[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.
We are in a shame-glory battle, a fight over what we glory in and what we are ashamed of.
I want to think about that in two ways this morning because this is an important thing
for us.
In fact, it’s an important diagnostic question for us to ask, what am I ashamed of?
What am I ashamed of about myself and about my past and what am I ashamed of about who
I am and what am I proud of?
What do I want to hide and what do I want to display?
But you know who’s â each one of us is very interested in that question about ourselves
but who’s also very interested in that question is the devil himself.
He wants to manage or manipulate what you are proud of and what you are ashamed of.
It’s a spiritual warfare over our shame and over our pride, our honor.
I want to start in Philippians.
If you have it there in the text, in the bulletin in front of you, Philippians chapter 3, the
first verse of chapter 4, where Paul is talking about his weeping because he hates to do it,
but he knows that he has to warn the church about the enemies of the cross of Christ.
It’s really quite a profound thing.
I warned you, I’m warning you again with tears.
There’s those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
These enemies of the cross of Christ are the ones who stood against the preaching of
the gospel.
They’re the onesâ¦
I mean, to be an enemy of the cross of Christ doesn’t mean that they were like breaking
into the churches and tearing down the crosses and things like this.
To be an enemy of the cross of Christ means that they were teaching salvation apart from
Jesus, that they were teaching that Jesus was not the way, the truth, and the life.
And Paul’s going to describe them in verse 19 with four phrases.
Their end is destruction.
Their God is their belly.
Their glory is their shame â that’s what I want to talk about.
And their mind is set on earthly things.
Now this is a good question for us to ask.
What’s our end?
What’s our God?
What’s our glory?
What’s our mind on?
And hopefully our end is not destruction, and our God is not our belly, and our glory
is not our shame, but that’s how it is for these enemies of the cross of Christ.
they had given up serving God and instead they served their own belly. Now
what does that mean, their God is their belly? You know that your belly preaches
to you, very consistent sermon, it sounds like it growls at you, it mostly gets
angry with you and it gives you a command, feed me, give me what I want.
And Paul uses this picture to describe the people who are simply living their lives to
serve themselves, to satisfy their own desires, to do what they want, to pursue their own passions
as if that is the end of their own life.
And the result is that they sin without even thinking of it or being concerned about it.
They have hardened consciences so that they would say that their sin doesn’t matter at
all.
I’m, after all, doing what I want.
There’s nothing to restrain them from serving their stomach God, and they end up becoming
like beasts, enslaved to their sin while thinking that they’re free.
I can do, after all, whatever I want.”
And they have no concern for the law of God or for His commandments.
Now how do we know if this is us?
Well, there’s one â I mean, I think the easiest way is just to think of how you think
of your own sin, how you consider your sin.
There’s a riddle that Martin Luther wrote, 1518, in the Heidelberg Theses, which some
are helpful and some are not, but this one is a good one to think about.
He was talking about the difference between mortal and venial sins.
We know that if you have Catholic friends and family, they’ll probably talk a lot about
mortal and venial sins.
The Lutheran church also speaks of this.
We probably don’t talk about it quite enough, but a mortal sin is that sin which destroys
saving faith, or at least takes a big swipe at saving faith, where a venial sin does not.
And here’s how Luther writes about it in Heidelberg.
Are you ready?
It’s a riddle.
He says this.
He says, any sin is mortal that we consider to be venial, and any sin is venial that we
consider to be mortal.
Now, that’s really quite something.
In other words, if you think that your sin is no big deal, that it doesn’t really matter
that much, that nobody got hurt or whatever, then that sin becomes destructive of saving
faith.
But on the other hand, if you know that your sin is in fact dangerous, not only to your
neighbor but also to yourself and to God, that your sin rises as an offense to the holiness
of God in heaven, then your sin doesn’t do the damage that the devil wants it to do.
How do you consider your sin?
That’s always the second battle.
The first battle is the temptation to sin, but then the second battle is really the theological
battle and where the rubber hits the road, how do you think of your sin?
As something to try to hide and sweep under the rug?
Or even as the enemies of the cross, as something to boast of and hang a picture of it on the
wall?
Or as something to repent of?
So St. Paul says that the mark of those who live apart from Christ is that they glory
in their shame.
The things that they do and think and the things that they are that they should be ashamed
of, they put out there for all the world to see.
But for the Christian, and now we’re going to turn our attention to Psalm 4, which was
the gradual psalm, for the Christian the battle is a little bit different.
For those who belong to the devil, he wants them to take what ought to be hidden and just
show it.
But for the Christian, the devil wants us to take those things that we should boast
of and that we should be proud of, and to hide them.
Jesus says, no one lights a candle and then hides it under the bushel, and we say, but
have you ever met a Christian?
Because we’re always tempted to do that.
We’re always tempted, and here’s how it goes in the psalm, to turn our glory into our shame.
Psalm 4 is a beautiful psalm.
It’s the evening psalm of King David.
In fact, I probably use Psalm 4 more than any other psalm.
