Beatles 6, I'm Looking Through You

“Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” an album by the Beatles that was not, in fact, by the Beatles…I mean it was, but it was the Beatles pretending to be someone else.  There we go!  One run-on sentence into the devotional and everyone’s confused.  I’ll try again.  Paul McCartney had the idea to do an album, but instead of doing an album as the Beatles, they would do the album as a fictitious band, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  It was originally intended to be a spoof of all the long-named California style bands that were coming out around that time.  For examples, think of Janis Joplin’s group “Big Brother and The Holding Company”, “Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs”, or “Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels”.  It was the same four guys pretending to be four OTHER guys…like when Garth Brooks did the ridiculous Chris Gaynes stunt with the bad wig.  They put on the bright, shiny uniforms.  They sang a song about the band and introduce Billy Shears in the song as their lead singer.  They transition into “A Little Help From My Friends,” and there the whole, silly illusion fell apart. 

The problem was that once you got by opening track that tells you the name of the band is “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – the songs are all just Beatles songs.  They had a different sound nd there was some just weird stuff on it…but the voices singing the songs, were still the same voices as the seven albums before it.  Not they had actually tried to pass it off as someone else…it was just something that bored musicians do when they quit playing live concerts and need something to keep them occupied.  We all knew who it was.  These days most people don’t even know about the veiled attempt to pass off alternate identities.  It’s just the eighth Beatles album, and despite the hoopla and funny outfits, in my opinion it’s not one of their better ones.  Does it have some good songs?  Yeah, but it has some stinkers, too.

So what does all of this have to do with a church devotional?  Maybe I should make my points more clear so I don’t have to keep asking myself that, right?  John 13:34-35 ³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.  Matthew 7:16 ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?  Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

You are who you are by your actions.  To be something different, you have to BE something different.  Sound redundant?  Maybe a little, but there seems to be a bit of confusion about that subject out there.  It seems that a lot of people tend to think that overt rudeness, snide comments, blatant disrespectfulness, and extreme selfishness are all acceptable Christian behaviors.  Party like the proverbial rock star during the week, then show up Sunday morning is perfectly acceptable Christian behavior.  They’re acceptable because they call themselves a Christian.  It doesn’t matter that you play your instruments like the Beatles, your voices sound like the Beatles, and when you look at your album cover, you look just like Beatles – albeit dressed in funny, shiny uniforms.  What matters, I suppose, is that you call yourself Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  That’s all you have to do – just call yourself something different and apparently you are something different.  Apparently you can be a thorn bush and simply call yourself a grape vine and produce grapes.  Or…maybe you can’t.

So here we are again with that age-old situation of sitting in a church doesn’t make you a Christian any more that sitting in a chicken coup makes you a chicken.  So I polished this one just a little by putting a Sergeant Pepper spin on it, but sometimes it’s the simple messages that we often forget and need reminding.  Like the way we sometimes seem to forget that there is a hell, and that people we know and care for will be going there.  Will they be going there because of something you did to influence them into a life of sin?  Will they be going there because you had the chance to share the Gospel and didn’t?  There is only one way to the Father and that’s through Jesus Christ.  Have you told them that?  Or have you just been out partying with them?  Churching it up on Sunday morning pretending to producing figs when really you’ve revealed the thorns you’re truly producing on Friday and Saturday night.  If you’re a chicken, you’re a chicken.  If you’re a fig tree, you’re a fig tree.  If you’re a grape vine, you’re grape vine.  If you’re a Beatle, you’re a Beatle.  If you’re a sheep, then you’re a sheep…that is to say if you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian.  Not just on Sunday morning or on Wednesday night, or when you run into an elder’s wife at the store.  Like the point I made in my New Creation devotional about the masked wrestler, you’re not going fool anybody but yourself with your Jesus mask.  Your coworkers see who you really are.  Your family sees who you really are.  The people in line at the store hearing you gripe and complain about a line see who you really are.  And most importantly God the Father sees who you really are.  Which is exactly what Jesus explains in John 10:14-15 in the parable of the good shepherd.  ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, ¹⁵ even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 

So go ahead if you want and call yourself Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  We all know you’re really the Beatles.  Call yourself a sheep if you want to call yourself a sheep.  Jesus knows His sheep.  So the crucial questions are these.  Are you really one of His sheep?  Are you really and truly in the flock?  Are you in the actual pen with the real Shepherd?  Or are you simply hanging out near the pen?  “I’ll be over here until it gets close to supper time or a wolf shows up .”  Then you come running back to stand near the pen, and hope that in the confusion Jesus gets confused about whether or not you were really in the pen or just standing close to it.  Do you want to be actually in the pen or just close enough that you can jump in when there’s trouble?  I’m not pointing fingers or naming names, I’m just asking questions.  What are you producing?  Are you producing figs or thorns?  Are you a sheep when it’s convenient, but not when it’s more fun to not?  Do you come to church on Sunday morning and sing about how God is “above all powers, above all kings, above all nature, and all created things” – but then go home and worship pro football above all else?  Do you go to work on Monday morning and worship the dollar above all else?  Do you turn on your television and worship greed and lust above all else?

Listen for the Whisper of Luke 16…please.  I’m not sitting up here just throwing stones at others.  For every rock I’ve chucked, I’ve hit myself with two.  ¹³ No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” ¹⁴ Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. ¹⁵ And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.  Jesus said specifically “wealth” here, but it could be anything you put on God’s throne…and what you are is what you put on God’s throne.  If you truly put God and God alone on His throne in your life, you’re a sheep.  If you put anything else…anything else in that spot, whether it’s money, sports, partying, drinking, work, or anything that’s not God, you’re not a sheep.  A sheep knows its shepherd, so you know what you’re truly following.  Jesus laid down His life for his sheep…is your “shepherd” of alcohol or football going lay down its life for you?  Are you just going to put on a funny outfit and try to pass yourself off as one of Jesus’ sheep – saying you’re really a sheep while you’re life says you’re not?  Like I said, I’m not pointing fingers or naming names, I’m just asking questions.  And only you can honestly answer which shepherd you’re following.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net
http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com