No Shame, No Worries [Part 1]

Pastoral author and Bible teacher Alan Wright will have to look very far for the world to is like it's in the atmosphere, but want to show you the good you are.

Alan Wright welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light on Dino Britt excited for you to hear the teaching today.

In the series. No wordings as presented at Ronald church in North Carolina are not able to stay with us throughout the entire program to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today special offer. You can learn more about it contact us at pastoralan.org that's Pastor Alan.org or call 877-544-4860 877-544-4860 world. All of this later in the program but now let's get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright are you ready for some good news to the whole world will atmosphere seems full of shame and people say shame on you. You ought to be ashamed yourself will not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ has something altogether different to say shame off you and Jesus Christ you can have the same taken off of you. We are in a series called no worries, and we come today to one of the deepest sources of angst in the cosmos may be the greatest source of our anxiety. This idea of shame and we pick up today reading from the earliest account of a man and a woman. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the second chapter of your Bible, Genesis chapter 2 beginning at verse 25. The last verse of Genesis chapter 2 we read and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.

But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die, but the serpent said to the woman you not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opening you be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight the eyes. A tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and also gave some to her husband was with her and hearing the eyes of both of them were open and they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden of the Lord God called to the man and said to him, are you and he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself I was afraid because I was naked so I hid myself. Shame is all around us. I don't know where I came upon this years ago to pull it out every so often. Lady wrote the other day I went up to the local Christian bookstore where I saw a honk if you love Jesus bumper sticker I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I come from a thrilling choir performance at church so I bought that bumper sticker and put it on the back bumper of my car and I'm really glad that I did to what an uplifting experience followed. I was stopped at the light of a busy intersection just lost in thought about the Lord and didn't notice that the light had changed. It's a good thing someone else. Love Jesus.

I may have never noticed that the light had changed. But then I found that lots of people love Jesus.

Why the guy behind me started a honk like crazy and then he leaned out of his window and screamed for the love of God go go Jesus Christ go. Everyone was talking so I leaned out my window and waved and smiled at all those loving people. I even honk my horn a few times to share in the love there must've been a man from Florida back there because I could hear him yelling something about a sunny beach I saw your dinner later I saw another guy waving in a funny way with just his middle finger.

I asked my teenage son what this meant and he said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something will have never even met a person from Hawaii. So I leaned out the window and gave them the good luck sign back my son burst into laughter wave, and he was enjoying this religious experience.

A couple of people were so caught up in the joy the moment that they got their cars and start walking towards me. I bet they wanted a prayer asked what church I attended that's when I noted the light noted that the light had changed and I wave one more time, our brothers and sisters in the Lord and drove through the intersection, was the only card he got through the intersection before the light changed again. Felt kinda bad that I had to lead him leave them like that all the love that we share so I slowed down, laid out the car and gave him the Hawaiian good luck sign for one more time you'll have to look very far video for the world to give you some say it's like it's in the atmosphere, but want to show you today that then mean you have to breathe in in shame is essentially a diabolical lie. This is as you are now. You are not acceptable. You don't measure up. And until you can measure. You can't be perfectly longer accepted. So you better start trying to measure and the problem is, who amongst us could ever measure up to any standards. So what happens is it between the idea of what were supposed to be what ought to be 1 AM there's a gap in that gap between what ought to be where I am now and how I feel like I need to measure up. Jeanette, I think, is where hell works to create may be the greatest source of anxiety and the whole cosmos because you're always wondering if I have to measure up in order to be accepted.

What happens if I can't measure and that's the way shame works and what we see in today's primal story of the first man and woman is it as soon as sin came in the world. Shame came into the world and that shame immediately produced within them.

Anxiety, if you could heal the shame and anxiety will go.

We often spend time trying to manage our worries and our angst, but I think what God is inviting us into again today is an experience of his grace so rich that anxiety melts away on its own. Years ago, before I really began learning much about shame the subject which would become a life message for me be a source of a book and untold number of conferences around the nation. I remember I was actually a way for a weekend when my wife and I was after a nice breakfast.

Just reading the newspaper at this nice hotel and it was during a time that Saddam Hussein had been ousted and was finally, though not captured is finally believed by the Iraqi people that he was never going to be in leadership again that he was truly gone. So people began to speak out in this particular article I was reading was about soccer players on the Iraqi national soccer team. It was stunning to me because they said that before every game. Saddam's nephew. I guess it was who. Dave Hussein would contact the team and threatened them with punishment if they should lose the star of the team, a national hero set I love to play soccer hated plaintiff say after important matches if they lost they were taken to something that was like a prison camp almost like you think of a concentration camp and they were variously punished, including times beaten severely. The star, the team said I thought many times about quitting, but the Hussein's had threatened my family's well-being.

