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THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY SERIES

HAPPY OURS – HOW TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY, BALANCED FAMILY

ED YOUNG

APRIL 20, 1996

Every time my wife goes to the grocery store, she always buys a dozen eggs.  If you grocery shop with any regularity, I am sure you do the same thing.  What is the one thing that you do before you put the carton of eggs in the basket?  You carefully open it up and inspect the eggs because you want to make sure that you are purchasing twelve, healthy, robust, fresh, farm eggs.  In today’s session we are going to do the same thing with the family.  We are going to open it up and inspect it and look for twelve healthy traits of a balanced and well-functioning family.

It is paramount that we understand what a healthy family looks like because a lot of us are spending large blocks of time, money, spiritual and emotional stuff helping our families.  Many here are not sure if they are doing it in a balanced fashion.  So I want you to think about the family you grew up in and also the family that you are establishing now and, if you are single, the family you will establish as we address this issue.

You know eggs are pretty fragile, aren’t they?  They are fragile, they break.  Look at this.  I can just drop one and it will break.  I have always wanted to do this.  The eggs are breakable and so is the family.  The family is as fragile as these eggs.  Especially the twelve traits of a balanced family are fragile.  So let’s jump right in.  You will see in your bulletin that there is an insert entitled, Happy Ours – How To Maintain a Healthy Balanced Family.  If you have a pen or pencil, please follow along with me as we talk about these twelve traits.  I am going to challenge you to do something at the end of our session today, so make sure you follow along and fill in the blanks.

The dynamic dozen.  The first trait of a healthy, balanced family is that it shares a common passion for Jesus Christ.  This is the most important, foundational principal we can think about when we talk about the family unit.  And, again, look back at your family of origin and look at your family today.  Did your family of origin or does your family today really share a common passion for Jesus Christ?  You see, in today’s world we don’t need a mild dose of God, we need the full treatment.  What if I had an opportunity to interview your family members.  If I said to your kids, “Does your father value a personal relationship with Christ, does he have a faith that is alive?  Does your mother have a faith that is real?  Do you worship together regularly or is it something you kind of talk about?

What if our band decided to play from three different sheets of music.  You wouldn’t have harmony, you would have dissonance.  What if a home builder decided to build and construct with four different sets of house plans.  It would be ugly.  It would be atrocious looking.  What if the Texas Rangers decided to play by the rules of fast pitch softball not the rules of the Major League.  It wouldn’t be a very good game to watch.  Well functioning families that face the future in a godly, Biblical sense are always reading off the same sheet of music, building off the same set of plans and they are playing by the same rules.  They are living out the transcendent values from God’s word within the context of the family unit.

The second trait of a healthy, balanced family is that they love one another unconditionally.  If I am right with God, if I have a personal relationship with Him, then I am going to also get involved in this second quality, I am going to love other family members unconditionally.  How do you do that?  Here is what John said in

I John 3:1.  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God.”  How do you love family members unconditionally?  You fall in love with the God who loves you first unconditionally and then you live out that love in the family unit.  You love your family members unconditionally.  This kind of love can cause a twenty-one year old college student to look back on his family and thank God for the thousands of acts of love; for the loving embraces, for the Karate lessons, the Little League, the birthday parties, the sleep-overs, the camping trips.  As he thinks about this list of all these acts of love, his self-esteem rises and his appreciation and thankfulness to God increases.

A family of love can cause a twenty-five year old daughter to look at her little baby and say these words.  “You know, I want give you the kind of love that was given to me by my Mom.  I grew up in a single parent household yet I was valued and loved.  I want to give you this kind of love which is not performance or achievement oriented.  I want to give you the kind of love which comes from God.”  Do you have love going on in your family?

I believe the family should look like a filling station.  A couple of months ago LeeBeth, my nine year old, and I were driving in my car.  We pulled up to a Mobil station.  She asked to pump the gas.  I showed her how to pump.  And I thought about the home because the home should look like a filling station.  Our love tanks are low when we go out into the world, out into the marketplace.  We are running on fumes as we come home to the family unit.  We need some fuel.  We need some love fuel.  The family should look like a true service station, taking care of our vehicle and pumping in love.  Each member of the family should do that for each other.  The second trait of a healthy, balanced family is a family that loves one another unconditionally.

The third trait of a balanced family is one that communicates in truth and love and listens to one another.  Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak the truth in love.  Parents, do you speak kind words to your spouse?  Parents, do you listen lovingly to your spouse?  You set the tone for communication in the household.  If you don’t talk, if you don’t listen, if you don’t love, if you don’t really connect, then how in the world are your kids going to do it?  Where are they going to learn it from?  Beevis and Buthead?  Or ER?  Or maybe an episode on Friends?  Don’t hold your breath.  They have got to learn it from parents.

The Bible says this in Proverbs 12:15, “A wise man listens.”  Speaking is only part of communication.  If you heard a conversation from our dinner table, you would say that the Young household can really communicate.  Well, we speak a lot because we are the loud family.  We all talk a lot.  We are vying for time.  There is no dead time.  Speaking is only part of it.  Another part of it is listening.  We listen with our eyes.  One day my son, EJ, told me, “Daddy, listen with your eyes.”  We listen with our eyes, we listen with our ears, we also listen with our entire bodies.  Every time you connect and you have eye contact with someone in the family unit, you are building up the self-esteem.  You are saying to them that what they are telling you is important.  Some of the stuff that toddlers, children and even teenagers tell you, parents, doesn’t seem like a big deal to you but it means a lot to them.  If you listen to what they are saying now, they will talk to you when they hit 18, when they hit 28, and 38, and 48, and 58.  Speak the truth in love.  Listen lovingly.  Parents, we set the pace.

The fourth trait of a balanced family is that they reconcile differences rapidly.  You see how fragile these traits are.  I love what II Corinthians 5:18 says.  This verse applies only to those in the family of God.  I know we have many here who are seeking Christianity and if you are seeking, this is the place for you.  This verse, however, is only for those who know Christ personally.  “God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”  Is that powerful or what?  You see Jesus Christ reconciled us to God, something we did not deserve.  Once we receive Him, we receive the ministry of reconciliation.  If we are true followers of Jesus Christ we can’t stand for parties to be apart.  He can’t stand for there to be a chasm or a wedge in a relationship.  Especially this holds true in the family unit.  So we need to reconcile differences rapidly.  Again I ask you, how in the world do children learn this?

I sometimes hear people say, “You know, Ed, in the family I grew up in I never heard my parents argue.  I never heard them disagree.”  They believe that to be some kind of noble thing.  But I am thinking, “Man, you have got a long life ahead of you.”  Parents, we should not argue all of the time in front of our children, but we need to disagree now and then in front of our children.  Why?  Because we model how to argue and then, more importantly, how to reconcile.  You disagree in front of your children, you reconcile in front of them.  The Bible says not to let the anger fester.  Reconcile differences rapidly.  Before you see that beautiful, majestic Texas sunset, you better be reconciled.  If not, it will get bigger and bigger and bigger and one day you will dump the whole carton of eggs out.

The fifth trait of a healthy, balanced family is that it encourages and supports each family member.  Harvard just completed a 35-year study which concluded that those children who were encouraged and supported in the family unit lived healthier lives physically when they hit their 50s and 60s.  Is that wild?  This study said that they have less of a chance for a heart attack or hypertension just because they were valued in the family unit.  Question.  Did your family of origin support you and encourage you?  Question.  Are you encouraging and supporting your family members.

I talked to a friend of mine I have know for fifteen years.  Her name is Laurel Walters.  Laurel told me something that was beautiful about her family.  She said, “I knew back then and I know today that I could do anything, fail, mess up, try something creative and my parents would still love me and applaud my uniqueness.”  She went on to illustrate that every Tuesday night from the time she was nine years old until she left home, she could make any portion of the meal she wanted to.  Her mom would serve it and everyone would eat it and comment on how creative and good it was.  That takes guts, doesn’t it?  Today, she is a gourmet cook and also a top fashion designer.  Then she went on to say.  “You know what my brother does?  My brother is a mechanical engineer and my sister is an all-American polo player.”  Now how different is that?  You see our agenda in life, parents, is not to crank out a bunch of cookie cutter kids.  There is Johnny and there is Suzie.  They look alike.  They dress alike.  Suzie wears a dress and Johnny obviously wears pants but they are alike.  They go to the same school.  They are into the same things.  You see a family that encourages and supports one another can allow for different and unique pursuits in the various children.

The sixth trait of a healthy family is that it teaches responsibility.  It is important to know that we are worth something.  Self-esteem is something the Bible talks about time and time again.  But we also need to know that we have to do something.  We are something but we have got to do something.  Parents, it is our responsibility to teach and train our children to do something.  A good self-esteem will not put bread on the table, it will not put money in the bank.  Wise parents train their children.  They expose them to many different avenues artistically, athletically, domestically and they help their children find their niche.  I believe you can start out with the responsibility thing when a child is one and a half or two years of age.  When you teach them simple chores, making the bed, cleaning up the room, putting away all the Power Rangers after they have fought, you can build on those values.  When they are ready to leave for college or ready to hit the marketplace, they have a value called responsibility that was modeled and taught in the family unit.  Paying your bills on time, living within your means financially, keeping your commitments; these things have to be taught.  Parents are the pace cars.

