Sermon Cloud

7/22/07

It’s All For Him

I’m curious about something this morning.  Imagine that I stood up here this morning and told you that I read a statistic from a reputable source that said 12% of all the bread that is sold in grocery stores contained a significant amount of marijuana.  And what if, further, I told you that bakeries were not required to report on their packaging or anywhere else whether their bread contained marijuana or not.  What would your reaction be?  Would you say, “Well, that means 88% of bread is fine, so I’m not going to change anything about my bread buying habits.  It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”  Or would you say, “I don’t want to risk the possibility that I may be exposing my family to a substance like marijuana.”  Would you stop buying bread all together?  Would you start making your own bread?

OK, imagine I stood up here this morning and told you that I read a statistic from a reputable source that said 12% of all the soft drinks like juice and soda in grocery stores contained a significant amount of LSD.  And what if, further, I told you that soft drink producers like Coke and Pepsi were not required to report on their packaging or anywhere else whether their soft drinks contained LSD or not.  What would your reaction be?  Would you say, “Well, that means 88% of soft drinks are fine, so I’m not going to change anything about my soft drink buying habits.  It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”  Or would you say, “I don’t want to risk the possibility that I may be exposing my family to a substance like LSD.”  Would you stop buying soft drinks all together?

OK, one more scenario.  Imagine I stood up here this morning and told you that I read a statistic from a reputable source that said 12% of all internet sites contain pornography.  And what if, further, I told you that Internet Service Providers such as Mid Hudson, or Verizon, or America Online were not required to report on their packaging or anywhere else whether their product contained pornography or not.  What would your reaction be?  Would you say, “Well, that means 88% of internet sites are fine, so I’m not going to change anything about my internet viewing habits.  It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”  Or would you say, “I don’t want to risk the possibility that I may be exposing my family to product like pornography.”  Would you stop using the internet all together?

Well, I have some good new and some bad news.  The good news is that your bread and your soft drinks are safe.  I haven’t read anywhere that any of them contain marijuana or LSD.  But the bad news is that 12% of all internet sites do contain pornography.  And each of us has to make a decision with that information in hand.  Some families I know have decided that the risk is not worth it, and they have taken the internet out of their home.  But many other families have decided that the internet offers so many positive opportunities that to get rid of the internet entirely would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If you’re family has decided to remove the internet from your home, that’s great, but for many of us that’s just not practical in this day and age.  I know I use the internet for very good purposes daily.  And beyond that, even if every single one of us here today decided to boycott the internet, the fact would remain that millions of people around our country and around the world would still be utilizing the internet on a daily basis.  We could say, “Well, that isn’t affecting us, us so we don’t care.”  Or we could do our best through the power of the Holy Spirit to do something about it.

You may be surprised to know that I believe God, through the Apostle Paul, had something to say about the internet.  No, he never said whether he preferred a PC or a MAC.  He never gave a top ten list of his favorite internet sites.  He never even had a blog or an e-mail address.  But he did say this:

Colossians 1:15-28 (NRSV)

¹⁵ He (that is Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶ for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

²¹ And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, ²² he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— ²³ provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

²⁴ I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. ²⁵ I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, ²⁶ the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. ²⁷ To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ²⁸ It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Did you catch it?  Did you hear Paul talking about the Internet?  OK, so the word “Internet” wasn’t actually in there.  But work with me through it a minute.  Have any of you seen the “American Inventor.”  It’s one of those shows like “American Idol” or “So You Think You Can Dance.”  People come from far and wide with different inventions in the hope of having the show recognize their product as the best thing since sliced bread.  Some products are so silly that you can’t help but laugh at them.  Other products really make you wonder why nobody’s invented them before.  Well, this passage makes me imagine Jesus on that show.  I can just picture him coming in with truck load after truck load of products.  He’d present them one after another.  Maybe it would be something like this:

“My first invention is this planet, earth.  I couldn’t bring it all into the studio, so I hope this globe with be a sufficient model.  Next I have a few animals.  The first one here is a tiger.  I really like the stripes, don’t you?  Let’s see… what else do have here.  Oh… there’s a bunch of animals in here. I invented them all.  This I call a duck billed platapus.  He was kinda fun to invent.  Do you like him?  And ah yes, I thought it would be neat if some animals could fly, so I invented a few thousand different kinds of birds, but they needed something to rest in, so I invented a few thousand different kinds of trees.  OK, bring in the next truck.  Let’s see… what do I have in here.  Ah yes, this invention is one of my favorites.  I present to you… man… and his counter part… woman.  And you’re going to really like this, I invented them with the capability to make inventions themselves.  Well, just look at what I’ve enabled them to invent in the last several thousand years.  Here’s a wheel, fire, tools, housing… and just look at the variety that I’ve enabled them to invent.  But it doesn’t stop there.  You should see some of the things I’ve enabled them to invent more recently.  Here’s a car, and an airplane, and a television, and this one’s really cool.  Here’s a computer.  And with the computer they can get on the internet and information can be shared around the world in the blink of an eye.  Well, I have so much I could share with you.  As a matter of fact, in me all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through me and for me.”

