For those of you who are older than
30, YOLO is the new expression for justifying pretty much any
behaviour that lets you live for the moment. The reasoning goes “you
only live once so go out and have fun”.
This video clip from a girl
called Kesha that really exemplifies this life style.
We see here the belief that to live in
the moment is to get drunk, have sex, cheat on our partners, party
wildly, vandalism throw away responsibility. This song tells us that if we are
going to die young then we may as well live it up as best we can now
by not feeling any shame or guilt for the way we act. Rebellion
against the established order is also shown through anti-Christian
symbols. Did any one spot the pentagram, sign of witch craft, and the
upside down cross?
There is another way to view YOLO
though, and
this video clip that shows this
understanding....
Ok so this is obviously meant to be
poking fun but it really does have an interesting view point. The
idea of YOLO, you only live once, leads to a fear of death. In fact
both clips show this.
The second clip shows it in an extreme
way, telling us that we really need to lock ourselves away in order
to live a careful life and preserve it at all costs. The first clip
doesn't seem to be showing fear of death, but think about it this
way. It is only fear of not living long enough to fulfill all our
dreams, or have enough fun, that fuels a lifestyle like this. It is
the fear of missing out, or FOMO, that comes from the fear that if
this life is it then we really have to milk it for all its worth.
So what do we do with this? What is the
alternative to partying it up or hiding ourselves away?
Surprise, surprise, but the Bible
actually has A LOT to say about YOLO!!! Who would've thought it! Here
we are 2000ish years after this book has been written and it can
speak directly into a situation that they had never even heard of!
HEBREWS 12:1-4 (MESSAGE version)
Do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running - and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. 2 Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. 3 When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! 4 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through - all that bloodshed!
Ok, so it doesn't mention YOLO or even
FOMO or anything like that.
It might not mention those directly but
look at what it is saying. It is telling us that somehow other people
know what we are facing, that Jesus knows what we are facing!
But before I go into it too much I want
to give you a little context. Before this particular passage the
author has just had a huge talk about all these other dudes who
show up in the Bible. They talk about what they got up to and how
they trusted in God. They pretty much sum up the Bible story in terms
of individuals and their walks with God. So at the beginning when
they say “all these veterans” what they are talking about are
people who have gone before us who had to put their faith in God too,
even when it got tough.
This author knows what it is like to
live a hard life when being a Christian. Christians weren't exactly
the favourite people in those days. In fact they were pretty hated.
They were abused and laughed at and seen as kind of weird for living
differently to the rest of society.
I don't know about you but that sounds
awfully similar to what it is like to be a Christian now who says no
to going to parties or having sex before marriage and all that stuff.
People think we are strange. They think we are party-poopers, kill
joys, fun sponges. Anyone else find that sometimes?
This author doesn't tell us that,
actually, we should try really hard to fit in because it is better if
you live in such a way that people don't know your a Christian. They
don't tell us that they understand how hard it is and really it is
understandable that we give in every now and then because we want to
have a bit of fun and don't want to miss out.
Nope. Look at what they do say.
They tell us to start running and never
quit!
I
am trying to loose weight at the moment and I tell ya, going to the
gym every day is NOT my favourite thing to do.
Anyone who has had
to train in anything knows that it is hard. It is brutal. Making
yourself get up every day and do the same thing, to knowingly have to
push yourself through pain, is sometimes just the opposite of what
you want to do. Some days there is a pay off and you feel good
afterwards, and some days you just feel more tired and exhausted and
you just want to give up and never do it again.
Usually at those
times you will have a goal that you want to achieve that pushes you
to keep going. Maybe it is a gold medal, or in my case a weight I
want to achieve. Whatever it is, in your mind you keep your eye on
the prize because there are days when that is the only reason you
have to push through.
This author is
using that analogy. They are saying that life isn't about wild living
that ignores the pain in the world. It isn't about instant
gratification that makes us feel good. Nor is it about quitting,
running away and hiding from everything. Instead it is race.
We start the race
when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we go “yeah,
Jesus, I want you to be the head of my life because really, I have
done a crap job up until now”. That day when we ask him to lead,
that is the day we start running.
And we
keep going. Everyday. We study how Jesus lived his life so we can
train in the same way. We look at the love he had for others and the
complete submission he had to the Father and we practice that in our
own lives. We look at the pain he went through, the suffering, and we
know that we can face anything with God beside and inside us. We read
the stories of other people who have gone before us. We see that at
times they fail, but they do not give up, and it is those stories
that give us strength to keep going.
And above all we
see that for Jesus the race didn't end in death. We don't run this
race for nothing. Our prize at the end is that we don't only
live once. We live again, in an eternity of God's rest. We will see
this world renewed without the pain and the heartache, and we will
finally get to see the man that we were running for. We will get to
see Jesus.
But there
is the question of how do we train for life? It seems like a rather
strange thing to ask us to do really when we have no idea what life
will bring. How do you prepare for something that you can predict?
There are 3 easy steps
that I think can help us all train in Christ for whatever may happen
in life.
Read your Bible's. Now I know this seems like such the obvious
Christian thing to say right now. But I am talking about more than
just picking up the book and saying “Jesus speak to me today”
and then hoping that we get it right in what we read. No. I mean
study it. Get books out on how to interpret the verses. Get a good
daily reading plan that helps explain the verses. Talk to people who
have studied it. This church is full of leaders who have study the
Bible. Use them, utilize their knowledge. Because the Bible doesn't
start “Dear Christine” and end “Love from God”. Not
everything is clear and we may get it really wrong. But we need to
train our minds with Scripture if we are to know what it says.
