Disillusioned, Detached, and Disconnected For Good
Alan Schism | The Resting Place Apostolic Family | Matthew 6
FREEING YOURSELF FROM ILLUSION
I am Alan. I am so honored and happy to speak to you today. I am a teacher, and teaching is just what I do pretty much all the time. So I am really excited about sharing this word with you. I feel like it is life-changing. It is something that I found really changed the way I go about life. And I believe it is the essence of the Sermon on the Mount. If we boil down what Jesus was trying to get across, this comes through every single verse.
My title sounds somewhat negative. My title is Disillusioned, Detached, and Disconnected For Good. I know all those words have different connotations, but I did steal the “for good” part from Wicked, because it is a play on words. For good means in a positive way, and for good means we are done, this is the way it is going to be. So, disillusioned, detached, and disconnected for good.
Let us define disillusion. Most of the time you think it means I just do not believe it anymore, I give up, I am skeptical, and there is no point in going on. But I am a word guy. If you break down the word disillusioned, it actually means freeing yourself from illusion. I do not want to operate in illusion, because it is false. So what happens? It shatters false expectations to reveal actual truth, allowing you to build a more authentic life. You can stop wasting energy on something that is not real. Breaking free from what you think should be, or what you wish were true, sets you free to operate in truth.
I really believe this is the sticking point for a lot of the church and a lot of Christians. If you could have Amy and the worship team be with you all the time and remind you how great God is, that would be a lot easier. But we have to live life. The point is that you carry that same connection everywhere you go. It is not a Sunday morning thing. I can connect to that same power anywhere, anytime. That is what I want to get to you today. The church is a high-maintenance organization. There is so much that we are just struggling to live our lives, much less reach out and help people become connected to him. We spend too much time arguing with each other because we are not connected to the source. We are operating in illusion.
So here is a verse for you, Psalm 119:37. I was going to use all of Psalm 119, but it is kind of long. This is the ESV:
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
We spend a lot of time looking at worthless things. Worth-less is a pretty good word if you think about it. It is worth less than what we should be looking at. And the Passion Translation comes through again, because it has my word in it:
Help me turn my eyes away from illusions so that I pursue only that which is true; drench my soul with life as I walk in your paths.
There is relying on God right there. Help me. Help me turn my eyes away from illusions so that I pursue only that which is true.
THE ESSENCE OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Let us transition to the Sermon on the Mount. I said this is the essence. This is what Jesus was after. Imagine him that morning. Like anybody that speaks up here, there is a desire: man, I hope they get this. It is going to change their lives if they just get this. And Jesus knew. He was speaking to people that were probably not going to get it. They were probably going to end up crucifying him when it was all said and done. They turned away. But he still spoke about a connection that he had.
We have to define the word hypocrite first, because he uses it a lot in chapter six. Hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypokrites. It actually dealt with the stage, with drama. It translates as one who wears a mask. Back in the day, they had like three actors and they just changed masks as they changed characters. Same three guys, but it translates to stage actor or pretender. Historically it referred to performers wearing masks to portray characters different from who they truly were. Think about that one for a second. It later evolved into the modern moral definition of someone playing a false role in real life. And I can give you examples of that from my own life. I have operated in hypocrisy, and I am not happy about it either. So I want to be real. I want you to see who I really am, because there is no magic here. It is really a simple connection to him that causes my life to be the way it is.
I am going to use the whole entire chapter six of Matthew instead of just one verse. So let us skim through here. Matthew chapter six, verse one:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you.
I guess they would sound trumpets like, attention please, I am about to be generous and give to the needy. Can you pay attention? I am trying to look righteous and I need your cooperation here. It says they have received their reward. That is an illusion, because that is a worthless reward. It is fickle. It counts for nothing. But it says, when you give to the needy, do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. It is this thing of, I do not want to draw attention to this. I want a greater reward, a true reward. So that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. I want that reward.
It goes on. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, the people that are fake. Some people do not want to pray out loud in public because they do not think they can do it. That is ridiculous. If you can pray a simple prayer, pray that in public. It does not have to be fancy. Oh Lord, we thank thee for thy many blessings, and I hope I know enough King James to make me sound righteous. It is silly. As if God is going to like your prayer better if it sounds professional. What did Peter say when he was sinking? Help. Imagine if he said, oh kind and gracious Savior, I humbly beseech you. No. He just needed help. Be honest with God and be honest with people. Do not do this silly stuff. I count the number of “justs” people say in prayer sometimes. Lord, we just thank you, and we just, and we just. I try consciously not to say the word just. I feel like it is just a filler word.
