Being the Body: Releasing the Facades

Pastor Gina Johnson

So, here we are in the fourth week of being the body. Today we are going to this final part of being the body, and there’s always places to learn and grow what it means to be the body of Christ. The part that we are gonna look at today is being the body and releasing the facades.

Now we all are aware of what facades are. You know, they look really strong on the outside, but behind it, there’s really nothing real. We are spending so much time trying to keep up that facade, but there is no substance behind it. It’s like a movie set, or you know, for those of you who are seasoned, there are these filters that we use on Instagram and Snapchat and a variety of other places, and they alter the image, so it’s not the true image, but it makes it easier to look at, or people think it makes them look more appealing and more attractive. So, even though it is their original image, there is still a little bit of a facade being put on there.

Facades can project perfection, but they don’t necessarily project truth. Jesus told us a story that we may not have thought of in the past as a story of facades, but I’m gonna give you the opportunity to hear it that way today, and that is the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.

Jesus continued, there was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had and set off for a distant country, and there squandered his wealth and wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. The son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.

When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. Your brother has come, he replied.

Your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.

But he answered his father, look, all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him.

My sons, the father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

Before I get into each of those pieces, I want you to know that I have not been able to even hear the title of the prodigal son the same since one day in my life when I was on the phone with my brother. And we got into a challenging conversation over where we were at in life and the doors that are constantly open to me as I was rebellious and wearing my own facades and running in different directions and then showing back up at home.

And I’ll never forget, because at that point we were both adults and we were reflecting back and sharing stories of our children and what we were up to in life. And my brother said to me, “Well, kiddo, don’t you know, you were always the prodigal son.” And it was interesting because even as I just said that to you all, I just want you to know there’s like a tightness in my chest that I felt and an energy in my body because even though in that conversation, as we were there filled with love and sharing of what was going on in our life, there was still that “grr” from my brother as he said that to me.

And it stuck with me. It’s something that we tried to work through and talk through at one point in time, and then we just let sleeping dogs lie. But it brought me to really studying that story and trying to see, is that true? Am I the prodigal son? Am I the brother who looked at my brother who did get everything and is now carrying my father’s business and I’m like, “Grr, I only get it because I came back and you got it because you were here all along.”

Or can I be like the father in the story who says there is quite enough love and quite enough joy for everyone? And so, join me in this story.

We’ll start with the main character who I’m gonna say is the younger son. He’s carrying this facade of freedom. The younger one says to his father, give me my share of everything, the share of the estate, so he could set off to a distant land and do whatever he pleases. The younger son was thinking that freedom could only be found in escape. Freedom could be found in taking what is mine and going and enjoying it and living the life that I’ve been entitled to this whole time. I will be free. He believed that leaving home and running after more was going to make him whole. But that freedom that he was seeking was just a facade.

You see, behind it, there was emptiness. It was like he was in a sleeping state. And the same thing happens when we move so quickly to change something external, when we move so quickly to make adjustments and we still haven’t even fully remembered who we are in Christ Jesus. We haven’t done enough of the internal work to know who we are, to remember and to understand what we are about. What does it mean to be children of God? What does it mean to be an extension of God? What does it mean to be infused and empowered with all that is God’s? When we can’t look in the mirror and truly see the reflection of who we are in Christ, it’s really challenging to make external changes when we haven’t yet sorted through what’s going on internally.

A lot of us think that if we just get there, it’ll be better. If I could do this or if I could have that, it will be better. But without clarity of identity of who we are, what is it that wakes us up in the morning and lies us down? Is it truth or is it programming from the world around us? When we turn inward and look at the core of who we are, do we see the image of God? Do we see the love and the grace? Do we see the kindness, the openness, the patience? Do we see the offer of communion and unity to everyone? Because that is God and that is what is living and coursing through us, that very love, that very invitation to not be more because you went out and got something or did something, but to be more because that is who you are.

Ephesians chapter four says, put off the old self and put on the new self. I like that verbiage and at the same time, I think, you know, put off this false self and return to your true self. We come into this world, as I say all the time, with so much noise and distraction that it’s so easy to just feel comfortable putting this on and saying, this will work. This fits in where I’m going today. Oh wait, I’m going there. I need this other façade. Okay, this will work.

