Lose the Labels Pt. 1 ~ John and Angel Beeson Ep. 155

Who would you be without the labels?
We’re bringing you Part 1 of Lose the Labels with John and Angel Beeson, a powerful teaching from our live webinar.

What words have been spoken over you or stuck to you for far too long? In this episode, John and Angel unpack the question of identity ,“Who am I?”, and explore how God names us, not the labels or shame that try to define us.

Step into the freedom, peace, and purpose of your God-given identity. 

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Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated

Valerie: [00:00:00] We want to introduce you to our presenters tonight, John and Angel Beeson Angel is the founder of Whole Hope Christian Counseling and John is a pastor at New Life Bible Fellowship in Tucson, Arizona. And they co-wrote Trading Faces, removing the Mask that Hide Your God-given identity.

And it is on Amazon and if you have not checked it out, we encourage you to put it on your list. So welcome John and Angel, thanks for being with us tonight. Thanks for having us. 

John: Absolutely. It's great to be here. So I just wanna begin, uh, just with this thought, like our culture very much gets how important the idea of identity is.

Um, and yet the way in which we think about our identity is so different than most of the world has ever thought about identity. Our. Our identity comes through, uh, what, uh, philosophers call expressive individualism. This idea that we kind of [00:01:00] up from our own emotions and our own thoughts about ourselves, we, we shape our own identity.

Um, it's radically different than what's what came before. Really, like for the vast majority of history, uh, if you ask that person, what's your identity? They would ask, they would answer in terms of a, a tribal connection. They would say, you know, I'm, I'm John, uh, the son of William, the beekeeper. And you would, you would, you would connect yourself in terms of the communal and um, social web.

And, you know, there's, there's different strengths to, to each of those responses. Neither one of them is actually fully biblical. And we'll get to that in just a second here. Um, the. The positive under understanding and really importance that, that we all just connect with that, of that identity language, uh, is that there is a sign, there's a massive [00:02:00] significance in terms of our direction in life, our understanding of ourselves, of others, of, of God, of, of our reality, of making sense of things.

Absolutely. That's, that is deeply, uh, connected to the biblical story of identity. And, um, and so that's, that's a powerful thing. Uh, but there's negative pieces of that as well. Um, we, the way in which we construct identity through expressive in individualism, uh, tends to be like untethered from, uh, it's tethered too much to ourself, right?

And so it's kind of like, um, me trying to, uh, uh, create my own anchor. As, as a ship, right? Like the, the ship and the anchor have to be separate entities. And so I'm, I'm un I'm unmoored as I try to, if I anchor myself in the ship, then there's not [00:03:00] actually the ability to hold fast to something beyond myself.

And so, and, and then we, we typically also then revert to labels. Um, which is interesting. You know, we, we talk about in this webinar, this idea of, of losing the labels. And I think all of us long to lose the labels. I think all of us also feel like it's self-defeating. Like, how do we, how do I even introduce myself without a label?

How do I, how do I tell my story? Uh, share my identity if I, if I'm connected, if I'm just connected to label, I'm a pastor and I'm a husband and I'm a father, and, and all those things are good, but. But ultimately they're, they don't speak to fundamental truths past something that's, that's internal to me. I think we can all think of like the classic example, a true today as it, as it, as much as it [00:04:00] was in our own childhood of the fact that the most rebellious, the most, like the ones who most wanted to lose the label all tended to look exactly the same, right?

We are the exact same things. Um, because in that, there, there, it's, it's kind of self-defeating. It just eats its itself. In the Bible, we are met with a God who not only speaks of the importance of our identity, he speaks of the importance of his identity. In fact, biblically the idea of naming someone is incredibly powerful.

Incredibly powerful. And I, I wanna start there. Like, we wanna start, actually, we wanna work from God's self naming, and then we're gonna talk about the way in which God names us and the importance of that. So I, I wanna take us to a text in Exodus where, uh, where we meet Moses. And if you wanna talk about someone struggled with [00:05:00] identity, Moses is right at the center of that target.

Can you imagine being an Israelite child who is brought up in the Pharaoh's court? So you're a, a prince of Egypt, but you are Israelite. And it's clear in the story that that identity is known. It's, it's not hidden. And there's this, this tension in him. Who is he? Where does he belong? Um, and you, and you see it run through the whole story.

He's not accepted fully in the Egyptian world, and he's clearly not accepted in the Israelite world. In fact. He, he reacts in trying to, tries to enact justice on behalf of the Israel. It's only to find that they reject him. And so off he goes, uh, runs out, uh, to escape, uh, the punishment that that's due him.

