You Are Living in Unreality 

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

The reality of life is that you live in unreality. Truly. That's the reality, loved ones. That most of us here this morning --probably up to this very moment -- live in great unreality in our lives. And that explains a lot of the dissatisfaction that we feel and a lot of the strain that we feel. Because we are really living in unreality. You believe that your blood circulation and your heartbeat is what keeps you alive. And you know the paroxysms of fear that you get into if either of those seem to be faltering.

And yet the reality is that those are just instruments. Those are just instruments that even doctors can't explain. They're just instruments by which your Creator keeps you alive. But it's really his interest in you and his love of you that keeps you alive. That's it. But you know you don't live that way. You live feeling that it's the heartbeat and that it's the blood circulation that keeps you alive. And that's why you get so worried when those things begin to falter. But loved ones, it isn't those that keep you alive. It's your Father that keeps you alive.

And it’s his interest in you and his love of you that keeps you alive, which explains all the so-called exceptions that we have in medicine where certain people stay alive apparently when they shouldn't be alive. Because in fact all we're able to do is observe some of the physical symptoms that are consistent with physical life. We examine some of them. We list some of them. But there seem to be other symptoms of life that we can't analyze. And there seem to be other powers that keep us alive beyond these that we depend upon.

It's the same you know with your salary or your wages. You depend on your salary and your wages for feeling that you don't need to fear being laid off or you don't need to fear not having enough food to eat or not having enough clothes. You depend on your salary and your wages for your sense of security. And you know -- I don't need to tell you -- when either of those things kind of falter or hesitate, you are filled with worry and anxiety because you feel your security is utterly dependent on that company's staying in business or on your particular talents or abilities still being needed in this world.

And you know how we all feel the more we hear of GM laying them off by the thousands. Honeywell laying them off because the computers and the automation is just doing the job so efficiently. And we all knew that that would happen way back there when we talked about it. You remember the unions fought it and we all were uncertain about it. But of course, now it's creeping right in upon us.

And so those of us who were involved in any kind of activity that can be taken over by the computer or automation, we're all wondering now where do we stand. And it's because we actually depend on our salary and our wages for our security. And those are only instruments. They're only instruments that your loving Father uses temporarily to supply the needs that you have in your life. But it's Him that is doing it.

That's why I suggest to you today that a lot of the strain in our lives comes from the fact that day by day in our ordinary practical life, in our thought life and our attitude life and our behavior life, we live in unreality. We do. We depend on these things and not on the dear Father. And my heart goes out to you when you say, “Pastor, I know that, I know that those are secondary causes. I know that he's the primary cause.” Yeah, but wait a minute, loved ones, you know you don't treat Him the primary cause. You know you treat these secondary causes as the biggies. And when they falter you don't really too often think, “Ah well, it's not them that's holding me.” You have moments and crises of worry and anxiety. You go into all kinds of panic when you lose the job. Or when something is found to be wrong with the old heart. And it's because we're living in real unreality. We're living depending on those temporary intermediate nothings -- that's what they are.

See, the Father could keep you alive just by gulping air. He could have different flavors of air -- strawberry air and raspberry air and blackberry air -- and we could all meet in restaurants and have a dish of air and God could enable us to live on air without food. See, He can choose anything by which to get His love and His sustaining power through us.

But we, of course, grab onto the symptoms or the intermediate instruments and we say no, those are what keep us alive; they aren't. And of course, you know as God tries to mature our attitude to him in preparation for death --because he knows there's going to come a moment when we go out into space and there's no visible support under us at all -- and it’s vital at that moment to have absolute faith in our Father.

And in preparing us for that moment he allows some of these crutches to slip away from us at times. And you know that. You know sometimes those crutches have slipped away. Sometimes you've lost the job, sometimes you've had trouble with the heart, sometimes you have discovered you have some physical sickness that you never suspected. And suddenly the crutches slip away from under you and in that moment of crisis you slip right on down to the primary cause -- and you know that.

In those moments when a dad has died or a mom has died, for a moment you've been cast upon the mercies of God and you've fallen into reality just for a second. And you've cried out to God and you’ve found peace and security even when you have no job -- even when your sickness was so great you couldn't have any hope of curing yourself -- you have come into a moment of real trust in God and real peace and rest.

You lose a job, you lose a friend, and in that moment of crisis you fall for a time just momentarily -- you fall into the hands of God himself. And you know what a feeling that is. There is a deep rest about that that cannot be matched by the good money or the good job or the good health or the good house. But you know too, it's only momentary. It's just when you lose a job or lose the friend but as soon as you get another friend or as soon as you get another job, you climb back into unreality. You climb back into depending on the money, depending on the check coming every month, depending on your ability to earn it each month. And you get back into unreality.

