Well, good morning Church. Thank you for being here today, man. It is so, so good just to be in God's house. It's been incredible just watching the energy all morning long. Two things before we jump into the message today. Number one, if you were part of Matt Reed's men's team this week that put on the wings and things night or you were part of the volunteer team that came, it was an incredible night. And can we just say thank you? Thank you. Thank you for being involved with that. Thank you for coming. If you were one of the men that were here. Over a thousand men in one place at a non-sporting event. That's big, right? It was a great night for the gospel to shine, for relationships to be made. So thanks for that. 

Secondly, it is time to talk Easter. It's time to talk Easter. I know that is hard to say when it's 25 degrees outside, but it is time to talk Easter. And so let me say a couple of things about Easter. Our plan this year is to be back outside on the front lawn for Easter to have a huge family service. Again, our plan right now is to have a Saturday at 6:00 on Easter Sunday, have a 9:00 and 11:00. All of those the same service. You don't have to come to all of them unless you just want a little extra. Jesus, we're going to do the same service three different times. But let me say a couple of things about that. Being on the front lawn gives us the opportunity to set up the maximum amount of seats and not only have the maximum amount of seats, the maximum amount of room. The beautiful thing about being out there is while this place will hold, what, 1100-1200 at best, outside we can set up thousands of chairs. You can bring your own chairs, for goodness sake. We can just keep turning it up if you bring people right. So here's what we need you to do. We need you to start thinking now, who is it that you will have with you that weekend. I heard the latest stat this week says that 82% of the people that do not attend church, okay, if you invite them to come with you on Easter Sunday, they'll come. They'll come. That means this 82% of the people that, you know, that don't attend church, if you just walk to them and go, hey, listen, will you come with us? Now, with us is the keyword. Will you come with us? They'll come. They'll come. So if all of you will do that, imagine what Easter Sunday will look like. Do me a favor over these next couple of weeks and be praying. God, who is it? Who is it that you've got in front of me that can come with me? It's my favorite service of the year. And so please, please, please come home from the beach early enough, right, to be with us on Easter Sunday. All right. Easter Sunday. All right. 

Let's jump in our message this morning. We are going to finish up what I've just been calling three tough emotions, three tough emotions. We've been walking through these every week. These emotions that either we are walking through or we have walked through or most certainly we know somebody that's in them. And we've said from the beginning in all these messages that we're going to attack all of these from a spiritual lens and we're going to see what God has to say about these emotions that really are indicators of what goes on in our heart. But also we're going to see what God says about giving us victory and living in them as Christ followers. We've seen every week that what God wants to do is to set us free from these and to give us victory in them. Two weeks ago, we started this whole series by looking at the emotion, the tough emotion of depression, of depression. And we said the depression is this idea in our minds that all of life is closing in on us and we really see no way back to joy. No way in our present or no way in our future. And the whole message that morning revolved around the idea of us seeing the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the new mercies, as we saw in Lamentations chapter three in Jeremiah, the Prophet, telling us that God's mercies are new every single morning. Last week we moved from depression and we stepped into the idea or the emotion of anxiety. The idea of anxiety now last week was applicable to all of us because at some point in our time we said that while we may or may not suffer with depression, there's not one of us in here that can honestly say that I've never had an anxious thought. I've never had anxiety over something. What we said last week is, in reality, it all boiled down to the idea that anxiety deals with where our devotion is pointed to. And if our devotion is pointed in the right way toward Christ, then when other things come up, we see them through the lens of Christ, we see them through the lens of eternity. And we said last week and kind of stamped this idea that anxiety is a liar, it's a liar. It brings God down to a level he was never supposed to be at. And it really and truly makes us see ourselves through our lens and not the eternal lens of who God has made us. Last week on anxiety was incredibly important for so many people's lives, and my prayer all this week was that God would just continue bringing down this idea that if God is big enough for our eternity, He is big enough for our day. 

