Overcommitted To Appearances

Today I want to start by telling you the story about this beautiful boat. If you’ve ever been to Long Beach, California - you’ve probably seen this monster of a boat - called the Queen Mary. She was launched in all of her pristeened glory in 1936, she served through four decades and a world war before she was retired. Part of the maintenance of the ship was to paint the smoke stacks a fresh bright red every year that she was an ocean liner. 31 years! But then in 1967, when they were converting her from ocean liner to floating hotel, she became a great tourist attraction, museum, type thing - but during the conversion they wanted to remove the old boilers from the boat. And to do that, they had to pull those funnels off the top, and lift the boilers out through the hole in the top. So they go in, lift up the vent stacks, you know - using a crane or some such - and then they swing over and set the stack on the pier. And as soon as they set the funnels on the pier, the entire thing crumpled in on itself. Turns out, thirty one years of salt air had rotted away all the metal, ¾ of an inch of metal - gone, and all that was left was ¾ inch of paint. It was a husk. And empty shell. They had to get brand new smokestacks for the floating hotel. Beautiful on the outside, empty on the inside. 

But you know, I think a lot of us can relate to that. Do you have parts of your life that are beautiful on the outside, but empty on the inside? So much of our society is designed around looking good on the outside, even if there’s nothing real on the inside. Especially in West Michigan - there’s such a Christian energy in the air, there’s such an expectation in daily life to sort of be the “perfect Church person” all the time. And it doesn’t have to be real, or authentic or go deep or any of that - it just has to look good. I don’t care if you cried the whole way to church - you wipe your face off, clean it up and get out there and convince those people everything is fine. My wife Sara and I got to go to this conference this past week. And it was such a wonderful gift - we got to spend time together, grab a meal together - incredible worship, powerful speakers, loads of really amazing stuff. But also, it can be really challenging to juggle big conferences and childcare for our kiddos. And that second night we thought they might actually want to come and experience the worship with us. And so at the end, we actually brought the kids to the conference for the second night. And there were some highs - my daughter’s dancing to the music, and my children are sitting in my lap while we prayed together. There were wonderful moments - but also, it was super overstimulating, which was probably a bad idea. And so we had a whole bunch of meltdowns when it came to bedtime. I counted them - there were 11 meltdowns, and I’ve only got five kids. So each kid got two meltdowns and then I got to have one. And I don’t tell you this for pity or attention, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad or anything. But this morning I just want to paint you a picture of something that’s real. Because I think that’s what we’re all searching for. For a lot of us, we searching - desperately searching - for something that is real. And maybe a little bit, we’re worried that underneath all the layers of paint is nothing. It’s an empty shell, and nothing more. For some of us - that has been our experience with God or with the church. Just layers and layers of paint with nothing underneath it. 

Every day that goes by the world becomes more fake. Whether it’s politicians who will say and do anything to stay in power - flipping positions like lightswitches, and selling out principles for whatever the voters like the most. Or companies - corporations that sell us stuff - they’re so phony! Whether it’s pride flags or Christian symbols - they don’t actually believe in any of this stuff, they don’t actually have principles or morals, they’re just trying to sell a product. They wear our core beliefs like a jersey so we feel like we are all on the same team. But what really freaks me out is these AI videos - they can make anyone say anything. We’re getting to a place where you can’t even tell what is real anymore. And into this hurricane of hypocrisy, into this culture of coverup, into this tornado of truth and untruth - steps each one of us, searching for something authentic, something real. 

Today we are finishing up our series called Overcommitted. And the core theme all throughout this series has been that if there is an imbalance in your life - if you are overcommitted to something, the way to fix it is to abide with Jesus. There is power in gluing ourselves to the presence of Jesus and how that presence can establish or re-establish balance in our life. And so if you want to grab your bibles, we are going to search together for something real in the story of a man who was overcommitted to appearances.  

