Rags to Riches

A few months ago, I was at a convenience store. There were two young men. They were in their early 20s, behind the counter, and they were playing some pop music. And they couldn't stop dancing. They danced. They just kept dancing. Every time they came up to talk to somebody, you know, and take their money, they just danced. And I was getting a chuckle out of it, and I was washing them. So when I walked up as my chairman, I walked up, and, okay, guys, what year did that song come out? Now one of them looked at me and said, you think that's Michael Jackson? I said, yeah. He said, it's not. He said, this song just came out, and he told me the artist. It wasn't someone I knew. And he said, my generation finally has its own Michael Jackson. And I thought about that. I thought it was an interesting comment. I had a hard time not dancing because I left the comedian's story. And I thought, it's amazing how much impact Michael Jackson had, not only on pop music, but culture. I mean, the man died in 2009. And here's two men that, they made young kids when he died, and their comment is, we finally have our Michael Jackson. Now, I remember Michael Jackson when I was a little kid, as part of the Jackson Five. And we sat, I remember sitting with my parents watching this little kid belt out this music and dance across the stage. And we were mesmerized by him. It was just amazing, the talent, and how natural this kid was. We watched, you know, Michael Jackson. And he sang, you know, puppy love songs. Now, anyone who knows and watched his career, watch that man go through dramatic changes, until he became a very dysfunctional purpose, or person, who could forget him standing in Europe holding his child, his baby out in a hotel, holding it out, hanging over the balcony. The baby could have died and said, hey, it's my baby, I can do whatever I want. Or if you ever saw the thriller videos back in the, what's the 80s? I guess it's the 90s, he came out with those. This was a definitely different person, than the person who, 30 years ago, did the kind of music that he did then. The thing about Michael Jackson that's very interesting is he was both a messenger and a victim of a pulp culture that changed and has become the defining culture of an age. It's a celebrity culture. The more dysfunctional he became, the more people watched him. People who never listened to his music know who Michael Jackson is. Young people who never saw video of Michael Jackson, know who Michael Jackson is. Because he became so dysfunctional that he was in the news. Everybody, when you check out at the grocery store, all the magazines had Michael Jackson on the front, as he did the news crazy thing. And people became more and more fascinated. And you'd hear talk shows, and people hated him. He became more and more bizarre. He built his own little amusement park and became a person who was suffering from very serious problems. It happens all the time. It's the story of our celebrity culture. Rags to riches, to fame, to dysfunction, to destruction. They have us over and over and over again.

Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana. It's interesting. She has said that it was Hannah Montana's persona. She played Hannah Montana for Disney for all those years. It was that persona that drove her to be what she thinks she's doing today, which is her real self. She shaved her head. Her show is nothing but provocative, sexually just provocative things. Her behavior is just, even in our culture, is considered bizarre. How could she do this at age 18 and this at age 22? Now, some of you might not know who Miley Cyrus is, but you know who Billy Ray Cyrus is, and that's her dad. How do you know who Billy Ray Cyrus is? Okay. Oh, you country western fans, eh? His story isn't a whole lot better. It's not quite as bad. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're a pop star, rock star, country music star, sports star, actor, classical composer, the celebrity culture is incredibly destructive. And it's the same story. And yet, we're fascinated with it, aren't we? We're all sort of fascinated with it. We're always fascinated with, oh, who got out of rehab this week? And how did they end up there? And unfortunately, we also live in a world in which many, many people believe and look at that celebrity culture and they say, that is what will make me happy. It's interesting. I've read surveys with people under the age of 30. If you think I'm picking on young people, wait till I say what I'm going to say after that. But people under 30. And for many people, in fact, 51% of people between 20 and 30, one survey I read, their number one measure of success was fame, not even money. Now, there's something interesting in that. Because what we have is a country and they say, well, boy, I'm glad I'm not like that. We're all slightly fast. Well, though, there are a few that aren't. Most of us are slightly fascinated, right? I mean, I've always liked Phil Dwyer. Now, that was before my time. But you know, the old black and white Humphrey Bogart movies. How many know who Bogie is? A few. I mean, if I could dress the way I really wanted to dress, it'd be a double-breasted suit, two-tone shoes, wide tie, and a fedora. And I would talk like Bogie.

