Some background:

My dad died when I was 17. I never thought about death before that……I thought about it a lot after…….and I was terrified. I worried a lot about my death……at age 17. I decided to live my life in such a way that, if I died at age 40, I’d have gotten my money’s worth. I became a practicing secular humanist. This went on for a decade or so. I married a great woman and had 3 sons……who were challenging. I had a good hard look at Christianity. I decided that there was enough hard evidence for the resurrection of Christ that it was true. And if the ressurection was real, then the teaching of Christ was very important. I became a practicing Christian. And here I am.

So……..what is death. Death is a curtain that we approach at the end of this life. And at age 70 that approach is getting close for me. We cannot see through the curtain. We cannot know with absolute certainty what lies behind it………no matter how confident we are. It is a drastic change. Scientists would call it a singularity.

What is behind the curtain? There are three possibilities: nothing, something good, and something bad.

Nothing means nothing. No person, no place, no you, no creator. In a word, when you die, your friends and family put you in a hole and cover you with dirt. This is the end point for secular humanists, who believe that if you can’t see it, measure it, or manipulate it…….it cannot be real. The implications of nothing in our daily life are profound. Because you are the highest life form (you personally…..not mankind in general) you get to define what is right and what is wrong. You can do as you please. All you have to do is define your appetites as being right……..define your personal morality as being right……..you can even define your sex however you want. The problem is that everyone else is doing the same thing and they demand that you honor their definitions. Your decision to give the money in your pocket to the guy with the little cardboard sign on the exit ramp is no more valid than the thug’s decision to kill you and take the money. The pro life advocate’s belief in the value of life is no more valid than the abortionist who spends his day killing unborn children. In practice, this is how our culture works. And don’t bother committing the unforgivable crime of our culture……..telling the other guy he is wrong. His definition of right and wrong is every bit as valid as yours. The irony is that he will waste no time in telling you that you are wrong. Tolerance seems to be a one way street. The good news is that “nothing” is pretty safe. No matter what you have done, there is no lasting consequence.

Something, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. It could be temporary or eternal. It could be very good or very bad. The good news, if you are a Christian, is that you get to choose your fate. Recognize Christ……or deny him. Choose eternal goodness or eternal badness.

The irony is that, purely by accident, Henley was right in his poem “Invictus”.

“I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”

“Invictus” by Henly

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7, ESV

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4, ESV

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalms 23:4, ESV

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus, talking to a bad man who recognized his divinity, Luke 23:43

I begin this week with a very narrow but very complex question.

What does God want……..from mankind……from me?

This post obviously begins with the assumption that God, the creator, exists. If you don’t believe in a creator…..if you believe it’s all a big series of accidents…. then relax, you can do as you please…….there are no overarching rules……..there are no expectations…….there is no reward and there is no punishment……..as long as you are right. But, the probabilities are working against you.

God went to a lot of trouble to create the 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. He went to a lot of trouble to design the 200 billion chemical bonds that make up your and my genome…..all of it exquisitely tuned, interconnected, and coordinated to make life possible. But why? He must have had a purpose in mind. What could God have hoped to get out of all of this effort?

The answer, I believe, is found in our very nature. It is there because we bear the fingerprints of our creator. It is written on our hearts. It is written on our hearts because it is important to God. And, as it turns out, the most important desire of our hearts is exactly the same as the most important desire of God’s heart.

Relationship.

Ask any adult, “what is the one thing that you have lost in your lifetime that you regret the most?”

Ask any adult, “name one thing that you would give up everything else for?”

The most common answer by far will be a relationship.

The Bible underscores this. Over and over again, the question comes up. “What does God expect of me?………What does God require of me?”
The Bible gives us a lot of guidelines; but, there is only one thing that is absolutely required. There is only one non-negotiable prerequisite.

Relationship.

Relationship can be thought of as the distance between you and God. You can almost measure it. You can compare this distance on a day to day or a year to year basis. You can compare it over time for yourself. You can compare it over time for our culture as a whole.

And this raises the central question:

How close are you to God today? As a nation, how close are we to God today?

Are you closer……are we closer…… today than yesterday……are we closer……this year than last year?

