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[0:00] Mark 8, verse 27. We're going to read through verse 38. Mark 8, verse 27. Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi.

[0:14] And on the way, he asked them, who do people say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked.

[0:28] Who do you say I am? Peter answered, you are the Christ. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed.

[0:50] And after three days rise again, he spoke plainly about this. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter.

[1:03] Get behind me, Satan, he said. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Then he called the crowd to him, along with his disciples, and said, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

[1:20] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

[1:36] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.

[1:52] Let's hear the preaching of God's word. The more terrible the disease, the stronger the medicine needed to beat it.

[2:05] And in our own day, scientists have developed some very powerful medications. In fact, some of them come with nasty side effects.

[2:16] And we sometimes quip, if the disease doesn't kill you, the medicine will. And yet, we are willing to subject ourselves to strong medicine in the hope of beating the disease.

[2:32] Well, the great physician, God's own Son, came to a sick and dying world, shot through with a cancer of sin. He came to deal with the very worst sort of diseases of the heart.

[2:48] And that's why he told his disciples in this passage that he must suffer. He must be rejected. He must be killed. And on the third day, rise again.

[3:02] Strong medicine, indeed. But in no other way could we be healed. For he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

[3:14] The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed. We are healed. Well, in our text, our great physician is dispensing some strong medicine.

[3:29] And he goes on with other strong medicine. If you're going to follow me, and by the way, I'm the only one leading to eternal life. If you're going to follow me, then you will need to deny yourself.

[3:43] That idolatrous commitment to you and your way. That always considers, well, what's in it for me? That puts yourself at the center of your universe.

[3:55] And pushes every other voice out to the edges. The periphery of your life. You're going to need to deny yourself. And you're also going to need to take up your cross daily.

[4:10] A cross, the instrument of execution. The instrument of death. Because you're going to need to die daily if you're following me. Because where I'm leading you in trustful obedience to God's commands.

[4:28] Is going to run against the grain of your sinful self. And that's precisely where you must die. And die again. And die again. You must, if you're following me, take up your cross.

[4:42] And follow me. Strong medicine, isn't it? And if you try to save your life. You try to make your life be what you want it to be.

[4:54] In the end, you will lose it. But if you will willingly lose your life. Let go of it. And trust it to me. You will gain it.

[5:07] You will gain life everlasting. And life eternal. Holding promise for the life that is and that is to come. For what will it profit you?

[5:20] If you could gain the whole world and yet lose your own soul. Come on now. What will it profit? Do the math. If you could have it all for 70, 80 years without me in this life.

[5:34] And then die and go to hell forever and ever without me. What would it profit? What would it profit? Strong medicine.

[5:44] But our great physician loves us too much to let us live for the wrong world. To wake up a half second after death and find we live for all the wrong things.

[5:57] No. No. He comes with strong medicine to wake us out of such a stupor. Our text today is just one verse. Mark 8, 38.

[6:08] And Jesus says, If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, well, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him. When he comes in his Father's glory with his holy angels.

[6:24] Now, that's another dose of strong medicine, isn't it? That is strong medicine. And you know, it wouldn't be necessary without the dread disease of the fear of man that makes us ashamed of Jesus.

[6:39] So let's take the medicine from our loving Father, our loving physician that comes to heal us. I start with some examples of shame.

[6:54] We're talking about being ashamed of Jesus this morning. Now, some examples of shame. I don't need to spend a lot of time talking about what it means to be ashamed.

[7:05] I would think you all know very well what that means. Growing up in a large family, men at our house, you often wore a lot of hand-me-down clothes.

[7:16] And as I was going into second grade, it seemed that my feet had grown. And so I got to wear my female cousin's black and white saddle shoes. And I remember going into the class on the very first day of school.

[7:31] And suddenly my cheeks grew hot. I was ashamed to wear those shoes. It scarred my life.

[7:41] I'd never recovered. Actually, you know it was probably the best thing for this little man-pleasing boy that was so concerned about, What does everybody think about me?

[7:55] And what I'm wearing. I was ashamed. Shame's a powerful emotion, isn't it? And it shows this disease of man-pleasing, the fear of man.

