The Mirror — James 1

0:02 Let's pray. Dear Lord, we just recognize you that you're sovereign and we just worship you. We thank you that you intend good for us. We accept your good. I pray lord specifically that for this message that you would that you would just, your spirit would would would work and that despite my weakness that you would that your truth would be able to filter through and that our hearts would be blessed by your word.

0:44 We just pray this in Jesus name, amen. So, I think the title of the message today might be The Mirror, which is the Word. If you want to turn to James one twenty two, I'm reading in the NLT. But don't listen to God's word. Don't just listen to God's word.

1:31 You must do what it says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. 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 then 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, if you can picture for a second, know, for me, I cut my own hair and as you can see I meant to cut it this morning.

2:13 It's not like I have a lot of hair but I like to make it equal. Dad used to have a comb over and so I made a promise to myself as soon as I started to do funny things with my hair to hide the fact that I was losing it, I would take it all off. That happened reasonably early in life. So when I stand in front of a mirror, I look at it carefully. The Bible actually, another translation, I think in '23, says, gazing intently at it and then going away.

2:49 Why would you gaze intently, but still do nothing? If you're going to look at it hard, right, do something, right? So you imagine now for me, I actually use two mirrors because if you can imagine, if you look at and some of you might've done this, maybe some not because you don't have the same problem needing to cut the back of your head, but you have one mirror that's kind of angled and then it points to that mirror over there that then reflects in the back of your head and you can see what's happening on the back of your head, right? And so you use these two mirrors and you can see, I can see, oh, I missed a piece, you know, and thus if I also follow what the mirror says and I carefully use that little razor in the back, I could have a nice looking head that people won't be when I'm sitting up the front here people won't be like, oh what's... They're distracted cause they see a funny bunch patch of hair right in the back of the head and they can't see it, right?

3:55 And because I take that action, I'm like, I see it and now I will cut it, I care a little bit about my appearance. That may be vanity, but that's a real world lesson. So the mirror is God's word. That's ultimate view, right? And I would say that along with it and so we're called to not just look in that mirror, but to really consider what it means and to take action.

5:25 I'd say it's a problem of consciousness. When you're feeling good, you think you're good. That's human nature, it's a problem. We're just naturally limited. You can imagine a monk, someone who goes off by themselves and they want to find peace.

5:45 They withdraw from the world, the broken and sinful world and they live by themselves in nature viewing the peaceful tranquility. And so, it'd be easy for that person to feel tranquil and imagine that somehow because of their sense of peace and perhaps even a sacred aura, a sense of wow, this is sacred, I can't believe I'm here in nature, you know, God's creation, that they have somehow achieved righteousness and holiness. And so I would say, God uses the broken people and broken situations of this world When we look at them through the mirror of his word to reveal truth in our hearts and our lives. So for example, when I find myself lying to someone or stretching the truth a bit so that they will think better of me and my abilities And that's a real example for me. It started when I remember throwing a dirt ball at my neighbor's garage.

7:13 The neighbor came screaming and yelling out later that day, My dad. Dad said, did you do that? Nope. That's me repenting right now. And in my heart, dad, I don't know if you remember that.

7:28 Do you remember that dad? I suffered from that in character well into my adult life. I repent that I have a fear of man. I repent that I have sinned many times even in my adult life exaggerating, telling what seemed like little light rise about what I did so the people wouldn't think less of me. So when I do that, I have a fear problem.

8:05 I fear man, not God. I would... And how do I know that? I know that because of the scriptures that talk about the importance of fearing God, right? Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right?

8:28 We know that we can't have two masters. So, so if I'm fearing man or fearing that I'm going to lose money if I tell the truth or fearing what they think of me, I'm not fearing god. And so when I study the scriptures and I also get that experience and I see my brokenness, but without that, I might be thinking, you know what, it kind of makes sense, right? Hey, there's a certain rational logic to lying, right? But really, it's my heart that's that's self that's deceiving itself in that.

10:09 Because, well, the bible tells me how much he loves me. And when I meditate on that and I see through scripture what's important, but then then then it's it's... I can see the truth in my heart. It seems natural to want things, right? Or so, my deceptive heart tells me.

