Mark Twain once categorized people into three groups: commonplace, remarkable, and lunatics. I don't know about you, but I can think of people who belong in all three groups.
St. Paul, though, says there are only two kinds of people ” citizens of the world and citizens of heaven. And the contrasts between the two are stark.
Here is how St. Paul describes citizens of the world. FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS THEIR DESTINY IS DESTRUCTION. Recent wire reports carried the story of a motorist who stole $9 worth of gasoline and died in a fiery wreck while making his getaway. The speeding car exploded when it hit a tree. Police said the unidentified motorist had filled up at a gas station without paying. Station manager Gary Adams, 35, drove after him, honking, waving his arms and yelling as the cars raced through a residential area. After the crash, the driver struggled to pull himself out a window of the burning car. The station manager tried to rescue him. "He tried to pull him out. It got too hot. He gave up," said Corporal John McLain. "He died a very painful death for $9 of gas," said Vince Sullivan, a witness who tried to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher.
How very, very sad. Rarely when we do wrong do we see what the end result can be. The Bible does not pull punches. The wages of sin is death. Comedienne Paula Poundstone says in one of her routines that the wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling. We wish her little gag was accurate, but that is not the Biblical testimony. Paul says of the citizens of this world their destiny is destruction.
HE ALSO SAYS THEIR GOD IS THEIR STOMACH. In other words, all their pleasures are pleasures of the flesh. They are captive to their physical drives.
Not all slavery is involuntary. There was a story in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC sometime back that illustrates that truth. A reporter in Peru found that many of the workers received unusual pay. The foreman would provide the workers with liquor and coca leaves (from which cocaine is produced) an agreed upon number of times a day. The workers then chewed the leaves and drank as they worked. Their foreman observed that, "They'd rather have coca than food." (1)
That is a good picture of what St. Paul means when he speaks of those whose god is their stomach. What begins as a moral compromise to satisfy our desires usually ends by becoming a controlling urge.
FINALLY, HE SAYS, THEIR GLORY IS IN THEIR SHAME. In other words, they live in active rebellion against the things of God. Have you ever known anyone who could not have fun unless he or she was doing something naughty? Have you ever known anyone who could not express their feelings without the use of an obscenity? Even worse, perhaps, are those who flaunt moral law with no consciousness of any wrongdoing.
Last fall two stories jumped from the sports sections to the front pages of newspapers all over this land. One was the revelation from Magic Johnson that he is infected with the AIDS virus. Johnson indeed should have the sympathy of every one of us. He is a warm man with a tremendous personality who has given basketball fans many years of pleasure. We would not want to demean in any way the courage he showed in sharing his problem with the public. However, the only lesson he had to share with young people from his own tragedy is "practice safe sex." Later, after a rather strong public outcry he admitted that abstinence is the only sure preventive of AIDS.
About the same time Magic was making his sad announcement, former basketball great Wilt Chamberlain was hawking his new book in which he boasts of 20,000 sexual conquests. Neither Magic or Chamberlain showed any awareness of the possibility that their whole approach to sex might be perverted. They showed no consciousness that perhaps the creator God has a different plan in mind for our sexual nature than a series of one-night stands.
How much pain will it take for our society to acknowledge that the whole foundation of the so-called "Playboy philosophy" of sex is in fundamental error? Sex can only be recreational when it is relational. God intends sex as an expression of oneness between a man and a woman who have made a commitment before God and society that they will uphold and support one another until death do they part. This is not to devalue sex as a source of pleasure. Studies show, in contrast to the propaganda of the mass media, that married people are far more sexually active than unmarried people and that they derive more long-lasting satisfaction. Any other approach to sex is misguided.
"Their destiny is destruction," says St. Paul, "their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things." That is one kind of lifestyle. Perhaps it is the predominant lifestyle in our society. But there is another.
St. Paul continues: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
Have you noticed how much emphasis our society is putting on the body? And why not? Our body is a gift from God. It should be taken care of. Our body is the vehicle by which our soul gets around. It is therefore holy. But an obsession with the body is one sign of a citizen of the world.
TIME magazine recently devoted almost an entire issue to the state of California. Since Californians are notorious trendsetters, TIME wanted to find out what is hot in California and what is not. One of the "hots" they listed is an obsession with the body. Now it is men who are having silicone implants, according to this article. Men are undergoing the plastic surgeon's scalpel in order to have chiseled pectorals, firm derrieres, bulging calves and strong chins. (2) If it's happening in California, will it soon be happening in Kalamazoo? Such silliness will go on wherever there are people who are only citizens of the world.
