Mirror, Mirror

Brother and I would venture a guess that even if you haven't seen the Disney animated movie of Snow White, that you're familiar with the folk tale and its basic concepts. It was originally published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s. It was a collection of German folk tales, and Snow White was one of those stories, collected in that group of stories, that stood the test of time. And it has been adapted in a variety of different ways over the years, multiple times.

In the original folk tale, so not the Disney animated version, but in the original folk tale, and there are similarities, Snow White was the daughter of a king. Her mother died when she was young, and her father remarried a villainous stepmother. Now that stepmother, turned queen, was obsessed with her appearance. Absolutely obsessed with her appearance. And she had an enchanted mirror that she would consistently pose a question to.

She would walk up to the mirror, and she would say, Mirror, mirror, who is the fairest of the mall? And to which the mirror would regularly reply, You, O Queen, you are the fairest of the mall. And so, of course, she loved to hear that. And as Snow White grew up, she grew to be a beautiful young woman. She grew to be a woman with a kind heart, with a gentle manner. And one day, when the queen asked the mirror this constant question, the mirror responded that Snow White was thousands of times fairer than her. And this revelation kindled the envy of the villainous stepmother, and she plotted the demise of Snow White. And we won't get into the rest of the story. There's dwarves and an apple and, you know, some other stuff. We won't get into all of that, because that's not the direction that we're headed today. But this story has been done in a variety of ways. It's been done with a variety of methods. It's been done in live action. It's been done animated. It's been done all over the place. But one thing that remains consistent in the vast majority of the retellings of this story is the presence of the magic mirror. The presence of this enchanted mirror to which the stepmother asked this question. It's kind of interesting when you dig into the concept, or the history, rather, of this concept. The idea of a magic mirror is not unique to Snow White's story. Magic mirrors show up in the story of Alice in Wonderland. Alice steps through the mirror portal to enter into the bizarre world of Cheshire cats and mad hatters. It's present in Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, The Lady of Shalott, where the woman locked in the tower can only see the real world as images reflected in her own mirror until eventually she takes a peek outside and the mirror shatters. There's a Japanese fairy tale called the Mirror of Matsuyama, which the woman has gifted a mirror from her mother, and her mother tells her that when she looks into the mirror, she would always see her mother's image. After her mother dies, the young woman looks in the mirror, she sees the image of her mother and believes her to be trapped in the mirror and needs to be freed.

What she doesn't realize is that it's her own reflection, having become so much like her mother that she looks just like her.

There's the mirror in Beauty and the Beast, in which Belle can see her father. Of course, that's kind of an unfortunate situation for her because her dad is miserable because he's lost Belle. There's a mirror in this fairy tale, The Snow Queen. There's folk tales from Spain and Portugal that talk about princes seeking wives, and the way to find out if she's a good wife is to have them look in the mirror.

If her reflection is pure, then her heart is pure. If it's not, then it's not. Even outside of the realm of medieval folklore, you get into Greek mythology. You have the story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, as well as Perseus, who used the mirror to defeat Medusa. It's all over the place.

When you look at all of these things, this concept is all over the place. In mirrors, they've been an object of fascination. They've been an object of perceived mythological power for millennia. It's not hard to understand why. When you think about mirrors, they were rare in the ancient world. Mirrors were rare in the ancient world. They were expensive, and for the vast majority of people, they were just unattainable.

Mirrors back in Roman and Greek times were polished metal that had been polished very finely to a shine, and it provided a reflection that was kind of distorted. A little bit like a funhouse mirror in that sense. You couldn't quite see the image very clearly, but it gave you most of what you could see. It wasn't what we have in the sense of our flat mirrors today.

During the early medieval period, as technology moved along, they started pouring these concave convex— I never can tell the difference—between this bowl of glass that they would then tin. They'd put a molten tin in there, and they'd mix it in, and you'd flip it over, and you could see your image kind of like a fisheye lens, I guess, which distorted the image as well. It wasn't until the 1300s that flat mirrors started to really be produced and even get integrated into regular life for many. But before that point, to see your reflection required a pool of water or something along those lines.

And those images that you would see were like a funhouse mirror. They were distorted. They weren't a direct representation of what is really there. Now, once you got to the point where you had abundant flat glass mirrors, people were able to begin to see their reflection accurately.

