Four Things We All Need at Christmas

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
God says in the Bible that there are some
things that every human beingneeds in order to make life
fulfilling and worth living.
Number one, we all need meaningand purpose to life. We all
need meaning and purpose inlife. Did you read, I'm sure
you did in the paper about allthose people killed on Mount
Everest last year and they'vebeen more killed since. I

(00:23):
wondered when I read thisarticle, why would a middle
aged outta shape man pay$65,000 to go over there and
try to climb that stupidmountain? Well, why do people
pay money to drop outtahelicopters and ski down
kamikaze slopes? And why dopeople pay money to do the

(00:43):
insanest thing of all insanethings, bungee jump . That is
the most insane thing I've everseen in my life. Well, it was
an interesting article in USAtoday about why these kinds of
on the edge activities havebecome so popular. And in the
article, a guy named RobertShearer , who's the editor of

(01:03):
Power Trips magazine, saidthis, he said, and I quote, he
said, baby boomers have reachedthe age where we've accumulated
all the things we possiblycould, and we're still not
fulfilled. We're looking formeaning in life, end of quote .
And that's why we do thesecrazy things. You know, Mr.

(01:23):
Sheer has made a wonderfullyastute observation about human
life, and that is thataccumulating and possessing
stuff does not make life worthliving and give it meaning and
purpose. Macbeth discovered thesame thing after lying and
scheming and murdering his wayalong with his wife to the
throne of Scotland. Then shedied of remitted guilt, and he

(01:44):
found out that the throne didnot bring him all the
satisfaction that he dreamed itwas gonna bring him at the very
end of his life . He says thisin , in a mixture of
frustration and despair, hecries out. Life is a tale told
by an idiot full of sound andfury, but signifying meaning

(02:05):
nothing, life means nothing. Hesaid, friends, let's face it,
life is hard no matter how youslice it, but when you don't
even know why you're here, whenit seems like you're just
groping in the darkness withoutany real understanding of where
you're going or what yourpurpose is, then Macbeth is
right. Life is downrightdepressing. I went through this

(02:27):
same struggle when I was incollege, when I was at the
University of North Carolina.
This was this , these , thesequestions drove me crazy. Who
am I? Where am I from? What amI doing here? What's my
purpose? Where am I going? Iused to sit around my
fraternity brothers and I, we'dsmoke dope and we'd get high,
and then I'd say, well, let'stalk about this. Let's talk
about who we are and wherewe're from and where we're
going. And, and these guyswould say, long , you

(02:48):
are such a downer, man. Wedon't wanna talk about this
stuff. You know, why don't youjust graduate from college, get
married, have kids, get a job,raise your kids, grow old and
die like everybody else? Whyhave you gotta know all these
crazy answers besides law ? No, nobody knows answers to those
kind of questions. And I beganto wonder after a while, if
anybody really did have anyanswers to those questions. And

(03:12):
then I met Jesus Christ, and Iwanted you to see what he said.
He said, look here, Johnchapter eight, verse 12, verse
12. Jesus said this. He said, Iam the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will neverwalk in darkness, but will have

(03:32):
the light of life. And when Imet Jesus Christ and became
connected with Jesus Christ inpersonal relationship, Jesus
shined his spotlight onto allthose dark areas of my life,
onto all those dark questionsin my life. And suddenly he
provided me with all theanswers to those questions. He
gave me a reason for beingalive and a reason for waking

(03:53):
up in the morning and a reasonfor living every day that
stretches beyond this world andout into eternity. No longer
was life just the same old,same old. But suddenly there
was a , an eternal meaning tomy life because I was connected
with the eternal God of theuniverse. And I believe that in
order to live a functional,happy life, you need to have

(04:15):
this same sense of an eternalreason for why you're here. And
I needed it, and I maintainyou. And I cannot find it
anywhere in this world. Theonly place we will find it is
in a personal relationship withJesus Christ. Now, there's a
second thing we all need. Weall need power over our
passions. You know, Shakespearewas an astute observer of human

(04:38):
nature in play after play ofhis. Basically, the plot is the
same. It's all about thestruggle of men and women
against their own passions. Imean, we've already mentioned
Macbeth, whose passion, whoseobsession was power. And then
there's uh , uh, uh, Othellowho, who whose obsession was
his violent rage. And thenthere was , uh, uh, shylock in

