Christianity For Dummies: The Man in the Mirror
James 1:19-27
I. Introduction
A. Well, we're continuing in our series "Christianity for Dummies" based on the Book of James. We've talked about the fact that this series title is not meant to insult but is rather a term of endearment that we all can relate to and identify with. The reason for this is that the Book of James, like the "For Dummies" series, is a book full of practical wisdom and simple "How To"s. As such, it wonderfully instructs us on how to live out our faith, how to be a doer and not just a hearer of the Word. We are in the process of breaking this gem down, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. So far, we have examined How to Respond to Trials and How to Understand & Defeat Temptation.
B. Last time, we ended with verse 18 where, as an outstanding example of God's good gifts, James cites the fact that God has brought us forth by the word of truth. In other words, the new birth that God gives to believers when we respond to the gospel.
C. Starting in verse 19 and through the end of Chapter 1, James moves to a discussion of what does the life of one who professes to have been born again by the gospel look like?
II. The Man in the Mirror
A. Discuss Pete Council and Dr. Rodney - "Take some pride in yourself, you're a doctor for God's sake!" What Dr. Rodney had presumed was that Pete had looked in the mirror, seen the massive ear hair waving at him and then done something about it!
B. Likewise, James in what is the central message of his entire book says that anyone who professes to be a believer and yet is a hearer of the Word and not a doer of the Word is like Pete. Having looked into the mirror of God's Word and seen how a believer should live out his faith, he simply walks out the door with weavable ear hair, boogers hanging out his nose, a whole Happy Meal stuck between his teeth and his hair looking a hot mess!
C. James, like Dr. Rodney, is screaming "Man/woman/teen/kid take some pride in yourself! You're a Christian!!!" This is NOT how you are supposed to look! So the million dollar question is "As a believer, when you, when I, look at the man/woman in the mirror, what should we see?"
D. James tells us - A Teachable Spirit, A Cool T-Zone, A Implanted Heart, A Great Body, and A Beautiful Feet.
III. Scripture Reading & Prayer
A. Read James 1:19-27.
B. Pray - Father, help us this AM to take an honest look at the man/woman in the mirror and then by your grace and power help us to transform what needs to change to be more like your precious Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
IV. The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit
A. Read and explain James 1:19a and 21a.
- The first thing James points out about the man in the mirror is he/she is to have a teachable Spirit.
"Understand this, my dear brothers" (NLT) We see James pastoral concern - "Before this man was a writer, he was a pastor" James is not beating us over the head with God's Word, putting us in a Scriptural arm bar, to try to get us to change. He lovingly says "Take note" maybe, as Michael Jackson would later say, if you wanna make the world a better place and be a wise Christian you should take a look at the man in the mirror and make a change.
"Meekness" Greek word means "humble" MSG = "In simple humility" We must be willing to be humble and be humbled about our need for God's Word to teach and then transform us. If we come to the Word with this false pretense that we've got it all together, in other words, unteachable, we'll walk away with boogers hanging out our nose!
Illustration: Discuss coaching kids in baseball & basketball and being teachable and unteachable. Look at the disciples - as much flack as we often give them, they were TEACHABLE - Read Mark 9:11, 28; 10:10; 13:3-4. Perhaps the most famous of these exchanges was in Matthew 18:1-3. Read Matthew 18:1-3. "The humility of a child consists of childlike trust, vulnerability, and the inability to advance his or her own cause apart from the help, direction, and resources of a parent." (ESV Study) Does that describe you?
Application: Look at yourself in the mirror - do you come to the Word (SS, preaching, personal Bible study) with childlike faith and a humble, teachable Spirit so God can mold you into the shape of His Son? Do you come as often as you should, do you even come at all?
The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit
V. The Man in the Mirror: A Cool T-Zone
A. Read and explain James 1:19b.
- The second thing James points out about the man in the mirror is he/she is to have a cool T-Zone.
- Notice what James is about to say he says is to be true of EVERY Christian. He points out three essentials about our T-zone:
1) TMs - "quick to hear" It's been infamously said that we have 2 ears and 1 mouth so we should listen twice as much as we speak! For many of us this is WAY out of balance! Discuss "Are you really listening or waiting to talk."
2) Tongue - "slow to speak" Do you ever like me wish you had a timer between your ears and mouth? James here echoes the proverbial Wisdom and teaching of the OT on the misuse of the tongue. Read Proverbs 10:19, 11:12, 13:3, 14:29, 15:1, 17:28, 29:20; Ecclesiastes 5:1-3.
3) Temper - "slow to anger" Anger is not a sin (lest Jesus be accused of sin in the cleansing of the Temple or His harsh words to the Pharisees), but it is an emotion that easily gets the best of us or we don't restrain. Notice the progression James gives: lack of listening, combined with lack of restraint in speech, leads to ill-tempered action.