Although, mirror-imaged, right? Reversed. And they began to experience the various illusions that mirrors can provide. Imagine for a moment you've just seen your reflection for the first time in your life, and you take a second mirror and you do that thing where you put them across from each other, and you see an infinite number of yourself going in every different direction. Is it hard to see how myths and ideas about there being portals beyond mirrors or images and personas within mirrors began to become something that we began to see in folklore throughout history?

It led to some beliefs that, on the other side of those mirrors, were things, other dimensions, etc., that led to the many aspects of talking mirrors in medieval literature. Interestingly enough, though, possibly even more influential, was a talking mirror, and I put that in quotes, talking mirror, that was owned by someone named Maria Sophia von Erthal. Try that on for size. That's a name. Maria Sophia von Erthal in the 1730s, and it's believed that this mirror was actually the inspiration for the talking mirror in Snow White. The mirror was built into a frame that was constructed in a way that it would echo the user's voice back to themselves.

And so if you walked up to the mirror and you said, wow, you look stunning today, the mirror would say, wow, you look stunning today. It would echo it right back to you in your own voice, but it would echo it back to you.

It's actually housed currently. It's at the Spezart Museum in Lohr, Germany. One of the features of ADHD are things like this, where you learn everything you possibly can about mirrors in the process of trying to write your sermon. So it's not a bug, it's a feature of ADHD. But this mirror had this echo effect. It had this ability to be able to kind of repeat these things back. It's at the Spezart Museum in Lohr, Germany.

Interestingly, etched on the side of that mirror is a French phrase that says a moire propé, which means self-love, self-esteem, or vanity in French. And so this idea that you could be vain to this mirror, you could tell this mirror how wonderful you looked, and it would tell it to you right back.

There's a gentleman named Ian Mortimer, who's an anthropological historian. He said, mirrors change the way humanity perceived itself. So the very act of a person seeing himself in a mirror encouraged him to think of himself in a different way. He began to see himself as an individual. Imagine if you could never see your own reflection.

If you had no idea what you looked like, if you had no clue, you know, you'd catch it in a glimpse, a glimpse in a pool of water, or you'd catch it maybe in a distorted image of a reflection of glass.

The way that mirrors have worked into our culture, we're encouraged to take a look in the mirror when something needs to be adjusted in our lives. We take a look in the mirror when we injure ourselves. If you can't see the injury, if you hit yourself in the head, the first thing you do is run into the mirror to see just how bad it is. See how much of an opening, see if your skull's winking at you or not. There was a 2023 survey where one in ten Americans responded, they have a negative relationship with the mirror, and they avoid them like the plague. They don't want to see their reflection. They don't want to look at themselves in the mirror because they don't like what they see.

Brethren, what about us? What about us? Not physically, but spiritually. Do we see ourselves? Do we truly see ourselves in the various mirrors that God has provided us, the various mirrors that God has given us to be able to look at our reflection, to see ourselves? During this time of year, as was alluded to in the first split, we as the people of God are in the process of examining ourselves. We're in the process of looking at our lives, considering our life in the light of our calling. We're told and we're instructed to spend time in regular reflection, to spend time considering where we are with regards to that covenant that we have entered into with God. And in these upcoming days, as we come into the Passover here this coming Friday evening, we begin to reflect on and consider the refocusing and the renewal of that covenant. The title of today's split sermon is Mirror Mirror. And with the time that we have remaining, I'd like to take a look at the mirrors that God gives us, the various things that God gives us to be able to look into and to see our spiritual reflection. Those three mirrors, we're going to take a look at three of them today. The first of which is the Word of God, the second of which is the Spirit of God, and the third of which is the life and the example of Jesus Christ. The first of those is the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and then the life and the example of Jesus Christ. The first mirror with which we really examine our lives and consider our lives is the one with which this analogy is initially conceived. That's the Word of God. Let's begin today by turning over to the book of James. If you go over to the book of James, we'll pick the account up in chapter 1 of James, and we'll begin in verse 21. James 1 and verse 21.

James 1 and verse 21. We're going to pick it up just a little bit before this account to kind of get some of the context, because this is a related thought, this concept that he has here in verse 21.

James 1 and verse 21 reads, That word, lei-aside, is a strong word in Greek. It means to strip off. It means to strip off quickly, like rapidly, not just lei-aside, but to strip off. And there's a word picture that's being painted here.

