick for me I'll just speak for myself is that I think we like the arrangement Jesus died for all of my sins until the day I came to him but from then on it's kind of up to me I mean I'm a different person now I'm I and I I need to be a certain way and somehow they're still with within us this desire to you know salvation by grace but you know sanctification by works or I want to grow in my relationship with God by what I do and again the scripture wants us to do things that's not the point but when I am I really just trying to undo my Shame by making my you know my good things be better than my bad things and that's just a very dangerous road to go down because that's not the pathway scripture talks about uh in order to overcome shame let me give you another example I know I'm blabbing on here but whatever uh you can edit this out if you want but it's fascinating to me that in the Apostle Peter's life there were two moments of extreme shame okay Le at least the way I read the scripture and Peter's Story one was when he just got done calling Jesus the Messiah and Jesus says uh you're the Rock I'm going to build Church upon you you're my guy here we go gy up and then he says hey by the way I'm going to be uh I'm going to be arrested I'm going to be uh tried and and they're going to mock me and then they're going to kill me and Peter pulls him aside privately says and he rebukes him he says Lord I will never let that happen to you and Jesus says Get Behind Me Satan right I mean that's the last thing you want to be called by God yeah right and and Skip behind me Satan right and it's kind of like can you imagine Peter at the dinner table the other Apostles hey hey everybody let's share our highs and lows Peter Well Jesus called me the rock well what's your uh what's your low for the day Jesus called me Satan you know I mean it was quite a moment there right highs and lows for Peter and the other one was at the end so it says that when Jesus is arrested and all of the other Apostles they just run off right except for two John and Peter and they kind of follow at a distance and Peter ends up denying Jesus three times okay and in the Book of Luke it says that when he did it the third time that the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter they were near enough you know 20 feet 20 whoever knows that they could make eye contact over the light of the fire and Jesus is looking right at Peter and then it said Peter said and he went outside wept bitterly now those are the most shameful experiences right now what can the gospel do for you to change that he didn't fix either one of those he wasn't able to go and undo it but something happened to Peter and he realized that Jesus Christ took his shame why do I know that well because both of those accounts were private there's only two people on planet Earth that knew they happened Peter and Jesus and Peter had overcome his shame enough to tell the gospel writers hey man you should include this this an important part that to me says whoa that now looking at my own righteousness my own value because of what someone was willing to pay for me gives me value and worth way more than just my behavior or lack of behavior and that blows my mind that he would be willing to say hey Luke if you're GNA write a good account of the Gospel you should include this and Luke's like dude that's good stuff that's going in you know and so to me that shows where that victory over shame it's a long process it's a everyday battle but it has to go to Jesus Christ otherwise we're done because we'll just look at ourselves Tri you know as I think about that whole story of Peter and how the gospel is just needed I I've never even thought about that like how you said these were private Peter needed to tell them to put it into the gospels obviously inspired by the Holy Spirit um but how much the shame has been removed is so incredible I and I do think that's another big piece to it too I think Peter not only told the gospel I think Peter told others about this and I do think that's a lot of the victory over us in essence when we keep the shame hidden when we don't bring it out to share with others in essence we're kind of agreeing with it that it defines us and we just say no not doing that it doesn't get to Define me it's a bad thing these are not I'm sure if Peter were alive and you and I were to say Peter let me tell you I got to tell you about my sin Peter would listen and he' go you got nothing sorry bro nice try keep trying uh you got nothing compared to what I have done and yet I've experienced the grace of God in all of this and so I think that is an important part to shame because shame in essence is us holding on to something that Jesus has taken and wants us to acknowledge that he has taken and the reality is I I just love how you just said that because the reality is many times we don't acknowledge that we want to keep it we want to hold on to it and say no no this is my identity this is who I am and I deserve to punish myself this way it's every day I wake up with that every day nobody wakes up and said you know today I'm just going to be a screw up and I'm just going to you know no every one of us wants to have people say to us good job and there's nothing wrong with that necessarily until that becomes a thing that defines us when that happens we actually don't even realize it but we're we're actually taking as as scripture talks about the praise of men over the praise of God and it's like okay yeah ouch so yeah good stuff what are some other ways that men would show their shame come out like for example I think some verbiage or mental thoughts that I have many times is well I need to prove myself or I'm going to prove it to these people that I can do better right and and that's just shame talking right because I feel like I'm not adequate enough what's other things that you've heard people say that could kind of expose hey you're living in shame yeah I think I'm going to be a little bit overly generalistic here that's fine but if you look at the creation of Adam and Eve uh uh and then if you take that and then you I'm just going to use two passages that one and then I'm going to go to Ephesians 5 but where you see Adam was given a Adam had a relationship with God very intimate he was given a job right and then he was given relationship and then they worked together right but whereas Eve was given the relationship with God and then she was given a relationship with Adam and then that was in the context of of a job of working in the garden with him right so I think that explains a little bit about the difference to men and women that there's something in men that is deep we want to accomplish we want someone to slap us on the ass and