Never be ashamed

When we trust in the Lord, shame is removed from our lives. Trusting in God allows us to overcome difficult situations and emerge as victors. Even when faced with hardships and challenges, God handles them and replaces shame with grace and joy. Trusting in God is a personal conviction that grows as we prove His faithfulness. No matter what we face, when we trust in the Lord, we will never be put to shame. Today, I want us to continue on the subject of what happens when we trust in the Lord. Let's take our attention to Psalm 31, verse 1. The Bible declares, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Another thing which happens when we trust God, when we put our trust in God, is that the element of shame is removed. The element of shame is removed. In the mind of the psalmist, it's as if he found himself in a situation that was embarrassing, unbearable, degrading, belittling. However, he discovered that in his confidence, in his reliance upon God, that he could request that shame not be his portion. It's very easy for one to go through life and to be overtaken, overwhelmed by the shame factor. Poor decision, poor judgment, poor choices, and even things that we have no control over can cause us to enter into that shame zone where we become controlled by the emotion of feeling inadequate, of feeling totally guilty, of feeling hopeless and helpless. The psalmist reminds us that because of our trust, because of our confidence, because of our reliance, because of our faith in the Lord, shame goes out the window. Listen to this, friend. I want to show you this. In many situations, there are many things in life that can quickly mount up against you. It may be a family matter. It may be something having to do with a job. It may be some relational situation. It could be a health crisis, a financial mishap. It could be anything. It could be the loss of someone that you had loved so dearly. It could be the loss of your property, and it could be the loss of your job or your livelihood. And these things have a way of playing or presenting themselves against humans, against us in such a way that we hide from people. The blanket of embarrassment can be so thick that we hope that no one discovers, no one hears or no one sees us. On the flip side, when we trust in the Lord, He allows us to mount up with wings as eagles. When we trust in the Lord, He allows us to go through whatever that we are going through, and we are able to lift up our heads. We're able to come out of difficult situations. We're able to emerge as victors, not as victims. For a moment, you may be victimized. For a moment, you may feel like a total loser. But when we put our trust in God, even the most adverse, even the most difficult, even the most scary situations are turned around. They're turned around. It reminds me of Joseph in the book of Genesis, when Joseph was thrown in a pit, sold into Egypt and then into prison. It must have been his trust in the Lord that kept him sane. It must have been his trust in the Lord that kept his mind stayed on the Father. It's not anything else. It's not anything else because, let's face it, whenever we go through a collection of hardship, a collection of difficult times, a collection of disappointment, when one thing happens after the other, when one door closes after the other, it brings us to a place where we don't even know if it makes any sense at all to continue, to continue to be, to continue to aspire, to continue to believe, to continue to hope, or even to continue to thrive. But from our text today, what we glean, what we learn is that when we trust in the Lord, He handles the difficulties, He handles the things that we cannot handle. He takes our burdens, He takes our pain, He takes our shame, He takes all of these things upon Himself, and He exchanges these bad things, He exchanges this difficult situation for moments of grace, moments of joy, moments of exuberance. The weight is lifted, the dark clouds vanish, shame disappears. Perhaps that's where you find yourself today. You find yourself that perhaps you're overwhelmed by everything negative which races to slow you down, which races to stop you, everything which is coming against you, which has come against you, to bring you to a place where your head remains bowed down. I have good news for you, and the news is this, that when you trust in the Lord, He removes the shame. When we trust in the Lord, the embarrassment has to vanish. He did it for Joseph, after several years of being thrown around, and perhaps even being ridiculed, and perhaps he was the talk of the tongue in the mouth of some people. God would eventually lift Joseph up out of that dunghill. God specializes in lifting us up from those low places. When you trust in the Lord, when I trust in the Lord, the things that were intended to keep us locked away, to keep us in total shambles, the things that came upon us, or the things that we allow ourselves to fall into, God handles them Himself. Notice we don't put our confidence in man to eradicate or to erase or to remove the shame, but we put our confidence in the Father. That's what the Psalm is, and that's what it encourages us to do, that as we trust in the Lord, the shame will vanish, the embarrassment will be lifted. The chatter may not cease, but God will be glorified. I want us to understand that there is no one, absolutely no one, who trusts, relies or puts his or her confidence in God, will ever be left in a situation that makes that person feel totally hopeless. For a moment it may be brief, for a moment you may feel abandoned, for a moment it may seem as if God has forgotten. But even David had to say this, I was brought low, but you helped me. So that is one of the things that we must pay attention, which happens when we trust God. When we trust in God, and I want us to pay attention to that, we don't trust in God when we stumble into hardship or difficulty. The trust that we have in God is something that is formed or something that is forged in the difficulties