If you've never seen or seen a movie with Humphrey Bogart, you now see that character, right? You see that character in your head. We're all a little bit fascinated with it. But the problem is, between YouTube, television, radio, glossy magazines, Facebook, we're inundated with it until it becomes an obsession. And that obsession has created an interesting trend in our culture. Dr. Drew Pinsky wrote a book called The Mirror Effect, How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America. Now, one of the reasons I found this book interesting is because I had seen Dr. Drew Pinsky on television many times over the years. Dr. Drew Pinsky is the therapist of the stars. He's a celebrity himself. I remember seeing him probably 15 years ago on television. He's always being interviewed. He's the pop therapist, the therapist of the stars. You've got a celebrity who is the therapist of celebrities.

So his viewpoint is interesting. His viewpoint is that most of the people he deals with there are a lot of rock stars, actors, actresses. Some athletes are seriously mentally ill. They're seriously mentally ill.

Here's what he says. Well, first of all, let me give the...he calls...he defines them of being narcissistic. Narcissism is a mental illness. The word narcissism comes from a Greek legend. Narcissist was the most handsome man in Greece.

This is the legend, but the Greeks used legends to teach lessons. That's an interesting lesson. The most handsome man in Greece. One day, he stooped down to get some water out of a pond and saw his reflection and fell in love with himself.

But every time he went to touch the reflection, of course it shattered and disappeared. He had to wait until it calmed again and then touched it and it shattered and disappeared. He was so heartbroken that he could not touch the person he was in love with that he died. So, that's what's...this mental illness, narcissism, is that you're in love with yourself, but it goes beyond that. A narcissist is...this is the definition the mental health community gives them...is a person who's in love with an image of what they think their self should be like.

And they're in love with that image so much that they don't have any real self understanding of their self. And so, their lives become self-destructive. Dr. Pinsky has concluded, after dealing with hundreds of celebrities, almost all of them suffer from severe forms of narcissism. They're so in love with the image of themselves. They're trying to measure up to this image that they're really not fully developed people. They're only half developed. They're partly developed. The result is they end up totally destroying themselves. And it's the same story over and over again.

Here's what he says. I want you to listen to this. Because remember, the whole point of his book is, this is what's becoming the norm in our society. In other words, we are becoming a nation of mentally ill people who are narcissists. And he's right. And it is the greatest danger we face as Christians in understanding God's way.

So I'll tell you why we're headed in that direction in a minute. He doesn't understand that. He only He only sees this as a person who's a doctor. He says, I can see the symptoms and I can see how it's being passed on from generation to generation. Here's the problem with narcissists. He says, they have a profound lack of self-knowledge and the inability to experience an empathetic connection with others. A profound lack of self-knowledge.

Who I am. What's my purpose? Therefore, they cannot be empathetic towards others. Everything is about me and what makes me feel good right now. That's all that matters. It causes them to fixate on the reaction of others in order to shore up their own sense of self. In other words, they can only feel good when they hear the clapping. And you say, oh, that's sort of strange. Do you know anybody that their entire sense of self-worth, because I've met a few people like this, is based on how many friends they have on Facebook. It's not the quality of their relationships. It's how many people are clapping. It's not the quality of your relationships.

It's how many people are saying, I like. You don't know most of those people. Come on. But they like you, and that gives you a feeling of self-worth. For the narcissist, the whole world is a mirror. Life is spent in constant pursuit of a gratifying reflection, a beautiful self-image to help stave off feelings of emptiness.

A modern narcissist sneaks those reflections in the pages of glossy magazines on the screens of their TVs and computers. The celebrity media looking glass responds with images of a privileged life where the participants are beautiful, charismatic, powerful, and free to act as they choose. The mirror of celebrity reinforces every narcissist's belief that the world of constant admiration is possible. All you need to do is act sexy, play the diva, demand privileges, and party with abandon. Sound like Miley Cyrus? Where is she going to end up? I actually don't say that to criticize her. I feel incredibly... I just feel bad for where this one is going to go.

This does not end well. It can't end well. The story is over and over and over again. It's told somewhere about age 30. They were there in such a dysfunctional lifestyle, but now we're sort of enjoying it. Or there's a place they'll do anything to hear the clapping, because that's how they feel. How they feel good about themselves. They'll do anything. They'll commit crimes. So we see people that are billionaires steal from a 7-11. How many times have we seen that? Or they're drunk. They get picked over, picked up for being drunk.

