Till We Have Faces
by Jeremy Painter
September 24, 2023 · Christian Life Church, Heath, Ohio
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Romans 8:28-30, 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--till-we-have-faces-2
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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a very good morning to you so good to be in Heath Ohio I was born in St Louis and I first memories of Life were actually in Ohio Canton Ohio my mother's from Ohio and um I am indebted to the district the upci Ohio district for my earliest memories in church and um I'm grateful to be here back I think this is my first time actually ministering in Ohio ever and um I finally come back I haven't been here since I was about six and um it's as beautiful as I vaguely remember amen good to be with your pastor pastor's wife they are indeed excellent friends and great people and um I'm so glad to see a thriving work here you have a great vision I've heard a little bit about it and I'd like to play some part in this week in turning our

attention to the word of God and would you open your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. and I'd like to read three verses here for our text Romans 8 and 28. and we're reading we're picking up in the middle of a what has been a fairly lengthy journey to arrive at this place in Paul's thinking and so we're stepping into the middle of something but I want us just to pick up a couple of things from this text and Paul said we know all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose for whom he did for no he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son can everybody say the image of his son and for this purpose that he might be the firstborn among many brethren so we have the

image of the Sun we are being molded into that image so that there might be many sons of God with him being the mold moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called in whom he called them he also justified in whom he justified them he also glorified I draw your attention to the past tense predestinate called Justified glorified the first few are easily recognizable predestinate that's a past tense thing called that might happen once upon a time and then it gets a little more difficult though the past tense have Justified that is made righteous but that's a past tense and then the really surprising one is glorified that it's already a past tense event that's what I'd like to unpack in this in this message and I'll use a title today but it will only make sense at the end till we have faces

father in the name of Jesus I pray for your help this morning to preach and teach your word the truth and I pray that I would be faithful to your calling today faithful to your word and your heart I pray that you would be glorified in your church edified Jesus name we pray amen amen you can be seated thank you for standing um I mentioned and Drew particular attention to the phrase conform to the image of his son and this is an idea that manifests itself in various ways diverse ways in Paul's larger body of work in the New Testament on me he will say for instance in second Corinthians 3 in a different context but even to this day when Moses has read the veil is upon their heart speaking of the unbelieving Jewish people nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the

veil shall be taken away now the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty and I want you to pay particular attention to this but we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord so there's that same idea of Conformity to the image of the sun only the metaphor has changed somewhat and Jesus is almost like a Looking Glass but by looking into it we don't see ourselves but we can become like him that's a strange kind of mirror isn't it in other places he'll say things like put on Christ all things old things are passed away all things are new again that idea of something about Christ putting it on um in another

place he says if we are buried with him in baptism we will likewise be resurrected in the same manner in which he was resurrected so there's a imitation of Christ all throughout Paul's teaching it's really the most fundamental it's the most fundamental point he makes over and over and over again in terms of discipleship we are made into the image of God into the image of the Son of God and is very very specific if we follow this imitation from first all the way to the end death cannot hold us it's Christ that was resurrected once but it is the christ-like that will be resurrected Ever After the imitation of Christ breaks the bondage of sin in this life and breaks the bondage of death in the next it is a powerful thing to imitate Christ it is the greatest power in the universe the

imitation of Christ all right now I segue now just a little bit to a different kind of metaphor let's think about this idea of putting on Christ the image of Christ being conformed to an image um one metaphor I could use is the metaphor of masks when we use the word mask as a verb we tend to use it negatively we tend to think of masking troubles masking our problems there's something inauthentic about the whole procedure mask is kind of a synonym for inauthenticity of disingenuousness sometimes it's a brave front but it's not true um but there's another there's another truth about masks in the ancient world if you put on a mask on the stage you transform through the putting on of the Mask from one character or one identity into another if you spoke without a mask on the ancient Greek stage you

might speak of the part you're playing you're going to play in the third person but when you put the mask on you speak now within the identity of that mask and the third person becomes the first person you're no longer speaking of it is a separate thing but as yourself I um now in the in the uh you know in the modern world the theater has become quite a bit more sophisticated um we don't quite have the actor come out on stage and then before us put on a mask so we don't see this transition there's no there's a fourth wall in in on the modern stage and so try to keep separate the audience from the story so that you can just be the Observer well in the early 20th century late 19th century there was a stage director by the name of constantina

