WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY TO REGIS?
- Have you ever wondered what it would be like for Jesus to live in America in the 21st century?
- What would He wear? Would He be a golf shirt kind of a guy or a t-shirt kind of a guy?
- Would He wear Nike or Reeboks?
- Would His hair be short or would He let it grow out a bit?
- Would He eat Mexican and Seafood or would He be a meat and potatoes man?
- Would He drive a Toyota Camry or a Toyota pickup truck?
- Would He like the Reds or the Bengals?
- Would He prefer Dolby Digital or THX?
- Would He listen to B-105 or 97 Rock?
- Would He read the Post or the Enquirer?
- If Jesus were alive today what would He do, where would He go and what would He say?
- Over the next 4 Sundays, we are going to look at what Jesus might say if He lived in our culture and in our time and if He came into contact with our contemporaries.
- One of the most popular figures in our world today is a man named Regis Philbin?
- There aren’t too many people in our world who can be known by just one name, but Regis is one of them.
- This 67 year old man has been around the television industry since 1957 when he was a news anchor for a station in San Diego.
- But it wasn’t until he teamed up with Kathie Lee Gifford in 1985 that his popularity sky-rocketed.
- Within 2 years the show went into syndication. Two years after that it was the fastest growing national talk-show in the country. Soon more than 18 million people were tuning in daily to watch LIVE with Regis and Kathie Lee.
- Then ABC approached Regis with an opportunity to solo host a quiz show called “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”
- It instantly became a blockbuster hit.
- Regis has won 10 Emmy awards.
- He was written two best-selling books.
- He has launched a new line of shirts and ties.
- He is perhaps one of the most popular and well-liked television personalities of our time.
- So if Jesus came face to face with Regis, what would He say?
- If Jesus sat in that “hot seat” directly across from Regis with the lights and the music and they engaged in small talk, what would Jesus say?
- I don’t think Jesus would talk about the University of Notre Dame or the New York Yankees or lifelines or even Kelly’s baby, but I do think that Jesus would ask this question
- “REEGE, DO YOU TRUST GOD?”
- “Do you trust God with all your heart?” (Proverbs 3:5)
- Now maybe that is deeper than what Regis would like to answer.
- Most of his interviews don’t go much below the surface
- But if Jesus were here, I imagine that’s what He would say to Regis Philbin.
- “IS YOUR TRUST IN GOD?”
- Not in money, not in fame, not in people, not even in yourself, but in God
- I would like to know what his answer would be to that question.
- In fact, I would like to know what your answer would be
- You see, we are living in a society that doesn’t seem to trust anybody anymore
- People are cynical and doubtful and skeptical of just about everything.
o Customers don’t trust businesses
o Employees don’t trust managers
o Citizens don’t trust governments
o Wives don’t trust husbands
- A study was done a few years back which surveyed the trust level of Americans. The results showed that the least trusted professions were telemarketers, used car salesmen and at the bottom of the barrel, politicians.
- Do you know who was at the top? Pharmacists and pastors.
- That’s great, except I know pastors who I wouldn’t trust.
- We have seen too many bogus claims and unkept promises
- We have been burnt and abused and taken advantage of
- We’ve seen too many lies, too much deception, too much hypocrisy
- How can we really trust anyone let alone God – a God who we can’t see, a God who we can’t touch?
- Maybe that would be the response of Regis – Why, why trust God?
- In order for anyone to trust God, you have got to KNOW HIM
- STORY – Last month I was having some pretty serious car problems and I needed to get it fixed. I know very little about the mechanics of a car, so I decided to take it to a professional. Now I don’t have too many car problems and I have never had to take my car to a service center in Ohio, so where do I go? I grabbed the yellow pages and I started looking. But you know there was one thing that I did look for; it was an ASE sticker; the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. I knew that if an autocare facility had that sticker then I could trust them to care for my car.
- I didn’t know much, but I knew enough.
- Would you put your trust in someone or something that you did not know anything about?
- I don’t think so.
- You need to have some kind of basis/some kind of understanding.
- There are a lot of people who don’t have a proper basis or a proper understanding of God
- And because they don’t know Him, they certainly are not going to trust Him.
- Do you realize how many different ideas of God there are prevalent in our world today?
- According to our postmodern generation, God can be anything you want Him or her to be?
- According to our postmodern generation, your view of God is equally valid and equally true as my view.
- That is what is called the New Age movement, where there is no absolute truth of what is right and wrong or what is true or false
o Where what feels good at the time for you is right for you at time
- Consequently what you WANT to believe is religiously correct for you and what I want to believe is religiously correct for me.
- So if I want to be Shirley Mcclain believing that I have lived many past lives in other times and in other worlds, then that’s okay.
- If I want to be Oprah Winfrey, believing that God is simply a matter of getting in touch with my inner spirit, then that’s okay.
- If I want to be Louis Farreckan believing that the pursuit of God must make its way through the prophet Mohammed and his teachings then that’s okay.
- If I want to be Mormon believing that God is just an ultimate elevated state of humanity, then that’s okay.
- But there is a problem with that line thinking; you will never know the real God.
