Proverbs 3:5a
“THE SOCIAL NETWORK”
Yeah, I saw the movie…pretty good flick, “The Social Network.” I personally didn’t like it near as much as “The King’s Speech” (neither did the Oscar voters by the way), but nonetheless I watched it and enjoyed it. Many of you know (since you are my “friends”) that I am in fact a “social networker.” I do, in fact, have a Facebook page. Now I am almost certainly not near as active as most of you on Facebook. I don’t post many photos, and I don’t change my status a whole lot, and I sure don’t make it a habit of writing on other people’s walls. Nonetheless, I am there. Me and my over 1,000 Facebook friends and about a billion other Facebook members are there…amazing, simply amazing. Social Networking has become the primary means of communication for an entire generation of the world’s population, even threatening to make a dinosaur of email. At camp, we even “broadcast” the Ultimate Solution (don’t worry you will learn the importance of the Ultimate Solution if you don’t know it already) by updating our Facebook status as every event unfolds. And so it was that I was extremely interested in this story of the birth of Facebook which gave legs to this revolution called “social networking,” and it truly is an amazing story.
A young Harvard “geek,” Mark Zuckerburg, is dumped by his girlfriend and, feeling rejected, he immediately wants revenge so he creates “ facemash.” Through this new website, students can go online and rate their preference for the face of one co-ed over another using an algorithm supplied to him by his close friend. Meanwhile, two twins, members of the Harvard Rowing Team, are working on their own version of social connectivity and Mark Zuckerburg has been contracted to help them develop their site. As the movie unfolds, Zuckerburg creates Facebook with the help of his friend, and is ultimately sued by the twins and his friend. This results in broken relationships, lots of money changing hands, and all of the parties winding up very rich but very conflicted and feeling very unsatisfied.
In the end, to me, it was an extremely sad story. In the end, to me, it was a true story of the human condition. In the end, to me, it was a microcosm of the difficulties, challenges and choices that each of us who proclaim to be Christians (yes, I know none of the characters in the movie were likely Christians), must deal with on a regular basis: the challenge of ego, of pride, of power, of money, of fame, of status, of rejection, and the challenge of finding your identity, your personal “facebook,” in something other than Christ. The fact of the matter, young people, is this: all of us have to make one simple choice. Who or what is your Lord?
Yesterday, we talked about the requirement of Christians to trust, to have and act in faith, to rely on, to depend on…something. And believe it or not, there are only two possible answers to that question. You can choose to trust in God through the redeeming grace of His Son, Jesus Christ…or not. That’s it. Period. End of choice. Either Jesus is Lord or something else is lord of your life. Most of us latch on and hold tight to the claim that Jesus is our Savior…and He is. However, equally important is the question, is Jesus your Lord? Make no mistake about it, the lord of your life is not necessarily who or what you say it is. The lord of your life is wherever you find your identity. Everyone gets their identity, their sense of being distinct and valuable from someone or something. We as human beings were created not only to believe in God, to claim Him as our Savior, but to love Him supremely, center our lives on Him above anything else, and build our identity in Him.
The very first of the Ten Commandments tells us that we are to have “no other Gods before Him.” To do otherwise is to sin. Therefore, the primary definition of sin is not just doing bad things, but making good things (family, relationships, career, power, money) into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and identity than God, in other words making something else your Lord. Most of us are willing to give Jesus a part of our identity, but hold back on giving him our complete self. Why? Because we are asking Jesus to be our Savior but refusing to make Him our Lord. We have our own ambitions, we have our own priorities, we have our own passions, and we have our own dreams. We have things that are ultimately more important to us than God. We can’t allow Jesus to preclude those things because you see, young people, Christianity is the only religion that requires us to completely give up who we want to be and become a new creation, a new self, based on who God wants us to be. Don’t kid yourself. That is not an easy decision to make; however, let me speak to you from 62 years of experience. Everything else you depend on to provide joy and peace and meaning in your life, and I mean everything else, will ultimately fail you. I don’t care what it is. Family, Friends, Money, Social Status, Career, Physical Beauty, Power, Fame…none of them are sufficient to provide you the peace and joy that only come when Jesus is Lord. All of those other things crowd Jesus out for one reason and one reason only. You trust them more than you trust Christ. You believe in yourself more than you believe in Him, you care about things more than you care about becoming a new self in Him. You think that your desires, your thoughts, your rights, your ways will ultimately lead to more happiness than the unknown, uncontrollable, surprising, scary ways of a God who loves you ultimately more than you could ever begin to love yourself.
This summer you can survive by trusting in yourself. No doubt. You can have a blast by trusting in yourself. Absolutely. You can make friends with kids and staff by trusting in yourself and go home at the end of your time feeling pretty good, or…you can make Jesus your Lord not just your Savior and you can begin an adventure, an experience that is so unlike anything you could ever create for yourself, you won’t know what hit you. When Jesus is your Lord, life is not always easy, but it is always joyful. When Jesus is your Lord, life is not always comfortable, but it is always meaningful. When Jesus is your Lord, life is not always simple, but it is always characterized by peace, security, and a renewed sense of self because you are a new creation, the creation of the Lord of your life, Jesus Christ. It is not easy, but it is essential. Think about it, will you? And, oh, by the way, check me out on Facebook. Who knows, you might even want to be my friend. I am, after all, a “social networker.”
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