Mask On, Mask Off :: October Surprise | Pastor Levi Lusko

hey well let's open up our Bibles to Luke's Gospel chapter 12 if you brought a copy of scriptures if you didn't no worries we always put the verses up on the screen for you we also want to greet those at every fresh life location those at church online those watching on the internet after the fact we're glad you're here come on help me say hello there we go so good you know it's Halloween time and I thought I'd put a little message together because that usually goes really well with with church folks they love themselves some Halloween you know it's funny when I grew up Halloween was like a taboo word like we knew better than to even ask our parents to go trick-or-treating they didn't want us to get razor blades in our mouths or poison from all the poison you know they did y'all that parent as well like naw naw thats some sick I was gonna put a razor blade in that candy and you're gonna you're gonna maybe happen one time somewhere but that was just my parents they were they were sure of it or or it was just like a convenient way to keep us from having junk food right cuz i had i live i was i was graced in such a just disturbingly healthy home now i actually see the benefit of it but back then it was just i was oppressed i didn't want me to have the they wanted me to have them lucky charms that's for sure and you know my parents here just to give you a picture of like my life as a kid i was only allowed to order chocolate milk in the school cafeteria one day a year on my birthday you you you know back then it was like you want white or chocolate you know now there's probably like 50 options and that you know coke machine that you can add like vanilla raspberry souffle to your coke you know it's like too many options too many choices i've you know analysis paralysis when i get in front of a machine like that my don't really know i really don't know i don't know what to do with my cream soda I just don't but back then it was wider chocolate and my mom had told me you can only order chocolate milk on your birthday any other day you can and I would always be like in my head convinced at lunchtime this is the day I'm gonna do it I'm it's not my birthday but I'm gonna chocolate milk I'm gonna do it I'm gonna I'm a grown boy I can do it and and I would be in line and I would always get psyched out because I would see the lunch lady and just just before I would say chocolate I would just be so sure my mom had got to her and she was gonna know like nope you can you can't it's not your birthday and so I would just be like two white milk please tomorrow's another day Levi and shuffle off with my white milk of disgust and so I was raised in a really healthy home and we did not celebrate Halloween I did not go trick-or-treating we did not drink we didn't even get to go to those lame church parties that churches love to throw like hallelujah party you know like which is like churches if you know if you're new to church we love to take something this cool and and give it a spiritual name and do a worse version of it then the world that's our favorite thing that church folk love to do okay you know so hallelujah a harvest party it's just just the worst and so I wasn't even odd to go those like the note that's honoring the devil - just for the different name you not gonna fool me my mom would say and this is this is a true story this explains some of my issues when I was a kid when I was a kid on Halloween my mom would sit us down and she would tell us that Halloween is a night where the devil is worshipped by druids and the way they worship the devil is they sacrifice pets and children they sacrifice almost like six you know you know human and pet sacrifices to the devil on this day so we can't go trick-or-treating we got to pray for all these cats and dogs and children that are somewhere being sacrificed now maybe it happened maybe somewhere in time some animal was sacrificed to the devil on Halloween but all I know is I wasn't eating butterfingers I was praying for your pet to not get killed but I hated it and so so no I don't think that if you were if you were raised in a real strict fundamentalist Christian background you're super excited to see us honoring the devil by talking Holland but I actually do think that Halloween is is is maybe a little bit more spiritual than some of us might give it credit you should see how uncomfortable some of you look it's amazing I just love this so much but maybe it's a more spiritual day than we've given it credit because it's a day where everyone walks around with masks on it's a day where everyone it's okay like I've I've flown a couple years in a row on Halloween I think I'm flying this year Halloween people just fly around I'm a vampire I'm a linebacker no you're not you're a flight attendant but it's okay today I can just wear this costume I can just I can be someone else I I can III my wildest dreams I've always wanted to be a nurse I've always I've always wanted to be I've always wanted to be a a Butterfinger right / I've always wanted to be a giant mustard bottle like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel guys you just see some of these costumes just like what but last night I was preaching to a Tyrannosaurus Rex in caught full costume on preaching fourth row and every time I will preach real good it was just tiny arms will be clapping I [Applause] was hard to keep going I'm trying to hear from the Holy Ghost it's tiny Terrenas or strikes oh my god but uh you know we have one day a year where everyone gets to wear a costume and pretend they're someone that they're not and we do it on the outside why do I say it's the most honest day of the year maybe more spiritually of the year because the