[8:07] It shows itself very early in life. And then I can recall in school as well, filling out forms and sometimes even being asked in class, My father's occupation. Well, he was a minister of the gospel of Christ.

[8:19] But fortunate for me, he was also the general manager of the Bremen Foundry. And so you got it. You know what I answered and what I put down.

[8:31] My dad's the manager of the foundry. I was ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Now, it's one thing to be ashamed of saddle shoes.

[8:42] It's another thing altogether to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I suppose the most familiar example in Scripture is the Apostle Peter.

[8:54] One of the twelve. In fact, one of the intimate three. Close friend of the Lord Jesus. And one day, Jesus and his twelve disciples were walking along, and Jesus asked them, Who do you say that I am?

[9:12] And after the others had said, first they'd asked, Who do people say? And when he says, Who do you say? Peter speaks, as he often does, and he boldly confesses, You are the Christ.

[9:26] You are the Messiah. That's the word they use. You're this anointed one that's been promised. You are the son of the living God. Well, not long after, just weeks later, the same Peter is in a different crowd.

[9:41] He's in an anti-Jesus crowd. It's at the trial of Jesus, and he's out in the courtyard, and a maid said, You were with him. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about.

[9:55] Surely I saw you with... I don't know the man. Not once, but twice, he disassociated himself completely from the Lord Jesus and added curses and oaths.

[10:10] May God curse me if I'm not speaking the truth when I say, I don't know the man. No, this is the same Peter I say. What accounts for the vast change that has come upon him from boldly confessing to out and out denying him three times.

[10:32] It's the powerful emotion of shame that made the difference. Shame brought on by the dread disease of the fear of man and who of us have not been in places and with people where we have been ashamed to be identified with Jesus Christ.

[10:51] Oh, yes. It was a grievous sin and it caused Peter to go out and to weep bitterly and he later confessed his sin to Christ and he renounced that sin and so he found mercy as the promise says.

[11:13] And thereafter, we find a new Peter, don't we? A Peter unashamed of Jesus. even before hostile crowds, even willing to lose his life for Jesus' sake as we saw last week in Acts chapter 12 and throughout the book of Acts.

[11:33] Well, shame. Ashamed of Jesus. Let me come secondly to different forms that this shame takes. Archibald Brown lists several ways that shame manifests itself and I found his outline helpful.

[11:55] We can be ashamed of Jesus when we are, first of all, ashamed of the words of Jesus. You see it in our text, Mark 8, 38. If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, me and my words, after all, what are his words but expressions of him, right?

[12:14] When you speak your words, that's you. That's what you think. That's the conclusions you make, your judgments on matters. And so to be, we are ashamed of Jesus when we are ashamed of his word, his book of words, the Bible.

[12:33] To be ashamed of the Bible is just another form of being ashamed of Jesus. I wonder, do you ever carry your Bible to school and lay it on your desk or at work?

[12:49] In public places? You know, I've ridden in an airplane down to Arizona and back and I find that you're sitting there in your little seat and there's somebody right beside you to the left and someone right beside you to the right and they can see, everybody sees what the other's doing.

[13:05] and you can read out of the corner of your eye, can't you, what they're reading? For some reason, I find it harder to take out my Bible and read than any other book that I have in my satchel.

[13:21] Strange, isn't it? To be ashamed of Jesus' words is to be ashamed of Jesus. You know, the world has never been fond of Jesus' words.

[13:35] John 7, 7, Jesus says, the world hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. You see, the world hates me, Jesus says, because of my words. It's what I say.

[13:47] They don't like what I say. It goes counter to their worldly wisdom and thought. And you know, it always does. Here we are 2,000 years later. And that's why in every generation, there is always a battle for the Bible.

[14:04] the words of Jesus, the one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. And so, not being ashamed of Jesus means that you must be willing to be counted a fool for believing what Jesus said, believing His word.

[14:24] If you don't believe that the universe self-started with a big bang today, if today you don't believe that it started with a big bang and then evolved over billions and billions of years all on its own by natural causes, but rather you believe that a personal infinite creator, God, created it in six days.

