GLEE

            Have you ever seen the TV show GLEE? Well, I would not recommend it. There is too much in there that, as you would clearly see, I disagree with. However, I recognize that this show is extremely popular with high school kids. I realize this show is somewhat popular with college students.

            Millions paid attention when Chevrolet paid millions of dollars to produce and run a commercial with the cast of GLEE during the Super Bowl. Moreover, I take notice when a TV show takes the songs of my youth and makes them popular with my children's generation.

            GLEE is about misfits in high school who initially cannot find their place. Other students are mean to them–even cruel to them. And they somehow find themselves banding together in a singing club. Under the direction of a gifted director, these misfits use their talents to make beautiful music.

            GLEE asks a very important spiritual question, or better yet, expresses a very important spiritual wish. Wouldn't it be great if there were some way for misfits to join together and offer their abilities and skills to make beautiful music for the world to hear? And wouldn’t it be great if, through this process, despite their diverse backgrounds, somehow this group of misfits could find unity and, yes, even love?

            Guess what? God has the same dream too. He calls it--the church.

            The church is the place where God calls misfits from all over the world and empowers them to use their gifts to create beautiful music for the world to hear—to bless the world with the beauty of God’s love.

            I prefer to think of GLEE in this way:

G–God's

L–love

E–expressed

E–everywhere

           (This painting was done for a sermon by one of our college students, Calep Gonzalez. My iPhone photo does not know do Calep's work justice.)           

           Let the apostle John illustrate this in John 4. You have this woman at a well. She is an outcast. Jesus is with—what the Jews called—a sinner. She is a misfit. She comes to the well alone—even her Samaritan town has ostracized her.

            Jesus sits down with her. He begins talking with her. During this conversation, she begins to sense that this man is different. There is an insight that this man is real.

            When Jesus asks about her husband, she hedges a little bit. He responds with the truth: she has had six husbands, and the man she is now living is not her husband.           

            Now, she gets a glimpse of who Jesus is—God. As a result, she sees her own sin. Something is wrong here. She becomes very self-conscious. All she can think of is the need to sacrifice for her sins. Ultimately, Jesus points toward himself as the ultimate source of forgiveness for sins.

            At last, she begins to realize: "Here is a man, the Messiah, who sees me as I really am, and he still loves me."

            People yearn for that.

            So she goes and she expresses that she has found what everyone is looking for. Read John 4:29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

            People hear her message. Misfits from her village come to Jesus. And they ask Jesus to stay with them. They tell him, in essence, “Now we know the love of God, and we have a relationship with him.” It’s as if they are saying, “Stay. Be our director. Let us form a group using our gifts to provide beautiful music to the world.”

            Ultimately, they do. Jesus leaves, but, even though they're not fully Gentiles (they have Jewish blood in them too), they are, in part, our ancestors. It is because of groups like this that we have the church today. Today, we descendants are making beautiful music.

            Technically, none of us “fit” into God’s Kingdom. We are placed into this Kingdom by this same Messiah, who sat at the well. If you trust Him, he will transform you, little by little, to fit into His eternal Kingdom forever.

         God will gift you to sing your part—and direct you (along with the rest of us) to make beautiful music forever. We will bless the King, and we will bless the world, with our music.

         Just the thought of this gives me great glee.

        

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. What a blessing it was to see my daughter, Haleigh, at Harding University last week. It was neat too seeing many of our kids from Shiloh out there. I always enjoy visiting with college students. I would like to think that it keeps me young.

2. I really appreciate getting to stay with my old Argentine teammates, Bill and Holly Richardson, last week. Part of the fun of Lectureship is seeing old friends.

3. I want the Longhorns to beat OU this weekend. I expect OU to win, though.

4. Texas Rangers—nice run your on the last 17 ball games.

5. Haleigh took me to see MONEYBALL last week. It was a very good movie; so compelling that I went out and bought the book. I would like to find a stat nerd to compile the variables on the tens of thousands of unchurched people in Tyler. If we could exegete our culture well, we could reach more people by going where the fields are white unto harvest.