TGIF
“Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.””(Genesis 19:30–32 ESV)
There’s a new movie out about Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple.
It’s a vile little piece of work that makes much of his character flaws and paints a picture of a harsh and cruel man.
Some of it is even true.
The movie doesn’t show you how much he loved his wife and children, nor they him.
It doesn’t speak to the loyalty that he inspired from his employees, many who were crushed by his death even though they knew it was inevitable.
It doesn’t begin to show the string of technological triumphs that transformed Apple into one of the biggest companies in the world.
It doesn’t show you much about the man who changed our world in so many positive ways, because positive things about people are no longer worthy of much attention in our current culture.
It is, at best, a partial glimpse at one aspect of the man at a certain time in that mans life.
By itself, it makes the last word on Steve Jobs a nasty one.
This brings us back to brother Lot.
The last mention we have of Lot in the Older Testament is in the passage referenced above.
It paints a picture of a man who had been dwelling in Sodom, who was forced out of Sodom, and who ended up in a cave getting drunk and impregnating his own daughters.
I’m stunned that the movie version of “The Cave” hasn’t been made yet.
If that were to be the last word on Lot, it’s a nasty word indeed.
It’s not the last word, however.
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” (2 Peter 2:4–10 ESV)
The last word about Lot is that he was counted righteous by God.
My friends, if someone chose to do so they could take a snapshot of one period, one time, of our lives and show what wicked people we really are.
They could make an ongoing series of films about my life with material left over…and last time I checked, I’m not even dead yet.
That means that more material will be available.
You’re not that much different from me.
The good news is that the last word about me and you will not be spoken by earthly judges.
Like it was for Lot, it will be spoken by God.
If you have placed your faith in Christ the last word about you will be that you were righteous.
You have been counted righteous by grace through faith.
The better news is that you don’t have to wait for the last word.
You’re counted as righteous now…no matter how nasty a movie they could make about you.
Our challenge isn’t to overcome what we’ve been and what we’ve done…it’s to live like who we really are.
God will have the last word.
Righteous.
Make your own application…
Michael – very good, I liked that.
To the Jobs movie, this is why I watch wrestling instead … it’s more real.I can identify more closely with them – they wear their sin into the ring.
I think the last movie I went to was Mama Mia.
Thank you, MLD…you rarely make an appearance on TGIF. 🙂
Shaun the Sheep is worthy of your consideration.
I agree with your comments that we could all have a movie that would show our wickedness. Thank you for the admonition to live like the people that we are through grace.
I was disappointed by Shaun the Sheep. I prefer Wallace and Grommit.
2 Cor 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
My only Hope……
A good word. Thank you Michael. Media presentations of anyone’s life are a bit like an MRI or CT scan….you only really examine a small area at a time, and generally at the part that has something wrong.
Michael,
I usually agree with you on pretty much everything from theology to politics to church, so I’m at a loss over this post 🙂
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs was the OFFICIAL biography of the man, and never have I had to restrain myself so often from saying “What a complete &*%&*(“… my wife couldn’t make through listening to the whole thing she was so disgusted by who he was as a completely self-absorbed narcissistic person… and that’s the APPROVED biography!
I don’t really see how you can go after all these evangelical leaders for abuse of power, but then turn a blind eye to Steve Jobs who in so many ways was so much worse…
You wouldn’t let KP Yohannan get off the hook by saying “Look at how I’ve transformed the world” or “look at how I love my family” or “Look how many of my employees are loyal to me – far more than the few complainers”… so why does Jobs get so much leeway with you???
I agree we are all sinners and yeah, if you came to my house at the wrong time I’d look like a total jerk. But that doesn’t mean we let people off of responsibility for their actions since “we’re all sinners after all”.
Thanks Michael, I really agree with what you wrote. The reason why we can be righteous is only because of our faith in Jesus. We cannot make ourselves righteous, but Jesus has made a way. Jesus is the center of our faith, not our own works. Lets keep our focus on Jesus and not on our failures of the past that we cannot change.