Oh, they had a 10,000-month cocaine habit. So we hear it all the time. And we watch the rags, the riches, the fame, to dysfunction, to destruction pattern over and over again. The problem is, it now is the norm. It's what people think brings happiness to life. Is to live somehow that warped mirror that you're looking into. I've got to look like, you know, 50 years ago was Madonna, if you're a woman. Tom Cruise or whatever. There's always this mirror. We want to be that person.

We have something that Paul wrote about the end of the age, and what it would be like at the end of the age. I want to go there to 2 Timothy 3. What the Germans call, I think, is the seithgeist, the spirit of the age. 2 Timothy 3, verse 1. But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves. Now, you and beings always want to do its best for us, right? So you can always say, well, you and beings always sort of love themselves. They say, he says it here, it's going to be the part in society that is so dysfunctional. And here's what happens with narcissism. You're so obsessed with how you feel. You're so obsessed with how you feel it is almost impossible to love another person. Almost impossible! Because in every situation all you can deal with is how I feel. To have empathy, how does that person feel? Or to figure out how my actions affect another person becomes almost impossible. Because narcissists cannot get beyond themselves. They see themselves as the absolute center of the universe. They are lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedience of parents, unthankful, and wholly think, wow, what a list! Think of the celebrity culture. The people you and I love to watch. I think of the athletes I like to watch and how many of them, well, they beat up their wife, or they got picked up for a DUI the other day, or they've had, you know, seven children through seven different women, and we let them go! Because we want to watch them dunk a basketball, or we want to watch them hit a home run, or we want to watch them catch a touchdown. And so we watch. And we're not careful. We want to be like them.

Unloving, but they're lovers of themselves. The problem is you don't know how to get out yourself, outside of yourself. All you care about is how I feel in this moment. Unforgiving, of course you can't forgive. I have to admit, I've never, I don't think I've ever bought one, but I do when I'm going through Kroger's, I look at all the magazines. My wife says, that's just stupid. I have to look at them. Because they just blow my mind that people spend money on this. I mean, so-and-so says this about so-and-so. And the next month it's so-and-so said this about so-and-so, and this person said, it's a lie, you know, you've been sleeping with my husband. No, I haven't. And it's going on and on, and people say, oh, this is exciting. Of course, when you live that lifestyle, it's painful, isn't it? Oh, if I could just have that money, if I could just be that famous, if I could have just that many people like me, it's the problem with being in love with yourself. You can never get enough people to like you, ever. It's never enough. You can't be fed enough love, because part of what fulfills us is loving others. And if you can't love outward, it's an empty hole that people just you can't get enough. That's why it's a mental illness.

It goes on. Slanders without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Remember what we said? Act sexy, act like a diva, and party with abandon.

And there is no concept of God. It is becoming the spirit of an age. In fact, Dr. Drew Pinskin believes it could be the collapse of our society. I find that interesting. He's a celebrity, and he says that. He says that what's happening in our culture and is being mirrored by each new generation is becoming absolutely dysfunctional. Absolutely dysfunctional. Why? There is a philosophy, and I'm not going to go into its foundation of where it came from. This, by the way, is not a conspiracy theory. The founding men of secular humanism are well known. John Dewey was honored on a stamp, a U.S. Posty stamp, in 1968, as the founder of the modern American educational system. So this secular humanism is all over the internet. You can go see their manifesto. It's a philosophical viewpoint that was formed by a group of educators way back in the 1930s with the intent on making it the educational foundation of the United States system of education. And that's what it's become. Secular humanism, the books by John Dewey are used as textbooks not only in colleges across the United States but all through Europe. Secular humanism is the major philosophy of the day. Most of our politicians are actually secular humanists. Once you understand secular humanism, their behavior actually becomes incredibly predictive. We say, well, I don't understand why this politician is doing that or this politician is doing that. Why it seems like we have all these different parties but they all end up in the same place because they all have a similar, not all of them, but many of them have a similar philosophy. It's what they learned at school. Now, I've got against education. All three of my kids have a college degree. I'm just saying we have to be aware of the power of secular humanism. Let me give you just four ideas that are prevalent in secular humanism. There's a lot more than this, but these are very four important ones because I want to show you what it produces and what we have to be aware of as Christians because it is becoming the norm and it will become the norm more and more because it is the foundational philosophy of what is becoming our nation. I'm not going to change that philosophy unless you come up with a different philosophy and they're not going to listen to a biblical philosophy most people. Now, one of the foundations, by the way, of secular humanism is evolution. Now, I'm not saying all secular humanists are narcissistic. I've met secular humanists. There were some of the nicest people you'd ever meet. Very kind, very nice, okay? But, secular humanism leads to an emptiness and an emptiness in a celebrity culture creates narcissism. You understand the link here? Yes, there's the other link that happens.

