This sermon's title comes from a man in Monroe, North Carolina named Buster Broome.  Buster died about 10 years ago or so, but before that he was a carpenter with an uncommon level of common sense, and I was his pastor for nine years at Mt. Carmel Church in that small town about 25 miles from Charlotte. And whenever Buster saw or heard someone do or say something outrageous, he would say with a big grin on his face, "That don't make no sense." Which is a perspective you could apply to much of the bible's wisdom: it don't make no sense.   Until it does. Here's the message itself with the bottom line:  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So we are in Week 2 of the series BrainWashing and here’s why:  I really & truly believe that SO MANY of your problems today – relationship breaking, church hopping, temper losing, Jesus doubting, sexual dysfunctioning, political paranoia-ing – come first of all from faulty thinking.  In the same way that smog dirties up the air, our brains have been dirtied up by cultural forces that we are only vaguely aware are operating, and once our brains are dirtied up in that way, we’re conditioned to look at the world through a certain kind of lens.  A particular grid.  And even if you love Jesus and are loyal to his church and you don’t know this is happening, believe me, it is.  In the age of the Screen and the Net, it’s happening more powerfully than ever before.             It’s conventional wisdom.  It’s what smart people think.  It’s everybody knows that!  It’s seemingly harmless, apparently loving but ultimately lethal and your brain and my brain needs a thorough washing to look at the world in a healthier way, a different way, a more Godly way.  We started this series last week by learning together that when you realize the world killed God, you never trust its wisdom again and now it’s time to go all Patti LaBelle & get a new attitude.             But to get there, can we all acknowledge something first?  Face facts?  A lot of the stuff you read in the bible or hear in the church, as they say in Union County, don’t make no sense.  Give 10% of your money – money you can see – to a God you can’t see?  That don’t make no sense!  Turn the other check instead of fighting back?  That don’t make no sense!  Reserve sexual intimacy for marriage and keep it there?  That don’t make no sense!  The first will be last?  That don’t make no sense!  The greatest among you – and if we were to finish that sentence, we'd say will be the one with the most championships or the most covers on People magazine – but Jesus finishes the sentence with will be servant of all?  That don’t make no sense!    It’s loco, it’s crazy, and if THAT’S what it means to have your brain washed a lot of you will just pass, thank you very much.              But then Paul.  Pastor. Church consultant.  Letter writer extraordinaire.  Troubler of Corinth.  Here he is in I Cor 2, writing to, as they say, the “worldliest” church of them all, the church in the ancient Greek city of Corinth.  It was a church characterized by elitism, classism, caste-ism, insider-ism, the cool lunch table and the nerd lunch table, jocks and geeks . . . however you want to divide people up into haves and have-nots, the Corinthians have beaten you there.  (Remember how I said relationship breaking and church hopping are both due to faulty thinking first? Corinth is Exhibit A.)  Paul takes all their dilemmas and all their fracturing and lays it at the feet of their thinking. Their mindset.  Look at I Cor 2:10: these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. Ah, the deep things of God are available to us.  We can comprehend and be comprehended by what is deepest and truest about God.  Beautiful.              And then he goes on with a point in 2:11 that really is self-evident:  For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  You can’t know what’s going on in my head and I can’t finally tell what is going on in yours.  In the same way, then, only God’s spirit knows what God’s thinking.  Except.  Then comes this enormous leap in both experience and in logic, coming at 2:12: What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. What?  You can’t know someone’s thoughts and so you can’t know God’s thoughts . . . until you can.  That you can have such a profound encounter with the Savior from God that the Spirit of God comes to inhabit you, enliven you, animate you.  And when you surrender to the Savior and God’s Spirit inhabits, enlivens, and animates you, then you can think as God thinks.  Process the world through his lens instead of the world’s. Why?  Because he is inhabiting you.  It’s like that Mel Gibson movie a few years ago when Mel hisself really could know what all the ladies in his life were thinking (check?). Except it’s you and God.             So: without the Spirit, the things of the gospel – those things about money, sex, relationships, faith that I named earlier – don’t make no sense – because only with the Spirit of God can you see them with clarity and understanding.  And here’s where I have to be VERY careful for two reasons:  1) I don’t want to say MORE than I Cor 2 is saying; and 2) I don’t want to say LESS than it’s saying, either.  AND I realize that some of you here are not sure about Jesus, don’t come to church convinced, you’re actually waiting for some more evidence before you will believe.  Maybe you’re even feeling that if you can understand some SIDE issue – money, sex, relationship, church – then you will consider the CENTER issue – whether or not Jesus is Lord of all.             And if that’s you – or if you are a Xn already but have a hard time washing your brain of the that don’t make no sense – please notice the order in I Cor 2:12-13: What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^[  You receive first, you understand second.  Commitment comes before clarity.  Some things you only understand, you only see after you decide to believe.  The sides are only sensible when the center is settled.  It’s very rare that people intellectually work their way in from the side to the center.  