Sermon Cloud

 Introduction

I know what you’re thinking.  It’s important that you hear what I say and you’re wondering how you will hear me if I keep this on all morning.  It is important that you see my facial expressions as I speak and you’re wondering how you will see them if I keep this on all morning.  You know it’s not Halloween.  You know we’re not doing a church drama.  You know we don’t have a dress code.  So you are wondering why in the world your pastor is wearing a mask at church.  Well, I’d be happy to answer that question for you.  But first you must answer this question for me.  Why in the world did you wear a mask to church today?  For that matter why do you tend to wear a mask to church every week?  Sure, we can hear you speak but are we really hearing you.  Yes, we can see your face but are we really seeing you.  Sure, we have known you for months but have we even really met you.  Or have we met the character you play in your starring role – giving the performance of your life – as no one other than yourself?

Only you truly know the answer to that but I am confident that nearly all of us come to church, not as ourselves, but as the church version of ourselves.   No matter how we were feeling at 10:45 we are happy at 11.  No matter what our marriage was like at 10:45 it is perfect at 11.  No matter how frustrated we were with our kid at 10:45 we are patient with them at 11.  No matter how discontent with our life we were at 10:45 we are supremely content at 11.  No matter how distant from God we felt at 10:45 we are very close to him at 11.  No matter how sinful we were at 10:45 we are only slightly sinful at 11.  Once 11 rolls around we are suddenly only sinners in a very minor sense.  The only sin we are willing to acknowledge is from long ago, as though sin is no longer a major issue for us.  Not that we are bold enough to say that we don’t still sin, but when we speak of our sin we speak of it being few and far between and really nothing major, just the occasional “white lie” here or the accidental curse word there.  But basically we’re just really happy people and really good Christians. 

Now we all know that that is not really you but it is the you that you present to us every week.  And even though we know that you are performing for us every week we would never dare call you on it.  Because then you might call us on the same thing.  You might call us on the fact that we are performing for you every week, too.  And we don’t want that.  In fact, we fear that.  And so as much as we want to know the real you we want even more for you to never know the real us.  So we keep our masks on and allow you to keep your mask on and we all agree never to talk about the fact that we are all wearing masks and we all know it.  For at least two hours every Sunday we live our lives on stage – not only performing for one another but performing with one another.

Some of us are dramatic actors some of us are comedic actors but, really, we are all part of the same tragedy.  Because it is tragic for the People of God, the Church, to worship the God of Truth while living a lie.  It is tragic for the People of God, who Christ has united together by tearing down the walls between us, to put up new walls between one another.  It is tragic for the People of God, who are supposed to reflect the image of God, to choose to reflect a false image.  And yet this is what most of us do and what most of us experience in our Christian community.  But why?  Why is it that this is the case for us?  Why do we feel the need to perform?  Why are we so hesitant to tell the truth about ourselves?  Why do we say that we dislike hypocrites – people who pretend to be someone they are not – yet at the same time we are not comfortable being who we really are?  Why do we say we hunger for community but then refuse to submit to the community we already have?  Why do we claim we desire transparency but then refuse to be transparent ourselves? 

Why We Won’t Be Transparent

If we are going to break free from this destructive pattern and finally remove our masks we have to deal with the core issue.  We can’t just say, “I’m going to start being transparent and stop wearing a mask. “ If it was that easy you would have done it 5, 10, 15, years ago.  We have to identify what causes us to wear these masks.  We have to identify the reasons that we refuse to be transparent, the reasons that we cannot tell the truth about ourselves to each other.  In other words, we have to answer the “why” questions.

Before we do that though I want to pause.  And I want you to think of the things you hide beneath your mask.  What are those things that you don’t want your church community to know?  I want you to write three of those things down on the scraps of paper in the center of your table.  Then I want you to fold all three of them up and place them in the cup in the center of your table.  I want you to be very honest about what it is you are hiding.  I want you to be very honest about what it is you do not want your church community to know.  Maybe it’s an emotion - you’re unhappy, you’re afraid, you doubt God or you doubt your salvation.  Maybe it’s a sin from your past – abortion, adultery, betrayal.  Maybe it is a sin that you are committing regularly right now - bitterness, sexual immorality, greed.  Only you know what you are hiding underneath your mask.  Write at least three of things down, fold each piece of paper, and place it into the cup.  You can write in false handwriting if you want.  I am not asking you to do something that I am not also doing.  This is completely anonymous.  No one will ever know what you wrote.  But write it down.     

