My wife and I were sitting in the living room Thursday night eating our dinner. The TV was on. My wife likes to watch the evening news. I like to eat her cooking. Seemed like a perfect time for both of us. Appearances can be deceiving.
If was about 6:00. Like I said, we were watching the evening news. Truth be told, I was probably more focused on my plate than I was on anything else. I randomly looked up at the television after taking a bite of food and saw a scantily-clad woman, "dressed" in a black leather thong, thrusting and rubbing herself rather sexually on a car.
"Umm, what are we watching?" I asked my wife.
"Oh, that's a Hardee's commercial," she replied, indicating by her words that she had seen it before.
Sure enough. The woman was now taking a rather large bite out of a big, juicy, dripping burger.
"Seriously?"
Suddenly another woman appeared on the scene. Paris Hilton I think. She told the other woman that she had "missed some" and she then proceeded to lick some cheese off the car's hood.
"Are you sure this is an ad? I thought most people pay for this stuff."
It was incredibly pornographic in my opinion. It was SO pornographic that it prompted me to take some action. I e-mailed both Hardee's and the local news channel, who somewhere, somehow came to the conclusion that this was somehow appropriate for family viewing during the dinner hour, and I let them have it - in a wonderfully Christian way, of course.
I simply told them that they should let me know when they pull the explicit ad so I could resume watching their network / eating their food. It's been four days now. No response.
This past Saturday, I went for one of my long walks in the woods. As I walked I listened to several books from the audio Bible I carry on my iPod. One of them was to Book of Ephesians. Hearing God's words reminded me of a few things.
If you have your Bible handy, please open it to the second chapter. Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus - a political, educational and cultural center. It could very well be that the influence of the culture on that local church caused it to stray from the early teachings of Priscilla and Aquila. Let's see what Paul says. We read.
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." - Ephesians 2:1-3
The things I take out of this text are these:
- We were, or are, all living a sinful lifestyle at some point in our lives but we were called out of that lifestyle through our faith in Jesus Christ (verse 1).
- We tend to follow our culture. What's "hot", the latest trends and fads (verse 2)
- Satan - "the prince of the power of the air" - is at work in us and in the world we live in (verse 2).
- We used to live in the passions of our flesh. "If it feels good, do it!" Maybe we STILL do (verse 3).
- We were no different than anyone else on this sinful planet. Destined to suffer the wrath of God, just like everyone else (verse 3).
So what has changed? Why am I now different than the rest of the world? Why has a commercial like that suddenly become so repulsive? What happened? I was so happy, or so I thought, in the lifestyle I was living. What changed? Let's continue our reading.
"4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." - Ephesians 2:4-9
As I read those words of Paul's and then I also recall his words to the Romans about how we are no longer to conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2) I feel convicted. Why? Because I know that I have not totally left "this world" behind. I still have one foot firmly planted in it, in sin. We ALL do!
So what do we do about it? How do we get rid of some of the sin in our lives? Ask yourself this question, as I did a few weeks ago. What is something I am doing right now that I could give up and replace with reading the Bible, or volunteering to serve others someplace? What could I do, right this very minute, that would honor God above all the other thing I am doing?
Could I turn of the computer a little earlier? The same for the television. Could I chose not to watch TV shows (or commercials) that do not honor the God we serve? Of course! Movies in theaters. How many went to see Noah or Heavens For Real instead of learning more about God? There was little biblical truth in either of those movies yet thousands flocked to see them.
We must think through everything we are about to do and ask ourselves this question. Will this honor God? If no, we should reconsider what we are about to do. If yes, the by all means proceed. We serve a great God, not some two-bit fallen angle on an ego trip. Stand tall, in the name of Jesus, and flee from Satan. God will be glad you did. It is His will that we are to follow, not ours. Celebrate your God-honoring decisions and choices. You are growing closer to God when you make them. And that's a GOOD thing! :)
Are The Two Wills In God? - A Sermon by Matt Chandler
