UNCOMMEN: Reclaiming Your Identity As A ManSample

Removing the Mask

Two questions we will discuss today:

1. Who am I?
2. Who am I created to be?

Honesty time: Do you struggle to be the same person on Sunday morning that you are during the rest of your week? Does it drive you nuts that you are different when you walk into this place and then out “there” you are someone else? Do you feel like you speak in a different voice at work than you do to your friends? Do you find yourself using one tone with your wife and one with a client?

A few months back, we did Halloween in our neighborhood. It’s a fun time where kids will travel with parents around neighborhoods dressed in costume and masks for the sole purpose of collecting candy.

While many of us have outgrown going door to door asking for candy, we have never outgrown the need for wearing masks in front of our friends and even family. Oh, your mask may not be visible or physical. But it’s there. Even worse we may even be fooling ourselves. And the question of: “Who are you? I mean…who are you REALLY?” has you totally frustrated and confused. I believe many are struggling to be the same person on Sunday morning that they are during the rest of the week. And so wearing their mask has them totally content. Maybe you like your mask; even if it’s false.

There are only two purposes of wearing a mask:

1. To change your identity. At Church, you look like a Christian. Around non-Christians, you blend in just fine, because you wear a mask to ‘fit in.' And like a chameleon, you secure your cover in place because you want to blend into your surroundings.

2. To hide your identity. You don’t want people to see the ‘real’ you.

Let me tell you two truths about the masks you wear:

1. None of the masks you wear are remotely close to who you are!

2. None of the masks you wear are remotely close to who God created you to be!