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ESPRESSO YOURSELF

Yank the Plank

Ed Young

March 23, 2003

I hold in my hand some espresso.   I just made it.  I love espresso.  It’s stout, strong and it’s served in these little cups.  This series, Espresso Yourself, is the same way.  It’s strong, it’s stout and it’s going to be served in a little cup. We are only going to spend about four weeks on this series.

What’s so funny is that, for years, I mispronounced the name.  I called it expresso.  Finally, someone said, “Ed, it’s not expresso.  It’s espresso.”  I didn’t even know how to say it.  I didn’t even know the right expression.

Expression is the reason we are doing this entire series.  I’ve discovered that most people don’t really know how to “espresso” themselves.  Most people don’t really know how to connect with others.  Do you ever feel like you have this stuff down deep in your life that you want to say or want to communicate, but you just don’t know how to?  The Bible is a book of expression.  God has expressed his love to you and to me.  We can look at the Bible and we can see how God expressed himself to us. Then we can take that and express ourselves to others.

A while back, my wife, Lisa, gave me a really cool gift.  She bought me a pillow.  On the pillow, she had something embroidered.  It says, “Life is too short to drink bad coffee.”  That’s true.  If you are a serious coffee drinker, you know that’s true.  You have got to keep coffee fresh.  If it’s not fresh, it’s horrible.  If it sits around for a while it becomes stale.  You don’t want it.  That’s why companies like Starbucks have the “one-hour” rule.  Starbucks will brew a whole pot of coffee and after one hour, they just toss it.  I think if the reality of our lives was revealed, we would see that a lot of us here are living bitter and stale lives.  A lot of us here are not living caffeinated lives.  Our lives are decaf.  They don’t have any motion.  They don’t have any direction.  It goes back to expression.

Jesus talked a lot about bitterness.  He talked a lot about poor espresso.  For example, he said these words in Matthew 7: “Stop judging others and you will not be judged.  For others will treat you as you treat them.  Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged.  Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a plank in your own?  How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of the speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the plank in your own eye?  Hypocrite.  First get rid of the plank in your own eye and then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

Over the next several minutes, I want to talk to you about a sin that I am really good at.  I’m going to talk to you about something that I know how to do that is not very good.  What’s the sin?  Judging others.  What’s the sin?  Being consumed with criticism.  At this point, I know what you are thinking.  Some of you are thinking, “Oh, man, I am going to rush out and buy a CD of this talk, because I hear you can buy same-day messages.  I’m going to give this message to my father, to my friend, and to my neighbor.  I am going to put it in my neighbor’s mailbox.  It will just show up there.  That’s what I am going to do.  Oh, does she need to hear this one!  Wow! I can’t wait.  I’m going to take notes for someone else.”

That’s tempting.  It’s tempting for you and it’s tempting for me.  That’s great to think about others, but the most important person to think about is you.  Let’s think about ourselves right now, because we are the ones who need to hear this.  In Matthew 7, Jesus was talking to a bunch of scribes and Pharisees, a bunch of legalistic people, and a bunch of people who had bitter espresso all over their lives.  Let me just boil it down to where we can all understand it.  Here is today’s sermon in a sentence. Matthew 7:5 says, “Get rid of the plank from your own eye.”  That’s the sermon in a sentence.  “Get rid of the plank in your own eye.”  Jesus said we have a plank in our eyes.  We have some eye wood.  Here is the sermon in a sentence.  Are you ready?  You are going to repeat it with me.  It’s time for us to yank the plank.  Let’s say it together… 1-2-3… yank the plank.  We are talking about taking the plank in our own eye and yanking it so we can be freed up to live the kind of life that Christ wants — the kind of life that is truly about espresso — real, good, and rich espresso.

Matthew 7:1 has a warning label on it. It’s one of the most misunderstood verses in the entire Bible.  People take it out of context.  Most people are clueless about this verse.  Let me do a quick sidebar and talk to you about Matthew 7:1. Jesus said, “Stop judging others and you will not be judged.”  The word “judging” is the Greek term “kreno.”   It means to condemn, to damn, or to try someone in the courtroom of your consciousness.  That’s what it means to judge someone.  Jesus is not saying, not alluding to the fact, that we should not take a moral stand.  Jesus is not saying we should not believe in truth or absolutes.  He is not saying that we should not give someone constructive criticism.  He is not saying we should never critique someone.  No.  Later on in the passage, Jesus talks about false teachers.  How do we recognize false teachers?  By discernment and by constructively criticizing.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells us how to confront someone lovingly, compellingly, and creatively.  So, he is not driving at that constructive criticism stuff.  People take this out of context, and here is how they do it.  Let’s say you work with someone, and you take this guy out to lunch.  Let’s say you are a Christian and this guy isn’t.  This guy begins to tell you about his life.  He goes, “You know what?  I’m bailing out on my wife and my kids.  I’m not in touch with my inner child.  I’m not really self-actualized.  She’s holding me back.  I’m out.”

As a Christian, you say, “I think you are going to mess up here.  I don’t see any rationale for your decision.  Do you realize the collateral damage that is going to take place?”

But then this non-Christian looks at you and says, “Aren’t you a Christian?  Don’t you call yourself a believer?  Didn’t Jesus say stop judging others or you will be judged?  Aren’t you being intolerant of me?”

That’s bogus.  That’s ludicrous.  Jesus never said that. The Bible never said that.  What’s so hilarious is that our culture has taken a great word, an awesome word — tolerance — and has decaffeinated the word.  Tolerance, in its true original form, is a caffeinated term.  Do you know what tolerance means?  In its original form, tolerance means that I will respect you and accept you even though your beliefs are different from mine.  That’s good.  That’s a God thing.  The new tolerance, though, in its politically correct mumbo jumbo, says, “Let’s decaffeinate the word.  Let’s take it and strip it down.”  The new tolerance says that not only must I accept you and respect you because your beliefs are different, but now I’ve got to applaud you, embrace you, and accept what you believe as truth.

Do you know what?  The new tolerance says, “What is truth?  Truth is one thing to me and one thing to you. As long as you don’t hurt anybody, then everything is hunky-dory.”  That dog won’t hunt.  If someone has that ideology, it’s a self-refuting worldview.  The next time someone tries to take Matthew 7 out of context and toss it your way, the next time someone tries to tell you that you are being intolerant, say, “Wait a minute.  You are being intolerant by your attitude toward me.”  The Bible is a book of truth.  The Bible says there is absolute truth.  We must stand and own absolute truth.  The politically correct movement says, “No, there is no such thing as absolute truth.  Everything is relative.   What’s real for me is real for me, and what’s real for you is real for you.  That’s the way it is.”  Yet, if you don’t accept the absolute belief in relativism, the world says, you are being intolerant.  You see?  It’s a self-refuting worldview.  Now, I’m glad I got that out of the way because we can get back to where we are going in Matthew 7.

Let’s talk about the subject matter that is on the table.  Let’s talk about the stuff in the cup.  Let’s talk about espresso.  Let’s talk about bitterness.  Let’s talk about criticism.  Why was Jesus so into nailing a critical spirit?  Why was he so white-hot, so passionate, about pulling out the plank?  Why did Jesus just nail the Scribes and Pharisees between the eyes with their own eye wood?  I’ll tell you why.  A critical spirit, number one, is cold-blooded.  I just read it for you.  The critical spirit is cold-blooded.  I don’t know about you, but let me just tell you how I criticize.  You probably don’t criticize this way, but I do.  I criticize people who criticize me.  Maybe you are not like that.  This is just me talking to a couple of friends.  If someone is critical of me, or if someone puts me in the cross hairs of criticism, then I criticize them back.  Many times, I don’t do it verbally, but I do it in the courtroom of my consciousness.  I will damn you.  I will condemn you.  I’ll put you away on death row, baby.  I know how to do it.  Criticism is cold-blooded.  We like to criticize people who criticize us.

Here is something else about me.  I tend to be critical of my peers.  Surely, you are not.  I’ve discovered that homemakers are not usually critical of brain surgeons.  Brain surgeons are not usually critical of police officers.  Teachers are not usually critical of pastors.  See, pastors are usually critical of other pastors.  Homemakers are usually critical of other homemakers.  Real estate agents are usually critical of other real estate agents, and so forth and so on.  “You have something I don’t have.  You have an unfair advantage.  You have been elevated to that position.  I really deserve that.  So, I’m just going to tear you down.  Because when I tear you down, when I criticize you, it makes me look better.”

Maybe one or two people know what I am talking about.  Do you ever really wonder sometimes what the biggest plank in your life is?  Do you ever ask yourself, “What is that plank, that thing, that area that trips me up the most?  What is it?”  I sometimes wonder that in my life.  Let me tell you how to discover what it is.  When you criticize someone else, discover what you are actually tearing apart in that other person’s life.  Because whatever you are criticizing in the other person’s life is what you deal with the most in your own life.  I have the uncanny ability to point out the sin, the junk, in other people’s lives that I deal with the most.  It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?  It’s very convicting.  Jesus said, “Don’t criticize.”  Criticism is cold-blooded.

