#27Jesus Christ: Life's Greatest Connection (01/06/02)

By Robert H. Schuller

My son and I have been delivering a series of messages on the great claims of Jesus Christ. This series concludes today with these words of Jesus Christ recorded in John 15:5

"I am the vine, you are the branches ...
Abide in Me and you shall bear much fruit ...
Love one another as I have loved you ...
so that My joy might be in you and that your joy might be complete."

Many years ago, I was sitting next to a fellow in an airplane. He did not know who I was and I didn't know him. I don't remember how the subject came up, but he began to tell me about his corporation of which he was the president. He went on to proudly explain that it was a global corporation covering not only most of America, but they were also covering Germany and now into England. He was so very excited about their phenomenal success. Then he turned to me and asked, "And what do you do?"

I said, "Well, I'm also with a great global corporation, in fact," I said, "not to minimize your business, but the corporation I'm with is all over the world. You name a country and we're there."

He couldn't believe it. Then he responded. "Oh, you're with shell Oil Company?"

"No, guess again."

"International Telephone and Telegraph?"

And I answered, "Sir, before Shell Oil and the telephone get there, we go into that country. I mean, we go into territories that are still jungles and we have to put the spoken word into the written word. Then we have to teach them how to read and write their own language. I work for the biggest global corporation network in the world."

He said, "What in the world? What kind of business are you in?

I said, "It's the Jesus Christ Network. Yes, we send missionaries long before any corporation gets in a country. And we've been at it for a few hundred years. And" I said, "it's the greatest network in the world. Jesus invented the networking system. This was His management conception."

"I am the Vine ... You are the branches. Abide in Me and you shall bear much fruit." (John 15:5)

Unbelievable! We who sit in this church today, and many who emotionally, spiritually, visually and audibly sit in this church by way of television are part of this network of Jesus Christ. In China, Russia, Germany, Holland and all over the world there are millions ... God only knows ... in this network called the Hour of Power, a post-modern network of communications.

The Modern Becomes Post-Modern

The beginning of the modern era happened when the spoken language could be read and books could be printed. And you know that modern network continued until today when we are in the post-modern networks of communication by television, radio and now Internet and other devices. As a ministry we are the historic leaders in this post-modern networking system of Jesus Christ, the first in global television.

The biggest convention of television and radio was just held in Las Vegas and the big buzzword was convergence. The next most important network of communication where TV and computers will definitely be interconnected. That's convergence.

It's a question of time, but instead of just reading your material, whether it's e-mail or whatever on a small computer screen, you will see it on your television screen. The television screen and the computer screen will be the same. It's definitely on the way. It's amazing.

You know, there is a lot of competition, globally, on who will be the first to launch this special network. Which reminds me of a cute story I read the other day in the Reader's Digest, April issue. "The Russians dug down three hundred feet and they discovered some copper wires. So they made the declaration that Russia had wire service a thousand years ago with telephones. The French, not to be out done, dug down 400 feet and claimed they found traces of optical fiber, two thousand years old. So they claimed they had digital phones a thousand years before the Russian analog system. However, that was all topped by Japan, when they dug down 500 feet and found nothing! They proved, therefore, that five thousand years ago they were using wireless phones."

The Ultimate Wireless Connection

All of the us now can get in touch with what is the Ultimate Connection. It is wireless. It's spiritual. It comes from cosmos, from space ... From Jesus Christ who said, "I am the Vine, you are the branches."

Yes, we live in a spiritual universe loaded with unseen, silent, messages sent back and forth from Christ and from God, the Father. Not just through wireless systems of our internet age, but between God Almighty, and between Jesus Christ and the human family. And then between human beings into whose brain God is sending messages, answering prayers and inspiring people with the presence of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has a network! It is cosmic. It is global and you and I are a part of it! It's phenomenal.

The Need is to be Connected

We're all driven, if we're emotional healthy, by a compulsion to connect. We need to belong. There is this deep human drive that makes humans instinctively driven to personhood. We have to belong. And one of our deepest needs of human personhood is the need to be connected.

We cannot be left out. We cannot be left alone, nor rejected or abandoned. We cannot live with a feeling that the world is passing us by and we're missing out on it.

What the human being intuitively will do to get connected is amazing. Just look at how teenage girls today will try to be like Britany Spears with their cropped tops. Why? They want to be accepted. They want to be "in."

And adults do the same thing. It is amazing what adults will do to be accepted, connected. No one wants to be left out or rejected. To be connected is a primary drive behind cultural development.

We all want to belong. We all want to be accepted. We don't want to be weirdoes in the culture; we just want to be welcomed.

Enter Jesus Christ who invites and welcomes us to join His kingdom. There is a community of human beings on planet earth who respect, love, and follow Jesus Christ ... and He communicates to them in this cosmos of spiritual vibrations. That's phenomenal!

Yes, we are driven by the compulsion to be connected. We need to feel connected. But make sure your connection is positive and not negative. What has been happening in our country for the past 50 years is quite something.

Up until the mid-part of the 20th century, America was a collection of ethnic and cultural groups who were well connected, especially in their beliefs. The Lutherans in Minnesota; the Dutch Reformed in Sioux County, Iowa and Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Polish Catholics on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. Do I need to go on? Whatever the color of the skin ... whatever the ethnic background ... America was not the integrated society we are today. Every group had their own ghettos. There were the Dutch ghettos, the Norwegian ghettos, the Polish ghettos and the Jewish ghettos. That was America. That was how we came to be, because different ethnic groups from Europe came and formed colonies all speaking the same language. It was a very natural togetherness, interconnected by a shared language.

