December 28, 2024 • 26 mins
Moody Presents is the weekly, half-hour Bible teaching program from the Moody Bible Institute. Our teacher is the president of MBI, Dr. Mark Jobe. On today's program, we'll conquer the emotion of shame. You see, at one time or another we have all struggled with fitting in, feeling that we are not doing enough, or carrying around some pretty heavy baggage from the past. Today, Pastor Mark will take us to the life of King David so that we can learn from his life in an effort to turn our shame to God's glory and usefulness. All on today's Moody Presents!
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Doctor Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:02):
There's a lot of people that live with a certain
degree of private shame. It's attached itself to your identity,
your significance, how you see yourself. It's weaved its way
sometimes into your personality. We don't want other people to
know about it because it's painful. It's something that, when
we think about, makes us feel lesser of ourselves.
S1 (00:24):
Thanks for connecting with Moody Presents. I'm John Gager inviting
you to join pastor Mark Jobe, president of the Moody
Bible Institute and founding pastor of New Life Community Church
in Chicago. Boy emotions. They are both friends and foes,
aren't they? And it was that way when Jesus walked
among us. For example, there was a woman in Mark
chapter five struggling with shame. What did Jesus have to
(00:47):
say to her and to us about shame? Let's turn
things over to pastor Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:54):
Emotions are God given. They are given by God for
us to be able to fully experience life in a
three dimensional fashion. However, I want to say that oftentimes
we let our emotions lead in areas that they shouldn't
(01:14):
be leading and we haven't learned the art, the practice
of putting our emotions in check. In fact, I believe
that there's a lot of people that struggle in their
spiritual walk not because of bad theology, but but because
of bad management of their emotions. And so I want
(01:36):
to talk to you about that, because I think it's
a huge issue that we live with. We all have
different ways of handling our emotions. Uh, some people, when
they are going through a difficult time, they sat down
and with a gallon of chocolate chip Oberweis ice cream
in front of Netflix, and they binge out for hours
(01:59):
just to handle in emotion. Some people, when they're feeling sad, lonely, discouraged.
Have a kind of emotion. They just escape and play
hours and hours upon hours of Overwatch, Fortnite, Call of Duty,
that sort of their escape mode. I heard of a lady,
(02:22):
a married woman, who was talking to another younger married
woman who was struggling with anger towards her husband, and
she just talked to this older lady and she said,
how do you do it? You never seem angry at
your husband. I get angry and I just don't know
how to handle it. And the older woman said, well,
I have a practice. I do it every time. She says, well,
(02:43):
how do you handle it? She says, I go and
I clean the bathroom and especially the toilet. The younger
married woman said, I don't have any idea how that
helps you. She says, well, I use his toothbrush, so.
That is not marital advice, by the way. I'm just
(03:07):
telling you how she handled it. Today, I want to
talk to you about an emotion that I feel affects
a lot of people. And some of you undoubtedly, undoubtedly,
some of you are struggling, even in your experience, to
stay concentrated on your studies, interaction with other students, and
(03:27):
interaction with people around you because of this emotion. And
it's the emotion of shame. Shame. A recent survey among
college students, 48,000 college students found that 64%. That's 64%.
(03:52):
Were very lonely, very lonely in the last 12 months.
In fact, I've heard studies say that the loneliest people
in America are elderly people in nursing homes and college
students on college campuses. You could be surrounded by hundreds
of people, fight for your individual space, feel like there's
(04:16):
people all around you all the time, but yet feel
extremely lonely. The same survey found out that 62% of
college students felt overwhelming anxiety. Not just subtle anxiety, not
some anxiety, but overwhelming anxiety. 69% admitted to being very,
(04:42):
extremely sad. 53% admitted that they were that things seem hopeless.
That's 53% viewed the world and felt like things were
hopeless and 12% seriously considered suicide. I mean, this has
(05:06):
to do with feelings. The sometimes intangible, hard to describe, unmanageable,
not always linked to our intellect or logic. But these
feelings that overwhelm us. Sometimes we don't know how to
handle them. Sometimes we don't know what to do with them.
(05:27):
And one of those feelings is the feeling of shame.
I've been pastoring for a long time in the city
of Chicago, and I have seen looked in the eyes
of people that have felt extreme, deep, powerful, overwhelming shame.
And let me talk to you for a moment about
(05:47):
shame in the brief time that we have together here.
But let me say this shame is you have shame
and guilt. Sometimes people confuse guilt and shame. Uh, guilt
And shame our cousins, but they're different. Guilt has to
do with whether you feel bad about something that you
(06:09):
did or didn't do. It's about what you do. Shame,
on the other hand, has to do with how you
feel about yourself your identity. It's a subtle difference, but
it's huge. Guilt has to do with something that you
did and you feel bad about. Sometimes there's false guilt.
