Pastor Marc Johnson
The room of shame is a room we often find ourselves in. It is the prison of the past, meant to keep us from achieving what God has called you to achieve and from being whom God has called you to be.
Judges 8:28
Connect
Use our digital connect card for:
More Info | Volunteering | Prayer Requests | Baptisms | Baby Dedications
Groups
Sunday Morning | On campus | Home Based
You can learn more and sign up for a group by clicking the link below.
SERIES INTRO/RECAP
Room Where IT Happens
Areas in our life where God does something amazing! Where His presence shows up in a big way and He does something BIG
– How many want God to show up and do something big in your life today!
WEEK 1: Room of the heart – it all begins with heart transformation. Faith is not a process of becoming better but of being transformed!
BIBLE VERSE
Judges 8:28 (ESV)
28So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.
The Room of Shame
The room of shame is a room we often find ourselves in. It is the prison of the past, meant to keep us from achieving what God has called you to achieve and from being whom God has called you to be.
Judges 8:28Black – main text (to be used in notes)
Red – quoted scripture within the main text (essentially any verse not designated with its own passage block)
Blue – Any Illustrative story or text (not to be put in notes)
Purple – Any important single phrase or statement (great for “share-able moments” or online engagement)
1) Giving/Attendance boost
– giving units up by 40%
– amount given per unit, up by 5%
– amount of gifts given, up by 9%
what does this mean? More people are giving, people are giving more often, and they are giving more everytime they give = health and growth in our church!
2) Thank you to all who served for the women’s conference
– 90 ladies in attendance and involved!
3) Connect Card
IF new here, grab a card fill it out or go to crossroads.church/connect and mark “new here”
– receive a digital gift card emailed to you this week, as our way of saying “thanks” for being with us!
4) Myself some pastors and board members gone next week
– Special guest speaker…credentialed minister with the AG with a degree in missions and Biblical Studies…My Wife
5) family worship service
– baptisms
Room Where IT Happens
Areas in our life where God does something amazing! Where His presence shows up in a big way and He does something BIG
– How many want God to show up and do something big in your life today!
WEEK 1: Room of the heart – it all begins with heart transformation. Faith is not a process of becoming better but of being transformed!
Judges 8:28 (ESV)
28So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.
The Room of Shame – Today we are going to explore the room of Shame
Gideon in Ch. 8
– The man we see in Judges 8:28 is a man who is accomplished and revered. In fact, earlier in the chapter the people of Israel try to make Gideon and his sons the king – setting up a dynasty to last well beyond Gideon’s time on this earth.
– Gideon is a man of bravery and respect. He’s a man who has seen a great victory in his life.
But this is a far cry from the man we see 2 chapters earlier. The Gideon we are introduced to is very different from that Gideon we say “goodbye” to.
ILLUSTRATION
More than you were!
Let me encourage you this moring. You may be a far cry from where you WANT to be; but you are equally as far away from where you WERE when God called you! You are not at the end of your journey. You still have a journey ahead of you! You still have things you can accomplish!
– For those who feel the sunset on the horizon is closer and you only have a few years left…what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation. You have decades of experience and knowledge under your belt. Roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work. Don’t wait to be asked! Don’t wait to be pulled in reluctantly. Jump in and work!
– don’t let shame or regret hold you back from moving forward!
– If you are breathing, you are growing!!!
MY PERSONAL STRUGGLES, JOURNEY WITH THE MAIN IDEA (CONTINUED)
Turn back to Judges chapter 6:11-16 | WHILE YOU ARE TURNING
The room of shame is a room I believe we are ALL a little too familiar with. It is the prison of the past…
ILLUSTRATION
The Shame Curtains
1) My children watch a cartoon called “Phineas and Ferb”
2) There’s a character who is from a high-achieving family
3) When he messes up or makes a mistake, He commiserates that he must return home to hang up the “shame curtains”
4) This has become a running joke in our home. Whenever someone messes up one of us will joke, “I’ve got to go hang the shame curtains”
What is played for laughs in a cartoon and in our home is a real place. It’s build from our past experiences and furnished with our own failures.
