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BECOMING A DIFFERENCE MAKER

SOMETHING TO HIDE

PASTOR ED YOUNG

MAY 16, 1993

[Begins with skit; pastor and male voice in conversation]

Male voice:  “Stay here.  Yes.”

Pastor’s voice:  “Excuse me.  What do you think you’re doing?”

Male voice:  “Me?”

Pastor:  “Did I see you touch a golf ball?”

Male voice:  “Man, I’m just cleaning the bush from around the tree, I mean from around the ball.  Man, I’m just out here.”

Pastor:  “Listen, if you touch one of those golf balls, it will disqualify you and especially your player out of the GTE Byron Nelson Classic.  It’s over.”

Male voice:  “Yes, I know, man.  Oh man, I’ve got to get these clubs to my player.”

Pastor:  “I can’t believe this.”

Male voice:  “I’ll see you later.”

Pastor:  “I’m going to have to report this, sir.  You can’t….”

Unbelievable!  Have you ever tried to do something and then cover it up?  I’m talking about you’ve made a mistake, an error, and then very quickly, you try to camouflage the mistake.  When I was in high school, my parents went out of town for a week.  My brothers and I were happy because Aunt Betty and Uncle Wesley were staying with us and they let us get away with anything.  My parents and I had a very good relationship, especially during the difficult teenage years.  However, we did butt heads over one topic, one issue.  I wanted a snake as a pet.  They were not into reptiles.

The car had just pulled out of the driveway.  I watched it go out of sight.  I jump in my car.  I drive to the mall and I make a beeline to my favorite store, the pet shop.  When I walk in, I see a beautiful boa constrictor in its aquarium and I look at that boa constrictor.  He was poised there, with the tongue, you know, and I thought about my parents.  Then I looked back at the snake and I thought about my parents, “Ed, do not buy a snake; we’re fearful of reptiles.”  I looked back at the snake.  Then I said, “Clerk, I would like to buy this boa constrictor right now.”  I’d saved all my money.  I paid for the snake.  I was real excited, but down deep I knew I was disobeying my parents.

I bring the snake home.  My two brothers, they go ballistic.  “Ed, are you crazy?  Mom and Dad will ground you for life.  You’ve lost it!”  I said, “Guys, chill.  I’ll hide the snake in my room.  No problem!”

The days roll by and I’m preparing for the return of my parents.  I take the aquarium, I put the boa constrictor in the aquarium, put the aquarium on my six-foot-high chest of drawers (I was tall for my age) and I disguised cowboy hat boxes (that was during the big Western urban cowboy movement, you know) around the sides of the aquarium.  No way Mom would ever know even when she’s cleaning because she’s short, and Dad is not going to clean, I know that.  No big deal!

My parents come home.  “How are you doing, Mom, Dad?”  They did see me with a couple of mice, but they thought, “Well, that’s just Ed.”  Then, though, I started feeling really guilty and after guilt, I felt fear.  “What if the snake gets out?  Oh boy, what will I do?”  Finally, I walked in with the snake, “Mom, Dad, I bought this boa constrictor.”  I came clean.  I told the truth about what I’d done.  It was not a pretty sight.  I was grounded, but still I felt good because I revealed something I had hidden.

Today we’re going to look at a brief segment in the life of Moses because Moses made a major error at a crucial moment in his journey and he had the audacity, here this great difference maker, to try to cover the mistake up and it looks like, for all practical purposes, it’s over for Moses.

You’re talking about a difference maker?  He turns into a walking disaster area and the mistake that Moses made was much greater than cheating in the Byron Nelson Classic or buying a boa constrictor behind your parents’ back.  He took the life of someone.  I’m in the second segment of a series entitled, “Becoming a Difference Maker.”  God wants all of us to become difference makers.  He wants us to make an impact, to make a trail, to make a difference in this life, and Moses is one of the greatest difference makers of all times.

But today, it doesn’t look that way.  And I believe if we’re totally transparent, we can look back at our lives and see where we went through areas and maybe even right now where it looks like for all practical purposes, that guy or that girl will never become a difference maker.

During this section of Scripture, though, I want to show you three biblical principles that you can apply to your life that will give you the strength and the power and the knowledge to become a difference maker.  Take your Bibles and turn to the book of Exodus.  Exodus 2, we’ll look at Verse 11.  Exodus 2:11.  Genesis, Exodus.  Let me bring you up to speed rapidly.  Moses was born into Hebrew slavery.  Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, tried to curb the Hebrew baby boom by instructing the midwives to kill all male children.  Moses was spared.  He was adopted into royalty by Pharaoh’s own daughter.  He was educated.  His Ph.D. at the University of Egypt—Mathematics, Hieroglyphics, Chemistry, Astronomy.  Studied the Egyptian culture.  They knew the exact distance from the earth to the sun.  They went with the philosophy that the earth was round, not flat.

Today, we don’t have the technology in our paint to put forth the brilliant colors that the Egyptians did.  The marble pyramids during that day…beautiful sight!  That’s the culture Moses was brought up in, and when Moses was at the peak of his career—he’s 40 years old—Exodus 2:11 says, he decides to leave the palace and walk out and check on his people.  Remember, Moses was being groomed to be the next Pharaoh of Egypt.

Josephus, the historian, tells us that the Ethiopians one day attacked Egypt and the Pharaoh had so much confidence in Moses that he puts this Hebrew in charge of the Egyptian army and Moses organizes a victory and saves the nation of Egypt.  He was at the height of his popularity.  The Bible calls him a beautiful child, a handsome man, and many commentators think Moses was so good looking that when he would walk down the dusty road, people would stop and watch him as he walked.  Once he got out of sight, then they would resume their tasks.  He had it all.

At the peak of his popularity.  Everything going well.  Mr. Egypt 1300 B.C., and he’s walking, looking at his own people in his designer Egyptian regalia, looking at his people in the clay pits trying to make bricks; the Egyptians over the Hebrews [whipping sound] with heavy whips.  If they rested for one second, they would get whipped; and Moses is kind of checking this deal out.

Moses had a big decision to make, in fact, Exodus 2:11 gives us this decision that Moses was grappling with.  “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them in their hard labor.”  You’re thinking to yourself, “What big decision, Ed, are you talking about?”  Here is the dilemma.  Moses, speaking to himself asked, “Do I leave the palace and identify with my people?  Do I become God’s man to really deliver them out of bondage, or do I hang in the palace and buy time, become the next Pharaoh of Egypt?  What will I do?”

I believe Verse 11 tells us that for a couple of months, Moses tried to live in both worlds—one foot in Egypt, the other foot with the Hebrews.  He enjoyed being a Hebrew during the day.  He enjoyed talking to the guys and telling the taskmasters, “Hey, quit whipping them so hard!”  At night, though, he enjoyed the satin sheets and the big screen TV of Egyptian palace life.  Living in two worlds.

You’re saying to yourself, though, “Ed, can you believe anyone would have the guts to live in two worlds like that?  To wear that clothing?  To have that kind of money and try to identify with your own people?  Come on now, that’s a joke living in two worlds.”  But as I look at our culture today, even the Christian culture, I see Christians living in two worlds.  One foot trying to please self, trying to do what makes me look good, feel good, do that deal.  The other foot in the church.  When you are at the marketplace, you talk this way, you’ll do whatever it takes to make a deal.  You’ll go to that topless club.  You’ll laugh at that particular joke.  You come to church, everything is fine, you look so good in your suit and your shirt and the dress and the cologne and perfume and the hair is all nice.  One foot in the world and one foot in the church.

I know a gentleman, a very successful young man, who lives on the West Coast and he is the epitome of living in two worlds.  You’re talking about a dichotomy?  When he’s around me, when he’s around some other Christian friends here in this church, you would think he is the greatest guy in the world.  So much talent.  So much ability.  A natural leader.  I’ve known him for a couple of years, though, and I’ve seen his other friends and I’ve talked with them and I’ve heard what he’s done and what he does with them.  Addicted to gambling.  Living from one pleasure to the next pleasure.  And the more I get to know him, the more I figure out about him because he has all this stuff hidden in his life.  Sometimes he has so many things hidden, he acts so many different ways around different groups, he doesn’t know how he’s acting.  “How should I act now?  Oh, let me see.  I can’t say that here, so I’ll go ahead and hide this with this group and I can talk….  Okay, I’m out with another group.  Let me see…I’d better bring the Bible now.”

Yes, it’s a tough life and Moses dealt with this because Moses didn’t decide overnight, “Oh, I’m going to leave the palace and I’m going to step down and go ahead and become a Hebrew totally and I’m going to act like the slaves and I’m going to lead these slaves out of bondage.”  He didn’t do that.  It was a tough, tough choice.

Here’s the first principle on becoming a difference maker.  Difference makers live a focused life.  Moses, at this point, did not live a focused life, but difference makers live a focused life.

This Friday I went to the Byron Nelson, and I love to get up close to those professional golfers and see their eyes.  You’re talking about focused.  They are focused!  They’ll nod to the crowd now and then and wave and tip the hats, but they are there for one thing and one thing only.  That is to try to win the tournament.  You’ve got to have a focused lifestyle.  Choose today who you’re going to serve.  Are you going to serve Jesus Christ or are you going to live for the world?  Don’t try to have one foot in Egypt and one foot with God’s people.  You can’t do it.  It’s too confusing.  Difference makers don’t live like that.  They put both feet in for the Lord and then they allow the Lord to take care of business in their lives.

There’s a second principle here, though.  Difference makers not only are focused, but difference makers look to God before they act.  See the progression?  Difference makers, they’re focused.  They live a very focused life, and because they live a very focused life, they also—and let me read Verse 12 to you—look before they act.  Moses did not do this.  Check out what Moses did.  Verse 11, “One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were, watched them in all their labor.  He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.”

