MOSAIC: HOW GOD CREATES BEAUTY FROM LIFE’S BROKEN PIECES
HEDONISM: EXCESS AND ENOUGH
27TH ANNIVERSARY
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 8, 2009
1 JOHN 2:15, 1 TIMOTHY 6:6-7
Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Blanchett starred in the Hollywood movie that was called The Aviator. The movie won 5 Academy Awards and it told the story of Howard Hughes, who was one of the most powerful and influential people of the 20th century. Howard Hughes was an aviation pioneer. Howard Hughes was a Hollywood motion picture producer/director. Howard Hughes was a powerful industrialist and one of the richest men in the world. For decades, Howard Hughes lived his life in the midst of money and sex and power. The truth is that he lived his life in the midst of excess with regard to money, sex, and power. But in the end his life was broken in pieces. In the final years of his life, he sought to separate himself from the world and he holed up in a Las Vegas Hotel and he wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him. He urinated in bottles and he lined the bottles along the wall. He was obsessive/compulsive and afflicted with paranoia. His life was broken and in pieces.
Today we take a look at the brokenness of excess and then the wholeness of contentment. But we start with a look at the brokenness, the brokenness that comes from excess. There’s a word in the Bible I want us to look at. It’s in our scripture for today. It’s in the book of 1 John, and the word is the Greek word “epithumia.” Epithumia is translated lust, but that’s an unfortunate rendering because it would imply that the word connotes sexual misconduct. But the word epithumia has more scope than that. It deals with excess beyond sexual excess. It deals with all kinds of excess. The word epithumia refers to excessive desires, or improper desires. It refers to those who want things that are outside of the laws of God. And it refers to those who within the laws of God want too much of something. It refers to excess.
Now, in this passage of Scripture in 1 John, we’re told about the excess called the lust of the flesh, but we’re also told about the excess called the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes has to do with materialism, and I want us to start by looking at excess with regard to money.
A man named Buddy Post in the year 1988 won the Pennsylvania Lottery. When Buddy Post won the Pennsylvania Lottery, he received $16.2 million. I know that in this room, in the midst of this economy, there are many of you who would just love to win the lottery. And some of you have bought lottery tickets and you just buy it knowing that your chances are slim, but just hoping against hope that somehow you might become a millionaire. I’m sure that Buddy Post felt like that as well.
Years later the Chicago Tribune decided they wanted to check up on Buddy Post, see what he had done with his $16.2 million, see how his life was going after all these years. So, the Chicago Tribune found him. He had just been convicted of assault. He had just been divorced by his 6th wife and his brother had just been convicted for trying to kill him. His landlady had sued him successfully for 1/3 of his pot, 1/3 of his $16.2 million. When Buddy Post met with the Chicago Tribune, he said to the Chicago Tribune, “Money didn’t change me. It changed everyone around me. Money draws flies.” I don’t know about that statement. Maybe money didn’t change him. Maybe he had always been a jerk, or maybe not. Maybe money did change those around him. Maybe money does draw flies. I know this: from a biblical perspective, people who have a lot of money, or even people who have excessive desire for money, tend to have a life of brokenness. Their lives tend to fall into pieces.
In 1 Timothy 6, we have these words from the Apostle Paul and from God: “There is great gain in godliness with contentment. We brought nothing into the world. We can take nothing out of the world. So, if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evil. It is through this craving that many have departed from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pains.” There is a word from holy scripture regarding the dangers of money and the desire, the excessive desire for money, and how it can break our life apart.
Now there’s a passage in the Bible about money that I think is oftentimes misunderstood. It’s found in Mark’s Gospel, the tenth chapter. So, in Mark 10, you see the rich young ruler come up to Jesus. And the rich young ruler poses a question to Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to live forever?” And Jesus talked to the rich young ruler about the laws of God, the commandments of God. The rich young ruler said, “All of these from my youth I have kept faithfully.” And Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “One thing you lack. Go, and sell everything you have, and take the money and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me. You will have treasure in heaven.” The Bible says the rich young ruler went away exceedingly sorrowful, for he was very, very rich.
Now, I’ve heard that passage interpreted in many, many ways. I’ve heard preachers preach on it and Sunday school teachers teach on it. I remember even when I was a little child looking at that passage and thinking, “I hope Jesus doesn’t someday tell me to do that. I hope he doesn’t tell me to sell everything I have and give it away.” But I remember being told early on that the explanation for the passage is that there was something different about this rich young ruler. Jesus in his divine insight was able to look into the rich young ruler’s heart and he saw that something was wrong. And so, to him and to him alone Jesus said, “Go, and sell all that you have and give it away.” The teaching then would be that because my heart is right, I can keep everything. That’s the teaching a lot of people give to this. It’s just this guy.