ILLUSTRATION
Painting the “room of shame”
1) The room of shame looks different for each of us
2) For some it’s been decorated with the mistakes and failures of one period in our lives, or one single mistake – and it hasn’t changed since
3) For some it’s a revolving door of conversations and perceived failures everyday
4) It’s covered with the pictures of people we’ve hurt, or who’ve hurt us and we shouldn’t have let them
5) It’s plastered with “should haves” and “could haves”.
6) It’s where we keep our deepest hurts locked up
And if you spend enough time in the room of shame, it’s decoration and atmosphere become comfortable. We start to feel at home living in our shame. And Shame always leads to fear. And Fear always leads us away from faith.
HOW THE MAIN IDEA RELATES TO US ALL
Not a room, but a prison
The room of shame has one purpose – to keep you from achieving what God has called you to achieve and from being whom God has called you to be.
The room where IT happens this morning is the room we must be brave enough to escape! We must step out of shame and into purpose.
Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
The room of shame is a room of great significance in each of our lives. And the “it” that needs to happen in this room…is it’s destruction.
APPLICATION
More than JUST living your BEST life.
I want to stop and speak very plainly. The natural trajectory of a message like this is for me to say, “Demolish the room of shame and run into the fields of Grace where God can BLESS you and give you your BEST LIFE.
– That is true! But that’s only part of the picture. And I would be remiss if I didn’t give you the full picture.
GEN. 3:10 “I heard the sound of You in the garden and I was ashamed because I was naked, so I hid myself”
Adam’s shame had NOTHING to do with his lack of clothing….It had everything to do with the sin that separated Him from God.
– Sin and Shame are the best of friends and a deadly “one, two” punch. They are meant to separate us from a holy God and to keep us separated from a Holy God.
Being free from shame speaks to our very identity in Him.
– Shame is not the thought, “I have done wrong.” It is the thought, “I have done wrong, because I am wrong.”
This goes against everything Christ has done for you and I on the cross.
– 2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God”.
BIBLE VERSE
Judges 6:11-16 (ESV)
11Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
12And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
13And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”
15And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS?
Surrounded by failure
Judges tells us that Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress:
– forced to do so by the oppression of the Midianites
– Israelites have resorted to hiding out and subterfuge to do something as simple as producing food to eat (a daily occurrence)
Gideon is daily reminded of and surrounded by the failures of his past
– and not just his past, but the failures of his nation’s past
Wine is normally a good thing – it’s a symbol of wealth and prosperity
– When the winepresses are full, that means the fields are full of grapes and other produce
But for Gideon, the winepress is a room of shame. it’s a reminder of his circumstances
The winepress is NOT where he’s supposed to be!
– When we live in shame, that shame will take us away from where we are supposed to be
– Shame will keep us from rightful and God ordained purpose and blessings, because it will remove us from being positioned for Blessing
– shame will pull us from where we rightfully belong
– in His presence!
APPLICATION
From reminders of defeat to altars of victory
When you are living in shame, even things meant for good are causes of shame
But what Gideon didn’t know was that the winepress was intentional
– Gen. Joseph said, “What you intended for evil, God has meant for good”
The winepress, while serving as a reminder of shame…was about to become the altar where God turned it all around
– What has been the place Gideon shuffled past quickly, because “it’s the place where I hide out. It’s the room where I am afraid…” WAS ABOUT TO BECOME “Here’s the room where God called me! Here is the beginning of my destiny in him. This is where I stopped being afraid. This is where the shame melted away!!
You need to know, this morning, that the room of shame is about to turn around to become an altar of victory! God is positioning you to turn everything around. Get ready for God to revolutionize your circumstances! Get ready for God to bring you out of the room of shame and into His destiny!!
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THIS (CONTINUED)
God begins bringing Gideon out of the room of shame with this amazing phrase…
“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor!”