So what did he do?  Verse 12.  He didn’t look to God before he acted.  That’s what a difference maker does; that’s the second principle.  He did something else, “…glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian.”  That’s not a difference maker.  Moses, he glances this way and that way.  He looked every direction—

east, west, north, south.  He forgot about God, though.  He forgot to look up.  Anytime, ladies and gentlemen, that we glance this way and that way and forget first of all to look up, we are getting ready to make a serious, serious error in our lives.  We’re getting ready to commit cosmic treason.  I’m talking about a major league sin when we think, “Oh, oh!  Is anyone looking?  Okay, the coast is clear.”  Think about your life, the last four or five years.  When you’ve acted before first of all looking to God, trouble happens.  It really does.  And that’s what happened to our man Moses.

Last summer Lisa and I went to the zoo and we saw this show with seals and one of the seals was named Balboa.  Balboa, you’re talking about a brilliant seal.  He came up on the stage with the trainer, and boy, you’re talking about eye contact, he looked to her every single second.  He would not think about acting, he would not think about twirling a live dog on his nose or shooting basketball without first taking the cue from the trainer.  I punched Lisa and said, “Hey, look at the seal.  He’s smarter than most people I know.  He is locked in on the trainer,” and that is what difference makers do.

That’s what Moses failed to do.  Difference makers, they’re locked into God before they act.  They, like Balboa, look up at the trainer, “God, what do you want me to do?  What do you want me to do, God?”  You see, God is doing great things in the world.  He’s doing great things right near you, right near me.  The question should be this, “God, where are you working?  Help me to be a part of it.”  God’s working and He wants you to be a part of it.  He wants me to be a part of it, if we just ask Him for strength to summon the power to be a part of it.

Moses didn’t know.  He kind of elbowed God out of the way.  The creature shook his puny little fist in the face of the Creator and he said, “I will live by my own self-sovereignty.  I’m the man.  I’m above the law.  I elbow you out of the way, God.  To the left, to the right.  No problem.”  The Egyptian is dead.  Moses thinks, “No problem.  No problem.”  Remember what I told you?  If you fail to look to God before you act, something terrible is going to happen and it did.  And then when something terrible happens, we have a tendency to hide something.

Here’s the third principle on becoming a difference maker.  Difference makers locate their sin and they tell the truth about it.  Moses had the opportunity right there after he killed the Egyptian to come clean, to tell the truth about himself.  He didn’t do it, though.  He did something else.  He hid the Egyptian.  That’s right.  He hid the Egyptian.  We have a tendency when we sin to kind of cover it up, to kind of take out a shovel and put some sand over it so no one will see it, no one will know it happened.

Fear and sin go hand in hand like chips and hot sauce, peanut butter and jelly, mashed potatoes and cream gravy.  When I sin, if I don’t deal with it, fear will come in.  Remember me with the boa constrictor, “Okay, I’ve disobeyed my parents and I was happy I had the snake, but I began to be fearful, “Oh no.  What if mom and dad find out?”  That’s what happened to Moses.  He got scared.  Look down in Verse 14.  Verse 14 says, “Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known.”

Here’s the situation: Moses kills the Egyptian.  He buries him in a shallow grave and he walks out the next day thinking, “Hey, I’m above all.  No one can get me,” and he sees two of his own people kind of going after it and he says, “Guys, break it up.  Break it up!”  And one of the Hebrews looks at Moses, “Hey, Moses (kind of pushes him) you’re going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?”  Fear.  They found out!  Moses was thinking, “How in the world did anyone see?  I looked this way and that way.  How did they find out?”

Here’s what I believe happened.  He hastily buried this Egyptian in this very shallow grave and at night the winds began to blow, the sands shifted, and I bet you that Egyptian’s toes began to stick out from the sand and they saw it and knew that Moses had committed murder.  Front page of The Egyptian Times—the murdered man and a picture of Moses.  They’re going after him now.  The Hebrews turn their back on him.  The Egyptians want to kill him.  He’s fearful, he’s afraid, and he turns and he does the Carl Lewis thing.  He’s running.  The Bible says he goes to a place called Midian.  You know where Midian is?  Read it right there.  Sinai Peninsula.  Desert.  It’s not a place for a subdivision or a multi-family dwelling place.  You wouldn’t want to live in the desert.  However, if you try to cover your sin, if you try to hide it, it always leads to a desert if you don’t deal with it.

Difference makers live a focused life, difference makers look to God before they act, difference makers locate their sin and they tell the truth about their sins.  “Why?” you ask.  You’re thinking, “Ed, nice outline.  But why?  Why?”  If they don’t do those three things, three factors will work in their lives that difference makers don’t want working in their lives and Moses had these three factors working in his life and he hated them.

Three factors.  Write these down.  The shovel factor.  That’s right, the shovel factor, the toe factor, and the sand factor.  What do I mean by the shovel factor?  You do something wrong, you commit cosmic treason, the easiest thing to do is to take a shovel and bury it, cover it up.  No problem.  You do something else, “Oh, I’ve sinned again.”  [Shoveling sounds, then hums “I love you Lord and I lift my voice.”]  The shovel factor.  This goes on day after day after day.  Calluses build up on your hand, blisters.  You’re worn out, your back is sore, you’re riddled with guilt, you’re fearful because you’ve been digging and digging and digging and digging, and if someone was to look at your life, they would say, “Oh, it’s smooth.  Look at that soil,” but right beneath it, though, if you look very carefully, I think the winds are blowing, “Wait a minute.  Toes sticking out from underneath the sand.”

And that’s the second factor, the toe factor, because if you hide your sin, if you try to cover it up, yes, you’ll deal with the shovel factor, it will wear you out trying to lie and to cover it up, but also the toe factor comes into play.  Because the Bible tells us that your sin, my sin, will be revealed in one way, shape, form, or fashion, out of nowhere as the winds blow, as the sands move, those toes of sin in your life and in my life we’ve tried to cover up, suddenly will be revealed.  And people will go, “Ed Young, you did….  Look, I cannot believe….  Look at the toes.  Look at this.”  And for some of your lives, because you’ve lived covering things up, you have toes sticking out everywhere, everywhere in your life.  God wants you to deal with the shovel factor.

There’s another factor, though: the sand factor.  Have you ever been to the beach before and tried to walk on that hot sand?  Terrible, isn’t it?  I remember last year at the beach retreat, I would go down to the ocean and we would play in the water and everything and do football during free time and then the condominiums were about five hundred yards away so we would walk, sand near the water is no problem there because the salt water kind of made it cool.  Suddenly, though, the further you get away from the water, it gets to be hot and you start doing this, don’t you?  [hopping steps]  It will wear you out.  It’s terrible.  I hate to run on hot sand.  That’s what Moses did.  Moses took the compass and he ran on hot sand in the desert.  The Bible says he fled.  He fled to Midian.  And sin, if not dealt with effectively and radically, is going to lead you to a desert.

Let me stop right here and say something.  Many of you today, you have the shovel factor going on, you have the toe factor going on, you have the sand factor going on.  You’ve tried to cover sin, you haven’t dealt with it, you’ve made major mistakes in your life like Moses and Satan’s saying, “Hey, it’s over for you.  God could never make you into a difference maker again.  It’s over.  Lights out.  See you later.”  And you’d think that by reading this that it’s over for Moses.  A difference maker now a disaster area.  But there’s a great word here.  There is a way.  There is hope.  There is a plan.  There is a purpose in the desert.  If you’re in the desert running, I want to share with you three things you could do in the desert and three things I need to do in the desert and three things that Moses did do in the desert.

The first thing Moses did, he stopped running and he sat down.  He stopped running and he sat down.  Look at Verse 15: “Moses fled from Pharaoh, went to Midian, where he sat down.”  He sat down in the desert.  A desert is not a great place to sit down, is it?  He sat down in the desert.  He stopped running.  Unclench your fists, relax your legs, and sit down in the desert.  Sit down.  If you’re running from your sin, sit down.  And when you’re sitting down, I want you to do something.  I want you to check out the horizon.  Look at it.  As you check out the horizon, you see how desolate it is.  Maybe a couple lizards and a snake like I bought years ago in high school.  That’s about it.  Hot.  The winds blowing.  No water out there.  It’s a terrible, terrible place.

That’s just a hint of how your sin looks in the sight and eyes of God.  You’ve got to feel it; you’ve got to experience it.  It’s part of repentance.  Repenting and turning from your sins is not saying, “Okay God, I’m sorry.  Everything’s cool.”  You’ve got to feel remorse.  You’ve got to feel sick and tired and terrible about your sin.  That’s what Moses did.  The first thing you’ve got to do in the desert is to stop and sit down.

The second thing you have to do in the desert is to drink the water of faith.  See what the Bible says in Verse 15?  Moses fled to Midian—that’s in the desert, the Sinai Peninsula—and he sat down by a what?  A what?  I can’t hear you.  A well.  He sat down by a well.  Here’s the principle.  God always provides a well in our desert if we sit down.  God always provides a well in our desert if we sit down.  We’re running from that thing we’ve buried.  If we keep running we’ll never see a well, but if we stop and sit down, feel our sin, tell the truth about our sin, stop running, God’s going to say, “Ed, there’s a well for you,” and we get up (it’s our option) and we walk over to the well and drink the water of faith, and the water of faith gives us strength and it gives us the power to really become people who are on our way as difference makers.

There’s a third thing we’ve got to do in the desert, though.  We’ve got to enroll in school and that’s what Moses did.  Moses, one of the most well-educated men in the Bible, you wouldn’t think he’d need to go back to school again but he did.  He had to.  God’s school is called Desert University and here’s how you get into Desert University because it’s a school you want to be a part of.  Don’t worry about your SAT or ACT scores, thank the Lord.  He only accepts failures.  That means I can get in.  God only accepts failures at Desert University.  You know what failure is?  Failure is the back door to success.

