Soap Opera Syndrome and the Call of Christ 1982

When Jesus said that he has come to seek and to save that which is lost, it's important for us to remember that he came to save us, not just from some future hell, but that he came also to save us from what we now are. He came to transform us now in this life into men and women who manifest the nature of God, into people who are born of God, not just theoretically, but in day-in and day-out reality. Salvation is much more than escape from future hell, while it is that.

Salvation is new life, a new mind, a new attitude, vision. And Jesus gives us a concise description of the new life he brought us in his Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7. That's not just some blueprint for the way it should be way down the pike someplace, but this is the life that is to be lived by those who are born of God now. And the core of that description in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is contained in these closing verses of chapter 5. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Now you weren't born to be like this, Jesus says, but I have come to make it possible for you to live this kind of life. I have come to make it possible for you to live a life of radical love, a life where your supreme joys will pour out your own life for others to please the Father. From 2nd Corinthians 5, for the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one has died for all and therefore all have died.

And he died for all that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from the human point of view. Even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

He is a new creation. She is a new creation, because their hearts are now driven no longer by the old fears or the ego or the hatred or the guilt, but by this indwelling love, which is Christ himself. And this life of radical love is manifested not just at certain moments of high spiritual ecstasy, but all the time.

And this is what it means to be saved and nothing less. If I am saved from my sin by the blood of the Lamb, that means that I am joined to the Lamb. I'm one with him and in him I become a new creation.

All things have passed away. All things have become new. And the mark of this is the fact that his love begins, in fact, to move my life and to drive me on and to be manifested in me in some way.

Now, perhaps this new creation isn't in full bloom in India, but there better be some evidence of its presence. There better be some substantial ongoing change in the direction of God in my living, or else my Christianity is nothing but a little game of pretend. Like the emperor who wore no clothes and everybody pretended that he was beautifully dressed and everybody could see that the dummy had nothing on.

And people can see that sometimes in us. We think we're beautifully dressed and they see something quite different. And that's why they laugh at us sometimes.

You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect. This is what it means to be a new creation.

Ah, but why? Why is it that we are falling so far short of this? How come in our personal lives and in our life together as a body of believers, we're way below this? We're supposed to be offering the world this tremendous hope that life will be different. That Jesus really can change us into new creatures. Anyone in Christ is a new creation.

And yet we know very clearly that our own lives are marked by the old creation, the old nature. We're stained with this. How come the only people who ever enter in to this new creation and begin to live, in fact, this life of radical love are the people who answer Jesus' call to a salvation of radical love, who believe him when he tells us that he'll help us.

He'll show us how to do this, who obey him when he commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Truth is that Jesus talks and we listen and everything's lovely until he gets on this, calling for radical love. And as soon as he begins to talk like this, we simply turn him out and we say to ourselves, look, Jeff, I just can't do that.

That's impossible. He certainly can't mean that. And instead of making an effort, just whatever's within our power to step into this and trust that he'll help us.

You know, when he says, love that force, love that impossible mate, love that ungrateful relative, pray for that person who keeps giving you a hard time. Instead of this, we sink down into a form of unbelief, which can best be described as the soap opera syndrome. The soap opera gospel is that there are only two kinds of people in the world.

People with bad intentions who do what they intend, and people with good intentions who never do what they intend. And the people with the bad intentions are the villains and they're strong. And the people with the good intentions are the suckers and they're weak.

And the outcome of this soap opera gospel is a total cynicism. What it really is saying is that everybody's a rat. Life is a pile of manure.

We're all on our way to hell. There's no way out. So get whatever kicks you can before the curtain falls.

The effect of this pervading disease, which reaches out and attacks our spirits, even if we never watch Dynasty or Dallas, is the sick belief that purity, integrity, genuine love, and inward holiness are beyond the reach of the human spirit. The same devil who convinced our mother Eve that if she ate of that tree, she'd become like God, has now been busy convincing her children that they can never be anything but devils. Don't even try to do good, because you're going to turn into a rat anyway.

And this cynicism has crippled the minds of many, many, many professing Christians. Interesting, you know, how in Christendom today, in Christendom in this nation, we find it easy to believe in God for prosperity, or to believe God for miracles of healing, or to believe God for visions and revelations. But when Jesus says, purity, holiness, love your enemy, pray for that persecutor, we mumble under our breath, he's got to be kidding.

He's asking for some kind of miracle. Miracle indeed. And the power to perform the miracle comes in the miracle command that comes from the miracle son of God.

In the command, in the words that he speaks to us, that we are to do these things, is the power to become new preachers, and to become indeed like him and like the father. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

Harry, you may want to have a look. For he makes his son to rise on evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

And in this awesome command is the awesome power to fulfill the command. But we have to decide which gospel we're going to listen to. You know, whether we're going to listen to the soap opera gospel or the call of Jesus.

Am I going to believe him when he tells me I can be different? That I can truly become a new creation? That I can love my enemy and that I can pray for my persecutors and that I can be pure in heart and that I can be merciful? And it requires more than just a faith that's in my head. It requires action. And it begins really by a repentance, casting away from ourselves all the vestiges of the soap opera syndrome, which still lies down in our lives.

This indecision and this weakness of soul and this self-indulgence and this tolerance of evil in our own heart. We're so intolerant of other people's evil, but so tolerant of the evil that is in our own hearts that should have been confessed and repented of long ago. Amen.

How many more years are we going to keep on struggling and fumbling our way through life, clutching the excuse that I can never really do the good I intend because I'm simply too weak? In myself, I'm too weak. But Jesus puts that weakness now to the lie and he makes it a lie. We're to cast the lie from us and let his strength be made perfect in our weakness.

And when we repent that we should do that today of the all that's in us, that's that must be followed immediately, I believe, by taking hold of his command and acting, doing it. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for your persecutor.

So I have an enemy. Who does it? And this enemy wishes me evil. I am called by my Lord now to pray for my enemy and to love my enemy, to manifest his mercy toward my enemy.

And I do this in the name of Jesus, which means in the power of the Lord. I don't do it by myself. Who could? And I have a persecutor who keeps giving me a hard time over and over and over again.

And the Lord calls me to pray for that person. Now, we love the enemy because Jesus commands us to love the enemy and we pray for the persecutor because the evil that comes toward us from the persecutor will never be overcome by throwing evil back. It will only be overcome with good.

And we do these things because Jesus commands us to be like our father. And as we do these things, the old passes away and the new comes in and we find ourselves experiencing the life of the new creation. He died for all that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

Two things we have to do today. We have to repent of the old, which means for every one of us to cast away the old soap opera, tacky, spineless life. And to enter into the new.

By doing the love and the holiness, Jesus commands of us. If anyone is in Christ, he, she, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. Let's take some time before the Lord. We ask Lord God that whatever way you choose your Holy Spirit among us today will deal with the cynicism in our own hearts toward you, toward other people, toward our inabilities to do the good we want to do, toward everything.

And oh Lord God, enable us by your grace to repent of this, to see it for what it is, and to throw it away like a rattlesnake, and to take hold of your word and do it. We ask it Lord Jesus for your mercy's sake. Amen.