What is Your Mirror Image

What is Your Mirror Image?

Sermonic Contents

Prologue

Good day, Happy Independence, Barbados celebrates 58 years of sovereignty and that is something worthy of acknowledgement. As a people who have been robbed of much of our identity, we must celebrate what we as a people have been able to accomplish and take ownership as our national anthem rightly, states – “these fields and hills we all recall are now our very own.”

Of course, Happy Sabbath to everyone. I would like to personally welcome all our guests, thank you for sharing today with us and to our regular members, it good to see you once more.

Before I begin, I would like to us to turn our bibles to 1st John, chapter 2, verse 28-29 continued by 1 John verses 1-10. I want to encourage you to read responsively, what that means is I will begin with verse 28, you continue with verse 29 and we will alternative until verse 10 of the next chapter, in which we will read together.

Today’s logos is entitled, “What is Your Mirror Image”— “What is Your Mirror Image”. Let us pray.

Introduction

It is the year 1986, all is well in Barbados. The economy is stable, morals are relatively intact, and the scent of election is the excitement that freshens the air. The Right, Excellent Errol Barrow is vying for Prime Minister once more, and he envisions a Barbados free from the relics of our colonial past. I imagine that he doesn’t want us to be remembered as the descends of slaves but as an independent, industrious educated class of people, world renowned for our excellence. In his speech entitled, “What is your mirror image,” ErrollBarrow is trying to do is to challenge the way Barbadians see their identity. In his speech and I quote,

What kind of mirror image do you have of yourself when you allow the mothers of this nation to be beasts of burden in the sugarcane fields?”

What kind of mirror image do you have of yourself – When all we want to do is go and scrub somebody’s floors and run somebody’s elevator or work in somebody’s store or drive somebody’s taxi in a country where you catching your royal when the winter sets in?

You see, Errol Barrow continues in a literary style of repetition that challenges the mentality of Barbadians, forcing them to look inward and to determine what kind of Barbadian they wanted to be.

One of the reasons why Errol Barrow was so well respected, one of the reasons why his Mirror Image speech is compared to Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech, one of the reasons why we are still benefiting from the decisions made by him three decades later is because he was not just a Politician (though he did that well), not just an orator(though he did that well), or even a Prime Minister (though he did that well), it is because he was a visionary.

In his Mirror Image speech, not only did Erroll Barrow challengedBarbadians to look at their mirror image, but he also shared his own mirror image of Barbadians. So, for context, mirror image can be defined as self identity or simply... identity.

The Oxford Dictionary defines identity as characteristics, feelings or beliefs that make people different from others. Therefore, we are Barbadians because of our language, our food, our mannerisms and even our mentality which is different from others. Yes, we may have been born in Barbados but that doesn’t mean you can not be grafted into a Barbadian identity. For example, Elder Lex, who is Vincentian and Elder Hardy who is Guyanese are just as much Barbadian as me. I am sure that these two men know just as much about Barbados as me, or perhaps even more. They have had a longer time than me to practice their Barbadian language, cook Bajan food and to display Bajan mannerisms. So being Barbadian is not merely a designation but a continuous state of being. This is an important point to note as we delve deeper today. Identity is bound up not in a designation but in a continuous state of being.

What if I told you that there was a man similar to Errol Barrow who has a mirror image for you? What if I told you that there is a man who knew you better than Erroll Barrow could? A man who, according to Jer 29:11 said that He knew you (the Hebrew word yada which means to know intimately) even before you were born? A man that knew you would be born QEH even before Queen Elizbeth’s entire family linage came to being. A man that knew you whether you would grow up to like raisins in Conkies or not; I’m talking about a man that claimed you before you very own parents got a chance to declare their ownership of you on your own birth certificate. I am talking about a man called Jesus!

If there was a text that could “mirror” Erroll Barrow’s sentiments, one that could challenge mirror images and define our identity as Christians, it would be found 1 John. Here we are called children of God, or the King James Version renders it as “Sons of God”. Erroll Barrow considers us Barbadians, but we have been called to a higher purpose and though this terminology sounds special, what exactly does it mean to be a son of God?

Unger’s Bible dictionary shares a clear description of this concept, it says that’s

“Persons in this category are onlythose who of the fallen race are regenerated because of faith in Christ”

This definition is supported by the Word of God in John 1: 12-13 which says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God” and Galatians 4:5 – “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters.”

In other words, children of God are those persons who have believed and are covered by the blood of Jesus. So, if you have accepted Jesus are your personal saviour, I’ve got good news for you – youre a child of God.

And now that we understand who is a child of God, the million-dollar question is, how do you remain a child of God? Because the text, makes it clear that there are some prerequisites to being/remaining a child of God, which is why I said earlier that identity is a state of being and not just a designation.

There are four prerequisites I want to share with you today.

So, the first prerequisite is abiding. In 1 John 2:28-29, the bible says – little children, that is, children of God abide. The Greek word abide is meno means take refuge, to remain, set up camp. It is just not enough to believe in God, it is just not enough to come to God, for me must also remain with God.