Now last week we were in 1 Samuel, chapter 2 - but today we’re going to jump forward to chapter 15. If you want to take a second and look that up - it’s going to be in the front half of the bible, and I always love to take a second and encourage you to bring your bible to church - and I make you this promise - if you bring it, we will open it. We’re all about the word of God in this church. And I’ll be reading from the NLT translation - there’s lots of fantastic translations, but if you want the words to match exactly - make sure you toggle your phone translation to NLT. Chapter 15, verse 12 [read v.12]. Now as we get into this - let me paint a picture for you for a second. Last week we touched on the story where Samuel was born - and his mom Hannah raised him up to know all about God. But now Samuel is all grown up - he’s the prophet of Israel, and what that means is that God gives him a word, and he gives that word to the people of Israel. Now Saul is the first king of the people of Israel. He took the scattered tribes and united them under one banner - he took 12 tribes and created one kingdom. And Samuel anointed Saul. Samuel came to Saul and said, “you are going to be the King.” And Saul, the bible tells us, Saul is an impressive dude. When we introduce his character, way back in chapter nine, it literally says that Saul was the most handsome man in all of Israel, head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the land. By the time we get to our scripture in chapter 15, Saul has had military victory after victory. He has consolidated power and the people are united behind him. But Saul has an important secret. The bible makes it very clear - Saul is the beefiest of beef-cakes, an absolute specimen of a human being. Head and shoulders taller, the most handsome man in the land, epic warrior - this is better than when Brad Pitt played Achilles in the movie Troy. Chiseled. But underneath all of that - on the inside, Saul was deeply insecure. On the outside, everything looked amazing, but on the inside - he was very small. And that insecurity gets him into trouble over and over. We open up in verse 12, and Saul has just set up a monument to himself. And have I mentioned how handsome he was? But then, down at the end of this story - verse 17, [v.17]. And I read that and I went - wait, what? He just built a monument to himself - what is Samuel playing at? But there’s some deep wisdom here - sometimes the people who look the best on the outside, feel the smallest on the inside. Saul is one of those whose life looks SO good on the outside, but the amount of times he acts out of fear, or does things trying to appease other people is staggering. His entire reign falls apart because it wasn’t enough to have it look good on the outside. 

[maybe a bit juxtaposing this against King David].

And so Samuel is looking for Saul - and he talks to someone who tells him “Oh, he just set up a monument to himself and then he went to the town of Gilgal.” Now Samuel is looking for Saul for a reason. God gave Saul a job, and Saul didn’t do it. Saul was told - it’s time to defeat these guys the Amalekites. They’ve been doing all kinds of evil stuff, we need to get rid of them - destroy all their stuff. But Saul didn’t do that. Saul defeated them in battle, and then he looked at all the stuff. He was told - kill all the animals, but he didn’t want to. Back in verse 9 it says, [read v.9]. So Saul is keeping the spoils of war that God told him to destroy. Verse 13, [read v.13]. Did he really carry out the Lord’s command? No! He kept the animals for himself. And Samuel has such a petty response, I love it so much. He says, in verse 14, [read v.14]. Huh. You killed all the sheep? Then why do I hear sheep? And then we get into this sort of back and forth where Saul is throwing up excuses and Samuel is smacking them down. [read v.14-22]. Well, I only kept the animals so I could sacrifice them to God!  Which, I think we can all agree - is just absolute nonsense. It’s like a 4 year old getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and then turning all sweet - “well, mommy, I was just getting a cookie for YOU!” But Samuel’s having none of it. Samuel says “obedience is better than sacrifice” and what he means is that this is not just about what it looks like on the outside. True obedience is not just about making it look better on the outside. And this is so important for our lives here today - God is not merely interested in what the outside looks like, but he is deeply invested in your heart.  

When I was in high school, my parents had pretty strict rules about what I had to do before I could go hang out with my friends. I played a bunch of instruments - so I had to practice a half an hour on the piano, then a half an hour on the clarinet, and then do all my homework before I could go hang out. And of course I didn’t want to practice my clarinet or the piano, I wanted to play my guitar - so that was just going to set me back even more. Now, I wanted to be a good kid - I can’t lie to my parents. I’ve never been good at lying, but I could twist it a little bit. And so this is what I would do - kids, DO NOT take notes. I would sit down at the piano, and play one scale: up and down, done. Then I would go into my room, assemble the clarinet - play one scale. Take it apart, dry it off, put it away. I could do all of my practicing in about five minutes. And so when I came to my parents and said, “mother and father may I please go romp around the neighborhood irresponsibly with the other youths?” I knew they were always going to ask me, “Did you practice your clarinet?” Yes, I played my clarinet. Why are you phrasing it like that - did you practice your piano? Yes, I played the piano. Now on paper, technically, I was not lying. But was I obeying my parents? Of course not! I WAS lying to them in my own way. And I know that’s a silly example, but I think we all do this to some degree. We are obsessed with trying to make things look better than they actually are. Did you know that 84% of people admit to presenting a false or exaggerated version of themselves on social media? 64% of millennials feel pressure to appear successful online. And we obsess over it! The average adult spends two and half hours a DAY on social media, curating their content. The average adult checks their phone 96 times a day. And here’s the kicker - 54% of teens say social media makes them feel worse about their own appearance. We have seen steady decline in self image ever since they started putting cameras on the front of phones. 