"While James does not forbid all anger, he does prohibit the thoughtless, unrestrained temper that often leads to rash, harmful and irretrievable words." (Douglas Moo)
"The great talker is rarely a great listener, and never is the ear more firmly closed than when anger takes over." (Motyer)
So what's the big deal? Everybody has trouble controlling their temper at times, why the big fuss?
B. Read and explain James 1:20.
- Angry Christians distort the message that God is trying to communicate to others through them! Hasty, uncontrolled anger is sin, because it violates the standard of conduct that God demands of His people. A lost and dying world looks at us in the mirror and sees this angry beet red, red faced Christian and says "Hypocrite!" And we've lost our testimony and our ministry is handicapped.
- Illustration: "Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you." (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)
C. Application: Look at yourself in the mirror - how's your T-zone? Need to quicken your hearing, slow your talking or anger? NOTHING will ever help other than a saving relationship with Christ and then DAILY relying on the H.S. that He gifted us with upon His departure from this earth!
The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit
The Man in the Mirror: A Cool T-Zone
VI. The Man in the Mirror: A Implanted Heart
A. Read and explain James 1:21.
- The third thing James points out about the man in the mirror is he/she is to have a implanted heart. Notice,
#1 - Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness
- Having pointed out a very common way in which we as believers sin, anger, James now tells us what we are to do with those old patterns of unholy living, evil habits of life that we carry over from the unredeemed world.
- "Put away" = Greek "apotithemi" "apo" away + ""tithemi" to place. Putting off of clothes = Biblical metaphor for spiritual characteristics, dirty clothes = OT metaphor for sin. Read Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:7-8. Throw away those dirty clothes that used to be our old way of living! Why, when they like an old set of pajamas are SO comfortable?
- "filthiness" = Greek "rhuparia" (only use in NT!) means "a wax build-up in the ear" I love what Stulac said, "We pray for safety instead of purity because we do not see impurity as dangerous." Discuss heart transplant patients at St. Thomas and rooms had to be pristine, clean, pure - no fresh fruit or flowers. Scripture says that we've been giving a heart transplant so why would we clothe ourselves in vile and filth? Unholy living impairs a believer's hearing of God's Word! Once we've cleaned out our ears, put away those old stinky, dirty clothes of our former self, then we are to...
#2 - [Put In] Receive with meekness the implanted word
- Receive is an imperative. God's Word MUST be received (cf. John 1:12, Acts 17:11, 1 Thess. 2:13). James likens this receiving of God's Word to planting. The Greek word for implanted is "emphutos" which is a compound word "en" (in) + "phuo" (germinate, sprout, grow).
- In place of filthy behavior, the implanted word must take root in God's people. This idea of God planting his revealed truth reflects Deut. 30:14 ("the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart") and especially the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:33 ("I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts"). Save your souls refers to progressive sanctification and ultimately the completion of God's saving work on the last day. "The command to receive the implanted word, then, is not a command to be converted, but to accept its precepts as binding and to seek to live by them. Christians who have truly been 'born again' (v. 18) demonstrate that the word has transformed them by their humble acceptance of that word as their authority and guide for life." (Douglas Moo)
- Jesus used this same imagery in The Parable of the Soils to make the same point: the believer is to prepare "good ground" in his heart in order that the "seed" of the word that has been planted there might produce much fruit.
B. Illustration: Tim Keller tells the story that his brother-in-law would never wear his seat belt in the car. I berated him for it. Then one day he picked me up at the airport, and he had it on. I asked, "What happened? What changed you?" "I went to visit a friend of mine in the hospital who was in a car accident and went through the windshield. He had two or three hundred stitches in his face. I said to myself, 'I'd better wear my seat belt.'" "Did you not know that if you didn't wear your seat belt you would go through the windshield if you had an accident?" "Of course I knew it. When I went to the hospital to see my friend, I got no new information, but the information I had became new. The information got real to my heart and finally sank down and affected the way I live."
C. Application: Look at yourself in the mirror - any old dirty, clothes you need to put away? Discuss planting a crop - 1) prepare the ground, 2) plant the seed. What do you need to do to prepare your heart to receive the seed of God's Word? What do you need to do to starting planting it more - read, meditate, memorize?
The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit
The Man in the Mirror: A Cool T-Zone
The Man in the Mirror: A Implanted Heart
VII. The Man in the Mirror: A Great Body
A. Read and explain James 1:22-25.
- The fourth thing James points out about the man in the mirror is he/she is to have a great body. Finally, the preacher is telling my husband/wife it's time for them to get in shape!!! Not them...YOU...and not THAT kind of shape!
- Hearers:
The Greek word was used of those who sat passively in an audience and listened to a singer or speaker. Today it could be used of those who audit a college class. Auditing requires attendance but does not require outside study or taking any tests. In other words, the auditor is not held accountable for what he hears.