of our lives. God's times will teach us how to trust God. It's not a mind thing, it's not a hope so, as you heard me said, but it is a heart thing. It is a conviction, knowing that if I rely on the Father to fix my situation, to fix the situation of my family, to fix the situation of the church, to handle what is stronger than me, God will do it. Because the reason why we can trust in God is because God is trustworthy. And I don't use this expression lightly. As a matter of fact, the scripture is loaded, the scripture is filled with examples of people who trusted in the Lord. In the book of Judges, we see how Gideon was called to do a great work, 6 and 7. And Gideon was ashamed of his own group of people, he was ashamed of his own tribe. But he learned, he learned in depression against Israel, he learned through the journey with God that he can trust God to raise him up as a great deliverer. When God takes away shame because we trust Him, He does not leave it or leave us empty. There is always a replacement for shame. So in the case of Gideon, although he thought he was from the list of his brethren, and his tribe was the list among Israel, God's way of eradicating, of removing the shame from Gideon was to allow Gideon to go against the enemies of Israel and see God took on victory for Israel in an unprecedented way. That's the same thing that the Father is doing for you when you trust Him. That's what the Father will do for me as I continue to trust Him. Let's face it, sometimes it's not easy to explain what it really means to trust God. We did that the other day. But to trust God is really to resign, to resign your own actions and your own doing, your own involvement into what you're facing and to come to a place where you know and where I know that God is in total control. When God said it, God is going to bring it to pass. When God promises He will make it good, the trust therefore that we have in God, it's not one that is conditioned on the ideas of man. It's not one that is conditioned on how people think about you. The trust that we talk about towards God, trust in God, it's not one that people can turn on or turn off. As a matter of fact, the trust in the Lord is something that is personal, and I want to highlight this point especially because I cannot trust in the Lord for you. I encourage you as I'm doing through this teaching to trust Him. And I know you may come back and say, man of God, I have trusted Him, but nothing has changed. And I would beg to differ, because when we trust God, He takes on our battles. He takes on the issue. He takes on whatever has to be handled, and He handles them in His own way, in His own time. For Gideon, God took on the oppression of the enemies of Israel, and God performed wonders through the hand of Gideon and 300 men. At first it was 30,000 people who were enlisted to go out against the enemy of Gideon, and God said, no. The people are too many, and God gave Gideon the strategy how to take this entire army down to the water, and God said, I'm going to prove them there. That is a very important term, because part of trust is really to prove. And I said a moment ago, I cannot trust God for you, but you have to trust Him for yourself, and you can know if you can trust God, because in the trust process, in the economy of trust in God, in the pursuit of trust in God, in the understanding of trust in God, we learn to do it. We grow in it. We discover that God is trustworthy. We prove God. We prove that the Father, He keeps His word. We prove that the Father will not allow shame to drown us. We prove these things. That's what happens when we trust God. When we trust God, we learn to rely. When we trust God, we learn to see things from His vantage point. When we trust God, He shows us the end at the beginning. It reminds me of Nehemiah, in the book of Nehemiah, where the word of God tells us that Nehemiah was burdened with rebuilding the walls. Nehemiah was burdened with rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And he had to trust God for insight. He had to trust God for knowledge. He had to trust God as to how to pursue, how to go about it, how to strategize it, how to plan it, how to pray through it, and even how to prosper when the enemy mounted a campaign against him. Beloved friends, when the enemy huffed and puffed, and Jehemiah and those who were working on the wall, and they said things like, even if a fox would go up on this wall, it would totally crumble. Here you see the criticism, here you see the element of shame trying to raise its head. We know this scripture, that when we trust in God, shame will be undriven, shame will be eradicated, shame has to go. So in the process of building the wall, Nehemiah had to understand that no matter who had come up against him, because of his reliance, because of his firm conviction, because of his confidence in Elohim Adonai, what was going to happen is that he was never going to be put to shame. It did not say that shame would not come, it did not say that situation would not arise, it never said that things would not appear to be hopeless. It simply tells us that when we get to that place where it seems as if nothing will work out, where it seems as if we have hit the bottom, where it seems as if all doors are locked, where it seems as if there is no way out, that's the time that the Lord will manifest Himself, that's the time that the Lord will prove Himself, that's the time that the Lord will make Himself strong, show Himself strong and show Himself mighty. That's the time that God steps in and ensures that His people, that we His sons and daughters are not left to the imagination of men, we are not overcome or taken over by the situations of life. That's why the psalmist said, many a day do have trouble with me, many a day who have said of my soul, there is no hope for him in God, but then he responds and says, Thou O Lord are the shield for me, You are the glory and the lifter above my head. When we trust in the Lord, there is a lifting, there is an