stanislavski and he developed a philosophy of acting that was brand new really on stage in the history of the stage in the history of theater and the idea that he had was he didn't want his actors to simply play A Part put on a mask and then take off the mask after the performance and become and and transition back into their uh real identity he wanted to fuse the actor's identity with the part he's playing so that it became one identity and he would become almost obsessive to the point where you never took off the mask symbolically speaking you were always in character and you try to you try to become this character to the degree that you're not simply playing the part by wearing the kind of uh costume uh you don't wear costumes in on stanislavski's stage you you wear your clothes they're

your their characters part is your part you don't merely try to to look like the part you're playing you're trying to think like the part you're playing so you try to have the same kinds of what kind of thought process would this particular character say Julius Caesar I don't want the stage or the audience just to know that I'm Julius Caesar because I'm wearing a robe a toga sandals and the Laurel Leaf I want them to know because there's something Julius caesarness about me I have entered so deeply into the part that I think like him I act like him I talk like him I I dream like him I eat like him and this is a full-time job uh in fact it's more than a full-time job it's it's it takes over your life your whole life you don't put the part away and

to the degree that you're able to enter into and incarnate yourself into that part you are able to persuade and compel the audience that indeed Julius Caesar in a manner of speaking is standing before you now people the audience are going to be the audience are going to be more affected more compelled by the performance if you can do this he called this method acting in method acting has been adopted by lots and lots of of actors throughout the world over the last hundred years or so sometimes in Hollywood but you have to be careful if you adopt the part or you you develop this philosophy um in in Hollywood be careful the part you play because it can really really mess you up uh it's it's alarming at times to see in the history of of modern acting how many people how many actors

have been completely tortured by the part they played um I I would say that some of this has to do with the the debauchery and depravity of Hollywood has a lot to do with people who have been asked to play these parts and to play them compellingly for strangers the sacrifice of merging their identity with the part they're playing to compel and convince the audience it's really really odd to see for instance an actor by the name of Patrick Swayze dying of leukemia in his older age as I recall but the part that he played first in Hollywood was on the TV show called Mash in Mass he was a 19 year old boy playing a 19 year old boy in war who had been taken in just for a broken arm but they do routine blood tests and the mass unit came out the

clipboard and told him the terrible news that he had leukemia so strange to me so strange strange to me how many times Robin Williams played in stories that involved suicide how very many stories he found himself engaged with the subject of suicide even his very last performance in Hamlet he played the part of the gravedigger and whose grave was he digging and making jokes about it was the suicide Cordelia and then uh more recently in in the uh the part of or the the Batman mythology was uh has this of course this villain Joker and I almost think that people like Joker more than they like Batman sometimes um and and he he's an awful lot of fun in some ways uh in the 1960s I think that there was a Hispanic actor by the name of Cesar Romero who played the part of the

Joker and he was kind of a fun character to watch he had a silly laugh he had a great painted smile he was a trickster kind of a low-key character ruining everybody's plans his his goal in life was just to make things uncomfortable for people really but also to be fabulously wealthy along with penguin etc etc and then in the 1980s Jack Nicholson played the part and the the scene got a little darker and the idea might have been that the uh the deformity of his face had to do with a chemical accident and so he has the the uh chemically mutant uh smile upon his face is kind of Twisted in him Twisted him and he's but he too is seems to be motivated by motivated by money and by power but then there was a new idea let's let's have a villain who

in this mythology doesn't merely doesn't merely want money in fact he cares nothing for it power is not important to him Fame is not important to him it's only a tool to other ends his true end seems to be nothing he's the true nihilist he only wants to see the world burn if only to feel its warmth some way and this is the kind of Batman or rather Joker that he he doesn't have a painted smile or a chemically induced smile but this is the kind of villain who cuts a smile into his face now who shall we have to play Such part the director casting about looking for the right person to play this part lots of folks would have thought let's get the bad guy the the stereotypical bad guy amongst the Actors Guild you know kind of a John Malkovich sort of