And now he's in the land of Midian, marrying a another foreign [00:06:00] wife, part of that tribal clan. And so he's, he's doubly removed in terms of his own cultural status. He's, think of this someone who grew up in the Egyptian court, who's now a shepherd, right? Like there's literally no place in the ancient world that would've been wealthier, more privileged than he was.

He was right at the center of that. And I was expelled into the wilderness as a shepherd, who is a, uh, who's keeping sheep, who is, uh. In, in the context of of other different foreign gods and, and different tribal identities, of which he's also an outsider and it's there that God meets him and God calls him back to Israel to free them.

And so I wanna, I wanna read that text in, in Exodus three. And at the heart of that, we're gonna see God naming himself. So we [00:07:00] get to this text now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horrib the mountain of God.

So if you, if you didn't miss that, his father-in-law is a priest of Midian. So he is, he has been wedded into a family. He, he grew up in. In the home, in the Pharaohs court who worshiped other gods. Now he's transplanted into another home where other gods are worshiped. And there this man, uh, has this incredible encounter.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. He looked and behold the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great sight, why this bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he [00:08:00] had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.

Moses. Moses. And he said, here I am. So God initiates the call. And this is true with Moses. It's true with us. God initiates this self. It's gonna be self identification of who God is. And God initiates then the naming of us as well. So he calls out to him, Moses. Moses, um, I, this is, this is thinking beyond the text.

I wonder if he was even still called Moses, though. Um, it's potential, potential that he, you know, Moses is his Hebrew name. Uh, was he still all these years removed, still called by his Hebrew name in Midianite Land? Maybe. Maybe he was, uh, but maybe also God is calling him back to his true identity. Uh, that's just kind of extra biblical there.

Uh, I don't wanna press past what the text says, but is it, it's a [00:09:00] question for us that kind of hangs there. Now. Now let's go down to verse 13 and 15. And the text continues. The story, uh, continues. Then Moses said a God. If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name?

What shall I say to them? So God has called Moses to free the, the people of, of Israel from the, from their enslavement in Egypt. And Moses asked this like, basic question, but key question, like, who, who am I supposed to call you? And, and for us that it, it almost seems like a wild question, right? Like, I, I hope you can hear that.

If you've heard this story so many times, sometimes these stories become so familiar. We miss like, like what's just right there in plain sight, which is. Isn't it strange that this deep into redemptive history, God has not given a personal [00:10:00] name. They just, they just call him the generic name for the gods at this time.

He doesn't, he doesn't have a personal name, and Moses recognizes like, I, I need to be able to speak to them who you are. Help me. Help me understand what's, what's your label? God, give me a label that I can hang my hat on. And then God responds to him and says this, and he said, say this to the people of Israel.

I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say to the, to the people of Israel, the Lord. That's, that's I am. That's Yahweh. Um, or Jehovah, you might be familiar with that. Instead, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Now, well, why [00:11:00] do, why do we bring up this story? Well. Because God at his core labels himself, names himself and what is his name? His name essentially is a name that es shoes all other names. You cannot label me like I am who I am. Um, you don't, you don't get to drop on me a, a little label that that protects you from my myself.

You don't get to drop onto me a, a label of, of your own making that's, you know, fits me in the pantheon of Gods. No, you have, you have your god of God, of, of goddess, of fertility. You have your moon God, you have your son God who, who is this other Hebrew? God I am who I am. I refuse to be labeled. I am the God who's self determinant.

Right? And so what a phenomenal statement, the sovereign. [00:12:00] Is the only one who can label The sovereign is the only one who can, who can speak his name, can speak any name, and think about that. So took this whole journey about the name of God and think about that and process that for for a second to recognize this.

What does it mean then when we try to name ourselves, when we try to label ourselves, there is actually an act of grasping onto a right that only God has that we're trying to steal. And so is it not, does it not fit to make sense that part of our struggles with our identity is that we're trying to grab hold of a power that only God has, only God can label, only God can name, and we are constantly trying to steal that.

Now, one other thought for you. [00:13:00] And I'd, I'd invite this and, and, and please don't hear this as like an invitation toward guilt. That's, that's not my heartbeat in it. But one question that I think arises from this is, okay, if God has labeled himself, I am who I am, and I get that, that has to be held in tension with a God then who reveals himself in Jesus Christ and, and gives us language to speak of him, like our Father who art in heaven.

I understand that. But are there, are there ruts in our language that reveal that maybe we've shrunk God in our life? For instance, uh, maybe when you, you pray to God, your, your go-to, many of us have like those little ruts in the way we pray to God. Maybe you pray Father God or, um, heavenly Father, or, um, holy God, or I don't, whatever that little rut is for you.

