What Is Your Business?: Part 1 – Family Business: Transcript & Outline

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WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS?: FAMILY BUSINESS

NOVEMBER 22, 2020, 11:30AM

ED YOUNG

 

We live in a contract crazy culture, don’t we? Have a medical procedure. Contract. Buy a phone. Contract. House, obviously, contract. Play AAU Select Soccer. Contract. Contracts are everywhere. It takes teams of lawyers sometimes to execute these contracts. One party and another party, then you come to an agreement. You sign on the dotted line and everything is cool. Contracts are interesting.

I would argue that this book, the Bible is a giant contract, because God basically says, “You do this and I’ll do that. If you don’t do that, I’ll do this.” The contract is in effect. We can’t negotiate it. We can’t wheel and deal with it. We can’t hire this person or that person. It’s just in effect.

What I’m talking about today is a contract that started in the beginning. I’m talking about Adam and Eve. They had a contract with God. It was awesome. Amazing and unbelievable. They chose though to back out of the contract, to break the contract. They sinned. Once that was in play, God could have wiped us off the earth, but he didn’t.

The Old Testament is about contracts and it kind of is foreshadowing the ultimate contract when God sent Jesus Christ to pay the sin debt of the world. We have a debt we can’t pay. We can’t file Chapter 11. We can’t renegotiate. We can’t do this or that. We can’t say, “Well, man, I’m a good boy or I’m a good girl.” No. It all falls short. God sent Jesus to make up the distance to reconcile our accounts. Then he says, “Okay, here’s the contract. You can sign on the dotted line or not.” It’s your option. It’s my option. It’s almost like he looks at us and with his nail-scarred hands, he hands us a pen and says, “Do you want to sign?” Think about this. Now, this is the deal beyond deals. Once we sign, a cosmic transaction takes place, our guilt for God’s grace, our sin for the savior of the world. This is the most important contract ever.

 

I’ll never forget, I was at a Mexican restaurant a few years ago, and I was talking to a guy. The more we talked; I could tell by what he was saying that he was not a follower of Christ. I began to talk to him about what it means to be a believer. I’ll never forget, I took out my pen and I think I used a business card of his. That was back in the day when people carried cards. Maybe you still carry cards. Anybody carry business cards? Okay, good. Okay, they still work. I don’t, but fine. I took this card and I made a little contract; it was tiny. I said okay. I did a little X and dot dot dot. I said, “Jesus loves you. He died on the cross for you. He rose again. This deal is just phenomenal. You either sign it or not.” And I handed him the pen. And I’ll never forget that moment of tension when he kind of rolled the pen between his thumb and index finger. He thought about it, and then he signed. I said, “Do you realize what happened? Do you realize the deal that was done? That transaction?’ He became a follower of Christ.

 

I’m going to stop right now and ask you, have you made that decision? I’m not talking about religion here. I’m talking about a relationship. Have you made that decision? What if I asked you, “if you were to die right now, would you go to heaven?” You might go, “Oh yeah. Maybe.” And then one of us said, “Okay. If you were to get right up to the Pearly Gates and what if Jesus would look you in the eye and say, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ What would you say?” There’s only one word, one name that’s the passcode. Jesus. Jesus. Because I’ve signed on the dotted line. I want to give you an opportunity right now to make that decision right where you are. Okay?

 

Would you bow your heads with me for a moment at all the different campuses? We have people logged on from Jamaica, South Africa, India on our online platform. We have different people, different situations. Here are some names, Roxanne, Michael. We have people at our Dallas campus, in our campuses in Florida and Oklahoma, but pray this prayer with me if you’ve never prayed it before.

Just simply say, “God, I admit to you that I’m bankrupt because of my sin. There’s a distance. There’s a debt I can never pay off. I believe that you sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins to rise again. Right now, I sign on the dotted line. I ask you Jesus to come into my life. The moment you said those words, this transaction took place. Your sin was transferred to the shoulders of Jesus and his grace and the savior of the world came into your life. In Jesus name, amen.”

 

Let’s give a huge round of applause for people that I believe prayed that prayer. I don’t know if you prayed the prayer of not. Only God does. I’m just simply leading you in it, and I wanted to include as many people as possible. That is how a person becomes a Christian. Once you become a Christian, once you sign on the dotted line with this contract, God tells us in no uncertain terms that we’re a part of his family. I’m a part of the family of God.

