Does God use shame?

Well, welcome to the Uncut Podcast where, well, first off, I guess my name is Pastor Luke and I'm Pastor Cameron and we strive to have honest, uncut conversations about,

faith, life and ministry.

And so Cameron, what are we going to be talking about today?

Today I thought we would take an opportunity to talk about a, I don't know if you would call it like a, if we could call it a phenomena or a tendency or whatever.

I'm not really sure what you would call it, but there's this concept sometimes that we encounter.

I'm thinking of a few particular situations and conversations I've had over the past the cat over the course of the past few years where people will.

It almost seems as if they want to invite an extreme amount of like shame upon themselves.

Or guilt upon themselves or condemnation upon themselves. Um.

Because they feel like the only reason or the way in which God is like really strongly moving in their life is if they just feel so horrible about who they are and about what they've done and about like their eternal like standing or place or destiny.

And I think that there is some, I think it's a worthwhile conversation to talk about like the prevalence of guilt, shame, and condemnation in the Christian faith.

I think like, I know what you're talking about. Like I've had those conversations slash I've been that person, I think.

So if we go back to like 19-year-old Luke, 20-year-old Luke, 21-year-old Luke, at that point Mark Driscoll was like, he was a big name in Christianity, still is now a big name,

but he's infamously a big name.

And so he was a preacher that I listened to on the regular. And I remember...

Like there's a lot of things I appreciate but appreciate it about his preaching at the time. But one of the things I really really wanted and liked was when he yelled at me.

Yeah, I like as like oh like I would just like.

I was listening to sermon podcast all the time and I said nobody else makes me feel like as bad about my sin. Yeah, as he does like like it was it wasn't a good sermon unless I felt really Like I was a miserable wretched sinner. Am I afterwards?

Yeah, I like I had an older look for that. I looked for that that was like I would hunt for sermons like that like that became like my,

Draws like I wanted to listen to sermons by him until I found one that was like that and made me feel bad about myself in some way and And, you know, I remember some older believers in my life asking me like, why do you like his sermons so much?

Like he's not actually all that clear of a preacher. He just preached talks for a long time, kind of rambles.

And like I think now retrospectively, I think that was a significant piece of why I liked his sermons because I thought, oh, well, this is how like, this is a sign of God doing something and this sermon is how I feel afterwards and I feel miserable.

Right. Like if we elevated and there's a tendency or can be a tendency to elevate the work of God in my life through a sermon with how bad I feel about myself because of it.

Yeah.

That like the i describe as like the bible being used.

Only as a hammer to.

Pound us into repentance submission. Yeah.

Now don't get me wrong, repentance submission is- It's a biblical concept. It's a biblical concept that we all, right, that like myself included, yes, I need to repent of my sin daily.

Yes, I need to submit to God's work in my life and God's conviction of my sin and conviction in my life.

But when it rises to the level of like the only way that God works in my life is when I feel horrible about myself.

I think that we have some questions to ask about does God only use a hammer to draw us into greater relationship with him.

More holiness, more transformation.

That's kind of like, for me that feels like maybe the crux of the conversation or the crux of the question is,

how does God actually and usually draw us into a transformative process wherein we are moved to recognize our sin, repent of it,

and turn to Him in faith. And like the opinions on that are varied.

Yeah, yeah. Well...

Guess like I'm kind of like as I'm thinking I don't know. I have so many different thoughts about like like do we talk about Why?

We're drawn to like sin or not sin Why are we drawn to kind of like why was I as a young believer so like just like running towards shame and guilt?

Like I was I was looking for it. Like if the preacher didn't make me feel bad about myself He didn't really preach. It wasn't a good preacher. It wasn't a good preacher. It wasn't preaching the Bible, right?

And I could you know, I could I can hear right like oh Cameron you're just you're just wanting to talk about like a really soft God soft God. Yeah.

Who You know, why would we like you're actually choosing to run towards what the flesh would run the flesh wants Right.

The soft, kind, like... Comfort.

Comfort, but the fear of the Lord, like you, that's, you're actually running from it. And I think that's an interesting question to talk about is, okay, it might seem counterintuitive.

To say, well, why would we choose the thing that causes more discomfort?

