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STILL COUNTING

Addition

Ed Young

October 27, 2003

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really liked math that much.  Whenever I think about math, I think about images of those overhead projectors. Do you remember those things?  I think about pop quizzes and red marks all over my paper.  I really struggle with math.  I just did not gel with it.  I majored in fine arts for a while—drawing and painting.  I really got some of my best artwork done during math class.  It was incredible.  I think my mother has some of the renderings framed, in fact.  She’ll show them off and say, “Ed did this in Algebra I.”

I use to sit in class and think to myself, “What is up with this math stuff.  I will never use it.  Why am I here?”  I use to think about that, and say that and tell people that.  But as I have gotten older, I’ve come to the realization that math matters.  Life is all about numbers.  We are bombarded by numbers 24/7, aren’t we?  Stats, figures, percentages, surveys—everything is numbers these days.  We drive around the freeways and see speed limit signs. We have all the numbers on our dials on our cars. We know people’s cell phone numbers. When we watch football, baseball, basketball, or soccer everybody has a number on their back.  And people say, “When you die, your number’s up.”  People are always thinking about numbers.  We’re always thinking about numbers, numbers, numbers, and counting stuff.

I’ve been a student of the Bible for a long, long time and I’ve found that math matters not only to us, but math even matters to God.  And when I say that, some people think, “Really?  Math matters to God?”  The answer is “Yes.” And we’re going to see over the next several weeks how much math matters to God.  One of the reasons I want you to be here is because I’ve discovered that once we understand God’s math and where we fit in his equation, then we can achieve just some unique stuff—especially within the confines of the local church.

Over the next several weeks, I am going to talk about math. Today, I’ll talk about addition.  Next weekend, subtraction.  Then I’m talking about multiplication and division.  I was going to add algebra, geometry and trig, but I never understood that so I’ll stop with division, okay?

You know, I said earlier that math matters to God and the Bible has a lot of math in it.  I was thinking the other day about all the math in the Bible.  God uses numbers throughout the pages of Scripture. Jesus said that we have to, “Count the cost.”  He told the story about a shepherd that had 99 sheep in his corral.  Well, the reason he knew there was 99 sheep in there and not 100 or 98 was because the shepherd counted.  An entire book of the Bible is named Numbers – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. You’ll find Moses counting the children of Israel before they left Egypt and moved into the Promised Land.  You have David counting the five smooth stones before he took out the big behemoth, Goliath.  Then you see Simon Peter counting 3,000 people who were added to the early church.  And we have Jesus, himself, counting the twelve disciples and then the seventy that he sent out into the world.  Remember Gideon?  He counted the 300 faithful.  The Bible is all about numbers and counting.

So, let’s go ahead and start with addition.  Let’s think about addition because anytime God does math, he starts with addition. He always has a constant factor in his addition, in his formulas. That constant factor is the local church.  So, I want to talk to you about the local church and where we fit into God’s equation.  God is the quintessential mathematician.  He’s always adding something. It’s amazing to sit back aHave you always been here in Grapevine?  Have you always had this facility?  How did it start and what all did you deal with in the early days?” So, I want to go back in time a little bit and use this as kind of a learning experience to bring all of us up to speed and on the same page.

VISION

The first thing that God added to Fellowship Church that I love to talk about is vision.  He added vision.  When I think about vision, my mind rushes to the book of Proverbs.  Proverbs 29:18—this is a pretty cool verse.  It says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  It’s pretty straight forward.  If there’s no vision, people perish.  So, if there is vision, people thrive.  God is always working with vision

Think back to some of the characters in the Bible.  God gave Abraham a vision to leave Ur of the Chaldeans.  He gave big Moses a vision to lead the children of Israel.  He gave Solomon a vision to build the temple.  He’s always giving people visions to show us what’s out there.  The vision of Fellowship Church unfolded in a very unique way.  Here’s how it kind of played out in my life.

I grew up a P.K., a preacher’s kid, and when I graduated, I went to school at Florida State University.  I thought I knew a lot about the world until I was thrust into a very, very crazy environment at Florida State.  I think it was rated the number one or number two party schools in the nation all the time I was at Florida State.  I didn’t participate in all those parties, but it was rated that.  I was involved in the sports program at FSU and I was around people who were not Christians.  Our dorm was a massive structure.  I think it had around 1500 people in the dorm.  We even had a full bar in the bottom of our dorm.  It was a privately owned dorm at Florida State, Cash Hall.  Isn’t that amazing?  I would come home from class and they would be announcing, “It’s margarita night in the Florida State Room.  Just take the elevator to the basement.”  This was college.  Can you believe my parents dropped me off there and just said, “Okay, Ed, have a good time”?  I could tell you stories all day and night about Florida State.  But anyway, let me tell you this.  Three people out of the 1500 in the whole dorm went to church.  I was one of three. Not four… three.

TRUTH AND RELEVANCE

I went to a church and this church was a good church.  It was a traditional church and the pastor was a nice guy.  They had music that was a little bit older.  Now, I had a heart for the Lord and I became a Christian at a pretty young age so I invited some of my teammates to the church.  I was a freshman or sophomore at Florida State playing basketball, and I would have some of my basketball buddies with me at church. We would sit on the pew and just check it out.  And for the first time, I began to see church, not through my eyes, but through their eyes.  And I thought to myself, “Wow, what they are doing here and saying here is true at this church.  But it’s irrelevant.”  It was true but it was irrelevant.  God started working on me when I was a freshman or sophomore in my life saying, “Ed, wouldn’t it be cool if you could be a part of a church that even your teammates could show up to and they could hear truth that is relevant?”

A couple of years ago, I had a pretty cool experience happen to me, that backs up what I said about truth sometimes being irrelevant.  Some of the Management Team guys went down the Snake River and went white water rafting.  We hit a pretty dangerous stretch. In fact, our rafting guide told us that a couple of people had drowned in this stretch of river, so it was kind of tenuous.  We were a little bit scared.

Mike Johnson, our Children’s Pastor, was on the left side of the boat and I was on the right side of the boat.  We were paddling and our river guide would say, “Paddle left,” and we’d paddle left.  “Paddle right”, and we’d paddle right.  He told us, “Now, if you’re flung overboard, you know, in a minute you could die of hypothermia.”   He told us what to do, how to stay away from the rocks, how to cruise down the river with your feet up and all this stuff that would help us.  Well, Mike Johnson was kind of getting on me because I wasn’t paddling hard enough.  Mike was saying, “Hey, man, you’re not paddling hard enough, Ed.”  Well, five seconds after he said that, we hit this massive white water and over this thunderous white water, I heard Preston’s (Fellowship’s executive pastor) west Texas accent shouting, “Mike’s out!  Mike’s out!”  I looked back and there is Mike Johnson, I mean, the guy is like going under the white water with this life vest on.  And he’s swirling around and spitting out water.

Now, here’s what we did not do.  At that point, we did not hold up a paddle and say, “Hey, Mike, the Latin term for paddle is…,” or, “Mike, did you realize that the history of white water rafting dates back to the 1820’s?”  “Did you know that, Mike?  Hey, Mike, look this way.”  That stuff was true, but it was irrelevant.  What did Mike need?  Mike needed rescuing.  So, we extended our paddles to him, he grabbed the paddle, we brought him up and our big burly guide just grabbed his life preserver and threw him in the raft.

That’s the problem with most churches.  People are drowning—drowning in their marriages, drowning in their careers, drowning in hurtful habits; yet, the church for two long has said, “Hey, the Latin for the word “paddle” is…,” or, “The historisticity of white water rafting started in the 1800’s.”  These people don’t need to learn about the Latin word for paddle or the history of white water rafting.  What do they need?  They need someone to extend paddles.  They need someone to rescue them and bring them on the raft.  They need someone to show them what it means to become a full-court follower of Christ.

So, at a very young age, I understood that truth and relevancy matter.  And my sophomore year in college, I moved to Houston and began to finish up my undergraduate degree.  Then I enrolled in Seminary.  I began to work in a church, and God began to develop this vision.  I didn’t know really what it looked like or what kind of style it was; I didn’t really understand the implications, the size, or the depth of it.  I just knew God was doing something.

At the same time, God, because remember God is always adding vision, was working in several visionaries’ lives in Irving, Texas of all places.  I remember Owen Goff telling me, “You know, a long time ago, I said to myself, ‘I will do anything it takes to reach people.”  He said, “I told God that.”  I remember Preston Mitchell telling me, “You know, I knew there had to be something better.”  I remember Doris Scoggins telling me, “I knew there were so many people out there that needed to be reached, but I just didn’t know what was going to happen.  I knew something was out there, something was happening.” [Owen, Preston, and Doris are all original staff members of Fellowship Church]

I told my friends when I was in Seminary, “You know, there is one place I will never go to start a church.” I said, “I will never go to Dallas/Ft. Worth.”  I love Dallas/Ft. Worth, but I said, “I’m not going to the belt buckle of the Bible belt.”  I told them, “You know, I’ve hung around a lot of people who are ungodly, a lot of people who didn’t know Christ.  I want to go somewhere like California, Canada, Arizona, Florida, or somewhere where they don’t have a church on every single street corner.  Dallas, Texas—the land of televangelists, the land of Seminaries, and the bastion of Baptists?  I’m not going there.”

