The Gospel According to Superman
The New King James Version. 1996, c1982 Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
It has been a good week here at FOB Speicher. I went to Talafar this week and took Eagle Express back and forth. It is amazing to me how 6th BN can turn an hour and a half flight into four hours.
On the flight home, I thought about Superman flying and thought about how cool it would be to fly—without rotors or wings. Then, of course, I remembered how I hated to fly.
A couple of weeks ago, I was flying over to Talafar and I also was thinking about comic books.
I was, of course, thinking that within the next four weeks or so I will be buried in a stack of Superman comic books. I will be getting every Superman book that has been written since midtour and I’m going to begin my pull list—soon after I get back. It is a very big deal.
It was on that trip that I got the courage to preach this sermon; A sermon about the Gospel according to Superman.
One of my biggest hobbies is reading comic books. Some would say that I collect them, and the only truth to that is that I don’t throw them away—that’s why I collect them. I enjoy reading comic books and following their storylines.
The greatest superhero that has ever graced the cover of any comic book is “the man of tomorrow”, “the man of steel”, “the last son of the planet krypton” ...Superman.
Now, I know this all sounds crazy—you are probably asking...what does Superman have to do with the gospel? Plenty.
What we do in life needs to point to Christ. It really doesn’t matter what we do—we just need to take the opportunity to use it for God’s glory.
In the Bible we see this, to the disciples; Jesus said “I’ll make you fishers of men.” To the Samaritan woman he said “I’ll give you living water”. To the hungry he said that he was “the Bread of life.”
So it is not a stretch for us to turn our hobbies, into a presentation of the gospel.
Given that, you must understand that Superman is my favorite comic book hero—he is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and is able to jump tall buildings in a single bond.
But more than anything, he is the one superhero whose entire essence is set by his character.
We know him by truth, justice, and the American way.
We first recognize his truth.
1. Truth.
Truth is a basic value, we see it in the Ten Commandments and we see in as a piece of advice in every area of life. We are to be truthful.
Superman seeks to do everything with truthfulness and integrity. So much so that the other superheroes call him “The Blue Boy scout”. Superman represents truth, in the way he fights the bad guys and in the way in rescues kittens out of the trees. I always wondered why the little kids who get there cat returned just run into the house like nothing happened. We, as well, need to be truthful and full of integrity.
When Jesus prayed for the disciples, he prayed;
15I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. (Jn 17:15-18, NKJV).
We need to be people of truth.
Jesus prayed for the disciples, not to be taken out of the world but to be sanctified by truth. Sanctify means “to render holy”. Jesus prayed that the disciples would, and that we would be rendered holy by the truth.
How do we do that? We must first receive the truth—accept the truth that God loves us and sent his Son and accept His son as the payment for our sin. Then, we take the truth and apply it to our lives and let it fill our lives and render us holy.
The truth comes from the word of God—the Bible. If you are seeking to live a truthful life, you must begin with truth. The Bible is truth. There is no, “what is true for me may not be true for you.” The Bible is true, and every bit of it applies to your life.
But in order for us to understand the gospel, we must start with the truth of the gospel.
We must understand that the Bible not only contains the truth but is the truth. And it is from the Bible that we base our faith. We believe in Christ, but even our understanding is drawn from the scriptures.
So as we look at the “Gospel According to Superman”, we first see that the Bible is truth.
And truth leads to
2. Justice.
Now Justice is my favorite part of Superman. This is where he goes after the bad guys and pins them to the wall. He confronts the Lex Luthors out there; those evil men who are trying to take over the world, and Superman seeks to send them to prison. He chases the criminals of the world and brings them to justice. This is the exciting part of watching or reading Superman—taking these very bad people into justice. He chases Lex Luthor, not because he is crazy—but because he does bad things to people. Lex Luthor deserves the punishment that he gets.