– I can almost imagine Gideon looking around in disbelief…looking for whoever the angel was “really” talking to.
When the angel speaks to Gideon, he speaks to his “Status and his Situation”
– STOP AND LISTEN!
– God is speaking to your status and Situation this morning.
The Room of Shame
The room of shame is a room we often find ourselves in. It is the prison of the past, meant to keep us from achieving what God has called you to achieve and from being whom God has called you to be.
Judges 8:28Black – main text (to be used in notes)
Red – quoted scripture within the main text (essentially any verse not designated with its own passage block)
Blue – Any Illustrative story or text (not to be put in notes)
Purple – Any important single phrase or statement (great for “share-able moments” or online engagement)
1) Giving/Attendance boost
– giving units up by 40%
– amount given per unit, up by 5%
– amount of gifts given, up by 9%
what does this mean? More people are giving, people are giving more often, and they are giving more everytime they give = health and growth in our church!
2) Thank you to all who served for the women’s conference
– 90 ladies in attendance and involved!
3) Connect Card
IF new here, grab a card fill it out or go to crossroads.church/connect and mark “new here”
– receive a digital gift card emailed to you this week, as our way of saying “thanks” for being with us!
4) Myself some pastors and board members gone next week
– Special guest speaker…credentialed minister with the AG with a degree in missions and Biblical Studies…My Wife
5) family worship service
– baptisms
Room Where IT Happens
Areas in our life where God does something amazing! Where His presence shows up in a big way and He does something BIG
– How many want God to show up and do something big in your life today!
WEEK 1: Room of the heart – it all begins with heart transformation. Faith is not a process of becoming better but of being transformed!
Judges 8:28 (ESV)
28So Midian was subdued before the people of Israel, and they raised their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon.
The Room of Shame – Today we are going to explore the room of Shame
Gideon in Ch. 8
– The man we see in Judges 8:28 is a man who is accomplished and revered. In fact, earlier in the chapter the people of Israel try to make Gideon and his sons the king – setting up a dynasty to last well beyond Gideon’s time on this earth.
– Gideon is a man of bravery and respect. He’s a man who has seen a great victory in his life.
But this is a far cry from the man we see 2 chapters earlier. The Gideon we are introduced to is very different from that Gideon we say “goodbye” to.
More than you were!
Let me encourage you this moring. You may be a far cry from where you WANT to be; but you are equally as far away from where you WERE when God called you! You are not at the end of your journey. You still have a journey ahead of you! You still have things you can accomplish!
– For those who feel the sunset on the horizon is closer and you only have a few years left…what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation. You have decades of experience and knowledge under your belt. Roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work. Don’t wait to be asked! Don’t wait to be pulled in reluctantly. Jump in and work!
– don’t let shame or regret hold you back from moving forward!
– If you are breathing, you are growing!!!
Turn back to Judges chapter 6:11-16 | WHILE YOU ARE TURNING
The room of shame is a room I believe we are ALL a little too familiar with. It is the prison of the past…
The Shame Curtains
1) My children watch a cartoon called “Phineas and Ferb”
2) There’s a character who is from a high-achieving family
3) When he messes up or makes a mistake, He commiserates that he must return home to hang up the “shame curtains”
4) This has become a running joke in our home. Whenever someone messes up one of us will joke, “I’ve got to go hang the shame curtains”
What is played for laughs in a cartoon and in our home is a real place. It’s build from our past experiences and furnished with our own failures.
Painting the “room of shame”
1) The room of shame looks different for each of us
2) For some it’s been decorated with the mistakes and failures of one period in our lives, or one single mistake – and it hasn’t changed since
3) For some it’s a revolving door of conversations and perceived failures everyday
4) It’s covered with the pictures of people we’ve hurt, or who’ve hurt us and we shouldn’t have let them
5) It’s plastered with “should haves” and “could haves”.
6) It’s where we keep our deepest hurts locked up
And if you spend enough time in the room of shame, it’s decoration and atmosphere become comfortable. We start to feel at home living in our shame. And Shame always leads to fear. And Fear always leads us away from faith.