Well, don’t ever say that to God, I’ve discovered.  Because God spoke to Lisa and me in a real way and we hooked up with a small group of people who were starting a work in Irving, Texas.  God synced us up together and we owned this vision and kind of began to understand the vision.  But we still didn’t know what was in store for us.

Now, 13 years ago, if you would have walked up to myself, Doris, Owen, or Preston and said, “Hey, Fellowship Church will look like it does today and you will dress casual, and blah blah blah,”  I would have said, “Man, what have you been smoking and drinking?”  I had no clue, none of us had any clue, that Fellowship would unfold like it has.  It was all about vision, though.  It’s vision.  Where there is no vision, the people perish.

I began to think about the vision of Fellowship Church during the early days.  We had maybe 150, 200 people showing up.  I thought, you know, I need to write the vision for this church down.  I began to meditate on two scripture verses and I want to share these verses with you.  They’re found in Matthew 22 and in Matthew 28.  I’m talking about the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.  Here’s the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-39), “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Now, in Matthew 28:19 Jesus gave us the Great Commission, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” Look at verse 20, “…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”   

Those are huge, towering verses—the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.  I thought to myself, “That’s what the church is all about.  But how can we record something, how can we write something down that everyone can understand and that everyone can get their hands around?”  At the time, I was in a little rented office.  We had one used typewriter.  I was the only staff member at the Fellowship of Las Colinas (that’s what we called it at the time).  It was like God said, “Boom! Ed, reach up, reach out, reach in.”  I said, “That’s it! Reach up, reach out, reach in.  That’s the three-fold purpose of the Fellowship of Las Colinas.”  Think about it.

REACH UP

Reach up—what is that?  Worship.  What is worship?  It’s expressing love to God.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart—that’s a pretty good definition of worship—with all your soul, wow, with all your mind.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  That’s worship.  Worship is not just what we do on Saturday or Sunday or on First Wednesday.  Worship should transcend everything we do, say, touch and feel.  Everything we do should worship.  As I always say, we should not come to Fellowship Church to worship.  We should come to Fellowship Church worshipping.  Reach up—expressing our love to God. That’s worship.

REACH OUT

Reach out.  Matthew 28:19—the Great Commission.  “Therefore go,” Jesus said, “and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Reach out.  Communicate Christ creatively with the culture.  Reach out to those people who are on the peripheral.  Reach out to those people who normally don’t go to church.  Reach out to those people who are disillusioned with organized religion.  Reach out to the people involved in all of this stuff.  Reach out to them.  Reach out to them.  That’s a huge thing.  Reach up and reach out.

REACH IN

Reach in.  What’s reaching in?  That’s becoming a full-court follower of Christ.  Look at Matthew 28:20, “and teaching them,” Jesus said, “to obey everything I’ve commanded you.”  That’s having Christ fully formed in your life. 

So, I wrote this down.  Well, that week we got together in someone’s home and I was sharing with some of our leaders about this vision and they said, “Ed, you’ve got to go public with this!  You got to tell people about it.”

I thought, “Well, I’ve never done anything like that.  I’ve preached sermons, and preached the Bible, but I’ve never talked about vision.”  And they said, “Do it.  We need to do this!”  So I did.

And I have to say, through their encouragement, July 4th weekend, 1990, was a turning point in Fellowship Church’s history.  From that day forward we said, “Here are the values, here is the vision, here is the mission statement of what we’re about.  Everything we do is going to fall under one of these three principles.  If it doesn’t, we’re not going to do it.”

Next weekend I’m talking about subtraction.  Subtraction is a great part of God’s math.  Every time God adds, he subtracts.  Don’t tell me what you’re adding to your life.  Also, tell me what you’re subtracting from your life.  Great difference makers are great eliminators. But that’s next weekend, so I’ll stop for now.

VISION + LEADERS

So, God added the vision.  Then he added something else.  He can’t just stop at vision.  Its fine to talk about vision, but he also added something else.  He added leaders. Vision plus leaders, difference makers.  When the church brought me here, it was just starting.  I was the only staff member. We had a rented typewriter and were meeting in rented facilities.

A small group of people looked at me and they said, “Ed, how are you going to do this church when you are the only staff member?  How?”

It was a great question.  I said, “You know what?  You’re going to be my staff.  That’s right.  You’re going to be the staff of Fellowship of Las Colinas.  I mean, I can’t pay you.  We don’t have the money, but you’re going to be the staff.”

They looked around and Preston said, “Me?”  I said, “Yes, Preston, you.”

Doris was like, “I’m working in the corporate world.”  I said, “Yeah, Doris.”

Owen told me, “I have an insurance company.” I said, “Yes, Owen.”

I said, “You’re going to be the staff.  You all are the staff.”

“Okay,” they said, “that’s cool.”

I said, “You know, we’re going to make some decisions here.  We need to commit not to miss a Sunday (because at that time we only had church on Sunday).  We need to commit to attend every Sunday morning for the next 18 months.  We’ve got to get this thing off the ground and going.  We’ve got to become autonomous and self-supporting.  We’ve got to do it.  I’m willing to do it, are you?”

And they responded, “Yes.”

Is that unbelievable?  I mean, you are talking about awesome leaders?  Many, many others are here too, but I’m talking about Owen, Doris and Preston. The commitment level was huge.  Leaders—they owned the vision and they still own the vision.  They put flesh beneath the vision.  It’s so important to understand that principle, because every time God adds a vision, he adds it to the lives of leaders.

Go back to the Bible and look at Abraham. He was a leader.

God said, “Hey, Abraham, leave Ur.”  He did it.  God communicated his vision to a leader.

God said, “Hey, Gideon, I want you to lead 300 faithful guys to fight…”  Gideon, the leader, led.

God said, “Hey, Deborah, I want you to deliver your people.”  Deborah led.

Any time you see God adding a vision, he always adds leaders to carry the vision through.  The cool thing about Fellowship Church is the fact that we are led by leaders.  We’re a staff led church, and a staff led church is a biblically led church.  So many churches are set up to fail.  Their leadership structure is not biblical.  Let me give you an example.

Is anyone here a dentist?  If you are a dentist, lift your hand.  I will not embarrass you.  You know I wouldn’t do that.  If you’re a dentist…surely we have a dentist here, come on.  [A gentlemen in the auditorium raises his hand] You are?  Man, that’s great.  You’re a young dentist, too.  I love that.  You’re on the cutting edge of dentistry.  I won’t embarrass you.  What’s your name?  Nick?  Nick.  Alright, Nick.  Nick, where’s your practice?

Nick:  I’m a senior dental student.

Ed: Okay, you’re a senior dental student.  So, you’ll practice probably here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area?  Okay, great man, Nick.  You have a good smile too, man. You must be flossing everyday.  I like that.  Let’s use Nick.  Okay, just for example, let’s just push the clock forward.  Nick has now been in his own practice let’s say for four years, okay?  And it is going!  I mean, people are showing up and you’re having a great time.  The smiles are looking beautiful.  Let’s say though, Nick, that fifteen of your patients decide that they are going to form a committee.  And, Nick, you can’t make any dental decisions without all of them voting on it.  And it has to be unanimous.  If the vote is not unanimous, you cannot make a decision—a decision to clean someone’s teeth, a decision to drill, a decision to give away a tube of toothpaste, a decision for x-rays. You can’t make one decision until they all sign off and vote.  Do you think Nick would be a dentist very long?  No! Are you kidding me?  He would leave like that [snaps].

That’s the way most churches have been set up.  The pastor gets a great staff and there’s this committee or board of 15 people who don’t know up from down about the church. Yet, they are going to tell the leaders how to lead?  I’ve had the opportunity to talk to thousands of Christians leaders every year and what breaks my heart is that so many of them leave the ministry. They leave it because they didn’t sign up for what I just talked about.  And that’s not a biblical model of church.

I’m not talking about accountability.  I’m talking about the ability to lead.  And one of the great reason and one of the factors in Fellowship’s awesome growth is because we understand that God’s vision is vertical and we carry it out in a horizontal fashion.  And that forms the big plus sign, doesn’t it?  We get the vision from God (vertically), and we then lead the church and it plays out horizontally.  Here is where most churches mess up.  A pastor, a staff member, or a leader has a vertical vision from God.  Boom!  God gives it to them.  Alright.  They begin to do the stuff God calls for, things begin to grow, things begin to happen and they begin to create.

Suddenly, though, there’s one or two negative people who rears his or her ugly head and says, “Well, the music’s too loud,” or, “I don’t like the way you said that,” or, “The service…,” or, “The parking…,” or, “I didn’t like…blah blah blah.”

And then the pastor goes, “Ohhhh.”  Then someone with a lot of money says, “You know, if we continue down this road, I’m just going to leave.”

The pastor says, “Ohhhh.  He can’t leave!  He’s Mr. Big Time!  Ohhh!  We’ll change and we’ll appease you, Mr. Big Time.  Listen, we’ll do what you want us to do.”

What’s happened there?  The church has changed from getting their vision vertically to getting it horizontally.  Now it’s up for grabs and the church turns inward.

