If you are a Yankees fan, you are usually not a Toronto Blue Jays fan. There is usually a good pennant race going on between them. The rivalry is okay, but at one particular game that rivalry went too far.
With two countries at this game, there were two national anthems played. Someone from the Metropolitan Opera got up to sing "O, Canada," the Canadian national anthem. Some people in the bleachers started to boo during that national anthem. Suddenly a wave of cheering and applause broke out, and it continued throughout the Canadian anthem. Soon, the good guys who were cheering were making so much noise that it drowned out the booing of the bad guys!
Psalm 107:1-2 of the Bible says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this - those he redeemed from the hand of the foe." This is a call to God's people to make some noise.
The guys in the bleachers sure make their negative noises in our world, whether we're at work, school, the gym, the barbershop, or the beauty shop. People have no shame about sin, about what breaks God's heart. They talk about the raunchy things that went on at a party, what someone did when they drank too much, sexual escapades, a dirty joke, a dirty movie, or the latest scandal. If you judged only by what is talked about most, you would conclude that virtually everyone thinks sin is cool and that what God calls abnormal is really normal. No one seems to care about what is pure, what is right, or what pleases God.
These people are not speaking for us. They don't express how most of us feel, but since they are the only ones making noise, it sounds like that's how everyone feels. What we need are people like those who decided to cheer; people who will speak up for what is right. It needs to be us.
Maybe you have just been sitting by silently, even wincing inside as the people on the road to death are bragging, entertaining, mocking, and promoting the darkness. Everyone around thinks, "I guess this is the only way there is." Well it isn't, and you know it. Isn't it time you spoke up? Don't speak up in a harsh, negative, or judgmental way. Don't attack or put down the promoters of the wrong. Those guys in the stands didn't boo the people who were doing the booing; they just started to make some positive noise to drown them out.
Talk about some heroes who stand up for things that are right. Talk about how Jesus is answering your loneliness, your guilt, and your pain. The silence of the good guys causes people to have the wrong idea about Jesus. Why don't you say, "Lord, help me to never again be ashamed of you. You loved me enough to die publicly for me."
Because of Jesus, we have so much more to make noise about. Let's start to hear some positive noise from your section. If you start cheering for what is right, others will start to cheer with you.