This may be a little commical, but do you get my point.  God creted everything.  Not only that, but everything has been created for God.  Our Presbyterian brothers and sisters got a pretty good hold of this in the first question and answer to the Westminster Shorter Catachism.  It says, “What is the chief end of man?”  We’ve all asked this question in one way or another.  What is the purpose of life?  What am I here for?  Why was I put in this world?  The answer the catachism gives is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”  Why are we here?  We’re here to glorify God and enjoy him forever.  And I can only say my life has had no meaning if I’ve never done this.  We were invented… we were created… for God!

OK, so this is all well and good, but what does this have to do with the internet?  Well, I’m getting there.  We in the Reformed tradition have always had this really neat philosophy of reforming things for God’s purposes.  Our tradition has an acranym called “TULIP.”  For now, don’t worry if you’re not familiar with TULIP, but I do want to consider the T of TULIP.  The “T” stands for Total Depravity.  This has often been misinterpreted to mean that we’re all as completely depraved, as completely sinful, as we could possibly be.  But what it actually means is that everything… all of creation… is affected by sin. 

You can think of it this way.  Lets say you have a glass of water and put one drop of red food coloring in it.  If you let it sit for a few seconds, is it possible to take a spoonful of water out of the glass that isn’t pink?  No.  It’s still water, but it’s all tinted pink.  That’s true of creation as well.  Everything that is, visible and invisible, is God’s creation, but it’s all tinted pink… it’s all been affected by sin.  The Bible puts it this way, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”  All of creation is waiting to be redeemed… all of creation has been affected by sin and is waiting for the day when Christ will return and make all things right.

So that brings us to the internet.  But maybe some of you are a bit suspicious, and if so, it’s with good reason.  So far I’ve just lifted a portion of a verse.  What’s lifting a verse?  It’s taking a verse or a portion of a verse without considering its context… and that’s a very dangerous practice because you can make the Bible say almost anything you want it to say by lifting your favorite verses.  So lets consider the context.  So far we’ve been working with a portion of verse 16.  “All things have been created through him and for him.”  Paul says all things were created thorugh and or Jesus.  And he gives the exampels of “things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers.”  And we may wonder if Paul would still have said that if he had written it today.  When we’ve had thrones or dominions or rulers or powers like Hitler’s Germany, or Castro’s Cuba, or Saddam’s Iraq, or North Korea, or China, can we still say that all things were created through Christ and for Christ?

I would argue that we can, and the reason is that Paul knew his own Iraqs or North Koreas or Chinas.  Paul was very familiar with the Roman empire, and for all that was good with the empire, there were also some very evil things about the emprie.  The Roman empire had a terrible history of idolatry and extreme sexual inappropriateness.  Paul new how evil the Roman empire was, and still he said it was created through and for Christ.  Why he said that, or how he could say that, could be another whole sermon, but for today, let it suffice that Paul believed even the things of this world which were greatly tainted by sin were created through Christ and for Christ.

So that’s the context that Paul wrote in… and it seems awfully similar to the context we’re in.  There are many good things about our nation, but there are also some very evil things about our nation.  Idolatry is rampent, perhaps not in the form of worshiping actual gods, but you know as well as I do that people all around are worshiping all kinds of things.  And extreme sexual inappropriateness is all around us.  It may not be talked about much.  It may not take place in temples or baths as it did with the Romans, but it is taking place in front of computer moniters and television screens all around us.  That’s why I believe it’s quite appropriate to take what Paul said about his own experiences and place them directly in our experiences.

I’m going to end this morning’s sermon a little differently than I normally do.  Normally I end my messages with a call to action… with something to do, or say in the coming week.  But this time, I want to leave the message right here for a while.  Partially because we’re running short on time, but also because I want us to just think for a bit about what God has shared with us through his word and his message.  This message is really just part one.  I have more I want to say on the topic.  I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to do it as another sermon or as a Fisherman article, but until I do put those ideas together I want us to think about the reality of what it is.  Reality is that there is some junk on the internet, and it goes beyond pornography.  There are sites about abuse of drugs and alcohol, about violence, about herecies, about just about any kind of sin we human mind can imagine.  But I also want us to start thinking about how we might be able to do our part to help Reform the internet… to help reform television… to help reform our nation. 

And as we close, I just have one piece of advice.  As you think about this, do some Holy Spirit led dreaming, and try not to do human led dream.  This is what I mean.  Human dreaming says, “We could do such and such, but we don’t have the money.”  Holy Spirit dreaming says, “We could do such and such.  We don’t have much money, but nothing will be impossible to God.”  Human dreaming says, “We should try doing this, but we don’t have enough people.”  Holy Spirit dreaming says, “We should try doing this.  We don’t have many people, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Human dreaming says, “It would be so cool if we could do that, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”  Holy Spirit dreaming says, “It would be so cool if we could do that.  I don’t know where to start, but I know that Jesus said, ‘Ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.’”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Sprit.  Amen.