(06:31):
Shame goes a lot deeper than that. It's not about
what you did. It's about how you feel about yourself
in the light of others. And so I want you
to turn in your Bibles or look up on your phones.
A passage found in Mark chapter five. Actually, the story
is found in all three of the Gospels. Mark chapter five,
(06:53):
Matthew chapter nine, Luke chapter eight. Obviously there are certain
stories in the Bible. They're all of equal importance and value.
They're all significant. But there are certain stories that are
repeated in Scripture multiple times from different perspectives, obviously. But
this story happens to be one that's repeated in three
of the four gospels, and I believe at the core,
(07:19):
although the word shame is not used. And oftentimes we
read a story in Scripture, and it doesn't always speak
to the emotion that the person is feeling, but we
see it in their actions and we understand what they're
going through. And I believe this story is about a woman.
We don't know her name. The Bible doesn't tell us
her name. It doesn't tell us a lot about her.
(07:41):
But we understand this, that she is deeply gripped with shame.
I'm going to begin reading in verse 24. It says.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him, speaking about Jesus.
And a woman was there who had been subject to
bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal
(08:04):
under the care of many doctors and had spent all
she had. And instead of getting better, she got worse.
Let me just talk to you to begin with about
understanding the power of shame. Now you say, well, this
woman was sick. I don't see shame there. Oh, it
was the nature of her sickness that produced shame. Now
(08:29):
she had bleeding and hemorrhaging and the kind of hemorrhaging
that she had made her not only weak, but it
also made her unclean. In fact, the Bible tells us
that she had suffered with this hemorrhaging for 12 years.
S1 (08:50):
Today on Moody Presents, doctor Mark Jobe is walking us
through a story based in acts five, and we'll pick
up the message after I ask, have you by any
chance put away your Christmas music yet, I hope not.
While Christmas is over, the message of Christmas is one
we must still ponder. And Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth can help
you do that in her devotional. The First songs of Christmas,
(09:12):
these ancient songs from Elizabeth and Mary and Zechariah will
lift your heart to God all year long. It's yours
for a gift of any amount at Moody presents.org that's
Moody presents.org. Back to our teacher now pastor Mark Jobe.
S2 (09:29):
This physical disease carried with it shame that made her
unclean and made her whoever she touched unclean. Now, it
wasn't her fault that she had this disease. And oftentimes
shame comes upon us by no fault of our own.
And I believe that this shame and sometimes shame will
drive you to suffer silently and in solitude. In Leviticus
(09:54):
chapter 15, verse 25 to 28, it says, A woman
with a discharge is unclean, a bed that she lies
in is unclean. Anything she sits on is unclean. Whoever
touches her is unclean as well. This woman's issue was
intensely private, very, very private. Not something that she would
want to talk to a lot of people about, not
(10:17):
something that she would like openly discussed. It was intensely private,
but the consequences had become very public. And normally shame
is like that. I've discovered it's something that we guard.
It's intensely private. It's something that affects the way we
view the world, the way we view ourselves, but we
(10:37):
don't want other people to know about it. Shame is
rooted and built in a lot of things. It could
be built in sexual abuse as a minor. It could
be built in a rape that happened to you that
you don't want anybody to know about. It could be
(10:59):
built in the dysfunction of your household. Abusive parents. It
could be built in a disability that you may have
that you don't want people to know about. It could
be built in. A lifestyle that you engaged in that
you don't want others to know about it, but it
still haunts you. I'll never forget on the north side
(11:20):
of Chicago, I planted a church in the Lakeview neighborhood.
I had a woman that came to me and she said, pastor,
I want to meet with you. I said, sure, and
she came to me and she said, I need to
meet with you in private. So I sat down with
her and she was very nervous when she was talking
to me. And she said, I, I want to talk
to you about something that I haven't told a lot
of people about, but but I want to ask you
(11:41):
about this, and I want to be honest about you.