I would invite you in light of this Exodus story to consider what it [00:14:00] is to experience the fullness of God. 'cause potentially by labeling God and by only using specific names for him. 'cause he's given us many, many names for himself. We're actually missing out on the fullness of who God is and also, um, in that controlling our experience of him.

Because what we see in the Exodus story here is God refuses to be controlled. He refuses to let us label him. He comes to us in mercy, in kindness, in grace and compassion. But he never, for a second, lets us flip the table and be the ones who label him. 

Angel: Yeah, so good. So we wanna walk through a few examples in scripture of those that, um, God does name and sort of the transformation of that process as we move, you know, more into his naming of us.

So let's look at Jacob. Uh, [00:15:00] love the story of Jacob. If you don't know Jacob, Jacob is the younger of a twin Esau that was born. So he's the youngest of the twins. Um, he, because he's the youngest and he so desires, um, the blessing of the patriarchal birth, like his birthright blessing, he ends up deceiving his father Isaac, um, into giving him the patriarchal blessing.

And in so doing his older brother Esau is furious. And it basically leads to a story where Jacob has to flee. Jacob Flees. He ends up working for his, um, uncle Labon and falls in love with a woman Rachel. And the agreement is essentially work for Uncle Labon for seven years and then you can marry Rachel.

Well, what happens? He works for his seven years, he's diligent and his uncle then, um, deceives Jacob and gives him his oldest Leah to marry. And in that [00:16:00] process, um, tells him, Hey, work another seven years. And then I'll give you Rachel. So Jacob actually essentially works another additional seven years to work for Rachel and then continues to work, I think it's around a total of 20 years or so, um, for his uncle and ends up having lots of kids between Leah and Rachel.

Um, eventually returns to his homeland, but in that process of returning, he encounters God and he has this space of wrestling with God. Um. I wanna read that in Genesis, where we find that. Um, but he's, he's wrestling with God and in this space of wrestle, he's, he's basically begging God for a blessing. Um, and in that space, uh, Genesis 32, 22 through 30 says this, that same night, he rose and took his two wives, his two female servants and his 11 children, and crossed the Ford of the Japa Jabba.

Well, [00:17:00] he took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had, and Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

Then he said, let me go for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed, right? So I love this, that not only does God is the God who names himself, he's the only God who can name us.

And here we just see this beautiful picture of God's purpose in naming us. Um, 'cause God's mission with Jacob is obviously [00:18:00] so huge. And so he then Jacob asked, asked him, continuing in verse 29, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place, how do you say that?

Penal? Mm-hmm. Oh, penal. Um, saying for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. The sun rose upon him as he passed through penal, limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

And so there's just this like beautiful picture where God gives Jacob the new name Israel. Jacob originally means deceiver, right? Um, grasper. 'cause he spends his life essentially in that space. And then when God meets [00:19:00] him, it's this transformation that says the one who has struggled with God and has prevailed.

And through that new naming, the new naming of Israel, um, not only does Jacob end up going back to his homeland and reconciling with Esau, and they actually are able to depart in peace. But, um, Israel's the new name for Jacob and his descendants are formed out of the 12th tribes. Of Israel, which is the foundation of the nation.

And so through Jacob's life, we just get this beautiful picture where we're able to understand how God shapes us, um, through the challenges that we walk through. Um, and he's a God who gives us a new name. And it's so beautiful how we can, we have an opportunity, we have an invitation to understand our new name.

Through the challenges, through the suffering, through the actual, the false identities, the labels that we lay like seek so hard to label ourselves with. There's a huge invitation [00:20:00] for us to look at those labels face to face and say, is this the label God gives me? Is this the name that God gives me?

Because if it's not the name that God gives me, it doesn't belong. And so it's a really important thing to consider. 

John: Hmm. 

Angel: I 

John: I love that. Like, that's just so profound that here's someone who. His whole life has been trying to grasp from other people what he so desperately longs for, pull from his brother.

What he longed for was, you know, the, the care, the attention, the blessing of his father. Yeah. To grasp from his uncle mm-hmm. The, the woman that he longs for. And God then says, no, no, no, no, no. Grass restful with me. Mm-hmm. Not with other people. You're never going to pull from them. Um, that the wholeness that I have for you, I, I just, that story's just stunning in terms of what God does with our name, because that's, that's the whole reality.

God like releases [00:21:00] us and places us even in these, the, the places of the, the deepest like weakness of us. Mm-hmm. God so often. Speaks names over us that free us from those patterns in our life. I wanna take us to one other naming, uh, before then, uh, kind of we shift into, uh, some other spaces to reflect on some of the transformations of the names, the trading of the labels that God does in our lives.

Um, and so I wanna take us to Simon. Uh, uh, Simon is his birth name and Jesus then gives him the name that we're, uh, familiar with. In fact, we often call, call him Simon Peter. We connect the two, uh, which is interesting. And, uh, I, so I want to take us to that interaction that's over in Matthew 16. Verse 13.