That's where we were last week. Now, every single week we have made the point to point out one idea in dealing with emotions. And I want to put it back up on the screen this morning as a principle, because I said I was going to do it every week. And I just want to remember. All right. Here's the point that we've made every week. Here's the principle. You can write this down just in case you haven't been here. We've said this about this. We should never feel our way into our beliefs. We have to believe our way into our feelings. Now, we've said this every week, but because our culture tells us that it's all about our feelings, it's all about what we feel and what our heart tells us. Our culture says it's all about where our desires are. And if we put the caboose before the engine, we will never live the life that God wants us to live. So what this is telling us is that our beliefs always have to shape our feelings. When our feelings get ahead of our beliefs, we begin to feel like we're shaping our beliefs. We can't live like that. It always skews us. Now, when we think about that through the lens of depression, it skews our view of the goodness of God. When we think about through the lens of anxiety, our anxiety begins to bring God down to a different level. But this morning I just want us to have that principle about feelings and beliefs, because this morning we're going to jump into the third and final emotion, and that is the emotion of shame this morning. The emotion of shame this morning. We're going to examine it through a spiritual lens and we're going to see how we have to speak to our shame. We have to speak to our shame, and we cannot let our shame speak to us. Now, here's what I want to say about anxiety. I mean, about shame. At some point in our lives, all of us on some kind of continuum have experienced shame. Why? Because shame begins with embarrassment. 

It kind of starts in the guilt world and then it begins to grow. And shame is an incredibly hard emotion, because while anxiety, we would all kind of in our culture freely admit that, yeah, you know what, I'm a little bit of an anxious person, and even in depression, there's an idea out there that we can kind of admit, Man, I kind of struggle with depression a little bit. I've never heard too many people in my 27 plus years of ministry say that man, I just struggle with shame. I struggle with shame. Why? Because we're afraid to say that. We're afraid to allow that to come out. Why? Because Satan has kind of taken us and he's kind of squashed us into this boat of nobody else feels this and nobody else is there. Now, shame is really hard because what most of us know about shame is the idea that shame is guilt, right? But that is kind of a half truth. And I want to spend a minute kind of separating the two, because I think it's a valid point of why shame is so hard. You see, here's what it is. Guilt is this idea of that I have done something, right? Guilt is I have done something and I kind of feel bad about that. Most of us if we were trying to define shame, we would define shame as kind of guilt on steroids a little bit. Not that I just feel bad about it, but I feel really, really bad about it. Maybe I just can't even shake it. So many people would say, shame is kind of like guilt to the extreme. They would say, guilt is feeling bad, and shame is feeling really bad about it. Here's the difference, and here's what makes shame such a hard topic for us and what we're going to look at it today. Write this principle down, guilt is focused on the what. Guilt focuses on what. What did I do, right? That's the what. Shame is focused on the who. Shame is focused on the who. In other words, guilt is, hey, I did something and feel bad about it. But shame is I feel like that's who I am. I feel like that's who God's made me. I feel like that's who I've slipped into being. So guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. And here is the crux of the matter. Shame begins to reshape us. It begins to reshape our identity. It begins to reshape our soul. It begins to reshape our outlook. It begins to reshape our view and worldview on life. Now, knowing that here's where shame comes from. Shame comes to us primarily in three ways. 

There's a lot, but I want to roll them into three categories. Number one, shame comes from feelings of guilt from what we have done. What we have done. You say Matt, why do we need to look at this? It's important. Just stay with me for a minute, then we're going to get to the Bible. Okay? Shame comes first, from what we have done. In fact, this is the first place we see shame in the whole Bible, right? Is Adam and Eve. They've been created. They've been given the whole garden, except for the tree of knowledge. Right? Stay away from that tree. But what did they do? They invited sin into the world. They sinned. They oppose what God said. And the first interaction we see with Adam post sin with God is Genesis 3:10 where Adam says this, he answered, I heard you in the garden, God. But I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. Why does that matter? It matters because before this point, they had no shame. They had no sin. They had no idea of the sin that could ever even be here. But now they've invited sin in. And because of something they did, they were hiding. This was the first among many moments of shame that we see all throughout history. Shame comes from something we do. But here's the second way this shame comes into our life. Number two, Shame can be brought into our lives by others. It can be brought by others. Don't assume that all the shame in somebody's life is only because of what they have done. Because in a lot of ways shame comes to us by what other people do. Shame comes from events that have nothing to do with my personal choices. You see, for many, even in this room, your shame came from some traumatic event that happened in your past. 