other 364 days a year we wear our masks on the inside I'll preach a message to you from Luke's Gospel that I'm calling mask on mask off I'm channeling my inner Karate Kid right mask on mask off come on stay with me mask on mask off Luke chapter 12 what do we find here in this passage we find Jesus who has just had interaction after interaction with the Pharisees the Pharisees were a group of super religious people crazy religious people who made it their entire goal in life to not get any cooties on them from the icky world they were not letting their kids go trick-or-treating right the Pharisees literally had outfits they wore to brag about how spiritual they were they had you know Elvis when he do his like thing and the tassels were all hanging off of him right they had tassels on their clothes one for every one of the laws from the Old Testament you're like oh so they had ten tassels no they went through the entire Old Testament found anything that possibly was Allah don't eat shellfish I'm getting a Towson for that and every law that they said they kept they put a tassel on their garments and Jesus said of these guys he Jesus is like one of his favorite things in the entire world was to make fun of the Pharisees okay so they would walk around he said you guys walk around swinging your tassels around right I'm too sexy for this world like like he's just like like that is not okay like that they were just all about what they were doing for God yes that's not it what God intended that's towers that reach to the sky that's that's us trying to be perfect as US trying to to basically be God we don't need help if we are that holy and so Jesus was constantly clashing with him constantly clashing with him and if you know the gospel you know is the Pharisees who were the ringleaders and Jesus being put to death it was religious people that killed God and so here we have Jesus kind of speaking to his disciples about the danger of the Pharisees and their religious masks all right Luke chapter 12 verse one it says by this time the crowd unwieldly and stepping on each other's toes numbered into the thousands but Jesus's primary concern was his disciples he said to them watch yourselves carefully so you don't get contaminated with Pharisee yeast Pharisee phone enos I love that you see because some of the best parts about the disciples were their rough edges we like to make fun of Peter Oh Peter may put his foot in his mouth I think Jesus picked Peter because he would know he was that way he knew he was bold he was just gonna sit with appears like what you see it's what you get man she's like that what do you expect he didn't go to a seminary he went to the the Sea of Galilee and got a sailor he got a fisherman so he knew exactly what he was after I talked to some people like oh man I'm not I don't know much about I can't be qualified I can't pray or I can't wait I'm like that's exactly what God wants once you get around religion or a little bit you get good at it you get slick at it and no it doesn't count anymore so my favorite conversations are with with new Christians new people new to the faith journey are still kind of figuring out what the faith journey looks like who who don't know yet to not be like Jesus is the and those just be like cousin like that's awesome I just love that so much I love the rawness of it that's not I think that blesses God's heart much more than a religious act that we can put on don't get contained he's saying don't become professionals at this guys don't get contaminated by the yeast of the Pharisees and and them basically putting on other people huge lists of laws to fill fulfill that they themselves don't even fulfill he said they're whitewashed tombs their graves that have been painted over they look great but inside they're full of dead men's bones don't get good at this Thomas don't stop doubting yes it's your strength man like like think where would we be if Thomas wasn't a doubter there's times when Jesus was saying stuff he's like you know the way I go and you know how I'm going to get there and all the disciples were trying to like impress just there like nodding deeply and Thomas raised his hand it's like yeah we have no idea where you're going and we have no idea how you're gonna get there just so we're clear Jesus looks at the rest disciples know like yeah that's true hey but that led Jesus to go oh you don't understand I am the way I am the truth I am the life blue thankful that Thomas doubted now if he hadn't doubt it where would where would we be all right so don't become slick don't become professionals let it stay raw let it stay new let it stay special let it stay passionate don't get used to this stay on your tiptoes don't don't let the pharisees contaminate you with their phone enos it's a mask he was saying right like I don't really see that in the text where's Halloween and all of this Levi verse 2 you can't keep your true self hidden forever before long you'll be exposed you can't hide behind a religious mask forever sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known you can't whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite and public the day is coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town would you pray with me father we're so grateful this week to have this moment in time just set aside to listen to you to look at your word and for some of us God who have been doing this for a while following you we just need to we need to go back to the beginning do the first things when it was special when it was new and we hadn't seen this stuff before Lord forgive us for the way that we've become formal and mechanical and professional at it got to pray that you would just speak something special to our hearts just for what we need