Why?  We believe (or, better, I Cor teaches) that without the Spirit, without the Savior to animate your spirit, illuminate your mind, and wash your brain, some things will never, never make sense.  Here’s where it lands us:  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord.              Yes! Yes!  Sometimes you’ve got to DO in order to KNOW.  You follow the instructions / the commands / the teachings without complete clarity and along the way you discover:  “Oh, I get it!  That’s why he says to live this way!”  It’s the pattern of the entire bible!  Abraham: Go. Leave your family, your property, your business, your 401K, and go to a land you don’t know.  Lord, can I have the agenda for the trip?  No, just go.  Along the way you’ll understand.  And so he did.  Moses, take your people and get out of slavery on the other side of the Red Sea.  Do what I say and leave now.  And Moses answers, what’s the plan? what shall I tell them? Tell them my name and who I am and that’s enough.  Along the way, you’ll understand. And Jesus to Peter, the fisherman son of a fisherman.  Peter, come follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.  Peter: whose keeping the books? (Judas!) Whose your right hand man? What’s the plan?  When you coming back?  Jesus answers: Not for you to know the times and seasons, Peter, just come with me and you’ll discover along the way.  People:  they all followed FIRST and comprehended SECOND!  As if it is “Oh, once I did THIS, I got THAT!”  And it hasn’t stopped being true! Or it’s like what has happened to a whole lot of you because you’ve told me.  Here’s what the bible looked like BEFORE you became a Xn:  AV Gibberish.  And then once you got saved, here’s what it looked like: AV Clarity & Beauty.  Ah!!  Ta-da!  What was the difference?  Those first attempts you were trying to understand the mind of God without the Spirit of God and it doesn’t work!  But then you surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus and the Spirit inhabited you and while it’s not like you knew everything in the bible suddenly, what you did know was coupled with a new hunger to obey.  You settled the CENTER, and the sides made sense.  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord.  It’s even like the guy I know who only has some vague memories of his early 20s.  You know why?  He was “fried” most of that time – drugged out.  But now that he has experienced salvation, there is a hunger for God and a desire for God’s groups and it’s something glorious to see. From fried to sanctified!  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord.  THIS IS YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON THE HOLY SPIRIT    Because look look look.  When Jesus has your SOUL, what is it of his that you get?  The mind of Christ.  (2:16)  I trust his way of looking at the world so much more than my own!  Because he made it in the first place!  It’s like I think Bill Gates knows more about how Microsoft software works than I do cuz he invented it!  So if I could have his mind, I’d get it.  Except with Jesus, we have his mind when we surrender to his Lordship.  This allows you to see as he sees and know as he knows.  And this is what Corinthians and Americans have such a hard time getting:  at the center of the universe is a God who dies.  A Savior who wins by losing.  Whose victory is in his defeat.  Whose strength is most visible in his weakness.  It’s upside down, backwards, paradoxical . . . and that’s the heartbeat at the center of all creation! Like: do you know when the Civil Rights battle turned?  When the protesters got sprayed with hose and bitten by dogs and didn’t fight back. AV. That don’t make no sense . . . but when you see it with the mind of Christ, of course it does.  They were aligned with the power beating in the center of the universe.  It looks crazy to the world but it is beautiful to God. It’s why you don’t have to win every fight at home.  Why you don’t have to get your own way.  Why you don’t have to have the last word.  You think you do, but you don’t.  If you think you do, you’re just living the foolishness of 2:14: The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. No no no.  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord.  Even that word “received” in 2:12.  Because you know what else don’t make no sense?  Grace.  Karma makes sense.  You get what’s coming to you.  Life, death, and life after death is all about merit.  In fact, karma or some version of it makes so much sense that every religion in the world EXCEPT CHRSTIANITY! believes in it!  All religions and philosophies are DO THIS, DO THAT, DO MORE; Xnty alone is DONE.  Xnty alone knows that your eternity is secured not by your merits but by Christ’s love.  Not by your performance for Christ but by your position in Christ.  Santa – your level of gifts depends on how good or bad you’ve been – that makes sense.  Xnty as behavior modification?  That makes sense.  Jesus has the inhabiter of your body and soul, enabling you to see as he sees and think as he thinks? No sense.  Some things only make sense when you make Jesus Lord.  I do love how all this applies to church.  One of my favorite Twitter handles is Celebrity Pastor. Check a few out: AV.  Oh, our culture so buys into that; at GS, we try our best not to.  It’s why I don’t have a parking place here!  One of my most rewarding moments was when a long timer of this church said to me, “You know, this is the first church I’ve ever been to where you didn’t know who gave the money and who didn’t.”  IOW, the anti-Corinth!  A church living its convictions into a living rel w/ J.C.             Some of you have avoided Jesus.  A few might have rejected him.  A lot of you have played with him.  Today, for the sake of your relationships, your politics, your sexual dysfunction, even your church hopping . . . today is the day to surrender to him.  Not as Savior.  Not as Get Out Of Hell Free card. As Lord.  As inhabitor of your soul.  You give him that, and he gives you his mind.  And that is the best brainwashing of them all . . .  