Now that church says, “It’s just about us four and no more, the holy huddle.  Let’s look at the lint in other Christian’s navels.”  And they flip off their community and say, “Go to hell!  Our church is for the white hats. The sinners, you’re the black hats, and you can’t show up here.  It’s just about our little deal, our little click, our little country club, our little words, our little world.”  They end up talking Christianese.

The Cowboys are pretty good this year, aren’t they?  How about them Cowboys?  When we watch the Cowboys, we want to watch them play, right?  P-L-A-Y. Play.  Play means action.  Play means catching passes, making tackles.  Play is not just staying in a huddle the whole time.   If you are watching a holy huddle, all you see is a bunch of rears!  And who wants to see that?  That’s why those churches don’t grow.  It’s a bunch of rears and they’re not playing.

What I love about Fellowship Church is that you guys and girls are players—in a good sense.  You’re catching passes, you’re scoring touchdowns, and you’re leading.  You’re owning and carrying forth the vision.

VISION + LEADERS + COMMITMENT

So, again, check out God’s addition.  You’ve got vision plus leaders.  Let’s add something else, commitment.  You can talk about leaders and you can talk about vision—those things are good.  Leaders carry out vision.  They are intertwined like peanut butter and jelly or chips and hot sauce.  That’s cool.  But you’ve also got to talk about commitment, because it takes a commitment by the leaders to the vision.  It’s the commitment to reach up, reach out and reach in that really puts wheels beneath what God is doing when he wants to add and do something awesome like he has done, and is doing, and will do at Fellowship Church.  Commitment.

I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anybody publicly before.  I might have said this, though, at our Creative Church Conference for pastors.  But let me go ahead and tell you.

At Fellowship we began to reach up, and out and in and we began to really flesh out the vision.  But I was really ignorant as a senior pastor.  I didn’t know a couple of things that I just found these things out this past week when we had several pastors from Florida shadow us in a leadership training thing.  And one of the pastors, Ron, specializes in training pastors on how to start churches and we were talking about Fellowship Church.  And I was telling him what I was going to talk about this weekend and he said, “Ed, I don’t know if you know this or not, but 80% of churches that start up, fail in the first year.  They have to close the doors.”  Wow!

I told him, “Ron, I didn’t know that 13 years ago.  Thanks for telling me.”

Eighty percent!  That’s a lot.  Think about how a church is started and after twelve months, boom!  Eighty percent of the people say, “See ya!”

Then he told me something else that messed me up.  He said, “And Ed, I’ll tell you something else.  When I talk to all these pastors starting churches, if the church makes it passed twelve months, most of the people will leave the church after 18 months.”

I said, “Ron, come on.”

He said, “Yes.  In many churches, the original people have gone after 18 months.”

Now,” I said, “I understand it.  Now, I get it.”

Let me tell you what happened to me.  Our church started and we had this vision—reach up, reach out, reach in.  Great things were taking place.  But after about 18 months, I noticed that most of the people who started with us were bolting, leaving.  Even some of the people on the pastor’s search team that brought me here and said, “Ed, I’ll be with you, man.  I’m here with the vision.  I own it!  It’s mine.” Even some of them said, “See ya.”

I came home one night and I said, “Lisa, I didn’t sign up for this.  Man, I’m out of here.  I’m gone.  I didn’t plan on having to bust my rear to lead this church and preach and all the stuff I have to do just for people to leave.  I’m out.  I’m going to do something else.  Forget this place.  No wonder Dallas/Ft. Worth is the way it is with all these mean Christians.”

You know, Christians are the only ones who shoot the wounded.

We say, “Oh, you’re a Christian and you messed up!  You’re out of here! We’ll show him.”

But you know what?  I didn’t leave.  I came very close to leaving.  I’ve never told the church this before.  I was that close, but I didn’t.  Do you know why?  Commitment.  Commitment.

What does commitment mean?  It means to pledge yourself to a position no matter what the cost.  And when I was praying about leading this church and becoming pastor, I said, “God, I’m here.  I’m committed to what you’re going to do and I don’t care what happens.  God, I’m going to stay here.  I’m committed to it.”  And that is what held me here.  I didn’t feel like it.  The polls didn’t say, “Hey, you know, you should stay.”  And the same is true for the other leaders.  Ask Preston.  Some of Preston Mitchell’s best friends bolted.  Ask Owen Goff.  Same thing.  Ask Doris Scoggins.  They hung in here.

But let me tell you what God was doing.  God was replacing the people who left 10 to 1 while this was happening.  Isn’t that amazing?  We didn’t have any bloodshed or fights in the church.  These people just left to attend other churches that suited them better.  And those other churches that they attended, thankfully, they’ve gotten involved there and everything is cool and fine.  But I’m going to tell you like it is, man. Commitment is where it’s at.  We’re committed to the vision.  Had I bailed and Preston and Owen and Doris and I gone somewhere else and started some other church, and we just said, “Hey, you know, it’s just too tough,” we would have missed one of the greatest rides that God has ever given the local church in Christian history.

I don’t know if you know that or not.  Look back in Christian history.  Have you ever heard about a churches growing from 150 to 19,000 in attendance in about 13 years?  It’s a very short list.  And the cool thing about it is, no one on our staff is a superstar.  We’re not.  There are a lot of people more talented than I am, and Preston and Doris and Owen and all the other staff members.  But I’ll tell you what we have that the others don’t.  We have this heart, this tenacity, this commitment from God and we will outwork, out sweat, out call and out pray any other team, church, or you name it.  Bring it on.  Our staff will take on hell with a Super Soaker®.  We will.  We will take it on with a squirt gun. That’s how committed we are to the vision.  It’s totally a God thing.  I mean totally.

I could diesel on, but I’ve got to move to something else.  It is amazing what God has done through the commitment level.  And that’s true with many of you, too.  Your commitment level blows me away.  And it blows many other Christian leaders away around the country.  Thousands of these leaders converge on Fellowship every year to see what God’s doing here. VISION + LEADERS + COMMITMENT + CREATIVITY

We’re about to run out of time.  Let me do one more.  Okay.  Vision +leaders + commitment + there’s one more—creativity.  Creativity.  Wow, we use to go to churches and talk to the leaders.  The triplets— Doris, Preston and Owen—can tell you about going to different churches and being bored out of their minds.

People go to church and too often think, “Wow, this is wearing me out!  Same old, same old, irrelevant stuff.  The aqueduct system in ancient Samaria and Solomon’s forty thousand horse stables and what types of horses he had.  What is up with that, man?  I need help.  I’m drowning in my marriage.  I’m drowning in my career.  I’m drowning, I need rescuing.  Somebody send a paddle to me.  Someone grab my life jacket and pull me into the raft.”  That’s why people need creativity in the church.  Church should be the most creative thing around.

The first time I went to Las Vegas, I said to myself, “This signage here is unreal!”  Las Vegas has nothing to say but they know how to say it, don’t they?  I mean, they do.  Then I think about the local church, some of these churches around here. We have everything to say, but for far too long we just don’t know how to say it.

Listen to this very carefully.  A great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission demands great creativity.  Did you get that?  It’s building on what I’ve talked about.  I’m talking about God adding.  I’ll say it again.  A great commitment, pledging yourself to a position no matter what the cost, to the Great Commandment, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and body, love your neighbor as yourself, and the Great Commission, go and make disciples, baptize—it all demands great creativity.  If you ever go to a church and you are bored, don’t blame God, blame the communicators, singers and leaders.  Let me say that again.  If you ever go to a church and you are bored, don’t blame God. Blame the people who are leading the church.

The deal we make at Fellowship Church with you is very simple.  You invite your friends who don’t know Christ personally and others who are looking for a church home and we will bust it here to present a biblically driven, creative and compelling service.  We’re simply doing what Jesus did.

JESUS’ MODEL

If you’re talking about innovation and creativity, you have to think about Jesus.  He never used the same method.  He always was changing, drawing in the sand, pointing to a flower, he was picking up a child, he was talking about a building that was falling down, and he was using the street vernacular of the day.  He was the master teacher, the master communicator.  70% of his words were words of what?  They were words of relevancy and application.  Wow!  That’s a pretty good model.

I guess we should do that, too, as we communicate. And that’s what we have done here.  It’s very simple.  We have a very simple mission statement and a very simple structure here at Fellowship Church.  You know, simple things don’t break.  I’ve noticed that about toys, haven’t you?  I’ve got four kids, and as the kids get older, I want to buy these real complex toys but things break and buttons fall off and the kids will cry, “Oh, its broken!”  But simple things like a block, you know, or a ball, aren’t going to break.  We have a very simple structure here and we want to do things so that people understand them.  The greatest compliment you can give Fellowship Church is to say this, “That was simple.”  I didn’t say shallow or superficial.  I said simple.

See, I can easily keep the complex complex.  Oh, I can talk above your head like easily with Hebrew or Greek.  It’s easy to do that.  But it’s very difficult to take the complex and make it simple.  The road from the complex to the simple is a difficult road.  And most leaders don’t want to go down that road because it’s too tough.  At Fellowship, though, we want to go down the road.  Why?  Because God is into addition.