exaltation, did you hear what I said? When we trust in the Lord, there is a lifting, there is exaltation, God comes into our situation, He sits with us, He walks with us, He talks with us, He reassures us many, many times over, that His ways are past finding out, beloved friends, no matter where you find yourself at this very moment, no matter what you are dealing with, remember this, it's time to prove the God that you trust in, you will encounter difficulties, you will face adversity, troubles will be on every side, things will turn in a different direction what you least expect, but remember this, that when we trust in the Lord, we will never, we will never be put to shame, but what if I got a pink slip, what if I was let go, for a moment, momentarily it may seem like the enemy has won, what if your house was foreclosed upon, what if your things were repossessed, what if you lost something that you had worked so hard for, I know, I know, I can see, I can hear, I can sense, it's as if, oh, there is no meaning left to life, but hear me beloved friends, there is so much meaning left to life, when we understand, when we know, when we know without a shadow of a doubt, that when we trust in the Lord, we will never be put to shame, don't allow your mind, don't allow the circumstances, don't allow people, don't allow the negative things that you may hear or see, cloud your expectation or your vision of the God that you have learned to trust, as a matter of fact, one of the things that really happens as we trust in the Lord, is that our ability to do it increases, because God will give us glimpse, God will give us moments, God will allow us certain times to discover His ability to be trustworthy, to discover His nature as the God who holds all things in His hands, He will give us that front row seat, He will give us an opportunity to understand Him in a way that we have not understood Him before, listen to this beloved friends, the more that you grow in your Christian walk, the more that you grow in your Christian life, you will learn that it's not something that we leave by our feeling, it's not a walk that we walk just based on how we feel, but it's something that we believe, it's something that we demonstrate by faith, what happened for the people of Israel in the book of Exodus, when Moses led them to the Red Sea, it seems as if all hope was gone, why did we leave Egypt, why are we here at the Red Sea, what is going to happen, Pharaoh and his men, they perhaps started laughing and jeering, and for a moment the Israelites man thought that was the end of them, listen to me beloved friends, it may appear, it may seem like you are at the end of your road, there is nothing that promises hope in sight, but I want you to remember that those who trust in the Lord shall never be put to shame, not perhaps, not maybe, oh not a few times, no, never, I want to emphasize, I want to stress this word, never, when we trust in God, we may come to Red Seas, but we will never be put to shame, when we trust in God, we may face oppression like Gideon and the people of Israel, but we'll never be put to shame, when we trust in God, we may be bounced around like Joseph, from a pit, to a palace, to a prison, and eventually to a palace, but we'll never be put to shame, like Nehemiah, who received the burden from the Lord to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, for one moment the thing was working fine, the next moment everything seemed to work against Nehemiah, even so much so that the enemy came up against him, and they conspired to tear down what Nehemiah was building, let me tell you, you may be in a situation right now, where it seems like everything that you're trying to build is facing a tornado, is facing a storm, everything that you're trying to do is facing the strength of the enemy that is roaring against you, every moment you try to make one step forward, it's taking several steps backward, listen to this, and I want you to hear this well, they that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, that shall not be more, but there is also this one that we are talking about today, and that is, oh glory to God, they that put their trust in the Lord shall never be put to shame, and that's you, and that is me, when we trust in God we shall never put to shame, glory to God, and the Lord God Almighty, glory, glory, glory, the Lord God Almighty will deliver us, listen, listen, I want to read that scripture in your hearing, I want you to hear the Word of God, hear the Word of God, when we put our trust in the Lord, do I put my trust, I don't put my trust in myself, I don't put my trust in man, I don't put my trust in my co-workers, I don't put my trust in my family, my friends, but my trust is in you, and because of this, I will never, I want you to say this, because my trust is in God, I will never be put to shame, because my trust is in Him, all shame vanishes, glory to God, I want you to remember this, I want you to remember this, so when the question is asked, what happens when we trust in the Lord, one of the things which happens is that we are never put to shame, if you have not trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior, beloved friends, I want to encourage you to do so, your life can never be the same, as a matter of fact, your life will be turned in the right direction, would you trust Jesus as your Savior or as your Lord today, make Him the Lord of your life, ask Him to come into your heart and save you, start that new walk with Him, start that new walk with Him today, as you become His child, so remember this, beloved friends, remember this, remember this, when we trust in the Lord, we will never be put to shame, if you need more information about what it means to walk with God and to follow Christ as a Christian, as a believer, kindly reach out to us, kindly reach out to us, and we'll share so much more information with you, concerning your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God bless you, that is my prayer for you family.