The Relationship between Shame and Fear

It would be pretty dull and boring… Without emotions, we would all be like the fictitious Mr. Spock on the television series, Star Trek. Apparently because he was from the planet Vulcan, he was not endowed with any emotions.

Emotions are what make us Human …it is what brings life, fuel and energy into our world.

We express feelings (emotions) in a plethora of ways - through our words, our Songs, our music, our Poetry, our Art, through language, humor, through our facial expressions, through our moods, through our thoughts… on and on…

Emotions are what make us human… And we pretty much controlled by our feelings.

The human personality is said to consist of roughly four-fifths emotions and one-fifth intellect.

This means that our decisions are arrived at on the basis of 80 percent emotion and only 20 percent intellect.

To engage in a confrontation, or even a discussion, without taking emotions into account is to be only 20 percent effective in your dealings with people..

Aristotle talked about three things involved in art of persuasion… The first is (Logos) our Words, Second is our Credibility/ who we are (Ethos) and lastly.. (Pathos) which our emotion… These three things together are essential for human connection… if we don’t feel it — we are not going to act on it…

We need to understand God has created us with emotions, feelings, and affections, which are important for our lives and our relationship with God… the problem is that sin impacted our emotions… we suffer from negative emotions that are often subjected to our circumstances… Good news is that Christ can redeem and restore our emotions… Instead of being ruled by emotions they can be spirit controlled..

It is generally agreed that basic emotions are hardwired into the human nature.... There are different lists of emotions… there were initially 6 -anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

This was Developed by the psychologist Paul Ekman, this theory treats these feelings as unconnected islands — basically, building blocks that can be the foundation of more complex emotions. Anticipation, for example, could be broken down into fear and happiness.

then 8 now they have identified 27 basic emotions… There is even a list of 412 emotions that all correspond with human experience (Preaching today)…

Emotions are unique to the human experience regardless of who you are.. and basic emotions seem to be hardwired into our human make up.

For example in another study done by Ekman (1975) They Discovered that facial expressions like anger, fear, sadness, and happiness are similar across various cultures… Even Blind children, having never seen a face, show similar facial expressions when they experience certain primary emotions such as anger, sadness, and happiness....

What is the purpose of our emotions emotions?

a. Our emotions enable us to experience life as God intended us to experience it.

The Bible is full of Emotion.. Anger, love, passion, joy, sadness, remorse…That’s why we often turn to the psalms when we are looking for comfort… because it meets our emotional needs..

John Calvin referred to the book of Psalms as “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul.”

There is not an emotion that we can feel that doesn’t come to the surface in the book of Psalms. Everything that we feel we can find articulated in one psalm or another.

Emotions are the way that we experience life..

b. Secondly, emotions are the energy of the soul.

Just as physical energy is necessary for doing physical work or play, so emotional energy is necessary for the activities of the soul.

Have you ever got home after along day… and you got something to do.. you just don’t have the motivation --- or the emotional whereabouts… You said, “I just don’t have emotional energy to do that”

There is not enough fuel in the tank… Emotions Fuels the soul…

c. Thirdly, emotions function as signals, to act as an early warning system.

These signals enable our minds to “sense” that something is happening even before we have had time to think it through clearly-

For example the proper role of fear is to protect us from danger… get us moving --- gets us out of danger and harm.... but when you fear and you not in danger — It’s a panic attack… your hearts racing… but there is nothing to run from…

There is a purpose for emotions but the problem --- that often these base emotions are impacted by the master emotion of shame.... we often don’t detect it...

When our emotions get locked behind the “door of shame” and we fail to respond to those signals that God intended and we are not able to function fully in how God has created us to operate..

When we see life through a shame-grid causes you to receive words, external circumstances and events, and the way others treat you as an indictment—a judgment that you aren’t good enough as a person.

You interpret words and actions to mean more than what they really mean; in other words, you readily assume that people see you as a lesser person. Ultimately Shame impacts our behavior

When we live with a shamed-based set of behaviors, we are robbed of the freedom to discover who we really are and what God wants us to be. With unresolved shame in our lives, we are not free to become what God has called us to be.