Let’s go back to the text, Matthew 7:1. Jesus said, “Stop judging others.”  Do you know what “stop” means here in the original language?  “Stop” means stop.  Am I going too fast?  As a parent, your kid is doing something wrong, what do you say?  Do you say, “Let me go ahead and discuss this with you?  What do you think about what you are doing?”  No. You say, “Stop.”  Stop means stop.  Read my lips.  Stop.  If you know anything about the original language, then you know this word “stop” is in the present-active-imperative.  It’s in the present tense.  It means we should stop now.  We should start right now to say, “Stop.  I’m going to stop today.”  Make the decision everyday, “I’m not going to go there.”  It’s in the active voice.  Take a wild guess what the subject is.  It’s not your father.  It’s not your neighbor.  It’s not your classmate.  It’s you and me.  It’s Ed Young.  I’m the subject.  It’s in the imperative.  It’s not optional.  Jesus was taking the role of a commander here.  It’s emphatic.  There’s no multiple choice here.  It’s just your deal and mine.

Look at Verses 4 and 5, Jesus said, “How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log…” It might say in your translation the plank. (In the original language, the word log or plank is a picture of a crossbeam that held up an entire structure.)   Do you see the humor there?  Jesus loved to use humor.  A crossbeam.  Some of us have this crossbeam of negativity that holds up the entire structure of our lives.  We are just consumed by criticism.  We say, “Let me help you get rid of the speck.”  Do you see the humor?  “Oh, look you have got some sawdust in your contact lens, but I’ve got a Sequoia tree in my eyes.”  “You’re very prideful and you are an egomaniac.  You are full of lust and greed and look at all the stuff.  Can you believe that?”

We like those specks, don’t we?  There are a lot of hunters here in Texas.  Thousands upon thousands of hunters converge on Outdoor World.  We talk about deer season.  We talk about dove season. We talk about all the different seasons.  Speck hunting is a year round deal, because we like to put specks in the crosshairs of our criticism.

“Oh there’s a speck there.  There’s another one.  This is cool.  Oh, yes, speck hunting.  I’m going to hunt you and you. I’ll pick those specks out.”

God says, “Well, Ed, how about the crossbeam in your face?  How about the sequoia tree in your eye?”

“Well, Lord, forget that. Just look at the speck in my wife’s eye, or my co-worker’s eye or my friend’s eye.”

Jesus said that criticism is cold-blooded.  It shouldn’t be.  Then he says the first word in verse 5, “Hypocrite.”  You talk about in-your-face?  Jesus said that if you are critical, if you are consumed by criticism, then you are a hypocrite.

I meet a lot of people.  They come up to me and they will ask, “You’re a pastor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What church are you pastor of?”

“Fellowship Church.”

“Really?  You know, I’ve not been to church in like thirteen years.  Pastor, I’ll just go ahead and be honest with you, man.  You know why?”

“Why?”

“Churches are full of hypocrites.  I just don’t go anymore, because they are full of hypocrites.  I just don’t go.  There’s a hypocrite here and a hypocrite there.  Church is full of hypocrites.”

I want everybody here to raise your hand for a second.  Look around.  Every hand that is raised is representative of a hypocrite.  I’m a hypocrite and so are you.  Let’s just call it how it is, all right?  We are all hypocrites.  Do you know what the word “hypocrite” means?  Hypocrite means assuming a role that is not yours to assume.  Have you ever done that?  I have.  I did a couple of days ago.   When we are hypocrites, what do we do?  We usurp God.  Here’s the throne.  [Ed places his stool in the middle of the stage to represent God’s central rule in our lives.  During the next few sentences, Ed acts as though he is removing God from the stool and then sits on the “throne” himself.]  God should rule and reign over our lives.   We say, “God, you know, I’m going to go ahead and take your position now.  I’m going to sovereignly rule over the universe called “me.”  I’ll call the shots.  In fact, God, I’m going to take out my plank, and I’m going to put people in the crosshairs of my criticism.  I’m going to take your place.  You sit over there, God, and I’m going to judge others.  I’m going to judge you.  You criticize me.  You’re my peer.  So, I’m going to judge, judge, judge, and criticize you.  That’s what I’m going to do.”

We are being hypocritical when we are critical.  We are assuming a role that is not ours to assume.  Sadly, if you look at many churches, you will see that they have become communities of criticism rather than communities of compassion.  One of the things I love about Fellowship is that we have a hunk of people who are compassionate here.  People tell me that all the time.  I’ve seen it in our 13-year history.   We accept others.  We respect you without having to approve of your behavior.  If you think about it, that’s what God does in my life.  He accepts me.  He respects me.  He doesn’t approve of everything I do, but he accepts me and loves me.  We are the same way at Fellowship, because God is that way.

So often, though, Christians can fall into the trap of criticizing others under the cloak of Christian concern.

“Let’s pray for Sally.  She has really messed up again in the dating world.  Let’s say a prayer for her right now.  Lord, we pray for Sally.  She has messed up in another dating relationship.   I can’t believe what she has done to this guy.  Can you believe it, Lord?  She’s done it again.”  Then we try to defend ourselves by saying, “Oh, but I’m being spiritual.” Oh, really?

Let me move on.  It’s getting very convicting here.  Criticism is cold-blooded, number one.

Number two, not only is criticism cold-blooded, but criticism is also a highly infectious disease.  Remember the series I concluded several weeks ago called CHARACTER TOUR?   I talked about great characters with great character?  We talked about Joshua and Caleb.  We said Joshua and Caleb were visionary people.  We said they went out and were ready to claim God’s real estate that he had given to the children of Israel.  When they came back and told the Israelites that it was time to claim the land, what did the Israelites do?  They put them in the crosshairs of criticism.  They shot them down.  The Bible says that the people wanted to kneecap them.  They wanted to take them out.  The Bible says that negativity spread around the entire encampment.  That’s the way criticism is.  I’m sly.  I know how to criticize.  Sometimes I’ll throw out criticism like some bait.  I’ll put out some feelers to see if other people will pick it up.  If you pick it up, well, I like you.  Then, you become critical and you catch the disease.  In turn, I’ll catch it again, and we spread it around.  It’s a highly infectious disease.

In fact, “Owen are you back there?”  Just a minute.  I want to get something.  Where’s my yo-yo?  Where is it? [Ed runs back stage and returns playing with a yo-yo.]

Criticism is just like a yo-yo, the Bible says.  Matthew 7:2 says, “For others will treat you as you treat them.  Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged.”

I throw criticism out and it comes back. And it hurts.  Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins.”  So, if I criticize you, abuse you, and  critique you, then that same measure is coming back on me.  It’s the yo-yo effect.  So, if you want to get what you are giving, go ahead and give it.  Bring it on.  But, you do not want to feel the yo-yo hit you.  I don’t want to feel it either.  That’s why Jesus said that criticism is a highly infectious disease.

Criticism is cold-blooded.  It’s a highly infectious disease.  Number three, a critical spirit is also blinding.  I have already shown you this.  It’s just blinding.  When I am critical, and when I am consumed by criticism, I can’t really see the way God sees.  I can’t really see you.  I can’t understand that you matter to God.  I can’t really do that.  Next weekend, I am talking about rudeness.  Sixty-nine percent of Americans say that rudeness is a major problem.  We exude rude, don’t we?  Am I talking about saying, “Thank you, yes ma’am, and yes sir?”  Of course.  But, I will also be talking about something even deeper than that.  Rudeness is on a rampage, and we are going to see how to root out rudeness.  Rudeness, as well as a critical spirit, can blind us.

Once we allow Jesus Christ to yank the plank out of our lives, once we allow him to take it out, two things happen.  Number one — we can see the mercy of God.  We can see the mercy of God.  We have a vertical thing going on.  We see the mercy of God.

What is the mercy of God?  The mercy of God is simply not getting what we deserve. That’s mercy.  It’s not getting what we deserve.  What do we deserve?  The Bible says we deserve hell.  We deserve a Christ-less eternity.  Does God hurl people to hell?  No.  We make that choice.  We are big boys and girls.  If we remove the plank, and if we allow Jesus to yank the plank, then we see clearly the mercies of God.

Matthew 5:7 says, “Blessed are the merciful.”  That means those who are receiving it and giving it.  The verse continues, “For they shall be shown mercy.”  I need mercy.  We all need it.  That’s the Gospel.  The Gospel is mercy.  It’s not getting something we deserve.  The Gospel simply means Good News.  So, are we consumed by criticism or are we giving good news?  Once the plank is yanked, I see the mercy of God.

Then, number two — I can extend the mercy of God.  I love this one.  I was blind.  Now that the plank has been yanked, I can see the mercy of God, vertically.  I’m not getting what I deserve. Because I am not getting what I deserve from God, I have the power, when I communicate to others and when I espresso myself to others, to not give them what they deserve.  I give them what God has given me.  Hebrews 3:13 says, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it’s called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  Talk to people.   Just do a quick interview.

Say, “Tell me some things in your life that have changed the trajectory of your life.”

They will talk about words.  They will talk about things people have written down.  They will talk about events.  They will talk about gifts.  They will talk about quality time that people spent with them and they will say, “Those actions, those acts of mercy, changed my life.”

Once the plank is yanked, we have the opportunity to see the mercy of God – not getting what we deserve.  In turn, we can give that mercy to others.  We can use mercy to affirm and encourage our spouse, our children, our parents, others we come into contact with, and even those in authority over us.  We have an opportunity to put wind in their sails.  Encouragement can be like food.  We need food to survive, to live.  It nourishes us.  Encouragement and being positive and seeing the best in others does the same thing.  Even the secular world understands it.

