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2 HAVE AND 2 HOLD SERMON SERIES

HOW TO MAKE A GREAT MARRIAGE

ED YOUNG

APRIL 16, 1995

The most powerful event in the history of the world is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  During that event our Lord said and did what He said and did throughout His ministry.  He said, “You know what?  One day I am going to die on the cross and I am going to come back from the grave.”  And this one event split history into two parts, BC and AD.  Every time you write a check, what is the reference point?  Easter.  Nineteen hundred and ninety-five years since the resurrection of our Lord.  And I believe most of you who are here in this service, you would say, “Ed, I agree with you, man.  The resurrection is the most important event in the history of the world but so what?  So what?  How is the resurrection relevant for my life today?  What does it have to do with me?”  The Bible says it has a lot to do with you, and a lot to do with me.  If you will look at the first scripture verse on your outline, Ephesians 1:19-20.  It says, “How tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God, the same power demonstrated when Christ was raised from the dead.”  Is that a powerful verse or what?  The Bible says the same power that brought Jesus Christ back from the grave is available for you and for me.

Today, Easter Sunday, I’m beginning a brand new series called 2 Have and 2 Hold – How To Make A Great Marriage.  I think it is appropriate to begin a series on marriage on Easter Sunday because a lot of marriages here need to be resurrected.  You need the power that is available and that is the same power that brought Jesus Christ back from the grave.  2 HAVE AND 2 HOLD.  Most marriages here fall into different categories.  Some people have great marriages.  And if you have a great marriage, that is a rarity.  Others of us here have decent marriages.  Maybe it is kind of in a rut, same old, same old, and you need some spark in the relationship.  Still others here, you have some problems in your marriage that need to be dealt with right now.  And these problems can be messing up your marriage.  And still others, your marriage is hanging by a thread.  If you don’t get help soon, then you can chalk your marriage up as just another divorce statistic.

Yesterday morning I did something I normally don’t do.  I went outside and I washed my wife’s car.  My wife drives a big, old suburban.  We have four children, an eight year old, a three year old and twins who are nine months of age so we need a suburban.  I decided to wash the exterior of the car.  I washed it and it looked so nice, we are talking about showroom quality.  Then my wife walked out and she says, “Honey, did you clean the inside?”  And I thought, well I can leave and work on my sermon because I have to speak six times this weekend.  We had one service last night and five today.  But I decided I really should clean the interior of her car.  So I got the Armor-all and got the vacuum cleaner.  When we moved the twin infant seats from the back seat of the car, we discovered we had more Nabisco crackers than the entire Nabisco corporation.  Finally, we cleaned up the vehicle and it felt so nice to have the suburban cleaned on the inside and on the outside.

If the truth were known, a lot of our marriages look great externally.  We have our Easter best on today.  We are sitting here in this beautiful theater, our arm might be around our mate and we are smiling and people look at us and think, “Oh, look at that marriage, showroom quality, they are so cleaned up, they are so nice, they are so pristine and perfect.”  But in reality, there is a lot of hidden dirt, a lot of hidden grime.  There are some internal issues internally that need to be dealt with.  I promise you if you stay here for this series, one hour a week for the next month, you’re marriage and your life will never, ever be the same.  Not only will it be clean on the outside, it will also be clean on the inside and you can have that resurrection power operating in your relationship with your mate.

We have some people here who are single adults.  If you are a single adult, lift your hand.  If you are single, that means you are not married.  Hands are going up everywhere.  Now you singles, I know what you are thinking.  You are saying, “Ed, this series is not for me, it is irrelevant.  I’m not going to get married, I don’t even have a prospect out there.  Give me a break.  That means I can skip church for the next month.  All right.  Skiing.  Golf.  Tennis.  Rollerblading.”  No.  No.  Don’t speak too soon.  Statistics show that most of you who are not married right now will be married within the next three to five years.  And most of the problems in marriage occur because no information, no study, no teaching was received before you bonded in a church and said, I do.  So, single adults, this series is as much for you as it is for us who have been married for a large chunk of time.

A friend of mine told me this about marriage.  And I love this tongue-in-cheek description.  He said, “You know, Ed, most marriages start off as an ideal, then they become an ordeal and pretty soon the partners are looking for a new deal.”  And that is the truth, isn’t it?  This year, in our country, we will have 2.3 million divorces.  And let’s face the facts.  Marriage is a stressful situation.  Because you have one self-centered sinner married to another self-centered sinner and you have a lot of self-centered sinning going on in the self-centered marriage.  You have got some problems.  The number one complaint I hear from husbands and wives kind of goes along these lines.  “You know, I know I should change and I know I should improve our marriage but I just don’t feel like I have the power to make it happen.”  I want to tell you something good.  You do have the power to make it happen.  It is Ephesians 1: 19-20 power.  You have the resurrection power if you know Christ personally.  So I am going to give you a brief overview of the entire series today as I discuss how to make a great marriage.

We need, first of all, the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ to relate to our spouses differences.  You see the blank there on your outline?  We need the resurrection power to relate to our spouses differences.  I am going to prepare you for something.  This will be a profound statement.  Are you ready?  Men are different than women.  One more time.  I know I went fast.  Men are different than women.  We are different.  We are different.  We are different biologically.  Every cell in a man’s body is different from every cell in a woman’s body.  A woman has a thin layer of insulating cells right beneath her skin that causes her skin to be prettier and smoother than a man.  Women catch fewer diseases than men.  They do better in concentration camps than men.  They live longer than men.  However, men, our skeletal structure weighs more than a woman’s skeletal structure.  And biologists also tell us that the skull of a man is thicker than the skull of a woman.  Hold your applause please, ladies.  We are different biologically.  We are also different behaviorally.  Think about that.  Behaviorally.  A woman is more connected with her feelings and emotions.  Men, we are into the facts.  We want competition.  We want to conquer.

The average man speaks about 12,000 words a day.  The average woman speaks 25,000 words a day.  And men, we go to the office, we come home and our wives greet us with this two-word zinger.  “Let’s talk.”  And we say, “About what?”  Because we have already used up our 12,000 words at the office and our wives are just getting warmed up, men, they are revving the engine.  “Let’s talk.”  A recent study said that women have to have one hour of intimate conversation a day with their husbands.  This same study also revealed that husbands need twenty minutes of intimate conversation with their spouse ……. a week.  I love the study that Harvard University conducted about four years ago.  Harvard wired a pre-school playground because they wanted to see and notice the difference of little girl’s communicative skills versus little boy’s communicative skills.  They found that 100% of the noises emitted from little girl’s voice boxes were understandable, recognizable words.  Pre-school age girls.  Conversely, men, only 60% of little boy’s noises were understandable, recognizable words.  The remaining 40% were sounds like this.   Bruuuuuum, bruuuuuum, bruuuuum.   Eeeeeah, eeeeah, eeeeah.              Women will not naturally sit down and watch a football game.  That conquering thing, that competitive nature.  We will say, “Kill it, stick it, knock his head off.”   Guys, I will give you a hint.  If you want your wife to get involved in football begin to introduce her to the relationships of the players.  “Hey, see that wide receiver right there?  He and his wife just got married and they love each other so much,  He bought her a little cabin in Montana because she loves Montana.  And they have four cats.”  And your wives will go, “Ah.”  And they will sit down and watch the game because they can connect now relationally.  We are different.

Now I saw this in my own marriage Wednesday.  This past week I was speaking twice over on the east coast.  I spoke Monday and I spoke Wednesday.  Tuesday I had a free day.  And I decided to lock myself in my hotel room and crank out this Easter message.  So for ten straight hours I didn’t eat breakfast, I didn’t eat lunch, I wrote the message.  And I thought, isn’t this incredible, I can finish two days early and then I can have some free time to do some things around the church and with the family and everything.  And I finished the sermon.  Tuesday night I was so happy, I called Lisa.  “Lisa, I am through with the sermon.  Incredible.  Unbelievable.”

I am getting off the plane and I carry this black satchel with me, well I used to carry it with me.  I had my Bible in the black satchel, I had my sermon in there.  I greet my family.  Lisa is there, the twins, the other two children and we walk to our suburban.  I put the luggage in the car but I inadvertently put the satchel on top of the suburban.  And we leave DFW airport, of course going 55 mph.  We have been going for awhile and suddenly I hear something on the top of the car that sounded like this.  Bump.  Bump.  I said, “What was that?” and look in my rear view mirror and there is the satchel rolling down the freeway.  I look back and make a U-turn.  And to show you the difference between Lisa and I, I am Mr. Spur of the Moment, I can do it.  I don’t want to ask directions or for help.  And Lisa says, “Let’s stop and ask that officer there, he could help us.”  “Lisa, no, I know what I am doing.  I’ll find it.”  And I made the U-turn.  I get lost.  “No, I am not asking directions.  And I know where I lost it.”  And when I pull up, I see a taxi cab stop, the driver pick up the satchel and drive off.  I have called every taxi cab association, agency, lost and found in the Western Hemisphere.  No satchel, no Bible, no sermon.  Prayerfully, the taxi cab driver will read the sermon and it will change his marriage too.  So here is a small, recent example regarding the difference is between men and women.