guy he just on screen and he instantly looks like he's coming through it watch out that kind of guy but all those kinds of guys were passed over and there was a young man selected that was he had played the part of the hero and and he was kind of a childlike he had a childlike smile and face and dimples in his cheek and and and and he looked uh like a boy he had a boyish handsomeness to him and it was rumored that he was going to be playing this part and but he doesn't seem to be the right kind of guy to play such a dark character but but the director was a little smarter about people than a lot of folks gave him credit for for and in in true true Terror the true kind of Terror is when you make innocence

corrupted and Evil give evil to a child and that's the stuff of true horror marred innocence and so this young man was selected specifically for this part his name is Heath Ledger he probably heard about it and he was a method actor you play this part can you do it yes all right what kind of thoughts would lead a man to to cut a smile into his face how would he talk what kind of voice would he have he stumbled upon it seems a a clip of a guy who appeared on David Letterman's show in the 1970s and 80s by the name of Tom Waits Tom Waits was a folk singer kind of a I would say a punk folk singer he had this voice like this he talked like this and he would sing like this and he just you know the kind of

guy you can't imagine having a conversation with ever without being creeped out he would sing his sing his songs I mean that's it was going down to the store one day this is his song this is a very a voice very unlike his own the actor Heath Ledger he had nothing like this voice but people were kind of surprised people that knew him were surprised to hear this voice and he wouldn't stop talking like that ever he would ask for the cereal to be passed in that voice hello Mom on the phone how are you know people started getting disturbed by his by his complete Devotion to this the obsession really and he gets up on stage and they they roll the cameras and and there's just this chilling effect and but then they say cut but he doesn't separate from the part he keeps

playing it at first you you play the part but then the part starts playing you and he couldn't put it away and it haunted him and it followed him into his most casual conversations when you look in the mirror he stops seeing himself nobody could disengage him from the character it followed him even into a sleep until at last he began to even dream or rather nightmare like such a guy the human soul can only handle so much Darkness we need forgiveness and Grace in the light of the Lord like we need oxygen and it started to break him down and he tried to cope with it self-medicate drugs and alcohol distractions but he couldn't do it by the time the film was released the young promising actor had already lost his life he never saw never saw his own performance beside of the Mask

there's the uh The Passion of the Christ I think it's been 20 years now or so that was distributed Passion of the Christ also picked the director picked a young promising actor who had played Major feature films Count of Monte Cristo and a few others he was so successful he was one of the great names one of the most promising young actors extraordinarily handsome very convincing the part that he'd play they picked him to play the part of Jesus and this Jesus is not going to be of the Jesus of The Greatest Story Ever Told he wasn't going to be um 21st century Jesus or 20th century Jesus he was going to be he was going to enter the part so deeply that he would not speak English in the movie he was going to speak the native language of Jesus Aramaic and so he

learned Aramaic which is by the way a dead language so he had no one to communicate with but he had to learn learn and learn and learn and learn until um you know you really adopted a language when you're not merely able to speak in it but when you're able to think in it and he started to think in Aramaic and he knew that her transition had taken place when that started to happen and he was going to he was going to have Prosthetics put upon his nose and he was going to have different color contacts to to erase the blue eyes that he has so that they would be uh what somebody from the Middle East might have had and um he was going to play the part of Jesus but a very specific portion of the Gospel which was the Gospel of John

in particular the passion story passion week so it's really it's going to start almost with the last supper or rather I'm sorry the entrance into Jerusalem and then go all the way through the last supper and onto Calvary and then to the tomb and we're going to focus on that now the Gospel of John uh you you may or may not know this but the Gospel of John has been heavily criticized since World War II it has become almost unacceptable to portray the johannine interpretation of Jesus in pop culture since the Holocaust because there is in the Gospel of John a great deal of what sounds like bitterness towards the Jews that phrase is used 46 times in John's gospel only 12 times in the other three gospels combined the Jews um what people don't really understand about that gospel is that this gospel was

written after the Christians had been kicked out of the synagogues robbed of their living and persecuted hounded from City to City all over the ancient world by their brothers and so in the wake of all of that that gospel is written and you can feel the you can feel the the the disappointment and some of the anger boiling over and so the Gospel of John has has uh has been demoted almost to an anti-semitic text in the secular world we would rather you read from Matthew or from Mark or do something their their interpretation of Jesus not John's and this story was going to focus on John's interpretation and so uh there was a warning for the young man his name is Jim Caviezel if you're going to play this part you may never play another part again do you agree to play this part

