Sermonette: Use God's Word as a Mirror

Make Sure You Are Not Deceived!
#FT01-10s
Bill Cherry
Given 07-Oct-01; 21 minutes

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Turn to James 1:22-25. It is very familiar; however I want you to get a certain image by looking at these verses.

James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

This verse tells us if we sit in services and hear, that is not the only thing we should do. If we hear we can deceive ourselves, if that is all we do is hear God's Word.

James 1:23-24 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is 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.

In God's Word, this word “glass” [KJV] in other versions is rendered “mirror.” The picture is of a man looking in a mirror. He might have dirt on his face, but for some reason he is distracted, or maybe he expected himself to look beautiful, and not have anything on his face; he looks in the mirror and he forgets what he looks like. So, he does not do anything about it. Reading verse 25, it says,

James 1:25 But 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, this one will be blessed in what he does.

So the picture is like a mirror, and if we look in it with the correct attitude and mind and spirit, we will be able to see ourselves just as sure as if we look in a mirror we will be able to see what we look like; the true picture of what we are; the truth about Bill Cherry; the truth about any one of you, if you really want to look at it with the correct attitude.

God's Word is like a mirror. And here, on one hand you have a hearer only—one that only hears—and one that does the work.

Notice that it calls the word, “The perfect law of liberty.” And it says that he continues therein, so continuing over and over to live by God's Word, it says, “This one shall be blessed in what he does.” And this reminded me of Psalm 1 where it talks about the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor sits in the seat of scornful, but his delight is in the law of God, and in His law he meditates both day and night, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. And see? He said this man shall be blessed in what he does. So God definitely commands us to be doers of His Word.

In this section here in James, there are three reasons why we should be doers of God's Word, and not only hearers. The purpose of this sermonette is to show you those 3 reasons out of James 1.

James 1:18 (KJV) Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Now the first reason is in verse 18, the first part. “God's word begets us.” It nourishes us and, “He begets us with the word of truth,” and I will stop right there. I chose to use the Old King James because it used, “begat,” and begat shows the image of this right now: We have young couples in this congregation, and we have older couples, and we know that there is a time in your life that most of you will say, “I want to have children.” And then you start doing the things that couples do to have children with the great fervor and purpose! But the picture here is God saying, “I want to have children.” And the children are you! And you, and you, and you! So God wants you. He begat you with His Word of truth.

Also the word begat pictures this image: Before I was affiliated with God's church, it was like I was in a giant unfertilized egg. Every scripture that I knew from childhood, which I had many from being associated with a Protestant church, was surrounding this giant egg, and trying to penetrate this hard shell of self-confidence, and self righteousness; knowing that I was already doing what God wanted me to do, and feeling comfortable about that.

But finally, one of these scriptures or a group of scriptures penetrated this egg, and started coming in, and there was a begettal. A realization stabbed right through my heart: “Bill Cherry, you’re not keeping the Sabbath. What are you going to do about it?”

So I admitted that I was wrong, and then it paved the way for all these other scriptures to come in and nourish. I know that you probably had a similar experience, and did the correspondence course, or articles and things, but all was focused on the Word of God, which was the source of nourishment.

So the first reason that we should be doers of the Word, and look in God's Word, and continue to do God's Word, is because it is the source of our begettal; the source of our nourishment.

A second reason is in the second part of this verse, “That we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” What are we hearing? We are called to be “archetypes,” and I am not good at Greek, but this is what I understand about archetypes—forerunners, examples, teachers. That is what we are called to be. We should be looking in God's Word, and listening, and understanding.

But as I have met you, we are all alike, and we are all different, and very different in many ways. I am sure and you are sure that God has called a variety of young people and older people, and all various types of job skills, and situations in life, because He wants to put us together, and He wants us to learn in a certain pattern, in a certain setting; something that we can use to be teachers later on, or in this life too. And so we should be teachers in this life, and in the next. But we teach by example mostly, and this is our textbook. We look into God's Word. It tells us what we are. It tells us (fast forward) what is going to happen. It tells us that we are family. And we should learn to use it in our relationships with others in our personal control of our human nature, and all of these things when we use God's Word as a textbook. This is the second reason, because we are going to be firstfruit examples, and that is why we should use God's Word, and continue in it daily.

Now before I tell you the third reason, I want to give you a little interlude because there are some verses between here and they are relevant, so we will read verses 19 through 21.

James 1:19-21 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

These verses represent the attitude with which we should read God's Word or hear God's Word (as it is referred to in this section), they are both connected, of course you understand that. But our purpose is that we receive with meekness. Some other translations translate that “humility.” And we look and we see that we are weak and foolish. We look and see that we are wretched and poor and blind and naked. We see that we need to understand, anoint our eyes with eye salve and try to understand and become what God's Word tells us we should become.

Our attitude should be like verse 21, “Lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness,” and I use sin because that is what I understand it to mean. But when we have an attitude of wanting to put out anything that we see in us that is wrong and ungodly, then we are able to understand better.

James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

So unless we do God's Word, we deceive ourselves. We can be deceived, and we can be self-deceived, unless we are trying to do God's Word, trying to do what it says.

