We Do LIFE Together
The Mirror
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
I don’t know about you, but I am so excited that college football has officially begun! Like many of you, I am a big college football fan.
I know we have a lot of Aggies, a lot of Longhorns, maybe even some Baylor bears near where I live. I’ve always been an Auburn fan. I grew up in the state of Alabama, and when you live in that state, you have to choose a football team. It doesn’t matter if you go to school there or not; you have to choose Alabama or Auburn.
A couple of weeks ago my wife, Alisha and I, got to go watch our Auburn Tigers play at Baylor with some church friends! We had a great time!
I love college football and I love college football fans. They go all in. I mean, look at these people.
These people spent a lot of time in front of the mirror getting ready for the big game. When they look in the mirror, they look like their team. They’re ready for Game day!
When you got up this morning and started getting ready to come here today, you probably spent some time in front of the mirror.
Some of us spend more time in front of the mirror than others. That’s ok!
Some of us like what we see. Others, we wish this was different, or that was different.
But you know what the mirror does, the mirror reveals what is. Not what we wish. Or what we want. It simply reflects what is. What you see is what you get.
What do you see when you look in the mirror? YOU!
The problem for many of us is that we don’t always like what we see. So we try to fix the reflection. We change our hair, change our shirt, change our fit, change this, change that.
You see, when you look into the mirror, what you see determines what you do. You see the reflection and now you know, you gotta fix your hair, touch up your makeup, or put on more face paint for the big game!
What about the church? What do we see when we look in the mirror?
Go to any church on a Sunday and you will see a lot of beautiful people. But you will also see a lot of different people. In fact, we’re all different. We look different. We think differently about different things.
When WE look in the mirror, we might see those differences. We might see what’s different about us, and we might even let those differences divide us. And that’s a problem for God’s church. Because as soon as we let a spirit of divisiveness come between us, we let the enemy in.
What We See Determines What We Do
What we see when we look in the mirror determines what we do.
So what do we see, what are we supposed to see, what does God want us to see?
God has something to say to us about how we do life together and it has something to do with looking in the mirror.
Ephesians is a short letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in ancient Ephesus some 2000 years ago. Paul loved this church. He had spent three years with them. They were near and dear to his heart.
So he’s writing this letter to this church that he had done life with and he wanted to give them some important instructions about doing life together and it has something to do with a mirror. Listen to what Paul writes…
Ephesians 4.1: Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you (plural) to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.
Paul considers himself a prisoner for serving the Lord. Paul knew what it was to be a prisoner. On more than one occasion he spent time in jail because of his faith, because he wouldn’t stop preaching and proclaiming the gospel (Acts 16:23–40; Acts 21–28; 2 Tim. 4:6–8; 2 Corinthians 11:23).
He knew what it was to have to pay a price for what you believe, to sacrifice for your faith, to be so bold in his faith that the authorities of his day had to lock him down to limit his impact. But that never stopped him.
Even in prison, Paul was preaching the gospel and bringing people to Christ! (Acts 16:25–34; Acts 28:30–31; Philippians 1:12–14; Philemon 1:10). In fact, he’s writing this letter from jail!
Being a believer in Jesus in Ephesus also required boldness, and Paul knew this from firsthand experience. The prevailing religion in Ephesus was the worship of an idol named Artemis. To confess faith in Jesus and live life in the way of Jesus meant that you were living life in a very counter-cultural way because everybody in Ephesus worshiped Artemis.
It would have been easy for the Ephesians to drift away from Jesus back into the predominant way of life of their culture. It would have been easy to compromise. To try to live life with one foot in the world and one foot in the church.
It would have been easy for them to drift just like it’s easy for us to drift. Nobody in my neighborhood worships Artemis. But there are a lot of little gods that people center their lives on. Money, accumulation, wealth. Houses, cars, kids. Titles, power, position. Just to name a few.
It would be easy for us to drift away from Jesus back into the predominant way of life of our culture. It would be easy to compromise. To try and live life with one foot in the world and one foot in the church.
Paul calls his friends to… lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.
It is so easy to live an unworthy life. Paul reminds his dear friends in the church in Ephesus that they have been called, chosen, to live a WORTHY life. To live a life WORTH living.
How do you do that? How does the church do that? Paul writes…
2 Always be humble and gentle.
Defining Humility
How do we live a worthy life? How do we do life together in a way that honors God?
It starts with humility.
