One of the things that people follow are celebrities. People love celebrities. Look at Woman's Day, they're full of celebrities; and people are just fascinated with what the celebrities are doing, so they follow celebrities, they follow what they're doing. But you know celebrity is a mask, and it eats away the face. When a person's a celebrity, their personal life is on public display, and the crowd that loves them and follows them can just spit them out the next day. I've worked with many celebrities over in Asia, and I've come to discover that they're like public property; to be used, consumed and discarded when I don't like you anymore. It's a horrendous thing to be a celebrity. Fame exacts a tremendous personal price, and what I can see for most celebrities, there's very little in their life worth following. And yet they influence people, they give their opinions, they're promoted as having values, and we see them on the television, all that kind of thing. There's no value in this. Jesus called us not to follow the celebrities of the world, but to follow Him.
Here's the second thing people follow. People follow fashion. You notice that people follow fashion? They want to know what the latest thing is; and it's very hard to resist the latest thing. That's why we live in a consumer society. There's a pressure to follow: everyone else has it, I need to have it. I've got to have it! I noticed this week, they had a great release came out on television, and guess what it is? It is the iPad Mini - you just HAVE to have it! No, I don't have to have it; and so there they hold it up, and it's this latest thing, you just NEED to have. Everyone's going to buy one of these - you'll need one of these too. You'll be second-class if you don't have one of them. It'll make you happy if you have one - until the year after when they produce another model. See, this is what happens. The Bible says: the fashion of this world passes away. In other words, what people think is great today, is gone tomorrow; something else is in its place. So when the Bible talks about the fashion in this world, it's talking about it's values, what it believes in, what is hot, what is great to go.
I can remember about three to four years ago, it was really hot to buy up property; and then suddenly it's a disaster. That's the fashion of the world. I remember reading a little while ago: oh, there's an oil crisis, the world's running out of oil, and blah blah blah blah blah. I just read yesterday and they tell me how they've found these new methods of extracting oil, and now America will now increase its oil production, and become almost not dependent at all on any global oil from other countries. Hello! What's going on here? I read in the paper, they say: oh, we'll worry about global warming. The world is warming up and whatever; but I can remember in the '70s, they were worried about the next Ice Age. [Laughter] Someone can't be right with all of this. It's called the 'fashion of the world', and it influences you; and you begin to live, and you begin to set your whole course of your life around it, begin to start to shape our values and what we think. It affects the way we educate our children, raise our children, the fashion of this world. But Jesus said: follow Me. Don't follow the world, follow Me, follow Me, follow Me. Be distinctive - follow Me. Follow Me. That's His command, to follow Him.
Here's another area that people follow. People follow the crowd, especially if you're a teenager. I've been following you on Twitter. Really? Following me on Twitter? Actually I don't even use the thing, but however, people follow all kinds of people on Twitter; and so there they are. So we say who are you following? Well I'm Twittering so-and-so, following all of their Tweets. Wherever they go they say mindless things, like I met with so-and-so for lunch, and you're following all of that. Why are you following them like that? Where does all that go, that mindless Tweeting, where people just blurb out what's on their mind? They all hang out there, had lunch with so-and-so today. Oh really, oh - and Facebook's the other one. We're getting to that one! [Laughter] Facebook. My goodness me - and so social media now, you've got this whole thing of people are following what so-and so - they can't do a day without getting on the Facebook, and finding out what's going on. Oh, they're doing that, I need to do that - without being aware of it, and I'm not speaking against them - these things are wonderful ways that we can connect and communicate, and it's a great influence, but who are you following? Are you following Facebook? Are you following Twitter? What are you following? Who are you following? What is setting the course for your life?