- Today we continued our journey through the book of Ecclesiastes and our, “Game of Thrones” series with the 12th installment—a message entitled, “Formula God.” We’ve been in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes for 3 weeks now. What can I say? There’s a ton of good stuff in there! And, believe it or not, we still didn’t cover it all. Alas, eventually we all need to move on. However, I wanted to make available a whole other angle on these last several verses from the outstanding Bible teacher and pastor of Mars Hill Church—Mark Driscoll. He once taught on this little section and entitled the message, “11 Steps to becoming a Religious Jerk” <– Subtle, huh?
Anyway, it’s well worth reading so what follows here is my attempt (and words) to boil all 11 down to the shortest possible statement as well as throwing in some of my own discoveries—lofty goals I know…
- Develop a theology of Karma
- Be self righteous (holier than thou)
- Be overly Pious
- Be a control freak
- Never confess ANY of your sin
- Adore gossip and think of it as no more than a junior varsity sin
- Sit around and debate theology all day
- Be a busy-body
- Constantly undermine unity within your church10.
- Make no effort to support the vision of the leadership—instead, blaze new trails entirely—preferably ones that lead straight back to you.
- Make everything about you and little about Jesus
- Loved seeing so many high school students fellowshipping with each other at the 3rd installment of our “July Student Coffee Shop.” This has given them one more safe place where they can grow in community with other students and explore God’s Word together.
- For more information on the differences between being righteous vs. self-righteous, read the entire chapter of Romans 8. We barely scratched the surface today and this chapter may be just what you need to tie up all the loose ends.