Now loved ones, you need to see that that's not just because you're not clever enough. It's not just because you're not clever enough or you haven't a strong enough mind or a strong enough willpower. You need to see that it's not just because you're a faithless, miserable, disobedient creature -- you are a faithless, miserable, disobedient creature -- but you need to see that it's not just that.

It's not just the attitude of your will that prevents you resting continually in faith in God your Maker instead of resting on these secondary things; it's not just that. There's a deeper reason for it. Now I'll show you it if you would look at it in Colossians 2:8 and they're just hard verses, that if you're like me you've passed over them for years and have just never understood what they meant. But they do explain the difficulty we have. It’s Colossians 2:8.

“See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe.” Now loved ones, people from Northern Ireland are kind of not spooky people, so I just hate spookiness, and talk about witches and all that kind of stuff. So, we don't have too much time for that in Northern Ireland; we seem to have plenty of time for bombs and everything else -- but not that. But do you understand that it's this dear book -- it's God's book --that points out to us that there are elemental spirits in the universe. That there is a whole spiritual world behind the world that you and I see here this morning; there's a whole world of spirits that is organized to run life as if there's no God.

And those spirits are all the time trying to affect you. And when you submit your will to their belief that there is no God and that really your life is your own and it's up to you to control it the way you can and to run it the way you want to  -- when you submit your will to that kind of view, they flow into the deepest parts of your being.

And they affect the deepest parts of your spirit -- and that's what explains that paradox that takes place. For a moment, when you hit a sickness or you hit the loss of a job, you depend on God -- but as soon as you get back the job or you get back a little health, you’re uppity again and you forget. Have you ever tried to recapture the trust you had in God?

Have you ever tried at night to think, “Now, wait a minute. When my dad died, when I lost my job, when everything seemed gone, I had a real sense that God was underneath me. Now why can't I get that back?” Loved ones, it's because the elemental spirits of the universe cling on to your spirit; they cling on to your spirit. They only give up momentarily in that time of crisis to make you think that you're in control, but they call you back into unreality by their deception as soon as the crisis is over. And so, the difficulty you have in resting deeply upon God, the reason you keep on finding yourself resting instead on job or security, or finances or bank account or friends or circumstances, is because the elemental spirits of the universe pull you back under their influence.

And that's why it's impossible for you to get free. Because all of us in this world are affected by a whole spiritual organization that operates as if there's no God and continually influences you to operate the same way. And that's why you at times don't sleep at night. It’s not just because you can't control your own mind. It's not just because you're not looking at things right. It's because those elemental spirits of the universe operate upon you at a deep deep level.

Now if you say, well, how can you get free of it? Well actually, loved ones, there is no way. Because these elemental spirits have become so involved in us as a human race that they operate in every sphere of our activities. They operate in the commercial sphere, they operate in the financial sphere, the psychological sphere, the sex sphere, the friendship sphere, the family sphere, the domestic sphere; they operate in all areas of our human race. Unless this human race can be destroyed and started over again, there is no way to get clear of them.

Have you ever wondered why on one occasion, you remember, God commanded Saul to kill all the Amalekites, and all the animals and all the cows and everything? I don't know about you, but I always thought, that's hideous. I mean, that's not a God of love commanding everything to be killed. Until you begin to realize – that the problem all through the generations that have lived on this earth have been that races and tribes have given themselves wholeheartedly to these elemental spirits of the universe so that they were in everything -- and everything had to be destroyed in order to free a land or people from them. Loved ones, that's what has to happen. And do you see that's what God did.

God foresaw the way you would develop. He saw the little neurotic “fiddler on a roof” that you would turn into, you know, dependent on every time Honeywell breathes. Dependent on what Reagan says, depending on what your dad says, depending on what your friend says, depending on what your check is, depending on every ripple in the economy, dependent on whether this person smiles at you or doesn't smile.

God saw that you would develop into that neurotic little “fiddler on a roof” that was depending on everything in the world and not on him. And he allowed that to be played out in your life so far up to this present day so that you would see what it's like. That's it. Because he wanted you to see it for yourself and to decide, is this the kind of life I want? Or do I want free of this? And so, he has allowed it to be played out in your life right up to this present moment.

But in eternity --because he operates constantly in eternity as we are operating in time -- it's a parallel thing; in eternity He took you, with all your inextricable connection with these elemental spirits of the universe, with all the weakening that has taken place in your mind and emotions as a result of that – and He put you into His Son Jesus, and he ended you as a human race in Christ.

And when he raised Jesus from the dead, he raised you new and clean and complete and whole -- and able to trust in Him.