Contrary to popular belief, humility isn’t about lowering yourself; it’s about emptying yourself. It’s not about thinking of yourself less and others more; it’s about thinking about Jesus and living for others. If you want to define humility, don’t turn to dictionary.com or Google, turn to Jesus. Jesus defines humility.
One of the places the Apostle Paul best describes and defines the humility of Jesus is found in Philippians 2. This is another letter he wrote to another church from a jail cell. Listen to what Paul writes about Jesus…
Philippians 2
6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up (kenosis – emptied himself) his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
How does Jesus define humility? He defines humility as emptying yourself for others in a self sacrificing way. That’s humility!
How We Do Life Together
Then Paul says,
Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
In other words, this is HOW we do life together. We give each other the benefit of the doubt.
This is my first move: I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt because you are my brother, my sister, in Christ. I’m going to do this because I love you and because I am going to make every effort to stay UNITED with you.
Whenever you get ay group of people together, there’s going to be differences. There’s going to be disagreement. There will be conflict. Confusion. We are human. But in the church, what unites us is greater than what could come between us!
We are united by the Holy Spirit. We are bound together in peace!
When Scripture speaks of peace it isn’t just talking about a cease fire. About the absence of war and conflict. Biblical peace is this idea of things being the way they are supposed to be. It’s this idea of wholeness and wellness and harmony and right relationships. Biblical peace is defined as the way things are supposed to be.
The church isn’t perfect; it is made up of perfectly imperfect people. BUT… We are called to live in and be bound together in the peace of God!
What divides the world should not, does not, cannot divide us as the people of God! Not race, or politics, or even college football teams! Paul says nothing can separate us from the love of God, and nothing should be able to separate us from one another, from loving one another! At the end of the day, at the bottom of it all, we love one another as Christ has loved us. (Jn 13.34-35!)
The Holy Spirit of God unites us! The Holy Spirit is given to every believer who confesses Jesus as Lord and is baptized in His name. Paul says….
4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all,
who is over all, in all, and living through all.
What Unites Us
What unites us is our baptism! Our baptism is our basis for our unity!
We are baptized into ONE name!
There is ONE Name that is above every other name. His name unites us. What unites us is greater than anything that could come between us!
So how do we do this? When you skip to the end of the chapter, Paul puts it this way…
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.
We’ve got to put sinful behavior behind us. This isn’t a call to perfection. None of us are perfect. We aren’t called to live a life of perfection but to live life in a different direction. Paul says…
32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
This is how we are celled to live. This is a life worthy of our calling! Living a life of of kindness, tenderhearted, forgiving… because, don’t ever forget, God has forgiven you.
And then Paul says this…
5.1. Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.
Imitate God. In other words, Mirror God.
Imitate God = Mirror God.
This is what God’s children do. This is what we, as God’s church, are called to do. Imitate God. Mirror God.
What do we see when we look in the mirror? Do we see our differences? Do we see what separates us? What divides us? When God’s church looks in the mirror, what do we see? Do we see God?
Mirror God
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
There’s this awesome moment in the movie The Lion King. If you haven’t seen it, spoiler alert! But the movie came out in 1994 so if you haven’t seen it yet, that’s on you. It’s over 30 years old!
Simba is a young lion who’s going through his own difficult time. He’s been running for a long time. Running away from who he is, from who he’s supposed to be. He meets this monkey named Rafiki who helps him remember who he is, who he’s called to be.
Rafiki helps him by telling him to look into the mirror.
When Simba looks into the mirror, He sees the reflection of His father. And his father tells him, “Remember who you are. You are my son.”
When Simba looks into the mirror, he finds his father’s courage. His finds his father’s resolve. He finds his father’s strength. And Simba becomes who he was always created to be.
In the same way…
When you look in the mirror, see God. Imitate God. Mirror God.
Find your Father’s courage, your Father’s resolve. Your Father’s strength. Imitate God. Imitate His love. Mirror His forgiveness. Mirror your Father. Be who you were always created to be.
Paul says this is how you mirror God…
2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
You mirror God when you love like Jesus.
This is how we do life together. We do life together by imitating God. By mirroring God.
How do we do that? By following the example of Jesus. By emptying ourselves for others in love. When we imitate Jesus, we mirror God. We live out of our identity as His sons and daughters.
What if we did that? What if we loved each other that well? That way?
Then our love for one another, how we do life together, it becomes an incredible witness to the world around us about the great love of God. People will want to know, why do you guys love each other so well? And then we’ll tell them, we just try to love each other the same way Christ loved us.
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