So we are in Week 2 of the series BrainWashing and here’s why:  I really & truly believe that SO MANY of your problems today – relationship breaking, church hopping, temper losing, Jesus doubting, sexual dysfunctioning, political paranoia-ing – come first of all from faulty thinking. In the same way that smog dirties up the air, our brains have been dirtied up by cultural forces that we are only vaguely aware are operating, and once our brains are dirtied up in that way, we’re conditioned to look at the world through a certain kind of lens.  A particular grid.  And even if you love Jesus and are loyal to his church and you don’t know this is happening, believe me, it is.  In the age of the Screen and the Net, it’s happening more powerfully than ever before. It’s conventional wisdom.  It’s what smart people think.  It’s everybody knows that!  It’s seemingly harmless but ultimately lethal and your brain and my brain needs a thorough washing to look at the world in a healthier way, a different way, a more Godly way.  We started this series last week by learning together that when you realize the world killed God, you never trust its wisdom again and now it’s time to go all Patti LaBelle & get a new attitude. And what is the new attitude?  One in which, without the Lordship of Christ, don't make no sense. What do I mean? Ah.  Sunday.  8:30.  10.  11:30.  

Riley and I  spent a few days earlier this week in Austin, Texas, visiting my 99-year-old mother as well as an assortment of siblings, nieces, and nephews. I wanted my mom to see Riley in the aftermath of his graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill  AND I wanted to see her at the midpoint between her 99th and 100th birthdays. (I saw her last November for number 99 and of course my whole family will be back here this November for a blowout on her 100th.) What I didn't count on happening, though, was watching a National Championship happen. It turns out that the NCAA Men's and Women's Tennis Championships was held this week in Waco, Texas (no biker bar jokes, please) on the campus of Baylor University.  Waco is only 100 miles from Austin. I read in Tuesday's paper that the final match would be that day, and would feature two teams who have ascended to the upper echelon of college tennis only in the last decade or so:  Oklahoma University (OU) and the University of Virginia (UVA).  (Back when I played college tennis, a title match between those two would have been as likely as a BCS Football Championship between Wake Forest and Northwestern.  In the 80's it was always Stanford versus fill-in-the-blank.) There was an added attraction: one of the members of UVA's team, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, had taken tennis lessons alongside Riley when Riley was eight and Thai-Son was six.  In fact, I remember watching with amazement in those days as Kwiatkowski pummeled ball after ball against much older hitting partners at the Charlotte Tennis Academy. So I persuaded my older brother and sister to join me and Riley for the 100 mile trek from Austin to Waco, bought some bleacher seats, and watched the drama unfold. I noticed a few things have changed since I played college tennis in the 80s:

• No one serves-and-volleys.  No one.
• That's because everyone has great groundstrokes. Everyone.
• American-born players are the exception rather than the rule.  Which has made some folks in college tennis want to change the rules.
• Most players have two-handed backhands.  I was pleasantly surprised to see four one-handers among the twelve singles players.
• Teams and fans cheer a lot louder.  (Or maybe Princeton fans in the day were too sophisticated to cheer at all?)  Who would have ever thought you'd hear a BOOMER SOONER cheer at a tennis match?