How many of you have ever been at the Indianapolis 500?  One of the most important aspects of a race is the pace car.  The pace car starts the race.  It gets the cars going.  Right before the field of Formula One cars breaks the starting line, the pace car pulls off.  Then we kind of forget about the pace car.  Mom, if you are a single parent, Dad, if you are a single parent, or Mom and Dad, you are the pace car.  You are making sure the field is ready.  You are making sure the engines are revved up.  You are teaching responsibility.  You are teaching self-esteem.  Then right before you launch your children off into life with great velocity, you peel off and there they go.  If you are not setting the pace, there are going to be some problems, some flat tires, some mechanical failures.  The pace car does something else, too.  When there is a crash, and there ill be crashes in the family unit, the pace car comes and sets the pace again and gets control of the track.  Teach responsibility.

Number seven.  A healthy family develops a sense of trust and loyalty.  We have to be loyal to each other.  Again, I hit the husbands and wives on this one.  Do you build each other up in front of your children or do you rip your spouse apart?  When I go into a household for a home visit I usually sit down to have a cup of coffee with the husband and wife.  From time to time the wife will say that she is glad I am there because her husband had not been to church for the last two months.  The poor guy is turning red.  Then she starts to rip into her husband in front of me.  That is not loyalty.  Now I understand that the motivation and desire might be to help the husband but tearing him apart publicly  will not help.  If there are problems, deal with them privately.  If more help is needed, seek Christian counseling.  But you have got to remain loyal.  We are not loyal to anything these days, to our universities, our high schools, our families, our spouses.  It is so popular to write books that share all the dirt in families, in corporations, in professional athletic teams.  Parents, you model loyalty and your kids will catch it and they will have trust and loyalty for their whole lives.

Number eight.  A healthy family promises never to abuse, shame or control other family members.  When it come to a soul-shattering contest, abusive parents take home all the trophies.  I want to talk to you about abuse.  This is a painful subject for many here.  What happens in your family when you looked to your parents for nice and kind words but instead you were raged over?  What happened when you looked to your parents for a loving touch but instead you were slapped?  What happened when you were just discovering the mysteries of your sexuality and in the middle of the night a parent showd up at the foot of your bed with an agenda that makes the angels in heaven shriek?  What happens?  Oftentimes somebody gets broken so severely that they can’t be repaired unless they go through years of Christian guidance.  Healthy families recoil at just the mention of abuse, shame or control.  How about it?  Did it happen in your family of origin?  Is it happening or could it happen in your family?  You have got to make a promise, you have got to avow never to let this occur.

The ninth trait of a healthy family is that they value service to one another.  Jesus said, one day, if you want to be great, become a servant.  And here is my definition of servanthood.  Servanthood is doing an unselfish act without worrying about the pat on the back.  Now I sometimes mess up in this realm.  Let’s say, for example, we have had dinner and the dishes are dirty on the table.  I will just start taking the dishes to the kitchen.  I kind of play a cruel joke on the family.  I start singing this song as I serve.  “He is a servant, watch Ed Young serve, he is an ultimate family member.  Watch him serve.  Watch him serve.  He will serve the family.”  My wife, especially, requests that I not sing the song.  LeeBeth and EJ concur.  That is not true servanthood.  Servanthood would be taking the plates off the table and taking them to the sink without singing.  I do have that song copyrighted so don’t try to steal that song.

I am going to challenge you to do one act of service a day for a family member without worrying about a pat on the back or a high five.  What if Andre Aggessi decided not to serve?  What if he decided he would not serve, he would just volley.  Do you think he would win?  Tennis is a game, for the most part, won or lost on the serve.  Families are oftentimes won or lost depending on the service.  Dad, serving is not saying, “Well, I bring home the money and I put bread on the table.  I have to relax when I come home.  I can’t change a diaper.  I can’t get up in the middle of the night.  I can’t take the trash out.  I can’t do the yard work.”  Oh, no, that does not hold Biblical water.  Oftentimes you have got to take off the corporate hat and put on the servant hat once your hit your home.

Number ten, and this will seem kind of odd, a healthy, balanced family establishes and celebrates traditions together.  Do you do things special for Christmas?  Do you do things special for Easter?  Do you do things special for birthdays.  Around the Young household at least once a month we will have a You Are Special plate at someone’s seat.  The one getting the special plate might have gotten a good report card, preached a good sermon.  Sometimes Lisa will just put out the You Are Special plate just for herself and I love that.  Now and then I will even do it.  That communicates something to our family.  We have done this special thing in the past, we will do it today and we will do it in the future.  The same thing holds true with looking at Christmas lights each year, eating the same food around Easter, having the same people over.  But listen to me, young families, and don’t misinterrpt what I am saying, I will try to make myself as clear as possible.  You set your own agenda for the holidays.  It is so tempting to acquiesce to your family of origin.  Lisa and I had to make that call years ago.  Lisa’s parents live in Columbia, SC, 1003 miles away from Dallas.  My parents live in Houston.  Both families are close-knit and they would each want us to come visit them.  Finally we said, we have children.  We love you guys so much, if you want to celebrate with us you can come to our home.  It is fine to welcome family members in, don’t misinterpret what I am saying but set your own traditions.  Now the day after Christmas, if you want to go somewhere, that is cool.

The eleventh trait.  A healthy family has a sense of humor and a sense of play.  You poll adults in this congregation and they will tell you, 90% will tell you something like this.  “The most memorable time in my childhood was the time we went camping on Lake Wiggiewagga and the humidity was 110 and Dad tried to set up a tent.  The tent collapsed during the night and a pack of raccoons ate all of our marshmallows.”  And they will go on and on and on.  What is going on here?  Recreation and a sense of humor and a sense of play.  We have got to do this regularly in the family unit.  If you are not, you are messing up.  Your family is fragmented.  When my family looks back on the times we played together, I am sure one of the impressions that will never leave their mind is the time last August when I drove back from our vacation, forgot about the luggage racks on the top of the suburban and took off the top portion of the garage.

Number twelve.  A healthy, balanced family recognizes problems and seeks help when needed.  There is an old Chinese proverb that says, no one in the family can hang up a sign that says, Nothing Is The Matter Here.  You can never hang that sign up.  The Young family has its problems.  We have our bad days, our good days, our relational sticking points just like you.  Proverbs 13:10 says, “Those who seek counsel become wise.”  Past generations did not seek counsel, for the most part, when they had problems.  The father, in past generations, could be a drunk, intimidating everyone.  The mother could be the classic controller even controlling the dog.  The adolescent could be clinically depressed and the child could be bouncing off the walls with hyperactivity.  Yet when Sunday came rolling around, everyone would get sobered up, psyched up and dressed up for another hour of public deception.  When someone would say, in past generations, “How are you doing?”  We would say, “Everything is fine.”  Then we would go back and get into our cars and chaos would start again.

Thankfully, things are changing.  Families are seeking help.  They are talking to their small group leader.  They are talking to pastors.  They are seeking Biblical, Christian counseling.  Many of you here, and I will say this unapologetically, need some Biblical counseling.  You do.  The problem is, most of the situations that we deal with are so far down the road that headway is difficult to make.  The damage has been so severe, it has gone on for so many years.  Seek help now.  If you want a list of counselors, we have a list here at the church.  But talk about these things.  Don’t wait.  Do you see how fragile the family is.  Don’t put it off.

Now some of us feel like we can never change.  I know that little voice in the depth of your being is saying that you can’t change.  You can’t run with freedom and live out the twelve principles of a healthy, balanced family.  But if you are a child of God, that is a lie.  And I will show you how it is a lie.  This Monday I went to a ranch outside of San Antonio.  I have been to this ranch many times.  A friend of mine owns it.  This particular ranch has 5,000 acres and probably has more exotic animals than any ranch in North America.  As I was being toured around the ranch with a friend of mine by the person who runs the operation there, I was looking at the different types of zebra, the greater kudu, the lessor kudu, the herds of giraffes, I was thinking it was unbelievable.  It was like the Lion King or Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.  We were taken to the rhino area.  There was a fence around the rhino area which covered hundreds of acres.  Some food was poured in a trough and suddenly a male and female rhino came running out of the brush.  They were 10,000 pounds each.  “Ed, come up to the fence and watch them eat.”  I am standing behind the fence which seemed kind of flimsy compared to the rhino and I could even smell their breath.  I watched for awhile and took some pictures.  Then we left.  I asked our driver if the rhino could break down the fence if he wanted to.  “Oh, yes, it is just like thread.”  I said, “You have got to be kidding.  You mean they could have come and trampled me?”  “Oh yeah, if they wanted to, but you were safe because they don’t know they could.  They don’t know how strong they are.”  Then she went on to explain that they had been in the same pen for fifteen years and it is just the memory that keeps them hemmed in.  Hey, are you believing the lie of the evil one that says you don’t have the power and the strength to break out of the fence, to break the threads, to break the chains?  Are you like those rhinos?  “I can’t get out of this.  I can’t really soar.  I can’t really run.  I don’t really have freedom.”  If you know Christ personally, if you are following these twelve steps, you have the strength and power of a 10,000 pound rhino.  So the choice is up to you if you want to break or not.  So many families here need to break out of fences that have you limited and chained in.