Moses was so prideful, he was so puffed up like a giant balloon, that the power of God couldn’t get into his life.  It took God year after year after year at Desert University to drain him of all this ego, of all this self-sovereignty in order to make him into a useful tool to one day deliver millions of Israelites from bondage.

You see, we put too much emphasis on “Oh, Moses was a great-looking guy.  He was a natural speaker, a gifted leader.”  It all came from God.  God can use whatever He wants to.  He can use this plant if He wants to, to lead someone out of bondage.  Moses was available and Moses put himself under the submission of the Lord in the school.

Are you doing that?  Are you in a desert?  Have you stopped?  Are you drinking the water called faith?  Have you enrolled in God’s university?  Remember when I said earlier in the message that God’s working and we’ve got to say, “God, I want to get in on where you’re working,” and to get in on it, you cannot remain the same.  You’ve got to change.  You’ve got to develop.  I’ve got to change.  I’ve got to develop.

This past week I went to Sam’s Wholesale Club and I bought LeeBeth this basketball goal that you can dunk on; it goes up to seven feet.  This basketball goal was one that had fallen in the display area at Sam’s Wholesale Club, so I got a great deal on it.  I take it home and—I’m not mechanical at all, if you know me.  I’m talking about zero, the worst—I’m trying to fit it together and Mac Richard has one of these deals.  He tries to put it together for me.  We get it kind of halfway looking right, but it didn’t really work.  So what do I do?  When you have a problem, there’s only one to call—innovative Owen Goff is the man who does it all.

Yes, Owen Goff, my associate pastor, you’re talking about mechanical genius, the guy is incredible!  He brings his toolbox into my house, and he goes, “Oh, pastor, I think you have a bent part here in the back part of the backboard.”  I said, “What are you talking about, Owen?  The thing looks fine to me.”  Owen is a strong guy, too.  He doesn’t look like it, but he is.  We unscrew it and we get this part off, and I’m saying, “Owen, where is the thing bent?”  He takes it, pulls out a giant hammer and wham.  I said, “What are you doing?  You’re going to ruin it.”  He beats on the thing for fifteen minutes.  “Pastor, would you hold part of this while I beat on it?”  I was watching my hand, “Bip, bip.”  We put it back on, I should say Owen put it back on the backboard and the thing worked, like that.  And it worked well.  It was bent!

I thought about Desert University because if we enroll in Desert University, we say, “God, I am a tool and I want to be an instrument to be used by you in a wonderful way to become a difference maker, and if I want to become a difference maker, I’ve got to submit to you and you’ve got to take a hammer and hammer on me year after year, day after day, month after month, if I’m going to do it.  No other way will work.  I can’t do it alone.  You’re going to have to hammer me and I’m going to have to submit to you like that part and Owen.”

We’ve got to let God do that, and that’s tough.  That process takes from now until we graduate to be with the Lord, but that’s the way to become a difference maker.  Moses found it out at Desert University.

There’s hope.  I don’t care what you’ve done.  There’s hope.  But you’ve got to be involved in God’s desert strategy and you’ve got to say, “God, here’s something I’ve buried; here’s somewhere I’ve failed you.  I want to become a difference maker for you.”  It’s there for the taking.  It’s your option.  It’s my option.  And God will do the rest.

BECOMING A DIFFERENCE MAKER

IDOL MINDS

PASTOR ED YOUNG

JULY 4, 1993

One of the most prominent pieces of equipment in our church office has to be the copier.  Our copier is used, like in most offices, day in and day out.  One of the things that really amazes me, that intrigues me, about the copier is the fact that you can take a document, place it on the copier, push a couple of buttons and you can reduce the document.  In fact, you can reduce the document to fit your need at the particular moment.  That’s amazing!  And we love to reduce things.

I am getting ready to make a statement that might rattle your cage a little bit, and I’m going to warn you.  A lot of you take God, I’m talking about your concept of God, and you put God on the copier, you push a couple of buttons, and you reduce God.  I’ve done that before.  Have you?  Are you doing that now?  A large group of people, in fact a nation, called the children of Israel, made the major mistake of reducing God.  After they had reduced God, they paid the consequences.  The great news today is this: We can learn from the children of Israel and refuse to reduce God.  We can have the proper concept of God, a proper grasp of God, if we listen and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us concerning who God is.

To answer these questions—“Who is God?  What kind of concept of God should I have?  How can I refrain from reducing God?”—let’s look at our Bibles, Exodus 32, and we’ll read Verses 1 through 5.  Let me briefly set the stage for this moment in Scripture.  The children of Israel were camped at the base of Mt. Sinai.  For the last three months—you’re talking about the power of God—they saw God free them from 430 years of slavery from the nation of Egypt, they saw God supernaturally send ten plagues, they saw God part the Red Sea, they saw God give them water out of a rock, they saw God feed them manna burgers from heaven.  Unbelievable stuff!  Supernatural things!

The children of Israel had seen this over the last three months, and the man of the hour, God’s man, Moses, went up on Mt. Sinai for six weeks to receive the law from God Himself.  The children of Israel were in their pup tents.  They were waiting for Israel to descend from the mountain and then lead them into The Promised Land.  They were happy.  They were fired up!  And they do something that shocked me.  They began to murmur.  Exodus 32:1, “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron [who was Moses’ older brother] and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us.  As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him!’”  Can you imagine the stories circulating?  “I bet Moses has bolted.  I bet he climbed to the top of the mountain on the other side and now he’s back in Egypt.  Maybe a wild animal got him, a king cobra up there.  Where is Moses?  Six weeks!”

Then Verse 2 tells us, the men, the women, the children, they take off their earrings.  You see, people think it’s really cool to wear earrings now; the children of Israel were doing that thousands of years ago.  Now, teenagers, you might use this verse with your parents, “Hey, they did it back in….”  Maybe not.  Anyway, they take their earrings and watches and all this stuff and these sundial Rolexes and they took them and melted them down.  Aaron, again Moses’ older brother, he fashions a golden bull/calf, and they begin to worship the golden calf.  After a while, the worship turns into a giant orgy.

Aaron reasoned to himself, “It’s not that big a deal because I’m just representing God.”  You see, people use the bull in order to communicate strength.  I’ve heard a Cowboys fan say, “Boy, that Emmitt Smith, he’s as strong as a bull.”  God’s strong.  He’s powerful, and the children of Israel think, “What’s the big deal?  Let’s make a representation of God and we will represent His power.”  There’s the bull and they begin to worship it.

While they were worshipping it, they broke—as big as Dallas—the second commandment, because Exodus Chapter 20:4, God speaking, said, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.”  Why?  Why did God say that?  Why did God ban idols?  Because God knew that anything that man or woman would try to shape or mold with their hands would automatically reduce God.  It would limit Him.  It would only communicate a fraction of who He is.

Go back to the bull.  Go back to the golden calf.  It just reflected a little, tiny tidbit of who God is, just His power.  It didn’t communicate His love, His grace, His forgiveness, His mercy, just His power.  And God says, “That’s important to me.  That is wrong,” and the children of Israel paid the consequences of this major mistake.

I can look on your faces and tell what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Ed, wait a minute.  This is 1993, July 4^th, this doesn’t relate to me.  This doesn’t connect with me.  I don’t have this desire to take off my watch and ring and melt them down, mold a calf, and worship it.  I failed shop class.  I cannot carve the bark off a stick without endangering my life, and if I did cut it, I wouldn’t lie down and worship it.  So, I tell you what, I’ll check out of this message.  I’ll count some lights up there.  Look at the lights.  There are blue and orange and kind of Denver Bronco colors,” and you can look around and some of the singles might check out if he or she is available, put your mind on auto-pilot for a second.  Don’t do that.  Don’t do it.  I want you to stay with me because many of us are involved in areas of our lives that reduce God.  Many of us are dangerously close to what the children of Israel did because there are modern-day idols, modern-day images that we have.

Go back to this thought: Why did God give us this particular commandment?  Why did God say, “Don’t make an idol”?  God knew that men and women would want something tangible.  He is invisible and we would want something we could grasp.  The neighboring countries of Israel, they had all of these gods you could see, and God knew this would be a temptation to us, but again God knew that anything we shaped from the earth would fall miserably short.

How many of you have ever been to Mount Rushmore?  Raise your hand.  Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.  The hands are going up everywhere.  Look.  It’s an awesome sight.  The three heads of the presidents, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton.  Just seeing if you were listening.  Theodore Roosevelt.  Sixty feet form chin to forehead.  What if (again raise your hand if you’ve been to Mount Rushmore) I took out some Hubba Bubba bubble gum, gave each of you who has your hand up a piece of it and I said “Okay, I’ve not been to Mount Rushmore, but you have.  Most of us have not, but the few people who have, I’m going to get you to take the bubble gum and chew it up.  I mean chew it and chew it.  Get it soft and pliable.  After you chew it, take it out of your mouth, don’t take your neighbor’s gum, take it out of your mouth and then I want you to do this.  I want you to go ahead and sculpt Mount Rushmore for me and for those of us who have not been there, because I want to really capture its splendor.  Would you do that for me, please?”

You’re thinking to yourself, “Ed, are you crazy?!  Ed, there’s no way I could communicate to you how beautiful Mount Rushmore is.  You’ve got to be there.  I would rather not use chewing gum and describe it to you in words because chewing gum, bubble gum is a poor representation of this work of art.”