We also need the resurrection power, secondly, to release the past.  We have got to have it to release the past.  Here is what the Bible says.  Philippians 3: 13-14.  “But one thing I do (this is Paul talking, he didn’t say a bunch of things, one thing I do) forgetting what is behind and striving toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal for which God has called me.”  The Apostle Paul said this.  Forgetting what lies behind, reaching for what lies ahead.  Too many marriages are messed up because people are so immersed in the past that they miss the present.  Genesis 2:24.  You might want to put a check by this verse because this verse is mentioned five times in the Bible.  Any time a verse is mentioned five times in the Bible you had better understand it.  This verse is jam packed with twenty-four power packed words.  It is God’s blueprint for marriage.  “For this cause a man shall (let’s say this word together – shall) leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”  In other words when you get married there is some leaving that should take place and also some cleaving that should take place.

Today I am going to talk to you about leaving.  Next week we are going to talk about sex, that is the cleaving part.  We have got to release the past.  We have got to release past relationships.  You’re talking about something that will jam a marriage.  Past relationships.  We can’t do what Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesies tell us to do.  We have to forget “all the girls I’ve loved before.”  You can’t bring those back, guys.  No.  What is done is done.  You are in this relationship, in this marriage and we don’t want to drag in “well, if I would have married him I would be much more successful today, because he turned out to be this and that” or “she was so sensitive, you know I really kind of messed up”.  And we compare and contrast because we can’t leave the past relationships.  It is like the girl I heard about.  She got married four different times.  He first husband was a millionaire.  Her second husband was a film maker.  Her third husband was a butler and the fourth husband was a funeral home director.  And a friend of her’s said, “Why did you marry all those four guys?”  And she said, “Well I married one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go.”

We also have to release our parents.  For this cause a man shall leave his what?  His father and mother.  We have got to release our parents.  When an infant is born, if you don’t cut the cord, the infant will die.  When a marriage is born, if you don’t cut the cord the marriage will die.  The Bible is not talking about geographical leaving, it is talking about psychological leaving.  You can be right next door to your parents and the cord is cut psychologically.  Or you can be 3,000 miles away from your parents and you are still dependant upon them.  You can’t make a decision without saying, “Mom, Dad, what should I do?”  Make decisions based on your bond together, one man, one woman.  You can ask your parent’s advice, but don’t let them rule your world.  That will mess you up.  Have your released your parents?

Also we have got to release past places.  I am talking about geographical locations.  There was a couple who used to go to this church about four years ago and they were a nice couple.  But the wife never enjoyed her marriage, nor the metroplex because she was so immersed in Virginia.  “Oh, when we get back to Virginia.  The good old days were in Virginia.  Virginia is for lovers.  My parents are there.  My brother is there.  And I love Virginia.”  And the poor guy, she was just dragging him by the earlobe, and she missed enjoying this lovely place.  Happiness is not geographical.  It is relational.  You have got to know Christ first of all, if you know Christ you will be right with your fellowman or your fellow-woman.

We also have to release the past problems.  You know those problems from the past.  We all bring in luggage from relationships, from our parents, from maybe past marriages.  And it is so tempting when we have this unresolved anger and this animosity in our spirit that when we get married we will take relational grenades and lob them at our spouse.  And our spouse is saying, “Whoa, why are you doing this?  Why are you throwing these grenades at me.?”  And we have this hostility built up.  We have got to release past problems.

We also need the resurrection power to respond to our mates needs.  To respond to our mates needs.  Here is what the Bible says.  I Corinthians 7:3.  “A man should fulfill his duty as a husband and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife and each should satisfy the other’s needs.”  We have got to meet their needs.  We have got to say, what’s her need, what’s his need?  I can’t wait to meet it.  I am going to meet the need.  I am going to meet the need.  You have got to study your spouse and know how to respond.  The second verse of scripture on your outline is Proverbs 24:3.  “Homes are built on the foundation of wisdom and understanding.”  Wisdom and understanding.  Now skip down to Philippians 2:4.  If we obey this verse, husbands and wives, 80% of the problems in marriage would be dissolved.  Are you ready for this?  The Bible says, “Look out for each other’s interests not just your own.”  The root problem in marriage is simply this, selfishness.  And this verse flies in the face of our culture because it contradicts culture.  Have you heard this before?  “I’ve got to do what’s best for me.”  That is not maturity, that is immaturity.  If I did what is best for me right now, I’d be at home in bed.  I wouldn’t be preaching six times.  If you only did what was best for you, you would have a horrible marriage.  You have got to do a bunch of stuff in your life that is best for the other person.  It also shows us how basically selfish and sinful we are.  Because we all have that gravitational southward pull.  You know what I am talking about?  No one teaches you how to be selfish.  I will describe it to you.  What if I came up here with a panoramic lens and snapped a picture right now.  And what if we had the technology to develop all of the pictures in a nanosecond and to give those pictures out to all of us.  Who is the first person you would look for in the picture.  I know who I would look for first.  Me.  I would say, “Hey, yea, I look good.  My hair is still straight.  I was up at five today.  And the tie is looking OK.  Well, I see Gary and Leslie, they have their eyes closed and Gary is yawning.  But, hey, I look good.  So it doesn’t matter.”  It is the same attitude that will hurt your marriage.  “Well, I have got to do what is best for me.  For me.  For me.”

We have got to have the resurrection power to remember to forgive.  To remember to forgive.  I want to remember a verse that is powerful on a resurrection Sunday.  Listen to this.  Colossians 3:13.  “Be gentle and ready to forgive.”  Ready to forgive.  Ready to forgive.

This past Friday I went to the zoo and I looked at some bears in this bear pit. I was drinking one of those lemon ice things and this bear from twenty feet away saw this lemon ice and he goes, “Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh” and he rises up on his hind legs, extending his paws to me.  And I kind of felt bad, a little teary, so I just dropped some lemon ice down to him and the bear loved it, he was into it.  Then about ten of them came over, they were ready.  So husbands, wives, you have got to do the bear thing.  Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh.  Be ready to forgive.  And this next line, I know I have been kind of hard on the men, I am going to be hard on the women here.  This next line is especially relevant for women.  “Never hold grudges.”  Men, don’t ever try to argue with a woman.  They are smarter than we are.  You need to learn it now.  Let me tell you why they are smarter.  They have more connective tissue from the left side of the brain to the right side of the brain.  No only do they see a situation and understand it analytically, they also feel it.  They have more of a sense of what is happening and they don’t forget.  They will say, “Honey, you remember eight years ago when you had those khaki pants on and that polo shirt and you said so and so”  and we are going “Duh, I don’t know.  Yesterday I did play golf with the guys.”  And women it is tempting, I know, to hold grudges, to hold those grudges.  Let me say this to you.  What if Jesus did this?  What if Jesus said, “OK, Ed, you mean you are coming to Me with the same sin again?  You are asking Me to forgive you?  Ed, you committed that sin back in Florida State University twelve years ago.  I’m sorry, Ed, I’m not going to forgive you.  I am going to hold a grudge against you.  I will keep this cosmic chasm between myself and you.  Too bad, Ed.”  Now what if Jesus did that?  What kind of deal would Christianity be?  It would be horrible.  He doesn’t.  Never, the Bible says, never hold a grudge.  And we like to keep score.  Well he hurt me five years ago and he will never, ever come into my good graces again, I don’t care what he does, or what she does.  Remember, remember, the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.  In other words, I am in a conflict with my spouse and I remember, whoa, I’m forgiven, my sins are forgiven and forgotten, Jesus reconciled me to God so I must be involved in the ministry of reconciliation and get my relationship with my spouse right.

But we have talked about four important points of marriage.  You can read them on your outline.  The power to relate. The power to release.  The power to respond.  The power to forgive.  And all those are fine and dandy but if you don’t know and if you have not experienced the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, then this marriage thing is not going to work.  You have to feel forgiven.  You have got to be born again.  The moment you receive Christ, your sins are done away with, you have a clean slate and you can’t beat that.  And there is not a better day to make that choice than on Easter Sunday.  Because on Easter we celebrate Jesus living a perfect life, dying on the cross for our sins, rising again, and He offers salvation, He offers forgiveness, He offers power and strength, He offers a clear conscience, He offers a home in heaven, He offers a purpose-driven marriage.  You can’t beat that deal.  You really can’t.  A lot of you have come here today for different reasons.  Some of you got a mailing from the church, others of you were invited by a friend, maybe some of you want to kind of get back into Christianity.  I have got good news for you.  God loves you just the way you are but He loves you too much to allow you to remain just the way you are.  He really does.  You matter to God.  You are one of a kind.  God loves you.  And as your pastor here, I want to affirm that this church is committed to building great marriages.  We want you to bond for life.  And we would love to invite you to be a part of this church.  There is one requirement to join this church.  You can’t be perfect.  If you are not perfect, this church is for you.  And this church is for people on the grow.  People who understand they have been forgiven and this ministry is trying to be lived out in our daily lives.