We see this Now, when Jesus came into the district of accessory of Philippi, he said to his, he asked his disciples, who do people say the son of man is? I love that. Who, how are people labeling [00:22:00]me? Is what Jesus is asking, right? And they said, some say John the Baptist and others say, Elijah and others, Jeremiah are one of the prophets.

Like, what's the theme there? It's, it's all made back to the Exodus theme. They're all shrinking who he is. Like they can't possibly imagine who he really is. And so they're shrinking him. Maybe he's the reincarnation of this person. Maybe he's the spirit of this person, maybe, you know, et cetera, et cetera, right?

They're, they're missing who he is. And they said, sorry. And uh, verse 15, Jesus. And he asked them, this is Jesus, but who do you say that I am? Simon replied, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered him. Blessed are you Simon Barr. Jonah Barr just means son of, so his dad's name must have been Jonah.

Um, which is this actually, there's this debate, was his [00:23:00] dad's name really Jonah? Or you're the son of Jonah, like the spirit of Jonah, the, the prophet, the the stubborn one. Um, either way it's, it's interesting, um, kind of that, that's his response. Blessed are you, Simon Barona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven, back to the Exodus principle, right?

Like Peter gets it right, Simon gets it right, and Jesus' response is, you're absolutely right. And you didn't figure it out on your on your own, right? Like we can never figure out God, we can never label God on our own. It's all just his work within us that that reveals and uncovers truths about who He is.

And I tell you, and now he's about to turn at Simon's just labeled Jesus. And Jesus is about to name Simon and I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my [00:24:00] church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven.

Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Now what's so interesting about this? Is similar even to, um, to Angel's story about Jacob. Like Simon has this kind of rocklike quality in him. It's just di misdirected, right? It's like he sees himself as a leader, as, as someone who's strong and powerful.

And you, you clearly see throughout the, the, um, the gospels that peter's at the forefront. He's, he's, he's the first to answer. He's the first to lead. He's, he's the first to respond. And, and he, like, if Jesus said this, you could almost see Peter nodding along like, yeah, I am the rock, right? Like, [00:25:00] heck yeah, you got it, Jesus.

You're seeing me right now. What's fascinating about this is we see this rock crumble dramatically at the end of his life. Jesus' life, right? So Jesus gives him this promise, and it's a promise. Peter probably. My hunch is misunderstands misapply. 'cause he is like, that's totally me. And so then you have Jesus the night before he dies and, and Jesus is like, everyone's gonna leave me.

And Peter's like, not me. I'm with you to the end. Like, we're taking down the Romans. If it's just you and me, Jesus. Right. And then fast forward, he's so terrified. He lies to a servant girl. Right? Mm-hmm. He, he denies Jesus in the most low consequence of circumstances, considering what Jesus is going through.

Right. He, he folds, he crumbles. He's not the rock, but he is.

Mm-hmm. 

John: In Christ. He is [00:26:00] in Christ. When, when Peter and his own disposition for self will, for self strength crumbles, now Jesus can start building the rock. 

Mm-hmm. 

John: Now Jesus can. Can provide in him the stability of who he really is. And so I just as an aside, an invitation, just be asking that question, what are, what are some of the names that you think that God might have for you?

How has God named you? What are the, what are the labels that you've claimed for yourself and what's the invitation of Jesus to, to put those off and to trust God with the naming of what he names you, not you name yourself. 

Mm-hmm. It can be 

John: a frightening thing to, to take off what we're so comfortable with and to [00:27:00] put on what Christ has.

I think of, uh, Paul's language in. In Colossians where he gives us this, um, this invitation to take off and to put on and in, uh, in Colossians three, uh, he gives us a picture of, of what we're taking off and what we're putting on. And what we're taking off is actually death and what we're putting on is Christ.

So Colossians three, verse five. I won't read the whole section. I'll just give you a taste of it. It says this put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. I'll just kind of share for a culture, so many of our labels are connected actually to our desires, to our passions, to the things.

What we think is most dear to us is the thing that I long for [00:28:00] most and actually. What Paul says in Colossians is, put those to death. Put those to death. Those are not the labels that I have for you. Over in verse 12, Paul then says, is put on them as God's chosen one, chosen ones holy and beloved.

Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And so an invitation for us to hear that actually the labels that Christ puts on us, they're not constraints.

They're actually love. They're actually compassion. They're, they're God's mercy to [00:29:00] us. To walk in the strength and the freedom and the hope and the forgiveness of what he has named over us and not, not to clinging to these self constructed masks that fall apart, that shatter, that are weak. 