You know, sadly, I cannot take all of you back 13 years ago.  I wish I could just to show you the amazing things that God has done.  And I was thinking the same thing about our staff, because now we have several hundred staff members. I was thinking to myself, “Man, they don’t know what we did.  You know, we walked three miles through the snow to church. (I’m kidding.) But they don’t know that, you know?”  So, I was thinking, “Okay, what could we do as a leadership team to kind of get that feeling back, to kind of take people back and show them where we were?  I know, we’ll just rent a couple of buses and we’ll just take our entire staff back to Irving, back to MacArthur Commons Office Complex, back to the Irving Fine Arts Center.”  A lot of you don’t know this, but for 8 years, we set up and tore down a church every single weekend.  We would build nurseries, and tear them down.  We would build children’s church and then tear it down.  Classrooms— tear them down.  Lights, cameras—tear it down.  Screens—tear it down.  Everything we had was portable.  Portable, portable, portable, portable.

God, though, has been all over Fellowship Church from the get go, and I wanted to just to communicate that to our staff, so I took them on a tour to the Irving Fine Arts Theatre. When I walked through the doors of the Irving Fine Arts Theatre, I had not been there in years, and I was like overcome by emotion.  I want you to watch what we talked about.

[A video is played on the side screens. In the video, Ed is walking through the doors of the Irving Fine Arts Theatre and then addressing the staff.  He reminisces of what it was like to wee all of the people coming in to the theatre to attend church.  Ed begins to cry tears of joy remembering the amazing work that God had done through Fellowship Church. When the video ends, Ed speaks live from the stage again.]

You know people ask us all the time, “Ed, why do you have the lights and why do you have video, visuals and this or that?” The answer is very, very simple.  We do it because God is still counting.  We do it because people count to us.  People count to us because they count to God, and we’re simply living out a great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. And that commitment demands great creativity.  And great creativity demands a commitment to excellence and it demands communication. Whenever we are communicating here, we are communicating the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

I look back over the last twelve months at Fellowship Church and I realize that we baptized 2,262 brand new believers, and God is still counting.  I think about our small group ministry. We have over 230 odd groups with 4,300 and some odd adults in small group Bible study.  And the great thing is…God is still counting.  I think about several weekends ago when we had 19, 561 people walk into the doors of Fellowship Church…and God is still counting.  I think about the fact that on an average weekend, we’ll have nearly 5,000 children here at Fellowship Church…and God is still counting.  I think about our website.  It has 10 million hits a month…and God is still counting.  I think about our television show that’s going around the world…and God is still counting.  I think about our nationally syndicated radio show…and God is still counting.  I think about the church we just started in Mostreal, Brazil where Owen and a group of people are helping in that…and God is still counting.  I think about all the parkers who brave the elements each every weekend…and God is still counting.  I think about our ushers and I think about our extravagant hospitality folks. I think about our children’s workers and youth workers, and those who work in athletics…and God is still counting.

VISION + LEADERS + COMMITMENT + CREATIVITY + YOU

God’s math always works.  Look at it: Vision + leaders + commitment + creativity + ______________?  Well, I told you I was not that good at math, especially algebra.  There’s always that x factor.  What is x?  That’s you.  Because you, that’s right, and you and you and you make Fellowship Church great.  God is still counting, so I want you to come.  I want you to come along and join us as we continue to follow God’s vision with awesome leadership, commitment and creativity, okay?

JUST LUST

Leaving Lust Vegas

Ed Young

September 14, 2003

Something like 30 million people a year visit Las Vegas. There are 850 flights a day that converge on Sin City.  I read yesterday that 87% of the people who visit Las Vegas gamble.  That’s probably shocking, isn’t it?

When you gamble, what are you doing?  You are risking something.  You are rolling the dice.  You are trying to beat the odds.  But, if you go to Las Vegas very much you know, inevitably, the house always wins.  You are going to leave Las Vegas a loser.  We all know that.

A lot of people are visiting a place called Lust Vegas.  During this series, we have talked about people who are literally rolling the dice, playing the odds, and trying to beat the house with their sexuality.  Maybe you can identify with the girl in the video.  [Ed is referring to the video that was played during the opening music in which a woman commits adultery while her husband is out of town.] Maybe you are risking your sexuality with an adulterous relationship.  Maybe you are imprisoned by pornography.  Maybe you are captured by a seductive thought life.

Today, in this final session of this series, Just Lust, I am going to talk about a guy that we are going to familiarize ourselves with who did one thing when it came to lust.   This guy left Lust Vegas.  A lot of us have made decisions during this series to leave Lust Vegas.  That’s a great thing, an awesome thing!

I’m going to do something that I have never done before.  As I tell you the story about this young man and how he left the city limits of lust, I am going to bring up some highlights from the other talks.  The guy I am talking about that I want us to know, understand, and get up close and personal with is a guy named Joseph.  I’m not talking about the adopted father of Jesus, Joseph.  No. I’m talking about Genesis, Chapter 39, Joseph.

Let me give you the Cliffs Notes of his life.  Joseph was an amazing guy.  He grew up in a dysfunctional family.  I mean, his family put the “dys” in dysfunctional.  This guy’s family was crazy.  His dad had multiple wives and concubines.  There was incest, jealousy, and strife.  You name it and Joseph was brought up in it.

His father made a major parenting error.  His father told everybody and showed everybody that Joseph was his favorite child, the apple of his eye, the golden boy.  His dad went to a local mall and bought Joseph a Versace robe to show everybody that he was the man.  The Bible called his wardrobe expensive.  There was one specific coat that advertised the fact that he was his father’s main man.  His brothers became jealous.  They became enraged and they stripped this coat off of Joe, killed an animal and smeared its blood on the coat. Then they ran to their father and said, “Dad, it’s terrible!  A wild animal ate Joseph alive!”  They were lying.  A wild animal didn’t take Joe out.  These brothers had thrown Joseph into a pit.  Some Ishmaelites were traveling by with their caravan on their way to Egypt and Joseph’s brothers … are you ready for this?  His own flesh and blood sold him into slavery.  The Ishmaelites took him to Egypt and put him on the trading block, just like a piece of meat, just like an animal.  You have to understand something about the Egyptian culture.  It was a culture of contrasts.  You had people who were dirt poor on one hand.  On the other hand, you had people who were rolling in the serious “bling-bling.”  If you are over thirty, “bling-bling” means serious money, serious cash, wealthy, the upper crust, okay?

Potiphar was a guy who was bling-blinging.  Potiphar was head of the CIA and FBI in Egypt — a heavy hitter.  Potiphar saw Joseph and bought him.  Now, just for a second, put yourself in Joseph’s shoes … no … sandals.  He was a kid, a teenager, who grew up in a whacked-out household, but he loved the Lord.  He developed his leadership skills there with his family.  He was a pure guy.  Now, he was thrust into a very perverted culture.  Wife swapping was the norm.  Immorality was a-okay.  Everything was wheels off in Egypt.  Joseph found himself being purchased by Potiphar.  Can you just imagine how Joseph felt when he was escorted into Potiphar’s palatial mansion with the beautiful sphinx statues, the columns, the beautiful rugs, the gold silverware and the candles?  To top that off, Potiphar’s wife was there. Oh, you talk about eye candy!  You are talking about Miss Egypt 500 BC.  I mean, this girl was awesome looking.  She was hot.  She was a babe.  That is what Joseph was dealing with.

Well, let’s check him out.  Genesis 39:3-4 reads, “When his master (that’s Potiphar, P. Diddy) saw that the Lord was with him…”   He saw, Potiphar saw, that the Lord was with Joseph.  Joseph didn’t have to take a Bible and say, “Hey, I’m a follower of the Lord and if you don’t turn, you will burn.”  No, he just saw it.  He just saw, “that the Lord had given him success in everything he did.”  Look at Verse 4, “Joseph found favor, (he found blessing, you could say) in Potiphar’s eyes, and became his attendant.”  What does that mean?  Well, Potiphar (P. Diddy) put Joseph in charge of his household and [the verse reads], “He entrusted (remember that word “entrusted” – put that in your frontal lobe) to his care everything he owned.”  Now check this out.  Here’s our boy, Joseph, from a dysfunctional family, sold into slavery and now he finds himself working as a slave for Potiphar. Suddenly, because of his work ethic, because of his integrity, and because of his love for the Lord he is the man.  He is running this mansion.  If we keep reading the Scripture, we discover that the only worry Potiphar had was what he would have for dinner.  That was it.  Joseph was in charge of everything else.

Here is a biblical principle that you must get down, friends.  The greater the blessing, the greater the temptation.  The greater the favor of God and the greater you are walking in God’s will, the greater the Evil One will ratchet up the temptation process.  It happens.

A friend of mine, a while back over dinner, told me this, “Ed, when people are climbing the ladder, when they are climbing up the corporate ladder, when they are trying to build a client base, when they are trying to start the company, when they are trying to start the church rarely do they fall into sexual sin.   People fall into sexual sin when they get on top of the ladder.”

You’ve climbed ladders before, haven’t you?  When you are climbing, it’s no problem.  Once you get to the top, there is not that much support and you can fall.  We need to be very careful.  God wants to bless every single person hearing my voice.  Don’t question it.  Don’t doubt it.  God wants to bless you.  God has greatness in store for all of our lives.  That’s precisely why the Evil One wants to come in and wants us to travel down this road of lust.  We have to be on guard.  Lust can strike at any time, day or night.  No one is immune from lust.  Joseph wasn’t.  You’re not.  I’m not either.

