Created Uniquely: Unmasking Identity

1. Chosen by Christ

Ephesians 1:3–6 NLT

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.

Let’s Pray

Heavenly father, thank you for bringing us all here. I pray your purpose will be fulfilled today in each person here and that we will be reminded that we are a result of your creativity and that in Christ, we are perfect in your eyes.

If you know me for long enough and especially if you come to my basement, you will know that I am a fan of the story and musical the Phantom of the Opera. The original novel was written in 1909 by Gaston Leroux, and tells the story of a man who was disfigured from birth, became a illusionist, an architect, and most importantly a composer. He moves into the basement of the Paris Opera, falls in love with a young opera singer named Christine and proceeds to murder anyone who inhibits her career or his love for her. Seems perfectly normal.

I first saw the musical Phantom of the Opera when I was about 12 or 13 I think. I loved the spectacle of it. I’m sure I didn’t entirely understand the story as I would later, but I was hooked. To date, I have seen the show about 14 times, in three countries on two continents. Like most works of art, the musical differs somewhat from the book, but the musical version of the story resonated deeply with people with disabilities. The story of a man with a visible disfigurement, that was rejected by everyone, including his own mother.

As the lyrics say:

This face, which earned a mother's fear and loathing A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing

This is a man who had so many talents, but almost no one could see them.

Kidnapping and murder are not appropriate expressions of love - to be clear - but it is an outward expression of the inner pain of rejection that many feel, the self hatred, the wondering why people can’t see the real you.

Some of us don’t have visible disabilities, we have invisible disabilities. Many have both. An invisible disability is defined as “a physical, mental, or neurological condition that isn’t immediately apparent to others but can still significantly impact a person’s daily life and ability to function. These conditions are often chronic and may affect mobility, cognition, energy levels, sensory processing, or emotional regulation.”

But even invisible disabilities can be made visible when they break through. For instance, I am autistic and have ADHD. If you just saw me sitting in a restaurant, none of that would be readily apparent. But as I mentioned last time I spoke, I find it very difficult to look people in the eye when I’m talking to you. I can do it when I’m listening but it’s next to impossible when I’m talking. This is an invisible disability made visible.

In Ephesians, Paul wrote:

New Living Translation Chapter 1

God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God

We talk a lot about community at church. We know we are social creatures and we generally don’t thrive when we are separate from a community of some kind. Those communities can either lift us up, tear us down, or allow us to linger.

This isn’t just a sociological construct, it’s how we were designed from the start. In the first century, life was built around this idea of community. Of the idea that we are not so much a collection of individuals, but rather a community of people brought together for a purpose. This is something that we have almost entirely forgotten about in the west. We have increasingly built our society around the notion of individuality. The idea that “if you take care of you and I take care of me, society will work fine. Except we’re not all equal in income, status, upbringing, abilities or disability, or even time. We do not all have the same 24 hours in a day. Individuality assumes that everything will be fine as long as everyone is mostly perfect. We admire so called self made men (or women) and people who pull themselves up by the bootstraps. But going through life alone is not the pattern of scripture.

I see almost nothing in scripture that gives warrant to this line of thinking. With very few exceptions, everything I see is people, as a part of a community, working together for the benefit of that community.

God loved US and chose US and sees us without fault because we are in Christ. He wanted to do it and is gives him great pleasure.

It is not for us to decide who is in and who is out. Not ours to decide who is worthy of our love when they are already worthy of God’s love.

People often come to church already carrying deep hurt. Many people who’s lives seem fine on the outside, are struggling privately. This is also the reality of people with invisible disabilities. Growing up we didn’t have as much knowledge or acceptance of neurological conditions as we do today. As much as you might find this unbelievable, growing up I was described as ‘odd’, ‘weird’, ‘strange’, or if I was lucky, just ‘different’ or ‘unique’. Those are the mild adverbs I’ve heard.

Like the Phantom, one technique that we adopt almost subconsciously at times, to try to fit into society at large is called ‘masking’. We put on a mask. Not a literal mask like the Phantom, but we pretend to be something we aren’t, so we can fit into friend groups, work, and so on.

Masking in the context of autism refers to when an autistic person consciously or unconsciously hides or suppresses their natural behaviours in order to fit in with neurotypical expectations. It’s a form of social camouflage—trying to appear “normal” so they can avoid judgment, bullying, misunderstanding, or exclusion.

Some examples of masking include:

Forcing eye contact even if it feels uncomfortable

Mimicking facial expressions, tone of voice, or gestures of others

Repressing stimming behaviours (like hand-flapping or rocking)

Rehearsing conversations or scripting responses in advance

Pretending to understand things when they don’t

Hiding sensory sensitivities or emotional distress

Masking can be exhausting and lead to burnout, anxiety, depression, and a loss of identity. A lot of late-diagnosed autistic adults, like myself, realize in hindsight that they’ve been masking for years without knowing it—and it takes a toll.

One of the things that makes it harder to get diagnosed as an adult is that you’ve likely been masking or coping for so long you don’t even realize it and don’t know that’s why you’re so tired much of the time.

We do this, to be accepted. We do this to be part of the group. To be allowed into the circle and not feel like we want to observe community from the outside all the time. We do it because it is the community that helps give us our identity. Identity is crucial to having a sense of self, a sense of place, a sense of feeling integral and whole.

This notion of identity - the question ‘who am I’ is so central to our functioning as a human being. There’s no one single piece to it, but some pieces can play an outsized role compared to others. Identity is so important to us, that we have killed over it. The Rwandan genocide, The Serb-Croatian war, and the Bosnian war were all fought over the idea of identity. In those cases, ethnic identity. A lot of us get a significant part of our identity from our families or from our jobs or from the lack thereof. Who am I without a job to provide for my family? Who a I when none wants to be in a relationship with me?

