Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

When I was eight years old, my mother loaded me and my brothers up to go to Walnut Twin theatres in Garland.

This place was a dollar movie theatre that only showed two movies because there were only two theatre rooms in this place.

The movie she took us to see was the Lion King.

One of the climatic parts of that movie was when Mufasa like any good father tried to save Simba from being trampled in the stampede.

So much so that Scar, the brother of Mufasa assisted in Mufasa falling to an early death.

This caused young brother Simba to move into a self-exile and left the kingdom to be run by poor leader that ran with Hyenas such as scar.

Many of us go through tragedy that drives us into a self-exile, meanwhile the people you ran from need you more than ever.

One of the greatest things we can do as it pertains to moving forward and overcoming trials is looking in the mirror of ourselves and making a conscious decisions to see what God sees in us in effort to move forward.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:

Marvellous are thy works;

And that my soul knoweth right well.

God has created us and created greatness inside of us.

It’s not that we cannot be great it’s what we are looking at in the mirror of life is not viewed in the same manner God views us.

As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.

Water takes on the purpose of the mirror if we look directly into it we see our face.

Furthermore the condition of our heart dictates who we are amongst others.

Essentially the good see good, just as the evil see evil.

Whatever characteristics out pour from our lives we tend to see others through the same lens.

When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see mistakes, do you see missteps, or do you see another chance at purpose?

This is why it is so important that we feed our mind positive content.

When we tip the scale to negativity it has an major effect on our spirit.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What should we focus on: Considering the negativity surrounding us:

Focus on -

Things that are uplifting, encouraging, commendable.

We should strive for spiritual excellence, praise worthy, and just things.

Many times we wonder why our attitude is such a downer, often times we are out of balance because we are spending too much time focusing on things outside the realm of God’s goodness.

So what happens is, we begin to see ourselves through the lens of what we have been focusing on.

To a point where we may even view excellence through that lens.

Anytime we look in the mirror we have a view of what we want our excellence to look like.

Typically our view of excellence stems from what we focus on externally and internally.

“So the heart of a man reflects the man”

Heart in this text can be defined as “very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the center of anything”.

Gazing into our spiritual mirror how we feel about ourselves in typically projected on how we allow people to treat us and how we treat each other.

Our heart, the core of our very being reflects who we truly are!

Dirty Mirrors

Some of us are looking into dirty mirrors.

Listen in effort to reflect effectively and efficiently our minds have to be clean.

15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.

They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

When we have detoxified ourselves spiritually and mentally.

We have the ability to reflect in a manner that betters ourselves.

But when what we look into, introspectively is dirty out outlook will reflect the dirtiness.

We look in the mirror, we check ourselves out, we clean ourselves up but what we claim to see in the mirror is not reflected in how we act, treat each other, or even look at ourselves truly.

We cannot expect to be our best self for God if we are not true with the person we look at in the mirror.

Cleaning the Mirror With the Wrong Supplies

Have you ever cleaned a mirror and you look at it and there are streaks on the mirror?

Then you have to go back, get the right supplies and reclean it to remove the streaks?

Sometimes we are looking in the mirror and using the wrong supplies to clean up what we are looking at to see how far we have come.

We have to stop depending on others to be the determining point of excellence for where we are trying to go.

20  Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,

but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Sometimes we can know where we come from but we can put ourselves in self exile so long that we forget who we really are.

Remember when Rafiki runs into Lion King, and he pinpoints him into the reflection but helps him see what he needs to see in effort to be the king that he was born to be?

Conclusion

We have to remember and understand that most times there is nothing wrong with our mirror.

It’s usually our external surroundings or our internal make up that keeps us from maximizing the blessing that reflection can be.

The Story of Juan’s gym:

There is a blessing in reflection

Reflecting on the gains

Reflecting on the losses

Reflecting on how far we have come

Reflecting how far we have to go

Reflecting on the haters

Reflecting on the celebrators

Reflecting on the good of Jesus

Reflecting on his sacrifice

Reflecting on the cross

Reflecting on the Resurrection

There is a blessing in reflection!

Anytime we have the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror of life, we ought to be thankful we have the ability to see where we are and where we are trying to go.

Strong, J. (1996).

The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words.

Nashville: Thomas Nelson.