(04:59):
the mercian of Venice who hadthe passion of greed. And then
there was Romeo and Juliet, theMontagues and the Caplets who
struggled with the passion ofhatred and bitterness for one
another. And of course, Hamletwho had the passion of revenge.
And friends. What makes thisgreat literature is that it it
, it shows us human nature asit really is. And what it shows

(05:21):
us in all of this literature isthe inability of people to
master the self-destructivepassions that live inside of us
in our own energy. I mean,that's why they call these
things tragedies. Now today, wesee the very same struggle
going on in our world, exceptwe don't see it just in

(05:42):
literature. We see it in realliving flesh all around us .
Hardly a one of us here doesn'tknow someone who is hopelessly
addicted to something, alcohol,cocaine, cigarettes,
pornography, food. And there'sprobably not one of us here who
doesn't know someone who'sfighting a losing battle, it
seems with depression. Someonein our family, someone in our

(06:04):
office, someone in ourneighborhood, our nation it
seems is fighting a losingbattle against crime and
corruption and unethicalbehavior at every level. And
what about divorce? It seems tome that many times
irreconcilable differences isjust a euphemistic way of
saying that the people in thatmarriage could not overcome

(06:26):
their selfishness and theirself-centeredness to a
sufficient degree to make thatmarriage work. Friends, every
one of us know people who areprisoners of their passions and
their passions are destroyingtheir lives, but it's just not
happening to other people. No ,it's happening to us too. Every
one of us struggle every day,don't we? We fight the battle

(06:49):
every day to live right, to actright to work right, to talk
right, to think right, to driveright and to eat right. And,
and if we're really honest withourselves, if we're really
authentic, let's admit thatwhen it comes to this fight ,
uh, of mastering these passionsthat live inside of us, most of
us have to admit we lose morethan we win. I was watching

(07:13):
this special on TV a while backabout dieting and about losing
weight, and they were doingsome people on the street
interviews, and this one ladycame on. She was hysterical. I
I mean, I hated to laugh, butshe was seriously overweight.
And here's what she said. Shesaid, I have lots of willpower
when it comes to food. It'sjust that currently I'm not
using any of it. I thought thatwas hysterical because I could

(07:37):
identify with this woman, can'tyou? And I was at the gym this
week and a guy was talking tome about his dad who passed
away, and he said to me, my daddied because his lungs failed
from incessant smoking. He diedat 10:00 PM one evening. And he
said, Lon , what you would notbelieve is that that very day
he had smoked four packs ofcigarettes before he died at 10

(08:01):
o'clock at night. I said,that's crazy. He said, I know,
but the man couldn't beat it .
So here's the question. Wheredo you and I go to get the
power we need to overcome theseself-destructive passions that
live inside of us that if wedon't overcome them that're

(08:22):
gonna destroy our lives? Whatmay I show you something else
Jesus said, look with me. Samechapter, chapter eight. Look
down at verse 34, chaptereight, verse 34. Look what
Jesus said. Jesus said in verse34, truly, truly, I say to you,
whoever commits sin becomes aslave of sin. Well, we already

(08:42):
know that. We just got throughestablishing that we understand
the bad news. Give us some goodnews. Alright , verse 36. Jesus
said, if the son , if I, JesusChrist makes you free, however
you shall be free indeed, thesupernatural, liberating power
of Jesus Christ over ourself-destructive passions,

(09:06):
folks, is phenomenal. Jesuspromised that he would give
this power to every singlefollower of his. And he does.
You say, well, lon , how canyou say that? I mean, how can
you stand up there with thatkind of authority and make a
statement like that? Well, I'lltell you how, because you are
looking, when you see me at aliving, breathing, walking
example of the liberating powerof Jesus Christ in action. When

(09:29):
I was a college student at theUniversity of North Carolina,
my friends and I, we smokeddope five times a day, six
times a day, eight times a day,10 times a day. We dropped LSD
four times, five times, sixtimes a week. You say, well,
when did you go to class? Wedidn't. We didn't, friends, I I

(09:49):
had a major drinking problemwhen I was in college. I had a
major gambling addiction when Iwas in college. We would gamble
till 12, one o'clock everynight, three o'clock in the
morning, four o'clock in themorning, then we'd go to bed,
sleep till noon or one o'clock,wake up and gamble some more.
We smuggled dope in fromAmsterdam. Hashish mostly cut
it up, sold it in Chapel Hill.