Not a room, but a prison
The room of shame has one purpose – to keep you from achieving what God has called you to achieve and from being whom God has called you to be.
The room where IT happens this morning is the room we must be brave enough to escape! We must step out of shame and into purpose.
Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
The room of shame is a room of great significance in each of our lives. And the “it” that needs to happen in this room…is it’s destruction.
– ILLUS: knowing someone who inherited some land with an old barn-style building on it. Upon appraisal, the land was worth more if the building was torn down.
More than JUST living your BEST life.
I want to stop and speak very plainly. The natural trajectory of a message like this is for me to say, “Demolish the room of shame and run into the fields of Grace where God can BLESS you and give you your BEST LIFE.
– That is true! But that’s only part of the picture. And I would be remiss if I didn’t give you the full picture.
GEN. 3:10 “I heard the sound of You in the garden and I was ashamed because I was naked, so I hid myself”
Adam’s shame had NOTHING to do with his lack of clothing….It had everything to do with the sin that separated Him from God.
– Sin and Shame are the best of friends and a deadly “one, two” punch. They are meant to separate us from a holy God and to keep us separated from a Holy God.
Being free from shame speaks to our very identity in Him.
– Shame is not the thought, “I have done wrong.” It is the thought, “I have done wrong, because I am wrong.”
This goes against everything Christ has done for you and I on the cross.
– 2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God”
Judges 6:11-16 (ESV)
11Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
12And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
13And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”
15And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
Surrounded by failure
Judges tells us that Gideon is threshing wheat in a winepress:
– forced to do so by the oppression of the Midianites
– Israelites have resorted to hiding out and subterfuge to do something as simple as producing food to eat (a daily occurrence)
Gideon is daily reminded of and surrounded by the failures of his past
– and not just his past, but the failures of his nation’s past
Wine is normally a good thing – it’s a symbol of wealth and prosperity
– When the winepresses are full, that means the fields are full of grapes and other produce
But for Gideon, the winepress is a room of shame. it’s a reminder of his circumstances
The winepress is NOT where he’s supposed to be!
– When we live in shame, that shame will take us away from where we are supposed to be
– Shame will keep us from rightful and God ordained purpose and blessings, because it will remove us from being positioned for Blessing
– ILLUS: Saul was kept from God’s plan because of his fear and shame…until Samuel had to find him hiding and anoint him king
– shame will pull us from where we rightfully belong
– in His presence!
From reminders of defeat to altars of victory
When you are living in shame, even things meant for good are causes of shame
– Have you ever been living in shame and heard the tesitmony of another, “God is good…look what’s He’s done”
– And you are like Yosemite Sam, “Dad Bern, Racking Clacking!”
But what Gideon didn’t know was that the winepress was intentional
– Gen. Joseph said, “What you intended for evil, God has meant for good”
The winepress, while serving as a reminder of shame…was about to become the altar where God turned it all around
– What has been the place Gideon shuffled past quickly, because “it’s the place where I hide out. It’s the room where I am afraid…” WAS ABOUT TO BECOME “Here’s the room where God called me! Here is the beginning of my destiny in him. This is where I stopped being afraid. This is where the shame melted away!!
You need to know, this morning, that the room of shame is about to turn around to become an altar of victory! God is positioning you to turn everything around. Get ready for God to revolutionize your circumstances! Get ready for God to bring you out of the room of shame and into His destiny!!
God begins bringing Gideon out of the room of shame with this amazing phrase…
“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor!”
– I can almost imagine Gideon looking around in disbelief…looking for whoever the angel was “really” talking to.
When the angel speaks to Gideon, he speaks to his “Status and his Situation”
– STOP AND LISTEN!
– God is speaking to your status and Situation this morning
1) God speaks to our Status
1) “The Lord is with you!”
– The angel leads with what’s MOST important
– Not, with “Thou art oppressed or Thou art scared or Thou art not where thou is supposed to be”
2) No matter what else is going on, know this “The Lord is WITH you!”