If I ever quit just reading about this story. On the other side of the world about how how grievous it was. It made me sad to think of people playing soccer, not for the fun of the game, but because they were under such pressure, but something in me began to really me he ever had. Some like that like this is moving me more than what I would expect, and I've learned over the years that sometimes as a Holy Spirit, teaching me something so I paused and said, Lord, why am I so gripped by this I felt a deep grief about this in the Lord, I believe showed me in that moment because Alan you've lived a lot of your life like that and that was when I began to realize that shame was like a hidden tyrant somewhere down deep in my soul came maybe from the brokenness I experienced in my family from the time I was in fourth grade. The alcohol abuse. It was in our family, the shame that I experienced about that. Nobody ever said Alan LSU perform well, you're not you love nobody ever said that in and by most measures, I received a lot of love but there was something inside of me that was driving me and I stopped and I said in my living my life and my MS driving hard and not working hard in my mouth, serving the Lord even because of the love of the game because there's some other pressure that's there and that's when I realized that something that was driving me at one healthy and I began to learn about shame talent right will have more teaching moment from today's important series like to be accepted perfectly free to be yourself with no fear of ejection don't roll their eyes make fun of you.

I love you last no more anxious feeling that you feel like the pressure is always on right here in my longing for your life with no show in paradise before sin came into the world tells us only this relationship found no shipping ever since the fall of the human heart has been riddled with. You can't be truly acceptable seem condescending, so I try to be perfect in order to meet others to decide who listens on the measure at them as well. Right now the road ahead is pleasing shame and there is only one grace of God in Jesus Christ and his highly acclaimed book for yourself yourself not only exposes the lower sexual he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your cell discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shall performance-based rating shame or fear for good life-changing full-length book from Alan Wright for yourself, seven 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website pastor.like these teaching now continues here once again is one of the things that I think is important for all of us do. I did many many years ago.

I'm talking bout now and I took an honest self inventory that they will what is what is it that is producing some of the things I don't like about myself. Your review I took a self inventory and I realized that I was overly sensitive. If somebody says something critical to me.

It bother me too much, I might think about it for a long time even like if even when serving the ministry and it could be hundreds of people walk out and say something about how the Lord used that message for them and then somebody sent me one critical note and I do, so brooding about like why am I why am I paying so much attention and feeling so sensitive what is that inside of me I had in like that. It wasn't just that, but I would sometimes mistake remarks as a criticism I was 11 my wife about it now, but it's like it was rough on her marriage because she she might sound the garbage needs to go out, which was my job, but she said stretching is go out and something is on my mind filtered it into and if you are a better husband, you'd already taken it out by that I interpret it through the filter of shame. And so it came across as a criticism when it really was just her saying this to go out as a hard way to live. If you're always filtering things in such a way that you either sensitive to it or it pushes some button inside of you. I didn't like that I found myself inventory.

I was I was too driven to do more when we look back and laugh about it now, but our first church.

We got there, they hundred hundred 17 on the role we couldn't find them all there only about 50 of them and I get in there. I'm working 60 hours a week more likely to be what you doing you got a small little church here and an honorarium. See why was just I was so driven house will be the perfect pastor make sure I was absolutely dreamt perfect while was out all why don't always have to do more and I have really hard time ever really resting. I found out in the self inventory that I had to admit much of a hard time saying no, what, what was it about.

I didn't understand at that time anything about boundaries or or what, but what I knew this was real hard for me to ever say no to something and listen beloved, if you can't say no to the things that God hasn't called you to do. How can you say yes to the things he has called to do and understand about that and even when God was blessing and using me there was a little part of me that just felt like an imposter. Where those imposter feelings come from. It was like there was this hidden dictator in my unconscious being. It was dictating a lot of things in my life so much under the surface in our souls that is determining how we think and how we live did not go through my whole life. Just try to manage all of that. I wanted to get at the root it's worth it you identify with any of those things it's worth it.

I wanted to change. So I started learning about this and how the grace of God could set us free. When I first began studying. I was so taken by this. There's only one thing we know about a relationship in paradise. Only one thing that the Lord and all the Scripture chose to tell us about Adam and Eve before sin had ever entered the world only one sentence Genesis 2 verse 25 and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. There was zero shame in paradise. That's what paradise is the place where there is no shame zero pressure to perform, it just is almost hard to imagine we don't know what Adam and Eve did all day long. They we don't know all that their conversation we wish wish that we did, but what this means is that when there's no shame that when Eve would say Adam had a look and he said bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She didn't take that to mean your bony or maybe a little too flashy, she just took it is the complement that it was, it means that when Adam said, how do you like my role carrots that I've been sewing on the ground and how they're growing, and she said nice. It meant that he didn't walk away from it and say why does she say nice wedding. She said great one and she's a spectacular one.