So how does Shame impact Fear?

The emotion of fear is a strong emotion - purpose of Fear is really for our protection… its that flight and flee response....

FEAR is a Natural emotional response to a perceived threat to one’s security or general welfare. It can be a useful emotion when it leads to appropriate caution or measures that would guard one’s welfare.

However when Fear is influence by shame —

It leads to things like responsible hypertension, anxiety, panic and depression…

On the surface maybe we look like everything is fine --- but underneath we fear the consequences of something…

What if… If this happens then....

Fear is this sense that I have no control… so Fear makes us want to hide and to avoid conflict…

T/s How do we disarm the effects of shame and fear ?

1. Recognize patterns and Identify Root causes.

We going to look at Gideon… and see how shame impacted his life…

Gideon lived during the period of the Judges…

During the time of the Judges there was a huge vacuum of godly leadership. There was no Spiritual leadership or prophetic words and the result is that Israel drifted away from God. They started doing what felt natural and that was be led by their emotions…

Summarizes this period well…

Judges 17:6 ESV

6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The result of being led by their emotions, led to this unhealthy pattern… And it comes up over and over in the book of Judges..

a. When their was peace in the Land…People let down their guard and they became complacent. When everything was going well they did find a need for God..

b. But after some time they would drift away from relationship with God…they would focus on “more important things” and focus on other priorities… They didn’t just forget God but began to chase after foreign gods...

c. After some time God would lift his hand from Israel and without His protection, the were left wide open for foreign nations to invade the land.

d. At this point the people would realize what had happened… How far they were from God… The would begin to call out to God for help...

e. God in His grace and Mercy would raise ups a Judge or deliver to save Israel...

So this is the same "wash" cycle that was repeated again and again…

What is interesting is that we see a whole nation being led by their emotions… What feels good...

This is what is going on in Judges 6..

Judges 6:1–6 ESV

1 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. 6 And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.

Israel is back in the wash cycle.. this unhealthy pattern of being led by their feelings and they not focused and chasing after the wrong things...

They had enjoyed a period of peace of about 40 years under the leadership of Deborah and Barak.

This was a younger generations that had now forgotten the lessons of the previous generation ---

the majority now were under 60 years and had forgotten about no memory of oppression.. The became comfortable and drifted from God…

Before they knew it they found themselves at the Mercy of the Midianites…

Every year around harvest time the Midianites and Amalekites show up in large number… like a swarm of locusts and steal everything that Israel had worked for....

Notice that Israel had not neglected their work life.... they had a good work ethic… They had put in the hours --- they had done the hard work…

The had done everything need to get a harvest… They had however neglected their spiritual life…and for seven years they had been locked into this unhealthy pattern.

If we find ourselves working hard…

and getting exhausted we need to look at the pattern — after seven years… you can see a pattern… then you need question of neglect…

We don’t have to go looking to find out what is going with Israel— because verse One tells us exactly.. what is happening...

1 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.

While Israel doing what is right in their own eyes… (being led by their emotions) they are neglecting doing what is right in the sight of God....

Israel thought the problem was the Midianites, but the real problem was Israel. How often do we look at what has happened to us…and we neglect to see what is happening right in front of us… It would be easy to blame the Midianites and the Amalikites… They back again… nothing we can do because there so many of them… I guess we just going to have live with it...

It is amazing what we are blinded too when we are looking a the wrong things..Israel had failed to see what going on in their own back yard…

The whole land has gone over to Baal worship, the ancient Canaanite god. The whole land is overrun with his image.

As they brought Idols into their homes and lives they began to squeeze God out and their are consequences for Idol worshiop.

God gives Israel into the hands of the Midianites and He removes his hand of protection and blessing.

Israel find themselves in a Cycle of Despair… They are locked into a situation where they not quite sure how they got there… They keep on working and getting no result. everytime they thought that things were going to get better… the The Midianites would come in and ravish the land..The message say they marched in and devastated the country.

You don’t only have to recognize the pattern you have to get down to the root issue..

Israel found themselves Hiding..

