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

God’s Forgiveness

1. God loves sinners
   • Jesus was welcoming sinners
   • Pharisees reasoned that Jesus could not be the Messiah and welcome sinners; they were wrong
2. God rejoices when a sinner repents
   • He is joyful when one sinner repents
   • He joyfully forgives the repenting sinner

The Prodigal Son

• The son’s rejection of his father’s protection speaks of our own rebellious nature against our Father
• We seek to control our lives like the son
• Then the tide turns in the story, just as it is in reality; control is a human illusion and we must come to the end of ourselves and repent
• As rebellious of a son he was, and as rebellious as we are, he had and we have an even more forgiving Father

The Forgiving Father

1. He sees the son
   • The father hasn’t forgotten about his son
   • He’s eagerly looking for his son to return home
   • He sees his son just as he was, dirty and disgusting, but nothing mattered
2. He runs to the son
   • His father takes no time to consider
   • He dashes out in love toward his son
   • Just like the father, God loves us in spite of our dirty and disgusting selves
   • Our God is a God who runs
3. He kisses the son
   • The father doesn’t run toward the son in anger, but in overflowing and joyful love
   • He embraces and kisses the son to show his love and forgiveness
   • Instantly, the son knew he was loved and forgiven
   • God loves sinners and His love is never insincere

God is a God Who Forgives as an Act of Mercy

1. The Recipients of Mercy
   • Prayerless people (v.22)
   • Despisers of religion (v.22)
   • Thankless people (v.23)
   • Useless people (v.23)
2. The Act of Mercy
   • Divine forgiveness (v.25)
   • No one but God is able to take away sins
   • God cannot tolerate sin and is just to condemn, but He’s gracious to forgive
   • His mercy is now and is limited – the opportunity of forgiveness lasts as long as life
3. The Completeness of Mercy
   • God forgave in full (v.25)
   • God offers a complete and full pardon
4. The Reason of Mercy
   • We don’t deserve God’s forgiveness
   • God doesn’t forgive for our sake, but His (v.25)
5. The Promise of Mercy
   • Not only does God forgive, but He forgets as well (v.25)
   • He will never exact punishment for forgiven sin
   • He won’t remember or hold our sins over us once we’re in heaven

1. The Throne
   1. The Theme
      • This is a vision of God Himself
      • All of these images present the wonder and splendor of the One on the throne
      • Through this vision, we’ve entered the throne room of God
      • We’re given this vision to behold God on the throne
      • The creatures are constantly in worship because He is worthy
      • If God commands the worship from these magnificent creatures, then surely He commands it from lowly humans
   2. The Happenings
      • There is a scroll that is brough in the throne room
      • No one was worthy to open it but the Lamb, Jesus Christ
      • The scroll seems to be the decrees and judgments of God for the ending of the present age
      • The One on the throne is worthy of worship from all on earth, all in heaven, and all in Hell
      • From beginning to end, God is the main character of the story, not us; God is the focus and center
2. The Storm
   1. The Judgment of God
      1. Seven seals are opened
      2. Seven trumpets are sounded
      3. Seven bowls are poured out; after the conclusion of each, a storm occurs
   2. The Nature of God’s Judgment
      • A progression of events, not exactly linear
      • Begins in throne room
      • This judgment on the world is like a spiral
      • This judgment is continuous and will only worsen once it begins
      • Unlike human justice that is smeared with sin, God’s justice is pefect and will be perfectly executed
   3. The Certainty of God’s Judgment
      • No power on earth will prevent or delay God’s judgment
      • There will be no escape of this judgment
   4. The Finality of God’s Judgment
      • There will be no debating or hope of appeal
      • No second chances
      • The judgment God executes will be final throughout all eternity
   5. The Horror of God’s Judgment
      • The judgment will be graphic, tragic, and scary
      • Every kind of human will be horrified
      • The most horrific thing about God’s judgment is that it is and will be a reality one day
   6. The Righteousness of God’s Judgment
      • God’s judgment is right, just, and perfect
      • It is adequate, accurate, and appropriate
3. The Lamb
   • John then sees a bloody, slain Lamb standing on the throne
   • The Lamb is being worshipped as the Almighty God
   • The Lamb is Jesus Christ
   • The Lamb was: (1)Slain for the redeemed; (2)Saved the redeemed; (3)Keeps the redeemed
4. The City
   • John sees the city of God and His people
   • In this city there is no more trouble; a city of good times
   • All the effects of the divine curse will be replaced by divine blessing
   • God Himself will literally reside with His people in this city
     • City will be brilliant because of His glory
     • City has usual shape, a cube, represented by the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament
     • Unlike then where the high priest could only enter once a year, we will live in the Holy of Holies, eternally
   • In this city, we will finally be able to see God’s face
   • There will be a wedding between the Lamb and His bride, the church

At the center of what we should expect, it shouldn’t be the streets of gold, the gates embedded with beautiful jewels, or the brilliant sea of glass, but the eternal relationship we will have with God is what we are waiting for.

1. Characteristics of a Life Without Faith
   1. A Person Who Lives Immorally
      • Grace used as a license to sin
      • Defilement of their bodies
      • Speak abusively against things they don’t understand
      • Follow ungodly desires
   2. A Person Who Lives Denying the Truth
      • Before immorality comes abandonment of truth
      • Impure lives are products of faithlessness
      • Teaches that Christians can do what they want and believe what they want
      • Results of the faithless life is barrenness and impotent lives, subject to punishment
2. Characteristics of a Life With Faith
   1. Contending for the faith
   2. Building each other up
   3. Praying: according to God’s will, and living righteously for effective prayer
   4. Living obediently, not rebelliously
   5. Showing mercy, not selfishness
3. Three Questions for the Christian Faith
   1. Where does the Christian faith come from? Delivered by Christ through the apostles
   2. What happens to those who reject the truth? There will be judgment by God
   3. How do we keep living in faith during faithless times? Through Jesus, by knowing and obeying Him, and by living faithful one day at a time

Why Go Through All the Trouble of Going to Church?

1. Either for God and His Gospel
   • Real truth and real love manifests in us
   • Taking trouble for the gospel (example of Gaius)
   • Walking according to truth and love
   • Living motivated and devoted to Christ
   • Loving strangers in Christ because of Christ’s sake
2. Or For Yourself
   • Fueled by selfish motives
   • Making trouble for the gospel (example of Diotrephes)
   • Speaking slanderously
   • Doing things to please ourselves
   • Rejecting authority and brothers and sisters in Christ

• Lack of Christian character is probable evidence of no relationship with Christ
• Which pattern will we follow?