Citizens of heaven are much more fortunate, says St. Paul. They can look forward to the day when their imperfect bodies will be transformed by Christ into glorious new bodies. Wow! Muscle Beach, eat your heart out!
There is an alternative lifestyle. That's what we need to see. It is a life of discipline and devotion. It is a life of faith and faithfulness. It is a life of conscience and commitment.
Does that mean that citizens of heaven are superior to citizens of the world? No, for citizens of heaven hold dual citizenship. We are still of this world even while heaven is in our hearts. That means we still have feet of clay. We still stumble and sometimes fall. But at least WE HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWING THAT THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER.
Perhaps you saw the movie FIELD OF DREAMS. It is a beautiful story about a young farmer who hears a voice in his cornfield. The voice says to him, "If you build it, he will come." Build what? he wants to know. A ball park, he learns. Who will come? Shoeless Joe Jackson, the great star of the Chicago White Sox. So the farmer plows under his corn and builds a ball diamond. It seems like a foolish exercise. A cornfield is real. It is something you can touch, something you can enjoy here and now ” but a ball field and a ball player long since gone from the scene? What an absurd dream.
Sure enough, though, one day Shoeless Joe Jackson walks out of the cornfield and begins to play ball. So do seven other White Sox players, and then some old New York Giants. It is a tender story, and it probably sounds crazy if you haven't seen it, but it almost invariably gives people's spirits a life.
"IF YOU WILL BUILD IT, HE WILL COME." (3)
Christians are people who are both citizens of this world but also live in a world of dreams. We believe that someday he will come. As St. Paul puts it, "...our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..." Thus we are able to resist the temptation to live our lives desperately seeking cheap thrills and momentary happiness. Our sights are set on something much bigger and exceedingly greater. We have the advantage of knowing there is something better.
AND WE HAVE THE ASSURANCE OF KNOWING THAT THE ONE WHO CREATED US WILL TAKE US UNTO HIMSELF. That is the chief advantage of the person of faith. We know that the universe is ultimately friendly. We know that a life of discipline and devotion, of faith and faithfulness, of conscience and commitment, will one day be rewarded. And even though we are far from perfect people, we know that the One who created us will accept us just as we are and will take us unto Himself.
It is somewhat like the story of a very wealthy young man who had all that a person could want ” materially. However, he was born with a deformity which left him with a very ugly face. Because of this one flaw he would stay in his house and walk around in his garden, which was closed in by a high wall.
However, in the evening he would leave his walled-in garden and walk down by the seashore. One night he heard beautiful music. He hid himself in the shadows, and there he saw a young girl playing a violin. Each night he would leave his house, walk down to the seashore and listen to the young lady play the beautiful music. However, because of his ugliness he would hide in the shadows, hoping not to be seen.
Later, the young man told his servant, "Take this money and give it to the lady with the violin, in order that she may go to the best school of music in Europe and master the beautiful music." After years of study, she returned home and was taken to the house of the man who paid for her education. He was standing in his garden. The gate was opened for her and she came up behind him, threw her arms around his waist and cried, "I love you! I love you!"
He said, "No, it's impossible for you to love me." All the more she cried, "I love you." The young man turned around and said, "How can you love me when you see much ugliness in my face?"
She replied, "You see, sir, I'm blind."
So it is with those of us who are citizens of heaven. We are not perfect people, but because of what Christ has done in our behalf, God, too, is blind to the ugliness of our sin. (4)
Two kinds of people. Citizens of the world, citizens of heaven. You and I have a choice to make, don't we?
D. L. Moody told a story about two men who, under the influence of liquor, found their way to the dock where their boat was tied. The two men wanted to return home, so they got in the boat and began to row. Though they rowed hard all night, they did not reach the other side of the bay. When the gray dawn of the morning broke, they were in exactly the same spot from which they started. They had neglected to loosen the mooring-line and raise the anchor!
Mr. Moody used this story as an analogy of the way in which many people are thwarted in their striving for heaven because they are tied to this world. "Cut the cord! Cut the cord!" he would admonish. "Set yourself free from the clogging weight of earthly things, and you will be headed toward heaven." (5)
Perhaps that is Christ's word to some of us this morning. Cut the cord! Get rid of any encumbrance that might slow your progress toward heaven.
1. White, Peter J., "Coca ” An Ancient Herb turns Deadly," NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (January, 1989), p. 16.
2. TIME, November 18, 1991.
3. Thanks to Dr. Eric S. Ritz for this illustration.
4. Thanks to Ed Harper, Burlington, NC, for this illustration.
5. Stephen F. Olford.