THOU SHALT NOT LIE
INTRO:
Everyone looks really good from up here this morning. But did you look this good when you woke up this morning?
You have that morning dazed look
· Your hair is sticking out in strange places,
· We men get to shaven that rough looking over night growth of beard.
· You lovely women look like your wired for a 2-20!
· We wipe the sleep from our eye while we face the mirror.
That bathroom mirrors is an honest little creature isn’t it?
· The mirror doesn’t stretch the truth
· The mirror doesn’t protect our feelings and pretend to tell us we look better than we really are.
The mirror does not discriminate. It shows every wart, wrinkle, scar every blemish, every gray hair
· Have you heard someone say, I don’t take good pictures?
· That is like saying I just don’t look good in the mirror –so I don’t look.
· Maybe you don’t look good in the mirror because you simply don’t look good!
So why do we all have mirrors in our bathrooms?
Because as unpleasant as it may be especially the first thing in the morning,
we figure, it’s better to “face” the truth, so we can make the changes we think are necessary to make ourselves presentable to the rest of the world.
That’s the thing about GOOD mirrors, they always tell us the truth, even if we don’t like what we see!
Mirrors let us know the real self or person we are.
Have you ever met someone that always tried to be something they are not?
A man was looking for a job and he noticed that there was an opening at the local zoo. He inquired about the job and discovered that the zoo had a very unusual position that they wanted to fill.
Apparently their gorilla had died, and until they could get a new one, they needed someone to dress up in a gorilla suit and act like a gorilla for a few days.
He was to just sit, eat and sleep. His identity would be kept a secret, of course.
Thanks to a very fine gorilla suit, no one would be the wiser.
The zoo offered good pay for this job, so the man decided to do it. He tried on the suit and sure enough, he looked just like a gorilla.
They led him to the cage; he took a position at the back of the cage and pretended to sleep.
But after a while, he got tired of sitting, so he walked around a little bit, jumped up and down and tried a few gorilla noises.
The people who were watching him seemed to really like that. When he would move or jump around, they would clap and cheer and throw him peanuts. And the man loved peanuts.
So he jumped around some more and tried climbing a tree. That seemed to really get the crowd excited. They threw more peanuts.
Playing to the crowd, he grabbed a vine and swung from one side of the cage to the other. The people loved it and threw more peanuts.
Wow, this is great, he thought. He swung higher and the crowd grew bigger. He continued to swing on the vine, getting higher and higher—and then all of a sudden, the vine broke!
He swung up and out of the cage, landing in the lion’s cage that was next door. He panicked. There was a huge lion not twenty feet away, and it looked very hungry.
So the man in the gorilla suit started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling, “Help, help! Get me out of here! I’m not really a gorilla! I’m a man in a gorilla suit! Heeelllp!”
The lion quickly pounced on the man, held him down and said, “Will you SHUT UP! You’re going to get both of us fired!”
· Are you like this man pretending to be something you’re not?
· Or have you been deceiving yourself for long that you actually believe your own lie?
We don’t talk much about lying do we?
· Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Leviticus 19:11
· No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. Psalm 101:7
· The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. Proverbs 12:22
· You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors. Psalm 5:6
· Better to be poor than a liar. Proverbs 19:22
· He whose tongue is deceitful falls into trouble. Proverbs 17:20
· Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. Ephesians 4:25
· Keep falsehood and lies far from me. Proverbs 30:7, 8
I am convinced that one of the biggest issues we face is the lies to tell ourselves.
The tragedy is people lie long enough they start believing their own falsehood.
Who are you really? What do you see when you look into the mirror?
But in today’s age, we have mirrors that very much display what we really look like. (Show full length mirror) Like this mirror, for instance.
Have you ever been to a funhouse that had distorted mirrors? They don’t really show us how we are do they?
When we read the Bible, or hear a sermon, we’re supposed to see OURSELVES in it.
Often we’ll hear a sermon and think “Boy, I wish so-and-so could hear THIS! THEY really need it.”
But the funny thing is, God in His power didn’t see fit to make sure so-and-so was here, but YOU’RE here. So maybe the message isn’t really for so-and-so. Maybe it’s for YOU!
Without a doubt, one of the most important reasons we are to read and study and understand the Scriptures is to see the dirt on our faces – or the poppy seeds in our teeth.
Because if we don’t know they’re there, we’ll never get rid of them.
And the point of this whole mirror analogy is to illustrate the command in these verses:
1. Remember What You Look Like
James 1: 21-24 “21 So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 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 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”
How can that be? How can somebody look in the mirror and see themselves, and then walk away and forget what he looks like?
