Which is worse, falling over, or refusing to believe God wants to get you up again? Come on, think about that one. Most people think the worst part is I fell over, I did this, I did this, I did this. Listen, the worst thing is, you don't believe that God will help you get up again. That's a more important thing - not you fell over. Here's the message of the cross: Jesus died for all the sins that brought shame onto people, so that every person could be free of their shame, and not stay down, so if you get knocked down get up, push your shame aside, walk with God again! If you fall over again, get up again! WALK WITH GOD! I will not receive shame! [Applause] Jesus has got no name. He carried it for you, and He actually learned how to handle it when people tried to shame Him. You've got to understand this: the devil will seek to shame you. His first and primary attack on you, is on your identity. If he can shame you - well who do you think you are? That's the message see? If he can shame you, or if he can say something like: well if you're something, why don't you prove it and do something? If he can just get you working to establish that you're good enough then he's nailed you.
The beginning of Jesus' ministry, the devil attacked His identity by shaming Him. At the end of His ministry when He's hanging on the cross, the devil attacked His identity again and tried to shame Him. He learned, He knew the keys how to deal with shame, and we'll deal with that a little later. When you get shame, when things come against you, you need to know what to do, because around you you will find people - this is their way of relating. They're so full of shame themselves, that what they do when you try and raise an issue, or there's something happens, they'll try and shame you and put you down. You've got to recognise it, and learn how to stand up and defeat the thing, so for example you see it even in the biggest scene in the nation; someone stands up and expresses an opinion, and immediately now, what they've shared is not spoken about, but the person is attacked and shamed and put down.
The message of shame is a put down, put down, put down. Everyone hates to be put down. Everyone is called by God to stand up. Amen. Okay then, so we've got that impact of shame, and so the core strategy is hiding. We hide away, hiding, so they covered themselves, they hid themselves, and then tried to blame someone else. Okay, let's come down, I want to have a look in Luke Chapter 6, and I want to see if we can unmask shame in your life, want to just see if we can just pick up some things. In Luke Chapter 6 it says this. in Verses 43 and 44: If you want to know a tree, have a look at it's fruit. If you want to know a tree, have a look at its fruit - Luke, Chapter 6 - for a good tree doesn't bear bad fruit, and neither does a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree is known by its own fruit. You want to know a tree - fruit, look for the fruit. If the fruit's there, the root's there. You see an apple on a tree, either someone's conning you and they pinned it there, or that's an apple tree. Is that right?
If you see an orange, and you say well either someone's conning me, or that's actually an orange tree. Now we already learned, we know that from the trees - but what about if you looked at your own life in a mirror, and started to look and see, and you started to find the fruit of shame. What would you conclude is happening in the root system of your beliefs and inner life? That shame has got a grip, shame is working, and you're just not even aware of it, because that's the nature of the kingdom of darkness, is to work unaware. So if we want to have a look at shame operating in our life, then we need to see how it affects us and impacts us. I've jotted down some things which are all fruit of shame, when inside I am damaged, I don't like what I'm like, I'm different. I'm different to everyone else - man, difference is bad and whoa! I'm in danger, something will happen to me, I'm afraid.