Like wouldn't that be something that God leads us to?

Because we wouldn't naturally go there. would naturally want to go the direction you're maybe advocating or saying is the other side of that coin.

Yeah. I think that's a, I think that isn't quite, do you kind of get what I'm getting at? I totally get what you're getting.

Yeah. Like how do, how would I respond as a pastor and as a preacher to someone who says essentially like, well, aren't you just kind of, isn't that just kind of like Christianity, like diet Christianity? Yeah.

Christianity for, you know, the soft person who doesn't, you can't deal with the real significant heavy truths of the gospel.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, you know, Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, you know.

Right, right. Cameron, you're just being seeker sensitive. Being seeker sensitive. Stop it.

Yeah. I would say this really simply and not like only with a little bit of snarkiness, maybe a lot of snarkiness is that the wrath of God was satisfied on the cross by Jesus.

And that God approaches, like God approaches me or I approach God or however you want to look at it, I approach the Father through the work of Jesus, whom has given me access by His blood and His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.

That we can boldly approach the throne of grace with confidence. that every bit of anger God had, every bit of wrath was satisfied, was hung on the cross,

in the person of his son Jesus, so that I don't have to experience wrath,

so that I don't have to experience the holiness or the justice of His holiness.

What I experience is I experience life through Christ.

Of course, that life through Christ demands something of me. It demands that I turn from my sin.

It demands that I put to death the deeds of the world and the deeds of my sinful nature and that I be resurrected into new life. Through faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit indwells

me and I'm adopted as a son or as a daughter, as a child of the Father and I produce fruit that is in keeping with repentance. It is not a form of the gospel or a form of Christianity that demands

nothing of me. It demands my very life, but not in the sense that I sit under the wrath of God.

Here and now and in the moment if I don't. It is the love of God through Christ that compels us and draws us and woos us in.

And we can certainly, I think, stand or sit in awe and in humility and in gratefulness and thankfulness that the punishment that was ours was Jesus, that Jesus bore the punishment that we deserved.

Um, but I feel like a little bit of this, like every time that I want to feel really bad about myself or I want, I want to have that feeling, you know, that feeling that

we were discussing about like, um, is a little bit Jesus been like, why, why do you want to? Like.

Like did not die not bear enough of God's wrath for you that you feel it necessary to like. Bear more of it was my death not sufficient.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because like, I don't know, I think there's a strain of Christianity that at least I'm fairly familiar with because I was kind of in it for a while

that's like, well, I am nothing more than a wretched sinner, right? But if we think about like Paul's addresses to the church, like dearly beloved, right? Like the identity

of someone who is in Christ. Like there is in a way in which we can say, yes, Lord Jesus have mercy on me for I am a sinner. Like that will always be true on a level, but it is

no longer the superseding or ultimate identity. And we see that again and again throughout the New Testament because Christians are referred to as beloved, as like in Christ and like,

as children, as part of the family, as a united priesthood, as like people set apart unto him.

Like that's the identity that is again and again stated. Paul doesn't, you know, I think a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of people who are in sort of pastoral authority and things like that would,

if they were Paul, would have written their letters something like, hello, you wretched sinners. Like,

That's, well, that doesn't seem to be what Paul or Christ had in mind.

Like that seems like we've kind of shifted tones unnecessarily and maybe adopted something that's not biblical.

We can say that. Biblical, hearkening back to a previous podcast episode about what is, what does it mean to be biblical or not?

Yeah. You know, maybe, Maybe we can chalk some of it up to like a...

Want to see a confusion of terms, not a confusion of terms, but like we have a lot of terms, both Christian and like cultural that kind of swirl around the periphery of this kind,

of topic or concept, terms like guilt, shame, condemnation, sorrow, and there's sadness.

There's a bunch of those.

So even having a little bit of, or doing a little bit of work around what are the, what are the substantive differences between those terms?

I don't know. Maybe it would bring a little bit of like clarity to those conversations. So like, what is your, like, do you have a sense of like, how you would begin to parse out like some of the differences in those?

Uh, you know, like I go immediately to shame, like shame's like the one that like, I think like if we can get shame into its right corner, I think some of the other ones we can begin to maybe parse some differences or at least even, um, begin to kind of wrap our mind about the landscape.