3) Status = who you are in the midst of your circumstances!
– I’m attacked by Midian…but I am His!
– Paul echoes this truth when in 2 Chor. he says, “We are pressed, not crushed; persecuted but no abandoned”
Your circumstances are nothing compared to who you are within your circumstances!
APPLICATION
God speaks to our Situation
1) Situation = > our circumstances
– circumstances only deal with right here and right now
– our circumstances is only a snapshot or any moment. And that moment can change in a moment
– stop holding onto to the snapshot of a moment
2) Situation = who you are in your circumstances and where your circumstances are leading you to
– There would be no defeat of Midian without the Wine press! There would be no mount of victory without a room of shame
– There is no crown of victory without the cross of shame
– Listen, we don’t celebrate the cross….why? The cross wasn’t the final destination of Jesus’ journey
– We celebrate that the cross was merely a rest stop on the way to our salvation.
We don’t celebrate defeat or the room of shame…we celebrate that it’s only a rest stop on our way to Glory in Him
– Paul says I rejoice in my weaknesses…because in my weaknesses He is made strong!
HOW ARE YOU TO LIVE OUT GOD’S DIRECTIVES REGARDING THE MAIN IDEA
But look at Gideon’s response to the angel…he says,
v. 13 “If the Lord is with us, why has this happened to us?”
v. 15 “How can I save Israel?”
Gideon is missing the boat! He’s missing the whole point!
– Don’t miss the point! don’t miss what God is speaking to you today
LISTEN!!! DON”T MISS OUT!!! GOD IS SPEAKING TO YOU TODAY!
APPLICATION
What the Angel speaks and what Gideon Speaks
1) Angel says
– God is with you
– You are a mighty man of valor
2) Gideon responds (look at this!)
– God is NOT with us
– I am NOT a mighty man of Valor
When God speaks to you….don’t second guess!
– You might as well just believe what God says…He is the God of all truth!
We might as well believe Him when He speaks victory over us…We might as well believe Him when He speaks healing over us. We might as well believe Him when He speaks breakthrough over us.
HOW ARE YOU TO LIVE OUT GOD’S DIRECTIVES REGARDING THE MAIN IDEA (CONTINUED)
I’ve sent you
v. 14 the angel says, “Do not I send you”
– what a short but yet powerful challenge to us today! “do not I send YOU….”
I know it’s an often sappy platitude that we hear…”be the change!” or “be the change you want to see.”
– But it’s not just a fortune cookie quote. It’s a powerful spiritual axiom.
We’ve got to stop sitting around and praying that God would change our circumstances.
– We often pray for God to bring us a catalyst of change in our lives….then we look around and we don’t see one
Let me help you today. If you pray for God to send a catalyst of change in your life and you DON’T see one…Congratulations, you are it!!!
God is sending you to be that catalyst of change!
HOW CAN WE ALL LIVE THIS OUT TOGETHER?
With You | Go | With You
We see, in Judges 6, an all too familiar pattern that would be good for us to remember.
– It’s a pattern repeated several times throughout scripture
– Joshua at Jericho
– Elijah on Mt. Horeb
– Moses at the burning bush and on top of Mt. Sinai
– the Great Commission
With You | Go | With You
The angel of the Lord says to Gideon:
– The Lord is with you (v. 12)
– I am sending you (v. 14)
– The Lord will be with you (v.16)
Oh, the spiritual implications!!
1) I am with you right now. Whatever circumstance you find yourself in…I am with you
2) Go…I am sending you forward, into an amazing and unseen destiny
3) I will be with you on this journey. There will be no stone kicked alone. There will be no hill climbed alone
No other qualifier needed
1) Gideon doesn’t know the outcome ahead…nor the journey ahead
2) He doesn’t know what will happen
3) He doesn’t know how he will be tested
None of that matters….because of what the angel of the Lord speaks to him in his room of shame!
– With You | Go | With You
Gideon needed no other qualifier – and neither do we!