[A video clip of a previous message is played. Ed is talking about a time that he was tempted by lust and how he stayed pure in the moment and didn’t allow Satan to paint the picture in his mind. Rather, he supplied God with the tools to paint a pure image]

Be honest with me.  Which painter are you supplying?  The Bible says this about Joseph in Genesis 39:6, “Now Joseph was well-built and handsome.”  If you look at those phrases, “well-built” and “handsome” in Hebrew, you’ll find that means he was ripped.  It means he was buff.  He was the Mack Daddy.  Whatever you want to say.  Look at Verse 7, “After a while his master’s wife (that’s Potiphar’s wife, Miss Egypt 500BC) took notice of Joseph.”  I mean, you couldn’t help, ladies, but take notice of Joseph.  You couldn’t help it.  And she said, and this is very subtle, “Come to bed with me.” 

When you take notice of someone who is buff or beautiful, is that lust?  No.  That’s not lust.  We are going to notice members of the opposite sex.  We are going to be attracted to members of the opposite sex.   Lust comes into play when an attraction segues into an illicit sexual action that is mental, visual, emotional or physical.  That’s when we have lust.  So, Potiphar’s wife noticed Joe. Who wouldn’t?  That’s not lust.  Lust, though, happened when this God-given desire went haywire, when she lost it and she traveled down the road of lust.  What was going on?  Simply this.  Potiphar’s wife had Bug Eyes.

[A video clip of the message “Bug Eyes” from earlier in the series is played on the side screens. Ed is describing the kind of “eyes” we have when lust comes into the picture]

Potiphar’s wife had Bug Eyes – Bug Eyes for Joseph, Bug Eyes for lust.  On the other hand, Joseph had Mobile Eyes.  We are going to be attracted, we are going to notice members of the opposite sex.  It’s what we do with our eyes.  The look is fine.   It’s the lingering that messes us up.  That’s why our eyes must be mobile.  They should bounce from one object to the next.

Well, the plot clots.  Genesis 39:8 says, “He refused.” Joseph refused.  [The verse reads] “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted (there’s that word again) to my care.”   Joseph understood the concept of stewardship.

We all have unique abilities and gifts.  I have gifts that you don’t have and you have talents that I don’t have.  Take a wild guess where they come from.  They come from God.  He has given these gifts to us and he wants us to give them back to him in their most developed fashion as an act of worship.  God has given us relationships, marriages, families, mothers and fathers.  We are to be stewards of them.  God has given each of us a certain amount of money.  Some here have a little small pile.  Some have a medium size pile.  Some here have big honkin’ piles of money.  I’ve got news for you.   Your money is not your money.  You just manage it for a while.  You are just a steward.  I’m a steward.  Stewards are we.  One day, though, we are going to be held accountable financially concerning how we handled the stuff that God has given us.  God has given us the local church.  We are going to be held accountable concerning what we did with the local church.  Did we keep our distance from it?  Did we do the Heisman [Ed poses like the Heisman trophy] or did we orbit our lives around it?  Our sexuality is a gift from God.  God has given it to us and we are to steward it.  God wants greatness from us in the sexual area.  The only way we will ever achieve greatness sexually is doing sex God’s way.  The designer’s sex is one man and one woman in the guidelines and guardrails of marriage, period.

Joseph understood stewardship.  He understood how important his life was.  Look at Verse 10, “And though she spoke to Joseph day after day…” Now, at first glance you would say, “Man, this happened quick.  This whole deal with Joseph happened in a couple of weeks.” No. Scholars will tell you Potiphar’s wife tempted Joseph for about ten years.  Are you ready for that one?  Ten years – day in and day out.  She was relentless.  [Ed reads the verse again] “And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her.”  He said no.  Was it because he was some supersonic disciplined guy, in and of himself?  No, it was because of the grace, the power and the octane of the Lord.  God gave him the strength.  So he refused to go to bed with her. And check the last phrase of the verse out. He refused to, “even to be with her.”

Let me sit down and talk to you about affairs, or committing adultery.  People usually commit adultery with friends.  They meet them at the office — that attractive co-worker.  You begin to spend time with this person — long, lingering lunches.  You begin to make excuses to see this person.  When they call in sick, you say, “Wow, I really miss them.”  That’s what happened to the girl in the video. [Ed is again referring to the video prior to the message] It slowly began to take shape and began to roll and it began to intensify.  Then you begin to share things you shouldn’t share with a member of the opposite sex.  Then you have the emotional lock.  Then it’s just a matter of time before you are in bed with the person.  Often times, adultery occurs amongst friends.

You need to be very careful who your friends are, husband and wife.  They need to have the same marital commitment, the purity that you share with your spouse.   Be very careful about how you relate to your friend’s spouse.  Never relate to your friend’s spouse without your friend being there or without being in the context of your friendship.  Because if you isolate the friendship with the friend’s spouse, and you begin to share stuff you shouldn’t share, stuff about your marriage, stuff about your feelings, you are playing around with fire.  And you can’t play with lust.  If you gamble, if you roll the dice, if you try to beat the house, then you will lose every time.  That’s why we are going to find out there is one thing we have got to do when sexual temptation comes our way. We will see that in a second.

Joseph, a man who followed the Lord; Joseph, a stand up guy; Joseph, a leader; Joseph, a guy who has moved from the pit to the pinnacle didn’t allow lust to gain leverage in his life.

[A video clip of the message Just This Once is played on the side screens. In the clip, Ed is talking about how lust always lies to us]

A faith that can’t be tested is a faith that can’t be trusted.  Check out this test that occurred.  God uses every experience in our life.  Genesis 39:11 says, “One day he (being Joseph) went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.”  He was just going about his daily tasks, just doing his deal.  We always have to be on guard. We always have to be watchful for sexual temptation.  The Evil One wanted to take Joseph down.  He wanted to get Joseph to miss God’s best for his life.  God wanted to use the opportunity to strengthen Joseph, to test him, so he could emerge stronger and better.  The Evil One customizes his temptation.  He has a customized plan to take you out, to take me out, to mess you up, and to mess me up.  We’ve got to be on guard.

Look at Genesis 39:12. “She caught him by his cloak and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’”  She was saying, “Let’s do it right now.” But Joseph wasn’t going there.

In my book, Fatal Distractions, I told the story of a snake that my father captured.  He put the snake in the jar.  I wasn’t sure if the snake was poisonous or not, nor was he.  He said, “Ed, don’t touch the snake.  You understand me?”  Then he walked inside.  What do you think I did?  I looked at that snake and I said, “Man, this snake is not poisonous.  I’ve watched all the outdoor shows.”  So I unscrewed the top of the jar.  All my neighborhood friends were going, “Ed, don’t do it.  Don’t do it.”  I said, “Man, chill!”  I reached my hand in there and picked up the snake.  Everybody was going, “Wow, look at Ed, man! He’s a snake handler.  This guy is incredible!”  I was going, “Yeah, you know, you’ve just got to know your snakes.”  Suddenly and without warning, he just cranked down on my left index finger and he was just hanging there.  I was trying to shake him off, but he wouldn’t go off.  I began to scream and cry.  Thank  God the snake was non-poisonous.  What happened?  I made a pet out of the snake.

If you make a pet out of the sin, if you make a pet out of the lust in your life, eventually it’s going to bite you.  It’s going to nail you. Many of you have made a pet out of lust.  Here’s what you do.

[A video clip of the message, Prime Time Porn, is played. Ed tells the story of the red lizard of lust written by C.S. Lewis]

How do we break the back of the lizard of lust?  We do what Joseph did.  Potiphar’s wife grabbed him by the cloak and said, “Have sex with me.”  But you will see what Joseph did.  Look at Verse 12, “Joseph ran out of the house.”  He removed himself from the situation.  Whenever you see sexual temptation mentioned in the New Testament, you always see the word “flee” or God telling us about running or removing yourself from the encounter.  That’s how powerful it is.  That’s how multi-faceted and multi-dimensional it is.

Do you know why people have so much guilt and shame and remorse when they have sex outside of marriage?  Because sex is a God thing. Even those people who don’t know Christ personally, if you would talk to them or you counsel them, they will talk to you about the shame, the remorse, the guilt and the weight they feel.  They don’t realize it, but they are taking something pure, beautiful, and holy and they are trashing it.  They are taking a God-given desire and using it in a God-forbidden way.  God wants to save you and me from all of that junk.  That’s why he says, “Do sex my way.”  Who is Potiphar’s wife in your life?  Who is that individual luring you?  Who is that entity, that website or that club that is saying, “Hey, come on in.  Have sex with me.  Hey, experience me.”  Who?  We’ve got to flee.  We’ve got to run.

You may be asking, “Well, Ed, what happened to Joseph after he ran?  Surely, the guy was blessed by God with incredible stuff?”

Do you know what happened to him?  He was falsely accused for a crime he did not commit.  He was innocent.  When we stand for the Lord, when we do what he wants us to do, so often we will be falsely accused.  Insults will be hurled at us.  People will trash us.   Joseph was thrown into prison.  God though, blessed him.  God was with him.  Because of God’s anointing, Joseph was promoted by the warden to the top position in the prison.  From there, if you read the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey says), you’ll see that he became second in command to the entire political system and leadership structure of the nation of Egypt.  You talk about “bling-blinging!”  The blessings of God were all over him.