Dr. David H. Fink, a psychiatrist for the Veterans Administration wrote an article where he published the results of 10,000 case studies on nervous tension.  He came to the conclusion that there was one common trait among all people who suffered from severe tension.  He says, “They were habitual fault finders.  A critical spirit is a prelude to being mentally imbalanced.”  Do you want to sign up for being mentally imbalanced?  I don’t.  Do you want to sign up for nervous tension?  I don’t.  Allow Jesus Christ to yank the plank.

Think about this vertical part.  We see the mercy of God.  We don’t get what we deserve.  We don’t get it.  That’s mercy.  Because we are vertically right, then horizontally, as we relate to others, we can be right as well.  We can express mercy to others.  That vertical and horizontal mercy form the cross.  The cross is the ultimate symbol, act and form of expression.  Vertical, horizontal, it’s all about the mercy of God.

So as you look at your life ask yourself if you are living a caffeinated life.  Are you truly expressing yourself the way Christ desires?  If you are, then you are all about real espresso.

4 KEEPS

Keeping Creativity in Your Marriage

Ed Young

August 8, 1999

I have said it hundreds of times.  At the conclusion of a wedding ceremony I have looked into those starry eyes of the bride and groom and said, “Having pledged your faith in and love to each other and having sealed your solemn and significant vows by the giving and receiving of these rings, acting by the authority vested in me by the State of Texas and looking to heaven for divine sanction, I now pronounce you husband and wife in the presence of God and these assembled witnesses.”  Then I add from the Bible, “What God has joined together, let no man separate.”  At this point, if you were to do a freeze frame, everything seems so perfect, so right.  This man and this woman have just exchanged vows and rings and kisses.  It is for keeps.  Right?

Well, don’t respond too rapidly.  All you’ve got to do is push the clock forward a few years and add a few kids, a few in-laws, a few financial problems and the hum-drum of life and marriage doesn’t seem so for sure any more.  If I could take a poll of the marital satisfaction of every couple in this service, I think we would be amazed at the different responses.  I think some couples would say, “Ed, we have a great marriage.  We are more in love today that we were when we walked down the wedding runner.  Man, it is great.”  Other couples would shrug their shoulders and say, “It’s average, mediocre.  I am just kind of doing time in this prison cell of predictability.”  Some here would say, “4 Keeps?  How about 4-closure.  My marriage is hanging by a thread.  It is in the deep weeds.”  Maybe about now a single adult is punching her single adult friend and saying, “I wish I even had a marriage to rate.”

Why another series on marriage?  If you have been with us over the nine-year history at this church, you know I have talked about marriage a lot.  Several months ago I began praying and thinking about doing another series on this subject matter.  I was a little bit hesitant about it and then in one of our weekly planning meetings, I floated the marriage series idea by our management team.  One of the team members said, go for it.  Do another series on marriage, we can’t hear it enough.  So today, once again, I talk about this important matter.

The marriage relationship is the most important earthly relationship we have.  The most important relationship is our connection with God through Christ.  Right after that is whom we choose and how we live as a mate.  Marriage matters to God.  There are over 50 million husband and wife teams in the United States of America.  Ninety-four percent of us will marry at least once in our lifetime.  Seventy-five percent of those who are divorced remarry within the first two years of their divorce.  And even though marriages are busting up in record numbers, millions pursue it every single year.  Marriage is the anchor of the family.  It communicates volumes to the children.  Good marriages can change our communities, our cities, our states, and so on.  So that is why I am doing another series on marriage.

The title of this series is “4 Keeps – Keeping Creativity in Your Marriage.”  Why creativity, you might ask?  Over the last several years I have done a whole lot of study on the subject of creativity.  This past June I did a message from this stage when I went through the theology of creativity.  All of us are creative.  We are creative because we are made in the image of our creative Creator.  Thus, creativity should transcend every area of our lives, especially in the marital equation.  We need marital creativity because God invented marriage.  Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.”  God thought marriage up.  It was His idea.  He started the program.  I need marital creativity, you need marital creativity because God invented it.

We also need it because Jesus modeled it.  The New Testament calls Christ the bridegroom and refers to the church as the bride.  Christ gave His life for the bride.  A self-sacrificing love, a holy love, a pursuing love.  The Bible tells husbands to love their wives like Christ loved the church.  Well, how much did Christ love the church?  He gave His life for her.  We didn’t deserve it.  There is nothing I can do, you can do to merit what Jesus did for us.

Husbands, if you love your wife like Christ loves the church, you will have a great marriage.  You are going to have it going on.  You are going to have something special.  Ephesians 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  Marital creativity.  Why?  God invented it.  Jesus modeled it.

Also we need marital creativity because marriages need it.  People like you and people like me need it.  Most marriages are either moving in one direction or another.  That is just the way it is.

This past summer I took my family to California on a vacation.  I was driving one night at 11pm in a Suburban.  The car was packed with our four kids and some friends we had with us.  I was talking.  I talk a lot.  I was driving and Lisa was giving me directions since I am directionally-challenged.  Suddenly I saw in my rearview mirror that sight that causes some people to say bad words under their breath which I will not utter from the platform.  “Oh, Lisa, I am being pulled over.”  I slowed down and pulled off the road.

Remember, I had led the Beach Retreat in Gulf Shores, Alabama, for our youth and I had dyed my hair platinum blond.  It was still blond.  The patrolman came over, leaned in and said, “Sir, you were swerving a little bit, huh?  Had a couple of drinks tonight, I see.”  I said, “Officer, I don’t drink.  I am a pastor in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.”  He looked at me, specifically at the platinum blond hair and said, “Right.  I need to see your license, sir.”  I was rummaging around trying to find my license.  Lisa picked up a bottle of water and said, “Look we are drinking bottled water.”  He looked at my driver’s license, then at the car and said, “A lot of drunk drivers are on this stretch.  I see you are on your vacation and have not been drinking.  Just keep your car within the lines, OK.”  I said, “Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir.”  And when the highway patrolman turned and walked off, Lisa turned to me and said, “Boy, he was good looking.”  Then she said, “I wish he had stayed longer.”

In a real sense, God is patrolling the highways of our lives, isn’t He?  A lot of marriages here are swerving.  They are going in this direction and that direction.  And I truly believe that in this series God is going to pull us over, check our marriages out and then send us on our way.  He is going to say, “Stay between the lines.”  Stay within My parameters, My guardrails, My ground rules for a successful marriage.  You, my friend, can have a great marriage.  You really can.  And God wants you to have one.  But you have got to say, I am willing to do whatever it takes to have a successful union.

When you embark on a series like this you have to have some ground rules.  I am married, and I know how tempting it is when you hear someone talking about marriage to think about your spouse, not to think about yourself but to think about your spouse.  And while I am talking, if we didn’t set these ground rules up, some of you ladies might say, “Ed, thank you for hitting him between the eyes.  He needs that so much.  Get him, Ed.  Tear him from limb to limb.”  And I know that some husbands might sit back and say, “Ah, she has been doing that for the last three years.  Ed, thank you for saying that.”  Let’s don’t do that.  I don’t need to think about Lisa.  She does not need to think about me.  We need to think about ourselves.  Most of us are so obsessed about what our spouse is not doing or is doing or should be doing that we forget to think about old number one.

So in today’s opening session, I just want to highlight for you several things that I have noticed about great marriages.  For starters, great marriages maintain a tireless MWE.  I am talking about a Marital Work Ethic.  Recently I was flying to speak in another part of the country.  I boarded the plane to take my seat in coach.  I was watching others board after I was seated.  One man came on board with a look on his face that said he was having a bad day.  He walked through First Class looking at the empty seats there.  When he walked behind the curtain it kind of got to him.  He sat down in coach right across the aisle from me.  You could tell he was just ready.  The flight hadn’t even taken off yet when he punched the guy in front and told him not to lean his seat back.  He kept looking at First Class where they already had beverage service.  The flight attendant walked by and he said, “Excuse me, honey.  I was noticing some empty seats in First Class.  Are there any available?”  She smiled and said, “There are some empty seats, but there are none available for you.”  He sat there and I could tell he was stewing.  He took out his wallet and looked through some cards.  He pulled out a travel agent card.  The same flight attendant walked by.  “Miss, I have this travel agent card and I wondered if you would put me up to First Class.”  She smiled and said, “No,” and kept walking.

What was happening here?  This man was trying to get to First Class, but he hadn’t paid the price.  If you want to have a first class marriage, you have got to pay the price.  You have got to have a tireless marital work ethic.  The sad thing is we are all weaned on the words of our culture.  If it is not quick, easy, express, overnight, or disposable, somehow we think it is not that good, it doesn’t really work, it can’t be gratifying.  Well, one day we get married and discover that marriage takes work, negotiation, sweat, toil, pain, sacrifice, and it is for keeps.  No wonder most marriages don’t make it.

How about it?  I am talking to you.  How about it?  Ask God to develop within your spirit a tireless marital work ethic.  It takes work.  Yes, it takes work, but to carry out work, it takes creativity.  To carry forth our commitment, it takes boatloads of creativity.  We need marital creativity.