However, it is not just a physical; what John is stressing here is not being in the same room of Jesus or some proximity to Jesus. His emphasis here is relationship. How close to you to Jesus? Do you talk to him every day and if so, how long and how often? And not only do you talk to him, but do you listen to him?

In Det 6:4 the first word of the text is Hear. God is speaking to the Israelites, and he says Hear, O Iseral. In Hebrew that word is called shema and it is a verb. It not only means to hear as in receive the message but to act on that which you have heard in obedience. So today I ask you are you acting upon His word? Not just the ones found in the bible but do you His shema His voice.

In other words, if you’re talking with God you begin to walk with God and when you’re walking with God you become more like the character of God so as we discuss this thing called a mirror image, our mirror image becomes less of us and more of Him.

I once saw an inspirational photo on Instagram of a kitten looking into a mirror and what he saw was not a kitten but a lion. I want to suggest to you today that when we begin to walk and talk with God, when we begin to abide in his presence, we are now acting as children of God because it is Him that we find our identity.

How many of us have seen a Johnny Walker advertisement? Its tag line is keep walking. I want to suggest to you today that to be children of God we must continue walking.

John 15: 5 provides one of the best explanations as to why we need to keep walking because those who do not continue to abide in Jesus do not produce fruit. Those who do not keep walking with God do not grow spiritually and remember that to be considered a child of God, one must be in a state of being and not designation.

However, the Greek word abide meno like most Hebrew word contain several layers of meaning. The second layer of meno means to sojourn which conveys the idea of a person who resides either temporary or permanently in a place that is not primarily their own. In other words, they don’t belong there. They are aliens, immigrants of that place. In the context of the Old Testament the Israelites sojourned so they were moving from place to place so they are always in a sense aliens. However, watch this, in the context of the New Testament, most of the early Christians believed that this world was not their own, this earth was all but a temporary stay and that one day they would get to abide with Jesus not in the way that they do now but that one day they will get to abide with him in Heaven.

This is why the text says in verse 28 that those who abide with him will be prepared to meet Him when He returns. Because Abiding is a state of being and not a designation.

The second prerequisite is purifying. The Greek wordhagnizō to be cleansed from defilement, both morally and in a spiritually sense. Although the text says purifies himself, what John is saying in verse is not that we purify ourselves but rather that as we are abiding in Christ, as we walk and talk with Jesus and the Holy Spirit begins to fill us, our carnal nature begins to change, we begin to desire to be cleanse. So, it is not that we are doing the cleansing it just means that we begin to make the effort. This is why we pray before God and ask for forgiveness because although it is Jesus who does the heavy lifting, it is Jesus who mediates, it is Jesus’s blood that covers us, we still have a responsibility to do our part in the process of being justified.

And as children of God, in order for our mirror image to be that of Christ who is pure, it means that we have to constantly do our part in this purification process.

Story is told about a pastor, who happened to be a professor as well at a seminary. One day his student approached him saying pastor, pastor, can you pray for me to pass your exam? The pastor replied, I can pray for you but did you study?

We are called to co labour with God to work on the mirror image He has for us.

The third prerequisite is to sinneth not. When you look at the KJV’s translation of 1 John 3:6 which says, Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” It presents a problematic theology to the untrained eye. The question must be asked, if children of God do not sin, and I sin then that makes me not a child of God and if I am not a child of God then I must be a child of the devil?

And if you know your bible well, you know that 2 chapter ago, John said that if we confess our sins that He is faithful and just to forgive us, so does that mean that we are only a child of God after we have been forgiven until we sin again and we go back to being children of the devil?

What is presented in the Greek is the word hamartia which means to a failing to hit the mark. In other words, God’s image is the standard so that when our mirror image doesn’t look like God’s character then what we have is sin.

In the context of the text, – this word is not just about what is sin but speaks about the state of being in sin. It is not about the specific sins exist rather “the sin” as it is accurately depicted in Greek manuscripts. It about a continuous wandering from the law of God, not just divine law but moral law and the reason why this is important is because it is not that John is saying that those who have committed a sin are not the children of God but rather those who continue to knowingly live in a state of sin.

So, John is saying that when you abide in Christ you begin to purify yourself so that you reach a point where you are no longer desirous of living in sin but if you do sin, you have an advocate, Jesus who is righteousness.

This is why it is so important as we look at our mirror image that we have a clear understanding as to who’s supposed to be in our mirror. As we move on to our fourth and final prerequisite, I want to pause to give you some historical and cultural background surrounding the Johannine letters and what it means for our identity.

The Johannine letters, that is, John 1,2 & 3 John are what are considered pastoral epistles or messages. So, John is acting in the capacity as a pastor and he’s giving instruction to those of the Johannine churches in Asia minor because there are some heresies or in other words, false doctrines and religious off shoots among the church. In fact, 1 John specifically is considered a circular letter, that is, its intended audience was not for a specific church per say but for every church which makes what he is saying in 1 John even that more important.

So, there is this concept called Gnosticism which very present today by the way, and makes 1 John so relevant. It is the belief in God but not in the bible which means that if you don`t believe in the bible you do not have to accept that Jesus is God.

