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LEADING QUESTIONS SERMON SERIES

AMAZING GRAZING – HOW DOES GOD PROTECT ME?

JUNE 7, 1998

ED YOUNG

Sit back and relax as I read to you one of the most important sections of scripture in the entire Bible, the text we have been studying lately known as the Twenty-third Psalm.  “The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside quiet waters.  He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  Can’t you picture God, our Shepherd, leading us, his sheep?  What beautiful imagery.  Let me continue.  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me.  Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”  Suddenly, though, something breaks down.  Something changes.  Has the writer of this Psalm, David, begun to chase rabbits, to get off the subject?  “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil.  My cup overflows.”  I want to say, “David, I am tracking with you during the first section, but I don’t get the table thing, the oil thing, the cup overflowing thing.  What is the deal?

I have been to Israel twice and I have walked through the pastures of Palestine and I have yet to see a group of sheep gathered around the table in the green grass nibbling on appetizers and ordering entrees.  I have not seen that.  My wife and I have a date night every Thursday and we go to a lot of different restaurants in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  I have yet to see a sheep walk up to the maitre’d and request a table for two in the baaahk.  I have not seen that.

Listen the analogy doesn’t break down, it breaks through.  It breaks through to a deeper level.  David introduces us to a concept that can change the course of our lives, the concept of amazing grazing.  Amazing grazing.  Do you ever feel like the enemies of life, those pressures, are kind of encroaching on your career, your future, your family or your friendships?  Do you ever feel that way?  I do.  Yet our amazing God promises us that if we make Him our Shepherd-Savior, we can bank on it that He will provide oasis after oasis in the wildernesses of life.  That is the kind of God we serve.

For the remainder of our time together, what I am going to share with you only applies to those here who are connected to the flock.  If you are in the flock, this is what will occur and play out.  These are the implications of what God will do.  If you are not in the flock, play close attention because this is what can and will happen to you the moment you make a faith decision and ask Jesus to become your Shepherd-Savior.  Question.  Can God protect me?  Can God give me nourishment, replenishment and refreshment in the difficulties and dilemmas of life?  Can He do it?  Yes, He can.  I want to show you several strategic steps our Shepherd-Savior takes in order to provide for you and for me amazing grazing.

First, He prepares our paths diligently.  Last week we left the sheep in the valley.  During the first few weeks of June, the shepherd would leave his flock in the valley and make some scouting trips alone to the tableland, to those beautiful, lush pastures at a very high altitude.  And he would do some preparation.  He would put out some salt and minerals so the sheep could dine on them in strategic spots.  The shepherd would locate the best bedding grounds.  And then, he would do some gardening.  No Chem Lawn then.  He would have to pull some weeds because there was a lot of poisonous stuff that could infect and ultimately kill the flock.  After he did all the gardening and weeding, he would take all he pulled up and burn it.  And then later, when he led the sheep to the tableland, the sheep could just dine in confidence because all the poisonous grasses were gone.  I think the parents here who have toddlers can kind of relate to the shepherd.  Parents childproof their apartments or their houses.  They go before their toddler and put locks on the cabinets, remove any small objects on which the child could choke.  They prepare the way because toddlers will put anything in their mouths.  So will sheep.

If you missed last weekend, you missed something that we have never done before at the Fellowship Church.  We brought on this stage a live sheep.  And the sheep bahhhhed at the right time.  The sheep was really cool.  I had never been that close to a sheep before.  It was a lot of fun.  But you should have seen what happened back stage.  Pastor Owen Goff had this sheep on a leash.  He said, “Pastor Ed, I am going to walk this sheep before the service so he can do his business.”  So he had the sheep was walking back and forth outside.  Then Owen let him inside and the sheep tried to eat some electrical cords.  He got him away from the cords but then he tried to eat some plants.  Then one of our staff members gave the sheep an Altoid.  The sheep looked up and said, “curiously strong.”  No, he didn’t speak.  But a sheep will eat anything.

Human beings will try anything.  “Oh, I had better taste this.  I have got to experience this.  I have got to check this out.”  Even though we know that doing some things one time can be addictive, destructive or even deadly.  Yet, we serve a Shepherd, a God who has been there, a God who has paved our paths, who has forged our future.  He is a God who is preparing diligently some pastures so that we may experience amazing grazing.

I thank God for all the times that I have seen Him protect me.  But I also thank God for those times that I don’t even know about.  I thank Him for all of those times when He has gone ahead of me and gotten all of those plants out of the way so Ed Young can have amazing grazing without any poisonous grasses or weeds around.

I love what the writer of Hebrews said.  Hebrews 4:15.  “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet was without sin.”  You never know the full force of temptation until you resist it.  Christ knows the full force of temptation like we will never know it.  Why?  Because He didn’t fall.  The Bible says that He remained sinless.  He was the unblemished lamb, the Lamb of God.  So, we talk to Christ and ask Him to prepare the way.  We shadow him.  We are not talking to some otherworldly person, somebody who is way out there, somebody who doesn’t know what we are experiencing.  We can talk to someone who has walked the path, who has been there in the pasture.

Awhile back I was in Utopia, TX frantically searching for a friend’s ranch.  If you know me very well, you know that I have a horrible sense of direction.  So I found myself driving up and down a tiny street in the tiny town of Utopia.  I noticed a weather-beaten, sun tanned rancher kind of leaning against his pickup truck watching me go by.  He had a cigarette held loosely between his lips.  He had some Copenhagen between his cheek and gum.  Together!  Finally, as I drove by once more, I waved to him.  He gave me one of those Texas rancher waves, a slight tilt of the head.  I could read his eyes.  He was wondering who in the world was this clueless, directionally-challenged city boy.  So I swallowed up all of my pride and stopped.  I said, “Sir, I am lost.  I am trying to find the so and so ranch.”  I will never forget what he did.  He asked if I had a pen or pencil on me and I handed one to him.  “What is the name of the ranch?”  He began to write in detailed fashion the directions to the ranch.  “It is just about a half a mile from here.”  Then he walked over to me and gave me the directions.  I thought that was it and thanked him for helping me.  But he didn’t stop there.  He told me he would get in his pickup and if I would follow him, he would lead me to the ranch.  So check this out.  I had the written instructions.  I had the verbal instructions.  Then I followed the rancher in his red pickup truck.  When he got to the entrance of the ranch, he stuck his hand out the driver’s side window and pointed to it.  Then he was gone.

That is what our rancher, our Shepherd-Savior Jesus does for you and me.  He writes the directions down in the Bible.  He goes over the directions but He doesn’t stop there.  Then He indicates that we are to follow Him, that we are to watch what He is doing for our paths and pastures.  Some may be saying that it is incredible what God does but what is our part of the deal.  Here is your part.  Here is my part.  We have to allow our Good Shepherd to do some gardening.  We have to allow Him to pull some weeds in our lives.  A lot of us have some insignificant, contrary grasses growing.  And these are weeds.  We are saying that they are not really a big deal, the uncontrollable tongue that spews profanity and takes the name of the Lord in vain.  Everybody does that, it is just a little weed.  Or maybe it is some uncontrolled anger.  Oh, just a little grass, I don’t need to deal with that now.  Or maybe that long, lingering lunch one more time with the secretary.  Oh, just friends, nothing can happen.

You take a weed here, a weed over there, a contrary grass over here and if you begin to feed repeatedly on them, they will infect you and one day they can take you out and your life will be up for grabs.  Deal with this now because sin and weeds dealt with radically are sin and weeds dealt with effectively.  Allow the Good Shepherd to prepare your paths diligently.

The Good Shepherd also does something else.  He also eyes our enemy regularly.  Let’s go back to the shepherd in Palestine.  One of the main problems of the flock is those predators that live on the rim rock.  As the shepherd was leading his sheep to the high altitudes, to those beautiful summer ranges, he had to look up for those big cats, the lions, the cougars, etc.  And the shepherd knows how and when and where they will attack.  He is always looking up.  It is usually the roamers and the wanderers that are attacked the most.

I read this past week about a shepherd by the name of Phil Keller.  He writes that cougars would repeatedly attack his sheep.  He reported seeing the sheep torn to pieces but he said that he had never sighted a cougar.  So stealth-like were their attacks, Keller never eyed a cougar.

Our Shepherd-Savior eyes our enemy.  Our enemy is the evil one himself.  Jesus know when, where and how he will attack.  I Peter 5:8.  “Be controlled and alert.  Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  He is looking for those roamers, for those wanderers.  Those are the ones who usually fall prey to the predators.  That is why we have to be connected with others in the flock.  We have to be a part of the local church.  We push the local church away when we erroneously say to God, “Hey, God I have got this special deal going.  You see, God, I am a sheep, by myself wandering, roaming and doing life in my autonomous way.”  It is just a matter of time until the roaring lion attacks.  We can look around our world today and see the effects of the roaring lion.

Satan does not come at you and me in a shiny red leisure suit with a goatee, a Vince Price voice and Elvira on his arm.  “Hi, I am the devil, come to devour you.”  He doesn’t do that.  I have never seen him.  But he approaches you and approaches me in stealth-like fashion.  He approaches us sometimes in our strength and sometimes in our weakness.  He knows us.  But the Shepherd-Savior knows when, where and how he will attack.  He is always telling us to watch out, over there watch out, look at that rim rock.  We see the substance abuse, the deviant sexual behavior in our world today.  We see destructive patterns and habits of sinfulness everywhere we turn.  That is the result of the roaring lion.  The Good Shepherd looks up at the rim rock.

