Changed into his Likeness 10

(The Shame Bearer)

Introduction: Conformed to Christ’s Image

I. The Principle of Divine Exchange

A) All the evil justly due to come onto us came onto Jesus so that all the good due to Jesus might be made available to us!

1) Jesus was punished so that we might be forgiven!

2) Jesus was wounded so that we might be healed!

3) Jesus died our death so we might share His life!

4) Jesus bore our guilt so we might share in His justification!

5) Jesus was made our curse so that we might receive His blessing!

6) Jesus bore our shame so that might share His glory!

7) Jesus endured our rejection so that we might enjoy His acceptance!

8) Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness so we might be made righteous by His righteousness!

9) Our old life died in Jesus so that His new life might live in us!

I want to focus today on two of these nine exchanges; For some of you in the room, perhaps for many of you ; this will be a very important sermon…Let’s look specifically at number 6 and number 7:

6) Jesus bore our shame so that might share His glory!

7) Jesus endured our rejection so that we might enjoy His acceptance!

I. The Shame Bearer

(Hebrews 12:1-2) …. and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NIV)

Scorning- to think against- have a strong opinion opposite of

KJV- despise

We, sitting in this room are a motley crew. If you took the sin list of everyone in the room it would be long and shameful. Many of you have shared much of where God brought you from. Vern Bourne has a book out here in the hallway detailing the depths of sin Satan dragged him down into. Most of us have things in our past that we just don’t talk about…to anybody. They are actions we are just plain downright ashamed of.

Now, I wasn’t an axe murdered in my former life; but every once in a while a memory of something I did in the past will pop into my head and I instantly feel ashamed all over again that I would have done something like that. I’ve been forgiven for it…yet the action was so wrong, and I am so very sorry I did it that I still fell ashamed.

shame- a painful feeling of having lost the respect of others because of improper behavior. The respect of other might be other people, our God, or even ourselves.

ashamed- feeling humiliated or embarrassed because of a feeling of inadequacy or because something bad, wrong, or foolish was done.

I don’t have to tell most of you that the evil one is very interested in making you feel as ashamed as he possibly can. He doesn’t care what you have done wrong, but he cares that you care what you have done wrong and he delights in reminding you of it. There is good news about him in:

(Revelation 12:10) Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (NIV)

I have an important piece of news for all of you…

Jesus bore our shame so that might share His glory!

(Hebrews 12:2) he… endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NIV)

(Hebrews 2:10) In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (NIV)

Jesus bore our shame so that might share His glory!

II. Bearing our Shame

All four Gospel accounts give few facts about the actual crucifixion….I’m not sure why. Perhaps because, at the time the gospels were written everyone knew just how awful a death crucifixion was. It was the least humane form of death and the one that the Roman Empire set aside for the worst of criminals. In our legal system we set aside capital punishment as the final resort for the worst of criminals who’s acts were so bad that society as a whole is appalled by them. When we do put someone to death for their crimes we try to do so with the least possible pain and suffering.

The Romans put a lot of people to death…a sword to the neck, while it wasn’t enjoyable a least didn’t prolong the agony. Crucifixion was death by inches! Painful, excruciation, suffocation over a very long period of time.

Isaiah 53, as has been true this whole series, gives us more insight into exactly what Jesus suffered than the gospels do:

(Isaiah 53:3) He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (NKJV)

Notice the averting of the eyes. The sight is just too gruesome to look at. Jerry often puts up this picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. One person said they could not look at it, please don’t put that picture up any more. Understand.. this is the sanitized version…

In Mel Gibson’s new movie “The Passion of Christ” coming out in January; what you will see will be much closer to what actually happened. We saw a few clips from it in our last CCN Max Lacado satellite program….I hope every one will get a chance, even force themselves, to see the whole thing. It might help erase the romanticized tan body, loin-clothed, few spots of blood, perfectly placed crown of thorns image of our dying Savior from our minds. As Jesus hung on the cross, all the gruesomeness of what Jesus experienced for us was laid bare to all who passed by.

Psalm 69 was written by David but is considered by…everyone.. To be a looking forward prophesy of the coming Christ just like Isaiah 53. Verse 21 says:

(Psalms 69:21) They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. That certainly is not David talking about himself…

In fact several of these verses are quoted in the gospels by Jesus himself to refer to himself. Let’s look at some of them as they apply to Jesus taking our shame.

(Psalms 69:1-2) Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me.

(Psalms 69:7) For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.

One of the characteristic of shame is not being able to look the other in the face. David prophesied that shame would cover the face of God’s suffering Servant.

