March 31st, 2025
by Geoff Henderson
by Geoff Henderson
On Christmas Eve, Nicholas Cage's character in The Family Man, is caught in the trappings of a very successful, but personally thoughtless career in finance. From senselessly sleeping with attractive woman, to incalculable greed, to a disdain for others who have families, his upward mobility only masks a deeper departure from his humanity. Just as the biblical Jonah continues "step down" closer to death with every step "away" from God, he too is ambushed by a semi-divine loving confrontation. This time it isn't a fish but some sort of guardian angel figure, rescuing him from a life of selfishness through a "glimpse." He will now experience life as it could have been, had he chosen his college sweetheart over his career.
As he wakes up in his new bed in the 'burbs, he essentially inhabits the same city, but in a very different story. Nevertheless his character hasn't yet changed. Instead of maintaining a picture of success through greed, family disdain, and sexual infidelity, he pursues what he had lost in the same way.
However in this story, he has something that he never had before: true friendship. In his old life, he never had anyone actually love him enough to ask him to consider how his actions have harmed himself and others. But in this story, his new best friend becomes aware of his desire to cheat on his new spouse. Instead of applauding this false sense of freedom, his friend graciously challenged him not to throw away the best thing in his life. Instead of shaming or shunning, he came with a desire to walk alongside. Without a tinge of anger, and only motivated by love, displayed through pleading "tears of the heart," his friend convinced him of his foolish selfishness. Eventually this becomes this life he actually desires, never having had such friends, family, and spouse. It's a beautiful picture of redemption.
Christians inhabit the same places, as others, and as we always did, but with a different and better story. We have different and better friends who can graciously encourage us to follow Jesus alongside one another. Yet even more, we have the Spirit dwelling inside of us, which not only confirms such godly counsel, it rewires our desires and realigns them with God's will.
We are guaranteed such a Spirit, and given such a family, but are we close enough with others to have such friends? Are we willing to graciously listen to graciously consistent counsel? Are we willing to give such graciously consistent counsel? When sadness is present in such counselors, as opposed to self-righteous anger or glee, there will always hope for real change and redirection.
I ended up cutting out this illustration from the sermon on I Corinthians 5 regarding the right king of loving judgment, which I called gracious consistent critical discernment. You can listen sermon called "I went to the judgment zone" here.
As he wakes up in his new bed in the 'burbs, he essentially inhabits the same city, but in a very different story. Nevertheless his character hasn't yet changed. Instead of maintaining a picture of success through greed, family disdain, and sexual infidelity, he pursues what he had lost in the same way.
However in this story, he has something that he never had before: true friendship. In his old life, he never had anyone actually love him enough to ask him to consider how his actions have harmed himself and others. But in this story, his new best friend becomes aware of his desire to cheat on his new spouse. Instead of applauding this false sense of freedom, his friend graciously challenged him not to throw away the best thing in his life. Instead of shaming or shunning, he came with a desire to walk alongside. Without a tinge of anger, and only motivated by love, displayed through pleading "tears of the heart," his friend convinced him of his foolish selfishness. Eventually this becomes this life he actually desires, never having had such friends, family, and spouse. It's a beautiful picture of redemption.
Christians inhabit the same places, as others, and as we always did, but with a different and better story. We have different and better friends who can graciously encourage us to follow Jesus alongside one another. Yet even more, we have the Spirit dwelling inside of us, which not only confirms such godly counsel, it rewires our desires and realigns them with God's will.
We are guaranteed such a Spirit, and given such a family, but are we close enough with others to have such friends? Are we willing to graciously listen to graciously consistent counsel? Are we willing to give such graciously consistent counsel? When sadness is present in such counselors, as opposed to self-righteous anger or glee, there will always hope for real change and redirection.
I ended up cutting out this illustration from the sermon on I Corinthians 5 regarding the right king of loving judgment, which I called gracious consistent critical discernment. You can listen sermon called "I went to the judgment zone" here.
Recent
Archive
Categories
no categories
No Comments