foreign [Music] so how many of you are on some kind of social media let me right this minute but I mean uh you you're involved in Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or SnapChat let me see your hands okay I probably should have said is there anybody who is not involved in social media in some way okay we got a few of those hands good for you I'm not gonna judge but I want to just tell you about a couple interesting articles I read recently they relate specifically to Instagram but I think they could
be applied to other forms of social media this one article said we all know it Instagram photos are never what they seem and it talked about how careful cropping and applying the right filters can make normal life seem almost magical and it demonstrated it this way there was a photographer in Thailand who took a series of photos that illustrate how people lie about their lives on Instagram so you could see the whole scene what it really was and then you saw just the part that was the shot on Instagram that was cropped and filtered and
all of that and so you have this collection this really cool pinteresty looking collection of plants and cool little pots that is all you see on Instagram but then you look at the whole big scene and it's a huge cluttered messy room maybe more like a garage you see the whole thing there was another one that showed this bike on what looks like this really romantic lonely path but then you get the wide view of what the actual scene was and it's a street with lots of people on it it's not romantic at all and
so the conclusion of these this whole series of photos was don't forget that those Envy inducing Instagram shots are a manipulated version of reality and I see a lot of heads nodding and then there was another article I came across last week that said 10 things people lie about the most on Instagram I'm not picking on Instagram it's just a habit to come across these articles this article said we're not always painting an accurate picture when we post on our feed or stories and here's some things this researcher said that people lie about they lie
about their relationship status they lie about the strength of their relationship the piece said Instagram is a mask every couple loves to hide behind when times get tough so don't let their social media affections fool you so they lie about their relationships about the strength of their relationships they lie about how many friends they have and who they're friends with the piece said people could have fewer friends than there are days in the week but they'll still use social media to make it seem like they're friends with everyone in the world and then they lie
about their social media popularity about their interests about what they do in their free time here was a comment about that social media is all about showcasing the most exciting parts of your life no one takes time to post about the boring moments no one wants you to know that they only watch Netflix or nap in their free time so these are things where maybe what you're seeing isn't the whole real picture they lie about how great their life is quote from this article social media is all about making yourself look better rarely will you
see people post about the moments they feel frustrated or upset by something not going their way what they post about is how things always work out for them they know that's not true and so do we and then here was kind of a summary statement that really caught my eye it says social media is a mask we all hide behind to receive compliments from people we don't really know in order to feel better about ourselves hmm well whether you're on Instagram or not I think those observations are representative of a human heart the truth is
at some level we all wear masks we're Pretenders we're posers we're inclined to hide to cover to pretend you may remember the pop song 1978 Billy Joel wrote and sang it called honesty he said honesty is such a lonely word everyone is so untrue honesty is hardly ever heard and mostly what I need from you am I right when I say that it's deeply ingrained in us to smile for the camera you see that when you if you post Christmas photos people send you at the end of the year and you post them I used
to post tons of those on my refrigerator my refrigerator would just be covered with these posts of friends and their families and I know those people I know what kind of years some of those people had I know the tears and the then the troubles and the family breakups and the fractured relationships and the hard things they went through but there they are all with their Christmas photo pose on now it's not sinful to pose for a photo but the point is things aren't always what they seem or what we project because we want people
to see us at our best that's why we have in the back room here a makeup artist I wouldn't have come to this session without wearing makeup and I'm not very good at doing my own so I wanted some help for the cameras and lights here and I said as we were getting ready for this session I said maybe I should just come out and do this session with no makeup and then some of you would wonder who is that well um but we do that in life we pretend we lie we we hide our
mates our friends our kids our co-workers we lie to ourselves we lie to others and most seriously we lie to God but we try we never fool him we lie about ourselves we lie about our successes and our failures we lie about our sin we lie about who we really are we've learned to act to perform to pretend to cover to wear masks in fact that's the word masquerading you go to a masquerade party you've seen some movies with these masks and and the key characters they've got masquerades On and nobody can tell who they
really are a lot of people live life that way all of us do to some extent play acting hypocrisy so how are you doing what's the standard answer fine we're all fine right now it's fine to be fine if you're fine it's really fine to say you're fine but the fact is a lot of times when people ask that question maybe one we don't know if they really care what the answer is but you know we could say fine as we're meeting somebody on the way into church how you doing fine how's your week great
