The Person In The Mirror
Scriptures: James 1:21-24; Judges 6:11- 8:35
Introduction:
The title of my message this morning is “The Person in the Mirror.” My original title was going to be “The Man in the Mirror” but I did not want to give the impression that this message is for the men only. This message is about what we see in the mirror when we look at ourselves.
To set the stage this morning, let me tell you about a video I saw of you young boy practicing his baseball swing. The boy walks up to the mound carrying a bucket of balls. As he prepares for his first swing he yells “I am the greatest hitter in the world!” He then pitches the ball up in the air, waits for it and then swings with all his might. He misses the ball. He looks at the ball on the grown for a moment and then says “Strike one.” He picks the ball up and yells “I am the greatest hitter in the world!” He then pitches the ball up in the air for a second time and then swings again with all his might. He misses the ball. Again, he looks down at the ball for a moment and says “Strike two.” He picks the ball up for a third time. However, before he pitches the ball, he looks at his bat, sets it down, spits on his hands, turns his hat around and then prepares to pitch the ball again. This last time he yells with even more intensity “I am the greatest hitter in the world!” He then pitches the ball up in the air, waits for it and swings one last time with all his might. He misses the ball for a third time. He looks down at the ball on the ground for the third time and says “Strike three.” He looks up for a moment thinking and then smiles and says “Wow! I’m the greatest pitcher in the world!!! Then he jumps up celebrating his pitching abilities. I shared this with you because how we think about ourselves will be directly reflected in what we are able to accomplish. Who we see in the mirror is where the change starts.
In 1988, a song written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett, was recorded by Michael Jackson. The name of the song is “Man in the Mirror.” This song is said to be one of the top 10 songs every sung by Mr. Jackson. In the video version of the song, Mr. Jackson, unlike his other videos, is not in the video aside from a brief clip towards the end where he can be seen putting on a red jacket and standing in a large crowd. Instead, the video features different footage from various major news events such as the nuclear explosion of Operation Crossroads, the Civil Rights March on Washington, The Kennedy brothers’ assassinations, etc. The song was about changing the world by first changing the man in the mirror. Let me share a few lines of the songs with you.
“I’m gonna make a change for once in my life. It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right. As I, turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat, this wind is blowing my mind. I see the kids in the streets with not enough to eat. Who am I to be blind? pretending not to see their needs. I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”
The chorus of this song says that he would start with the man in the mirror and ask him to change his ways. Well, based on where we are currently, people did not heed this advice. You see, we are still looking at the person in the mirror and walking away and forgetting who we saw. In this series I want us to not only take a look at the person in the mirror, but see if we are seeing who we are, who we want to be or who others are saying we should be. Our foundation Scripture for this series comes from James 1:21-24.
James 1:21-24 says, “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness, and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” Please mark this Scripture as we will come back to it a little later.
I. Gideon
Every morning most of us look in the mirror. When we do, we see the person in the mirror looking back at us. Now consider what we just read from the book of James. James said “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness, and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the Word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” (James 1:21-22) Let’s talk about the “deluding of ourselves.”
The word “delude” is defined as, “to mislead or deceive.” In other words it means to distort the truth – to change the truth into a lie. James admonished the Church to put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and receive with humility the Word of God which is able to save our souls. So when I look in the mirror I see truth. When I leave the mirror I forget the truth and lie to myself so that the life I live is one that others will accept because my desire if to be accepted by people versus being led by God. The person in the mirror knows the truth! James said that the way to not delude ourselves is to be a doer of the Word.
Now turn with me to the sixth chapter of the book of Judges. I want to show you an example. Let’s begin reading at verse 11. “Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.’ Then Gideon said to him, ‘O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.’ The Lord looked at him and said, ‘Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?’ He said to Him, ‘O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.” (Judges 6:11-16)
Remember, James said being a doer of the Word will keep us from deluding ourselves. Gideon, if he had a mirror, would have seen anything other than himself being a warrior. When he looked in the mirror a warrior was not looking back at him. He only saw the fact that his father’s house was the least in Manasseh and he was the youngest in his father’s house. In other words there was no way that the least among the least could be a warrior and defeat the Midianites and the Amalekites. But Gideon was deluding himself in this moment. Why? Because the Word of the Lord had now come to him and he had not yet accepted it and began to act on it. Gideon needed more than just the Word of the Lord. He needed more than just being told he was a warrior. Why? Because all he had ever seen in his lifetime was he being the least in his father’s house and his father’s house being the least in Manasseh. This must have been comfortable for him because he knew his place and he knew where he stood and what was expected (or not expected) of him. Now he was hearing something totally different. He was being told that he was a warrior and he could not see it. He could not see it because as he looked in the mirror he saw only what he had always seen – the least! How many of you know that sometimes the person we see in the mirror does not totally represent the person that we are? We see a person that has done everything imaginable against God, but God’s Word has told us something else. He has spoken forgiveness, cleansing and eternal life. He has wiped the slate clean, but we still see what has been done. When we forget what God has done for us and the power He has placed within us, we are actually deluding ourselves as to who we are “now.” You see, walking in God’s Word is not about what feels right to us it’s about what His Word says and what He is saying to each of us individually.
