Once upon a time, when I was a young child, I went to a fair being held in our town. I went into this trailer that had a lot of weird mirrors in it. I believe they called it the house of mirrors. One made me look like a very big person, at least 300 pounds. Another made me look extremely skinny. Others distorted portions of my body. Some gave me a big head and others gave me a tiny head. I laughed as I walked up to the many different mirrors and saw the way they made me look.
In the Scripture we are studying this morning, James says our experience with the Word of God is like a man who looks in a mirror. Unlike my experience in the house of mirrors, God's Word doesn't try and distort the truth. What we get with God's Word is a mirror of truth.
There's something we must do first, if we are going to be faithful to the mirror of God's truth. We have to hear the Word of God. It seems so simple, but many people don't make it to this point. Romans 10:17 says, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
We live in a day and age, when people don't want to listen--not to God or to anyone who stands in authority. Today we would do well to listen to James' advice in verse 19 of chapter 1, "So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger."
If we are going to be healthy Christians we must listen to the Lord God Almighty, the holy one. To listen effectively, we must expose ourselves to opportunities to hear the Word of God. Here's some opportunities we are blessed to be able to take advantage of.
We have to take time to get our ears close to God's Word so we can proclaim with Paul in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes."
Illustration: A missionary translator was endeavoring to find a word for "obedience" in the native language. As he examined the culture he was trying to translate for, he found that obedience was a virtue that was seldom practiced among this people. As he returned home from the village one day, he whistled for his dog and it came running at full speed. And old native, seeing this, said admiringly in the native tongue, "Your dog is all ear." Then the missinary knew that he had found it. "All ear" was the right words to translate for obedience.
There's a link between being "all ear" and obedience. When Ross Perot was running for President he got the media's attention by saying, "I'm all ears." But it's not enough just to hear the Word of God.
We have to remember it and live it. We have to do what God's Word says. There's a warning from James to us in verse 22: We must be a doer of the word and not just a hearer. James ushers strict words that if we are only a hearer and not a doer of the Word, we are deceiving ourselves.
Interactive Illustration: Have someone in congregation with a sense of humor to come forward. Mess up their hair. Then show them a mirror. See if it leads them to straighten their hair.
When we look in a mirror, we are drawn to fix our appearance.
There was a company that was having a safety problem. After work, the employees had to exit down a steep stairway. The problem is that the workers wre so anxious to leave work they often went down the stairs too fast and injuries were happening as people stumbled over each other trying to get out of the workplace. Then the management had an ingenious idea. They placed mirrors above the stairway. When the mirrors were installed, they discovered that the workers would slow down long enough to look at themselves. The injuries were eliminated. Order was restored.
We are fascinated by mirrors, but why don't we have the same kind of drive when it comes to obeying the Word of God? We don't want to be unsettled. It's much safer to go through life and say to ourselves we have no problems or to resign ourselves to being hopelessly bad. Very few people are willing to admit their weakness and then seek to become better with new obedience to God's Word.
The Word of God shows us our wretchedness. It shows us where our spiritual life is messed up. The Word should make us uncomfortable. We must understand that God's Word is not just to comfort and bring us peace, although it does that. God's Word also is to instruct us and cause changes in our life.
We must realize our own sinfulness. James is not saying if you forget God's Word you forget how good you look in a mirror. He's saying you forget how bad you look. To be a hearer only and not a doer of God's Word is like looking at an image of your face in a mirror after you fell into a mud puddle, and then not doing anything to clean up yourself. Only God can help clean us up, but we must be willing to let him. As Christians we are called to let go and let God. A lot of doing is letting go and letting God take over.
Understand that it's not enough to just be doing, if we are doing the wrong things with an unclean face. I'm reminded of the scene I saw on television where a little boy puts shaving cream on his face. It's obvious that he isn't ready to shave yet, but he's busy doing what he sees his dad doing. We laugh and say that's cute, but unfortunately there's some Christians who are busy doing things when they aren't ready to do it.
1 Samuel Chapter 15, tells us that Saul had led a massive military campaign for God's people against the Amelkites, but he didn't fully obey the Word of God. He spared the livestock and King Agag. In response to that disobedience, the prophet Samuel said, "To obey is better than to sacrafice." It doesn't matter how much we do, if it isn't in direct obedience to God, we are just spinning our wheels or putting shaving cream on a face that is not ready to shave.
In response to people's unsolicited comments on her not adhering to their perceived notion of God's will, especially for her, Karen Bacon replies: "I have this terrible habit of praying to God and then doing what God says."
James 1:25 tells us that obedience comes with a blessing. If we look at Luke chapter 6:46-49, we see the story of the wise mand and the foolish man. Remember the children's song. Are we building our house on rocks or on sand?
A church member met the preacher at the door of the church after service and said, "Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon." The preacher's response, "That remains to be seen."