 We are going to look intently at the Word of the Lord today.  But you will notice that it will be a few minutes before we open up the Scriptures.  Because before we look to the Scriptures for our hope I want us to look at ourselves and see our problem.  You see, we wear masks around each other for a reason.  We wear masks because we want to hide something.  And we want to hide it for a number of reasons but all of them are related.  One of the reasons why we refuse to be transparent is because of our shame.  We are ashamed of the truth of who we are.  Not only do we not want the rest of the community to see who we are, we try as hard as we can to avoid seeing who we are.  Our shame runs deep.  We are ashamed of some of the things we have done.  We are ashamed of some of the things we have not done.  We are ashamed of some of the things we are now doing.  We are ashamed of some of the things we are not now doing.  We are ashamed of some of our thoughts.  We are ashamed of some of our desires.  But all of these things point to something much deeper.  At the deepest level we are ashamed of ourselves.  We are ashamed of who we are.  And for this reason we don’t want anyone to see who we really are.  If people knew who we really are we would be overwhelmed with humiliation, condemnation, and disgrace.

A second reason that we wear masks and refuse to be transparent is because of our fear.  One of the things we fear is judgment.  We know that some things about us are worthy of judgment.  We are afraid that if people knew who we really are that people would judge us in an unfavorable way.  We know this is possible because we have judged people in the same way.  And we do not want to be on the receiving end of this judgment.  So we put on a favorable mask hoping that we will receive a favorable judgment.

We fear this because we also have a fear of not being accepted into the group, we fear being alone.  We think that if people in this group knew who we really are that they would not accept us as a part of this group.  They would ostracize us and we would be alone.  This is sad and it is ironic.  The fact that we fear being alone causes us to put on masks and run from transparency.  Yet it is that very thing that keeps us alone.  Because as long as we wear these masks, as long as we resist transparency, as long as we refuse to tell the truth about ourselves we are truly alone because we have not allowed ourselves to be known by anyone. 

All of these things contribute to our performance – shame, fear of judgment, fear of being alone.  But underneath all of this is the ultimate reason that we will not tell the truth about ourselves: self-justification.  What is self-justification?  It is our strong desire to make ourselves good, moral, righteous, valuable people.  In a very real sense it is our strong desire to save ourselves.  And this powerful desire to justify ourselves is the ultimate reason why we will not tell the truth about ourselves and will not allow others to see us as we really are.  When you have sinned, which all of you have and do, you really only have two options.  Your first option is to acknowledge your sin, to make known the depth of your wickedness, to confess this to God and cry out for his mercy, trusting in him to justify you.  Your second option is to deal with your sin by denying the depth of your wickedness, doing your best to hide it from God, hide it from others, even hide it from yourself.  In the process you create a new you, a false you, and you trust in yourself to justify you.

The default mode of the human heart is the second response, the response of self-justification.  That’s what Adam and Eve did.  When they sinned they covered themselves in a mask of fig leaves, they hid from God, and they hid from the truth of their wickedness.  When God confronted them with their evil they continued to try to justify themselves, this time offering explanations and assigning blame for why they did what they did.  Through our common sin and our common descent from Adam we have inherited this same nature that tends toward the same response.

Which is why we wear masks and flee transparency.  We, like Adam and Eve before us, want to justify ourselves.  Some people justify themselves through relativism, denying that any objective standards exist, but most people justify themselves through moralism. In other words, you deal with your sin not by exposing it and crying out for God’s mercy but by hiding it underneath a good outward appearance and good outward performance.  Part of you believes that your outward appearance and outward performance are directly related to your position with God.  So you try to deal with shame, and the fear of judgment, and the fear of being alone – not by trusting in God – but by trusting in your own ability to maintain a good outward appearance and good outward performance.  You are convinced that you can make yourself good so that you will be accepted by God, and by God’s people, and by yourself.

This is why you all come to church in masks every Sunday.  You are ashamed of who you are, you fear judgment, you fear being alone and you are trusting in yourself to save yourself from these things – you are relying on self-justification.  When we rely on self-justification we cannot tell the truth about who we are and we cannot be transparent.  Because the moment we tell the truth about who we are and the moment we become truly transparent the moment everyone sees that we are incapable of justifying ourselves – we are frighteningly sinful.

Why We Can Tell the Truth

This is how it is.  But this is not how it has to stay.  We don’t have to be a community of performers.  We don’t have to come to church each week in masks, trying desperately to make ourselves attractive.  Because Jesus Christ has already dealt with the root causes.  He has already dealt with our shame, with our fear of judgment, with our fear of being alone, and with our need for justification.  And he has dealt with them once and for all. 