Verse seven, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles. Who are the Gentiles? They do not believe in God. So they are just saying a bunch of words, hoping that the amount of words they say is going to have some effect on their God. That sounds like manipulation to me. You kids know about that, do not you? You are going to give your practiced dissertation to your parents in order to get a certain thing. Sometimes you use a lot of words to wear them down so they will agree with you. Let us not do that either. So Jesus gave an example of prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. Let us skip through that, because we know it pretty well.
Go to verse sixteen. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, the fake people. They are like, I am fasting and I want to make sure everybody knows it, so I am going to try to look real hungry, real lean, maybe a little dirty. They have received their reward. When you fast, do your hair, make sure you look good going out. Make sure nobody can tell you are fasting. So that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and the Father in secret will reward you. We are still talking about this illusion, the illusion of false affirmation from people. You want your affirmation from God.
Do not lay up your treasures on earth. It is an illusion. All the stuff that you see is not going to last. The eternal things you cannot see are what is going to last. Lay up your treasures in heaven. Verse twenty-two, let your eye be single, so that you are focused on what is real. Verse twenty-five, here is the essence:
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
The illusion is way deeper than that. And Jesus gives a great example. It gets down to verse thirty-three:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Seek first the kingdom of God, the reality, the realm, and his righteousness. All these other things are peripheral. They do not matter as much. I want to operate in what is real.
DETACH YOURSELF
Let us go on to detached. Detached sounds bad too. He is just emotionally detached, not connected anymore, silent and quiet. That can be true. Disconnected simply means you are not connected. But I am talking about what you are connected to, what you are attached to. Detached means separated, unconnected, or standing apart. Disconnected is a state of being separated. It is the same thing. So 2 Corinthians 6:17 says, for this reason come out from among them, detach yourself, be separate. And Romans 12:2 says, stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed. Do you see the attachment? Detach yourself from this culture and attach yourself to the kingdom realm. Jesus did that. He did it so well that they thought he was a drunkard, they called him a winebibber and a glutton. But inwardly he was connected all the time.
There is an English poet named William Blake. He wrote some powerful poetry collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Some famous ones are Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night, or Little lamb, who made thee. He had this philosophy, and I studied this, and I feel like this is God. William Blake knew Jesus, but he did not like the institutional church, because it was so fake, so much of a show. He saw that the human soul has these states. You start off in what is called innocence. He defined it as a state of genuine love and naive trust toward all humankind. You start off that way as a child. You trust. You love, because you have not been hurt and you know no better. You are built to love and to trust. That is called naivety, when you do not know any better, so you love and trust because you have not been hurt or you are unaware.
I have a funny story about this. A grandma, eighty years old, is still in that innocent state. She is totally unaware and thinks the best. She still drives her own car. She said: The other day I went to our local Christian bookstore and saw a “honk if you love Jesus” bumper sticker. I was feeling particularly sassy that day, because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance and a thunderous prayer meeting. So I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper. Boy, am I glad I did. What an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is. And I did not notice the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus, because if he had not honked, I would never have noticed. I found that lots of people love Jesus. The guy behind me started honking like crazy. He leaned out of his window and screamed, for the love of God, go, go, go. What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus. Everyone started honking. I leaned out of my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love. There must have been a man from Florida back there, because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach. I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out of the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. A couple of people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking toward me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended. But that is when I noticed the light had changed. So, grinning, I waved at all the brothers and sisters and drove on through the intersection. I was the only car that got through before the light changed again. I felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared. I slowed the car down, leaned out the window, and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks.
She was clueless. That is a state of innocence. We do not stay like that, though. We experience things. You have been lied to. You have been stolen from. You have been talked badly about. You have been betrayed. That is the human condition. Jesus wept and bled and experienced all of that, probably worse than I have ever heard of. So it is not something you are going to get out of. William Blake defined experience as a profound disillusionment with human nature and society. One sees cruelty and hypocrisy only too clearly. You see how bad humans can be. That is called experience.
I picture it like this. You start off with your arms open and a big smile on your face in innocence. I love everyone and everyone loves me. And then you get hurt, and what happens? I do not trust anybody. I am not going to do that again. I will not take a chance and get hurt. So I close my arms, because now I am protecting myself. That is called experience, a profound disillusionment with human nature and society.
ORGANIZED INNOCENCE
But William Blake, I believe by the Spirit of God, explained a higher consciousness. This, I think, is what the Bible speaks of. He called it organized innocence. A loss of innocence happens once. You really cannot get back that particular innocence, because now you are aware. But his organized innocence is, I am fully aware, but I choose to stay connected to innocence. He said it is one’s sense of the divinity of humanity. What do we say all the time? I want to see you the way God sees you, even if you hurt me. That is so unlike you. We are reminding people of their identity. I do not think love is blind. I think love is 20/20. Love can see everything and chooses to love anyhow. It is not naive or oblivious, but it coexists with the awareness of oppression and injustice, involving a continued recognition. I am always aware, but I am actively opposed to that.
THE SOURCE IS NOT THE OUTLET
I gave you a picture, because this is kind of silly. This is an electrical outlet and a plug. If you keep looking at an electrical outlet, they start to look like faces. There are plenty of memes online, people taking a person’s nose and bending it up and putting it on their outlet plate. That is pretty disrespectful. But I want you to see this. What am I doing? I am connecting. You are an electrical plug. I think God kind of designed you that way. The two-arm thing, it is like a plug.
I want you to see the issue here. The outlet is connected to a source of power. Here is a better outlet: if I plug something into that, it is actually connected to this wire, that is connected to that wire, that is connected to that panel that goes up and out, that goes to bigger wires, all the way to the power plant. The source is not the outlet. The source is the power plant. But here is what we do. We think the outlet is the source, and the outlet would be the people in our lives. So what we do is try to draw what we need from them. Any relationship you want to name, we try to draw what we think we need from it. We plug in, and we get angry when it does not supply what we think we need. Then we get angry at the plug for not being able to supply what it could never supply.
If we would stop doing that and connect to the real source of power, we could love people. If you love with expectation, you know who you are loving? Yourself. That is not the definition of love. But if I can love no matter how you treat me, that will change the world. That is what Jesus did.
JESUS IS OUR EXAMPLE
Jesus is our example. I was going to bring my Oswald Chambers book, my really raggedy torn book, because I would look a lot more spiritual. But I forgot it, so God spared me that hypocrisy. You can look up Oswald Chambers online now, the entire text is there. Oswald Chambers plays off a verse, John 2:24. This is kind of the key verse for me:
Jesus did not entrust himself to them, because he knew how fickle human hearts can be. He needed no one to tell him about human nature, for he fully understood what man was capable of doing.
That sounds kind of negative, doesn’t it? Like, I am not going to trust myself to them because I know how they are. But think of it in a positive way. I am not going to draw my life from them, because they cannot supply what I need. We spend so much time trying to draw what we think we need from the wrong sources. That is where anxiety and depression come from, because we are not getting what we think we need from who we think we need it from, or from the career or the financial situation. All those are illusions. There is one source that can satisfy us.
And for you, Caleb, the Greek word here is pronounced episteuen. The root word is faith. But this is the only time this word is used in the New Testament. I checked. I really did. I tried to do my diligence. I always like that that word is used only one time. It seems pretty important. It is a play on words. He had just done the wedding, the water-to-wine thing. And the people believed in him. But their belief was based on a superficial thing. They did not fully believe in him. They just liked what he did. He was not going to operate on that same level with them, because his connection was to a higher power. If he was relying on the disciples and the people, he would have just gone back to heaven, like, forget this, this is not going very well. But he set his face like flint toward Jerusalem to die. It did not matter who or what happened, he was going to do what the Father wanted him to do. We use the word believe, but the Greek word actually is faith. He faithed it. Instead of faking it, I think we need to faith it. A famous preacher said the key to everything is only believe, only believe.
Jesus is our example. I love that song today. He did not just give us a teaching, he said, watch this, I am going to demonstrate what it is to do this. It is one thing to say, connect to the source. But when everything starts going wrong in your life, that is where your faith comes in. It is easy when everything is going well. It is a different story when a crisis arises, because that proves what you are connected to. Are you connected to the circumstance or to the higher power?