This past week I had the privilege and pleasure of having lunch with super model, Kim Alexis and her husband, former NHL all star, Ron Duquay.  And both Kim and Ron had been married before and both were married to successful goal-oriented, handsome, wealthy individuals.  They both said about the same thing.  “Ed, the marriage after a couple of years was horrible.  It didn’t work out.  After our divorces we came to know Christ.  We have build our family and our relationship on Jesus.  Now we can’t describe to you how different this marriage is.”  And the Lord showed me again, through two celebrity-type individuals, it doesn’t matter where you are, how much you have, how handsome you are, etc. etc. if you don’t have Christ, if you are not involved in His church, it is not going to work.  Do you realize that one out of three marriages that occur outside the church ends in divorce.  If you get married inside the church, one out of fifty marriages ends in divorce.  If you get married in the church and you are involved in the church weekly and you pray regularly, one out of one thousand one hundred and fifteen marriages ends in divorce.  And that is just statistical data.  God’s way works.  You see, I don’t care what religion you are.  I don’t care if you are Baptist, Assembly of God, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Jewish, Buddhist; those are just labels, man.  What I am talking about is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Religion will not save you.  A personal relationship with Christ will.  And maybe today is that day that you can know Christ, because once you know Christ, He will give you the power to have and to hold.

2 HAVE AND 2 HOLD SERMON SERIES

A SUCCSEXFUL MARRIAGE – FINDING SEXUAL FULFILLMENT IN MARRIAGE

ED YOUNG

APRIL 23, 1995

Do you remember those E. F. Hutton commercials which show a couple of guys, maybe at a tennis match?  They would watch the ball go from one side of the net to the other, and suddenly one would turn to his friend and say, “My broker is E. F. Hutton and E. F. Hutton says……”  And then everyone at the match would stop.  Thousands of spectators would strain their ears to listen.   The contestants playing tennis would drop the ball and listen and then a dramatic voice would come on and say something like this.  “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.”

Today I am talking about sex.  And when you talk about sex, people listen.  Every time I speak on this fascinating and mysterious topic it seems that people hang on every word.  Very few people ever fall asleep because everyone wants to hear about sex.  For far too long the church has only emphasized the negative aspects about sex; adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism.  The church has neglected to talk about the great side of sex which is exhilarating, is adventuresome and is fun.  Good sex is Biblical sex, one man, one woman in the context of marriage.  We should not be ashamed to talk about what God was not ashamed to create.  There is only one place better to hear about sex than in the church and that’s at home.  So relax, chill, ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you because we are going to talk very Biblically but also very graphically about this subject.

A lot of misinformation circulates on the subject of sex.  Some people listen to Dr. Ruth.  Others might take their cues from Cosmopolitan or Playboy magazine.  Other couples run out and buy a sex manual which resembles a Popular Mechanics magazine and they kind of throw up their hands and say, “Where should we turn, what should we do regarding this topic?”  Well, right here, on this stage, on this lectern, now in my hand is the greatest sex manual every written.  You see it?  I think I woke up a couple of guys – sex manual.  It’s right here.  The greatest sex manual ever written is the Bible, the infallible, relevant word of God.  And God has set aside one book in the Bible that shows how husbands and wives should make love.  There’s another guy going -“Where is that, honey?” One book of the Bible shows how a husband and wife should have sexual fulfillment in marriage, and this book is called the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs.  And today we are going to dissect this book over the next few moments.  The first half of my message is going to be directed to the men.  Men raise your hands.  Yes.  The first half I’ll beat up on the men, then men, to make it fair, I am going to change gears and talk to the women.  The one half men, the other half women.

I hope you have your outlines out.  They are found in your bulletin.  See it?  Finding Sexual Fulfillment in Marriage.  Here is the context of this particular book, the Song of Songs.  Solomon was a young man, he was the leader of Israel and he married a woman and her name was Shulamite.  With a name like Shulamite the lady had to be beautiful.  Anyway, Shulamite and Solomon were a very interesting couple because they knew what it meant to really have love in every slice of their marriage.  And through this book Solomon talks about their courtship, their marriage, the problems they have and how they handle those problems.  One day I promise you that I will do a series on this book, the Song of Songs, but today I will just limit it to sexual fulfillment in marriage.

How to be a succsexful husband.  See number one and its blank?  Well, guys, here is the first element of how to have a succsexful marriage.  Do the unexpected.  I will say it again, if you want to have a succsexful marriage, husbands now, wives you can listen, but especially husbands, do the unexpected.  Let me define what I am talking about when I say do the unexpected.  One of the greatest needs a woman has is the R word, romance.  Romance.  Some of you men are saying, “Romance, didn’t he used to play tight end for the Cowboys?”  No, no, romance, men.  Women love to be romantic.  They love affection.  And you have to set the stage and you have to create the atmosphere for sexuality.  Men we are the leaders of the relationship and we have to set the stage, set the tone and we have to understand what the word romance means.  And here is a Biblical definition of the word romance from the book Song of Songs.  Do the unexpected.  Well what did Solomon do?  I will tell you what he did.  Let’s read it together.  Song of Songs 1:16-17.  “Our bed is verdant”.  And the word verdant here means covered with plants, he did something totally unexpected.  He said, “Honey, look at the bedroom.”  “Oh, baby, you have decorated the bedroom with plants.”  He was romantic.  “The beams of our house are cedars.”  And the word house here means our bedroom.  He built her a house and he didn’t tell her what the bedroom was going to look like and he panelled the bedroom with cedars.  Again, he did the unexpected.  “Our rafters are firs.”  Men, husbands, hey, when was the last time you did something romantic that was totally unexpected by your wife.  When was the last time you purchased her a long stem rose and just walked in, for no reason, no ulterior motive now, and just gave the rose to her and said “Honey, I love you.”  You know what my problem is, as far as the romance side of me goes, I get repetitive.  Guys we are systematic, we do the same old, same old.  Same restaurants, same waiter, same food, same movie, same babysitter, same love making.  Anything, I will say it again, anything that is repetitive, men, is a romance killer.  One more time.  Anything, men, that is repetitive is a romance killer.  And all the women are now saying, “Amen, preacher, preach it.”  And why am I laughing.  Hey, you are looking at a guy who still messes up.  Ok, so I am not talking down at you, I am talking with you, men.  Don’t think I am hammering on you, yet.

Number two.  Are we filling the blanks in?  I bet your wives are for you.  Take the initiative.  Again we are talking about romance.  You see, guys, don’t miss this now.  Romance needs to be the atmosphere in the home and sex is the event.  Right.  Take the initiative.  Look what Solomon did again.  This man, you’re talking about romantic, he had it going.  And before I read what Solomon did, let me talk about initiative.  Men, think back to when you were dating that special someone, your bride, think back to that time.  You were dating her, you weren’t married.  When you thought about a date, who set the plans?  You did it.  You thought about the movie, you thought about the restaurant, you would call in advance and make everything work, you would think about what you would wear.  You were planning stuff and you were romancing her and you were dating her.  And then you get married and you sometimes just do what I do.  I’ll get the paper.  “Hey, Lisa, here’s the paper, if we go to the movies is there anything you want to see?”  “And let’s just go to our favorite restaurant, Via Real, in fact they have a great special if you get there about 5 pm….”  No, no, no, guys, that does not work.  And here is what else we do.  We romance and we really get into it and then we get married and it’s like that task is complete, because men are task oriented.  Then we take our romantic uniform off and it’s like we retire it, we hang it from the rafters in our den.  And we say, “Hey, honey, remember that outfit right there, that was the uniform I wore when I romanced you.  But now we are married, who needs romance?”  Sound familiar?

Solomon.  Man, man, man, look what he did right here.  Song of Songs 2:10.

He said, “Arise, my darling (he took the initiative) my beautiful one and come with me.”  You hear me say this all the time.  Have a date night.  It kind of gets trite.  Date your mate.  Well, that’s fine and good.  Date your mate.  Date your mate.  Date your mate.  I mean really date your mate.  Date your mate like you dated her before she was you mate.  What you used to get her is what you use to keep her.  I am not talking about double dating.  Double dating went out with the junior-senior prom.  It is wonderful to have couples that you go out with, man, I’ll give you a high five on that but your relationship one on one must take precedence.  It must take priority over any other relationship except your relationship with Jesus Christ.  I challenge you, once a week.  “Hey, we can’t afford it.”  You can’t afford not to do this.  Once a week have a date and do something creative.  It could be driving to DFW airport and watching the airplanes go by and do a little parking or something.  It could be going to the Zoo or to the rodeo, checking out a weird restaurant or something like that.  Do something, but you take the initiative.  You can call her for a mystery date, guys.