10:45 The Bible says otherwise. And when I find myself where resentment that I cannot forgive and release completely And of course it's easy to delude myself into thinking that I don't resent anybody. I have a lot of ways of kind of tricking myself into thinking I've actually forgiven someone. But still, I can be reasonably assured that I have not, but when I do notice that, I can be reasonably be assured that I've not really accepted and received his forgiveness for myself and I've not understood the depth of sacrifice it took to forgive me. And we know that from the Lord's prayer where he says, forgive me as I have forgiven others.

11:44 So I can be convicted in that. Anything that you love more than God or fear more than God or trust more than God is your idol. So those are the those are kind of the essential elements of of him being our God, the way that our heart should regard him as God. I would say also that along that line if we are full of anxiety that is is a sign that there are aspects of his truth about who he is, what he has done for us in our lives, and how we will be faithful in the future that our heart has not understood as truth. Okay?

12:43 And that's not a judgment on anybody. I meant to have a setup where I could make a little drawing for you. But if you could turn to Psalm eighty six eleven, I'll try to describe what I was trying, what I, the way I think about this. So when we look at the mirror of the scripture and it reflects back on us, there is some helpful ways I found to note, to try to reconcile my life in the different parts of it with what the scripture is saying so that I could connect it and see these parts of me and kind of see this mirror. So in Psalm 8six 11, he says, teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness.

13:45 Give me an undefided heart that I may fear your name. You could categorize scripture when you're looking to it for a mirror and trying to notice how it reflects your life. Here's an example of a godly man, a man who god said was a man after his own heart, king David and he prays to the lord in earnestness and passion. He says, teach me. The word teach me is this idea that speak to my mind.

14:32 Okay? You're going to speak, you're going to use language, it's going to affect the rational thoughts. You generally think of that as truth, okay? And so in this, he's asking the Lord would give, he says, teach me your way, Lord. So in this case, the truth of his way, how he needed to come to his mind and that's what he wanted.

15:07 Our minds' ideal state is truth, we know that God is truth and it's something that and we're called to be like him as followers of him. And so it starts with his truth becoming our truth in our minds, in a way we think. He says, give me an undivided heart. Heart is generally like it's obviously an actual physical organ, but it would be like the seed of emotions. As evangelical Christians, that scares us very much because we want, we often times try to avoid some of the errors.

16:06 Is that? I'm hearing something here. Pretty sure that's not mine. Okay. Anyways, I apologize.

16:48 But you could generally categorize them as love, all right? And as soft, this is what God calls us to and it's not something that we just do out of our own effort but it is the fruit of the spirit. It is that as our minds dwell on him, something starts to happen and it's a process. The fruit of the spirit is a metaphor that indicate, it's an agricultural metaphor. It's a metaphor that when there's a, when the conditions are met, something will start to happen.

17:36 There will be roots in the ground you don't see. There will be a little plant that comes out, that plant will grow and then eventually you will get the benefit of that, right? And so that is the way of the heart, okay? And so we understand that spiritually there is this agricultural process where we submit our minds, we allow the truth to happen and it springs from that first that then the truth is in our heart and out comes these fruits. So, you could say that the scripture will often times point out to us how the fruits going.

18:19 It'll show us the weeds in the soil of our heart, right, versus the fruit. It will show us that what we thought was a real plant that was good, it'll just say, hey, there's no fruit there, right? And so, we can use the scriptures to illuminate the natural deception of the heart, okay? Also, we know in terms of the heart, there can be like different kinds of hearts and different kinds of soil from the Jesus parable. It can be rocky.

18:54 It can be broken. It can be not so good, right? In terms of what might grow out in terms of fruit. And and so I was going somewhere with that. And the scripture can show us that And then he also talks about actions in the same verse and that's like your will and so you can categorize almost any scripture into aspects of it they're going to talk about all three of these and then you can look at your own life and it'll illuminate it.

