Be Nice
“Hey, be different, Be nice
“Be Nice” Songwriters: Adam Friedman / Anish Sood / Ester Dean / William Adams
Just smile, I promise it’ll change your life”
You may be wondering just how much music I listen to by the Black Eyed Peas and our friend Snoop Dogg. Those who know me well know the answer to that question is very little!
But, a while back me and my daughter Emma were home one night and we started looking for a show that she and I could watch together. She had seen previews for this tv show called, “Songland.” It’s kind of a reality show where different songwriters stand before a group of producers, musicians, and artists and pitch their song ideas. By the end of the show, a new song emerges as a single for some high profile artist who records and releases their song.
Emma loves to sing and wanted to watch the show. So over time, we’ve watched a few episodes together. And this song, “Be Nice,” came about as a result of that show.
It’s a catchy song with a positive message. My only problem with the song isn’t a problem with the song at all, it’s really the idea that this song captures what many people would practically describe as the point of their Christian life.
What does it mean to be a Christian?
So you’re a Christian? What does that mean for you? Well, it means I should be nice to everyone.
In their book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (2005), sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton coined the term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” after interviews with 3,000 teenagers. What they discovered is that many of the teenagers they surveyed viewed religion and Christianity under the following set of core beliefs:
- God wants people to be nice and fair to one another.
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
- God doesn’t need to be involved in your life, unless something is going wrong and you need it resolved.
- Good people go to heaven when they die.
I would suggest that this is NOT the gospel. This is not what we believe. If we spend our lives trying to be nice and good, we may be nice and good but we won’t be Christian. And that what God has in mind for us and for the world is so much greater.
Our Mission
The good news is that Jesus taught us and showed us exactly what it means to be Christian. To be a Christ-follower.
In Matthew 5, 6, and 7, we have one of the longest sections of Red Letters in your Bible. The letters are in red in most Bibles because they are the words of Jesus. Here, Jesus has gathered a large crowd of would-be disciples to teach them about what life is like in the new Kingdom He is ushering into the world. This is what life is like in the Kingdom of God. And in the middle of this sermon, what’s famously known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray.
You probably know these words as, “The Lord’s Prayer.”
And Jesus taught his disciples to “Pray like this:”
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”
When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, He reminds them that we serve a great God with a great name and a kind heart. His Name is HOLY! And He is our Father!
He reminds them that God is our provider and sustainer. He is forgiving and calls us to forgive because we have been forgiven! And He reminds them that God is our protector and deliverer.
But did you notice what Jesus said in the very middle of this prayer? Did you catch His words in the very heart of this prayer?
He prayed…
“your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.”
The Perfect Day
John Wooden was a legendary basketball coach for UCLA. During his 12 years there, he won 10 championships. And that included an 88 game winning streak!
Some people say that Coach Wooden was the greatest basketball coach of all time. Some say he was the best coach of the 20th century. Some say he’s the greatest coach who has ever lived.
Coach Wooden was a man of faith and he was known for his many quotes and different sayings. One of my favorite quotes that John Wooden said was this:
“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” – John Wooden
I think Coach Wooden had a sense that we are put on earth to make a difference in the lives of others. That as people of faith, it’s our mission to make things on earth as they are in heaven.
Pray + Participate
Here’s what I want you to notice… This prayer teaches us to PRAY for the Kingdom of God to come soon… YES! But I believe Jesus would also have us PARTICIPATE in making things on earth as they are in Heaven.
To be a part of making all things right and all things new. To make things the way they are supposed to be.
And I think I can prove this. I think if you want to see proof that this is true then look at how Jesus taught us to pray but also look at how Jesus lived.
What if Jesus had only healed the blind but never showed the blind man God?
What if Jesus had only healed the deaf but never told the deaf man about God?
What if Jesus had only healed the sick but never told the sick about the Great Physician?
What if Jesus had only set the demon-possessed free but never told them about freedom from sin?
What if Jesus had only fed the hungry but never told the hungry that He was the Bread of Life?
What if Jesus had only given the woman at the well water to drink and never told her that He was Living Water?
Jesus spent His days literally making things right for people for whom things were not the way they were supposed to be. But he didn’t stop there. He always pointed them to God. Every time he healed a person it was a chance to point people not to the healing but to the Healer. Every time he fed the people, it was an opportunity to point people not to the provision but to the Provider.
How do I know? Because Jesus didn’t heal everyone! He could have. But he didn’t come to heal everyone. Jesus didn’t feed everyone! He could have solved world hunger, but He didn’t come to feed everyone. He came to SAVE everyone!
Jesus didn’t come to be the greatest humanitarian in the world! He came to be the SAVIOR of the world!
Why Are We Here?
Maybe it’s time for you and me to decide why we are here? What is our PURPOSE? What is our MISSION?
Are you here to be a humanitarian? Or, are you here to be a Christian?
Here’s what concerns me… Have you defaulted to doing nice things because of your faith for people but stopped short of telling them the reason you do what you do is because of Jesus?
If that’s true, you may be a humanitarian. But that is a very different thing than being a Christian.
To be a humanitarian is to be nice. It’s concerned with promoting human welfare.
But to be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ. An imitator of Christ. A disciple of Christ, someone who is learning from Jesus and putting what they are learning into practice. To be a Christian is to be on mission for God with God pointing people to the only God who saves!
Jesus didn’t die because he was nice. He wasn’t arrested and crucified because he was nice. He was a threat to the religious leaders, to people in power, because he was actively involved in making things right in this old world.
If people don’t know why we do what we do, they will think we are NICE.
I want people to think I’m nice — but more than that, I want people to know the great love of God revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is where I believe we have to decide, is it enough to just believe Jesus is who He says He is and to believe that what He teaches is true? Or will we be a people who put his teachings into practice?
God’s mission is to make things on Earth as they are in Heaven. And in the middle of a broken world, in a world where things are not the way they are supposed to be, God has an answer… It’s you! It’s us. It’s the church!
Ed Stetzer once said, “God’s church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church.”
And our mission is not to be nice, at least not for the sake of being nice. Our mission is to be a part of making things on earth as they are in heaven!
The hope of the world isn’t nice people doing nice things, it’s followers of Jesus pointing people to Jesus. God’s plan to make things on Earth as they are in Heaven is YOU! It’s Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, Spirit-empowered people making a difference in the lives of others because of Jesus!
This is the NEW Mission we’ve been given by Jesus to pursue.
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