Angel: Yeah. 

John: That ultimately lead to selfishness.

Angel: Yeah. I, there's just a hu I think there's such a beautiful calling for each of us to, it's to submit, right? Are we willing to submit to God's naming of us, right? Like we see it in, in Jacob when he submits to being named Israel. He then goes forth in the power of what that means, beginning with reconciliation with his family, and that only leads then to Right.

The foundation of the nation, [00:30:00] um, you know, with Simon and Peter, when he submits to the rock and actually tastes, what that means according to God's purposes. For him, it's God's power that shines through him and moves through him. We, each of us have, like, when we're willing to put off this old, put off these labels and submit to, okay, Jesus, what do you, how do you name me?

How do you label me? I have a choice to either surrender and submit to that and walk in obedience to that, or I have a choice to reject it. There's no middle area. We try to walk in the middle area, but there's, we're doing one or the other. And so there's just a profound freedom in Christ and there's a profound freedom that comes.

Um. We allow the Holy Spirit to move in power through us as we submit to God's identity and how he names [00:31:00] us. 

We wanna talk and step into what it means to be God's image bearer as we talk about, um, our identity in Christ and what it means to be, have the label of image bearer, um, and not our shame so often. Um, and it's important that we understand just the destructiveness of shame. So a few, um, stats. The, um, American Psychology Associ Association reports that suicide rates have increased 30% in the past two decades, and between the ages of 15 and 24, 50 6%, um, it's a 56% increase in those stats.

And there's a huge, um, direct correlation between social media and those suicide rates because in the world of social media, um, we, we live in the world of labels, right? We live in the world of comparison trap. They're this and I'm not. Um. They have more, I need more. [00:32:00] Um, but there's this danger, um, to, that there's a poison that comes in that because essentially, um, it fuels the voice of shame.

I mean, we now have access through social media to, um, virtually compare ourself to every acquaintance. Forget just family. Forget a friend. Like we're now, they're the danger of comparing yourself to every acquaintance, you know, or even a stranger, um, is available to you. And it's so dangerous and it's spiritually dangerous because in that space, the voice of shame grows louder and louder, right?

We, we remind ourself in this subtle way, oh, I'm not enough. Oh, I must be worthless if, if. They get all that attention and I don't. Right. Um, I'm so messed up. We live in the world. Shame has the voice of I am dirty, I am a fraud. Um, I'm stupid. I'm a burden like it, it [00:33:00] has so many languages. And I would, I'd really just invite you to pause and reflect maybe right now and just like what is the shame language that you have struggled with, um, growing up or today?

What still lies present? Um, it's really important that we identify our shame because shame speaks a language of identity over it says, I am this, it's this. Filter that we understand ourself with, right? So it's like as if I'm wearing glasses and I can't see anything with the glass, might, the glasses might say, like for example, for me growing up, um, my shame language was, I'm a burden, right?

And as I, it's as if I'm wearing glasses that just have, I'm a burden on them. And so I can't see anything without filtering it through that lens that I'm a burden that's going to affect how I talk to people. That's going to affect how I talk to God. That's going to affect how I receive God's love.

That's going to affect how I receive anyone else's love. [00:34:00] And I can tell you that, um, you know, for me personally, I grew up in, in my, um, you know, my dad was, I grew up in a Christian home. Dad worked, mom was a stay at home. And I felt the tensions, the financial tensions growing up in the home and. Not that it was ever told to me, angel, your burden, but because I witnessed financial stress.

Okay, angel, don't be needy. Like, try to keep the peace as much as possible and learn not to be needy because your needs are going to be a burden. And that just, that just kind, that was the enemy's way of, of getting in there and festering in my soul and in my mind a shame that just continued to, um, grow bigger and bigger as I continued to age.

And so it's really important that we can go back to the beginning and [00:35:00] understand what is the shame that we wear? Because God has a different voice, he has a different language for us. 'cause shame is dangerous. Shame alienates us from God, it alienates us from others. Um, it forces us to wanna hide, right?

Like you go back to the garden of, of Eden when, when God creates, um, man, and you know, they were in, in Genesis 2 25. The, the last verse is like they were naked. Ashamed. Like they, they see themselves and not ashamed. And not ashamed. They're not ashamed because they're living in their, their shame had the fall, hasn't injured, sin, hasn't injured the picture.

They're living fully exposed and naked and right before God and before each other. They could be totally naked and not ashamed. And then the fall happens, right? And this is in chapter three. And we hear, we see both Adam and Eve [00:36:00] recognize their nakedness, and they go and they make a, a covering for themself, right?