I define marital creativity as innovative action for qualitative growth.  Don’t miss that.  Innovative action for qualitative growth.  We’ll get back to this definition throughout the series.  Over the next several weeks as we get into this study called “4 Keeps – Keeping Creativity in Your Marriage,” we are going to talk about innovation.  We are going to talk about how to apply creativity for qualitative growth.  Next weekend we are discussing communication.  Guess what.  Sometimes I have communicative breakdowns in my marriage.  How about you?

The Bible talks on and on about communication.  How do I do it in a creative way?  The following weekend, we are going to talk about creative conflict that leads to greater intimacy.  I sometimes have conflict in my marriage.  Do you?  If you don’t have conflict, I worry about you.  That is when I begin to get scared.  “We just don’t fight.  We just don’t argue.  We never disagree.”  Hello, are you alive?  Conflict can be great.  It can be the door that leads to greater intimacy.  We will talk about handling it in a creative manner.

Well, three weekends from now we are going to do a message that might require five services.  We are calling it “Sex Busters – How to Creatively Love Your Spouse in the Physical Domain.”  Whoa, they will be packing it in, standing room only at the Fellowship Church.  Fatigue, stress, kids…I’ll stop.  The final installment, and if my math is correct, Labor Day weekend, Lisa and I will hit the stage and we are going to answer the top three or four questions that you are asking about marriage.

During this series, starting next weekend, we will put an insert in the bulletin where you can list your questions.  You don’t have to sign your names.  Just write any question regarding any problem, any difficulty that you have with marriage.  We will process all those questions, rank them, and Lisa and I will answer as many as possible the last session of our series.  So, that is my promise to you.  Let me add, I believe that every marriage here can improve at least 20% because of this series from God’s manual for a maximum marriage.  I really believe that.  Those numbers are real.

We fall in love when the other party meets our emotional needs.  It takes creativity to meet our emotional needs.  We marry our spouse based on what they have done in the past, what they are doing in the present, and what they hopefully will do in the future.  But our needs are changing.  For instance, the camera is having a hard time picking me up right now.  That is the way our emotional needs are.  See, they are moving.  My needs at 21 were different from when I reached 31 and those are different than my needs now.  It takes work to meet my emotional needs.

When a spouse says that they don’t want to meet those emotional needs anymore, that is when love begins to wane.  And people decide not to meet those emotional needs for a number of reasons.  Some say, “Forget the marital work ethic.”  Others just keep on doing the same thing they have always done to meet those needs.  The same thing, the same way, expecting unique results.  That won’t work because emotional needs are moving targets.  You have got to understand that and study your spouse so you can meet those needs.  That is how love will grow the way God wants it to.

I have been praying for the last several months that this series would be the trigger point for every couple here.  I have prayed that it will cause you to delve into marital work like you have never done before.  But the thing that scares the fool out of me, the thing that has kept me up at night is the fact that I know some husband and wife teams will show up here, hear the information, hear what God has to say about the marital equation, and they won’t make any changes.  Even though they may not have the desire, they need to pray that God will give them the desire.  It scares me that they will miss it.  Don’t miss it.  Make every session.  If you miss one, get the tape.  It will be worth it.  Great marriages maintain a tireless MWE.

Now some of you are sitting there listening to me thinking, “OK, Ed, it is easy for you to talk about marriage.  You have been married for 17 years.  You have a great marriage.  You are a pastor.  You have got it together.  You don’t know what it is like to live on the rugged plains of reality.  You have no idea what my marriage is like.  So, I’ll listen but….”

I do have a great marriage.  I love Lisa today more than I did 17 years ago.  But I go through the same challenges, the same conflicts, the same temptations that you do.  I am a human being; you are a human being.  We are in this thing together.  Marriage takes a lot of work for me.  But the work is worth it.  What I am finding these days is that couples will hit a relational sticking point and they won’t deal with the junk in their lives.  They say, let’s just get a divorce.  Then they will take the same junk into the next marriage and the next marriage and the next marriage.  That is ridiculous.  Deal with it now.  Work on it now.  Say, “God, this deal is for keeps.  I am going to bust it to keep creativity and innovation in my marriage.”

Here is another thing people in great marriages do.  They develop a keen understanding of the value of their vows.  They maintain a great marital work ethic but they also develop a keen understanding of the value of their vows.  Remember that stuff you said years ago?  I am talking about to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity, leaving all others to keep only with each other as long as you both shall live.  That stuff is what I am talking about.  Whoa, you say, you have only said that one time and when you did, you were so wigged out that you didn’t even know what you were saying.  You said them in front of God, a pastor, and some friends.  Whoa, what did those words mean?  The vows.  The vows.  The vows.

I have only said my vow once, 17 years ago.  You see, I told you I was like you.  But because of today’s topic we are going to change that.  Let me explain.  Several days ago, I accompanied Lisa to her 20th high school reunion.  I walked into the hotel ballroom.  The lights were blinking.  The dance floor was busy.  People 20 years older, with 20 excess pounds were still trying to shake that groove thing.  They were still trying to stay alive.  Know what I am talking about?  There were videos playing about the glory days of high school.  What was happening at this whole celebration?  The reunion committee was attempting to bring the past into the present.  They were trying to make that past stuff current.  And that is precisely what I want you to do with your vows.  Take those promises you made in the past and pursue them passionately in the present.

I was speaking in the southeast and I got into a conversation with a very close friend of mine about marriage.  My friend said, “Ed, after my honeymoon, my wife became desperately ill.  She has been ill during our entire 17-year marriage.  Nothing is normal about our marriage.  Intimacy is not normal.  Communication is not normal.  Sex is not normal.”  Then he looked at me and said, “When I recited those vows, when I said in sickness and in health, I meant it.  I meant it.”  When he said those words, I said to myself, God, let that be me.  And I pray that you are saying right now that you want that to be you.  To love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity, for keeps.  It is not lightweight stuff.  It is not off-the-cuff stuff.  You gave your word to God.  You got into a covenant deal with Him.  Take the vows from the past and bring them into the present.  Make them current.

You wouldn’t think about not being current with your bills.  Most of us pay bills about once a month.  You wouldn’t think about not paying the cable bill, not paying your insurance or your mortgage.  You will stay current.  Well, stay current with your vows.  I want you to recite your vows to your spouse once a month.  Once a month bring them from the past into the present and pursue them passionately and continue to move those vows and those commitments into the future.

I have taken the vows and put them in modern day vernacular.  If you are seated beside your spouse I want you to raise your hand.  I want to ask you in a couple of moments to turn to your spouse and repeat these words after me.  Now, you don’t have to do it.  If you don’t feel like it, or don’t feel ready, you don’t have to do it.  We won’t look around to spot those who are married and not doing this.  Just chill.  This is going to be a once a month deal.  The words are going to be on the side screens, but you look into the eyes of your spouse.  The Bible says that the eyes are the windows of our soul.  If you want, take the hand of your spouse and say these words to her.  I commit before God and you to creatively love honor and respect you, to be true to you in all situations for the rest of my life.

Now you are wondering what is so big about that.  Well, I will tell you.  The vow starts, “I commit before God….”  We can talk about work all day and all night, talk about creativity until the cows come home.  We can talk about the value of the vows, but it all starts with God.  We have got to be on the same page with Him.  Marital math is two becoming one.  It is a supernatural thing, and it starts when we have a connection, a personal relationship with Christ.  And Christ will give us the endurance and the ability to work, to create, and to keep up our end of the vow.

So when you are talking to your spouse and you are having a communicative breakdown, when you want to spin on your heels and go out the door, when you want to bail out, suddenly this will echo in your mind.  You may even be able to write these better, but don’t forget God and Jesus Christ when you write them.

If I am going to love, honor, and respect—again I go back to creativity, I go back to work.  When you get to a conflict and you feel the temperature rising, remember the value of the vows.  How about when one is in the mood for love and the other one is not.  That happens now and then.  Remember the vows.

Hey, Fellowship Church, I am so thrilled at what I am seeing in so many marriages here.  God is doing great things.  And he wants to do even greater things in every marriage here.  My marriage needs improvement.  Your marriage needs improvement.  So let’s do this thing together.  Let’s commit to the MWE and let’s develop and live out the value of our vows.  It is 4 KEEPS.  It is built with creativity, and it will change the course of your life and mine.

A BOUT WITH DOUBT

When Faith Has Lost Its Fizz

Ed Young

November 5, 2000

People have always said this about me, “Ed, you ask a bunch of questions.”  I agree.  I refer to myself as the quintessential questioner.  I’m always asking questions.  This must be genetic because my four children do the same.  For example, if Lisa and I happen to be driving from church to our home, our kids are asking us questions.  And often times I’ll stop and say, “Okay, I’m now imposing a question quota.  Each of you is limited to two questions each, so you better make them count.”  Within five minutes or so, all the questions have been used up, and it’s hilarious to watch our children trying to say something without asking a question.  They will say, “Dad, why…?”  “Ah!  That’s a question.”  “Mom, what if…?”  “Ah!  That’s a question.”

I’m so glad, I’m so thrilled that our God does not impose a question quota on us, aren’t you?  I’m happy that God does not limit us to two questions.  I’m stoked that when we ask, “God, why…?”  God doesn’t say, “Ah!”  “God, what if…?”  “Ah!”  God doesn’t do that.  God welcomes our doubts, our questions and our issues.