The Good Shepherd also looks down, because the sheep’s number one enemy is not up but down.  Let me explain.  The brown adder is a venomous snake who lives in Palestine.  The adder lives in little holes in the tableland.  The shepherd would go before the sheep, take his rod and staff and move the grass away to look for the snake holes.  He knew that when the adder heard the vibration of the sheep above, it would slide out of its hole and bite them on the nose.  The shepherd would take some oil out of his pouch and put it down the snake hole so the adder couldn’t slither out.  Then we would take the sheep and anoint their heads with oil, which would serve as a kind of snake repellant.

Snakes are spooky, aren’t they?  You never know where they will turn up.  Memorial Day, Lisa and I and the children were out doing some yard work.  I love yard work.  I was putting some stuff in an outdoor storage closet.  Lisa was about ten feet away pulling some weeds.  We were having a good time talking, laughing, doing the family thing.  All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lisa appear to be dancing.  She began to scream.  “Snake, Ed, copperhead, Ed.”  She jumped into my arms.  I took the rake, walked over, kind of pulled the foliage back and took him out.  I was her shepherd at that time.  Well, one foot note.  From Memorial Day until now, I have been looking down.  Last night we pulled up in the driveway after the Saturday night service and I saw something lying there.  It turned out to be a little stick.  Paranoid.

God does not want us to be paranoid.  You have heard, paranoia will destroy ya.  He doesn’t want us to be that.  But if we let the Shepherd-Savior look up and look down, we can experience amazing grazing in the presence of our enemies.  Do you have some sin in your life that is covered up like those snakes?  Are you telling yourself that you can never been bitten?  Take care of it.  One more time, allow the Good Shepherd to pour His oil, to anoint you with His repellant so you can live and breath and shadow Him.

I have got to ask you a question.  How many of you would take your children to the Ft. Worth Zoo and dump them off in the lion’s exhibit and tell them:  “Practice your soccer kicks and drive your Barbie Ferrari right there in the lion’s exhibit.  Everything will be OK.  They haven’t been fed in a couple of days.  But they are really harmless.”   You would say, what a reach.  That would be ludicrous, that would be crazy.  No thinking parent would do that.  But I see parent after parent allowing their children to watch R rated movies, unmonitored MTV trash.  They are just playing right there in the lion’s exhibit.  I see other parents who have an insane, intense involvement in extracurricular activities.  “Oh, you have got to be the best athlete.  You have to be the best dancer, the best singer.  You have got to be the best.  You have got to be the best.”  And they drive and push because they haven’t made it and they are going to live their lives through their children.  And they do it at the expense of the church.  Listen, parents, you are letting your children play around in the lion’s exhibit.  Because I am going to tell you something.  The soccer team, the voice lessons, the ballet lessons are not going to give your children and your young people the answers to life’s most profound questions.

If we shadow the Shepherd, if we stay a part of His flock, His church, then He is going to give us some mighty protection.  He is going to alert us to our enemies.  And oftentimes we will feel the elbows and the nudges and we do nothing about them.  But when we feel those nudges and hear His warnings, we need to move away from that place, move away from that relationship, move away from that pattern.

Our Shepherd-Savior does something else.  He pours out His presence liberally.  Some may be saying that they have been nibbling on these poisonous grasses, have been mauled by a lion, been bitten by a copperhead or two.  You wonder if there is a second chance for you, another way, another path.  Yes.  The Bible says so.  You come clean, bow the knee to the Shepherd-Savior, you shadow Him and walk with His flock, you accept His protection, allow Him to prepare the way.  Oh, yes, no doubt about it.

Let’s get back to the sheep who are now grazing on the tablelands.  They are amazing grazing.  But there is one dilemma.  There is not a lot of water up there.  There are no streams up there.  Yet, there are some wells.  The good shepherd would locate the wells.  Sometimes they would be 100 feet deep.  The shepherd would love his sheep to such a degree that he would take a leather rope and a leather bucket and lower it as far as necessary.  He would haul it back up and the water would be overflowing.  It would be spilling out of the bucket.  Sometimes it would take him three hours to water all of his flock.   Isn’t that great about God?  Our amazing God will pour His presence into your life and mine.  And we will think that we are the only ones being filled.  But the problem is, a lot of us are filled with other things.  We are filled with self, with ego, with pride, with materialism.  Our Shepherd-Savior wants to pour His presence totally in our lives but there is so much junk and trash in there, He can’t do it.  We have to empty ourselves of that junk and trash.  We have got to name them and turn from them.  When we empty ourselves then we can ask God to pour in His presence.

One of my favorite verses is John10:10, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.  I have come, that they might have life and have it to the full.”  The word full means overflowing.  It doesn’t just mean better than most lives or a decent life, or some religious-limiting life, it means a life that is overflowing with abundance.  God has wired you up and gifted you in many incredible and special ways.  And when you empty everything out of your life and allow Him to pour His presence into your life, then it will flow and go.

The children of Israel loved to whine and moan to God.  And they never, ever got the ultimate because they kept in this state.  And one day the Psalmist recorded in Psalm 78:19.  “Hey, God can you prepare a table for us in our wilderness?” (my translation).  Are you believing they said that?  Here God had fed them manna burgers out of heaven.  He gave them water out of a rock.  Yet they were whining and moaning about the food.  God has prepared table after table for me among my enemies.  And He has done it for many of you here.  Many of you could share your personal stories.

So, I will say it one more time.  The table has been set.  The Shepherd-Savior has painstakingly prepared everything.  He can lead us to the table.  He will.  He can show us the table.  He will.  He can give us directions to eat.  He will.  But it is our choice.  And what amazes me is that some here will just leave and return to wandering and roaming.

But here is what I want to challenge you to do.  Based on the Bible, I want to challenge you to call ahead for reservations, to allow the maitre’d to lead you to the table, to pick up the fork, knife and spoon and begin to dine so you can get in on what we have been calling amazing grazing.   Amazing grazing.

TEAM FAMILY SERMON SERIES

“INTENTIONAL GROUNDING”

DEALING WITH DISCIPLINE IN THE FAMILY

ED YOUNG

APRIL 19, 1998

You know there is nothing quite like a great football game.  When a couple of teams are disciplined and functioning properly, the combination of athleticism, power, strength and skill is something to behold.  There is nothing quite like a great football game.  You have seen it and so have I, the diving catch, the shoestring tackle, the long run.  Things like that will bring any crowd to its feet.  We love football in Texas.  It is our sport.

When football is played properly it is great.  But if it is not, it can be ugly, can’t it?  When teams are not disciplined, when teams are kind of doing their own thing, when the game is marred with fights and fumbles and turnovers, it is ugly.  It is horrible.  We turn off the television set or leave the game early.

Well, the family game is something great to behold.  When it is disciplined and when there is love flowing and grace and understanding and focus, it will bring any crowd to its feet.  Yet, when it is not functioning properly, when the family game and team is marred with fights, fumbles and turnovers, it is not a pretty sight.  In fact, it is ugly.

I think it is safe to say that every family team here would like to teach their teammates to score touchdown after touchdown, to play focused ball, to do the family thing right.  I think that every person here would want that to be their agenda.

Last week I kicked off a brand new series we are calling TEAM FAMILY.  We have been comparing aspects of sports to certain aspects of the family.  Now to show you it is not some kind of stretch, scripture writers’ favorite metaphor to describe the Christian life is that of an athlete.  Last weekend I talked about the goals that every family should tend to tenaciously.  If you missed last weekend, please pick up the tape.  Every message builds on the former message.

I am going to tell you something, Moms and Dads.  You can have the priorities and goals down cold but if you don’t do what we are going to talk about today, your family team will be marred with fights, fumbles and turnovers.  We  are calling this session, “Intentional Grounding – Dealing with Discipline.”  Every time discipline is discussed, opinions are expressed, questions are brought up and the overall attitude is one of confusion.

You heard about it in the drama.  How far do you go?  When do you get strong and when do you back off?  Now before we jump into dealing with discipline, let me say something parenthetically.  It is impossible for me to exhaust all of the subtle nuances of this complex topic in the timeframe that we have for this service.  We have parenting classes and different seminars throughout the calendar year to help you, parents or family team members, in whatever season you find your family in.  But I do want to share with you the cliff notes, the highlights from the playbook on discipline.  And I want to save you, parents, from boatloads of pain and anxiety.  Because the Bible speaks directly, succinctly and powerfully to this topic called discipline.

Families, and specifically parents, we have got to do one thing right up front in dealing with discipline.  It is going to sound odd.  We have got to line off the playing field.  That’s right.  We have got to become a grounds crew member and line off the playing field.  You see, giving your children a manicured field, crisp new uniforms and inspirational words aren’t enough.  We also have to mark off the playing field.  I am talking about the goal lines, side lines and hash marks.  We have got to show our children where the boundaries are.

When I was a kid playing backyard football, it was my dream to have a lined off field.  I thought it would be the coolest thing in the world if we could line off our backyard.   So one day, some friends and I took sand out of my little brother’s sandbox and we actually made a football field out of our backyard.  We did the sidelines, the goal lines and the hash marks.  From then on, whenever we did this, the games would go better.  There were less disputes.  We wouldn’t say, “You are out of bounds because the side of the house is out of bounds.”  We knew where everything was.  The only problem with the sand was, whenever it would rain just a little bit, our field would be destroyed.  So I have been a part, in kind of a strange way, of a functioning grounds crew.

Parents, we make a couple of major mistakes when we do the grounds crew thing.  The first mistake is that a lot of us constantly change the goal line, the side lines and the hash marks.  The field is in a constant state of flux.  What was a touchdown last week, is a penalty this week.  And our children don’t really know where everything is located and it makes them timid and sometimes it can lead to major league rebellion.

