The Dead Poets Society: was a 1989 film starring Robin Williams
The setting for the movie is a fictional all boys prep school with a long history of pressure to conform to tradition.
The school has four pillars for their education…tradition, Honor, Discipline, and Excellence
Those actually sound pretty good to me…but not to Robin Williams
Robin Williams plays the part of an unconventional English instructor who wants the young men to become “free thinkers” which shows up in four other pillars…these aren’t directly listed in the film…but they are the heart of the movie.
Live life on your own terms
Challenge conformity
Pursue your passions
Seize the day…this is their foundational principle.
The students meet secretly to study poetry in order to learn to “free their minds”…thus the title… “The dead poets society”
The film was very successful, but I want to challenge each of those four foundational objectives.
- Life live on your own terms:
-Upside: Don’t be a people pleaser
-Downside: To Live for self, guided by self…is always going to end in disaster
- Challenge conformity:
-Sometimes norms are wrong and should be challenged
-Sometimes they are absolute…and they must be conformed to if we hope to live a flourishing life
*You can challenge gravity as a norm, but you will die if you test it by jumping off a cliff.
*The same is true for certain moral, spiritual norms since God has designed the world.
- Pursue your passions:
-This can be good if you have a passion for excellence, productivity, service, creativity, faithfulness…because all of these things require self-control
-This is a disaster if your passions take the lead in your life and destroy self-control.
-Passions/emotions can make good servants but they are always terrible masters.
- Seize the day
-This is good if you seek to make the most of the day…to be grateful for your daily bread…learn to treasure and value and live in the moment.
-This is a disaster if you live only for today and not with the long view in mind.
The church is not the dead poets society…or even the Dead Savior Society
The church is the Family of the living God…Jesus has risen from the dead.
Whitman, Thoreau, Frost…they are dead…Jesus is alive.
- We do not live on our terms…We live for his pleasure, on his terms…this leads to a life well spent
- We do not challenge Scripture, it challenges us…We conform to God’s truth as revealed in Scriptures…this means we will challenge all cultural norms that do not align with Scripture.
-Cultural norms are forever shape shifting…Scriptural norms are fixed.
- We pursue a single passion…faithfulness…it is a passion that is controlled by the Spirit and conforms to the Word of God.
-It will never leave us broken and disillusioned like all other passions will.
- We do seize the day, and we actually can seize the day…because we know that this life is not all there is.
-In the film when one key character finds his “passion” blocked, he takes his own life…that is not an unrealistic outcome for those who try to “live life on their own terms.”
*I don’t say that flippantly…I’ve done way too many funerals for people who have taken their own lives…this is not just the stuff of movies…this is real world stuff.
For the Christian…nothing can block our controlling passion…when it is to be found faithful…to the will of God, for the glory of God.
Faithfulness is a passion that cannot be blocked by outside forces, it cannot be taken from us.
Today we are in 1 Timothy 3:14-16…you can turn there now.
Paul is writing to his young pastor protegee Timothy.
He left him in Ephesus, Turkey…a very interesting city…and a very tough place to pastor.
Quick review of the cultural context:
Ephesus was the capital city of a key Roman providence in Asia.
It had the largest amphitheater in the world, seating 50,000 people.
It was the site of the Temple of Artemis, built 600 years earlier, it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Artemis was a localized goddess of the Ephesians…she had the same name as the Greek goddess, but they were different.
A lot of Ephesian industry was built around this temple.
Like Aircraft manufacturing historically fuels a lot of our economy, the tourist site of the Temple fueled the local economy.
In Acts 19 Paul was taken by force into the great amphitheater and the crowd shouted for 2 straight hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.”
It was a touch and go situation for Paul…very dangerous situation.
This is the city where Paul left Timothy to lead a church, to raise up biblically qualified leaders and to impact the world from this strategic central Asian location.
Listen to 1 Tim. 3:14-16
I write these things to you, hoping to come to you soon. But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
Paul hopes to come to Ephesus and see Tim again, but he sends his letters so in the meantime the church will know how to “conduct themselves.”