At its core, shame is really a form of condemnation.  It is condemnation from within.  When we feel shame we are condemning ourselves for who we are or what we’ve done.  It is also a fear of condemnation from without.  Because we have already condemned ourselves we fear that if others find out who we really are they too will condemn us.  Shame can be a good thing for those who are outside of Christ.  It reminds us of our need for a savior.  For most of you, shame probably played some role in you coming to faith in Jesus Christ.  But, once we are in Christ, shame is not a good thing because it denies the work that Christ has done for us.  Jesus Christ – being both perfect man and perfect God – lived the life you could not live and died the death you should have died.  Though he was without sin he took your sin upon himself and received God’s wrath for your sin in his own body.  In taking your sin he took your condemnation.  In taking your condemnation he took your shame.  For this reason if you are in Christ, if you put your faith in his work and not your own, you are freed from shame and its condemnation.  This does not mean that we do not recognize our sinfulness or our condition apart from Christ.  Oh, we certainly do.  But we recognize that Christ has rescued us from all of it.  This is how the Apostle Paul summarizes it.  Listen to the Word of the Lord.

Romans 7:24-8:2 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

You don’t know what shame is until you look to Jesus Christ on the cross.  He took your shame upon himself.  He was publicly humiliated, cursed, beaten, spit upon, and crucified naked for crimes he did not commit.  Why?  So that you can be freed from shame over the crimes you have committed.  As the Word of the Lord says, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  If you are in Jesus Christ you have been freed from shame and the condemnation it brings. If you trust in Christ and his righteousness there is not one sin you have committed nor one sin you can ever commit that he has not already dealt with.  There is no condemnation remaining, for he took it all.  There is no shame remaining, for he took it all.  How dare you live as though the cross never happened!  Take your eyes off of yourself and put them on Christ.  As you do that you have no need to wear a mask.  You can tell the truth about yourself because Jesus has already dealt with your sin and your shame and the condemnation it brings once and for all.

Likewise, if you are in Christ Jesus he has freed you from fear, both fear of judgment and fear of being alone.  You and I both know that you deserve judgment.  You deserve a swift and severe judgment for your sin against God and against his creation.   We deserve the judgment of death and the judgment of eternal Hell.  Once again, the fear of these things can be a good thing for those outside of Christ.  Outside of Christ we have every reason to fear the judgment of death and Hell.  But once we are in Christ this fear is not a good thing because it denies the work of Jesus Christ.  If you are in Christ, Jesus has taken your judgment upon himself.  He has absorbed God’s wrath for your sins in full.  His payment on the cross was totally sufficient.  There is nothing you can do that will earn more judgment.  There is nothing you can do that will earn more wrath.  Listen to the Word of the Lord.

Romans 5:8-11 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!  Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

To be in Christ and to fear God’s judgment is to deny what Jesus has done on the cross.  If your faith is in the person and work of Jesus Christ this judge has already approved of you, already accepted you – not because of what you have done but because Christ was judged in your place.  This is the only judgment that truly matters, the judgment of the Eternal Judge, the Righteous Judge, God himself.  Though human beings may attempt to pass judgment on you they have no power over you.  Because your value, your acceptance, your righteousness is not found in their opinion of you but in Christ.  If you trust in Christ’s work on the cross then you have no need for a mask because there is no judgment to fear.  Listen to the Word of the Lord.

Rom. 8:33 “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.”

You also have no reason to fear being alone.  Yes, it is true that sin isolates us.  It separates us from God, from other people, and even from an accurate view of ourselves.  Sin hates to be discovered, it runs from the light like a frightened cockroach, it thrives on isolation.  So for those outside of Christ the fear of being alone is a very real fear.  But it should not exist for those who are in Christ.  Because Christ has once and for all dealt with sin and, subsequently, has once and for all immersed us into true and eternal community.  He has done what we could never do.  As we read in the Scripture above he reconciled us with God, our former enemy.  As we are reconciled with God through Christ we enter into true and eternal community with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  And there is nothing – NOTHING – that we can do or not do that will separate us from this community.  Listen to the Word of the Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If we are in Christ we will never be alone because we will always be united to the Triune God.  We will also always be united to the People of God, the Church.  When we started this series we saw that the Scriptures proclaim that all who are followers of Jesus have been united by Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus as one body.  He has made us one community, under his headship, tightly fit together like joints and ligaments.  Even though we don’t always feel this community it is objectively real and it is eternal.  If we are in Christ we will forever remain in community with all others who are in Christ, not by our own efforts but by Christ’s person and work.  Again, listen to the Word of the Lord.

1Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

If we trust in Jesus Christ, in his person and in his work, we have no need to wear masks.  Because Christ has removed our shame once and for all, he has received our judgment once and for all, and he has united us to God and his people once and for all.  Once again, it ultimately comes down to the issue of justification.  When we acknowledge our sin how will we respond?  If we respond with self-justification then we will respond like Adam and Eve.  We will try to hide our sin, and hide from God, and hide our true selves from others.  We will try to justify ourselves by clothing ourselves in an attractive outward appearance and an attractive outward performance.  If we trust in ourselves to save us from shame, and fear of judgment, and fear of being alone we will always have to wear masks because we will always have to hide the fact that we cannot save ourselves from who we really are. 

