Protecting Goodness - Dr. Darrel Sears

All right. Good morning, everybody. How are we doing today? All right, well, let's see if we can change that, but I want to talk a little bit today about protecting goodness. I think Jesus had a heart for the lost, the last, the least, and the lonely. And he stood up for people that couldn't stand up for themselves. You might not know this about me, but well, I guess you do now, because Sean said I'm from Salina, Kansas. But there are some mean streets in Salina, Kansas, I mean, mean streets, like this one, right here. This is Robin Road. It might as well be called Jericho Road, because there are vagrants, there are robbers, and actually there's not. There's none of those. But this is the.6 mile stretch that I took to school every morning in grade school. So starting up there at the top, that's where my house was, 2430 Robin Road. You can look it up. There's a shrine there at a memorial. No, there's not. But, and then down there at the bottom of that blue line is Coronado Elementary School. And before we get to that, I want to go back and read this verse, because I was thinking about God being good, and because He's good, He loves us. And because He loves us, He is good. You see, God cannot be anything but good, and God cannot be anything but love. And so when we think about this verse in 1 Corinthians that we love to use around Valentine's Day and in weddings, it talks about the love of God for us. And that love should be patient, love should be kind. This is that agape type of love. But one of the things we don't talk about very often is at the bottom of this verse here that says, love always protects. Love looks out for the lost, the last, the least, and the lonely. And so I want to tell you a little bit, but this morning, about, I've been in four fights in my life, and three of them happened in one week. All right, and they happened on this Jericho road. I mean, Robin Road, walking my little sister back from school. So this is my, that beefcake on the right is me. And that's my little sister, Laura, on the left, and my older brother Travis in the middle. He had had a helmet of a head. So, but this is my family growing up. So my job when I was a kid was to walk my sister, Laura, home from school. I don't remember where Travis was at this time. He was pretty cool, too cool for us. But so on the way home from school, I was usually, I'm in fourth grade, Laura is in kindergarten. And so I have a reputation to keep. So we don't walk together. So she's usually about 50 feet in front of me, right? And walking with her friends. And I'm walking with my friends. And we're coming home from school. And I notice up in front of me, there's a guy named Buck. And Buck is in third grade. And I noticed that he took my sister's backpack, threw it on the ground, and then threw my sister against the fence, and she fell down. Now, I'm the one that's supposed to do those things to my sister. Nobody else is allowed to do those kind of things to my sister. And so I ran like the wind, or at least in my mind from back then. I ran like the wind, and I got to him, said some words to Buck, whatever we say in fourth grade, speak. And then he didn't like those words, so he shoved me and I popped him in the nose. That's right. I had to take it into my own hands. And I remember him falling, and I remember a little blood trickling from his nose, at least. So we talk in faith and film about based on a true story and inspired by a true story. This is more inspired by a true story. But it's the way I see it in my brain. And I remember going, I am in so much trouble because we've been taught in our house that you don't fight. And we get home and we walk in and my little sister is singing my praise. She walks and she tells mom what had happened as she got pushed by Buck, and then how older brother stood up for her and my mom looked at me and I'm like, I'm going to get it. And she gave me a hug and said, thank you. I was like, yes, that's not how I saw this going down. She said, thank you for protecting your little sister. So this was on a Tuesday on the main streets of 2430 Robyn Road on the way to Coronado School on Wednesday. And on Wednesday, I am walking my sister home from school and I'm thinking about my victory. I'm feeling like Rocky Balboa just thinking about how awesome yesterday was. And I hear some voices behind me and I hear footsteps quickly approaching. And Buck had a next door neighbor named Greg. And in case you're keeping score at home, my sister is in kindergarten. Buck was in third grade. I'm in fourth grade and Greg is in fifth grade. And by the time I turn around, I got clocked and I fall to the ground. And there was, I skinned my knee. Terrible stuff. And I wake up, and I don't remember a lot of you wake up, but I got up. I don't remember much after that because we didn't stick around because I was afraid of Greg. And we ran all the way home. It didn't quite turn out the way the day before did. And we go in the house and my sister is screaming and I got blood somewhere on something and my mom is like, what in the world is going on? So enter Travis into the picture. In case you're keeping score at home, Laura is in kindergarten. Buck is in third grade. I'm in fourth grade. Greg is in fifth grade. And Travis is in sixth grade. So not to be outdone, the next day Travis walks little brother and little sister home. And he brings two friends just for good measure. And he sees Buck and he sees Greg up ahead. He chases them down. I wasn't fast