Title: Are you wearing a mask?
Text: 2 Corinthians 11:10-15
Date: 8/30/08
Location: Sulphur Spring Baptist Church
Introduction: Masks have been used in the world of Theater and T.V. for many years. In fact the ancient Greeks used masks in their theatrical performances on a regular basis. Zoro, The Lone Ranger, and more recently Batman and Robin have used masks to conceal their true identity.
In His book, “Dropping Your Guard,” Christian Author Chuck Swindoll says, he believes that there is a mask for every occasion.”
Having said that I wonder how many of you this morning are wearing a mask?
I. Some of you are wearing the Jessie Ventura Mask this morning.
Jessie Ventura, the former Navy Seal, and former Governor of Minnesota once said, that “organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak minded people who need strength in numbers.”
In a follow up interview Ventura said He considers himself a Christian and believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but just doesn’t see the need to go to church. In essence what this macho man is saying is that he doesn’t need anybody’s help, and that includes the church and God. And from what He has said he believes those of us who do attend church regularly are pathetic weak minded individuals who don’t know any better.
But let me remind you of what the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:10. He said, “That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
When you put on the “Jessie Ventura” mask you don’t have to worry about admitting how frightened or upset you may actually be.
Perhaps you or someone you love is facing an illness or a situation that scares the living daylights out of you but you don’t want anyone to know it. So when someone asks you how you’re doing you smile and say, “I’ve never been better, when in reality you’ve never felt worse.
Maybe you are having problems at home, but since you don’t won’t anyone to know how bad you are hurting, when they ask you how you’re making it you say you’re fine. But In reality nothing could be further from the truth.
Then perhaps some of you have either lost your job or are facing the prospect of losing a job during one of the most difficult economic periods that this nation has seen during the last 10-20 years. It has consumed you, it’s all you ever think about but when your friends or family members ask how you’re doing you always respond with, everything is going to be okay.
Some of you may have recently lost loved ones or perhaps close friends, yet you never leave home without putting on your “Jessie Venutura ‘tough guy” mask because you want to give everyone the impression that you’re being strong, while on the inside you’re heart is breaking.
Dr. John Claypool, once served as the pastor of Cresent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Several years ago he had a young daughter who was suffering with Leukemia. When she went into remission everyone hoped that she had been healed, but unfortunately the Leukemia returned. After suffering terribly for two weeks this little girl looked up at her father and said, “Daddy did you talk to God about my Leukemia?” He assured her that he had, and that many other people were praying for her as well. Then she looked at him and said, “What did God say when you asked him how long the Leukemia would last?
Claypool was physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, and really didn’t know how to respond to his daughter’s question and just a few hours later she died. In his book, “Tracks of a Fellow Strurggler, Claypools recalls this incident by saying, “What do you say to your daughter when you can’t help her, and the heavens are silent?”
The Sunday morning following his daughters death, Claypool got into the pulpit to preach. Many of the members of Cresent Hill Baptist Church will tell you that it was one of the most powerful sermons that he ever preached. His text came from Isaiah 40:31 which says, “Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
In that sermon, Dr. Claypool said something like this:
There are three stages of life. Sometimes we mount up with wings like eagles and sore to new heights. During this stage of our lives we feel great and everything around us is going great. We couldn’t be happier!
Sometimes we run and don’t grow weary we just cruise through our daily routine. During this time in our lives we’re so busy that we don’t take the time to stop and reflect on everything that God has done for us and how he has blessed us during our lives.
But then come the times in our lives when it’s all we can do to walk and not get faint. Dr. Claypool looked out over that vast congregation that morning and confessed to them that this was exactly where he was at that particular time in his life and he asked them to pray for him and his family.
At one of the lowest points in his life, God used him to preach one of the most influential and powerful messages of his ministry.
In fact you could argue that his greatest contribution came at his darkest hour. John Claypool could testify to the truth of the statement “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
There are people who try to hide behind their Jessie Ventura tough guy masks because they mistakenly believe they can handle anything that comes their way.
A man by the name of Carl Conner made the following observation a few years ago. It had been a very cold and snowy winter in North Carolina where he lived. One of the snowstorms that hit that particular area of North Carolina was a very heavy, thick snow that stuck to everything. Conner says that it was interesting to travel along I-40 and see the effect that the snowfall had on the pine trees that lined both sides of the interstate. Many of the branches had so much snow on them that they were sagging down and touching the branches of the trees around them.
But he noticed something important that day. He noticed that the branches of the Pine trees that stood off by themselves away from the other trees had broken off under the heavy weight of the snow.
You see when the storms of life hit, (And I guarantee you they will hit) we need our Christian brothers and sisters standing there beside us to prop us up and keep us from falling or collapsing under the weight of whatever it is that we’re having to deal with.
Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re family and we need each other.
Chuck Swindoll tells about meeting a man that he had served in the Marine Corps with several years before. He said he was pleasantly surprised to learn that the man had become a Christian after leaving the Marines. They were reminiscing a little about the good old days in the Marine Corps when the man looked at Chuck and said, “You know Chuck, the only thing I still miss is that old fellowship I used to have with all the guys down at the local tavern…I haven’t found anything like that for Christians. I no longer have a place to admit my faults and talk about my battles…”
At the time Swindoll didn’t know what to think about the man’s statement. Then about a month later he came across the following paragraph in a book.