How many of you married couples have children?  OK.  I love children, you know that.  You see we have four beautiful children that God has blessed us with, there in the bulletin and also at home!  But children complicate the date thing.  If someone tells you they don’t, they are lying.  They do.  Each child represents a more difficult obstacle (look at Craig and Cathy, they are going, “yea oh yea”) that you have to get through to have the date.  And most couples, and Lisa and I have done this before, and this has been bad on my side, we kind of throw our hands up and say, “We’re not going to have a date tonight, let’s forget it, you know we can’t get the babysitters (I use the word plural for my family) or sitter.”  It is worth it, please do it.  Please, please, please do it and men take the initiative because there will be great, great rewards.  You realize when romance is flowing between a husband and a wife it permeates to the children.  Whoa.  They don’t understand romance, but something strange is happening with mommy and daddy.  It is romance.

Number three.  You’ll love this women.  Be impractical.  And this is Biblical stuff, I am not making this up.  Be impractical.  I looked up the word impractical in Webster’s Dictionary, you know what another word for the word impractical is?  Romantic.  Isn’t that something?  Romantic.  Let’s go back to Solomon, Song of Songs 7:11.  And again, I know we have some practical people here, practical, you have to stay in the budget.  If you are always practical, it is a romance killer.  Women, alright?  I am not talking about going out and getting in debt or something.  Solomon said this.  “Come my lover and let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages.”  And this word night in the Hebrew means a bed and breakfast…..just kidding!  Some people said, “Oh yeah, that’s right, bed and breakfast.”  Look down in Song of Songs 1:1-11.  “We will make you earrings of gold studded with silver.”  Impractical.

Guys, I hate to tell you this.  But I will share how I blew it major league in this department.  It was the first Christmas Lisa and I ever celebrated as husband and wife, in Houston, TX.  It was 4:45 PM Christmas Eve.  The stores closed at 5:00 PM, there in Houston about thirteen years ago.  And I decided to rush in with my best friend and the first store I saw was some kind of department store.  I walked in and I said, “Yeah, I’ll take that bathrobe, a small, yeah, that’s great, whatever.”  Twenty-five dollars.  I purchased the bathrobe and thought, really that’s a great gift for Lisa, practical.  Small but of course I forgot that she is almost 5’9″.  And anyway I didn’t wrap it.  It was kind of a minor thing but I handed it to her and she was not a happy camper.  She really wasn’t.  Because I did not think about it, I did not plan for it, I didn’t do the I thing, I wasn’t really impractical and I didn’t stretch and I didn’t use my creativity.  So now and again, guys, in fact, regularly be impractical.  Buy your wife a new outfit or a new pair of shoes or just something out of the blue.  Do that.

Number four.  Give compliments.  Give compliments.  Some of you are saying, “Hey, man, when are we going to get to the second part?”  This is it.  Give compliments.  Give compliments.  We have got to compliment our spouse and I talking specifically about husbands doing this publicly.  If you even say a side, off the cuff remark, kind of a negative thing to your wife, oh guys, don’t do that.  That destroys their self-esteem.  They look to their husbands for their self-esteem and for their value and for affirmation and we do one little thing publicly – wham.  Also privately, compliment them.  We must stay away from being critical and trying to control them and to make them into women oftentimes that they are not.

I was watching a infomercial one night.  I was watching Gary Smalley, who by the way is one of the great speakers on relationships.  I use a lot of his stuff and we will bring him in one day when we have the new church out there.  Gary Smalley uses illustrations about how women receive words from men.  You might have seen it but I will do it again.  This right here represents a comment, I am talking about a side, kind of negative comment that a husband would give the wife.  When the husband walks in he goes, “You’re hair is not really doing it.”  While to the husband it seems like a minor rebuff, to the wife it feels like a knock out punch.  That is the difference between men and women.  And this compliment thing is important.  Solomon wrote poetry to his bride, to Shulamite.  “Your hair is like a flock of goats, your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, your two breasts are like two fawns, all beautiful you are, my darling.”  Notice he was specific.  Be specific in your compliments, men.  Don’t just say, “Well yeah, that was the tightest meal.”  Say, “I really enjoyed the way you cut up the fruit at the end and all the food really came together well, it was unbelievable.  It really was.”

Now I can’t even read to you most of the scripture from the Song of Songs and if I gave you all of the meanings behind the Hebrew words, you would not believe what the words mean.  So, buy a good commentary and buy a nice Bible, New American Standard or the New International version or maybe a Good News paraphrased and read it.  You will not believe what it says.  And I promise you within the next year I will do a series through it, but this is some very, very vivid and direct stuff.  OK, men, we are through.  We are talking about romance, that is the atmosphere.  Now we are talking about the event which is sex.  I am moving now to how to be a succsexful wife.

Number one.  Before I do this let me talk to you about a survey that might enlighten this point, women.  There was a survey of 500 men, conducted recently, and 39% of the respondents said their number one hang up sexually with their wives was that they were not aggressive enough sexually.  And Shulamite, she was aggressive sexually.  So be more aggressive.  Be more aggressive.  Remember that basketball cheer?  B E   A G G R E S S I V E.  Be aggressive.  Be more aggressive.  Song of Songs 7:1.  And again, if you can get any other interpretation to this, I mean, be my guest.  Here is the context, I couldn’t even write all this stuff down on your outline.  Shulamite is alone with Solomon in the palace and she puts on a sheer negligee, sandals on her feet and she does a dance of the Mahanaim.  Now we don’t know what the dance of the Mahanaim was but we know it was a dance that aroused her husband.  She was a wise wife because she knew men are aroused more by sight and she approached him visually.  Oftentimes we approach each other the way we want to be approached.  And here is what Solomon said, “What a magnificent woman you are.  How beautiful are your feet in sandals.  The curve of you thigh is like the work of an artist.”  Be more aggressive.  Take the initiative more.  You might want to pray, “God, my husband has a stronger sex drive than I do, help me to have a sex drive like his sex drive and help me to understand it and to meet him where he needs to be met.”  You see, sex is not some selfish thing.  The world says, get what you can get.  God says, it is what you give.  The husband gives himself to the wife, the wife gives herself to the husband.  That is similar to God’s relationship to the church.  Listen to me very carefully.  The Bible says that men and women are created in the image of God.  God stamped his male character qualities on the man, his feminine character qualities on the woman.  And when a husband and a wife make love together in marriage, you have the nature and the essence and the character of God coming together.  Worship God and honor Him.  There is not a good part and a bad part, every part should honor Him, if we do things the way God wants us to do things.  So women, be more aggressive, like Shulamite.

Number two.  Make yourself available.  She was available.  She wasn’t saying no, I have a headache.  Here is what she said.  In fact, before we get into it let me read I Corinthians 7:4-5 because this is a great, great word about sexuality.  “The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.  In the same way the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.”  And guys, girls, if you are single, when you are dating you had better think of whether you love the person enough to give your body, to give the rights to my body to him or to her.  The Bible says, “Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent (I will read it one more time, do not deprive each other except by mutual consent) and for a time that you may devote yourselves to prayer.”  So I guess now, ladies, the excuse around the Metroplex will not be “I have a headache” but “I am in prayer.”  I want to read you what Shirley Rice wrote about this verse.  “When we refuse our mate’s advances sexually, fellowship with the Lord is broken.”  When you say no to your husband or to your wife you are in danger of having your fellowship broken.  Not your relationship, not losing your salvation, I am talking about your fellowship.  Your fellowship is damaged.  When you keep on saying no, no, no to your husband, it hurts his self-esteem.  It also can tempt one or the other into adultery.  How many of us have ever gone on a diet before?  All of you dieters, raise your hands.  Now when you are on a diet, what do you think about?  Food.  When you are on a sexual diet, when your wife says no, no, no or in some cases your husband says no, no, no, what do you think about all the time?  Sex.  That’s right.  We need to be available for our mates.

Now oftentimes when one is really tired or sick or whatever, you can work things out and say, “OK, I’m going to say no tonight but I’ll give you a specific time tomorrow morning when we can come together in marriage.”  Make sure.  Because there are so many temptations out there.  We live in a sex-crazed culture and we must, we must make ourselves available.

Number three.  Use your imagination.  Don’t come into the act of sex and put your imagination away.  Use your imagination.  Song of Songs 7:13, here is what Shulamite said.  “Darling, I have kept for you the old delights and the new.”  And she goes on, I don’t have time to get into it, but she goes on to say we will make love outdoors.  This is the woman talking.  I will read it to you again.  “I have kept for you the old delights and the new.”  Something creative.  Ladies, you have a choice, you can either be a Rembrandt sexually or you can remain a paint-by-numbers person.  God wants you to progress, and men also to progress into the Rembrandt stage.  Wives you wouldn’t think about serving your husband the same frozen TV dinner every night would you?  You wouldn’t do that.  But many of you are serving your husbands the same frozen sexual response night after night after night.

Number four.  Speak candidly.  Speak candidly.  Song of Songs 1:16.  Shulamite goes on.  “How handsome you are, my dearest.  How you delight me.”  Here are a couple of rules about sexuality.  1.  You don’t know as much about your mate’s body as you think you do.  2.  You are not a mind reader.  That means you need to speak candidly.  I challenge you and I encourage you to go to a quiet restaurant, to get away from everything, and to talk specifically about what pleases you in this beautiful gift from God called sex.  You have got to do that.  And hopefully and prayfully the walls will come down and this will be a great time for you to understand each other and to meet each other’s needs, to satisfy each other’s needs as we talked about last week and to really understand what God’s word meant when it talked about having a great sex life.

This message has had a lot of information in it.  And I think the application of it will be the most enjoyable part, don’t you.  But, I want you to really take this subject, this issue, seriously.  Some of you might need to see a counselor.  There is no way I could cover every aspect of sexuality, and every aspect of marital intimacy in a twenty-five or thirty minute message.  We are happy for our staff to talk to you or to recommend books, tapes.  But make sure again, folks, that you understand sex was given to us primarily for pleasure and secondarily for procreation.  God wants you to have a great sex life.  But men, the key word is….romance, and no he didn’t play for the Cowboys.  Romance.  Women, you have to think about what the man’s number one basic need is -sexual fulfillment.  The wife’s top need – romance, affection.  The husband’s top need – sexual fulfillment.  That is the way God wired us up to meet each other’s needs.

2 HAVE AND 2 HOLD SERMON SERIES

ATTACK OF THE KILLER FEES – MANAGING YOUR FINANCES

ED YOUNG

MAY 21, 1995

When Lisa and I were first married, like most young married couples we lived in an apartment.  Three years later after we had purchased a couple of dogs, one being 140-pound rottweiler, the other being a 70-pound mutt, we decided to look for a house.  We searched throughout the Houston city limits and we found a 35 year old home and we bought this house, because it had a big back yard and we could kind of fix it up over the years.  And sure enough, we lived there for awhile.              I’ll never forget the first time we ever decided to do yard work though.  I don’t really love yard work that much and Lisa coaxed me and encouraged me to out in the back yard and start the lawn mower and begin to mow.  There was an old tree house in the left portion of our backyard.  I didn’t think that much about the three house, it was kind of falling apart.  I start the mower and begin the lawn.  And all of a sudden while I’m mowing, I get hit about three times by a bee.  I am talking about a major league sting. Buff.  Buff.  Buff.  Since I am kind of allergic to bees and I begin to kind of dance around and jump around and I run inside and say, “Lisa, there must be a bee hive somewhere in our yard and I’m allergic to bees.”  And she say, “Honey, you probably just got stung a couple of times, maybe it was just a random deal, go back and continue mowing the lawn.”  So I went back, cranked the mower again.  This time the dogs start yelping.  The bees did not attack me, but the dogs started rolling around.  There are bees all over them and I ran inside.  “Lisa, this is a major ordeal.  Why don’t you go back outside, Lisa, you start the mower up and let’s find the source of these bees.”  So I dress up my lovely wife in a sweatshirt, pants and hat.  The only thing you can see are her eyes. She walks out and folks, she cranks the mower and when she cranks the mower, a swarm of angry bumblebees leap out of this old, dilapidated tree house and they begin to attack Lisa.  But she is impervious to pain because of all the clothing.  She is running around, the dogs are yelping again.  She finally charges the house, I open the door and she runs in, I close the door.  However, about 10 bees are now inside.  The bees are hitting the windows.  We had a serious problem on our hands.  We finally kill the 10 bees that made their way inside the house.

So, Lisa gets on the phone and she calls the man who specializes in outdoor pests.  Pest control.  This man is a great guy named Mr. Smith.  Mr. Smith had a bad leg that he had injured in the Vietnam war.  And we told him that there was an angry hive of bees in this tree house and he advised us to just calm down and he would handle the situation.  “I have dealt with bees for the last fifteen years around Houston.  Bees won’t sting me, I know their habits.  I have this special formula.”  And we said, “OK”.  He climbs a ladder and he peers into this treehouse. Buzz.

Buzz.  Buzz.  He fell off the ladder, started rolling around and the bees were so aggressive (true story) he had to send one dead bee off to Texas A & M to see if the bees were killer bees.  They were not killer bees but they were the angriest bees he had ever seen in his life.  It is scary to be attacked by bees.  I have been there.  Maybe you have too.

But today I am going to talk about something that is even scarier.  To be attacked by killer fees.  Killer fees.  Because it doesn’t matter if you make billions, millions, thousands or hundreds, if you are married you are going to be attacked in one form or another by killer fees.  And we need to discover the source of these killer fees to see where they attack.  Gallop estimates that 56% of divorces every year in our country are due to conflict and arguments over finances.  It is a major problem, a major source of arguments in marriage.

When you think about killer fees you have to think about their three-fold strategy of attack because killer fees sting us, they immobilize us and they can wreck havoc on your marriage, on my marriage, on you life and my life.  Today, though, I want to look at the sources of killer fees.

There are basically three sources of killer fees use.  The first source is plastic.  The killer fees attack through plastic.  Do I need to explain what I am talking about?  Credit cards.  Credit cards.  You get married and you begin to use credit cards when you buy certain items.  You watch and see what happens.  Because credit cards are kind of interesting little cards.  They are pretty, red, white and blue, gold, platinum.  They have our names engraved on the bottom of the card and even how long we have been card members.  And they have a prominent area of display in our wallets.  They are painless to use.  In fact, when you use some cards you get frequent flier miles and discounts on automobiles.  Our world loves for us to use credit cards.  You buy something and you hand the credit card to the store clerk and the clerk runs it through a computer, gives you back the card and says, “Sir, will you please sign your name right there.”  You sign your name, no problem, you have the item.  A credit card is the way to go.  And you go on your merry way.  However, thirty days later, you bring the mail in and you hear a slight buzzing noise that sounds muffled.  And you think, could there be a wasp in our house?  Is there a fly somewhere?  And you look, and there is the bill.  Yes, you have been attacked by killer fees.  You have been attacked by credit cards.

Studies show that Americans who have credit cards spend 26% more money than those who do not have credit cards.  The Bible says this in Proverbs 22:7  “The borrower is servant to the lender.”  The borrower is servant to the lender.  Basically we have two options with credit cards.  And I want to challenge you to apply these options.  Number one.  Pay them off every month.  I will say it again.  Pay them off every month.  That is the first option.  The second option is take a giant pair of scissors and cut them up.  Some of you need to get serious about this because your finances are out of control.  Instead of you telling your money where it ought to go, your money is kind of running away from you.  You have no clue where your money is and you are overextended.  You are in major league debt because of credit cards.  Because of being able to purchase things so easily.  Painless.  It is easy.  I’ll just give you a card.  I can just sign my name.  No problem.  I can go on my merry way.

A couple of years ago a financial consultant reminded me about the warning that appears on a pack of cigarettes.  He said “Ed, you know on those cigarettes there is a little surgeon general’s  warning that smoking is hazardous to your health?”  He said, “I contend that we should put little stickers on every credit card which would read, Warning, overuse can be hazardous to your wealth.”  And I agree with him.  If you have credit cards, great.  Pay them off every month.  And if your finances are out of control, cut them up.

The Bible never says, though, you should not borrow money.  I have heard people say, “Well the Bible says time and time again never borrow money.”  The Bible says borrow as little as possible and if you do borrow money, make sure you can pay it back.  But never let the debt thing get out of control because the debt will begin to rule and run your life.  And there is no kind of pressure that compares to being under the gun financially.  And I want this church to be jam packed full of single adults and families who are good stewards of their finances.     The world talks about security financially, we want to talk about stewardship.  Because everything we have is God’s and He wants us to become good stewards of our finances.  Have any of you been attacked by those plastic piranhas in your wallet?

Another source of the killer fees is the media.  That’s obvious.  The American Association of Advertising estimates that the average person in our society sees over 7000 commercials a day.  Seven thousand a day and Hollywood hires the best producers, the best writers, the best actors to get involved in these commercials and they have one goal in mind, to create discontent.  The intend for the viewer to say, “I have got to have that.”  “I need to buy that.”  “I can’t live without that.”  Advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry.

This past Easter in one of our six services I was shaking hands as people exited and who of all people shows up at our service but the Hollywood actor, Dennis Hopper.  And I couldn’t believe, of all places, here we are in Dallas, Texas and Dennis Hopper lives in LA but he is at our service.  And I talked to Dennis about those Nike commercials, have you seen him on those deals?  He wears the referee’s uniform and smells the shoes and does all this wild stuf.  Why did Nike pay him about a million dollars?  Why did Dennis Hopper do that acting job?  Why did they create this commercial?  Because they want to create a need in your life. “I can’t live without those brand new Nike air-max, Jordan, Scotty Pippin shoes.  In fact, if I wear those I’ll be able to jump like Scotty Pippin and Michael Jordan.”  I hate to say this but Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippin could dunk the ball if they wore a pair of women’s high heels.  So the shoes are not necessarily the deal.

