Christian Shamelessness
This week in worship, Greg Scalise will be sharing from 2 Timothy about the call for Christians not to be ashamed.
“Christian Shamelessness” is the quality that allows Christians to do what is right, even when the world thinks we’re wrong.
In Paul’s letter, he encourages Timothy not to be ashamed of Paul, the Lord, or his testimony. Greg will be sharing in worship, what that means for us today.
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Christian Shamelessness
When I taught high school and went around at the beginning of class to collect the homework and happened to come to a student who for one reason or another had not brought their completed homework with them to class that morning, my students tended to give me one of two responses. I’d say “Homework?” and some would say “I’m so sorry Mr. Scalise, I did my homework last night, it took like an hour and I thought I put it in my bag, but then I took out my binder for my other class and I think I must have pulled out the homework with my binder, because it’s not here anymore and I’m so sorry and I promise I’ll find it as soon as I get home and email you a picture of it if that’s ok?”
But to others, I’d say “homework?” and they would say “no.” Some students were ashamed and some were shameless. We all have a need to be liked. We all need to be valued and appreciated by other people. And some of my students really wanted me as their teacher to like them, and they were ashamed to have let me down. But some of my students didn’t care if I liked them, and they were shameless in letting me down, because their need to be liked was met by someone other than their teacher.
Our scripture this morning is about God’s call for us to be shameless towards the world. Paul is writing to Timothy and commanding him not to be ashamed, to be shameless in following Christ. Like every one of us, Timothy has a need to be liked by others, but Paul encourages Timothy to find his validation not in the approval of other people, but in the approval of God. Listen to 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 8 through 18.
Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
You are aware that all who are in Asia have turned away from me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain; when he arrived in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me—may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! And you know very well how much service he rendered in Ephesus.
A lot of people didn’t like Paul. A lot of people abandoned Paul, persecuted Paul, put Paul on trial, put Paul in jail, wanted Paul dead. And Paul did a lot of things that made those other people not like him. Paul criticized the powerful, Paul told hard truths, Paul went against the norms of his society and called their religion false. From the world’s perspective, Paul had a lot to be ashamed of.
But Paul was not ashamed because he found his worth and his moral code, not in other people, but in God. And as Timothy faced persecution from the government and division in his church, Paul called on Timothy to do as he had done: to shamelessly follow Christ. And just as Jesus was unashamed to disobey men as long as he obeyed his Father in heaven, in the same way we are called to shamelessly follow Christ.
And as we look at this passage this morning, we’ll look at it in three parts: Paul’s shamelessness, Jesus’ shamelessness, and our call to Christian shamelessness today. Paul, Jesus, and us.
Let’s start with Paul. It can be hard for us, who hear about St. Paul and the apostle Paul, who read his writings 2,000 years later to really imagine what Paul
was like in the flesh in his own time and place. Why would Paul feel ashamed?
First Paul was in prison, on death row. Paul was so disliked and hated by society at large that wherever he went and preached, riots broke out, cities turned into anarchy, people ended up in jail, and usually one of those people was Paul. When the vast majority of people dislike you, when the political and religious leaders dislike you, when your former coworkers and friends dislike you, that is a reason to be ashamed.
This of course raises the question: why did everybody hate Paul? Paul told the truth. Paul told people that there was one God who had made the heavens and the earth, that God loved them, that God had sent his son Jesus to save all who believed. But Paul told this message to people who didn’t want to hear it.
Paul told it to the same people who had rejected Jesus when was alive. Paul told it to Jews who refused to believe that God had expanded his love even to the gentiles. Paul told it to pagans who insisted there were many gods. Paul told it to Romans who were charged with maintaining order and preventing the dangerous religious riots Paul caused wherever he went.
Paul was operating under a different worldview than the people around him. Let me make an analogy. Kids love to play pretend, to imagine things. I was visiting my cousin and his kids this spring, and while I was there one of the kids said something thousands of kids have said before: “the floor is lava!” And she stood on top of a pillow on the floor, which was very dangerous, very hot lava, and she pulled down blankets and couch cushions and made her way safely around the living room, never allowing herself to touch the floor because the floor is lava.