[14:49] Well, you're just viewed in this world as just plain foolish. A country bump. where have you been? Your light years behind science.

[15:01] If you believe that gender is something that God has decided for each person in the way that He created their bodies and not something for each person to decide for themselves, then you increasingly are being viewed as stupid, hateful, and bigoted by the world.

[15:20] But Jesus' words says that our bodies are not our own to do with sexually whatever we want with whomever we want. And Jesus' words say that God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

[15:35] Are you ashamed of Jesus' words? Are you ashamed of His words that no-fault divorce and remarriage is adultery in Jesus' eyes?

[15:47] And so is lusting after a woman that is not your wife? Are you ashamed that the Bible teaches that abortion is murder and hatred in the heart is murder and no murderer has eternal life in Him?

[16:04] Do you believe that all dying without faith in Jesus Christ are going to hell forever?

[16:15] Oh, that's just that's the church's manipulation using fear of hell to control people. Oh, no, it isn't. It's the words of Jesus. No one spoke and warned more of hell than he who knows it best.

[16:32] But you see, the words of Jesus, they don't fit with man's ideas, do they? Are you ashamed of Jesus' words in this adulterous and sinful generation?

[16:47] We can be ashamed of Jesus when we're ashamed of His words. Secondly, we're ashamed of Jesus when we're ashamed of the gospel of Jesus.

[16:58] The gospel of Jesus. Of course, those are His words as well, but let's think of this separately. the gospel message is all about Jesus, isn't it? From beginning to end, it's the good news of Christ.

[17:11] Christ in Him crucified. So to be ashamed of the gospel is to be ashamed of Christ. And that's what moves Paul to write to Timothy. Timothy.

[17:22] And he says in 2 Timothy 1.8, Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. Don't be ashamed to talk about Jesus.

[17:37] Now the pressures to be ashamed are strong. You can talk about God, you can talk about all, but you talk about Jesus. It's a different thing, isn't it? It ups the ante. The pressures to be ashamed are strong.

[17:51] because many find the gospel offensive. The name of Jesus is offensive.

[18:04] The blood of Jesus that you just sang of is offensive. And that's right at the heart of the gospel, isn't it?

[18:17] It just doesn't fit with man's ideas about man. That man is basically good. It doesn't fit with man's ideas about God. That God is all love and that's it.

[18:28] And he accepts everybody just as they are forever. Just like they are. Period. And because our message of the gospel says, no, that's not, that's not the word of the gospel.

[18:41] The gospel claims that man's sin makes him so offensive to God that nothing less than the death of Jesus on the cross can remove the offense.

[18:53] Otherwise, the person must suffer God's wrath forever. Oh, you believe that old, old story of Jesus.

[19:04] People are scandalized by the cross of Christ, the blood of Jesus. Are we ashamed to speak of the gospel of Jesus for fear of being counted a fool?

[19:18] We're ashamed of Jesus when we're ashamed of his gospel. But thirdly, we're ashamed of Jesus when we're ashamed of the people of Jesus. The people of Jesus. Have you noticed that the church seems to have a lot of people that the world counts foolish, despised, rejected, just like their master was in this same world?

[19:49] Yeah, that's on purpose, isn't it? It's whom God has chosen as the bride of Christ. Not many, not many wise, we're told. Not many mighty and influential, the movers and shakers of society.

[20:04] Not many rich and famous and highborn. Not many from the upper crust of society, but a whole lot from the lower scum of the earth as they view it.

[20:15] Not the somebodies, but he chose a whole lot of nobodies to shame the somebodies. The foolish to shame the wise.

[20:28] And they look at us and they say, you are weak. You're so weak, you need a crutch and so you create a God in your mind to lean on in your problems.

[20:41] You're weak. Well, those are the people of God. And we're tempted to perhaps to be ashamed of Jesus' people.

[20:54] You know what Jesus said about his people? That whatever you do to one of the least of these my brothers, you do to me.

[21:09] That means if you're ashamed of Jesus' people, you're ashamed of Jesus. Oh, being with that person in public would not be good for my self-image.

[21:22] You know, the people of God, they're just a bit strange. They're a bit odd. So Paul writes to Timothy and says, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, his prisoner.

