Christian Facades
A facade is a an architectural term that generally refers to one side of a building. Facade is a French word, and it literally means “face.” So generally, the front face of a building gets a lot of special attention, because it receives the most looks from passers-by.
If I’m walking through Main Street in Smalltown, USA, I’ll see a row of businesses with nice storefronts: Large glass windows with mannequins or displays inside, brightly-painted or well-lit signs, inviting doors with “Yes! We’re OPEN” signs hanging on them…you know the type! But if I were to wander off into a back alley, I would get a completely different picture. A claustrophobic roadway with cracked pavement would lead me past a row of dumpsters. The brick walls would be dirty, the fire escape stairs would be rusted, and the paint on the wood would have long since peeled. The front facade looks good, but the building is really just old and dilapidated.
When it comes to facades on buildings, isn’t it true that if the front of the building draws you in and the inside or rear is totally different, then you feel deceived? I know I do. If a beautiful outside of a house hides a rotten interior, I’d be disappointed. If a facade of a historical building gave way to a super-modern building, then I would probably find that to be awesome…though I would have been deceived.
Not just architecture
Houses and other buildings are not the only things that have faces. Some cars have competent exteriors that house an anemic engine and a cheap plastic dashboard. Some colleges have wonderfully landscaped campuses and state-of-the-art classrooms, but have lousy food, dorms, and faculty. The best made-for-TV products have a great salesman and a seemingly fantastic offer, but the product is shoddy.
Christians look like they’ve got it all together, but inside they’re hurting.
Now don’t get me wrong…I do not speak of all Christians here. But you don’t have to be covering up a murder to be guilty of this. Have you gone to church and told everyone you were doing well, when you were in fact having a rough weekend? Do you feign interest in a person’s life when you loathe them in your heart? Do you get tired of confessing your sin, so you distance yourself from those who keep you accountable? Do you even outright lie about sins in your life, downplaying or ignoring it when people confront you?
If you said ‘yes’ to any of these, then you are certainly not alone. Most people are guilty of this at some point, and some people make a habit out of it. I write this as someone who can relate, and I think we do it because we know what we should be doing, but we don’t want to admit (and we definitely don’t want to CONTINUALLY admit) that what we want to be doing and what we are doing are two different things.
The heart vs. the exterior
Enough of me talking for now, though. What do God and his Word have to say about the issue at hand?
1 Samuel 16:7b
“For the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
I could drive by a beautiful house every day and marvel at its architecture, but only the owner would know that there’s a leak in the basement and that the house needs rewiring. God is the owner of our lives, and therefore isn’t fooled by any exterior we erect.
There are two main lessons in this verse. The first is a reminder that people can’t look into our hearts. If the best restaurant in the city was in a shack and the waiters and waitresses wore rags, it would be tough to attract business. The second lesson, though, is that God doesn’t care about what the outside looks like. He cares about what’s on the inside. Why is this? Jesus gives a good answer while rebuking the Pharisees.
Matthew 12:33-34 (emphasis mine)
33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.
34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
The heart matters the most to God because it’s the source of our exterior. To put on a different face is the bad fruit of deceit that stems from some unresolved issues in the heart. Jesus expands on this idea with a fascinating verse:
Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery.
Again, the outward is the product of the inward. If I were to have sex outside of marriage, it would be the product of a corrupted heart. A heart that is completely filled with the Holy Spirit wouldn’t even allow himself or herself to lust, which means that the person would never go as far as adultery.
The heart and the exterior should be linked
We’ve seen so far that God sees right through facades, and that how good a facade is says little about how good the house is because the inside of our house is what affects everything on the outside. Now, it’s time to examine an interesting proverb that examines the relationship between the inside of us and the face we put on:
Proverbs 10:18-19
18 The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.
19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
Think about this for a minute, and you’ll realize just why it’s so provocative. Verse 18 tells us that if we try to hide hatred, then we’re still liars. Think about this! Do you know someone whom you cannot stand to be around, but you suck it up to try to be nice? Then you’re a liar! Isn’t that crazy? Then, in the next verse, we find that if we are to not conceal things in general, we’re far more likely to sin, and that restraint is good!
This certainly seems to be a case of “damned either way,” no? If you cover up the bad stuff in your heart, then you’re deceiving people. If you let it out, you’re sinning. Doesn’t this convict you? It should. If you’re in a position where you have to choose between internalizing venom or ditching the facade and being real, then you’re already in a bad place.
But isn’t that depressing? I mean, what can we possibly do? When I read this passage and studied it, I thought of a passage by the Apostle Paul:
Romans 7:24-25a
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Paul talked about his sin in this chapter, about how he would do what he didn’t want to do, and came to a point where he had to throw up his hands in helplessness and realize that he needs salvation from Jesus. And, when it comes to our facades, the only solution is to ask Jesus to regenerate our heart and fill us with the Holy Spirit. Then, we can be broken of the bad stuff that we have to put up walls to hide, and we can be freed of the desire to deceive people into thinking that we’re better Christians than we are. We will truly be living from the inside out.
This is a continual process. A brand new car is generally good, inside and out. But if the car isn’t maintained, then eventually the engine will get worn out, scratches will appear on the body, and stains will mar the carpet. You could then put up a front by painting the car and pretending it’s new, but then you ignore the problems within. We continually need to be asking God to tear down our walls and change our heart so that walls are not necessary.
Is this difficult? It certainly can be. But any other way robs Christianity of its authenticity, and creates a culture of hypocrisy that Christians can’t live up to and non-Christians despise. Let’s all work on this!
Grace, and peace,
Brendan
Photo accompanying article was taken by Flickr user phofo. The original photo can be found here, and was distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license.