And she put her head down. I could tell she
was struggling. She says. I'm embarrassed to say this. I'm
a little ashamed to say this, but she said, I
have full blown Aids and I just want to know
she was on church. Can I can I come to
the church. Never forget that sincere question. Can I come
(12:07):
to this church? This is before medication for Aids was
available in her. Aids was pretty full blown. Pretty much
in advance. My first reaction is just to see the
woman in her heart. I got up and I gave
her a big hug and I said, absolutely, you are
welcome in this place. She was shocked that I gave
her a hug, I believe, but I believe that there's
(12:29):
a lot of people that live with a certain degree
of private shame. It's attached itself to your identity, your significance,
how you see yourself. It's weaved its way sometimes into
your personality. It's private. We don't want other people to
know about it because it's painful. It's something that, when
(12:52):
we think about, makes us feel lesser of ourselves. And
what I've noticed is that whenever, any time there's shame
involved in the process of our living. It affects our
relationship with others. It affects our relationship with God. It
affects how we see ourselves. In fact, I don't have
time to get into this passage, but way in the
beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we're
(13:13):
actually introduced to shame in the very beginning. Genesis chapter two,
verse 25 says that God made man and woman, and
they were both naked, and they felt no shame. He
makes a point to say they were naked and they
felt no shame. There was no shame that existed. There
(13:36):
was transparency, there was openness. There was no need to
cover themselves. But as soon as, as soon as they fell,
as soon as they disobeyed God, as soon as sin
entered into the world. Then there was immediate three things
that happened. If you notice in the passage, number one,
they covered themselves. No one told them to cover themselves,
but immediately they felt the need to cover themselves Immediately
(14:00):
when sin was introduced. When brokenness was introduced, there was
an immediate reaction I need to hide myself. I need
to cover myself. Not very comfortable with leaves. Sounds pretty itchy.
Then they hid themselves. If you read the passage, God
was there. Immediately they started to hide themselves. Where are you?
(14:24):
They heard the sound of God in the garden. And
then it also says they were afraid. Shame induces those reactions.
A hiding of ourselves, a covering of ourselves, and fear
or anxiety. We have a lot of ways of covering
our shame, by the way, and I wish you could
(14:45):
ask yourself this question. If you struggle with shame in
your life. The question I would ask you is what
leaf are you using? What leaf are you using? There's
a lot of leafs we use Overbearing personality. I'm the
class clown, but inside, really, I'm covering my shame. We
(15:06):
go to things that appease us for a little bit.
Sometimes it's overindulgence and eating. Sometimes it's habits like pornography.
Sometimes it is a myriad of things that we use,
sometimes just to cover the pain of shame that we feel.
It's been a problem since the beginning. And again, usually
(15:28):
we hide the privacy of that pain and that area
that really needs the most healing. The second thing that
I want you to notice about this passage is not
only will shame drive you to suffer silently, but shame
will also shape your approach to God and others. Verse
27 says, and when she heard about Jesus, she came
(15:50):
up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak
because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I
will be healed. It seems you can read through this
rapidly and not notice something, but I want you to
notice that she was not approached. She was not calling
out to Jesus. She was not getting attention. She was
not approaching him face to face. She was coming up
(16:12):
behind him quietly thinking, all I have to do is
touch the hem of his garment. I don't want his attention.
I don't want him to see my face. I don't
want to talk to him. I just want to touch
the hem of his garment, because I want to be
inconspicuous in my approach to him. I think shame will
always make you feel unworthy and unwanted, even as you
(16:35):
approach the presence of Jesus. Always unworthy. Always unwanted. Even
when you approach Jesus. And part of that experience is fear.
Fear of being exposed. Fear of him seeing me for
(16:55):
who I am. Obviously he was a rabbi and she
felt if I touch him, he will be unclean. If
he knew who I was and what I suffer with,
then it's not lawful for me to touch him. So
I will approach him in a way that that he
can't really tell. And I believe that is emblematic of
(17:19):
sometimes what happens to us when we're struggling with shame,
even in our own lives. It says in verse 28,
because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I
will be healed. Uh, Matthew chapter nine, verse 21 says
that she said to herself. In other words, she repeated
to herself over and over and over, the implication is
that she was talking to herself, having this inner conversation.
(17:40):
I want to be healed of this, but I don't.
But I'm afraid to approach the healer about this man.
I wish I could pause and speak on that a
little bit longer, but I need to move on. Listen,
not only will it drive you to suffer silently shape
our approach, it will steal your celebration. Notice your voice
of celebration if you let it. Notice what happens. The
(18:01):
Bible says that she reached out and because she had faith,
she touched the hem of his garment and immediately her
bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she
was freed from her suffering. And at once Jesus realized
that power had gone out from him, and he turned
around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes?
His disciples said, you see the people crowding against you?
(18:22):
His disciples answered, and yet you ask, who touched me?
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
Immediately she felt healed, but she did not have the boldness,
the confidence to shout out the celebration of her healing
because of shame. She had been healed 12 years of disease,
(18:44):
yet shame robbed her praise and robbed her voice. Something
had happened, yet she did not have the boldness and
ability to praise God, to celebrate, to shout out I'm healed!
