“Keepin’ It Real” series: “Show And Tell”

When I was a kid I loved “show and tell”.

I couldn’t wait for the day when it was my turn and I could show and tell about my toy, or pet or whatever! It was fun to let people know about me and what I had.

But somewhere from the time we’re kids to the time we’re adults things change. Suddenly we don’t like “show & tell” anymore. Maybe it was all times kids made fun of us or judged us when we showed who we really were.

As adults we go from loving “Show & Tell” to instead wanting to play “Hide & Seek”. We’re not so open to letting people know us as much.

Today, I want to talk about a different kind of show and tell. This kind of “show and tell” I’m talking about is the 3rd group of people we need to confess to.

Last week, we talked about how we live in a culture that claims to want to “Keep it real”, but in reality our culture is really all about “Keepin’ it fake”.

People aren’t really supposed to show who they really are. They’re supposed to hide it. You have to always look cool, sound cool, and act cool. The internet is the perfect example of “Keepin’ it fake”!

There are places like MySpace.com is really a place for the unreal. People put of their best or favorite pictures of themselves, try to get a ton of friends to prove how cool or popular they are.

It’s showing only ONE side of them! It’s 1 dimensional - “1D”.

We said our culture is so NOT “Keepin’ it real” that even “Reality TV” isn’t real! In reality, our culture teaches many people that it’s all about “Keeping it fake!”

That’s why what I’m talking about is important.

In a culture filled with people “Keepin’ it fake” what I’m talking about could have a really powerful affect in our lives.

Remember:
We’re not talking about confession in the traditional way. We’re looking at it as a way to free us and others. We said that confession basically just means admit the truth. We said there are 3 people we need to confess/admit the truth to.

1. Ourselves (could be the hardest to confess to)

I read you a quote last week from David Allen who’s known as the “productivity guru”. He wrote a well-known book called, “Getting Things Done”. The quote I read was his 4th principle from his book called “Ready For Anything: 52 Productivity Principles For Work And Life”. Listen again to what he says…

“4. Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are.” Then he says, “A map is not functional until you know where you are on it.”

I told you that that’s what confession is! It’s self-inventory. It’s taking a REAL look at: where you’re at, how you’re doing, admitting what you’ve done right and wrong, and where you need help.

Until you do this you can’t get anywhere in life! This is the first step because until you do this you can’t confess to anyone else!

2. God

We Read 1 John 1:5-10 We saw that John was telling us…If you say you have fellowship with God, then you have “live in the light” and expose (admit) when you sin. That opens you up to others and cleanses you.

Then he says this in v. 8-9…

"8If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong."

We said that God wants what we want when someone does us wrong. We want them to ADMIT it and not make excuses!

But, God can’t forgive us just cause we’re really sorry. He can only forgive us when we acknowledge and accept the payment for our sin in what Jesus did for us. Once we begin this relationship, then the way to keep things from getting in the way of us and God is by DAILY admitting the truth of how we’ve messed up to God.

I told you that I think one of key things that holding a lot of us back in life is that we’re in denial. We’re falling short in a lot of areas. We have guilt. But we don’t do anything with it!And it stalls us out of the map of life.

We run out of gas and eventually go down in flames because we never took time to be REAL with ourselves and God and take a self-inventory.

Today, I want to talk about the third person we need to confess to. After confessing/admitting the truth to ourselves & God…

3. the third thing we need to do is confess/admit the truth to someone else. No everyone! But at least someone!

Let's look at James 5:16...

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