But something happened when World War II ended. Houses sprang up outside the cities called suburbs. We were no longer a "Main Street" town with certain sections of town set aside for certain peoples.

In suburbia we all got mixed together ... atheists, agnostics and people of all faiths. People who lived by the Ten Commandments, and many people who did not live by the Ten Commandments. So the social moire of suburbia no longer was a force behind the moral and spiritual values dominated by the Judaic Christian culture.

And something happened in the California suburbs that shocked America. We built fences in our suburbs. When I came here I never saw anything like it. Miles of houses, but they weren't like the suburbs of Chicago where I came from. In Chicago I could go out of my backdoor and look at my neighbor's yard ... and through the neighbor's yard down the block.

In California we built fences for privacy. That was deliberately non-connectedness. What did that do to our culture? What did that do to some of our social moires? It has not been adequately analyzed yet.

One thing we know as believers and Christians we no longer have the connections that we need to live the faith and keep the hope and follow Jesus the way we should. We don't live in colonies or communities where most of us share the same faith. But we're mixed up in our work, at our job, in the stores, in our community with a variety of often conflicting, competing and contradictory values ... and we need to do something about it.

We must get connected with the church ... then through smaller church groups we need to be connected with faces and voices of other human beings who share our faith. Today I invite you to get connected with this church. We'll cry when you cry, and we'll share your love.

Or, if you are a part of this church through the Hour of Power or the Internet, thank you for letting us share our love with you. The future of this church, I would predict, is that the Hour of Power is going to grow from strength to strength and from year to year. This Crystal Cathedral is seen on the television sets, and will be seen soon on television-computer sets in the global cities in the world. People in foreign countries will be able to join us 24 hours a day, seven days a week watching this one-hour program coming from America. Free. That's the future of this ministry. We have dreams. We have visions. We have plans. We have goals. Wow. Get connected with us ... we're going places.

This past week I had a very touching experience that I must share with you. I was invited to come to Pittsburgh to receive a very honorable award given by the St. Barnabus Convalescence Healthcare System. It was started 102 years ago by an Episcopal Priest who wanted people who had no money to receive compassionate healthcare. So he built a little building with a lot of bedrooms and he began taking old people and caring for them until they died. And today they provide that, I cannot tell you how many people who had nothing, but today are getting dignified healthcare with wonderful bedrooms and food, for their lifetime. Free. And they get no government or tax money. That's fabulous!

When I arrived at the airport, I was driven to the St. Barnabus Healthcare Center with its spacious grounds and vast acreage of lawn and trees. A beautiful environment for wheelchairs to go safely. When we arrived at the main entrance the colonial white pillars were decorated with a huge sign, "Welcome Dr. Robert Schuller." It really touched me.

Standing at the curb waiting for me was Bill Day, the director for the past 35 years who made their healthcare system so phenomenal. With him stood his wife, Lorraine, and their two children, both in that ministry in very important positions. A family all working in the same ministry with such enthusiasm! Wow! That's what our family has been doing here.

After shaking hands they said, "Dr. Schuller, many of our people are in the lobby to welcome you." When the doors opened I saw the large lobby, crowded with people. I stepped into the middle of that crowd, with people in wheelchairs, older men and women, and younger people standing. Those in wheelchairs were holding posters with slogans taken from my books. "Someday Is Today!" "Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do." And "God loves you and so do I!" They were applauding and I was trying not to cry. It was so moving.

Then I walked through the crowd into the chapel where I was to say a few words, and as I stepped in I could hear a choir singing. They had memorized one of our Crystal Cathedral anthems. "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Wow! Were we connected! Through tears, through hearts of love, through hope, through a message, and through our faith. All of them have been visiting this Crystal Cathedral every Sunday for the past 30 years through their television screen. And they feel they belong to us and we belong to them. I never felt so connected to people with whom I have been separated by the miles.

Everybody needs to belong to a cause that's bigger than self.

I invite you to become a member of this ministry that's bigger than all of us.

"I am the Vine. You are the branches. Abide in Me and you shall bear much fruit ... love one another as I have loved you." Why? "So that My joy might be in you and that your joy might be complete." (John 15:5-12)

Some of you are lacking in joy. You want a new life. Get connected ... or get reconnected ... not to a secular world with its abnormal value system ... but get connected to the healthiest spiritual and emotional cosmic network that is in the world today ... and that's Jesus Christ! You'll feel His presence and you'll be attracted to loving people and that will change everything.

We are entering a new age called the "post-modern age" and Christian churches and communicators are impacting the world like no one ever imagined. I want you to be a part of it. Jesus is inviting you this morning to accept Him as your Savior and Lord. And you and I will be connected as members of the Kingdom of God. A cosmic family of believers spiritually connected through a holy Internet system that only God can put together ... it's called prayer ... it's called the working of the Holy Spirit ... it's called the network of Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Thank You, Jesus Christ, that You are alive. You are the Vine ... I want to be a branch ... I want to become a connector sharing Your love with others. Together we are a family. Thank you. Amen.