When I was out at Western Oregon University, part of my field of study was alongside a number of pre-med. A lot of us had the same biology classes, and we had an anatomy and physiology class out there at Western. It was a cadaver class, so what that meant was we had two cadavers that were in the midst of the room, and we learned our anatomy and physiology on two formerly living people. We named them Fred and Wilma. We weren't allowed to know their prior names. We didn't know their lives. We didn't know anything about them other than they were two bodies in the middle of the room that we worked on for a semester. That's what we knew. They donated their bodies to science, and I learned anatomy and physiology from them. The anatomy and physiology lab at Western is in the basement. It's in the basement of the science building. And one of the challenges of that particular class was that it was a 730 a.m. class.

Now, if any of you have been around cadavers, the formaldehyde that is used to keep the cadaver from decaying is extensive and quite pungent. We'll use the term pungent. I'm thankful for that, though, because the alternative is a different kind of pungent that we definitely don't want.

The door of the room did a pretty good job of blocking it. I will say, you know, you couldn't really smell it out in the hallway. But I'll tell you what, you opened that door at 730 in the morning, whether you'd had breakfast or not. That wall of formaldehyde that hit you would turn even the strongest of stomachs. I had to laugh because my professor would go along working and doing his thing.

He'd have a donut in one hand, and he'd be fishing around in this body, and the other. He was a different breed of animal. Lowell, Lowell Spring. Different breed of animal. We each had a lab coat that we could wear, and that was a good idea to wear, because it would prevent the formaldehyde from getting into your clothing, the formalin that they used to preserve the bodies. It allowed us to prevent one of the most common traditions on college campuses from anatomy and physiology, which is the burning of your scrubs upon the completion of A&P.

Medical students, this is kind of a celebratory ritual, but there's a reason for this. If you get formaldehyde and formalin into your clothing, and you go and you try to wash it, it doesn't come out very well.

And what happens is all of your clothes begin to faintly smell like formaldehyde. Your washing machine begins to faintly smell like formaldehyde. It just kind of has this sticking power. I don't know what it is about the chemical necessarily, but it just kind of sticks around. And so a lot of them are advised, look, pick one pair of scrubs that you don't care if you ever see again, and wear them every single day of lab.

Every day you don't wash them, don't take them home, put them in your locker, change when you come to class every day. And as you might imagine, as the semester goes on, they're getting pretty right. Those clothes and those scrubs. And so what typically happens is they become soiled. They become to the point where there's no real way to fix that. And so part of the celebratory ritual is they lay them aside, they strip them off, and they burn them. And that's part of, I successfully passed A&P, I'm throwing my scrubs in the pile with everybody else's, and we're burning these scrubs.

That's kind of the celebratory thing that takes place. What James is advocating is something similar. He's saying strip off the filthiness, strip off the overflow of wickedness. I mean, if you can imagine, you get yourself, I don't know, you can imagine these, you can figure out, pick whatever it is in your life, right? But you get some sort of soiled thing on a garment. First thing you want to do is get that garment off and get in the shower and get it cleaned up, right?

So think about those kinds of things in your own life. But that's what James is really getting at here, is stripping off this filthiness, stripping off this overflow of wickedness like soiled garments.

And he says, receive with meekness the implanted word that brings salvation. So with meekness, we receive the implanted word. That concept of implanted word there is the Greek word logos, or message. In this case, it seems to refer to the gospel of God as opposed to Christ as the logos, at least in this context. And it seems to insinuate that this logos is a seed, like the gospel that's been implanted within us, similar to the parable of the soils, and that if it finds purchase in fertile soil, it grows into a crop of righteousness.

And so James says, beginning in verse 22, now taking all of that into account, he says, be doers of the word. James 1, verse 22, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he says, he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, he says, this one will be blessed in what he does. So he brings this concept about that action is required, that there needs to be a doing, a verb, so to speak, as we consider the Word of God, that we must hear the Word of the gospel. We must see the teachings of God in Christ, and we need to obey those things in word and deed. And ultimately, through living those things, it's a method to prevent self-deception.

