Christ Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston TX
CMLC 2024-08-18 Sermon
One of the things I wanted to talk with you all about is that we have oftentimes this idea of whatever is surrounding us is our opportunity for what influences us. Whatever it is that surrounds us is the very thing that ends up affecting us the most. Now, one of the things that was a few years ago, some of us were out on a boat that we had. Now, while we're out there, you need to realize something about me. I get motion sickness. It is bad. It is not a good thing. Now, the thing with it is that being on that boat, I was not feeling too great. And neither were a couple of guys that were next to me as well. Now, as we're over there contemplating what we had had for breakfast that morning, what we're thinking about also is that the boat's captain said, "You know what? You'll feel better if you jump into the water." So, we're out on this lake. Just get off the boat. You'll get onto the lake. You'll feel much better. Now, we did jump into the lake like we were told. But you see, the reason why the boat is rocking is because of the water. I don't know what it was that they were thinking at the time, but we were still feeling nauseous and not good at all. And what I realized is that the guy next to me was feeling worse than I was. And I realized what was about to happen and that if it did, it doesn't go away. It stays right there with you in the water. So, I lean back and I just started kicking. And I kicked my way. I swear. It was like a quarter mile off to the shore. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible. I knew that whatever was going to be there, I did not want to be stuck with it. And about an hour later, when they finally picked me up, turns out exactly happened and I'm very glad I got away when I did. The thing with it is, just in case anybody didn't know who it was. So, there you go. But our surroundings oftentimes decide what affects us. What we are around ends up determining what influences us. And whether we are around things that are keeping us focused on what is good and right or whether we are around things that are distracting us and pulling us down. No matter what it may be, whatever we are surrounded by ends up influencing us in many ways. Now, one of the things that we discover is that we, as people, and not just Americans, but really throughout the world, so many of us spend about an average of seven hours a day in front of some sort of screen. Seven hours a day. Now, I'm saying that, and some of you may be thinking, "Wait a minute, I'm from an earlier generation. I don't spend seven hours in front of a screen every day. Remember, that's an average." So, if you're not spending seven hours in front of a screen every day, half with your cell phone and half with the computer, that's how many more hours the next generation is spending because even middle schoolers might end up spending nine hours a day in front of a screen. The thing is, is that they are constantly being influenced just like we are. And what are some of the things that are influencing us? So, for example, as it turns out, is that there have been different trends that happen at different points in time. So, for example, you might end up having some people that are stacking milk crates up in a giant pyramid triangle, and they're trying to get up to the top of the milk crates and then walk back down to the bottom. When it turns out, based on physics, they are not going to stay upright and you're going to fall on your face. But there are videos of people trying to do that. So, what is it that people try to do? They try to do the exact same thing themselves. Or then there are others who apparently think that, well, you're going to have to keep your detergent closed and tightened and locked down because there are videos out there of people eating pods of detergents. Now, does that sound like a good idea to be eating a pod of detergent? Absolutely not. But it's on a video, on the internet. So, what is influencing people every single day, watching somebody eating a pod of detergent? And even to the point where there are people in schools, they are stealing things and you might think to yourself, "Okay, people steal pencils or erasers or something simple." No, no, no. Sinks. Young people in schools will steal the sink from a bathroom or a toilet bowl. They will go in, rip it out and try to steal it. Why? Because they saw somebody doing it on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or whatever. Whatever we talk here at the church about being involved in small groups or youth group or children's ministry, this is not just trying to give you something else to check off your box. It is that all of us are genuinely being influenced by things each and every day. And we are looking for opportunities to help you be influenced by what is good and right, not just by whatever may come up in front of you. See, it's very easy oftentimes for us to hide the things that we're struggling with because oftentimes we can end up pulling ourselves into the darkness. You see, we pull away from what is light in the world and we hide away because we don't want other people to see the things that we are facing or struggling. But are we going to be able to deal with the issues in society? Are we going to be able to deal with the issues that we see in our world better if we are by ourselves and isolated from each other? Or if as the people of God we actually come together to hold each other accountable, to grow in faith, to grow in our life and what we've learned? Are we more likely to be able to deal with all of the messiness that we're seeing in our world when we isolate ourselves from each other? Or when we spend time with each other learning and praying and doing what is right together? Whenever we were isolated during the times of COVID and later, we were not truly isolated. We were still being influenced each and every day either by the things that were being put online in front of us or by the individuals that we did see who were being influenced by everything on there. Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, you know what? I am going to church once a week. Pastor Jason, he does ramble about Marvel Comics from time to time, but you know what? He does talk about the Bible in there somewhere. So, you know what? Maybe a good 20 minutes in there. I'm doing well. I'm learning a lot, right? But you see, just by sitting and listening, you're only going to absorb about 10% of what I'm teaching. So, out of a 20-minute sermon, you may absorb two minutes of it and then it's anyone's guess what you'll remember by tomorrow. See, there's a whole cycle, a whole method by which we try to internalize the things that we've learned. You see, this idea of going from head knowledge to heart knowledge, there's actually a whole process by which people actually internalize what they learned into their lives. You have to take the time to frame it as far as why is what we're discussing today a part of a larger picture. And then you can't try to learn all of it at once. You have to take it piece by piece a little at a time, one bite-sized chunk at a time. And then you have to have a debrief to discuss the key points about what was learned. Now, are we stopping in the middle of a sermon to debrief? No, because we're Lutheran, we don't do that. But then even afterwards is to pause and let whatever we learned sink in for a few minutes first. And then when we do, to come back together, to discuss it again in a bigger context. And finally, to give you a chance to say, what did you learn? How is it that we oftentimes conduct a church? Someone's supposed to teach you the right answers. You learn the right answer, and then you go back to your life. But everything we know about how we learn is that that does not stick. You have to have an opportunity to share what did you pick up? What did you actually absorb? What did you learn and actually share it with other people? Have we given ourselves as the church that time, that opportunity to process? Or is all that we want? Do we just want to have a 20-minute data dump and hope that maybe one or two things stick? And that's one of the harder parts about this, is that the life of discipleship is not a one-hour data dump. It is a life that is transformed and lived together. It says in our passage, "Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." If you're looking at it in your Bible in front of you, it probably has it set aside as a quote. The apostle Paul is quoting something. And if you try to go and do a search and try to figure out what he's quoting, you're not going to find anything. Because what he said is not an exact quote from anybody. And that's why I think that the apostle Paul is like me. Because it doesn't matter how many times I may see the same television show or the same movie or listen to the same music, I am going to quote it wrong every single time. I'll get one word wrong. I'll get ten words wrong. I will get something wrong. But it still matters to me, and I still like to do my best to say it. And that's the thing about Paul, is that he's trying to get across something that still stands out in his mind. And even though he's in prison, and he doesn't have all of his books, he cannot quote it exactly. He's trying to get a point across to you. And so the debate comes down to, are you discussing something that Isaiah said, or something that Jonah said? Now you may be wondering why does that matter? Because Isaiah was sharing the difference between do the things that are good rather than the things that are evil. But Jonah was a little different. Because Jonah had to come back from the dead. Jonah was swallowed by a fish. If you are swallowed by another animal, that's pretty well assuming that you're probably dead by now. And yet what happens is that God moves that fish to spit him back out so he could do the work he'd been sent to do. Do we really want to stay in a world of death? If you found yourself in a box, sealed up and six feet below the ground, and someone were to come and dig you out and open up the lid, would you want to stay in that coffin? Or more than that, would you want to go back to it? If you realize that you are living in a home with hoarding, where the rooms are so packed and so cluttered that you cannot even think, or you cannot even move, and someone were to come and to clear out everything for you and give you your house back, would you want to go back to where you were before? And yet what do we continually do? We want to make space and time and energy for everything else that is around us, that has no interest in our well-being. And yet we want to shrink more and more and more of the time that we have with the people and the presence of God. How much more do we want to narrow down how little we have to spend with God? Because the thing about our life and Christ is that it's not something that just happens by osmosis. We're not just hoping that we absorb something, maybe a little peace, but it is about our whole life being formed and shaped and influenced by the one who is around us. But you see, this is not Pastor Jason trying to come up and just get you to try to add a bunch of more things to get on your plate that's going to exhaust you and bore you and wonder, why in the world did I do this? Because living a godly life, it's meant to be one of joy and friendship. It's meant to be one where we get to live in ways that bring us hope and that bring us to a place where we want to be. There was a time in my life. I was a little bit young where I thought that when I saw a musical that I thought that those were people who were genuinely just in their life singing and dancing without any preparation in exact harmony and exact step with one another. I thought when I was a little kid that all the people those musicals, they just naturally knew the songs and they just naturally knew how to dance with each other. And I thought as long as I'm a good dancer and singer someday, I'll be able to do that no matter where I am, what I'm doing. I will not tell you how old I was when I realized that that was staged and that that doesn't happen in real life. But what I did think about one time is what would be the closest I could come to that. And so when I was in my 30s and I went with a college group to go to a mission trip to New Jersey, it had a hurricane that blew through there and we were going off to go and do a bunch of work out there to clean up. And while we were doing dishes, I just looked over at some people and I realized I hadn't been able to sing karaoke for a while and I just started saying, "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips." Because of course, I love Top Gun. You have to know the words after Top Gun. And so I'm singing through it and people are like looking over and everything and I just finally go and gesture everybody, "Baby, I know it. You lost that love and feeling." And they were singing, "Whoa, that love and feeling." And I think they got the words right. "You've lost that love and feeling. Now it's gone, gone, gone. Whoa, whoa, whoa." See, and a few more people saying this time than in the early service, so thank you for that. Because whenever we are with people, that's the time whenever we influence them the most. But then what we did after laughing and singing is we went, we prayed together, we talked about what we did and we found joy the next day for the rest of our trip. That's the thing about this life of discipleship with each other, y'all. This is not about trying to add extra tasks. This is about finding joy with each other and that in that joy, we have purpose and meaning and we grow in God's Word together. So I hope and pray that this year and in the years to come, that when we talk about being accountable to each other, we see the joy that we get to have about being that influence with one another. And I hope you'll be here next week because we have a lot of this to do together as a community that loves one another, finds joy together and grows in faith in a relationship with God and with one another. With that, thanks be to God.