As I said, I am the quintessential questioner.  My questioning does not stop at my faith.  I’ve lobbed many questions God’s way.  I’ve questioned and expressed doubts about my Christian faith, about the Bible, about many issues of faith.  About now, some of you are elbowing your neighbor and saying, “Can you believe he said that?  Can you believe this pastor expressed the fact that he sometimes has bouts with doubt?  Wow!”

A lot of you right now are breathing a big sigh of relief.  “I thought I was the only one!  Man, that frees me up.  You mean a man of the cloth deals with doubt?”  The answer is “yes.”  Yes, I do.

Whenever you talk about doubt, it’s interesting to think about the demographics of it, because there are three specific doubt demographics.  The first demographic would be those who are pre-doubters, those who say, “Well, I’ve never really had a doubt but, you know, maybe one day I will doubt.”  If that’s you, let me tell something—you definitely will doubt one day.  You are going to doubt.  You might have not doubted so far, but you are going to.

Another slice would be those here who are doubters.  Now and then you have those nagging questions, those issues, those statements that you really ponder, that you grapple with, that you turn over and over on the rotisserie grill of your mind.

The other demographic represented are those who are dead.  The only way you will never doubt is if you don’t have any brain waves anymore, if you are dead.  Author Philip Yancey said it best.  He said, “God’s invisibility guarantees I will experience times of doubt.”  In other words, we all are going to get involved in bouts with doubt.  It’s going to happen.

But the great news is we can win the battles.  We can take care of our opponent.  We will have times when we are involved with bouts with doubt.  Maybe you have a low-grade doubt, or maybe your faith has the full-blown flu.  I don’t know.  This series is for you.  Maybe you are asking this question: “Does God really love me?  Can this huge and sovereign God really show his desire for me?”  Some of you have questions like that.  Others of you are saying, “Can God forgive me?  Can he really wipe the slate clean?  Can he really turn his back on the stuff that I have done?  Can God forgive me?”  Others of you are saying, “How can a good God allow all the pain and the suffering and the turmoil to go on?  How?  I have a hard time with that one.”

Maybe you are asking, “How does evolution square with creation?  I have a hard time reconciling the supernatural in this rationalistic world.”  Maybe you are asking this, “Is the whole Christian thing just where you were born?”  Maybe you are saying, “If I was born into a Muslim household or a Buddhist household or a Hindu household, I would probably be a committed Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu like I’m a committed Christian.  I mean, is it just where you are born?”

Good questions.  Profound questions.  Thought provoking questions.  This series is tailor made for you.  Basically, I have several goals over the next six to seven weeks, as we talk about our bouts with doubt.  The first goal goes something like this: I want us once and for all to lift the question quota.  In other words, it’s okay to doubt.  Express your doubt.  Talk to others about them.  Fellowship Church is a church that welcomes your questions.  Just throw question after question after question at God.  This is the place to doubt.  If you are a doubter, if you are a questioner, welcome to Fellowship Church.  Join the club.  It’s a great thing.  If you don’t face your doubts squarely, you are going to be in a heap of trouble.  If you cower, or you say, “Whoa, I’m having a doubt.  I’m having a question.  I’m having an issue,” your doubts can dominate you and lead you into trouble…into defeat.

Conversely, you can face your doubt.  That’s what we should do.  Face them squarely.  Punch them.  Look at them.  Call them what they are, because that is how we will have victory.  That’s a goal—to lift the question quota.  If you are a questioner, you are welcome here at this great church.

Another goal I have is to strengthen our faith.  A lot of us right now, if we were honest, have flabby faith.  It’s just not happening.  I believe after we make every installment of this series, we will emerge from this context as stronger and tighter, with more energy and a deeper, wider faith than we ever thought possible.  I’m excited every time I begin a series and every time I talk about everything from marriage to family issues, from a biblical character to going through the Bible.  But I am really excited about this series.

Have you ever heard of this named Bill Phillips?  He’s this healthy, weight-lifting guru, who has written a book called Body for Life.  He has made multi-millions by showing everyone the before and after photos.  These before photos are of people who are just solid flab and you are thinking, “Oh, man, they are standing there in their bathing suits.”  You know?  Eight weeks later, after getting on Bill Phillips products and doing his Body for Life stuff, they look like Arnold.  “I’m ready to pump you up.” [said in Arnold’s accent]  You are going, “Wow, before and after, unbelievable…incredible!”  That, I believe, spiritually speaking, is what’s going to happen to most of us here.  We are going to say, “Man, before this series, look at the flab.  Look at the fat.  Now look at me!  I’m a body-builder.  I’m buff man.  I’m strong.”  Our goal is to strengthen faith.

Another goal I have is to answer the why behind what we believe.  If someone asked you, “Why do you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God?  Why do you believe the Bible is true?”  Could you tell them, or would you kind of stutter and say, “Well, the B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me.  Jesus loves me this I know.  I pledge allegiance to the flag.”  Or, could you say, “Here is why I believe what I believe.  Here is the evidence that points me to this.”  Do you have faith in faith, or do you have faith in God?

In this series, we are going to talk about the difference between Jesus Christ and Mohammed, the difference between Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and other world religious leaders.  What makes Christ unique?  What makes Him different?

I think we will be surprised throughout this series.  This introductory message is huge because every one will build on the next.  We are going to get really deep here, really profound here.  This series will rock a lot of us because many of us are running around and we don’t know what faith really is.  We think we do, but we don’t.  So get ready to be shocked and surprised.

Speaking of being shocked and surprised, I want to talk to you about some surprising shocking statements about doubt.  Here is the first shocking statement about doubt.  Doubt and unbelief are different animals.  Doubt and unbelief are different animals.  A lot of people think, “I doubt, so it must mean I don’t believe.”  That is not true.  Doubt and belief are similar; you need them both.  But doubt is different than unbelief.  The word doubt comes from a Latin term “dubatere.”  Dubatere comes from a root Arian word meaning “two.”  Say it with me, “two.”  When I doubt, I am into the “two” thing.  I am ambivalent over certain issues.  I am between one and two.  I’m kind of hanging there in the air.

The word “believe” means to be in one mind about something that we trust.  That’s what “believe” means.  To disbelieve, to not have belief, means to be in one mind about something I reject…something I turn my back on.  Doubt is between the two.  So, just because I doubt does not mean I don’t believe.  However, doubt can lead us to unbelief if we don’t do the right stuff with our doubt.  That should be a surprising and shocking statement because the evil one likes to whisper to us, “Oh, you doubt!  That means you don’t believe.  That means you are not a Christ-follower.  That means you don’t have any faith.”

Doubt and belief go hand in hand.  If every single question were answered, there would be no faith.  But that is too deep right now.  I don’t want to chase that rabbit.  That’s later on.  I’m getting excited.

Let’s go to the second shocking and surprising statement.  Not only are doubt and unbelief different animals, doubt is not a cosmic crime.  You might think, “I’ve committed the unpardonable sin because I’ve doubted.  I have really messed up.”  Doubt is not the cosmic crime.

Madison Square Garden.  That great historic arena has an organist that is really talented.  During crunch time in a hockey or basketball game, this organist from Madison Square Garden begins to play a succession of chords we’re all familiar with.  As the music gets louder and louder and the chords go higher and higher up the keyboard, the crowd begins to get excited.  Can you hear that organ right now playing inside your head, telling you that it’s crunch time?  Are you with me now?  Oh, this is it.  A defining moment.  Crunch time.  Let’s really focus and watch what is going to occur.

John the Baptist saw Jesus Christ and he said, “There is the lamb of God.  John baptized him.  John saw the Holy Spirit descending upon the Lord in the form of a dove.  I can hear the organ.  Can’t you hear it too?  Later on, John the Baptist was thrown in prison.  It was crunch time.  What did he do?  He had a bout with doubt.  John the Baptist!  The baptizer of Jesus, the forerunner of our Lord who witnessed all these miracles, had a bout with doubt.

Check it out, Luke Chapter 7, Verse 19: “John, while in prison, dispatched some of his friends to go to Christ and ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else.’”  Look at Christ’s response, Verse 22: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard.  The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

Check out Verse 28; here’s what Jesus said.  He gave John the Baptist, during a bout with doubt, the ultimate compliment.  He gave him a high five.  He said, “I tell you among those born of women, there is no one greater than John.”  That’s refreshing.  That puts wind in my sail.  That gives me a snap to my punches in my bout with doubt.  Jesus said, “John, you are a great man of faith even though you are in the midst of a bout with doubt.”

God is the ultimate.  God is our perfect heavenly parent.  He doesn’t want us in some pseudo-relationship with him.  He doesn’t want us to dumb down to become a Christian.  He wants us to express our doubts, our issues, our concerns to him.  Are you doing that?  Doubt and unbelief are different animals. Doubt is not a cosmic crime.

A third surprising and shocking statement is doubt has great potential.  Doubt has great potential.  I am going to open my mouth.  I warn you, I have a humongous mouth.  My dentist told me, “Ed, your mouth is the size of a condo.”  Okay, in the back of my mouth, there is a little piece of skin hanging down around the soft palate.  That’s called your uvula.”  Say it with me, “uvula.”  It’s kind of insignificant.  We don’t think about it.  We don’t wake up in the morning and wonder how our uvula is doing.