A Couple weeks ago we talked about the Garden of Eden… When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil they recognized they were naked… they went from being unashamed before God and each other to Hiding themselves…

As soon as sin entered the scene they immediately became aware of there nakedness… moved from feeling or worth to feelings of unworthiness. (from being naked and unashamed to simply being naked) Instead of enjoying each other and the presence of God… They found themselves wanting to hide...- they Hid from God because they feared what the consequence would be when they were found out… Fear is the visible Emotion… but the underlying emotion is Shame.

The problem with shame is that is that it brings that feeling of disgrace… where God is a God full of grace.

Shame is the fear of being unworthy, and it adversely affects our relationship with God, others, and ourselves. It greatly hinders our ability to receive God’s unconditional love—and share it with others

Brene’ Brown defines shame as the sense that

“There’s something fundamentally wrong with me, that I’m unworthy of love.” --- Guilt says I did something bad shame tell s us that we are bad.

We are told that Israel… that Israel was brought low... They were brought down to grinding STOP-- lowest place...

The first step in disarming the effects of shame and fear...

Recognize the patterns… go back seven years and is there something that is reoccurring??

Go to the root cause — what is behind that emotion… Why am I feeling sad, disappointed, neglected…

More often than not you will find that it some form of Shame..

How do we disarm the effects of shame and fear ?

1. Recognize patterns and Identify Root causes.

2. Be Attentive to what God is Calling us to become.

It interesting that our culture tells us to “follow your passion," "pursue your dreams," or "do what you love and love what you do." These sayings represent a path to what we might think are vocational clarity, personal fulfillment, and human flourishing…Right.. A study was actually done that found the opposite to be true..

that "following your passion" is likely to lead to overly limited pursuits, inflated expectations (career, economic, or otherwise), and early or eventual burnout.

We don’t hear of this world calling to often…Calling dosn’t look inwards.. It looks outward..

As David Brooks once wrote: "Most successful young people don't look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a [need or God's call], which summons their life."

We learn from Gideon that we need to be attentive to this thing called calling..

Judges 6:11–16 ESV

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

This is the Calling of Gideon… God is calling Gideon to be a strong leader — to be the deliverer of Israel..

The angel of the Lord came to Gideon who was busy working in the wine press…

We are told that the angel observes Gideon..- he sat under the terebinth tree at Ophrah...watching Gideon beating stalks of wheat... (winnowing the wheat in a wine press) —

There is something wrong with this picture..

This process was normally done in the open … where you could beat the stalks and throw them into the air so the heavier grain would fall to the floor and the chaff would just blow away…

Gideon is doing this task in the most difficult way possible… Because He is Hiding… He is hiding from the Midianites and the Amalikites...

The reason his is hiding is because He is in survival mode…

His focus has been his preservation.

If he can just take care of the little bit he’s got, hide it and not let anybody get it. He will live another day..

Here is the rub… .. Living in fear and hiding isn’t going to solve the problem. It may feed him for a day; it may feed him for a week. But eventually He is going to be found out… Eventually the thing that he fears is going to happen...

Notice the contrast..

The angel of the lord is Angel resting while Gideon is wound up in worry and frustration. Gideon is overwhelmed, God is in control.

Gideon is cowering; God is relaxing. Gideon is working feverishly in the shadows; God is sitting under the shade of an oak tree.

After some time the Angel appears to Gideon and greets Him… He confronts Gideon with his calling..

"The Lord is with you, Oh mighty man of valor>".

The "Mighty one," literally means "You HERO OF ISRAEL.”

There is a huge chasm between what Gideon sees and what God sees. One of the reason is God is looking at things from the perspective of the end of the story....God knows what is going to do in and through Gideon…

Our calling will confront our insecurities… When Moses is called to lead Israel… Exodus 4... His first excuse is I’m not eloquent enough—nobody will listen... When Jeremiah is called His excuse he is that he is only a youth.. When God called Jonah to got to Nineveh — He got on a boat in went in the opposite direction…

Our calling will away bring to the surface underlying insecurities -

When God calls Gideon… He makes excuses “I am poor, insignificant and way too young.”