Now, take your outline very quickly and listen to me.  I want every family to have one outline at least.  Hopefully it is filled in correctly.  You will see six blanks on the bottom.  If you have a family of six, like our, use six.  If you have a family of three, use three.  Everyone sign their name.  Then take the list home this afternoon and discuss each of the traits.  I am not talking about four or five hours.  Just say, “How am I doing?”  No one here in the house, if you are honest, will score a perfect twelve.  After you discuss these values, here is where it gets fun.  I want you to take the list to a prominent place in your household, the refrigerator.  Put it on the front.  It will be visible to all.  Perhaps the fourteen year old will say, “Dad, number eleven says that we need to have a sense of humor and a sense of play.  We have not played together as a family for two months.”  Or maybe your wife will say.  “Honey, we need to reconcile this difference.  It has been two days.  We have not gotten it right yet.”  It gives everyone permission to point to these traits.  We can live them out.  I’ll tell you something.  This list will serve you well.  So if you are in the family of God, if you can obey these principles, the future looks bright.  If you are not going to worry about them, if you are just going to toss the principles aside, take a look at the future.  But again, we are creatures with freedom of choice.  God says, “I can’t force it on you, you have got to decide on your own.  But, do it My way, you will be glad that you did.”

SIGNS OF THE TIMES SERMON SERIES

“DON’T BLAME ME” – AVOIDING THE HABIT OF PASSING THE BUCK

ED YOUNG

FEBRUARY 25, 1996

Over the Christmas holidays we went to Columbia, South Carolina to visit Lisa’s family.  There is one thing that you need to know right up front about Lisa’s family.  They love to play board games.  The first night we were there, after dinner on a cold December evening, they pulled out one of the most popular board games in the history of the world, Pictionary.  I don’t really like board games that much, but I was with the in-laws and the family so I had to smile.  Most of you know how to play Pictionary but very briefly let me explain for those of you who are not acquainted with it.  You draw clues and your team members try to guess what you drew and if they do, you win a point and you move the little person on the board to the next colored space.  We quickly divided up into three teams.  Lisa’s parents, Mendel and Elva, made up the first team.  On the second team was Lisa’s sister, Laurie, and her husband, Smith.  The third team was, you guessed it, Ed and Lisa Young.  We began the game and the competition was fierce.  “If you could draw better, we would be winning.”  “Honey, that’s a dinosaur?  Give me a break.”  If you were to walk into that den and watch us playing you would say at first glance that we were involved in Pictionary.  However, if you carefully monitored the conversations and you watched the finger pointing, you would come to the only conclusion you possible could arrive at, we were not playing Pictionary, we were playing the Blame Game.  We were giving reasons, excuses and explanations as to why we were failing at this contest.  We love to play the Blame Game.

Twister, Scrabble, Candyland, The Game of Life.  They are obviously popular board games.  But those games pale in comparison to the popularity of the Blame Game.  We all play it.  We are subtle about it.  We do it behind the scenes without a lot of people realizing it, yet many of us are caught up and mesmerized by the Blame Game.  We wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, take a shower and we carefully look for the pieces of the Blame Game, put the board in the Blame Game box, put it under our arms and head out into the world.

If we are fifteen minutes late to work, no problem, we blame it on the traffic.  If our kid has problems in school, we blame the teacher or the principal.  If we have any relational problems, especially a marriage difficulty, we blame it on our spouse.  Our society is caught up in blame.  Blamelessness has become an art form.  Have you ever read those “Not Responsible For” signs?  You hang your coat up in a restaurant and the sign reads, “Management Not Responsible for Harmed or Stolen Garments.”  For those of us who fly around now and then, have you ever read the fine print on your airline ticket?  It says that the airline industry is not responsible for delayed flights or missed connections.  If you do happen to lose your luggage, yes, they will pay an amount, and only the amount,  agreed upon around 1962 in some obscure conference in Las Vegas.  Try parking your car in an expensive lot in downtown Dallas.  You will see the “Not Responsible For” sign.  If you car is stolen or damaged, they will not be responsible.

Our culture has two major people groups, the Blaming Boomers and Generation X-cuse.  The Boomers bash their parents.  They say their parents are responsible for the messed up condition they are in.  The Xers say it is the Boomers, those wild and wacky and materialistic Boomers.  That’s why the Xers are in such a mess.  The Blame Game.  Blamelessness is as American as the Constitution.  Doesn’t the Fifth Amendment say that no one can make us blame ourselves for anything?  I think it does.

In your bulletin you have a board game, your very own Blame Game.  I have one, too.  Would you please take it out.  You see all the benefits you get from attending our church?  You get a free board game here.  This blame game has a finger in the middle.  Pretend that the finger can move to different areas.  I want to talk to you about four categories of blame.  The Blame Game has a fascinating history.  It was first played in a lush, tropical paradise by a husband and wife team named Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve had it great.  All they had to do was a bunch of yard work.  God loved them.  God honored them.  God related to them and they related back to God.  God told Adam and Eve not to touch the fruit on the tree in the middle of the garden.  They said they would not even think about doing that.  God was testing them.  You know the story.  They took the fruit.  They sinned.

Let’s read Genesis 3:11-13.  “…God asked, ‘Have you eaten the fruit from the tree I warned you about?’  ‘Yes,’ Adam admitted, “but it was the woman you gave me who brought me some…”  The first area of blame Adam just told us is, we blame our family.  When something bad happens, when the chips are down, when we fail financially, what do we do?  We point to those closest to us, an ex-spouse, a parent, a child, an uncle, an aunt and we blame, we accuse.  Just what Adam did.  Adam and Eve got the blame ball rolling and it has picked up more and more speed.  Then God talks to Eve.  “Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘How could you do such a thing?’  The serpent tricked me,’ she replied.”  You see they had a basic problem.  Their problem was simply this, they had sinned against their creator and their creator was not a talk show host.  What if Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit in the 90s?  I bet someone like Ricky Lake would have featured them on her show as the victims, the serpent would have been the enabler and some attorney would be on the program waiting in the wings to sue God for damages.  We love the Blame Game.

Most of you think that my wife and I have four children.  We don’t.  We have five.  We have a child who lives in our home.  I have never met this child.  I am not sure if this child is a boy or a girl.  The child has a strange name, Not Me.  “Lee Beth your bed has not been made up.”  “Not me, it was because….”  “EJ, did you drop jello pudding again in the living room on the carpet?  We have told you not to eat chocolate jello in the living room.”  “Not me.”  Where do we learn this?  We are born with it, playing the Blame Game.  In our homes we clear off the coffee table, set up the board game very precisely and begin to play the Blame Game.  Or we go to work, clear off our desk, put out the Blame Game.  Or we are driving in our car with the Blame Game on our dashboard.  The Blame Game goes with us.  We love it.  You love it.  I love it.  It is easy.  It takes the blame off of us and puts it on someone else.  Here is the danger, though.  When we play the Blame Game for a long time, it convinces us that we don’t need to be searching for a Savior but rather a scapegoat.  If you don’t believe you sin and fail a holy God, then the cross is not that important, is it?  You can just shift the blame to someone else.

Next as we turn the dial, we blame society.  If our family doesn’t work, we will just go ahead and point to others.  I want to talk to you about a man that I love to dissect, Saul.  Saul had great potential.  He stood about six feet, seven inches tall, had long, flowing black hair.  He was articulate.  He had charisma.  He was a leader and God had tapped him on the shoulder to be king of Israel.  God told Saul one thing.  “Saul, you are My man.  You lead the forces and you help fight the battles but let Me tell you this.  Do not ever forget it.  Always wait for the High Priest, Samuel, to sacrifice to Me before you hit the battlefield.”  Saul promised that he would never mess around with the sacrificial system.  One day, Saul was in trouble.  He looked around and he saw Israel’s archenemy, the Philistines, surrounding him.  The Philistines were from the west coast of Palestine.  They had a corner on the iron market.  They were mean, they were ugly.  We know Goliath was a Philistine.  They had dark tans, tatoos, probably a couple of gold teeth, fourteen earrings.  They were a formidable enemy.  Saul remembered that he had to wait seven days, the window of time that God had given him, to let Samuel arrive to offer the sacrifice.  Day one, two and three goes by.  His men begin to mummer that they will get annihilated.  They begged him to at least do some sacrificing since Samuel was not there.  Day four, five and six passed.  The Philistines started getting closer.  Let me stop right here and say something.  When our resources are slipping away, when it is difficult and the going gets tough, that is when we love to take out our portable card table and put up the Blame Game, don’t we?