Shame for me is a kind of a superlative I am statement about who or what I am. Shame is like the, let's say that I'm harsh with my words.

I get into a conversation and I speak harshly, right?

Shame in that would be I'm an awful person.

Yep. I'm terrible.

I'm an awful person because I'm harsh with my words sometimes. I'm wretched, I'm terrible. Just shouldn't, I'm undeserving of anything, like going down that.

It's all I am stuff.

Sorrow would be more like, my actions were not in keeping with Christ. I reacted, acted in a way that was not loving, Christ-like. I wish I had not, and I desire not to. I want.

To do better in the future. But that's significantly different because it's oriented towards Christ and redemption and it's not. Because what do you do if you are an awful person?

How does that get changed versus like, I did an awful thing. Like I'm still redeemed by Christ. I'm still a child of God, but I'm still in process. Right? Like that's significantly different. So

like for me, shame statements, shame is all about like the I am statements and they tend to be very like superlative in kind of, and don't provide any sort of direction forward.

Yeah. Yeah, I think in similar, I think in a similar way, I would agree with that. I think that like, I usually try to think about the connections between guilt, shame,

sorrow, and condemnation.

Because in a way, I feel like they're all a little bit connected. For instance, the word guilt, which is a biblical word, if you can use that.

It's a biblical word, right?

But it's kind of like a legal term, similar to how the word righteousness or unrighteousness is a legal term, but it's a biblical term.

Guilt is a legal term, meaning you're either guilty or not guilty of doing a thing.

So let's use harsh words. Did you speak harshly?

Did you use harsh words? Yes. Okay. You are guilty of the offense of using harsh words.

So guilt on its own is not a word that is meant to affect identity or emotion or our own mental process or our spiritual status or our identity.

It simply is meant to denote whether or not we did it or we didn't, for lack of a better term.

Talking about the objective reality. The objective reality of the thing. I use those words in a harsh way that was hurtful or offensive.

I did those things. I've been declared guilty of doing that. Yeah. Shame then becomes similar to what you said.

It becomes like the downward spiraling effect of the thing that I did now determines my identity.

Yeah. Right? did and I am guilty of doing an awful thing, it must by association mean that I'm an awful person. Shame.

Almost always leads us to the place of feeling as though we deserve condemnation. Guilt can lead us to the same place too. We can feel condemnation or a feeling of condemnation.

Over being guilty of something. But shame always leads us to the place of feeling condemned because because how could I not be condemned since I'm such an awful, horrible person?

And what is so insidious about shame is that there is no level to which it will not go to drag you lower and deeper and further.

Yeah. I think we should pause right there before we kind of go on to sorrow because I think We live in a world where I think there's this misconception that, let's say, I use harsh,

words.

Well, if I'm really harsh on myself in turn and I go into shame, why would not being mad at myself and beating myself down, why would that not change my behavior?

I think this is the lie of shame or the thing that a lot of us don't immediately realize about shame because we sometimes, particularly when we leverage shame on ourselves, is in an effort to get us to do different.

But shame is really good at actually reinforcing the negative behavior rather than actually changing it.

Yeah, because, well, that's who I am, so why wouldn't I just keep doing that? That's often a subconscious response.

It's not something that we actually think. No. Like, oh, I'm a wretched person. I might as well keep doing wretched things.

Subconsciously though, we continue to do those things because we've identified in that way. Why doesn't shame move us to a place of action in a positive direction?

Well, because shame, it poisons and twists your identity.

It gives you a false identity. In fact, it is the act of you presuming your own identity.

We're no longer receiving our identity from our heavenly father. Now we're receiving our identity from the thing that we did or the thing that we didn't do.

Did you ask a question there? I think I just wanted to highlight that. Because I think there's that cycle there and not everyone is aware of it.

Because we leverage shame on ourselves or other people thinking that that will be the thing that gets them to change.

But what we don't realize is that we've bought a lie.

The lie that shame changes behavior.

It doesn't. tends to reinforce behavior. No, because yeah, exactly. Because shame is a replacement of true identity.