19:39 You can say, you know what? My will, my actions, are they holy, right? We want that to conform to to the holy standard we see in scripture that we understand through our mind. That works out in our heart and that you see in our actions, that we can see in our own actions, right? As it and ultimately in a holy life, lived for him.

20:13 And in the one point about this verse, I think is very kind of revealing is he says, give me an undivided heart, right? That's the Psalmist prayer regarding his heart. Okay, and it's not specific about emotion, but essentially in another word he says, give me a united... In another translation it says, give me a united heart unto you. Here it says, give me an...

20:47 Believe I forgot which translation I copied under this, but here it says, give me undivided heart that I may fear your name. When we when we are worshiping the lord, he heals us. When we follow the first commandment which is what Jesus said was the most important commandment. He said, love the lord your god with all your heart, mind, soul, and spirit with everything you have. Here David says, give me an undivided heart, right?

21:25 So often because of all these competing gods in our life, our hearts divided and we're not effective. Back to James one, earlier in James one here, the same passage that talks about the mirror, he's already giving truth that illuminates our heart here. James one:eight, can turn there, but I have it here, I'll read it. When you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.

22:05 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world and they are unstable in everything they do. And so often the things, the brokenness of the world, the sin, and of course the sin in our own life which represents false gods. We are we are broken and our deepest need is to worship the lord. The the need of our heart is to worship him, right?

22:43 And the scripture reveals that and and when we see, by the way, wow, I'm feeling divided. I'm feeling like a wave, you know? That that mirror of the scriptures is is telling you, hey, turn back to him. This is what you need. This is who you need.

24:02 Actually, me before I do that, I want to give one more one more kind of thought here. If you turn to Psalm one, This is one of my favorite passages. It's just so picturesque and god is graceful because he knows how we think. He knows what our hearts need and and one of the one of the tools he used in the scriptures, he uses metaphors because he made us as story creatures. He built this into our hearts so that our hearts respond to stories and narrative.

24:38 And so he gives this beautiful metaphor here in Psalm one, Psalm one, Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join with mockers. So here you have a kind of an interesting thing because it says something very positive, the joys. So this is something that the heart would be experiencing. They would be experiencing joys. By not following the advice of the wicked, standing with sinners, or joining with mockers.

25:22 And that speaks to standing with sinners is of the will, you choosing to be there. That's your actions. Follow the advice. The advice is in your mind. You're listening, rationally speaking, to the untrue things and joining, standing.

25:46 These things are sinners, people who are breaking God's law, people who are mocking. In other words, they are reviling. They are they are regarding with contempt other people who were made in the image of the lord, okay? These and so to join in, to use your will, and then do these wrong things. So, if we don't do that, but instead, verse two, they delight.

26:19 Again, where's your heart? Is there a delight? Psalm 119, I believe it's 119. I just was looking at it. Psalm one nineteen.

26:34 Yeah. I it must be like 20 time, 10 times, I don't know. There's multiple times where he says, talks about delighting in god's commandments. Delighting in the law, delighting and so it's an interesting connection because when we're when we're looking at what's in our mind and what's in our heart and how are we acting, right? Over and over and over, he delights in the commandments.

27:05 The commandments are to do, they're an instruction to our will, how we're to do. But in his heart, he's delighting over that, right? And he talks about studying and meditating. So the study would be in the mind looking at the meanings, right? But then letting them affect meditation is when we use our mind to allow that effect to happen in our hearts.

27:37 So, verse two, they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. There's this continual aspect, this idea that we're going to allow this truth to affect us, to change us deep inside. When the mind knows the truth and it doesn't just know the truth but it's now affected the heart, that can align with comes out of us in the terms of will and actions. We want these things to align as Christians, as people who claim to be followers of Christ, followers of the man who said, if you love me, you will follow my commandments, right? Again, another way of looking at it, another mirror, right?

28:35 If you love me, you will follow my commandments. Do I love him? If I'm not following his commandments, my mind can make a pretty objective assessment on that one via the mirror of the scriptures. They delight in the law of the Lord. Do you delight in the law of the Lord?