But, if we instead trust in Christ Jesus for our justification we are freed from the need to wear masks.  We are freed to truly be ourselves for the first time.  This is a dreadfully painful thing to do.  It requires that you acknowledge the depth of your own wickedness and your utter helplessness apart from Christ.  It requires that you look at Christ, the innocent Lamb of God, and acknowledge that you and your sins put him on that cross and murdered him.  It requires that you acknowledge that even your most righteous righteousness is filthy, disgusting, and self-serving.  It requires that you put all of your pride to death and lay all of your self-confidence to rest.  It requires that you allow people to see you as you really are so that they can truly see Christ for who he really is, the Greatest Savior to the greatest of sinners.  Listen to the Word of the Lord.

Gal. 2:15-21 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.  But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!  If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.  For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

We will never be able to justify ourselves, though we try with all of our might.  We will never be able to save ourselves from anything – not from shame, not from fear, not from judgment, not from sin – not from anything!  Your mask is merely a temporary fix that will ultimately fail you.  Because you cannot hide from who you are.  But the good news is that you don’t have to.  Because as the Scripture we just read states so clearly, Jesus Christ has done what we cannot do.  He has justified us.  And for that reason alone we have no use for these masks.  Christ took from us our sin and gave to us his righteousness.  Christ took from us our shame and gave to us his glory.  Christ took from us our judgment from God and gave us his acceptance with God.  Christ took from us our loneliness and gave to us his fellowship.  Christ took from us our curse and gave to us his blessedness.  Christ took from us our death and gave to us his life.  Christ took from us our spiritual poverty and gave to us his spiritual riches.  And because of that we can remove our masks with faith and hope and utter confidence that we are valued by God, that we are accepted by God, that we are freed from shame, that we are freed from the fear of judgment, that we are freed from the fear of rejection, and we are freed from the tireless work of trying to be the perfect person that we cannot be.  We have nothing to hide because Christ has publicly dealt with it once and for all and we have been crucified with him. 

Why We Must Tell the Truth

Not only are we free so that we can tell the truth if we are in Christ we must tell the truth.  We must be transparent.  We must remove our masks.  We must do this because if we are in Christ we are a new people and as a new people we must reflect the Truth of our God.  Listen to the Word of the Lord. 

Col 3:9-10 “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

We must remove our masks because we are a new people, called to reflect the image of our Creator.  We must also remove our masks because we are one people, growing together in the person of Christ.  Listen to the Word of the Lord. 

Ephesians 4:15-16 “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we must remove our masks and be truthful and transparent for the glory of Jesus Christ our savior.  Jesus Christ is most glorified as the Great Savior when you are seen most clearly as the great sinner.  If you remove your mask and allow the world to see you as you really are and behold the depth of your wickedness and rebellion you at the same time allow people to see the incomparable grace of Jesus Christ who would save someone as wretched and hopeless as you.  As the Scripture says in Romans 5:20, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”  God is most glorified, his grace most magnified, when you are seen as you really are.  So when you choose to wear a mask and refuse to be transparent and tell the truth about who you really are you are denying Jesus Christ the glory that is rightly his.  He has earned the glory for graciously saving you from the horror of your sin and rebellion.  If you hide your ugliness from the world how is the world to see the grace of Christ? 

Martin Luther said it wonderfully and succinctly with his phrase, “sin boldly.”  That phrase has been abused when pulled out of context.  But it is beautiful when read in its original context.  Luther wrote this, “God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners.  Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but trust in Christ more boldly still, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” Luther is not advising us to sin.  He is advising us to stop trying to hide our sin, especially the most heinous of our sins.  It is the clarity and severity of these sins that maximize the glory of Christ who saves us from them, and has risen from the dead victorious over all sin and death.  If our gross sins are all “back in the day” and our current sins are just the occasional “white lie” or accidental curse word how great need our savior be?  But if our sin -- and for that matter even our righteousness -- is corrupt, and tainted, and vile, and wicked, and evil, and horrifying, and insurmountable then, yes, what a Great Savior we do need!  And what a Great Savior we do have in Jesus Christ who has saved us from this very sin and given us his own righteousness that we might be acceptable to God.

Will you bring me the cups?  I want us all to see what happens when we remove our masks.  For the first time let us see that we are not alone in the gravity of our sin, and like never before, I want us all to see how great our savior is.

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My friends, you can remove your masks now.  You can see very clearly that we are all great sinners in need of a great savior.  You can stop trusting in your mask and in your performance to save you from yourself and you can trust in Christ alone to justify you.  And you can stop wearing the mask to protect your own glory and you can remove your mask so that Christ can get the glory he has earned.