And you see shame will tell you you're different, you need to be the same. God says no, I made you different. I want you to be different, because every person will differently express what I'm like into the world. I want you to be different! I want you to be unique in who you are, your giftings - but there's some areas I want you to be alike, and that is like my Son and His character. I want you to be able to represent Me, and My character and desires in life, but to express it differently. So a religious culture always will be a toxic shaming culture, because it'll point out something's wrong with you, you're different and difference is bad, you need to co-operate and conform. So typically when religion abounds, or the spirit of religion abounds, and a new person walks into the church, immediately what's noticed is their difference, which is what is unique about them.
So someone comes in, and they've got this punk hairstyle, and their ears are full of iron and their nose is full of iron - of course they're different. Difference is neither good nor bad. You say aah what, that's bad. No, it's different, it's just different. Why not celebrate they're different? They may change their ideas and thoughts about the whole area of all the iron and metal and stuff and the hairstyle, but it's not up to you to change that. But religion will conform, or push a conformity, to behaving the same as everyone else, so if you behave differently, or are different, or are not the same as everyone else, you're different - and difference is bad! Of course that fills you with fear, what's going to happen to me if I'm different? You getting the idea?
So the first part of shame is that I'm damaged, something's really wrong with me, and I'm different to everyone else, and now danger; I'm afraid they're going to do something to me. I've got to get out of here, or I've got to conform. Can you see the whole package of shame, and you can see how it robs you of intimacy, it robs you of your identity, and it robs you of dominion? It robs you of all of those things. Just think it through now; firstly is I am damaged, therefore there's something not right about me, I better cover it up. I better put on a mask - that robs me of my identity. I can't be me. I can't even tell you that I'm damaged. What the heck will you do if you know I'm really damaged? What would you do if I told you just how damaged I am? Can you see? So the thing of being damaged on the inside, which we're all damaged by sin, and by the sin of others and sin of our own, we're all damaged to some extent. If I put a mask on, I cannot be authentic, so my identity is concealed, I sit in a group having a mask on. It's the mask of Bible Knowledge - I know all the Bible, but you will never know me, see?
There's many masks. We're going to look at a few of them in a moment, but the mask that covers you stops you being who you are - see, damage, damage. I'm different, I'm different. If I'm different that means there's something wrong with me, it's bad to be different. So now you see first my identity was sold, now I can't be intimate with you, because I'm different so I'll hold back. Then finally because there's danger to me, now I've got to put up some mechanism to defend myself. I'm going to find a way of stopping you hurting me. There it all is in a package - shame. It all goes together: I'm damaged, I'm different, and I'm in danger because you could hurt me, and I'm going to make sure I don't let that happen. And what are the consequences of all that? Well I don't know really quite who I am, because I can never be that, and I'm a bit frightened to actually come out in the open and get connected to anyone, in case they do some bad stuff to me, because it's happened before you know, so I'm in the church and I'm lonely.
The key thing is not to change your environment. The key thing is change what's inside you, and that we want to look out over the next couple of weeks about how to change what's inside you. If you don't change what's inside you, and gain God's remedy, then what happens is this thing just keeps cycling, and we're forced to wear a mask and can't be authentic. The thing we long for, intimacy, connectedness with God, connectedness with people, being able to be ourselves, discovering the giftings we have, being encouraged - it all eludes us, because shame has cloaked us. The Bible talks about shame being like a garment. It's not for us, shame is for our enemies. Shame is for God's enemies, see? We were never designed for shame. We're designed to be... [Unashamed] ...and when you're unashamed you're functioning right; when you're full of shame you're malfunctioning, something's wrong, it needs to be addressed - not by putting on a different set of clothes, not by conforming in behaviour, but by actually changing what's on the inside, and that's what Jesus came to do.