So it's a counterfeit identity, right? And where does change actually happen?

Change happens truly, like from the basis of our identity. So if our identity is a counterfeit identity that is produced by shame, I'm wretched, I am horrible,

I am harsh, I am whatever, right?

Then that's not an identity actually that leads us into transformation, just leads us into greater shame. Right.

Right? Whereas if we start from a place of identity as I am a son of God, I am a daughter of God, I am a child of God, right?

Then it's from our identity that we actually like act.

And do different things. Like we've talked about a lot of that here at Conduit about the, the identity triangle when it comes to forgiveness, right?

Like the idea being that, okay, um, someone has done something that's really, they've sinned against me, they've hurt me, they've harmed me.

And, um, I, I maybe know that I need to forgive them from like a, I read it in the Bible and I know it here,

but I don't feel like I can, like the feelings of forgiveness are not there.

Therefore I can't. And I am gonna wait until I feel like forgiving that person before I actually do. And what do we always say?

That feeling is not coming.

Right. you know, because if we operate.

If every action that we take is operative based on our emotions, it will never lead us towards transformation. So why then or how can we forgive if we don't feel like it?

Well, we forgive. Right. You forgive before you feel like it because forgiveness comes from a place of our identity. And what is our identity? Our identity is as one that has been forgiven, right?

I forgive because I have been forgiven. My identity is forgiven, right?

So out of my identity comes my action, right? And out of my action comes the emotion. You actually feel like forgiving them long after you've actually forgiven them.

And I think shame and like shame in terms of like an assumed identity works in the same in the same sort of fashion.

Yeah, it continues to put us again into that.

Again, starting at the bottom of identity. Shame.

I am this awful thing where is like living in Christ is we'll know I am in Christ. I'm a child of God.

And then those two, like, the guilt, right, come back to the terms that we were talking about. change.

Guilt, no, guilt doesn't change. Guilt doesn't change. Whether or not I use those harsh words, I did that thing hasn't changed. But if I choose to then take that guilt and put it into a pyramid building out of my identity

as a child of God versus putting it into a different pyramid where it's built on shame,

an identity of shame, those lead to two different action points and lead to two different outcomes.

Yes. So what I'm curious in, cause you've mentioned like sorrow. Yes.

So if you don't use like, is sorrow like the thing that we use, that not we use, but that we experienced that leads us somewhere else other than shame.

Is that how you kind of see that? Yeah, that's exactly how I see it. It's like, so guilt, we did the thing can lead us in one of two directions.

It can lead us down the route of shame, which is now we're accepting an identity of being harsher, whatever.

So guilt can lead either to shame or it can lead to sorrow. And in particular, what we would call, or what I would call, I think, and what the apostle Paul would call godly sorrow.

Right, what's in the Bible. Right, you know, 2 Corinthians chapter seven, like godly sorrow leads to repentance,

repentance is what Paul says. In fact, let's, you know, are the two pastors going to pull out a Bible? We're going to pull out a Bible. Okay. At least one of us is. Just as you know,

because I don't, you might be surprised to know that I don't actually have the whole Bible memorized. You know, I actually had somebody assume that of me. They were like, Oh, you're a pastor. So you've got the whole Bible memorized, right? I'm like, no.

And here, like what's really interesting too about this passage is that it gives you a little bit of of like an insight into Paul's own like leadership journey and how he is learning.

Maybe not be so harsh with even the churches that he leads because he says this in like second Corinthians chapter seven starting verse eight. Even if i caused you sorrow by my letter i do not regret it though i did regret it.

I see that my letter hurt you but only for a little while yet now i am happy not because you are made sorry.

But because your sorrow led you to repentance, for you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

See what this godly sorrow has produced in you.

What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, and what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.

At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.

So I guess even Paul, like he kind of even makes the distinction, this is something I had forgotten about this particular passage, but he, I guess he makes the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.

So maybe worldly sorrow is a little bit closer to what we had already described as shame. Yeah, well that's what stood out to me and I was like, oh, it's like, he's not just lifting up godly sorrow.

He's lifting up and saying, well, godly sorrow as opposed to worldly sorrow. And maybe we can see two, you know, maybe two ways of like, I'm like, well, what is worldly sorrow?