right now and I pray that if even one of us here today is hurting is empty and lonely and sad feels like they're without God without hope in this world I pray you draw them to yourself through your Holy Spirit thank you so much for the grace you've given us on the journey that you haven't left us orphans that you've come to us through spirit we pray this in Jesus name and everyone's dead together so my theory is that all year long we were masters within and just on Halloween we choose to let the mask shine out you're probably thinking well what kind of masks are you talking about well Jesus here is talking about a religious mask the mask that says here's how holy I am here's how many Bible verses I have memorized here's what I've done for God it could be church attendance it could be how much you give to the poor could be any of those humanitarian things that are great in and of themselves but other if they're not met on the inside by a reality they just become a mask you're hiding behind but that is by no means the only masks that we wear I think we have a whole lot of mass I think some of us we like to slip into the mask call success I'll have it all together this is the mask that we put on this says look at my accomplishments this might be a mask that says I have it all this might be a mask that says I know it all right how many of you struggle with that mask you know you're not gonna raise your hand up at that but but this is the mask that that you cannot let it go by when someone says something that you know is not completely factual you know it could be this is the most casual setting someone brings up oh man I had the best trip to England and I got to go see the Tower of London and Europe yeah Tower of London is actually in Arizona I think you mean the Tower Bridge and everyone's like you're a lot of fun to be around and but we hide behind our masks of how smart we are that we know it all and we have it all we throw around our money we put this mask on like we got it all together and it's so easy to slip into this mask of a phone enos of how happy we are because of how much we have our perfect little life our perfect little job oh man our GPA we hide behind the mask of our success because we think it gives us the value that we're craving but that's not the only masks that we wear some of us we put on the mask called hero we slip into our masks called hero so we can swoop in and save the day we are strong we are brave we are defender but let me fix that for you let me do that for you let me just take care of that for you there's never been a problem we can't solve there's never been a struggle we can figure out we are hero and we hide behind this veneer of our strength and our need to rescue everybody and our need to take care of what ails people and it's easy to hide behind the mask of hero but that's not the only mask that we hide behind some of us we also I know for sure this is a mess that I struggle with we we wear the clone mask this is where we need to look like everybody else this is where we need to dress like everybody else I remember in middle school man the clone mask struck me hard in middle school you see I changed schools and change states and all of a sudden I end my I ended up in this situation where I wanted to fit in with this cool group of kids and the cool group of kids in my middle school were the skaters and so I found my way into a Nirvana t-shirt I figured out that back then the the skaters wore their backpacks with two straps on all the preppy kids wore the backpacks with one strap on with their polo collar popped and the skaters they wore they wore their their their backpacks with just life started wearing my backpack with two straps and I uh I got some baggy Jean Co jeans and big old pockets and and I got some some simple shoes some skateboard shoes I got some etnies I got the skateboard and the whole setup and I was a skater now I was I was the the clone of these kids that I wanted to think that I was cool only they were actually skateboarders some of them and so there's their shoes I noticed were scuffed up from all the Ollie's and kickflips that they were pulling and so I went to the garage and I got some sandpaper and I sandpapered don't judge my journey you don't know what I've been through and so I stand papered my shoes because I couldn't have shoes that were all brand new because then I would be found out as the poser that I knew on the inside that I was luckily I've grown up now and I no longer want to be like everybody else except my theory is we've never really left some of us have never really left junior high and the dollar prices might have just gotten bigger but we trade we trade scuffed up shoes for a bigger boat and a bigger house and and how successful we are at work why is it when two men mean the only thing they want to know is what do you do we're sizing each other whoo-hooo pounds their chat we wanted we want to be cloned we want to be better we want a one-up so many of us we hide behind the mask of the clone I just got to be like everyone else or might not you might be so like so appalled by the materialism here if we can wear the clone wars by driving a hybrid we can wear the clone wars by being stinkier anymore granola we could with my Birkenstocks they're more organic than your Birkenstocks like I have a smaller carbon footprint than you have the names change but there's nothing new Under the Sun a clone is a clone is a clone is a clone and so we struggle with the clone mass just being what like what we deem everyone else to have considered to be cool or how about this one buddy let me deal with this mask this is the everything is fine mask this this mask says everything is fine and it doesn't matter how much I'm hurting and it doesn't matter