Sermon Title:       Living in a Dr. Phil World

Sermon Text:       John 1:6-28

Sermon Date:       December 11, 2005 

⁶God sent John the Baptist ⁷to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. ⁹The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.

    ¹⁰But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came. ¹¹Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. ¹²But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan--this rebirth comes from God.”

            Let me begin by defining what I mean by a “Dr. Phil world.” 
               Most of you probably know who Dr. Phil McGraw is.  Oprah hired him to coach her when she was sued by the cattle
ranchers in her alleged defamation of the beef industry.  Oprah won the case, and it wasn't long before Dr. Phil was a regular feature
on her show, challenging her guests in the same way he challenges his readers.  Now he has his own talk show helping people deal
with their problems.  He is a real-life psychologist and best selling author of books like, “Self Matters.”
               I don’t know how many talk shows there are in America today but certainly more than we need.  In fact, my recommendation
is that to put a new one on the air, one has to be taken off, but I’m not assuming anyone will listen.
               Think about it.  Celebrities have talk shows interviewing other celebrities like the early days of Merv Griffith and
Johnny Carson.  ESPN has talk shows that keep asking the question – will the Colts go undefeated?  (And each week more
answer “yes.”)
               There are talk shows like Oprah who brings different issues, like child abuse, domestic violence and how to dress well
into our living rooms each day or like Dr. Phil who practices psychology on the air.
               Unfortunately there are also talk shows that allow people to grab their 15 minutes of fame by announcing to an
unsuspecting spouse that they have been cheating with his/her sibling for the past 20 years. 
               So living in a Dr. Phil world to me means:
A.       We are so desperate for attention we will air dirty laundry before millions or
B.        That we are so wounded that we are willing to share our story on national television to get help.  And we know that there are:
C.       Millions are more than willing to watch them do it.
               I don’t watch Dr. Phil much but I’ll admit I have been impressed.       He has a goal in life:  As he told Barnes & Noble.com,
"I am here to tell people how the world works, not how I think it should be or how you wish it would be, but how it is."
               In fact he has two statements he makes quite regularly.  One is “get real,” meaning live realistically.  But the other is a
question he frequently asks a husband who wants to continue to stay married and sleep with his neighbor……”so how is that
working for you?”
               He asks that quite often – whether dealing with parents who can’t cope with their teenage daughter or a teenager daughter
who can’t deal with her parents. 
               Living in a Dr. Phil world is living in the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is not the far off future, a time yet to be
determined.  The kingdom of God is here and now.  The Kingdom of God is full of people who will air their dirty laundry or their
most painful secrets on television.  And people in between.  People like you, me and our neighbors.
               John the Baptizer told us about Jesus who came for all of us, each of us who live in the kingdom of God. 
               I believe that God and Jesus are the same.  I believe that God wanted so much to be part of our lives that God was willing
to become human and took the form of a baby, a baby that would grow up and become the Messiah.  Christmas is how we celebrate
God’s decision to walk among us.  You see, God loves us that much.
               God loves people willing to fight with their mothers on Jerry Springer and people who share stories of deep abuse and
seek help.  God loves members of the Taliban and Peace Corps.  God loves us desperately and wants to be in relationship with us.                 In the Gospel of John we hear that this relationship offers us transformation or rebirth that comes only from God.  The word
we learned last week -- “metanoia” means total transformation and Jesus in God wants that for each of us.
               Living in a Dr. Phil world means being aware of the problems of today’s people and recognizing that this too is the
kingdom of God.
               I grew up thinking about the kingdom of God as that place in heaven, far away in time and space.  A place where I would
spend eternity.  I don’t remember hearing that the kingdom of God has chuckholes in the streets and that its people are bruised but
that is indeed the case.
               The kingdom of God is here and today.
               You might remember back to the fall when we talked about parables where Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is
like….and Jesus continued with parables facing him at the time.  The Pharisees were trying to suppress his message, trying to
kill the light John brought out from up the darkness and into the people.   Jesus was telling them he had something to offer,
something the people wanted, something that offered “metanoia.”
               People were looking for that when John told them about the one yet to come, and people are still looking for that today.
  We are looking for that thing that fulfills us.  That thing that gives us hope and reason to live.  That thing that gives us worth and
value.  That thing that makes us real and works for us.
            The notion of what the kingdom of God is supposed to look like is becoming clearer. 

Dr. Tony Campolo asked this at last summer’s Baptist World Alliance Congress:  “What was Jesus’ mission statement?  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  Marks of the Kingdom (as outlined in Scripture) include children do not die in infancy; the elderly will live in health and well being; decent housing and jobs would be a reality; children would not be born for (later) calamity; the environment would be protected.  We should all be environmentalists.  You cannot deal with hunger and privation without dealing with the environment.  What will be God’s question to us on the Day of Judgment?  It will not be theology; it will be what did you do for the poor?  There are 2,000 Bible verses that speak to the care of the poor.  The Kingdom is not only for the future, but here and now…”on earth as it is in heaven.”  And the reality of the Kingdom is hopeful.  The Kingdom of God has never been stronger than it is right now.  In Africa, 50,000 people are baptized every week.  The kingdom is on the move especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.  Being a Christian is not having the right theology.  It’s having your heart broken by the things that break Jesus’ heart.”

It’s having your heart broken by the things that break Jesus’ heart.”

               You may be wondering why I keep talking about the kingdom of God when those words are not even mentioned in today’s
scripture.  First of all, you can’t separate Jesus from the kingdom of God.  Second, I think they are there, just in different words. 
John mentions how they who believed and accepted him have the right to be the children of God.  Well, the deadline to be a child
of God hasn’t passed. 
               In fact, we are all children of God – Jew, Gentile, Christian, Muslim, agnostic and atheist alike.  And God wants us to
understand what it means to get real and be part of the answer to the lonely and wounded in the kingdom of God.  To be part of
mending Jesus’ heart by our actions.
               The lonely, discouraged and wounded were here yesterday at Jubilee Christmas.  They came because they were unable
to provide Christmas for their own children and discovered a shopping mall in the halls of First Baptist Church.  Two left with
bicycles and helmets.  All left with plenty of presents for their children and food for their tables on Christmas day.  They also left
knowing that we care about them.  They said that on their evaluations when they talked about the friendliness and generosity of
the people from First Baptist Church, Bethel A.M.E. Zion, Baptist Student Foundation, the Indiana Business College and others.
               One young woman told Meredith that she moved from Gary, IN because she didn’t want her children to be shot.  She
moved here able to pay her bills for one month.  And that was a year ago.  She is still hanging in there but she just couldn’t buy
Christmas presents for her kids this year.  “I just need help this one year.  Next year I can do it on my own.  But this year I needed
your help.”
               “This year I needed your help.”  That includes much more than providing gifts.  It includes being there for each other
during illness, unemployment, depression, celebrations and all the times in between.  It means acting in ways that don’t break
Jesus’ heart. 
               It was a glorious day when John stood on the riverbank and told the people about the one yet to come.  If you think
about it, John’s whole life was about advent, preparing the people for what was to come. 
               John came to focus the light so that the world would recognize Jesus.  Jesus came to offer “metanoia” so that our lives
might be lived in real and powerful ways.  The kingdom of God is here and forever.  Thanks be to God.