A Mirror of Humility and Honesty

 Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.  The simplistic answer to how to fix this view is Jesus. 

Throughout Jesus’ life and teachings we are being shown how to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God.  At the center of his teaching we find the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7) or the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17 - 49).  In my opinion these passages contain Jesus’ primary teaching material.  When he would travel from village to village some form of this is what he taught.

There are many lessons to learn from these passages but it all starts with what we call  The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3 -12 & Luke 6:20 - 23).  This section is a difficult mirror to look into.  

When we look at ourselves through the mirror of the Beatitudes we see ourselves for who we truly are.

Pride and shame causes us to hide all our weaknesses and put on a veneer of having it all together.  Instead Jesus teaches us not to hide when we are poor in spirit, when we mourn, when we hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Jesus also teaches us to be meek, to be merciful, to be pure of heart and to make peace.  When we live out these qualities the culture around us will look down on us or persecute us.  These are perceived as weaknesses because our culture is based on selfish power.

Honesty and humility are the mirror that leads us to admit we have the qualities in our life.  Jesus holds this mirror up for us to look at ourselves.  We are blessed when we step out of our hiding place and expose ourselves to the LORD.  Instead of a life with ourselves a god we follow Jesus’ example letting go of our selfishness and obediently acknowledging the LORD as the true God! (Philippians 2:6 - 11)

It is a harder life to live but it is only way to live a blessed life!

Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.

 Why do we need a new life with Jesus?

The simplistic answer is sin.

Sin is not just our willful disobedience of the LORD it is a simplistic way to describe the fallen brokenness of the world around us.  This fallen brokenness extends to all of our relationships.

Our relationship with the LORD is broken

Our relationship with ourselves is broken

Our relationship with others is broken

To understand how our relationship with ourselves is broken we have to go all the way back to the beginning again.  When Adam and Eve are in the garden not only was their relationship with the LORD perfect but their relationship within themself was perfect.  We understand this because pride and shame had not entered the world.

Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.  Pride causes us to believe we are above or better than others.  It also causes us to believe others should not have it as good as we do.  Pride is unhealthy competition and fuels our desire to win when there is nothing to truly win.  We see this when people disagree just to disagree or won’t admit when they are wrong or at fault.  Our prideful selfs love to point this out in others but the list of modern people guilty of pride is long and includes our own names.

Shame on the other hand is not guilt for sin but an uneasiness about our ownself.  Shame causes us to feel we are less than others.  When Adam and Eve felt shame about being naked nothing about them had actually changed.   Eve wasn’t ashamed of Adam and Adam wasn’t ashamed of Eve.  They were ashamed of themselves for being who they were created to be because their relationship with themselves was broken.

Shame is also what causes us to hide when we know we did wrong.  Adam and Eve hid from the LORD because they had disobeyed the LORD.  Instead of facing the truth and dealing with the consequences they hid trying to avoid what they deserved.

Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.  The simplistic answer to how to fix this view is Jesus.  A more complex answer is what we will explore next week.

Simplistic Answer to "Why we need Jesus?"

Why do we need a new life with Jesus?

The simplistic answer is “sin”

Sin is not just disobedience it is replacing the LORD as the God of our lives with ourselves as god.

In the beginning we see this with Adam and Eve.  In the beginning they were created in the LORD’s image.  (Genesis 1:27)  In the beginning they were obedient to the LORD.  They lived for a long time in the garden.

Sometime later the Devil tempted them to be like God. (Genesis 3)  In other words they could be their own gods.  Instead of choosing obedience and rejecting temptation they choose to take the fruit.  In doing so they tried to make themselves gods.  The sad fact is they were already like God being created in the LORD’s image.

In doing this they broke their relationship with the LORD.  In doing this their relationship with the LORD died.  This dead broken relationship has been passed down to us.  (Romans 5:12 - 20)

We are powerless to repair or resurrect this relationship; this is why we need Jesus!

The truth of this story is not that it happened once but that it happens everyday.  Everyday in our lives we have a choice.  Do we acknowledge the LORD is God of our lives or do we try to make ourselves god of our lives.

As a new year begins this is a great time to start a new relationship with Jesus through faith and baptism.  It is also a great time to renew your relationship with Jesus through confession.