The seventh day rolls around and Saul couldn’t take it anymore.  So Saul says, “You know I am God’s man, maybe God didn’t really mean for Samuel to do the sacrifices.  I’ll just go ahead and sacrifice and then we can fight the Philistines.”  Saul begins to sacrifice.  He is feeling spiritual.  But when the fire was still smoldering, guess who walks up?  Yes, in that long flowing, High Priestly robe, he saw his worst nightmare, Samuel.  And Saul quickly begins to play the Blame Game.  Look what Samuel says in I Samuel 13:11-12.  “‘What have you done?’ asked Samuel.  Saul replied, ‘When I saw that the men were scattering…”  He was playing a serious Blame Game.  Saul played the Blame Game like many of us do, 24-7, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.  “…and that you did not come at the set time….”  But Samuel came on time, he just came right at the last.  “….and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash…I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.'”  The Blame Game.  He was pointing to those people around him, society.

Jump over to Matthew 27, we have another man playing the Blame Game.  His name was Pilot.  Saul played it and Pilot played it.  An angry Jewish mob wanted to crucify Jesus and Pilot knew he was doing wrong but before everyone he washed his hands saying and symbolizing that the crucifixion was not on him but on them.  He passed the buck to the angry Jewish mob.  He said that it was not his deal anymore.  The Blame Game.  We blame society.

Why do we play this game?  We love to play the Blame Game when others fail.  When others who are close to us fail, we fail, so we blame others.  “I would have had the report on time but Bill didn’t get me the data quick enough.”  We also play the Blame Game to feel superior.  You see, if I cut people down, if I rip them apart, if I use them as an alibi, as a scapegoat, then I feel and look great.  That is precisely the root of gossip.  We gossip, we spread dirt on people because it makes us look good and others look bad.  We blame society.

We also blame God.  The Bible says this in James 1:13-14.  “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’….”  We point to God when things are tough, like the children of Israel did.  They were delivered after years and years of slavery.  God miraculously keeps them and holds them in the hollow of His hand.  It is just amazing they had been delivered, the Red Sea was parted and Moses led them so well.  Suddenly, their water supply vanishes, just for three days.  It was a time of testing.  Finally, they found some water but because it didn’t taste like Perrier, they said it was God’s fault.  They said they wished they could go back to slavery in Egypt.  They blamed God.  They turned a time of testing into a time of temptation.  Taking is test if fun, it is challenging, it may be taxing.  We should want, however, to pass the test.  The problem is, when we cheat on the test, we have sinned.  The children of Israel cheated.  They turned a time of testing into a time of temptation.  God always tests but He never tempts.  That is why James continues by saying, “…For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.”  See, it is our choice.  Can you say you can identify with “his own desire”?  It is my own desire that does it.

When I think back in my life, I immediately look at times of testing.  God has tested my faith.  Many times I have turned God’s testing into temptation.  But other times I have kept the testing as testing and I have grown because of it.  My faith has been strengthened.  Case in point would be when I went away to Florida State University as a teenager.  That was a true time of testing for me and my faith was strengthened.  When Lisa and I had the miscarriage, that was a time of testing but we were strengthened through it.  During the first eight months of this church, starting this whole thing here with some other committed people, that was a true time of testing.  Also when we found out that our four year old son, EJ, has a genetic disorder called Neurofibromatosis, that was a time of testing.  Was it easy?  Hey, no way.  It was tough.  We had to dig down deep.  We used this time, this defining moment, if you will, to grow.  We didn’t say, “Oh boy, we are being tested.  Praise God.  It is so wonderful.  Nothing is wrong.  Everything is A-OK.”  That is a bunch of junk.  No one has that attitude.  But we did say, “God, we are not going to blame You.  We are not going to point the finger of accusation at You.  We are going to accept it because we know that You are allowing this, not causing this, allowing this to happen to mold us and to make us into stronger people for You.”  God has taught me more when I am flat on my face then when I am riding high.  He works that way.  Because we are hard headed and stubborn, we play the Blame Game with God.

We also play it with ourselves.  You see, our favorite person to play the Blame Game with is someone who is quite sunburned, has slicked back hair and little horns.  His name is D. Evil.  And D. Evil will sit down with us and will play the Blame Game with us.  He points that bony, sunburned finger in our face and says something like this.  “You don’t deserve to be used by God.  You don’t deserve to be in relationship with God.  You don’t deserve to be married to this person.  You don’t deserve to have this family.  You don’t deserve to have this job.  You don’t deserve….  You don’t deserve… The Bible says these words in John 8:44.  “…He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language (Lioneese), for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  Revelation 12:10.  “…For the accuser…accuses them before our God day and night…”  He accuses those of us who know Christ personally day and night.  Over and over and over.  “They are not worthy, God.  They are not worth it, God.  They are sinners, God.  Come on, God.”  You know what God says?  God laughs at the evil one.  He laughs at the master of the Blame Game.  He says, “They are mine.  They are my children.”  You see, when my four children were born, I cannot adequately describe the love and passion and joy we felt.  There is nothing that my children can do to cut off our relationship biologically.  They can rob banks, commit murders, you name it.  They are still my children.  They always will be.  You come to know Jesus Christ personally, you are adopted into the family of God, I don’t care what you do from that moment on, there is nothing that can cause you to break that relationship, to leave that family.  Yes, we can be out of fellowship with God due to sin but nothing can break that relationship.  So when the evil one begins to point the finger of blame at you and you start blaming yourself, just call him a liar, an accuser.  Just fold up the Blame Game, put the pieces away, take the box and throw it out.  It may be a good visual for you to do when you go home, take the board game from your bulletin, wad it up and throw it in the trash.  The Blame Game.

Now I want to do a little exercise for you, a little aerobic activity.  I am going to count to three.  When I say one, two, three, I want you to take your index finger and point to your neighbor.  Now no eye gouging like on WWF.  Just point.  One, two, three.  Hold it there.  Do not move.  Look at your fingers.  If you are pointing at someone, how many fingers are pointing back at you.  How many?  Three.  So we throw away the Blame Game and we take responsibility for our lives by doing three things, think about the three fingers.  The first finger, we take responsibility for our lives by stating the obvious.  What is the obvious?  If you are outside the family of God, it is saying to God, “Lord, I am a sinner.  I have messed up.  I have fallen short.  I want to fess up and own up to my sins.  I admit to You that I have problems and it is because of me.”  That is stating the obvious.  That will not take God by surprise.  The lies, the impure thoughts, the slander, the blame does not surprise God.  God knows it and so do others.  It is about time for many people here to state the obvious.  “I am a sinner in need of a Savior.  God, even though I have messed up and failed, I know You love me so much that you sent Jesus Christ to be my sin substitute and rise again and I receive what You did for me.”  That is stating the obvious.

I kind of laugh when I am watching the Chicago Bulls play on television and the announcer says this when he is talking about Michael Jordan.  “Michael is a great player.”  Boy, that is a profound statement.  “Michael Jordan is a great player.”  Well that is obvious.  You just stated the obvious, tell me something unique about Michael.  I know he is a great player.  So when you are stating the obvious, don’t expect everyone to act surprised.

Now if you are a believer, state the obvious that you are playing the Blame Game to your spouse, to your children, to your boss, to those people you know well.  State the obvious.  “I have been playing the Blame Game.  I am wrong and I am sorry.  No excuses, no alibis, no scapegoats, no reasons, no rationale, no explanations, it is because of me.”  Stating the obvious.

The second finger, capture the moment.  God tests us, you and me, to see will we blame or will we capture the moment as a teachable moment and grow because of it.  Are you going to turn the time of testing into a time of temptation or will you keep it as a time of testing and grow because of it?  Talk about capturing the moment, a true Kodak moment, one occurred for me a few days ago.  A friend of mine asked me to go fishing.  I went with him and he caught a 14 pound large mouth bass.  We are talking about a sow, a lunker, a hog.  It was a monster.  He caught this fish which we later released, as I release all fish, but to lift her up I had to use two hands.  We quickly put her in a bag with water and rushed to the dock and took photographs.  We captured the moment.  The moments, even the moments of testing, capture them.  Take a snapshot of them and say, “God, I am going to use this.  I want this to make a mark on my life.  I am going to grow because of it.”

The third finger is, you have got to check the attitude.  Constantly check your attitude because your attitude not your aptitude will determine your altitude when you are tested.  What kind of attitude do you have?  I am not talking about your aptitude, I am talking about your attitude.  Is your attitude like Christ’s, humble, ready or is your attitude like the world’s, blaming.  If you have the proper Christ-like attitude, you altitude will be phenomenal and you will be able to live on another plane, never, ever again playing the seductive, depressing, debilitating, disgusting Blame Game.

ALL CHURCHED UP AND EVERYWHERE TO GO SERMON SERIES

THE FRIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

JANUARY 21, 1996

ED YOUNG

I am going to take an informal poll.  How many of you were first invited to this church by another person?  Look at those hands.  Keep them up there.  Almost everyone.  I am in a series on the purpose of our church.  The Fellowship of Las Colinas exists to reach up, that is worship which is expressing love to God.  We also exist to reach out, that is evangelism which is communicating Christ with others.  We also exist to reach in, that is discipleship, which is developing our relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is vital that we as a church understand why we do what we do.  Today I want you to meet someone whose life has been changed as a result of the subject matter I am addressing in this session.  His name is Michael Tamer.  Michael would you please come up here.  Michael is from Colleyville.  He is president of a telecommunications company.  He has been coming to our church for just a couple of months.  Thanks, Michael for being here.

