Sermon Title: THE “ME” WAY VS. THE WAY OF CHRIST

By Frank Breeden, ©2025 USA All Rights Reserved

 

MAIN SCRIPTURE: 1 PETER 4: 1-4 (GWT)

1 Since Christ has suffered physically, take the same attitude that he had. (A person who has suffered physically no longer continues in sin.)

2 That way you won't be guided by sinful human desires as you live the rest of your lives on earth. Instead, you will be guided by what God wants you to do.

3 You spent enough time in the past doing what unbelievers like to do. You were promiscuous, had sinful desires, got drunk, went to wild parties, and took part in the forbidden worship of false gods.

4 Unbelievers insult you now because they are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of wild living.

 

Like any good songwriter, 29-year-old Jack Norworth was always looking for song ideas. While riding the New York subway one spring morning in 1908 he spotted a sign advertising a Baseball Game that day. On the back of an envelope, he penciled the song about a fictitious young lady named Katie Casey whom he cast as an avid fan of baseball.

In the song’s first verse, young Katie’s boyfriend calls her up to invite her on a date and it goes like this:

On a Saturday her young beau

Called to see if she’d like to go

To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,

I’ll tell you what you can do.”

 

Take me out to the ball game

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,

I don’t care if I never get back.

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don’t win it’s a shame.

For it’s One, two, three strikes, you’re out, at the Old … ball … game!”

 

In his book, “Baseball’s Greatest Hit”, Author Robert Thompson says, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is one of the three-most recognizable songs in the US, along with “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Happy Birthday”. It became the unofficial anthem of North American baseball and an integral part of the great baseball tradition known as the “Seventh Inning Stretch”.

I thought we’d start this morning’s sermon with a parable built around this beloved baseball classic. Think of it as a Parable From The Piano.

As you may recall, the Parables Jesus told were EARTHLY stories with a HEAVENLY meaning and He used them quite effectively to make big points to his audiences.

So, in parable-speak … the Kingdom of Heaven is like a committee formed by Major League Baseball to work on Baseball’s Bi-Centennial in 2040.

One of the first tasks this committee undertakes is to commission a re-imagining of this classic song. So, they invite the songwriting community to audition from which they’ll pick 3 finalists to compete for a $10,000 contract to adapt the song to lead baseball into it’s third century.

After an American-Idol-like first-round competition, 3 finalists emerge and meet with the committee in a room at MLB headquarters in New York City.

Each has been asked to present their most famous song to the committee to help determine who will be the best candidate to take on the project.

#1 sits down at the piano and plays his best-known work. [Chopsticks]

#2 is up next and he plays his most famous song for the committee: [The Knuckle Song]

Unlike the first two, #3’s song has lyrics and he plays and sings his song for the committee:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey, a kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

The committee is so blown away by #3’s lyrical prowess, they thank and dismiss the first two candidates and award the project to #3.

They tell him he’s got a month to complete the re-imagining of the great baseball anthem and give him a $5,000 advance and tell him the second $5,000 will be paid when he delivers the new song and the committee accepts his work.

The only other creative direction they give him is to change the focus from the baseball GAME to focus on the baseball FANS. The FANS need to see themselves in the song and feel. IT HAS TO BE ALL ABOUT THEM!

He agrees and a month later he meets back with committee to reveal the results of his work. He sits at the piano & begins:

Won’t you come on and take

ME out to the ball game, Take

ME out with the crowd. Buy

ME some peanuts and cracker jack I

DON’T care if I never get back Let me root

ROOT, root for the home team, If they

DON’T win it’s a shame for, It’s One

TWO, three, strikes you’re out at the old

BALL game!...”

 

The committee chairman interrupts an awkward silence and asks, “Would you sing that ending one more time, please?”

“Sure!”, #3 says.

It’s One

TWO, three, strikes you’re out at the old

BALL game!...”

 

“You can’t have a song that doesn’t end properly. You’ve left everyone hanging in midair like a pop fly ball that doesn’t come down,” said the committee chair. It was great up until the ending. I just don’t think this is going to work.

Exasperated, #3 explains that by arranging the lyrics to emphasis “ME” and “I”—to focus on the FANS of the game rather than the GAME itself— it shortened the song by ONE SYLLABLE and he had run out of words before the song ended. He didn’t know what to do. He was stuck.

The committee chair said, “Look, we’re gonna break for lunch, you can have the room to work on a fix by the time we return. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel the contract and you’ll have to refund the $5,000 advance.

So, while the committee ate lunch, the songwriter stayed at the piano and worked feverishly to fix the song because he had already spent the first five thousand dollars.

When the committee returned from lunch, he said, “I think I’ve got it.”

“Good, let’s hear it”, the chairman said.

He played and sang the last section of the song and it went like this:

 

ROOT, root for the home team, If they

DON’T win it’s a shame for, It’s One

TWO, three, four balls you walk at the

Old Ball game!