28:54 Every once in a while I do. The more I see it, man, it's pretty amazing. I've had a few moments where I felt that way. And then of course, they are like trees planted along the river bank bearing fruit each season. You imagine the strong willow, just...

29:14 There's some really neat artwork and you see this tree extending over the river, this place where people get to enjoy picnics, it's powerful, it's the roots, it's deep rooted, it's feeding on the water, the sun is shining on it. It's one of those things that generations will enjoy that those fruit and the strengths thereof. So, in regards to meditating, when we see the misalignment, it's easy to get the truth. The majority of the people I'm looking through this crowd, a few of them not so much, but many of you have been under the word a good portion of your life, right? We've been exposed to the truth and But oftentimes our brokenness is in our heart.

30:16 It's not that we don't know the truth, it's that our heart hasn't received it. And so here it talks about meditating on that truth and I would say, I'd be open to anybody disagreeing with me here, but I believe meditation can be a very almost anything, but it's the idea that it's continual, it's often and and it soaks in, right? And one of the amazing things about today, there's the bad thing is that there's more distraction, there's media, there's all these things, there's constant schedules always on. It's a more complicated time than ever from a heart perspective. There's a lot of things to divide your heart, right?

31:01 But I will also say this, there's more ways to meditate than there ever have been, okay? More tools for meditation. And so just memorizing a verse that is a meditation. When you are illuminated, you have to be in the scriptures, but when you're illuminated, when you see something you say, oh, know this, but I'm not feeling it like and I'm not seeing it in my actions, right? When you see through that mirror clearly and you see you got that spiritual hair on the back of your head that's kind of ugly, looks funny there, right?

31:41 Trimmed off the top, but look at that, it's kind of ugly and people can make fun of you for it. That's the fear of man, never mind. The tool that God uses is the worship of himself and I would call that a kind of meditation when we worship, right? Meditate on him and on his word, right? And so there's many ways to do that, to have this focus that it's kind of like you need more rain, right?

32:25 You're to let it go down to that soil and soften it, right? And so, is memorizing verses. And I can tell you my memory is terrible, but there are verses that I memorize, which didn't mean how many hours I did it, just didn't really didn't seem to be able to get the exact phrase and the right words and all that, I couldn't do it. But those verses because of the repetition over and over again, it was like slowly, the water was slowly getting down from here and drifting and a little bit of soften here and then years later suddenly I'm like, pops into my mind, I'm like, I get it. It was like the sun just shined through a cloud, it was clouds before and it illuminated and boom, something happened, right?

33:29 But we can print versus and put them anywhere. Think of, I believe there were times where people were said to put it on the entryways of their house, But you know, people print verses out and stick them on their mirror, on their headboard or their bed. We can record a verse and listen to it over and over and over again. We can write those verses in a journal. We have all the paper we could want and we can literally take with our hand, take a pen and write that down and when we do, it uses a different part of your mind and your body, right?

34:15 It's a repetition. It involves you in a new way. We can sing hymns with biblical truth, right? And so in doing so we're focused on God's truth in the scripture and there's a special thing about music, it's a gift. We know that people that this was done in the New Testament and in the Old Testament.

34:41 This is a major part of a devotional life and God uses that music to affect our heart and so that truth combined with music can be a meditation that affects us and helps soften and perhaps unite our heart. We can sing more rather than less, right? Not just sing, if you're really struggling with something, there's been times when I set up something on my clock as I'm going do this every hour, not very much, but I've done it a few times, it's hard. The point is that when you see a need, don't leave yourself unchanged. When you look into God's Word and see that truth, don't stop until God has reached your heart.

36:23 What you see, don't leave your appearance unchanged after looking intently in the mirror. So honestly, I think I had a whole another sermon. So I'll stop there. I had a few examples to go to, but I think that I think that that's enough for now. So, I'll just close in prayer.

37:07 Dear lord, just wanted to come before you and thank you again for your scripture. Thank you for who you are, lord and what you delight to show us. Lord, we we worship you and I just pray for for me and the body and everyone else that we will surrender to you, that we will choose to look to you for your truth and that you will continue to heal us and and unite our hearts unto you and and fill us with your joy. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.