To tell other people about it. She crouched down in
shame and in silence, even when she had experienced something
(19:07):
so powerful and miraculous in her life. And I believe
that shame does that to us. Listen to what happens.
Verse 32, it says, 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, not celebration. Fear. That's a weird response
(19:34):
to healing. Fear. Why? Hiding, covering and fear. Trembling with
fear and told him the whole truth. And he said
to her daughter, I love it. He doesn't say woman.
He doesn't say, hey, you. He knows that she's broken.
(19:56):
He knows that she. That she expects this scowl. Maybe
that her shame has told her you don't have the
right to touch him. You've crossed lines. Why would he
look at it? If you really knew who you were,
he would chastise you. But in the voice of the Savior,
with compassion, filled with mercy, he says to her daughter,
(20:20):
not in silence, not in private, but in front of
everybody around as people part and watch what is happening.
He says, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in
peace and be freed from your suffering. A couple of
things I want you to understand about breaking the power
of shame. Number one notice admitting the truth in your story.
Verse 33, it says, then the woman, knowing what had
(20:42):
happened to her, came and fell at his feet, it says,
and she had to admit that she had an issue.
She had to come to Jesus with it. She had
to she had to be willing to be singled out
because there was an issue. Shame says no one should
ever know. Shame says this should be your secret. You
(21:06):
know how many people I've talked to? I've done retreats
where 68 year old women will come. And for the
first time ever, share the shame of sexual abuse in
their life. They've been silent about it for 60 years,
feeling like if someone knew, I can't tell. This shouldn't
(21:27):
let me just get over it. But living with a
sense of shame in their life, deep seated shame. And sometimes,
for the first time ever, sharing with a group of
other women that pray for them. And there's a release
that happens when women gather around and love on them
and pray for them in Jesus name and hug them,
because shame has said, you are unworthy. This makes you
(21:50):
less than a person. And suddenly, when shame is revealed
to truth and love, there's something that happens. It breaks
its power. And this woman had to publicly come out.
Get out of the shadow. Get out of the crowd!
Fell at the feet of Jesus, and look what it says. Secondly,
(22:10):
it says, trembling with fear, telling the whole truth about
her story. I wish I could hear her words tell
her story. But there you are. Picture it. Jesus is there.
The crowd is around there, pressing. The disciples are keeping
her out and she's at her feet, weeping, trembling, shaking
with fear. 12 years of not being touched. 12 years
(22:33):
of being unclean. And then she begins to tell her
whole story. She brings shame to the light before Jesus.
There's something that happens, I believe. I, I think Jesus
could have moved on. Have you ever thought, hey, why
did Jesus stop? Why he? Was he so insistent? Who
(22:54):
touched me? Who touched me? Who touched me? Why do
he insist and pause and say, no, I want to.
I want to talk to the person that touched me.
I believe it wasn't for Jesus curiosity. It was for
this woman's full healing. That was more than just a
physical healing that she needed. She needed a healing of
(23:17):
her soul. He could have walked on and said, oh,
I felt power come out from me. Interestingly enough, just
the way that she felt healing, he felt power. Obviously,
we know that Jesus is all knowing he's the son
of the living God. Nothing's hidden from him. So it
wasn't as if, you know, he couldn't know who it was,
(23:40):
but he stopped. Who touched me, who touched me, who
touched me? Who do you think that was for? Do
you think Jesus was scratching his head? I wonder who
touched me. Or do you think it was for that
woman to come out of the shadows to say, it's I?
She tells the whole truth, and then she has to
accept God's truth over her story. He says to her daughter,
(24:05):
your faith has healed you. Go in peace. Be freed
from your suffering. I want you to notice, daughter, not
unclean woman, not despicable human being, not violator of the law,
(24:26):
but daughter. Go in peace. And I think when he
says be freed from your suffering, it's more than just
the physical suffering. It's the suffering and the agony of
her shame. He says, go in peace and be freed
from your suffering. Psalms 34, verse four through five says,
(24:49):
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and he
delivered me from all my fears. I love this, listen
to this. Those who look to him are radiant. Their
faces are never covered with shame. Well, let me read
that last part again. Someone needs to hear it today.
(25:10):
Those who look to him are radiant. Their faces are
never covered with shame.
S1 (25:20):
That's pastor Mark Jobe. While it's true the holiday we
call Christmas is past, the message of Christmas is something
we've got to hang on to all year long. That's
why we're offering you one last opportunity to get a
copy of Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth devotional, The first songs of Christmas.