- You will never get a proper understanding of the true God
- You will never intellectually discover answers about our God, so you will never really trust Him.
- I wander what Regis’ view of God really is.
- (1) Some think God is some COSMIC TOUGH COP.
- That he is some great big, bad policeman in the sky with His pressed uniform, his dark shades, his weapons at his side, just waiting for you to break the law.
- On my way to the Bash at the Baudendistel’s yesterday, I was going through Morrow and just as I was coming to the north part of town, there was a police office hiding in the parking lot off to the right, waiting to catch someone speeding.
o Many people believe that God is chomping at the bit to catch you doing something wrong and when He catches you then He can’t wait to punish you.
- But you know that’s not God.
- He doesn’t want to ruin your catch. He wants to reward it.
- He doesn’t want to catch you doing something wrong. He wants to encourage you to do something wrong.
- Our God is not some Cosmic Tough Cop
- (2) Others believe God is some CELESTIAL SANTA CLAUS.
- You know what I am talking about. The kind of God who treats us as if we are all wonderful children, whether we are or are not.
o A God who sits in His big padded chair in the sky and pats us on the head as we go by, no matter what we do, saying “boys will be boys,” “that’s alright”
o A God who is always smiling just waiting to give one blessing after another as long as we climb on His lap and ask for it nicely.
- Once again that’s not God.
- He is not perched with a bag full of goodies just waiting for us to add it to our list.
- He is a good God, but His purpose is not to just give us whatever we want whenever we want it.
- (3) Some think God is some GEORGE BURNS CHARACTER.
- Do you remember seeing the “Oh, God” movies?
- Here is George Burns walking around in tennis shoes looking and acting just like another human being.
- He has got a few more powers than other people, but He’s got the same faults/failures.
- He doesn’t know all the answers and He doesn’t know everything.
- In fact, He’s just like one of us.
- Well, that’s not a proper understanding of God either
- (4)Still others believe God is some STAR WARS FORCE
- … that He’s some impersonal powerful energy flow that moves around us and through us and we can tap into Him through training and meditation.
- All we have to do is to be tuned in and sensitive and try really hard and then the force will be with us.
- No, that’s not God
- So many different ideas of God in our world
- Whenever we have an inaccurate view of God, it is that much more difficult to trust Him.
- If we don’t know Him how can we trust Him?
- The Bible says, “Faith (or trust) comes from hearing the message” (Romans 10:17)
- We can’t even think about trusting God, unless we know about God first.
- So who is God? What is He like?
- Let me give you 4 truths about God that can help Regis and help you to trust Him completely
- (1) GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL
- Can you imagine what it would be like to make something out of nothing?
- That defies all comprehension.
- At the snap of His finger, at the sound of His voice, that which did not exist all of a sudden existed, that which wasn’t there, was there.
- That is how big and powerful and how mighty God is
- But you know, God didn’t create the universe and everything in it and then decide to sit back and have nothing to do with it.
- He didn’t put the sun in its place and hope that it could manage for a few thousand years before it burnt up.
- He didn’t put the earth on its axis and hope that it wouldn’t go off course.
- God didn’t just create, but He also manages.
- He oversees the natural laws that He put in place
- He keeps the planets in line. He makes sure the grass keeps growing and the birds keep singing.
- God is a God who is involved with life.
- He is part of the goings on. He is involved with the happenings.
- Now that doesn’t mean that He is always going to intervene.
- He is not always going to defy natural law
- If you decide to drive your car 90 miles per hour into a concrete wall, God isn’t necessarily going to step in front of the car and cushion the blow.
- He might, but then again He might not.
- Part of God being in control is that He has allowed all of manking to have our own free-will.
- We choose what we want to eat, where we go to work, how often we exercise, what to say, what to think.
- God gave us that freedom
- This past week a woman in Texas drowned her 5 children. I heard the story of how that her 7 year old saw his mom drowning one of the other children and started to run away. She then ran after him, drug him to the bathroom and proceeded to drown him, too. An awful crime.
- People might say that a God who is in control would never allow something like that to take place.
- Well, God didn’t do it. That woman did and she is going to have to face the consequences of her actions.
- Do you remember hearing about a Bible character named Job? “He was the greatest man among all the people of the East” (Job 1:3)
- The Bible said that “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8)
- That is quite a compliment.
- But yet all of his wealth was taken from him. His business was lost. His family was killed and he was even stricken with boils all over his body.
- It was a real riches to rags story.
- Once Job processed his anger, his pain, his disappointment, God blessed the latter part of his life more than the first. (Job 42:12)
- God was in control.
- He doesn’t always do things the way we would like Him too.
- He doesn’t always do things in our timing
- He doesn’t always give us the answers/reasons for why certain things happen and why certain things don’t happen,
- But then again He is God.
- He is greater than we are. He can see more than we can see. He has a bigger perspective than we have.
- He’s got the whole world in His hands
- God is always in control and for that reason we can trust Him.