but the fact is our marriage is on the Rocks our kids are rebellious and we've got broken relationships and our morals are in shambles whatever the truth is things we're struggling with things that we don't really want people to know and sometimes it's one thing not to tell total strangers sometimes we don't tell our our best friends or even within our marriages or our families we're covering we're pretending why do we do this I think there are a lot of reasons but certainly some of those reasons would be shame fear of consequences if people found
out comparison I might not look so good in comparison to others pressure to perform others expectations of us we don't want to let them down we know they're counting on us to be this way so and I'll tell you what if you if you serve in Ministry and I don't mean just a big public role but you're involved in teaching a class or leading a small group this is a huge temptation to not be real because people expect you're spiritual you're godly this is a struggle in my own life to not let people's public perception
of me drive who I think I am or who I want to be I know I want to be real before God I want to be real before God's people but sometimes just years of people's expectations you can start to just perform and there's a fine line between doing your job doing it effectively serving others well and acting performing there's a character in the Old Testament and he really was a character his name was Jacob you may remember some about Jacob he was known for being a Deceiver for being an imposter a poser and you
don't have to know all the details but let me just give you a little bit of background because I want you to look at a key passage about him he envied his brother who had the blessing of the firstborn son so Jacob deceived his brother about the birthright and then conspired with his mother to deceive the dad so he could get the firstborn blessing from his older brother blessing that was coming to the older brother he wanted for himself his brother's name was Esau so in Genesis chapter 27 this is a fascinating progression here Jacob
after um making up himself his brother was a hairy man so he had to go get some animal skins that would smell like his brother who was a hunter and was an Outdoorsman and he did all he could because his dad was old and his eyesight was failing so he knew he could pull the wool over his dad's eyes so to speak so he did everything he could to masquerade and then Jacob went into his father and said my father and his father Isaac said here I am then a really important question who are you
my son Jacob said to his father I am Esau you're firstborn he's lying he's pretending he's an imposter he's a poser he's not Esau he's Jacob but he knows that his dad can't see enough to tell the difference and so he says I'm Esau who are you my son I am Esau I have done as you told me now sit up and eat of my game that your soul may bless me he's longing for something that he doesn't think he can have if he's really Jacob so he's going to pretend to be Esau so he
can get the blessing that he thinks he wants and needs and he's going to do whatever he has to do to get that blessing he had an agenda and in order to fulfill that agenda he had to slay act he had to be a hypocrite well fast forward from Genesis 27 and God takes Jacob on a journey away from home to a foreign country to other people who actually cheat him so he can get a dose of his own medicine but this is a journey to expose his heart and to bring him face to face
with the truth then years later you remember in Genesis 32 an angel of God comes to Jacob during the night and wrestles with him and the angel says to him Genesis 32 27 what is your name and what did he say this time he said Jacob what did he say when his dad asked him years earlier who are you he said I am Esau now the angel says what is your name and Jacob says I'm Jacob I'm Jacob now it's not just the name it's my past it's what I've done it's the wrong things I've
done the foolish things I've done the sinful things I've done the the I'm not going to deceive anymore for the first time after a lifetime of deceiving Jacob stopped pretending he got honest about who he really was and what he had done for the person who really knew all of this so let me ask you who are you what's your name now if I went up to you and said what's your name you would tell me your name but I want to know more than your name and God wants to know and he knows who
are you really are you somebody are you pretending to be somebody you aren't are you pretending to have a different Persona are you your Instagram character or are you your real Persona is there a difference between the two the honesty is the basis for trust in any relationship and if we're going to seek Him seek the Lord and experience the joy of personal Revival we're going to have to get honest that's why we talked about humility first because we had to cover the ground with that because you can't get honest if you don't have humility
because getting honest is going to require that we be humble right because there's a lot about us it's truthful that we don't really want God or others to see so once we're willing to be humble then we can better afford to be honest requires that we get honest with ourselves with each other and first and foremost with God you see this all through the scripture let me just mention a couple of verses Psalm chapter 15 verses 1 and 2. oh Lord who shall sojourn in your tent who shall dwell on your Holy Hill this is
talking about with a tent of worship where the people came to worship God God who can draw near to you who can seek you who can come close to you what's the answer He Who Walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart truth Psalm 24 who shall Ascend the hill of the Lord he shall stand in his holy Place here's the answer he who has Clean Hands and a pure heart who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully he will receive blessing from
