STATION 19: THE ILLUSION OF POPULARITYEverybody wants to be liked. Everybody wants to be popular. We seek the approval, first, of our parents. Look mommy, what I can do. And, we take that feeling with us throughout our lives. We are afraid that people might not like the way we dress, that our shirt might not match the pants. We have to talk just right, because if we don't have the right accent, we'll be an outsider. We have to make sure that we have the right thoughts and the right opinions, because if we are too politically incorrect, then the social order will cast us out. We want people to look at our paintings and say, "Wow! That is wonderful." We want people to listen to our music and be inspired and touched. We want people to read what we write and have their souls transformed. Yes, we want to be popular. This is an innate human feeling, and we find many people who spend their entire lives in one form or another seeking popularity--from the movie stars to the rock stars to the sports figures, politicians, businessmen--the world is full of people who dedicate their entire lives to popularity. We find this, too, in the church. The church often will seek to do what is popular and pleasing in order to extend its influences. One of the things you learn very quickly in seminary is that people have to like you. You have to have a pleasant voice. You have to have a bubbly, happy personality. If you don't, then the offerings will not come in. You will not be able to get your programs taken care of. You will not be able to be successful as a pastor. One of the things that Jesus' Passion teaches us is that popularity can be an illusion. Jesus, as we have seen before in Station 10, was alone. Here was the most loving person who was ever born, who had the greatest wisdom we could ever learn, who had such a relationship with God that He could heal and perform miracles. One would think that such a person should be popular, but the Cross of Christ says that He was not popular at all. He was rejected by the multitudes. He was rejected by government. He was very unpopular with the religious leaders of His day. And, those few people who truly did like Him, the disciples, even they, at the end, were scattered, more concerned about their own personal lives than they were about doing anything to help Him. He wound up, as we saw in Station 10, completely alone. He was upon the Cross, a very unpopular guy. He was the lonely guy, to make reference to Steve Martin's movie. Yet, that is not an indication of failure. You see, He did what was right. He did what was good. He had His relationship with God, and it was so solid, that He knew what His calling was and what He had to accomplish. He saw that this was not a manifestation of His own personal ego, because what He was doing was denying Himself. He was trying to help others to achieve their potential, trying to help others to overcome their ego, trying to help others to take up their cross and follow Him, trying to get others to eliminate the demons in their lives and to live lives of forgiveness, health and love. He wasn't trying to make himself great. He was simply trying to do what was right. But, He died a lonely guy, not popular at all, doing what was right, doing what was good, doing what was true. Doing what was Godly and fulfilling His mission, made Him extremely unpopular. There is a very good message here for all of us. Just because we are popular, does not in and of itself mean that we are good or successful. Popularity can be an illusion. More often than not, that which makes us popular with people is their dark side--the dark side which they find satisfied and stimulated by us. So much music, especially today, revolves around the dark side. So many politicians become popular through lies and deceit, through their socialism programs, through their taxation and theft, through their military works. Adolph Hitler was a very popular person. That does not mean he was right. Taxation and the welfare state in America is very popular. That doesn't mean that it's right. Satanic underground heavy metal music is very popular. That doesn't mean that it is good. Alcoholism is extremely popular. That doesn't mean that it's right. So, the Cross is telling us to love God. Seek first for His kingdom and His righteousness. Do not be obsessed, people, with spending your whole lives running around trying to gain the approval, acceptance, and following of others. Don't obsess with trying to become popular and having many followers. No, rather become obsessed with learning who you truly are, who God truly is, and what is good and what is right. That is what matters. That is what is important. Popularity is an illusion, and it can take you down the pathway of great darkness. You find many people get caught in the crossfire. They start off as a musician or a politician or an artist, following their own inner calling, trying to do what they think is good and right. Sometimes, they experience a certain amount of popularity. They then become infected with the popularity and start focusing, not upon who and what they are, what their personal calling is, what is good and right for them, but rather upon what the people want. They stop taking risks. They fall into a pattern, and that pattern winds up being the end of their creativity. It starts being a complete compromise of their art or their message. One has to adopt the message of Christianity in a certain way these days if one wants to be especially popular. It is much easier to make several million dollars a year through your Christian ministry, talking about how God will take care of all of your problems and provide for you infinite possibilities, than it is to make very much money talking about people taking up their crosses, dying to themselves, and transcending their ego. One has to adapt to what people want, and in so doing, we can very easily lose our own identity and our own soul. Jesus hung upon the Cross alone, very unpopular, but He did what was right. Let us learn from Him to follow the witness of God within our lives, to follow the witness of the Holy Spirit, so that we might do what is holy, true, and good. Let the masses do what they will. In short, it is better to die alone, a holy and righteous man, than it is to live in darkness and evil as the most popular man on the earth. Just as Jesus said, what would it benefit a man if he gained the entire world and yet lost his own soul? Your own soul, your own vision, whether it's political,
business, cultural, artistic, music, religious, your own soul,
your own vision is worth an infinite amount more than all of the
popularity that you could derive from simply selling yourself in
order to become popular. |
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