So Gideon is now hearing something that is new to him. He is hearing that he is a warrior and was expected to deliver Israel from the hands of the Midianites. Because he could not see it, Gideon did something that many people continue to do today, he asked for proof. Gideon had not learned to walk in faith yet, so he needed proof that God was going to do just what the angel had told him. The angel of the Lord was the first to interact with Gideon but later in the chapter Jesus began to speak to him. The Lord instructed him to pull down the altar of Baal and the Asherah (a wooden representation of the female deity) that was in their midst and to build an altar to God (Vss. 25-26). He was to offer a burnt offering to the Lord with the wood from the Asherah. Because Gideon still saw himself as the least in his house, he waited until it was dark because he was afraid (Vs. 27). Early the next morning when the men arose, they saw that the altar of Baal was torn down and the Asherah which was beside it. When the men discovered that it was Gideon, they went to his father’s house and asked that he be given to them to be put to death. Please understand, these men of Israel who were supposed to be serving the God who delivered them from Egypt were planning to kill Gideon for destroying an altar of a false God. These men were deluded because they were not following God’s Word!!! When you finish the chapter you’ll find that when the Midianites and the Amalekites came against them the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he stood up to the challenge. He asked for proof two more times with the fleece and once he had it he believed.
Gideon needed proof that God would do what He said that He would. God gave him the proof that he required. But God do not stop there. In chapter twenty-seven we see that when Gideon went out to the battle he initially had 32,000 with him. I am sure that he felt strength in that number. God told him that if that many went out with him they would actually think that they had won the battle under their might, so God had Gideon send some of them home. When all was said and done Gideon was left with 300 men. To prove to Gideon that He was with him and to change how Gideon saw himself, God took away 91% of the people who went out to do battle with him. By doing this the people had to give God credit for the successful outcome of the battle. When the battle was over the people were delivered they asked that Gideon would become their king. Gideon refused their offer and told them that God would rule over them. When Gideon accepted God’s Word and began to act on it his life changed. He no longer saw himself as weak and the least. He stood before leaders and kings as he followed God. No longer did he back down and believed that he could not stand up against anyone. He was no longer deluded.
II. The Face I See
So let’s go back to what we see when we look in our mirrors. Everyone morning I stare at my face in the mirror. When I look in the mirror, I see me. My face is dirty; my teeth need brushing; and my hair needs combing. As I look at myself I am fine with what I see. Why? Because it’s me! I am not lying to myself because I know who I am and I know the face looking back at me is my face. That being said, if I stayed that way others would not accept me or want to be around me. So what do I do? I change. I clean up. I make myself more acceptable to the world around me. I start by washing my face and brushing my teeth. I shower and comb my hair. I put lotion on to cover the ash and I might add some cologne to kick it up a notch. I do all of this so that the people I interact with will accept the image that I am presenting. When I leave that mirror I remember what I looked like, but it’s not the image that I want you to see. I know my flaws and discolorations within my skin and I cannot mask it with makeup as some of the TV personalities do. I know the moles I have and the one coming in. I can see grey hair popping up where before it was all black. I can see all of these things because it’s me looking at myself. I am looking at the man in the mirror looking back at me.
When I look at this man in the mirror – I see everything! James said that we should be doers of the word and not merely hearers who are deluding themselves. He then explains what he means by people being hearers only and thus deluding themselves. He says, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” (James 1:23-24) In other words, the man sees himself in the mirror, understands and knows what he looks like and the person he is, walks away from the mirror and then forget who he is and what he looked like. This may sound strange, but people do this all the time.
In the world we often become who we are not in order to be accepted. We change, adjust our beliefs, and act differently based on where we are. This is acceptable when you’re in a professional setting (understanding what is acceptable at work versus being at home.) But it is not acceptable for forget who you are if you are a doer of the Word of God. For example, a child grows up with the gift of singing. The child is from your family and had very humble beginnings. The child is meek and very respectful. At some point the child “gets discovered” and start making a lot of money. The child “forgets” their upbringing and becomes the person that they think others expect them to be. They become that person who is actually deluding themselves into thinking they are someone else. The gospel group, The Mighty Clouds of Joy, sing the songs “Pray For Me.” In that song they tell the story of a young man who grew up in the Church singing in the choir. When he had the opportunity to make a lot of money singing rock and roll, he took it. As he became more successful, he got into drugs which eventually landed him in the hospital. His mother was contacted and she went to his bedside. When she got there she asked him if he believed in the power of prayer. She had him get out of that bed and down on his knees to ask God to forgive him. When God healed him he told his mother he was going back to the club where he used to sing because he had one song he wanted to sing for them. That song was “Pray For Me.” All of us have heard stories of people growing up in the Church singing gospel music only to leave to sing R&B or rock and roll. When they become famous they end up doing drugs or living a lifestyle contrary to their upbringing. Some eventually find their way back to their roots while some don’t. When we hear the word and do not do what it says, we begin to delude ourselves thinking that we are okay. The person we see in the mirror knows the real “us.” We cannot hide from this person.
When we hear and become doers of God’s Word our knowledge of ourselves and who we are in Him is based on a truth that does not exist when we hear the Word and choose not to be doers of it. Paul addressed this in the first chapter of Romans which we will deal with next week in Part two of this series. If you read that chapter you will find that when man makes the conscious decision to ignore the Word of God and act on his own lusts that God will allow him to become who he thinks he is. In other words, God will release that man/woman over to the type of mind and ways of thinking that they choose to walk in. This comes after He has tried to convince us to walk differently, but when we make up our minds about how we wish to live, He releases us to that way of thinking. In preparation for next week, during your study time this week, please read the first chapter of Romans.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