Conduct themselves is not just “be good boys and girls”…it is not about conforming to human traditions, like the boys boarding school.
It is tied to that key idea of “Watch your life and doctrine closely.” 1 Tim. 4:16
When our lives conform to the revealed truth of God…we experience life as God has designed it to be lived.
So “conduct yourselves” is live your life in line with the revealed truth of God’s in his household…literally the phrase is in “God’s house.”
Household is “Oikos”, a Greek term for a house and the family who live there, the history and traditions of the family…all of it…this is the fundamental unit of a society.
Church is “ekklesia”, a Greek word for a called-out assembly…people gathered for a purpose.
Of course, the Church is not a building, any more than a family is a house…but families gather together, eat together, live together in physical places…they have history and traditions.
The church is a family, who live life together, called out of the world by God for his purposes.
Some local churches are very touchy about not being a building…they will not put “church” on their signs representing their location.
They are careful to signify something like: “River Community church meets here.”
We think people tend to understand the difference between a family and a house…or a church and the building where they gather…thus our sign just says “River community Church”
Let’s look at three important things Paul highlights in this passage about the church.
We are the family of God
We are the church of the Living God
We are the pillar and foundation of truth
- The Church is the family of God.
We are God’s household.
You may have been told as a child, “Don’t run in God’s house” or something to indicate that this building is special.
I sometimes tell kids to stop running in our building not because running is sacrilegious…but it’s because they may knock someone or something over…it has happened.
*Before Christmas I told my several of my grandsons with a loud voice to stop running…and I didn’t notice, that some Hett boys were with them…I told Stephanie Hett who was nearby, “Sorry, I was yelling at my grandkids not your kids.”
She said, “Terry, you can yell at my kids anytime you want.”
I appreciated that…she knows, we are family…I want what is best for all of our kids.
There is something special about this place, it is set apart for worship…but it not just the space that makes it special.
What makes it special is that people worship here…we are not random strangers showing up at a concert or a theater for entertainment…but we are a gathered family…we have committed to one another…we gather to worship.
We are ecclesia…a called-out people who gather with purpose.
We talk about resilience training being left of the bang…you train left of the bang and practice in the bang.
Whenever people disregard the priority of God’s family, the church…they are often caught unprepared for trouble when it comes.
I have seen this countless times.
I have also seen countless times when people have fully engaged the family of God and have been prepared for the bang when it happens.
Being a part of a family means, at a minimum…showing up…showing up is essential to participation and to being known…showing up is, of course, not enough…but it is where it begins.
The church is the gathered family of God…we gather so we are equipped to go…but we must gather.
We gather so we will become one body, one family…time together builds trust…trust is necessary for when the bang happens…and it is necessary to fulfill our mission.
An unchurched Christian is a fairly common thing in our culture…but that very phrase would be non-sensical to Paul…it would just make no sense to him.
The church gathered is the family of God.
There are couple of other essential things to remember about a family, in addition to the fact that they live life together.
- We have personality diversity: You choose your friends; you don’t choose your family.
When choosing friends…we tend to look for birds of a feather…our feather.
God has a different way of choosing our family for us.
*Earnest Alexander: 1981
*Paul Comegys: 1986
I was more like Earnest in personality though unlike him in ethnicity and in many other ways.
I was less like Paul in personality though like him in ethnicity and in many other ways.
When God has chosen my family, my church family…I have grown…he picked those I would never have picked…and they became my dear brothers.
As the world becomes more and more siloed…internet birds of a feather flocking together…how much more the world needs the church…the family of God.
The church has diversity in backstories, personalities, gifting, and perspectives…diversity is much more than an ethnic factor.
In the church people become a family who would not even interact otherwise…certainly not become friends.
I have seen this happen hundreds of times in the past 36 years.
It is the wonder of the church, the family of God.
You pick your friends…God picks your family.
- Families have built in generational diversity
Outside the church there tends to be very little positive multi-generational interaction.
When my 92-year-old dad died…all ages were there at his funeral…why?
They knew him, he had bought them coffee or a meal or taught them to dance…or much more.
