January 25, 2009
Call to Repentance
James 1:21-22 (page 1881)
Call to Worship
Psalm 111 (page 952)
OT Reading
2 Samuel 12:1-14 (page 487)
NT Reading
James 1:19-27 (page 1881)
Message
The Art of Self-Acquaintance
2 Timothy 3:1-5 (page 1854)
We are so accustomed to our own images that it is difficult to appreciate how unsettling a mirror would have been to someone three thousand years ago. There were few opportunities in a desert environment to get a clear reflection of one's face. We have no fewer than four large mirrors in our house and any number of smaller ones. And then there are all of the cameras and video recorders. I am nearly as accustomed to my own face as I am to the faces of the other members of my family.
But it's one thing to be acquainted with your image, and another to be acquainted with yourself. King David may not ever have had a very accurate idea of what his own face looked like, but compared to me he seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of what his heart looked. He was a very self-acquainted man.
In our culture there is a definite preference for superficiality in relationship. Most of us place more value on having five hundred facebook friends than we do on having one friend to whom we can bare our souls.
We have become so conditioned to pleasant superficiality in our relationships that it has become our default manner of relating to ourselves. How often do we examine our motives or evaluate our preferences. When was the last time we considered what areas of our lives we need to improve on.
If I'm going to embark on a project of self-acquaintance the Bible will be as indispensable a tool as the mirror would be to someone wanting to learn their own appearance. And the Bible offers the same promise to sometimes delight and more frequently dismay us that the mirror offers, and in roughly the same proportion.
This Sunday we are going to consider a portion of 2 Timothy 3, verses 2 and 3 in light of what the mirror of scripture might reveal to us about ourselves.
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