You Are That Memorable Moment!

I love American pop culture. Today's definitely has it's downside. But iPhones, HDTV and Ryan Seacrest make up for a lot. (Okay, maybe not Ryan Seacrest.) Nevertheless, I'm a fan. Cultural moments are the thumb tabs of our lives. Some shifted the course of American politics, values, and entertainment. Some just serve to bookmark times we will never forget and that make us sentimental.

JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you...", and MLK's "I have a dream." shifted our focus away from ourselves and to less selfish motivations. Woodstock was a key moment that cemented a change in the American value system. Elvis and the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show changed the climate of music not only secularly but sacred as well. Visit your local church and their contemporary service if you don't know what I mean.

Anyone that was alive when Pearl Harbor was bombed, man walked on the moon, Michael Jackson did the Moonwalk, or the Twin Towers fell, can tell you where they were and recognize the effect it had on a generation.

My era was the best. A child of the 70's and 80's I have some incredible cultural moments that my kids look at with awe and envy. Man, I've got Nixon, Watergate, Saturday Night Fever, Starsky and Hutch, The A-Team, The Reagan Administration, Bell Bottoms, Parachute Pants and Pet Rocks...and the list goes on! All of these cultural icons and moments have power over us.They gave momentum and context to shape our opinions (well...not pet rocks), affected our lives, fashion, enjoyment, name it. Culture causes change.

Remember SNL from the 70's...back when it was funny? I recently saw a piece on Yahoo about how Bill Murray saved his career on SNL by issuing an apology for not being funny. He had replaced Chevy Chase and was bombing. So one night on the show he addresses the audience and apologizes for not being funny and it was so hilarious that it immediately endeared him to the public. His authentic plea for America to give him a chance ended up giving us the great movie "Groundhog Day", because America bought into him.

Seeing that made me wonder, as individuals how many of us give thought to shaping the culture, attitudes, life views,or simply make people think differently around us. The idea if you follow Jesus (and it's the right idea because it's God's) is that by the very nature of whose Spirit you possess, you are given that potential and that assignment. Culture influences people...Jesus remakes people. Transforms people. Are you aware that in the first century, Christians had such a huge cultural impact that it shifted the fate of the Roman Empire? Even the fall of the Berlin Wall was heavily influenced by the impact of authentic Christianity. Change a person, change a culture.

I had a man say to me when I was a teenager; "Brent, people love you for the way you make them feel." That changed me, because this guy made me feel amazing. I never forgot what he said. See? A moment in time that changed a person. Ten words. 

All this to say, don't take yourself for granted. God doesn't! If your life has been changed by Jesus you have supernatural ability (because God in you is supernatural) to cause a shift in another life.

I Peter 4:10 gives us a clue. "God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another."

We live in a culture that needs change. You ARE that person. You can be the person another remembers for the rest of their life. I Peter 4:10 is about you. Enjoy what God has given you and go change a life.

Brent

Plato, Sports Illustrated, and My Struggle with Christian Dualism

One day I was sitting around with a guy who was a mentor to me. I was pretty young in my walk with Jesus and going over to this man's house was like walking into Narnia. The room we hung out in was full of books and items from all over the world and was a place in which you could easily lose yourself. We were sitting there sipping on strong coffee and I was shuffling through a stack of books that intrigued me when in the course of conversation he said..."Brent, never read a book you can understand". 

Now I knew what he meant. I know hyperbole when I hear it. But still, that was quite the challenge to a guy who still gauged the books he read by how big the print was and if there was any killing in it. Nevertheless I took his advice. One day soon after while I was out at a used book store, I grabbed a copy of Plato's Republic. I'm not saying he wanted me to read Plato, but if I am going to challenge my thinking why not start with him? When I got home I began reading it...thirty minutes later I put it down and picked up Sports Illustrated.

Plato had this idea of how we should look at the world called Dualism. He said that there is this physical world—the one we see—and a spiritual world that we don’t see. The body and the soul, he would say, are distinct and unconnected things.

A lot of us have adopted this idea, and in a similar way, have begun to believe that our physical lives and our spiritual lives are two distinct, unconnected things.

We say, there’s the sacred and there’s the secular. There’s church and there’s work. There’s Sunday, and there’s Saturday. You see? And most of the time secular wins out.

Real quick, name 5 of your favorite movies...no special order...you just love them.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Now give me the scripture references of your top 5 Bible verses that MEAN something to you.

1.

2. 

3.

4.

5. 