(10:10):
That's how I put myself throughmy last two years of college
with selling dope in ChapelHill. And towards the end of
that time, there was actually afederal warrant for my arrest
for drug smuggling and sellingcharges in Chapel Hill. The
police were actively looking toarrest me. In fact, to someone
I knew that knew me many yearsago, said to me once, lawn , I

(10:30):
have never seen anybody, hesaid to me, with a greater
tendency to self-destruct thanyou. And he's right. But
friends, when Jesus Christ atthe age of 21 became a part of
my life, all of that changed.
You say, well , are yousinlessly perfect now? Well,
there are days I think that,but my wife straightens me out

(10:52):
. Um, no, I'm notsinlessly perfect. And, and ,
and I want to tell yousomething else. I still have
every single one of thoseself-destructive passions
living inside of me stilltoday. But there's a huge
difference. And the differenceis that Jesus Christ made me
free so that I am not aprisoner of those passions
anymore. I don't have to obeythose passions. They don't have

(11:15):
to run my life. And for thelast 27 years, I have been able
to live in victory over thosepassions and live a functional
life that was worth living forone simple reason. And that is
that Jesus Christ said, if theson of man makes you free, you
will be free. And he made mefree. And friends, if you want
that kind of power in yourlife, let me tell you

(11:36):
something, you are not gonnaget it from therapy. You are
not gonna get it from drugs.
You are not gonna get it fromgoing to a seminar. Nothing
wrong with any of those things,but that's not where you're
gonna get power to live aboveyour passions. There's only one
place that comes from, it comesfrom Jesus Christ himself. You
need that power in your life. Ineeded that power in my life.
Where are you gonna get it ifyou don't get it from Jesus

(11:58):
Christ? Third, the third thingwe need everybody needs is not
only meaning in life and powerover our passions, but we all
need peace of mind. Peace ofmind. You know, there was a
very touching article in theWashington Post this past week.
I don't know if you saw it, itwas on the front page of the
sports section about a youngman named Damon Myers . Damon

(12:19):
Myers is a junior at the UnitedStates Naval Academy. He's also
a member of the football teamat Navy. And , uh, NA Damon had
to , had the whole , you know,the rest of this year all laid
out. He was going home forThanksgiving in New Jersey to
be with his family. He was thengonna come back and play in the
army, navy game. And he wasworking out at the gym there
with the football team justbefore Thanksgiving. And he
noticed when he lifted his army, he noticed there was a little

(12:42):
bit of swelling under one ofhis arms. So he went to see the
corpsman who sent him to bene ,uh, be , uh, Bethesda Naval
Hospital. And before he evenknew what happened, he had been
diagnosed with stage fourlymphoma, which had already
spread into his bone marrow andhad already spread into his
spinal fluid. Right now as wespeak , uh, Damon Myers is

(13:03):
right across the Potomac Riverover at Bethesda Naval being
given massive doses ofchemotherapy, hoping to stop
this. And instead of spendingThanksgiving together as a
family in New Jersey, thatfamily spent Thanksgiving in
the waiting room over BethesdaNaval Hospital. Can life change
quick or what? Yes, it can.
This is a life full of lots ofuncertainty. I mean, you think

(13:26):
you , you think your , yourmoney is safe and then the
Asian stock market hiccups. You, you think your career is
secure and then you getdownsized. You think your
health is good and then you geta lump. You , you think that
your roots are deep and thenyour company transfers you, you
think your family is stable andsuddenly your parents get a
divorce. I mean, all thisuncertainty in our world robs

(13:48):
people of all peace of mind.
Look at people on the metro,look at people on the bus. Look
at people on the streets ofWashington or wherever you were
. Look at people in yourneighborhood. Look right into
their eyes. Do you see a lot ofpeace of mind around, I don't
Where are you gonna get peaceof mind in a world like this?
There's not one thing the worlddoes that I know of to produce

(14:11):
it. May I show you somethingJesus said, John chapter 14,
couple pages back, it's page764. If you're using our copy
of the Bible, John chapter 14,would you look at verse 27 with
me? Look what Jesus said inverse 27. Jesus said, peace I

(14:35):
leave with you. My peace I giveyou, I do not give you the kind
of peace that the world gives.
Jesus said, the kind of peace Idispense is not like the world
gives out. I give you my peace.
So he goes on to say, do notlet your hearts be troubled and
do not be afraid. Jesus sayshere that the kind of peace he

(14:59):
gives is a kind of peace youcan't find in this world. It's
his peace . And , and you canlook for the rest of your life
in this world. You'll neverfind peace like this because
this is supernatural peace.
This is peace that can take onthe worst tragedy, the worst
reversal, the worst train wreckin your life and can still give
you peace through it all. Thisis peace. The Bible says that