I think it's one of the ways worldly sorrow looks is the way that we described.

And then maybe the other way is like crocodile tears, like the, um, not actually, you know, like I don't care. You don't, yeah. You're not actually sorry. Giving an outward appearance of it.

But at least in my experience is usually beneath that is shame on some level, um, in some sort of deeper, more internalized way.

But like, I think, I don't know. That's what at least comes to my mind as I hear that. What is certainly clear here is that there is a form of sorrow that is godly.

There is a form of, I guess you could call, maybe you could call it sadness or it's like a kind of like an eyes wide open view on where our sin has taken us and what our sin has,

done.

And so now it becomes like, it becomes the pathway for us to repent and turn to the Lord for salvation.

And so they're like.

There is a part of sorrow that leads us back to God, where shame tends to make us hide from God.

We should say that.

Which is pretty darn close to what happened in the Genesis chapter 3, the fall of Adam and Eve.

Right. From the Genesis of sorrow was in Genesis. The Genesis of sorrow is in Genesis.

That Adam and Eve sinned and in their shame they ran and they hid and they covered their nakedness which from a literary standpoint was kind of denoted their guilt and their

vulnerability because of their sin before the holiness of God. We lay naked. We use that term kind of like as a euphemism now, you know, like, Oh, I felt like I was naked

in front of them. Like, I had nothing to hide. Like I couldn't hide all of my shame was like laid out before everyone. Yeah. Right. Like it's the, it's the, it's the nightmare that

so many people have of like, you get up to give a presentation and you don't have any pants on or something like that. Yeah. Like, whoops, forgot my pants today. Right. Yeah.

But anyway, like the genesis of shame happened there. And what did shame cause Adam and Eve to do?

The hid.

The hid, right? And deflected. And deflected. Well, the serpent made us do it.

Right. Or no, what was it? First it was Adam. Adam, where are you? Right. And Adam, what have you done? The woman made me do it. The woman made me do it. And then what does Eve say?

The serpent made me do it. The serpent made me do it. Right. Like it wasn't me.

It wasn't me. responsibility, not my responsibility. And I think what is maybe so instructive to me about that passage is not necessarily what God does say, but what he doesn't say, which

is a lot. He doesn't really say anything. He says things, but certainly not, it's certainly not like a you wretched creatures of mine.

It's none of that. It's not the magnification of shame. God never goes on a campaign to magnify their sin.

Yeah.

Because he could have. He could have. And if there's anyone in all of existence or creation that could have, it'd be him.

Right? Because it's not coming from a place of unholy or unjust judgment. It's coming from the place of the throne of judgment.

If anyone had an opportunity to judge them for their sin, It would have been God in that moment, but he didn't.

Instead, he recognized that shame was overtaking Adam and Eve, that shame was twisting their identity into people who needed to hide from God,

rather than be in communion with Him.

And so, in that moment, it says that he created a way to cover their shame, which was symbolized in their nakedness in that moment, right? And how did he cover it? Well.

If we read the scripture, right? But the Lord God called to man, where are you?

I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid. And then you go down into verse 21 and it doesn't really say what God did.

No. We always like the Bible pictures. Yeah.

You know, Bible storybook Bible. Right. A ram was caught by the horns and a thicket.

So God went over and like, you know, sacrificed it. But it doesn't give us that detail. It just says in Genesis 321, the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothes.

With them. The implication being that God.

In some way sacrificed an animal in order to clothe them, to cover them, which points again to, like we're talking about biblical typology and sacrifice covering up and clothing us in,

righteousness, ultimately fulfilled in Christ. By a sacrifice. By a sacrifice.

Christ. Right. Right. Like the lamb who's come to take away the sins of the world. Exactly. That's the, you know, and then in that serpent crusher, right, with, in with the curse that Christ or that God makes there, he's like, but there will be, there will be someone,

a seed of the woman who will come, crush the serpent and bruise his heel. Right. And that,

is Christ. Yeah. What we see from like a literary or theological standpoint there is what we call theophany, right? A pre or foreshadowing to the presence or incarnation of Jesus Christ,

way before His name was even set on the pages of scripture. But yeah, absolutely. How does it not foreshadow the work of Jesus Christ, right? That the sacrifice of God on the cross in Jesus.

