Secrets Shame On Me (Psalm 51)

By Pastor David Hillis,

13 July 2014

BIG IDEA: Secret shame loses its power when we accept that we can’t change our past, but with God’s help we can change our future.

• Some secrets are sins or failures from our past that continue to haunt us in the present.

• We can secretly pile up feelings of shame for ourselves, that we haven’t been able to get control or victory over an area of our lives.

• A number of people live with shame that they can’t really even pinpoint. Feelings of inadequacy, of “not being good enough” as a spouse, a parent, a child of God.

• We can even get trapped in a place of secret shame because of things that have been done to us. Things that happened to us that hurt us so bad, that we are so ashamed of, we tell ourselves that somehow, it was our fault, we deserved it.

There are two kinds of shame (author Steven Tracy):

• A healthy shame, or conviction, which comes from God;

• And an unhealthy or toxic shame we call “condemnation”.

Questions we ask to face our shame

1. What do I need to own?

• We have to separate healthy shame (conviction from God, which is clear, direct, and things we can and should own) from unhealthy or toxic shame (which are not our fault and are out of our control).

2. What do I need to confess and make right?

• Once we know what we need to own, we know what we need to confess to God. We choose not to run, avoid, deny or hide from what we need to own.

3. What do I need to reject?

• What thoughts, beliefs about myself, do I now need to move from the present to the past, because in God’s eyes I have done all I need to do?

• Our putting an end to toxic shame always involves clear, conscious decisions to resolve healthy shame (which God promises us is always resolvable through repentance), and to reject everything else.

• Forgiveness and moving past all shame, healthy shame and toxic shame, isn’t complete until we have accepted forgiveness for ourselves as God has for us. God grants forgiveness, but if you decide that the forgiveness God offers you, the forgiveness Christ died on the cross to purchase for you, if that isn’t enough, then you still will live in bondage to that shame.

What are you holding onto in the secrecy of your own heart that causes you shame?

What mistakes or pains from the past still seem to come back and eat at you in the present?

How has shame affected your identity and sense of worth?