Secular humanism leads to being anti-God. Celebrity culture leads to narcissism, self-destructive behavior. Mass media leads to people believing in secular humanism and emulating the celebrity culture. I'm not saying that it all happened by design. I don't think it did. It happened because all these trends come together at a focal point. Here's four basic concepts of secular humanism, and we don't even have to talk about how it's different from the Bible. One is human nature is basically good. When we read the Scripture, we see that human nature is a mixture of good and evil. Every person in the Bible, except Jesus Christ, is what? A mixture of good and evil. And you say, well, that's not different. No, that's a huge difference. It is a huge difference on how you see humanity. Secular humanists believe if you can just get the smartest people in a room, they can fix any problem. Second is a foundational teaching of secular humanism that all religious ideas are equal as long as they promote acceptance.

The secular humanist idea of religion is a soup line with a Hindu, a Jew, a Baptist, a Jehovah's Witness, an atheist, a Muslim, and a Catholic, all serving the poor and all loving one another. That's perfect religion. Now, the problem is, if you say that salvation requires acceptance of Jesus Christ, ah, that is a religion that doesn't promote this inclusive concept, anything that promotes exclusive, exclusivity, everybody not getting along, is evil. Good is defined by bringing everybody together. All religion is good as long as it brings everybody together. Third point of secular humanism, the key to solving all of the world's problems is a common secular education based on evolution and scientific thought. Although evolution isn't very scientific, I've never figured that out. But that is the basis of how you solve all problems. There's a social agenda to that, too. And then four, an important expression of human freedom is sexual freedom. This is very important in the secular humanist belief system. I mean, you think about, remember, was it last year or the year before? There was a young woman before Congress. I watched a little bit on CNN because I couldn't believe it. Not CNN, a C-SPAN because I couldn't believe it. You want to get bored someday. Watch C-SPAN. And this woman is arguing that the government owes her the pill.

Now, you think, and she's very intelligent. I mean, this was a very intelligent woman. She's making a very, very logical argument that you have to understand. The philosophy makes sense if you understand the philosophy. What is the purpose of government to protect our freedoms? To a secular humanism, there is no higher freedom than sexual freedom. Therefore, it is the government's duty to protect bisexual freedom. And if I can't afford the pill, I cannot have sexual freedom. Therefore, it is the government's duty to supply that to me. See, if you don't understand the philosophy, you don't understand where people are coming from. In that little world, that way of thinking, it actually makes sense. If I can list my freedoms, and sexual freedom is at the top, and I list the duty of government is to protect my freedoms, then the government must protect my sexual freedoms. See why gay marriage is going to win? You understand? It has to win. The philosophy demands that it wins.

So, secular humanism destroyed certain concepts and values that were based in the Bible. The results of this is very interesting, and it's what we see happening in society. This doesn't happen to have a vacuum. It's taken a long time for this country to get where it is. This started long before any of us in this room was born. And it happened through a philosophical belief that it became the foundation of an educational system, which the educational system agrees is its foundation. It's not like you have... Like I said, this is the hidden knowledge. This is secret stuff. This is American posting stamps, which are supposed to commemorate the most important people in our history.