[21:38] Oh, not just to testify about our Lord, but don't be ashamed of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

[21:49] You know, some were ashamed to be seen with the rejected imprisoned Paul. They would not go see him in prison. They ignored him.

[22:00] They left him there. They abandoned him. They didn't want to be associated with a rejected Paul. So he says in 2 Timothy 1, 16, when everyone in the province of Asia deserted, he could write this, may the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.

[22:29] Others were, but not him. When he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently until he found me. Oh, may the Lord grant that he would find mercy from the Lord on that day.

[22:41] Paul despised, a prisoner for Christ's sake. And Onesiphorus says, that doesn't make him less in my eyes, that makes him more in my eyes.

[22:58] He's my brother in Jesus. I'm proud of him. As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my joy.

[23:08] So, you can be ashamed of Jesus by being ashamed of his people. Are these your people?

[23:21] Are you proud to be a Christian, to belong to the body of Christ? Oh, many different forms of shame. You can be ashamed of Jesus fourthly by secrecy.

[23:34] John 12, Jesus says in verses 42 and 43, many, even among the leaders, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue.

[23:46] For, they loved praise from men more than praise from God. Those are the words of Jesus. In other words, their belief was a head belief. They believed that Jesus was Messiah.

[23:58] He was the Christ. But they had no heart commitment of faith to this Jesus. No entrusting of themselves to him, which is saving faith. It says, here's my life.

[24:09] Take, take and seal it. Take and use it. Whatever you want, I'm following you. I'm trusting you. Save me from my sin, from going my own way.

[24:22] No, they still love men's praises more than God's. And so, they're still too ashamed of Jesus to confess him and to be saved, which according to Romans 10, 9 and 10 is necessary in order to be saved.

[24:38] To confess him with your mouth as well as believe in your heart. J.C. Ryle says of these, they could not bear the idea of being laughed at, ridiculed, reviled, or persecuted by their fellow men.

[24:52] Ryle says, nothing seems so difficult to overcome as this desire of pleasing men. No, these are not those whom Jesus will own as his before his father on the day of judgment.

[25:09] Secret disciples. Are you hiding your attachment to Jesus? You can be ashamed of Jesus by just keeping it secret.

[25:23] Maybe here in church, you sing the hymns, you listen to the sermon. But, out there in the world, would there be enough evidence to convict you of being a follower of Jesus?

[25:41] Does anyone know? And lastly, we can be ashamed of Jesus not only by secrecy but by silence. Archibald Brown says, shame always seals the lips.

[25:53] Watch for that. Shame always seals the lips. Mark 9. Jesus and his disciples came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he asked them, what were you fellows talking about along the way?

[26:07] but they kept quiet. Why? Because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest and they were shamed of themselves.

[26:22] And shame always seals the lips. We don't talk about the things that we're ashamed of. Remember Jesus' words to the woman at the well, go call your husband?

[26:34] We don't talk about those things. I don't have one. Next question. Oh no, you're right. You've had five and the one you now have is not your husband.

[26:45] Oh, you're a prophet. Where should we worship? You see how she's not wanting to go there. Shame seals the lips. And so it is with being ashamed of Jesus.

[27:05] It's one of the ways we can tell if we're ashamed of Jesus. Do we ever talk about him? Not here, but out in the world. You know, there are moments out in the world when we ought to speak up.

[27:19] When we ought to put a good word in for our Lord Jesus. And when not to do so is our guilty silence.

[27:31] When his name is being misused. When his words are being ridiculed. Can we stand by and not say something for our Savior's name and his word?

[27:45] For he is exalted above all things his name and his word. Oh, our silence too can be a way that we're ashamed of him. Well, these are some of the forms that shame takes.

[27:58] Let's come then quickly to helps to overcoming this shame. And the first one comes right from our text. Please don't miss it. Right here in our text. Consider the consequences.

[28:14] Consider the consequences. If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.

[28:28] Isn't it encouraging, Christian, that Jesus knows where you live? He knows you live in an adulterous and sinful generation where it's hard to stand up for Jesus, isn't it?

