Ok, a title should never be the length of a short post, but there it is. Since you made it past that, admit it, It’s a pretty good question, isn’t it? Today, most church plants in America are DOA unless they have at least half of the DNA listed in the title above.

Or so we think.

And many have been taught.

But nearly everyone I’ve ever met who has started a church in the past 10 years has included a philosophy built on all or most of those modern church buzz words contained in the world’s longest post title. If you suggest a few others such as, Bible based, outreach oriented, or mission minded, some will quickly nod and add a Homer Simpson, “D’oh! Well of course we’ll be all of that, but that’s not what grows a church nowadays! You need to have an angle—a catch, an attraction, a nitch…blah, blah, blah”

Really?

Suppose you are a junior officer in the military and one day a five star general comes to your entire unit and taps just a handful of you for a very important mission—I’m talking, “take out Osama bin Ladin” important. Next, he hands you your marching orders—a very careful and strategically laid out plan the success of which depends on every member adhering to their role precisely—and charges you to stick with the plan. You glance over your orders and the first thing that strikes you is that there’s a lot of details. The next thing that annoys strikes you is that it’s not really the way ‘you would do things.’ And finally, you have a fleeting urge to crumple up the paper, throw it in the general’s face and tell him he’s nothing more than a relic from the past and that you will handle it your own way. Fortunately, you suppress this urge…for now.

Three weeks later however, you’re rushing out of the helicopter in the dead of night with a dozen other highly trained soldiers on your way to the compound of the slippery terrorist. It is now that you decide to go with your own plan rather than the one handed down by your superiors.

Your plan?

You have decided to use your powerful debate skills—finely tuned in your sophomore year of high school—to convince Osama bin Ladin to give up his evil ways and join the good guys. You’ll do this—you reason—by appealing to the things he loves, sharing your treasure trove of knowledge about the Muslim religion, the Arab plight, and especially your guaranteed solution to the 3,000 year old struggle between the Israelis and their Arab cousins. Your superiors may cringe at first when they hear of the rogue plan but once they see the results they’re sure to elevate you to a brand new military position made especially for you—six star general.

Ridiculous? Sure, but church leaders today do this all the time with the marching orders they receive from God.

In part two I’ll show you how.

• Wrapped up chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes today with the only real solution King Solomon missed—turning from our sins to God’s salvation.
• Several people gave their lives to Jesus today at Southbrook Church! When will that get old? NEVER!
• Challenged our body not to be ashamed. Seriously, how can any true believer ever be ashamed to identify with the ONE who gave His life for them? It’s mind boggling—also alarming because it may be a pretty strong indication that you’re not really saved. In Luke 12:8 -9, Jesus said, “⁸ “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, ⁹ but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And lest you think I’m being too invasive or pushy by suggesting we take a hard look at our faith, consider the words of the apostle Paul on the subject, “⁵ Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Cor. 13:5). Those are pretty sobering words but ones we’re all better off heeding than ignoring. Think about it.
• Seeing people come up for prayer today reminds me that we need to make this available more and more. People are hurting and Jesus is the answer. Sometimes it just helps to know we’re not alone in our prayers.
• I’ve shared many times how the book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Now it’s definitely one of the top 2 I’ve ever taught (The gospel of John being the other one). Invite everyone you know as we continue our “Game of Thrones” series throughout the summer. It actually gets better and better!

Today is the day to stand firm for the institution of marriage in the state of North Carolina by voting FOR the marriage amendment that adds protection for this precious union into our state constitution. In today’s post I want to make a final argument before we all head for the polls.

Consider how often great societies and cultures have broken down in the past. They seem to start out with unity, single-minded vision and even somewhat godly laws and governing principles. This is true of even secular societies. However, there is a mental and eventually physical laziness that creeps in that eventually leads to boredom and finally a moral breakdown followed by total collapse. This was certainly true of

• Babel
• Sodom and Gomorrah
• Babylon
• Assyria
• Greece
• Rome
• Each and every powerful nation in Europe
• And we’re watching this pattern play out right before our eyes in the United States of America

It starts with boredom and ends with destruction. And perhaps the most difficult part to take is how easily predictable and preventable this all is—yet, at the same time—seemingly unavoidable.

Does the Bible talk about this breakdown anywhere?

Yes, several places—and one is right in the book we are studying as a church right now—Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Every person understands innately, intuitively that he is an eternal creature. While he may suppress that knowledge (Romans 1), instinctively he knows that eternity is part of his spiritual DNA and understanding—a perception that there is more to this life than meets the eye.