Here is one, John chapter four, the woman at the well. Jesus got tired, sat down. Where did the disciples go? Publix, I think, to get food. They probably got him a really good sub. While they are gone, Jesus is talking to this woman, telling her about her life, explaining that he has water that will never run dry. He is tired, but he is still connected and he wants to change lives. Then they come back: Rabbi, we know you are tired and hungry, we got you this really good sub sandwich. And he says, I have food to eat that you do not know about. They are like, did Uber Eats show up? Did DoorDash come? Did somebody order Jesus food and we do not know about it? No. He was operating in a different realm. Can you imagine being hungry, and then you do something to love on somebody, and you are like, I am not even hungry anymore, that was way better than food? We love food. We have to have an appetite for the things the Father is interested in. He said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Jesus, tired, in a rough area, Samaria, is connected, and he is eating food that satisfies him completely.
The biggest one I use a lot: this is a man connected to the source while the very ones he created are slapping him and pulling his beard out. What does he say? Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. How do you say that? That will work in your life. If you believe in people the way God sees them, then they are simply not being who they are. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
The disciples had a bad instance of connection, and a really good one. Remember the time in the boat. Jesus falls asleep, the storm comes up, and what do they do? We are going to die. Jesus is sound asleep. They are panicking. He is asleep, he does not even care, we have to wake him up because he is obviously unaware of how dangerous this is. They wake him up. And what does he say? Oh, you of little faith. And I bet they are like, dang, we missed it again. What if they had just been like, Jesus is sleeping, why do not we all lay down and take a rest while this storm is going on, I am sure it is going to be fine? Then Jesus would have woken up and said, that made me happy, guys. The fact that you trusted that everything is going to be okay, even though the storm was scary, that made me really happy. It means something to him, because we are connected. That is the bad example.
The good example always makes me laugh. Jesus is preaching about the bread of heaven. They are like, what is this bread? He says, I am the bread that came down from heaven. A great metaphor. But then he takes it further. You have got to eat my flesh and drink my blood. They are like, what? And he says, I am just making sure it is clear, you are going to eat my flesh and drink my blood, did I mention eating my flesh and drinking my blood? And they said, that is disgusting. Many of them went away at that point. Maybe Jesus thought, I should not have pushed it that hard, temper the message a little, because now I lost a lot of people. But he turned to his disciples and said, are you guys leaving too? And this is the light shining from heaven. Peter said, where else could we go? For you have the words of eternal life. That gives me goosebumps. Everything looks bad, but where else could I go? And all of a sudden my hands lift and I connect again.
I had a teenager in my youth group who said, I like lifting my hands because I feel like I connect to the energy. I thought, that is kind of good. We are the light of the world. But light is only light. Either it is the source, like the sun, which comes from God, or it is powered by a source. That light is powered by electricity, connected to a wire. What is the other choice for lights you put outside? Solar lights, powered by the sun. See where I am going? You have to stay connected, either the connection deep inside of you, or you are turned toward the light and that powers you. Either way, you are connected to the source. It is a conscious choice. I can turn away from the light, but John says, walk in the light, stay in the light, the light is your source, it is what is going to cause you to shine.
ΩΩA practical example: Moses. There was that battle where he lifted up his arms and everybody was winning, and then he got tired and his arms went down and everybody started losing. Have you ever tried to hold your arms up for a really long time? I used to do that as a kid, have contests, just stick your arm straight out, and after a while this arm that seemed so light, I cannot hold it up anymore, it starts shaking. It is just my arm, but I cannot hold it up. So what happened with Moses? Aaron, and then some unnamed woman came alongside. I am just kidding. I guess the guy’s name was Hur, which is awkward, but anyway. Aaron and Hur came alongside, and what did they do? They lifted his arms. That is a picture of the church. I am trying to stay connected, but I am getting tired, and we come alongside and help you connect again. It was not Aaron and Hur that were the source. They were just helping Moses stay connected.
I TAKE MY LIFE AND PLUG IT IN
I just want you to see that you can do this every day of your life. It is a conscious choice to say, I am connected to something pretty bad here, and it is killing me, so I am going to connect. This helps in marriages. This helps with your children. You get this attitude sometimes, like, they did me wrong, they are not doing what they need to do, I can see clearly what they need and they are not listening. Well, you are connecting to the wrong source. You are trying to make them give you life. But if you can just stop right there and connect to a higher power, all of a sudden it changes.
It is kind of like laughter. I laugh a lot. I say dumb stuff all the time. I think everything is funny. I get in trouble a lot. My marriage has been somewhat successful, because if Vicki gets mad at me, I just make her laugh. My best one is, I look at her and say, this is serious, and she cannot help but start laughing. There have been a few times she did not think it was funny and it just made it worse. But for the most part, my kids are the same way. Sarah, this is serious. She goes, I am not looking at you, I am just not looking at you, I want to stay mad. But if you can get laughing going, it changes the connection. Instead of crabbiness, you can connect to something that brings joy.
