We all learn how to manage what other people see, hiding the parts of ourselves we’re ashamed of and protecting the version of ourselves we want others to believe. But the longer we hide, the easier it becomes for the false self to feel like the real one.
The gospel invites us to something different. Jesus already sees us completely, and because He has carried our condemnation at the cross, we don’t have to hide. Real transformation begins when we stop managing the image, come out of hiding, and allow Christ to make us new.
Outline
- The Oldest Hiding Place
- Hiding has been part of the human story since Genesis 3. Shame causes us to cover what we don’t want others to see, creating a false self designed to protect our image and keep the real us hidden.
- The Cost of the Cover-Up
- David’s story shows us where hiding can lead. What begins as managing one sin can eventually become managing an entire life, leaving us so committed to protecting the false self that we can become blind to what is actually happening within us.
- The War I Can’t Win
- We cannot self-manage our way into transformation. Like Paul describes in Romans 7, we eventually reach the limits of our own willpower and realize we don’t simply need a better strategy; we need Jesus to deliver us and make us new.
Passage
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