How many in here have ever heard Beethoven’s Fifth?  How many of you would not even recognize Beethoven’s Fifth if you heard it?  It took Beethoven almost two years to write this masterpiece.  When it’s played in the concert hall by about 40 top class musicians, what happens?  Standing ovation.  “Bravo!  Bravo!  Bravo!”  Again, how many of you know Beethoven’s Fifth?  What if I gave you a referee’s whistle and I said, “You know, I can’t really grasp the Beethoven’s Fifth; you go ahead and play it for me and for those of us who’ve not really heard it, on the referee’s whistle.

You’re thinking again, “Ed, you’re nuts.  I know you’ve been on a fishing trip the last week.  You must have spent too much time in the water.  Something is going wrong.”  You see, chewing gum cannot represent Mount Rushmore, nor can a referee’s whistle represent the full picture and the sound of music.  That’s what God’s saying here.  God’s saying, “Nothing, nothing, nothing that you mold or shape can come close to my essence.”  God is not uni-dimensional.  He is multi-dimensional.  The children of Israel messed up here; a lot of us are messing up here.  We think God is uni-dimensional.  He is multi-dimensional.

Right now I’m going to stop and I’m going to take a little trip through a minefield.  I’m going to warn you that I might detonate a couple of bombs, a couple of explosions here and there, but I want you to stay with me because I want to list for you two warnings that are implied in this section of Scripture concerning idols.  The first warning concerns modern-day visual images.  Modern-day visual images.  I’m talking about religious images that from a biblical perspective come dangerously close to reducing God.  I’ll say it one more time.  I’m talking about visual images, religious images that many churches use that come dangerously close to reducing God.

Recently I was in a taxi and over the rearview mirror, this guy had hung a crucifix.  I looked at the crucifix for a second, because it was a beautiful crucifix with blue yarn wrapped around it, and there was Jesus hanging on the crucifix, His head down, moments before death.  And I know the crucifix, especially if you are from a Roman Catholic background, means so much to you; and the picture of Christ on the cross means so much to me.  We are all eternally grateful for what Jesus did for us.  Frankly, though, the crucifix is reductionary.  It reduces God.

You say, “Ed, now wait a minute.  Relax.  Give the crucifix some slack here.  How can the crucifix communicate everything that God is?”  That’s just the point.  It can’t.  We have a few crosses in our church; that’s our logo, and crosses are fine.  But we’re not going to have all of these symbols, all of these candelabras, all of these basins, all of these things in order to get to God because you don’t need equipment in order to get to God.

Let’s say for example that we had a giant crucifix up here and you looked at the crucifix and automatically thought about the Christian life—introductionary.  You’ve walked into the Arts Center and you’re dealing with a lot of issues, so am I, in our lives, and you’re thinking about the fact that you’ve got to pray to an almost-dead Savior.  You mean that’s your God?

The crucifix does not communicate the empty tomb, the resurrection.  Without the resurrection, Christianity is a cruel hoax and Jesus was just another guy with a Messiah complex who briefly walked on the stage of history and gave us a couple of principles.  So if we’re going to be fair, if we’re going to use the crucifix, let’s go ahead and put an empty tomb in there to show the resurrection, to show the power.

I want to say something too to people who are seeking the Christian life.  Your only hope in this world is to accept the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Don’t leave Him up there on the cross.  Make sure you know He’s resurrected and right now He is seated at the right hand of the Father.  So if we’re going to be fair to Christ, let’s take the crucifix and put in an empty tomb.  Let’s take it a little bit farther.  If we’re really going to be fair to Him, we really ought to put a manger in the church because a manger communicates the incarnation of the Lord, the Virgin Birth.

So we’ll have a manger, an empty tomb, a crucifix, and then, hey, He called Himself The Good Shepherd, so let’s put a giant staff and a couple of sheep out there to represent you and me.  That’s another symbol we need.  Oh yes, He was called a teacher, the Ultimate Teacher, “Rabbi.”  Well, let me think, a scroll.  That’s it.  We’ll put a giant scroll with the teachings of Christ over it.  And Jesus also cleansed the temple.  Remember that?  He said, “I don’t want my Father’s house to be turned into some type of commercial institution.  I want my Father’s house to be a house of prayer.”  He took a whip and drove the moneychangers out.  Let’s portray a giant whip there.

So the list goes on and on and on, and you walk into the church and there’s no place to sit.  There are objects, relics, symbols—even the ones I mentioned still only give a facet of His personality.  They cannot communicate the totality of God, of Christ.  Could that be you?  Could that be me?  Do we have some sort of visual that we think we must have in order to pray?

Here’s what the Bible says about that.  James 4:8.  It says, God speaking, “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.”  We don’t need beads, basins, crosses, or candelabra, folks, to get to God.  John 4:24, “Worship me in spirit and in truth.”  God’s saying, “Come to me as you are, wherever you are.  Come to me whenever you’re working out.  Come to me at the office.  Come to me on the freeway.  Come to me in church.”  We can boldly go in the presence of God through Christ, and once we go into the presence of God and we meet with Him daily, then we’ll understand and grasp who God is.  So a lot of us need to get rid of these visual images that we have that just communicate a little fragment of who the Lord is.

Again I’m not saying I have anything against crosses or necklaces with the cross on it.  That’s great to wear, but don’t just use that as your only symbol, as your only image of who God is.

Here’s the second warning: mental images.  I talked about visual images, now I want to talk about mental images.  It’s another warning implied in this commandment, in this section of Scripture, that the children of Israel totally failed on.  Mental images, I think, are as reductionary as visual images, and specifically I’m talking about mental images of God.

Let me explain.  This past week I went fishing with four of my friends here at the church and we were out in a very remote area.  I’m talking about remote, I mean, radio contact was all that we had.  We fished for six days.  One of the gentlemen on the trip is a great photographer and he got us all together and he took one picture of all of us on the trip.  That’s it.  He said, “I’m just going to take one picture.”  How many believe that?  You can tell I’m lying.  This guy took hundreds of pictures.  Hundreds and hundreds of pictures.  I don’t know anything about cameras, but he had zoom lens, wide-angle lens, black and white pictures.  He had the whole thing and he wanted to document the trip.  He wanted to get so many pictures that 20 years from now he looks back on this trip and goes, “Oh, we did this.  We did that.  Look at the beauty.  Look at the fish.  Look at the water.  Look at the boat.”

Our spiritual photo album, it should be packed with pictures of God.  I’m talking about different pictures of God.  Look at God’s Word.  On one hand, God is a just judge.  On the other hand, God’s a loving Father.  Isaiah described Him as a nursing mother.  Jesus said, “I’m your best friend.”  The list goes on and on and on.  But too many of us, we are operating on a little single photograph of God that someone gave us 20 years ago, and that’s the only thing we think about when we think about God.  Maybe it’s a God who’s watching us.  Maybe it’s a policeman God.  Maybe it’s the female God.

A lot of those pictures are wrong, they are incorrect, they’re not the God of the Bible.  Some of you think God is a judge, the big gavel, the black robe.  Guilty!  Guilty!  Guilty!  Here’s what the Bible says concerning that, Romans 8:15, God says “Call me dad.  Call me dad.”

Some of us think of God as a general, don’t we?  With the knee-high leather boots and the Ray-Bans, the policeman tights, giving commands, all legalistic.  We have all these rules, and most of us who have an approval-type personality problem, we have a concept of God like that.  Because again, someone gave us this or maybe we took a picture of God, we have it in our photo album, and that’s all we look at every day.

Some of us have an image of God that is a dangerous, dangerous snapshot of God.  In fact, this is the most deadly: the grandfatherly image of God.  The grandfatherly image of God.  The George Burns-type, thick glasses, toupee, cigar.  “God is my grandfather.  God, He wouldn’t deny me.  Hell?  He’s going to open the doors of heaven.  He’ll pat me on the head and say, “Eddie, it’s okay.  Even though you didn’t live for me, even though you took my name in vain, even though you lived an immoral life, even though you were filled with lust, even though you had this rebellion, even though you were abusive to your spouse, come on into heaven, man!  Come on in!  Everything is cool with me.  I’m like old pa-pa, just come on in!”

That picture of God sends more people to hell than any other picture.  It really does.  Yes, God’s a God of love and a God of grace, but He’s also a God of judgment and a God who will see to it that our sins are paid for and will judge us on whether or not we know Christ.  Then, if we know Christ, He’s going to judge us on how we use the gifts that God gave us while on this earth.  Do you have a concept of God like that?  If you do, that comes dangerously close to being an idol in your life, an inaccurate mental picture of God.

Here’s my challenge to you, a little homework.  I want you to expand your photo album, your spiritual photo album.  All of us can expand it.  I can expand it; you can expand it.  I want to take pictures of different facets and character qualities of God.  Here’s the homework assignment: Take a week and study the fatherhood image of God.  Take another week and study the nursing mother image of God.  Take another week and study the forgiveness of God.  Another week and study the grace of God.

I just gave you four little tidbits, and every time you study it, every time you listen to a tape series, every time you buy a book, every time you hear a message, add another picture, another picture, another picture.  Soon you’ll be like my friend, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pictures of God in your photo album.  Then you’ll be able to grasp who God is.

Refuse to reduce God.  Know God because you’ll experience the freedom and the joy and the power like you can never, ever imagine.

MISSION POSSIBLE SERMON SERIES

MASTER CASTER – IMPARTING YOUR VISION TO OTHERS

ED YOUNG

JUNE 1, 1996

One of the most crucial elements of fishing is casting.  On this stage I am going to demonstrate three types of casting very quickly, prayerfully without hooking anyone.  Bait casting.  Spin casting.  And my favorite, fly casting.  Watch out, these hooks are razor sharp.

