It Came From Within! Series

It Came From Within

Introduction

Growing up spending many days at my grandfather's home we watched television a lot. While I was a child of the 80s, we also watched old films. There were those that put my young mind in suspense with titles like The Creature From the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outerspace. These movies were products of their time. The idea was that an enemy would come from outside.

In the year that I was born Ridley Scott directed a different kind of movie, Alien. I remember watching the 1986 sequel Aliens. In the closing scene of the movie, Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) tucks Newt in, a young girl she has rescued from a female alien who is intent on laying her eggs in Newt so she can be the host of the embryos. As she tucks her in as they begin their long space flight back to earth Newt asks, "Can I dream?" "Yes honey, I think we both can," Ripley replies, "Sleep tight."

The plot of the movie is about a group of marines who are sent to a planet that is in trouble because it has been taken over by an alien race. Ellen Ripley comes along because she has experience with the aliens from the 1979 film. When asked what they should do, she says they should blow up the whole planet. The problem with the aliens is that they are parasitic. They use humans as their hosts, laying their eggs in them. Once the embryo matures, it burst from the human's midsection killing the human. Eventually, the battle ensues between Ripley and the queen of the aliens and Ripley rescues Newt.

As dramatic as all of this is, this is illustrates something that happens around us every day. Inside of every one of us is the embryo of an invader that occasionally bursts forth and surprises us and those around us, potentially destroying us and them. We put our hands over our mouths when we say some things and in shock ask, "Where did that come from?" There is a moment when we commit some offense and others are shocked around us. We wonder what happened.

(The idea for this illustration and sermon comes from two books by Andy Stanley: It Came From Within and Enemies of the Heart).

Matthew 15:16-20 NIV

16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Unlike the Creature from the Black Lagoon or It Came From Outerspace, Jesus said that the most terrifying things that happen are those that come from within!

It Came From Within!

The heart is the center of our lives. We can live without a lot of things but we cannot live without our hearts. It pumps life-giving blood to the extremities of our bodies. The Bible speaks of another heart in our text. Not the physical organ, but the core of our being. The writer of Proverbs says of this heart that we should, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (Prov 4:23 NIV). We often think that our behaviors are our biggest issues. We think that if we can just change what we are doing, everything will change. Jesus warns that while external change is important, real change is based on the heart.

May times things are not what they seem. If you love basketball, you may know that long before LeBron James, or a Majic Johnson, or an Air Jordan there was a Pistol, Pistol Pete Maravich. He was a showman, in college and the NBA. His flamboyant passes and amazing shots earned him a place on the all-star team more than once. He broke records. He was a lanky shaggy-haired young man who seemed to be in the best of health. Then one day at a pick-up basketball game he fell to the ground at 40 years old, died of a heart attack. He had a congenital disease of the heart that no one was aware of until an autopsy was performed after he had died. His performance was not an indicator of his overall health.

There are other people, you may know some, whose regular meal is a box of Krispy Kream and a six-pack of diet cokes. Their lifestyle and eating habits seem like they should be moments away from a heart attack. Yet, they are as healthy as a horse. Their heart is running like a Swiss clock. Again, the behavior is not always a good indicator of what's going on inside.