There are many of us have lived in what I'd call a toxic shame-filled family environment where - probably if I use this word - put downs are regular. See, now if you've been in an environment where put downs are regular, the chances are you've already accepted the message of shame, you're living with it in your life, and you can hardly recognise it when the put downs come. So we want to shift all of that, so that the church individually, and therefore corporately, becomes a people committed to build others up, because we ourselves are built up on the inside, we ourselves are unashamed. A person with shame in their life will shame others. They will use it as their way of dealing with issues in relationships, so we want to help you address this. I will share at some times some things from my own life, the struggle with this areas of both shame and fear, and how I've been helped by the Lord in a major way, yet still now feeling like it's another layer come up, another level, and so I purpose well, I'm going to work with these areas to just come up to a new level, unashamed see? Can you say that, God wants you to be unashamed? Tell the person next to you, God wants you to be unashamed, shame free! Glory to God.
Okay and notice what He says in this verse. This is His promise to us: You will forget the shame. That means it won't be in your mind, shame thoughts any more, and you won't remember the reproach, so whatever's happened in your life in your past, whatever ways you've thought about yourself, you will not remember that stuff. You've changed how you think. It's an internal change. I want to show you the process of change as well, because it's a process. Now of course I know you'll all love to come up and get hands laid on you and get it all fixed up - if only! [Laughter] Shame was built a block at a time, and you'll have to tear it down a block at a time as well, and I want to give you the keys and the tools how you can do it, so then you'll stand up, unashamed. Now I'll get to it shortly what unashamed will look like, but you have to understand this, it will start this off. When you stand up unashamed, you will stimulate and stir and provoke a reaction against you, from those who are full of shame, who will say: who do you think you are, and try to shame you to going back into your cave again.
Church, it's time to come out of the caves we've hidden in aye, become shame free, unashamed, unashamed, unashamed as God intended us. Shame is a demonic, devilish thing, from the one who has been shamed more than anyone. God has got no shame to put on you. Unfortunately the church, the church corporately or speaking of the bigger picture, often is a toxic shame centre, and so we have to recognise - this is one area, if you can over the next two or three Sundays, begin to get a handle on this area and the process of change, and make a decision in the course of this year, I will break through all issues of shame God shows me, and I'll begin to tackle the fears around my life, I guarantee your life will change in almost every area, absolutely in every area. Something will be different about you, and you will start to stand up and emerge, and I'll tell you this too: all existing relationships you have will begin to change, because people who were used to the shame-filled person living in a cave now don't know how to relate to this one who can't be shamed back into the cave. Good stuff aye? Good stuff. Come on, want to stand up.
Let's go back and have a look now, that God's heart for us is to be totally unashamed. It's the heart of God for you to be totally shame-free, and so we're not going to go too much into shame today. I want to stick on unashamed, I want to look on God's original design, so let's have a look at Genesis, Chapter 1. God's original design for us, unashamed. Now if you want to know how life ought to be lived, don't look how others around you are living it. Find out how God designed it to be lived, go to the source. You've got to go to the word of God. You've got to see what God says about you, and about life, as He designed it. He designed us to function in a certain way, and so we're going to look at the original design. We're going to see just a little bit about how it shifted, and what caused it to shift. Particularly I want you to see in the initial stage the primary shift that took place, how it took place, and then later on we're going to look in another session how to get back into that place of being absolutely shame free.