Desert Breeze Community Church

It is one thing to understand the gospel but it is quite another to experience the gospel so deep in your heart that it changes everything about you and becomes the source of your identity, acceptance, security and significance. Romans 1-5 The Gospel is the Good News that God has reconciled us to Himself by sending His Son Jesus to die in our place for our sins, and all who repent and believe have eternal life.

In these last six verses in the O.T. book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon the wisest, wealthiest and most powerful man who ever lived gives us the “Bottom Line” to one of life’s most important questions: What is the Meaning of Life? It is a question you can’t afford to get wrong because you’re betting your life and destiny on it!

Heading toward the finish line of both his life and this book, Solomon as a remorseful burned out old man urges us to seek God while we are young and stick close to Him all the days of our life because apart from God life is meaningless

The teacher of Ecclesiastes genuinely cares about the practical parts of our lives and so he sits us down to share with us something essential for living it wisely. He opens today’s passage by sharing a story from his past that illustrates the lesson. Then he points out three clues that will help us both understand and move towards living it out more fully in different areas of life. What are those clues? They are; dead flies, venomous snakes, and talking birds.

We can observe two key realities when we look at life under the sun. First, the reality of death is inevitable. Secondly, life can be confusingly unpredictable. How are we to make sense of this in our lives and live in the middle of it all? In the center of the unpredictability of life and the inevitability of death God wisely commands us to something. The conclusion helps mature our Christianity. What is it? The answer may surprise.

Jesus says: “The humble are in and the proud are out.” (Luke 18:14) James 4:6-“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Beware of toxic teachers (Matt23:4), toxic churches (1Cor) and toxic beliefs (Col2:8) because they are more about bondage making than bondage breaking (John8:31-32; 1Tim4:16). A lie about God, believed to be true, will affect your life as if it were true.

If you have a relationship with God and walk with Him over time you will more and more put off folly and put on wisdom. Wisdom is seeing and responding to life from God’s perspective. Your perspective about the events in life will not only determine how you feel about those events but also how you will respond to those events (Pro23:7 NASB).

We live in a society that defines wealth as…How much money you make? What neighborhood you live in? How big your house is? What kind of car do you drive? “When our contentment is in Christ, it’s as durable as he is dependable. When our happiness is in Christ, we can’t lose our happiness, because we can’t lose Christ.” (Phil4:10-13) –Randy Alcorn “Happiness”

2 Kinds of Rich: Righteous Rich & Unrighteous Rich 2 Kinds of Poor: Righteous Poor & Unrighteous Poor

We are worshipers by nature and when we worship created things more the than the Creator it sets us up inevitably for inordinate anxiety, anger and depression. Our mission at db for 25 years has been to help unchurched people to relocate their ultimate love, hope and trust away from created things onto the Creator. Nothing will heal your heart, free your soul and fortify your faith like giving Christ your heart’s deepest loyalties and affections.

There is no way you will be able to survive or even thrive spiritually apart from a deep involvement in a Biblically functioning community of believers (Acts2:42-47).

You can live 40 days w/o food, just a few days w/o water, 4-6 min w/o O2, but not a single second w/o hope. Human beings are unavoidably hope based creatures. How you live in the present is inevitably shaped by what you believe about your future. You can’t avoid that! Hope in the bible is not “wishful thinking” but it is “confident joyful expectation”.

Research indicates that there is little correlation between the circumstances of people’s lives and how happy they are. Yet, when people respond to the question “Why aren’t you happy?” they tend to focus on their current difficult circumstances. Your circumstances actually matter far less to your happiness than you think.

Christianity gives us a meaning in life that the worst suffering in this world can't take and the greatest success in this world can't give.

No one can love us or hurt us like those who are closest to us. You only have two choices when it comes to dealing with hurt: It will either be the bondage of bitterness or the freedom of forgiveness. Not forgiving is more costly than forgiving. The price of unforgiveness is much higher than forgiveness. Bitterness is natural but forgiveness is supernatural.

When we enter relationships with the illusion that people are normal, we set ourselves up for disillusionment. People are normal until you get to know them. Everybody is somebody’s difficult person. If we respond unwisely, we can make difficult people more difficult.

Healthy people create healthy relationships. There has never been a healthy relationship without healthy communication. There has never been an unhealthy relationship that didn’t get that way in part because of unhealthy communication.

Boundaries are property lines defining what you are responsible for and not responsible for. They also let the good in and keep the bad out. (Proverbs 4:23) We are responsible for our core values, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, passions, actions, time, talents, finances, sins, weaknesses, past hurts, etc. Is your life out of control? Do you try to control others? Do people take advantage of you? Do you take advantage of others? Do you have trouble saying no? Do you have a hard time asking for help?

Life is all about relationships. Our fondest memories and deepest hurts involve relationships. Healthy people create healthy relationships (Matt22:34-40). Because we live in a broken world with conflict everywhere, healthy people know how to resolve conflict. Resolving conflict is one of the most important skills in life. The Gospel is a model and motivation for conflict resolution unlike anything else. Do you have good conflict resolution skills?