and he did he took it he took it in method method acting as he did he played the part to the point where when they filmed the crucifixion scene it was only 30 degrees outside and he was going to be shooting for 8 to 12 hours that day so he would wear only a loincloth which is still too many clothes if you're going to really depict the crucifixion scene but it was a necessity of course but that's not much to help you when it's 30 degrees outside and the wind is up there and you're up at higher elevation up on a cross and so he began to shiver and the director and others see almost strange mirror reverse imagery of the Gospel come down from there come down drink some chicken soup warm yourself we have some clothes for you okay we're cutting we're going

to be re uh pairing some of the costumes we're going to bring in new actors we're going to transition this scene come down but every time he said no no no and he stayed up there for more than 10 hours that day and developed hypothermia his health has never been the same since but he wanted to play the part play the part of Jesus and indeed he played the part very well and as a consequence he has never played in another feature film again if you've played the part of Jesus don't be surprised when these kinds of things happen the servant is not above his master if they rejected me they will reject you Jesus said and really if you think about it this is somewhat like what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he's referring to the image of God's son the being

conformed to the image of God's son play the part see it's not authentically true of you we are not righteous from birth we are not glorified but rather put on Christ it's not authentic to you it's exactly inauthentic to you nevertheless put it on for it is that mask that you wear it's that part that you play that is predestined and called and Justified and glorified and really life is all about imitation the most powerful thing you do is imitation we all learn by imitation we are all imitations of something the only thing that's really unique to us is what imitation it's not whether or not we can imitate it's what we will imitate that's unique um learning to play the piano a teacher she would ask me to put put my right hand over top of her right hand and she would play and

I would my my thumbs my I feel like these ten fingers are all one unit they all do one thing they could they're only capable of mirroring each other and you've got to break that in piano there you have to develop separate hemispheres somehow and you've gotta you've got to have ten fingers now and and this was the very very difficult but the more you the more you conform to that that model the more you develop these separate hemispheres the more you become capable of doing something very sophisticated and pretty soon you're going to make music now if you just put me over on the piano authentic me over on the piano it's going to be awful it's not going to be music I'm going to bang the keyboard it's going to be noise but you put me through the Conformity to a particular image

of the piano teacher then music starts to happen you see you see I can't make music until I stop being me this is how I learn by the way how to be a father first I wanted to be like my dad he's my first great imitation and I thought I thought people had adults had everything figured out I really thought they knew the answers to most things most questions I I thought well I I'm going to ask them about life after death give me the answer what what happens after this and um uh what what was God doing before he made us you suppose I really need that answer uh because it's tormenting my mind and how we get answers I didn't quite understand and sometimes I would say but how is that but how is that but why is that but why why why

why why why and and and this this kind of why I keep on asking dad and pretty soon he just you it's over and you know how it's over the adult says because I said so that's it we're done and I thought he's got the answer in there somewhere I'm just not understanding it all right well when I I thought well when I'm 18 I'll I'll know things too now I turned 18. and I was stupider than ever there was so much now I knew I didn't know you know that's kind of the way life is you see if you think of if you think of knowledge as a circle inside of a space as The Circle of Knowledge grows so does the contact with the unknown grow um and so I thought well maybe when I have the the the the number 20. as

an age I'll know things but I turned 20 I didn't know anything and I thought well it's marriage it's marriage I got married at 20. well maybe I step Across the Threshold into marriage sometime after I Say I Do I'm gonna know things but it didn't happen and maybe when I have a kid when I have my own son my own daughter I'm going to know things because God wouldn't put any burden upon me I can't bear and he doesn't want me saying I don't know to all kinds of things so I'm going to get that download of knowledge at some point there's going to be an Ethernet dropped through the sky at some point plug straight into my ear I'm gonna know things but I found out as I got older that maybe adulthood is a myth I don't understand how it is I

don't understand and the Troublesome thing is I am not merely ignorant I am also incredibly undisciplined I'm in my early 20s and I've already I already have two children my wife and I got married at 20. two children and then a third and I've got these people calling me Dad and I happen to really love them and I I but I in my flesh authentic Jeremy you know what my goals in life are they're not very high they're pretty much seeing my baseball team win my football team win my basketball team win joining not one softball league not two softball leagues but three softball leagues I'm going to be gone on weekends playing in tournaments all over the place I'm going to get into Home Run Derbies I'm gonna really obsess over this thing I am baseball and ESPN in Sports Center the goal and