Another mistake that we make, parents, and this one staggers me, is allowing the children to mark off their own field.  We say, “You determine your own destiny.   You know a lot.  Go ahead and line off your playing field.”  Parents, this leads to some serious, serious trouble.  Proverbs 29:15, “A child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”  You could rephrase it to read that a child who lines off his own field brings shame to his mother.  The question is still being debated and kicked about.  Are babies born with a bent toward badness or are they little cherubs who, as they fly and flutter through life, become stained by our horrible and dark world?  The Bible says that we have a sin nature.  We have a great capacity for goodness and a potential for greatness, but we are flawed.  We are flawed from birth.  And if you don’t believe me, have a baby!  Little babies, as they are swinging back and forth in their baby swings, are kind of casing the joint.  They are looking at the family team.  They see those two coaches over there, Mom and Dad.  Dad is watching yet another golf tournament.  Mom is preparing a bottle.  They look at their sister playing with Barbies and they say to themselves in their little brains, “I am going to run the team.  I am going to take it over.”  And these little babies begin to test the boundaries, the goal lines, the hash marks.  They want desperately for flags to be thrown, whistles to be blown and penalties to be assessed.  We are fashioned to live and do life on God’s playing field with His rules.

Proverbs 22:15 says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.”  Over the last five years, how many times have we seen Emmett Smith break a long run and the announcers say this.  “Look at Emmett Smith, he might go all the way.  Touchdown.  Cowboys.”  Then they say, “Let’s look at this on the instant replay.  Look at those moves.  Emmett has worked hard but you just can’t teach some of those moves.”  What are they saying here?  They are saying that some of Emmy’s talent and skill is genetic.

Well, if those announcers watched us perform, foul up and mess up and fall short, from the baby swing on, they would say, “You can’t teach it.  It is sinetic.”  We have a sin nature.  And wise parents mark off the field and show clearly the boundaries and goal lines and hash marks and challenge the children to live within the framework of the family field.  Every single time we are part of the grounds crew, we are simply mimicking our maker.  Every time we discipline our children, we are mimicking the God of the universe.  Hebrews 12:10-11.  “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good….”  Don’t you like that part?  For our good.  “…that we may share in His holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

We serve a God who loves us so much that He disciplines us.  We are His children.  We matter that much to Him.  Just for a second, I want you to think about the most beautiful football field you have ever seen in your life.  You might not realize it, but prior to you looking at that football field, a grounds crew meticulously marked off and maintained that field.  The players know exactly where they are and are not supposed to go.  Moms, Dads, line off your family playing field.  And when you line it off, make sure that it lines up with God’s word.  Are you doing the grounds crew thing?  It will serve your family team well.

After we do the grounds crew thing, we are to do something else.  We are to call a consistent game.  That’s right.  We are to put on a referee’s uniform.  We are referees.  We are officials.  And this is a stressful job.  Officials take a lot of abuse.  People boo at them all the time, whine to them.  Players get in their faces.  Yet, a great official, a great referee is always consistent.

Let me give you a theoretical situation.  What if in four or five months you are watching an NFL football game and you see a blatant face mask, clip or illegal use of the hands and you see the referee run up to the offending party without throwing a flag or blowing a whistle.  Instead, he says, “Hey, don’t worry about it, man.  I know you didn’t mean it, OK?”  And then the same scenario happens again and again. If that took place, football would be a fiasco.  It would be terrible.  No one would watch it or participate in it.  Sometimes parents, when their children mess up, just threaten.  They say, “If you do that again, I’m going to throw this flag right here.  You missed curfew by an hour and a half and I am thinking about it.”  Sometimes parents will go one step closer to assessing the penalty.  They will throw the flag, blow the whistle and make various hand gestures, but when the moment of truth comes, they don’t take away the yardage, don’t disqualify the teammate for awhile.  They are afraid.  They think that parenting is some kind of popularity contest.  I am here to tell you that it is not.  Yes, we are to be a friend to our child, but we are to be both a part of the ground’s crew and a referee.

Families, your children are not the center of the team.  They are not in the middle of the huddle.  If you allow that, you are setting yourself up for team turmoil.  The most important relationship in the family is between the husband and the wife.  Everything trickles down from that.  That is how children learn trust and forgiveness and intimacy and communication and conflict resolution skills.  I talked to a couple recently who said, “You know, we can’t have a date night because our children won’t let us have a baby sitter.”  I said, “Come back?  Who is lining off the field?  Who is refereeing the game here?”  Mom and Dad, your marriage takes precedence over the children.  And then from there, we can talk about their needs.  There should always be give and take in a family but the marriage is the foundation.

Let me give you some basic refereeing tips by Pastor Ed Young.  Here is how to call a consistent game.  These tips have helped me because I have made many mistakes as a parent.  It is tough.

1. Start at the kickoff. Oftentimes, we wait until the second half to start throwing flags, blowing whistles and assessing penalties.  Start when they are in that little swing going back and forth, back and forth.  Start early.
2. Penalize your children in private. When you watch a football game and someone commits a penalty, they will do a close-up shot of the referee.  He will turn his intercom on.  “Holding on number 79.    Third down.”  Everybody goes, “Whoa, 79, he blew it.”  If you want to crush your child’s spirit, if you want to dismantle them systematically, correct them, discipline them in public.  I have talked to too many wounded children, students, single adults and others who have been married many, many years who look back and remember the hurt of being disciplined in public.  So if you are in a restaurant, take them to the rest room, where you can handle that one on one.
3. When you discipline your children, remember that they are each unique. You don’t always throw the flag, blow the whistle and assess penalties the same way with every child.  I think about our twins, for example.  They are different.  When Laurie messes up, I can just say to her quietly, “Laurie, you disobeyed Mommy and Daddy.  That was wrong.”   She will kind of well up with tears.  Conversely, Landra will test the limits and if I talked to Landra like I do to Laurie, Landra would say, “Yeah, forget you.”  I have got to get in her face.  “Landra, look at me.  Look at me, Landra……”  My father has written a lot of books on the family and here is what he says about discipline.  “I had to look at one of my sons to discipline him.  Another, I had to talk to him.  The third, I had to use a belt on him.”  I am the belt boy!  Proverbs 19:18.  “Discipline your children while there is hope.”  That means, while they are young.  If you don’t, it will ruin their lives.  Boy, I wish the Bible were direct.

There is a man in the Old Testament named Eli.  Eli was a man of God but he failed miserably as a ground’s crew person.  He failed miserably as a referee.  He didn’t line and mark off the field.  He didn’t call a  consistent game.  He though his two kids, Hophni and Phinehas would do great things.  But they didn’t.  Eli’s life ended in shambles.  His sons lives ended in shambles.  His family team was dismantled.  Why?  Because he didn’t call a consistent game.

So parents, we are constantly changing hats.  There is a third hat we have got to put on.  The third hat is a coach’s hat.  And we have got to maintain a balanced coaching staff.  There has got to be unity.  The staff has to be operating off of the same page, from the same playbook.  Children learn at a very early age how to play one coach against the other coach.  And if you are a single parent, you even have a greater challenge.  Next weekend I am going to spend an entire session talking to single parents and persons who are a part of the blended family.

Here is what our little rookies do.  Let say, for example, you have a daughter.  She will run up to her mother and ask permission to do something.  If permission is not granted, she will wait for you to come home.  Then she asks the very same request.   When she admits that her mommy said no, Dad, that is the moment of truth.  If you cater to her, you are messing up.  You are totally taking apart the unity of your coaching staff.  You need to present a unified front.  You and your spouse need to have shared decisions.  Now if it is something that you want to discuss, you can say to your daughter she must wait for an answer until after you to talk with her mother.  Then huddle with your spouse concerning the situation.  But make sure that you present balance and unity.  If you don’t, you are setting yourself for major, major problems.

Although it is hard to do, you have got to apologize to your children when you mess up.  We may go too far or not far enough.  A lot of times we get it right, I think most of the times we do.  But now and then we are going to mess up.  Ask your children for forgiveness when you have gone too far.  They know you have messed up.  They are just waiting, wondering if Dad and Mom will come clean.

Some people may be saying to themselves that their kids are grown but that they messed up a long time ago.  Parents, I don’t care how old your children are.  Drop them a note this week.  Pick up the phone and call them and say that you were wrong then.  You may not realize it, but it matters to them.

Hey, boomers and busters, don’t whine and moan and point the finger of blame at your family of origin your whole life.  “Well, my parents were not really good coaches and I am dysfunctional because of that.”  We all come from dysfunctional families.  We are all dysfunctional.  None of us are perfect.  Even if your parents will not or have not apologized to you and sought forgiveness, get down on your knees and tell God that you release them, forgive them.

And children, when your parents do the forgiveness work, accept it.  The Bible says that if we do not accept their words of apology, why should Christ accept ours?  Maintain a balanced coaching staff.  Ephesians 6:4.  “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger….”  Dads get particularly tempted.  Dads like to stay up in the tower overlooking the field.  We like to watch the action unfold and let our wives do most of the day to day discipline.  From time to time we will take our megaphone and announce a mess up.  But then we will get back into the tower and catch a few rays.  Dads, it is fine to be up in the tower now and then.  But we have got to climb down from the tower and get into the midst of the action.  This Bible verse means that we must not arbitrarily assert our authority over the children.

Also, what do you do when you feel an unsportsmanlike conduct call coming on?  What do you do when you are tempted to throw down the head set?  What do you do?  Do you discipline?  No, because you will be too harsh.  You hand off the situation.  You hand off your child or leave the premises to regain your composure.  “Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

You see, discipline is not an option.  Instruction is not an option.  We are to do it.  A couple of years ago I came up with an acrostic.  I would ask myself what the deal was with any particular situation.  So I took the word deal, made an acrostic of it.  It helped me and I hope it will help you.

D stands for discern.  We need discernment.  We have got to be praying for an extra measure of discernment.  We have got to have discernment to line off the field and then have the discernment to discipline our children in an age-appropriate fashion.  I was thinking about my childhood and tried to remember the best act of discipline that was used with me.  I will never forget it.  I was in elementary school and one of our neighbors had a big old, hulking cement birdbath.  I used to watch the birds come and go.  I don’t know why I did what I did, but I bet a close friend that I could turn that birdbath over.  I even feel terrible telling you this.  I ran and shoved it and it fell and broke into a million pieces.  I ran.  I thought that I had committed a flawless crime until five minutes later my parents got a call from the neighbor.  Let me tell you what my parents did.  They did something brilliant.  I have never forgotten it.  They said, “Ed, you know the money you have been saving for that rod and reel?  You, after you call and apologize, will go along with us to the birdbath store, and buy her another cement birdbath.”  I have visions, still, of carrying my piggy bank money, and putting it onto the counter and saying, “One birdbath, please.”  It was terrible.  But that is discernment, wouldn’t you agree?

E stands for enlighten.  We need to use the discipline as a teachable moment.

A stands for affirm.  It is important to affirm the relationship.  I say something like this to my children.  “Children, God loves you and I love you too much to allow you to get away with this behavior.  We are affirming the relationship.

L stands for love.  Don’t leave that out.  Some of the most precious moments of my parenting career have been embracing my children after acts of discipline.

Every time you discipline, ask what the deal is and remember this acrostic.  When I opened the message up, I said, “There is nothing quite like a great football game.  When a couple of teams are disciplined and doing it right, the combination of pageantry, skill, athleticism and strength is something to behold.”  But I have got to tell you something.  There is nothing quite like a great family game.  When the team is disciplined, running right, playing within the perimeters set forth by the ground’s crew and the referees and the coaches, it is something to behold.  Parents, do the discipline deal.  Your family, over the years, will carry the ball and score touchdown after touchdown after touchdown.

WOW Statements of Jesus

You Can Do Greater Works

November 9, 2008

Ben Young

Have we domesticated Jesus? Have we tamed Jesus? Have we created an image of Him and placed Him in a proper position in our lives? What would happen if we were to allow the Lion of Judah to roam around in our lives, our hearts, and our minds in order to destroy the lies that we’ve been holding on to, that keep us captive? In this series, WOW Statements of Jesus, Ben Young will challenge you to invite the real, radical Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, to roam around inside your life. All of the statements: the gut-wrenching, mind-expanding, and life-affirming statements of Jesus are about one thing…the Kingdom of God, a radical lifestyle of grace and truth that God through Christ calls us to.

Your life may be an absolute mess right now or it may be going great…either way you can be confident that if God started a work in you, He is going to complete that work inside of you. Join Ben Young as he explores the first WOW statement of Jesus, “You Can Do Greater Works.” God has greater things in store for you, for your life.

When I was a little kid, my mom used to read to me and my brother. One of our favorite books was called Barney Beagle. I think there was a sequel out called Barney Beagle Plays Baseball. So my brother, Ed and I begged our parents to get us a dog—“Can you get us a dog? Can you get us a beagle?” So they got us a beagle, and we named it Ralph. I’m teasing! We named it Barney. He was a great dog, but he didn’t last very long. I think he had an encounter with a car. Dogs chase cars sometimes. They have this thing with hubcaps! So, we got Barney Beagle II, who was the quintessential pet we had growing up. We had other pets—German Shepherds, Samoyeds, and a Pekingese. One time my brother found a snake when my dad was out of town preaching somewhere, and he hid it. Anyway, that’s a whole other story! But we had all kinds of animals growing up. Barney the Beagle was really not your typical beagle. Beagles are supposed to be kind of sleek and smooth; this dog was fat and round! He was supposed to be a hunting dog, but he just sat around and slept all the time. He was a beautiful dog with kind of a light brown head and a white stripe, along with a black back and three white spots, and a white tummy. Mostly the dog just laid around all the time. But I loved, loved Barney the beagle.

A lot of folks have pets. If you have a pet at home, raise your hand. Sir, what kind of pet do you have? A Boston Terrier! All right! How old is he or she? Three years? What do you have? A mutt! I like that. What kind of mutt? Do you have any idea what the mix may be? A terrier! Okay! Anyone else have a pet? You have a bearded dragon? Haven’t heard of that one! One more! Any ladies here? Right there on the front row! A black lab! We have a yellow lab right now at our house, and also a Rhodesian Ridge Back without a ridge!

All these animals have one thing in common. They are not wild; but rather they are domesticated animals. The word domestication means home. It means they are trained to be in the house. Our dogs and cats know where to sleep, walk, poop, and not poop. That’s what it means to be domesticated. They have their place, and they can operate inside of our homes and apartments.

It’s interesting when you look at the kind of animals we try to domesticate over the years. Some animals simply can’t be domesticated. I’ve been a Christian for a long time now, and one of the things I’ve observed in the last 20 years is that we’ve tried to domesticate Jesus.

I would say this has happened within the church, no matter which church you come from, whether it’s Baptist, Catholic, or Pentecostal, and I would say it’s true for people outside of the church who are looking in. Have you noticed that? We’ve domesticated Jesus! In other words, we’ve taken the Jesus from the Gospels, and we’ve kind of tamed Him. We have created such an image of Him and placed Him in a proper place in our lives. Jesus knows where to stay! He’s got His place in our lives from 11:11 to 12:15 on Sundays, and then we have the rest of our lives during the week. This is domesticated Jesus. When we need Jesus, we take Him out for a walk, or we cuddle up next to Him; but He basically is not going to interfere with our lives, or our relationships, or our jobs or money. This is domesticated Jesus. Domesticated Jesus is never going to convict you or me. Domesticated Jesus is never going to call you out. He’s never going to challenge you to take our spiritual walk to a whole other level. He’s not going to do that, because domesticated Jesus is there for you, and He wants you to be happy and have happy feelings all the time.

Here’s what is strange: You can’t really domesticate Jesus. You really can’t! No matter how hard we try, no matter how many obedience schools we send Him to, no matter how many times we stare at that picture of Jesus… Do you remember the picture of Jesus you saw growing up if you went to Sunday School? He looked like some white guy who had been in a tanning bed. His profile was that of a depressed, long-haired, tan, domesticated, but sad man. We’ve got to get rid of that image of Jesus! We’ve got to get to know the real Jesus, because you can’t domesticate Jesus. Let me tell you why. There’s a verse that kind of helps us out here today, and it is found in
Revelation 5:5.

Revelation was written by John. He died probably around 91 A.D., but he lived longer than any of the other disciples of Jesus. John wrote the Gospel of John, and in it, he said, “Jesus is the light of the world.” He said, “Jesus is full of grace and truth.” He said, “I got so close to Jesus that I could put my head on His chest.” In I John 1, he wrote, “This is love; not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent Jesus as atoning sacrifice for us.” So he is known as the Apostle of Love. He also wrote the Book of the Revelation, this wild, fantastic apocalyptic piece of literature, and here’s what he says about Jesus, and this is why you can’t domesticate Him.

Revelation 5:51—“Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep; see, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’” Jesus is known as The Lion of Judah. There are other metaphors to describe Jesus in the Bible. He is known as The Alpha and the Omega, The Bright Morning Star, and The Lamb. Right here we see that Jesus Christ is also called The Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

When I was a little kid, my brother and I found a dog once that didn’t have a tag. He was a stray mutt. We invited him home and said, “Oh mom, please let us keep him!” Our mom said, “Well, okay.” We called him Tramp. We domesticated him, taught him where to sleep, how to eat, where to poop and all that stuff. But what if I lived in a different country, and I saw this nice, golden cat without a tag, and I got my brother and said, “Hey—let’s invite this golden cat home with us.” We would say, “Hey mom—we found this nice lion cub! What do you think?” Mom’s going to say, “Son, you are crazy! You can’t domesticate a lion!”

There is something that draws us to lions. Most of us have never seen a lion in person except at a zoo, or on The Discovery Channel. But there is something that draws us to a lion; the golden mane and fur makes it look so cuddly, doesn’t it? Big old 600 pound lion! You want to go hug the lion, but you know better! Why? Because a lion also has these ferocious fangs and claws, and we’ve seen a lion just rip a zebra to shreds and carry it off through the wild and deserts. We’re scared of lions because they are the king of the jungle. Jesus is the Lamb; but John also says that Jesus is also a lion, and you cannot domesticate a lion. You can’t do it!

Here is what I want to happen as we start this new series called The WOW Statements of Jesus, or The Radical Statements of Jesus. Here is what I want to happen. Work with me a little bit!

Back in the 80’s, there was this new wave group that came out of Atlanta called The B-52’s. Raise your hand if you remember The B-52’s! Don’t act all religious! Yeah, ya’ll do! You probably danced to them, okay? They had a lot of popular songs. I think the first one was Rock Lobster. But another one that I like is a song called Roam. Do you remember that song, Roam? “Roam if you want to; roam around the world!” That’s what I want to happen in the next several weeks. You say, “What are you talking about?” What I want us to do is invite Jesus, the real Jesus, the radical Jesus, the Jesus who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; I want us to invite the Lion to roam around inside of our lives as we look at His radical sayings. I want the prayer for us here this morning to be, “God, I give You the freedom to roam where You want in my life!” I guarantee you one thing, if I could go to Africa and bring back a big old 500 pound lion and turn him loose in your house or apartment; things would be different! There would be some changes! How much more if we give God through Jesus Christ the freedom to roam around in our lives, not only in the foyer and outside; but to roam around in the den of our lives; to roam around in the bedroom, and the secret places, and the attic, and the basement, and the closet that we don’t tell anybody about. What will happen if we allow the Lion to roam around in our minds and to destroy the lies that we’ve been holding on to, that keep us captive?