Now, the result of this is some very important concepts. There's a lot of scriptures we can go through, and I'm not going to go through a lot, but just a few. I'm just going to mention some of the results of what these four ideals lead to. So you can start to better understand the world you're in. One is the promotion of spirituality without the recognition of God's sovereignty. How many times do you hear people say today, oh, I don't really believe in a religion. I'm spiritual. Hear it all the time? I'm spiritual. That is a secular, humanist, philosophical concept. Human beings are spiritual. Religion is all man-made and tends to be negative on society. So religion is tolerated, but you cannot have any religious values that you believe must be forced on everybody else. There cannot be a common religious value except love and acceptance of everybody. That's the only common... and that sort of sounds good, doesn't it? But see, that's based on a concept that everybody's nature is good. If everybody's nature is a mixture of good and evil, it won't work. But if you believe everybody's good, well, then all religion just brings us together. We just love each other. Anything that doesn't promote that is bad. It's okay for you to keep the Sabbath. It is evil for you to say somebody else should have to keep the Sabbath. It's okay for you to say that you believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It is evil for you to deny somebody else's spiritual feeling. It's a very emotional philosophy. So Jeremiah 17 is tough, and this is why eventually secular humanists have to pick the Bible to shreds. Oh, they'll say some of us are good. You know, maybe a little bit of Solomon, a little Jesus. But you can't get used too much in the Bible. For one thing, it's all based on a myth, a creation myth. Not scientific. Jeremiah 17.5, that says, "...the Lord curses the man who trusted man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusted the Lord." Sec. Humanus would say, in your church that's good. And the church over here, it's good that they trust in Allah. And this church over here is good that they trust in their ancestors. And this church over here is good that they trust in smoke and dope. As long as we get along, it's okay.

"...Blessed is the man who trusted the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when he comes, but his sleep will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit." Verse 9. The heart is the seat of all things. You know the greatest danger you and I face? Sometimes it isn't Satan. It's in here. It's our own heart.

Remember what a narcissist does? A narcissist climbs inside themselves, and they define everything by how I feel.

Now, I'm going to get into this a minute. I say, oh, that's my 13-year-old. No, no, no. Your 13-year-old is not mentally ill. Your 13-year-old is going to a stage of life. Okay? That's something totally different. Okay? Let's, let's, I don't want everybody going around now. Look, I think you're a narcissist. No, I'm dead. Narcissism is an obsession. Okay? So we'll define that even more in a minute. Just a minute. But I, we have to understand what God says is you can't trust yourself. And what secular humanism is, it is, we all have to learn to trust yourself. It's, it's basically flawed. You can't, you can't get what the secular humanist wants, but they want it so much, and they believe it'll work. And they're frustrated by those who can't see that it'll work. They're so frustrated. Why can't we all just get along?

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who could know it. I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. A second thing that's produced by secular humanism is the promotion of good deeds without moral character. The promotion of good deeds without moral character. And it would be at one time who told me that he was, he had felt sort of bad. His neighbor, on a regular basis, on Sunday morning, their church all went out and served in a food line, you know, to the homeless people. And he said, I really want to do that. He said, I feel like I'm not being a good Christian. Am I not doing that? I said, well, go do it. He says, yeah, but their whole church goes and doesn't. He said, I wonder, maybe they're better Christians than I am. I said, if you want to serve people, go serve people because you want to. But what you want is an organized activity. Okay, go serve. Well, sometime later, it came to be said, you know, that friend I told you about? I said, yeah. I asked him one day, hey, you're going to go this Sunday and be at your, you know, go out with your church and serve the community. He said, oh, no, this is the one week out of the month that me and my wife go to the club. You ought to come join it. We swap mates for the weekend. See? My goodness comes from my good deed. My moral character does not. My moral character is based on sexual freedom or whatever the secular humanist concept is, you see. Sexual freedom is a right. I must be good. I do a good deed. So what secular humanism produces is good deeds, but no moral character. Like I said, I'm not saying all secular humanists are dishonest. I'm not saying all of them are sexually immoral. I'm saying the philosophy, though, will produce that in society among the majority of people over time. The overvaluation of nature while evaluating the human life. Now see, we see this, but we don't define it. I'm just defining the world that you're in, that's all, through a philosophy that Paul said would be the philosophy of the world at the end. It'll be the major way people look at life. And so people can hold both ends of an argument. You cannot cut down those trees because there's a bird that's almost extinct in those trees, and there's eggs in there. Now, by the way, the Bible also says we're to take care of the environment. So I'm not for wholesale destruction of the environment. I'm pretty much a conservationist.