It said, “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality – but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. You can tell people secrets, and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved.”
The writer then concluded by saying, “I believe that Christ wants his Church to be unshockable, a fellowship where people can come in and say, “I’m sunk, I’m beat, I’ve had it.’
Alcoholics Anonymous has this quality but too many of our churches don’t.
I believe he’s right, people need to know that they can come to church and be loved and accepted for who they are. They need to know that they can come to church and find people who care more about them, than what they’ve done in the past. They need to know they can come to church and find people who are willing to help bear their burdens. They need to know that they can share their problems with someone at church without worrying about whether that person is going to go home and tell someone what they said.
If you’ve got your Jessie Ventura tough guy mask on this morning I hope you realize that there are people all over this auditorium this morning who love you and are willing to help you through whatever situation you may be dealing with this morning. That’s what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he told the church of Galatia to “carry each other’s burdens.”
II. Some of you hear this morning are wearing your “Church” mask this morning.
I heard a story once about a man who lived up in the Mountains of East Tennessee. One Monday morning, he came into town all dressed up and went and bought a ticket at the train station. A friend saw him and said, “Hey Joe, whatcha doing? Where ya going all dressed up like that? Joe stopped and said, “I’ve been hearing about a place called New Orleeens. I hear that there’s a lot of free-runnin’ liquor and a lot of gamblin, and a lot of good peep shows, if you know what I mean.” His friend looked at him and said, “But Joe, that doesn’t explain why you’re taking your Bible with you.” Joe winked at him and said, “well if it’s as good as they say it is I may just stay until Sunday.
Unfortunately that kind of thing happens every weekend all over our nation.
One of the benefits of wearing a ‘church mask’ is that everybody thinks you’ve got it all together. But the sad truth is that you’re not nearly as spiritual and holy as you want everyone else to believe.
During the time of Christ the Pharisee’s were some of the most well respected religious leaders in Israel. Most people considered the Pharisee’s to be the most holy and righteous people in the land of Israel. Even Jesus’ disciples were confused when He told them that if they wanted to enter the Kingdom of God that their righteousness would have to greater than that of the Pharisse’s. You see Jesus knew something that the Disciples and everyone else didn’t know.
He could see through the masks that the Pharisees were wearing and he knew that they were not nearly as holy and righteous as they wanted everyone to believe.
On one occasion a prominent Pharisee ask Jesus and his disciples to dine with him. Jesus accepted, and when they arrived at the house Jesus went in, and sat down and prepared to eat. The Pharisee noticed that Jesus didn’t go through the ceremonial washing of his hands that all good Pharisees perform before they eat and he was noticeably disturbed by this.
Jesus immediately recognized that the Pharisee had been offended and said, “You Pharisees clean the outside of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” Luke 11:39
This is something I want to make sure you understand this morning. You see you may be able to fool most people into believing that you are some kind of “Super Christian,” but you cannot fool the Lord. He sees right through your mask and straight into your heart. He knows whether you are who and what you claim to be. He knows whether you are living out your faith on a daily basis or whether you simply put your ‘church mask’ on before leaving home on Sunday morning.
Someone once said, the number one reason people don’t believe in God or come to church is because of the people they know who claim to be Christians, yet live and act like unbelievers Monday through Saturday.
III. I’m afraid there is one more mask that is prevalent in our churches today. It is similar to but not exactly the same as the ‘church mask.’ It’s the “I’m a Believer” mask. I guess you could call the Judas Iscariot mask.
Judas was with Jesus every day for 3 ½ years. He ate with him, walked with him, listened to him teach, saw him heal people, and even held an important leadership position among the Apostles, and yet He was not a believer. He had all of the Apostles fooled none of them ever suspected that would betray Jesus. But he did because he was an unbeliever.
In the passage of Scripture we read earlier a group of men were going around the city of Corinth preaching a false gospel. Even though they pretended to be followers of Christ they really weren’t. Paul said it best when he said, “for such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.”
When Sir Charles Cockerel built a new home in England he pattered it after a house that he had seen while in the Orient. He put an onion-shaped dome on top of it and placed imitation Brahman cows in the garden. But even thought the house was built using Orientalal style architecture, it was still in England and not in India.
Some people today are imitating the Characteristics and lifestyles of Christians they know. They know how to play the Christian game, they know how to act, they know what to say, they can even quote John 3:16 and the Lord’s Prayer, but they’ve never accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
They know all the answers in Bible Trivia and came name all 66 books of the Bible but they’ve never repented of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ. Some of them have even walked down the aisle of a church just like this one and joined the church. But deep down they know they aren’t saved. They know if they were to die tonight that they wouldn’t go to heaven. I hope that doesn’t describe you this morning, but if it does, don’t leave this building without doing what needs to be
If you’re wearing the Church mask this morning, I encourage you to take it off, and take a good look at yourself. If you aren’t living for the Lord 24 hours a day, 7 days a week then you need to re-evaluate your relationship to the Lord and rededicate yourself to serving him.
done. If you’re pretending to be a believer but you really aren’t, you need to take off that mask, humble yourself before God, and confess your sins to Him. Then you need to place your faith in His son Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross to pay the penalty for your sins, and the sins of the entire world.
If you’re wearing a Jessie Ventura mask to make people believe that you don’t need anyone’s help, I would encourage you to take that mask off and let your brothers and sisters in Christ help and support you through whatever problem you may be going through.