Living them, doing them, is a method to prevent self-deception. He says, if we hear and we do not do, he says, we are deceived, that we're looking into a reflection in the mirror, and that reflection is not accurate in that circumstance. It's as though we've examined that reflection in the light of God's expectations. We saw our reflection, and then we immediately went away, and we forgot what we saw. Completely and totally forgot what we saw. James says, if we look into the Word of God, if we look into the law of liberty and the instructions that God provides us in life, God's commandments, His law, His statutes, if we look into these things, which the world believes are chains and slavery and bondage, all sorts of things, these are the things that provide true freedom, freedom from pain and suffering and freedom from the negative consequences of sin.

He says, if we continue in those things, we will not be a forgetful hearer, we will not be deceived. He says, we'll be blessed in what we do. And so the analogy that James paints here is that the Word of God is reflective. The Word of God is reflective. That if we want to know what we really look like, if we want to see our reflection, so to speak, it requires us to compare our life with the standard of God's Word, to compare our life with the standard of God's Word.

And that it's only through that mirror that we can see our lives clearly, not through lenses of self-rationalization, not in comparison with society, but a frank and a clear examination that uses an objective standard. Mirrors today, the mirrors that you and I have hanging in our bathrooms and whatever else, mirrors today, they lie to us. They lie to us. Mirrors today lie to us. They provide a very good, clear, crisp reflection, but that reflection is mirrored. So that reflection is actually flipped 180 degrees in a mirrored image. And as a result, the perspective that you see in that mirror is not the same perspective that people see when they look at you.

You're seeing it flipped. They're not. When they look at you, they're seeing you straight on. And what's interesting is, I mentioned this in the pastor's corner last update that went out, they have a mirror out today called a true mirror. And a true mirror is a little contraption. It's actually a little box, basically, because it has to do certain flips of the image to make this work. But the true mirror is designed to provide you with a non-mirrored image. It's become really popular in recent years, and many who have viewed themselves through a true mirror have actually said that it really took them aback. It actually startled them to see themselves in a true mirror because it was so different from what they're used to seeing. I mean, if you think about it, you've seen yourself in the mirror, you know, how many times over your lifetime? Tons, right? And you've grown accustomed to seeing that this ear is maybe a little lower than this one, or this cheekbone is maybe a little bit higher. Our faces aren't symmetrical. They're not even close. And so when you take that image and you flip it, people have said they look like a different person. They said they feel like an imposter, that it doesn't look like them at all. Which is kind of interesting, that the brain can do that to us, I guess, in that sense. But the un-mirrored image startled them, and they felt like they looked different. Some said seeing themselves as others see them was a revelation. Some didn't enjoy that experience because in their opinion they felt like a wax figure. They said it was like looking at a wax figure of themselves, just not quite right. Something just slightly off. They felt different. They felt like an imposter. I've never had that experience. I've actually never looked into a true mirror in that sense. I've always seen the mirrored image version of it. But what's interesting is those of you who have been around since film cameras— so young people, that's not you— those of you that have been around since film cameras, film photographs and portraits are a non-mirrored image. The camera mirrors it to the negative, and then the negative mirrors it to the print. So it's a flipped, correctly, image in old photos and portraits. The camera's on your phone, by the way. You can play around with it. There's a little button that non-mirror your selfie camera. I don't think it works. It's still weird. I was trying to figure it out last night, going, is that technically mirrored? Is it not? I don't know. It broke my brain. I couldn't figure it out. But the mirrors that we look into today, they lie to us. They do lie to us, in a sense. The reflection is clear, it's crisp, but it's flipped. It's mirrored, in that sense. And they distort that image in that way. It's a perspective shift. Fun show mirrors, you've all experienced fun show mirrors, they purposefully distort the image because it's fun. That's why a fun show mirror, right? The mirror of God's word, though, is not one of those mirrors. The mirror of God's word is a true mirror. It does not lie to you. We can lie to it. We can absolutely lie to it. It does not lie to you. That mirror will return a real, true reflection every single time that we peer into it, because the standard is the standard. Our reflection, based upon that standard, is what it is. And honestly, if we don't like it, there's only one way to fix it. And that's to live it.

That's what James says. It's to do it. It's to live it. It's the only way to fix it. Thankfully, that's not the only mirror that God has given us. God gives us a mirror to help us along in that process, which is His Spirit. It helps us in our lives to be able to do these things. That Spirit leads us to truth. It shows us truth in our lives. Let's go over to the book of John. John 16, over to the Gospel of John.

