Sunday, August 27, 2017

The One Lie That Will Mess Up Your Life Like No Other

I gotta admit.  It shocked me.   It’s not like I haven’t heard stuff like this.  I’ve heard it my whole life.   But it bothered me.  It made me feel a little self-conscious.   Still, I didn’t say anything.   I mean.  What would she think of me?  

It all began because I was talking with some other Christians about a big event our church and a bunch of others are doing on November 4th at the Arts Park, Hope4Hollywood.  And this woman said something like.   What a great date!   It will counter that awful event the week before.
 
And for a moment, I didn’t get it.   What is she talking about?   Then I got it.  She was talking about Boo Bash, the Halloween party in the Park. Now, what made that event awful?   It celebrated Halloween.  And Christianity and Halloween, they can’t mix.

Now, we raise money for our Learning Centers each October through a Pumpkin patch, so that view doesn’t fly here.  In my house, we love Halloween. We put decorations out.   We buy our pumpkins (from the patch, of course).  Our son goes trick or treating in the neighborhood.  We put out a lot of candy.  

But was she right?  In just a moment, you’ll hear words from the Bible that tell you not to love the world or the things in it.   Should that include Halloween?   What else should it include? 
Some Christians think it includes alcohol.  Do you know the three religious truths?   Number one is Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah.   Number two is Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the head of the church.   And number three is Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor stores.    

Other Christians think it means you can’t wear makeup or you need to avoid certain movies or types of music.  Heck, when I was a kid, I trashed a Saturday Night Fever soundtrack because somebody told me it was evil.  I regret that.  I really liked that album.  What can I say?  I had disco fever.  
So, was this woman right?  No, she wasn’t.   But she had a point.  If you love the world, at least the way the Bible talks about loving the world, it will mess you up.  It might blow up your life.  So, what does it mean to love the world like that?  How can you make sure it doesn’t mess up your life?  In these words you’re about to hear, God shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 


It doesn’t make any sense.   Right here at the beginning of what we just read, John says, as clear as day. “Do not love the world…”    But does anyone remember one of the most famous sentences in the entire Bible.  If you went to church as a kid, you might have even memorized it.  It goes like this…

For God so loved the world, that He gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.
John 3:16

What?   Here the Bible says that God not only loved the world.  Loving the world led God to come to earth, to create Christianity.    Yet here, the Bible tells Christians to not love the world.   And to make it even more confusing, the same guy, John, wrote both sentences.   

So, which is it, John?    Do you love the world?   God does.   Shouldn’t we love it too?   Or are you supposed to hate the world like you tell us here?   Here’s the answer.   Yes, yes to both questions.  

How can you love the world and yet not love the world?   It’s because in John 3:16, God is talking about the world in a far different way than God is talking about the world here.  What’s the difference?

Look at the focus in John 3:16.   God focuses on people, on saving them, on rescuing them, on loving them.   But in these words in I John, God isn’t talking about people.  God is talking about desires, desires for things.  

You see, in John 3:16, God makes something utterly clear.   God loves people.  God loves people, you and me, so much that God says.  I will give up everything, even my life, to bring you home, to heal you, to rescue you.   When God talks about the world here.  God is talking about the world God created, a world full of people, full of all sorts of wondrous living things.  

But in I John God is talking about a way that others see this world.    This way doesn’t focus on people, at least as people.  No, in this world, people become means to an end.    And what is the end?  The end is acquiring something. Nothing matters more than the things you get.    It’s the message behind this bumper sticker.  The One who Dies with the Most Toys Wins.  And that way of seeing the world, God hates.   Why?

It devalues people.   And for God, nothing matters more than people.  That’s why we have a value here that goes like this.   All people matter to God, and therefore they need to matter to us.  If you are a follower of Jesus, nothing should matter more to you than people.   That means when people are demeaned or disrespected, Christians should be the first to stand up, and say no. 

But this world in which you and I live, it often goes by different values, values that are lies.     

For the first three years I lived here, a day did not pass without me seeing one.   Every day, I saw at least one car that cost as much as my house.   Every day, I saw something that cost about 300 grand to drive.    And I started getting a subtle message.  This is where life lies.  Life in South Florida can do that.  You see multi-million-dollar mansions.   You see boats so big they have other boats inside them.     And even if you don’t have that stuff, it can start to twist you up.   It can lead you to value all the wrong things. 

My wife is a psycho-therapist, and when she sees kids do you know what they want the most?  They want time with their parents. But the parents seem to be working all the time, and when they’re not working, they’re stressed about working    But when she talks to the parents, and asks them about cutting back on work.   They won’t do it.  It’s not because the family would starve if they did.   It’s that they would have to sell their boat or move to a smaller place.   And that they just can’t do.   Why?  It’s not because they don’t love their kids.  Of course, they love their kids. But they’ve bought the lie.   Somewhere inside them, they hear this voice.  If you don’t have these things, if you don’t live in this place, in this neighborhood, then something is wrong with you.  You have failed. 

Do you know the joke?  In America, what do you call a multi-millionaire who has been married three times, and who has terrible relationships with his kids    You call him a success.

That’s how love of the world will mess you up.   It’s when you start basing your value on things that don’t have any ultimate value.   And it doesn’t have to be money or stuff.   You can base your value on how you look or how someone looks at you.  You can base your value on other’s approval, how well people like you.  You can even base your value in some sort of religious thing.   

So instead of acquiring things, you start acquiring a sort of moral report card.  I do these things and therefore I am good.  And usually that means, you start thinking those who don’t do those things are bad or definitely not as good as you are.     But if you’re doing even good things to gain some sort of value for yourself, then you’ve missed the whole point.  You’re as trapped in this twisted way of seeing the world as anyone. You’re still acquiring toys, things to give yourself worth.  

But these things never give you the worth you seek.   They never give you ultimate value because they’re not ultimate.   They don’t last.  As John puts it….the world and its desire are passing away.   Or to take a riff off the bumper sticker….the one who dies with the most toys..still dies.

But you don’t have to find your value there, as if you could.   Why?  You already have value.   You have infinite value simply because you are.  That’s the point of John 3:16.    You have such infinite value that the creator of the universe, the creator of all reality, came to you, became someone like you.    And as that person, as Jesus, that God gave up everything for you.    And when you know God loves you like that, that frees you.  It frees you to love, to love people, to love the world, to value it, to value others as God does.  And as you experience that love, as you live in it, you see the world for what it is, an amazing place where God’s love is playing in ten thousand places. 

That’s why Christians should love Halloween.  Think about it.  When do you see more of your neighbors and their kids than at Halloween?    Halloween gives you a chance to get to know people, to give to people, to share with people, to love people.   And that’s what this world needs.  It needs to know that love, a love not based on what you own or who you know or what you do, a love based in who you are, a person infinitely, immeasurably, incredibly loved by God.  


And if you want to be part of a community that is working to live into that love, to share that love with others, then this family called First Church; it’s a great place to be.   And if you got nothing else from today, get this.  You are loved.  You are loved.   You are loved.   And nothing can ever take that love away.  All you have to do is say yes to it.     

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