Looking In The Mirror

Hey everybody, I hope everyone has had a great week. Tonight we are starting a new series called “Reflecting on Our Reflections”. Before we get started I want us to play a game. I’m going to need some volunteers. 3 groups of 4 people. Ok, so this game is called The Camera Loves Me. Here is how this will work: I’m going to have one person be a representative for each team. The team rep will be allowed to look at the picture that the adult leader will have and the rep will then need to explain to their team WITHOUT TOUCHING THEM how to make the pose. You will have 60 seconds to get your team into the pose and once time is up your team will need to stay in the pose until judges can determine who was the closest to the original image.

I want you to keep this illustration in mind as we read James 1:22-25

James 1:22–25 NLT

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

Let’s pray together.

So James 1:22–25 is going to be the key verses we focus on during this series as we dive into what it looks like to be more than just “hearers” of the Word, but “doers” of the Word. For those in this room that have been following Christ for a while now, or those that have been raised hearing people talk about Jesus, there is a temptation for us to have knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, knowledge of how we should live our lives, but we fail to act upon this knowledge. I have heard it said this way before, “our knowledge has outweighed our obedience”.

There are others in this room that may be new to following Christ, or maybe you don’t have a relationship with Christ, and you are wondering how a book written thousands of years ago has any relevance to us today. You may have seen people who claim to be “Christians” who live their lives completely the opposite of everything that you have heard or read in this Book. You may have been hurt by these people, you may have felt unloved and let down.

If that is you tonight, I am sorry. If you are here and you are struggling with the way “Christians” have treated you, I am asking that you read this for yourself before you reject Jesus. Not everyone who claims to follow Jesus actually follows Jesus. Christians can sin just like everyone else, but we serve a loving and gracious God that wants a relationship with us, one built on His perfection and righteousness, not on the judgements of other people.

So when we are talking about these verses in James, we need to understand, as Christians, why our actions are important to our understanding of Jesus. I’m ashamed at the amount of times in my life I have not considered how the actions I was taking made a fool out of my faith. There are people that knew I went to church, that knew I said I loved God, that knew I read the bible, but they way I acted was the complete opposite of how I should have acted.

And that gave Satan the ammunition to push those people further from the Gospel, further from Jesus all because I had heard all of the words of Jesus, but I had not put them into practice. If you are here and you resonate with that, that your actions have not been lining up with what you know is right, I want to encourage you to run to Jesus. He is a God full of grace and mercy. He is the Lord of all things and can redeem any situation. But don’t keep living your life claiming Christ, but clinging to the world.

There are two main areas that we need to address when we are reflecting on ourselves.

Listening to the Word

Obeying the Word

These are the areas we are going to dive into in the next couple of weeks as we continue in this series. But tonight I want us to look closer at how God’s word can reveal to us things we wouldn’t have seen on our own.

“But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.”

Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we are on good terms with God, that we got it all figured out, that we are doing all that we need to do based off of our “hearing” of the Word. Our relationship with Jesus is based on faith, and faith alone, you do not have to do enough “good things” to be able to have a relationship with Jesus. Jesus is not sitting up in heaven keeping a chart of how many good things you do just waiting on you to hit the number needed for Him to save you. No, Jesus saves based on faith in Him, but the result of faith is obedience. The outcome of faith is action.

It doesn’t mean much to say you believe something if you aren’t willing to take the actions to prove your belief. How many of you are fans of the rain? I love the sound of rain. When I was a kid and a big storm would come through me and my dad would go stand out on the front porch and watch the rain pour down around us. I like the rain. One thing I don’t like is wet clothes. I hate the feeling of wet socks or walking inside after I’ve been rained on and my shirt is just dripping water everywhere.

So I like the rain, but I don’t always want to be in it. I took this video yesterday standing out under the awning in front of the Student Center. Now, if I wanted to walk out into that rain and I wanted to try and stay dry, what is something I could use? An umbrella, yes. Now, imagine a world where people, other than you, do not know about umbrellas, and the rain is pouring down like it was yesterday.

It doesn’t matter how much knowledge I have about umbrellas. I can know how they work. I can know that it needs to go over my head to work correctly. It doesn’t matter how much I tell people that an umbrella will keep me dry. It doesn’t matter if my parent’s used umbrellas to stay dry, or I open the umbrella under the awning but when I step out into the rain I close it again because no one else is using an umbrella. People are just running out to their cars with their hoodies on over their heads so I guess I should do that too.

If I step out into the rain, believing that an umbrella will keep me dry but not opening the umbrella I will end up walking around soaking wet like everyone else. Nothing about what I have heard about umbrellas means anything until I take the action to open up the umbrella and take a step out into the rain, and have faith that it will keep me dry. Faith produces actions.

We are surrounded by a storm that we call life. Every day you and everyone else in your class, on your sports team, in your house, in this town, in this world, walk outside into a downpour of evil things that this fallen world has to offer. But if you know Jesus, you have an umbrella. The world around you is watching, hearing you talk all about your umbrella, how it will keep you dry while they are just standing out in the rain never knowing what it feels like to have dry clothes on.

Don’t just be someone who hears what God has to say, take the step of faith to do what He says. And as you walk through the storm with your umbrella out, staying dry from all of the sin, and hurts, and pains that Satan would love to drown you in, but instead you are walking in love, and joy, and peace. You are then able to tell others about how to stay dry.

The harder the wind blows and the more the rain falls and you stay dry under the umbrella the more faith you will have that this umbrella will keep you dry no matter what happens. Jesus is the umbrella for our souls, covering us so that in His mercy we don’t get what we deserve. Let us prove our faith by stepping out into this world believing that when we look different than everyone else, when we aren’t doing the same things are friends are doing, when we are believing for a miracle and everyone thinks we’re crazy, we are following after Jesus who loves us and had everything under his control.

Let’s jump back into James chapter 1 -

“For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”

So think back to the game we played earlier. How many times did the team rep have to come back and look at the picture to make sure their team was getting the poses right? Now, this is the first time they have seen this picture, so it’s understandable to not remember everything they saw the first time.

But imagine if I showed you a picture of your self, or turned the front camera on my phone and showed you your face, and then you walk over to the Student Center and in the reflection of the glass you see yourself but you don’t recognize who you are, we would think there is something seriously wrong with your memory. Of course you know what your face looks like, you have been living with it your whole life!

The bible, God’s word, is the mirror that we must look at to understand what it looks like to follow Christ. We are set free from the chains of sin that bind us by what is found in the scriptures. We are taught about the life that God intends for us to live, a life full of joy and peace. But obedience is where the blessing is. That’s what this series is all about: reflecting on our reflections in the light of scripture. It is very easy to justify our behavior if we are not confronted with the truth God’s word offers. But by taking time to look at this together, my hope and prayer is that we grow closer to God and we don’t forget what we’ve read but we put it into action and live our lives as a reflection of Jesus.

Let’s Pray