Out of Gnosticism is something called Docetism which comes from the Greek word dokeo which means ‘to seem’ or to ‘appear’. Docetism says that Jesus only seemed or appeared to be human. That He was an incorporeal being projecting an outward appearance. Let me explain, the Caribbean History syllabus covers the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Caribbean such as the Tainos or you may know them as Arawaks. Their religion is centred around the concept of a zemi which is a human like idol carved from wood, clay or stone that houses their gods. So, its not an actual god rather a physical representation of their gods. Docetism says that yes, there was a man called Jesus but if he was truly God, what you saw before your eyes was not a human but a spirit that shape shifted into a human. It removes the human essence of Jesus’s existence.

Then there were others that accepted that Jesus had a physical body but claimed that He received His divine nature when he got baptized and that it departed from Jesus right before his crucifixion. This was a bit more believable because at the time a Roman poet made famous a story about the death of Julius Ceasar and that as he was about to be murdered, the goddess Vesta snatched him away and left a naked semblance so that what was left was not Julius Ceasar but a mere shell.

These were the kind of issues John that to address in 1st century Christianity. This is why John states that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwell among men because he had to make it clear that Jesus Christ is not half man, or no man nor was his divinity plucked from him; he was fully man and fully God! And to you these may seem crazy, but I want to let you know that even in 21st century Christianity even in 21st century Seventh day Adventist churches in Barbados, there are some gnostic beliefs floating around in our congregations.

And so in the same way that John send word to the elders to tell the congregation, let me as an elder tell you this – any 1st century light masquerading as “new light” that says that because John 3:16 says that Jesus was begotten which makes him a created being and a lesser god is Gnosticism and if anybody tells you that there are only two persons in the God head, that is Gnosticism. I was in Cost U Less this week and a young man came up to me told me, I know there is God the father, God the son but have you heard about God the mother?

So if there’s a father and there’s a mother, then it stands to reason that God the son is a created being and that is Gnosticism.

All of these preachers, Mike Todd, Steven Furtick, Joel Osteen and all the other prosperity gospel preachers, they’re preaching gnostic beliefs. These gospel songs that talk about me, me, me are gnostic. Any theology that places you as the centre of attention is Gnosticism. It is not about you, you didn’t walk this earth without sin, you didn’t die for no one’s sin, you couldn’t even die for your own sin, so why should you get the glory? The glory belongs to the one who the one born of a virgin, to the one who fasted 40 days and 40 nights, you cant even fast one day but want the glory but the glory belongs to Jesus !

Do you know that Christianity is the only religion that teaches that our salvation is by faith and not by works? In other words, ALL other religions teach that it is you who saves yourself which makes all other religions gnostic!

So, when we consider our mirror image, we must understand who we are, and to understand who we are, we must understand whose we are and to understand whose we are we must understand who Jesus is – God!

The final prerequisite is love. You know you are a child of God if you have love for your neighbour. One of the negative effects of Gnosticism is its ability create a state of self righteousness breed divisiveness and judgemental attitudes towards people and that’s not love. One of the reasons why our church pews are empty is not because of false doctrines but because people refused to demonstrate love. In Matthew, Jesus reminds the disciples that whenever they feed, or clothed or visited me when I was sick

It does not matter how much theology you know because the successionists in John’s time who were influenced by Gnosticism knew so much theology that they started created their own.

It does not matter much you do for the church because the successionists did much. They preached, taught, evangelised, paid tithes and offering and all the above yet because they did not believe in Jesus which meant that they did not accept his sacrifice which mean that their salvation was not tied to the cross but rather themselves and the works they committed.

Walk this through with me, let me show you something. If there is no acknowledgement of Jesus and Jesus is the law, then there is no acknowledgement of the law and if there is no acknowledgment of the law then that means they are a law unto themselves and if they are a law unto themselves that means they are like gods...sounds like something a serpent said to a woman a long time ago?

These successionist were known for their lies, deceit and ill-treatment of others. If you do not have love for others, if you don’t treat them well, you can not be a child of God. For when you abide with God, you begin purify yourself through Jesus Christ which causes you to reject a life of sin which causes you to be more like Jesus and because Jesus is love, you begin to love people like Jesus did.

Conclusion

The story is told about a young man in Alexander the Great’s army who shared the same name as Him. It is said that he went into battle and having seen the number of men who were dying before his eyes grew fearful, cowered and hid. However, his actions did not go unnoticed to Alexander the Great’s generals and the matter was reported to Alexander the Great.

So, the young man was called into Alexander the Great’s tent in which he was questioned, and he admitted to his cowardly acts. Now, if there is one name that I know the meaning of, it is this one and it means leader of men. How could you be a leader of men and cower in the midst of battle?

Alexander the great gave him two options – change his name or change his behaviour. Today you too are presented with those very same options, choose wisely.

So, in the spirit of independence, nationality and identity. It is the year 2024, all is not well in Barbados. The economy is shaky, morals are definitely not intact, and the scent of Gnosticism pollutes the air. My question to you is, what is your mirror image?