Well, that might have been that you were abused. Whether that was physically or verbally, spiritually or sexually or it may have been that you were just kind of talked at or talked to in a way for so long that eventually your soul began to grab on to what somebody else said about you, that you were no good or you are worthless, are you were just damaged, and eventually you just believe that part about who you are. So I want you to feel this. Shame comes from what we do. Shame comes from what other people have done to us. And here's the third way that shame enters our lives. Shame can be brought to our lives, shame comes from something about you that you have no control over. You have no control over. Since Genesis Chapter three, sin has entered the world, we have been born into sin, and as a result of that, there are parts of us that have been affected by sin. There are emotions, there is relationships. And the reality is there are some of us that we live in shame because of something about us. Maybe for you it's a disability, maybe for you it's a weakness. Maybe for you, your shame is brought on by a health problem that you just can't shape. And eventually it is it is consumed you to the point to where that has become one of your primary identities. And it's a situation that's not even a fault of your own. You didn't do anything to get it. It's just part of where you are. Okay. So in seeing all of that, let me just define shame for you. Shame is this deep feeling of and of being inherently flawed, inherently flawed. As an identity. Whether that is from something you did, whether that's from somebody else did about you, or it's just something that is associated with you, you feel about yourself that you are just inherently damaged. That you're inherently broken, that you're inherently flawed or dirty or ugly or impure or disgusting or unlovable or weak or pitiful or and insignificant that you are worthless or unwanted. Listen, let me tell you this. If you're if you're living in shame today, I don't have to get up here to make you think about this, to see kind of do a self-check. You know, if you're in shame, you know it. And here's how you know it. Because that list that I just kind of read over you right there, you have allowed that list to saturate your soul in some way because that's what shame does to you. 

In fact, write this down. Shame. Here's a principle. Shame leads us to become something that God never intended us to be. He never intended us to be. That's what shame. That's Satan's game. You realize this, right? Shame turns us into something that God never wanted us to be. God never wanted us just to be inherently flawed or to see ourselves as inherently flawed. But that's what shame does. It leads us to become something that God never intends us to be. Craig Groeschel says that shame does three things to us. Number one, it either turns us into a hopeless perfectionist that tries to just be perfect at everything and prove to others our worth. Or secondly, it turns us into a harsh critic that is just harsh. That is harsh of ourself and harsh of others because people that suffer with shame, they're just hard on themselves. Or third, it just turns us into a doomsday thinker. A doomsday thinker, where everything out there we see the worst about it. Why? Because that's what we see ourselves as. And that's what we let bleed into other people's lives. Shame when it consumes us. I know I'm building this up because this is important. Shame changes who you think you are. It changes your feelings about yourself. It changes your whole worldview. And it's such a tool of Satan. So here's what I want to do today. I want to walk through an event in Scripture where Jesus looks at a person in shame and delivers them. Where Jesus takes a person that is living a life, a long life of shame, and he lifts them out of it. And I want us to see what Jesus did in this lady's life and what He can do in your life. If you've got a copy of Scripture, go with me to Mark Chapter five. Mark Chapter five is we're going to be hanging out today. Mark five is a story about a woman that was absolutely living in shame. Now, we looked at this lady's story about six months ago from the Gospel of Luke, but today we're going to look at it from the Gospel of Mark in a totally different lens, because I just couldn't shake this lady off my heart this week and how God reaches down into her shame. Whether that is brought about by sin or suffering or pain or result of something done, and he delivers her. Now with every other message, I've said this when you work through this spiritually, if you're living this life and you work through this spiritually, you're still seeing there's something in this that is dragging on you. I'm telling you, it is a hard, hard road in a lot of areas of shame. Especially for those of you who have had stuff done to you. I'm going to tell you this. I know this message can set you free, but I also know that for many of you, you need somebody to walk beside you. Okay? Please reach out to us this week and let us connect you in with somebody that can do that. All right. 

