If you could sit in an ark, why would you want to join an army?  For one simple reason: the ark doesn't float, at least not for long.  Consumer Christianity isn't Christianity, and it doesn't really work.  It doesn't change anyone's life, or heal anyone's marriage, or defeat anyone's temptations, or give anyone the purpose and peace and power of God.  The simple fact is that God empowers us only when we fulfill his purpose.  And his purpose is clear: "go and make disciples."

The church must get the gospel to the world, or it is not a church.

When David ran at Goliath, sling in hand, he won a great victory.  When David stayed in the palace while his army went to battle, he fell into great sin.

Ephesians 6 describes the "spiritual armor" of the Christian: "Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (vs. 14-17). 

Notice this fact: the armor covers and protects only the front of the body.  If the soldier retreats, he is doomed.

The typical Baptist church grows until it is five years old, then it plateaus.  The reason is simple: when the church begins it must grow or die.  So it knocks on doors, invites friends and neighbors, focuses on the needs of those it has not yet reached.

But after five years of doing this, it usually has achieved critical mass.  Now it begins thinking about its own members and their needs.  It focuses on children and youth and facilities and programs for its people.  Others are always welcome to join, but the focus shifts from the community to the congregation.  And most churches never grow again.

There is more to life than getting what we can and canning what we get.  There is a God-shaped emptiness in every one of us, so that our hearts are restless until they rest in him.  We long in our souls to be on purpose, on mission, our lives committed to a cause greater than ourselves.

We resonate with the church in Seville, Spain who put over their doorway the statement, "Let us build here a church so great that people who come after us will think us mad ever to have attempted it."  We are stirred by the call to attempt something so great it is doomed to fail unless God be in it.  We are made to want more than we can own and drive and spend, to seek lives of significance and eternal impact.  That's just the way we are.

Gregg Easterbrook, author of the secular bestseller, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, makes this spiritual point in a profound way:

"As Alan Wolfe of Boston University has noted, a leading question of our moment in history is: 'Why capitalism and liberal democracy, both of which justify themselves on the grounds that they produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number, leave so much dissatisfaction in their wake'….

"Perhaps Western society has lost its way, producing material goods in impressive superfluity but also generating so much stress and pressure that people cannot enjoy what they attain.  Perhaps men and women must re-examine their priorities--demanding less, caring more about each other, appreciating what they have rather than grousing about what they do not have, giving more than lip service to the wisdom that money cannot buy happiness" (p. xvii).

Consumerism doesn't really work for the consumer.  It certainly doesn't work for the Christian.