Now, I want to illustrate this with some examples—personal experience.

I used to sit in a calculus class, and some of you may have been in a math class, and have the professor bring out the book, he does this problem on the board, and it looks so easy, and I deceived myself, “Oh, I can do that!” Yes, I can do that. But I go home, and I'd start to work on it, and I would scratch my head, and say, “Well, how did he do that?” I had deceived myself.

I have deceived myself into watching “Tressa Trim and Fit” or “Muscular Mike” demonstrate this exercise equipment on the TV, and think if I bought this exercise equipment that it would make me strong, or beautiful, or whatever, you know, handsome and all that. But I found out you have to use it! You have to exercise. You cannot sleep with it under your pillow. And not only do you have to use it, but you have to continue in its use.

God's Word is like that. But we can deceive ourselves into thinking that if we see the beautiful children that are here, and the people that have the beautiful attitudes, and their spirit, and we mingle with them, that we can do it. But I know that it is hard because I have tried it. And I am still trying it. I am not going to quit trying it, but I know it is not easy, and because I am doing it, I am not deceiving myself that way.

I do want to tell you two more illustrations. We can watch somebody play the piano, as we have seen real accomplished people play it, and hear the beautiful music, and appreciate what we hear, and appreciate the talent. But I am not about to deceive myself to thinking that I can sit down and play the piano like that. I have taken John Thompson's Teaching Little Fingers to Play and I put all 10 of my thumbs on the piano, and stumbled through some of these things, and I enjoyed it, and I will continue to enjoy it, but I will not deceive myself into thinking that I can play the piano.

I have seen people watch professional football games, and they see a man have a pass come right to him, and they see it bounce off. And they say, “Man, he should have caught that pass.” Well, I am not going to deceive myself that I could catch that pass, because I have played a little football, and I know that pass is probably coming straight at his gut, 70 to 90 miles an hour. And on either side of him, and maybe behind him are armor clad trained killers to strike bone jarring blows the minute that ball touches his hand. I am not going to deceive myself that I could have caught that ball.

Well, we are called to look into God's Word and do God's Word. But if we do not do God's Word, we deceive ourselves.

Now I would like to read you a little section I called, “We might be deceived if…” I tried to use a little parody from Jeff Foxworthy You Might Be A Redneck If, but I have tried to take this from God's Word. You will recognize some of these from the Sermon on the Mount. You will recognize some of them from the experiences and the lessons that we have from this feast.

We might be deceived if we are not quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

We might be deceived if we are not trying to cast off filthiness, and overflow of wickedness.

We might be deceived if we are not receiving with meekness, the engrafted Word of God.

We might be deceived if we are not poor in spirit, and we let ourselves (when somebody says something that kind of touches the nerve) swell up with pride, and maybe say something to justify, or put down.

We might be deceived if we are not hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

We might be deceived if we hide our light under a bushel, and are not trying to be examples to the neighborhood about the way we keep our environment, and the way that we are able to express ourselves if anyone asks about why we are going on a vacation in the middle of the autumn.

We might be deceived if we see the moat in our brother's eye, and we do not see the giant beam that is in our own.

We might be deceived if we hear a sermon that is tailor-made by God fitted directly to us to hit us right between the eyes, and we go to the ministry and say, preacher, “You sure got ‘em told today!”

We might be deceived if we do not let our kids play with the neighborhood kid if we heard him say a bad word, but we go in our living room and cut on the TV, and get any kind of swill, let it come into our home and listen and watch and let ourselves get absorbed by it, and the little ears of our children hear any kind of thing like that.

We might be deceived if we do not love God with our whole heart and mind and soul. We might be deceived if we are not putting the words that God has commanded us this day into our hearts and minds, and teaching them diligently to our children.

We might be deceived if we do not see the book of Deuteronomy as a direct message to us as a journey through our Christian experience that we can be examples, and learn.

We might be deceived if we do not see the family as God's workmanship; that He is working in us; that the family gives us a picture of God's way, getting a glimpse of it through being at the feast and having a camaraderie with each other.

We might be deceived if we limit God by limiting our concept of Him, limiting what God has planned for us to do, and limiting our faith toward God.

And we might be deceived if we are only a hearer of God's Word and not a doer.

Now I would like to close this sermonette with a little poem.

It was written by Author Unknown.

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner

Eating his Christmas pie,

He stuck in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum

And said, “What a good boy am I.”

[in like manner]

A Laodicean,

A self-righteous being

Sat reading God's Word one day.

He looked in God's law

And said, “I have no flaw,”

Forgetting he went on his way.

By God's own will,

We are called to fulfill

Our begettal by His living Word.

Firstfruits of His creatures

To take on His features,

To forget would be truly absurd.

We're foolish and weak,

We should always be meek

And humbly look in God's Word

And change from within.

Acknowledge our sin,

To forget would be truly absurd.

We must be a doer.

We've got to be truer

To our calling to live by God's Word,

Like a mirror we see

What we should be,

To forget would be truly absurd.

God's Word is our mirror.

Be not just a hearer,

But a doer of God's perfect law.

Continue therein

And put out all sin

Until you correct every flaw.

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