Okay...now I know some of you were quoting those scriptures pretty fast...but most of us were throwing out...Caddy Shack...Gladiator...The Notebook (Not my favorite)...a lot faster. Why? You know why! Most people know the secular a lot quicker than the sacred because most live more from the secular. We have them categorized. If it's not movies...then it's news, and work, and kids activities, and music. Our lives gravitate around the secular.

Have you ever wondered if you were Spiritual Enough? Have you ever wondered if God was pleased with you because you didn't know if you were involved in enough Spiritual things? Haven't read your Bible enough...prayed enough. You may start to see the emptiness of those questions.

What if you are growing in Christ, and have Cancer? What do you say then? “Well, my spiritual life is great, but my normal life stinks.” Could it be we have a wrong perspective? Maybe we are looking at this all wrong.

Here is where I think God wants us to live from...That if you are being drawn closer to him it affects the other things in your life.

The one you have put your trust in for Eternity is the one who is the center of your Now.

Once saved you can’t really separate Eternity and Now because you are just as much his now as you will be then. But, if you separate the two…your spiritual life and your normal life… you run the risk of thinking that God doesn’t care. 

Am I spiritual enough? It doesn’t make sense, does it? 

Am I living? That’s our question.

It’s all spiritual.

It has to do with knowing God’s right to your life and how to let everything flow out of our relationship with him. If you don’t know who someone IS, it affects how you act towards them! 

Colossians 1:15-20

 15 He is the image (perfect representation) of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

That’s what this passage does for us…let’s us know who Jesus is!  And how EVERYTHING is his…so as a result EVERYTHING in your life can flow from your relationship with Him. It works better that way.

Brent

Fighting Gravity

A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference in Shreveport, La. Even though I had lived in TX and not all that far from Shreveport, I had never been there. I arrived at the hotel, checked in, ate dinner, went back up to my room....and boredom set in. And being a tad on the ADD side it wasn't long before I was in my car exploring Shreveport at 10 o'clock at night.

Man, I drove all over! I had no idea where I was going. I drove by Mall St. Vincent, through neighborhoods, passed restaurants, drove through parts of town that were rather scary. It wasn't long before my car had ventured into the casino district. Hey...I just followed the lights. Where I am from lights are very deceptive. They look like a skyline but then it turns out to be a refinery. It's all very discouraging so this was a nice aesthetic change.

And so I'm driving...enjoying the exploration...when I notice the song playing in my car. "Gravity" .

While I was driving I had pulled up the John Mayer "Continuum" album on my iPod. I know...as a pastor and speaking at a conference full of pastors I should have been listening to Hillsong or Chris Tomlin. But read this lyric...

Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down

I'm listening to that and my mind goes to this in the Bible..."The very things I hate I end up doing. The things I want to do I just don't do." (A peril of being a pastor...everything has a scripture reference.) One of the most righteous men in the Bible wrote that. It's in the book of Romans. This man wrote about two thirds of the New Testament. He also said this..."when I want to do good, evil is right there with me...the evil I do not want to do is what I keep on doing.

Gravity...working against one of the most Godly men that ever lived. I need to know this because there are times that I feel like I'm the only one who is clawing my way out of junk to get to a higher level. Okay...I know I'm NOT the only one...but there are Christians that literally hide the fact that they are affected by Gravity...the pull and tug of sin or simply the stuff of life. 

Even Paul said..."I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?

And in his next breath he says..."Thank God for Jesus...because of Him I can beat Gravity...I can live Higher" 

Okay...I paraphrased that. But that's the idea. 

God designed you with "higher" in mind. Transcendent living. And I have to connect with Him if my life is going to function right. 

We live in a world trying to function apart from God and it is not working. The commerce, education, political, relational, religious systems are broken. Only God's ideas can work on God's planet.

The primary way we relate to God is through His Word...The Bible. All through it there is a message of transcendence. God came down...to bring us up. 

You can find examples in Exodus 3:8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey...  

...and in Ephesians 2:6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms...

God’s interest in people is that they live at a different level. Taken care of. Provided for. And most of all...that He is the one that supplies for them.

There are lot's of attractive lights that get our attention. But what looks attractive can turn on you...things disappoint. There is a lot that competes for our affections on a horizontal level. But unless you live vertically you can never beat the Gravity. God has higher for us. Jesus said..."I am the Light of the World...

So I'm driving singing this song...me and John Mayer...driving back to the hotel...

 And gravity has taken better men than me (now how can that be?)

Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where keep me where the light is

Beat Gravity...Live Transcendent,

Brent