Is Watching Movies a Sin? How to Make Godly Choices: Psalm 101

Show Notes

Episode 514: 
In this special episode of The Bible Guys, we celebrate our second birthday! We then delve into Psalm 101, which reflects King David's desire to lead a life of integrity and blamelessness. We discuss the importance of integrity, especially in our homes, and how it serves as a foundation for our character. We explore how the art we consume reflects our inner selves. We encourage our listeners to make conscious choices about the people they associate with and the art they engage in.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. We have a great episode of planned for you today. Man, it's going to be so exciting. And today the reason why you're excited and so am I is because today technically marks our second birthday. Birthday. Yes, yeah, the Bible Guys is two years old. Oh aren't we cute? Aren't we cute? Yeah, we're so cute. Yeah, that's right. Does this mean we're going into our terrible twos? I was just gonna say the same thing I was gonna say, that's terrible twos. So Desiree put a segment together called Birthday Edition. Okay, she says, for a segment today, let's talk about your favorite birthday celebrations. Choose three of your top birthday celebrations. I already know my three. Okay, go ahead, I'll give us one. I'll give you the first one. First one is my fiftieth birthday that you were there. It was a surprise birthday party, and technically it was the only time in my entire life that anybody has ever surprised me for anything. What No, no, no, not you never had a surprise. No, I've never I've had like jump out of the woods and scare me surprise, you know, like I've had those surprises. But so I'm a surprised person where I plan delightful surprises for my family often, and that is still stands as the only time anybody's surprised me for like a party, for a party, yeah, okay, or like a trip or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I think I think my wife has done probably smaller things in the past. Yeah, Like she's listening, so she knows I'm accurate, Liz, she knows I'm being accurate. She has done things like, hey, h don't plan anything. We're going somewhere for the weekend. Well that's a surprise. No, no, no, no, no surprise is holy cow. I did not know that any of this was happening. I thought we were going over Crystal Bell's house just to have a normal dinner. I didn't know it was a surprise party. That's what I'm talking about. That's different than saying don't go anywhere. We're going somewhere this weekend, that that's not a surprise. That's just a fun little thing. That's a surprise. If she doesn't tell you where you're going, Okay, then how can I just seems like you're not thankful for the little surprise. You only want big surprises. From this conversation, he despises the little surprises. Well, then let you modify my claim and say it's my only true, big reaction of being surprised. Ever. Yes, wow, he lived fifty years, Yes to that moment. Yes, I stumble through life mostly, so everything is a surprise to me. There you go first. As far as birthday celebrations, Yeah, that's what the question is. My fifth birthday? Uh, I only invited girls to my birthday party? Wow? Yeah? And we went out for ice cream? Wow, Farrels remember Farrell's ice cream? Do you remember I was not around then? Oh? Okay you went around then? Yes, you were. You're older than me. I was living in Youngstown, Ohio. Okay, okay, you guys didn't have a Farrels downe where you were in Okay? Now, yeah, we had handles, which is better. So it was me and a bunch of girls at my fifth birthday party. Have an ice cream? That sounds great? Fun? Yeah? All right. My second choice is when I surprised my daughter Tory going to Disney World. At the time, my wife was going somewhere. So you never get surprises, but you oh, I. Know, my wife was going to England to be with Sarah because you know, Sarah was studying abroad at the time, and then Stephen was going to Haiti, and so the only two people left in the house were uh no, yeah, because Sarah was in England, it was me and Tory. So I decided to put a huge surprise party for her and treat her to Disney World and so and that was over my birthday as well. Wow, so that was my second choice. My sixteenth birthday, we invited we had a really big youth group in a big church and we invited everybody over to my house. You know, we had big chunk of property. My parents really put it on and so nice. I know, we had like one hundred and something teenagers come over for my birthday party. That was a fun that's cool. Yeah, well it says three celebrations. So my third choice is my my ninth year old birthday because I was born on April fourth, and my brother Jim, who's just a year and a week older than me, was born on March twenty fifth, and so they would combine our birthdays, which, in retrospect is a terrible idea. Terrible, right. I never got my own party, never got my own cake. It was always shared, right, man, Just a terrible idea. You just sound miserable. You were fifty years old before you ever had a surprise, and then you had to share all your birthdays? Are you ere? This sounds so sad to me. You're selling your own story. I'm listening. Listen to the joy between the play horrible. I'm so sorry for you. Okay, Comma. My ninth slash tenth birthday party with my brother jim was very sweet, and looking back, I was saying, like, I always hated sharing my birthday, but now that I'm older, I like the fact that Jimmy and I share our birthdays. Oh so I look back with fondness. And the reason why I chose my ninth one is because I remember it, first of all, and second of all, it was the year before my mom and dad get divorced, so sort of the last year. Last year that we did that, we did that whole thing. Oh sweet, I would say my last one is I think my last themed birthday party. Yeah, I was like ten or eleven, that's not true, and it was kind of a well it was kind of a Star Wars thing. But on my fiftieth birthday, there it is. My wife surprised me and we had an Indiana Jones