Now if an adult had walked into the room and across the lava, you can guess what the five year old girl’s reaction would have been. And that reaction would have been ten times worse if the adult had then said “the floor is not lava; the floor is a floor; you’re making things up.”
And how much worse than that, was the reaction to Paul, who said not to a child, but to everyone, to the whole world “you’re making things up. That giant statue of Zeus your worship? It’s just a rock. That Emperor in Rome you burn incense to and praise as an immortal? He’s just a human being. That heretical king of the Jews you crucified? That was the Son of God.”
Paul told the truth, truth that most people didn’t want to hear. Paul was hated and disliked for the truth. And not just for any truth, but a specific truth brought all this on Paul. Listen to what he says in verse 12: “For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do.”
It was proclaiming the truth of the gospel that brought all this on Paul. Paul was abandoned by Phygelus and Hermogenes for it. Paul was in prison for it. Paul was going to die for the truth of the gospel. But Paul was not ashamed of the truth of the gospel. Why? Verse 12: “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.”
Although Paul was hated by the world and even facing death, Paul didn’t care. Now we all need to be liked, we all need to have someone on our side, someone looking out for us, we all need a friend. And yet when Paul’s co-workers turned away from him, and when the Jews took him to court, and when the Romans put him in jail, Paul didn’t care. Paul didn’t need their approval or their help. Paul was as shameless as my students who didn’t do their homework and told me to my face: “no.”
Because Paul trusted in Jesus, he had no need to earn the trust of this world. And when the world shamed him, he was shameless. Paul says “I know the one in whom I have put my trust;” he trusted not in the religious leaders, not in the government, not even in his own friends, but in Jesus. Paul says “I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” And Paul entrusted everything to Jesus: his reputation, his life, his soul. Even though the world slanders his reputation, threatens to take away his life, condemns his soul to prison, Paul knows that Jesus will guard those things until that great and final day, the last day when in heaven Paul will see his soul healed, and his life restored, and his reputation crowned with an imperishable crown of glory.
Paul shamelessly followed Jesus. And when Paul did that, he followed the example set for him by Jesus.
Jesus was shameless. Jesus did not care about following the expectations and desires and rules of the people around him because Jesus knew they were wrong. Just like an adult listening to a child insist that the floor is lava, Jesus listened to the Pharisees insist that he not heal on the sabbath, don’t do this, don’t do that, and he knew they were just making stuff up.
And just as Paul found validation and comfort and hope in the knowledge that Jesus loved him and would take care of him, Jesus had comfort and hope in the knowledge that his Father in heaven loved him and would take care of him no matter what the world did to him.
But more than that, Jesus’ shamelessness extended to other people. You see, not only do we feel ashamed when we do things others dislike and disapprove of, we feel ashamed when people connected to us do things others dislike and disapprove of. It’s like when someone next to you smokes a cigarette: you can’t help but get some of the smell of it on you and some of the fumes in your lungs. When someone near us does something shameful, we feel second-hand shame.
Paul caused a lot of second-hand shame; Paul mentioned how Phygelus and Hermogenes and all of Asia had turned away from him after all those shameful things like prison had happened to him. And Paul contrasts their second-hand shame with Onesiphorus’ shamelessness; Paul says Onesiphorus “was not ashamed of my chain; when he arrived in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me.” Not many people stayed with Paul, through thick and thin.
And second-hand shame is as real now as it was two-thousand years ago. We all feel second-hand shame when someone close to us does something shameful. We all know how quick other people can be to cut off and shun someone who says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing or associates with the wrong people.
Because we all have a need to be liked by other people, we generally do not associate with the sort of people other people don’t like. Whatever our group is, we don’t want to be seen with the people our group doesn’t like. If you’re a teenager, you don’t want to be seen with your parents. If you’re a republican politician, you don’t want to be seen with democrats, and vice versa.