say good job right there's just something within us and it's not bad thing right good job and there's something about the nature of a woman who of course they want that one but what they really would rather rather have as someone say man you know what you are fascinating to me you are worthy of my attention and affection just to hear you and so that's why I think that there's no mistake why God wants men to speak the language primarily to women that ministers to them and that is love which means adoration or caring for them or moving towards them or seeing them worthy of your time and affection right and for women to look at their guy their husband and to say you know what you have what it takes I'm proud of you keep going I respect you right that that's not a mistake now if you unpack that then what men are tremendously therefore most afraid of is failure or public failure so I wake up every day and I I'm afraid of being exposed for the fraud that I am or the I don't have what it takes or these kind of things and therefore I will do whatever I can to not let you see that or cover up things right I I know this was my case in college when I would I'm not a great writer never have been and I would get be's on my you know whatever written you know papers or whatever but what I would do is I would wait till the very end and work on them like pulling all nighter and in my mind then I would say well I worked on it the night before but it's uh it didn't matter when I was in my doctor at work I had worked on something for a solid three months and got a be on I'm just not a very good writer uh and it was like I don't have what it takes when it comes not to get an A I got a be you know bees get degrees right you know so that's fine but it it was just kind of like oh that hurt I don't have what it takes I I thought I did a great job and it turns out I did an average or a you know job and so I think that's for us as men what we're really vulnerable to when we don't get the respect we think we deserve or if we're overinflated in how how we think we are we will run we will hide we will lie we will twist facts we'll do whatever we can to try to get that and yeah this is where we just have to go back to the gospel and just say in the gospel I am enough in the gospel Jesus Christ as inadequate as I am saw that I was valuable enough to die for me and he did it willingly uh and so but it okay so I've been preaching this to everybody for 30 some years I got to preach it to myself every morning because I wake up the next morning and I'm filled with all the same stuff so I just got to do it again you know you know T I remember when I was younger I had to go through counseling and I have this whole thing on a different podcast episode of just like how this counselor helped me but one story that I remember the counselor told me I didn't have verbage to this now a lot of people use it you use it like preaching the gospel to yourself but I remember the the counselor was like look in the mirror look at yourself and I remember all I saw was this helpless pathetic little boy ah and I was just like I'm not good enough I'm not worthy enough no matter how hard I try I'll mess up and he's like I want you to tell yourself every single day what has God done for you through the gospel and I did that every day until one day I remember waking up being like Oh my gosh God truly cared for me enough to die for me and he took that shame he took all this he took that little boy and made him a man amen and ultimately here's the crazy thing it's hard to say this but when we're struggling with shame and we are refusing to let it go it it really is a sense of Pride and I know that sounds like we got to be kidding me I think I think very little of myself and it's like yeah you're trying to say if I measure to a certain place then I would accept me and then God would accept me and the reality is that's the whole point of the Gospel that's the whole point I've talked to people said well I'm just not good enough to be a Christian it's like you've got the point that is exactly the point but that's the most difficult point for us I I love what CS Lewis says about this he says if you proclaim the gospel to others but you have a hard time forgiving yourself you have to realize that you and he uses a British term but he says you are holding yourself up to a higher tribunal than God himself does like if he declares if he declares that you are not guilty you're holy all the Ephesians one thing you're holy and blameless you're righteous in his sight all this stuff and we're unable to say that to ourselves he's saying you're actually you have a higher standard than what God has because in Christ this is who you are that helps me and the Lord is patient with us uh your podcast is not a and done it's a constant battle and it's a constant thing to be reminding ourselves this and constantly be moving towards it and I know there are a lot of cases I know as in your story you're victims of something and for for someone then to tell you part of the problem now is pride because you had viewed yourself as one way and now something happened and you truly were a victim of that you didn't have anything to do with it but whenever we make that thing Define us again now it it's like no that doesn't get to Define you and it's really hard I know for folks to hear that it's not like wait what are you saying that I'm somehow contributing to this and it's like well some but I'm not saying anything about the abuse the abuse is abuse right yeah well and and I think I remember reading that CS Lewis thing and thinking about myself because I used it's a struggle and if I'm not careful still struggle with condemnation that's like the one thing I have to be very careful of but very similar where I was like I I remember a mentor of mine saying will you just trust that God can do this and not be and he called me out straight up he's like and not be prideful and I was like prideful how can I be prideful and I started blaming yeah I started blaming I started doing all these things and in that moment I saw the shame coming out and like I was doing everything that Adam did and I'm like oh my gosh this is just another form of Pride that I just like repented of and I was like I need to trust that if God finished the work he finished it yeah that's beautiful and it really is I I do think a lot of especially as men we have a real hard time acknowledging that we're wrong right yeah and and I I think some of the most freeing things is uh when Jesus says when you see something wrong with somebody else here's the deal I want you first to take the log out of your own eye and then so that he says so that you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye he wants you to get engaged there but what he wants that to be is also an opportunity for us to look in word and the gospel says I'm completely okay in Jesus Christ my sin has been paid for my shame has been removed from me so I can look inside and it's scary to look in there but it doesn't get to Define me Jesus defines me and and it's still scary not going to say it's not nobody likes that nobody says oh please please tell me all my faults today but it allows me to say I can I can go there I can be like Peter and say hey dude this is what happened it's the most shameful thing in my life but I want you to know it because I want people to know for Generations the Wonder and freedom of the Gospel as we finish up there is this one thread that you've been talking about that we've kind of alluded to but it's this concept of like intimacy with God and like this deep relationship where you could be completely vulnerable like when you think about Genesis when he created us he breathed life there was this deep intimate thing deep right same thing with creating Eve then even if I think about the story of Peter and when he the rooster crows he looked at Peter in the eye like there was this intimate moment that was happening and then in Revelation right it talks about that God is going to be with us deep intimate thing right talk to guys who right now that they may be struggling in their shame and they're like I hear guys talking about and the church talking about intimacy with God but I just have too much shame how do bring the gospel into that so that I can really experience that intimacy that people talk about because they've never experienced it before yeah it's a fantastic question probably another whole podcast but the long and short of it I would say is um the first way to get over your hang up with your shame is to and I I don't I I use a phrase and Ken you know about you've been in our church I just say you have to have gospel friendship now if that's a counselor so be it I don't but just someone in your life that you can walk some things through I went through after the death of my father I went through some real grief things that brought out extreme anger in me and I I just had to have a gospel friend for about three months every other week we'd go hang and have a beer and I would cry every time in my beer but I had to have someone that I could expose it to and sometimes that can be someone you know real well it doesn't necessarily have to be it just needs to be someone who's willing to listen and not you know try to fix you they just need to listen and let you kind of want because otherwise once the shame is built up in your mind I would say getting it out confessing it or talking about it is half the battle it's not all of it but it's a good half until then that shame will keep you from any intimacy with anyone not just God right because I'm not letting you really see the real me I'm not letting you see what's really going on there and once you start to share some of these things with a gospel friend someone who deeply understands the gospel and cares and loves you and are not perfect of course I'm not asking to be perfect but you share some of these things and they reply with loving a and it's not the end of the world to them you start to realize oh the gospel really does work like this and it starts to build up and I think that carries off then into your relationship with God and you start to realize God I can talk openly and honestly about some of the these things that are really on my heart and on my mind because I've seen the way you've worked in people as well to get that so that would be my encouragement is just get it out of the darkness bring it into the light uh and and it's not pretty necessarily but that's the first step yeah I love it Tri I remember many times we've gone out and I spilled all my thoughts and fears and shame to you and how you treated me with a lot of Grace and uh I those were beautiful moments for me I think of one when I talked to you about one of the issues with my dad of me bringing my stuff to him and just being so scared to do it and how you just walk me through that season of life and you were a gospel friend in those moment thanks truly you too bro so thank you for that man thank you for everything you're doing and still doing at Hope Community Church uh and I hope that the people who are listening to this can find Freedom like Jesus took away the shame amen like he took it away and it's going to be awesome trike for those who might be like oh man I want to listen to more of tri's sermons or just hear more about trike what's the best way to reach out to you yeah it's great I uh do preach I preach about uh 20 times a year now so I'm there's younger better looking people that are running uh our different locations I do preach at the different locations and you can go to our website hope hcc.com and go over to the resources section and look on that if you want to do that uh and I do have a podcast on the book of Rome Romans which is called Romans untangled it's a finished work now I think I did Four Seasons and they're about half an hour I Tred to do it you could if you if you worked somewhere about half an hour away or 15 minutes away you could do an episode on the way there back or let's be honest people are listening at a two time speed anyway so uh I always do so I do yeah so you know it could be done in like a car ride or something like that so I tried to make them make him short it's it's written for someone who maybe the book of Romans would be intimidated and so the whole point of the podcast was it's it's not like this deep un I mean we hit some pretty deep stuff yeah but it's it's written for people who maybe have no uh understanding of the Bible whatsoever so and yet I've talked to people who have master's degree in scripture and they like it and so that's been kind of fun so you can check that out it's on anywhere you get podcasts Romans untangled yeah I love it I I listen to it it's been great I loved every time you went through Romans I'm like oh you finally made it into a podcast so it it was fantastic well trike thank you so much for being on podcast thank you for Romans and Tango and thank you for everything you're doing at Hope for those of you who are listening and if you are ever in the Twin Cities Minnesota area and are trying to look for a home church I would encourage you top Church to go to Hope Community Church check it out amazing leaders and pastors there I can't get any better endorsement than from Ken so appreciate it brother appreciate it all right for all of you who are listening hope you guys have a great day and God bless thank you thank you thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you