John 16, and we'll pick it up in verse 5. Christ, in His discussion with the disciples, we'll be reading these passages as we come into the Passover evening. John 16, and we'll pick it up in verse 5. He speaks here to the Spirit of God. And I'm just going to read it as it is. You know, you're familiar with the transliteration issues and all the differences in pronouns and whatever else. You're familiar with all of that. I'm just going to read it as it is. Speaking here of the Spirit of God. He's speaking of the very nature, presence, and expression of God's power.

John writes the following. As Christ is inspired and provides these words to John, John writes the following. He says, beginning in verse 5, But now I go away to him who sent me, And none of you asks me, Where are you going? But because I've said these things to you, Sorrow has filled your heart. He says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin, And of righteousness, and of judgment of sin, Because they do not believe in me, of righteousness, Because I go to my Father, and you see me no more, Of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Now Christ tells His disciples that unless He goes to the Father, The Spirit of God cannot come. Same Spirit by which Christ did the many mighty miracles in His ministry, The Spirit that gave Him the strength to be able to live a life without sin, Because it always led to the truth. He said when that Spirit would come, it would convict the world of sin. How? How does it convict the world of sin? Let's look at verse 12. Verse 12. He says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, Notice how it labels the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.

For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak. He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine, Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. God would convict the world of sin through a revelation of the truth. Through a revelation of what is true. Allowing the world to see for the first time their true reflection.

Within the mirror of that Spirit, within His very nature, within His very mind. And through God's Spirit, they would understand sin. They would understand righteousness, the difference between those two things. They would understand the judgment of sin as God worked with them, and then ultimately in them as they enter into the covenant of baptism.

But that Spirit, that mirror that God has given us, is a Spirit of truth. It is a Spirit of truth. And through the indwelling of that Spirit of truth, man can overcome sin. Man can follow God. Man can live more like Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God is a true mirror. Just like the Word of God, the Spirit of God is a true mirror.

The reflection that we see from it is what we are really like. If we yield ourselves to it, if we allow God's Spirit to lead us, we will see that reflection, and we will see a reflection of God if we allow it to lead us. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3. Not 1 Corinthians, but 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 3. Paul's second letter to Corinth, he had a whole pile of things that he needed to address, things that he needed to bring about. And one of those was this idea of the new covenant.

And ultimately, the glory of this new covenant. And he uses an example of Moses to illustrate the previous covenant, and ultimately the glory of the Spirit of God. He harkens back to an event in Moses' life that we see recorded in Exodus 34.

You're welcome to turn there if you'd like and follow along, but I'm just going to reference the story. Exodus 34 is where we see this, but he harkens back to this moment in Moses' life when Moses goes up to Mount Sinai and returns with the second set of tablets.

He returns to the people, he comes down from the mountain, and Moses' face is shining. His face, his skin is shining as a result of him being up in the presence in that sense of God. Moses was actually unaware of this at the time. It's kind of interesting. He didn't have a mirror, it turns out, to look into it and see that his face was shining. But he noticed when he came down the people's responses. He noticed that Aaron and the rest of the Israelites were like, Okay, no thank you.

This is a little bit odd. They had some fear. They were actually afraid of him in Exodus 34. Part of that is that his face shining in that way was indisputable proof of Moses' relationship with God. That he received the words he was about to speak from God. What we see in that section is that he called Aaron and the rulers of the congregation to him. He spoke with them, his face unveiled at that time, according to the passage.

After he spoke with them, he veiled his face. He called over the people of Israel. He unveiled, he spoke with them. And then it says he veiled his face again. And it said he would unveil his face when he would go in and speak with God. He would come out, he would tell the people what God said, and then he would veil his face again. Okay, so that's the account that Paul's referencing here. William Barkley describes this event as follows. He says, Paul takes this to mean that Moses veiled his face so that the people should not have to see the slow fading of the glory that was once there.

His first thought is that the glory of the old covenant, the old relationship between God and men, was essentially a fading one. Not that wrong is overpassed by right, but as the incomplete is overpassed by the complete. The revelation that came by Moses was true and great, Barkley says, but it was only partial. The revelation that has come in Christ Jesus is full and final. One is a step to glory, the other is the summit of glory. And so with all that in mind, let's explore verse 12 of 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3, and we'll pick it up in verse 12.