What do you do when you face sexual temptation?  What do you do when your Potiphar’s wife says, “Come to bed with me, have sex with me,” what do you do?  You flee.  You leave.  You walk on.  Walk on.

TRI-GOD

Let 3-Dom Ring

Ed Young

July 6, 2003

Well, this is Fourth of July weekend, the weekend where we celebrate freedom that we share as a nation. What is the Fourth of July weekend? It’s basically a friends-gathering, fireworks-popping, barbeque-eating frenzy, where we really get into the fact that we are an autonomous nation, that we are free. There is nothing like the freedom that we share. There is nothing like living in the United States of America. As great as that freedom is to share, to think about and to experience, there is another freedom that I want to talk to you about today very quickly. It is much deeper, richer and more profound than any freedom we can experience as an American. This freedom lies in something that we have been talking about lately a lot around here.

I’m referring to the Trinity. True freedom is found in the Trinity. What is the Trinity? God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit — one in essence and three in persons. I call this talk, “Let 3-dom Ring.” What do I mean when I say that we have freedom in the Trinity? Well, I’m glad you asked.  Check out three quick scripture verses.

Psalm 119:32 says, “I run in the paths of your commands for you have set my heart free.” God the Father frees us.

Look at John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” This is not some pseudo-freedom. This is real freedom. So, not only does God the Father set us free, but John 8 says God the Son sets us free as well.

Look at 2 Corinthians 3:15, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” The Holy Spirit frees us up as well. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

So, we see right up front from scripture that the Trinity is all about freedom. That’s true freedom. That’s true liberation. Yet, a lot of you hearing my voice right now are not experiencing true freedom. You know down deep that you have this gnawing sense that something is amiss, something is not right, or that there is a disconnect going on. That’s why I want to take this talk a little bit deeper. I want to discuss with you several things the Bible says about experiencing the transcendence of the Trinity, about experiencing what God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit actually have to offer.

Here is the first one. Mankind was tethered to the Trinity at creation. We were tethered to the Trinity at creation. You see behind me a tetherball set. I have never liked the game of tetherball. It’s a horrible game. It will jack up your arms and mess up your hands. The object of tetherball is simple. One person stands on one side of the pole and tries to whack the ball this way, while the other person stands on the other side of the pole and tries to whack the ball the opposite way. Whoever wraps the rope around the pole wins the game. If you want to totally scar your forearms and break your fingers, then play tetherball. It’s called tetherball because the ball is tethered to the pole. We are tethered to the Trinity. We were tethered to the Trinity.

In Genesis 1:26, God is speaking. What does God say? “Let us (Us? That’s the plurality—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, co-existent and co-eternal) make man (you and me) in our image.” We are the Trinity. We have a body, a mind and a spirit. We are Trinitarians. We are illustrations of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

The second thing you need to understand is something that is a little bit scary. In fact, it’s very sobering on this Fourth of July weekend. Our sin and rebellion, yours and mine, cut the tether. It just cut it. The Bible says that our sins have sequestered us and separated us from God.

Romans 3 says, “For all have sinned (All? Who is that? Everybody.)  and fall short of the glory of God.” So, you have sinned and I have sinned. No one taught me how to sin. I just know how to sin. My parents didn’t give me private tutoring lessons on the art of rebellion. They didn’t put me in a sinning select league as a kid. No, I just know how to sin and so do you. Why do we know how to sin? We know how to sin because we are Adam’s kids. Adam and Eve, you know, bit the big apple. They messed up. They rebelled against God. Our sin cuts us off from God. It cuts the tether and here is what we have done.

Because we are separate from God due to our sins, we have revolved our lives pretty much around ourselves — what makes me look good, what gives me pleasure, what puts wind in my sail. We move from deal to deal, fun fix to fun fix, and relationship to relationship thinking that the next person, the next acquisition, the next thing, or the next amount of money will bring us connectivity and will bring us happiness.

Some of you, right now, know what I am talking about. Because, right now, some of you feel disconnected. You feel empty. You feel like you should be tethered to something, but you don’t know what’s wrong. You thought making that amount of money would do it, but you are still empty. You thought hooking up with that guy or that girl would do it, but that’s not done it. So often, we put Godly and supernatural expectations on humanistic events and relationships. You can’t put the kind of pressure on a person or thing to meet the needs that only God can meet. You’ve got to be tethered to the Trinity. Yet, so many of us right now, find ourselves away from God — that guilt, that sin, and that low-grade sensation that something is not right. You know you are missing the plan and what your life is all about. We were tethered to the creation of Trinity. Our sin cut the tether.

But check this third thing out. The third thing is that we have a need.  We need to be tethered back to the Trinity. We need to be connected back to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We need it, and that’s what we are searching for. So many times, relationships, things and money are just simply microcosms of a deeper and more mature yearning — a yearning to be tethered to the Trinity.

So, what is your life like? Are you bouncing around through life, just orbiting around yourself, trying to rope this deal, or that person, thinking that will do it for you? The Bible says in Colossians 1, “For God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in him (that’s Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself all things … by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

There is no way we can have the peace of God until we have peace with God, and peace with God occurs only when we are tethered back to the Trinity. God saw the situation, and the Bible says God is holy. He is perfect. He is 100% righteous. He can’t wink at sin. He can’t say, “Well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.” God can’t do that.  What did God do? Jot this down.

God the Father planned the work. God the Son worked the plan. And God the Holy Spirit actualized the work and the plan. Let me rewind that for a second. God the Father planned the work. God the Father could have said, “Well, mankind blew it. They bit the big apple. See ya!” God didn’t. God the Father set forth an ingenious plan. He commissioned his son, Jesus Christ, and Jesus voluntarily subordinated himself to the will of the Father. Jesus is not inferior to the Father. He is equal. Yet, in this situation, because of your sin and mine, Jesus voluntarily submitted himself operationally to the will of the Father. Jesus obeyed his plan and did his work. At 33 years of age, after Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life, what did he do? He died on the cross. He shed his blood on Calvary for your junk and mine, for your sins and mine — something we don’t deserve. The last words before he died were these, “It is finished,” Jesus said. “The price has been paid. The work has been done. I’ve satisfied the demands of my father.” Now the Holy Spirit is actualizing the plan and the work.

Friends, you are not here by accident.

“Yeah, I just happened to be in town and visiting some relatives and friends, just kind of hanging out doing the Fourth of July weekend thing. They just kind of invited me to Fellowship.”

The Holy Spirit did all of that and is doing all of this. Maybe you were just driving by and said to yourself, “Wow, that looks like a shopping mall. I’ll turn in.” You found yourself here at Fellowship. All of us are here for a specific reason.

I laugh, because it happened about 48 hours ago. A guy was talking to me and he said, “You know, Ed, I feel like you are talking to me when you are up there speaking.”

I said, “Richard, these aren’t my words, man. This is the Holy Spirit using my vocal chords to communicate truth.”

So, the Holy Spirit, right now, is prompting, convicting, and motivating a lot of people who are here. He did it through the drama. He did it through the video. He did it through some words in a song. That’s how the Spirit of God works. He actualizes the plan and the work of the Lord.

Well, there is one more thing I’ve got to tell you about freedom. It’s great, because we have the freedom to choose. In all of this, we have got the freedom to choose. We either choose it or we don’t. We either choose to be tethered back to the Trinity or we say, “No, I’ll keep my distance. I’ll just remain disconnected and cut off from the Trinity for this life and the next.”

Revelation 22 says, “Whoever wishes (whoever wishes), let him take the free gift of the water of life.” So, it’s our choice. The ball is in our court. It’s our move. The Trinity has done the work. We either receive it or we don’t. You can’t do this for me and I can’t do it for you. You can tell me how to do it or I could show you how to do it, but we can’t do it for each other because it’s a personal choice — a decision between ourselves and God.

To elaborate on what I have said so far, let me just give you the Cliff’s Notes of a conversation I had recently with a young man in his 30s about this very subject. Let’s just call this man, Jeffrey. I’ll change his name to protect the innocent. Who knows, he might be in one of these five services. Jeffrey is a guy who is married, probably in his late thirties and has several kids. I was talking to Jeffrey one day, and as we were talking, things kind of turned toward the spiritual domain because he knows I am a pastor. He began to tell me about his church background a little bit.

I said, “Jeffrey, just to kind of see where you are spiritually, let me ask you a question. Let me kind of give you a hypothetical situation.”

He said, “Okay.”

I asked, “What if someone walked up to you and this person said, ‘Hey, Jeff, how do I become a follower of Christ? How do I become someone who is a Christian? How do I get to heaven?’ If someone asked you that question, Jeff, what would you say?”

Jeff rubbed his chin, kind of sat back on the couch and said, “That’s a good question.”

I said, “Jeff, that’s not a trick question. I just want to see where you are spiritually.”

He said, “Let me see. How does someone become a Christian and go to heaven? Well, Ed, you want to try to do the right thing. If you leave the world a better place, and you go to church, then you’ll be a Christian and you will go to heaven.”

I said, “Really? So, that’s what you would tell them?”

He said, “Yeah. I would tell them be a good guy, leave the world a better place and go to church and that will make you a Christian.”

