But the demons of this world and the culture, they want you fearful, lustful, harmless,
hurtful, angry, and frustrated. That's what demons want to do to you.
So I'm talking about the power of shame and the demonic. And in the last episode,
I talked about step one and three courageous steps to getting free from the demonic in your
life and to be getting set free from shame in your life. And the first is to be vulnerable
about your shame. Be vulnerable about what's happened to you with some bloodstained allies,
with some people that you can trust. And I think it's pretty important to understand that shame
is not always something you've done. Shame is a lot of times things that have been done to you.
But the point about shame is it's those things that are painful, kind of painful feelings
from experiences of our past, either done to us or we have done that causes us to believe
that we're impaired, unworthy of respect and belonging. So some of you may have committed a
crime at some point in your life where you stole something. Maybe you murdered someone. Maybe
you raped someone. Or maybe that has happened to you. But either way, not many people know about
it. And it's a hidden thing in your life. And the way you've dealt with that is to say, oh,
it never happened or no, I was innocent or whatever it might be. I'm telling you that
you're never going to be set free until you tell the honest to goodness truth with some
bloodstained allies, that you share with them the truth of what happened. And then you get them to
pray for you and you start having a relationship and having life together with some bloodstained
allies in your life. Because God made you lion hearted. God made you to be bold. God made you
to be a worshipper and a warrior. But the demons of this world and the culture, they want you
fearful, lustful, harmless, hurtful, angry and frustrated. That's what demons want to do to you.
Well, you got to expose their tactics. You got to expose their power in your life.
Because most Christians today are posers. Most Christians are pretenders, performers and power
hungry. We know of right now pastors across our country. I think in the last month there's been a
ton of different situations where it's obvious that these particular leaders are posers.
They're faking it. They seem to be like really good Christians on the outside,
but they're actually doing some really harmful stuff to people on the inside.
And so they're dealing with shame. I mean, I wish I had them in a room. I wish I could just say,
look, you guys, you're not going to get set free by being a poser and a pretender and a performer.
How about being authentic, real and vulnerable? I know because I've been a poser. I know because
I've been a performer. I know how to do it. I know. I know how to speak Japanese and also know
how to speak Christianese and how to go into a church and act like I'm something that I'm not.
And I got tired of that. And so I broke that up and quit doing that. So what happens, though,
is if we continue to grow and live that way, then that becomes our identity. And the only way to
break out into a new identity is the first step is to root out shame through vulnerability with God
and some bloodstained allies. The Bible says confess your trespasses or confess your sins
to one another. Pray for one another that you may be healed and the effective, fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. So it's confessing our sins to some bloodstained allies.
That's step one. That's the courageous step number one. Courageous step number two, you root out shame
through realizing that you're beloved. At Jesus' baptism, a voice comes from heaven and the Father
says to his son, you are my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. This is the true self. Knowing
that we're loved, accepted, and in the beloved, this is your new identity. Your identity is not
in your shame. Your identity is not in your sin. Your identity is not in your mistakes.
Your identity is in Christ and he calls you his beloved son. You're his beloved son.
You are a new creation in Christ.
The old things, the old shame has passed away, behold, new things have come.
This is your new identity.
You should be able to walk out of this message today with a God confidence, with your chest
out, your head back, and be able to say, I'm beloved in Christ, the Father of the universe,
the creator of the universe calls me his beloved son.
And as his beloved son, you have a, you guys, you have a new father and he cherishes you
and he loves you and he cares about you.
If you look up a definition of beloved, it means you're prized, much loved, cherished,
treasured, highly regarded, admired, esteemed, revered, and venerated.
That's who you are.
You are revered by God.
You're prized by God.
You're cherished by God and you're treasured by him and he loves you very, very much.
And I want to challenge you to wake up each morning saying, I'm beloved.
I want you to look at other blessed and allies and tell those guys, you know, you're beloved
in Christ.
Because when you start to really discover that that is your true identity, then the
power of shame starts to lose its grip over your heart.