seemed birthday party. Yes, yeah, so that was super and. I was there for that. Yeah, and so that's why it was. It was almost forty years between themed birthday parties. But it was great. That's awesome. Not good for you. So hey, I think that if my wife would have chosen a theme for my fiftieth well, actually, now that I don't know what it would be, I'm not sure. Well, the way you've been telling all your stories today, never any surprises had to show it. It'd be like a sad clown thing. I think Sellophae, mister sell of fame, to save my name. Anyway, No, she would probably, honestly, probably. Make it a movie themed movie. Yeah, just movies in general, movies like superheroes. Probably. She probably just thinks of you as a superhero. Anyways, when we were back, we were on we were on my porch. I'll show us real quick. We were back on my back porch, you know, watching the birds. That's what old people do now, yeah, and uh and uh and we were talking started. Talking about and that's what's next. If you're watching birds already, Oh, that's next. We're totally watching birds. And we were in the back porch and I said, uh, I said something about John Travolta and and I said, you do know that? Uh that? And I just talked about pulp fiction, and I said, you know, Quentin Tarantino resurrected John Travolta. I said, there's a story behind that dance they did with Uma Thurman. And I said, let me tell the whole context of the story. And I told the whole story, and I said it was John Travolta that actually, you know, said no, let me, let me show you how they would dance, and I said, became like this huge thing. And then then the whole world was like, wow, John Travolta is cool, even though we had aucastam. And I told her this whole thing, and I'm excited about it right because it was like so cool. It was like the resurrection of John Travolta after people had outcast them. The entire time. She's just staring at me. She's not even listening to my story, and she goes, you know, Chris, I do believe that God has you in ministry. This is her response to my own Thurman John Travoltel story. She goes, but if you wouldn't have gone in the ministry, I have to believe that you would have been some sort of a movie critic or director or something like this, probably because I just because I just love great stories. But yet that's what we do. There you go. We tell the greatest story ever. That's right on our weekend service. We creatively and artistically and meaningfully tell the greatest story ever. So, h Liz, if you ever try to think of a good theme for a birthday party for Chris, I think Greatest Showman is what I should be, because I mean, what more do you want? I like singing and dancing, and Zach Effron we just all in the same birthday party. And Hugh Jackman Wolverine I like him too. Yeah, so that's it's got it all right there for you singing dancing. Yeah, it's Greatest Showman was one of the best musicals ever. There you go, So that'll be Chris's and I mean Indiana Jones for me, Greatest Showman for you. Yes, seems about right it sort of us Okay, here we go, Psalm chapter one oh one. Again, the background on this is just a touch murky. It seems to be early in David's life, perhaps towards uh rate about now in the storyline that we're telling, where it's just before he becomes king or early as king, somewhere in that area. He was a leader, he was pursuing God, uh, and he desired greatness. But in God's context, right, that's that's what he's praying for and leaning into, and he views greatness as being godly. And so this seems to be right about this time, either just before he becomes king or just after book a Psalm, Book of Psalms, chapter one oh one. Hey, by the way, this is also very appropriate that we're going into this because just last podcast yesterday, we talked about, you know, statements about his life of wanting to pursue God, a man being after God's own heart. And this is a perfect psalm, you know, representing all the many psalms that he wrote that are pretty similar to this about him wanting to live a blameless life. Because he almost had blood on his hands, right, right, So it's kind of interesting that we're reading it here. So in Psalm one O one, it says, I will sing of your love and justice. Lord. I will praise you with songs. I will be careful to live a blameless life. When will you come to help me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home. I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar. I hate all who deal crookedly. I will have nothing to do with them. I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil. I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors, and I will not endure conceit and pride. I will search for faithful people to be my companions. Only those who are above reproach will be allowed to serve me. I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house, and liars will not stay in my presence. My daily time ask will be to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord from their grip. Wow that's great, pretty committed. Yeah, what a great line. He says, I will lead a life of integrity in my own home. You know, in wanting to live a blameless life. You know. Uh, integrity is something that you know. I I remember one one time I preached the message called the Rise of Personal Integrity and uh, and it was all about uh, well, it was technically about Daniel and and and basically what I what I basically said was in this message, the heart of it was something about when something is missing, integrity is the one universal thing that can rise up to fill in the gap. So for in other words, like if you if your minus accountability in your life, and all of a sudden there's nobody around, and so you think about like, for instance, Daniel chapter three, he's ripped from his home and all of a sudden he gets thrown or Daniel won. Then you want where he gets thrown, you know, captured by the Babylonians and uh, and all of a sudden there's no accountability. You know, there's there's no parents, right, there's no parents around, right. So