By the way, the little unstained loincloth you see in the pictures was not in the original picture. Soldiers divided his garments….. all of them. ( Matt 27:35) No one, that day, had any interest in preserving Jesus dignity. What hung that day on the cross was a bloody, naked, shell of a man disfigured, beaten beyond recognition. Rejected by everyone except his mother and her two friends, he hung alone bearing the shame of all mankind who had gone before and all mankind who would follow.

(Isaiah 53:3) He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (NIV)

Understand something here that is very important…What was going on outside of Jesus was just a symbol of what was going on inside. Psalm 69 gives insight into would be going on that day inside of Jesus. All of these verses written 1000 years before Jesus was born would later be quoted by Jesus about himself.

(Psalms 69:4) Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. (NIV)

(Psalms 69:8) I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; (NIV)

(Psalms 69:9) for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me. (NIV)

(Psalms 69:21) They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. (NIV) This was a sedative, something to make the outer and inner pain fade away…Jesus refused it… He was there to experience every bit of shame we would experience and more. He was: bearing our shame so that might share His glory!

On the cross Jesus was not just bearing his shame; he had done nothing to be ashamed of; He was enduring all the shame that would happen to every one of us. He bore it on himself; He took it out of the way. He provided that if we accepted his forgiveness, the shame of our sinfulness would be removed, gone, finished, done with, expunged, erased…

Next time satan tries to shove your past sins in your face remind him of what Jesus did for you! Before forgiveness you had every reason to his your face from God…but not any more!!!

(Job 11:14-15) if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. (NIV)

(Job 22:26) Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. (NIV)

III. Enduring our Rejection

Jesus endured our rejection so that we might enjoy His acceptance!

We live in a world filled with rejection…We live lives filled with rejection. I used to tell my boys when they were growing up and they felt like I wasn’t giving them all that they deserved: “I’m preparing you for life…when you get out there in the world, all alone, you are not going to be treated fairly. I don’t think they, at the time, ever really appreciated my attempts to prepare them for the rigors of the real world but….

All of us have experienced at one level or another, the pain of rejection. Some of you have been slammed by it…over and over. Every child borne into this world has one supreme need…to be loved unconditionally. Mother Teresa said “The worst sickness is not being loved” Often those who don’t receive love have trouble showing it to others and the cycle just keeps repeating itself.

Into all that comes one who’s love for us is not dependent on our returning it. When we were 100% self consumed and sin consumed, God loved us and His loved opened the door for a true love to awaken inside of fallen humanity…

(1 John 4:19) We love because he first loved us. (Him and Others)

Several of you, many of you, have experienced the breakup of a formerly deep relationship. (marriage, parents, children, close friends) Someone who loved you completely, and now they don’t. Someone who used to be devoted to you, and now they aren’t. Maybe they’ve even given their complete devotion to someone else…

God experienced exactly that kind of rift with the entire nation of Israel. He often spoke of Israel through the prophets as a wife who had rejected him.

(Isaiah 54:6) The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit-- a wife who married young, only to be rejected," says your God. (NIV)

Let me call you back to what Jesus experienced for you on the cross.

(Isaiah 53:3) He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (NIV)

Didn’t start at the cross:

(John 1:11) He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. (NIV)

(Psalms 69:8) I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; (NIV) ….and we know that he was…

But in Jesus case his rejection by society around him, by his own family, by the disciples closest to him was just the tip of the iceberg. He had to experience that so he could feel with our rejection by those closest to us but his rejection went far beyond what we will ever experience.

(Matthew 27:45-47) From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (NIV)

For the first time in all of the universe the Son of God prayed and his prayer was rejected by the Father. His very presence was rejected by the Father. It was as if He didn’t even exist to the Father. Why…. Because in the moment on the cross Christ had literally become the sins of mankind and God had to deal with him as he does with our sins.

Jesus died quicker than expected. Remember Pilate was shocked that Jesus was already dead. It just didn’t normally happen that fast.

I submit to you that the crucifixion is not what killed Jesus. I had never noticed this before preparing for this message.

(Psalms 69:20-21) Reproach has broken my heart, And I am full of heaviness; I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none. They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (NKJV)

Could it be: Jesus didn’t die from his wounds; he died of a broken heart!

What is sure is what happened the instant he died:

(Matthew 27:50-51) And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. (NIV)

What was the significance of the tearing of the curtain in the temple that separated the people from their holy God . It was like an invitation card directly from God that said:

The door is open…come on in!!

Conclusion:

(Ephesians 1:3-6) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. (NKJV)