how much things are not fine this is the mass that refuses to admit any sort of discomfort and just says everything's fine everything is awesome everything is cool even though I'm crying underneath the smiley face bad everything is oh this is a mess that refuses to admit that you're going through stuff this is the mass that is just quick to brush away ammo because everything is fine we just bottle stuff up we bottle stuff up we hide stuff on the inside but we took the mask on we'd love to do this in church how you doing great blast highly favored of the Lord what does that even mean that was the Virgin Mary okay you're good you're probably not highly fake don't greet people like that just to be willing to be like things are terrible it seems we're hard right now God's good I believe that but I'm hurting right now stuff right everything everything is is fine mask is one that we sometimes put on Oh Robert this one I know for sure I've worn this mask this one's hard to get on though this mask is my scary mask this is the fear mass this is the scream mask this is the mass that we put on when we sense someone's getting too close for comfort and now we need to push him away I remember when Jenny and I first started a suffocating a little bit in this mess this is the this is the mask that when Jen and I first started dating I tried so hard to get her affection to get her attention but then once I got it I started to panic a little bit and I started to distance myself from her a little bit started to cool the jets and hit the brakes and and it wasn't any honesty of just a little bit scared maybe of this intimacy I'm just little bit scared of this and in options and all of that and and it's just getting serious and and and so instead of that I just began to try and scare her away a little bit just with a little bit of a frosty silence just a little bit of an edge just a little bit of more passive in in communication and she I mean she called me out on it she just called me straight out on IFIF you don't want to be with me then don't be with me but it was what I was doing is I I was just immaturely trying to scare her away why so many of us try and scare people away cuz were scared we're the ones who are afraid so we put on a mask that will hopefully scare them off don't how about this mask this is my mask that I'm calling sex appeal sex appeal sex appeal this is wait how do women always take their weird pictures it's always so funny to watch like four girls take a photo it's like a contest to out hip each other this is natural it's how I always stand what revealing tops and shorter skirts and and this is this is the mask that's craving attention just craving begging oh you're you're so beautiful you're so hot yeah yeah look you so much I I want to show you this is the mask that that men put on - but it's not instead of breasts it's biceps it's how strong I am it's it's it's we're craving that attention we're craving that validation we're craving that approval that will come from us putting on this this mask and the attention that we're hoping we will we'll get fifty shades of gray at a time and it's not the only mass though we put on the mask I know this one this is a strap mask it's my primary mask actually is my full-time mask this is the mask where I'll do anything for a laugh because let's be real guys what's funnier than a giant panda head am i right or am i right hey yeah he'll be here all week everybody that was not nearly as funny as I thought it would be perhaps I need to dance well the truth is that if you're an entertainer it can be easy to put on a mask to need people to left and need people to think you're funny to crave that kind of validation and and for some of us this has come about as a result of our insecurities the class clown maybe was just actually the person who was picked on and they learned to develop a funny tough shell to protect themselves from from feeling weak and from feeling like they don't matter and it can be easy to to have this this gimmick where you're getting everybody to laugh but really it's just to deflect attention away from you so that they don't they don't see you the mask of humor the mask of entertaining but feeling just so lonely on the inside people are laughing but you just you just don't actually you don't actually want them to see who you who you really are and I think the truth is some of us we don't have one mask or even even two masks we have a whole closet for our masks every mask suited for a particular situation but sometimes it's hard to remember which masks we wear to what what day oh it's oh that's right Church day okay here's my got it all together mask oh but I'm with oh it's Friday night and now they're getting too close and but everything's okay but I'm actually hurting and I know I need and and we end up just confused yeah I can't feel my face when I'm with you yeah cuz I'm touching my mask the real question is why do we wear these masks why did we resort to latex over our skin I think at the end of the day the real answer is we don't feel like we're enough we've believed the lies the lies that says that this is beautiful the lies that they say this is what someone is who's successful the lies that that say you are how much make where you are what you've achieved you are your GPA you are your waist size you are your followers on social media wasn't always this way when we were kids we could just laugh when we were kids we could just play yeah Minh the measure of how tall you stood came from how far you could jump off the swings at recess but at some point along the way there was a hurt at some point along the way there was an embarrassment at some point along the way we had the startling realization that we weren't quite like the other kids