President Biden, Integrity and Shame

 

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Colossians 1:1 Paul, 

I forgot to tell you next week we have a special guest speaking on integrity, honesty and character taking lessons from his own life… President Joe Biden…

 

Paul? His past? Writing this letter??? Really???

 

Deuteronomy 32:23 says be sure your sins will find you out… and yes this is true before we come to Christ and many times true after we come to Christ… but no need to be ashamed. 

 

There is good reason to believe that the Apostle Paul dealt with shame before he came to know christ. It is very typical for a person to exhibit the behavior he did due to unresolved shame. Rigid, extreme, moralist and putting others under the same regime or persecuting them for it… 

 

“Beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: – Galatians 1:13

“As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison” – Acts 8:3

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.” – Acts 9:1-2

 

He was even an accessory to murder at one point in his life! Remember when Stephen was stoned to death by an angry mob, that it was a young man named Saul who held the cloaks of Stephen’s assailants.

 

Two more examples

Even before Paul’s conversion, Ananias was apprehensive towards him when the Lord commanded him to go to Paul and teach him what he needed to do in order to be saved. He said, “I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name,” Acts 9:13-14.

After Paul’s conversion, the consequences of his past sins were still felt. Some years after his conversion, the Christians at Jerusalem were still wary and mistrustful of him, “And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple,” Acts 9:26.

WAS PAUL ASHAMED OF HIS BEHAVIOR? 

He very well could have been…

Are you? Do you still carry shame? 

 

When a wild bear gets its hand on garbage it will no longer forage for food. If you catch it digging through garbage it will become angry. Why? Experts say it is because the bear is ashamed.

 

ARE YOU ACTING OUT OF SHAME? 

 

SAY THIS: I am not ashamed of my past because I am no LONGER my past!

 

When someone loses a lot of weight… and someone notices it… do they get embarrassed are they ashamed? 

When someone calls you out on your past… don’t worry, they can’t see all the weight you lost in the spiritual.

 

You will many times hear a coach regard a great player for one particular attribute… a short memory. You pitch bad, you throw an interception, you miss a strike, you miss game winning shot… you forget about it and move on. 

 

I love that Paul does not start out….

Col. 1:1 I Paul, the guy who was called by Jesus and yes I ransacked the church, and tore down doors, threw people in out in the streets and killed people and even asked for a special dispensation from the high priest to torture any Christians, and I know Im not perfect… but nobody is…anyway I write this letter to Colosse 

 

How did he deal with it? Phil. 3:13, 14

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 3:13-14

 

Shame is a powerful weapon of the enemy.

 

Guilt is - I did a bad thing

Shame is - I am bad

A demonic stronghold of shame is - I now must hide and pretend I am someone else… Im defective.