2 Corinthians 3 and verse 12 says, Therefore, since we have such hope, because we have such a hope of this new covenant, says we use great boldness of speech. Paul says, Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away, says their minds were blinded, for until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.

He says, even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. And so he speaks of the people at that time, and the veil that was upon them as they go through the Old Testament in that way, not being able to see or not being able to understand Christ. But he says, verse 16, speaking of believers at this time, says, Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

Now the Lord is the Spirit. The Lord is Spirit. The Spirit is the Lord in that sense, too. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, so our faces are not veiled, okay, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Barkley continues with his explanation. He says the idea of the veil now takes hold of Paul's mind, and he uses it in different ways.

He says that when the Jews listen to the reading of the Old Testament, as they do every Sabbath day in the synagogue, a veil upon their eyes keeps them from seeing the real meaning of it. It ought to point them to Jesus Christ, but the veil keeps them from seeing that. He says we too may fail to see the real meaning of Scripture, because our eyes are veiled. And he goes on to describe different ways that our eyes can be veiled. It can be veiled through prejudice, preconceived notions. It can be veiled through wishful thinking. We want it to say one thing, even though it might say something else.

Fragmentary thinking can veil the way that we look at things. We don't look at certain sections of the Bible in the totality of the whole. We just pick what we want, a little fragment of things, and we use that. It says we can be veiled through disobedience, lack of teachability. And Paul, as he often does, uses this idea, uses this example to illustrate a critical concept. And he explains this in a number of his epistles, that Jesus Christ was the focus of the law.

He was the focus of the Old Covenant. And that through him, all of that which comes before, all of those things that were shadows of what was to come, make now sense. Makes sense now. As believers today, our faces are unveiled. We have relationship with God in that sense. Our faces are unveiled. We are, and I use this term very carefully, I want to be very clear, we are basking in his glory, so to speak, because we have relationship with God.

We have relationship with God. We are able to come before him through Jesus Christ. When we look into a mirror, Paul is making the point here that we see the glory of the Lord. We see that image that is being transformed. We see us becoming like him, at least we should, as part of that process. And in that sense, our faces shine metaphorically, and we're in the process of being transformed into that image, from glory to glory, through the Spirit of God, and into a glory that is not going to fade, into a glory that eventually is not going to fade.

And so our reflection, as Paul is intimating here, through the Spirit of God working in our lives, is becoming more and more like God with time, from glory, as Paul writes, to glory. Brethren, if we look into the mirror of the Spirit of God in our lives, and we find that we don't see the fruits of that Spirit reflected back in that reflection, and that person looking back at us as carnal, or that person looking back at us is not coming under the instructions of God, then something needs to change.

And it's not God's Spirit that needs to change. That mirror will show us the truth. It will absolutely show us the truth, because God's Spirit is a Spirit of truth. And with time, with submission, that Spirit leads us into alignment with God in Christ to be able to live more like Jesus Christ. The final mirror that we'll explore briefly today here is the mirror of Jesus Christ's life himself.

Jesus Christ emptied himself, took the form of a bondservant, came in the likeness of a man. What that means is he experienced the human experience. He experienced happiness, he experienced sadness, disappointment, anger. He had his diapers changed. We don't want to think about that in that sense, but he was human.

He was human in that process. He did all of these things without sin. He spent his childhood, his early adolescence, his adolescent years in and around Judea, experiencing what it meant to be human. During that three and a half year ministry, as we see him go out and we see that ministry recorded for us, we get the opportunity to look at what our life should look like in similar scenarios. As Christ is dealing with something that brings him anger or brings him grief, how did he respond? As he's dealing with Pharisaical hecklers, how did he respond? As he's dealing with obstinate sagacies, how did he respond?

And we model our life after him. When we did track and field, one of the things we told the kids to do when it came time for their throws was look at their form in the mirror. We recorded their form so they could see what they were doing. And sometimes when they played it back, they went, oh, I'm dropping my elbow. Why am I doing that? But now you know. What are you going to do about it? I'll fix it. I'll put my elbow back. Yep, there you go.

