Masks

I am sure that each of us has been trick or treating in the past.  There is just something freeing in being able to dress up and pretend to be someone else for an evening.  I have been a princess, a girl from days gone by, a devil, a witch and many other characters.  I have always enjoyed make believe and dress up.  

I am sure that most of you, if not all of you can see where this is going.  I would venture to say that everyone sitting at this table is wearing a mask of some sort, hiding something of who they are.  However, we decided from the beginning that we wanted to reach that Lovers stage, to become intimate with God.  We read in 2 Peter chapter one that we should be making every effort to become REAL (make effort to add to your faith goodness, or the state of being good-valid, genuine, REAL) we touched on how that meant not hiding our hurts, our faults, our imperfections.  Then we turned to our relationships with our spouses and learned that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt 12:24), that sometimes our words unmask our true feelings.  Today, we are going to talk about unmasking our hearts.  

⁸And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”    Genesis 3:8-10

We all know this story.  Eve is tempted by the serpent, eats the fruit, Adam eats the fruit and then they realize they are naked.  Now, when we read the word naked we tend to focus of the physical nakedness.  Before this moment they had no thought of clothes.  But today let us look at a different kind of nakedness.  One definition of nakedness is to be devoid of concealment or disguise.  In other words, to be without a mask.  Adam and Eve were suddenly aware of the fact that they could not hide what they had done, what had happened.  But what did they do?  They attempted to hide anyway.  They both tried to blend into the background and hoped they would be invisible.

Fastforward about 4,000 year and we see Jesus entering Jerusalem.  He goes to the temple that evening but it was late so he went with the 12 to Betthany.  Let’s pick up with verse 12 of Mark

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it…… ²⁰In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

I admit this story confused me.  Why curse a tree because it didn’t have fruit.  The more I thought about it the more I began to think that not having fruit wasn’t the problem, or at least not the main problem.  The problem was looking like it should have fruit.  Notice it wasn’t the season for figs in verse 13.  It was to early in the year for figs to be in fruit.  In fact, the fig trees should just be beginning to sprout leaves and yet this tree was in leaf and must have looked as if it would have fruit, why else would Jesus have approached it searching for fruit.  It was being deceptive by it appearance, looking as if it had something exceptional (early fruit) when it fact it was all show.  Jesus examined the tree, exposed its falseness and prevented it from continuing the façade.  

The tree was able to fool passersby for a while.  But when examined closely it became obvious that the tree wasn’t as good as it appeared, it was hiding also, only it was hiding in plain sight.

We are like this today also.  We are ALL hiding sins, whether by trying to be invisible and lost in the background of the garden, or hiding in plain sight trying to appear to be something we are not.  These sins keep us from becoming close to God, from being Real.  You can choose to continue to wear your mask, or you can take it off and begin to be real.  That is your choice when it comes to dealing with others.  However, you can’t wear the mask with God.  He is El Roi, the God who sees.  Even the depths of death and destruction are known by the Lord. How much more does He know the human heart! (Prov 15:11)  Just like Jesus saw the fig tree for what it was, He sees us for what we are also.  He sees us putting on our mask and because He loves us He provides us opportunities to take it off, to claim our sin and accept the gift of forgiveness.  He tells us in James 5:16 to confess these sins to each other so that we can pray for each other so that we may be healed.  I am not going to force anyone to confess openly.  But I am going to ask that if you feel led to, tell us how we can pray for you. 

What is it like being married to ME!

There are a lot of books and programs out there that try to tell us what marriage should look like, what our spouse should be doing for us, how to reach marriage perfection.  That is all well and good, but what marriage ultimately comes down to is a relationship between two people.  We can’t change who our husband is or what he does.  Reality is that he isn’t perfect, he doesn’t do everything right, and he may not even be trying to live up to his end of the deal in some situations.  Does that mean that it is okay for us to lay the blame of marital problems on him?  Not by a long shot!