Whether you are bait casting, spin casting or fly casting, presentation of the lure, minnow or fly is extremely important.  We are going to talk about casting in this session, not casting in terms of fishing, but casting in terms of leadership.  If you want to be a great fisherman, you better become a master caster.  If you want to be a great leader, you better become a master caster.  There will come a time in your life when you have to present your agenda, your plan, your purpose for your family, for your dating relationship, for your occupation, or for your life spiritually to others.  How does one become a master caster?

I am in a series on leadership entitled MISSION POSSIBLE.  We have been looking at the greatest leadership journal ever penned and this leadership journal is not found in the business section of Barnes and Nobel or B. Daltons.  It is found over in the Old Testament in the Bible.  The names of this book is Nehemiah.  Nehemiah is the quintessential leader.  Nehemiah is the man who knew how to cast and communicate his vision to others.  We desperately need to communicate our vision, our plan, our purpose to other people, because life is communication.  Don’t sit there and say to yourself that you are not a leader.  Last week we defined leadership as influence.  Every person who is hearing my voice is a leader in one way or another because all of us have a sphere of influence.  God wants us to develop our leadership gifts to their maximum potential.  Today we will learn some principles from a little section of Nehemiah, chapter two.  Before we learn how to become a master caster, we desperately need to set the historical stage, and the context for this aspect of leadership.  I encourage you to pick up last week’s tape because every message in this series builds upon the last.

The year is 586 BC.  Jerusalem is going great.  One day the Babylonians infiltrate Jerusalem.  They destroy the temple and they tear apart, here is the key phrase, the city wall.  City walls back then were very important because they provided protection and prestige for the cities.  They enabled the cities to function.  The Jerusalem wall also represented the power and the grace of God toward the Jews.  The Babylonians, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed all of Jerusalem. He deported most of the Jews from J-town all the way to Babylon.  This is known as the Babylonian captivity.  Seventy years later, the Medes and the Persians come in and they dominated the Babylonians.  A brand new King took the helm, King Cyrus.  We nicknamed him last week, Billy Rae Cyrus, and he had an achy-breaky heart toward the Jews in captivity.  He allowed the Jews to go back to Jerusalem and to begin to rebuild the city.  They began to reconstruct the temple but they could never do the wall thing.  Billy Rae Cyrus steps down and in moves King Artaxerxes.  Don’t you love that name?  King Artaxerxes said this.  “It is great that the city is being rebuilt but there is one aspect that will never be rebuilt, the wall.  The walls will not be rebuilt.”

Enter our boy, Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was a Jew born in Persian captivity. He was elevated to the second most important position in the kingdom.  He was cupbearer to the King, which meant he was a wine taster, a food tester, a confident, an advisor to King Artaxerxes.  He had a cush job, a job with perks, a job with a great future.  He could just kick back and make a lot of money and enjoy the Persian kingdom.  One day God said to Nehemiah in essence, “Nehemiah, this is your mission should you choose to accept it.  Leave your secure job in Persia, travel 800 miles through the desert to Jerusalem.  I want you, Nehemiah, to rebuild the wall.  I want you, Nehemiah, to lead out in this effort.”  And I am sure if Nehemiah was like you and me he probably said, “God, wait a minute.  I am a cupbearer, not a contractor.  Give me a break, God.”  But God said, “Nehemiah, this is my vision for you.”

God cast the vision in Nehemiah’s heart and life and now it was time for Nehemiah to cast the vision to none other than, King Artaxerxes.  Have you ever had to cast something or present something to an individual that you knew would not really like the idea or the plan?  Maybe at work, maybe in a dating relationship, maybe at home, maybe around the neighborhood?  Kind of gets you scared, doesn’t it, a little freaked out?  Nehemiah had waited for four months to mention this to King Artaxerxes.  Remember, back in Biblical times, if King Artaxerxes did not particularly like your request, literally he could chop your head off.  If you caught him in a bad mood, heads would roll.  The stakes were high.  Wouldn’t you agree?  I have never presented someone to anyone who might chop my head off if he didn’t like the request.  Nehemiah, though, found himself in this exact scenario.

Let’s jump into the text and see how to become a master caster.  Notice that Nehemiah prays it over.  The first aspect of imparting my vision to others, to become a master caster, I have got to pray it over.  Nine times in the book of Nehemiah, he prays.  He prays short prayers, he prays long prayers, he prays sentence prayers and in Nehemiah 2:2,4, he prays a microwave prayer.  Time, cook.  Five seconds.  Beep.  Send to God.  “God help.  God give me the words.  God, this is my defining moment.  God, this is it.  King Artaxerxes has opened up a window.  I have got to share with him the vision you have given to me.”  It was crunch time.  I love what Nehemiah said in Nehemiah 2:2, “I was very much afraid.”  Don’t you love that vulnerability, that honesty.  If you are going to be the best leader possible, you have got to be open to others.  You have got to show them the good points and the bad points in your life.  Don’t surround yourself with yes people.  Don’t surround yourself with people who always buy into the party line.  Open yourself to people who will speak the truth to you in love.  Make sure advice is from people who love you first, not for what you do but who you are.  Nehemiah was open.  He was vulnerable.  He admitted that he was very much afraid.

Nehemiah 2:4.  “Then the king said to me, ‘What is it you want?’…”  What an opportunity.  Artaxerxes was asking him what he wanted.  “…Then I prayed to the God of heaven.”  How long had Nehemiah been praying for this?  Try four months.  Four long months.  Here is a leadership principle.  When leaders pray, they often experience a delay.  Why?  Prayer and waiting go together hand in hand.  When God is delaying, He is building and maturing us and saying, “Chill out, I will answer this according to My timetable, according to My plan for you.”  And God waited for four months.  One day when Nehemiah was just doing the normal, everyday, average task of giving King Artaxerxes some wine, the opportunity presented itself and Nehemiah was ready.  Why?  Because leaders pray it over.  The strongest position for a leader is on his or her knees in prayer.  When Nehemiah was presented with this mission he prayed.  It is tough to wait though, isn’t it?  We want things now.

Eight years ago, my wife and I began praying for this church.  We didn’t know about the Fellowship of Las Colinas.  We knew that God had put a vision in our lives to pastor.  And after months and months of praying, I remember asking Lisa if she believed God was listening.  I had the desire but nothing was happening.  I would talk to a church here and a church there and nothing would happen.  One day, though, I meet a group of six visionary leaders who were beginning a church here in Irving, Texas of all places.  My prayers seemed to be answered.  We came up here and this has been the greatest ride of faith that I have ever been on in my life.  But I have got to tell you, it was fourteen months of prayer and waiting, prayer and waiting, prayer and waiting.  Pray it over.

Notice, also, that Nehemiah thought it through.  Leaders pray it over and then they think it through.  In other words, Nehemiah planned.  He wasn’t just praying for four months.  He was praying and he was planning.

This week I was thinking about Nehemiah’s plans.  Why did he plan?  Why should we plan?  Haven’t we heard that we are to live by faith?  We should plan because God is a planner.  I Corinthians 14:33 says that God is not a God of disorder.  We should also plan because God suggests it.  I Corinthians 14:40 says that everything should be done in a fitting and orderly fashion.  The Bible says we should also plan because it gives us the best usage of our time.

This past Tuesday I had the privilege of spending the day with a man who talks about leadership all over the world.  His name is John Maxwell.  And John said, “Ed, I make time just to think.”  And I challenge you to do the same thing.  And here is a leadership principle.  Leaders make time for think time because when you make time for think time, your think time will make time.  Do you ever just draw away and think?  Howard Hendricks said it best when he said, “Serious thinking is the most demanding and rewarding thing I know.”  And I would agree with that.  We have a team of three or four people who just plan our titles here.  We spend hours and hours and hours just going over the titles for a certain series of messages.  Why?  Because God is a planner.  Because God suggests it.  And it is the best use of our time.  And we are communicating the nature and character of God when we give out His word, so we had better work for it.  But I am going to tell you something.  Talk about taxing, talk about something that is not fun to do, it is to think seriously and in a creative manner to come up with something that people can understand whether they are in the twelfth grade or first grade or graduate school.  It is difficult.  I spent about five hours this week just on the sermon outline, condensing it, going through the scripture.  It is not my favorite thing in the world, to think.  But I have discovered the hard way that leaders make time for think time because think time makes time.

Another reason we should plan is because it creates incredible opportunities.  What opportunity are we talking about?  It created the opportunity of Nehemiah presenting his vision to King Artaxerxes.  And because he had planned, he was ready to seize the opportunity.  Here is what he said beginning in Nehemiah 2:5ff.  “And I answered the king…”  He didn’t say, King, I will get back to you.  King, I will fax you later.  King, we will do lunch next month.  He said that he answered him.  And the next three things that he talks about is evidence that he planned.  Let me hit the high points of the next several verses.  First, he set a time.  He had a timeline in front of King Artaxerxes.  He told the King that he wanted to rebuild the wall and when the King asked how long that would take, he gave him a well thought out answer.  Every vision, every goal must have a deadline.  If it doesn’t, it is not a goal or a vision that is worth anything.

Then he requested letters to the governors of the Trans-Euphrates.  Nehemiah knew, having thought through the process, that when he traveled from Persia to Jerusalem, he would have to cross province after province after province.  He needed some passports and visas and letters from King Artaxerxes.  Yet, I have heard people say all the time, “I’m just living by faith, just by faith.”  What if Nehemiah had said that?  Yes, he prayed.  He asked God to show him what to do.  He also planned.  God has given us an intellect, folks.  What if Nehemiah had said that he was going by faith.  He leaves Persia and the first province he hits he gets rebuffed by the border patrol.  They want to see his passport and his visa.  Then he would have had to return to the King to request what he should have already requested.  He finally gets just outside of Jerusalem and hits the royal forest.  Asaph is the foreman in charge of the forest.  “Asaph, by faith I am going to Jerusalem, would you give me about four million dollars worth of timber to rebuild the walls and build my residence?”  Asaph would ask if he were crazy.  He would want documentation.  Faith is not a synonym for disorder.  We live by faith.  We plan it out.  We think it through.  We do the homework.  We do the background studies and, then, we are ready to go.  So Nehemiah said he would set a time, get the letters to the governors and also one to Asaph.  Don’t you love these names?  He was probably some legalistic guy with lots of papers and documents and stamps.  Here is Nehemiah, a cupbearer, and he already knows there is a royal forest outside the city of Jerusalem and he knows the name of the man who runs the show.