In fact, I’m going to give you this challenge now - I usually save my weekly challenges for the end, but I’m going to get into it now. If you’re on social media, I want to recommend a digital detox. Take a social media fast. You don’t have to delete your accounts, but get it off your phone, get it off your computer - don’t check it for a week, or better yet a month. Or, and this is a little more challenging - instead of a full fast give yourself boundaries. A social media fast is SO good for your mental health, but the problem is when the fasting is done - a lot of people go right back to it. So another route is to put boundaries on your usage. Maybe give yourself a time limit, or change how you use the apps. Good boundaries can be like, “I’m not going to use this in front of my kids.” “I’m not going to do it right when I wake up or right when I go to bed.” Give yourself a time limit. There are apps and settings where you can actually see how much time you spend on each app - and let me tell you, it is a hard and honest look in the mirror. And parents, I want to encourage you to hold off giving social media to your kids as long as possible. I know there’s a ton of peer pressure and it’s really hard - but they are now recommending 16 as the minimum age when kids get social media, and a lot of schools are adopting no phones at all - not just in the classrooms, but in the hallways, at the school entirely. Most of social media encourages us to care more about appearances.

We are a culture that is obsessed with making it look better than it really is. And the chief of all sinners with this is CHURCH PEOPLE. Oh! We know how to make it look good, don’t we? Now I can respect the desire to dress nice, to come to church and present ourselves with honor and respect before God - I see where they were coming from. But what that has created over the years is a collection of beautiful buildings with rows and rows of well dressed people who are convinced that they are nothing more than layers and layers of paint - and all of us are terrified of the people next to us finding out that we are frauds. And I want to be clear - we are not frauds, but when you become overcommitted to appearances, that’s what it feels like. And what’s crazy, a little bit, is that I have to talk about it from up here - because we don’t like to admit it to each other, and so we feel so alone. I have had dozens of these conversations in every single church I have ever served. I once had a guy come talk to me, this was years ago, just reeking of alcohol. And I was like, you good man? Did you fall in a bottle of gin on the way over here? What’s going on man? And he was like, “well, I’m not like other people in the church - I’m just a mess, and I was really nervous to come talk to you - so I had to have a couple of beers to settle my nerves before I came in here.” He literally thought he had to get drunk in order to work up the courage to come tell his pastor that he wasn’t a perfect person. And if we have that level of insecurity INSIDE the church, can you imagine how people from outside the church feel? We are so good, at looking so good, and we are so empty. There is a plague of spiritual loneliness in our community. I have buddy who serves another church as their pastor, he does such an amazing job - he’s a great pastor and he talks about wanting a “messy church.” And he’s been praying for that - God I want a messy church, a church where people can be real, where people can come as they are and truly experience transformation. And you know what? God is answering that prayer. And now he’s got all these stories of drug addicts and broken families stumbling in, busted up and raw - and experiencing revival in the presence of Jesus. What we see with Samuel scolding Saul is that what God actually wanted was obedience. God cares more about the heart than the appearance.