Now that's what Calvary is all about. It's the beginning of a whole new race of people. And loved ones, the reason you can't get free of that lack of faith, the reason you can't trust deeply, is because you still think it's something you can do. You still think, if I could just listen to Pastor once more Sunday and get it right in my head, I could juggle the right thoughts around and I could trust in God. No, loved ones. It's because you yourself are inherently unable to trust God. You are so shot through with the elements of the universe, you are so shot through with the attitudes of our whole human race that has been independent of God for generations, you are so shot through with original sin and your self assertion and your self-confidence, that you are incapable constitutionally of trusting God. And the only way that you'll ever come to trust God is if you see that God destroyed you completely in Jesus.

And if you have faith in that --and allow that to begin to be made manifest in you. In other words, you actually have to go to God and say, “Lord, I know I'm supposed to trust you but constitutionally I'm incapable of trusting you. Now Father, the only way I can trust you is if you make me over again.” And that's what He's done in Jesus.

And if you say to me, “ Well, how do you experience that?” By just embracing it as reality with all your mind and your will; by believing that you have been changed in Jesus, that you have been destroyed utterly in him, that all your little bits of dependence on yourself and dependence on your friends and dependence on everything else has been destroyed in Jesus and that you have been made new and whole.

And that means, loved ones, saying to Jesus, “Lord, this life that I've lived up to this moment is finished. Lord, I see that it's been destroyed in you. And I've been raised up in you now. And the only reality is, me in you. And so, Lord, what do you want to do in this life with me? Here it is. What do you want to do? What do you want to do with me now in this present life?”

And that's what we call, loved ones, making Jesus the Lord of your life. It's kind of a dumb way to put it actually because you can't make Jesus anything. Jesus IS the Lord of our lives because He's the Son of the Creator of the world and He's the one that allowed us all to be put inside Himself and He bore the agony and the pain of God's wrath destroying us and remaking us. So actually, we can't make him Lord. We can only recognize that we are now in Him and the only reason we have any reality is that we’re Him.

Now, the guilt and frustration that you feel at times in your life are signals from eternity that you as you have been for years has really been destroyed in Jesus and you're really dead and that thing no longer really exists. And guilt and frustration that you feel are signals from eternity that that is the case and that the only reality of that old life that you have is in the fantasy life that you try to live today. That fantasy life where you try to pretend that it's your money keeps you secure and not God. That fantasy life that you live where you think it's your heartbeat and your blood circulation that keeps you alive rather than God. In other words, do you see we're like a whole lot of poor blind deceived people living a fantasy life here in this world. No wonder it feels insecure. No wonder we feel frustration. No wonder we feel insecurity. It’s unreal; It's madness.

And the reality is that God has destroyed all that foolishness in Jesus. And the only way you have any reality at this moment is in Christ. That's it. That's it. Now if you say to me, “But brother, I haven't even seen what I'm like” -- you're right. That's the ridiculous thing. Some of you haven't even started. The only reality of existence you have is in Jesus. And yet some of you haven't even started to let him come through. And loved ones, the only way to begin living in reality is to begin to look to Jesus himself personally and say, “Lord, will you start living the life that you have planned to live in me? And I let the life that I was having a shot at myself, I let that life go. It's been destroyed in you; I believe that; now will you begin living the life that you planned to live in me?” And that means, loved ones, handing your whole life over to Him.

Now I think many of us grasp that. And we say, “Well yeah, I see it's handing the whole direction of your life over to Jesus. It's handing the big picture of your life over to Him. Well, I see that. Well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to hand the general direction of my life over to Jesus. My future, my career, all the biggies: my marriage, my finances I'm going to hand all that over to Jesus and he is the Lord of all that. And so, I let him be the Lord of all that.” And it still isn't real in us -- because of one failure:  in our faith.

We hand over the future, the general direction, our marriage, our home, our career -- but not today. Not today. Today we get up in the morning, and we regard it as our own. And we show that we regard it as our own because we try to look ahead at what the day is going to bring. And we try to go over the conversations that we're going to have and we try to go over the difficult situations that we're going to face and we try to go over the problems that we're going to come up against. And we try to work out how we're going to face that. Because we regard that as our day. In other words, we trust Jesus, we say, with the career and the distant future and the general direction of our life. But today -- we only trust ourselves with that. And loved ones, you know it. You know it.

I mean, you know as you look forward to this next week. Well, the question will just set it before you -- which days you're looking forward to and which ones you’re not looking forward to. We have it all worked out. Because we regard each day as something that will bring to us unknowns of all kinds; things that we'll have to tackle and we'll have to handle people who are going to throw us balls that we're going to have to strike back to them. We're going to face all kinds of things that we don't know how we're going to handle and we have to try to think through it as best we can. In other words, right in our attitude to each day, we express our absolute distrust that God is in charge.