The Bible says that I’m adopted into the family of God because I’m not born into the family of God. When I’m “born again”, I’m a part of the family of God. I’m born again into the family of God. I have billions of blood relatives, I’m talking about the blood of Jesus, around the world because I’ve received Christ and they’ve received Christ, because I’ve signed on the dotted line and they’ve signed on the dotted line. If you’ve not done it, if you hadn’t applied the blood into your life, you don’t have those blood relatives. It’s kind of an interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it? The blood of Jesus, we’re in his family. We’re a blood relative. But on the other hand, we’re adopted into the family of God.

God is the God of the family. The family of God, the church has called the Bride of Christ. Did you know that, the Bride of Christ? Jesus is called the Bride Groom of Christ, and we’re the children, right? The children of God, because we’ve been born again into the family of God. My earthly family, Today we had the pleasure of dedicating our grandchildren in the first service, that was really, really special, so my family, your family, should reflect, it should be a microcosm of the family of God.

What’s the family about? Now, if I ask you that question, if I paraded every single person on stage, if I said, “Okay, define the family,” most of the guys would just kind of go screensaver. Here’s what a family is, the definition of a family. A family is a unit created by God to glorify God. Let’s say that together. The family is a unit created by God to glorify God. The family is a unit created by God to glorify God. That’s what it means to put the ball to the net. That’s what it means to hang points on the scoreboard of the family. What does it mean to glorify God? That’s kind of a unique phrase, to glorify God.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:31 “Whatever you do,” the Apostle Paul said, “Do it all for the glory of God.” I’m here making God famous when I glorify him. I’m reflecting the sum total of his attributes individually and also as a unit in my family. Why the family? To perpetuate the species? To have cool holiday festivities? To have a chip off the old block? I mean, those things are good, don’t get me wrong, but the family is a unit created by God to glorify God. The family.

Here’s what God does when he gives us this family. I would argue it’s a contract. God says, “Okay, here’s the contract. You do this, I’ll do that. If you don’t do that, I’ll do this.” That’s what God says. We either do what God says in the family or we don’t. But a lot of us in our culture, we’re not doing what God tells us to do.

40% of kids are in single parent homes. Most marriages end in divorce. People are playing house, co-habitating in record numbers. No wonder we see the relational carnage.

I want you to notice though, this contract that I’m going to talk about is structured. Have you ever thought about the structure of this family business? Have you ever thought about it? The structure is simply glorious and gloriously simple. The Bible says in the Book of Ephesians, it tells us what the structure of the family is about. The book of Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” We should submit in the family unit to one another. It should be a submission contest.

 

A friend of mine said this one time, “Your home is a Seminary.” Some of you are like, “What is a Seminary? A Cemetery?” No, a Seminary. I went four years to a Seminary. I got my Master of Divinity, then I did some Doctrinal work. I had professors and curriculum, and it was tough. Greek and Hebrew and all that. Your home is a Seminary. Who are the professors? This is God’s idea, mom and dad. Oh man, but I don’t know, dude. I don’t know about this. Okay, I’ll come back to that in a second. You’re the professors, the Bible is your curriculum, and the world is your classroom. Your role is the soul of your family. Parents, we are teaching and modeling. We’re on stage 24/7. Here’s what’s so supernatural about what I’m talking about. Let’s say you don’t know that much about the Bible. Okay? You do it God’s way and he’ll put you on a fast track of faith like you’ve never seen before in your life. He will.

Three things we’re to do as parents in this seminary. All right? Number one, we’re to introduce our kids to a personal relationship with Christ. Number two, we’re to find and applaud their gifts and abilities and realize that those abilities are their abilities from God, and they’re to use those abilities to glorify him. Then we’re to show them, teach and model the beauty and the priority of the church. I’m telling you, the only thing that Jesus ever built was the church. The church is the family of God.

