Latest / Omnia Christus / 10/22/26 Imagine no John Lennon

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10/22/26 Imagine no John Lennon · Omnia Christus

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine there's no countries.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't hard to do.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine all the people living life in peace.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine no possessions.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you can.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: No need for greed or hunger.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: A brotherhood of man.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you might not know what that's a quote from.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most of you probably do.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of is the gospel of hippie Jesus.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's also the gospel of John Lennon.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not the gospel according to Jesus Christ.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you have that gospel, you know, sounds very nice.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Contrasted to this gospel that we have today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ saying, I've come to set a fire on earth and how I wish it were already blazing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think I've come to bring peace?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, I tell you not peace, but the sword.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: From now on, a household will be divided against itself, etc., etc.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on elaborating all the different ways it's going to be divided.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So why is Christ not preaching a message of peace and the secular atheistic world,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: it seems, is?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what it comes down to is that if there's nothing,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: really, because that's what Imagine is saying, saying there's nothing, really.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, nothing to kill or die for, no religion.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Peace as an absence of anything at all, really.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Peace just as more or less nothing.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, why can't everyone just get along and smoke weed, you know?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um...
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that really is hell, actually, right?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because hell is the state of nothing,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: meaninglessness,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: emptiness,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: cut off from everyone else in your own little hazy world of self-centeredness,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Too lazy or too self-obsessed to do any harm to anyone else can be the greatest harm.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we know that.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: We know that psychologically it is as damaging for children to have an absent father
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: as it is to have an abusive father.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for people to realize or understand,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: but it's true that our presence,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: our being present with people is incredibly important.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's what gives meaning to life.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of the atheistic states that tried to put into practice this sort of gospel
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: of absence during the last century ended up killing more people
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: than any other regime on earth, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: More than 100 million people lost their lives under these atheistic regimes
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: that thought they could preach a happy gospel of nothing, right?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: We need to replace all that divisive religion stuff with this happy gospel of nothing.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it ends up that Millions,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: hundreds of millions of people are slaughtered in the name of that.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: How could that be?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It seems counterintuitive.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And why does Christ today preach this gospel, which seems to be divisive?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he say he hasn't come to bring peace on earth?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a book that I'm reading right now of rereading called Tribe.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Sebastian Junger says in the introduction of his book.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says this is a book about why for many people war feels better than peace
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: and hardship could turn out to be a great blessing.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Humans don't mind hardship.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they thrive on it.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: What they mind is not feeling necessary.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that Imagine Song talks about.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It talks about people who aren't necessary,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: people who are just lost to themselves,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: people who have no meaning or purpose, nothing to live or die for.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: What's the point?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're made for that.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're made for some great purpose.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you take that away such that people don't even have anything,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: so they're not killing other people because they're just dying themselves slowly
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: of despair, that's not a good alternative.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: when you do something with your life, when you try to do something, It's difficult.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be divisive.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to cause problems.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to cause waves.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, your family might be divided if you try to do something.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you just do nothing and just float along and never make any waves,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: okay, maybe everybody likes you, you know.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what's the point of that?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the point of doing nothing?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if everybody likes you because you're just floating along doing nothing,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: are you really doing anything?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is life even meaningful at that point?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: What Sebastian says is humans don't mind hardship.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: What they might is not feeling necessary.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We are absolutely necessary to God and to others,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: but society kind of wants to take that away and render that meaningless and useless.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: When Christ says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light, he's not being figurative.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: When we truly try to do something with our lives,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: when we follow Christ,
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  SPEAKER_00: when we make our life about something,
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  SPEAKER_00: turns out that's easier and lighter than doing nothing.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Doing nothing and trying to run away from hardship and pain,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: all we get is more hardship and pain because we're filled with a sense
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: of uselessness, meaninglessness, despair, anxiety.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most horrible life that there is.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is much less painful and is much less hard to do the hard thing,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: hard thing up front of following Christ,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: of making my life about something, of doing something with my existence.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to feel much better even naturally about that than this sort of way of doing nothing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a society of people that are filled with despair and hopelessness
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: and isolation that ultimately leads to the sort of wars that we saw in
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: the last century.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a magical solution to take away everyone's meaning.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: All that does is lead to much worse problems.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So what Christ is inviting us to is he's inviting us to live a real life,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: an engaged life,
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  SPEAKER_00: not an easy life,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: to do the hard things, embrace the hard things, seek out the hard things.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And by doing that, we actually will live a life of peace and we'll enter into his peace.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that peace is going to be magically established on earth because people
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: that don't want to hear this message are going to oppose it
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: because it calls them out and it calls out their way of living.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately that's a good thing.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important that our lives call out other people's way of living
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: and inspire them to do something better.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not inspired by,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: we don't look up to,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: we don't talk about people who did nothing in their lives but sit on the couch,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sort of the solution, would seem to be the solution of Imagine, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody should just sit on their couches and everything will be fine, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are inspired by, we are inspired.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: We follow,
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  SPEAKER_00: we imitate people who don't just do nothing,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: who do something with their lives,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: who seek to make their life into a life of meaning and purpose.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Christ is inviting us into.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants us to do.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be filled with his fire.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fire of love.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fire of love that doesn't leave people where they're at, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody is harming themselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: if they're walking off a cliff,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, okay, you know, they have to make their own choices in life.
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  SPEAKER_00: No far be it from me to say anything.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's not love, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Love goes and grabs them.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're unhappy about being grabbed,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: but love says, I'm not going to let you walk off a cliff.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do something about that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do something about the world.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do something about the lives of these people around me.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to make waves.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to create division.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: People aren't going to like you for that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what love does.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately,
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  SPEAKER_00: that's what makes the world a better place and keeps it
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: from falling apart completely.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Christ is inviting us to.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not inviting us to seek division.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's not inviting us to seek conflict.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's inviting us to seek truth and love.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And those things are going to bring division and conflict.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's good love.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And even if there's division,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's in service of a greater good and something that will make the world
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: a better place and we'll fill our lives too with meaning and purpose rather than
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: that sort of empty life,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is meaningless and useless and is certainly what hell is.