Six worst words in the English language
(I don’t want to get involved)
Introduction:
I know you are sick of hearing about this, but the news this past week will help me make the one major point I want to make.
I want to use the death of Michael Jackson to make this point. The latest we know about the death of Michael Jackson, although we certainly haven’t heard the last of this nor do we know if everything that is being reported is actually true.
• The singer was on a deadly diet of powerful narcotic pain relievers.
• The star was injected three-times a day with narcotic Demerol.
• He was also taking three 3mg tablets of another strong narcotic painkiller, Dilaudid
• Was recently prescribed Vicodin, an opiate drug derived from codeine,
• Soma, a muscle relaxant in 2mg doses twice a day,
• Xanax, a sedative taken in 0.5mg doses twice a day,
• Zoloft, an anti-depressant was taken in 100mg doses.
• Paxil was also taken by the star to treat anxiety and obsessive behavior.
• Prilosec, an over-the-counter pill for heartburn,
• Was recently prescribed antibiotics to fight of infection following his skin cancer surgery.
• Jackson had started eating one meal a day as he had a phobia about gaining weight before his 50-date comeback concerts in London from July 13.
• THE nanny Grace Rwaramba, who became “mother” to Michael Jackson’s three children, said she regularly had to pump his stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs. “There was one period that it was so bad that I didn’t let the children see him . . . He always ate too little and ---mixed too much.” (From Sun Online)
Another report said the authorities carried out a 75 lb bag of drugs from Jackson’s home. Truth will finally come out with the toxicology report.
1. Here is my question today: Who tried to stop him?
• Nanny claims she did and was fired because of it.
• Attorney claims he did, spoke out quickly after Jackson’s death, but where was he when Jackson was alive?
• Many others enabled, bought the drugs for him, kept his supply coming…
• Where were they?
2. Now that he’s dead, here’s what’s happening.
• YouTube has had over 15 million viewings of his videos
• 260,000,000 hits on Michael Jackson websites.
• Facebook has racked up over 2, 600,000 fans
• Twitter has had so many tweets it almost crashed, multiple millions
• 16 of the top 20 downloads on Amazon are MJ
• The entire Internet came to a crawl, within hours of MJ’s death.
• Doctors, specialists are on all the talk shows talking about how tragic and unnecessary MJ death was.
o AGREE! But where were they before he died?
o Not like this abuse was unknown!!!!!!!!!
3. Perhaps the absolute worst 6 words in the English language are: I don’t want to get involved.
(I understand the concept of personal accountability. It’s not someone else’s fault that you are on drugs, alcohol, prescription meds, having sex outside of marriage. The person involved is ultimately responsible!)
4. From the magazine Us.
“While in the field, reporters often run across celebrities doing everything from smoking pot to snorting lines of cocaine in private parties and clubs. Of course, drug and alcohol use among celebrities is nothing new, but in a frightening turn, it appears to have become more publicly accepted.”
One source recalls a recent star-studded New Year’s Eve bash in Miami: "There were lines of coke on the table, weed everywhere. It was insane. It was a very free atmosphere."
"Coke is so not a big deal for young stars in Hollywood. It’s like having a drink."
5. Other Stars
• Lindsey Lohan admitted to drug use in Vanity Fair;
• Fergie has been addicted to crystal meth.
• Justin Timberlake admitted he was stoned when he recorded his multiplatinum CD Justified.
• John Mayer, blues & pop rock artist, gave Rolling Stone an interview while puffing on a marijuana vaporizer.
• Daniel Smith (Anna Nicole Smith’s son) died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressants, taken while he was visiting his mother in the hospital.
• Anna Nicole Smith died from a fatal combination of the sedative chloral hydrate and several other prescription drugs.
•A friend of mine worked in L.A. a few years ago as an extra in Hollywood. She was on a set and went to the ladies room. While in a stall, she witnessed a well-known actress come into the bathroom, take a white powder from her purse, sniff it up her nose and return to the set. What the powder was, she didn’t know. However, this actress died on the same day as Michael Jackson after suffering a long and public battle with cancer. This actresses name was Farrah Fawcett!
6. Who tried to stop them? Guessing some people did. We will probably never know.
• I have a sneaking suspicion they were saying, “I don’t want to get involved.”
• Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina, traveled to Argentina to continue his affair with former television producer Maria Chapur. According to news reports, this affair was common knowledge by many of Sanford’s friends.
• Who tried to stop him? Help him?
• Why not? “I don’t want to get involved.”