This fits in with where I’m going today. But when you have the true confidence in who you are and who you are called to be as the body of Christ, then we don’t need to switch faces. We don’t need to cover these things up. We can just proceed. And that’s where real freedom will begin. It’s not about where you are, it’s about who you are.

And here’s the great shift because we could be in an external circumstance and we say, why does this always feel this way? Why does this always look this way? When is this going to change? Well, once you know who you are in Christ, then you don’t have to put on facades. You don’t have to chase after anything anymore. You will see clearly, you will move with purpose, and you will change your external circumstances not because you found freedom, but from the freedom that you already had, from the freedom that you were already given. Things start to change externally.

I’ll tell you, go into a place that you go into on a regular basis and go in there with just a little more cheer, a little more enthusiasm, a little more laughter and a little more joy. And you know, I wonder if someone will say, what’s with you today? You’re sure in a good mood. What have you been up to?

It’s funny, we don’t recognize the facades that we bring with us because we’re so accustomed to them. So, just take a moment and think with that. For this particular son, sometimes it takes tasting the bitterness of the facade that you were wearing before you know to move on to something greater.

In verse 14, it says, after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine, and he began to be in need. How many times have we gone about something thinking we know the way, we know what we’re doing, and we’re not basing it on anything that’s actually tied to God, but the expectation or the entitlement of who we are and what we think things should look like in that moment without ever really stopping and taking ownership of who we are and what things actually look like in that moment.

When he began to be in need, the facade cracked. It wasn’t the good life. It wasn’t the meals and the friends and the prostitutes, as his brother said. It wasn’t this, I’m free on my own and I can do whatever I want.

Instead, it was like, I am starving and pigs are eating better than I am. What an empty space to be in. But I’ll tell you, illusions will always leave us empty. And that’s why we’re always reminded to be transformed, not by the world, but by the renewing of our mind.

Transformation is far more than just a behavior change. It’s learning to recognize that we are living in perceptions at times of who the world expects us to be, who our family expects us to be. Then all of a sudden, something will hit us, whether it’s a change in our schedule, whether it’s a diagnosis, whether it was just something that we weren’t expecting and we’re not sure what to do with it. But as it hits us, we recognize that part of the reason it’s happening is because we are responsible. And it’s in that moment, when the son is sitting there recognizing, “I had so much and because I chose to go out and do these things, now I have nothing.”

How many times do we realize in hindsight that if I just would’ve, if I could’ve, maybe I should’ve done it that way. But as I always tell you, instead of dwelling there, recognize, okay, I taste this. I don’t enjoy this. I see this crack in the image, the illusion that I’ve been portraying and instead of beating myself up, it’s time for me to move on. I’m not gonna keep living this way. I’m going to choose to live in truth. I like to call this a returning to self, a remembering of self.

It says when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare and here I am starving to death.” This was his turning point. He was able to see clearly, so there were no more excuses. There was no more need to pretend. There was nothing he could even pretend with. He wasn’t going to pity himself. He wasn’t going to hide. He was just going to be honest. This is where I’ve come to and this is what I know I must do now. So, I am going to return to my father.

I want you to know that when a turning point hits, when we are faced with that moment within ourselves that we know it’s time for a transformation, we’ve been feeling the transformation, we’ve been experiencing it, we’re moving in it and now we’re ready to take external action, it is very easy to slip back in that moment. Because sometimes what will happen in our life is we will be doing the internal work and we will be ready for that external action but there are people we love and there are people we care about and there are institutions and structures that we have gone along with for so long that we don’t want to hurt anyone. We don’t want anyone to feel left behind. We don’t want anyone who is in their own illusion to feel like we are destroying something sacred to them.

But I want to encourage you that if you are turning inward, if you are really spending space with the Father, if you are really in tune with the Spirit, the Spirit will start to reveal to you those places that are illusion, those doubts and fears and those worries that you keep hanging on to and He will reveal to you how to move in them, how to transition out of them and how to transform into something far more magnificent which is that which you already are. And so yes, there are times where as we are making external change from that internal being, remember this from several weeks ago, the being will organically bring the doing and so as we move into that external doing, recognize that if your heart is in the right place and if your heart is in alignment with God, it’s going to work out.

Might there be some tough conversations? Might there be some harder to adjust to changes? Might there be some parts of yourself that you haven’t seen for years so you’re like, wait, can I really be that person? Can I really be confident? Can I really walk boldly in my relationship with Christ and display it for the world to see? Yes, you can but just recognize that not everyone is going to be ready to receive you.

