This coming weekend at Honey Lake Church’s special worldwide ministry service we will be treated to a fascinating story of what effect fame and riches can have on a young man fresh out of college. Steve Bartkowski was a gifted athlete “beyond the pale” and became the most heavily recruited “All American” college football player in the country. This tall, good looking kid was offered the largest contract at that time in all of professional football and upon signing with the Atlanta Falcons as their new quarterback instantly became rich.
Most people would think that he’d hit the jackpot and had it made and don’t realize that while it is true that fame and money resolve some problems, they also come at a great price and create more far more problems than they resolve.
Like so many others before him, Steve learned that lesson the hard way. In the end the money, women, fame, trophies, awards, accolades, and all that goes with it did little to satisfy his soul. He lacked peace, joy, and love in his life and he was a disaster. It is an inspiring and fascinating true story and Steve tells it much more eloquently than I do; therefore I won’t go into it beyond saying that at his darkest hour Jesus Christ came into his life and it changed him forever and he now enjoys his peace, joy, and love.
It is my hope that you will attend church with us this coming Sunday and bring some friends who need hope in their lives and encouragement that what Steve found can easily be obtained by anyone. It begins at 11:00 a.m.
The illusion that wealth brings happiness is a clever ruse devised by satan. I don’t have room in this column to list all of those hapless souls like Steve who found out otherwise. Just look at Michael Jackson as one case in point. He was a good looking kid, musically gifted beyond measure and made hundreds of millions of dollars, received innumerable awards, became famous all over the globe, and had earned the love and respect of the most powerful among us including virtually the entire rich and famous crowd.
I was shopping in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas one time and saw him and his entourage enter the store I was in. I was amazed at how small and frail that he looked. Every time he would go into a store they would shut the entire store down, (including the art store I was in . . . Gr-rrrrr . . . ). I went back into the store after he left and the clerk told me with a big smile that he had bought half the artwork in the store and given him a $15,000 tip.
In the end all those material things that he owned brought him little pleasure. He didn’t like how he looked so he had numerous plastic surgeries. (He looked bizarre up close.) He tried to find what he was looking for in sexual gratification, purportedly first with women and then little boys. That didn’t work either. He tried drugs and when they wouldn’t give him what he needed, he tried more drugs. He kept at it trying different and more powerful drugs in larger and larger doses until he finally took one that killed him; (it was perhaps the most powerful tranquilizing drug known to mankind).
What was he trying to find?
Peace, joy, and love! Unfortunately after literally trying most everything this old world has to offer, this young man found that the most precious things in all creation, Peace, joy, and love, aren’t for sale.
Sigh . . . but they were there all along and available just for the asking as a free gift from God. It is too late for Michael Jackson, but not too late for you. Don’t follow the world – follow Jesus Christ!
1 Tim. 6:9
Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
December 11, 2014 – Click here to listen