Why don’t we let the Lion roam around in our life and just roar His courage and boldness into our lives, that we would step out and do things, and try things that we never dreamed possible before. So that’s one of my prayers as we begin this new series on the WOW Statements of Jesus, that we would let The Lion of the Tribe of Judah roam around in our lives, and watch what happens!

Jesus said a lot of things that are just shocking. He did! Jesus said so many things that are just unbelievable. So when we listen to the Lion roar over the next several weeks in this series; you’ll see that it’s going to fall into three categories. One is what I call the mind expanding category. In other words, some of the sayings of Jesus will blow your mind! It’s going to expand your concept of reality and what’s possible in your life. It’s like that video we saw earlier where the people are asked if they can do greater works than Jesus. They were trying to wrap their mind around that concept, and I’m right there with them!

Other things that Jesus said are going to be gut wrenching. Some Sunday mornings, you’re going to come in here, and it’s going to be SHAPOOM! The Lion is going to convict you, and He’s going to cut you! Here’s the deal: Sometimes when you’re convicted, it’s painful, isn’t it? Jesus and God may wound or cut us, but He does that in order to heal.

We have some doctors and surgeons here this morning. How many people that they have seen would be absolutely dead had these doctors not had the courage, and the patients not had the courage to allow that doctor to cut open their flesh in order to get inside and heal them?

So I’m not going to sugar-coat any of these sayings of Jesus. They’re going to cut you and me, and we’re going to get a claw here and there; but He does that, not to wound us, but to heal us. Some of these sayings are going to be gut-wrenching and convicting.

The third category is that some of these statements are going to be life-affirming. I like that! Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” He’s not talking about bios. That’s the prefix for “life” in the Greek. He’s talking about zoe; God’s very kind of life. Many of His statements are going to be promises that we need to hold on to that will breathe life into us. Not typical life, but God’s kind of life. Those are the three categories that these sayings will fall into.

We have to be careful in looking at this series that we don’t see these statements of Jesus as separate entities. In other words, Jesus says if someone slaps you on one cheek; turn the other to him also. Jesus said you should love your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! Rejoice! Have a nice day!

Jesus says if we don’t forgive other people, then He will not forgive us. So as we look at all these statements Jesus made, some just really hit us hard! It’s easy to look at them sort of like little fortune cookies.

My daughters are on the front row. When we go to eat Chinese food, they love the fortune cookies. I don’t want you to look at these sayings as separate entities, because all the statements we’re going to look at, all the WOW statements: the life affirming, gut wrenching, mind-expanding statements are about one thing. It’s this over-arching purpose that God wants to do in your life and my life individually and collectively as a community. It’s all about one thing. Jesus was concerned about one thing primarily when He was on earth, and that was about the three letters: the K.O.G.! The Kingdom of God! Even a big old lineman from Nebraska knows that prayer, right? “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…” So when Jesus came, He was about bringing God’s rule and reign to earth. He wanted to bring the peace, the forgiveness, the love. Everything in Heaven, He was bringing that down to earth. He was living it out and was teaching these radical, social ethics that would be the social ethics of the Kingdom.

So as we look at these statements, don’t look at them as little separate sayings. “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” No, no, no! It’s all about the Kingdom plan. It’s all about advancing the K.O.G. So as we get these words inside of us and allow the Lion to roam where He wants to in our lives; we’re going to begin to live out the K.O.G. in our lives, in our high schools, in the market place downtown, in our homes and relationships, and we’re going to watch and see what the Lion does as we let Him loose in our lives.

I can’t wait! There’s a part of me that is like, “Yeah, let’s go do it!” There is another part of me that’s like, “Whoa! It’s a Lion! I don’t know if I want to change quite yet…” But I know that God’s change is always good.

The first WOW statement I want to look at briefly today kind of reminds me of what was going on here. How many of you are familiar with the book The Last Lecture? Are you familiar with that book? Dr. Randy Pausch wrote the book. He was a professor in the Northeast who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, he has since passed away. But he wrote this book and was on Oprah. He toured all around the United States, and it was basically his last lecture. It was the words of wisdom he wanted to leave to people before he died. Now I don’t agree with everything Randy said or did, but I think it’s a good concept, and I respect his boldness for doing what he did.

Jesus is having a last lecture talk right here in John chapter 14. He is talking primarily in this passage as we know to Peter, Philipp and Thomas. He has already said some WOW statements to them. “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen God.” Jesus has said to them, “I’m the only way to God.” Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by Me. I am the path, I am the road.” Okay…Now He’s going to say something even wilder. Look at John 14:12. He says, “I tell you the truth: Anyone who has faith in Me will do what I’ve been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father.” Maybe your translation says, “Greater works you will do.”

I first tried to let that verse rattle inside of me about 20 something years ago, and it kind of blew my mind. I thought greater works? Look at the things Jesus did! He healed the sick, He raised the dead, and He cast out demons! Wow! He took a walk on the water without a bridge. I want to do this! So my buddies and I in college were jacked up! We were going to do this, and we were going to bring revival to our campus, and we were going to usher in our concept of the Kingdom of God as college students. We believed that. We prayed and wanted to see people healed, demons cast out, and people raised from the dead. I’ve told you these stories before, but you know what? It didn’t happen. As much as we prayed, as much as we fasted, as much as we stood on God’s Word, it did not happen. Therefore, something happened to me. It didn’t happen to the rest of my friends, I don’t think; but what happened to me was that I went into a tail spin of doubt, despair, and hopelessness when it came to God and believing that He is real, and believing that His Word is true.

The good news is that if you’re going through a tail spin like that today, I’m still here; I’m still breathing and still believing! God can take you through that. There’s a great verse in the Bible that says even when we’re faithless, God is faithful. That’s good, isn’t it?

What I learned about this verse as I studied it and learned more; it doesn’t mean greater works, greater miracles. It simply doesn’t mean that. History says that; experience will tell you that. You say, “Ben, you don’t believe in miracles?” Of course I do! “Do you believe people get healed today?” Of course I believe people are healed today. “Do you believe that people have demons today?” You’d better believe it! Years ago I was part of an exorcism. I believe—I’m serious; I believe in demons and demon possession. But you know what? It’s not happening as much as it did during Jesus’ time. People are not getting healed as much. They’re not—I don’t see blind people seeing and deaf people regaining their hearing, or the lame walking.

It’s not happening as much as it did when Jesus was here. So obviously, He wasn’t talking about the miracles here. What was He talking about? There are a lot of applications, and I want to talk about one of them.

One of the things that Jesus was talking about is that God has greater things in store for you. That’s good news, isn’t it? God has greater things in store for you. The word there for “work” in the Greek is the word ergon. It’s the same word that Paul uses in Philippians 1:6 where it says, “He who began a good ergon, began a good work, began a good thing in you will complete that until the day of Christ Jesus.” Isn’t that great to know? Your life may be an absolute mess right now. You may be flying blind right now and don’t know how to use the force! You’re just out there! God is with you. If God started a work in you, He is going to complete that work inside of you. So God has greater things in store for you; greater things in store for your life. You might say, “Well you don’t know what I’m going through. You don’t know the suffering I’m going through. You don’t know the circumstances I’m in.” Listen, you can’t understand everything right now. It’s impossible.

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher said this; “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.” Life must be lived in the now. But it can only be understood many times looking backward as to what God was doing in your life. So let me tell you something. Let me give you some hope here today: God has greater things in store for you! Part of God’s greater things and greater work was the spreading of the Good News around the world. Jesus had to go to the Father this verse tells us, and when He went to the Father, He sent His Spirit to live inside of you and me. So we’re not out there just going it alone as we’re trying to follow God, allowing the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to walk around in our life. No, no, no! His Spirit lives inside of you and me to give us power, comfort, and to know that we’re not alone, to give us the strength to step out, and to stand. God’s Spirit does that!

When Jesus was on earth for 33 years, He was localized to this little speck in Israel. He’s gone global now to anyone who believes in Him, and He will send His Spirit to be with them and to comfort them. Part of the greater works is the spread of the Good News, and the fact that now God through Christ can be everywhere present in a very personal and direct way.

Let me give you a truth here. In the following weeks, we’re going to talk about some things that are going to hit hard, and as we start the New Year and look at these sayings of Jesus, it’s like wow! It’s going to come strong! I mean, it’s Kimbo Slice, its Gina Carano! You’ve got to be ready to go with this!

So before you get in the ring with Kimbo or Gina, listen: You’ve got to understand this about what God has done for you. If you don’t, you’re going to get all whacked out about God, and about the Gospel and about Christianity and think it’s a bunch of “do this, and don’t do this…” No, no, no!

When I was in college, my parents gave me a real cheesy gift. It wasn’t mesh, but it was made out of like a straw stuff; kind of a semi-painting print, and it was of a lion and had a verse on it. I didn’t really like it, but I liked the lion and the verse. This piece of art was one step above velvet Elvis and velvet Lord Supper. But it had this verse on it that I want to share with you because it’s important that we understand it—it’s so basic. Proverbs 28:1 says, “The wicked man flees, though no one pursues; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” The wicked man flees even though no one is chasing him! But the righteous are as bold as lions! We need to be righteous. The greatest need you and I have before God is to understand that we need His perfect 100% righteousness. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God to everyone who believes; to the Jew first, also to the Greek, for in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed.”

So when Jesus Christ died on the Cross—listen to this—He didn’t die just so we could be forgiven. Forgiveness is a great thing, a wonderful thing and is one of the most marvelous, magnificent things in the world. But God did more for you than forgiveness! Please hear me! You see, God not only forgave you, but He gave you the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. So you and I made an F on our moral report card. Jesus made an A+. When we trust Jesus, He gives us A+, and we trade in our F. On the Cross, God treated Jesus as if He were you and me so He could turn around and treat us as if we were Jesus.

There was a guy years ago who was a slave trader in England. His name was John Newton. He was a wicked, evil man. When he heard the news about this righteousness from God and that he could be forgiven, he wrote a song called Amazing Grace, not Ho Hum Grace. John Newton, along with his mentoree, William “Wilbur” Wilberforce, became two of the men who led the abolishment of slavery in England. The Gospel is good news! It’s great news! It’s mind-expanding, mind-blowing news that when God looks at us, if you are in Christ; He does not see you. He does not see your sin, your shame, your guilt. He sees the very righteousness of Jesus Christ.

I don’t have time to get into this today, but this righteousness that we have is outside of us. It is external to us. It doesn’t change based upon your feelings or emotions, or things you did or didn’t do. “Oh, I didn’t do my quiet time” or “I didn’t pray today.” Or, “Oh, I said a bad word in traffic!”

Do we need to live righteous lives? You bet! That’s what this series is about. But the righteousness that we need is an alien righteousness. It’s outside of us. It’s external. We need a righteousness that allows us to be accepted, affirmed and loved regardless of our good day, bad day performances. Does that make sense? That’s great news!

When God looks at us, if we’ve trusted in Christ; when He looks for righteousness, do you know where He looks? He doesn’t look down at you. He looks right there to His right hand. He looks at Christ. You and I are 100% righteous if we know Him. When we’re righteous, guess what? We’re bold! Why? Because we know we’ve been forgiven, and we know we’ve received the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. We’re bold. We know that we’re messed up and are beggars. We know we are not Jack Taco in and of ourselves. We are nothing! Nada! But the good news is, if we know Christ and have received His grace, we have everything in Christ! We are righteous and accepted! We are beautiful. We are wanted and desired! We are the apple of God’s eye! We are forgiven and are filled with God’s Spirit. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Heavenly places. He has greater things in store for you! That’s a reality whether you feel like it or not; that’s God’s reality over us today. He loves us. We are accepted and can be bold as lions!

I’m a C. S. Lewis freak. I’ve read most of his stuff; but my favorite line from C. S. Lewis—my favorite passage is not from Mere Christianity; it’s not from The Great Divorce. It’s not from Paralandra. That was a tough read! It’s from one of his children’s book series, The Chronicles of Narnia. He has a character in there named Aslan. Aslan is a big lion. There is a section in the book where Mr. Beaver is talking to Lucy, and he’s talking about Aslan. Mr. Beaver says “Well, you know, Aslan is not a tame lion.” Lucy asks later on of this Aslan, this Christ figure, “Is he safe?” Mr. Beaver says, “No, Aslan is not safe. He’s not a tame lion. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Dear Heavenly Father, help us today if there are folks here who’ve never received this gift of righteousness. It’s not something we are born into. It’s not something we can inherit from our parents because they are Christians, or because our grandmother prayed, or because we were sprinkled or dunked. God, it’s through trusting in You Lord. If there is someone here who has not trusted in You and received Your Righteousness, may they do that today!

Lord, others of us are being drawn back to you. We’re being drawn back to Aslan, the good, unsafe King! Lord, I pray for those Christians here who need to come back home to You today, and You are calling them home, saying “Come home, My son. Come home, my daughter. Come back to the place where you belong. Come back into My fold. Come back into My pride.

Lord, there are many who need to come back to You today. Thank You that You are waiting on the porch, watching for them to come down that road. Thank You that You will run to meet them.

WOW STATEMENTS OF JESUS

The Worst Sinner Question

December 7, 2008

Ben Young

The word repent has negative connotations that follow it; it gets a bad rap in our society. However, Jesus addresses the urgency and importance of repentance throughout the Gospels. In Luke 13:1 and following Jesus is calling His listeners, us, to be urgent today about the action that we take because real life, eternal life is long. In the final message of this series, Ben will unpack this radical passage of Scripture and explain why Jesus speaks with such urgency about repentance.

I’ve got two daughters now that are 10 and 13, and I’ll tell you the amazing thing about kids: They start off as these cute little squishy, chubby little things, and when they get older, all you do is feed them milk and peanut butter sandwiches, and they grow up! People don’t think about how miraculous that is. Just peanut butter, literally, three meals a day, for years and years!

I like sandwiches sometimes. When I was a little kid, my mom would make us peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Have you ever had those? Raise your hand! Yes, I see those hands! Sometimes for an extra dose, she’d put some mayonnaise on there! Yeah, it was delicious! What kind of sandwiches do you like now? I need some testifying. Just raise your hand and tell us what your favorite sandwich is here. I’m sorry I can’t call on you in the E Gym. Just kind of pretend and work with us! Right there on the front row! Roast beef sandwich. I like that! I Iike the French dip sandwich too—it’s kind of the same. Boca burgers! All right! Health food! How about right there? A butter sandwich? Wow! You are a health nut! I want to eat with you! Okay, go ahead! Tuna fish and pickle. Tuna fish is good. It has a good source of protein.

As I was preparing for this sermon, I thought about sandwiches. What we’re talking about today is what we started the year off with in 2008. It really started off at the end of 2007. Now as I look, we’ve gone full circle and have gone all the way through this journey, and it’s like God has us back in the same place. So perhaps through this sandwich, or bookends if you like that better; He is trying to deliver a message to us. I’ll tell you what the sandwich is in a little bit, but it’s good. It’s meaty.

We’re talking about the WOW statements of Jesus. Last week if you were here, we talked about the tenth leper and how we wanted to be like him and stay in a place before God where we’re in a constant state of gratitude and thankfulness, regardless of what’s going on in our bodies, our lives, or our circumstances. We want to maintain the attitude of gratitude and to really have sincere thanks unto God as a powerful, powerful way of living out the K.O.G., the Kingdom of God.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to the Book of Luke. If you don’t have a Bible, you can cheat and look on your neighbor’s paper. If not, the passage will appear on the screen behind me in just a few seconds.

Luke 13:1 and following, “There were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you No! But unless you repent, you too will perish! Or those eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will perish.’ Then He told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but he did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, “For three years now, I’ve been coming to look for fruit on the fig tree, and I haven’t found any! Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” “Sir”, the man replied. “Leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it, and if it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down.”’”

When I read this passage, I was kind of like “Whooa! What is going on here?” You have this situation, this bloody massacre at the Temple. You have this natural disaster; this tower falling on these people and it seems like Jesus really doesn’t care! He’s like Brad Pitt after he and Jennifer broke up! He’s lost His sensitivity chip, His compassion! What is going on? Jesus seems rather harsh here. He doesn’t seem to be dealing with the situation at hand. Then to add mystery or an enigma to it; He adds on this parable about a fig tree that’s not producing figs, and it’s going to get cut down, and there’s a negotiation. Hey—give it one more year, and we won’t cut it down! It’s just kind of a random passage, and it makes Jesus look pretty harsh.

We have to talk about what’s going on here. What is happening is, you have these people coming up to Jesus to report the news to Him. We’re surrounded by news today! I mean it’s crazy! We used to have just Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings. We used to just have three major networks; now we have news twenty-four seven. People talk to us about politics and the economy. We have news about the weather; people pontificating about it, predicting it. You have sports! Oh my goodness! All the sports networks, sport news, sport interpretation. “Let’s talk about that trade they made in the lower Minor Leagues for the Astros!” Good night! Get a life! So we have all these people—and I love sports, but come on!

Here is what’s happening: You have the reporters if you would, people coming up to Jesus with some news. They said, “Hey Jesus! Did you hear about the guys that got slashed in the Synagogue? Pilate did it!” What had happened, Galileans were pretty tough people. They were pretty zealous as they wanted to rebel against Rome. Word had gotten out that Pilate had taken some of the cash, some of the money from the Synagogue to use it probably to support one of his armies. So the Galileans who had protested this were going to church in a worship service like this one, and it was during the time of giving sacrifices. So it would be like us going to the Lord’s Supper Table, or communion where you have the cup and the bread. While they were doing that, some of Pilate’s henchmen came out and took their Yamaka off and boom, boom, boom! They just blew these people away, and their blood spilled over and mixed with the Lord’s Supper Table. That was the first situation Jesus dealt with—a bloody massacre, a drive-by shooting at church!

The second situation, Jesus brings up. He said, “Hey, how about what happened a while back with that tower that fell over? A natural disaster! These eighteen workers were guilty.”

These reporters wanted Jesus to deal with the whole problem of evil and suffering; the issue of theodicy. If there is a good God and all-powerful God; how do you explain the evil and suffering in the world? They really are kind of pushing Jesus to answer the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Based on what Jesus says, what we can learn from this passage is this: There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with falling towers, because that is the issue at hand here.

The first wrong way to deal with falling towers is to say that suffering is the result of sin. This is kind of the religious view. This is the “Isn’t that special” kind of view; kind of the church-lady view. “Oh, it must have been Satan! You’re living a bad life! You’re going to get cursed!” That is a kind of religious mentality of legalism. You know, “If I do good things; good things will happen to me. If I do bad things; bad things will happen to me. If I see something going on in a friend’s life, or a family member’s life; it must be because they’ve done something wrong.