I had some problems with my uvula, though, two weeks ago.  I got sick and I was out of town speaking when my uvula began to swell.  This little thing was four to five times its normal size.  It felt like it was choking me.  It was so big that I thought I had two tongues.  I didn’t do anything about it.  I let it go on day after day after day.  I spoke at a conference in the Southeast.  I could barely speak.  Finally, I flew back to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, did the Saturday evening service, and I talked to my doctor who attends Fellowship.  I said, “Doc, my uvula is messed up.  Look at this thing.”  He goes, “Wow!  Ed, why didn’t you call me earlier?”  He called in some medication.  I went to pharmacy, picked it up, took it, and now my uvula is back to its normal size.  Man, it feels good!

Doubts are a lot like uvulas.  They start out small and they kind of just hang there.  They are not that big of a deal.  But if they get infected with the germs of disbelief and our faith gets rocked, or maybe we have read an article by some scientist that takes the wind out of our faith, it can begin to swell our uvulas.  And they can slowly choke out our faith.  We don’t need to walk around with our doubts unchecked.  We need to go to the great physician, Jesus Christ, and say, “Lord, I’m having these doubts.  Give me assistance.  Give me the medication.  Help me.”

Yes, doubts have great potential.  They are like our uvulas.  They can choke out our faith.  Also, though, doubts can lead us into a deeper connection and a deeper walk with the Lord.  Remember, it’s what we do with our doubts.  It’s what we do with them.

Sometimes when I am going through a bout with doubt, I’ll feel like there is a distance between myself and God caused by my doubts.  So often, God will use this distance for me to concentrate on his character and to appreciate his presence even to a greater degree.  I think David felt this when everything was kind of falling apart, he said this in Psalm 22, Verse 1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Our doubts distance us from God, yet God can use them to develop a greater hunger for him.

I love my wife.  We have been married for 18 years.  She is an unbelievable lady.  She is a great leader, a great Christian.  She home schools our four children.  I can go on and on and on about her.  But here is what I do.  I find myself taking Lisa for granted when we are together.  I don’t find myself concentrating on her character, on her voice, appreciating the twinkle in her eyes, the way she walks, her sweet spirit and all that.  I don’t really appreciate that until she is gone.

Three weeks ago, she and the kids went to South Carolina to see her Mom and some relatives, and I began to concentrate on those things that I took for granted when she was there.  The same is true in our life of faith.  When doubts distance us, God can use them to create an even deeper hunger for him; and we concentrate and focus on his character qualities.  So it’s what we do with the doubts.

What are you doing with them?  Are you letting them get you against the ropes and knock the wind out of you?  Are you letting them defeat you?  Or, are you using them and allowing God to use them to deepen your faith?  A bout with doubt is all about punches.  A lot of us have punches.  Some of the punches that sting and hit us and way-lay us are punches that we know are there, but we have never really pin-pointed them.  One of the punches that really hurts a lot of us is the intellectual upper cut.  The intellectual upper cut.  You’ve got some nagging questions.

“Ed, are you expecting me to buy into the deal that there are angels, that there is a resurrection, and there’s a heaven and hell?  You’re expecting me to buy into all that?  You’re expecting me to think that this is a rational deal, that I can really use my mind and my intellect and I can be a thinking Christ-follower?  You’re expecting me to believe that?  I’ve got some really intellectual questions, concerns, doubts and issues.”  Good.  What are they?  “Well, they are just some concerns.  I’ve got some problems and some vague stuff.”  Pinpoint them.  You’ll be prolific when you are specific.  Write them out.  Articulate them.  Then say, “God, help me.  Lead me to answers.”  He will.

Another punch that really knocks the wind out of our faith is the psychological head butt.  I almost put ear bite, like Mike Tyson, but let’s keep it clean.  Head-butting is not really clean.  Sometimes we are head-butted by this psychological stuff.  Some of us here are damaged due to our past.  Some of us here had struggles with our earthly father.  Some of us here think about the concept of the fatherhood of God and we choke down on it because our earthly fathers were so bad.  And we project our earthly father’s character quality on our heavenly father.  No wonder you have doubts.  No wonder you have issues.  You say, “Man, I don’t want anything to do with some heavenly father.”

This father pain can hurt our faith.  It can damage us.  New York University psychology professor, Paul Vitz, in his book, Faith of the Fatherless, studied the childhoods of several well-known atheists, and saw strong evidence that their rejection of God is directly related to father pain—the death of a father or abuse or abandonment by their fathers.

Vitz points out that Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who declared that God is dead, lost his father at age four.  Samuel Butler, a skeptical British writer, was often brutally beaten by his pious father.  Sigmund Freud said his father was a pervert and built much of his psychological theory around father hatred.  John Paul Sartre, French existentialist, lost his father when he was a baby and later deeply resented his stepfather.  Joseph Stalin’s father beat him unmercifully.  So, Vitz suggests that it should not surprise us that a communism which rejected authority figures, including God, appealed to Stalin.  Hitler received terrible beatings from his father.  The father of China’s Communist leader, Mao Se Tung, was a tyrant.  Madeleine Murray O’Hare once tried to kill her father.  The list goes on and on.

There is a big issue here.  A family of origin deal.  If you had problems, if you’re trying to process pain from your past and it’s a psychological situation, it can mess up your faith.  It can knock it out for the count.  Maybe, just maybe, you have gone through a trauma, maybe a death or an illness.  Maybe you’ve been burned in a relationship and that trauma is causing doubt.

I think about media mogul, Ted Turner.  Turner made a decision to follow Christ at a Billy Graham crusade when he was a young guy.  Later on, his sister died an excruciating death, and from that day forward, Ted turned his back on the faith, never to look God’s way again.  An intellectual deal.  A psychological deal with our family of origin or with trauma.

It could be a sinful situation.  I call it a “sinful combination.”  Sin can usher in doubt because, when I’m involved in sin, sin sequesters me and separates me from God.  I live at war, so to speak, with him.  And because I am separate from him, doubts can begin to dog me and dominate me and really begin to win the battle.  Maybe it’s a sinful situation.  Maybe it’s a pride issue.  Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “I’m just not going to bow the knee to anyone.  I’m a self-made man.  I’m a self-made woman.”  Maybe it’s that.  I don’t know.  Only God knows.

Throughout this series, we’re going to talk about winning because that is what we are going to do.  Winning the bout with doubt and strengthening our faith.  How do you win a bout with doubt?  First of all, you click on the right icon.  This week, I want you to ask God, “God, show me what is driving most of my doubt.”  Is it an intellectual situation, a psychological one, or a sinful one.  What is it?  Or maybe, just maybe, you are experiencing doubt because you have never accepted Jesus Christ into your life.  That is a natural thing.  But what is it?  Pinpoint that.  Be very specific.  God will lead you to the right path.

Apply the 9:24 principle.  There was a father who was dealing with a traumatic situation.  His son was possessed by a demon.  He came to Christ, and here is what he said in Mark 9:24: “I do believe.  Help me, Lord, overcome my unbelief.”  What a prayer.  What a statement.  It’s a statement and prayer that many here need to pray.  The 9:24 principle.  I believe.  Help me, though, overcome my doubts, overcome my unbelief, overcome my issues, my questions.  Help me, God.  Help me.

Leave your island is another way to win the bout with doubt.  I grew up watching Gilligan’s Island.  That is a very frustrating show.  Those people were stupid, weren’t they?  The professor could build satellite dishes with bamboo shoots and radios out of coconuts, and Gilligan would always mess it up.  Thurston Howell III and Lovey and all that…frustrating!  I used to say to myself, “Get off the island!  Come on, professor.  Let’s go!”

If you deal with doubt, a low grade doubt, or if your faith has the full blown flu, or if you are not a believer and are just a skeptic, don’t doubt on Gilligan’s Island.  Don’t doubt in isolation.  Leave the island and doubt in community.  That’s what the church is for.  Doubt in a small group.  Doubt in weekend services.  Get into dialogue with those who have a more mature and a deeper faith than you.  Leave the island.

This last one I chose and made up because Dallas/Ft. Worth is one of the leading cities in America regarding plastic surgery, and here we go: get a faith lift.  This faith lift situation is deep.  It’s monstrous.  As I said earlier, most of us don’t really know what faith is.  I would love to elaborate on this, but we are out of time.

You can and you will win your bout with doubt because you can be a deep Christ-follower without having all the questions answered.  You could be on your way to heaven and still have some issues.  It all centers on faith.

A BOUT WITH DOUBT

Highway 146

Ed Young

December 17, 2000

A while back, Lisa and I traveled out to southern California for a series of meetings with several pastors of growing churches.  While we were there, we decided to eat some sushi.  We love sushi.  We picked a sushi bar and walked into this place.   By the way, speaking of sushi, do you know how to tell the difference between Dallas and Ft. Worth?  In Dallas, they call it “sushi.”  In Ft. Worth, they call it “bait.”  I can say that because I live in Tarrant County, okay?

As we ventured into this restaurant, it was the quintessential California trendy place—the hardwood floors, the loud music, and packed with beautiful people, you know?  There were two open seats at the sushi bar by a gentleman.  Obviously, he was single.  Lisa and I walked in and took the seats.

In between orders of customized sushi, he looked over at me and said, “Hey, are you guys from around here?”

We said, “No, we’re from Texas.”