• I sat next to the Dartmouth coach and struck up a conversation about Ivy League tennis, which apparently is better now than ever before.  I wanted to defend myself but kept quiet.  He was most impressed, however, when I introduced him to my sister with "and she beat Nancy Richey once."  (Nancy Richey was a top pro in the 60s and 70s, even winning both the Australian and French Opens.  But she didn't beat my sister Nancy!)
• Andy Roddick attends matches.  That's because his brother John is the coach of OU.  Andy sat four rows in front of us.  I didn't think it was an appropriate time to tell him of my man-crush on Roger Federer, who had a 21-3 advantage in their head-to-head.

After hundreds of serves, thousands of groundstrokes, and tens of volleys, UVA won, 4-1.  Actually, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski won the next-to-last point for the Cavaliers, very calmly serving out the match in spite of the obvious tension in the stadium. As soon as UVA won the clinching point, the players and coaches stormed the court in frenzied, euphoric celebration. I realized it was the first time I've ever seen a national championship won, live and in person, as it happened. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday in central Texas.    

I had a conversation not long ago with someone about what makes a song "Christian" . . . or not. You know how I have concluded many people answer that question, consciously or not? If it is released by a Christian music label and gets played on Christian music stations. That's really what it comes down to in many people's thinking.  And . . . that's what makes it appropriate to sing in church. So: if you hear it on K-Love 91.9  (and can we acknowledge that the relative lack of banter make that a better station than its predecessor, New Life?) and if it was released by Hillsong, Maranatha, or Sparrow, you're good.  It's a Christian song and you're OK to use it on Sunday either as a "congregational" or "special." On the other hand, if a song is released by a mainstream artist on a popular label, it's not appropriate . . . even if the lyrics reflect Gospel themes or Gospel hope. That kind of distinction -- rarely articulated in such stark terms, but lived out nonetheless -- brings up a real conundrum. I call it The Michael English Effect.   Who is he?  In the days of Contemporary Christian Music explosive growth in the early 1990s, he was the man.  In fact, he won four Dove Awards -- CCM's version of the Grammys -- in 1994. And one week later -- literally -- it came out that he and a woman in a supporting band were pregnant.  And both were married to other people at the time. So: were Michael English's Dove Award winning songs Christian?  Any more or any less than U2's Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, or Magnificent?  Did English's place on the 91.9 rotation make his songs worthy of church attention and U2's play on 95.7 The Ride disqualify it? Or even closer to home:  so many of us had our faith strengthened by Ray Boltz's Thank You, I Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb, and even Watch The Lamb.  Except many would be surprised to know that Boltz is no longer married to his wife of 30 years and has a male partner.  So are those songs still appropriate for church? I cite all those examples as the foundation for a simple plea:  don't be so quick to separate the spiritual from the secular, especially in music. As Methodists, we believe in prevenient grace -- that God is at work in people who aren't necessarily looking for him.  That's why I believe he can inspire Gospel-honoring art to come out of people who don't yet believe the Gospel.  What song, for example, could move us toward the forgiving spirit at the heart of the Gospel more than Don Henley's The Heart Of the Matter -- and yet Henley would be loathe to call himself a Christian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xezg3z5IE8I That might not be played on K-Love 91.9.  But it should be.    

It's not the top five Steve Winwood songs. It's the top five songs in which he sings. Because whether it was the front man (boy, really) for The Spencer Davis Band, the lead singer for Traffic, or his solo career, Steve Winwood's voice could carry a song.  Let me show you what I mean: 5.  The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys by Traffic.  Set a spell because it casts one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEZH0t5Yozw 4.  Back In The High Life Again  by Steve Winwood.  The title song from his 1986 classic, this song almost made me want to drink. And dance. At the same time.  If you know me, you know how unlikely either of those scenarios are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xss7xy9pAa4 3.  If You See A Chance by Steve Winwood.  This song has a luscious texture, courtesy of 1981 and its synthesizer sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6g_uUhH2c 2.  Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Band.  Julie and I saw Winwood in concert in 1986 in Philadelphia and this was his encore.  It was so good . . . it might have danced a little.  PS - You must watch the video . . . Winwood looks like he's about 15.  Which he was.  PPS -- This is the second best song ever with Gimme as the first word in the title.  If you don't know what #1 is, I feel kind of sorry for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxA3atHD2QM   1.  Higher Love by Steve Winwood.  The best song on the '86 High Life album.  When the Good Shepherd Choir sang this during our Love Song series it fulfilled a 20 year dream.  The sermon's bottom line that day was Staying in love means sharing a love for the Highest love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwuHtbcvTh8