The Audience of One

Mark Dunagan
05/06/12 - Sunday Morning

The Audience of One

In the book The Call, writer Os Guinness notes that "screen goddess" Marlene Dietrich issued recordings of her cabaret ovations.  The recording had two sides of nothing but applause.  “Her biographer tells us that she frequently gathered friends to listen and insisted on playing both sides to Judy Garland and Noel Coward.  ‘That was Rio’, she told them solemnly, ‘That was Cologne.  That was Chicago’” (p. 72). This extreme example is a colorful reminder that one need not be a movie star to be overly concerned or even obsessed with what other people think of us. 

Guinness further writes, “Only madmen, geniuses, and supreme egotists do things purely for themselves.  It is easy to buck a crowd, not too hard to march to a different drummer.  But it is truly difficult—perhaps impossible—to march only to your own drumbeat.  Most of us, whether we are aware of it or not, do things with an eye to the approval of some audience or other. The question is not whether we have an audience but which audience we have” (p. 70).

Before An Audience of One

• I want to always remember that the most important person watching me, watching my every move is God.
• The only person that I really need to please is God.  If I please God, then I will treat others as they should and need to be treated, including both the righteous and the wicked.  “Before others I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose”.
• Man is limited and short-lived, only what God says will really matter in the end.

The Fear Of Losing Man's Approval Is A Common Concern

• “His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews” (John 9:22).
• “For they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (John 12:43).
• “We fear the multitude” (Matthew 21:26).
• “He began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision…even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy” (Galatians 2:12-13).
• “The fear of man brings a snare” (Proverbs 29:25).

Parents, religious people and religious leaders, and good spiritual men alike can all yield to an unhealthy fixation with regard to what men think of them.  This temptation so dangerous and widespread that the prophets in the Old Testament were specifically warned against yielding to this fear:

• “Listen to Me, you who know righteousness…Do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their reviling” (Isaiah 51:7).
• “And you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their pressure, for they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 2:6).

Our Current World

In spite of all the trendy advice to follow your own heart and walk to the beat of your own drummer, the truth is that most people today are still taking their cues from others:  “We see this in teenagers listening to their peers, women following the beguiling images of womanhood in magazines and designer fashions, politicians aping polls and slavishly following focus group findings, and pastors anxiously following the latest profiles of ‘seekers’ and ‘generations’.  One large church pastor told me, ‘I’m haunted when I look into the eyes of my congregation and realize they are always only two weeks from leaving for another church’” (The Call, p. 71).

Thermostat or Thermometer?

Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society”.   Consider for a moment these essential questions: “Are you living like you swallowed a compass or a Gallup poll?”  “Are we leaders or panderers?”  “Do we simply reflect the temperature (values, opinions, current ideas, fashions) of the world, or are we setting the temperature with our example and the gospel?"

What a Thermostat Looks Like In Scripture:

• “How could I do this great evil, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).
• “We are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:18).
• “When Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house…and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God as he had been doing previously” (Daniel 6:10).
• “For John had been saying to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife’” (Mark 6:18).
• “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to your rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).
• “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that they have no more that they can do” (Luke 12:4).

What a Thermometer Looks Like

• Dressing immodestly like the world, as if making another stumble is of no spiritual consequence.
• Talking, swearing, cussing like the world, as if we will not give an account to God for our words.
• Being materialistic like the world, as if there is no afterlife.
• Thinking in lockstep with trendy, soul-damning ideas the world preaches—such as no absolute truth, no hell, homosexuality is not a moral issue, divorce is fine for any cause, abortion is a good thing, religious diversity is a beneficial seeing that we are just all taking different roads to heaven. 
• Treating our worship of God in a casual manner as do denominations.  Wanting worship that entertains us more than wanting it to honor God, the attitude that just showing up is good enough, i.e., “God is just thankful I am here”, the “Come as you are” attitude that can with clear conscious allow you to arrive in very laid back attire, inside or out; worshipping when it is convenient or happens to fit well into our busy schedules, the attitude of just getting worship efficiently crossed off our "to-do" list  (“Keep it short and sweet),

None Whatever!

General Charles Gordon was also known as “Chinese Gordon” and Gordon of Khartoum”.  When a revolt broke out in the Sudan, Gordon was sent to Khartoum to evacuate Egyptian soldiers and civilians.  The British government basically then abandoned Gordon and his men, and the city of Khartoum was cut off.  When a siege by the Mahdist forces started on 18 March 1884, besieged by the Mahdi's forces, Gordon organized a city-wide defense lasting almost a year that gained him the admiration of the British public, though not the government, which had not wished to become involved. Only when public pressure to act had become too great was a relief force reluctantly sent. It arrived two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been beheaded.  In an earlier incident, the King of Abyssinia had asked him, “Do you know, Gordon Pasha…that I could kill you on the spot if I liked?”  He responded, “I am perfectly well aware of it, Your Majesty…Do so at once if it is your royal pleasure.  I am ready”.  The king replied, “What, ready to be killed?”  Gordon then said, “Certainly.  I am always ready to die”.  The king finally said, “Then my power has no terrors for you?”  “None whatever!” Gordon answered, and the king felt amazed.  Gordon was living before an audience of One. If you will keep your focus on God, when you die, you will only have a short step home.

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.com
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net