You know the saying I am going to lay a fleece before God… well that comes from the story of Gideon.. Gideon says to the Lord is you want to use me to deliver Israel… I need proof… and so He takes a literal fleece of wool and laid it on the threshing floor and he says if by tomorrow… there is no dew on the ground and the fleece is full of water I’ll know that its you calling me.. and next morning there was so much water he wrung it out and it filled a whole bowl… Gideon still not sure… just checking — this not coincidence… so lets reverse it… dew on the ground and the fleece need to be dry.. What is amazing is that God listened to Gideon.

Your calling is going to bring out your insecurities… The opposite of Fear is Faith… and it takes faith to step out into calling...

Lets look at His Emotions… (his insecurity)

a. He Feels disconnected.

The angel says God is with you!

Gideon response.. If God is with me... he sure hasn’t being showing it...

Gideon asks…vers 13 And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt

If God is so Good…where are the wonderful deeds that forefathers told us about..where are the miracles..

Why did Gideon bring this ups...

What Gideon is referring to is an unnamed prophet that God recently sent to remind Israel of the miracle of the deliverance out of Egypt…

This did not bring comfort but brought our pain in Gideon...

What Gideon saw was not a poweful omnipotent but rather an impotent God… In his pain Gideon had failed to hear the prophet say that the reason for there current situation is that they had stopped obeying God’s voice.

Fear and Shame will make us listen to our insecurities about the Goodness of God…

Fear says God doesn’t have my back… Faith says nothing is to difficult for God.

Fear and Shame has everything to do with whose voice we are listening too... The Enemy wants us to play the message that God is not to be trusted...

b. Gideon feels Inadequate

- Gideon says how can I save Israel?

Gideon not only has a distorted perception of God … but He does’t see any potential in himself. The reason is that he is looking through

He is looking through a Shame grid… He is seeing all his inadequacies.. I am really not good enough...

.. “my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

--- I have no rank or social influence… Whose going to listen to me…Who is going to be interested in my opinions..

When we feel inadequate we really need to test the source of that thinking… Where does though come from? When did I start believing this about myself? When did I start depending on myself anyway?

The enemy (the accuser of the brethren) wants to keep you on the winepress ---winnowing wheat… He wants to make you work as hard as you can… so that you are so discouraged… beaten down that you have no emotional energy left...

David Platt asks the question

What if God … what if God actually chooses to call us to things in our lives, not because of our qualifications and our abilities, but in order to lead us to a place where we are radically dependent on His presence? This is what we see all throughout Scripture, isn’t it? All these heroes of the faith in the Old Testament? Joshua 1:5, “Joshua, I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

c. Gideon Feels Forsaken.

These are feelings Abandonment - feelings of being left all on our own… and because we are alone we better learn to survive.... Survival of the fittest… it’s sink or swim... No help…

Gideon says why should I trust that God will help me --- because in my mind, “God has nothing to do with us…” This is the message that Gideon has been playing in his head… I wonder if that is what the angel was observing… Gideon wallowing in his negative thoughts…The opposite is true of God…God is always longing to meet with us… He came down to visit with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day.... God says call upon me and I will answer you...

.... God is always ready to meet with us...

In fact God meets Gideon face to face…

14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

now there are number of people who saw the face of God Jacob claimed to see the face of God, Moses…

… the term face to face was common expression in middle eastern culture… It spoke of an intense meeting between to people… it was normally really close 6-8 inches apart.... Meeting face to face was a conversation that took place in your personal space… When someone spoke to you face to faith you feel the breath of the other person.. When God speaks to us Face to face… you know it…

When you speak to God face to face it’s an awesome thing…

God spoke directly to Gideon.... turned toward Gideon... He looked Gideon in the Eye and says - You are called... I have chosen you with all your weakness, fears and insecurities..

You are going to travel in strength and you will save Israel... These are powerful affirming words... You are able... you are capable.. why? because I am calling you to this…

T/S How do we disarm the effects of shame and fear ?

