Have you ever been the target of one of today’s more popular "put down lines"? "Get a life!" You know how it goes. You’re involved in something that someone else finds trivial and they say, "Man, you need to get a life!" Or, the reverse of that, you choose not to be involved in something someone else finds meaningful and the response, again, "Get a life, man!" My kids want to tell me that when I’m setting the VCR to record some show on the History Channel about some obscure event in history. Or when I program the VCR to record a particularly interesting segment of "Meet the Press" since I can’t watch it on Sunday morning. "Get a life, Dad!" Note: "You’re such a dork, Dad," is the same message as "Get a life, Dad!" I wonder exactly what kind of life do they think I should get. In fact, that’s going to be my reply from now on. The next time someone says to me, "You need to get a life, man," I’m going to ask them, "Just what kind of a life do you suggest I get?" I think that would be an interesting question, don’t you? "What kind of life do you suggest I get?"

How one might answer that question would suggest much about what that person values most in life. Perhaps they would suggest a life of fortune and fame. It seems that those two objects are often the goals in one’s search for life. And yet, the highway of life is littered with testimonies of those who sought such goals in their lives, only to find them unsatisfactory.

Lee Iacocca would seem to be someone who "had a life." Famous for turning Chrysler Corporation around, adviser to presidents, famous enough to write a best-selling autobiography entitled simply with his last name, Iacocca, Lee Iacocca would hardly seem the target of someone’s "Get a life!" Yet in his autobiography, Iacocca writes, "Here I am in the twilight years of my life, still wondering what it’s all about. I can tell you this: fame and fortune is for the birds."

Or, how about Halle Barry? At the top of everyone’s list of beautiful people in the world, Halle Barry hardly seems like a person to whom someone would shout, "Get a life!" Yet in an interview in the New York Post, Barry, commenting on her fame as a beautiful woman said this, "…being thought of as a ‘beautiful woman’ has spared me nothing in life, no heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless, and it is always transitory. I can’t believe what people do to themselves [to make themselves look beautiful], the excess, and then they end up distorted. Worse, they still have that hole in their soul that led them to change themselves to begin with." (Underline mine)

Someone like Brad Pitt then? No, probably not. He’s been in the headlines lately with the breakup of his marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Besides, he gave us a clue that a life of fame and fortune wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. "I know all these things are supposed to seem important to us—the car, the condo, our version of success—but if that’s the case, why is the general feeling out there reflecting more impotence and isolation and desperation and loneliness? If you ask me, I say toss all this—we gotta find something else. Because all I know is that at this point in time, we are heading for a dead end, a numbing of the soul, a complete atrophy of the spiritual being. And I don’t want that."

A famous and successful businessman like Lee Iacocca, a beautiful and famous actress like Halle Barry, a handsome and popular actor like Brad Pitt, all candidates to receive the rebuke, "Get a life"? Where then can one find a life?

The apostle John would answer, "Only in Jesus Christ." It is the very purpose for which he writes this letter. Yes, he writes to refute the errors in the teachings of the Gnostics. Yes, he writes to encourage his readers to hold fast to the gospel they’ve been taught. But he writes, primarily, to tell us where to find life and how to live it. "And this is the testimony," he writes. "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." Life is found in God’s Son—Jesus Christ. If you’re going to "get a life," the place to begin is with Jesus.

It begins with a step of faith. John wants us to be clear that life comes only through belief in Jesus Christ. More than any other New Testament writer, John points to the importance of expressing belief in Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, he writes, "…to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God," (John 1:12). It is John who reports Jesus telling Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," (John 3:16). To a doubting Thomas, Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," (John 20:29). And much like his stated purpose in writing this letter that closed our Scripture reading for today, John also states his purpose in writing his gospel, "…these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name," (John 20:31). The way to getting a life begins by believing in the One who brings life, Jesus Christ. It is, at some point, a step of faith. We can cite the historical evidence and the rational arguments for Christ being who he said he was—and, indeed, there are many such facts, evidence and arguments. But, at some point in time, it requires a statement of belief in what Christ has done for us. When we can’t re-create the resurrection, or we don’t fully understand it, we simply state our belief in it. When life feels overwhelming, when fear enters in and blocks the peace God wants us to have, we persevere in our belief that Christ has overcome such things in the world and He is present with us to help us so overcome. The life John points us to is a life of belief…and that belief is placed in Jesus Christ.

How we live life is then affected by the knowledge that our future is secure in Jesus Christ. Such assurance dramatically alters our view of the present. We are not obsessed with the pursuit of material things because we know they are temporary. "Beauty," says Halle Barry, "is meaningless and always transitory." The fellowship we have with Christ is eternal. We are not overwhelmed with the troubles that surface in life, because we know of Christ’s presence with us now and the future glory that is ours with Him. Even the troubles are temporary, the future glory is eternal. We live by faith, not by feelings. Feelings are not insignificant, but they come and they go. The constant in our life is Christ and our faith in Him. Therefore, we live, in a sense, as someone not of this world.

Max Lucado, in his wonderful, creative style, writes of the source for this abundant life this way: "Take a fish and place him on the beach. Watch his gills gasp and scales dry. Is he happy? No! How do you make him happy? Do you cover him with a mountain of cash? Do you get him a beach chair and sunglasses? Do you bring him a Playfish magazine and martini? Of course not. Then how do you make him happy? You put him back in his element. You put him back in the water. He will never be happy on the beach simply because he was not made for the beach."

And so it is with a follower of Jesus Christ, for the one who believes in him. Our ultimate happiness in life—our "getting a life"—does not come from the world and its offerings, for we were made for something more than this world alone. We were made for fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

That fellowship changes everything for us in this life as well. A final point to take from this passage in John’s first letter is that "eternal" life does not mean, exclusively, a future life with God. The language John uses is in the present tense and means life continuously with Christ—life now, life continually from now on, and life in the future. To have eternal life through Christ is not just about the future. It is also about life here and now. The Gnostics were separating life into good spirit/bad physical, where what happened in one’s "physical" life was irrelevant. Not so, says John. Every area of life is God’s concern and He has given us Jesus to help us live this life as well. In a self-description from Jesus, told about in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10) The life that is available through Jesus Christ is available now. The life Jesus is offering has meaning and relevancy for us in the here and now. It touches to the very core of our being. The abundant life Jesus brings touches everything in our lives—physical as well as spiritual, present as well as future.

That means rather than living a life debilitated by fear and anxiety, we can live the abundant life of peace and calmness that Jesus brings. Rather than a life of impotence and desperation, as described by Brad Pitt, we can live the abundant life Jesus brings of power and confidence. Rather than a life haunted by mistakes and sins of the past, we can live the abundant life of forgiveness and righteousness that is found in Christ. Rather than a life of bitterness and hatred, we can live the abundant life of love, unconditional love, possible only in Jesus Christ. The eternal life to be found in Jesus Christ is not life for the future only. It is life in the present that overcomes the fear, the loneliness, the meaninglessness of life without Christ. "Abundant" life does not come from what the world offers—fame, fortune, material things. Abundant life does not come through the circumstances we find ourselves in. True life—"abundant" life, "eternal" life that begins here and now and is secure in the future—begins with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. "Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life."

So…get a life! But pay attention to where you go looking for it. Because the only source where "life" truly can be found is Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.