A great way to launch into the New Year. We'll
send you a copy for your gift of any amount
(25:41):
at Moody presents.org. That's Moody presents.org. Next week, a brand
new message to start the new year, right? I'm John
Geiger inviting you to listen then for Moody Presents, a
production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
Doctor Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:02):
There's a lot of people that live with a certain
degree of private shame. It's attached itself to your identity,
your significance, how you see yourself. It's weaved its way
sometimes into your personality. We don't want other people to
know about it because it's painful. It's something that, when
we think about, makes us feel lesser of ourselves.
S1 (00:24):
Thanks for connecting with Moody Presents. I'm John Gager inviting
you to join pastor Mark Jobe, president of the Moody
Bible Institute and founding pastor of New Life Community Church
in Chicago. Boy emotions. They are both friends and foes,
aren't they? And it was that way when Jesus walked
among us. For example, there was a woman in Mark
chapter five struggling with shame. What did Jesus have to
(00:47):
say to her and to us about shame? Let's turn
things over to pastor Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:54):
Emotions are God given. They are given by God for
us to be able to fully experience life in a
three dimensional fashion. However, I want to say that oftentimes
we let our emotions lead in areas that they shouldn't
(01:14):
be leading and we haven't learned the art, the practice
of putting our emotions in check. In fact, I believe
that there's a lot of people that struggle in their
spiritual walk not because of bad theology, but but because
of bad management of their emotions. And so I want
(01:36):
to talk to you about that, because I think it's
a huge issue that we live with. We all have
different ways of handling our emotions. Uh, some people, when
they are going through a difficult time, they sat down
and with a gallon of chocolate chip Oberweis ice cream
in front of Netflix, and they binge out for hours
(01:59):
just to handle in emotion. Some people, when they're feeling sad, lonely, discouraged.
Have a kind of emotion. They just escape and play
hours and hours upon hours of Overwatch, Fortnite, Call of Duty,
that sort of their escape mode. I heard of a lady,
(02:22):
a married woman, who was talking to another younger married
woman who was struggling with anger towards her husband, and
she just talked to this older lady and she said,
how do you do it? You never seem angry at
your husband. I get angry and I just don't know
how to handle it. And the older woman said, well,
I have a practice. I do it every time. She says, well,
(02:43):
how do you handle it? She says, I go and
I clean the bathroom and especially the toilet. The younger
married woman said, I don't have any idea how that
helps you. She says, well, I use his toothbrush, so.
That is not marital advice, by the way. I'm just
(03:07):
telling you how she handled it. Today, I want to
talk to you about an emotion that I feel affects
a lot of people. And some of you undoubtedly, undoubtedly,
some of you are struggling, even in your experience, to
stay concentrated on your studies, interaction with other students, and
(03:27):
interaction with people around you because of this emotion. And
it's the emotion of shame. Shame. A recent survey among
college students, 48,000 college students found that 64%. That's 64%.
(03:52):
Were very lonely, very lonely in the last 12 months.
In fact, I've heard studies say that the loneliest people
in America are elderly people in nursing homes and college
students on college campuses. You could be surrounded by hundreds
of people, fight for your individual space, feel like there's
(04:16):
people all around you all the time, but yet feel
extremely lonely. The same survey found out that 62% of
college students felt overwhelming anxiety. Not just subtle anxiety, not
some anxiety, but overwhelming anxiety. 69% admitted to being very,
(04:42):
extremely sad. 53% admitted that they were that things seem hopeless.
That's 53% viewed the world and felt like things were
hopeless and 12% seriously considered suicide. I mean, this has
(05:06):
to do with feelings. The sometimes intangible, hard to describe, unmanageable,
not always linked to our intellect or logic. But these
feelings that overwhelm us. Sometimes we don't know how to
handle them. Sometimes we don't know what to do with them.
(05:27):
And one of those feelings is the feeling of shame.
I've been pastoring for a long time in the city
of Chicago, and I have seen looked in the eyes
of people that have felt extreme, deep, powerful, overwhelming shame.
And let me talk to you for a moment about
(05:47):
shame in the brief time that we have together here.
But let me say this shame is you have shame
and guilt. Sometimes people confuse guilt and shame. Uh, guilt
And shame our cousins, but they're different. Guilt has to
do with whether you feel bad about something that you
(06:09):
did or didn't do. It's about what you do. Shame,
on the other hand, has to do with how you
feel about yourself your identity. It's a subtle difference, but
it's huge. Guilt has to do with something that you
did and you feel bad about. Sometimes there's false guilt.
(06:31):
Shame goes a lot deeper than that. It's not about
what you did. It's about how you feel about yourself
in the light of others. And so I want you
to turn in your Bibles or look up on your phones.
A passage found in Mark chapter five. Actually, the story
is found in all three of the Gospels. Mark chapter five,
(06:53):
Matthew chapter nine, Luke chapter eight. Obviously there are certain
stories in the Bible. They're all of equal importance and value.
They're all significant. But there are certain stories that are
repeated in Scripture multiple times from different perspectives, obviously. But
this story happens to be one that's repeated in three
of the four gospels, and I believe at the core,
(07:19):
although the word shame is not used. And oftentimes we
read a story in Scripture, and it doesn't always speak
to the emotion that the person is feeling, but we
see it in their actions and we understand what they're
going through. And I believe this story is about a woman.
We don't know her name. The Bible doesn't tell us
her name. It doesn't tell us a lot about her.
(07:41):
But we understand this, that she is deeply gripped with shame.
I'm going to begin reading in verse 24. It says.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him, speaking about Jesus.
And a woman was there who had been subject to
bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal
(08:04):
under the care of many doctors and had spent all
she had. And instead of getting better, she got worse.
Let me just talk to you to begin with about
understanding the power of shame. Now you say, well, this
woman was sick. I don't see shame there. Oh, it
was the nature of her sickness that produced shame. Now
(08:29):
she had bleeding and hemorrhaging and the kind of hemorrhaging
that she had made her not only weak, but it
also made her unclean. In fact, the Bible tells us
that she had suffered with this hemorrhaging for 12 years.
S1 (08:50):
Today on Moody Presents, doctor Mark Jobe is walking us
through a story based in acts five, and we'll pick
up the message after I ask, have you by any
chance put away your Christmas music yet, I hope not.
While Christmas is over, the message of Christmas is one
we must still ponder. And Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth can help
you do that in her devotional. The First songs of Christmas,
(09:12):
these ancient songs from Elizabeth and Mary and Zechariah will
lift your heart to God all year long. It's yours
for a gift of any amount at Moody presents.org that's
Moody presents.org. Back to our teacher now pastor Mark Jobe.
S2 (09:29):
This physical disease carried with it shame that made her
unclean and made her whoever she touched unclean. Now, it
wasn't her fault that she had this disease. And oftentimes
shame comes upon us by no fault of our own.
And I believe that this shame and sometimes shame will
drive you to suffer silently and in solitude. In Leviticus
(09:54):
chapter 15, verse 25 to 28, it says, A woman
with a discharge is unclean, a bed that she lies
in is unclean. Anything she sits on is unclean. Whoever
touches her is unclean as well. This woman's issue was
intensely private, very, very private. Not something that she would
want to talk to a lot of people about, not
(10:17):
something that she would like openly discussed. It was intensely private,
but the consequences had become very public. And normally shame
is like that. I've discovered it's something that we guard.
It's intensely private. It's something that affects the way we
view the world, the way we view ourselves, but we
(10:37):
don't want other people to know about it. Shame is
rooted and built in a lot of things. It could
be built in sexual abuse as a minor. It could
be built in a rape that happened to you that
you don't want anybody to know about. It could be
(10:59):
built in the dysfunction of your household. Abusive parents. It
could be built in a disability that you may have
that you don't want people to know about. It could
be built in. A lifestyle that you engaged in that
you don't want others to know about it, but it
still haunts you. I'll never forget on the north side
(11:20):
of Chicago, I planted a church in the Lakeview neighborhood.
I had a woman that came to me and she said, pastor,
I want to meet with you. I said, sure, and
she came to me and she said, I need to
meet with you in private. So I sat down with
her and she was very nervous when she was talking
to me. And she said, I, I want to talk
to you about something that I haven't told a lot
of people about, but but I want to ask you
(11:41):
about this, and I want to be honest about you.