He said, “Oh, Texas, really?  What brings you to southern California?”

We said, “Well, we are meeting with some churches.  I’m a pastor.”

He looked at me like, “What?”

I said, “Yeah, I’m a minister in a church.”

He said, “That’s cool, man, that’s cool.”  He said, in between bites of his California roll, “I think there are many roads that lead to the ultimate destination.  I think there are many paths that lead to God.”

I think when it comes to spiritual matters; a lot of us have that “sushi bar theology,” don’t we?  A lot of people make that “sushi bar” statement, “There are many paths that lead to the ultimate destination.  There are many ways to get there.”  However, God has constructed a highway, Highway 146, right through that “sushi bar” theology.

Jesus said these words about the highway, Highway 146, in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Of all the statements uttered by Jesus, none of them are as outrageous and as in your face as Highway 146, when Jesus said about how to get to God, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.  No one gets to the Father except by me.”

We have no problems when Jesus talks about his divinity.  We think it’s great that God became flesh and dwelt among us.  But when you consider Jesus’ exclusivity, “Whoa!  That’s narrow-minded.  That’s intolerant.  I can’t believe anyone can think that.  You mean to tell me, with all the billions of people in the world, that Jesus is the only way to God?  I can’t believe Christians say all that stuff.  They are being superior.  They are acting like they are a member of this little elite country club.  They are the white hats and the other people are the black hats.”  That’s not true.

“Christians,” as T.D. Niles so profoundly said years ago, “are simply a bunch of beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.”  I’m just repeating to you what Jesus said.  I didn’t make it up.  If you have a problem with it, talk to him about it.  We try so hard to synchronize the world religions, don’t we?  This statement though, this Highway 146 deal, breaks Christianity out of the pack.  It separates it from all the rest.

I thought that I would just pick up the phone, (this is random), and call George W. Bush and just tell him thank you.  So I am just going to start dialing numbers and I’ll probably reach him.  So just hold on.  Okay, here we go.  I’m just dialing random numbers.  I’ll bet I reach him.

“Good morning, thank you for calling Denny’s.”

“Denny’s?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Ed Young.”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering, is George W. Bush there?”

“You made this phone call yesterday.”

“I made the same call?”

“Yes, you did.  You’re talking to the same person too.”

“Okay.  He wasn’t there last night, but is he there tonight?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is he there?”

“Who? No, he’s not.”

“He’s not there.  Do you have that Grand Slam breakfast today again?”

“Yes, I do.”

“How much is it?”

“$2.99.”

“What’s on it?”

“Two pancakes, two eggs, two sausages,”

“Oh, that’s good.  Is your coffee freshly brewed?”

“It sure is, sir.”

“Okay.  But George W. Bush is not there?”

“No, he’s not.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.  We have this automatic dial thing, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

“See you later.”

Man, she was kind of….  Let’s do another.  Let’s do another call.  Again, I’m just dialing randomly here.

“Happy holidays, Southwest Wal-Mart, how may I help you?”

“Hello?”

“Yes?”

“I’m trying to find George W. Bush.”

“George W. Bush?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s about three blocks from us.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, I wish.”

“You wish?  You said this is Wal-Mart?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a good store, Wal-Mart.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, I’ve just been dialing numbers kind of randomly, and I was trying to reach George W. Bush.”

“Well, I’m sorry.  You just missed him.”

“Wow.  Are you guys running any specials today on anything exciting?  Can you tell me about anything special at Wal-Mart?”

“Everything is special.”

“Everything is special.  Okay.  What is like the number one thing that people are buying right now for the Christmas deal?  What is the top thing?”

“The thing they can’t get, the Playstation II.”

“Playstation II?”

“Yes, that’s the thing they want.”

“Alright, thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome.”

I might just make another call.  No, I guess I won’t.  See, I’m just dialing numbers.  I’m not making prank calls.  I’m just dialing numbers.  I don’t know George W’s personal phone that reaches his residence.  There is only one number that reaches his residence, and I don’t know it.  But to sit here and say, “Well, I’ll just randomly dial and surely I’ll get George W. Bush.”  That is a pipe dream.  That’s a joke.

People say, “Oh, yeah, there are many roads that lead to God.”  That’s like saying I can just dial any number and get George W. Bush.  There is one number, and Jesus said, “It’s Highway 146.”  Jesus didn’t say, “I’m an option.  I’m a possibility.”  He said, “I am THE way (singular), THE truth, and THE life.  No one gets to the father except through me.”

What is the why?  Why would Jesus have made this claim?  Why did God have him do what he did, and why do we have it recorded for us?  That’s a pretty good question, I think.  Why?

I’ll tell you why.  To really understand why you have to flip back all the way to the book of Genesis.  Genesis is the first book of the Bible.  I’m not going to read all of it for you, but I will tell you this.  God created us in a perfect and pristine environment.  Scripture says that he told Adam and Eve not to do one thing.  He said, “Hey, guys, don’t touch the tree in the middle of the garden, because if you do, it’s going to cost you.”

They sinned.  They ate from the fruit of the tree, and when they were still chewing on that Sunkist orange, what happened?  They experienced a fall—a four-fold fall.  They were sequestered from God.  They were sequestered from others.  They were sequestered from nature.  They were sequestered from themselves.  God, others, nature, and themselves.

This gap is mentioned and directly addressed by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 59:2.  He said this, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God.  Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.”

If you have a problem in a relationship, if the relationship is severed, what do you do?  You deal with the junk that has caused the problem in the relationship.  You don’t pretend like it is not there.  You don’t beat around the bush.  You don’t talk about the sky is blue, it’s been cold lately….  You deal with the junk that is messing the relationship up, and when you deal with the junk, what happens?  The relationship then is reconciled.

We have some junk between us and God.  Sin.  Simply put, s-i-n.  Your sins and mine have caused a gap between ourselves and God.  If we are going to be reconciled to God, we’ve got to deal with sin.  How?  God’s way.  That is the only way we can be reconciled to God, to others, to nature, and to ourselves.  That is why God said that it is through Highway 146.  Sin must have a payment.  The payment had to be the Lamb of God, who lived a sinless life, who died a tortuous death on Calvary for everything we have ever done wrong in the past, present, and future.  He offers this life to us.  He says, “Hey, do a U-turn, jump on Highway 146.”

Now at this point, you would think people would go, “Oh, I’m going to go Highway 146.  I mean, I know about it.  I’ve seen signs pointing me to it.  I’ve got people telling me about it.  I’m going to do it.”  However, most people white-knuckle the steering wheel, and they say, “I’ll go my own way.  I’ll do my own deal.”  They spend most of their lives bouncing back from destination to destination.  I’m talking about disappointing and destructive destinations, like Pleasureville.  A lot of people live in Pleasureville.

They say, “Forget Highway 146.  I’m going to live in Pleasureville.”  You get into all the buzzes, and the highs, and the sex, and the parties.  After a while, you run through all that and you still feel that gnawing sense in your spirit.  You still feel that something is not right.  You know you are not firing on all cylinders.  So you leave Pleasureville, and you go to Attainmentville.

“Oh, I’ll just attain stuff.  I’ll stack up stuff.  Cars, clothes, corner offices, and all this stuff.  Then, surely, that will do it.”  Money and power and stuff.  It has a numbing effect on that emptiness.  It really does.  You know when you buy something, that rush?  When you attain something, that feeling that you get?  It helps—that sensation—temporarily but not eternally.

Then you get tired of Attainmentville, and you say, “Well, I’ll just live in Doubtville for awhile.”  A lot of people love to live in Doubtville.  They have to lob question after question after question God’s way.  They don’t want to know the answer.  They don’t want to do the work to discover the truth.  They keep the question mark in front of God kind of as this blockade because they don’t want to be accountable to him.

A lot of people, right now, as I just said that, are saying, “Whoa, Ed, I’m in Pleasureville.  I’m in Attainmentville.  I’m in Doubtville.  I’m there.”

There is a better way.  It’s the ultimate way.  It’s a freeway (free way), literally.  Because the Bible says, “Here is the difference between religions and Christianity.”  Christianity says, “The path has been built.  It’s a free way.  We don’t deserve it.  God did it because he loves us.  Even though we were sinners, Christ died for us and paved the way.”

On the other hand, religion, I like to say, is a Home Depot deal.  People who go to Home Depot—I don’t go there much—but people who go to Home Depot—I’ve been with my wife—they are into the do-it-yourself thing.  They are trying to find all this stuff, and buy all this stuff, and good for you, if you are handy.  They try to build this stuff.  They try to make this and they really like that.  They are kind of handy men and women.  Home Depot people.  “I can do it myself.  I’m not going to pay that kind of money.”

World religions are that way.  “I can do it.  I can build my own freeway.  I can build my own highway.  Yeah, I can do it.  I can build it to God because I am going to be good enough, I’m going to be strong enough, I’m going to be nice enough, I’m going to give enough, I’m going to go to church enough.”  One person can’t build a freeway.  That’s a joke.  I don’t care how long you go to Home Depot.  You are not going to build a freeway to God.  The freeway has been done.  That’s Christianity.  So there is no way you can synchronize the world religions.

You can’t say, “Well, Buddhism and Hinduism and Mormonism and you know, Christianity, they are all the same.”  No they are not. No they are not.