Tragically, our churches are full of "auditors," members who take advantage of the privilege of hearing God's Word but have no desire for obeying it. Such people, James says, deceive themselves. This word deceive was used in mathematics to refer to a miscalculation. Professing Christians content with only hearing the Word have made a serious spiritual miscalculation. They have become in the words of Craig Groeschel "Christian Atheists," those who believe in God but live as if He doesn't exist.
James goes on to compare such people to one who looks in a mirror, sees the imperfections in his face, and goes away and forgets that he has a massive booger in his nose or food in his teeth! Common sense says something should be done about it. The problem is the object, the look, the forgetting.
Object: Discuss ancient mirrors - polished metal, produced only a distorted reflection. Look: James uses two Greek terms for look - the first, "katanoeo," in vv. 23 and 24 meaning a quick, superficial look. A quick look into such an object will easily lead to self-deception...looking good today Dr. B!!! Forgets: Unless we act promptly after we hear the Word, we forget the cowlick - the changes and improvements that our reflection show we need to make.
- Doers:
The Greek word "poietes" literally means "a performer, a doer, a carrier out." James says such believers look into a different object, with a more intent look and then change their behavior!
Object: The law here refers to the OT law as interpreted and fulfilled in Christ. Read Matthew 5:17; 22:34-40. "This teaching is still 'law' because it expresses the authoritative will of God for our conduct, but it is a law 'of liberty' inasmuch as it is the teaching of one whose 'yoke is easy' and whose 'burden is light.'" (Wessel) "Unlike the imperfect metal mirror in the previous illustration, this law is able to give the beholder a true and undistorted revelation of himself." (Hiebert) Look: Second term for look in v. 25 is a stronger term "parakupto" which means to closely examine. Rick Warren = "A great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will make one a great Christian." Thus, the man in the mirror has a Great body! Perserves: To remain, stay near, abide. In doing, not hearing only. "It is possible to be unfailingly regular in Bible reading, but to achieve no more than to have moved the book-mark forward." (Dr. Constable) Doesn't mean we get it right all the time but our Christ-likeness is moving forward, not just our bookmark! We see the changes that need to be made and make them!
Doers such as this, James says, WILL (not might) be blessed. Not health and wealth prosperity! Not do to get! Remember what I've said - Not blessed? Show me your calendar and checkbook!
B. Illustration: Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A is a successful businessman, but many know and respect him more for how faith guides his work. Woody Faulk, his VP of product development, said this about him: "He's the personification of James 1:22: 'Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.' I sincerely owe my life to that man."
C. Application: Look at yourself in the mirror - how's your saltiness, how's your light beam, what exercising of the Great Commission or Great Commandment do you need to start doing to have a Great body?
The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit
The Man in the Mirror: A Cool T-Zone
The Man in the Mirror: A Implanted Transplanted? Heart
The Man in the Mirror: A Great Body
VIII. The Man in the Mirror: A Beautiful Feet
A. Read and explain James 1:26-27.
- The fifth and final thing James points out about the man in the mirror is he/she is to have beautiful feet.
- The Jews, who were James' original readers, typically regarded alms-giving, prayer, fasting, regular attendance at worship services, and the observance of holy days and feasts as signs of true spirituality. Read and discuss Luke 18:9-14. Sound familiar, 21st century church? You andI would say THAT is a spiritual Christian! However, James said a better test of spirituality was three things: to bridle his tongue...to visit orphans and widows in their affliction...to keep oneself unstained from the world
- I want to focus on this middle one as we've already discussed tongue control and personal moral purity. This Greek word "to visit" is the same as Jesus used in my favorite passage, my life verse. Read Matthew 25:34-40.
- Let me ask you...what is instrumental in you visiting someone? Legs to take you! The foot bone is connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone is connected to the leg bone. So really, your feet! Read Romans 10:15. Discuss Brother Charles comment about get to heaven and take off your shoes and inspect your feet!
B. Application: Look at yourself in the mirror - how beautiful are your feet? Discuss Boys Ranch opportunities, Operation Christmas Child, Hope for Africa mission trip. Are you carrying the Gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts?
IX. Conclusion
- Discuss Jeff Swinford - hypocrites have ruined his belief.
- Let me leave you with this statement by Burdick: "To summarize [this passage] insists that a person's religion must consist of more than superficial acts. It is not enough to listen to the statement of spiritual truth, nor is it sufficient to engage in formal religious activity. The person whose religious experience is genuine will put spiritual truth into practice, and his life will be marked by love for others and holiness before God."
- The Man in the Mirror: A Teachable Spirit, A Cool T-Zone, A Implanted Transplanted? Heart, A Great Body, A Beautiful Feet. Let's pray.
X. Invitation & Benediction