And she put her head down. I could tell she
was struggling. She says. I'm embarrassed to say this. I'm
a little ashamed to say this, but she said, I
have full blown Aids and I just want to know
she was on church. Can I can I come to
the church. Never forget that sincere question. Can I come
(12:07):
to this church? This is before medication for Aids was
available in her. Aids was pretty full blown. Pretty much
in advance. My first reaction is just to see the
woman in her heart. I got up and I gave
her a big hug and I said, absolutely, you are
welcome in this place. She was shocked that I gave
her a hug, I believe, but I believe that there's
(12:29):
a lot of people that live with a certain degree
of private shame. It's attached itself to your identity, your significance,
how you see yourself. It's weaved its way sometimes into
your personality. It's private. We don't want other people to
know about it because it's painful. It's something that, when
(12:52):
we think about, makes us feel lesser of ourselves. And
what I've noticed is that whenever, any time there's shame
involved in the process of our living. It affects our
relationship with others. It affects our relationship with God. It
affects how we see ourselves. In fact, I don't have
time to get into this passage, but way in the
beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we're
(13:13):
actually introduced to shame in the very beginning. Genesis chapter two,
verse 25 says that God made man and woman, and
they were both naked, and they felt no shame. He
makes a point to say they were naked and they
felt no shame. There was no shame that existed. There
(13:36):
was transparency, there was openness. There was no need to
cover themselves. But as soon as, as soon as they fell,
as soon as they disobeyed God, as soon as sin
entered into the world. Then there was immediate three things
that happened. If you notice in the passage, number one,
they covered themselves. No one told them to cover themselves,
but immediately they felt the need to cover themselves Immediately
(14:00):
when sin was introduced. When brokenness was introduced, there was
an immediate reaction I need to hide myself. I need
to cover myself. Not very comfortable with leaves. Sounds pretty itchy.
Then they hid themselves. If you read the passage, God
was there. Immediately they started to hide themselves. Where are you?
(14:24):
They heard the sound of God in the garden. And
then it also says they were afraid. Shame induces those reactions.
A hiding of ourselves, a covering of ourselves, and fear
or anxiety. We have a lot of ways of covering
our shame, by the way, and I wish you could
(14:45):
ask yourself this question. If you struggle with shame in
your life. The question I would ask you is what
leaf are you using? What leaf are you using? There's
a lot of leafs we use Overbearing personality. I'm the
class clown, but inside, really, I'm covering my shame. We
(15:06):
go to things that appease us for a little bit.
Sometimes it's overindulgence and eating. Sometimes it's habits like pornography.
Sometimes it is a myriad of things that we use,
sometimes just to cover the pain of shame that we feel.
It's been a problem since the beginning. And again, usually
(15:28):
we hide the privacy of that pain and that area
that really needs the most healing. The second thing that
I want you to notice about this passage is not
only will shame drive you to suffer silently, but shame
will also shape your approach to God and others. Verse
27 says, and when she heard about Jesus, she came
(15:50):
up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak
because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I
will be healed. It seems you can read through this
rapidly and not notice something, but I want you to
notice that she was not approached. She was not calling
out to Jesus. She was not getting attention. She was
not approaching him face to face. She was coming up
(16:12):
behind him quietly thinking, all I have to do is
touch the hem of his garment. I don't want his attention.
I don't want him to see my face. I don't
want to talk to him. I just want to touch
the hem of his garment, because I want to be
inconspicuous in my approach to him. I think shame will
always make you feel unworthy and unwanted, even as you
(16:35):
approach the presence of Jesus. Always unworthy. Always unwanted. Even
when you approach Jesus. And part of that experience is fear.
Fear of being exposed. Fear of him seeing me for
(16:55):
who I am. Obviously he was a rabbi and she
felt if I touch him, he will be unclean. If
he knew who I was and what I suffer with,
then it's not lawful for me to touch him. So
I will approach him in a way that that he
can't really tell. And I believe that is emblematic of
(17:19):
sometimes what happens to us when we're struggling with shame,
even in our own lives. It says in verse 28,
because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I
will be healed. Uh, Matthew chapter nine, verse 21 says
that she said to herself. In other words, she repeated
to herself over and over and over, the implication is
that she was talking to herself, having this inner conversation.
(17:40):
I want to be healed of this, but I don't.
But I'm afraid to approach the healer about this man.
I wish I could pause and speak on that a
little bit longer, but I need to move on. Listen,
not only will it drive you to suffer silently shape
our approach, it will steal your celebration. Notice your voice
of celebration if you let it. Notice what happens. The
(18:01):
Bible says that she reached out and because she had faith,
she touched the hem of his garment and immediately her
bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she
was freed from her suffering. And at once Jesus realized
that power had gone out from him, and he turned
around in the crowd and asked, who touched my clothes?
His disciples said, you see the people crowding against you?
(18:22):
His disciples answered, and yet you ask, who touched me?
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
Immediately she felt healed, but she did not have the boldness,
the confidence to shout out the celebration of her healing
because of shame. She had been healed 12 years of disease,
(18:44):
yet shame robbed her praise and robbed her voice. Something
had happened, yet she did not have the boldness and
ability to praise God, to celebrate, to shout out I'm healed!
To tell other people about it. She crouched down in
shame and in silence, even when she had experienced something
(19:07):
so powerful and miraculous in her life. And I believe
that shame does that to us. Listen to what happens.