in some way or we didn't live up to the standards of our parents so we feeling inadequate feeling like we weren't we weren't we weren't enough in some way for the universe we developed a phony exterior that we began to show people craving their love and craving their acceptance we were masks because we don't feel like we're worthy of love just as we are but the danger of the mask and the reason I chose to preach this message to you is to be able to tell you this when you put a mask on you mask yourself off from God's blessing that's my sermon in a sentence when you put a mask on you're masking yourself off from God's blessing what do what I mean by that you know how when you paint stuff first you got a mask off what you have to decide what do you not want paint on and what do you want paint on and so you go into the room and you assess your environment you say I want paint on that wall but I do not want paint on that that light switch I want paint on the ceiling but I don't want paint on this on this shelf you decide what you want paint on and then you mask everything else off you only mask off what you don't want paint on now listen to me God created you fearfully and wonderfully you are unique you are beautiful you are you are a work of art you are God's Ponemah you are his masterpiece so you as you were as a child you as God intended you to be is yourself naked and unmasked but anything we do that's phony anything we do that's a lie anything we do that's not true to how God built us that is a mask we're putting on ourselves and God is constantly every day every moment seeking to shower you with grace seeking you to cover you with favor to coach you with his love to give you his best in His blessings he wants your cup to run over he wants he wants to anoint your head with oil but his blessing can't get on what you've chosen to put a mask on you mask yourself off from God's best when you put a mask on in your life how does that work four quick ways take these down as they come number one people can't know you if they don't love people can't love you if they don't know you people can't love you isn't it so funny we put a mask on because we want love but what they're falling in love with this isn't you they're falling in love with your mask they're falling in love with a superficial version of you that's been conjured up or bought at the store or a routine that you've memorized a costume that you've carefully curated so what you're doing is you're getting them to fall in love with something that isn't even there it's not even a reality and so it's not actually even love at all but you would say well if I don't do this they won't love me then I would tell this they don't love you and you you don't deserve to have fake love and to have them fall in love with something that is not even true dishonesty and deception erode intimacy dishonesty and deception true relationships are predicated upon that naked and on the shame that open and here Here I am warts and all Here I am and and this is this is me and where there's any deception about yourself as you false advertised yourself to another person it erodes the intimacy I heard on Donald Miller say he's an author Don Miller said that um that that authenticity is the soil that intimacy grows in so where you can be authentic and you can be transparent that becomes the soil that intimacy can grow them but deception it erodes that intimacy and so God can't bless you like he wants to because he wants the relationships in your life to be fulfilling he wants the relationships in your life to be a great source of joy and for that to be a pleasure and not an act and not a charade plus second thing justice done what you were to obtain you must wear to retain what you were to obtain you must wear it to retain you see the the payoff wearing a mask is more mask wearing because if you get the job with the mask you'll have to wear the mask each day at work if you get the relationship with the mask you have to keep wearing the mask hey there's an old saying fake it till you make it no it actually goes like this fake it and then you'll have to keep faking it I was telling my sister about my message and she reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons that we weren't supposed to watch his children what we did and it went like this Marge Simpson found a Chanel dress at a secondhand store he was a super beautiful dress they live a pretty simple life and and and so this beautiful dress she decides to wear out one day and some old friends of her see her in this dress and assume she's more successful in in the ways that they define success than she is and so they invited to the country club and she's just swept off her feet by this new life but what she realizes is they don't actually love her they love this vision of her that they think is her and so she has to keep working to alter the dress and come up with new outfits out of it and then one day the dress is destroyed and she realized that it wasn't worth what she was having to do to keep the approval of these people that actually didn't care about her at all and that is really the truth of mask wearing it's exhausting so number one if you wear a mask you're gonna be lonely because it's not gonna be true love you're gonna get but number two it's gonna be exhausting to keep on remembering what the mask looked like when you wore it and then to keep getting it it altered so it fits you over time my friend pastor Carl Lentz he puts it this way multi-masking is soul taxing keeping up with the max that the masks that you wear it's been put this way it's an old poem Oh what tangled webs we weave when at first we practice to deceive remembering the lies and sorting them out it's honestly so much easier just to be truthful