And almost to emphasize the point we just made - in the very next chapter, Samuel the prophet goes to meet the future king David. And we’re not going to get into it that much, but it’s a pretty famous story. If you’ve never heard it, I’ll give you the cliff notes. Remember how we described Saul - big man, handsome, warrior, all of that. So God tells Samuel - I want you to go and anoint a new king, so go to this guy Jessie’s house. And he tells Jessie, I’ve come for a purification rite - bring me all your sons. And in chapter 16, verse 6 he says, [read v.6-7]. I don’t know what Eliab looks like, but Samuel’s a little star struck. But God comes to him and says, “didn’t we just learn the lesson with Saul?” Because God doesn’t look at what it looks like, God looks at what it is. And they do this whole thing where they run through all of Jessie’s sons - but one was missing. The runt of the litter, not worthy to be considered - he’s out watching the sheep. And that young man is the future King David. But here’s where people get it mixed up a little bit. David was not good because he was a tiny guy. Sometimes we tell this story and we say, “Saul was impressive and David was not - God picked David, so it’s better to be not impressive.” But if we think that we completely miss the point. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what matters is the level of surrender in your heart. Saul was a bad dude, and did a lot of bad stuff - David was also a bad dude, who made a lot of mistakes. The difference was not their appearance, it is not their actions - it was the fact that David’s heart was completely surrendered to God. In your life, here today, some of you come looking impressive - some of you come looking very unimpressive (and I’m being very careful not to look at anyone right now) - and all of us are searching for something real, and most of us are feeling like a fraud. But no matter what it looks like, my invitation to you is the same. I want to invite you this morning to surrender to Jesus. If you give him all of who you are, then you don’t have to be a slave to what it looks like any longer. And some of you have never given your life to Jesus. You’ve heard of him, maybe you grew up learning about him a little bit, but you’ve never actually surrendered your life to following Him. What are you waiting for? Today is that day. Or maybe you gave your life to Jesus a long time ago. Maybe you dedicated your life to follow him a long time ago - on the outside, but on the inside you’re still overcommitted to appearances, and that can be really terrifying because it doesn’t feel real. This has been what my journey has been like. I dedicated my entire life to Jesus years ago, but as I have grown in my faith, as I’ve known God more and more - I find that there are parts of me that I thought I surrendered, but I was still holding on to it. Afraid like Saul. And so my life has been a journey of surrendering and then re-surrendering. Oh, there’s a doubt I thought I’d given to God, I surrender that. Oh, there’s a sin I didn’t realize was still in my heart - so I’ll surrender that. And sometimes I wish I could say that I surrendered my life to Jesus all at once and he got the whole thing - I’ve seen those testimonies of radical and immediate change, and they are so inspiring -  but the truth, in my life, is more like I have given Jesus little pieces of who I am, as I discover them - living out my surrender almost as a daily practice. 

 The good news that comes from the word of God today is that God wants your heart, not your habit. Your repentance, not your ritual. Your obedience, not your optics. God wants your heart. A lot of us have built a life around getting it to look good on the outside. And if that’s you - I hope you don’t hear me accusing you or blaming you. For a lot of you - that’s what you were taught! We were taught to get things to look good - that was a focus for SUCH a long time in our society and in the church, that’s not your fault. I don’t want you to hear an accusation, I want you to hear an invitation. There is something deeper, and more real and better that comes through surrender. 

And the other side of this is that no matter what your appearance is - good or bad - none of it fools God. It is amazing to me how many people think that God does not know them. But nothing in our life fools God. He sees past everything, right to the heart of who you are. Grace is not offered to you because you tricked God into thinking you are one of the good ones. Grace is offered to you because God loves you. One of the greatest lines in the entire scriptures is Romans chapter 5, verse 8 which says, [read it]. God knows every deep dark secret you think you can hide. He knows what you look like on the bad hair days, when the make up is wonky and you can’t get the clothes to look right no matter what combo you use - he even knows what you look like in your heart. And into the darkness of you on your ugliest day both inside and out - that is the moment when God came to die for you. While we were still sinners. And so if you are still a sinner - the good news is the same, God wants your heart. 

The cure to being overcommitted to appearances is to surrender your heart. So what do you need to surrender to Jesus today? In just a minute, the worship team is going to lead us in our final set of worship and I want to give you space for surrender. Surrender what it looks like. Surrender what it is. For some of you, it may be that you need to surrender your life to Jesus for the very first time - and I’m going to be right up front if you’d like to come talk to me during this time of worship. For others, maybe there’s just a little piece of yourself that you’ve been holding back that you need to surrender. Clearing out the dark corners of our soul. Or maybe you need a digital detox - you’ve been so distracted and focused on appearances you need to surrender your social media - the power the pretty world, laid at the foot of the cross. Or maybe it’s your striving. Maybe you’re living an exhausted life trying to convince yourself and everyone around you that you are worthy of God’s love - and so what you need is to surrender to Sabbath. Because sabbath is a statement of confidence that even when we do nothing - we are still loved by God. This whole series has been about how to abide with Jesus in an overcommitted world, and that abiding starts with surrender. Let’s pray.