And you’re right about “positive stories” not getting traction in our world. That’s why nobody’s made a movie of Steve Wozniak’s life, despite the fact that he has spent his post-Apple days among other things providing the money and tech support for computers in his local school district.
And Jobs’ view of philanthropy? Nothing, despite being a billionaire. At least Franklin Graham probably tithes on his million per year. Nope, Jobs felt he was doing the world a favour by providing really cool technology that they could purchase from him…
“How much he loved his wife and children”
???
He only admitted paternity of Lisa when he was forced into it… He was a typical egomaniac who was very loyal to people who were with him on his latest passions, but as soon as that was gone he forgot about them and considered them nothing.
well, i think one misses the point if one focuses on discovering the real Steve Jobs…
great sermon, Michael… should lead to some good ponders today…
i’m thinking on how good Satan is at destruction and delusion and how deceitful our own hearts are – how vulnerable – even to the destruction of our trust in the Lord’s promises
I don’t get why Hollywood hasn’t instead done a movie about Bill and Melinda Gates — they’ve given literally billions to help with healthcare, poverty and and other needs in developing countries around the world and here. I guess there isn’t enough greed, narcissism and drama for it to ever be a commercial success.
I agree with Canadian Steve.
I’m not letting anyone off the hook.
That’s not the point here.
The point is that at anytime you take one part of any persons life, they can look wretched.
The point is that the grace of God is for the wretched .
It’s for me, it’s for you, it’s for Lot, (why God let him off the hook I’ll never know) and I hope it was for Steve.
I always hope these leaders I pound on will remember it’s for them, too.
Thanks Michael… yes the application/sermon of course resonates with me and I agree with… perhaps I’ve just heard too many pastors use Steve Jobs as a sermon illustration for some positive trait or other…
I’m sure Hitler loved his family and he did a lot for the German economy which had been destroyed by Versailles… I’d just never use him as an example of how you can make anybody look bad if you catch them at the right (wrong) time…
And no, I’m not saying he’s as bad as Hitler… but he was not a nice person, and his technological achievements don’t wipe that away… and unfortunately for Jobs, as far as we know he didn’t have faith in Christ to have it wiped away either…
Is it possible that Lot was raped by his daughters.
I agree with Canadian Steve.
Understand the point Michael attempted to bring to mind——-
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/living/chris-brown-female-on-male-rape/index.html
BTW, don’t suppose anyone has googled “Jon Courson Benghazi” lately? Holy cow. WTH
Paige, I hadn’t heard anything about that. This administration, along with Hillary Clinton, have been lying through their teeth about a “spontaneous” attack caused by an “anti-muslim video”on our embassy in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful.
“Newly released documents show that the Obama administration was eager to blame the Benghazi attack on a different Youtube video before it eventually settled on the “Innocence of Muslims video.”
A redacted email sent to the Diplomatic Security Command Center, obtained Tuesday by the group Judicial Watch, reveals that the White House’s priority at 9:11 PM on the night of the attack was to contact Youtube about a “Pastor Jon” video.
“DOD is looking at various resources,” the email reads, followed by redacted information.
“S [then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton] expected to make statements one of which may confirm KIA, notification of next of kin is pending confirmation. DCM The Hague was to call OPS when completed. White House is reaching out to U-Tube to advise ramifications of posting of the Pastor Jon video,” the email continued.
The “Pastor Jon” video may be a video called God vs. Allah, which was produced by American pastor Jon Courson.