Michael, let me begin by asking you what were your first impressions were when you attended the Fellowship a couple of months ago?

In September, John and Kendra Famigilio invited me to come to a service with my wife and our two children on a Saturday night.  My wife and I are from Connecticut.  My wife is Catholic.  I grew up being what I would call “northern” Methodist.  We used to describe our relationship with God as kind of casual.  We went to church but we didn’t go during the summers.  We took the summers off.  I was brought up to believe that the best parts of church were the pot luck dinners and softball games and the fellowship.  No pun intended.

We came to church.  Just look at this place.  There are electric guitars and drums, a video display and a couple of rock and roll guys playing instruments.  They hit the amplifiers and you get this major league jolt.  They did the music and then did the play.  By this time my eyes were wide open and I was wondering what I was going to tell my friends when the service was over.  When it was time for the preacher, I was expecting an elderly gentleman in a robe.  Instead, I got Ed, with the whole GQ look that he has got going.  Then he spoke and I thought that the message was brilliant.  I remember thinking to myself, “God, is he good.”  I probably should have said gosh.

When the service was over we walked out.  Kendra said, “Well, what did you think.”  There was this one word that kept repeating itself in my brain, and I was in church so I had to say it.  “I thought it was really funky.”  And she said, “Funky, what do you mean by funky?”  I answered, “Because of everything that I was brought up to believe church was, the robes, the candles, the elderly gentlemen and the organs, I shouldn’t have liked this place.”  I shouldn’t have liked it at all.  But there were a couple of things that occurred while I was here that I couldn’t not admit.  The first one was that I really enjoyed the service.  The second thing was that I felt better after the service than before I came, which was really unusual.  The third thing was that I learned a whole bunch.

Michael, where did you go from there?

Well, the band is going to hate me if I don’t cover myself here.  The next week we came, but came late.  We came after the music.  I missed it, so I had to call Kendra back to assure her that I really liked the music even though I had called it funky.  We started coming to church regularly.  We were invited to go to one of the home team bible study groups.

Let me break in right there, Michael.  If you don’t know this, our home teams are part of our small group ministry.  We have small groups that meet throughout the metroplex.  Go ahead.

It fascinated me that they would let people that weren’t members, weren’t part of the club, actually go to home teams.  People were very gracious and quite nice.  I will give you one advance bit of advice.  If you are ever invited to a bible study, there is one critical component that you should bring with you – a bible.  We didn’t bring one.  But they were nice about that omission.  A group of adults sat around and discussed the Bible, not a lot of thees or thous, they were just talking about the Bible and what it meant to be a Christian.  It was fascinating for us because, although we had done many Christian-like things, it was the first time that we were made aware of the fact that we didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ so we weren’t Christians.  That was kind of a surprise after 37 years.

Michael, did you actually have a Bible at that time or did you later go out to get one.

Well, actually the next week during one of your sermons you made a comment that you should view the Bible as love letters from God.  Well, I like to read and I had never read the Bible, so I thought I should.  I went home and I looked all over the house.  We didn’t have one, so I didn’t feel too bad about the home team episode.  But then, not wanting to make too much of a commitment, I went to Half-Price Books to get one.  For those of you who might be looking for a Bible, they have a whole bunch of them there.  I was trying to find a New Testament, a modern translation.  I bought a paperback New Testament.  Someone had taken it from the Day’s Inn and sold it to Half-Price Books.  I was charged twenty-seven cents for it, which I thought was really neat.  I read that New Testament and then somebody bought me a whole Bible.  Then I started reading it in public places.  That is kind of a unique experience.  For those of you who are business people, if you want your own row on an airplane, just crack your Bible.  They all just move right away.  Lots of room.

So, Michael, you still attended the church regularly.  Then what happened.      Next I began trying to find out how you could establish a personal relationship with Christ.  I believed in God and I believed that there was a Son of God.  I believed that He died on the cross for our sins and rose to heaven and that if God wanted to squish us, He could squish.  But I didn’t quite understand the Christ in your heart thing.  If you have grown up in another church and you look back at it, it is pretty powerful but I clearly missed it.  Or it happened and I didn’t see it.  I remember I joined the church, but I didn’t retain a really cognizant memory of it occurring.  So I wanted to do it for the right reasons.  I didn’t want to do it for the insurance plan.  Don’t get me wrong.  An eternity in heaven compared to the crying and gnashing of teeth is a major league benefit.  But I didn’t want to do it as a placebo, I didn’t want to do it because of fear.  I wanted to do it for the right reasons.

What would you say to people out there in the 10 o’clock worship service who might be where you were, or maybe they are where you are today?

Well first off, come to the nine o’clock service because there is less crowding, there are no people standing in the aisles.  Two things.  The first thing is that having read the Bible and attended church, there is so much stuff that you can learn from it.  A friend told me that love is not an emotion, it is a decision.  Every morning you wake up and you decide to love your spouse and you decide to love your neighbor despite their shortcomings.  Ultimately it comes down to the same thing with believing in Christ.  For a long time there, I thought that I was going to fall in love with God.  That I was going to kind of swoon.  That it would jolt me.  That at the end of a service I would feel a powerful feeling while Ed prayed that prayer.  What I came to understand was that despite my doubts, and I would be the Colonel of doubt, I would have to choose to believe.  I did that twenty-seven days ago.  So I am just kind of a pup.

The second thing would be that it is OK to be a seeker.  It really is.  My search was incredibly cool.  And I know that from now on it will be even better.  This is a great place to seek.  When I come into this church and sit down, I am jazzed, I am engaged.  I know I am going to hear something.  I talk to a lot of bright people every day of the week, but I think I learn more here in an hour than I do over the course of a week.  Somewhere along the line I think that we have gotten a little out of whack here.  My Mom calls and asks if I went to church.  Did the kids go to church.  It is like someone is checking it off somewhere.  Maybe somebody is!  But I think that is the wrong question.  I think the right question is, did you listen at church?  Did you learn anything at church?  Did anything that you heard there seem applicable?  When I drive to this place I know that I am passing people that are going to some other place and I hope that it is really good.  But I’ll tell what, this is a pretty special place.  Some people have been here for four or five years.  I only wish I had known about it earlier.  There is lots of stuff to learn here.

Michael, we appreciate your coming by.  For those of you who don’t know, Michael is not a member of our church.  He has been attending for awhile.  We are so thankful, though, that he has made the most important decision, which is to know Christ personally.  He sure is a brave guy to sit on one of these stools and be interviewed by me.  Again, we appreciate your coming.

I am sure that many people over the four services this weekend can identify with the spiritual pilgrimage of Michael Tamer.  Maybe you are investigating the claims of Christ.  Maybe you are seeking.  We want you to know how important it is that we communicate Christ to you.  That is why we are spending an entire weekend talking about evangelism, one of the core values of our church.  Today, this message is designed specifically for those here who are believers, for those inside the family of God.  If you are outside the family of God, relax, listen but remember that this is for those who are members here at the Fellowship of Las Colinas.

I want to ask and answer three questions about communicating Christ this morning.  I call this the 3M approach to evangelism.  The first question is this.  How can I be motivated to share Christ?  First, when I realize the scope of my blessings.  You know when I see seekers who matter to God poking around the garbage dumps of life, looking for security and meaning and power and strength, when I see them moving from lover to lover, bar to bar, fun fix to fun fix, when I see them moving down this dead end street, turning down that dead end street, I want to stop them and ask if they realize what they are doing.  You need to experience God.  I encourage you and challenge you to pray and write your prayers out.  One of the important aspects of journaling is that it makes you see on a page the scope of God’s blessings, what He has given to you, what He has done for you.  When I realize who I am in Christ, when I get a grasp of the scope of God’s blessings, it motivates me to communicate Him with others.  I say to myself, who wouldn’t want to have a personal relationship with the living Lord.

The second thing that motivates us to share our faith, and should motivate us to share our faith is when we realize that we can be used by God.  Take out your bulletin insert.  I love what it says in Acts 1:8.  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be My witnesses…”  Circle the word witnesses.  Amazing as it seems, normal, everyday, average human beings are God’s special agents to communicate His message on earth.  Jesus said, “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  See how strategic Christ was in evangelism?  You can be used by God.  Just think about it.  Someone in your corner of the earth needs a person like you, with your personality, with your background, with your experience, with your education to share Christ and communicate His love to them.  I can’t do it in your circle of friends.  You can’t do it in my circle of friends.  God has given all of us a scope and an area of influence.  Will we communicate Christ or not?  That is the question.  But when I realize that I can be used by God, that motivates me to share Christ.

The third motivation is simply this.  I am motivated when I realize the reality of hell.  I don’t like to talk about hell, I don’t like to read about it.  I don’t like to think about it.  Hell is a factual place.  I believe in it rationally.  I believe in it intellectually.  The Bible says that people who matter to God will spend eternity there if they don’t repent and turn by faith to Christ.  II Thessalonians 1:8-9.

“…those who do not wish to know God and who refuse to accept His plan to save them through our Lord Jesus Christ will be punished in everlasting hell, forever separated from the Lord, never to see the glory of His power.”  One of the major teaching themes of Christ was the reality of hell.  Jesus was saddened because he saw the rich young ruler on a road to hell.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he knew scores and scores of people who would spend eternity in hell.  Researcher George Barner writes that 2.2 million Americans will die this year.  He estimates that about 1 million of them will go to an eternity in hell.  When I just ponder this thought, when I realize the reality of hell, it motivates me to get off my spiritual duff to do something in someone’s life for Christ.  Who knows.  I could be their last hope.  You could be their last hope.

The fourth motivation concerning communicating Christ with other is when you realize the blessings and benefits of leading someone to Christ.  The Bible says in Luke 15:10, “…there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  A cosmic celebration, a heavenly hoedown.  All you have to hear one time someone say, “Because of what you told me about Christ, my life is changed.”  If you hear that once, that will be the motivation to communicate Him to other people.  Lost people matter to God so much that He commissioned His only Son to die on the cross for them.  If it is important to God and to Christ who made the irreligious and the lost a major priority in His ministry then it must be important to the church.  The church must have as one of its core values the area of evangelism.  We have to have one hand with God and the other hand reaching out to those persons who do not know Him, inviting them into the kingdom.  In Luke, chapter 15, Christ talked about three circumstances and situations where something important was lost.  He talked about a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son.  Every time something that was lost was returned, a party was thrown.  The lost sheep, the lost coin and the son returned home, the place went nuts.  God says that in heaven every time one sinner comes to Him, they throw a party in heaven.  That is why we spend so much energy and effort and time and prayer being sensitive to the needs of those people who are outside the family of God.  The motivation of sharing Christ.

Here is the second M in the 3M approach to evangelism.  What should be my method of communicating Christ?  I see the motivation and I am starting to get motivated.  Now what is the method.  Picture, if you will, the stereotypical evangelist, hair spray glistening, hell-fire preaching, finger pointing, southern accent modeling evangelist.  And many of these evangelists are great individuals.  We see them when we channel surf.  We read about them in the newspaper holding this revival and that conference.  I have got news for you.  They only reach a fraction of humanity.  Most Christians say this about evangelism.  I’m not going to share my faith.  I’m not going to communicate Christ with others because if I do I will have to turn into the stereotypical evangelist.  I will have to become someone I am not.  I can’t do that.  And the evil one loves to give us those lies.  “Hey, it will turn you into a weirdo.  It will turn you into a spiritual freak.”  That is not true, not at all.  It is obvious that because people are different, are unique, they need to be reached with different and unique people, all communicating the truth the way they are wired up.  In other words, God says through His Word, you communicate Me like I made you.  Don’t try to do it like Ed Young.  Don’t try to do it like Jim Smith.  Don’t try to do it like Lori Todd.  Do it the way you are wired.

I want to share with you briefly six Biblical methods of communicating Christ to individuals in your sphere of influence.  These methods are highlighted and detailed in a book I highly recommend entitled BECOMING A CONTAGIOUS CHRISTIAN by Lee Strobel, Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg.  We will be teaching this course to our membership once a quarter beginning in two months.  The first method that you might identify with is the confrontational method.  Can some of you identify with that?  Are you a confrontational person?  Do you say, “Man, your breath is horrible?”  “That really doesn’t match.”  If you are a confrontational person you are in good company because there was a man in the Bible who was confrontational.  His name was Simon Peter.  He preached a sermon in Acts 2.  Here is what Peter said to all of the Jewish people.  He said, “You guys and gals crucified the Messiah.  You killed Him.  But He rose again.  And you had better repent and be baptized.”  Three thousand repented and were baptized that day.  Peter was the one who tried to walk on water.  At least he stepped out of the boat.  Peter was a man of action, a type A personality.  When they tried to arrest Jesus in the garden, he took up a sword and cut the guys ear off.  Peter said that he would never turn his back on Jesus but he did.  There are certain people who will only respond to the truth when they are slapped with it.  They need to be confronted.  If your approach, your style and your giftedness is confrontational, go out there and confront.  But, take a cue from Lost In Space.  Remember that old television show?  The robot said warning, warning, warning, warning.  Hey, confrontational, warning, warning, use tact.  Use tact.

The second methodology that maybe some of you can identify with is the intellectual approach.  “Well, Ed, how do I know if I am an intellectual or not?”  If you love to debate, if you love research, if you are well educated, if you like to bring in all sorts of arguments, you are in good company.  The Apostle Paul used the intellectual approach many times in his ministry.  Case in point, Acts 17.  Paul gave a brief message, a defense of the faith, on a place called Mars Hill.  There was a giant statute there and inscribed below were the words, “To An Unknown God.”  Paul said that this God was unknown to them, but he could tell them about that God who revealed Himself through Christ.  He defended, the Bible says, and explained Jesus.  Push the pause button.  Bring in Mr. Confrontational, Simon Peter.  What do you think Peter would have said to the intelligentsia on Mars Hill.  He would have said, “Give me a sledge hammer.  This idol is ungodly.  You repent and you better be baptized.”  It would not have worked.  God uses specific people to reach unique individuals for Christ.  Be yourself.  Are you an intellectual?  Warning, warning.  Intellectuals, you cannot argue someone into the Kingdom of God.  You can’t do it.  You have to let the Holy Spirit do that.  He has got to work, He has got to bring them in.

The third method is the testimonial method.  Remember the blind beggar that Jesus healed?  He simply said this to everyone he saw.  “I was once blind, now I see.  If this is not God, who is He?”  If you can tell stories well, if you have had a dramatic testimony like Michael Tamer, if people respond when you talk, if you see seekers really connecting with your life experiences, this might be your method.  It very well could be the approach that God wants you to take.  Warning, warning.  Testimonial people, don’t talk too much about yourself.  It is tempting to always talk about yourself.

The fourth method is the relational method.  Maybe you are Mr. Friendly or Ms. Friendly, always inviting people over, going out to eat, never met an enemy.  Matthew was like that.  Matthew was a wealthy tax collector who fell in love with Jesus Christ.  Matthew couldn’t confront, he wasn’t that intellectual, maybe he was only OK with a testimony.  What could Matthew do?  He could throw a party.  He could put one on.  So he invited all of his hell-bound friends over to his palatial home, he invited Jesus Christ and the disciples.  He knew that when his friends rubbed shoulders with Christ and the disciples, they would see something different.  They would see changed lives.  He threw a party with a purpose.  Maybe you need to do that.  The sad thing is, research tells us that two years after you become a Christian you have no real relationships with those people you knew before you became a Christian.  That is sad.  How about throwing a party with a purpose.  Do the Matthew thing.  Warning, warning.  Don’t get so involved in the party and the friendships that you put truth telling on the back burner.  One day you have got to tell the truth about who Christ is.

Another approach is the invitational approach.  Jesus met the woman at the well.  She ran back home and brought all the town people back to hear Jesus.  Many people met Him personally.  Who needs to be invited to this church, from your apartment complex, from your neighborhood, from your health club, from your foursome?  Who needs to be invited here?  Maybe you can identify with the woman at the well.  Maybe you are good at inviting people.  Warning, warning.  Don’t put it off only on the church.  You, too, will have to come to the point where you discuss the claims of Christ.

The sixth method is service evangelism.  Dorcas is a lady mentioned in the New Testament.  She served people.  She made clothes for the needy.  She assisted them.  She communicated Jesus with others.  Because of her acts of service, because she modeled true Christianity, people got saved.  Maybe that is you.  Warning, warning.  Don’t get so enmeshed in service that you forget to speak.

The first M, motivation.  The second M, method.  The third M, what is your MO, modus operandi.  How do you do it?  Three quick, easy yet profound steps.  First build a relationship of integrity with an irreligious person in your life.  Some of you are saying that you don’t have any.  Build the relationship on a common passion that you share with this person.  Don’t build it on deep theological debate.  Build it on golf.  Build it on bowling.  Build it on antiquing.  Build it on sewing.  Build it on snowboarding.  Build it on flyfishing, yea.  Build it on something that you have in common with the individual.  And the first time you are with this person, the second time you are with them, the third time, the fourth time, don’t mention Christ, the Bible, God, the Holy Spirit, church, salvation, unless the Holy Spirit muscles you to say something.  Show the person that you love them.  Because if you know Christ, you do love them.  If I didn’t know Christ, I wouldn’t give a flip about Michael Tamer.  Who cares about him?  But I know Jesus.  He is in my heart and He gives me a supernatural love for people.  That is why I love him and I will love him eternally.  Brothers and sisters in Christ love each other and we should love the lost the way Christ loved them.  Build a relationship of integrity.  You can’t go to the bars, the topless clubs, to places that will cause you to compromise.  Model authentic Christianity.  For some of you, around your nonbelieving friends, you don’t have a testimony to tell because you are one way with one group and another way with another group.  That is pretty heavy.  Build a relationship.

