Sermon Tone Analysis

Honest to God

Hungering to Know and Be Known

2022-10-09

Scripture Reading: Psalm 55

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Introduction

How many of you have been to a masquerade party?

I mean a real masquerade party where you truly didn’t know who was who?

Have you ever been to a wedding that felt like a masquerade party?

No one wore physical masks, but it seemed that no one was being real either.

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Have you ever met someone who put on a certain image that later on you found out was completely false?

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where you went away knowing next to nothing about that person?

They were as deep as a shallow mud puddle.

No feelings, no emotion, no opinions and no personal details.

For some people, they’re always at a masquerade party.

E.g.

Lyndon Berg

Why do people wear masks?

The reasons are many and varied.

The person I was just talking about maintained an image of the “fun guy”.

Why?

He was good at it, it was fun, and I suspect that by doing so he was able to hide his insecurities from others.

Many people wear a mask of respectability.

They want everyone to think of them as respectable, whatever that means in their culture, and will cover up whatever might destroy their respectability.

Some people are simply covering up the painful past.

Shame, of course is a huge motivator to wear a mask.

Either shame because of what happened to us or shame because of what we ourselves have done.

For others, it’s more simple and straightforward.

They wear the mask of what they would like to be.

Tough, sexy, cool, suave, successful, competent, strong, nerdy, etc., etc. Fake it until you make it.

Admitting fear, or mediocrity, is too difficult.

The reasons for wearing a mask are almost endless.

Not only do people wear masks, many wear multiple masks, different ones with different people.

The difficulty is that once you get used to wearing a mask, it becomes harder and harder to take it off, even for a moment, even for those who are closest to you.

I recently talked to a woman who told me that she and her former husband rarely had heart to heart conversations.

She really didn’t know, a lot of the time what he was thinking.

Either he hadn’t ever learned to be transparent, or he was afraid that the real him wouldn’t be accepted by his wife.

In reality, the relationship they had was quite shallow.

What does mask wearing like this do to your relationships?

It hinders them.

In many ways.

People respond to you according to the mask you wear, not the real you.

This has all kinds of repercussions.

If your mask is ‘the tough guy’, the people around you will think you never hurt and are never struggling.

As a result, you never receive comfort because no one knows you need it.

Mask wearing keeps you from drawing close to others and keeps others from drawing close to you.

At least the real you.

They might draw close to the fake you, but deep down inside you know they really aren’t attached to you and so you’re still alone.

Mask wearing affects our relationships with the people in our lives and our relationship with God as well.

Wearing masks with God

Our sermon series this fall is Hungering to Know and be Known with the focus being our relationship with God.

Needless to say, mask wearing will definitely hinder our relationship with God.

What kind of mask do you wear before God?

The respectable church goer?

The faithful attender?

The competent disciple?

Or the busy, busy follower?

Kind of like Jesus’ disciple Martha who complained about her sister Mary just sitting there while she worked.

Why does mask wearing hinder our relationship with God?

For the same reasons it hinders our relationships with people.

When you wear a mask, what you’re doing is keeping the other person at arms length.

You’re not letting them into certain rooms of your life.

Those rooms are blocked off.

Your true feelings, thoughts and actions are hidden away.

And instead, an image, a false image is the one that is presented.

When we wear a mask with God, we keep him at arms length.

So how do we take off the masks we wear before God?

How do we enter into a real relationship with him?

Last Sunday I introduced you to the PAPA prayer taught by Larry Crabb.

Here is a quick review of the four elements

“P: Present yourself to God without pretense.

A: Attend to how you’re thinking of God.

P: Purge yourself of anything blocking your relationship with God.

A: Approach God as the ‘first thing’ in your life, as your most valuable treasure, the Person you most want to know.

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P10, The Papa Prayer

Today we’ll focus on the first one, “P: Present yourself to God without pretense.

In other words, take off the mask.

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A few Sundays back I spoke on our position in Christ, asking the question Who Are You?.

In that sermon I was encouraging us to really take on our identity in Christ.

Today I’m again asking, “Who You Are”, but now I am wanting us to learn to be real with who we really are before God.

Not our position in Christ but being real about our brokenness.

I’ve taken various personality gift tests over the years and whenever I’ve taken one, the makers of the test have always asked me to answer the questions as truthfully as possible, to not give the ‘correct’ answer, as in the one I want to be true, but to say things the way they really are.

The more you follow these instructions, the more likely the evaluation will be accurate.

Just as it is impossible to draw close to people without opening the doors of our hearts with them, it is impossible to draw close to God without becoming transparent in his presence, to say things the way they really are.

What does that look like?

Well, the first step is to

Stop Trying to Be Who You Think You Should Be

I grew up in Church and have followed Jesus since a young age.

I have learned all the proper Christian ways of behaving and speaking.

Much of it was very good.

But sometimes it hurts me because I think that I have to present myself before God a certain way, the correct, Christian way, for God to hear me and listen to me.

I have often worked hard at “Trying to Be Who I Think I Should Be” in God’s presence.

In other words, I put on the Christian mask.

Guess what, God isn’t interested in that.

Besides, he can see right through it anyway.

God is omniscient, all knowing.

Nothing is hidden from him.

There isn’t any thought I have ever had or thing I have ever done that he doesn’t know.