Now, let me say this: There are times where suffering is a direct result from sin. We’ve all experienced that. When someone has too much to drink, they get behind the wheel of a car and they kill someone…that’s the result of someone’s sin. When someone doesn’t read the warning label on the Camel Unfiltered Cigarettes and they get cancer; that’s the result of them not heeding the warning sign. So some suffering is the result of sin, but not always! Not at all…

There is a line in the song Butterfly Kisses, and when I first heard this song, I’d been married a couple of years but didn’t have any kids yet. I heard it on the radio, and I was like please!! Pass the cheese pizza! That is the cheesiest, smarmiest, campiest song I have ever heard! Then about two years later, my wife gave birth to this beautiful little baby girl, our first-born child. I was driving down the road, and she was in the back seat in her car seat. She had this cute little chubby pudge face, and I looked in the rearview mirror, and Bob Carlisle came on the radio with Butterfly Kisses. He hadn’t finished two lines, and I was boo-hooing like a baby!

I had to check myself to see that I wasn’t going soft or light in the loafer, so I called a friend of mine who played pro-football as an offensive lineman. I said, “Man, have you heard Butterfly Kisses?” “Oh yeah (between sobs), I’ve heard it!” So, I didn’t feel so bad.

Just to stave off any e-mails or letters; I like the song Butterfly Kisses. It’s a very emotional song that tugs at your heartstrings if you have a daughter. But there’s a line in there that kind of reflects this kind of religious view toward suffering and life. He says, “In all that I’ve done wrong, I know that I must have done something right, to deserve a hug every morning, and butterfly kisses at night.” Now, I know Bob was only trying rhyme, but that’s a wrong mentality. It’s the mentality that if I do good things, good things will happen to me; if I do bad things, then bad things will happen to me. Suffering is caused by sin.

Another wrong way to look at falling towers and suffering is that suffering is random. Some say suffering is just random; it’s just an accident. Richard Dawkins, who wrote the New York Times best-selling book God Delusion, is a Darwinian fundamentalist, naturalist, and atheist. Here is what he said in a book he wrote years ago called Out of Eden, talking about suffering here from an irreligious or non-religious point of view: “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt. Other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it; not any justice. The universe we observe is precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows, nor cares; DNA just is.”

So Dawkins, and Sam Harris, and other people coming from an atheistic or agnostic perspective would say, “Suffering simply is.” All the suffering, all the pain, all the evil, and all the towers falling on us we feel in our lives; they are simply the dance of DNA. That may read well in a textbook; it may sound great on a debate on CNN or FOX; but in the real world, explaining the problem of evil and suffering as the dance of DNA as a random chance simply doesn’t wash!

Tell that to the person who’s been raped, that her attacker was just responding to the dance of his DNA. Tell that to the person who was molested—“Oh, that was just the dance of DNA.” Tell that to the person that has been abused, or someone has left them—“That was just the dance of their DNA. Tough luck.” Doesn’t work! There is a right way, and a wrong way to deal with towers falling on us. Some would say the religious view—it’s always because of sin. “You must have done something wrong to deserve that; or you did something right.” Suffering is the dance of DNA.

Listen: The life of Jesus cuts through both of those options. It refutes both those wrong options. Think about it! Jesus lived a perfect life, and Jesus suffered with great purpose. So Jesus, the Son of God, showed us what God is like, but He also showed us what it is like to be really human. He lived a perfect life, and yet He experienced horrendous abuse, betrayal, and suffering. At the same time, Jesus suffered with a purpose. It was not random, because He is God who became flesh. He entered into our suffering and pain for us! So when we go to God in prayer; when we go to God when the towers fall on us, we’re not going to a God who doesn’t understand. We don’t go to a God who is “way up there at a distance,” the Old Man upstairs, the power, the force. No, we go to a God who is powerful and is up there, who is transcendent, but who has come down to earth and who has entered into our pain and suffering. He didn’t just tell us how to relieve pain and suffering as Buddha did, no! He entered in and took the pain for us! He took the argument a step further…

So the fact that Jesus died and his death and life was one of suffering with a purpose refutes those two religious and irreligious arguments. Towers, towers, towers… They fall on everyone, don’t they? Live long enough, and a tower is going to fall on you. When a tower falls on us, the first thing we want to do is cry out, “Why God? Why? Why did You let my dad leave us when I was just a little kid? God, why did you allow my friend, my close friend to die at such a young age? God, why do I have this disease in my body that I’ve got to fight and struggle against? God, why?” The Bible is full of those “why” questions. Job is the oldest Book in the Bible, and he asks that question, “God, why?” I encourage you to read the Psalms. If a big, huge tower is falling on you, it’s full of asking God “why?” We’re asking God why when we’re bleeding, and hurting, and crying out. We need to run to the church. We need to run to people in the community. We need to run to pastors and counselors—people who have been through that and can be with us, embrace us, and listen to us.

However, in the context of this passage, this is not what Jesus is dealing with. Jesus is not really dealing with the whole issue of the problem with evil and suffering. He’s not doing that. He talks about that in other places. He’s doing something else. He’s talking to us about the right way to deal with falling towers.

To understand what Jesus is talking about in this passage where He seems to have lost that compassion/sensitivity chip; we have to go back to Luke, chapter 12. Remember when you’re reading and studying the Bible and you see something, you’re like “Hmmmm, what does that mean?” The best thing to do is read the verses before it, the verses after it, and if you still can’t figure it out, read the chapter before it and the one after it. If you still can’t figure it out; read the entire book! Then you read the entire New Testament and entire Bible. It will take you awhile; but the bottom line is this: context is king!

Let’s go back to Luke 12. Jesus tells the story about this rich rancher. This guy was killing it! He was making money hand over fist. Everything was working for him in the stock market. He thought that was going to last forever! He had all this cash; he had all this money! He had so much cash flow and deals, he was simply going to live high on the hog and live off the interest! Things were great for this rich rancher! But Jesus said as this guy was thinking to himself, “You know, next year, I’m just gonna live off the fat and the interest.” Jesus said, “You idiot! Don’t you know tonight you’re going to have a heart attack, and you’re going to have to give an account for your entire life before God?”

So the context of this passage here in Luke 13 is one of urgency. Luke says that Jesus had His face set toward Jerusalem. He was going to the Cross, okay? He was telling the people there about the K.O.G., the Kingdom of God, and He was urgent about His message. He wanted them to see this urgency in the context of the uncertainties of life, because life is very uncertain. It is very unpredictable, and sometimes, it comes to us, and it appears all these things are happening in our lives in a random way. We never know how much time we have. So Jesus is calling His listeners as He’s calling us today, to be urgent about the action that we take.

Then we look further, and we see the sandwich finally, the other piece of bread that we started off with in 2007. What’s the message? The message is one word, throwing out the “R” word—repent. That’s what He says. If you can dial back about twelve months ago, we looked at the first command that Jesus gave when he resigned from the carpentry company He was working with at about the age of 30; when He walked off the work site there. The book of Mark tells us He went around and said, “The time has come! The K.O.G. is at hand! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe the Good News!”

We have to realize also, who is Jesus talking to? He is talking not to the down-and-out. He’s not talking or consoling the people who lost loved ones in the slaughter in the Synagogue by Pilate’s henchmen. I don’t think He’s comforting the family members of the people who the tower fell on, the tower of Siloam. No, no! He’s talking to the people who have not experienced the tower falling on them yet. These people are good people. They are religious people. They are Bible-believing people. They are Bible memorizing people. They are people of prayer, and He is calling them to repent. Repent!

Now, repent gets a bad rap in our society, doesn’t it? When you think of repent, what do you think about? You think of some downtown city in New York or Houston, and somebody, some really mean guy, usually some big ole white dude with a big, red face and a big ole black, King-James Bible. He’s pounding that and says, “Repent ye sinners! Turn or burn! You’re gonna fry like a sausage in hell!” The guy is just letting people have it as they’re trying to get to work, and go their way, and not spill their Starbucks on their suit. So many times when we hear the word repent, we think of it in purely negative terms.

The Amplified Bible says this. It should be on the screen here. “Repent means to change your mind for the better, and heartily amend your ways with an abhorrence of your past sins…” So repentance is like you’re going this way. You repent and do a 180, and you go this way. When you repent, you turn away from something, and in some cases someone in your life who you know is wrong for you. They may be destructive and the relationship is unhealthy for you. You turn away from that and go in a different direction. That’s what it means to repent. It means to turn away.

Jesus is telling His listeners—“Turn away now.” They wanted to deal with Jesus—“Hey, let’s talk about the problem with evil and suffering, and why bad things happen to good people…” Jesus said, “I’m not going to deal with that now. I’ve got a guy coming along named Paul who hates us now, but he’s going to like us. He’s going to deal with that better!” Jesus said, “I want to deal with your heart, because I’m more concerned about the bitterness and hatred in your heart than I am about the people killed by Pilate. I’m more concerned that you need to turn right now away from what’s going on in your life that‘s wrong. I want to deal with you now!”

Jesus is great at Judo! He used someone else’s energy against them. He uses this rapport and uses it against them. He reframes the question. He does an intellectual boomerang and just totally catches His listeners off guard and hits them in the heart, instead of the head. He says, “Unless you repent; unless you turn away, you’re going to experience some devastating consequences, now and forever.”

They have a saying “Life is short.” You know what? Life is long! Life is short, right? That’s existentialism! “Life is short! You’re gonna die! You’d better really make that choice! Authenticate yourself!” No, life is long! Life is forever! We’re going to live some place forever, and ever, and ever, and ever! Yeah, this life is short; but real life, eternal life is a long time. Jesus says to turn away and repent. He says to do it today.