Let's jump into the word Mark chapter five verse 21. Here's what it says. It says, When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus, came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. Well, wait a minute, Matt, I thought we were going to read a story about a lady. We are. But here's the good part about the story. This lady's story doesn't even start with her. It starts with somebody else. All right? It starts with this man named Jairus. Now Jairus was very respected. He was actually the leader of the synagogue at this place. And Mark tells us right out of the gun here that Jairus fell at Jesus' feet. Now, if you know anything about Jewish culture, especially the leaders and respected men, this would have never happened in a regular setting. These men were just pious. They were highly respected, non-emotional. They would have never bowed at the feet of another person, especially another man. But Jairus did, and we're about to see why he did it. It's because Jairus was desperate. Verse 23 Watch. He pleaded earnestly with him. My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. So Jesus it said, he went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. Verse 25, Now we get to meet our woman. Watch this. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. Now let's look at this idea of subject to bleeding. That's just a polite way of just saying that she had a menstrual cycle that for 12 years never stopped, which means a lot of things. All right. I can only say second handed. Here's what this means. All right? It means that not only was she sick, but she had to be in pain. But not only that, on top of that, she was unable to have children, which means that she was looked down upon by everybody. But on top of that, even more, that according to Jewish law at the time, she would have been seen as ceremonially unclean. 

Now, if you're ceremonially unclean in this time, you cannot be with people. You cannot be in crowds, you cannot be in public, you cannot be in the city center. And now think about this poor lady. For 12 years, she was not allowed in public with no worship, with no parties, with no contact by another human being. Chances are for 12 years, catch this nobody had touched this lady. Nobody had hugged this lady. Nobody had come up and put their arm around this lady. I need you just to feel the gravity of the situation, not only of her sickness, but her isolation. How outcast she was, how lonely she was, how when she grew up as a young girl, she had all these plans about being a mom, being a model citizen, being a community member. But now for 12 years, she lived in complete isolation, having her dreams completely destroyed. Now, Mark tells us right here that she had been to all the doctors, right? That she'd seen them all, spent all of her family money. None of them could do something. If you read this in Luke's account, you'll see that as a doctor, Luke said, and I quote, She was uncurable. She was uncurable, which when you see all of that together, I want you to notice one more thing about this poor young girl. I want you to notice that she's nameless. She's nameless. We don't see this girl's name. You can read every account in the Bible. None of them lists this girl's name. In contrast to Jairus right, which is what Jesus is doing here. In contrast to him. Everybody knew Jairus's name, right? But nobody knew her name. And that's intentional. Do you know why? Because she's hidden. She's been invisible. She's only known by her sickness and her shame. You see, in that's as much her doings as it is anybody elses. You see, listen to me close. Shame does that to people. 