They cover themself with the fig leaves. There's this shame that enters in. Um, there's this exposure of like, oh, if you really saw who I was, you wouldn't wanna, you wouldn't wanna see that. You wouldn't wanna come close. You're gonna wanna cover up. It's gonna be a little bit too much. You're a little too much for, for other people, right?

And it, it just begins to fuel. And we lose, we literally become blinded to the power of what it means to be an image bearer of God. It, it, it's like a complete utter rejection of it. So when we give pout, and what's crazy about this too is not only does it lead to, you know, because when we feel the pain of shame, right?

When we feel the pain of I am, um, I'm ugly or I am fat, um, or I'm worthless, like, right, what does that, I wanna do something to, to make [00:37:00] me feel better, right? So it leads to things like eating disorders and um, body image disorders and sexual sin. Um, it leads to alienation and avoidance. And so we just become these solo people, um, that lose how to be in relationship.

And what's crazy about all that is. It's incredibly self absorbing. Like we become infatuated with the self. And so it's this like false sense of, um, yeah. I don't, I don't even know what to call that. We think, we think we don't care about the self, or we think we're thinking less of the self, but what we're actually doing in the way that we hide and the way that we step into these sins because of our shame to try and feel better, we become incr.

It's just like we put ourself on the throne and we just get stronger and stronger on that seed, and it [00:38:00] just grieves God. It's, it's just antigo. It's antigo, so. 

John: Hmm. 

Angel: Consider what your shame language is. 

John: Yeah. It's an amazing picture to see that right from the very beginning there's, there's the power of shame 

mm-hmm.

John: In this story. And it's not just guilt. Mm-hmm. But shame like, and, and both are important. Do you wanna share the difference 

Angel: with this? Yeah. With guilt. Guilt is saying, oh my goodness, I did something wrong. I ate that apple and I feel guilty because I, God told me not to eat that apple. Right. Shame is now saying, I am a failure.

I am now worthless. I am now no longer valuable. Um, it, it defines us in a way. So it's important to navigate the difference between guilt and shame. Um, 

John: yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and both are [00:39:00] remedied in Jesus Christ. 

Mm-hmm. 

John: I think sometimes, um, our focus in the West is on the rescuing work of Jesus Christ, of our guilt, which is absolutely the case.

We are. We are rescued, ransomed, redeemed. Um, the guilt is gone, but so is the shame. So is the shame, in fact part of the impact of the story of Christ? And I was introduced to this, to this, um, actually through kind of non-Western thinkers, which was so helpful to see kind of through eastern eyes kind of the story of Christ as it as it navigates the path of shame.

So look at, look at the story of Christ and, and overlay that with the story of shame in your life. Jesus is not merely the story [00:40:00] of, of Jesus is not merely that he is a falsely accused and, um, taken out and, you know, um, uh, executed in a, a gas chamber, right? Um. Everything that happens in those final hours of Christ's life.

I mean, and actually you can, you can navigate the story of, of shame actually throughout Jesus' life, but let's just focus on those last 24 hours, right? Jesus pulls his disciples together. He, he, they, they have forgotten to have someone there to clean their feet. The most, the lowest of the jobs, the most shameful of the jobs Jesus kneels and not only washes their feet, it's so shameful that, that Simon Peter refuses it.

This is, this is embarrassing, right? This is shameful. Jesus [00:41:00] is what he's saying. He's not just doing that. He's doing that to, of those 12, he's doing that to 11 who will leave him. One will deny him, and one is betraying him. Only one of those will remain to the cross. Jesus is serving those who will betray him.

Shameful. Jesus then goes to the garden of Gethsemane and is is in shamed by His, his disciples, who refuse to stay up with him and think of the isolating power of that shame that your own friends aren't willing to sit with you as you agonize. He's been arrested in the middle of the night. Don't, don't miss the significance of that in terms of shame.

They're putting him on a trial that is done outside the [00:42:00] standards of Jewish law. Why? Because? Because they can't expose it. So it has to be done in a shameful way. He's arrested in the middle of the night. He is shamefully, uh, again, you, you have one that's already left Judas to betray him. Now 10 of the remaining 11 f flee from that spot and Jesus has then put on trial where witnesses lie about his character.

If you've ever been lied about, if you've ever experienced, uh, been gossiped about having your cha character assassinated, you understand the deep shame that comes with that. He's stripped naked. He's, he's led carrying his own torture and crucifixion DEI [00:43:00] device. He's whipped shame upon, shame upon shame.

He stood up publicly between two. Two who are absolutely worthy of the punishment that they're enduring, and he's counted among them. He's shamefully dismissed by the crowds in favor of Barabbas. Like there every layer of that last 24 hours is shame upon. Shame upon shame. Why does that matter? Because Jesus has not just come to undo our guilt.

