Escape from Gilligan’s Island: A Good Game Plan

We have been explor­ing at church the ques­tion of what we should do when we feel stranded in life much as the cast­aways were on Gilligan’s Island. Pastors Bart and Jeff have led us to the point in this ser­mon series where we have been res­cued by God. The ques­tion is “and now what?” God has a plan.

Here is the basic out­line of Sunday’s ser­mon. Be sure to down­load the full ser­mon on Flatland’s web­site or get it on iTunes.

1. God wants us to live a life cen­tered around Him. Before Christ it was all about rit­ual. Now it is all about rela­tion­ship with God that trans­forms our lives.
2. God wants us to live a life com­mit­ted to His ser­vice. Christ is our high priest and we serve as a peo­ple of priests See Rev 1:6 [show]Revelation 1:6 [6]and made us a king­dom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and domin­ion for­ever and ever. Amen. (ESV)
   . We are to share the Good News. To serve one another. God doesn’t want us to play for his arch rival (a la Favre going to a team like the Vikings). Matt 12:30 [show]Matthew 12:30 [30]Whoever is not with me is against me, and who­ever does not gather with me scat­ters. (ESV)
   
3. God wants us to live a life that is made holy by God, to wear his uni­form. Consecration is key! By faith we can be holy. Hebrews 9:11–14 [show]Hebrews 9:11–14 [11]But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more per­fect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this cre­ation) [12]he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus secur­ing an eter­nal redemp­tion. [13]For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprin­kling of defiled per­sons with the ashes of a heifer, sanc­tify for the purifi­ca­tion of the flesh, [14]how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eter­nal Spirit offered him­self with­out blem­ish to God, purify our con­science from dead works to serve the liv­ing God. (ESV)
   

Our chal­lenge is to fol­low God’s game plan for our lives once we get off the island so we don’t find our­selves back on another one. I sort of thought that the ser­mon out­line was back­wards. For me, I need to con­tin­u­ally con­se­crate my life to God and by God in order to keep my life cen­tered around God and to be com­mit­ted to His ser­vice. But that may just be me.

Actually, all three points must work in con­junc­tion with each other. There really isn’t a do this, then this, then this. It is a game plan to do all three at the same time. And that is the chal­lenge we have been given by Pastor and one that I desire to follow.

The pic­ture in this arti­cle was taken by my iPhone so it isn’t the great­est. On the left you can see the bam­boo hut and the ter­mite mound kind of hid­den behind the mic stand on the left as well. Palm trees, some very col­or­ful flow­ers (very sim­i­lar to what you see on Gilligan’s Island) and a grass skirt around the key­board round out the decorations.