[28:42] Where our Lord and his words and his gospel and his people and his blood and his name are hated. And so he gives us a motivation. He gives us a warning to motivate us.

[28:55] You know God has more than one way to motivate his people. Sometimes he motivates us with God's love. Sometimes with Jesus grace. Sometimes with a desire for reward.

[29:06] Sometimes with a fear of hell. Don't get wiser than God in choosing which motivations you will receive. Take the medicine he gives you. Notice the medicine he gives for this fear of man.

[29:22] He knows we need some strong medicine. And so he says if you are ashamed of me and my words now then I will be ashamed of you then.

[29:33] What you do now will determine what I do then. Do you see that? What I do then the then is the last day when his glory will no longer be veiled but will now be out in the open for all to see and when he comes again it will be on clouds of glory and it will be with his own glory and it will be in his father's glory.

[29:58] It will be that his glory is equal to his father's. He is God. It will be with the glory of God and with his holy angels the sight of one could send men to their faces in fear.

[30:13] And here he comes with all his holy angels to carry out the sentence on that day. That's the day when I will be ashamed of you.

[30:25] What does it mean for him for Jesus to be ashamed of the one who has been ashamed of him? It means he will give them the same treatment they gave him.

[30:35] He will not own them before his father. He will not claim them as his own. And for Jesus not to claim you as his own on the day of judgment is to be lost forever.

[30:53] Nothing could be more serious. If you don't own him here he will disown you there. So you might have succeeded in avoiding some of the snickers of the wicked in this life. But at the cost of losing your own soul do the math Jesus says.

[31:08] What does it profit you? Where does it get you? Now that's strong medicine and our great physician knows it will help us not to be ashamed of him in this adulterous and sinful generation.

[31:24] Take the medicine the great physician gives. But secondly and I don't have time to touch it. I'll just mention it.

[31:34] It's actually probably number three on your outline but it's remember the power of the gospel to save. You know we can grow embarrassed about the gospel can't we in this world.

[31:47] It's so narrow. I mean it just says that Jesus is the only way. He is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father but by him. That doesn't make it on the view.

[32:03] It doesn't get it in our multicultural world. We can be ashamed of the gospel. You know what Paul says? He wrote a whole book on the gospel, the book of Romans and he says right up front, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

[32:18] I say, why Paul? He tells us, because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, the pagan.

[32:29] It doesn't matter. anyone who believes, this gospel will save if you will believe. Now, for all that the world religions claim, their way of salvation, there's only one that does what it claims.

[32:48] And it's this gospel of the Lord Jesus. You see, if you spent your life inventing an airplane and it got off the runway and then just did a nose dive into the ground, you'd have reason to be ashamed, wouldn't you?

[33:03] It didn't do what you claimed it would do. It didn't fly. What good is an airplane that doesn't fly? What good is a gospel that doesn't save?

[33:16] And that's why Paul's so confident in the gospel. I'm ashamed of this. It actually does what it claims. It saves. And it saves anyone. It doesn't matter who you are, what you've done, Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, whatever you are, if you will believe in this Jesus revealed in this gospel, you will be saved.

[33:35] There is power to save in this gospel. It will do what it claims. And the living, active ingredient in the gospel, he says in the next verse, is that it reveals a righteousness from God.

[33:50] It's the righteousness of Jesus, which put to your account in heaven will save you. It doesn't matter how many times you sinned. If you will trust in Jesus, this righteousness from God, accepted by God, because it's Jesus' perfect righteousness will be put to your account, and put to your account, you're saved.

[34:09] How can we be ashamed of that? You see, there's everything in the gospel to make us confident in the gospel. So, there's reason, you see. So, get to know the gospel, and live upon the gospel that you lose your shame in this world that despises your gospel.

[34:29] But lastly, remember who Jesus is and what he's done. Though I am suffering, I'm not ashamed, Paul says, because I know whom I have believed.

[34:45] I know him. Remember Jesus and what he's done, who he is. Dr. Otis Bowen was a second-term, or a two-term governor of Indiana, served on the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and before that, he was my doctor.

[35:04] And I guess I got my first spanking from him, and perhaps some of my stitches were sewn up by him.