We express our absolute distrust that this is our life; this is our day. God cannot control that. We have to look out for ourselves. And so, there are many of us who are prepared to make Jesus or let Jesus be the Lord of our lives -- but not today. And so, because there is no tomorrow. And you know that.

I mean you get to tomorrow and you don't, “Ah, it’s tomorrow!” There is no tomorrow. There's no tomorrow. And because there's no tomorrow, Jesus is never the Lord of your life. Because each day you are the Lord of your own day. And you never let him be Lord. And so, you keep on saying you'll let him be Lord but he never is Lord because life is not the future.

Life is not the great future career. It's not your marriage. Life is, whether you like it or not, just the 16 hours before your old eyes close tonight. That's it. That's your life, isn't it? That's the extent of your life. That's all you have. You have these 16 hours that you're awake. That's your life. That's all you've got to let Jesus be Lord of.

Loved ones, that's for many of us the heart of our lack of trust. For many of us, that's why we're not experiencing freedom from the elemental spirits of the universe. For many of us that's why we're not experiencing the resurrected self that God has given us in Jesus -- because we're simply not trusting Jesus to be the Lord of today.

It’s put very clearly in this dear book that always touches things that we need to know. And it's put very clearly if you’d like to look at it because it is a memorable piece. It's in James 4:13-17.

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain.’ Whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

In other words, when you waken in the morning, reject the habit of distrust that you have made part of your life -- reject that habit. Refuse to look forward to the day and try to spot the high points or the low points -- or try to spot the difficulties or the problems and then start going over them in your mind until you’re worn out before the day begins. Stop doing that; that’s distrust. And start seeing that Jesus is the Lord of that day. And He has already gone over every detail of that day. And He has taken out of it the things that He will not be able to handle in you. And He has left in it only the things that He will be able to handle through you. And that day is already organized for a complete victory. Because he is not going to plow into something that he cannot handle.

Loved ones, begin to see that your day has already been planned by Jesus and examined by him. And he is fully capable of living it gloriously and victoriously through you. And go into the day with a light heart, trusting in the Lord of your life; saying to him, “Lord Jesus, you own my life. This is your life to live for the glory of God. You own this day. It's your day, Lord. I'm just going along for the ride. Let's go.”

Loved ones, that’s it. That's daily trust. Daily trust in Jesus which will bring you into daily trust in God and complete trust in His providence. And will deliver you from the tranquilizers, deliver you from the agony and the strain and all that -- but actually those aren't the important things. Those are the biggies to us, but those aren't the important things. The big thing is, it will deliver you from sin. Because sin is sitting in God's hands and saying, “I am not depending on your hand to hold me up, I'm depending on my heartbeat and my blood circulation and my money, and my bank checking account and my own abilities. That's what sin is -- sitting in God's hands with your loving Father strained with the weight of holding you at times. And you saying, “You're not holding me, you're not holding me! That's why I'm such a nervous wreck -- because I know nothing's holding me except myself.”

That's what's sin is, you see. And so, beginning to trust day by day is the beginning of the faith that will deliver you from that sin.

Well, I know I don't need to say anymore. You need to do it, you know -- you need to do it.  Don't listen to the words and not do something; do it, loved ones. That's the way we’re meant to live. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we have tried this a thousand times. And we recognize that there are crisis moments in our lives when we have momentarily put our trust in you. But Lord, we confess to you that the moment we get on our feet again we get uppity. And we get back to trusting ourselves and trusting all these secondary causes. And we get back into that life of unreality, where we begin to take everything over again and get irritable and get angry when it doesn't go right. Father, we ask you to forgive us now for that.

And we ourselves repent of that. And we turn from that now, Lord. And we know fine well that this earth is flying through space with no visible means of support. And we know fine well that it’s not the food that keeps us alive. We can't even explain fully how it becomes energy for us. Father we know it’s You. And that you took us and put us in Jesus, and Lord Jesus, we know your pain was because of all the strain that was required to burn us out of existence by your Father's wrath so that we could be remade new and resurrected with you. So, Lord Jesus, we receive you. And the new us that is in you, we receive that now as from the hand of God.

And we tell you, Lord Jesus, live in us the life that you planned and that your Father planned. And take us along for the ride; we ask you. And we commit ourselves now each day, in those twilight hours when we waken up and all the elemental spirits of the universe attack us with all kinds of anxiety and apprehension. We commit ourselves now to rejecting the temptation to go through the day and our own minds; we reject that now. And Lord Jesus, we will turn to you and say, “This is your day, Lord.  What have you planned? We know it’s good, whatever it is. But we’ll go with you now, depending on you and trusting in you.” Thank you, Lord. Thank you that we can begin to live a new life this day in you and in your faith. Now the grace of Our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us. Now and ever more. Amen.