Jesus said this in Matthew 10:16.  He said, “Be as wise as serpents”.  You talking about something that is a wise creature, it is a snake.  “Be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  When you see a commercial, look at the unpictured side of the commercial.  For example.  How about beer commercials?  Beer commercials have to be the best commercials going.  One of my favorite commercials is the one with the guy driving a $70,000 sports car and he has about 3% body fat.  He pulls up to a quaint, cool, yuppie bar and steps out.  He walks into the bar, people greet him.  Beautiful women come up to him and kiss him on the cheek and he says “Yes, I’ll have a _____ beer.”  They bring the _____ beer to him and the announcer says, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”  What is that commercial saying?  It is saying that if we drink this particular type of beer, we can drive a $70,000 sports car, we will have 3% body fat, we will have all these beautiful women kissing us, a lot of friends and a great time.  That is what it says.  It is not showing you, though, the other side of alcohol that sometimes occurs.  When that person maybe couldn’t stop with one and he decides to knock down about fourteen beers.  When that person goes home and abuses his wife or maybe drives on our freeways drunk.  The unpictured reality.

How about the car commercials.  You will see these cars zig-zagging through the Swizz Alps and you go, “Man, I’ve got to have this new car because it has this new sound system, it has this new braking device, it has more horse power.  If I could only have that car.”  It is fine to drive the car but look at the unpictured reality.  The payment book if you bought the car would be about as thick as a Bible, you know.           Be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  The next time you see a commercial, commercials are fine, ads are fine but look at the unpictured reality.

There is a third source of the killer fees, peers.  Peer pressure.  I like the word peer.  Because the word peer in my lingo kind of means we peer at each other to see what the other person has.  Hummmm.  “They have that home.  They drive that car.  They are a member of that club.  I am just as educated, I’m just as smart, I’m just as young, I need that, I want that.”  And we have this never ending cycle of the gimmies.  We compare and we classify ourselves and we think, I have got to have that.  II Corinthians 10:12   “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves.  When we measure and compare we are not wise.”  I deserve that.  Have you ever said that before?  I deserve that.

How did this materialistic mentality take hold in our world today?  America is definitely the most materialistic, money-hungry nation on the planet.  Why?  Let me give you a typical example of Al, the average American child.  Al, the average American child, grows up and during the impressionable years most of the conversation he hears around the breakfast table centers on money, what it can get, what it can buy.  He comes to the conclusion that money really talks.  Then he sees his father kind of climb up the corporate ladder and because his father is climbing ladder he gets raises and he moves across the country to a bigger house.  Then a bigger house.  Always upscaling.  And the little man thinks well, I guess money is more important than spiritual roots or family roots or relational roots.  Sounds good to me.  And Al, the average American child, grows up.  He considers college.  He talks to his parents about college and his parents say, “You need to go to that university and major in that subject because it will yield the highest income.  Even though you might not like the field, it is worth it if you make some serious money.”  He graduates, gets involved in this career, makes a lot of money, gets married and then he teaches unknowingly and unwillingly this value system he learned from his parents to his children.  Then as an elderly man he looks back over his life but he never really realizes that he has been led around through life on the short leash by something called the money monster.  It can happen, folks, it is real.  And I see so many of Christ’s followers being led around by this materialistic, money driven mentality.

How do we take care of these methods of attack?  How do we take care of the plastic?  How do we take care of the media?  How do we take care of the peer pressure?  There is one repellant that we can use.  It is not Raid.  It is spelled

B U D G E T.  Every time I spell something I get nervous because I am a horrible speller.  Budget.  Can you say that word with me?  Budget.  I want to talk to you about a budget because the Bible says that we should live on and follow a budget.  A budget.

First, when you set aside a budget, pray about the situation with your spouse.  “What, you mean I should pray about my money, I have never prayed about my budget.  Why do I say that?”  Because everything we have comes from God anyway.  “Well, I am a self-made man, self-made man, that is me.”  Who gave you the drive, who gave you the initiative, who gave you the talent?  Everything comes from God.  God has blessed you.  It is because of His sovereignty, His grace that you are where you are.  Pray about it.  “God, where do you want us to spend our money?  What do you want us to do?  Where do you want us to put limits and where do you want us to really be generous?”  Pray about it.

Also set some goals.  Set some mutual goals.  Agree together about some goals for saving, some goals for spending and some goals for giving.  Have you ever done that?  A couple of times a year Lisa and I sit down and we hammer out a budget.  And we live by that budget.  And we have a good time abiding by the budget.  And we feel wonderful after we have gone through the process.  The process is not always fun, it is not always easy, but it is something that will serve you well.

What kind of budget should we have?  We should live by the give, give, live budget.  The give, give, live budget.  This is a Biblical budget.  The give budget.  See Roman numeral I on your outline?  When I get paid the first thing I should do, the Bible says, is I should give 10% to God.  I should give 10% to God.  And the Bible says give it to your local house of worship.  If you are a member of this church, you should give the first 10% of your money to this church.  If you belong somewhere else, give it there.  The Bible is plain about this concept.  It is called tithing.  Every time I talk about giving I see those who are generous and they are kind of smiling, thinking yeah that’s great.  And those who don’t give are going, whoa, man, talking about money.  Just relax.  The Bible says that we should be cheerful givers and if you are a cheerful giver God is going to take care of you.  He is going to bless you.  The Bible says in Proverbs 3:9-10   “Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of all your income.”  You see the amount is insignificant.  If you make a million dollars a month or if you make ten dollars a month, the Bible says the first 10% should go to God.  Why?  Does God need our money?  No, God does not need our money.  God uses money to test us to see if He really is Lord of our life.  Because Jesus said if your treasure is in a certain place then it indicates that your heart is in that same place.  We can look at our financial portfolios and tell what is number one in our lives.  Is it travel?  Is it clothing?  Is it a home?  Is it a car?  Or is it the Lord Jesus Christ.  And a lot of people are wondering why doesn’t God bless my finances.  Why doesn’t God give me opportunities?  Why doesn’t God do this or that?  Oftentimes it can be traced back to the lack of generosity, the lack of giving to the local Body of Christ.  Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of your income.  “And He will fill your barns (or you condos) with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines.  I believe God talked more about giving than any other subject in the Bible because when we give we are more like God.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave…..”  Surely we don’t have anyone here who has a disease called cirrhosis of the giver, do we?  Does anyone have that?  That was kind of bad, wasn’t it?  When I get paid I give the first 10% to God.

The second thing I do is, I give myself the next 10%.  So I give the first 10% to God, I give the second 10% to myself.  I’m talking about saving money.  The Bible talks about saving money.  Have you ever seen fire ants here in Texas?  Fire ants?  Raise your hands.  Thank you.  God bless you.  Fire ants are everywhere.  Fire ants are interesting creatures.  Just take a step back and watch the fire ants.  The fire ant saves.  The fire ant does not have a leader, a CEO or a coach.  But the fire ant saves and puts stuff away for when he needs it.  Proverbs 6:6-8   “Take a lesson from the ants.  Learn from their ways and be wise.”  I read the other day that the average European saves 16% of his annual income.  The average Japanese man or woman saves 25% of their annual income.  The average American saves 4% of their annual income.  “For though they have no king (continuing the quote) to make them work, they labor hard all summer gathering food for the winter.”  You need to put your money in an interest bearing account to get your money working for you.  And as you begin to save you will learn the principle of contentment.  The Bible says over and over again, be content.  We have to be content with our contents.  We need to say, “God, I want to live on a margin, here is my budget, I’m giving my first 10% to you, I’m giving my second 10% to myself.”  And then, the remaining 80%, that is what you live on.

God loves to give you gifts, He loves to give me gifts.  Money is not the root of all evil.  The love of money is, but money is not.  Money is neutral.  The question is, though, do you have your money or does your money have you?  That is the issue.  And God wants us to enjoy the 80%.  Are you enjoying it?  Are you really enjoying it?  Proverbs 21:5   “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste (that means credit cards, impulse buying, spending because of peer pressure) leads to poverty.”  Have you guys ever been to K-Mart before?  That is my favorite place to buy fishing tackle.  One of the things that has always intrigued me about K-Mart is the blue light specials.  All of a sudden you are shopping looking at the fishing lures and this announcer will come on the loudspeaker.  “We have a blue light special on aisle sixteen, on aisle sixteen, on ladies bathrobes.”  And you will see the ladies turn their carts like sports cars and speed to the bathrobe section.  And the blue light is spinning and people are going nuts and you will see people buy ladies bathrobes even though they don’t need them.  They are buying them.  They are buying them.  And they come home and they have fourteen ladies bathrobes.  They got caught up in impulse spending.  They got caught up in spending with haste.  If you spend with haste, it leads to poverty.  Live on 80%.  How many of you have automobiles?  Most of you.  How many of your automobiles have a gas gauge?  What if I told you, go home this afternoon, take a hammer and just smash the gas gauge and drive with a smashed gas gauge for a year.  Would that be fun?  Whoa.  “I’m not sure how much I have in here.  You know, I don’t know if I should floor it or kind of ease off it.”  You would run out of gas, you would probably say words you wouldn’t really want to say and you would get upset and angry and you would start kicking the dog and yelling at the kids.  Because, what’s wrong?  The gas gauge is all messed up, it is smashed.  A lot of us though spend our entire lives without a spending gauge.  No perimeters, no boundaries.  Just, hey if it’s there, 129 easy payments, that’s for me.  Totally out of control.  It is my prayer that you will take this message of finances, this message the Christ talked about more than He talked about heaven or hell and apply it in your marriages and in your personal life.