And sure enough, that took care of things. When we see that, we have the ability to go through that process to live like him. I know the concept of, you know, what would Jesus do is kind of cliche, but the concept itself is sound. If we think about our example, we think about the things that we do and the things we go through, we should be imitating Jesus Christ. We should be living in the way that he lived. Let's turn over to 1 John 2. 1 John 2. So into John's epistles.

1 John 2. We'll pick it up in verse 3.

1 John 2 and verse 3. It says, Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. In other words, that reflection is not coming back true. Whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. During the time of John's epistle, there were a great deal of Gnostic thoughts running around in the church landscape. Individuals had blended Greek and Egyptian philosophy with the truth into this syncretic blend of heresy that taught certain knowledge, certain secret knowledge, certain things that only they could provide for you, would elevate a person's relationship with God.

There were a lot of different flavors. Gnosticism at that time was kind of like Baskin-Robbins. There were like 31 flavors of Gnosticism. It was a lot of different kinds of Gnosticism, but at its core, it really dealt with this idea that what was done physically in the body did not matter spiritually. They had managed to separate these two things. Matter and physicality was evil. Spirit was good.

These two things could not co-abide in that sense. Their belief was whatever was done physically did not impact the spirit. They taught and believed that they could transcend sin. They could reach a point where they could actually not be capable of sinning. Whatever they did in the physical body, whatever it was, whether it was fornication, whether it was this, that, whatever, it didn't matter. We've transcended the ability to sin. John's epistles are directly addressing that belief system. That's what he's attacking when we see 1, 2, and 3 John. That's what he's going after. And so he says, point blank, God inspires, if we claim to know God, then we keep His commandments. That's how we know we know God, is we keep His commandments. We keep His word, and if we do, it says the love of God is being perfected, being completed, matured in that person, and we will know that we are in Him.

And John goes on to write that if we claim to abide in Him, that we ought to walk as He walked. We ought to live as He lived. We should see His life. We should see His example, and that life and example should be a mirror for our own actions and our own manner of living.

John's also advocating that when we look into the mirror, we should see Christ reflected in us, our actions, words, and deeds reflecting that character and His glory, so to speak. There's a lot of passages, dozens in Scripture that talk to this idea of us being made into the image of God, being transformed into the image of God through putting on the new self, through renewing our minds, through transforming our minds. It talks about where His workmanship. We currently bear the image of the physical man, but we are in the process of burying the image of the heavenly man. We see these all over Scripture. It's in a wide variety of places, this image of God being put on in our lives, a mirror, so to speak, to see our own actions, to see our own words, and to see our own lives. During this time of year, we are instructed to examine our lives. God asks us, in preparation for the Passover, to take a look into the mirror. And He provides us with mirrors that we can look at. He gives us His word, He gives us His spirit, and ultimately He gives us the example of Jesus Christ's life as it's recorded for us in Scripture. And those are provided for us to be able to take stock and to consider where we are. Brethren, what do you see when you look into the mirror? When you look into that mirror, what do you see? I hope, like me, you see a person who falls short. I hope that's what you found when you looked in the mirror this year. Hopefully you didn't come away going, man, I'm doing great, I'm perfect. Hopefully you found a person who falls short. Hopefully you found a person who has warts, has wrinkles, someone who has blemishes, someone who needs a little work here and there. Because that's the point of this self-examination period. That is why we do this, and that's why the Passover matters.

That's why the Passover is so critical. God instructs us to examine ourselves because He wants us to be in the right frame of mind to come and to take of the Passover. He wants us to be able to come and recognize that we need Jesus Christ in our life desperately. That that blood is necessary for you and for I, because without it we're dead in our trespasses.

And I don't know about you, sometimes we can take a look in that mirror and go, oof, okay, got some work to do. But, but, one of my prayers each year at this time of year is to be able to also see myself as God sees me. Not just the imperfect reflection that I see, that I'm aware of, but that God will help me see myself as He sees me. That He will help me see myself as His child, as someone who has been justified through the blood of Jesus Christ. Someone who, despite imperfections, is earnestly trying to please God, and in whom God is working overtime some days to complete that work that He began.

When God looks at each of us from His perspective, just like the Day of Atonement in Israel, Israel had the pile of sins, the blood of bulls and goats painted over the top of those sins for the year. They added to the pile of sins the blood of bulls and goats painted over, never removed them, it wasn't good enough to remove them.