Is the thing that covers or takes away the shame that keeps us separated from God Right and brings us back into communion with him. Exactly. Yeah, so it's,

It's there's so much that points all the way forward to that. Well, so Importantly and without question like from the very beginning where where shame first existed where,

Where human beings wanted to feel horrible about themselves and hide from God because of the wretched sinners that they are are. God said, no, no, that's not the way I'm going to be in relationship with you.

Not you know like

Adam and Eve were hiding. God came to find them. God is searching around, where are you? Hello, I'm here. Yeah, because the way you're saying that is making me think about it. What was Adam and Eve's game plan?

Like, okay, well, we're naked. Alright, let's cover ourselves up with some leaves. God's coming. What was their game plan? Their game plan,

If they had, let's say they had just, they had somehow been able to succeed with their mission, which was to avoid God at all costs.

That was their mission. Like, I don't know. Stands to reason, right? That's the reason that perhaps their game plan for the rest of their life and existence was to avoid any contact of God. We've messed up.

We just never want to talk to him again.

Ever. Yeah. And God's like, okay, it comes up, presents to them their guilt. But then, and levels occur, levels the results of sin, but then provides a way forward, a way back.

Covers them, like commissions them out of the garden.

Like God provided a way back. And maybe that's another illustration of shame versus sorrow that leads to repentance. It's like one leads somewhere.

The other just leads to … Or just leads to just... One leads towards God, the other leads hiding from God. Shame leads us to run away and hide and avoid God. Sorrow leads us to repentance and into relationship.

Back into relationship. So yeah, from the very beginning, God saw the natural human response of shame and hiding as unacceptable.

And himself went about taking away that shame. In fact, I think this writer, Hebrews, says that Jesus became shame for us.

He scorned the shame of the cross.

Or he went to the cross, scorning its shame. But for the joy set before him, endured it.

So like what a trm, just like what a.

Tremendous truth for us to sit under, especially when we have sinned and are like, I need to hide, I need to run, I need to get away.

And even God's searching for Adam and Eve in the garden is then, you know, the foreshadow of the incarnation.

God coming in the person of Jesus Christ, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." You know, John 3, 16 and 17.

Jesus sat and prayed in another garden and chose God's will over his and went to the cross.

Reentered into the garden and then overcame shame, guilt, sin, and death.

Why? So that we didn't have to anymore. It's like from the very beginning in Genesis all the way through to the death of Jesus on the cross,

on the cross, like God is inviting us to experience him in a way that is not full of shame, that,

is not full of condemnation, that is full of his initiative to ensure that we do not feel those things, that we do not experience those things, that we are not hiding in shame,

that we are not assuming an identity upon ourselves that he has not given to us first,

But that we are only living in the midst of the relationship that we have with Him that,

is by now ours through faith in Jesus Christ.

And that comes from His kindness. That comes from His goodness. Not from the hammer of His holiness and justice.

I think, you know, I'm thinking about, because I'm thinking about the whole Bible and, you know, you've got the prophets in the Old Testament and then you've got, like, because God definitely uses harsh words.

But I think, but again, He's always saying, like, but turn to me and, like, come back to me.

He's always, there's always an invitation back.

And I think sometimes...

I think God will issue wake-up calls. Oh, of course.

Like, He does. Oh, absolutely. Like, and I think that's how I at least am kind of, at the moment, putting God's prophetic words of judgment and warning into a category is like, is we're headed in a direction,

Israel was headed in a direction, pursuing their own sin, running down, and God's calling to them them and saying death lies in that direction. Turn back.

Like he was saying it to them in the midst of like, remember.

Like, or at least the way that I see it is that shame is the twisting of our identity. Right? So we want to assume an identity that is not our own. Right.

But does God use shame in order to change our direction? No, I don't, I don't think so because in order to do that, like he would have like even in the context of like prophetic accounts in the Old Testament and even our own accounts of like God, you,

know, like wake up call, like, hello, what's going on here is I think it's still in the context of his identity for us.