The bottom line, though, is that from a spiritual perspective we are all in debt.  We all have a debt that we cannot pay.  I don’t care how much money you make, how good I am, how good you are, how many times you have been baptized or how many times I have been baptized, or how many hours I read the Bible or how many hours you read the Bible, there is a debt that I cannot pay, that you cannot pay, a spiritual deficit.  And I deserve to live my entire life, even into eternity, being bankrupt.  The good news is this.  God saw a bankrupted sinner named Ed Young and God said you know I love that sinner so much I am going to do something.  I am going to send my Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all of his sins and to pay that debt.  It will cost me My Son and His spilled blood on the cross but He will come back from the grave.  If Ed Young or Al, the average American citizen, or Alice, the average American citizen, comes to a point in his or her life where they turn from their sin, where they realize they are in debt and they can’t pay it and they receive what God did for them through Christ, they will have eternal life.  They will become multi, multi trillionaires and you can multiply that exponentially, as far as wealth goes, because they are now a part of the family of God.  All this stuff we talked about is fine and dandy but until you come to know Jesus Christ personally it is all for naught.  Do you know Christ?  Do you really know Him?  Make sure you settle that issue and that account today.

WHAT ABOUT GOD SERMON SERIES

WHAT CAN HE DO?

ED YOUNG

JANUARY 22, 1995

You know, all of us are concerned at one level or another about the issue of power.  This past November we saw political power.  This generation has come in contact with the power of atomic energy.  We have also viewed the power of nature in fire, flood, and most recently, earthquakes.  Last Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm we saw the power of the San Francisco 49ers, didn’t we?

I am in my last week of a series called “What About God?”  We have learned in this series that there is no place in which God does not exist.  That is His omnipresence.  We have also learned that there is nothing that God does not know.  That is His omniscience.  Today we are going to find out there is nothing that God cannot do.  That is His omnipotence.  Omnipotence.  “Omni” means all; “potence” has to do with power.  God is all powerful.  Our God, the Bible claims, is all powerful.

Recently I was standing in my driveway at night and I was noticing how the spotlights were hitting the driveway and the kid’s basketball goal.  Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see something dark emerge from the grass and begin to crawl across my driveway.  I look and there in my eyesight is a big, bad, gargantuan emperor beetle.  And this beetle, talk about tough, you could see his triceps and biceps flex as his little feet hit the pavement.  And this beetle was walking with an attitude.  “This is my driveway and this is my yard and I am going to walk where I please.”  So I stand in the beetle’s path and get down face-to-face with him and he kept on coming.  He didn’t bear to the left, to the right.  He just kept right after me.  I though, “You know what, this little beetle doesn’t know who he is messing with.”  He doesn’t know how powerful I am.  You see I am a human being; he is just a little beetle.  But in his little beetle-like brain he thought, “I am going to forge my own path, I am going to do my own thing.”  The beetle didn’t realize who he was messing with.     Oftentimes I have come face-to-face with God.  So have you.  And we have looked into the eyes of God and because we have a couple of letters after our name, because we have this degree or that degree, we think we know what true power is.  Yet we underestimate the omnipotence of God.  I have done it before.  And if you are honest with yourself, so have you.  “Is God really that powerful?” we say to ourselves.  Two Old Testament icons forgot the same thing.  Jeremiah, one afternoon, was singing the blues.  I am talking about he had a bad time happening in his life.  He found himself imprisoned, people were joking about him, making fun of him, he was feeling way, way, way low.  And he began to doubt the omnipotence of God.  Suddenly God interjects these words in Jeremiah 32:17, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.  Is anything too difficult for Me?”  God was saying, “Hey J-man, you think just because I haven’t rescued you from prison that I have lost my punch, that My omnipotence isn’t quite as powerful as it used to be?  Come on J-man.  Remember nothing is too difficult for Me.”

Job.  Had a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a bad year, a bad section of his life.  And he began to doubt the omnipotence of God.  And God does something else to communicate His omnipotence to him.  He kind of plays the game of Not So Trivial Pursuit with Job.  God says, “Job, category, history.  Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Next category, Job.  Sports and Leisure.  Job, have you ever on a Sunday afternoon kind of just played with lightening bolts?”  This game God is playing is covered in three whole chapters of the book of Job.  Finally, Job says, “I know, God, that You can do all things,” Job 42:2.  Job probably thought that God gets a little bit sensitive when a person doubts His omnipotence.  We forget, though, about the omnipotence of God.

I want to share with you four power-packed principles concerning the omnipotence of God that you should never forget, that I should never forget.  We go through large blocks of time in our lives when we feel weak, when we feel powerless, when we feel downtrodden and we need the energizing power of God in situations, in attitudes and in relationships.  Four power-packed principles regarding the omnipotence of God you need to never, ever forget.

Power-packed principle number one: God’s power is unlimited.  I’ll say it again.  God’s power is unlimited.  David said it best in Psalm 62:11,  “Power belongs to God.”  David was talking about unrestrained, indescribable, infinite power.  He is not just talking about raw power.  He is talking about true power.  It takes no more energy for God to create a universe than it does for him to create a mosquito.  God’s power is unlimited.  How much power does it take to speak a creation into being, to scatter stars in the sky, to stack mountains 20,000 feet in the air, to fill oceans, to separate the light from the dark?  How much power does that take?  Again, though, autonomous man, beetle-brained man has a tough time getting a handle on the omnipotence of God.  We have a tough time even understanding that God’s power is unlimited because we measure everything by our little humanistic, finite standards.

For example, I’m going to tell you something right now I have never told an audience in my life.  This is a true confession.  I want to have all of your attention.  I, that’s right, Pastor Ed Young, 33 years of age, 6’2”, 180 pounds, I can bench press 3,500 pounds.  I’m not laughing.  Secondly, I have a vertical jump of 70 inches.  Thirdly, I can hit a sandwedge 800 yards.  How many of you believe those claims.  No one?  Guess what.  All of you are wrong.  I am right and you are wrong.  You are too limited.  You are thinking about earth.  All I have to do for you to see those feats is to jump aboard a space ship and get dropped off on the moon.  You turn the television on, CNN, and there is Pastor Ed Young.  Wow.  Thirty-five hundred pounds he is bench pressing.  He is making a 70-inch vertical jump.  Look at him, in a space suit to boot.  Look at him.  And is that a sandwedge?  Swish.  One handed.

You see.  You forgot something.  The laws of gravity are different on the moon than they are on the earth.  Things change.  Why?  Because I am in a different realm, a different zone, another level.  That kind of gives us just an inkling of the power, the unlimited, the omnipotent power of God.  He is infinite.  He is on another level.  So when we go into these things and we study the attributes of God, we have got to think about Him in terms that we cannot describe.  We really can’t.  It is important to realize God’s power is unlimited.

But there is a second power-packed principle: God’s power is purposeful.  God’s power is purposeful.  I have some good friends who are bodybuilders.  And I admire anyone who is a bodybuilder because it takes discipline to diet, to exercise.  They spend hours and hours and hours training.  It is a true lifestyle.  If you ever engage a bodybuilder in conversation, though, here is what they will answer if you ask them what they do with their muscles.  “Well, I am a bodybuilder, Ed, and I train and I lift large amounts of weight and I watch my diet meticulously and I do all these things to win body building contests.”  “How do you win a contest?”  “Well, what you do is put oil on your body, shave your arms and legs and pose to music and you have got to have smooth transitions to the music and in the end, Ed, if you win in your weight class, you have a pose down.  You compare your muscles to others.”  But I ask, “What do you use your muscles for?”  The answer.  “For posing.”

God never uses His omnipotence just to pose.  He is not the cosmic bodybuilder trying to show you this and show you that just for grins.  God’s power always has a purpose.  And you can never detach—listen to me—you can never detach God’s omnipotence from His sovereignty.  With God it is never a question of His power, it is a question of matching His power with His will.  That is why the Lord said the night before He was crucified, “Not what I will but what You will.”  God’s will.  And we have to keep that in the forefront of our mind when we contemplate God’s omnipotence.

Parents, we can identify with this.  Oftentimes, your children want something.  Almost all the time, right?  Oftentimes, you decide in your power not to do a certain thing.  You will not to do a certain thing because you know what is best for them.  Yet they still cry, they whine, they complain, they frown and they speak a language (I just made this up) called “whineese.”  But you choose not to do something because you have that kind of power.  You know what is best for them.