Most of us here have seen Fireproof, we have heard of or participated in the Love Dare.  We have at least heard that in order to have a good marriage we don’t try to fix him, we address ourselves.  Marriage is a BIG part of our lives, and it should be.  It is important to God.  Creation culminates in marriage between Adam and Eve, everything built up to it.  First God creates a world, then a beautiful garden, animals in pairs, then Adam.  He calls on Adam to name the animals.  Adam keeps seeing pairs coming to be named.  Then God tells him that it isn’t good for Adam to be alone and creates Eve and they are joined together.  Then God rests.    God compares marriage to the relationship between Jesus and the church.  Jesus loves the church so much that He willingly lays down His life.  The church in return shows respect for what He has done by following His commands and serving Him.  

Now it’s easy in that last example to get stuck on the picture of our husbands needing to be like Christ and loving us so much that they are willing to make great sacrifices for us.  But we are called to be like Christ and we aren’t called to judge whether or not our husbands are living up to their end of the deal.  We are called to be like the church.    Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:24  Submit in this day and age is an ugly word isn’t it?  But when we take a moment to examine this, submission to our husbands is a reflection of submission to God.  God uses our marriages as an illustration of a Christians relationship with Christ.  When we submit to Christ is it an ugly thing?  Nor should we feel that submission to our husbands is an ugly thing.  

Now I am not going to spend this meeting talking to you about submission.  To be honest, we hear that one a lot.  We know we are to be submissive, we know that our marriage is an illustration, and if you don’t know this yet, stick in a church long enough and you will hear it.  It IS important, it is a BIG part of a happy marriage, and it is a decision you will have to make if you want your marriage to work.  You don’t submit because he deserves it, because he is good to you or because he is a good leader, you submit because that is what you agreed to do when you married him and because that is what God expects and tells us to do.  

What we are going to talk about today is an aspect or a demonstration of submission and is also a command.  Lets read Ephesians 5:33   However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband  Let me repeat that, THE WIFE MUST RESPECT HER HUSBAND.  That is a command.  God knows how we are made.  Women generally need to feel loved.  We want to know that our husbands love us with all of their hearts and that they would lay down their lives to protect us.  We want them to love us enough to come to our rescue just like the prince in the fairy tales.  Men however, according to a 2003 poll, would overwhelmingly rather be alone and unloved (73.8%) than feel inadequate and disrespected.  (http://www.forwomenonlybook.com/BooksStudies/ForWomenOnly/Survey/tabid/178/Default.aspx)   God created men to NEED respect, and He created us to give it to them.  So what is respect?  Respect is simply to consider someone to be of high regard, to be worthy, to have value.  To show respect is an act of submission.  Notice that respect is used as a verb, and that verb means action.  It doesn’t mean that the husband has necessarily earned our respect, we aren’t commanded to give him respect when he deserves it, we are commanded to consider him to be someone of high regard, someone worthy and valuable.   What are some ways we can show our husbands respect? 

One of the big ways we can show respect to our husbands is in how we talk to and about them.  Let’s look at a few proverbs concerning wives.     

Proverbs 21:19  better to live in the desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife    

Proverbs 19:13b   a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping      

 Proverbs 27:15-16     A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand             

Proverbs 21:9  and 25:24  better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife    

Quarreling is not respectful, and as you can see, it definitely doesn’t help build a strong marriage.  Notice that a quarrelsome wife is twice referred to as a constant dripping, a constant annoyance, a waste.  If the water is dripping it isn’t serving any purpose, it isn’t quenching thirst or being used for cleaning, or any beneficial thing.  It is simply an annoyance.  Twice we are also told that it is better for a man to be on the corner of a roof than in the house with such a wife.  It is better for him to be out in the elements, subject to wind, rain, hail and anything else the weather can throw at him than to be in that house.  Why? Because a quarrelsome wife doesn’t help solve problems, she creates them.  A quarrelsome wife isn’t helping her husband, she is disrespecting him, she is not being submissive. 