It's like shame makes you want to hide. Shame makes you want to hide parts of yourself. Shame wants you, makes you eventually want to hide all of yourself and completely isolate yourself. Look at this contrast here Jairus. He's a ruler of the synagogue. This girl, she can't even go in the synagogue. Jairus is respected. She's rejected. Everybody knew Jairus. Nobody knew this girl. But both of them needed Jesus, right? Both of them needed Jesus to do something in their life, Jairus needed Jesus to heal his 12 year old daughter that was dying. But this poor young girl, she needed to be healed of her 12 year sickness and the fact that she had really just kind of been dead to the community for the last 12 years. We also see just an incredible truth here that there's two things in the story that is shown to us that keep us from coming to Jesus. You see, the first thing was Jairus. Do you know what kept you know what keeps people like Jairus from coming to Jesus? Their pride. Their pride. Why? They feel like they have it all together. They feel like they have all the answers. They feel like they have all the money, they have all the power. Until Jairus right, until life throws them a curve ball, puts them on their back to where they actually can get a view of who God is. And I think that's where a lot of us live our lives. But the second reason that people don't come to Jesus, we see in this poor young girl and and that's the fact that this is what kept her from Jesus is her shame. It's her shame. She was told all along that she is worthless, that she can't do anything, and her shame kept her and had told her in her mind, if Jesus really knew about me, is there really a way He could help me? But what does she do? She risks it. Watch this in verse 27. Keep going with the story. She knows that Jesus is the solution. Watch what she does. Verse 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, If I could just touch his clothes, I will be healed. I love that line when she heard about Jesus. But what did she hear? I mean, have you ever thought about this in the text? I'm sure she'd heard about the stories of the day, but she had also heard this legend that the Jews had pulled out of context, from Malachi 4:2. Let me read it to you. It says, but for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. The Jews had pulled out of context that when the Messiah came, if you just got in the shadow of the Messiah, if you just got under his wing a little bit that you would be healed. So this lady took that for real, right? But she knew something. She knew her problem was that she was unclean and she couldn't go into public. Right. She couldn't be around public. And what would people do? Would they shun or would they throw rocks at her? What would Jesus do? This holy man do? So here's what she did. I've never really thought about this. This lady thought about a clandestine way to steal a miracle. Think about in the story. What does she do? She snuck into the crowd. She kept her head down and she secretly got a miracle from Jesus. What did she do? She snuck up and did it. Watch verse 29. It tells us what happened. She touched Jesus's robe or grabbed his robe and watch this in verse 29. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. She was healed. Watch verse 30. I love it. Keep reading. At once Jesus realized the power had gone out from him. Man, I can't wait to ask Jesus, what does it feel like? You know, that's one of the questions I got for him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes? Now, kids, let me ask you a question. Does Jesus really not know who touched him? No. Great, right? He knows who touched him. If you can heal somebody sight unseen, you know who touched you. Right. But here's what Jesus wants to do. Jesus wants this poor girl to identify herself because he has something even better than just giving her physical healing. He wants to heal her spiritually. 

He wants to give her life. He wants to give her the physical healing he already has. But now he wants to touch her. But here's what happened. Peter steps in. Peter always steps in at a deep moment. Look at verse 31. You see that the people are crowding against you. His disciples answered. Now, Mark was really nice here. He didn't call Peter out, but Luke did all right. And yet you ask who touched me. But there's a great point here. Here's the point. You see, many people brush up casually against Jesus. In fact, every single week of this church, people come into these gatherings and just casually brush up against Jesus, casually have a kind of quasi encounter with Jesus, casually come into the presence of Jesus, happens every week. But what Jesus is looking for to set us free is what this lady did. And that is a true touch of submission and faith. That's what she did. I mean, what's about to happen? Is she about to be yelled at? Is she about to be scolded by Jesus? Keep reading in the story, verse 32. But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, now pause there. Did he, like, throw down some Old Testament wrath? No. Look at all of verse 34. And Jesus said to her daughter. You might want to circle that word right there. Daughter, your faith has healed you, now go in peace and be freed from your suffering. Now, church Jesus calls this girl daughter. You know, it's the only time in Scripture that this word is used. And it's such an in term of endearment, it's such a tender message. It's like old Southern talk where Jesus would just look at her go, Hey, listen, precious sweetheart, you're mine. 