Think of it like getting a new haircut or maybe dyeing your hair blonde and putting little black stripes in. You feel good, your siblings are affirming you and hey, your mom’s got your back, right? But then you might walk into a room and maybe people don’t say it with their words but they say it with their eyes and maybe some of their eyes are like, “Oh, that’s so cool. I wish I had that bravery,” and maybe there’s others that are like, “Freak, what is that about,” right? But can you know yourself so deeply on the inside that you’re able to live it out on the outside, knowing that I’m not doing this to harm you or to hurt you, I’m doing this to live in the fullness of who I am, proudly and boldly and confidently and if I display for you what it means to be a vessel of love, a vessel of transformation, a vessel of unity and acceptance, then perhaps you too will wanna take off your facades.

Perhaps you too will wanna do your own form of dyeing your hair blonde and putting in your black streaks. It’s not gonna look the same for everyone but it can feel the same if we’re doing it with the motive of love.

So quick character change. I wanna talk about the one who is really the main character of all of these stories and that we get to know each and every day. He shows up in the role of the father, the father in the story, the father that we know so dearly.

In verse 20, Jesus says, “but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.” Before his son could even get home, he’s like, “Oh, it’s my boy,” and he goes to him. His love never changed. If anything, it grew deeper and it grew stronger. The only illusion was in the son’s mind. It was not in the father’s mind. He believed that his mistakes disqualified him. He believed that his wrong turns, the places where he fell short kept him away. He was willing to come back in and say, “Father, I will be a servant. Just please take me back.” And his father was quick to remind him that I don’t need your explanations. I don’t need your excuses. I don’t need your apologies. He simply embraced him.

Then he called for the greatest and the finest to be bestowed, to be put upon his son and that’s what he does with each and every one of us every day, every moment. He’s calling, grab the robe, grab the ring. Give them all of the provision and prosperity they deserve but sometimes we are so far away wearing all these layers of masks that we just can’t hear it. But when we are ready, when we are ready we can say, “Okay, I feel you calling me, father. I sense you in me and I know who I am so not only am I returning to a physical home, I’m returning home to myself.”

When I was studying this earlier this week, what kept popping in my head was the vine and the branches. Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches. It’s in the book of John and I thought about how the branches, they don’t do what they’re supposed to do to stay connected. The branches are able to do what they do to bear the fruit, to hold the weight, to sway in the beautiful breeze of the wind because they are connected. There’s no staying involved, they are already there. Our life, our identity, our beingness, our freedom, they all come from our relationship with the father, with God, not from our appearances and never from our performance.

Have you ever traveled and you’re in that rush to get to the airport because you don’t wanna miss your flight and had that feeling where you thought you were going to miss your flight? Imagine the stress, the anxiety. “Gosh, I should’ve left a little earlier. I didn’t expect traffic to look this way. I wish I wouldn’t have had to run back to the house to get something.” And so you’re there and you’re thinking, and the panic is real. But then you find out the plane is still waiting. The plane has that seat for you. The reality never changed.

The son thought he lost everything but the father had never stopped saving him that seat. It was his and it was always going to be his. The truth is, there isn’t even a plane waiting because you’re already on it. You’re already in that seat and that’s where you always reside. And the same is true for us.

No matter how far we wander, no matter how far we think we veer off course, we are never off course. Perhaps our choices aren’t the most pleasing to us and to those around us. But ultimately, we are always on the right course as we continue in our unfoldment and God’s love doesn’t shift.

So in those moments where we think, I wandered so far away from God, how will I ever get back there? Just pause for a second and recognize you’re already there. Just throw off these things that you’ve been telling yourself. I’m not worthy. I’m never gonna be better. They’re never gonna forgive me. How can I ever be that person? It’s not something you’re going to strive to be. It’s releasing and recognizing that is who you already are.

I have to do one more character change and that’s so we can call ourselves out in some ways and that’s looking at that elder brother. You know, he became very angry and he refused to go in and he started off right away, “All these years I’ve been slaving away for you, dad. Thanks a lot, dad.”

You know, the elder brother, he never left home and so we might think, well, then he didn’t have to put on any facades. He was always safe at home.

