Have you ever felt lost in a crowd? You enter a room filled with commotion. People are talking, smiling, enjoying one another. Maybe it was a corporate gathering or community event. Maybe it was a wedding? Hopefully it wasn’t a funeral! Maybe it was a restaurant, school cafeteria, or coffee house. You went hoping to make new connections, strike up conversation, deepen friendships. . . But, instead you felt like cellophane! You may as well have been wallpaper! So, what happened?
Nobody but the trained greeters noticed your arrival. Nobody cared to know your name or story… the value you could offer… You quietly stood to the side, out of traffic, keeping to yourself, politely nodding as people walked by. You sat alone. And, the icing on the cake, nobody noticed your departure. Have you ever felt invisible? Unseen—like a stranger at someone else’s party? If so, I bet you hated it.
Now I might also be describing people’s church experience. Ever visit a church and feel like cellophane? I dread the thought of someone coming to Lakeside and feeling unseen. That sort of thing doesn’t just happen in mega-churches, it also happens in small churches. A person comes seeking God and nobody sees them? If you know how it feels to be unseen, you should make it your ministry to see people. Not just greet those who greet you… but put head on swivel, get to know, listen, and value everyone.
How many hate being unseen? Can you raise your hand? How many of you hate the thought of other people being unseen? Now I might not just be describing your church experience, or that of someone else. What if I am describing how God feels in the midst of our religious services? What if God feels like cellophane or wallpaper?
In the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes the Father as an obscure spectator, a “secretive participant.” Look here at Matthew 6:6, we will come back to it, but notice how Jesus talks about praying to “the Father who is in secret.” Now what does that mean!
In Church circles they have this thing called the Secret Shopper—where they recruit a non-Christian, and have them visit your church incognito. One time I asked an actor to dress up like a homeless person and stumble around Toronto Road and Second Street to see if anyone on their way to services would notice him. During the sermon, I invited him to come forward and reveal himself. It was like Under Cover Boss! Anyway, he was in tears because so many people stopped and showed they cared!
But in Mt 6:6, Jesus says the Father is the in-Secret Shopper, the Undercover God! He’s right here in our midst, but do we see him? Do we recognize him? How is it that we’ve become so concerned what human consumers think and see that maybe we’ve stopped wondering what God, the Father thinks and sees? Isn’t he the first and ultimate consumer? I think there is going to be a rude awakening one day because Churches spare no expense appealing to people, deluding them into thinking they are the primary audience in worship. But in reality, it’s God who is the primary consumer of worship. Does our worship shine the limelight on God? What did Jesus say in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”? Maybe the reason people feel so disconnected from God in worship is because we’ve made it all about ourselves. Allow me to reframe Matthew 6 in the form of three questions:
1) Does God feel unseen in your money and finances? Matthew 6:1-4, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
We’d agree that giving to the poor is a good thing, regardless of one’s motive. Say what you want about religious hypocrites, but at least in Matthew chapter 6 they were giving. The people who most rail about Christian’s being hypocrites have a funny way of not giving anything themselves! But I digress! The dark side of giving is that we can become so full of ourselves that we forget what giving is about in the first place. Before giving is about the cause, it’s about the Creator. To give and not acknowledge your creator, from whom every good and perfect gift comes. Or worse, to not give at all week after week. Undercover Secret God sees what’s done in secret—and it’s pure generosity that delights God. Remember the story of the widow’s mite—the widow who gave two tiny mites all that she had! Jesus was delighted with her and remembered her. Does God feel unseen in our money and finances?
2) Does God feel unseen in our fasting (meals)? Matthew 6:16-18, “Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Here again we think ourselves superior to the Pharisees—but to their credit at least they were giving and fasting. So many people worship week after week and give no thought whatsoever to giving to God, much less tithing, much less fasting.
I’ve always struggled with fasting. Every time I’ve tried, I’d have a life or death insulin and sugar crash and find myself digging into the fridge. Lately (honestly, not for spiritual reasons), I began a daily rhythm of fasting. The health benefits alone have been transformative! However, the spiritual repercussions have been far greater. One of our greatest blind-spots is the degree to which our appetites (our flesh) consume us. We’re almost always focused on our desires and appetites. What will I eat, drink, wear, drive, purchase, upgrade. Our appetites are all consuming.
What does Jesus say about this? He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” He told the devil, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Fasting breaks our dependency on food. It silences the pangs of our cravings, desires and appetites. Fasting reveals the sufficiency of God to fill and satisfy us. We make such a big deal about taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ. But what are you thinking about? You’re thinking about your desires. Why not go to the root… and learn to take every appetite captive and make it obedient to Christ?
Anyway, we’re drowning in junk carbs, junk desires, junk appetites while we’re missing the life-giving banquet the Father has prepared for us in his presence. Jesus says his body and flesh are real drink, real food. The Father watches from his secret place waiting to see who truly hungers and thirsts for his presence. Do we leave God in shadows of our appetites and desires, or have we made God himself our deepest desire?
Now for the big one! 3) Does God feel unseen in our prayers (mouth/lips)? Matthew 6:5-9, “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Wow. Our prayers, even our public church services, can be full of babbling (word salads) and no one really listening to God, or really speaking to him. Don’t you hate it when someone greets you but has no desire to connect with you, or know you? The Father is standing in secret and what is it he most wants? The Father yearns for true conversation, not just transactional worship, or exhausting babbling, performative prayers, self-absorbed prayers. When we pray, we think the most important thing God needs to know is what we need. But maybe it’s the opposite. What if the most important thing in prayer is for us consider what God wants?
Matthew 6:9-15, “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 14 “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
God who is in secret is waiting for us to acknowledge Him. God is a Good Father. His name is to be honored as holy—are we making much of him? Our focus ought to center on his kingdom and his righteousness… on his will being done on earth… not our will being doing in heaven and on earth. Our posture ought to be one of faith and dependency. God promises to meet all our daily needs in Christ Jesus. God has sent his Holy Spirit to steer us away from temptation, and the trap of the devil. What a great gift! God wants us to step deeper into his mercy and grace…not just relishing in “being forgiving” but actually learning to forgive as Christ has forgiven us!
We could do a whole series just on the Lord’s Prayer. But let me leave you with a few sayings of Jesus. What was Jesus’ greatest complaint? Matthew 15:8-9, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.’" Matthew 7:21-22, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ 23 Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!”
Here is the takeaway. The God who is in Secret invites us to join Him in Secret. To give all of ourselves first, and as fully, and as purely as possible to him. To love him with all our heart, mind, body, soul, money and giving, mouth and prayers, in our meals and appetites. Instead of being consumed with ourselves, God is watching to see who will be consumed with his name, his will, his purpose and plan, his kingdom and righteousness, his mercy and grace, his forgiveness, his service. May God be more than cellophane, wallpaper, window dressing, and lip service in our worship.
Prayer: Worship. God desires that we worship him in spirit and in truth… Those who endeavor to be pure, see, come to know, experience, be consumed with God, and by God… will be rewarded indeed. For God himself is our very great reward.