But let's look at this argument a bit. You can't cut down those trees because that bird will be extinct, so leave those trees. Okay, I have no problem with that. If it doesn't hurt anybody, okay, no. If people are dying because of it, ah, wait a minute, those birds are more important than human beings. If that egg is bird life, yes, that's the life of a bird, and we must protect it. Then how can you support human abortion? Is that not human life? No. Wait a minute. You can't have it both ways. The one fertilized egg is either life or it's not. You can't say, this one is and this one isn't, but that's where secular humanism takes you. It takes you into a place that you hold both ends of an argument. Yes and no. What can't be yes and no? It can be no and no. It can be yes and yes. It can't be yes and no. That's where it takes you. So the over-evaluation of certain aspects of nature, but it devalues humanity. It actually devalues you in life because it propagates abortion. Abortion is a right. You have to understand that. And thereby it's a right. Now, I don't believe abortion is a right, but they do. But they do.

It does say it... well, there's a lot of other things it does. Let me just pick out one more. It promotes family values while evaluating the biblical family.

What it does is it redefines the family. Secular humanism redefines the family. It can be tribal. Secular humanism wants acceptance of all cultures within a greater culture. So if there's a Polynesian tribe on some islands where they didn't have any concepts of marriage, there was just complete community swapping. If that's what your community wants, that's okay. If your community wants marriage, that's okay. Eventually, polygamy has got to be legalized. Why? Because the philosophy demands it. The philosophy demands that family is defined by the people involved, not by some religion.

So in a democracy, shouldn't all people define what their family is? What right do you have to define somebody else's family? So it's okay for us to define our family in this culture, but we can't ask or demand of that of anybody outside. Eventually, the scary thing is somebody's going to walk through that door and demand we accept their definition. That'll be interesting to see where that goes as far as how our country deals with that, because we're not going to accept certain definitions.

What we're seeing in our country, if you could have read in 1933, the first Secretary of the U.S. manifesto, it did a very wise person. You could almost predict where we are today. It's that simple of a process, which is very hard to do in a big country. It took a long time. It took four generations. Now, how do we help our children navigate this celebrity culture? How do we help ourselves? Now, remember, being fascinated, especially mildly fascinated with the celebrity, is not narcissism. Now, the only reason I went through humanism is because you have to know why the celebrity culture can only work in effect to destroy people if they have a certain value system. The secular humanist value system sets people up for that. If you have a strong, godly value system, that won't happen to you. But how do we help our children navigate that? Our children are taught secular humanism, and hey, wouldn't it be nice to be able to party all the time and have everybody wait on your handed foot? And they have... how many people can you get? 5,000 on Facebook, and then they don't let you get any more? So you have to have 15 sites, you know. So you just get more likes, some more likes, some more likes. Anybody have 5,000 likes? So you know, I guess we're not a well-liked bunch.

But you understand the problem here.

Media and what it does with these people, and this philosophy has set up the perfect storm. But I don't... we can't witch hunt our kids. It's normal. Oh, come on, folks. Some of you people here, you did miss a single Elvis Presley movie, right? And some of you thought, Elvis Presley.

We're all sort of fascinated with them, too, a little bit. That's human nature. That's not necessarily good or evil. But what we're talking about is obsession. If you say, oh, no, five years ago, my 10-year-old was really, really interested in Hannah Montana. She had a Hannah Montana poster, and she dressed like her. I wonder if she's a narcissist. No, she was a 10-year-old girl. That was wrong. Now, if she shaved her head, and you go on her Facebook, and she's acting out Miley Cyrus's antics from YouTube, you've got a problem. Okay? So understand here what we're talking about so we don't witch-hunt our own children.

Yeah, I wanted to play a little linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, okay? At 5'8 and 175 pounds.

My hero as a kid was Giff Buckes and Jack Lambert. Okay. So I tried to be like them.

I'll tell you this story. I wasn't going to tell you, but... I went to...now, Southwestern Pennsylvania, everybody plays football, right? It's a religion. And I come out of the country, and I didn't know how much to play football very well, so I go...I show up at the playground, and you know, I pick last. I don't like that. So I went and got a book on how to play middle linebacker by Dick Buckes, and I studied everything in that book. And after I put a couple kids in the hospital, I get picked first every time. And I was a terrible athlete. Just nobody wanted to get hit by me. Boy, that's what he said to do. I thought that was playing football, you know? And you bite them when you knock them down. Okay, so I...you know, that's what he said to do. That's what I did. And it was...so there's my narcissism, okay?

