Be There Part 1 Series

Be there or be nowhere! -- Part 1

Power Point slide 1

Thesis: We have the choice of being there (Where God wants us) or being nowhere!

Texts: Psalms 119:175a states, “Let me live that I may praise you…”

Introduction: Let me ask you a question. When did you start living? Many would say when I was born! No let me clarify! I did not ask when you where born and started your life. But I asked, “When did you start living”! Not just existing, but really living! Do recall that moment in time when you started being alive- living with purpose- living with meaning- living with focus- living with the knowledge that your life counts for something- living now today and also living with a view of the future. Now do you understand my question “When did you start living?”

Power Point- Slide 2

Tony Campolo tells us that many in the world today are suffering from the “the spirit of deadness” they are walking dead people. They are existing but not living! They get up go to work or school and exist. They don’t “Carpe Diem” “Seize the day” they just survive the day, the week, the month, the year. Their life is about survival not about living. There life is about existence not living.

Video Clip – of Winnie the Pooh and Eore

There are many people today who are Eore. There dead in every way except in breathing and surviving. They are breathing but not living. They existing in a Ho Hum attitude of life.

Tony notes:

There is a deadness to our lives that seems everywhere evident. Annually, marriages end by the millions. And they do not end for reasons we might imagine. Adultery is not even close to being the dominant cause for these failed love affairs, even though many married people have affairs. It is simply that the relationships die. And they die because the people are dead. After a handful of years, there isn’t much passion left in these marriages…

And the kids are dead. I used to like to be a speaker for high school assemblies, but I don’t enjoy them anymore. It’s not that the kids misbehave or show no respect. It’s that they scare me with their deadness…The kids just sit there, dead. The blank looks on their faces never give away how they are feeling. Indeed they feel very little….They’ll tell you. Apathy is the word they use. And any attempt to call a meeting to deal with the problem will probably have to be canceled due to lack of interest.

The kids have a word for it. They describe themselves as being “cool”. I can hardly believe it. They talk about being “cool” as a virtue. And they are cool about everything. They have sex without real emotional involvement. They say cruel things to people without concern. Their mothers may cry at their unfeeling manners, and they hardly notice the tears. They can even kill without feeling (27,28).

I have pondered the question,” Why don’t the kids feel, or a least care?” Is it because they think no one else cares? Maybe they believe that their parents do not care? Maybe they are right. But then they see that no one else really cares. So why should they? They then inherit the mindset of “Spiritual and emotional deadness”.

They have observed their parents lack of care and concern. They have been the generations who where placed in front of a T.V.. The problem was that T.V. doesn’t care relationally. It could not talk back to them or answer their questions and in essence it hindered communication in many homes. Then came the computer some can even talk back but still it doesn’t care relationally. Then once again computers took away intimate time between families. The sad fact today is parents and living role models are absent today in kid’s personal lives.

We leave it to schools to teach academics, values, sex, proper behavior and even manners! One school in the area recently surveyed their school district and asked what classes would you like us to teach. One of the big requests was to teach a class on manners.

We see the same response with church going people they personally don’t teach biblical values to their kid’s it’s the churches job. What has happened to the parents responsibility to become personally involved in their kid’s lives! We recently did a survey here at New Life and the biggest concern on the survey was how the kids run through the church and use it as a gym. The challenge was the pastor needs to deal with it! Should not the parents take responsibility to control their kids? To be involved with directing them?

It is sad to say many parents have become dead in their God given roles. But of course not at New Life Community Church.