• Numerous other examples of drug abuse, addiction, sexual affairs, pornography addiction, alcohol, condoned by others, but openly aided, encouraged, & joined in as well.
• Apparently, many who are politicians or celebrities think they are above the law.
• They think they are invincible. You can mark it down when someone is saying they can take this stuff or leave it, they are always taking it!
• Where are their friends and family?
• "I don’t want to get involved."
7. You may be asking, “What does this have to do with you and me?”
• What does this have to do with this church?
• What does this have to do with our members, friends and our kids?
8. Six words we should never say are, “I don’t want to get involved.”
9. Let the following questions be interactive!!!!
• What is the 1st and greatest commandment?
• What is the 2nd commandment? Matt. 22:39
o ASK: What is the meaning of the 2nd commandment?
o ASK: What type of responsibility do you have as a friend, as a Christian, as a human being?
10. RESPONSIBILITY IS GOD’S IDEA!
Meaning of Responsibility:
o Hebrew Word for responsibility meant, “burden.” In other words,
you may not always like it, but God has put on you RESPONSIBILITY.
o In the Greek, the word responsibility implies that you were
“placed over something.”
o In Webster, it means, “You are totally dependable.”
o “The state or fact of having the duty to deal with something or
someone.”
11. ASK: how does that work with “I don’t want to get involved.”
a. Do you have a responsibility to help those marriages that you know
are falling apart? What? When? Will you?
b. Do you have a responsibility to help your friends who are involved
with illegal drugs? What? When? Will you?
c. Do you have a responsibility to help your friends who are involved
with under aged drinking? What? When? Will you?
d. Do you have a responsibility to help your friends who are
drinking too much? What? When? Will you?
e. Do you have a responsibility to help your friends who are
involved with pre-marital or extra marital affairs? What? When?
Will you?
12. What is your response to these problems? “I don’t want to get involved” or “It’s none of my business.”
13. Let me ask, “How are Christians different from anyone else if we:
o Wait until after the wreck to talk to someone about their drinking
problem?
o Watch someone destroy their life and now they need rehab?
o Watch a family fall apart and then try to deal with a divorce?
o Sit back and watch the kids in our church go down the road leading
to sexual sin and then look down on them for having an out of
wedlock pregnancy?
14. How many times have you heard or said, “I knew he/she was going to get in trouble. I could see it coming.”
o You did nothing?
o We as a church did nothing?
o Shame on you!
o Shame on me!
o Shame on all of us!
a. How do think the parents would feel if after their kid messed up
his/her life you went to them and told them, "I knew this was
going to happen?"
b. Or after being badly injured in a wreck after a party at which
they had been drinking to say, "I knew they this was going to
end badly!"
c. Or at a funeral to tell the family, "If I had only talked with
him, maybe he would have listened. He was my best friend."
d. Have you not ever heard, "Friends don’t let friends drive
drunk?" Or added to that, Friends don’t let friends do drugs,
or ruin their lives with pornography, or mess up their lives
with immorality."
15. Ask: Do you have a responsibility to help those who need help, if they admit it or not? How? What? When? Will you?
16. Ask: What is the difference between meddling and trying to help?
• It has to do with attitude, knowledge and relationship.
• You cannot all of sudden come into someone’s life condemning and
pointing fingers.
• You must have a prior relationship.
• You must be involved in people’s lives.
• You must love people and care about them.
• There is a major difference in going to someone with tears in your
eyes and your heart breaking than going to condemn them with an
holier than thou attitude.
17. Too many times with our full knowledge, we allow:
o Marriages to fail
o Believers to turn their backs on God
o Parents to abuse their children
o Husbands to abuse their wives
o Children to disobey their parents
o Kids to get killed or hurt in car wrecks from drinking
o People to get their lives messed up on drugs and we wait until
after the fact, and then TALK about how the world is going to "you
know where" in a hand basket! Unbelievable, How sad! How
unchristian, how far away from loving your neighbor as yourself
is that?
Conclusion:
Proverbs 14:23 declares, “Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty.”
I would like to add my own proverb that is similar which says, “Talk is cheap. When are we going to quit talking and step us and do something about it?”
Abraham Lincoln once said, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Perhaps the absolute worst six words in the English language are:
“I don’t want to get involved.”
o But as Christians we have no choice.
o As Christians being involved is what we signed up for!
o Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
o Do You?
It’s time we stepped up and really loved people the way God asks
us to. It’s time we stopped looking out from the back pew and got
involved. It’s time we realized that saying, "I don’t want to get
involved" are words that should never come from the lips of someone
who claims to be a Christian.