And this goes beyond a mere superficial fear of people who look different from us. We all have real reasons to keep away from people who might bring shame and suspicion onto us.
Honest businessmen don’t hang out with con artists. Faithful men don’t hang out with prostitutes. Law-abiding citizens don’t hang out with murderers. We avoid second-hand shame for a good reason. There are consequences for connecting with certain people.
And yet, Jesus Christ was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Now it’s easy to water that down into: Jesus hung out with the kids nobody else wanted to play with, Jesus sat with the new kid at lunch, Jesus befriended the kid everyone else bullied. And of course Jesus would do those things, but when we say Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners we mean something much more serious. Tax-collectors were violent mobsters profiting off Roman oppression. Sinners meant prostitutes. Sinners meant thieves. Sinners meant political radicals trying to overthrow the government. Jesus befriended legitimately bad people.
What would you think, if you saw my dad, Pastor Doug, having coffee down at the Snowy Owl on Main Street, with someone trying to overthrow the government, with a thief, with a scam artist, with a gangster, with an abusive husband, with whatever bad person you could think of, with a sinner? A pastor could lose his job for being friends with Jesus’ friends. There is a second-hand shame that comes from just being near a bad person.
But Jesus is shameless. He is not afraid of the second-hand shame that comes from tax collectors and from sinners and from us. Jesus is God and because he is God he looks beyond our sins and our shame to something else. Listen to what Paul says about God starting in verse 9: “God who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
God didn’t save us because of our works. He didn’t save us because he was proud to be connected with us, because he thought we would fit in with all the holy, perfect angels and him up in heaven. God saved us because of his own purpose and grace. Even though we are shameful sinners, even though we are all broken down and jaded from life, even though we are all selfish, even though we did nothing to deserve it, God saved us. He saved us by grace, he gave us something we didn’t deserve. And God saved us according to his own purpose; he saved us because it was his purpose, his goal, his character to be merciful; he did it not because we deserved it, but to demonstrate the depth of his love for us.
Every human being is made in the image of God and God looks beyond our shame and our sin, to that image and knows that we are his and longs to heal us and to save us. And this was God’s purpose from the start; Paul says “This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”
And this grace is available to all who want it. This is the truth of the gospel which Paul suffered for: Paul wrote in Romans: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul wrote “the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.””
Most cultures, most religions, teach that God’s presence is for good people, that God rewards good people for how good they are, and that God would never sully himself with the second-hand shame of being connected with bad people.
But Paul proclaimed the gospel of a shameless God; God cannot be made any less holy or any less good by our actions. No matter what you have done that makes you feel so ashamed that it would be impossible for you to come close to God, Jesus offers his presence to all who believe and his offer does not depend on us being good enough to receive it. God’s presence, God’s love is a gift.
And yet there is some truth to the idea that God’s presence is for good people. It is true that God will not endure the second-hand shame of human sin in his presence. However rather than exclude us from his presence, God took that shame onto himself in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was crucified, he received the most shameful punishment possible in his society. The cross was reserved for the lowest criminals, for rebellious slaves and enemies of the state. The cross was so horrible it was not legal for Roman citizens to be crucified. The great Roman statesman Cicero said “the very mention of the cross should be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears.” The cross was an unspeakable shame. And Jesus bore that shame, the shame we deserved for our sins on the cross so that if we believed in him we might be saved according to God’s eternal plan.
And that belief, that Jesus bore our shame on the cross and rose again and is God, that is the gospel and that is what makes us Christians. If you’re not sure if you’re a Christian or not, that is the belief it hinges on. And if we are Christian the fact that Jesus bore our shame on the cross means that death has been abolished; it means that we will recieve immortality; and it has consequences for how we live today.