I thought I knew what it was to quarrel…it is to argue, right?  Wrong.  Quarrelsome is defined as “apt or disposed to finding fault in an often petty manner”.  You can be quarrelsome without an argument.  So take a moment and consider the definition as it applies to your relationship with your husband.  Are you a wife who looks for faults in her husband?  I know I was very prone to this in the past and I still do it today on occasion.  Think about this, have you ever thought to yourself something along the lines of, “so and so’s husband does dishes.  My husband should too!” or “if only he would______ then things would be better or different”?  That is quarrelsome.   Have you ever been chatting with your girlfriend or friends at church or co-workers and said something like, “I just can’t leave the kids with him, he doesn’t put them to be right”?  That is being quarrelsome.  

But showing respect in our speech is more than just not looking for their faults, it is also in how we talk to and about them.  ?  Most of us have read Proverb 31 which details the type of woman that King Lemuel’s mother wanted him to marry.  Whether she based this on an actual woman or if these were just characteristics that a woman should possess I can’t say.  What I can say is that the author spends the first 15 descriptive verses telling us what she does before getting to Proverbs 31:26 when she finally says something.  For me that indicates that this woman is demonstrating her love and respect for her family through actions.  Love is a verb.  But when she does speak, “She opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness”.    Ever heard the expression think before you speak?  This is it.  She doesn’t just blurt it out, she considers what she is saying and says it with wisdom.  Not only that, but she says it in kindness.  It is easy, especially with our husbands, to just blurt out what we think or feel because we feel safe in that they will still be there for us after we have vented.  Will he still be there, probably.  Have you disrespected him and caused damage to your relationship and to his heart?  Definitely.  

James 3:9-10 tells us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”  Not only has our husband been made in God’s likeness, but through our marriage he is a part of us.  We should not be saying disrespectful things to or about our husbands.  Again, that doesn’t mean that you agree with them about everything, but it does mean that rather than attack them, dishonor them, disrespect them, we talk to them in a manner that lets them know we are on their side.  That we want to come to a solution and not force them to see or do it our way.   We want to talk about them in such a way that others see the husband that we find worthy of respect as truly being worthy of respect.  Have you ever been somewhere and overheard a woman talking about her husband in such a way that you have wondered why she married him?  We all have.  Now think about whether or not you have ever been the overheard woman?  I venture to say that most if not all of us have at one point or another.

Matthew 12:24 tells us that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”    That is Jesus talking there.  What we say is a reflection of our heart.  Think back over this past week.  What if I told you that there has been a microphone hidden in every room of your house recording your conversations with your husband.  Would you be comfortable with me announcing that we are going to be playing those conversations as an example of a respectful wife?  I know I wouldn’t.  I am currently praying for God to change my heart into one that is less quarrelsome and more respectful.  I am asking that you spend some time in prayer and ask God to reveal any areas of your heart in which He needs to work in you.

So, for the next 2 weeks I want you to make a conscience effort to say nothing quarrelsome, disrespectful, or negative about your husband, when speaking to your husband, or to anyone else.  I don’t care if you are having a bad day, or if he has been an inconsiderate jerk.  NOTHING!  And I want you to take it a step further.  I want you to find something positive to say every day about him and say it both to him and to someone else about him.  You can say it to a co-worker, a friend, or someone else in the family, but you HAVE to say it.  In addition, I will give you some Bible verses for you to read and consider over the next two weeks.  It is my hope that this activity will help each of us to become more deliberate in showing respect to our husbands through our speech.

Ephesians 5:33            

Matthew 7:12                        

Prov 31:11-12    

Prov 12:18                           

Ephesians 4:29                    

Prov 17:14

James 1:19                           

Proverbs 26:20                  

Col 4:6a                               

Psalm 34:13                        

Proverbs 10:19 

Proverbs 21:23                   

1 Timothy 3:11

Song of Solomon 5:16b