The Identity of The Hollywood Church, Part 6
“Satisfied with Jesus Christ Alone”

October, 2008

by: Chriss Barksdale

• Hollywood Church

We understand that every soul living in Hollywood is passionate about being happy and satisfied. And this is not the sin but rather the sin is where that happiness and satisfaction finds itself. We have an eternal hole in our hearts that only an eternal God can fill (Eccl 3:11). Blaise Pascal has said: “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”

Satan has had a field day in our city and has blinded the people of the city with pseudo-saviors and gods that won’t satisfy. But He keeps baiting the hook and they think that just one more drink, one more high, one more one night stand and they’ll be happy. Paul gave us insight on his strategy in II Corinthians 4. II Corinthians 4:4“in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

His strategy is to so enthrall them with gimmicks, to make them easily pleased and satisfied with earthly pleasures, and to cause them to revel and marvel at the smoke and mirrors he produces! As C.S. Lewis once said: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Thus we make it our effort at the Hollywood Church to be satisfied with Jesus Christ alone and communicate to them the hope of the Gospel. Only as we are satisfied with Jesus and centered on the Gospel will we be able to communicate, in love, the exclusivity of the cross. Hollywood doesn’t like exclusivity but they have no answers for life’s troubles. Every other “god” and “savior” has either failed them or will fail them. They need to hear that it is Jesus Christ and Him alone that saves, satisfies, and secures! As Jesus Himself said:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.(John 14:6)