He's come to undo our shame. Jesus has walked through the depths of our shame and undone. He's undone our shame eternally. We don't have to grasp onto it anymore. We can experience the freedom of that. I love Dane Orland. In his, uh, little book that you might be, uh, familiar with. Gentle and lowly [00:44:00] has this wonderful quote.

I wanna, I wanna read this quote, which speaks to the power of Jesus as he meets us in our shame.

He says this, that God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which divine mercy passes, but homes in which divine mercy abides. It means that the things about, about you that make you cringe the most, make him hug the hardest because Jesus has navigated shame.

He draws near to us in that shame. He pulls us close. There is no shame that repels him. 

Angel: Mm-hmm. So we wanna invite our listeners to an exercise to do in your own [00:45:00] time. Um, but this is the invitation to make the blood of Christ personal for you. Um, it's, it's really hard to step into our true identity in Christ if we're choosing to continue to live in the clothing of shame.

Um, the two can't fit side by side. And so this is an imp like a necessary step in, in the healing journey of walking out of shame. And so we would just invite you that if you would just spend some time with you and Jesus and asking the Lord to help you name, um. The places in your life where you have either been shamed, um, or you live in shame, right?

You, you identify with shame. You, you identify with the I am a burden because this happened, [00:46:00] right? Um, I am ugly because these things happened to me. I am dirty because this happened. 'cause I did this or this was done to me. Um, take, take your suffering and the shame that has come from that and. This is, get as detailed as possible, is the invitation.

I remember when I did this exercise, I think I had about nine pages of the, you know, eight by 11 lined pages, single spaced, and just listing my sin and the shame that was coming out of that sin, and then cut 'em up in strips of pieces of paper. And I would invite you to find a fire pit if that's available to you or something that you can place these things, um, and, and watch them dissolve.

Or that's water. It, it doesn't matter. Maybe it's a trash can. Um, but I want you to imagine yourself at the foot of the cross with [00:47:00] Christ hanging above you and with every one of these pieces of paper that, that have your suffering and your shame on them. I want you to imagine yourself laying it at the foot of the cross.

And imagine the blood of Christ dripping on you in that moment, dripping on that moment in time, dripping on that lie, dripping on that, um, place of suffering and let the blood of Christ heal you. Because it, it's this choice to say, God, your blood is power. Jesus, your blood is power, and your p your blood is power for me.

And so when I lay this down at the cross and I am, imagine your blood dripping on it, it means that your blood right, it, it infuses me. If, if I'm bringing this, I am dirty to [00:48:00] the cross and if I'm gonna let your blood fall on me, then your blood is going to tell me that I am pure. 

Mm-hmm. 

Angel: That my sin is as far removed as the is from the west.

That I am the pure bride of Christ and that I'm set free and that this, whatever it was that made me dirty, no longer has the power to define me in that way because the blood is more powerful. And so this is not a fast exercise. This is an exercise that requires you to sit with the Lord. And I like the fire pit because when I'm placing that sheet in the fire and I watch it burn and I'm, I'm with Jesus at the cross, like it's done.

It's done. I can't pick it up. I can't go back into the ash and pick it up again. And it's just this, it was helpful for me. It's just this beautiful like exercise that, 'cause we, we have to take [00:49:00] agency in our shame. It doesn't just go poof, right? Like, we're not, we're not robots. And God actually is on mission and he delights when we take agency in laying our shame down and picking up the power of his blood, putting on the power of his blood and letting the power of his blood infuse us with his righteousness, because that's what it does.

It gives us a new name. So I call it the blood exercise. I don't even know if that's a good name for it. But making the power of the blood of Christ personal for you is incredibly important in walking in the, in the image bearing nature of who you were designed to be. 

John: Mm-hmm. And so that's where we wanna go as we conclude this, this session, is that image bearing nature, we, we were made as image bearers of God.

Mm-hmm. 

John: That's [00:50:00] astounding. As beautiful as the creation is. There is one creation that bears the image of God. And it's you. It's me. We are image bearers of God. Genesis 1 26, then God said, let us make man in our own image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him. Male and female. He created them. We bear the image of God. I, I just love like the thought of a, a, you know. What if, you know, like, let's, let's just pretend this, this little painting behind us was, was done by a true master artist, right?

Like, you know, that we had behind us the, the actual [00:51:00] work of Cison, right? Paul Cison, right? And if someone came over to our house, and, uh, and we know, you know, that this, this is priceless, right? It's not by the way, but what you just imagine with me, right? Someone walks over to the house, like, that's a hideous painting.

I hate it. Right? Like, our response would, like, we would just shrug it off. Okay. You can hate it, but we know the truth. It's priceless, right? Like when we walk, not with arrogance, right? This isn't, again, us speaking our own identity over ourselves. This is us accepting the truth of who we are in Christ, who God has made us to be.