[35:17] And I found myself from time to time name-dropping. Like I've just done right here. I'm that vain. I'll drop a name. I'm not ashamed to speak about the name of Otis Bowen.

[35:32] We do that of people we know, because of who they are and what they've done. My father lived most of his 82 years in this town, and he so conducted himself in a way that he left behind a good name, so that whenever I introduce myself to a Bremenite that doesn't know me, I've never been ashamed to say, well, I'm Bob Heaney's boy.

[35:54] He's my dad. I've rather been confident and proud to say that because of who he is and what he's done. And in the same way, then, if we have any sense of who Jesus is and what he's done for us, then I will not be ashamed at all to say, Jesus is my Lord and Savior.

[36:19] I'm one of his followers. He saved me. Can I tell you about him? Well, it's the highest honor possible to a man to be joined to this Savior, to be connected with him, to belong to him, to be his because of who he is.

[36:37] He's the Lord of glory. He's the King of kings. He's the Savior of the world. He's the friend of sinners. He's the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

[36:50] He's the only mediator between God and man. He's the righteous one, the holy one. He's the rose of Sharon. He's the lily of the valley. He's the bright and morning star.

[37:04] He's the eternal son of God. He's the sinless one. There's none like him. And knowing who Jesus is and knowing what he's done and who we are, is it not a wonder that we should ever be ashamed of him?

[37:20] Ever be ashamed of him? Is not our shame something of a wonder to us? Do we not stand amazed that we should ever, we, be ashamed of him?

[37:37] Joseph Griggs felt the same. Jesus, and shall it ever be a mortal man ashamed of thee? Ashamed of thee whom angels praise, whose glories shine through endless days?

[37:55] Ashamed of Jesus? Sooner far, let evening blush to own a star. He sheds the beams of light divine on this benighted soul of mine.

[38:07] Ashamed of Jesus? Just as soon let midnight be ashamed of noon. Tis midnight with my soul till he bright morning star bid darkness flee.

[38:18] Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend on whom my hopes of heaven depend? No, when I blush, be this my shame that I no more revere his name.

[38:31] Ashamed of Jesus, yes I may, when I have no guilt to wash away, no tear to wipe, no good to crave, no fears to quell, no souls to save, till then nor is my boasting vain, till then I boast a savior slain.

[38:47] And oh may this my glory be, that Christ is not ashamed of me. Which is the greater wonder?

[39:00] That he was not ashamed of you, or that you could ever be ashamed of him. I don't know. He wasn't ashamed to identify with me in my sin, in my guilt.

[39:14] He wasn't ashamed to bear my sin to the place of holy judgment, to take my sin, to so identify with me that all my sin became his. And he took it right into the place of judgment, into that courtroom of God that came to Calvary that day.

[39:30] And there he took from his father all that my sins deserved, so united with me, so identified with me, that he wasn't ashamed to step in as my substitute when it meant suffering the infinite wrath of God that I would have suffered for all eternity in hell.

[39:51] Not ashamed to stand in as my substitute when it meant not even getting a fair trial. The shame of being falsely accused for things he never did. The shame of being beyond the protection of law and order, of being unjustly whipped and beaten, the shame of their spittle in his face, of being the butt of their jokes and mockery, the shame of being dressed up like a king.

[40:15] Oh, you're the king, are you? Well, a king needs a crown, and they put a crown of thorns, and they gave him a robe of purple, and they put a stick as a scepter in his hand, and they fell down and said, Hail, King of the Jews, and then they took the scepter and beat him on the head.

[40:32] Not ashamed of me when it meant that. And then he was numbered with the transgressors and with the wicked in his death. He didn't die alone.

[40:45] There were two others with him, and to every eye that day, it looked like three criminals, low down, scum, getting what they deserve. They stripped him naked and left him to die like the lowest of the low.

[41:01] The painful and shameful death of the cross, because he was not ashamed of me to bear my sin. To the place of judgment, Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning the shame.

[41:21] He treated that shame as nothing, nothing. I'll gladly bear this for them, in the hopes of bringing them to glory. How could we ever be ashamed of him who bore such shame for us?