highlight of my life is watching highlights of other people succeed a Coke in one hand remote in the other I have three children it's time to go to church prayer meeting and my wife she gets ready children are ready is Dad gonna go lots of things were con conflicting with with my goals I can't have my kids asking me if I'm going to church no that's not the right way of things they're not supposed to be my father's and my mother so what should I do folks authentic me I'll tell you what that's going to be five softball leagues that's going to be glasses that show ESPN on the lens I'm going to be wearing my favorite Jersey that's Jeremy predestined hmm called um Justified glorified or shall I get up and get ready and shall I be the one that stands up and say

says time to go to prayer it's not me it's the image I'm being conformed to and if I will method Act if I will play the part to the point where I'm not merely wearing the costume but I'm also thinking the thoughts I'm trying to have the emotions that are right thoughts that are right Lord help me I'm hopeless I can't do this but I love those kids this one this is the hard part to play it's hard it's a harder part to play I'd rather just be me and there's all kinds of all kinds of of motivation coming from our secular culture to be authentic we tell kids just follow your heart or be true to yourself stand up at a graduation and tell everybody follow your heart what in the world are you telling kids they don't even know what in the world

their heart is they don't know who they are just be who you are I don't know who I am but I'll tell you what I'll tell you what the the the the the the men in 2008 and the women who were cheating all of those retirees out of their money in the in the financial scandals I'll tell you what they were being they were being true to themselves that's what they were being the murderer the fornicator the adulterer the drug addict they're being true that's where authenticity leads you whenever I hear anybody say I'm just going to be transparent I know the fog is about to roll in I love the conversation that starts I'm just going to be honest with you please don't bye but seriously in the aftermath of the world of World War II there was a uh a story about an

Italian man a pickpocket that had been arrested by the Third Reich so they could play he could play A Part he was caught in the act of pickpocketing and so they had something to hold over him and he said we'll let you go but you have to do something for us we want you to play the part of a man by the name of General de la Rover he's very very important to the Italian Resistance the Italian underground we don't know their information we don't know where they're at they keep on messing up our plans we need to know names dates locations we have some of their members arrested and in prison and we're going to but we can't get anything out of them so we're going to put you in the prison and then we're going to give you all kinds of information about

how to play the part of General de la Rover so that you can gain their trust and after they're going to put you to the test they're going to find out if you're authentically you General de la Rover but you've got to learn the part really well and once they do trust you they're going to give up all kinds of information to you then we'll pull you out of the prison system and you give us the information you're free to go and so for a couple of months he gets the part down he learns the dialect of the upper class he learns the mannerisms of the military especially at that high of a level he learns the family history of every member of the resistance in other words he's become a walking talking librarian of the Italian Resistance and he has to part down really

really well they put him down there in the prison and of course the the members of the resistance they test him for a while they say things like yeah yeah General Franco was part of the 32nd division those were good times weren't they and and uh the pickpocket would have to say I'm not sure what you're referring to I General Franco was the lead of the 30th division okay file that one away it seems like this is good try them again tomorrow try them again try them again until it lasts after a few weeks they had gained some confidence in him and then pretty soon they start sharing information with him but but before they do that they they start telling their their some of their kids are in the prison system with them and the kids will say to their mother mom why don't

we just we've already the Italians have we've already lost this war the countries being torn apart give them the information they want and and and we'll be released to to be free again and and and and mother would say well son be strong be brave see General de la Rover over there in that cell every day every day he gets stronger every day he's ready to spit on the Third Reich he's given up everything and here he is down there and so the kids started looking up to General Della Rivera he was their strength and their inspiration whenever they saw him they thought we could make it we can make it we can do this we can do this and pretty soon those that were the weaker members of the Italian Resistance everything had changed for them and now they wouldn't give one iota of