This is not common for men of his “generation”…but it is common for the body of Christ.
When the generations do interact out there in the wilder world, it is often negative…the old look down on the young, the young don’t respect the old.
In the church there is generational diversity with the potential of generational impact.
We will see this as we move through the letter in the weeks to come.
I’ve said it before but the young need the wisdom of the old, and the old need the passion of the young.
Both, need to be impacted by the perspective of the other…this only done well, in my experience in the church…it happens on occasion in a few other places…but not like it can happen here.
This happens in our church in organic fashion as people meet and spend time together.
It also happens in organized structured events and ministries.
Our adult small groups are not divided by age…many groups have a wide spectrum of age and experience.
I meet with people older than myself (I used to say much older but that is changing) and much younger.
I am not the only one this is true for…if you want it to be true for you…there is nothing and no one stopping you.
Don’t wait for someone to hand it to you, don’t wait for us to create a ministry that fits just right…go make it happen…many of you are…to your own great joy and benefit.
- We are the church of the living God.
Artemis of Ephesus was a made up being…she was a dead idol.
The poets that the boys in the movie studied for inspiration were dead, they were a society of the dead.
We are the church of the living God.
He is alive among us and in us.
Scripture teaches that if you want to find God in the world, go to Church…join his body.
Jesus said that the world will know him by how we love one another.
*I’ve told the story of how 25 years ago I talked to my friend Gary Barr as he sat in my yard on his huge earth moving machine.
I invited him to church…he said, “You are standing in my church”
Just so you know, I like my yard…God made the trees and the dirt in it…but it is not anyone’s church.
Years later, when his life was failing apart we meet in a small town diner and he was open to the gospel.
He later came to Christ.
He is dead now but for years he worshipped in this building, and he became a part this family of God.
God made the world…I love being outside…but his people gathered for worship, growth, service, training, and then sent out…that’s the church.
Sitting on his loader…outside…that’s not the church…his or anyone else’s.
He found out that God’s people gathered and then sent, that is where God is revealing himself in the world.
Dorothy Sayers was a British author and a good friend of CS Lewis.
She wrote of what she called the “Three Great Humiliations of God.”
The Incarnation: God taking on the limitations of a human body…born a baby.
The Cross: God suffering the public humiliation, mocking, and agony of death by execution.
The Church: God choosing to entrust his reputation and mission to ordinary, flawed human beings.
1 cor. 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?…
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
He continues in chapter 2
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
What is amazing is that The Living God…the creator of the cosmos…has chosen to manifest himself in the world through the church.
We are God’s presence on earth; we are hiding in plain sight…we are so easy to miss.
I am speaking tongue in cheek…we aren’t intentionally hiding…but what I mean is that the epic and eternal nature of who we are is not easily seen by the world until God opens their eyes to see it.
Super Bowl Sunday…with bad bunny, and a mostly bad game…was hard to miss. (really wasn’t that hard to miss, I missed most of it…but hard to not know about it)
Churches, the people of God gathered around the globe on that same Sunday…that is the glory of God hiding in plain sight.
You come in here and what happens?…we sing, we talk, we listen, we pray…we leave…we come back and do it again.
But cosmic stuff is happening, epic, eternal stuff…God is changing hearts for eternity…but it sure doesn’t seem like it to those who don’t have the eyes to see.
People have walked in here and slept…people have walked in here and encountered God and have been changed forever.
- The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth of God
There is no unity without common truth
When everyone seeks “their truth” there is no foundation, no pillar that can sustain relationships.
When churches try to flex on doctrinal truth to make room for more people, historically they die…and before they die…they fight.
“my” truth cannot be a foundation for “our” unity.
Only “the truth” can be.
Contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine, the church is not the source of authority or truth…the Church does make truth, truth has made the church.
We believe that the church recognized but did not create Scripture.
That distinction is no small thing.
God inspired Scripture, we received it.
As the pillar and foundation of the truth: the church is where the truth of Scripture is lived out in the world.
How we live, work, forgive, get along, approach death, die…it all verifies the truth of God to the watching world.