God does the same thing in our lives.  He is omnipotent.  It is never a question, never, of His power.  But it is a question of matching His power with His will.  Power with His sovereignty.  And He chooses to do certain things and not to do certain things for His children because, remember, He knows what’s best.  Don’t forget it.  God’s power is purposeful.  I think that the fact that God’s power is unlimited and God’s power is purposeful deserves a kind of ovation.  Just for a couple of seconds.  All right, God, thank you.  That deserves a hand.  God is omnipotent, unlimited, purposeful power.

But I want to tell you something else for the remainder of this message that should cause all of us to give God a quick standing ovation. Let’s quickly just stand up, and for two seconds, let’s give God a standing ovation.  Ready?  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Some of you are saying, “Why in the world did Ed do that in church?”  I’ll tell you why.  Not only is God all powerful but God has made the sovereign choice to share His power with weak individuals like you and like me.  And He doesn’t just want to share it, He is anxious to give it to us.  He can’t wait to see us use it.  He can’t wait to watch and see it change and revolutionize our lives.  God’s power is unlimited.  He wants to give it to you and to me.  And that brings us to the third power packed principle, deserving of the standing ovation principle.

God’s power is available.  Principle number three: God’s power is available.  The Bible tells us that it is available.  Isaiah 40:28-31, one of the best texts in the Bible.  Isaiah says, “Did you not know, have you not heard, the Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary and His understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  But those who hope upon the Lord will renew their strength (and check this out) they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

God offers His power to you and to me.  And I have heard pastors and I have heard teachers say this: “God is omnipotent.  He wants to share His power with you.  His power will change your life.”  And I have thought, that’s true.  I have seen it in the Bible and I have taken notes on it.  I have gone to seminary and done some doctrinal work and things like that but I am saying to myself, “God, You are omnipotent, I believe that but I don’t know how much that omnipotence finds it’s way to earth in my life.”  How about you?  Have you ever thought that?  “Where is Your power, God.  I need it in this situation, God.”

What is the problem?  Many of us feel like we are victims of circumstances.  Maybe someone has passed over you and promoted another person instead of you and you deserved it.  Maybe you have lost that client.  Or maybe you have lost a job.  Maybe you are having severe marital problems at this moment.  You feel like you are a victim.  “I’m a victim, God.  I’m a victim.  I kind of feel like Jeremiah.  I kind of feel like Job.  You have kind of forgotten about me.”  We also can feel like we are victims of character flaws, behavioral patterns that we want to change, maybe something that never quite worked.  And we get so made at ourselves.

During the holidays you watch those Solaflex commercials and you think to yourself, I am going to look like that man or that woman.  I am going to get serious about it.  And so you go out and you join that health club, you subscribe to those fitness magazines, you even buy a juicer.  And you have all the work-out paraphernalia and now, the 22nd of January, you have forgotten where the health club is.  You have cancelled your subscriptions to the fitness magazines.  You use the juicer now as a trolling motor behind your bass boat and you don’t know where your work-out clothes are anymore.  You kick yourself and you hate yourself because it never seems to work.  It never seems to work.

Again we are back to this equation.  God is omnipotent.  The Bible says, Isaiah 40, He wants to share His omnipotence with you and with me.  What is the breakdown, what is the missing link, what is the problem?  Here it is.  Are you ready?  Faith.  Faith.  Faith.  Faith is the missing link that keeps God’s omnipotence from being released in our lives.  Faith.

What is faith?  Faith is acting like it is, even though it isn’t, so in order that it can be so.  Acting like it is so, even though it isn’t so, in order that it can be so.  As I read the Bible I am blown away time after time after time by the fact that the power of God is not released until someone takes that spiritual risk, until someone takes that step of faith, then they are energized with the power.

Moses—Exodus Chapter 14—he led the children of Israel out of bondage.  Hundreds of thousands of people following him.  There was a visible manifestation of God, a cloud that they followed.  They were walking along, Moses leading the pack, and suddenly this cloud was pointing them toward The Red Sea.  And I am sure that Moses is thinking, “What, God?  The Red Sea?”  What if you were about tenth in line?  You would be wondering, “What is he going to do next?”  And Moses was probably looking around, and not finding any jet skis, wondered how they were going to cross that sea.  The Egyptians are following closely behind and they are mad and tough and mean and bad.  The Bible says in Exodus 14 that God told them to move out, to wade in the water.  And Moses puts his size thirteen (I’m guessing now) sandal in the water and The Red Sea kind of laps up on his toes and suddenly as he takes that step of faith, as he acts like he is empowered, what happened?  The waters are separated and the children of Israel cross.

Joshua, Chapter 3.  In a similar scenario, he was leading some people and he sees the swollen Jordan River.  I know the Jordan River well because I baptized in the Jordan and the waters are frigid, let me tell you…COLD.  Joshua walked to the banks and God said, “Joshua, you and the people wade in the water, put your feet in the water.”  And they did.  They acted empowered.  They acted courageous.  Then God performed a miracle and they went after it and they crossed, miraculously, the Jordan River.  You see a step of faith is taken before the power of God is unleashed.  The power of God is available.

The fourth principle is this: The power of God is transformational.  The power of God is transformational.  Yes, great that I need faith and I understand faith and the definition of faith, but how does this work in my life.  How can this help a weak man or weak woman like me?  Remember God’s power is transformational.  The Bible says in Ephesians 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”  The Bible also says in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”  2 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life.”  God’s power, though, is often withheld until we take a step of faith.

Let me explain.  This is an example that men can relate to.  You are coming home from work, in the car.  Driving along you feel low because it was a terrible, no good, horrible, bad day.  Everything has gone wrong and you know once your tires touch the driveway that your wife will want to talk to you.  Women do a much better job communicating their feelings than men.  But you don’t want to talk; you don’t want to hear it.  You know the kids will be asking you to play games with them, but you don’t feel like it.  You want to collapse and fall into that La-Z-boy, to watch Real Cops, to watch David Letterman and just relax and veg.  Have you ever felt that way before?  I have.

The Bible says we have a choice to make here.  The Bible says that we—Isaiah 40:28-13—should soar on wings like eagles.  “But, God, I feel like a wounded duck.  God, I feel like an injured quail.  I don’t feel like some eagle.”  We have a choice to make.  We can either act the way we are feeling or we decide to obey Isaiah 40, to never ever to forget that God’s power is unlimited, that God’s power is purposeful, that God’s power is available, that God’s power is transformational.  We decide to be like Moses and Joshua and we make a choice to take a step of faith and to act happy, to act positive, to act like we want to communicate with our wives, to act like we want to play Nintendo even when we don’t.  That is a step of faith.  Acting like it is so even though it isn’t so in order that it can be so.  And I am going to tell you something.  You take that step of faith, man, you take that step of faith, woman, and watch the power of God energize you.  Then you will begin to love what you are doing.

This past week I had a conversation with Pastor Owen Goff.  And Owen Goff, of all the people I have ever known in my life, is the best servant as defined in the Bible.  Talk about a selfless person, you get to know Pastor Owen Goff.  And I said “Owen, I want you to be straight with me, I want to ask you something.  When you see an opportunity to serve someone or when someone asks you to do something, do you ever way down deep say, ‘I just don’t feel like serving.’”

Now it took Owen a while to come up with this because I don’t think he thinks about it very much but he said, “Ah, yes, once or twice.”  So I asked him what he did when that happened.  He answered that when he feels like he doesn’t want to do something for someone, he just says, “Well I know I have this gift; I know God wants me to be selfless,” and I begin to act like a selfless person and then I begin to enjoy the activity.

Maybe you are a self-centered person.  Surely we don’t have any self-centered persons here do we?  And a situation happens and you want to be self-centered.  You want to position yourself.  You want to say the good things, to drop those names, to kind of flash this or do that.  When you have those feelings coming on, remember, God’s power is unlimited.  God’s power is purposeful.  God’s power is available.  God’s power is transformational.  “I am going to take a step of faith and I am going to act selfless, I am going to act humble.”  And watch the humility happen.

Maybe you say, well I am just not a peaceful person.  I like conflict.  You know you have conflict with a certain individual.  You hate to make eye contact with this person in the grocery store.  You kind of speed by their house.  You use liquid paper to white out their name from your Rolodex or whatever you use.  You know you have something to deal with, but you believe that you don’t have the courage or strength or the peace to do it.  Take a step of faith.  Act like you want to and watch the power of God take over.

People want to be generous.  Act generous.  Take a step of faith and give a generous gift to the church and then watch the generosity happen.  Or maybe self-discipline.  The most self-disciplined people I know are not people who have more discipline that I do or you do, it is just that they act disciplined and then God, by His grace, gives them the discipline.

The omnipotence of God.  God is all powerful.  He is all powerful.  I will conclude this message like I have concluded the other two.  When are we going to live like it?  When are we going to live like it?