Another teaching you often hear with regard to the rich young ruler is that Jesus isn’t speaking literally—that what Jesus is saying to the rich young ruler, and to all of us, is that we need to acknowledge his ownership. What Jesus wants us to do with all of our stuff is to release it and then to be a steward of it, so that we give it to him and then we become a steward of it, and we acknowledge his lordship, his ownership. That’s all that Jesus is requiring. That teaching in a sense is true because Jesus is Lord and owner of everything, and we are just stewards. That’s true. But with the passage of Scripture that is found in Mark 10, Jesus was clearly speaking literally to this rich young ruler. He was speaking literally and physically. He was telling the rich young ruler to take everything that he had and sell it, and then to take the money that he received from the sale of all that he sold and give it away. Give it all away to the poor, literally.
I think there is another way to look at this passage. I don’t think we have to look at it as something was wrong in his heart particularly, or even that it was some kind of a non-literal exhortation from Jesus. I think the real interpretation of this passage is found when we understand that this was an amazing invitation by Jesus. Most scholars today acknowledge that, “Wow, this was an amazing situation.” The Bible tells us to look at the rich young ruler when the rich young ruler had said, “All this from my youth I have faithfully kept.” Jesus looked at the rich young ruler and, the Bible says, Jesus had compassion on him. And then it says, “Jesus loved him.” I know and you know Jesus loves all of us, but this is unusual language in the Bible. The Bible rarely uses words like this to describe a personal situation. Clearly Jesus had some special affection for this rich young ruler. Jesus really liked this guy. And so, Jesus gave this amazing invitation to him. Jesus said, “Go, sell everything you have. Take the money and give it all away. Then come and follow me. Join my disciples. Join the 12. Join my talmidim. We’ll go from village to village. We’ll go from town to town in Galilee, in Judea. Come and walk with me. Come and follow me.” What an amazing invitation. What an awesome invitation. And it was an invitation just given to this guy to hang out with the Son of God, the Messiah, for a couple of years. But he’d rather have his money. He’d rather have his stuff, so he went away exceedingly sorrowful.
What does God expect us to do with our money? What does God want of you with your money? What does he want of me? The Bible is pretty clear. I think that there is a sense in which we each have an individual call and we need to hear his voice. God doesn’t call us all to the same lifestyle. God doesn’t call us all to do the same things with our money, but we need to hear his voice. Certain instructions are very clear. Look at 1 Timothy 6:17-19 and we see these words, “As for the rich of the world.” And understand we are the rich of the world. By the world’s standards, most of us in this room are very, very rich—relatively, globally, we are rich. “So as for the rich of the world, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches, but on God, who richly furnishes us with all things to enjoy. Let them do good and be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up a good foundation for the future that they might take hold of the life which is life indeed.” So, in this passage we are told clearly that we’re supposed to have a particular attitude, and it’s humility. We are never to look down on the poor or the oppressed in this world. We are to value everything equally. We are never to be haughty, but always humble. That’s the attitude.
Then there’s the element of trust and of hope. Where do you put your trust and hope? This passage makes it clear: Never put your trust and hope in riches. Never put your trust and hope in money. In this economy and with all that is happening (not only in America but around the world today), it’s a real test of where we find our hope and where we as followers of Jesus Chris place our trust.
But of course, there are other kinds of excess. It’s not all materialism and money. So, our passage for today has to do with hedonism, “hedone,” which means “pleasure,” and excessive desire for pleasure in life. And sometimes that is sexual. The Bible warns about sexual sin. The Bible tells us that sex is a beautiful gift from God meant to be opened within the context of marriage as an expression of that union of marriage. But the world has changed all that. We open the gift in other times and in other ways and we’ve tainted the gift. Jesus says that the gift, our sexuality, actually begins in the heart. And Jesus warns us that if a man even looks at a woman with lust in his heart, he has committed adultery in his heart.
Pornography itself is a huge addiction in our culture. Incredibly, national studies show that 70% of men, young men between age 18 and 34, use internet pornography at least one a month. 10% of adults in the United States of America confess sexual addiction to internet pornography, and that’s just those who confess it. Obviously, the true number is way higher, the true percentage way higher. But 10% of adults confess that they are addicted to sexual pornography, and 28% of those who confess are women. Forty-seven percent of families in the United States of America state that they have a pornography problem in their home. Two out of every three divorces, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Attorneys, are partly caused by issues of pornography. It’s a huge problem in our country. The lust of the flesh takes many forms. Hedonism, “hedone,” takes many forms.
