We’re all professional hypocrites. It’s one of the most important skills that we develop in the social world.
It’s worth recalling that the word hypocrite comes from a very old Greek word that referred to wearing a mask. In ancient Greece, actors always wore masks when they were on stage. This is why they were called ‘hypocrites’. To be an actor was to be a mask-wearer. This was Jesus’ indictment against the Pharisees. They were hypocrites because, for all intents and purposes, they went about Israel pretending to be one thing (righteous, holy, pious, law-keepers), but in actuality being something else (selfish, greedy, proud, lustful).
Now everyone in the modern world is a mask-wearer (and I’m not just talking about the cloth kind!). If we are honest, we have to wear masks. Just imagine what would happen if a typical man showed up at work on a Monday expressing on his face everything that he felt inside his heart. What if he simply allowed his frustration, exhaustion, or shame to be unleased like a flood on everyone he met at the office or on the construction site? At best, his colleagues would avoid him. At worst, he’d lose his job.
But there is an even deeper problem than the necessity of being a mask-wearer in public space. The truth is that most of the people we label friends actually prefer the fake ‘me’ to the real ‘me’. Anyone who doubts this can try a simple experiment. Next time someone at church or in the workplace asks the question, ‘How are you?’ answer honestly. Take a minute and pour out some of the sewage that is flowing through your heart. The shock and discomfort on the face of the other person will say everything you need to know. More than likely, like billboard their face will express a simple message: too much information.
Men, we need to recognize both facets of the problem: (1) we’re far too comfortable in our masks and (2) very few people care enough about us to want to see the naked truth of our lives.
The Importance of Having a Friend Who Is a Lie-Detective
As Christians, we need to realize that the stakes of this problem are much more significant than making friends and influencing people. Mask-wearing is not just a psychological or social illness. It’s a high-risk spiritual liability. The truth is that every man is in a life-or-death battle with Satan, temptation, and sinful passions warring against our souls (1 Pet. 2:11). To wear a mask is to live in a kind of spiritual darkness – the exact conditions where sin and Satan do their dirtiest work. Therefore, we need our masks to come off for one, most significant reason: ‘God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth’ (I Jn. 1:5-6). At the end of the day, we can lie to our boss; we can lie to our pastor; we can even lie to ourselves. But we cannot lie to God. He sees the truth of our lives regardless of how good at acting we are before the eyes of men. And as John says so clearly, we cannot have fellowship with God if we are living in the darkness.
So, what can we do to overcome our habit of mask-wearing? One of the most important steps we can take is to find a friend who is a lie-detective. There are three primary traits that identify such a friend.
First, this is friend who cares enough about me to want to see beneath my mask. He wants to spend time with me, not just because I’m funny on the golf course, but because he cares about my soul.
Second, this is a friend who can detect when I am putting on my mask. He can spot the discrepancy between the superficial and the real, and he is unwilling to ignore the tension.
Third, this is a friend who has sufficient courage and interest to ask questions that force me to take off my mask and communicate the real self who is trying to hide in darkness. Just as God used questions to summon Adam out of his hiding place, this friend pulls me out of the darkness by asking good questions and sifting the answers.
Such a spiritual friend is a lie-detective. Every Christian man needs to make sure that he has at least one of these in his band of brothers.
For more insight on how to find a friend who is a lie-detective, listen to episode 2 of season 1 of the Cross Training podcast.