Verse 32, it says, 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, not celebration. Fear. That's a weird response
(19:34):
to healing. Fear. Why? Hiding, covering and fear. Trembling with
fear and told him the whole truth. And he said
to her daughter, I love it. He doesn't say woman.
He doesn't say, hey, you. He knows that she's broken.
(19:56):
He knows that she. That she expects this scowl. Maybe
that her shame has told her you don't have the
right to touch him. You've crossed lines. Why would he
look at it? If you really knew who you were,
he would chastise you. But in the voice of the Savior,
with compassion, filled with mercy, he says to her daughter,
(20:20):
not in silence, not in private, but in front of
everybody around as people part and watch what is happening.
He says, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in
peace and be freed from your suffering. A couple of
things I want you to understand about breaking the power
of shame. Number one notice admitting the truth in your story.
Verse 33, it says, then the woman, knowing what had
(20:42):
happened to her, came and fell at his feet, it says,
and she had to admit that she had an issue.
She had to come to Jesus with it. She had
to she had to be willing to be singled out
because there was an issue. Shame says no one should
ever know. Shame says this should be your secret. You
(21:06):
know how many people I've talked to? I've done retreats
where 68 year old women will come. And for the
first time ever, share the shame of sexual abuse in
their life. They've been silent about it for 60 years,
feeling like if someone knew, I can't tell. This shouldn't
(21:27):
let me just get over it. But living with a
sense of shame in their life, deep seated shame. And sometimes,
for the first time ever, sharing with a group of
other women that pray for them. And there's a release
that happens when women gather around and love on them
and pray for them in Jesus name and hug them,
because shame has said, you are unworthy. This makes you
(21:50):
less than a person. And suddenly, when shame is revealed
to truth and love, there's something that happens. It breaks
its power. And this woman had to publicly come out.
Get out of the shadow. Get out of the crowd!
Fell at the feet of Jesus, and look what it says. Secondly,
(22:10):
it says, trembling with fear, telling the whole truth about
her story. I wish I could hear her words tell
her story. But there you are. Picture it. Jesus is there.
The crowd is around there, pressing. The disciples are keeping
her out and she's at her feet, weeping, trembling, shaking
with fear. 12 years of not being touched. 12 years
(22:33):
of being unclean. And then she begins to tell her
whole story. She brings shame to the light before Jesus.
There's something that happens, I believe. I, I think Jesus
could have moved on. Have you ever thought, hey, why
did Jesus stop? Why he? Was he so insistent? Who
(22:54):
touched me? Who touched me? Who touched me? Why do
he insist and pause and say, no, I want to.
I want to talk to the person that touched me.
I believe it wasn't for Jesus curiosity. It was for
this woman's full healing. That was more than just a
physical healing that she needed. She needed a healing of
(23:17):
her soul. He could have walked on and said, oh,
I felt power come out from me. Interestingly enough, just
the way that she felt healing, he felt power. Obviously,
we know that Jesus is all knowing he's the son
of the living God. Nothing's hidden from him. So it
wasn't as if, you know, he couldn't know who it was,
(23:40):
but he stopped. Who touched me, who touched me, who
touched me? Who do you think that was for? Do
you think Jesus was scratching his head? I wonder who
touched me. Or do you think it was for that
woman to come out of the shadows to say, it's I?
She tells the whole truth, and then she has to
accept God's truth over her story. He says to her daughter,
(24:05):
your faith has healed you. Go in peace. Be freed
from your suffering. I want you to notice, daughter, not
unclean woman, not despicable human being, not violator of the law,
(24:26):
but daughter. Go in peace. And I think when he
says be freed from your suffering, it's more than just
the physical suffering. It's the suffering and the agony of
her shame. He says, go in peace and be freed
from your suffering. Psalms 34, verse four through five says,
(24:49):
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and he
delivered me from all my fears. I love this, listen
to this. Those who look to him are radiant. Their
faces are never covered with shame. Well, let me read
that last part again. Someone needs to hear it today.
(25:10):
Those who look to him are radiant. Their faces are
never covered with shame.
S1 (25:20):
That's pastor Mark Jobe. While it's true the holiday we
call Christmas is past, the message of Christmas is something
we've got to hang on to all year long. That's
why we're offering you one last opportunity to get a
copy of Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth devotional, The first songs of Christmas.
A great way to launch into the New Year. We'll
send you a copy for your gift of any amount
(25:41):
at Moody presents.org. That's Moody presents.org. Next week, a brand
new message to start the new year, right? I'm John
Geiger inviting you to listen then for Moody Presents, a
production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
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