And there is a huge problem in America with alcoholism. It’s said that as many as 20% of the American population has a chemical predisposition towards alcoholism, and even people who don’t have genetic or chemical predispositions are still subject to the dangers of alcoholism.
Just two weeks ago Barb and I were in California. I was watching TV and watching the international news and they had news from Japan about one of their economic leaders who had served in a government position and who had drafted Japan’s current $800 billion stimulus package. This man who had drafted the stimulus package was in France being interviewed by the press and he was drunk. They showed on TV this Japanese man with all these microphones in front of him, and he couldn’t say a word. He was so drunk he could hardly keep his eyes open, and he could not speak at all. He couldn’t say a clear word in front of the world, and of course Japan removed him from his leadership position. It’s just tragic to see a man with his talent wasted like that.
We all remember Mel Gibson and his drunken, racial tirade on a California highway. Mel Gibson is a man of huge talent and with often times a good heart. And he is a believer in Jesus Christ. How tragic it is to see someone like Mel Gibson struggle with alcoholism. David Hasselhoff… maybe you saw this clip on TV of him so drunk he couldn’t even put the hamburger to his mouth, couldn’t find his mouth. Glen Campbell, John Daly. We’ve all seen these mug shots of these guys so tragically drunk and you just feel so sad. All the DUI’s of coaches and DUI’s of CEO’s and DUI’s of senators and congressman. This is a national epidemic. It’s pandemic in our country and I think we all need to be honest about our behavior.
We need to be honest about the gorilla in the room, whatever the gorilla is. It may have to do with the lust of the flesh, it may have to do with the lust of the eyes. We’re all messed up. We need help. Mark was telling you about Celebrate Recovery tonight. We want to encourage you to consider coming out tonight at 6 o’clock in the Atrium, in the Commons. It’s going to be a wonderful deal and it can be the beginning of the mosaic, the beginning of wholeness and healing for so many. Whether you are struggling with excessive desires in the world of money and problems in that world, or maybe because you’re struggling with something in the sexual realm, or something like alcoholism, or maybe even an eating disorder or eating too much.
I grew up in a home where we just loved our food and we ate a lot of it. My father came through the Great Depression and I think folks who went through the Great Depression, even though my dad was very young at the time, never forget it. You need to finish everything that’s on your plate. But it’s not just finish everything on your plate. You’re always looking to get the most for your money. My dad loved to take my brothers and I to all you could eat places and he’d just want you to load it up so he’d get his money’s worth even out of us. We’d go back for seconds and thirds, and Dad would be laughing, and it’s one of my many fond memories of my dad.
Yet I think it’s taken me many years to learn that more is not always better. It’s taken me a lifetime to begin to learn that more is not always better and taking care of our bodies is such an important teaching biblically, for our bodies in Christ are temples of the Holy Spirit within us.
We all have areas where we struggle and where we’re messed up. Maybe you’re struggling with power. In our passage of scripture for today it warns about epithumia, excessive desire, it talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The pride of life has to do with excessive desire for power.
I think for a lot of us even from our youngest years power holds an attraction. It was Satan who in the beginning had this unquenchable thirst for power. In Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, you see these 2 passages that directly refer to the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre. But indirectly parts of the passages go back to Satan at the dawn of time and his fall. When he said in his heart, “I shall ascend above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high; I will make myself like the most high God.” Satan has impacted the world.
So, you read Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and if you read Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche is attacking religion and he says, “God is dead.” And by that statement he means no one believes in God anymore and therefore religion shouldn’t be the basis of our mores and our ethical values. He goes on to say though that in the human heart there is this will to power that is the primary driving force in the human heart. If he’s right, it’s because of Satan. This world is fallen. Satan has affected the thinking and desires of people of all nations.
Christ has a different plan. You see, power and that excessive desire for power, often leads to brokenness and life falls into pieces, but Jesus has a different plan. Jesus talks about servant-heartedness. Our Lord Jesus, in Matthew 20, tells us how the rulers of the nations loved to lord it over them. “The great men love to exercise authority over them. This shall not be so amongst you. He who’d be the greatest amongst you must be the servant of all. He who would be first among you must be the slave of all, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” This is how Jesus takes the teachings of the world and turns it upside down. This is the path to wholeness: Not wanting to be served, but wanting to serve. It is serving that leads to wholeness in the great mosaic of Christ.