information if you kept them here till death they salute him when he walks by they give all the information away he's learned to love these people and the Reich left him down there maybe a little too long they brought him up to the interrogation room and told them all right slide a piece of paper across the desk write down all the names dates locations and he looks at the paper coming at him and then looks up at his interrogators shakes his head and he hears the sound of a pistol being cocked count of three names dates locations piece of paper back across the desk now he looks down at the paper looks at the PIN and he holds it right here he Squints his eyes and he says as he opens his teeth a fraction of an inch spits the gun goes off and the

man dies and who do we have here on the desk what is his identity pickpocket our general de la Rover my God it's powerful choose the right one it will transform your life it will change people's Destiny around you the greatest thing that you could ever do the greatest act of love that you could ever perform is to lay your own identity down and take on the identity of Jesus on my 26th year my son Ethan my son Carter and then my daughter Morgan their father me I worked at fast food restaurant bird came to be specific and I did not like my job I wanted to be out so bad but I had a family of five and it's kind of hard to start at the beginning somewhere else so I continued on and continued on I learned so much working there that it

was a foundational part of my whole life I wouldn't trade it for any degree now but then I truly loathed what I was and I wore a uniform every day it was a black polo shirt with a crown on it right there in black pants and black shoes and sometimes we got real happy we could wear a red Polo shirt for some variation we like to walk right on the edge there and when I was 26 also and starting to get you know that sounds like Prime now I'm I'm 47 and I think 26 man that's great but at the time um you know I'm working at Burger King so I'm eating lots and lots of fast food and so uh the baseball and softball thing is falling apart too it's pretty sad out there and Father's Day came and the wives had conspired to

embarrass all the dads and by that I mean me by having the sons wear their dad's uniform to church and come up and celebrate I'm being I'm being too harsh there I was completely surprised I'll just say that I started to figure it out you know as as a couple of boys walk down the middle aisle one in a business suit because her dad worked in office and construction outfit because Dad worked in construction and security Etc they all come up they're walking up and they're they're proud of their dads and I figured it out oh no now why didn't you just let me switch careers first before you do this I was just about to get a new job but no I saw the corner of my eye my boy walking down in my own uniform he had the black polo shirt rolled up

to the up to the shoulders which came down to his elbows he had my very own pants rolled up to the knees wearing them and he added one nice little Grace note to the end he wore something that even his dad wouldn't wear he put on a crown Burger King crown in spite of my wife telling him no dad doesn't wear that and I'd have thought well this boy should probably if he were if if I were him I I'd be hiding behind the guy with the business suit on I'd be hiding behind the row because they all came up and stood up here in front and smiled at everybody and I'd have been hiding you know and smiling but no he wanted every part of him to be known as Burger King from the crown literally of his head to the soles of his

feet Burger King I'm my dad he paraded in front of everybody he strutted around the platform he smiled like a peacock he gave everybody a great big smile he was rolling at it he was so happy this was his starring performance it's dead I'm wearing his clothes and I got on his crown I was at first ashamed but then a reflection dear Lord I was I heard the sermon a sermon for the ages you know what the boy was thinking he was thinking you know all these other guys up here this one works at the office but you know when when when when that guy talks to somebody on the phone they might be happy they might be unhappy but when customers in Bremerton Washington come to Burger King they come hungry but when they get out of that drive-through they're happy when they come

into the restaurant and they order that that Whopper and the fries and they order the shake they're happy and all those kids the kids that come into the store they might be fussing they might be whining but they hear they're going to go see my dad and all of a sudden they're happy and they're getting shakes and they got a Happy Meal my dad makes everybody happy my dad fills everybody up everybody everybody everybody likes to come see my dad he's the best dad and I want to be just like him I want to make everybody happy oh my God and I wonder do you think the Lord sees when he looks down upon his children and they wear his uniform the clothing of humility when they forgive what is unforgivable when they love what is unlovable when they practice long-suffering and patience when they

exercise in the fruit of the spirit they use the gifts of the Spirit it's a humble humble thing we wear the image of God's son and it doesn't fit it doesn't fit my goodness the sleeves come down to the floor and I keep tripping over the pants and it's a paper crown but wear it this Sunday morning 20 years hence that boy who put on that uniform he's outgrown it he's so much better my he's imitated me and gone so far ther than I could at that age there was this story about a a father who invited his three children to come during Mardi Gras to his house to receive their inheritance the house is just above Bourbon Street has three children who never visited him never cared for him they came only because they heard there was money involved and so they came and

