We've been tackling this series called "Got Questions?" The way we have created the topics is by giving you a long list of topics. You voted on them, and we devote one week over the summer to each one of the seven topics with the most votes. We are taking questions beforehand on hyacks.com and fielding questions afterward too.
Tonight we are talking about entertainment. And whether you believe it or not, this is a huge, huge issue. It is all around you. Your world is filled with movies, music, internet, and non-stop media and entertainment. As such, how many of you have your iPod with you at this very moment? Music is always around us. Movies are always around us. The average teenager in the United States spends about 2 ½ hours per day on the internet. That's a long time. Facebook users average 55 minutes a day as stalkers, creepers and the rest. You don't need that much time on Facebook. Music, movies, internet, and video games are all around us all the time.
As much as you would like, it isn't as simple as coming to hear me or anyone else tell you that this particular movie is good, while this other particular movie is bad. This musical artist is right, while this other musical artist is wrong. It is complicated. Therefore, it requires us to think, not only for ourselves and where we find entertainment, but also for the people around us. Because whenever we are talking about how much we love or hate Lady Gaga, it has a ripple effect to the people around us. It communicates something about us – the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the websites we visit.
I want to give you a framework, some basic questions, so that when you hear about a new movie that you really want to go see or a YouTube clip that seemingly has no relevancy or connection to your Christian faith, you will have some starting points for thinking through, "How does my faith connect with all this entertainment that is all around me 24/7?"
Rather than coming up with an artificial checklist, we will be more faithful to allow the Bible to create the questions for us. Familiar to many of you from our Sunday morning series this past spring, the Bible is one story. It has a beginning. It has a middle. It has an end. And just like any good story, or movie for that matter, it begins by setting forth a conflict. There is a problem. God creates the world good, and we turn it bad. The setting is introduced, and the problem is introduced.
The Bible also has a middle. If you've ever read through the Bible, there is a lot of middle. People throughout the stories attempt to pose solutions for the problem within the story. It gets worse and worse to the point that you start thinking, "There is no way that God will put the world back to right." There is no way that good will overcome evil. There is no way God will prevail and make himself known to a lost and desperate world. So like a good movie where you think that there is absolutely no way that he is going to fall for her, the story of the Bible just keeps getting more complicated to the point that you think there is no possible way for it all to work out.
There is also an end to the Bible. It's the place where everything is building up and leading. Jesus shows up on the scene, God in the flesh, as the hero of the story. He accomplishes the impossible by winning back the broken world. Jesus lived the life that we could not live. He died the death that we deserve for the debt that we couldn't even begin to pay back. And he has been raised to new life to give us new hope, freedom and full union with God.
So this problem in the middle that we thought would never get worked out gets worked out in Jesus. Yet, the story continues until one day when Jesus comes back, heaven and earth come together, God is now with his people, and creation is put back to the way it should be.
The Bible is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. This over-arching story is in the background to all of the little stories. So for example, if you are reading the story of Ehud in Judges, as we will read together this Sunday, it seems to be a story about a left-handed assassin and an obese king. But whenever you are reading a Bible story such as this one, there is a story behind the story. Something bigger is being weaved together. And the bends in the big story are assumed in the background of the little stories. These should be familiar:
Now, you might think these are questions that only get asked in the Bible or in religious conversations. But any YouTube video, any video game, any juicy novel about teenage vampire lovers, or any sort of entertainment anchors itself in a bigger story. Somehow, that game or that song or that movie teaches something about where it all came from, what has gone wrong, what's going to fix it, and where it's all headed in the end. And if you think about it, as we will see in our examples, it really holds true. These are the questions that we can ask of the entertainment that we surround ourselves with.
Whatever we are watching or listening to makes a truth claim about creation. Just below the surface, any given form of entertainment claims that some things in the world are good, while others are bad. Some things are inherently right, while others are wrong. The story in the song, game, or TV show rests on a bigger story that thinks things should go a certain way because they came from a certain place, whether it is the creative work of a personal God or the random chain of chemical processes or whatever.
Entertainment also roots itself in the notion of the Fall. There is something wrong in the world, something destructive, something that creates conflict, heartache and despair.