(15:21):
passes all understanding, thatsurpasses all comprehension,
it's supernatural peace. Andthere is not one single
situation in this world thatthis piece , Jesus's peace that
he gives supernaturally to hisfollowers isn't up to, you
know, my wife and I, Brenda,the last five years have been
living a train wreck in ourfamily. We have a little girl

(15:43):
who's five years old that has avery serious uncontrolled
seizure disorder. She's , uh,she's terribly retarded. We've
been through years of, of testsand hospital stays and, and
rescue squad visits to ourhome. And, and who knows what
else that I could tell youabout. I mean, you talk about a
train wreck, folks, we havelived a five year train wreck

(16:04):
in our family. And yet I haveto tell you something, even in
the worst of the times, even inthe worst of the evenings, in
the middle of the night,standing in the emergency room
wherever, I'm here to tell youthat the peace of God was up to
it. The peace of God was there.
I can't define it for you , Ican't conjugate it for you . I
can't put it in a test tube foryou. I can't weigh it on the

(16:25):
scale for you. But I can tellyou that there is not a train
wreck you will ever face thatthe peace of God won't be up to
where you will stand there andsay, look at this mess. I ought
to be so depressed. I'm readyto jump off a building, but
somehow I've got peace and, andI'm calm and it's gotta be God.

(16:46):
This is the peace God offers togive that you will never find
in our world. It's onlyavailable to people who have a
personal relationship withJesus Christ, but to them it's
available, it abundance. Fourthand finally, not only do we
need meaning and purpose inlife, not only do we need power

(17:07):
over our passions, not only dowe need peace of mind, but
finally we need an assurance ofimmortality. We need to know
what's gonna happen to us onthe other side of the grave.
The saddest funeral I everattended, and I do some
funerals, was the funeral of mygrandmother. I had shared Jesus

(17:27):
Christ a number of times withmy grandmother. She of course
was Jewish like I am with mygrandfather as well. And to the
best of my knowledge, neitherone of them had ever responded.
When my grandmother died, wewere there at the funeral
service. We were sitting, youknow, at the graveside. My
grandfather was sitting in the, you know the little green
chairs they have out there. Andin the middle of this service
he jumps up. He's a 75-year-oldman now he leaps up and he runs

(17:52):
and leaps on top of thiscasket. He straddles it, laying
on his stomach, grabbing thesides, and he began to weep and
to wail and make noises likeI'd never heard any human being
make in my whole life. I stoodthere totally paralyzed. I
mean, I didn't know if I wassupposed to do anything and if
I was, I had no idea what todo. Later on, I thought about

(18:16):
that. It made such animpression on me and I thought,
well what was that? What did Ijust see? And it occurred to
me, folks, what I just saw Isthe absolute bankruptcy, the
absolute despair that comes topeople who have no idea what,
what the other side of thegrave holds for them . My

(18:37):
grandfather did not know wheremy grandmother was. He didn't
know if he'd ever see heragain. He didn't know what had
happened to her and he didn'tknow what was gonna happen to
him. And he was in totaldespair. It was eerie. Folks,
God has something so muchbetter than that for you. Yes,

(18:58):
he does. He wants you to knowfor certain that you have
eternal life. Do you know wherethe word agnostic came from?
The word agnostic was coined,meaning that I'm not sure
there's a God, I'm not sureabout the Bible. I'm not sure
about anything. Christian wascoined by a fellow named Thomas
Huxley. Thomas Huxley was aBritish philosopher who fell in

(19:18):
with Darwin in all theDarwinian theories and began to
doubt whether the Bible wastrue, whether God really
existed, began to believe thaton the other side of the grave
there was nothing but they blowyou out. You're gone like a
candle. And as he lookedforward to his death, he wrote
these words, he said, and Iquote, he said, when I think
that within 50 years I will beas if I had never been. The

(19:42):
thought terrorizes me, itterrifies me. He said, I would
rather exist even if it'd be inhell. End of quote , I feel
awful for this guy . PoorHuxley. I mean the answer to
his terror was right in theBible that he worked so hard to
discredit and he worked so hardto undermine. Listen to what

(20:05):
Jesus says in the Bible. Johnchapter 11, verse 25. Maybe
you'd like to turn there withme, John chapter 11, verse 25,
could Jesus Christ solve thisman's terror of death? Sure he
could. Look what he says. Verse25. Jesus said, I am the
resurrection and the life. Theperson who believes in me shall