I just want to say a few words as we’re closing about contentment and the wholeness that comes from contentment. In 1 Timothy 6:6, our scripture for today, we have that saying that there is great gain in godliness with contentment. We brought nothing into the world. We can take nothing out of the world. If we have food and clothing, with these we’ll be content. The Greek word is “autarkeia.” Autarkia means enough. Knowing what’s enough, this is the call of Christ upon his people—to learn contentment. We seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. With regard to the cause of Christ, there is always more to do. With regard to spiritual formation and righteousness, there is always more to do. Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and Jesus says, “You’ll have everything you need.” Everything you need will be given unto you. With regard to all the stuff of the world, we’re supposed to learn contentment. As we seek to honor Christ, we’re supposed to learn contentment.
It occurs to me that biblically and practically contentment begins with embracing the truth. In 1 Timothy 6:6, where we’re charged to learn contentment, it follows the prior verse, which speaks of the greedy and the lustful as not accepting the truth and the greedy and the lustful as being robbed of the truth.
In the Bible there’s this concept that really contentment isn’t possible until you accept the truth. We accept Jesus as the truth. He said, “Ego eimi he aletheia.” I am the truth. But we need to accept the truth about ourselves in him. We have this charge in Christ from the beginning. You see it in 1 John 1. “This is the message we’ve heard from the beginning and proclaim also to you. God is light. In him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” What does it mean to walk in the light? It doesn’t mean to be perfect because we’re all messed up. It doesn’t mean to be without sin because we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. To walk in the light means to be honest and open about who we are, what we’re doing, to confess it to Christ and to others, and to be honest with ourselves.
I read an article recently by Rick Riley. Rick Riley used to write for Sports Illustrated and he’s a really clever writer. He was commenting on our culture and the world in which we live and the dishonesty, and he was talking about the dishonesty even within the world of sports. He mentioned some people like Marion Jones, who was famous in track and field and won so many gold medals in the Olympics. On Oprah she was asked why she took illegal drugs and steroids and she said, “I did it because I didn’t love myself enough.” Rick Riley said, “I’m not sure that’s the best explanation.” Rick Riley said she loved herself so much she wanted gold and magazine covers and 7-figure endorsement deals. Life is complex, but sometimes we’re not entirely honest.
Rick Riley mentions Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds said he didn’t knowingly take steroids. He thought it was arthritic rub for his muscles. He mentions Tyler Hamilton of the Tour de France fame, and Tyler Hamilton was stripped of his medal and his recognition and his honor because of blood doping, and when he was told that he had someone else’s blood in his body, he said he didn’t know how that could happen, that he must have had a twin who died in utero. He mentions Johnny Weir, who had a lousy performance in 2006 winter Olympics, and his explanation was, “I didn’t feel my inner peace, I didn’t feel my aura. I was black inside.” Rick Riley points out that he was never any good. He mentions Pete Rose, who said that the reason he gambled on baseball was because of oppositional defiant disorder. I don’t know what that is. He mentions Dieter Baumann, a long-distance runner who said that he took illegal drugs but he didn’t know it. His said his toothpaste was somehow spiked. My favorite was a Zambian tennis player who said he lost because his jock strap was too tight.
But his favorite was Kerry Collins. Kerry Collins is an NFL football player and Rick Riley says that Kerry Collins has so transformed because he’s been honest with his problems through the years. So many problems, so messed up, just like everybody, but he is honest and willing to deal with these things. He talks about the 2001 Super Bowl when Kerry Collins just played horribly. The press interviewed him, and Kerry Collins said, “I stunk today. I was fully prepared. I wasn’t injured. I felt great. I just stunk.” And then when Kerry Collins had a DUI, he said, “I was drunk, and I need help.” And he got help. When Kerry Collins was accused of racial insults, his teammates tried to protect him by saying he was just kidding. And Kerry Collins then met with the press and said, “I wasn’t just kidding. I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just wrong.” And he’s joined 12-Steps.
One of the foundational truths is just accepting the truth, and the truth will set you free, as Jesus said. We invite you to do that. Whatever the gorilla is in your life, whatever you’re dealing with, whatever is going on, whatever is messed up, we invite you to join us in this pilgrimage in Christ where we seek wholeness. Let Jesus create the mosaic as he takes the broken pieces of our lives and begins to make a beautiful picture. We want to encourage you to come out tonight if you are able to do that. This is going to be a great night. You don’t need to feel like, “Oh, man. If I come, people will think I’m really messed up.” We’re all messed up in so many different ways. So, 6 o’clock tonight, we want to encourage you to come out and join us. This is the church of Jesus Christ. It’s what we’re called to do. Let’s close with a word of prayer.