Friendship Baptist Church

The Christian and Shame

• There are times in every believer’s life where he or she is ashamed of Christ
• It is a serious matter to be ashamed of Christ
  • It renders us useless in the service of God
  • Identifies us with lost people
• To follow Christ is to follow Him no matter the cost

Will We Be Ashamed or Bold for the Gospel?

• Believers have bouts of shame but are ultimately bold for Christ, evidence of genuine salvation
• Lost people are ashamed of Christ
• When we are ashamed, we are acting like lost people

Eight Characteristics of Unashamed Believers

1. We are to refresh or renew our gift from God
   • Get a grip on what we are supposed to be doing
   • We’ve each been given a gift to accomplish what Christ wants us to do

Continue next week…

Why is boldness necessary?
We don’t want out lives to be lived in vain.

Where do we get boldness?
We get boldness from God.

What must happen to be bold?
We be freed from the love of human praise and acceptance and we be freed from the love of money and earthly comforts.

The Way to Freedom

• Through Christ
• Identifying With His Death
• Trusting in His Riches

…walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. – 1 Thess. 2:12

Christian Church Suffers from Years of Dominance

• Viewed as: good, beneficial, socially acceptable, commonplace
• Christianity is a dominant part of American history and prosperity

How Has This Made Us Suffer?

• We’ve come to believe an erroneous idea of Christianity: we’ve managed to blend Christianity and culture and have become comfortable in this world
• We’ve began to assume that things should go well for Christians in this world

Change is Coming

• There may and probably will be a time coming where Christianity will not be good, beneficial, acceptable, and commonplace
• Jesus predicted this change
• The world will hate us, just as it hated Christ
• That hate may not be shown now how it was in early Christianity, but a time is coming where it may be
• Christianity=suffering; a stumbling block because of the “Christian” American culture that’s been dominant for so long

We Must Be Radically Obedient to Christ

• We need to detach ourselves from this world
• We must count it as joy like the saints of old when we suffer for Christ
• We get this freedom from cherishing the reward of heaven more than the reward of earth
• We must believe that heaven is better and enduring. Saints of old believed it, do we?

…waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. – Hebrews 10:13

Righteousness is Courage

• This doesn’t mean that there aren’t bold wicked people and timid righteous people
• In general, there is something about wickedness that produces fear, and likewise, something about righteousness that produces courage

What Makes The Wicked Fearful?

• A guilty conscience
• Guilt is the parent of fear
• Our conscience was so made to give us no rest when troubled and to create phantom pursuers

Who Are the Lion-Heart Righteous?

• Those who trust the Lord and bank their lives on Him
• Jesus didn’t die for us so that we can be better
• He died so His righteousness can be given to us, that we may be bold in our salvation
• The righteous have no guilty conscience, but a peaceful heart and mind
• Those who are right with God are the lion-hearted righteous, only because of Christ’s imputed righteousness

How to be Bold for Christ

• Trust’s Christ’s righteousness for salvation
• Live a life for Christ that doesn’t sear our conscience
• Read the Word of God
• Pray!
• Worship; personal daily worship and corporate

Five Reasons Why We Need a Study on Boldness

1. The need to stress some crucial themes of ministry
2. The need to stir one another up to take risks
3. The growing sense of hostility against the Church
4. The increasing riskiness of addressing important issues
5. Courage and boldness are at the heart of Christianity

On Boldness

• One of the biggest fears of Christians is the fear of being too radical and being labeled
• We become more worried about man’s opinion than God’s opinion of us
• The greatest danger present is that we will be so afraid of being labeled radical, that we’ll cease to speak the truth
• Acts 5:33-45: The Apostles rejoiced that God counted them worthy to suffer shame for Christ’s sake.

Will We Rejoice With the Apostles?

• If we put our hope in the Gospel, to live is Christ and to die is gain
• Living worthy of the Gospel is living in unity and fearlessness
• Since death is gain, there is nothing that man can do; the opponent’s last weapon is taken
• Because death has lost it’s sting, we can live our lives boldly and fearlessly for Christ

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. – Romans 1:16