So here's some of the symptoms to look for. Excessive fascination with celebrities. Excessive fascination with celebrities. Obsession with wanting to dress or model the behavior of the celebrities. And especially the more outlandish that becomes. So if your, you know, if your son wants to be covered in tattoos head to foot because his favorite basketball players like that, he may be crossing that line. Now that doesn't mean what do you do? That means you sit down and help him work through that. There's a problem. What's he doing? He's looking at a mirror of that person. He...I want to be that...I want to be that reflection. And every time he touches it, guess what it does? It sort of shatters. This is narcissism, okay? I'm not saying he's a narcissist. I'm saying he could be headed that way because that's the way society is. So let's work them out of it. We just have to be aware. Hypersexuality. Hypersexuality. You know, you see eight-year-olds acting out things. I don't mean because your 14-year-old is boy crazy. Uh, yeah. I mean, one of the greatest things in my life was when my son came to me as a teenager. He said, you know, dad? What I think about it, he said, you don't have to worry about me. I like girls.

I could have cried. It was great.

Dangerous behavior like drug abuse. Dangerous behavior like drug abuse, abuse of alcohol. We have to be careful. Sometimes kids have curiosity. We have to deal with that. Sometimes it's wanting to fit in. Sometimes you really have to analyze why are they doing what they're doing? And the problem is by the time we find out sometimes, it's, you know, they're 30 years old and saying, hey, dad, you know what I did when I was 16 and you never found out? But here's something that's very we need to be very aware of. Acting out on the internet.

It is amazing to me how people will act out on Facebook. I've actually counseled families where I've said, until you start stop arguing on Facebook, I will not do any more counseling. I can't compete with that.

You know, it amazes me how we'll have this person, we want to work at camp, and wow, this person made them. You know, it's great interview, fantastic resume, great pastor. This pastor says, this is the top of the line person. And then we go look at their Facebook account and there they are, you know, saying, well, Friday night I went to Billy Bob's and, you know, they're drinking a beer and me and all my friends and so, Friday night with the Sabbath, there's some honky tonk drinking beer. And they put it on Facebook. Why? See, the thing is, your parents would have done that, but they would have hidden it. Why did they even have it? Because I want to see how many likes I could get. My, my, who I am is defined by how many people like me in my picture and my wildness. And, you know, if you showed yourself drinking the Bible, you wouldn't get any likes. Here's what I did Friday night, I didn't show you the Bible. Well, that wasn't like that.

Here I am at Billy Bob's drinking beer. Oh, man, that's cool. You know, I got 300 likes for you. And half of them were people in the church.

I'm sorry, young people, you tell us an awful lot about your Facebook. You really do. By the way, I don't, I don't check anybody's Facebook. Unless it's, unless it's someone comes and says, I can't, you can't believe what's happening. I mean, this person's saying they're going to commit suicide or something. Okay, let me go look at that so I can talk to the person. But I don't go check your Facebook.

You know, my daughter, Kelly, was 16. She was a, she was a pretty girl. I mean, I had worked at, at an advertising agency and worked in Chicago with the big advertising agencies. He said, they look for that kind of teenage, her to be a model. He says, if you let me take her, you want to go with us? Let's go to Chicago. She'll get a job real quick. And I said, no, why would I ruin my daughter's life? He said, you can make a lot of money. And I said, why would I ruin my daughter's life? And she never became a mom. And she didn't miss out on anything. Not a thing. Now, she wants to be a model now. As a grown adult, that's her business. But I wasn't going to put her in there at 16. Now she's, and it was desired now, she's 30, married, has four kids, you know. We have to realize what we're fighting against. I saw MTV isn't as popular as it used to be. There's too many other avenues for people to get music. You know, MTV back in the 90s and early 2000s was huge. There was a casting call from MTV. Everybody, who knows what, you all know what MTV is, right? Only the old people know what MTV is. Oh, there's a few. Okay. Only children of the 90s know what MTV is. They did a casting call for people for a reality show. And here's what we're competing with. People who watch the celebrity culture, which they promise them everything. Now, what are we saying? Sometimes. No, you can't do that. No, you can't do this. No, God says no to do that. No, God says don't do that.

But if I act sexy, act like a diva, party with abandon, I can do the rags to riches, to fame, to dysfunction, to someday I'll be on the cover of People Magazine as people see me coming out of rehab. I'll have finally reached success.

Listen to this casting call from MTV. Do you long to strut into the world's most elite hot spots for how to care in the world except how fabulous you are? Ever wish the velvet ropes didn't exclude you from the social circle of the A-list? How about the fantasy of jet setting around the world with the ultimate BFF whose fierce style, charisma, and star power is only matched by your own? Man, that's good coffee.