- (2) GOD IS ALWAYS TELLING THE TRUTH
- How many of you have ever lied? (raise your hand)
- Dr. David Faust decided to conduct an informal survey. He passed out pieces of paper to people and asked them to complete this sentence. “It is hard to tell the truth when…” About 200 people responded and these were some of the responses.
o “It is hard to tell the truth when you return from a fishing trip” (male, age 49)
o ….. when someone asks your age and weight (female, age 49 – or at least that is what she said
o … when your mouth is full” (male, age 5)
o … when you want to fit in” (female, age 13)
o … when you don’t know what the truth is” (male, 22)
o … when people are going to laugh at you” (F, 9)
o … when the truth is not what people want to hear (m, 19)
- Sometimes the truth is hard to speak.
- STORY – a few weeks ago, I had taken Nathan and Jonathan to a local park and we were just goofing around. There was this apparatus that went around in circles and we were shooting basketballs down the middle of it. Now neither Nathan, nor I could get the ball down this chute, but Jonathan kept asking for a try. He said, “I can do it.” Well I knew that he couldn’t. Finally, I gave him the ball and said, “If you do it, then I will give you $10.” I knew full well, he would never be able to do it. But guess what, on his first attempt that ball went straight down that chute. I owed him $10. You know I haven’t paid him yet. Just last night, he came to me and said, “Dad, when are you going to give me my $10.
- Speaking the truth is not always easy.
- Unfortunately, we have all said things that we didn’t back up.
- We have all said things that we knew to be false.
- But God, on the other hand, hasn’t done that and He won’t do that.
- The Bible says “.. it is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18)
- It goes against His nature. He just can’t do it.
- In a world of liars, cheats, deceivers, and con artists, isn’t it a relief to know that there is someone whose words you can count on?
- There is someone who you don’t have to question
- There is someone who you don’t have to check up on.
- Think about that for just a moment.
- If God says it, then it is true.
- If God says it, then it will happen.
- Because God always tells the truth, you can trust Him
- (3) GOD IS ALWAYS LOVING PEOPLE
- JOKE – Maybe you heard about the group of friends who went deer hunting and paired off in twos for the day. That night one of the hunters returned alone, staggering under the load of an 8-point buck that he was carrying. “Where’s Harry?” he was asked. “Harry had a stroke. He’s a couple of miles back up the trail.” “You mean that you left Harry haying there and carried the deer back?” “Well” said the hunter, “I figured no one was going to steal Harry!”
- That is not the greatest regard for fellow man is it?
- Let’s be honest there are some people who are downright hard to love.
- There are some people who you wouldn’t miss if they happened to be abducted by aliens.
- In fact some people who you might think are aliens.
- Our human nature is bent on doing unto others as they have done unto us
- Our human nature is bent on retaliation and revenge.
- Our human nature is bent on a conditional love
- But that is not God’s nature.
- His nature is not to pick and to choose who He loves and who He doesn’t
- His nature is not to favor one person over against another.
- God’s nature is to love everyone all the time.
- Let that soak in.
- The murderers, the child abusers, the rapists. God loves them all.
- Now He doesn’t approve of their behavior, but He loves them just as a father would love a child
- The Bible says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love God…” (Romans 8:38-39)
- That’s powerful stuff.
- God’s love is so strong. It is so intense that nothing in this world or any other world is capable of breaking that grip.
- So no matter what you have done.
o No matter the skeletons that reside in your closet.
o No matter the habits that control your life.
o No matter the no-good rotten, dirty things that you have ever done, God says, “I still love you.”
o “In spite of all of that stuff, I still love you.”
- Because of His love for people, you can trust Him.
- (4) GOD IS ALWAYS WANTING PEOPLE TO BE SAVED
- I know that some of you have built your own house. George is in the process of building a house right now. And who knows, Lisa and I might build a house, too.
- When building your own house, you make sure that it is designed properly and constructed with the best of materials. You are not going to take any short-cuts, because you want that house to last.
- And when it is done, you are eager to have friends and family to come by and see your handiwork. You are excited when guests stop by so you can “show off” your humble abode.
- But you are also going to be sensitive about those who come into your house.
o The neighbor kid down the street who always seems to be playing in dirt is not welcomed visitor
o The 5th cousin, who can’t keep a job for more than 2 weeks, is not going to be invited to move into the guest bedroom
o The stranger whose car broke down in front of your house is not going to be encouraged to stay much longer than just making that quick phone call for the tow truck.
- You see, in our house, we don’t want certain kinds of people to be there.
- However that is not how God is with His house.
- He has created this incredible paradise called heaven that is absolutely gorgeous.
- It is perfect. It is eternal.
- And God wants everyone to come to His house; to stay; to live for eternity.
- Everyone who knocks on His door is more than welcome to come in.
- II Peter 3:9 from the Bible says, “God is … not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
- He wants all of mankind to respond to Him in faith and to live with Him for eternity.
- You see, when you turn your life over to God and you make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, then you are saved.
- And all who are saved get to spend eternity with God in His hosue.
- Now that is a great host. That is a great God.
- Because God is always wanting people to be saved, you can trust Him.
- So Regis, do you trust God?
- Do you know who He is and are you willing to put your faith in Him?
- That question would put Regis in the hot seat.
- It would put you there, too
- So what is your answer? What is your final answer?
