The Cost of Cool

John Berneche was the cool kid in our high school. I can still see him strutting around in his jean jacket surrounding by his adoring friends. A senior in high school, tall and good looking, and genuinely nice, John seemed to have the world before him, but the price to keep up with ‘cool’ was heavy. Though a leader himself, in order to keep up with his reputation, John was pulled in different directions, which led him about aimlessly, at times to places and situations where he didn’t want to be.

One such situation came on a cool September afternoon in Columbia, Missouri. John and his friends met at the local rock quarry, overlooking a little river bed, to get stoned. As he and his friends got high, they carelessly wandered closer and closer to the edge of the cliff overlooking the little empty riverbed below. In his confused state, somehow John began to lose footing. At once, his friend reached out and grabbed his arm, but under the influence of the drug his senses were not a sharp, his strength was not at its peak, and he lost his grip. John fell some two hundred feet to the empty riverbank below.

While his body struggled to cling to life for a couple of hours, John Berneche finally died. His friends wept. Our school mourned. But to you it’s just another story. You read ‘em in the newspaper every day. To me, it hit a little closer to home. It was my school. I’d passed John in the halls. I even waved at him a couple of times as he passed. We shared a common friend. My brother. He was one of John’s closest friends. The inner circle. And as you read this, somehow the horror of the event doesn’t seem to penetrate beyond the page into the safe little walls of your world because this story doesn’t really have anything to do with you. But the story of John really does. Why? Because you are John. So you may not have been the cool kid in school. You may not have tampered with drugs and alcohol or maybe you did, but either way, chances are you have been allured by that monster called ‘cool.’

So many of us are. We are lured by peer pressure into the pleasures of sin. When we discover that sin is fun, we become hooked. While later we are gripped with a sense of restlessness, hopelessness, and depression, by then we are so chained to our desires for drugs, alcohol, pornography, lies, gambling, or general worldliness that Jesus no longer appeals to us. We have fallen in love with the world and have no desire to escape. That is why the Bible warns us so strongly against ‘cool,’ but the Bible gives ‘cool’ a different name. It calls it, ‘the world.’

The Bible warns us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). Here, the Bible is not telling us that we cannot love anything in the world, like our friends or our parents or our favorite food. Rather, it is warning us not to love those passing pleasures and sinful addictions that the world call ‘cool,’ because “the world is passing away and the lust of it” (1 John 2:17). God appeals, “do not be conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2), because the things that are considered cool often have a cost, and Jesus asks, “which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost” (Luke 14:28). While many seem to think sin brings happiness and fulfillment, the Bible tells us that the life of those who live in sin is a hard life (See Prov. 13:15). It may seem fun for a while, but in the end it brings misery and pain.

Many of the things the world loves and chases after are not approved by God. If we wish to make it to heaven, we must not follow after the popular trends or conform to the popular theology of the day. Instead, we must resist the sinful practices that the world deems cool. Just because something is ‘cool’ does not make it sinful, but many of the things the world considers cool go against biblical principles and must be resisted. We must go from ‘cool’ to fool, because “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise” (1 Cor. 3:19; 1:27).

The cool trends that go against biblical principles and values are deadly traps that will lead you down the wrong path, wandering near the cliff of cool. Please do not take the bait. Do not make the same mistake that John Berneche made. Do “not follow a crowd to do evil” (Ex. 23:2). There are deadly cliffs all around you so please watch your step. Instead, turn to Jesus who will show you the right path (See Isa. 30:21). He will guide your steps to see you safely to heaven.