Well, I think as you follow my train of thought, I think you might be asking yourself this question, because this is the one big question we are going to answer.  “Ed,” you are thinking to yourself, “I wish you would answer the sincerity question.  Ed, what about the sincere Muslim, the sincere Buddhist, the sincere Hindu?  What about them as they relate to Highway 146?  Can someone be sincerely wrong?”

[Video shown with Ed and Preston going to Tinseltown Movie Theatre, Sonic, and Starbucks, trying to pay $.25 for things that cost much more.]

You can be sincerely wrong, can’t you?  It doesn’t matter how sincere you are about that quarter, it is not going to get you a movie ticket.  It’s not going to get you a Sonic soft drink.  It’s not going to get you a bunch of Starbucks beverages.  It’s not going to happen.  So, I don’t care if I sincerely believe something.  That still does not make that something true.  Just like if I reject something, or think something is false, it could be false or it could be true.  Whether you are sincere or not doesn’t make much difference.

For example, let’s think about Christianity.  The deity, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are the heart of the faith.  We learned as we studied Islam that they reject the deity, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  You can’t say both are true.  One is true and one isn’t.  God, ladies and gentlemen, is not schizophrenic.  He didn’t go to one side of the planet and go, “Oh, yeah, by the way, it’s Highway 146.  You know my son died on the cross for your sins and rose again.  It is through him that you get to me.  It’s because of your sin problem and my love.  It’s only by the freeway, by grace.  Okay.  You got it?”  That’s that part of the planet.

Now God, he didn’t do this.  He didn’t go to the other side of the planet and go, “Oh, yeah, let me go ahead and change.  I told one side one thing and I’ll tell you another.  Here’s how you get there.  You get there through works.  You get there if you are doing the Home Depot deal, building your own freeway.  You are a do-it-yourself man, do-it-yourself woman, yeah.  You can attain it.  Just be a good boy.  Just be a good girl.”

There’s one way.  So, instead of freaking out about this highway being so limited, we should say, “God, thank you for making a way.”  Yes, Jesus said the way is narrow.  But I am going to tell you something.  It’s wide enough for the entire world.

“I am the way.”  What did Jesus say?  “I am the path.  I am the truth.  I am the reality of God’s promises.  I am the life, eternal life, beginning here on this earth.”

You can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong.

The next question I think is kind of out there, hanging in the balance, and goes something like this, “What about the person who has never heard?  What about the Aborigine?  What about the native?  What about that person far removed?  What about the person who has never heard of Highway 146?  What do you do with that?”

Well, since we are so open today—we are making prank calls and shooting videos at Starbucks and all that—let’s put the cards out on the table.  Let’s just really get real.  Why do you ask that question?  That is a commonly asked question.  What motivates you to ask that question?  Is your motivation because you are concerned about the Aborigine, that you are concerned about the person who hasn’t heard?  If you are, great for you.  Man, that is good.  I hope that fires you up.  I hope that gives you the muscle to really go out and share your faith like you never have done before.  Or, could your motivation be like a smokescreen?  Could it be like, “Well, if it’s a Highway 146 deal, if Jesus is the only way to get to God, then I don’t want any part of Christianity, you know.  I don’t want to do that.  I’m not going to go there.”  What’s your motivation?

My wife and I have four children, one boy and three girls.  My son, EJ, the lone male, will often tell on his sisters.  I know it’s hard to believe, in a perfect pastor’s home.  That’s a joke.  I hope you know that.  Sometimes, EJ, in his prayers, will confess his sister’s sins.  I will say, “No, EJ, you got it wrong, man.  No, no.  It’s you and God.”  But oftentimes, he will run up to Lisa and I and go, “Hey, Mom, Dad, my sisters are doing this.  They are doing that.  They are doing this.  They are doing that.”

Here is what we usually say, “Hey, EJ, (parents know where I am going now), don’t worry about them.  Worry about you.”  I think God, our perfect heavenly parent, says that in many ways to you and me, because God is God.  Deuteronomy 29:29 “God is God.  The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us.”

We don’t know all of God’s ways.  What is so funny is I often fall into this trap.  I think sometimes that God owes me an explanation for everything.  When you think about it, that is hilarious.  I mean, I am a finite, limited, self-centered sinner and so are you.  I am demanding as the creature that the creator gives me all of the info on everything he does.  Isn’t that stupid?  We think, “Oh, yeah, God owes me an explanation.”

As I said, the Bible is not a book of proofs.  It is not.  I wish I could turn to chapter and verse and give you the answer to, “What about those who have never heard?  What about the Aborigine?  What about the native?”  I wish I could tell you specifically from the Bible what it says, but I can’t.  God does not give us a specific answer.  However, he does give us several things that will help us get a little closer on this question.

The first one is this: God’s existence is pretty evident.  Wouldn’t you agree?  The Bible says in Romans 1 that we are without an excuse.  Let me go ahead and read that text for you.  It says, “For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”

We have this moral standard stamped on our spirit.  The book of Romans says it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that man is not the center of the universe, that there is a creator, that there is a God out there.  We know the existence of God just by showing up, just by taking a panoramic view of the world.

The Bible also says God is seeking the seeker.  Here’s what Jesus said in Luke 19:10: “For the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.”  In Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me (isn’t this great) when you seek me with all of your heart.”

God is seeking the seeker.  In other words, the Holy Spirit affords us the opportunity to even seek God.  He is working the whole deal out. If we are truly seeking God, what’s going to happen?  God will reveal himself to the Aborigine, to the native, and to the person who has “never heard.”  How he does that, I don’t really know.  I’m not God.  You are not either.

Cornelius, a Gentile, a non-Jew, was having this intense conversation with God.  He said, “God, reveal yourself to me.  I want to really know you, the full essence of who you are.”  God tapped Simon Peter on the shoulder and commissioned Simon Peter to go to Cornelius’ house and talk to him about the claims of Christ, which he did.  Cornelius bowed the knee to Christ.  His entire household did.  They were baptized.  They went public with their faith.  That is how God works.

God’s existence is evident.  God is seeking the seeker.  I love this last one.  Download this, please: God is always scrupulously fair.  When the dust settles at the end of time after the judgment, we are not going to look around and go, “Oh, I can’t believe God was unfair.  We’re going to say, “God, thank you.  You are so fair.  You are so just.  You are so holy.  You are so perfect.  You dealt with everybody in the ultimate way.”

So we don’t have to worry about that.  God is God.  He embodies all love and all truth, and he is perfectly fair.  This means that we should go out and share our faith.  This means that we should help the cause of Christ around the world.  This also means that we have to trust in God.  We have got to trust that he is just.

Go back to EJ.  He trusts me.  In his mind, it is limited as a little nine year old, he trusts his dad.  We have to trust our heavenly dad.  In Psalm 89:14 it says:  “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.  Love and faithfulness go before you.”

You know what?  We cannot claim ignorance here, can we?  We can’t say, “Well, I don’t know, like the Aborigine, the native, the person who hasn’t heard.”  We can’t claim that because we have heard the truth.  We have heard the gospel.  What is your response? Are you going to continue to white-knuckle the steering wheel and go from Pleasureville to Attainmentville to Doubtville?  Are you going to do that?  Are you going to continue to throw out your sushi theology: there are many roads that lead to the ultimate destination?  Or, are you going to go, “Man, I’m ready to do a U-turn.  I’m ready to admit the obvious to you, God, that I’m a sinner in need of a savior.  I realize I am separate from you.  I realize I’m separate from nature, from myself, from others.  I’m ready to do a U-turn, God.”

The moment you do the U-turn—and the U-turn in the Bible is called repentance—you turn from your ways and begin to turn toward Christ.  You say, “Jesus, come into my life.  I want to go on Highway 146.”  At that moment in time, you will become a Christ-follower.  It’s a decision that you have to make.  I cannot make you do the U-turn.  I cannot make you or force you to put the blinker on.  But think about the signs. Think about the signs.  Think about the people in your life who have said, “Hey, it’s Highway 146.”  Think about the situations where Jesus has revealed himself to you and said, “Hey, go my way.”  Are you going to keep on refusing him?  Are you going to keep on dissing him?  For some here, this could be the last chance you ever have to receive Christ.  I know that is true for some people.  I’m not trying to scare anybody.  I’m just telling the truth.

Here’s what I want you to do.  I want many of you right now to pray a prayer with me to close this deal.  I want many of you—maybe you are still wondering about some things and doubting some things—just to say, “I’m ready to do business with God and bow the knee to him.  I’m ready to take Highway 146.”  I know many of you are not sure that you are on Highway 146.  But today, we are going to settle the issue.  It’s time to put the blinker on and do the U-turn.

Just say these words with me—this is not my prayer; this is your prayer, but I am leading you on how to say this prayer.  I am a beggar telling other beggars how to get bread.  Just say this: “God, I admit to you that I have messed up, that I have fallen short.  I turn from my sins right now.  I admit it to you and I do that U-turn.  I believe, God, that you love me so much that you provided a way, and that way is Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, who died on the cross for my sins and rose again.  God I believe that.  Right now, God, I ask Jesus Christ to come into my life and take control of me.  I open up my hands to you, my heart to you, my life to you.”

Just say that, won’t you?  Just say that.  I believe many people here are praying that prayer right now.  It’s the best thing you will ever do.  The best thing you will ever do.  We ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.