You're mine. Now, let's think about what just happened in a macro sense here. This girl that nobody wanted, Jesus healed her and called her precious. This girl that nobody else would touch. What did we just read? Jesus now fully embraced her as the creator of the universe. This girl that nobody knew is now fully known by the savior of the world. And can I just tell you this morning that is exactly what Jesus does with the unwanted, disfigured, hurting, and those in shame. That's what he does. He makes them know that they are his sons, that they are his daughters, that he gives them peace. He calls us beloved. But here's the question What happened to the girl's shame? Have you ever thought about that? In a miracle situation, where does the other side go? Let me let me tell you this real quick. I know it's just pretty deep, but you got to grasp it for the story. What happened to the shame that was living in the girl? Where to go? Did you just poof, go nowhere? No. It went into Jesus. It went into Jesus. What did Jesus do right here on this scene? Jesus took her shame, and here's what he wants to do in all of us. And he sent her home in peace. He took her shame. She went on in peace. What did Jesus do? Jesus restored her to her family, and Jesus went to the cross. Jesus restored her to the community, and Jesus was hung in shame for our sins. Right? To do what? To give the shameful new life. That's what Jesus did. Church, Jesus has taken on your shame. And I want you to hear this morning, for those of you who's shame came from something you have done, listen, Jesus offers his cleansing power through the substitutionary death on the cross. This is what the cross is. That Jesus went to the cross to give you peace. That Jesus went to the cross so you can have life. So your guilt can be gone, your penalty can be taken, and you can have new life. Listen, when you touch Jesus in faith, He takes your shame. That's the point of the story. That's where Jesus has taken us. He not only just takes your shame, he calls you by a new name. They rhyme. It's like it's made to be, right? He gives you a new identity. He calls you his. He raises you up in his and he declares over you that you are his. 

For those of you who's shame came from something that has been done to you, listen to this. You need to hear the message this girl heard. He calls you daughter, he calls you son. He calls you sweetheart. He calls you his love. And that identity outweighs any other identity that you that Satan, that the world that any other person has tried to put on you. You're his. Listen, you are not what others say about you. You're what God says about you. You are not what you or your feelings say about you. And that is a big statement for a lot of things that are struggles of this world. You are what Jesus has proclaimed you as as his gift, as his son, as his daughter, as his beloved. Some of you right now are in the crowd wondering what would happen if you were exposing your shame. I'll tell you what would happen. Jesus already knows, and he wants to set you free from it. You're his beloved child. You're not damaged. You're not second rate, you're not unworthy, you're not unloved. None of that. You are his whom he created and redeemed. Who shed his blood for you. And you know that in Hebrews it tells us, not only are we just his, but that one day he's going to seat us on the throne with him ruling over the universe. And the angels were looking at us going, where they worth it, really? I mean, come on, Jesus. And he said, Yeah, they were. They're mine. Believers, it's time for us to exchange our shame and give it to Jesus and allow Him to proclaim over us who we are. Look at verse 34 again. I know I've read it like five times, but you just need to hear it, he said to her daughter, daughter, your faith has healed you, go in peace. 

Please stop listening to your feelings and start seeing who Jesus has made you. Now we should pray right there and go to lunch. But we're not, all right. We're not not going to do that, because here's what I know about you and here's what I know about me. I get the big picture stuff a lot, but sometimes I just need somebody to flesh it out for me a little bit. All right? That's what I want to do with the rest of the very few minutes I have left. For those of you who are balnk checkers. Don't worry. We're going to get there. All right. Here it is. I want to give you three steps from this story and three steps that Christian counselors would tell us that we have to walk through to get rid of our shame. All right. I'm going to give them to you real quick. Number one. Here it is. You got to come out of the isolation and shadows. Come out of the isolation and come out of the shadows. This is exactly what this girl did, right? What did she do? She came out of 12 years of living in the isolation. She came to the one that could heal her, came to the one that can set her free. You have to come out of the shadows. Why? Because shame thrives in secrecy. It thrives in secrecy. And you got to take the shame to God, to Jesus, take the shame to a trusted person, expose the shame and expose what it is that Satan has been holding you captive with. And here's the thing. When you do it, people are going to be glad you did it because they already know. 

