Matt Chandler - That Which Satisfies

Well, good afternoon! If you have your Bibles, turn to John chapter 6. We’re going to cover quite a bit of ground today. We’re going to start in verse 22 and go all the way through verse 71. Several weeks ago, we introduced Jesus’s Authority as the Gospel of John lays it before us; basically, Jesus has an authority that’s unique because he is God—that he is the Alpha and the Omega, that he has always existed, and therefore his authority comes not as one teacher among many, although this was a school of thought I could choose to follow or not. He comes as God in the flesh, as Creator, so his «Thou shalt» and «Thou shalt not» are more an invitation into actual life than they are mere suggestions. We said that when it comes to Jesus’s Authority, many people will accept it as long as Jesus uses that authority to do what they want him to do. People are fine with Jesus if what he does is heal the sick and give them good things, making everything go the way they want. They push back against that authority when Jesus confronts strongly held private beliefs. This is one of the things I mentioned back then—we would see a moment coming where people who seemed to be all about Jesus would confront his authority and then reveal their true feelings: «No, I was just trying to use Jesus as a servant; I don’t really see Him as God, and I don’t want to follow him or worship him.» I said that moment was coming, and today is that day, so I’m glad you are here.

Several years ago, Lauren and I wanted to go out, and we had two small children, Audrey and Reed. Reed was about two at the time. My sister, before she went with her husband to live in Taiwan, offered to watch them. I thought, «Hey, free babysitting is the best kind!» So I took both of our small children over to Heather’s house, and Lauren and I went out to eat. Heather, being a teacher and crafty person, was great at filling time with fun. She decided to play the movie Willy Wonka—not the weird one with Johnny Depp, but the weirder one with Gene Wilder. There’s not really a non-weird Willy Wonka; the whole premise is strange and maybe illegal. So she sets them down, and her idea was that, as Willy Wonka goes through whatever candy is being introduced, she would give the children some of it.

Here’s how the night went: My kids were pretty limited on sugar because that might be a problem, as you can assume. The way it worked was they sat in beanbag chairs. When they walked into the first space, there were gummy bears on trees and a river of chocolate. Heather offered hot chocolate and gummy bears, and there they were, my kids were ecstatic! Then they moved on to a whole candy bar each—like, they got to lick the candy bar but not really eat it. They might not fall asleep for four days after that! So my kids went on a candy binge for hours. By the time we picked them up, they were buzzing with energy. It took about two hours to get them to bed, and that included around eight spankings between when we got home and when they finally fell asleep. I know you might not spank your kids; you just want them to sit in a corner and think about things, but that’s not how I was raised or how we’re doing it.

Finally, they went to bed, and then Lauren and I—this will show you how petty I am, and how often I lead my wife into these kinds of thoughts—we started discussing our kids’ bedtime. I was just like, «What is wrong with my sister? That is such a grandparent move! You don’t expect that nonsense from your sister; you expect that from your parents.» When you have kids, grandparents often make things very difficult for your children. It’s like, «Yes, yes, yes, here!» And then when you get them back, you have to rein them back in. I had to have that talk with my in-laws. They were just spoiling them. I know they love them, but they were just making it harder for me. So, I thought, «You can either work with me, or you can work against me because what I’m saying is, 'Bam! That’s from your Mimi! That’s from your Poppy! ' Right? That’s not on me; that’s on them.»

So we were discussing this, and here’s what I mean by petty: I started brainstorming about what we could do to her kids when we had them next. I was thinking not just candy but what kind of obnoxious, soul-stealing toy we could buy them to take home that would drive their parents insane.