I hope you didn’t miss this though.  Notice how the Bible says that Nehemiah said, Nehemiah asked, Nehemiah requested.  He requested things.  Here is a leadership principle.  Leaders master the task of the ask.  If you are afraid to ask for help, if you are afraid to ask for assistance, if you are afraid to do some team building, you will never become the Nehemiah type leader that God wants you to be.  “But, Ed, you don’t understand.  No one could do it like me.  No one can make the calls at work like me.  No one can do the finances like me.  No one can present the project like me.”  That is a formula for failure.  You have got to ask for help.  You have got to ask for things.  Nehemiah did and look what happened.  God opened up the flood gates of heaven.  King Artaxerxes said, “Nehemiah, sure you can have about four or five years off.  I’ll still pay you a salary.  I’ll even give you the timber to build the wall.  And then I will give you a secret service escort to go from Persia to Jerusalem.”  Wow.  Thinking things through prepares us for opportunities.

Also, it helps us grow and develop.  That is another reason we should plan.  It stretches one.  Nehemiah 2:8, “And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the King granted my requests…He also sent army officers and cavalry with me…I went to Jerusalem…”  Let’s stop there.  I went to Jerusalem.  Can’t you picture Nehemiah going to Jerusalem on the back of a camel thinking how amazing it was.  “Twelve months prior, it was just a dream.  God had just picked up a rod and reel and cast a vision into my life and I thought about it and wondered who would lead in the effort.  Then God said that I was the man.  And now I am riding with the King’s escort to Jerusalem with his cash, with his resources to rebuild something that he said would never be rebuilt.  What a great God.  What an awesome God I serve.”  Maybe Nehemiah said that.  I bet he did.

Now when he went to Jerusalem, what did he do?  Did Nehemiah announce loudly that he had arrived to rebuild the wall that hadn’t been rebuilt in 90 years?  No.  Nehemiah did something weird here.  He did something that is really strange.  “…I went to Jerusalem and I set out during the night with a few men.”  People were probably wondering why he was there, what he was up to.  But he didn’t say a word.  “…By night I went out examining the walls of Jerusalem…”  He was still doing homework.  He was still investigating.  He was still thinking about who would be in charge of what part of the wall, where the bricks would come from, how big, how tall, how wide it should be.  And this is the lonely side of leadership.  “..By night I went out examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down and destroyed by fire…The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing…”  Here is a leadership principle.  Leaders keep it low until they are ready to go.  You have got to keep that vision from premature death.  It is much easier to kill an idea than to launch an idea.

How many of you want to grow spiritually?  I think all of you would want to raise your hand.  That is why you are here.  That is why I am here.  How many of you want to develop your relationships?  How many of you want to reach your maximum potential at work?  How many of you want to get in shape and lose a couple of pounds and increase your aerobic capacity.  Have you thought it through?  Have you made plans for it?  Have you set a deadline?  Have you looked out at the possible pitfalls and problems that you might face?  Nehemiah would tell you to think it through.  Pray it over but also think it through.

And next.  You have got to give it away.  After you pray it over, after you think it through, you have got to give it away.  And this is the transferal of the vision.  Here is another leadership principle.  Leaders transfer the vision from me to we.  It went from a God idea into the life and heart of Nehemiah.  He prayed it through.  Then from Nehemiah, it went to a team concept.

Nehemiah 2:17-18.  “Then I said to them, ‘You see the trouble we are in…Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.'”  He was saying that even though the mission seemed impossible, it was possible.  “I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me.”  Again, he is pointing to God.  Nehemiah did not speak of messing up, of failing, of facing impossible conditions.  Leaders face their fears.  They go for it and they always have success in mind.  Always.  Leadership starts with preparation.  Then it moves to incubation.  Then it culminates in the presentation.  Leadership does.  Are you being the kind of leader that God wants you to be?

You pray it over.  You think it through.  You give it away.  And you build it up.  You build it up.  Nehemiah 2:18.  “They replied, ‘Let us start…”  Nehemiah was motivating them and they were ready to start.  There is a major difference between leadership and leaderslip.  A lot of us have the gift of leaderslip.  What is leaderslip?  Leaderslip is starting off great.  You go to this conference.  You listen to that tape.  You read this book.  You have this mission statement, this goal, this agenda, this plan.  You are going to start this company, do this with your life, build this relationship, get involved with this area of ministry.  You look good, you smell good but people look at your life and say, “Where are the results, where is the life change, what is the take home?”  Leaderslip people never have it because they keep the ship in the slip and it just beats around on the dock, day after day after day.  It makes a lot of noise.  “I’m going to do it.  I’m going to change.  I’ll be different.”  Leaderslip.

Conversely, people who have leadership go to the conferences.  They rub shoulders with visionary people.  Then they fire up those engines and they leave the slip.  And many times they will break ropes to leave the slip.  And they set sail.  They get out there on the open water and they hit the waves, the bad weather.  They sail smoothly and run quickly because they are involved in leadership.  And the people that Nehemiah dealt with had the gift of leadership.  They replied, “…let us  start rebuilding’ so they began this good work.”  How do you implement a good idea?  Here is a leadership principle.  Leaders know when to say no.  You have got to say no regularly, sometimes hourly, to be the kind of leader that God wants you to be.  Nehemiah had a focus.  He could have gotten involved in this political agenda, in this action group, in this team building process.  And though those were probably good things, and wonderful things, and fine things, he said no, no, no, no.  There is one thing I am going to do.  God told me to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem.  Successful people in God’s economy are focused people.  They don’t try to do 334 things.  They just do one thing.  And the evil one loves to put up in your life and my life these good things.  “Ed, get involved in this good thing.  Ed, get involved in that good thing.”  And we are so involved in good things that we miss out on the main thing.  You have got to say no.  Are you saying no regularly?  Or are you saying yes not to hurt someone’s feelings, a company’s program, a ministry’s mission.  You have got to say no and it is tough.  It is not easy.

The master casters pray it over, they think it through, they give it away, they build it up and they tune it out.  Here is a leadership principle.  There is no opportunity without opposition.  There are a couple of ways to live life without opposition.  If you want to live life without any criticism, do nothing and say nothing.  The vision vandals hit the scene.  Every time God gives someone a vision, every time God gives a family a vision, a church a vision, there are always vision vandals.  They don their vision vandal masks, they take their vision extinguishers out and they just squelch the idea.  And look at the name of these guys.  Nehemiah 2:19-20.  “But when Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us.”  And what did Nehemiah do?  Did he respond by saying, “What are you doing.  I can’t believe you are criticizing me.  What has gotten into you?  Do you realize God sent me?  I am God’s man.  This is God’s thing.”  He didn’t say that.  “I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success.  We his servants will start rebuilding…”  Every time you receive criticism and opposition, consider the source.  Ask yourself who is giving you the criticism.  Ask yourself if they love you and want to help the situation.  And consider the spirit of their criticism and critique the opposition.  If it is vindictive, if it is mean spirited, read it, listen to it and then turn and go the other way.  But if it is in the spirit of love and tenderness and grace, take it in.  Some of it will be right and some of it will be wrong.  But I will prepare you now.  It is going to hurt.  I have heard some people say criticism doesn’t bother them.  I have heard Ted Turner say that, Barry Switzer say that.  I have heard Bill Clinton say that but I just laugh.  It tears those guys apart.  I have heard Margaret Thatcher say that.  But it tears her apart.  It hurts.

We receive very little criticism here in this church, but the criticism we have received hurts.  But I have learned something.  Pioneers take the arrows.  There is no opportunity without opposition.  You have got to love everybody, but you have got to move with the movers.  Nehemiah moved with the movers.  He cast his vision to the people who were on God’s team.  He didn’t worry about the criticizers.  He said he loved them and they were free to join him but that the wall was going to be built.  He went for it.  Look what happened.  He rebuilt the wall in fifty-two days, record time.  Tune it out.

How is your casting?  Who really cares about fishing?  I am talking about your vision casting.  How is your Nehemiah master caster doing?  You can’t buy this at K Mark or Wallmart or some local bait and tackle shop.  You have got to get this from God.  When God gives you His vision, He will equip you to become a master caster.

THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY SERIES

UNDER THE INFLUENCE – HOW TO SET YOUR FAMILY’S STANDARDS

ED YOUNG

APRIL 14, 1996

Every time we gather together for one of our weekend services we draw a kaleidoscopic range of people in terms of where they are on their spiritual journeys.  Some are investigating Christianity.  Others have just stepped over the line and are brand new believers.  Still others here have been walking with the Lord for a long, long time.  I think if I ask you to recite with me the Lord’s Prayer, most in here could do so.  When Jesus was praying to God the Father and showing us how to pray, what did He mean when He said this phrase, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?.  He was saying He wanted a little bit more heaven to be operative here on earth.  Heaven on earth.

I have been thinking about that phrase this entire week.  Heaven on earth.  So I decided to ask our staff to see what they had to say about heaven on earth.  I asked them what would be the perfect environment for you.  And here is what they said.  And please do not ask me to give names with these statements.  “In an ideal world, you would set the taxes and the politicians would have to pay them.”  “You would birdie every hole.”  “You could eat all the chocolate you wanted and never suffer the consequences.”  “Food that is good for you would taste good and food that is bad for you would taste bad.  In other words, bagels would taste like Twinkies and oat bran cereal would taste like Fruit Loops.”  “Exercise would be pain free.”  “There would be no receding hairlines.”  “There would be no computer freezes.”  “Credit cards would pay you interest.”  “Your cell phone batteries would last forever.”  “You would never have a bad hair day.”  “Sun exposure would be good for your skin.”  Finally, “every fish would be a ten pound bass.”

Since we are in a series on the family, I have to ask you, what would heaven on earth look like in the family unit?  We have a typical breakfast table here on stage representing the heaven on earth family unit.  The perfect family.  You would have a mom and a dad who love each other.  They treasure each other and would be committed to each other to the grave.  They would have two children, a boy and a girl, that they would love and honor and cherish.  They would teach and model and reinforce the transcendent values given to us by God from his Word, so I must place my Bible right here on this table to represent the center piece.  We are talking about a great family.  And if you hear what the politicians say these days, from behind lecterns and the back of tractors, they note that “we have to get back to family values.”  We need to get back to family values because, they say, the family that really teaches values can stand up against anything.  It is strong.  It is resilient.  It is like the Timex watch ad, they can take a licking but keep on ticking.”  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that the family can take anything?  True or false?  I hope you said false because the family cannot.  God never intended for the family to be the only entity to teach and model and inspire and live out the transcendent values.  He wanted it to be a team approach.  Yes, the Bible says categorically, unequivocally that the family is to be the launching pad of transcendent values but other elements have to hold up their end of the deal for it to really work.

So, since we are talking about heaven on earth, I want you to join me on a quick stroll through spiritual utopia, heaven on earth, and see what it would be like.  We have the perfect family here.  When the perfect family break after breakfast, the kids rush off to school.  And the school system is phenomenal because it is run by men and women who reinforce the transcendent values taught and modeled and inspired in the family.  Mom and Dad are giving each other high fives because the school is right behind them.  They are doing their job in this spiritual utopia.

Next Mom and Dad go to work.  And, believe it or not, the people who own the companies, who wield the power on the boards, base their decisions on how it will effect the family.  They compensate generously.  They give fair job descriptions.  We are talking spiritual utopia.  Isn’t this great?

Now we move over to the government.  A society has to have leadership and the government officials make decisions that highlight and reinforce and undergird the transcendent values taught in the family with the support of the schools and the workplace.  Now the government helps.  This leadership is something to behold.

Next we move to the media.  The media, whoa, they are really doing it.  The television producers, the movie moguls, they are cranking out creative documentaries, made for television movies and shows and sitcoms that again lift up those transcendent values.

Then we move on to arts and music.  We were just inspired during the beginning of this service by a humorous drama.  The arts can be something to behold.  You can see paintings and sculpture and plays that lift up God’s transcendent values.  Music can touch the depths of our soul.  Country-western music, alternative music, rock and roll, classical music.  We are talking about heaven on earth, aren’t we?  But remember, we live on the rugged plains of reality.  We don’t live in a spiritual utopia, do we?  So join me as we swim up stream to see in our world today if all of these entities are doing their part to reinforce the transcendent values taught, modeled and lived out in the family.

Let’s begin with the arts.  Michael Meved in his book, HOLLYWOOD VERSUS AMERICA, exposes where some of our tax dollars are going.  A while back your money and mine paid for a piece of art, and I use that term very liberally, called Alchemy Cabinet.  It was the fetus from a recent abortion of a female artist and the fetus was put in a jar on a table in a museum.  It was called art!  You paid for it.  So did I.  Now call me crazy, call me insane but does this lift and inspire those transcendent values taught in the family?  You be the judge.

The NEA also supported a play written and directed and acted in by a man named John Fleck.  In the middle of the performance, he urinates on a picture of Jesus Christ.  We paid for this.  And it is called performing art.  It is sad to say but most of the art these days, and I was an art major, does not inspire and enlighten the way that it used to.  A lot of the modern and post-modern art enrages the spirit.  I heard someone say, one time, that modern art is a conspiracy between rich people and artists to make the rest of us feel stupid.  I thought that was funny.

Next, let’s move on to the realm of music.  Surely, music will hold up its end of the deal.  After all, it touches the depths of the human soul.  Some people here are musical buffs and I want to see if you can name me one song from three decades ago that encourages rape, robbery, perverted sex that ultimately leads to killing another person, or settling disputes with handguns.  If you can do that, please speak up now.  Well, there is no use to give you any time for an answer, because there was no such thing.  Today, though, song after song after song encourages behavior like I just mentioned.  I am not talking about the Beatles, the Beach Boys or Bachman Turner Overdrive or the Rolling Stones.  But I am talking about a lot, not all, but a lot of the music that we are exposed to now, and that the young people are exposed to all the time.

In 1981, MTV was created.  It started as a curiosity.  Fifteen years later it is a cultural force.  Over 240 million homes, worldwide, are hooked into music television.  One of the founders, Bob Pitman, said it best.  He said that kids just don’t watch MTV, they live it.  It is staggering to realize but students from the seventh to the twelfth grade listen to an estimated 10,500 hours of rock and roll music.  They listen to such groups as TLC who sings to her lover about oral sex.  I will read an excerpt.  Fasten your seat belts, please, for this.  “Take a good look at it, look at it now.  It might be the last time you’ll have a go round.  I’ll let you touch it if you would like to go down….”  I won’t even read the rest.

Grammy award winning Alanis Morris sings to a former lover about his new girlfriend.  She says, “Is she perverted like me?  Would she go down on you in a theater?  It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced.  Are you thinking of me when you are f…ing her?”  Nine Inch Nails encourages suicide as a solution for life’s problems.  Let me stop right here.  When Kurt Covane took his life, he had multiple copycats, worldwide, as far away as Great Britain and Turkey, take their own lives.  Nine Inch Nails encourages suicide by saying, “He couldn’t believe how easy it was.  He put the gun into his face, bang.  Problems have solutions.  A lifetime of f…ing things up, fixed in one determined flash.”  Nine Inch Nails also promotes sexual violence.  “I want to f… you like an animal because you get me closer to God.”

Metallica’s CD, “Kill Them All”, encourages violence.  “Our brains are on fire with the feeling to kill.  And it will not go away until our dreams are fulfilled.”  Green Day applauds cocaine and amphetamine use in their song “Geek Stink Breath” which also promotes self-destruction.  A recent song says, “I’m on a mission, I made my decision to lead a path of self-destruction.”  Iced Tea plugs violence against policemen.  “I’ve got my 12-gauge sawed off, I’ve got my headlights turned off, I’m about to bust some shots off, I’m about to dust some cops off.  I got my brain on high, tonight will be your night, I’ve got this long black knife and your neck looks just right.  My adrenalin is pumping, I’ve got my stereo thumping, I’m about to kill me something.  The pig stopped me for nothing.  Now, die, die pig, die f… the police.”  It goes on.

There is a direct correlation between the amount listened to and watched and the currant behavior.  If you want some more data and more research, just secular research, please call the church office, we will load you down with research.  The correlation between the intake of music and the arts and behavior is kind of like the correlation between eating a candy bar and gaining fifty pounds.  If I ate a Baby Ruth, one Baby Ruth, would I gain fifty pounds?  No.  But if I decided to eat 200 Baby Ruths a day for about thirty days, yes, I would gain fifty pounds.  We can’t walk around with blinders and earmuffs on.  But a constant, steady diet of this stuff can change the trajectory of your family.

One researcher said it best.  He said that parents who allow their children to watch MTV are playing Russian Roulette.  Every song on MTV is not demonic, not perverted.  Some are benign.  A few things are inspiring.  But the majority are.  Parents, I can’t make the call for you.  You have got to make the choice.  I hate to do this, but I have got to take this area to the mat because as I swim upstream, the arts and music are not really holding up their end of the bargain.

Well, surely, the media will do it.  There is so much power in the media.  Did you see U.S. News and World Report this week.  An article was entitled, “TV’s Frisky Family Values”.  They had a research team that looked at a week of prime time television in mid-March and they found that there is more sex and sex talk on television than ever before.  They didn’t even poll cable, Showtime and Cinemax and HBO.  They just polled ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.  Here is what they came up with.  Seinfeld, the number one rated show devoted episodes to themes like oral sex, masturbation, homosexuality and orgasm.  We are talking prime time.  On Friends, the second most popular comedy in America, Phoebe has a problem.  Her new boyfriend won’t sleep with her.  Her friend Joey says, “The guy still won’t put out, huh?”  Later in the show Phoebe is very excited because she finally “made it” with her boyfriend.  The trick she explains was to make it clear to him that she wasn’t expecting a commitment just because they had had sex.  Joey says, “You mean he got you to agree to regular sex without a commitment?  Wow.  This guy is my god.”

On Grace Under Fire, Grace promises to pay off her boyfriend with “mother nature’s credit card” if he will watch her kids.  On Melrose Place, an inebriated Jake takes a stranger to his hotel room and says, “No strings attached, right?”  “None but these,” she says, “dropping the spaghetti straps of her slip from her shoulders.”  There is a sexual act or sexual reference every four minutes on prime time television.  The average child watches 22.3 hours of television a week.  The average teenager watches 22 hours of television a week.  The National Institute For Mental Health has called entertainment TV an important sex educator.  If so, the main lesson appears to be, go for it.  Doesn’t it?

Portrayals of premarital sex, U. S. News says, outnumbered sex within marriage eight to one.  Over a sixty minute time frame, in primetime television, there was an average of fifty crimes committed and twelve murders.