and to let the chips fall where they may and so many of the masks are cyclical and one mask leads to another mass leads to another mass take the while the junior-high mask leads to continually emulating those around you and trying to mimic to get the approval but the hero masks you know psychologists have shown that when you are a hero and you need a project of someone to rescue that this perpetuates because oftentimes the hero will actually in time resent the rescuer for needing the rescue now it was the very thing that she attracted him with is that she was going to rescue him but now she'll resent him for needing the rescuing which will cause her the hero to oppress the victim and drive them further into the behavior that will cause them to need for the rescuing and the cycle perpetuates and then eventually one or both of them realize it's not working and they'll look for other projects or other heroes and so our payoff for wearing a mask is wonderful you get to wear more masks what you were to obtain you must were to retain 13 drop this down masks are not only lonely and exhausting but they lead to us remaining wounded you see we started wearing the masks as the defense mechanism because of our wounds but as we wear them we remain wounded because here we go Third Point we can't heal what you conceal we people in your life can't heal what you conceal meaning if you won't open up you'll be held back if you won't open up you'll be held back we in your life the people around you are meant to be a mechanism of healing for you you would say no not me pal guy dude / hoodude fallow right you would say there was a long list of descriptors was just thinking I was gonna say and I'm stalling so so here's what happens you'll say I I get my healing from God and I always say God wants to forgive you and God wants to cleanse you but God actually intends for the job of healing to be done by his people gonna need a verse for that I got to first John 1:9 says if we confess our sins he god is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness but notice what James says is he adds on this thought confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much isn't it interesting that God doesn't intend as you go to him to give you everything you need to wholeness you can be forgiven and cleansed from him but then he intends for you to speak your maskless self to other people so that they then can encourage you affirm you speak life over you and then pray to God for you for the healing that he could have just given you all along from him but he intends for it to happen within community I said it before this way God didn't just send His Son Jesus to die to bring you into right relationship with himself but to bring you into right relationship with his people and we then have the the call from God to be a community that doesn't flinch as we show each other maskless versions of ourselves and we're tempted to to judge and we're tempted to throw stones why because self-righteousness is the armor we wear who are experiencing self-loathing and so we'll throw stones because of what we're actually dealing with on the inside but this church must be this church will be a place where we can deal with you without your master you can say this is what I'm dealing with this is what I'm struggling with it's hard it's difficult and you would say well we're in the service do you have time for that cuz my god I got some stuff to unburden my soul with we don't intend for that to happen in this moment that's why we always say what happens here on a gathering like this can't change your life but it can make you want to you got to get into relationship you got to get into small group you got to get into community we had these amazing things called fresh life groups or just people position to ask those difficult questions to pray for each other to say okay that was a great message that was a lot let's talk about that let's work that through what's your mask if you don't have someone in your life this week who's gonna be saying what's your mask and how can I hold you accountable and how can I love you and how can I pray for if you don't have that kind of text message relationship with people who are positioned to be there for you to move your life for this is just gonna be a waste of time every week we're gonna hear this great thing but we treat church like a podcast because man that guy's such was great oh that was a for goosebump message but we don't have people in our life position to actually see it lead to lasting change if we don't have that then it doesn't matter the mass will stay even though time will will pass well we can't heal what you conceal there's a fourth and final danger and that's a danger that we will end up depleted and debilitated not just lonely and not just exhausted and not just wounded but debilitated and depleted why because God can't use who you wish you were think about it God can't use who you wish you were God can't use who you think he should have made you to be and so that's why you act like other people that's why he try and put on this facade that's why you drive and put on this veneer one of my favorite stories in the Bible and it's one of our core values here at the church if you have been on our site or been around for a while for sure if you've been through crash course you've heard us talk about like what's our code or our core values and you're like why would a church need core guys because we're a cult duh joking I'm joking settle down we but we have what is so important to us that we believe our markers on our road to fulfilling our mission just like a business would say hey what do we want to accomplish and what are the things that we that are important to us to get there we've we've said