Whenever anybody comes to me, they’re having trouble sleeping at night, they’re having
trouble falling asleep, they’re having trouble in their own dreams, this is always what I’m
recommending is to read Psalm 4 right before bed.
It’s really beautiful.
The last line, I will lie down and sleep in peace for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell
in safety.
It’s a wonderful psalm.
It starts out in verse 1 with a prayer,
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
But then David turns in verse 2, and this is what we want to look at.
He turns to speak to the world, to those who are fighting against him,
to those who are resisting the kingdom of God,
to those who despise David specifically because he is a Christian.
He says, O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
And this is what the devil is doing with us.
He would turn our honor, the things that are the best, the things that we ought to boast
of, the devil and the world would turn that into our shame.
Let him who boasts, says Paul, boast in the Lord.
But we not only find ourselves not boasting in the Lord, we find ourselves barely talking
about the Lord.
Here’s how it seems to me anyways, is that there’s times when it seems like the Lord
would arrange things in such a way that there’s someone that I’m talking to that I could obviously
bless by mentioning a Bible passage, by speaking the name of Jesus, by offering a prayer for
them, by offering some comfort from the Lord’s Word, and for whatever reason, I get scared
to do it.
And it’s my job.
I’m intimidated, even when the case is so clear, to mention the name of Jesus, to speak
the name of Jesus, to speak of the Lord’s blessings and kindness.
And how it works, I think, is that the world would have us to be ashamed of the thing that
we ought to be most proud of, that we’re baptized, that we’re Christians.
It should beâ¦
I was thinking about the picture this morning, how it would go, that you’re at a cocktail
party and you’re there with a bunch of people that you don’t really know, and you’re kind
of mulling around the crowd, and you would say to them, you’re kind of hemming and hawing
a little bit, and you say, well, you know, I’m a little bit hesitant to mention this.
I mean, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m baptized.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
I mean, I don’t want to show off, but I’m clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Where do you pick up those kind of clothes?
And that should be our boast. That should be our honor.
That Jesus is pleased to call us his friend, and we are ashamed of it.
At least we’re pressured to be ashamed.
Oh men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
Let’s at least this morning recognize this as
Spiritual warfare and the devil has a certain strategy
Because the thing that we fear most of all well
Maybe it’s not most of all but at least it’s got to be on the top ten list of the things that we’re afraid of
Is being mocked and ridiculed?
Being in a crowd and having everyone laugh at us
pointing their finger
Snickering behind their back and that’s what the devil does. It’s his snicker strategy
He just kind of laughs at us.
We say, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and the devil says
creation.
I believe that God created the world in six days, not that long ago.
Nobody thinks that anymore.
I believe that God became a man and died in my place on the cross.
And the devil, he doesn’t make an argument against it, I mean sometimes he does, but
But generally, he just has to let you know that you’re going to be ridiculed for thinking
and saying such a thing, and that has an overwhelming effect on us.
It turns our glory into shame, and it makes us want to hide to preserve our name, to put
our reasonableness and our intelligence out there, and our togetherness out there, and
our faith, our simple childlike faith in Christ, we’ll put that down around the corner so no
one notices.
St. Paul says in Romans chapter 1 verse 16, he says I am not ashamed of the gospel, I’m
not ashamed.
And the reason why Paul says that is because he was tempted to be ashamed of it by the
devil, the world in his own flesh, just like you and I.
And that’s what the victory looks like, I am not ashamed.
And why?
How do we get there?
How do we get to honoring what is honorable, rejoicing and boasting in the Lord as we ought
to boast in the Lord. It perhaps comes in this way, is that we know that the Lord
himself, Jesus, endured shame, the ridicule of the world, the wagging of the fingers,
the mockery of the sinful flesh. Jesus endured all that and he did all of it
for you. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who
And for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
Jesus didn’t like it either.
Jesus did not like hanging on the cross watching the soldiers gamble for His clothes.
Jesus did not like it when they spit in His face and they blindfolded Him and struck Him
and said, prophesy, you’re a prophet, prophesy.
Who struck you?
Jesus despised the shame.
When they, while he was hanging on the cross, said he saved others, why doesn’t
he save himself? He trusted in God. Let God save him. I think of all the things
in the gospel that that one thing must have struck Jesus the worst because he
does trust in God and because God for that moment is not saving him. He
He despised the shame, but He endured the shame because He is not ashamed of you.
He is not ashamed to call you His own.
He’s not ashamed that you are His children and that He is your brother and your Savior
and your friend.
If Jesus had friends come over to His house for dinner, you know what He would show them?
Pictures of you.
And he would say, look at my people, they’re precious in my sight, and I’ve forgiven them
all their sin, I’ve covered their shame with my blood, I’ve washed them clean, I’ve decked
them in the robes of my own righteousness, I’m making a place so that they will be where
I am forever, and they belong to me, Jesus, it’s not a shame to call you.
His brothers and sisters, so the one who endured the cross, despising the shame, he is your
glory, and your honor, and your prize. Let he who boasts, boast in the Lord. May God
grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen. The peace of God which passes all
understanding, guard your hearts and your minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Please stand.