in the absence of accountability, what what what rises up to the surface integrity? So what does he say, Hey, I will not defile myself with the portion of the King's meat, right, uh, in the in the portion of the wine and everything else. And then then I was like, Hey, what else is he missing? Well, he's also missing, you know, and you know all these different things. And then but integrity, if you think about it, it's sort of like own negative blood, what kind of bloody yet? I don't know what. Have you had, like twenty two sets of stitches in your life? Yeah, And so that kind of person being in the hospital doesn't know their own blood type. I don't. I don't know my blood. You just don't want to be public. No, I don't know my blood. You don't want to say it outloud. I don't know my blood. I have a negative. I don't know. Okay, So I'm O positive okkay? But own negative and oh positive, by the way, can can be uh. I can donate the blood to several different types of people. Good, well, I'll just keep you around. There you go. But oh negative people are the universal blood and oh negative can donate blood to anybody. So if you if your own negative, chances are you get Red Cross. The Red Cross is bugging the fire out of you right saying please donate your blood as often as you can, because they don't have to worry about what do we have in stock? Oh negative rises up and just you're able to any deficiency. Oh negative. Wow. And by the way that we're talking about the uh uh, the proteins in your blood, we're talking about all the different things that are needed specifically for every blood type, it's all contained and oh negative. And that's the way I feel like integrity is integrity is the one thing. It's the universal donor that could rise up whatever you lack, whatever's deficient in your life. Integrity takes care of all of it, right, because that's what it is. When who are you when nobody's looking? Right, That's that's David's sort of David's motto, Right, you know who is he when nobody's looking? And and you know what it is, it's a person who praise that he has integrity. I would be a man of integrity all of my life. And in my home. Yeah, in my home is the is the I think the key there because that's you know, people, it's easy to put on a good face out in public. It's easy to be on your best behavior when you know people are watching. It's who are you when nobody's watching? Is right the key? And in your own home, and that's that's where a lot of our failures happen is at home, not not out in public, and so that's that's huge. I think it's interesting he's talking about I'll sing of your love and justice, Lord, I'll praise you with songs. So in the context of his God, I want to honor you with my life. I want to be blameless with my life. I don't want a bunch of wicked people around me. He starts off with art, right, because art reflects the heart. The kind of music we listen to really speaks to what we are on the inside. You know, if all of your music and all of your art that you're taking in, all the movies that you're taking in our violence or sex or whatever, that's really where your heart is. Your preferred art reflects what's really in your heart. And so he's saying, God, I want to be a blameless person. I'm gonna start off worshiping you. Right, those two things are directly connected. A lot of times people think, oh, well, you know it's I'm not really a gangster, but I like gangster music, or I'm not really you know, an alcoholic chasing skirts, but I just like alcoholic chasing skirts songs, right, And those aren't the same, right, it's not. I'm telling you, as your heart and mind lean, that's the kind of art that you're going to be attracted to. And so if you find yourself rejecting art and music that pulls you towards God, and instead you're pursuing more and more art and music and things that are pursuing the flesh, there's something in you right now that is leaning towards the flesh and not towards the spirit. Right. Well, it's very clear that you're influenced by whatever comes in. So whatever you read, whatever you watch, whatever kind of books you read, whatever kind of movies you watch. You know, my son, I made the mistake of this is not in the same vein, but it sort of is. I made the mistake of letting him watch like shark movies when he was really too young to watch shark movies. And I don't know why, but I just thought, like, oh, shark movies. You know, he's my only son. I got two daughters, I got one son. Come on, son, let's sit down and watch a shark movie. And now he is just definitely, definitely, definitely afraid of the water. And and you know, it's just you're going to be influenced by what comes in on, even on even the smallest level. So yeah, look you're talking about you know, if you listen to you know, we're so old. We can actually sit here. We're fifty something, right, so we can say, oh, those that darn rap music, you know, we can say things like that. But it is true that if you sit under that influence and that's all you listen to, your whole mentality is going to gravitate towards that mentality because that's what you listen to and revere. Yeah, I had a friend, an acquaintance who wanted to talk about their mental health issues just a little bit. And I wouldn't say we were talking on a clinical level of talking more about their life was getting really really heavy, right, And as we began to talk through, she quoted the lyrics to a couple of songs that really were speaking to her in the moment, and they were like I want to kill myself kind of songs, right, And I'm like, are you understanding? So you are leaning in a negative place, but the art that you're letting speak to you is already there. It's already in a bad place. You need to go the other way. Run from that, right, you run from that because it art sucks you in. It pulls you towards the thing that it's highlighting. And have you ever been in art gallery? We were down in Detroit, the DA Detroit Institute of Art. Yeah. Yeah, and there's a big painting on the wall, this big painting and the lightest