How about the movies?  The number one rated comedy, Birdcage, starring Robin Williams, is about a homosexual couple meeting their future in-laws who represent closed-minded, traditional values.  The movie attempts to glamorize and normalize the homosexual lifestyle.  Three of the top movies, Faithful, Fargo and Diabolique are all about conspiracies to kill or maim or harm a spouse.  I didn’t even touch on the internet which boasts of a million new subscribers a month.  There you can tap into Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler, into different terrorist groups.  I didn’t talk about the violent video games that many of our young people are playing in our homes and in the arcades at the malls.  They use their thumbs and index fingers to impale, decapitate and torture, sometimes sexually, their victims.

I have got to steal a quote about the media from TV’s Bart Simpson.  Bart told his father, “You know, it is just hard not listening to the movies and television.  They have spent more time raising me than you have.”  You see, we cannot let the electronic media, the electronic babysitters, teach the values because they aren’t there.  I cannot say this categorically but for the most part, I have got to take the media to the mat.  Once again, we see that more pressure is place upstream and ultimately, more pressure on the little family that we talked about.

Let’s move to the government.  There are some great men and women who are in leadership positions.  However, if you will read the Old Testament you will find a recurring theme.  King so and so did what was right in the eyes of God and the land prospered and the people turned their faces toward God.  You will also see another recurring phrase in the Old Testament.  King so and so did what was right in his eyes, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and the land was not prosperous and the people turned their faces away from God.  There is so much potential here in our country.  People wield so much power, yet it is not happening.  We need to take this area to the mat.

Now we move upstream with more and more pressure again on the family unit.  Let’s talk about the marketplace.  If you do some research, read some business journals, you know that the layoffs these days are unprecedented.  I talked to someone right before this service.  He told me that he had been without a job for two months.  One day his job was just gone.  Now money has taken precedence over the value of people which means job responsibilities have increased, compensation is not as generous.  It is pretty tough.  Rarely do people who own or operate or run these big companies or corporations think about the transcendent values taught in the family.  God wants commerce to do it’s part.  He wants the marketplace people to really do it, but that area must be taken to the mat, too.

How about education.  The public schools.  Come on.  They have got to do their job.  It is becoming a kind of solo act here, isn’t it?  William Kirkpatrick writes, and I hate to say this, in an elementary school classroom in St. Louis, Mo., the little boys and girls are encouraged to use four letter words for sexual intercourse, oral sex and genital organs.  In another elementary classroom, he notes, little boys and girls are encouraged to draw pictures of their parents having sex and then express how they feel about it.  In a southern high school classroom, he goes on to say, students are shown a steamy film of a couple having sex.  Then they are encouraged to break up, a boy with a girl, and discuss the sex act.  Then girls are instructed to roll condoms over the fingers of their male partners.  We are talking public schools.  And the public school systems say they are into “value free educating”.  It sounds so sophisticated, so erudite.  Hello.  Value free.  I don’t call rolling condoms over the fingers of students, value free.  I don’t call using the four letter word for oral sex and sexual intercourse and genital organs, value free.  Now there are some great schools.  And there are some great classrooms and some phenomenal teachers, but for the most part, the public schools are not doing it.  Since prayer and Bible reading have been removed from the classroom, read the data, we have taken a swan dive into the cesspool of immorality.  We really have.

The school system hits the mat.

Take a look, a long look.  All we are left with is a little, autonomous family against the world.  Parents, single parents, you are wondering why you are feeling so discouraged.  You are wondering why you feel depressed.  You are wondering why you feel so frightened.  Look at what you are up against.  God didn’t intend it to be this way, but we have blown it.  What do we do, because the future from this end looks pretty bleak.  The graphs are going south.  However, look at what is in the middle of this family.  We have got the Bible.  And when the Bible is operative, there is hope.  There is a positive future.  There are some great things in store for families who get serious about this dynamic, life-changing book and this can truly change the trajectory of your life and mine, of your family and mine.

Take the outlines out that are included in your bulletin.  I want to tell you three things that you can do from God’s word, I don’t care if you are married or single, that can have a phenomenal and indelible impact on our society.

1. Ask yourself two questions:
2.   Do the entertainment choices of my family fit the guidelines of Philippians 4:8?  Every time you buy a video, every time you purchase a CD, every time you walk into tinsel town, every time you turn on the TV and channel surf, ask yourself this question.  You see, parents, we can’t say one thing and do another.  Here is what Philippians 4:8 says.  “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”  Now, some parents here need to make some tough decisions in your lives and the lives of your children.  You are going to have to remove, in a loving way, a lot of trash that you are exposing your family to.  When you do it, there will be a giant chasm there.  What do you do?  What do you do?  Suddenly a lot of the movies you have been seeing, a lot of the songs that you listen to, a lot of videos that you watch are removed.  What do you do?  What do you do?  Let me say this.  There is some good stuff out there.  Hollywood is producing some good stuff.  On the musical front there is some phenomenal Christian music.  If you like rap, if you like funk, if you like jazz, if you like alternative, if you like rock and roll, there is excellent Christian music out there.  You see, there is no such thing as Christian music.  I will say it one more time.  There is no such thing as Christian music.  There are Christian lyrics, but there is not Christian music.

I have been thinking about this for awhile now.  We have been doing research on this topic for the last two months.  I was driving to church today and I had EJ and LeeBeth with me.  I am kind of freaked out because I always get a little nervous when I speak.  I open the sun roof, see the beautiful sky and pop something in the CD player.  All of a sudden, one of my favorite songs comes on from one of my favorite groups, Jars of Clay.  They have a song out called “Flood”.  The guy starts out, “Rain, rain on my face.  It’s been raining for days.  My world is aflood.  Slowly I become one with the mud….”  It is talking about your life and how you feel low and how God can change your life.  I heard another similar song and then popped in my man, Michael W. Smith.  The great thing was that I could rock, for lack of a better word, in my car with my kids and not worry about it.  The lyrics are lifting up and supporting and reinforcing and reinspiring God’s transcendent values taught, modeled and lived out in the family.  Now let me say this.  For a lot of years I listened to some trash music.  I really did.  And the first time I was ever confronted about that stuff, here is what I did, I defended it as not so bad.  “I know the words might be bad but I listen to the beat.”  Come on.  Hey, who are you trying to fool?  Our minds pick up so much.  When I went off that stuff, I had to have something to replace it with and I thank God for the creativity and freedom of great musicians like Michael W. Smith and Jars of Clay.  They are awesome people.  They are great Christian men and women who produce those albums.  So parents, replace the lie with the truth.

1.   What core values are transmitted through my family’s entertainment choices?  Sit down with your student, with your child, with your spouse and discuss the lyrics of the top 40, discuss the content of the video.  Tape “Friends” and say, “Honey, what values are going on here?  Are they reinforcing the values we are teaching?”  Sit down and watch MTV, parents, or BH1.  About 85% of the stuff will glorify, drug use, sex, violence or rebellion.  There is no doubt about it.         Psalm 101:3 says, “I will set before my eyes no vile thing.  The deeds of faithless men I hate: they will not cling to me.”
2. Take advantage of the assistance of the church.  I just thank God for the creativity that we have in our children’s and youth ministry.  We have men and women who are committed to teaching the truth in an age appropriate way, in a creative way, in a compelling way, but more importantly, in a Biblical way.

Psalm 122:1 says, “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.'”

If you are not excited about going to church, find a church that excites you.  Find someone.  And if you ever hear a boring message, do not blame the message, blame the messenger.  The church should be the most exciting place you attend.  It is not always the happiest, because sometimes we talk about difficult topics like today.  But Lisa and I, unashamedly, have relied on this church to help rear our children.  So we have loaded up on the front end.  We take a quick look around society and the dominos have fallen.  So we load up on this church.  And we make sure our children are here.  It just thrills my heart to hear LeeBeth and EJ talk about what they have learned here.  I know when I give them to the nursery workers, give them to the preschool workers, give them to Children’s Church and very soon to the Youth area, I can stand back and say, “Oh, man, thank you, Lord, this church is reinforcing the transcendent values that we try to teach, model, inspire and live out in our home.  What are you doing?

III.  Make a difference in your corner of the world.  Parents, I want to take my hats off to you who have sacrificed financially to put your children in a Christian school.  Parents, I want to take my hats off to you who sacrificed in home schooling your children.  Parents, I want to take two hats off to you who have gotten involved elbow deep in the public school system to try to help and change and make sure the values taught at home are being reinforced in the school.  I want to thank you for that.  It takes guts and courage to do it.

You know what?  We have a lot of powerbrokers in the Fellowship of Las Colinas.  Wow.  We have people watching today on overflow.  We had them in overflow in the last service.  We have people here who are important, who are principals, college professors, who own large corporations, who are presidents.  Ask yourself how you can make a difference in your corner of the world.  Do you know how change is going to take place?  Do you know how Christ’s prayer will come true?  If normal, average, everyday people like you and me stand up and make a difference.  If we say in school, if we say at work, if we say in government, if we say in the media, if we say in arts and music, “I will stand up and reinforce those transcendent values taught and modeled and lived out from the Bible in the family.”, we can make a dent in this thing.  We have over 3,000 regular attenders here.  What could happen if we got serious about it?

I love Joshua.  Joshua is a direct man.  The Old Testament ells us that one day Joshua stood before the people and said.  “…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  (Joshua 24:15)  I want you to claim one last verse, Galatians 6:9.  “Let us not get tired of doing what is right for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up.”  Don’t get discouraged and don’t give up.

So, choose this day, to steal a line from the J man, choose this day who you are going to serve.  As for me and my house, the Young household, we are going to serve the Lord.  We are going to teach and model and reinforce and inspire those transcendent values from scripture.  Choose this day.