the Lord the one who doesn't lift up his soul to what's false you see God lives in the honest space after all he is I am I am that I am there's no shadow of turning with him there's no deception with him there's no pretending there's no falsehood he is straight up Noonday no shadow of turning with him but with us we live in Shadows right and so we lurk around we want other people we want to manage their perceptions of us but God lives in the honest space and that's where we receive his Blessing
you see this concept in the New Testament in the first chapter of First John and I want to invite you to turn there I you may be familiar with this passage but it's it's one we ought to look at regularly first John chapter one this is not the Gospel of John it's the Epistle of John toward the end of the New Testament chapter 1 beginning in verse 5. the Apostle John says this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no Darkness at all
so you have a series of contrasts In this passage God is light in him there is no darkness no Shadows no admixture of light and darkness and then verse 6 if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we're not where God is we lie and do not practice the truth the LIE is over here in the darkness the truth is over here in the light where God Is So if we say oh yeah I walk with God but we're walking in darkness we're lying we're not practicing the truth but if
we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another we walk with God he's in the light and we're in the light we can walk together and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin it's not saying we're perfect or that we never sin it's saying as we walk in the light we will get forgiveness as we walk in honesty and humility before him that light and the one who walks in the light will cleanse us from all sin the alternative verse 8 is that we
cover our sin we pretend we don't have it if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth God is the truth is not in US if we confess our sins what does that mean it doesn't mean we never sin it means we bring our sins into the light we don't keep walking in the darkness we don't live in the shadows we don't try to convince other people we haven't done anything wrong or we're all holy or we're all mature spiritually and I'll tell you the longer you walk with Christ and the
more public invisible you are to others even as a parent the tendency is to wanna not have your children see the truth now your children do see the truth of all people your children do see the truth and they're often quick to point it out right but we want to we want to rationalize an excuse and defend ourselves and he says no if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness all the darkness comes out of us if we walk in the light
and agree with God If we're honest about our sins if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in US you see Darkness conceals but light reveals so if you're going to walk close to God who's in the light what's it going to do it's like picking up a rock out of your garden and exposing all the little Vermont farmings what do you call them Vermin environments under that rock and they go scurrying right when when the light turns on because they they want to be in the
darkness they don't want to be exposed the light reveals what the darkness conceals and so Proverbs 28 verse 13 tells us whoever conceals his transgressions like whoever stays in the darkness the person who wants to hide in the shadows whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper you won't be blessed you won't experience the joy of personal Revival the joy of walking with Christ seeking him knowing him finding him if you conceal your transgressions but he who confesses and forsakes them bring them into the light walk in the light what will happen he will obtain Mercy
isn't that what we need and isn't that why we hide in the darkness sometimes because we're so afraid we're ashamed we feel guilty and we think if I walked into the light God would wipe me out no God says you walk in the darkness you're going to get wiped out but you step into the light you walk in the light you get honest you're going to find Mercy compassion the Covenant keeping love of God on your behalf God will cover everything that we are willing to uncover if we're willing to confess it God will cover
it with the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all sin but ultimately God will uncover everything that we try to cover and in many verses about this in the scripture what you speak in the darkness will be shouted from the rooftop it's all coming out in the judgment so we try to cover our past our the thing that we're so ashamed of that we feel so guilty about we don't want God to know we don't want our mate to know we don't want anyone else to know and God says ultimately everything you try
to cover is going to get uncovered and everything that you are willing to cover he will cover it can be costly to confess our sins to be honest but I want to tell you in the long run it's far more costly to cover to deceive to pretend to be a poser God sees it all God knows it all and freedom comes from agreeing with what he sees and knows walking in the light you see if I look at this this stand here this Podium and the light is clear what it is if this room were
totally dark there were no light in here and I were to walk in this room and stumble over this thing I could mistakenly think it was I don't know a piano or a bet you know a drawer or something because the darkness conceals but you turn the light on and if I stand here with this in the light and say that's a table or that's a bench or that's a purse or you know how I can't say that because the light shows me what it really is as we walk in the light we see what
