In the end, all the efforts of people to shame the people of God will fail.

So how is it that shame does not ultimately succeed against God's people?

It's the question John Piper answers from 2 Timothy 1, 6 to 12, in this episode of Light and Truth.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 2, 1988.

Shame is a painful emotion that comes from a consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.

Let me illustrate those three possible causes of this painful emotion.

I'll take guilt, for example.

Suppose you against your conscience with hold information on your income tax form and send it off and forget about it.

And for two years, nothing happens and you feel nothing.

And then suddenly notification arrives that you're being investigated and it comes out that you have lied and you have stolen and it is public and you feel now shame for the guilt that is yours.

Second illustration, the definition said that this painful emotion can arise for shortcoming.

Suppose you are a long distance runner from a small country, quite good in your country and are sent to the Olympics and you discover in the 3,000 meter race that the competitors are very, very good.

So good that in the heat where you run before thousands and thousands of people, they, by the time the race is over, are a whole lap in front of you.

Everybody is a lap in front of you.

And while the audience is cheering the winners, you are finishing the race under the eyes of all these people.

No guilt in doing anything wrong, but very likely a battle with shame and embarrassment.

The third cause that was mentioned in the definition of this painful emotion called shame was impropriety.

We've all experienced this.

You go to a party or a banquet and it's important people and you want them to like you and you get there and you discover your dress all wrong, totally wrong and you stick out like a sore thumb.

No sin, no guilt, but very likely the struggle with shame before these people whom you had wanted to impress.

Now one of the things that emerges from this little analysis of a dictionary definition of shame is that there is some shame that is justified and some shame that's not justified.

I think all of us would agree that if I lie on my income tax and withheld information about honorariums because I don't think Uncle Sam can find out about honorariums and then I was uncovered and it became public, most of us would agree I ought to feel shame.

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