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2015/10/22/obama-administration-reticle-zeroed-in-on-evangelical-christians/“
#50 – what a sorrowful state of affairs… for the sake of the upcoming election, not contradicting the President’s claim of having the terrorists on the run, our politicians first priority was a scapegoat… on this one, i don’t think Hillary is the first one we blame – but then, the Republic has somehow spawned a monster of bureaucracy and blame-shifting … or so it seems to me
i confess that i don’t know Steve Jobs’ roots, but i do know that Bill Gates was born with top drawer Seattle connections – his own father is a high powered business attorney … and many software people in the area thought he couldn’t have done what he did on his own – maybe Jobs didn’t have the time to think charity? dunno
A few things I have come to understand having been in the corporation for 35 years or at least on the outskirts. Yes he loved his family, employees and try to give a great deal and was innovated which is well not really important. What he did do and what will be remembered here and especially in “eternity” is this ” technological triumphs that transformed Apple into one of the biggest companies in the world.” and even more important “He made money”. Lot is an interesting comparison, Lot was loved for one reason alone by God, he fulfilled the apologetic all that stuff with his daughters etc, does not even register on the scale.
To my eternal shame I actually hold these points in extremely high value, I am wrong about that and should be ashamed of it but I am not really.
“The movie doesn’t show you how much he loved his wife and children, nor they him.
It doesn’t speak to the loyalty that he inspired from his employees, many who were crushed by his death even though they knew it was inevitable.”
In the Corporation if this does not generate revenue or power they are basically emotionalism. One of my true fears is that I will cause some type of inconvenience when I pass, that thought sometimes truly sickens me with guilt. I mean I want to die well, helping others or even saving a life or being a point of strength to others etc. That is somewhat pathetic in a strange way, but it is something I learned in the Corp.
“If you have placed your faith in Christ the last word about you will be that you were righteous.” I really really loved this aspect of the Christian religion and it gave me great comfort back when I first believed, I have come to understand that does not apply to people like most of us, never has. What is rather sad is that is the application I often make.
Steve Jobs was a follower of the Objectivism philosophy of Ayn Rand like so many others in the computer industry.
“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individualism.”
Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
To get an overview of where Jobs was coming from in some of his influence watch this documentary that few know about.
A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers. It claims that computers have failed to liberate us and instead have distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.
1. Love and Power. This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the Internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems – without hierarchy.
2. The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts. This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components – cogs – in a system.
3. The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey. This episode looks at why we humans find this machine vision so beguiling. The film argues it is because all political dreams of changing the world for the better seem to have failed – so we have retreated into machine-fantasies that say we have no control over our actions because they excuse our failure.
The Link:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/
God will have the last word.
I and my Father are one…
http://shekinahfellowship.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-father-and-i-are-one.html
So Jobs got jobbed by the movie of his life…
We love to smear those who we cannot imitate…
We love to bring down those who accomplished more than us…
I do not know what Steve Jobs was or is…
These reflections are well said…
I don’t really see how you can go after all these evangelical leaders for abuse of power, but then turn a blind eye to Steve Jobs who in so many ways was so much worse…
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Canadian Steve, this is an easy one. Judgement should begin with the household of God. We are not to judge those outside but those inside the church.
Andrew, well said – IMHO – there are life lessons everywhere, some are worldly and some are spiritual and sometimes, perhaps they are both?
God does not let Lot or anyone of us off the hook.
We as Lot; can be counted and declared righteous and received in the welcoming embrace of our God as a beloved son; a full fledged family member through the grace of God in the love of Christ.
But as sons and daughters we will not be let off the hook, even though we may be relieved of the long term ( beyond the temporal, relational and ethical consequences of this life) consequences.
We will give an account and be commended for the good we have done in this body and called out for the unrepentant patterns of life we may have sustained while enjoying the full privileges of grace.
If we were not called out then we would not be treated as true sons and daughters. If God has desired our maturity ; then He has expectations of our maturity.
Praise God for the extreme grace that still declares us as righteous even when we do not occupy in a righteous manner in the midst of the wickedness around us.
Praise God that we will be called out of judgment by His grace but yet be called out for our lifestyle and maybe be called to face temporar consequences for our own benefit to grow in grace, for the justice of others we may have wronged or neglected, and ultimately for the glory of our Heavenly Father and superlative Savior.
May we all walk together in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.