1. Recognize patterns and Identify Root causes.

2. Be Attentive to what God is Calling us to become.

3. Ask the question -- What does God’s Word say about my Fears?

The way that we deal with Shame and fear is to go back to the Word of God…

We need to reframe the questions that we are asking… If we ask what does that person think of me? Or what do I feel about me? It’s going to be tainted — because we seeing through the lenses of a fallen nature that has been impacted by Sin, Guilt and Shame…

But if we ask What Does God’s word say about me…It is going change our outlook… What does God say to Gideon..

Judges 6:16 ESV

16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

God says to Gideon,” I will be with you." You are not going to face this thing alone.. we are going together we will be as one man and strike the Midianites.. together in partnership...

What does God say about me and my situation? God says I’m with you…

As Gideon begins to deal with areas of neglect — He rebuilds the altars and makes an offering… He goes at night with his servants and he tears down the idols.... When he does so God power comes upon Him for the task…

Judges 6:34–35 ESV

34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. 35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.

God Spirit empowers Gideon and annoints him with the ability to call the nation who are in Fear to the battle field… God calls Gideon to gather the nation of Israel to fight against the Amalekites 135 000 strong… a powerful nations that was numbered as the sand of the seas… Not only does He bring them to the fight but then he reduces them from 32 000 to 10 000 then to 300 men.. The Midian soldier would outnumber Israel 450 -1.

Why would God do this... because

God says, “I’m going to show I am the real Savior, and therefore, I’m going to deliver through the weak. I’m going to deliver through the unexpected. I’m going to deliver through the few. I’m going to deliver through the One.” That’s the message. God is your salvation. Not your might. Not your strength. That came out in the story of Hannah.

What does the scripture say about our Fear?

The phrase FEAR NOT comes up some eight times in the scriptures....

2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

God has not given us spirit of fear but a spirit of sonship.

Romans 8:15–16 ESV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

Shame will deceive us to thinking that we need to live in Winepresses… that we have to stay in hiding. Whereas faith will tell us that we need to live out our calling.

Fear whispers in our ear, “This is as good as it gets; you have earned this; get comfortable . . . Faith says you need step out of the boat…

Jesus has other plans! He is the great shame lifter. He invites us to pack our bags and move to climb out of the hole… Because he has called us and he has filled us.. Over and over in the scripture the term fear not comes up…

What we have to do is deal with the idol of Shame… Shame is an idol because we have given Shame power over our lives…

Conclusion

Breaking free from the shackles of shame is not an overnight experience or a quick-fix, ten-step process. It’s going to be ongoing.. allowing the HS to transform us, re-create us, and continually renew us). We got to change the messages we tell ourslves

The enemy sends a spirit of fear to try to deactivate our faith and to try to paralyze and cripple us.

But it comes down to choosing to obey God’s voices over others.

Columbia researcher Sheena Iyengar has found that the average person makes about 70 decisions every day. That's 25,500 decisions a year. Over 70 years, that's 1,788,500 decisions. [The 20th century philosopher] Albert Camus said, "Life is a sum of all your choices." You put all of those 1,788,500 choices together, and that's who you are..

We can make the right choices.. let me give you a few examples..

• I choose to saturate my heart and mind in the truth of God’s Word and not fixate on my struggle.

• I choose to look beyond the problem I face and focus on the victory that Jesus has already won.

• I choose to walk by faith and not by what my eyes can see.

• I choose to combat fear with faith in Jesus.

• I choose to surround myself with active prayer warriors rather than face this struggle alone.

• I choose to stay in Christian community and attend worship services regularly rather than be isolated and alone.

• I choose to guard my mouth and not speak words that are fear-filled, doubt-driven, negative, or faithless.

Free to Be Me: Turning Shame Into Freedom Chapter 15: God’s Purpose for Emotions

Holy Spirit, help us now as we listen to You. I ask you, Father, to guard us against the enemy’s accusations. When we dare to open the door of shame, keep us from anything that will be harmful to us. Lord Jesus, enable us as we pray to sense your comfort, security, courage, and presence as we open our hearts. Helps us to deal honestly with those things in our hearts you want healed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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