enough to keep up with them, but I caught up eventually. And the coolest thing ever, because my brother beats on me the same way that I beat on my little sister. I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying this is the way it happened. Laura would kick the dog. Give me that's just the way it went. That's just the way it went in my house. But Travis, who was always beaten on me, did the coolest thing ever. Not only he catch Greg. He didn't hit him. He held him. So I could hit him. He and a friend held him down. And man, Rocky Balboa was back. And I beat him. So in case you're keeping track at home, that happened on a Thursday, right? Three fights in one week. My little sisters in kindergarten. Bucks in the third grade. I'm in the fourth grade. Greg's in the fifth grade. Travis is in the sixth grade. And Friday, we're all in the principal's office. And we're staring at Dr. Hooper. And Dr. Hooper, you didn't mess with her. She was nice, but she could be mean she had to. She's like, I hope that this is the end of all of this. Why do I say all that? I'm not condoning fighting. Please don't fight on the mean streets of York, okay? I'm not condoning fighting, but what I am condoning is family sticking up for family. Family taking care of each other. Now, my brother and I continue to fight like cats and dogs. We still to to this day, sometimes there's my sister, Laura, my brother, Travis. We took care of each other. We couldn't, nobody has any hair anymore, but we love each other. And that's my mom and my dad. And I just think about protecting goodness. And it's one thing in chapel to be talking about the goodness of God and how we need to have it. But do we promote it in other people? Like, if I see you fall or stumble, what is my responsibility to you? And I don't want to be judgy. I don't want to be preachy. I don't want to come up and say, look at all this stuff you're doing, right? We need to take the plank out of our own eye before we look at the spec in our brother and sister's eye. But we do have a responsibility to each other. And now that I become a parent, I think a lot about the stuff that I watch, the stuff that I read, the things that I listen to, the places that I go because there are people watching me. And so, you know, when I'm watching a movie and my daughter is sitting there and she's in 12 years old, I'm thinking about, hmm, those words might not affect me or bother me, which they should, but they really do bother me and affect me when I'm thinking about the little eyes that are watching with me. So, what is my responsibility to protecting and promoting goodness? I like this song. Thank you, Aaron, for leading that. May my steps be worshiped. May my thoughts be praise. May my words bring honor to your name. And as we had in our scripture reading this morning, what do we spend our time thinking about? Because a lot of times we think that what I do, what I put into my body, what I say and all these things, it's just about me. You make your choices. I make mine and that's true to a certain extent, but the choices that I make affect you and the choices you make affect me. And so, I have a responsibility to not only think about my, the own goodness of God dwelling within me and working on that, but to protect family and to promote that. And so, I give my friends permission to speak hard things to me. I don't like it. I don't want it. But would they really be a friend if they didn't say the hard truths to me? You know, there's a song that we sang when I was a little kid called Be Careful Little Eyes, What You See. Anybody heard this song? Be careful little eyes. I'm not going to sing it. I thought about singing it, but I'm not going to do that. Be careful little eyes, what you see. For the father up above is looking down in love. So be careful little eyes, what you see. My favorite part about this song is it, and it says, "For the father up above is looking down in love." You know, it's not saying, "For the father up above is going to lighten and bolt your mug." So be careful little eyes, what you see. I always believed in a lightning bolt God growing up. Like if I did something wrong, I was going to get struck by lightning. If somebody else did something wrong, I'm going to move out of the way, so I don't get struck when they get struck. I don't think we serve a God like that. I do think we have a God that wants holiness, that wants us to be pure, that wants us to be set apart. But we have a God that's looking down in love, and we need to ask ourselves, "What are we seeing? What are we hearing?" Because if God has a heart for the loss, the last, the least, and lonely, we should have a heart for those people, too. And we should want to promote that, and we should want to protect that. And if you see something that's not good in my life, I want you to come and tell me that. And we need to have that conversation. But I realize that this thing, these things take relationships. And it also takes a lot of self-examination. But if I never speak to your life, and you never speak to mine, what good are we doing? Are we really protecting each other? Make no mistake. We are in a battle. We are in a fight every single day. But it's not against flesh and blood. It's against the forces that we cannot see. So be careful, little eyes, what you see today, and ears, what you hear today. But don't stop there with thinking about yourself, thinking about what other eyes are seeing, what other ears are listening to. And let's protect the goodness in each other. Thanks.