But it’s the second half of that verse that causes problems for so many—the, “yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”—part. We may know that we are eternal beings and that there is more to life then just the here and now, but for a lot of people, the fact that we cannot figure out much more than that without faith is just too narrow-minded of God. So we strike out on our own to find answers rather than accepting God’s truth. And while we search anywhere and everywhere but God’s Word, we also keep fighting to push down the obvious, inherent knowledge of God within us all. And the modern catalyst for this rebellion seems to be nothing more than boredom. We get tired of the predictability of life and set out to spice things up a bit and sadly, most feel that can best be done when God’s not around (newsflash: He’s always around).

Once we give into this, the breakdown has begun—a domino affect has started and it’s very difficult to stop. Here’s the whole process in scriptural nutshell,

Romans 1:18-32

 

“¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

Pay careful attention to these 2 verses,

“²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

This is talking about the breakdown of one of God’s most cherished and holy institutions—marriage. Notice how there is first a rebellion against God. People started worshiping other gods. Next, it manifests itself in immorality—specifically, homosexuality.

In the end, even truth itself becomes a nebulous fog (today we call it relativism) and before you know it—anything goes. And friends, when ‘anything goes,’ it won’t be long before ‘everything goes.’

Satan’s not all that creative. The tricks and patterns have been the same since the very first man and woman in the garden. Yes, he’s not very creative, but he’s amazingly consistent and determined and he’ll keep executing the same game plan as long as the game plan keeps executing societies.

Today you can throw a wrench in his tried and true plan—at least as far as North Carolina is concerned. Go out today and vote FOR the amendment to the state constitution that protects marriage and let’s see if we can’t stem the tide at least a little bit longer.

I’m fascinated by “Guinness Book of World Records type stuff.” Not the cheesy ones—like longest fingernails or who can lie on a bed of nails with the most weight on them. No, I’m talking about, tallest human being on record or shortest—heaviest , longest living—things like that.

Several years ago, a man died who claimed to have been born eight years after president George Washington died! Thomas Jefferson was president when this guy (Russian Shirali Muslimov) came into the world. The $15 million Louisiana Purchase was completed just two years before; Aaron Burr gunned down Alexander Hamilton just one year before; and Johnny Appleseed was still planting trees across our land! That’s old!! Without question, this guy died “earth’s oldest human being in modern times.” For that he deserves at least a short golf clap.

Sadly enough though, the only thing that stood out in this guys life was how long he lived, others who have lived only a fraction as long have contributed far more to society and have accomplishments tenfold what this guy

In the book of Ecclesiastes (Southbrook’s current preaching series entitled, “Game of Thrones”) Solomon (The one the Bible refers to as, “The wisest man ever”) talks a lot about life being brief. He compares life to a vapor, withering grass and the season of a flower). But we should never think in reading over and over about the brevity of life, that the goal was to try and extend it somehow. No, the goal is trying to live it rightly. Or, as Eugene Peterson once said—“to live our lives faithfully is like a long obedience in the same direction.” The goal—and I know I’ve said this over and over again—however, the beatings will continue until we get it—the goal is to live according to the last thing he said in the book (chapter 12 verse 13). Rather than just trying to extend the time our heart beats, our muscles work, and our face looks young—we should learn early and with much passion to “fear God and keep his commandments.”

“In our strife-torn and tension filled age, God is still calling men to live right. There is an urgent need for sons and daughters of the living God—who claim to love Jesus with all their hearts—to truly revere Him and take seriously His commands (i.e. more than just lip service). It really does not matter who long we live if what we’re really after is building for eternity. Those who live well live forever.

• Today we baptized nearly 40 people who wanted to stand up and be counted for Jesus! These days are always a celebration @ Southbrook Church and among my very favorite as a pastor. The name of Jesus was greatly magnified!
• Lifting high the name of Jesus didn’t stop there either. I just got home form an incredible Night of Worship that saw the return of Dan Rutty and Sara Scott! The 2 of them joined Greg, Mia and many others from the Southbrook worship team for a rockin time with brothers and sisters new and old!
• Today was also ‘part 3’ of our “Game of Thrones” series and the message entitled, “My Empire of Dirt.” Funny how hard we sometimes work at building what amounts to mud pies and stick houses when we could live for so much more in following the One who made us.
• Today we witnessed a very poignant illustration of not only the brevity of life, but also the confusion about whether or not most of us are even on the right track. The illustration with the yellow gumballs really makes one stop and think about “where all the time goes” and “to what” all our time and effort go to. I may have said that Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Bible but I never said it was easy. It’s just that it’s well worth the effort. Stick with us throughout the summer and I know you’ll agree!