The good news of the Gospel is that when we accept Christ, we are grafted into the family tree of God. And for that purpose, God gave us the church. Not so much the building, but this gathering of fellow believers, who are our brothers and sisters. And like any healthy family, we need to see each other as God’s creations first and not for what we lack.

I talk a lot. I interrupt a lot. I know this about myself. It’s not because I’m trying to be rude, in fact I know it can seem that way and I don’t want to do that. So I try my best not too. Part of the reason I interrupt, is because the thought that’s in my head has a life of about 5 seconds and my brain is worried that if I don’t spit it out immediately, I’ll forget it and then I won’t have something to contribute to the conversation. So I try to come up with strategies to help me remember, so I don’t interrupt. But it can be exhausting to do so. The desire of wanting to be my authentic self but also to fit in, can be a constant push-pull on my brain.

God has chosen and blessed each of us, not based on our ability to fit into societal norms but on His love and grace. Jesus calls each person to authenticity, illustrating that our identity is rooted in Him rather than being determined by others' expectations. Embracing this truth sets us free from the need to mask our true selves and how this understanding can change our daily interactions, enabling us to support one another within the community.

2. Redeemed and Real

Ephesians 1:7–10 (NLT)

7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. 

9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth.

It’s this last line I want to focus on. The plan is bring everything together. Everything in heaven and on earth. God’s chief concern here is reconciliation. One of the dangers of an individualistic approach to faith and life is that we often focus on our vertical reconciliation with God and not our horizontal reconciliation with each other. The cross, this cross behind me, has two bars. One going up and down, one going across. At the crucifixion, God’s love was poured out for everyone to receive in all directions. We can get so focussed sometimes on our own resurrection that we ignore the people we’re going to be up there with. It does us no good to be reconciled to God alone and not God’s family. Reconciliation is not a new car. Your reconciliation doesn’t have better features than mine. I’m not going to ask to borrow your more sporty model to take for a test spin, because it’s shiner than my minivan.

In our redemption, we find freedom. Freedom in Christ to help not sin anymore. Freedom to accept others for who God made them to be. Not freedom to exclude, or freedom to look down upon or freedom to ignore.

We are redeemed and forgiven, which includes the freedom to express our identities without fear of judgment. This redemption provides us a profound understanding of our worth and significance in God’s eyes, leading to a transformative acceptance of ourselves and others. This allows for a fuller, more supportive experience of community without the need for pretence.

3. Inheritance of Identity

Ephesians 1:11–14 (NLT)

11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. 

12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

First century Christians didn’t just huddle together as a random collection of individuals. They redefined the very nature of the community in light of being made one in the body of Christ. Being a part of His body overrode everything.

It overrode ethnic identity - There is neither jew nor greek.

It overrode societal status - Solider, General, or fisherman, they were all Duloi Christou - Slaves (or servants) of Christ.

It overrode citizenship - Their chief citizenship was not the Kingdom of God, not an earthly realm.

Importantly for our world today, it overrode political identity – Caesar was no longer their God and King.

It overrode any and all differences that may have previously separated them. We have been healed of anything that would seek to divide us and split apart the community. To be clear, that doesn’t mean those things don’t exist. They do. We all have our politics, we all have our backgrounds and upbringings, but we must resist every urge to allow those things to become part of, or supersede, our chief identity of being part of the body of Christ.

In fact, in a twist, the word applied to the early church by outsiders, helped strengthen a sense of shared identity among believers, particularly in the face of hostility. That word is:

Χριστιανός (Christianos)

which means, Christian.

New Living Translation Chapter 4

But it is

Their identity, which is our identity, is assured.

New Living Translation Chapter 1

The Spirit is God’s

Our identity as children of God, as members of the body of Christ isn’t something you have to renew. Your identity, the promises of God, are sealed by the Spirit. He paid the price. We have been bought and he’s not looking for a refund.

This assurance encourages us to remove masks and live authentically as a testimony of the Gospel. This sealing by the Spirit assures all of us, neurodivergent and not, that we all have a unique and valued place in God's plan, fostering an environment of mutual understanding in the Church.

Our job is to live our life according to the inheritance we have been given. The light of a Christian will have certain markers, but we are still individual people living out the life where we have been planted. Collectively, we are to help each other do that as best we can.

4. Constructed in Community

New Living Translation Chapter 2

Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.

19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.

20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.

21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.

22 Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.

If no one ever stepped a foot into this building, there’d be no point to its existence as a church. The real House of God, is us. The invisible global church is the world’s longest ongoing construction project.

All believers, regardless of their neurological makeup, are all being built together into a spiritual dwelling for God. The foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone, shows that our unity and identity in Christ surpass individual differences. I encourage all to actively participate in the construction of this inclusive community, where diversity is celebrated and everyone can feel safe to reveal their true selves, contributing beautifully to the greater body of Christ.

It can take effort to be fully accepting of each other. Thankfully, we have the power of Christ on our side to make it happen.

One of the reason I’m really excited about our men’s group, is it gives us a place to meet with the other guys that are part of our church, enjoy each others company and have good conversations about meaningful subjects that build us help and strengthens our faith, our relationships and our communities.

But more fundamentally, it’s because, as someone who struggled a lot to make and keep friends much of my life, I want everyone to feel welcome and to know that they belong

If nothing else, take this away with you today. You are unique. You are loved. And you do belong. Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now in the knowledge that you are created by God, redeemed by Christ, and daily being restored by His Spirit.

Walk boldly in this truth.

Rejoice today — and every day — knowing that your story is part of His greater story of hope and renewal.

Amen.