(20:26):
go on living even when thatperson dies here on earth.
Friends, this is the promisethat Jesus gives, that when you
leave this life, you don't haveto be blown out like a candle.
You can know for certain thatyou're going to live forever
with Jesus Christ. That's whyhe said John 3 36, the person
who believes in me has eternallife. I want you to know that

(20:49):
John chapter 10, Jesus said, Iknow my sheep and I give them
eternal life and they shallnever perish. He wants us his
sheep to know that he wants usto face eternity with a
confidence and an assurance,not with the kind of terror
that my grandfather faced itnot with the kind of terror
that Thomas Huxley faced. Hewants us to face eternity with

(21:13):
the kind of attitude that afellow Christian brother named
Dwight l Moody faced it. I'dlike to read you how he faced
eternity. And I quote, he said,someday you will read in the
papers that Dwight l Moody ofEast Northfield, Massachusetts
is dead. Don't you believe aword of it? He said at that

(21:35):
moment, I shall be more alivethan I have ever been. I shall
have gone up higher. That isall out of this old clay
tenement into a house that isimmortal, A body that death
cannot touch, a body that sincannot taint. I was born of the
flesh in 1837. Moody said I wasborn of God's spirit in 1855.

(22:02):
That which is born of the fleshmay die, but that which is born
of God's spirit shall neverdie. End of quote . Now
friends, that's how you want toface the grave with that kind
of confidence. And you can havethat kind of confidence because
Jesus Christ came to give youthat kind of confidence. And

(22:22):
you get it in personalrelationship with him where all
of those promises he made abouteternity become yours. You need
that kind of confidence as youface the grave, I need it.
Where are you gonna get it? Theonly place to get it is from
Jesus Christ . So let'ssummarize. What have we
learned? Number one, we allneed meaning and purpose to
life. Number two, we all needpower over the self-destructive

(22:47):
passions that live inside ofus. Number three, we all need
peace of mind that can handlethe worst train wreck. And
number four, we all need theassurance of immortality. And
I'm happy to announce to youthat the reason why Jesus
Christ came to earth was togive you and me and every human

(23:07):
being alive, these four things.
And he will give it to us ifwe'll just give him a chance in
our life. At 21 years old, whenthe man who led me to Christ
challenged me to prove God to ,to open my life up and give God
a chance to prove himself tome, let me tell you how I felt.
Number one, I was scared. I wasscared because I'm Jewish.

(23:31):
Jewish people don't do this.
You understand what I'm saying?
I mean, this was a huge risk.
Second of all, let me tell youhow I felt. I was skeptical,
cynical. I thought, eh ,Christianity, gimme a break,
man. All these Christians inthe world, world, if
Christianity was real, I meanthe world would be a different
place. Gimme a break. But therewas one other feeling I had at

(23:52):
that moment, and that is that Iwas desperate. I was desperate.
I had looked everywhere theworld said to look and then
some, and I could not findthese four things anywhere. In
fact, I was desperate enoughthat I said, well, in spite of
my skepticism and in spite ofmy fear, I'm gonna give it a

(24:15):
try. Anyway, folks, that wasthe best decision I've ever
made in my life 27 years ago.
And maybe you're here today andyou're a little scared of a
what a decision to Christ mightmean for you. You don't even
understand maybe what it meansfor you and maybe you're pretty
skeptical yourself. The realquestion is though, are you

(24:36):
desperate enough that you'rewilling to give Jesus Christ a
chance to prove himself real toyou? That's the question. Let's
bow our heads together, shallwe? Father, I want to thank you
for many of us here who'vealready made that decision, who
already enjoy these four thingsin our life. And as Christmas

(24:56):
approaches remind us that youdidn't come into the world so
that we could go to the malland buy presents that you
didn't come into the world sowe could have Christmas trees
and put presents under them,but that you came into the
world because you loved us somuch and you cared about us so
much that you wanted us to havethese four things that you knew
we could look the rest of ourlives and we would never find

(25:18):
in this world. So may our'sChristmas season as Christians
be dominated by rejoicing Lordat your love for us and your
practical concern for us. Welove you, Lord, for doing this
for us. We frankly, not quitesure why you did 'cause we know
who we are, but we sure loveyou for doing it. And may, may

(25:43):
that sense of loving you, maythat sense of enjoying your
love be the foundation of ourChristmas season this year. We
pray these things in Jesus'name. Amen.