hey what's our philosophy of minister gonna be like or what are our touchstones or our core values and one of them is that we don't wear Saul's armor that's in our code we don't wear Saul's armor and the clarifier is to do things that no one's doing to reach people no one's reaching we have to do things no one's doing and at times you look may look around go man I'm seeing shirts do that before us that's interesting well we believe that we've been called to reach people no one's reaching and to do that we have to do things that no one's doing and it comes from a story in the Bible where David went to go fight Goliath and just before he did he was stopped by a well-intentioned King who said hey if you're gonna go fight that that giant which he first of all tried to talk him out of doing he then said if you're gonna go do that you need to you need to wear my armor here's my armor here's my helmet here's my sword here's my breastplate you know give him the whole kid in him out swagged out installs armor and just as David stood there wearing these he looked in the mirror and he realized I can't I can't do this this is how Saul might be called the fight battles but this is this is not who God made me to be I'm a shepherd all I've ever known is hanging out with the Sheep and I don't know how to use a sword I don't I don't know how to use a breastplate and so he took them off one by one and said I've not ever tested these and he picked up what he knew what he knew was the slingshot now what's interesting is at a certain point in David's story he could have sorely resented the slingshot because the slingshot is all he had to pass the time and to fight off wolves as he sat there doing a job that no one else in his household wanted to do and it could have been easy for him to develop a mask it could have been easy for him to want to be a clone of his brothers who by the way Were Soldiers and so if David was dealing with this mask it would have been so easy the moment Saul gave him Armour to jump at the chance to be a real you know warrior but he just knew this is who God made me to be in point of fact God wanted a shepherd to become the next king and that's what qualified David to be a shepherd of all of God's people because he was such a faithful Shepherd of the flock he wanted God did the kind of a king who could say stuff like the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want but he never would have been able to write such poetry if he hadn't had those lonely nights by himself so it was taking up the slingshot and not the armor that qualified David to do the things that God called him to do and here's my question to you what has God uniquely built you to do what is he pack inside of you one of the gifts inside of you that for you trying to be like someone else trying to act like someone else trying to do business like someone else trying to run your company like someone else to write songs like someone else that has caused you to miss out on the great things that God wants to do through you God can't get his blessing on what you've covered up with a mask so who you wish you were that's not important who is he made you to be fearfully and wonderfully unique and precious and powerful and so important to God that he was willing to send his son Jesus to die for you to experience resurrection life here's what I know I know that when you're willing to show me your face without a mask it gives me courage and bravery to put down mine so when you mask yourself off you're masking yourself off from God's blessing but here's the good news title this message was mask on mask off and I want you to remember that next time you're tempted to grab a mask just remember if I put this on what I'm actually doing is masking myself off from God's best but the good news is if you put the mask on you can take the mask off if you put the mask on you can take the mask off if you put the mask on you can take the mask off if you put the mask on you can take the mask off if you put the mask on you can take the mask off if you put them you might have been wearing your mask so long you forgot what you look like underneath your this might be sweaty and it might be pit but if you put the mask on you you can take the mask off if you put the mask on you can if you put the mask on you can take the mask off and Jesus will give you the strength to be who he made you what an incredible message and thank you so much for joining us in this teaching from fresh Life Church if while you were watching this message you felt led to make a decision to follow Christ congratulations we would love to send you a 21 day devotional through the book of John the pastor Levi wrote to receive that text the word fresh life to 99,000 you can also register your decision by clicking the no God button on our site we would love to connect with you if you've been impacted through what God is doing through fresh Life Church we would love to hear from you click the share your story tab on our site or email us at story at fresh Life Church and share how God is using this work to impact your life these stories are incredibly encouraging to both our staff and our church family finally if you'd like to partner with us financially and support the things that God is doing in and through this house you can text the word fresh two four five seven seven seven you can click the give button at fresh Life Church or you can give via the fresh life app thank you so much for watching

Channel: Fresh Life Church

Views: 5,605

Rating: 4.7735848 out of 5

Keywords: fresh life, freshlife, fresh life church, levi lusko, lusko, pastor levi, church, church montana, kalispell, liberty

Id: u4fACnXIcok

Length: 43min 28sec (2608 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2017