The second step.  Share a verbal witness with this irreligious person.  And here is how you share with them.  You pray.  You say, “God, you give me an opportunity to share.”  And just give them sparks of Christ.  You should be able to give your testimony in about a minute and a half.  Your testimony is this.  How you met Christ, your life before Christ, what Christ has done in your life and now what He is doing and going to do in your life.  Say that to someone, not using all the church terms, but terms a person can connect with.  Talk about a high risk prayer.  A lot of you say to me that your life is kind of boring right now.  You pray that prayer and you will find out what happens.  Talk about maturing, talk about growing deep, talk about being a fully devoted follower of Christ, start sharing your faith.  Sad to say, the first time I ever prayed this prayer I was twenty years old.  I had been a Christian for years and years and years.  Then I prayed this prayer because someone challenged me to do it.  And the next day a teammate of mine walked up to me.  He was involved with drugs, involved in stealing, involved in a lot of other things and he said, “Ed, something is different about you and Lisa.  I see you all going to church.  There is something different.  Is it this God thing?”  I was rattled because the prayer was answered so rapidly.  I fumbled and stuttered and quoted about four or five verses incorrectly.  I didn’t know what I was saying.  The Holy Spirit, though, interpreted, and the guy became a believer.  He accepted Christ.  And I thought, how unbelievable, God used me to do this when I prayed that high risk prayer.  And that got to whole adventure going.  Sad to say.  I am going to tell you right now about this friend of mine named Scott.  I had no place, no church to invite my friend to attend or become a part of.  I though about the church that I was attending.  It was a church set up for the already convinced, a holy huddle.  We had our own secret language for the secret club.  We were nice, it was clean, it wasn’t messy, it was easy.  He couldn’t connect.  He couldn’t relate.  If we are serious about being a Biblical church, one of the core values must always be evangelism.  It has to be.  If a church is not evangelistic, they are not Biblical, they are not Holy Spirit inspired, they are puffed up, pietistic, legalistic, hypocritic institutions.  They are taking the easy way out.  You know what Jesus said to believers?  “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and women.”  You know I love to fish.  I love it.  Fishing, though, is a messy sport.  It is messy, it is dirty.  Evangelism is messy.  It is dirty.  We attract a lot of people with a lot of problems who have messed up hearts and lives.  We have got to grow deeper.  We have got to mature.  We, though, sould never lose what Christ came to do, seek and save those who are lost.

And that brings us to the third step.  Invite the person to attend a church, a service like this one that is sensitive to their needs.  Do you realize what we have here?  I have confidence to invite anyone, from the Michael Tamers of the world, to whoever, to our church and I know they will hear a message from the music, from the drama, from video, from whoever is teaching about Christ in language they can understand.  We don’t transform the gospel, we translate the gospel.  We translate it into words that people can understand and connect with.  What would happen if you guys and gals invited one irreligious person to our church next week?  We couldn’t hold the people, we would have to have ten services.  Research shows that one out of four nonchurched adults would attend church this weekend if someone they knew invited them.  In other words, there are 14 to 18 million adults sitting at home right now who would be at church today if Christians had invited them.  There is nothing like it.

Now what do we do with Michael Tamer?  He is just a pup.  A babe in Christ, 27 days old, still on formula.  What do we do with him?  Do we say, “Michael, hey, you’ve got a ticket to heaven…..and we don’t care.  We’ll see you later.”  Then we go to the next one.  No, we don’t do that.  Now, the church must become intentional and process-minded to take this person who used to be uninterested, now he is interested and has committed his life to Christ, and move him down the track to being a fully developed, devoted, mature follower of Christ.  We will talk about that next week.

MISSING IN ACTION SERMON SERIES

A LOVE THAT NEVER LEAVES

ED YOUNG

NOVEMBER 12, 1995

It is amazing how many classes and courses are being offered these days.  You can take Tae Kwon Do classes, sushi making classes, mountain climbing classes or snow boarding classes.  A friend of mine told me recently that he is enrolled in calf roping lessons.  I, myself, am thinking about taking a fly fishing course.  Although classes and courses are interesting, we could miss a couple of the ones I just named and it wouldn’t change the trajectory of our lives, would it?  It is sad to say but rarely are classes being offered in the most important areas of our lives:  classes on marriage, classes on dating, classes on parenting or maybe even a class on today’s subject matter – love.

I have never had a person walk up to me in tears and look me in the eye and say, “Ed, I need prayer because my sushi rolls are falling apart.”  “I need counseling because I can’t seem to get the knack of snow boarding.”  I don’t get those statements.  Do you?  But I do get a steady stream of letters and calls from people whose lives are messed up relationally, emotionally and spiritually.

Today we are going to take a crash course in the greatest subject in all the world, love.  It is tempting for me to start the message by jumping right into love, to talk about the facets of love and to give you practical, everyday applications of love.  We will do that in a little while but if we are going to understand true love, we have got to grasp God’s love.  If we are going to understand true love we have got to grasp God’s love.  There is a lot of confusion about love making the rounds these days.  Some confuse love with an emotion.  They say that love is a feeling.  Tina Turner called it a second-hand emotion.  I hate to say this to Tina but love is not a feeling.  Love is not an emotion.  It causes feelings and it causes emotions, but it is not a feeling nor an emotion.  God commands love.  He doesn’t command feelings.  As an earthly father I can’t say to my children, “Kids, I command you to be happy.”  “We’re trying, we’re trying to be happy, Daddy.”  I can’t do that.  Love is not a feeling.  Love is not an emotion.

Others confuse love with lust.  Love is not lust.  Lust cannot wait to get.  Love cannot wait to give.  And a lot of love these days is pseudo-love, thinly veiled selfishness.  We make this big statement.  “I love you.”  But if you read the fine print it says, “I’ll love you if you meet my needs, if you are sweet to me, if you are kind, if you show me affection perfectly, everything is A-OK.  But the moment you stop doing that I won’t love you anymore.”  People talk about falling into love like you fall into a swimming pool.  Love is a decision.  The Bible explodes all of this confusion and nails it down precisely in a verse that is not on your scripture sheet.  Listen as I read this.  I John 3:18.  “Let us stop just saying we love people.  Let us really love them and show it by our actions.”  Love is a choice.  Love always reveals itself in action.  Love is a choice and it always reveals itself in action.

Today, here is what God wants to do in our lives.  God loves you and God loves me so much, He wants to take us from the natural realm of loving into the supernatural realm of loving.  Is that a great deal, or what?  God wants to do that and He will do it if we can comprehend and answer two questions about love.  I will spend the lion’s share of my time addressing these two questions.

The first question.  How does God express His love to me?  It is no small thing to say to someone, I love you.  That is a high risk pronouncement, wouldn’t you agree.  For those of us who are married, think back to the time you were dating.  For some of us it might be a long time back.  Do you remember those “statements at the door”, guys?  You would walk her to the door and after the first or maybe second date you would take the risk and say, “I really had a nice time, tonight.”  And you were hoping, you were praying that she would return the sentiment by saying, “I had a nice time tonight, too.”  And if you got past that hurdle you would go, “Oh boy, I’m cruising now.”  A couple of weeks later, the next hurdle.  You kind of get more and more vulnerable.  You say, “I really enjoy being with you.  I do.”  You would wait and she would say it back.  Then you would walk to your car and shout, “Yes.”  But you were kind of putting off the inevitable.  You were starting to feel like you loved her and you knew it was a matter of time before you would have to say that three word sentence, that high risk pronouncement.  The next time your palms are sweaty and your heart is racing.  You look into her eyes.  “Of all the girls I have dated, you are the most special.  You are incredible.”  Then finally you would have to say it.  You think to yourself that if you say it and she rejects it, you will be devastated.  But finally you know that you have got to be real.  You have got to be true to your feelings.  You have got to take the risk.  You come to that point when you look into her eyes and say, “I love you.”  You’ve got it off your chest, the cards are on the table, you have showed your hand, you have taken the mystery out.  And then she returns it by saying, “I love you too.”

God makes this high risk pronouncement.  God comes right out and says it even though He knows we might reject it, even though He knows we might spurn it, even though He knows we might turn our backs on it, God says, “I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”  And when you make a statement like that you have got to back it up, because love costs something.  God didn’t just stop with saying I love you, He actually put it in print, in bold print.  He went on record in the book, the Bible.  The first way that God expresses His love to you and me is through documentation.  He writes it down.  And God says that He writes it down over and over again so people will never waver on the point, so people will never wonder or speculate.  He writes like this.  Isaiah 43:1.  ” Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name.  You are mine.”  Romans 5:8.  “But God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Jeremiah 31:3.  “The Lord appeared to us saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  God is saying that His love is never going to run out.  Don’t ever confuse His love with human love.  “I have drawn you with loving kindness.”

I have talked to many, many persons who tell me that they have committed a sin that has broken the back of God’s love.  People really believe that.  And I love to point them to Jeremiah 31:3.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  We are talking about a love on the supernatural realm.  God expresses His love for us through documentation.

God also expresses His love for us through illustration.  As a kid my favorite magazine, and one of my favorites now, is Sports Illustrated.  My brother, Ben, and I would take every issue of SI and remove the cover and a variety of article illustrations ranging from badminton to boxing, volley ball to football.  You name it, we saved them.  We then made a sports collage in our room.  Our walls and our ceiling were covered with sports pictures.  You know during the 70s a collage was the thing to do.  You could walk into our bedroom and regardless what sport you were into, you could find some sort of picture you could connect with.  In essence God has given us, through the pages of scripture, a love collage.  As we walk into God’s room, He knows that certain ones of us will connect with unique word pictures and He uses word pictures to communicate and express and illustrate His love to us.