And you start to live out of the new heart that you've been given, the new spirit, instead
of knowing Christ intellectually, but not experiencing him in your heart.
God wants you to experience God in your heart.
God wants you to experience him emotionally, not just intellectually.
So many believers have an intellectual relation with God, but they don't have a heart on fire.
They know all the doctrine.
They know all the Bible verses, but they don't know God's heart.
I want to challenge you to renew your mind with, I am beloved.
I am a child of God.
I am a son of God.
And I'm going to walk in that sonship.
I am a king.
I am a priest.
I am a prophet in the Lord.
And God fills me with everything that I need to be more than a conqueror in this life.
Not in the life to come only, that's true, but I'm talking about right now, you're more
than a conqueror.
Right now, you're beloved.
Right now, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
Right now, you're forgiven.
So quit walking in your unforgiveness.
Quit leading out with your life like you're an orphan.
You're not an orphan anymore.
You have a father.
You may not have an earthly father.
You may not have an earthly mother, but you have a heavenly father who walks with you
every day.
It's Jesus.
He loves you.
He's there with you.
He can empower you.
So you're a new creation in Christ, you're beloved.
So first, share your shame.
Be vulnerable about your shame.
Be vulnerable about your mistakes and the things that have happened to you with some
blessed allies.
Second, know that you're beloved.
And then third, you root out shame thirdly through delighting in God more than your shame.
Delight in God more than your shame.
You say, well, Steve, I don't delight in my shame.
Yes, you do.
No, I don't.
Yes, you do.
You know how I know?
Because you're thinking about it all the time.
What you think about all the time, that's what you worship.
You worship what you think about.
Now, I'm not talking about that you've got some cow, golden calf on a statue and you
bow down and worship or you light candles to it.
That's not worship.
Worship is focus.
Worship is what you focus on.
And so if you're focusing on your sin and you're focusing on your shame and you're focusing
on your past or you're focusing about what happened to you when you were eight years
old constantly.
Now, I just said in step one, you've got to focus enough on it so you can deal with it.
But I'm saying that the way out is that you start to put your delight in God, not your
shame.
How do you do that?
You do that with a fierce, passionate desire for intimacy with Jesus.
You've got to make that bigger than your lustful thoughts.
You've got to make that stronger.
then you're unforgiveness to this person who did you wrong.
Listen, everybody listening to this broadcast has been done wrong.
All of us have been done wrong.
We've all been betrayed, we've all been hurt, we've all been ripped off.
Some of you have good parents, some of you have great parents,
some of you have lousy parents,
some of you have had really good girlfriends,
really good relationships, and some of you have had lousy ones,
but here's the deal.
Everybody has been stabbed in the back,
and what I find is that a lot of people,
that becomes their identity,
is focusing on how hard everything was or how bad everything was.
I'm telling you, the way to root out and come into the freedom
that God has for you and root out captivity in your life
is to delight more in God than anything else.
To worship Him and to think about Him, to read the Word,
to be in God's Word, to have Bible studies
with some of your bloodstained allies,
to grow in your new identity as beloved.
And I'm telling you, men and women, this is how it works,
that what you delight in is what you'll become.
What you delight in is what you will become.
Not overnight, but if you delight in being His beloved,
if you delight in making Jesus the Lord of your life,
if you delight in the Kingdom of God,
you'll become the Kingdom of God.
You'll become like Jesus.
You'll become free.
You'll become victorious.
So that's the challenge to being lionhearted, men, is for you.
Number one, be vulnerable with some bloodstained allies.
Number two, begin to focus on your belovedness,
your new identity in Christ.
And then thirdly, delight in God.
Make that your focus.
Worship Him.
Delight in Him.
Think about Him.
Open God's Word.
Read God's Word for hours at a time.
Soak yourself in God's Word.
And it won't happen overnight, men.
But over time, you're going to see yourself changed.
You're going to see yourself transformed.
And that's the key to being lionhearted.
And we'll talk more about that in the next episode.