The failures of professing Christians are trumpeted from the hilltops or websites…but the millions of ways followers of Jesus are giving, serving, loving, dying faithfully…are largely hidden from all except God himself.
Then, as Paul contemplates the beauty of the church…he breaks into a hymn of praise to Jesus…whose church we are.
And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory
Mystery doesn’t mean no on understands it but rather no one could discover the meaning if God had not revealed it.
“Godliness” here refers to the redemptive truths formerly concealed but now revealed in Christ’s coming.
Here is this revealed mystery of Jesus:
- He appeared in the flesh:
In the next chapter Paul will address the false teachers, who are themselves taught by demons…who tell people to not marry and to stay away from certain foods.
They don’t have a biblical view of the body…they turn physical denial into a kind of spiritual maturity.
This is not about self-control…which a good thing…but making us less than embodied beings…a bad thing.
Paul begins to counter that nonsense here with the incarnation of Jesus…Jesus took on human flesh.
We are embodied beings…we are meant to enjoy our embodiment but not worship our bodies.
We give thanks for our daily bread, we give thanks for health, and life and pleasure…and we trust God when health and pleasure flee from us.
Because we live, ultimately for the glory of God and we look forward to the life to come.
We have the best of both worlds…we enjoy physical bodies, physical pleasure, physical life…but we are not slaves to our bodies…and when they die, we will not.
- He was vindicated by the Spirit:
This echoes Romans 1:4, “By the Spirit, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead.”
He came in the likeness of sinful humans but was declared to be the powerful Son of God in his resurrection.
- He was seen by angels:
The word angel means messenger.
Angels testified to his resurrection; they surround his heavenly throne.
Angels are beings of such power that humans often responded with terror at their mighty presence.
Peter (1 Peter 1:12) said that Angels longed to understand the gospel of Jesus…it was to them, a wonder…it should be a wonder to us as well.
- Jesus was preached among the nations:
This is the great commission, Jesus said his followers were to go and make disciples of all nations.
That is what happened, just as Jesus said it would.
- Jesus was believed on in the world:
The spread of the gospel across the Roman empire in just a few decades was truly amazing.
The spread across the world continues to be amazing…the more governments try to stamp out the gospel, the more it grows.
- Jesus was taken up into glory:
He physically ascended to heaven; he will physically return again just as he left.
On that day when Jesus ascended the disciples stood there gawking…and two angels showed up and said…
“why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11
Quit standing around…get busy obeying him.
Soon after that the Spirit came, and the church was birthed.
The gospel grounds our behavior individually.
The gospel grounds our unity collectively.
Dead Poets cannot ground behavior…they cannot tell us why we here, how we ought to live.
Dead poets cannot ground unity…individuals who insist on living life on their own terms can never hope to find unity with others…it is impossible.
If you only do “you” and I only do “me”…I promise, we will never be able to do “we”
Those who believe the gospel and who seek to live it will find common ground
Doctrinal truth grounds unity in the church.
Larry Crabb once wrote that many marriages are “two ticks and no dog”
-This is a disgusting but apt description of two people insisting on living life on their own terms.
That describes all those who join the “dead poets society.”
Whoever those poets, or spokespeople might be…they will be someday…dead.
Culture moves on from dead poet to dead poet…chasing truth…but at the bottom of it they are all saying the same thing.
“Life for self” “Live life on your own terms.”
This is the way of death, the way to join the dead poets is by following them.
Here is the description of the family of the Living God: Phil 2
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude (mindset) should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…though being God made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.
In a marriage, a friendship…any relationship…when both live putting each other first…it is a beautiful and a healthy thing.
This doesn’t happen in perfection in any relationship…but I can assure you, it is happening in significant ways in many relationships here in this church.
We are the church of the Living God…Jesus is alive, and his life is revealed in our lives together.
Our unity is grounded in the revealed truth of God.
Our life our common purpose is to live and tell the good news of the resurrected Son of God.
*The Church: A Hidden Glory (1 Timothy 3:14–16) Bill Kynes