and who we really are confessing that is just agreeing with God so we want to walk in the light with God as one writer has said roof off open honest with him and we want to walk in the light with others on the horizontal relationship walls down not hiding not pretending God says you desire truth in the inward Parts Psalm 51 6. in Ephesians 4 25 therefore having put away falsehood Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another that includes being real being honest about our
struggles our failures our needs I had a friend have a friend his wife had come to me at one point and it said I feel like my husband I I feel there's something wrong feel like he's hiding um it was an impressive man a lot going for him known as a really respected as a Christian leader in his Circle but she said something's not right when time God did actually through one of the messages in this seeking him study God Shone Light On this man's heart and he and his wife later told the story of
how he finally stepped into the light and acknowledged that he had been posing he had been a deceiver and he said in the past I would I'd come to the altar I would respond in an invitation I would say God please help me but I wasn't really looking for a way to get out because I knew that would mean I'd have to get honest I'd have to say this is what I really am and what I have been and what I am in my natural flesh is a liar a thief A conniver and A deceiver
this is what he said later I'm selfish and independent and manipulative that's what I really am that's what my flesh is when that man stepped out into the light when he got honest he said this is who I really am the grace and mercy of God flooded into his life and began to transform him and transform their marriage transform their kids lives God is using that man in a significant way today in a national Ministry to help others walk into the light seen it happen over and over again few travel by airplane anywhere in the
world today pretty much your baggage is going to be inspected in an x-ray machine the TSA agents or whatever it is in the country where you're traveling they want to see what's inside your baggage travel to South Africa not too long ago and we had packed a bunch of books to take with us to give to our partner Ministry friends over there and we watched as they took they scanned it they saw there were books inside and then they opened those suitcases all the wrapping all the tape everything that opened it all that we had
so carefully packed together and they took out of every one of those suitcases every one of those books held them up to the light and Page through and I'm thinking like maybe they're reading that book live young women believe or whatever it is um and and they were looking for Contraband they want to see what's in there it's not just your suitcases it's you so you walk through a metal detector you want they want to see if anything sets off alarms well God doesn't need X-ray equipment to see what's in our hearts but to walk
in the light is to let him search your heart and show you what's there and then it's to agree with him about what he sees and what he knows are you walking in the light who are you what's your name are you real before God and others you say where do I where do I start maybe you've done this for so long like your whole life is an Instagram post that isn't who you really are say where do I start well begin with the first thing God is showing you 've been pretending to be something
you aren't are you more concerned about your image than about the truth is there anything in your life that you're not willing to have brought into the light is there a sin you've been covering past or a current failure or struggle and as you walk in the light in one area God will shine light on other areas you say I'm not sure I want that that sounds kind of scary that sounds downright depressing and if you've walked in the darkness for a lot of time it can be scary but you know what you can bear
being told by a doctor that you suffer from a disease if you know that there's a cure for that disease but to refuse to let the doctor tell you about your disease or to refuse to accept or believe what he says is to reject the Cure right the cross of Jesus is where we see the painful truth about ourselves and our sin revealed with that same cross is also the cure for our sin as one old-time writer said as long as I know there's a fountain fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins that Fountain
as long as I know there's a fountain for sin and uncleanness I can face the light about myself and my sin so over these next hours and days as you get along with the Lord some of your heart's beating so fast you think I don't know if I can afford this let me just tell you you can't afford not to and you don't have to walk in darkness any longer now that doesn't mean you have to tell everybody who you ever talk to everything that ever happened in your life that wouldn't be biblical or wise
or necessary but it does mean you don't want to lie you don't want to pretend you don't want to cover up you don't want to spend your life just posing pretending you want to be real with God family members friends people you love you want to be able to say look I'm really struggling with this I'm defeated in this area of Temptation never told anybody this but I need somebody to know maybe even the truth about what has happened to you maybe it's not your sense maybe with somebody else's sins but you feel so much
shame bring it into the light of Christ and a Godly confidential friend who can walk with you and help you get past the shame past the fear pass the rejection past the pain that doesn't mean you know it'll just be out of your life you'll never never bother you again you'll never think about it again but you'll have Grace to walk through whatever is involved as you walk in the light oh Lord have mercy on us help us to be willing to step out into your light thank you that when we get there when we're
real when we tell you who we really are where we've been what we've done what's been done to us we get honest that we're going to find great great Mercy thank you Jesus amen [Music] oh [Music]