Like he did not change the identity of his covenant people. The reason that he was giving them a wake up call is because return to who you are.

That is not who you are. You are not that wicked adulterous idolatrous people.

You are the children of promise. You are the children of the covenant.

And so God never used the twisting of an identity to move people back into relationship with him, right?

Just like he doesn't use it for us. And so we shouldn't use it for ourselves either.

But to say that like, oh, well, God never issues any like stern or heavy wake up calls.

Like I'm not saying that at all. Right. I'm not saying that at all.

Even post Jesus, you know, like, you might have an argument in the Old Testament, right?

But like even post Jesus, like where, where yeah, our identity is of, you know,

we are children of God through our faith in Jesus Christ, who've been adopted as sons and daughters, and God woos us into relationship with him through the grace offered to us in Jesus Christ, No condemnation for us who believe, right?

You have the seven churches in Revelation.

Right.

Right? of which, one or two of them got some praise but like...

Most of them are wake-up calls. Most of them are wake-up calls. Yeah.

And that's still, you know, like God still speaks, I think, through His Holy Spirit, through His Word, through the ministry of the Church, through godly friends who have,

a prophetic voice in a moment, like, you know, beware, through consequence.

Yeah. Like how many times have the consequences of our actions been the wake up call that we needed in order to change direction and turn towards the Lord.

You know, this conversation just makes me think about like, it's God's grace that he chases us down, right?

Like I think about the biblical narrative how many people who God has to like chase them down a little bit. Right? Like Jacob.

Like he's a good example of just like someone who was consistently fleeing God's will and intention and goodness for him and was consistently trying to do things his own way until he wrestles

with God, right? Or Peter, right? Someone else who wanted to hide and run and Jesus confronts him again after his denial. And then God's grace to us, right? I think, at,

least I'm here because God hasn't finished chasing me and pulling me back when I've been stubborn.

Yeah. He has not smited me.

No. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, like the true wrath of God would be simply to turn us over. Yes. Right. To just simply say, all right. Yes.

I'm not going to bring conviction anymore. I'm not going to come and and try and draw you back to me, that's ultimately...

That's a judgment. Speaking of judgment, there's a very good little lead into this. Paul's letter to the Romans, he's maybe giving them a little bit of pastoral correction around their judgment

of others and about how judgment is being used to leverage people in a certain direction.

This is Romans chapter 2. It says, You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you're not condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.

Now, we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. What was he saying? Okay, so God can judge because he judges from a place of complete holiness and truth.

We cannot judge because we do not, our baseline is sin.

So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think that you will escape God's judgment?

Here's a verse that really stuck out to me when I read it a few weeks ago and I talked to the staff about this.

So it's not new, but, or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that it's God's kindness that leads you towards repentance?

So that like, God is so overwhelmingly patient and kind and good that his actual like,

maybe the sorrow that leads us to repentance is actually a function of his kindness in our lives.

And that, you know, I don't know, I just.

I have a hard time experiencing.

I have a hard time with the idea that God, that God is a hammer that only sees everything as nails.

That passage for me makes me think of Jesus and the woman, and He who has been forgiven much loves much. I think for some reason what's happening there is like if we think about our own personal lives,

and if those who are listening and watching think about your own walk with God,

like what hasn't God been patient with you? Hasn't His kindness been the thing that's drawn us?

But then, like the Romans there, for some reason we think that being harsh towards others will get them to follow God.

When it wasn't the thing that got us to follow God in the first place. We're not here because somebody yelled at us, or somebody was mad at us, or someone made us feel like garbage.

And we're here because, like, someone extended grace, forgiveness, and pointed us to Christ.

Like that same thing remains God's effective pathway to Him. That's what draws us.

But sometimes when we go to interact with other people, we forget that is part of our story.

And for some reason, we might leverage harshness or judgment, like the Romans were doing.

Forgetting that particular verse and also the, he who's been forgiven much loves much. Yeah, I, what you just said there kind of reminds me of like the way we see Jesus interact with different types of people in the gospels.

You see really two types of Jesus or two styles of interaction in the gospel when it comes to Jesus. You see the like no holds barred.

They would exactly on my mind. And then you see like the kindness and the gentleness and the compassion.