But, on the other hand, he protects those who are innocent. He rescues the little children from the fire, he steps in to stop the muggers on the street, and he repair the train track before the train rolls off the cliff.
God is a God of justice. There are laws that govern the universe that must be obeyed. When these laws are violated they must be paid for.
Violating this law is called sin. Sin is anything you think, say, or do that is disobedient to God. The critical question then is who has sinned?
The Bible says that all have sinned.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Ro 3:23, NKJV)
We are sinners. And the punishment for sin is death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ro 6:23, NKJV)
God is a just God.
He must satisfy his justice by making sure that the punishment is in place. Jesus repeatedly talks about hell. He used words like unquenchable fire, everlasting fire, and everlasting destruction. Do I believe that hell is a literal fire? Yes, I do—even in my study in preparation for this sermon; I noticed time after time hell being describe as fire. Jesus said it repeatedly. John in the Book of Revelation mentioned it. The prophet Isaiah mentioned it. And Moses mentioned it. Hell is a place of fire.
But then we hear the question; “How can a loving God send people to hell?”
I believe that, in a way, God asked the same question. And his answer was Jesus. He doesn’t want to send people to hell—but the price must be paid. So, he paid it himself.
And that leads us to the last point in the “Gospel according to Superman”
We see that Superman stands for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”
And the American way is Freedom.
3. American Way: Freedom
It is a major reason we are here in Iraq is to bring freedom. The basic principle of our country is freedom. And Superman seeks to free those who have been oppressed.
In the Superman books, he has gone to countless worlds and countless cultures to bring them freedom from oppression. This is typically from some madman or monster or even a crazed robot. Superman goes out to free the world from oppression.
There are people who take Superman much more serious than I and have done a study into Superman’s religious preference. Some say he’s a Jew, because his creators were both Jewish, some say that he is catholic because he once visited a priest in Superman Number 209, to be exact. But, many believe he was a Methodist.
But, even the, most will concede that he has a messiah-like presence a sense of leading people to freedom. But, Superman is not God, nor is he perfect, and by the way, he’s not real.
That doesn’t negate the fact that his story speaks to our personal need to find freedom. That is one of the reasons why Superman is so entertaining, is that is gives hope to the fulfillment of a need in our lives. We look for ways to find freedom from the things that hold us down in our lives.
We have this need for freedom, because we are all held captive and are enslaved by our sin.
Romans 6:20 explains it further:
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:20-23)
That same sin that is punished by death and hell keeps us captive and enslaves us to continue in our sin.
We need freedom in our lives. But the freedom doesn’t come from Superman or any other mythical hero knocking down the walls to set us free. It comes from a lonely man on a cross who gave his life for you and me.
The freedom comes from Jesus paying the penalty of our sin, by substituting himself into our place to pay that penalty.
The Bible says;
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (Ro 5:1, NKJV)
We have talked about my favorite comic book hero—Superman. He is on a never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
It is a fun little concept, it is my hobby. However, I want you to listen real close.
The Bible is true. It has been proven time and time again to not only be factually true, but practically true. And in the Bible it teaches us that we are all sinners.
God is a God who demands justice. We would expect that from a righteous God. The problem is that we have a tough time accepting that all of us, each and everyone of us are guilty and deserve death and hell for our sin.
With that said, however, Jesus offers us freedom—from sin and from the ultimate punishment of sin, freedom from hell.
But, we must accept this payment. We must turn from our sin and follow Jesus.
Have you accepted this payment? I’m not talking about going to church, I’m not talking about giving your money. I’m talking about your sin. Have you come to a point in your life where you understand that you must do something about your sin?
Tonight, right where you sit, you can turn your life over to Christ. He alone can deal with your sin, because he paid the price, on the cross, for you. I ask you tonight, before you leave your seat to ask him to come into your life, to free you from your sin, to accept the payment that he paid for you on the cross.
If you want to talk more about it, I will be available after the service. Don’t leave tonight with this unfinished business.
Let us pray.