 

Something else that’s been interesting to see in our world today is that we have gotten away from the church as the main priority. Now, this is a new sweater. I love this thing, and I am taking a serious risk using these paint pens to draw. Okay? So pray for me right now that I will not sling this ink on this white cashmere sweater. Okay? I got to draw a little bit. All right. Here’s dad. All right? Here’s mommy. Here’s the little kids. This is kind of fun drawing like this in church, isn’t it? I’m ADD, so I have to do this to pay attention to myself. That’s the family. A nice family with 2.3 kids and the family should be a reflection of God’s family.

The family structure is very simple. God is the owner and founder. This next one is going to mess you up, but just stay with me. Don’t look for the exit signs. Just work with me. Okay? The parents in this company are the managers. God is the owner and the founder. Parents are the managers. Dad is the CEO. Did you know that? I like that. That was a man clap. I like it. But don’t clap too quickly. I’m going to put CEO because we need that, don’t we, dads? CEO of the house. It’s the way God set it up. The wife, mom is the president. I already know what’s going to happen. If I stopped right now, the conversations on the way to lunch, “See? We read in the Bible. Whatever I say goes.” Again, just wait a second. Kids would be employees or shareholders.

Okay, I got it. Let’s keep reading because this is going to get scary. Ephesians 5:23-25. I’m talking about the structure. I just talked about that, right? “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Let’s have a man clap. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Hello? I don’t say that very much anymore. My father does. He says it all the time. I sometimes will joke not for a laughter. If I laugh, I’ll just say it. I just said that just imitating my father. I thought it was funny to me.

If you read it in the original language, remember seminary, Greek. I’m to first love Lisa as Jesus loved the church, selflessly, sacrificially, steadfastly. How much did Jesus love the church? He gave his life for her. So, ladies, if your man is doing that, slap somebody appropriately. No, I’m sorry. Dr. Doom says we can’t do that. You know who that is, Dr. Doom. Okay. Let’s hear some more negative news. Thank you.

God’s the owner. Parents are the managers. You can say that. Dad is the CEO. Mom is the president. We have those three things we’re to do, introduce our kids to Christ. Realize their uniqueness. Understand the importance of the local church. We’re in the family to glorify God. Kids are not for your glory or their glory. They’re to glorify God.

But what do we do? We OD on activities. This is the way God wants the design to work. Church, then there’s like a circle here and there are arrows pointing out. You have activities. You have sports. You can say your job. We used to be able to travel until Dr. Doom shut down travel. Let’s get real convicting, fishing. This is the nucleus. Okay? This is God’s design. These activities are great. Your job is great. Sports are great. Activities are great. Fishing, travel. See? We’ve got it in this realm. There’s been a nasty change, because the enemy is all about attacking the structure, the foundation and the fuel of the family. Let me try to keep this symmetrical if I can that. Dad. Mom. Little kids. I want you to notice, when I draw this family, they’re equal in form, different in function. That’s today’s family and the nucleus would be right here, and the wheel will be here, and we would have activities. Sports, job, travel, fishing. But there’s another one now, church. It’s just an add-on, church. Back in the day we can’t miss church because of activities, but today we can’t miss activities because of church. Isn’t that interesting?

We have OD’d on all of these activities. Friends, it’s not working well for us. Do you realize the church, generally speaking, is the only entity that supports and highlights those transcendent values given to the family by God? Not nations, not communities. Families are the ones that carry the ball of Jesus. Our family unit, then we’re part of the unit called the local church. That’s God’s brilliant design.

He gave dad and mom this huge responsibility. A lot of us, especially the men, I don’t want to jam the men, but I’m a man, we’re like, “Whew! That’s too tough. I’ll just give that to my wife. Women, they’re so industrious, they’ll just pick up that leadership thing and they’ll go with it.” Do you understand me? I’m saying God is God and marriage is marriage and kids are kids. That’s it. We’re glorifying God.

 

When I read the Child Dedication charge to all of these beautiful families, whether they realize it or not, they were involving themselves in a contract. What are we going to do? Can we enforce it? No. I’ll tell you who will enforce it, God. What an awesome thing. This is not just a rite of passage. This is not just, aren’t the clothes cute with the kids and all that? No, no. I mean, that’s good to do all that. The pictures and all that, posting on Facebook, Instagram. Awesome. What the essence of this contract is all about the family, a unit created by God to glorify God.

 

[CLOSING PRAYER]