Sunday Night: Infallible
Place: BLCC
Date: 3/5/17
Text: Psalm 119.86; John 8.26
CT: Our Lord is INFALLIBLE!
FAS: The Washington Post calls it "the most shocking moment in Oscars history." One TV critic called it "an Oscar moment that will live forever in clip-reel infamy."??Jim Dennison was staying up for the end of the Academy Awards last Sunday night so he could write about them Monday morning. It finally came time for the final award of the evening, for Best Picture. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were the presenters.?However, Beatty was given the wrong envelope. It was a duplicate Best Actress envelope and contained a card announcing that Emma Stone had won Best Actress for La La Land. Beatty and Dunaway assumed the card meant that La La Land also won for Best Picture, so she announced the Oscar accordingly.??
Accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers then took the stage to reveal the mistake and announce that Moonlight had won. The shocking blunder called to mind Steve Harvey's gaffe at the Miss Universe pageant and reminded us that even professional actors sometimes get their biggest lines wrong. Reality intruded on the fiction of film as we witnessed the fallenness of humanity.??
Such realism was the theme of the night.?? Expected was the usual political rancor and commentary supporting the usual liberal causes. But there were also moments of genuine goodwill. Especially the part where a group of tourists visiting Hollywood was unknowingly ushered into the awards show. They found themselves meeting Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep, receiving sunglasses from Jennifer Aniston and touching Mahershala Ali's newly-won Oscar. They were obviously surprised, which lent a note of realism to what is usually a scripted celebration of scripted pseudo-reality.??The night was a reminder of the common humanity that transcends our differences.
The theme of this year's Academy Awards was "Inspiration," a word that means "to be breathed into."
It confesses that we need what we do not have, that a source outside us is essential to the hope within us.??
Life continually testifies that it is so.??
Michael J. Fox made an appearance, despite his debilitating Parkinson's disease.
The montage remembering movie professionals who died in the last year could not include Bill Paxton since he died just last Saturday at the age of sixty-one.
Mortality and finitude are part of life for celebrities and the rest of us as well.??In her acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Viola Davis claimed, "We are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life."
Don’t know if I agree with that.
LS: The problem fallen filmmakers face, however, is that the true meaning of life cannot be found within life.??
Even the greatest people live fallen lives without the guidance of God and his Son.
Henry Ford is one of the biggest names in American life. His use of mass production in manufacturing the Model T automobile shaped not only the economy and industry, but the values of 20th century America.
A 2005 biography of Ford tells the story of the man who achieved incredible fame and fortune, and describes how, in the end, this "gifted man was undone by his own success."
Ford loved the ordinary folk and they loved him back. By 1920, half of all cars on US roads were Fords. But it wasn't just cars that Ford was selling. He preached a new gospel to a public raised on Christian ideals of delayed gratification and self-control. Ford believed that money was for spending, and that workers should use their income to buy products that would improve their lives—products like his Model T.
Seen as a hero for making it possible for the average family to own a car, Ford's opinion was sought out for every area of life, from world peace to marriage and child care.
The adulation of others ultimately convinced Ford that he was iINFALLIBLE and led him to ruinously bad decisions. It blinded him to his own hypocrisy as he preached family values and old-fashioned virtue and yet kept a mistress. It may also have driven him to destroy his only child….
The older Ford—offended by his son's gentle style and superior education—ruthlessly undercut him at every turn, only then to mourn grievously when Edsel died young…. Ford's last days were sorrowful. On a visit to the house where he had lived as a newlywed, he told his chauffeur, "I've got a lot of money, and I'd give every penny of it right now just to be here with Mrs. Ford." (Article from preaching Today)
Do we often feel infallible in our decisions. Without God as our lead in all we do, we will fall.
Since the consequence of our sin is death (Romans 6:23), For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We must find life outside ourselves. That's why, rather than looking to fallible celebrities or our own feelings of success, we should look to the infallible Christ.
"If you abide in my word," he promised, "you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31–32).
Jesus himself is the truth that sets us free (8:36). He is the source of truth, the perfect standard of what is right. He is infallible in all ways.
He frees us from continued slavery to sin, from self-deception, and from deception by Satan.
He shows us clearly the way to eternal life with God.
Thus Jesus does not give us freedom to do what we want, but freedom to follow God. As we seek to serve God, Jesus’ perfect truth frees us to be all that God meant us to be.
SO, Where can we find hope and a place to look to in such a fallen world?
Let’s take a look at God’s Word to see the infallibleness of God.
Infallible means: incapable of making mistakes or being wrong, to be trustworthy.
I did a search to find some scriptures that speak of God’s infallibility and trustworthiness. Lets look them up together.
Psalm 11.7, The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
Psalm 119.86, All your commands are trustworthy;
help me, for I am being persecuted without cause.
Psalm 145.13, Your name, Lord, endures forever,
your renown, Lord, through all generations.
John 8.26, “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.”
Revelation 21.5, He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Jesus offers the only answer for the “fallenness” of humanity, the only antidote for our sin and redemption for our souls.??
John 14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus prepares a place for you. Only He is infallible. Only he is trustworthy.
Only He is the way.
Last Sunday night's Oscar gaffe will fade over time, but the poet's celebration in a poem I found will be true forever:??
How great the tale, that there should be,?
In God's Son's heart, a place for me.??
And for you.
Jesus is the answer to what life is about.