As Christians, we need shamelessness now more than ever in America. There was a time in America when everybody went to church or at least said they went to a church, a time when the world respected the Chruch. But now, in the words of the writer Aaron Renn, America has changed from a positive world, where people looked up to Christianity, to a negative world, where people look down on Christianity and what it teaches.
We see this change in small things. We see it in the increasingly crass language accepted in our culture; Marci and I went to a county fair near her hometown in Pennsylvania last week and some of the t-shirts and the hats people wore, I couldn’t tell you what they said from the pulpit. We see it in the loss of the sabbath, people having to work on Sunday morning, kids having to do sports on Sunday morning.
And we see this change in big things. We see it in declining church attendance. We see it in politics where we no longer debate how to best govern the nation, but truth and falsehood, right and wrong, anything and everything are up for debate; Christianity no longer provides a common ground from which we can discuss how to best promote the common good.
There was a time in America, when doing the normal, respectable things would lead you to become a church-going Christian, but that time is over. Like Paul we begin to sense that the world has “turned away from us.” That the world has become ashamed “of the testimony about our Lord.”
But God calls us to shamelessly follow Christ. We follow the example set for us by Jesus rather than the example set by the world around us. Without shamelessness we will fall into all the same sins and mistakes and stupidity of the world around us. And as our world grows crazier by the day, Christianity offers us another way to live, it offers us abundant life in Jesus Christ.
God calls us to shamelessly follow Christ. Just as Jesus and just as Paul obeyed and trusted and found their value in God rather than men, so should we. Think about the student I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon and his attitude, the boldness, the carelessness, the shamelessness of someone who when asked for something simply says “no.”
That is the response of the Christian to the demands of this world. Aren’t you going to make as much money as you can? No. Aren’t you going to be as famous as you can? No. Aren’t you going to be totally loyal to our political party? No. Aren’t you going to agree with the rest of us about everything? No.
Christians shamelessly follow Christ. If what we do goes with the world, that’s fine, but if what we do goes against the world, we don’t care. If the world thinks it’s wonderful when Christians feed the hungry or care for the poor, that’s fine, but we do it because we follow Christ. If the world thinks it’s awful when Christians tell the truth about right and wrong, when Christians insist Jesus is God and no one else, we don’t care. Christians are shameless and operate under a different moral code than the rest of the world.
And a lot of Christians today are like some of my old students who would tell me every excuse when they didn’t do the homework “the dog ate it, there was a fire, a shark attack,” a lot of us Christians we get embarrassed and ashamed when we live differently than other people. But God says do not be ashamed. When the world asks us to follow them instead of Christ, the answer is not excuses, not an apology, the answer is a simple, steadfast, shameless “no.”
And that is not an easy thing to do. When I was in elementary school there was a poster on the gym wall which said “Character is what you do when no one is watching.” And there is some truth to that, and it can be hard to be a good person when no one is watching, when we could get away with doing wrong. However the harder and greater test of character is what we do when everyone is watching and when everyone wants us to do wrong. What would we do if all the world was watching us and asking us to do wrong? What would we do if we were in Jesus’ position? Or in Paul’s? Or in Timothy’s? It’s not easy.
But God has given us what we need to become shameless followers of Jesus. Listen to what Paul says: “I am not ashamed, for” hear that word, for, this is what makes him shameless “for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” He knows. He is sure. Certainty makes us shameless.
And that’s what Paul tells Timothy “Hold to the standard of sound teaching” and “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you,” Paul says hold on to the truth of the gospel, guard the truth of the gospel, because if we believe the gospel we will be shameless. If we believe that God loves us so much he sent his son to die for us, we will not live to please anyone but him. If we know that God loves us, we will follow his example rather than the world’s. God loves you. Know that. Hold that. Guard that.
And we do all this Paul says “with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.” God does not demand we shamelessly follow Christ and wait to see if we’re up to the task. God comes alongside us, his Holy Spirit dwells within us empowering us to obey his commands, enabling us to shamelessly follow Christ, who loves us despite our shame, who bore our shame on the cross, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Let’s pray.