And I know Jesus especially already knows. Since Jesus already knows, I can assure you that Jesus is already ready for it. He was for this lady. He's not too busy for you. You're not bothering him with it. And listen to this, Matthew 11:28, Jesus has already told us, come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Man, shame will wear you down. It'll wear you down to where you don't even know who you are anymore. Watch this. He says this in verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and I'm humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. Some of your view of Jesus is that if you did come out and you told him what was going on here, you think that he's going to Old Testament God you, and turn you into a pillar of salt. That's not Jesus. He wants to set you free. He wants to set you free. Shame holds you captive, but Jesus sets you free. Number one, come out of the isolation and shadows. Number two, here it is. Have your story heard. Have your story heard. Listen. So many articles I read this week. Secular and Christian would say that speaking your shame, vastly reduces its power, vastly reduces its power. 

Now, here's what we know as Christians. We know the power giver. We know the one that cannot just vastly reduce its power, but can conquer our shame. And his name is Jesus. Listen, there may be things in your life that you have never told anyone, that you've carried on your own for years, and you have felt like you could never, ever, never, ever heal from them. You have got almost you've got like 90% there. And then something will happen. It will knock you right back. You've got almost there and something will happen and it'll knock you back. That's because shame lives in secrecy. Man, maybe you need to tell somebody. You certainly need to tell God because he already knows it. But maybe you just need to tell somebody about that past abuse in your life. You need to tell somebody about that secret diagnosis that you're dealing with, that secret fear or from something somebody has done from you by naming the shame like this lady, you are identifying that I want to deal with it. I want to put it into the maker of the universe's hands, maybe you need to be honest about a temptation that you're dealing with, a habit that is formed in you that you don't know how to get rid of. An attraction in your life. That your feelings are about to start taking over in your life and now you're beginning to believe the lies that this is how God made you. Maybe there's a secret sin you need to confess, a weakness in your life, a prolonged addiction. And you've thought in this process, if everybody knew, if anybody knew, they will not accept me. Listen, that is not what you're seeing in this story, and that's not what you're going to see in this church. Do you see Jesus? He doesn't operate like that. He doesn't smack this lady around and tell her she's no good and worthless. Man, he reaches down, he grabs her and he calls her his own. And as long as I'm in this church, that's how this church is going to operate as well. We are not going to be a family of God that is a museum to show off our righteousness. We're going to be a hospital to the hurting. That's who we are. Why? Because we're all broken. We're all broken. We've all come from brokenness. We have to understand that Jesus only came to save broken people. You know why? Because everybody's broken. 

That's who Jesus is. This has to be the one place we can bring our shame. And like this woman, we've got speak our shame. Church, it is okay to not be okay. But it's not okay to stay there. It's okay. We kind of know that Jesus only saves broken people and he wants you to name that shame to him. He wants you to name that shame to trusted people in your life that can walk with you. Number one, come out of the shadows. Number two, have your story heard. Here's number three. This is my favorite one. You got to allow Jesus to lift your soul by speaking truth over you. By speaking truth over you, not speaking feelings over you. Because truth has got to rule our feelings. Speaking truth you. Look at verse 34. Did you see what happened? I'm not going to put it up there. We read it like 12 times. Here it is. You see what happened? Jesus, this lady is at, she's at the feet of Jesus. She's bowed at the feet. And what is Jesus do? Jesus reaches down and he lifts her up. That's exactly what Jesus wants to do in your life. Jesus stops everything He says, Hey, look at me, precious daughter. Quit looking at the ground because that's what shamed does. And look at me. I love how David says this in Psalms three, he says, Lord, how many are my foes? How many rise up against me? How many are saying of me, God will not deliver Him, but you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory. Now listen to this. You were the one who lifts my head high. Man, do you need to hear that this morning? That's who Jesus is. I call out to the Lord and he answers me from his holy mountain. Listen church, when you feel like you can't lift your own head, that's the time for you to ask Jesus to lift it for you. When you feel like you have no energy, that's the time you say, Jesus, I need you to lift my head and give me a new identity. This is one of the greatest gospel truths of the whole world is that the power of new life begins with new identity. 

