I was thinking as you all came in to church this morning that some of you would have done well to spend a bit longer in front of the mirror! Now just now my wife is breaking out in a sweat and thinking, “I don’t believe he has just said that.” And the rest of you are thinking, “We didn’t come here to be insulted.” But if it softens the blow any – I should spend more time every day in front of the mirror (but then that’s stating the obvious!) So what am I on about.
Well it’s not me that has brought this all up today - it’s James in his epistle. He talks about a man “who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”
So we’re thinking about a man who gets up in the morning, stumbles into the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and he doesn’t like what he sees. Now I’m saying a ‘man’ here because there are more women than men in the congregation and I’m trying to redeem myself!
He sees that his hair needs cutting and it’s in need of washing. His skin is blotchy, he needs a shave and his teeth are dirty. And for just for a moment he surveys the image staring back at him and he thinks, ‘Yuck’.
Now if we were having a ‘What Happens Next’ quiz we would all guess that the man reaches towards the bathroom cabinet or shelf, equips himself with a toothbrush and razor and shampoo, etc., and begins remedial action. But not this man. He just shrugs his shoulders, goes back into the bedroom, dresses and goes off to his work. And throughout the day he actually forgets all about the image that confronted him that morning in the bathroom.
So what’s this all about. Was James flogging cosmetics? Was he the 1 st century David Beckham?
Well, no of course not. What he was doing was comparing such a man to a person who listens to the word of God – as it applies to his or her life – knows what action needs to be taken – but then goes away and forgets everything they have seen, heard or felt.
And that is the real danger we all face this morning; not that we come to church with dirty faces but that we come here with unclean souls, hear the word of God and see ourselves in the light of the holiness of God, but then forget everything we’ve seen and heard and go home from here today with lives that still reflect our impure souls – rather that the radiance and beauty of Christ.
So let’s look at this mirror again – ever so briefly – so that we can be ‘doers’ of the word and not ‘hearers’ only.
What does the Word reveal to us. What do we see here this morning?
In a nutshell –
We see, first of all, a God who cares and wants to live in relationship with his creation and lead his children to eternal life.
And we see that God is holy and just.
But then we see how OUR lives are Unholy – we don’t live to God’s standards and worse still we cannot live to God’s standards – it’s how we are. There is a great barrier between us and God – the barrier of our sin.
And the more we come to appreciate the holiness of God and worship him as the powerful, loving and holy God he is – the more awful the image staring back at us of our lives is.
And then we see how, because God is just and punishes sin, but is also loving and wants us to be transformed into his likeness – he sends his Son – who is sinless – to become sin (our sin) to redeem us.
So the revelation of Scripture so far is three-fold. God is holy – we are unholy – but Jesus came to bring hope.
Then comes the remedial action bit. The instructions are clear. In order to appropriate that saving act in our life – get rid of the awful image staring back at us – and clean up our lives – we have to;
That’s what we see in God’s word today. Those are the truths that, together with the reality of our lives, are ‘staring out’ at us today.
So what do we do? Well we take remedial action.
About two to three weeks ago I went down the street and got my hair cut. Then I came straight home from the hairdressers, into the bathroom, got the beard trimmers out and trimmed my beard. Then I washed my hair again, and with the leather of the shampoo shaved around my neck and cheeks, dried myself, splashed on some aftershave, put on a clean shirt – and looked in the mirror. Boy did I look good – George Clooney eat your heart out.
But you know what? The following morning I slept in, decided to leave showering until later and came down the stairs dressed to go out. And you know what the ‘drop dead gorgeous dude’ of eighteen hours previous got? “You’re surely not going anywhere looking like that?” And I tried to reason with her. I washed my face the day before! But it didn’t work! Because of the toxins in my body, the atmospheric pollutions – I don’t know – but I needed to take further remedial action.
And folks it doesn’t matter when you were last spiritually clean – I have to tell you that confronted with the beauty and holiness of God this morning – if we look closely at ourselves as God sees us, it is more than likely that we need to take remedial action, all of us, and seek his cleansing in earnest repentance, desiring to please him and do his will.
And if we go home with out doing that – THEN we are like this man in the bathroom. (I get there eventually!)
And it doesn’t matter how enthusiastically we have entered into the worship, we may even enjoy the service immensely – go home with a feel good factor – if we forget what we saw – we’ve missed the purpose of it all.
“Therefore”, wrote James, “get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.”
I think that as church going people we really need to hear what James is saying here today; because, you see, there is a saying, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. And the trouble with us is that because we are exposed to the teaching and presence of God on a regular basis, and know all about our sinfulness and need to confess, we are like the man we imagined earlier, who maybe because he’s in and out of the bathroom umpteen times a day, has become used to what he sees and thinks ‘O what’s the use?’ And it doesn’t matter how many times he goes to the bathroom and growls at his complexion in the mirror – if he doesn’t take the remedial action he’s no better off.
And friends, at the end of our lives it won’t matter how many times we’ve been to church or even been moved by the reflection we saw – if we didn’t do anything about it we are lost. If we get used to the poor image, think ‘O what’s the use’, and don’t actually do anything about it we will never be the people God wants us to be and that we CAN BE.
We’re not here just to look in the mirror!
Today, all over the world, the Gospel will be preached in hundreds of different languages, and thousands of people of every race will respond and come to faith in Christ. But how many of us will visit the cross afresh and really seek the cleansing of Christ?
Could I ask you a totally unrelated question. How many of you have visited Lisburn Museum’s ‘Flax to Fabric’ exhibition down in Market Square – with its spinner’s cottage, weaving workshop and lots of other interesting exhibits?
Do you know that every year thousands of visitors come from all over the province to view it – and coach loads of tourists from all over the world.
Now supposing I told you that at the end of September the museum was going to close, that the exhibits would be sent abroad and that it would never reopen in Ireland again – I wonder how many would try to visit it in the next three weeks.
What I’m trying to say is this – that as Church going people this morning, we’re living ‘beside the cross’ so to speak. How sad it would be if we didn’t actually visit it and experience the force of its love and forgiveness and transforming power.
How sad it would be if we see our image here this morning in the worship and presence of our holy God – and go away and forget what we saw.
So I’m back to how I started. Do we need to spend some more time in front of the mirror – and act on what we see?