By day Amy Hughes is a computer programmer. Amy enjoys cats. Most importantly for us this morning, Amy enjoys Legos™. Many my age and younger can identify with these plastic building bricks. I enjoyed many hours of playing with Legos™ s a child. When we moved to Fort Miller the former pastor’s family left two big blue buckets of Legos ™, which James has enjoyed immensely. Amy is an adult who enjoys Legos™. About a year ago, I was doing some research on the Internet about churches and I came across Amy’s website dedicated to the Abston Church of Christ. Abston is a fictional town in the Midwest derived from the initials of the plastic (ABS) that is used to make Legos™. Amy created a beautiful church (really a cathedral) completely from Legos™. It is a sight to behold. I’ve brought some pictures along this morning so that you can see. So you can get some perspective, here are some of the statistics about the Abston Church of Christ. It is 86 ¼ inches in length; 65 inches wide and 30 inches high. There are 3976 windows and of total of over 75,000 pieces of Legos™ used in the project complete with 1372 miniature people. I think it’s incredible. Amy spent a year and a half on the project and has made pictures of the project available on her website. Amy thinks churches are worthy of modeling with Legos™ and I would agree with her. The church building is where Christians gather to worship. Again we want to take a look at this concept of worship and this morning we want to take a look at authentic worship and being real (authentic) with God, other Christians, and the world.
As beautiful and amazing as Amy’s Abston Church of Christ is, it remains plastic. It is just an imitation of the real thing. Just this week, I was looking through a book of art from my college days. It’s interesting to look at reproductions of the real thing, but they don’t capture the heart of the artist. While attending Indiana Wesleyan University, part of my education was to go to an art museum. Pam and I went down to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. We spent a wonderful day looking at the pictures from all over the world. It was the first time that I had seen real paintings from the masters. You could see all the fine detail and the heart of the artist. This was not something you could see from a reproduction.
God desires worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Jesus warns us against putting up a false front, a plastic image. Let’s look at Matthew 23:25-28:
25 “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 Blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will become clean, too.
27 “How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 You try to look like upright people outwardly, but inside your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
How many of us show up for worship on Sunday, simply to look good for others. The best example I can think of is on Easter Sunday. How many dress up especially for that Sunday. Even if you never wear a tie, you will for Easter. Or if you never wear a dress, you will for Easter. Jesus warns us about looking good on the outside, but dirty on the inside. The word hypocrite in the Greek means actor to us. Jesus accused the Pharisees of being good actors. They acted like they were religious, but they weren’t religious at all. They just put on a false front. How many of us our like that today. If people could see inside of us, to see what really made us tick, would we be ashamed.
One of the reasons we don’t open up and we put on false fronts and we put on the mask is because we are afraid of judgment from others. Jesus speaks to this as well in Matthew 7:1-6:
1 “Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. 2 For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. 3 And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
I want to reiterate what I said a few weeks ago. There is nothing wrong with coming to the altar. My heart has been pleased as over the past few weeks the altar has received some use. In fact, I would go this far; if you come to the altar it is not a sign of weakness as some would say, but show that you are willing to let Christ rule in your life. Those who come to the altar are putting down the mask and are willing to be seen for who they really are. Let’s take it just one step farther. If we are willing to put on the mask so that others will see us differently, aren’t we tempted to do the same thing to God? Fortunately, God can see past the mask that we put on.
Now some would say that not judging is an excuse to let people sin. How did Jesus handle this situation? Remember the woman caught in adultery in John 8?
7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.
Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were and they were gone. Jesus said I’m giving you a second chance. I don’t condemn you, however, go and don’t sin again. Paul writes in Galatians 6:1 “1 Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.” In this way we help others put down the mask. Our response when a Christian sins should not be judgment but a willingness to bring them back into the fellowship of God. We are reminded that sin will happen in the life of a believer. John warns us that it shouldn’t be happening all the time. We need to walk in the light of Jesus, but what happens when we sin and we confess our sin? 1 John 1:9 says, “9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.”
If we are going to be a church of authentic worshipers; if we are going to be a church of real worshipers; if we are going to be a church that takes off the mask, then what we have been given from the Bible is good advice. We need to be willing to be real with each other and be real with God. That means that we are going to have to get rid of judgmental attitudes toward others, because it’s only when those judgmental attitudes disappear, do we truly come to a safe environment to take off the mask and get right with God the way we need to get right with God. We need to remember that each one of us was chosen by Christ to be his followers. We also need to remember to think of others more highly than our self. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:9, “9 For I am the least of all the apostles, and I am not worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted the church of God.” When we think of ourselves as Paul thought of himself, we are much less likely to judge others. What we need to remember is that we don’t live this Christian life on our own. It is only through Christ that we can do anything. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “9 … ‘My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.”
Mark Hall writes, “There are times that instead of being myself and exposing my own weakness and hurt, I portray a character of the person that I know I should be. But when I expose myself as weak and frail at times, it frees the body of Christ to restore me as it should and invites others to unmask as well.”
My challenge for us this morning is that we would shatter the stained-glass masquerade. Perhaps you are one who likes to hide your weaknesses. You want to be seen as the strong Christians leader. Paul says, through Christ we are made strong. It’s not in our self. Perhaps you like to watch others and wonder why they are not strong in the Christian faith. Guess what? It’s not for you to know. If you like wondering why people go to the altar perhaps you need to come to the altar and confess that. It’s only when we take off the masks that real worship can really begin.