 

The committee was relieved and handed the songwriter another $5,000 check. They immediately got on the phone with the curator at the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, New York to share the exciting news. The curator’s response was not what they expected as he told them, “There’s no way this song is gonna work. It’s all wrong.”

The “one, two, three strikes you’re out” line is important because the second verse of the song frames this line as a CHEER Katie Casey leads the fans in for her home team to strike out the visiting team’s last batter in the top of the 9th inning so the home team can win the game, because, as everyone knows, if they don’t win it’s a shame!

In a misguided effort to change the song’s focus from the GAME to the FANS by focusing on “ME” and “I”, the whole song was off by just one syllable and came up short at the end.

Trying to patch the problem with “4 balls you walk” actually has the HOME fans cheering for the VISITING team.

This is a classic example of what happens when you LOSE THE PLOT.

So, what is this earthly story’s heavenly meaning, this parable from the piano?

If you put your life’s focus on ME instead of the Kingdom of God, you’ll be out of sync with God’s Will all your life and at the end of life you’ll come up short.

How does this contemporary parable relate to us as a congregation who is now in our 4th week of studying the book of 1st Peter?

Peter’s letters were written primarily to Gentiles. Gentile is a bible word for non-Jewish people. The early church was made up of Jewish believers and Gentile believers.

These two letters that Peter wrote—with the assistance of his ministry partner, Silas—were hand copied by Silas and these copies were circulated around to the gentile believers in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey).

Asia Minor was part of a very oppressive Roman Empire whose emperor at this time was a 20-something nutjob named Nero who had recently taken to persecuting

and killing Christians whom he chose to blame for the great fire that destroyed a lot of Rome.

The gentile believers in Asia Minor were struggling in balancing their faith in Christ with the demands of living in a pagan culture where the Roman gods were worshipped and Christians were seen as a subversive cult. Enemies of the state, if you will.

For instance, if you were a Gentile Christian household slave, or a Christian wife living in a pagan Roman household where rituals involving idols were held, you would have been expected to participate in household rituals alongside other members of the household, including worshipping at the family shrine.

This was a difficult spot for many Gentile believers, and they were in danger of losing the plot on how to live as Christians in a pagan dominant culture.

Just how do you lose the plot in any circumstance?

As the British are fond of saying, “I put it to you” losing the plot occurs when you lose your perspective.

And Peter’s purpose in writing to these Gentile Christians was to help them gain perspective on how to walk out their faith in a pagan monoculture.

As our baseball song’s plot turned on just one syllable, so our lives can turn based on our choice of one of two words.

The first word is ME.

The second word is CHRIST.

My Way or His Way.

Peter puts it to his readers, and by extension to us here at Trinity, that either ONE of these two words will make all the difference in our faith walk, but you can’t choose both.

When navigating life’s difficult circumstances, our fallen nature tells us to look to ourselves for answers – that’s the approach when we choose the “ME” way.

In the first century when this letter was written, Christianity was too new for any of the adults to have had the spiritual benefit of having been raised in a “Christian” home. So, when they came to faith in Jesus and His resurrection, it was a radical, life-altering, even dangerous transition because, at once, they were at odds with their pagan government and culture.

So, these Gentile believers needed guidance on gaining a perspective, in choosing between ME & CHRIST, and Peter does so in the first four verses of 1st Peter chapter 4.

First, in verse 1, they are to gain their life perspective by focusing on the PERSON of Jesus. If you look at Jesus, you’ll live like Jesus. When they encounter persecution

and suffering because of their faith, they are to look to Jesus and His suffering and draw resolve from obedience to do His Father’s will.

4:1 Since Christ has suffered physically, take the same attitude that he had. (A person who has suffered physically no longer is given to sinning)”

Even when Nero’s troops would snatch them their homes, tie them to a pole, and burn them alive, they were to draw strength from their Savior who also suffered a violation of their human rights and a torturous death.

Secondly, Peter continues in verse 1 to give a perspective on the PARADOX of their persecution and suffering. Persecution for our faith confirms that we HAVE faith and purifies our living like a refiner’s fire. When living your faith puts your life at risk, you are motivated to be done with sinning.

In verse 2, Peter offers a perspective on our life’s PURPOSE when he tells us, in the time we have remaining here on earth we know that our purpose is to do the will of God, not indulge our passions.

Peter speaks very clearly: Persecution will cause you to prioritize what God wants you to do over what your sinful, human desires urge you to do.

It makes perfect sense, when you think about it: the more you change your focus from CHRIST to ME, the more your DESIRES will occupy a prominent place in life.

That’s why Peter addresses this topic in verse 3 where he talks to his gentile readers about having a proper perspective on their PAST.

Their pagan past that was filled with debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. That’s how pagans live. They compartmentalized their lives by living out their lusts and then they kept some space where they tipped their hat to their self-made gods.