I was going to fake it and pretend this story was not about me and Vicki, but I want you to know we have our struggles in marriage. Communication is one of them. Vicki and I see things in different ways sometimes, and I am a big baby, I get my feelings hurt. We were traveling up north, and I am driving, and I am thinking Vicki wants to connect more. So I am going to connect. I said, this is a road we have not been on before, let us share this together, let us look. And she is texting. Then she goes on Facebook. And I am like, that barn, that barn is so pretty. She goes, yeah. So there is a feeling of injustice. I am being done wrong. I am trying. I am doing what is right, and she is not responding the right way. She gets done, and now I am pouting a little bit, I got my feelings hurt because she did not pay attention when I wanted her to.
She goes, hey, what are you thinking? She told me to be authentic and real. So I said, well, I was just thinking that I was trying to connect with you, and you thought it was more important to be on your social media. She goes, oh, brother. She goes, it is like we can be driving for hours, and you see me pick up my phone, and all of a sudden you are like, look at that tree. I am like, no, it is not like that at all, I really want to share with you. She is like, no, it is almost like you just want my attention. So now I am really, I try to connect and be honest, and she just shoots me down. So I get quiet for a while. We are sitting in silence as we are driving, a really pleasant time together.
Then I am thinking about how I have to share this message, and I am connected to her wanting her to respond a certain way. So I just smile. I did not lift my arms, because I was driving, but in my heart I connected to the Lord, and I felt this power go through me that swept away all my bad feelings. So I am doing pretty good, but I still do not know if we are going to talk. I wait until she pulls out her phone, and I go, did you see that tree? And she was still a little miffed, so she did not say anything. I was like, well, I do not know if that was good or bad. But later I said, you remember when I said, did you see that tree, I was just joking. She goes, I thought that was pretty funny, but I just was not ready yet. And she said this: I could feel a shift. I was like, this thing works. There is a practical example of a married couple experiencing some stuff in life. I want you to try this out.
The last thing, Romans 8:35:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
My first impression was, we can, but we cannot. We can choose to draw from the wrong source, but we are not separated. We are just pulling from a source that is not helping us at all. He who gave his life, how much more does he have to prove that he loves us and cares for us? All we have to do is connect. It is simple, like this: Jesus, help me connect to you right now. You do not have to get to a prayer meeting or play worship music. Those are helpful. But what if you are in the line at Publix? There is no worship music playing. You might not even have your Bible. But you can say, please help me connect. The guy in front of me has thirteen items in the ten-item line. It is unjust. I am going to let it go. I am going to connect to you. Driving is a great place to connect. When the guy gives you the Hawaiian good luck sign because you are driving normally, you do not have to respond. There is your chance to be gracious. He might not even see you, but you can bless him. Bless him, Lord. If he is going through a hard time, I pray that you would bring heaven to earth in that car right now. Who can separate us from the love of God?
The last thing, I wrote a little poem. It connects to the message:
I take my life and plug it in to worthless things, and wonder why there is no lasting power or joy. I draw in vain from wells so dry.
I take my life and try to draw the power I need from those I love, and anger fills my empty heart when they do not supply what they do not have.
I take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. I give to you what I cannot keep, and find my deep calls unto deep.
Authentic life, the way that is true, comes when I connect to you. Connected to the one true vine, the power that makes my light to shine.
Disconnected, disillusioned, seems to point to this conclusion: I take my life and plug it in to the one who is and has always been.
Why do not you stand up? Lift both arms really high. Do not be ashamed. You all look like electrical plugs right now. You can do this in real life. Take some time right now and consciously say, Lord, I want to connect to you. I want to connect to the true power source. I want your life to flow through my body, through my mind, my soul, my spirit right now. I thank you that your wind blows through this temple, blowing out the dust within. I thank you that this power changes my life. It changes the lives of my people, and it changes this world. Lord, I pray we stay connected in the boat that is riding out the storm. I pray people can look to us and know there is a source that is higher than we see. I thank you, Lord, for these people right here. You change their lives because we connect to you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Transcript of a message delivered at The Resting Place Apostolic Family in Tampa Bay, FL. trpfamily.org