I said, “Jeff, those are good things. But if you would like to, I’d be happy to share with you what the Bible says about the answer to the question this hypothetical guy is asking you. If you would like for me to tell you what the Bible says about it so you can know the right answer, I’ll just tell you.”

He said, “Well, yeah. I would like for you to tell me.”

Well, I’m a visual person. I majored in the arts so I asked, “Jeff, do you have a pen and some paper?”

He went and got one.

[Ed, over the next several minutes, illustrates what he is talking about by drawing a ladder on a dry-erase board. He writes God’s name at the top rung. He puts the names of Billy Graham, himself, Jeffrey and Osama Bin Laden, in that order, on rungs under God to illustrate the distance between us and God.]

I said, “Let me draw what I am kind of talking about here.” So I took this pen and I said, “Jeff, let me just draw like a ladder. This ladder represents a goodness continuum, a righteous continuum, if you will.” So I drew the rungs on the ladder. I said, “At the top, let’s put God and God’s standard. Now, Jeff, what is God’s standard? Perfection. God is holy. He’s 100% righteous. He’s pristine. He’s perfect. That’s the ultimate. That’s at the top of this goodness continuum.”

I said, “Jeff, at the bottom, I mean, obviously, for illustrative purposes this is not long enough, but let’s put people like axe murderers, Osama — people like that. So evil on the bottom and goodness on the top.”

Then I turned to him and said, “Jeffrey, my father has been a pastor for thirty some-odd years. My brother is a minister as well, and my youngest brother is a Christian singer. He has this band that travels all over the world. I’ve grown up in the ministry. It’s a great life. You know, I don’t want to name drop, but let me name drop for a second. One of my father’s good friends is Billy Graham. I don’t know Dr. Graham that well but my father does. He’s been to his house, and he’s done weddings with him. Billy Graham is the real deal. The guy is phenomenal. He’s one of the greatest Christians to ever walk on the planet. He has spoken to more people than any person who has ever lived. But I’ve heard Dr. Graham say this, Jeff. I’ve heard Billy Graham say, and I’m quoting him, ‘I have fallen miserably short of God’s standard of goodness.’ Billy Graham! Jeff, if Billy Graham is a humble guy, and if he had to put himself on this continuum, he would probably put himself down here. But let me put him where he needs to be. I would say Dr. Graham should be right here, and I’ll put his initials, B.G. [Ed places Dr. Graham’s initials well below God’s name.] Billy Graham is right there. I’ve heard him say that he has fallen miserably short of God’s standard. Now, Jeff, let me just be vulnerable here and put myself on this continuum. First of all, I will never surpass Billy Graham in the righteous column, in the good works column. It’s just not going to happen for me. I’m not going to surpass Billy Graham. So, I’ll put myself well south of Billy. Again, for illustrative purposes, let me put myself about right here, okay?” [Ed places his initials well below Billy Graham’s initials.]

Then I handed the pen to Jeff and asked, “Jeff, where would you put yourself?” I said, “Jeff, remember you told this guy, who asked you how to become a Christian, that if you are a good guy, if you leave the world a better place and go to church, that will get you where you want to go.”

He said, “Well, I put myself south of you, Ed.”

I said, “Okay. Wow, Jeff, we all have a problem here, man. There’s some distance between Billy Graham and God’s standard and I am never going to get past him and I know you won’t get past him. I’ve got a serious problem. I’ve got some distance that I cannot make up on my own. I don’t care how good a guy I am, how much I go to church, how many messages I preach, or how many books I write. I can’t get past Billy. I’ve got some serious distance between myself and God, caused by my sin. But, Jeff, you know what I have heard Billy Graham say? I’ve heard him say that he has fallen short of God’s standard. I’ve also heard him say that he has admitted his distance, his sin, before God. He has received Christ, and Christ has made up the distance. And I’ve done the same thing. So really, Billy Graham and myself are up here [Ed points to God’s standard on the ladder] not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. But, Jeff, you have got a short fall here that you cannot make up on your own. You’ve got a distance between you and God that you cannot make up on your own. If you are aligned on this performance plan, this good works continuum, it’s not going to get you where you want to go, because God’s standard is perfection. God says if we live a perfect life, Jeff, we can make it to heaven — if we perform perfectly, not one bad move, not one off day, not one curse word, not one omission. If we are perfect, then we will get to heaven. God will say, ‘Let me give you a high five. Welcome to eternity. You performed your way in just like my son, Jesus.’ But again, one sin, one white lie, one stumble, and you’ve got some distance that you cannot make up. Jeff, here is what God did. God loves you so much and he loves me so much, that God the Father sent God the Son. God the Son lived a complete and perfectly righteous life. He died on a cross for your sins and mine and rose again.

The Holy Spirit of God has brought us together, Jeff. He’s linked us up just for this conversation. I might not ever see you again and I’m going to tell you something. The Spirit of God is presenting this to you. If you will appropriate what God has done for you by sending Christ on the cross, if you will receive that and apply that to your life, then the distance is made up. The moment you make that decision, from that day forward into eternity, when God looks at your life, he does not see Jeff the sinner. He sees the righteousness of Christ that you have appropriated into your life. Once you make that decision, what happens? You are tethered back to the Trinity. Jeff, it’s your call.”

Jeff works at a business where they do a lot of contracts, and I just wrote out a contract for him. I drew an X and a dotted line. I said, “Jeff, do you understand the deal that we were tethered to the Trinity? Our sin cut the tether. The Lord has done the work to tether us back. It’s your choice. If you will sign right here, you will become a Christ-follower. You will become a Christian, and that’s the answer to give to this hypothetical person. It’s by God’s grace and mercy — something we don’t deserve. It’s by receiving Christ. That is how someone gets to heaven. That’s how someone understands what it means to become a Christian.”

I handed him the pen and I watched him roll the pen in his thumb and index finger back and forth. I watched him think about it. I knew what was hanging in the balance. I knew what was out there and I was praying for him. I said, “Jeff, how about it, man?”

He said, “No, I don’t want to do it.”

I said, “Jeff, you understand all the stuff you need to know. Is there any good reason you can tell me why you don’t want to do this?”

He said, “Man, I don’t know. I’m just not there.”

I said, “Well, I want you to listen to me very carefully. If you are to die tonight, you are going to face a Christ-less eternity. God does not hurl anybody to hell.”

I’ll say it again. I talked about it this past First Wednesday. God does not hurl anybody to hell. Whenever you hear somebody say that God sent somebody to hell, they don’t understand anything about Christianity. We make that choice. We make the choice whether to spend eternity in heaven or hell. If you kept your distance from him, if you kept disconnected from him, and refused those opportunities to be tethered back to the Trinity, then when you die, God will say, “You know what? Your entire life, you kept me at a distance. Your entire life, you kept yourself cut off from me so you will have a greater measure of that in eternity.” And some will go and live in hell.

Some say, “Yeah, man, that will be cool! I’ll be able to party with my friends!”

No, you won’t, because the Bible says it is a place of utter isolation. It’s a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Bible calls it a place of utter remorse — that forever feeling of knowing that you had an opportunity to be tethered back to the Trinity, and yet, you said, “No.” And I told Jeff that. I knew what Jeff was refusing when he said, “No.”

I said, “Jeff, that’s cool. That’s your prerogative. Let me write out just a prayer for you to say. Jeff, when you say that prayer, when you make that commitment, here is my cell phone number, just call me. Because I want to hear about it.”

I have not received a call from Jeff and Jeff is facing an eternity disconnected from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. How about you? Are you trying to bank on the good works plan? Are you trying to bank on the Catholic plan, the Baptist plan, the Lutheran plan, being a good guy, good girl, keeping your nose clean, paying your taxes, or leaving the world a better place? That’s good, but it’s not going to get you where you want to go, because you are cut off. What if I handed you the pen? Where would you put yourself? What if I handed you the pen? Would you sign on the dotted line for this cosmic transaction to take place?

Once you do the deal, this transaction takes place: God’s and Christ’s and the Holy Spirit’s righteousness infiltrates your life. The grace and the mercy of God ambushes you and me, and at the same time, our junk, our guilt, and our sin is transferred to Christ’s shoulders. So, we receive the righteousness of Christ and all the junk in our lives is transferred to him. That’s the cosmic transaction that takes place. I can tell you how to do it, but again, I can’t make you do it. That’s what it means, though, to be tethered back to the Trinity.

Let 3-dom ring. Do you want to do that? If you do, just say these words with me right now. Bow your heads for a moment. Every head is bowed and every eye is closed — no one looking around. If you have made this decision before, pray for many people here who need to make this step. What if I handed you the pen? What if I said, “Okay, are you ready to sign?” Because you know the deal. You know the information right now. If you want to, you can just say these words silently with me, and the moment you say these words, the moment you make this choice, you will have this distance made up and you will be re-tethered to the Trinity. Just pray this prayer with me as the Holy Spirit leads, because he is prompting and convicting many people here.

“God, I admit to you that I have been disconnected, that my sin has cut the tether. I admit to you the fact, God, that I have been trying to orbit my life around myself or around my deal or my stuff. I realize that I am separated from you. But, I believe that you did the work. You set forth this ingenious plan to re-tether me back to you. I believe, Father, that you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins and rise again. Right now, I receive that. I appropriate that.”