Listen, every other religion on this planet will tell you something like this. Get yourself better, clean yourself up, be a good person. Come on, come around some good people, and then maybe God will notice you. And then God will bless you. Christianity and Jesus, he says, Hey, come to me at your worst and you let me give you new life. Declare me as yours, give me your identity and I will give you peace. That's Jesus. Listen, I say this, but this is the crux of the whole matter. This would have been like a two minute message if I had just said this at the beginning. You want to heal from shame? It's time to shift your focus away from what you think you are or not, to who Jesus is and who He says you are. That's it. That's it. Man, that would have saved me a lot of studying this week right there. Shift your focus from who you think you are to who Jesus is, and who he says you are. That's it. Do you know why? 

Because what Jesus believes about you is so much more than what you feel about you. Because the shame has taken you. The shame has been on you. So who are you? You're not what other people say you are. You're not what Satan says you are. Students, you're not who you say you are. You're not. You're not what somebody did to you. You're not what somebody did to you when you were a kid. You're not what you were born into. You're not defective, you're not damaged, you're not broken, you're not flawed, you're not ugly. You're not impure or disgusting. You're not weak, you're not pitiful, you're not insignificant, you're not unworthy, you're not worthless and you're definitely not unwanted. Who did Jesus say you are? He says you're forgiven and you're free and you're redeemed and you're loved and you're changed and you're blessed and you're brand new and you're his and you're complete. And you're a son and your daughter and you are a child of the king. That's who he says you are. 

And it's time for us to believe it. Jesus is the lifter of your head, and He wants to set you free. That's what he wants. The question is, will you let him? Will you get through the crowd? Will you sneak through the crowd just to get a grasp at the robe of king Jesus? Will you drag? Will you just let him drag you for a minute, maybe? Until you can just look up on him and he says look daughter, I got you. Hey, son, you're mine. And whatever that stuff was that's been defining you, it no longer exists. I took it on to give you life. Lord Jesus today. God, here's the invitation today. God, it's that we grab hold of the robe of Jesus and we see that we are yours. That we're yours. We're not who culture says we are. We're not who's somebody else's stamped us. We're not even who we feel we are. I am who you say I am. I'm a child of the king. You know, with your head's bowed and your eyes closed just for a second this afternoon. 

Let me just ask you this. Have you ever stepped into a relationship with Jesus where you can just emphatically say, he saved me, he brought me life, he forgave me, he took my shame, and he has lifted me to be his. Maybe you're here today, and it's like, Matt, I've been a church person my whole life, but I don't know if that's where I am. I don't know If I've ever given my life to Jesus, my heart to Jesus. Here's the good news, you can call out to him right now. Lord Jesus, here's where your heart has to be. Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and God, I know that you came to save me. Will you come into my heart? Will you forgive me of my sins? Will you be mine? Be my Savior and my Lord. Here's my life. Listen, it that's the first time you've ever really and truly echoed that prayer in your heart. And you mean it. Man, welcome to the Kingdom of God. You've been set free. You're Shame has been taken. And we love to talk to you about that in just a second. But I also know there's a whole bunch of you that know Jesus in this place. But even knowing Jesus, the shame, the struggle is strong. Maybe today in these next couple of minutes, you just need to, you need to ask Jesus, hey Jesus, heal me. I'm coming out of the shadows. I need my story to be heard. I need you to speak your truth over me. Lord, in these next couple of minutes come. Whether it's in a seat or whether someone needs to step out of their seat to come down and pray with a counselor today, God just move in our hearts Lord Jesus, and show us that we are who you say we are. Thank you, Lord Jesus. It's in your name.