Sit back and listen to these verses.  Maybe you are an outdoor’s person or an animal lover.  Matthew 23:37.  “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…”  He talks about His love in Proverbs comparing it to a lioness, comparing it to a bear.  If you are a scientist, He says in Psalm 103:11, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving-kindness toward those who fear Him.”  Maybe you best communicate with the love of God as a parent.  If you are a mother Isaiah 49:15 can be that word picture.  “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”  If you are a father, Psalm 103:13.  “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”  Maybe you best connect with a picture of a friend and you have a best friend.  God says in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”  Or if you are an athlete, read I Corinthians 9:24.  “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.”  God demonstrates His love.  God illustrates His love.

And I know some are thinking, talk is cheap, it is a bunch of rhetoric.  It is great that God has told me this, but how does He show it?  How does God really reveal it?  How does He express it?  Remember God expresses it in print, that is documentation.  God expresses it in picture, that is illustration.  God also expresses His love in practice.  He truly demonstrated it.  Documentation, illustration and demonstration.  God demonstrates His love to you and to me.  Take a quick glance through history.  God demonstrated His love to Adam and Eve.  After they sinned, He gave them a second chance.  Noah and his family, they were going to get into serious flooding problems, and God delivered them and saved them because of His love.  When David committed adultery with Bathsheba, God demonstrated His love to David by forgiving him.  Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, and God demonstrated his love to Abraham by providing a ram in place of his son.  You could go on and on throughout the pages of scripture until finally you come to Jesus.  God expressed His love to us by sending Jesus Christ.  He put on flesh, He got knocked around on the playing fields of life.  God offered Jesus Christ, His only and precious Son, as a sin sacrifice for non-deserving people like you and like me, and the cross stands as the ultimate symbol of God’s love.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

It doesn’t end there, though, because God gets specific.  God tells us throughout the pages of scripture that, “I have loved you since you were born.  I have reached out to you.  I have offered you guidance.  I have offered you salvation.  I have offered you a home in heaven.  You, you are Mine and My love is right there for you.  You either receive it or not.”

Listen to me very carefully because we do one of two things with God’s love.  We either receive God’s love, or we reject God’s love.  It is as simple as that.  For those of us who receive God’s love, we open up our hearts and once we discover and receive it, then we want to return God’s love by giving of our time, our abilities, our talents, our treasures.  It is a natural thing to love God and to want to express our feelings of love and gratitude toward Him.  Some here, though, have rejected God’s love.  You have turned your back on it, you have explained it away, you have put it off.  And you keep saying to yourself, “Someday, someday I will get right with God.”  God says that there will be a someday and that someday is called a day of reckoning.  Many here, this is no easy to say, will face God on that day of reckoning and God will look into your eyes and say, “I have loved you since you were born.  I have provided a way for you.  I have protected you from Satan’s attacks in areas that you will never even know.  I have offered My love to you through that relationship, through that message, through that drama, through that bible study, through that friend and you kept on trampling My love.  You kept on rejecting My love and you kept on saying you wanted to do it your way.  Your way.  Your way.”  And in essence, God will say, “You had your way on earth and you will have your way in eternity.  You will spend eternity in hell.”  We choose heaven or hell.  God doesn’t force it on us.  We choose it.  He has offered for everyone to spend eternity with Him, but some here are rejecting God’s love.  Amazing.  God expresses His love to us.   Have you received it?  If you have received it, let’s jump to the next important question about love.

If I am in contact with God’ love, how do I express God’s love to others?  That’s a fair question, isn’t it?  I have this love that is so phenomenal, I have discovered it, I have accepted it, I am returning it to God.  How do I express it to others?  The Bible says that I express God’s love to others through serving.  Love and service are inseparably linked.  The Bible says that all of us have unique abilities and talents.  You have seen an interesting service so far today.  You have seen some video, you have heard music, you have seen the guys in the band and the people who are the singers.  For example, our drummer back here who plays the electronic drums has been gifted by God with the talent to play those drums.  God has given him rhythm.  Did God give him rhythm just for himself?  Did God want the drummer to spend eternity in a little shell just playing away for himself and his own pleasure.  How about the singers?  God has gifted these people with the ability to sing, on earth and completely in heaven.  Does God want the singers to stand in a little soundproof room for the rest of their lives and into eternity and sing for themselves?  You see where I am going, don’t you?  God has blessed us with gifts and He wants us to bless others by using our gifts, by serving others, by getting involved in people’s lives.  A lot of us talk about serving God.  Many here are actually doing it.  You are involved in the preschool ministry, in the children’s ministry, in the sound and lighting, in the drama, in the video, in our home team ministry.  You are putting action behind your words.  You are serving others.  On a more practical level, are you serving your spouse?  Are you serving your children?  Are you serving the people you work with and word for?  Do you have an attitude of service?  Jesus said if you want to be great, become a servant.  Since we are in this class on love, here is your first assignment.  For the next seven days do one act of service secretly each day for one individual or seven different individuals.

Three months ago I decided to clean the kitchen.  I told Lisa to relax and that I would take care of the kids and clean up the kitchen.  As I began to clean the kitchen I began to sing a little ditty, “He is a servant, Ed is a servant, watch Ed serve, watch him clean.”  I am not talking about that.  That is drawing attention to yourself.  I am talking about service without pointing to ourselves to get the credit.          Love, also, should express itself through commitment.  We have got to be committed.  Love and commitment go together, hand in hand.  How many people say that they have decided to just live together, then maybe later they will get married.  Hey, that is not love.  That is affection.  Love is commitment.  It is not afraid of the risk.  It is saying to the other person that “I am going to hang in there even though I don’t feel like it all the time, even though the emotions don’t always jell together.  I am committed to you.”  The same with being committed to the church, the office.  When was the last time you verbalized your commitment to someone, someone special to you, someone you are with daily?  When was the last time you committed to a local body of Christ?  We have got many people here who show up every week and they are eating free, living off the rest of us who give of our time, our talents and our treasures.  It is time for you to make a commitment to be a part of this church.  The Bible commands us to be a part of the local Body of Christ for a biblical reason, Christ is committed to the church, for a cultural reason, it is the antidote for our society, also for a practical reason, it defines who can be counted on.  Commitment.  Are you committing?  Make a commitment to someone this week.  That is your assignment.

I received some letters recently that really stirred my heart.  The first one reads, “We have never experienced such a loving and generous church family anywhere.  We were lost until we found the Fellowship.  I don’t know what my life would be like without this church.  The people really care about us as Christians and as individuals.”  That, right there, is an example of service and commitment.  Another one writes, “My husband and I accepted Christ as the result of attending the FLC.  Christ healed our broken marriage and blessed us with a beautiful, healthy girl.  We were blessed with a wonderful home team of believers who genuinely care about our lives.”  Another writes, “We were on the verge of divorce.  Since coming to the Fellowship, we truly have learned and experienced what love and commitment is.  With God in our lives, we will be able to make it.”  My hats go off to hundreds of you who are committed to your personal relationship with the Lord, to your family and to this church.

Another way we express love is through sacrifice.  Sacrifice means to give the best I have for a better purpose.  Are you doing any sacrificial love?  Are you giving the best you have for a greater purpose?  Are you giving the best even though someone will not pat you on the back, even though it is really going to cost you something?  Are you doing that?  People often wonder how to cure materialism in the lives of their children.  One of the ways you do it is by giving and sacrificing and showing your children and modeling to them that things are not as important as your personal relationship with the living Lord.  And during this Build The Vision campaign, as we have made these three-year commitments to give to build the first phase of a beautiful facility on our new property, one of the most important elements of this campaign has been the example that many parents have set for their children.  Many have decided to put some purchases on hold, have decided that they don’t need to own certain things, have decided to spend less on Christmas gift giving, in order that they can give sacrificially to the building campaign.  That is making a great impression on many children.  Sacrificial love.

Another way we express love is by sharing.  One of the most loving things you can do is share the Lord Jesus Christ with others.  Invite them to the church.  Share with them what the Lord has done in your life.  Love gives us no other option.  We have to be committed to what Christ was committed to and Christ was committed to people.  He loved people and He said that we are to be committed to and love people.  Are you loving people?  Are you sharing with people?  Are you giving of yourself?

You know that the classic text on love is found in I Corinthians 13:13.  “These three remain, faith, hope and love.  The greatest of these is love.”  That text has always puzzled me.  Why does the Bible say that the greatest of the three is love?  The last two weeks we talked about faith and hope and today we are speaking on love.  Why is love the greatest?  I discovered the reason this past week.  Here is why love is the greatest of the three.  Once we get to heaven we won’t need any more faith, we will see the Lord face to face.  Hope, who needs hope once we are in heaven?  Every need is met to the tenth power.  The only thing that will remain is love, a love that never, ever leaves.

Do you understand how God has demonstrated His love to you?  Do you understand how you are to demonstrate God’s love to others?  I pray that you do.