And so what is the difference between the two people there? Well, almost universally in the gospels when Jesus is interacting with religious people who think that their crap doesn't stink, right?

Yeah.

He like, where there's just like overt hypocrisy and judgment on others that Jesus's interaction with them usually comes

across pretty strongly, pretty harshly. And then when you have someone who is fully aware of their brokenness, fully aware of their sin. You see a Jesus who

is compassionate, who is hospitable.

Who does not create license to continue to sin, but does create invitation to extraordinary relationship and repentance. And so I suppose maybe we should say this, maybe we should say

that based on the pattern of Jesus, you can expect maybe the heavy hand of God if you're living in extraordinary hypocrisy and putting the weight of hypocrisy and judgment upon others

around you, then you can probably expect a harsher response or a harsher approach.

You're in denial of the wake-up call. Yes. Right. But that if you are eyes wide open towards your own sin, that the Lord, you're in a spot of humility. Acknowledgement of guilt.

Acknowledgement of guilt. Right? That God is going to, like, you're gonna experience the gentleness, the kindness, the patience, the grace, the love of God that draws you back into relationship

with Him.

I think it was John Maxwell.

I think he might have said it in the context of leadership. Most things he says are in context of leadership.

But he talked about, I think he talked about like a velvet brick.

About how like leadership in most contexts is a requirement to be the velvet brick.

Yeah. And.

To like hit somebody over the head. There's some weight there, right? A brick is weighty, but the velvet is soft and supple and smooth and inviting, right? And maybe that's appropriate

here. Maybe God approaches us as a velvet brick when we're hiding in the garden because of our shame. Yeah. Well, it's, I think of the proverbs like, uh,

like sometimes hurt for the friend, the words of a good friend. Oh yeah.

But like, uh, soft and easier, like the words of like an enemy or something like that. Cause like a good friend will like in the moment is willing to slap you upside the face, say, stop that. Right. But enemy, you know, keep doing that.

Keep doing, keep walking down that path. Yeah. Right.

Which is such an interesting dynamic that we could even talk about that. One of those is loving and one of them is not.

The enemy that tells you what you want to hear is not loving. The friend that tells you the hard thing that you need to hear is actually the loving response.

If you can think of that in your own life, of a good friend who's spoken hard words to you, and in retrospect you are so thankful for them, that's an example of God's love for us.

Demonstrated to somebody else's actions. But it's a little microcosm of what God seeks to do in our life to speak the hard words, but call us forwarded to Him, maintain relationship.

Yeah. So I don't know, you know, if you're out there listening today and you're, or you're watching and you're like, you know, I guess I would want to remind people like,

what the purpose of the podcast is. It's not necessarily to communicate, this is the truth, this is the only way to think about it, this is the one way. Even thinking back on most of

our conversation today feels like more of just a lot of personal reflection on what is shame and guilt and condemnation and sorrow and not even necessarily us being like.

Well, this is definitely what it is, or this is the only way to think about it, or this is the completely nuanced, 100% covered every base of the conversation. We don't think that. No.

I'm open to someone. I'm open to reading or hearing and learning more that would enlighten more of this conversation for me.

I don't think I know it all. Oh, no.

Not at all. the conversation is important because of the way in which guilt and shame and condemnation kind of are so prevalent and function deeply within our hearts. If you're listening today

or watching today and you have a question that you would like us to maybe answer back and forth with. We do have a mailbag and the easiest way to get questions into that mailbag is

to text them. So we've set up a special number for that mailbag. Text number for the podcast is 716-201-0507. Of course, all those will remain confidential so it's not like.

We're going to reveal your name or anything like that unless you want us to.

But we'd love to have any questions or any topics or anything that you would like us to talk about here.

If you don't see that question come up for a few episodes, realize that we're always recording a few episodes ahead.

We're a couple weeks ahead of time. So when we get a good bit of questions in the mailbag, then we'll do probably just a whole mailbag episode where we just deal with all those questions.

So you want to have a final word, Pastor Luke? Yeah.

Well, thanks for joining us today. Like and subscribe so you don't miss out and appreciate you being part of this. The Uncut Podcast. See you next time.

Music.

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