They became ashamed and conscious of themselves, and you see the shame, the terribly painful feeling something's wrong with me. So the message of shame is like this: there's something wrong with me, and I'm different - and that's bad. Actually there's something different about you, and God loves it, because it's why He made you, and you're good. You getting the idea? So that's why you've got to be unashamed - so you see the problem that happened of course, when they hid from themselves, they hid from God, and there was tremendous pain. Now there were two things that came about; one - and you've got to see this - shame will steal your identity. Shame, when it gets on your life, will cause you to be afraid to front up for who you are. The first thing that Adam did was, in standing in front of a person, his wife who he loved, he felt ashamed, and concealed his maleness. She likewise concealed her womanhood from him.
So shame will cause you to conceal who you are. If you have shame on you, the first thing that will happen is, you can't be who you are, you will put on a mask. You will present what's acceptable, so unfortunately church, which should have the answer to shame, often people - this is the one place they put on more masks than any: I got to look good! Ooh, it costs a lot to look good, a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of emotion. God doesn't want you to look good, He wants you to be right before Him. If you are right before Him which He calls righteous, then you can be who you are, and you don't have to be ashamed at all. I can be me! I can be ME! I don't have to be someone else! I've resigned from being someone else! Now you see this is what happens is when shame gets into an environment, a relationship, a family or into your life, into a culture, then no one can be themselves. They've now got to put on a mask and be something - I don't know, what are we supposed to be? I don't know, I'll ask him? No, he's not too sure either - I'll ask her? No, oh I'm blowed if I know what I'm supposed to be, but the people that speak loudest to me, I'll be like them. [Laughter]
We can never be ourselves when there's toxic shame, so the first thing it steals is your identity. The first thing to be restored is your identity. Who are you? Who are you? I don't know. I don't know, I was told you shouldn't think that, you shouldn't feel like that, you shouldn't do that, you're a naughty boy, and I was so filled - I don't know who I am any more. I got lost years ago. I've got to discover in Christ who I am, what He made me to do, and fulfil that course, see?
The second thing you lose is - so shame will steal intimacy. It will stop you have intimate relationships. A person filled with shame can never enter into intimate relationship. You know why? It's so obvious of course, because I so hate what I'm like, I can't show you it. If I can't show you who I am, if I can't show you my feelings, I can't connect with you. If I can't show you my ideas, my thoughts, my dreams, my passions - these are all part of who I am by the way. If I can't show you those things for fear you'll reject me, I cannot be intimate, and you can never know me.
Sitting in the church today are multitudes of people who've never got shame off their life to become unashamed, so they can't become intimate anywhere, intimate with God, intimate with one another, intimate and open in a family environment - and that has got to change. It's not God's design. God wants us to be free of that toxic kind of shame that stops us being who we are, and connecting like we ought to connect, in ways which are open and transparent. Hello! See, so if I'm going to enter into a relationship, my feelings are part of who I am, I've got to be able to talk about them. If I can't talk about them, share them, be open about them because they're mine, because it might make you unhappy, then now this fear of what you may do is shutting me down from connecting authentically. I must, in order to present Christ, I must be authentic in my personal life, so I've got to break free of shame and all the fear it brings.