“SHEDDING THE SHAME – LIVING TO THE GLORY OF CHRIST’S NAME!”
By J. Farrell Fisher, January 23-25, 2017
In 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 there is a strong challenge to the stubborn indifference to fallen man’s challenge to Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross in their behalf because they see nothing in themselves worthy of death! Paul wrote: “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”
I’m assuming that YOU are aware, for the most part, of the blindness of many of the world’s civilizations concerning their ‘standing’ before God – most sense no need of Him because in them there is nothing needed to be redeemed from! Most are “waders” in the shallow waters of their existence with no awareness of what abides in the dark depths of the human heart, or the dark spaces of a nation’s blackened heart, alienated and separated from Holy God! Human and, yes, national ‘blindness’ to one’s spiritual condition is best described in Mark 4:18-19 when Jesus said, “Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, AND THE CARES OF THIS WORLD, THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES, AND THE DESIRES FOR OTHER THINGS ENTERING IN CHOKE THE WORD, and it becomes unfruitful.” They have no shame!
And the Proverbs author really sought to awaken both ‘saint’ and sinner when in Proverbs 11:31 he wrote: “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth (by God Himself), how much more the ungodly and the sinner.” The former Memphis, Tennessee pastor, Dr. R.G.Lee, once preached a never forgotten message entitled “Payday Someday!” For the ungodly and the sinner who ignore, deny, excuse the sin nature and its ‘deathliness’, the ‘door’ to forgiveness, healing, and the “new life in Christ” remains firmly closed, locked, blocked, and men continue in the sin and sinfulness of “red-handed mutiny” and defiance of Holy God and His loving heart for them proven at the Cross!
Reckless unbelief, fleshly hypocrisy, irrational denial of one’s need of reconciliation with the God who made them, lost them, then bought them with the shed blood of the Lamb of God, stiff-necks, sin-clouded minds, and darkened hearts, mold, prepare, shape, and tarnish their lives with the devil’s marks of ownership, and then in their daily lives insult, curse, and continually deny the loving, merciful, caring heart of Holy God!
There are those firmly rooted in their old sin natures who are ‘in love’ with what they see as “the nobility of human nature” when the Holy Word declares in Romans 3:23, “for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So… “shedding the shame, and living to the glory of Christ’s name” OR embracing the shame and living to the goriness and godlessness of YOUR name and YOUR fame? The old, sin-nature- bound men seem ‘hell-bent’ on preserving their independence from God, leaning on their ‘foul love’ of the ‘flesh’, and, yes, worshipping the mis-alignment of one’s heart with God, ‘satisfied’ with the world, the flesh, and the devil’!
Oh, but then we read in the Corinthian letter by Paul that “God chose the foolish,” that “God chose the weak,” that “God chose the base things of the world and the things which are despised,” that “God chose the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” In fact, in John 5:48 Jesus said: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (I rest easier when I see ‘perfect’ as “perfected by His grace, mercy, and love”!). But, imperfect men, repentant in heart AND mind, trusting in Christ alone, are not a religious society’s ‘elite’, but the Kingdom of God “elect”, God smothering man’s fleshly pride in the “blood of the Lamb”!
The ‘elite’ rather than the “elect of God” are those who resemble ‘the humiliation of Babylon’ as seen in Isaiah 47, but in Verses12-13 of chapter 46, God said, “Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.”
As Isaiah 47:3 unfolds, Holy God exposes, not only Babylon’s nakedness, but the spiritual nakedness of every fallen man! Verse 3 then says, (which is an eternal principle of Holy God!), “Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame will be seen;…” with God then saying in Verses 8-11, Therefore hear this now, YOU WHO ARE GIVEN TO (FLESHLY) PLEASURES, WHO DWELL SECURELY (in ‘self-trust), WHO SAY IN YOUR HEART, “I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow (or widower), nor shall I know the loss of children”; But these two things shall come upon you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children, and (a marriage partner). They shall come upon you in their fullness because of the multitude of your sorceries, for the great abundance of your enchantments.
