Don’t Let Shame or Embarrassment Stand in your Way:

Today at church, I was all ready to continue our way through Genesis.  This is where we have been the past two months, and I was excited to hear thoughts from the speakers on the next journey for Abraham and Sarah.  However, church was a bit different today.  They had a man named Merve give his testimony.  He is an older gentleman at our church.  I have probably seen him, but I don’t believe I have ever had the opportunity to talk with him.  

His testimony was very powerful.  He talked about leaving home at 14 and taking care of himself the rest of his life.  I find that really incredible because I would not have had the ability to take care of myself at the age of 14.  He does bring up that this is a downfall as he did not want to accept Jesus for good while into his life.    He says this is because he didn’t believe he needed anyone or anything else to survive.  He was all he needed.  He had taken care of himself and could continue to take care of himself. He was already married with a baby when he became a believer. It was a terrifying, yet miraculous, close to death experience that brought him to Jesus. 

One frightful day, he gets into an accident that could have and, in all honesty, should have taken his life.  It would have taken the lives of many others.  He became severely burned all over his body and this was because of an accident with his truck.  He somehow survived and because of this whole incident, he became a follower of Jesus.  He gave his life to God when the doctor who was saving his life, put the seeds of Jesus into his mind. He retells sitting laying down being transported from hospital to hospital, fearing death, but also fully aware that he had given his life over to God.  

For the rest of his life, he became a prominent member of his church.  He was a leader, both for his church and for his family.  However, there was one thing that he had not done since becoming a believer.  He had not had a believer’s baptism or an adult baptism.  He had a baptism when he was a baby, but he had not been the one to make that decision.  Through the years, so many people had just come to assume he had been baptized as a believer that he was afraid, a bit full of shame and embarrassment at the admission of not having a believer’s baptism.  

This brings us to the reason that we are here today at church, listening to him give his story.  Merve decided to be baptized today!   He had his family members, specifically his sons and his best friend baptize him.  They prayed over him while he was laying in the tub, and It was beautiful.  It had been weighing on his heart and conscience that he knew he needed to make this step toward his walk with Jesus.  He finally walked away from the shame and embarrassment and decided to step towards faith and become baptized, without anything holding him back.  Now he has been baptized as a believer, even as he is an 80 year old man.  

His overall message for us was not to let our shame or our embarrassment keep us away from doing what God has called us to do.  This can be really small to something really big. This can be talking to the people who usually don’t have anyone to talk to.  These are the people who are considered to be the outcasts, or they do not fit in.  This could be deciding to foster or adopt a child.  The Lord directs our steps, from the big to the small, so it is always good to get his insight on anything we do.  

There are many Bible figures who have shown risks and have given their heart to God in so many different ways.  There were so many who chose to share God’s Gospel, even by getting killed by non-believers.  One character from the Bible I would like to highlight is Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was a Jewish cupbearer who had felt compelled and challenged by the spirit to rebuild the walls and the city of Jerusalem.  This did include a lot of risk and hostility.  There were even a few threats that were made against him.  However, he kept leading his people on building the wall, until it was done.  Then it was a miraculous thing that had been accomplished. 

Nehemiah was also helping the poor while he was completing this role of building the wall.  He was giving back some of the things they had taken.  This was again something that was on Nehemiah’s heart because he knew that it was something that was on the Lord’s heart.  Nehemiah 5 discusses this in verses 15 and 16. 

“But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.  Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.”

Nehemiah refused to do the thing that the world had done or what the people before him had done.  He did what the Lord had laid on his heart. I hope through these two examples, one through Nehemiah from the Bible building the wall to Merve deciding to be baptized at the age of 80, to do the things that are on your heart from God.  

My challenge for you this week is to pray with God about what he has been putting on your heart.  Again, it does not have to necessarily be life-altering.  It could even be receiving an adult baptism like Merve.  I do pray that you spend that time in prayer to find what God really wants you to accomplish in the near future, and I pray you have at least one person to talk to about it this week.  Let us go out and be the Merves and Nehemiahs of this world.