She just say nice. Maybe she didn't think I'm that good after there was none of that there were no billboards or commercials that were published during pictures of women for Adam to compare Eve to she never felt any pressure.

Adam never had Eve bring up to her some flaw of his nose that made him feel like he was less of a man. It was just a place of paradise because there was no shame if you ever tasted a moment where there is no shame. You know it is heavenly and Anna and I the end of the sabbatical. We were given so graciously this summer, we took two weeks off from writing about 10 days of travel and and I just traveled up into Vermont and drove all the way up into Canada and we never said to each other. Hey listen, we got 10 days together.

Let's just make sure we don't do anything to shame each other… Enjoy. We just both went go you know this is a gift from God… Enjoy this and so is it it was it was really a wonderful wonderful to almost felt like another honeymoon and end it when it was just sort of the unwritten rule that right now were not were not were not working on on trying to correct anything and the other in over just so even when I drove into Canada and had not prepared adequately to know that the GPS how it was supposed to work and it didn't work and instead point us in some back roads and we got lost on the way to Québec and we are in French-speaking area and rural areas and with no map.

Even then, and didn't say why didn't you figure this out better that your job we just finally figured out a way to look on the phone and see a map and found her way even when we were outside eating an old Québec city at a fondue restaurant on that beautiful evening and I ate all the chocolate fondue myself. She didn't say are you sure you go eat that entire pot of fondue.

We just let it go just is just so sweet to just be in an environment where nobodies judging you, condemning you pressuring you or shaming you in any way we can little fleeting moments wish it could last.

It made me think back to our honeymoon honeymoon as much, as any time in life is a time where there is no pressure on you. Nobody calls you up on your honeymoon. It says have you been doing any work this week to get that project done. Nobody will ever bother you on your honeymoon you have just said I do and she said I do and you're just fresh.

In this covenant of love and a honeymoon.

It was just wonderful wee courtesy of the Price is right. That's another story flew out to New Orleans and for the first time in my life. We stayed in a nice hotel I stayed in a lot of motel six is in my life. It can't, but this was the Sheraton in the French Quarter of New Orleans and we rented a car. I think it was the first time at ever rented a car pulled up to the fancy hotel. Never had I had a valet parking. Before I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who to tip. I did know how to act and it was obvious and I look like a kid, I remember the valet attendant just looking down at the two of us and with this little smile San honeymoons, honeymooners, and I'm like yes and I felt ashamed that I was so naïve. We went up to the to the room. It was the first time they had just recently come out with these magnetic keys that you now see even in the cheapest hotels but it was only the fancy one and I didn't know how to work it. I wanted to just carry her across the threshold. But I was just struggling to get into the room, we came back to the room after a lovely dinner one night and there was some sounds of music or something.

Voices playing in the room and I thought answer there something in the room and so I was nervous to get BNSF bravely went on hand to see who was in the room. Nobody was there but obviously the room had been disturbed. Something happened to the bed. The TV was playing and she said call downstairs telling the Mac picked up the phone. I called and said someone is been in a room and as I was talking to the front desk clerk. I looked on the pillows and saw chocolate mints and thought why would a thief put chocolate on her right, no shame, no worries. It's part of today's teaching today. In that series.

No worries.

Alan is back with us here in the studio assuring a parting good news thought for the day. In just a moment when it would be like to be accepted perfectly free to be yourself with no fear of rejection don't roll their eyes make fun of you. I love you last how we kind look for yourself yourself not only exposes the house of Saul, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul, discover freedom joy as you shall perform if they sleeping? You think I'd life-changing full-length book from Alan Wright for yourself. The gospel is shared when you get Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you get today.

We will send you a special offer. We are happy to send this to you as I banks from Alan Wright Ministries, seven 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website pastor out.work with Alan Wright in no shame, no worries Alan you go first. It sounds like you are looks. Today was a funny you know is so interesting how close shame lies at hand. Even in the moments that should be the motion free and the most blissful. Oh, shame is crouching at the door where sin came in the world. Shame was immediately there. This is of course Daniel something that we speak about often have many many resources for yourself yourself resources. The books and CDs and videos workbook that explained that shame is essentially a lie.

This is you don't measure up. As you are now and you need to figure out what's wrong and improve it if you're going to be ultimately accepted and I have contended still believe that gap between what I feel like I am and what I think I ought to be and that Probably the greatest source of anxiety in the universe to heal anxiety. We need to heal the shame and we can, by the grace of God is good news.

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