Like. Those insults, the, the, the reality, the what comes at us, those labels that hurt us, the hurtful, painful things that come at us ought to slip past us just as like a, someone mocking this painting would, would do, uh, in our life. Like, because we know the truth, [00:52:00] because we know that we are the masterpieces of God.

We bear his image. Now, like I'll say on a personal level, as we wrote, trading faces one of the most. There's like mo, there's, there's several moments in, in this book that I like. For me, there was just this click, this change in my own mentality and thinking, you know, I obviously, we went into the, the book with a passion for identity, and then all of a sudden you uncover something that you're like, oh goodness, I have to work on that.

And, and one of these pieces for me is, is like, I'll raise my hand. Like the, the self-talk, positive self-talk movement to me is just like I have an allergy to it. Right? Um, I, it's just like, ugh, like this, this idea that I would look at myself in the mirror and, and say, you know, I'm good enough and, and strong enough, and gosh darn it, people like me and like, uh, Stuart Smalley or something, like, it is just like, just like, want me, want me to pinch my [00:53:00] nose?

It sounds just horrible, right? And yet what I, what I began to realize the more and more angel and I were saturated in scripture, the more and more we, we recognized and saw that this identity language was just all over the pages of scripture. That Paul can't start a letter without speaking to those, that he's writing their identity over them to the saints who are in Ephesus, to the saints like you are adopted.

So he just layers on identity, language after identity language speaking to them oftentimes, and. Pull, open the letter to you like they don't sound like saints, right? But he's speaking the truth of God to them, despite even how they're acting. And, and I began to realize, I, I, out of, I think, a false understanding of what humility is and a fear of pride.

I just have, I, I fertilize, i I water negative thoughts in my brain, like [00:54:00] they echo through my brain all the time. And I don't know what those negative thoughts are in your brain. Now let me, let me give you some that might echo through your brain. I'm so ugly, I'm so fat. I hate myself. I'm such a loser.

This is going to fail. Everyone leaves me out. I am a burden. I'm not enough. No one thinks I can do this. I'm the problem. I'm dirty. Those negative self-talk that, that we just, we bounce around our head and one of, one of the wild things as we, uh, dug in, I too 

Angel: much. That's also another kinda I'm 

John: mm-hmm. Yeah.

Uh, one of the, the pieces of research that we got into, and, and this is, this is verifiable research, is that actually as much as I dislike it, uh, the positive self-talk movement has verifiable impact in a positive way in people's [00:55:00] lives. That's in that to exchange negative self-talk, for positive self-talk has significant outcomes of impact in health and emotional health, psychological health, um, interpersonal health, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And, and here, here's my takeaway in that is not to like, let, let's not, again, let's not move back to a place where we're trying to. Muster up our own positive identity, which is what the positive self-talk movement in is. But if we can receive the truth of God and replace the negative lies that I, that I foster and fertilize in my own heart and replace them with the truth of God, that's not like thi this is not, it's not proud to speak the truth of God over me.

You know, it's proud to deny the truth of God over me. You know, it's arrogant for me to say, no. I refuse that God. I choose instead to say something negative about [00:56:00] myself. And so there's, there's a freedom actually in walking in the light of the power and the truth of who we are in, in Christ. And what, what would it look like, uh, to.

To exchange the lies that we have with positive truths. Let me, let me give us just a few that we could potentially hang our hat on. I'm wonderfully made. I'm adopted by the perfect father. I am beloved. I'm a conquer. I'm God's friend. I'm protected. I am pure. I'm a saint. I am God's treasure. I am gifted. We are God's beautiful bride.

We are the light of the world, and on and on we can go. The, the power of receiving that just repels, pushes out shame in our life as we accept the truth of what God says about us. [00:57:00]

Angel: An important part too, as you're kind of navigating that journey of putting off dying to the shame, is really walking in that place of repentance, right?

It's recognizing that when we're. When we're believing these lies or giving power to the enemy in this way, when we're living in the arrogance of, no, God, this is what I say about myself. I'm not gonna believe what you say about me. Like when God breaks that down, let's not forget the step of forgiveness.

Because when God reveals to us in his kindness and his mercy, um, our shame and invites us to lay it down, he's inviting us into that place of repentance. Because again, that goes back to that agency piece, right? I am, when I lay it down in repentance and receive God's forgiveness, I'm, I'm choosing to kind of stand up and it's like the go and sin no more, right?

Jesus meets us at our well, and he says, now go and sin no more like I've met you. I've given [00:58:00]you a new name. Now go and stop living in those lies. So I just wanted to, don't forget to repent. Mm 

mm. Amen.