Actually, outwardly, he practiced obedience and he practiced respect and faith, but inwardly, did he ever get to take off his own mask? A mask of resentment, a mask of judgment, a mask that says, why are you always favoring him over me?

We all have many masks and they each display a part of our personality and when we bring these masks into union so we can release them and just stand in the full face of who we are, things will change. Things will change rapidly. This brother, he wore a different type of mask, one that looked whole on the outside but was definitely hollow and empty on the inside.

It tells you that facades, they don’t always look like rebellion. One brother was in rebellion. The other one was in self-righteousness.

Sometimes our facades, they look like religion and it’s unfortunate when I meet people and I ask, what do you believe? Do you go to a church or something like that? And I get their response, “Well, I’m spiritual, not religious.” What have we done to the word religion and religious that people feel the need to say, “Well, I’m definitely not religious.” I always say, “Well, good, me neither, whatever you think that word means,” because the truth of the matter is, religion is and always will be something beautiful.

It’s when we take it out of context and use it to judge people, to lock people in, to condemn people, to say this is better than what you have going on over there. But I’ll tell you, when we continue to look at ourselves and release those mindsets that distance us from the Father, then we stop wandering.

You know, both this younger brother who wandered away and the older brother who was wandering in the home, they both misunderstood the heart of their father. One ran away physically, the other stayed there and they were both deprived of grace and truth, but not because the father wasn’t offering it. They were deprived because their identity was wrapped up in something else, when really, all along, they both held their divine inheritance in their hands. In their being.

I had this funny image of a person banging on a door outside of their house. “Let me in, let me in! Where are the keys? This is my house, let me in!” And they’re banging and they’re banging and they’re so frustrated because they can’t get in and all of a sudden it’s, oh, the keys are in my pocket. How often are we there and we are striving and saying, give me this, I deserve this, this is what I want to have and we’re so caught up in that that we don’t recognize that all that we need is already ours?

Our father has given us everything we need to no longer cling to performance, but simply be in the joy of belonging, of knowing who we are and who our source is. That invitation was given to both brothers and they missed it, but the father offered it again, just like he offers it to us all the time. Release the facades.

As I told you in the beginning, the prodigal son just resonates with me in some ways. It feels like my brother bullying me when I was little, sitting on me, passing gas, popping my toes and all sorts of things. And other times I hear the prodigal son and I release all of that and I just think, this is an invitation.

This is an invitation for me to remember who I am. For me to know that I don’t have to run away, to belong, to feel the love of the father, to embrace the trueness of who I am in Christ. And I also don’t have to be lost and confused in the chaos around me, because that too can be broken down. That too can be released. And when we can stand in that, when we can stand without the filters, without the mask, but maybe standing in the smile and the joy and that honest energy that we are the embodiment of Christ, that we are the children of God, and when we can stand in that together, then all aspects of ourselves will transform into that which they already are.

So as I conclude, I just want to give you all a challenge. When you have a moment, take some time and ask yourself those questions. You know, what facades am I wearing and why? Why do I put on a filter to who I am? What is it about myself that may need to be given to spirit that I can transform it? Why am I so caught up in the busyness and always running and never stopping and looking at what is really going on?

Over the past four weeks, we’ve talked about being the body. We’ve talked about the importance of building the body, of recognizing what it means to study, to take care of your mind, spirit, and your body. We talked about the importance of generosity, how important it is to recognize that we have been so blessed that in everything we do, let us be a blessing. We talked about focusing our aim, how there are gonna be many things that come along and try to distract us, but if we know where we are going, if we know that that promised land is already ours, we can stay true in the enfoldment of our path.

And today, we talked about releasing the facades, recognizing that our truest, highest, most loved and valued self is already sitting right here, is already with us, and that seat is always saved, and that face is always visible if we just let it be.

Please pray with me.

God, we are so grateful for your word. We know that your word is a living word and can speak to us through the spirit, so God, I pray that that’s what happened here. I pray that your spirit used me as a conduit to deliver the message that we all needed to hear. I pray that as we hear your word and we feel your spirit and we sense that love that is never-ending, that we are able to just be, that we are able to do the things that bring us to a closer knowing of you, a fuller embodiment of you, and more clear actions on how to bring you to the world.

God, we are so grateful for this time, and we are so grateful to continue in this journey of enfoldment as your children, as your hands and feet, as the body of Christ. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.