And 90% of the 18 and 19 and 20 year old said, let me on that show. See the power of it? See the power of it. Here's the solutions. A brief set of solutions. And this is the whole sermon in itself. All this, you know, there's certain servants you do different things. This sermon is just to open the door to understanding more the world you and I live in. I mean, I hear people all the time say, what's happening to our country? What's happening to our world? You know, maybe if we get a different president in, it's not going to change us. You got to change the philosophy to change it. You're going to change the philosophy. Well, if we just got a new Congress, it's not going to change it. Well, if we just got a new set of guys on the, you know, judiciary, it's not going to change it. That's not a bringer of bad news. That's a bringer of, hey, God said it's not going to work and He's going to send Christ back because it's all going to, it's not going to work. But the bottom line is it won't work. The philosophy is wrong. Of course, the United States philosophy was always wrong. It never was a converted nation, ever. It's never been a converted nation. It had blessings because of Abraham, and it had blessings because they had enough of the Bible that it produced good things. But it never was a converted nation.

And now it's just following a new philosophy.

Here's what we do. We have to help our young people. When I say young people, I, children, teens, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, because the celebrity culture has affected all of us. All of us. We need to believe that God is relevant to your life. We've got to help people understand God is relevant to your life.

We can say, repent, believe the gospel will be baptized all we want. But if that doesn't have meaning to the person we're saying it to, it's useless. We have to make this relevant. And if it's not relevant to us, I don't know how to make it relevant to somebody else. We have to make God in His way relevant to their life where they are. See, that's why it doesn't matter what age they are. So this isn't just about young people. Whoever we are, whoever walks through that door that's a brand new person, if this isn't relevant, they'll walk back out, still searching for God. They'll stay when they find it relevant. Okay, this changes my life. This affects my life. It makes my life better in this chaos. Because let's face it, even your 14-year-old that thinks you're stupid, knows deep inside there's something wrong with me. They know it. It's in here. They need God. They need something. They know it.

Can't put it in... define it yet, but it's there. And it's real. We got to let them know we know because we're there, too. We all know there's something wrong with us. We all know that. We all know there's something wrong with us. And we need God to help fix it. So it's okay. Welcome to humanity, folks. Welcome to...now you're in the same boat as the rest of us. We have to help them develop healthy relationships with parents and adults. We have to help them develop healthy relationships with other teens who have biblical values. We need to help them develop healthy relationships with other teens with biblical values. We need to help them experience positive growth, personal growth and achievement. They have to know they'll grow in life. That there's experiences that are good. That they can be better people and have fun doing it. That this life is about growing. It's not about fame. It really isn't. It's not about how many autographs you sign. That doesn't mean anything.

It's about believing that there's something more in life than immediate gratification. There's something greater for your life. For your...you have a purpose. There's a big concept. It is the only way, though, to combat secular humanism and celebrity culture which have come together to create this perfect storm.

And that's taught by living life with each other. It's taught by sharing life with each other. It's taught by getting along. It's taught by not getting along. It's taught by working it out no matter what the price. It's taught because we live God's way and we struggle and we're all not perfect, but you can come along for the ride. You have value. That doesn't matter whether you're 60 or 80 or 16 or five. You have value because God gives it to you and we all share that value, so you might as well do it with us.

We have professional athletes who use illegal steroids and we're happy that they hit the home run until we find out they use steroids and then we turn against them. Why did they use the steroids? So that we would cheer for them. They know steroids is bad for them. They know it may kill them in the end. Why would a man die at age 40 and hit a baseball out of a park at age 27? Because he hears them cheer.

That's who he is. It's those people cheering who define who he is. That's the celebrity culture.

God has a purpose for your life. Real success is rooted in a strong sense of identity as the child of God and living that way. Ask God to help you do this. I don't care who you are. You could be a seven-year-old and ask God to help you. I know that because I was a seven-year-old and I asked God to help me. Ask God to help you to come into your life to help you understand how it works. And remember, celebrity culture really is rags, the riches, the fame, the dysfunction to absolute distress and destruction of your life. That's not God's way. It's rags to riches. But it's not the same path. It's a totally different path. Go this path and go for rags to riches.