fantastic. I forget who the artist is. It's one of those light artists from back in the Renaissance, and it's one of those that I just I found myself. We were across the room and I just kept getting closer and closer and closer and closer to it, which is exactly what that painting was designed to do. Right the way the light was coming down, it pulls you into a point on this giant painting. It's pulling you there, and I wanted to see the detail. There's more detail, right, So the details in the darkness was kind of vague. You were aware that they were there, but you were being pulled into this the what the artist really wanted you to focus on. And that's what art does is whatever the focus is, it pulls you into that thing and you become more and more and more and more and more of what you're taking in. And so he starts off that way. This is how he says, God, I want to live a life of integrity. And he starts off with songs, and then he says, I'm going to refuse to even look at anything vileent, vulgar. I hate people who are dealing crookedly. I'm not going to have anything to do with them. I'm going to reject perverse ideas. I'm going to stay away from every evil. I'm not going to tolerate people who are lying about their neighbors. I'm not going to endure, conceit or price. What he's saying is I'm choosing completely and totally to reject everything that's going to challenge my integrity. And by the way, people people are pretty tolerating in this in this culture. Yeah, toleration seems to be something that you know, we're like, well, culture demands it, and so therefore we have to tolerate. But I'm rejecting it completely. Says I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors, going to tolerate bad culture, you know, negative things. I'll have nothing to do with people who deal crookedly. Oh well, you know that's just how my my industry does David goes, not my industry, well, he says. He says the very next line, I will search for people. Excuse me, I will search for faithful people to be my companions. Only those who are above reproach. Yes. Yeah, And by the way, how important is that you know to surround your people, surround your surround yourself with with people who you want to be like that are good examples. You know. I had a conversation with a friend last night and he was actually contemplating, you know, some big choices like these are like you know, you know there's only a few categories of big choices about jobs, and you know where do I move? And and you know where do I go? And all these different types of things. And as he's contemplating that, I ended up ultimately not thinking that I was really gonna offer this advice. I thought, well, I'm gonna sit back and I'm just gonna listen. I'm gonna nod my head and say, well, pray about it. Whenever you think I was convinced that's I was going to say. But I just got to the point to where I just said, life is too short to not to surround yourself with people who you love. Life is too short to be around people who are who are not good and you could try your very best to give it your shot, you know, to place yourself in an environment where people are crooked and people are perverse and people are not you know, this way or this way that way. Life's too short, man. Surround yourself with people that are that are godly, that you love, that will encourage you, that'll make you happy in the good ways, not in the just the superficial ways, and the meaningful ways, in the right ways. It's like that. That's that's what God wants. Yep. It's possible to do your business with integrity. It is. It is possible. Now you might be in a company that doesn't have any integrity. Hey, change right, I would say it's possible to do all of your business with it unless you're in the mafia. Right. If you're in mafia, well maybe you can't do your business with integrity, but everything else you can do your business with integrity. Change And if you can't in the company with change your company. It's the same thing with your friends. It's possible to have friends that are like He's saying, I'm going to search out faithful people to be my companions. It's possible for you to surround yourself with art that is positive instead of negative. It's you know, you're driving down the road and you're listening to the radio. You're choosing who your companion is in that moment. Right, it's some drunk that's cheating on his wife, or it's somebody who's pointing you to Jesus. Right, those are your choices there, somebody looking for revenge or somebody looking to do good with their life. This is what he's. Saying is in this moment, I'm making some choices so that i can live a blameless life. I'm making choices so I can live with integrity. I'm making choices that very clearly fare it out literally, he says, to ferret out the wicked and to free the city from the grip of wicked people. He said, I'm going to choose in my home and in my life that I'm going to do the right thing, and to be honest with you, all of those are a choice. None of those are God, you got to do some miracle to make this happen. He said, I'm making daily choices for these things that happen, the people I hang around, the choices I make, the things I look at, the things I concentrate on, even the art that's coming into my life. I'm choosing in every way to make God be the focus of my life. And that's what's going to set him up to be a person of integrity even when he's at home alone. That's great. Well, so there it is. So we end the chapter with the lesson of you know, resolve in your heart. Now right, make a choice. Now, this is the kind of person I will be. This is the kind of person I will never be or you know, nuts no longer be, no longer be maybe perhaps, And then I'm going to surround myself with the kind of people. They're going to encourage me, pull me in the right direction, push me in the right direction, and people are gonna, you know, influence me in the right ways. So what a great song? Is great and that's all the time that we have. So we will see you next time, hopefully on the bibble guys,