[41:38] And even yet, he's not ashamed of us. Isn't that something? He's not ashamed of us in our weakness. He's not ashamed of us in our stumbling, in our falling, our pitiful failures.

[41:48] He's still not ashamed to call us brothers. Hebrews 2. 11. And so the high priest carried the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering.

[42:01] Oh, but the bodies of those animals, they're burned outside the camp. They're defiled things. Get them out, out of the city, out into some other place. God's And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

[42:19] Let us then go to him outside the gate, bearing the shame that he bore. Did he bear that shame for me?

[42:30] Then, brothers and sisters, let's go to him. He's not where everything's happening today in the world, in the power, the rich, the fame.

[42:42] He's not there. No, he's in his despised church. Let's go to him. Let's go to that quiet place where we find him and meet him and worship him. Let's go to him in our workplace then and stand up for him there, glad to bear the shame of Christ, rejoicing that we are counted worthy of suffering shame for his name.

[43:04] So then, if you suffer as a Christian, don't be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name, the name of Christ, not ashamed.

[43:21] And when I think of the time frame in which Jesus spoke these words the first time to his disciples that day, Mark 8, 38, if you're ashamed of me now in this adulterous and sinful judgment, think of the time that it was in the timeline of history, Jesus is about to go to the cross, the greatest place of shame.

[43:46] And it was then when he would be despised and rejected of men and hanging on the shameful cross that he said, if any of you are shamed of me, now I'll be ashamed of you then.

[44:03] How much more should we lose our shame because he's not on a shameful cross anymore, is he? He's risen from the dead, he's ascended into heaven to the highest place given a name above every name, he's ruling and reigning, he's coming again in power and great glory, how could we be ashamed of him now?

[44:23] Look at him now, crowned with glory. there is grace in God to cause us to not be ashamed of him.

[44:37] It will soon be that he will come again with his father's glory and with his angels and those on his father's left will envy those who are on his right as he honors them by claiming us in that day.

[44:57] Here am I, father, and the children you have given me. Yes, she's one of ours. Yes, she sinned, but she trusted in my blood and I covered her in my blood and gave her my righteousness.

[45:08] She's one of ours. Then will he own my worthless name before the father's face and in the new Jerusalem appoint my soul a place.

[45:22] What an honor he will place upon all who have clung to Jesus. Cling to him this morning. You say, oh, I see I've been ashamed of my Jesus.

[45:35] So do I. I see that in new eyes this morning. Do you know Jesus shed his blood for the sin of being ashamed of Jesus? Do you know the blood of Jesus?

[45:46] God's son cleanses from all sin, every sin, even the sin of being ashamed. Peter found it so. He went to the Lord. He confessed he renounced and he found mercy.

[46:00] Will you come with me to this Savior and confess your sin, being ashamed of Jesus and ask him to so show you who he is and what he's done for you that you will more and more lose your shame and only count the greatest shame and that you no more revere his name.

[46:25] Let's go and pray. You talk to him. I'll talk to him. And then I'll close once we've had a moment to pray. Oh Lord, open our eyes to how glorious you are.

[46:42] Show us your wonders. There's coming a day, your word says, when the moon will be abashed and the sun will be ashamed because you will reign in such glory.

[46:55] And it's faith's eye that sees you now, crowned with glory at your father's side. So give us to look by faith, to ever run the race looking to Jesus, looking more to him, that the bigger he becomes, the smaller men would become.

[47:16] We would lose our fear of men and the greater fear of him, him who bore the shame for us. We read in the scriptures that at your coming some will rise to shame and everlasting contempt.

[47:34] We can't imagine the shame of standing before you in judgment without a savior. And yet that's the way you stood, Lord Jesus, before your father, the judge, there on Calvary and bore our sins in your body to the tree.

[47:53] Thank you. Thank you for bearing my shame. And now help us to go from this place, so in love with our savior, who has washed us with his blood and cleansed us from even this wretched fear of man that makes us ashamed of you, that we would be glad to tell others of a strong savior for weak people, of a righteous savior with righteousness to give to sinful people.

[48:25]  Oh, we love you and help us to love you more. We ask in your own precious and holy name, amen. Amen.