Peter clearly tells them these behaviors have no place in the life of a Christ-follower. Those who do so have chosen the “ME” way over following the way of “CHRIST”.

And, finally, in verse 4, Peter gives us a perspective on the PREDICTABILITY of Pagan culture. When pagan culture becomes the norm, those who no longer engage in pagan behaviors, or identify with that lifestyle, are viewed as strange, not normal; even a threat. They are ostracized and derided by their former companions in sin.

Pagans are not permissive, passive, or peaceful. Live and let live is not their mantra.

Peter knew his readers were marginalized socially and abused because they no longer engaged in Pagan practices. With evil cleverness, pagans can engineer society in such a way that makes righteous living a crime.

Remember in the book of Daniel when King Darius was tricked into passing a law making it illegal to pray to any god or human other than himself for 30 days? The law was a not-so-subtle attempt to get Daniel thrown out of the palace and into the Lion’s Den.

From world and church history, we know that Paganism is still seeking to eradicate the church of Jesus Christ. Peter’s perspective on Paganism’s predictable path rings clearly across the centuries to us today.

Estimates put the number of Christians who face high levels of persecution at 360 million. That’s one in seven Christians worldwide; more than the entire population of the United States.

Peter advises his readers not to give into the pressures to endorse and engage in evil behaviors.

Instead of choosing the “ME” way, he exhorts them to follow the way of “”CHRIST”.

Let’s head back over to the piano to close us out with another piano parable which I’ll begin with a question for you. Not rhetorical – so, I need an answer, please.

What is the most famous note on the piano keyboard?

That’s right. It’s middle C.

To again borrow language from the New Testament, The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Middle C.

In this parable, we’re going to say that Middle C represents truth.

Middle C’s pitch isn’t determined by this piano’s manufacture. Middle C’s pitch has a frequency of 261.1 vibrations per second, or as your friendly neighborhood piano tuner says, 261.1 Hertz.

Middle C’s pitch value is measured by a constant standard that does not waver. Whether a tuning fork, digital tuning device, cellphone app, or an incredibly and rare gifted human with perfect pitch, Middle C is constant.

If a musical instrument goes out of tune and the key or musical instrument fingering assigned to middle C plays a different pitch, Middle C is still Middle C and is not at the mercy of any instrument playing a note.

Middle C is truth.

Middle C’s pitch is not based on the location of the instrument on which it is played. It could be a Yo Yo Ma cello concert at Carnegie Hall, a wannabe country singer strumming her six-string in some Texas roadhouse, or a little child practicing on the spinet piano in the living room.

Middle C’s pitch is still the same whether the piano on which it is played is an antiquated clunker acquired for “Free” on Facebook Marketplace, or a Steinway Fibonacci priced at $2 million dollars.

Middle C’s are not dependent on who plays them. Whether played by Ludwig van Beethoven, Jazz virtuoso Oscar Peterson, or your cat walking across your piano’s keyboard, it is still Middle C.

Middle C is truth.

Tyrannical governments and tyrannical religions can forbid its playing and arrest, incarcerate, and even execute those who defy their order.

But when the tyrants are long gone, Middle C will still be Middle C.

Middle C is truth. Truth is marching on.

Regardless of their vocal range or ability, anyone can sing a middle C. It is accessible; and no formal training is required to sing it.

Whether it thunders from a world-class symphony orchestra in one of the world’s great concert halls with the finest acoustics, or it wheezes out of a five-dollar plastic recorder played in kindergarten, it is still middle C.

Middle C is truth.

Middle C is a beautiful, pure sound. It is associated with innocence and purity as it is typically learned at the beginning of a child’s musical journey. From Middle C they can go anywhere!

Middle C is truth.

But, just as truth is surrounded by untruths, falsehoods, and lies, you don’t have to go far from Middle C to find the most dissonant, ugliest, unsettling sound in music.

In fact, it’s right next door.

[PLAY C/C#]

The most dangerous lies aren’t those espousing bizarre, outlandish ideas that are openly contrary to truth.

Rather, the most dangerous lies are those that cozy up to the truth, mimic its qualities, repeat its talking points, and downplay any contrasts.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

But, when carefully compared to the truth, the difference is stark. And when the lies fail the test of reality and time, the truth, like a Middle C, will keep sounding on.

So, to review, today we’ve heard Chopsticks, the knuckle song, Mairzy Doates, and Take Me out to the Ball Game. And we’ve heard a scripture sandwiched in between two parables from the piano.

All of this has been an effort to help you remember to heed the Apostle Peter’s advice to put aside the ME way and choose the Way of Christ.

Because, when persecution or suffering comes your way—and it will—looking in the Mirror at “Me” will not be sufficient.

As Peter advised, look to your Savior who also suffered. And just where did He suffer?

Just look at the story of the crucifixion. It’s very easy to spot Him. He’s the one on the middle C—r-o-s-s.