I mean, you look in a mirror, walk away, then you’re like, “Wait a minute? Am I bald? Am I fat? Am I short? Do I have blue eyes? Am I missing teeth? Do I have a zit on my nose? What do I look like?”
YOU CANT CHANGE WHAT YOU DONOT ACKNOWLEDGE
That’s absurd. But is it really?
What about the girl who is 5’7”, blonde hair, blue eyes, beautiful girl that weighs 90 pounds.
She looks in the mirror and she sees that same 5’7”, blonde haired, blue eyed, beautiful girl who weighs 90 pounds, but as soon as she steps away from that mirror and gets around her friends, she believes she’s fat.
She can never exercise enough or eat too little.
No matter what she sees in the mirror, no matter that her friends tell her that she’s beautiful, she still believes she’s fat.
So…it’s possible to look in the mirror and then forget what you look like.
There are two reasons that this can happen.
One- you don’t believe the mirror is an accurate reflection of who you are. You don’t trust the mirror. Have you ever been to a fun house at a carnival or fair and walked through the hall of mirrors?
You have certain mirrors there that are designed to make you look funny. You can stand in front of one mirror and look all muscular and big like Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
You can stand in front of another and look extremely short and fat. You can stand in front of yet another and be ten feet tall and skinny as a rail.
These mirrors are NOT an accurate reflection of who you are. So you can walk away from these mirrors and forget what you looked like in them.
Why? Because you don’t trust them. You don’t trust the mirror.
The second reason you can look in a mirror and forget what you look like is
2. Realize that sometimes you have a problem to fix.
It’s true, we have zits that need taken care of, teeth that need flossed, or hair that needs combed, but sometimes it’s beneath the surface upon what we see is where the real problem lies.
Like our 5’7” beautiful blonde friend.
She has a problem. The enemy is deceiving her into believing that she doesn’t look like what the mirror says she looks like.
We know that the mirror we’re to look in to see the real us, is the Word of God. But let me ask you something…
Do you trust the mirror? Or do you walk away from it thinking you’re not worthy?
Do you look at the Word that says you can do all things through Christ and then walk away thinking that you could never be good enough?
Do you look at the Word that says you have an anointing from the holy one and can know all things --- and then walk away thinking that you will never get an A in Chemistry?
If you do, then there’s a reason. Either you don’t trust the mirror or you’re being deceived.
How many of you trust that the Word of God is an accurate reflection of the real you? Ok, then you trust the mirror in this case.
Well, how is that you can see yourself in the Word and then walk away and act totally different than who you are?
You’re being deceived. You’re letting the enemy pull the wool over your eyes.
You can look at the Word and find that you are the redeemed. You are redeemed
Wait a minute... I was supposed to show you something about mirrors today. I’ll be right back!
{Leave and put a big blotch on your face! Bring 4 different mirrors with you. ACT LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG!}
MIRROR #1 A PIECE OF ALUMINUM FOIL
This mirror is like the mirror of the world.
This world doesn’t really have a clear view of right and wrong. It’s blurry.
MIRROR #2 A MIRROR COVERED UP WITH STICKERS
This mirror is the reflection you get from your friends.
Man, it looks good. It’s pretty. But it doesn’t do much good.
Because it’s covered up with words, and so when others tell you how good you are or how bad you are, it won’t be accurate!
You will will reflect to you what they say about you.
MIRROR #3 A MIRROR THAT IS BROKEN
This is the mirror of churchy type religion.
Religion that makes a lot of good claims, and does contain some bits and pieces of that sound like truth, like if you go to church a lot, it will make God happy and He will leave you alone.
HOWEVER,-- it is cracked up and incapable of revealing the full truth.
MIRROR #4 A GOOD MIRROR, BUT SMALL.
{Put this one up on the wall}
This is a good mirror. This represents the Bible, God’s Word.
James tells us that it gives a perfect reflection and can show us our strengths and our weaknesses.
The only problem is, for the mirror to work, we have to get close to it!
(Try looking at yourself from a distance. Then move closer.
Notice the spot and then wipe it off!)
3. Don’t walke away without taking care of business
A forgetful hearer is someone who sees themselves in God’s Mirror, but then goes away and does nothing about it. That’s silly isn’t it? If you see the problem, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Well, if we want to know who we really are, what mirror do we look in? We have to look to the Word as a mirror to show us who we really are.
Look at the Word to find the real you, then boldly declare that that is who you are.
---------ILLUSTRATION: Twenty Dollars
A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