Entertainment also looks for redemption. Something out there can fulfill our deepest longings, help us reach our fullest potential, or put together the broken pieces of the world. Some of the best movies center around a Christ-figure, someone who gives up their life or reputation for the good of the people around them or even the entire world.
Finally, entertainment looks toward some sort of restoration. It reaches for ultimate happiness or perfection. There is a utopia out there. There is something to be idealized. And somehow it will all work out in the end. Somehow they will live happily ever after. Unfortunately, the so-called ideal world behind many popular songs has more to do with a girl on a dance floor than it does with God's new creation.
This is the grid, and here's why we are asking these questions about entertainment — my experiences talking to you and overhearing your conversations leads me to think that you are prone to go in one of two completely opposite directions. You lean totally toward license, freedom and fun. Or you lean totally toward rules, laws, religion, pride and being known for what you don't do. So, it's either license or law.
This is what I mean — license says that we were created by accident and the purpose of life is to have fun. What's wrong with the world? I'm not having enough fun. What will fix the problem? I need to realize my full potential and find myself in whatever I am watching or listening to. Where is it all headed? Distraction and breaking the rules.
But then there is also law. The law-grid says that I want to be known for what I don't do. I want to be right in my own eyes. I reject what the world says is fun and good, because I was created to keep the rules. What is wrong with the world? All of those other evil people. What's the solution? Me, because I don't do certain things, and I do other things. My artificial rules are my savior. I hide behind refusing to watch movies with more than two F-words and refusing to listen to music with warnings of obscene language. I don't watch anything on YouTube because YouTube is evil. Where is the world going? The world is all about me and is hopefully being created into my image.
So chances are that you fall into one of those two ruts: license or law. You default to license and make excuses for your entertainment choices by insisting that it's all in good fun and the things you subject yourself to don't really affect you because they are just for fun. That is license. Or you fall into the rut of law. All of those things are so bad, that you find your identity in what you don't do. Your identity is in keeping all of the right rules. That is law.
But neither license nor law is Christianity. Neither one of them line up with the real answers to the grid. John 1 shows us a way that is completely different from license or law. John 1 sets forth a description of who Jesus is and what he set out to do. Then, in John 17, Jesus sends his followers into the world in the same way that he himself came into the world:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5 ESV
John 1 lays down a setting of two distinct worlds. The world of God is depicted as light, life, and pre-existence. The world of human rejection is depicted as darkness, death, and temporary human ambition. So, contrary to the grid of license, Jesus was pure and morally separated (light) from the world that rejected him (darkness).
Yet, John's introduction to the story of Jesus continues with these wonderful words:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 1:14
What two things did the Word do? He became flesh and dwelled among us. When you hear "dwelling," think of God dwelling with his people. Where do we see God most vividly dwelling with his people? John is borrowing language from the tabernacle. God dwells directly with his people in the tabernacle and temple of the Old Testament. But even greater, in Jesus, God lives with humanity. Jesus steps into the darkness but remains Light. This is God incarnate.
Skipping toward the end of the book of John, Jesus adapts this language of his incarnation to his followers. He continually makes comparisons between how God sent him and how he sends them. The world hated him, and the world will hate them too. Jesus is calling his followers to an incarnational lifestyle, to be light amidst darkness. Law thinks the way to be light is to run from the darkness. License thinks the way to be light is to become darkness. The way of Jesus is entirely different because Jesus sends his followers into the world but does not allow them to blend in and become like the world:
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. John 17:14-15
Just as Jesus came to bring the presence of God into a world separated from God, Jesus' followers bring God's presence into a dark and broken place. Christians are called to be in the world but not of the world. People who love license are of the world. If your only criteria for entertainment is that it is the most fun, most action packed, or funniest thing you can find, then you are blending into the world, liking and listening to what everyone else likes and listens to.
The people of law want to be taken out of the world. Yet, Jesus intentionally leaves his followers in the world so that they may be invested and connected to what is going on. That way, Jesus' followers bring the presence of God into those places and situations.
The bottom line is that the Christian life, including decisions about entertainment, is about being in the world without getting swept away by the tide and becoming of the world.
(Analysis of example songs and Q&A proceeded)