For you have trusted in your wickedness; [Would it be advisable for you to search out in the Word what God calls ‘wickedness’?]. You have said, ‘No one sees me’; your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; and you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ Therefore evil shall come upon you; you shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; you will not be able to put if off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know.” That’s fleshly independence erected as one’s ‘god before which he/she bows daily to worship’! But there IS the eternal reality of one bowing, confessing, surrendering, devoted to the King of kings and Lord of lords! And 1 Corinthians 1:28 we’re told Holy God “chooses” the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence,” but IN Christ Jesus we’re declared wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
It was Spurgeon who once preached, “The grace which is found in any man, and the glory and eternal life to which any attain, are all THE GIFTS OF GOD’S ELECTION, and are not bestowed according to the will of man.” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.8, p293].
How clear to you is Ephesians 2:8-10? “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is THE GIFT OF GOD, not of works, lest anyone should boast. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, created in Christ Jesus for good works, WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND that we should walk in them.”
True believers? Those “graced by God,” those who are recipients of His mercy, those who lean not to their own understanding, but in all their ways give God His rightful place as True Sovereign, Loving Savior, and compassionate Lord and Master, extending His life, expressing His love, and proving His power through a repentant, yielded, surrendered life! No doubt this is why David prayed in Psalm 86:3-5, “Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I cry to You all day long. Rejoice the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and ABUNDANT IN MERCY to all those who call upon You.” How clear is Romans 9:16? Paul said, “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”
David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51:1-13 certainly ought to capture and guide any ‘convicted by the Spirit’ sinner! David said: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight – that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me, a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.” WHAT AN AWESOME REVELATION! But, I wonder sometimes, how many “disciples, pastors, churches today” live with the zeal of King David to touch the lost, needy world with the message of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, and beyond the empty tombs to “street evangelism” and “missions”!
Paul gives us a true picture of the “redeemed” when In Galatians 4:3-7 he wrote about our “adoption” as sons and daughters of Holy God through God’s Son the Lord Jesus: Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
You are aware that the world, the flesh, the devil are ‘slaves’ in bondage – a statement in an old hymn said: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,” and there becomes instilled in a born-again life with its trials, temptations, and troubles, that apart from God’s grace, there would be mass ‘fallings-away’! But because we ARE ‘sons of faith”, Holy God sent the Spirit to guard, protect, empower, and oversee our journey of faith into the fullness of Christ Himself!
And, because of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to true sons and daughters of the faith, Simon Peter broadens our understanding of the Spirit’s ministry beyond “born of the Spirit” to being “anointed by the Spirit” to bear witness of Christ! In 1 Peter 1:2 he speaks to “the elect” which was and is “according to the foreknowledge of God,” set apart by the Spirit “for obedience”! “You shall be My witnesses…to the uttermost parts of the earth!”
It’s amazing to me, and awe-inspiring, that in Acts 4:8, I read about Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit,” with Verse 13 telling and inspiring me, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
Many of the intellectual elites in our modern-day assume they are smarter than God Himself! It’s been a ‘philosophically debated argument’ that “Christ and His teachings” don’t measure up to their ‘philosophical brilliance’ whose numbers are few, while today billions upon billions of re-born mankind ‘in Christ’ are conquering the nations!
IN fact, Paul was very clear in his anointing in the Holy Spirit when he said in Romans 3:20, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight… for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” How clear is that? And law-breaking in the Word of God is to shatter one’s self-image and then willingly to cast himself/herself upon the mercy, grace, and love of God! Jesus still says: “You must be born again. That which is flesh is flesh, but that which is of the Spirit is spiritual reality, sovereign oneness with the Savior, and declared vessels washed and cleansed and indwelt in Resurrection life, Resurrection power, and resurrection hope!
Have YOU died? Colossians 3:3 declares, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Why did Paul say, “I die daily”? Because he wanted no part ever with the ‘old man,’ the ‘sinner’, the rebellious loyalist to one’s sin nature, but was passionate in his desire, motivation, and prayer to be found loyal to the “new life” in Christ! Yes, Paul put on the “new man” daily who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him…with Christ as his “All in all!” Paul said in Galatians 6:14-15,
“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” ARE YOU CHRIST’S NEW CREATION?
Are you living in darkness or have you come to “The Light of life in Christ”? In 1 John 1:7 John wrote: “But if we walk in the light as He (Jesus) is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.” In the old “American Hymnal” of the 1930’s there is a hymn entitled, “There Is A Fountain”, written by William Cowper and Lowell Mason. It says: “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day; And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed church of God Be saved, to sin no more.
Ever since, by faith, I saw the stream Your flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die.
Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Your power to save, When this poor lisping, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave.”
What’s your song that you sing to the glory of God alone?