And this leads to
my second step:
Once we actually know what the Bible is saying to us we need to obey
it. There is no point doing all that hard work of reading the thing
if we are going to ignore it. Once we have trained our minds we need
to train our actions. This becomes easier as you fill your minds
with good stuff. Our conscience becomes more clear when we are doing
things that might not be good. We start to analyse tv programmes,
video clips and books better because we do it through the lens of
the Bible. We start living more like Christ and loving God and
people. And the more the do this the easier it becomes to
Persevere. This last step is about training no matter what. About
studying the Bible, analysing our thoughts and feelings and actions
through it, no matter what happens, no matter what life throws at
us. Because there will be times when it is harder to do than others,
and it is only training in 1) and 2) that will help you with 3).
Now I know that
this doesn't sound fun. Things like study, training, perseverance,
obedience aren't exactly words that make us jump up and yell “sign
me up. I so want a piece of that!”
I'm not gonna lie
to you and tell you that life with Jesus is sunshine and roses. In
fact life may get harder for you as you live in the world but as
someone who lives differently to it. There are times when you will
want to throw it all away and party and forget the hardship of life.
Trust me, we have all been there. Talk to anyone who has been a
Christian for a while and they will tell you that they have moments
where doubts creep in, where temptation is strong, when they wish
they could just walk away.
But here is the
amazing thing.
You don't do it
alone.
You aren't a
marathon runner who is out there pounding the streets alone. You have
a great cloud of witnesses, past and present, who have gone before
you and who cheer you on. They help you with their writings and
sermons, the things that they have learned. And you have
Christ, who has showed us the way and modeled how to do it.
See we
run for Christ, to Christ, with Christ, and through the strength of
Christ. We run to be like Christ, so we train under Christ, because
we stand firm on our foundation which is Christ. And as we keep
running, it is the story of Christ that renews our strength and faith
when we feel it failing.
We are coming up to
Easter now, a time when we remember that Christ died and rose again.
We remember why we are running the race in the first place. We
remember that we follow a God who not only went into the grave, but
came back out of it, and promised us the same.
We remember that we
don't only live once. Don't live waiting to die. Don't live as Kesha
would tell you to live, so scared that you will die before you do
anything fun that you go wild. Don't live as Lonely Island tells you
to live, so scared of something going wrong that you barracade
yourself away from the world. Both of these types of people are
living waiting for death. Death is what shapes and forms their lives.
In trying to hide from it, in reality it is ruling them.
Christ on the other
hand brings life and life in full. He frees us from sin. What that
means is we don't have to live afraid of death because we have no
hope in anything after it. It means that he gives us strength to say
no to things that are bad for us. It means that we don't carry around
guilt or shame for things that we have done. It means having the
weight of the world, of fear, of shame, taken off our shoulders
because he already carried it.
The Christian
churchy way of saying all this is that we die to ourselves. It's a
kind of hard concept to grasp, I mean how do we actually do that. It
is easier if I give you some examples than to try and explain it in
words.
Dying to self is
when a young 17 year old man fails in a suicide attempt that he tried
because his life was meaningless. When he came through it he said to
God that his own attempts to fix his life had failed so now he was
going to give God a chance to sort it out. Since then he has let God
direct his path, has fallen in love with Scripture, and has a meaning
and purpose that he never had before. He died to himself by giving up
his own wish to die, by letting God take control. He gave up what he
wanted and listened to what God wanted instead.
Dying to self is
the 16 year old girl who had a moment of passion with her boyfriend
and ended up pregnant. She went to church and was a sunday school
leader but had fallen into temptation that changed her life. She
wanted to get an abortion but on the way to the clinic changed her
mind. She pulled the car over and prayed that God would give her
strength to raise a baby even though she was a child herself. She
died to self in that she gave up her own fear to God, her desire to
remain young and carefree, and the shame that she would feel in
facing her peers. She raised that child to follow God and thanks
Jesus everyday that he is in control and that he gave her strength to
keep her baby.
Dying to self is
the 20 year old who looks at porn everyday. He knows others do too
but it is destroying him inside. He feels so ashamed and dirty every
time he goes to the websites but the temptation seems too strong and
he feels he can't stop. He has tried praying and reading his bible
but he fails over and over as the desire takes hold. In desperation
he asks God to help him overcome his shame and he reaches out to a
friend for help. He died to himself in that he gave it to God, he
gave up his desires and his fear of rejection and, with the strength
of God asked others for help. He still fails, it is still a struggle,
but he gives it over to God every time and dies to himself everyday.
See, if you really
believe in Christ then it is time to start living it. Because
if we don't live out what we believe then the grace we have been
given we are throwing in God's face. We are saying that Jesus' death
wasn't important enough for you to give up drinking, drugs, sleeping
around, downloading music illegally, watching porn...whatever it is.
You are saying that your happiness in that moment is sooooo
important, that it is more important than what Jesus did for you. You
are saying that your sin is more powerful that his love. That you
would rather be a slave to culture than free in Christ.
It is
time for the death of YOLO. Stop living as if you are waiting to die.
Die to yourself, your own selfish desires and sin, so that you may
live in Christ, that you might live forever.
He goes on to argue that for ethics to really really engage with a community (in this circumstance a Christian community that uses the Bible as Scripture) then the Bible is not a text that we memorise and then act out, as a drama would imply. Rather, it is a story we immerse ourselves in to the point where we know it so well we can improvise while remaining faithful to the text, to God, and to our community.
If you look at any game you can see that it is the Hero that is celebrated. You need to fight well, protect others, be strong and courageous. Death isn't really wanted, but you can rejuvenate and better to die in a battle that to not battle at all.