I would caution that, as a culture, our distance from God is growing. My ability to heal that gap……for the culture as a whole……..is limited. But, the distance between me individually and God is completely in my hands. The distance between my family and God is also in my hands. The greatest gift that I can give to my family is to grow our relationship, to diminish the distance between us and God.

This is critical……because, in the end, the quality of your life, will be judged by that one measurement. When you die and move on to phase two of your existence, that measurement is the only data point that will matter.

Anything that you do that increases that distance is failure. Anything that you do that doesn’t affect that distance is irrelevant. Anything you do that draws you closer to God, is progress.

So, consider the metrics that you use to assess your life:

Your net worth
The value of your house
The success of your children
Your position at work
The win/loss ratio for your favorite sports team
The distance between you and God

Only one of these has any lasting significance.

There are two corrolaries that flow from this.

Your distance metric can be improved….right now.

The guy with the little cardboard sign on the exit ramp could have a better distance metric than yours.

Something to ponder.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

Jesus, John 14:6-7, ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Jesus, Matthew 7:21-23, ESV

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:10-13, ESV

I’m 70 years old. I spent 25 years in one formal school or another. Then I went to work. At the end of my career, I realized that most of the knowledge that I used every day in my work……I learned “on the job”. The real lesson here is that no matter what you do for a living…….if you are breathing……. you are learning. Life is one big school. Your only real graduation…….is when you die.

In grade school, your teacher presented you with information. Some of it went right over your head. Some of it you didn’t agree with. Some of it you slept through (mea culpa). And some of it stuck. Today, I want to explore the information that stuck. It is this teaching/learning that matters, because this is what has shaped you……that will continue to shape you….into the person that you are and will become. There is a caveat here. When a teacher presents you with information, you don’t get to choose whether to learn it or not. The fact is that you retain most of it……. whether you like it or not…… whether you agree with it or not…….whether you even realize it or not. You retain this information whether it is good for you……or whether it is bad for you.

At my age I have been exposed to a great deal of information. Some of it is constructive and some of it is destructive. As I sit here, there is a jingle from a drug company ad that I cannot get out of my head. From time to time an image of a woman from my days as a subscriber to Playboy returns. I don’t like this information, I don’t want this information; but, I chose to let it into my life and it will be there till I die. And it will be a part of what shapes the man I am still becoming.

So, what’s the point?

You absorb the information that you are exposed to. You have very little ability to filter through this information, once you have been exposed. And this information shapes the person that you are becoming. This information shapes your character. There is an old line from the early days of computer programming. For us old farts this was the age of “punch cards”. Look it up if you are under 60.

“Garbage in…..garbage out.”

Put bad data into a computer and you will get bad analysis out. There is a multibillion dollar industry whose only business is to expose you to data…..information…..that profits them. It is centered around your TV, your smart phone, your radio, even the pump at the gas station. Soon your refrigerator will be in on it. Some, possibly most, of the information that these people are selling you is bad for the development of your character.

How can you protect yourself?

There is only one way. You have to pre-filter the information that you allow into your life. You have to pre filter the information that you allow to shape your character.

Here are some of the things that I try to filter out of my life. You need to make your own list:

“Entertainment” that centers around killing people……most crime shows, most westerns, most war movies. Over half of TV shows include violent content. By age 18 a typical young person has witnessed about 10,000 murders on TV. By comparison, only 1/3 of 18 year olds have been to church 1000 times. For most young adults, the number is drastically lower.

Late night TV. Johnny Carson has been replaced by talk shows that are selling a political agenda.

Smart phones that will provide you with information that proves that what you believe is right and true……no matter what you believe.

Filtering out this information will create a giant void in your life. How do you fill that void?

Call a friend on the phone…….and talk.

Join a club.

Read a good book.

Volunteer.

Get involved in serving others.

Get active in your church.

In short…..you need to become more discriminating in the sources of information that you incorporate into your character. This will not be easy.

You are swimming upstream.

“When you dance with the devil…… the devil doesn’t change…….you do”

Nicholas Cage commenting on a violent film in the movie “8 mm”

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Jesus commenting on how what we see shapes us, Matthew 6:22-23, ESV