they expected to hear their inheritance and they sat down and whined about having to be there fussed hurry up Dad we've got places to go let's get it over with already and the dad said I'll distribute your inheritance tonight at midnight but on one condition you wear the mask I gave you and don't take it off till one second after midnight you take it off you lose it and so they looked at each other and groused some more and fussed but the dad was adamant and so they put it on girl put on a mask of a very ugly woman hideously twisted that was the mask the dad gave her another girl young woman put on the mask somebody who just looked discontent perpetually and the man put on the mask the boy his boy put on the mask of a brute and then the

dad said okay I'll put on my mask now and he took out a mask and it was just skull he put it on and they all sat there you can hear the clock ticking we have six hours to go and now five hours to go and it's getting warm and the dad walks over and turns up the heat so it gets even warmer and the kids get even more uncomfortable and they're wanting they're clawing at their face and they're adjusting their mess they want it to be off and free of this they start complaining about their dad dad this is horrible I'm gonna take this off I'm done with this if you do it's all over and so he tries to settle down yes and so the hours go by by and you can hear the clock the clock the clock the clock and finally

finally the clock ticks midnight and they stand up to celebrate and they all hug each other but the dad dad he's dad's dead he's become the mask that he wore and they forgot about the mask they were wearing and so the first one took hers off and underneath she had the very face of the Mask she had been given to wear and the other two saw her and they began to scream and then they took off their own and they saw the look of Terror in the other's eyes three children screaming that story really haunted me for a long time so I felt like it was pointing a finger at something maybe me I thought these kids were bad kids and maybe they were maybe that was the point of the story but I don't think so what kind of dad does that we give

our kids masks to wear make sure it's a good one my family thank God my kids my wife they constructed a mask and they called it father and they put it on me even though it wasn't authentic to who I was yet but every day that I put it on and don't take it off I become more like the part I'm playing until at last the gap between the fiction and reality begins to close and I become the part I'm playing in YouTube with the Son of God you wear this mask and the world points at you and the enemy Whispers in your ear and says see you going to church there I can't look at you I saw what you did I Know Who You Are but this isn't hypocrisy you put on the mask anyway the hypocrite the hypocrite puts on the mask

but has no intention of being changed by the mask and is completely content to be two separate people but the child of God says it may not be completely true of me today but I'm taking one step closer to it the mask is making me thank you and our father in Heaven has given us the greatest of all masks here the firstborn of creation hear the Rock of Ages hear the Ancient of Days the rose of Sharon the lily of the valley trained servant wear it don't take it all till midnight and take it off you keep it on keep it on even when it gets uncomfortable and you want to rip it off and you just want to be who I am don't take it off keep it on and one day the Lord Of Glory is going to come and you're going to

stand before him and striding out of the light will come the very Son of God himself face with you now I know in part and prophesy in part but when the perfect is come face to face and here he stands I have been looking into this Looking Glass the son of God all these years now what will be under the mask and he takes the mask away beloved We Are All God's Children now but when we see him shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and everyone who has this hope within himself purifies himself as he is pure so what shall it be today you or him would you stand with me foreign and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose For Those whom he has

called he's predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren moreover whom he has predestined he's called In Those whom he's called he's Justified he knows whom he's Justified he has also glorified I'm calling today upon men and women who have high callings and you may not know how you're going to do this maybe you have been called into a Ministry you don't know how you're going to do this you don't know how you're going to be competent enough for this you don't know if you can wear this office wear it mom and dad you don't know how you're going to get your children from A to B everything seems like a mess and I'm not the one to fix it put on the mask put on Christ all things are possible in him it's

the most transformative thing you could ever do with your day today choose this mask and the day will come if you have committed to this imitation wholeheartedly you will have committed it so much that you've you've gone to the Grave with it but when the trumpet sounds we will like Christ rise can't help but rise to be buried with him in baptism that's the first imitation of Christ if you haven't been baptized in the baptismal tank put on the mask today not next week if Christ has any claim upon your future he has a claim upon you today they'll never be a better time than right now the window has opened and there's opportunity and it'll take some risk and some humility if you do everything in your future is different everything to come to the altar receive the Lord