As I’ve been teaching today, there have been some things that might have popped up in your mind or your heart that you know you need to turn away from. You know you need to repent from them. You need to repent today; not tomorrow. Not, “Oh, that’s a good idea! I’m gonna do that on Tuesday at 4:00!” Or young people—not “After I sew my wild oats. Then I’ll get right with God!” Or this is better—“When things slow down, then I’m gonna…” I’ve kind of noticed, things have not slowed down for me yet. I’ve been waiting for things to slow down. All we have is now. All we have is this moment, and God gives us this moment and this window of opportunity to turn away and repent, and to come to Him. That’s what He wants us to do. That’s a part of being in the K.O.G., the Kingdom of God. Gratitude, living in the spirit of Thanksgiving, that’s not just a November thing—the turkey, dressing and football! No! That is a life-long deal. If I’m going to be in the Kingdom of God, I’ve got to learn how to have gratitude in the midst of my life. I’ve got to learn how to repent, how to turn away, how to turn away when God tells me, “Hey, this is wrong in your life.” It may be an action; it may be a relationship; it may be an attitude. He says, “You’ve got to turn away from that now! All you have is now!”

Then Jesus throws in the fig tree story. What’s that all about? The fig tree wasn’t producing fruit. That represents you and me! God is the owner of this vineyard, and He’s looking down. He says, “All right, I’ve been waiting on this guy/gal for a long time! I don’t see any fruit! Bam! I’m going to cut it down.” The gardener comes and negotiates with him, “Don’t cut it down.”

By the way—Matthew and Mark, “Just cut it down!” There’s not a year. Luke is kind of wanting to show the grace of God, working through the Apostles, working through the preaching of Peter and Paul in the Book of Acts, and before the fall of the Temple in 70 A.D., so he adds on this deal where, “Hey—one more year! Give us one more year! We’re going to fertilize and put some manure here and put on our John Deere hat and our tractor, and we’re going to make this thing grow. If it doesn’t grow after that, okay, chop it down!”

But what is this? The fig tree story is a story of God extending grace! He’s saying, “Listen: God’s giving you another opportunity before He chops down the tree.” Here’s what is just wild.

This is one thing I guess I wouldn’t believe unless I’d seen it—I’m sorry. But you can’t repent and turn to God when you want to. You can’t! There are windows of opportunity that God gives you in your life to turn, and turn away; and sometimes that window is shut, and you can’t do it! I’ve been with people on their death bed. I’ve seen it happen! They really, really wanted to turn to God. They really, really wanted to turn away. I mean they’re about to die! Can’t do it. The window’s not open. It says repent today while you still have time. I’m giving you another window; I’m giving you another opportunity just like this fig tree to grow, to produce.

I like what Peter says in II Peter 3:9. He says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” God is patient.

Listen: Don’t mistake space, or room to repent as permission to sin. Maybe you’re doing your own thing, man, and you’ve got this little deal going on the side, and you’ve yet to experience the full ramifications and full consequences of this little pocket in your life; this attitude, this lifestyle. You think because the consequences aren’t kicking in yet, you can continue to do whatever it is you’re doing! No, no, no! Don’t mistake room to repent for permission to sin! Don’t do it!

Here’s the deal too: It’s a lot easier to hear a message like this; it’s easy for me to do that and say, “You know what, that was a good message for my neighbor! I wish my neighbor had been here to hear that!” Or, “There’s a jerk at work that I have to put up with! Oh, does he need to be here to hear this. He needs to repent. There’s this girl at school who is in the popular crowd. She’s so stuck up! Good night! She needs a 15 foot pole to pick her nose, and she needs to be here to repent!” No. Maybe they do! But do you know who needs to repent? You. Repentance is the door and the path to the K.O.G. Repentance is how we get into a relationship with God. Repentance is how we grow in a relationship with God. It’s the door and the path.

Martin Luther, when he nailed those 95 theses of protest on the Wittenberg Door in the 16^th century said this about repentance in the 95 theses: “Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” It’s a part of being in the K.O.G. It’s part of following Christ, a continually turning away, turning away when God points something out and convicts you; when He shouts at you! When He whispers to you to turn away now.

The good news about repentance is that we’re not just turning away—“OOOhhh, I got to leave this! Oh, it’s so negative! I got to…” No, no, no! What did Jesus say in Mark? Turn away and what? Believe the Good News. So we turn away from whatever this is—you fill in the blank, and we embrace the Good News! The Gospel means the proclamation of Good News! What is the Good News?

There is a lot of good news. First of all, the ultimate big tower will not fall upon you, because it has already fallen upon Jesus. Isn’t that great? The ultimate big tower—BAM! The hammer of God’s judgment upon your life, and upon my life as a sinner will not fall upon you because it has already fallen upon Jesus. Jesus took the big tower for us.

Think about it this way: How many times in your life have you lied and not paid the full consequences for it? How many times have you lusted and not paid the full consequences for it? How many times have you coveted, wanting something that wasn’t yours and not paid the full consequences for it? How many times have you been angry and not paid the full consequences for it? How many times have you been disobedient and not paid the full consequences for it? That’s because Jesus has taken the big tower for you! Like the old hymn says, “Jesus Paid it All.” The great news about embracing the Good News is that not only does He forgive us and wipe out our sin, but He gives to us Christ’s very righteousness.

I’m going to pick on Baptists for a moment. Baptists are big on, “Hey, come on! You gotta walk down the aisle! He’ll take away your sins! You can be forgiven! You gotta repent! You can be forgiven!” That’s great to be forgiven! We live in a very unforgiving world and unforgiving culture. It’s great to be forgiven; but there’s so much more, because what does God say? Not only does He forgive us, but He gives us Christ’s very righteousness. So it’s an exchange! We give God our sin and our guilt; He gives us Christ’s righteousness, His perfect law-keeping! We have an F on our report card.

I remember playing basketball in the 9^th grade in South Carolina, and a friend of mine got an F, and the coach was checking grades, and he put a plus, an F+. Isn’t that great? The coach looked—“F+? Ronald, what’s that?” We have an F+ on our report card. We trust in Christ. He has an A+ in His moral track record, and that’s credited into our account.

The Gospel is this: It’s not that you give to God a record of righteousness to be saved, or made right. You have to receive from God a record of righteousness in order to be saved. That’s good news! Not only are we forgiven and are given righteousness; God accepts us as if we’re Jesus and had lived His perfect life. He also puts the big power inside of our lives.

The big tower fell on Jesus; and the big power, God’s Spirit lives inside of your life and inside of my life. I can’t explain that! It’s supernatural until you’ve experienced God’s power working in you, living inside of you! It’s unbelievable!

Paul says in Romans 8 the same power that raised Jesus from the dead; that same power dwells inside of you, and dwells inside of me if we’re a Christ follower. Jesus said this, “Apart from Me, you can do some things…” No, He didn’t say that! He said, “Apart from Me, you can do a little bit…” No! He said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing! Nothing!” But through Christ, I can do all things, everything through Him; through His Spirit, through His power. Listen: If I’m not conscious, without driving in the big power of God’s Spirit; I can’t negotiate Houston traffic in a healthy way. I can’t do it. I’m not spiritual enough to put the Jesus fish on my car yet. I’m not there yet! To love the way I need to love; to work the way I need to work; to manage life, I’ve got to have the big power of God’s Spirit dwelling inside of me! That’s what happens. His power comes to live inside of us, to help us live out this radical lifestyle of grace and truth in the K.O.G. The big tower fell upon Him, so it doesn’t ultimately fall upon us. The big power of God’s Spirit comes inside of us to live in us and give us life, hope and energy. God just doesn’t leave us to our own devices. It wouldn’t work!

I like Peter in the Bible. He’s great! You’ve got to like him! He’s so bold, stepping out there. Jesus says, “I’m gonna die!” “I’m gonna die with You, Lord! All these other people that are cowards… But not me!” “Oh no, no, no, Peter!” Jesus says, “Wake up, buddy! You’re going to deny me three times before the cock crows!” Peter denies Him. Peter fails, but Peter gets back up. He fails, but he gets back up. Even after Pentecost, he preached this great sermon and thousands came to Christ, but he still has all this racial prejudice working inside of him. What’s up with that, Peter? But he keeps on following Him, and he keeps on trusting. He keeps on getting filled with the Spirit.

Peter wrote these words about repentance that are really good. This is the love here, right? Where’s the love in the message? Where’s the love in repentance, turning away and embracing? Where’s the love? It’s right here! Check it out. Here it is—Acts 3:19—“Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” I like hat. So that times of refreshing, times of refreshing that come from the Lord. That’s Good News! That’s a good sandwich.

Dear God, I thank You that You are a good God. God, I thank You that You give us windows of opportunity to turn away, and to turn towards You. God, I thank You that there are sinners here in this gym today, because I’m here, and we’re all here. We were all beggars in search of bread, and all of us need to turn to You today.

God, some people here today have never really turned to You. In other words, they’re not in the door yet. They may think they’re in the door, but they’ve not opened the door of the grace, truth and reality of Who You are, and they need to stand and walk down front today, Father. There are some men here who need to stand up and walk down front. There are some students and some singles that need to stand and walk down front and say, “I’m not playing games any more. I’m turning away from the junk in my life, and I’m embracing this Good News. I don’t understand it all. I still have doubts. I still have fears, but I know that I’ve got to follow God. I’ve got to have Him in my life, and I’ve got to be on this path.” Father, may they stand and come down front today, those who need to make that commitment.