When God sees us, He sees the image of His Son. He sees the image of our elder brother because that sacrifice has been applied on our behalf. And sometimes, brethren, I think as we go through this self-examination, we need to learn to see the same. I've had people tell me in the past that because of their sins, they didn't feel like they could take the pass over that year.

I've had to tell them, that's the point. That's the whole point. You're not worthy. You're not. None of us are. That's why this is so important. That's why this is so necessary. So we need to learn to see the same sometimes. We need to learn to see Jesus Christ's sacrifice applied for us. And that when God sees us, He sees His child. He sees someone who's working at it imperfectly, but trying and repenting and moving forward.

But brethren, that doesn't absolve us of our responsibility. It does not absolve us of our responsibility. We can't just say, well, sacrifice is there. I don't have to do anything. It's not the way it works. God expects change. Let's go to Matthew 7. Matthew 7. We'll go ahead and pick the account up in verse 24. Matthew 7. This is a memory scripture. We've used it at camp for a number of years. Matthew 7 verse 24. I won't make any of you kids recite it. It's been a few years.

Matthew 7 and verse 24.

Christ states, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine, these teachings that Christ had provided in these passages forward and does them, says, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house on the rock. The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and they beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

But he says in verse 26, everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them, if we hear and we don't do them, if we look in that reflection and we walk away and we forget the person that we were, and we make no effort to change whatsoever, says the rains descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and the beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

Great was its fall. Christ tells his disciples, very similar to James, that action is required. It's not enough to see. It's not enough to see that reflection. Hearing and doing is required. And when we do what Christ instructs us to do, the house that we build, the life that we build, survives the challenges and the storms of life, and when we do not, that house will fall.

So, you've peered into the mirror this year, coming a week out of the Passover, you've looked into these various mirrors, you've seen your reflection, now what? Now what? What do we do now? Brother, now comes the hard part. We get to work. We have work to do. That's what the now what is. We have stuff to do. Sometimes, when we see that reflection and we see how far we have to go, again, it can be overwhelming, it can be challenging. Sometimes we don't even know where to start. It's like there's so many things that need to be fixed. I don't even know where to begin. What if this year, instead of feeling overwhelmed in that process, what if you focus on one area of your spiritual life that needs work? What if you make measurable, specific goals around that one part of your spiritual life? Whatever it is, it could be a variety of different things. Maybe you need help in your prayer life. Maybe you're struggling with not studying like you know you need to. Maybe you're struggling with parenting. Maybe you're struggling with financial health. Maybe we have issues in relationships. Whether it's marriages or friendships or brethren, what if as a part of the process this year, we focus on the one thing we can take care of? And we pour our effort into that. How do you eat an elephant? You don't. They're unclean. But the principle is the same, right? A bite at a time. You can't deal with the whole thing at once. It's a little here. It's a little there. What if this year we work to just erase the bitterness of our heart? The issues that we're dealing with with others. Small, specific, measurable bites. Building habits, building order, building discipline in those things. Sometimes trying to do it all results in nothing getting done well. But if you can focus on one piece that enables you to get control on that, you can begin to do that piece well. You can begin to start adding other things into that process. What we don't want, brethren, is to be looking next year at the exact same reflection in the mirror. It's not going to change a lot, probably, but fix a few of these things, a couple of these things. We want to do what we can to solve some of the challenges that we're facing, some of the sins that we're experiencing, to overcome those things, to progressively become more like Jesus Christ. So, brethren, as we come into this final week, we've got one week left before the Passover. Look into the mirror, brethren, and take it in. Look into the mirror and take it in. Don't look past the warts, don't look past the wrinkles. See yourself in the mirrors of God's Word, of His Spirit, and of life and example of Jesus Christ. See. Recognize the work that needs to be done. And then thank God for the opportunity that you've been given to do it, for the opportunity you've been given to be His child, and for the blood of His Son poured out on your behalf to enable you to do so. Let that image in the mirror become that of Jesus Christ. And determine what it's going to take in your life to bring what you currently see into alignment with that goal. Put a focus on a component that needs work, with much prayer, much supplication. Put in the effort and the discipline necessary to change and to overcome. Brethren, I hope that your final week of preparations, your deleventing, and all that is going into this final week leading up to the Passover goes well. We look forward to seeing you Friday evening.