As you are saying those words, here is what is happening, friends. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is infiltrating your life and all of your junk and your sin is being transferred to the shoulders of Jesus. Right now, you are experiencing true freedom — freedom from guilt and pain and sin. You are free now. You can declare your declaration of independence by saying, “Jesus Christ, take control of my life.”

If you prayed that prayer with me, as our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, all you have to do is say it one time. If you prayed that prayer with me for the very first time in your life, would you just lift your hand up for a second? Thank you. Many hands are going up. God sees your response. I’m going to tell you something. It’s the greatest thing you will ever do — the greatest thing.

God, thank you for these decisions. We ask these things in Jesus name, amen.

Listen to me very carefully, especially if you prayed that prayer with me. Tethered to, but not part of, the decision to become a Christ-follower is the next thing I want to talk to you about. I’ll say it again. Tethered to, but not part of, the decision you just made is something I’m going to talk to you about right now. I’m talking about baptism.

Here is what our Lord said about baptism. In the Bible, once someone made the decision to become a Christ-follower, they didn’t walk the aisle or come down front. In the Bible, they advertised that they had made the decision. They went from the private to the public. They were baptized. That’s the public profession of our faith, scripturally speaking. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name (that’s singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

First, we become disciples. A disciple is a choice followed by a process. After we make the decision to become a disciple, then we are baptized.

Let me give you five quick fabulous facts about baptism. You might not have ever heard these before, but download these right quick. Number one, you can follow along, baptism is the first test of obedience. It’s the litmus test of the Christian life. Jesus said, “Okay, you have trusted me in this private decision between you and me. Now, take it public.” It’s our first test of obedience.

A couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with someone who was a celebrity, a bona-fide celebrity. God brought us together for a conversation. This guy looked at me across my desk and told me something I will never forget. He said, “You know, Ed, I’m a Christian, and for me, it’s a private a thing. I can’t go public with my faith.”

I called his name and said, “You’re missing it. Christianity starts with a private decision, but it’s all about going public. It’s all about that. Jesus said, “After we become a Christian we should move out of the shadows and into the light by being baptized. It’s our first test of obedience, and if you are going to tell me that you trust Christ with your eternity yet you are going to balk at the first opportunity to go public and be baptized, then I’ve got to wonder if you have really appropriated the righteousness of Christ in your life.”

Here’s the second fabulous fact about baptism. Baptism, number two, is an amazing illustration of becoming a Christ-follower, of salvation. Every baptism in the Bible was by immersion. The word “baptize” is “baptizo” in the original language. It means, “to dip,” or, “immerse.” For example, if I was going to bury this dry erase board, I wouldn’t sprinkle dirt on it. I wouldn’t pour dirt on it. What would I do? I would dig a big honking hole, drop it in the big honking hole and put dirt on top of it. I would bury it. We baptize at Fellowship Church like everyone baptized in the Bible. When we have a question, we don’t say, “What does Ed say or what does this church say?” We say, “What does the Bible say?” The Bible says that we are to be baptized by immersion. Maybe you are like my wife and are saying, “Well, man, I was sprinkled as an infant.” Lisa was sprinkled in a Lutheran Church. Maybe you were sprinkled in a Catholic Church. Great. I am not at all saying your baptism did not take or it wasn’t any good. I’m not saying that at all. But I am saying, based on the Bible, that if you have made a decision to become a follower of Christ, get baptized by immersion. Get baptized by allowing a pastor to submerge you under water.

Number three — baptism is for Christ-followers only. The baptismal waters are not some super spiritual cleansing stuff. You won’t just walk out there, get baptized and say, “Wow, now I am a Christian!” I mean, I like Krispy Kreme donuts, but does it make me a donut when I go to Krispy Kreme? People say, “Well, I’ve been baptized.” Good. That’s doesn’t mean you are a Christian. Since baptism is for Christ-followers only, every baptism in the Bible was someone who was old enough to appropriate a faith decision, and then they were baptized. That’s why we do not baptize infants here. Infants were not baptized in the Bible. We don’t baptize infants. We have parent/child dedications. We don’t baptize infants because infants are not old enough to make a mature faith decision. Once you are old enough to make a mature faith decision, we will baptize you.

“Well, Ed, I have a child and I think he or she might be ready to be baptized.”

Great. We have a class called Kid Faith. Sign up for it, parents, and go with your children. You can tell if they are ready.

Number four — baptism is a biblical command. It’s not optional. It’s not like Jesus said, “Well, I suggest to you that you are to be baptized. We’ve just got to think about baptism. You might want to play it back and forth in your mind.” No, he said, “Do it. Get baptized.” It’s a command. It’s a beautiful thing. The illustration of baptism is awesome. It illustrates our identification with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection — the old life and the new life. The water symbolizes the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sins. It’s like the wedding ring of the Christian life.

Number five — baptism is a public declaration of our independence. When we are baptized, we are saying, “Okay, I’m on Christ’s team. I am free. I am tethered to the Trinity. I am liberated.” We’re not shy about showing people we are Americans on July Fourth. How about baptism? That’s much more important.

Well, I’ve talked enough about baptism on this stage. Let me do a fly-over now and dive into our baptismal pool on the east side of our campus.

(Video of the mechanics of baptism – what happens in the baptismal pool)

Well, that’s the message and that’s the methodology of baptism. I want everyone to take your Worship Guide out and turn to the page that has the picture of the baptism on it. It says, “Special Baptismal Celebration after the weekend services, July 12th/13th.” It’s very important, if you prayed the prayer with me to commit your life to Christ, to be tethered back to the Trinity. Take a pen or pencil and just jot your name, email, phone and etc. and check off the following information. If you do not have a pen or pencil, I’m sure someone on your row will have one, especially the ladies with the big purses. They will probably have about 44 different pens and pencils in there, different colors and whatever. So, if you will take some time, and just fill that out, right now as I am talking, and check off the day you would like to be baptized. Next weekend, we will wrap up this series on the Trinity. If you want to be baptized after the 6:30 pm service on Saturday, just sign up for Saturday – 7:30 pm. If you want to be baptized Sunday after this service, at about 12:30, just check off that box. Someone from our office will contact you prior to your baptism, we’ll talk to you very shortly about this, and answer any questions you might have.

Now, if you have prayed this prayer with me today, turn the page over to where it says, “My Story.” Just simply say, “I prayed the prayer with Ed to commit my life to Christ.” Or, if you want to just write your brief story. You can write your story and fill all the information out during this next song we are going to do called “Baptize Me.” This is a powerful song and I pray that the words ring true in your life and in my life. After you fill this card out, just tear off the perforated page like this, and fold it and drop it in the offering bag as it is passed. If you are still writing, and that’s cool, after the song is over and the closing prayer, then you can just take this card and hand it to one of the ushers or greeters or drop it by the information kiosk. Or, if you still haven’t finished it, you can drop it by the church or jump on our website to fill out the appropriate information there as well. This is going to be a powerful time next weekend and we are just so excited that you have prayed this prayer. Maybe you’ve become a Christian, maybe you have prayed the prayer weeks ago or months ago, but you have not followed through with baptism. This is your time to get baptized. This is going to be, again, just a wonderful experience.

Fourth of July weekend — it’s a friends-gathering, fireworks-popping, barbeque-eating extravaganza. But more importantly, today we have discovered it’s a time for allowing true 3-dom to ring. I thank you that so many of you have made the decision to be tethered to the Trinity, because that is real freedom. Let’s pray together.

God, thank you so much for this message. Thank you for the decisions that were made to follow you. I look forward, Lord, to next weekend and the wonderful things you are going to do through our time of worship as we conclude this series, and as we top it off with baptism. So, Father, hammer the words of this next song into our spirit and into our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.

CHARACTER TOUR

Love

Ed Young

February 16, 2003

His head was spinning.  His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. His worst nightmare had become a reality.  His wife, the love of his life, had bolted.  He tried the best he could to comfort the kids and to answer their poignant and powerful questions like, “When is Mommy coming back?”  But he didn’t know what to say.  Yes, he had heard the rumors.  He had heard that she had been seen around town with other men, but he didn’t believe it.

That evening, he tried his best to cook.  He tried his best to help his kids with their homework and to put them to bed.  Finally, as they went to sleep, he walked into his room and he noticed the empty closet.  He could still smell the faint scent of his wife’s perfume.  He asked, “Why me, God?  Why me?  What have I done to deserve this?”

So goes the story—the love story—of a man named Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer.  This account is nestled over in the Old Testament and it’s a unique story because as we delve into this story, we see a double drama.  As we pull back the curtains, there are two things happening.  The first thing is the story of love—irrational and unconditional love between a man and a woman.  Not this Valentine’s, superficial, and shallow stuff.  Not the cards and candy stuff.  I’m talking about real love.  But the second part of the drama is what the love story represents.  It represents God’s love and God’s dealing with his people.  During the time of the writing, it represented God’s love for the Israelites.  Today, it represents God’s love for his people, those of us who know him personally.

I’m going to tell you something: after we conclude our session today, I believe that we will know what true love is all about.  We are in this series called “Character Tour.”  We have been touring great characters in the Bible who exemplify great character.  As we look up close and personal at Hosea’s life, we are going to see someone who understood what it meant to truly love someone.

Put yourself in Hosea’s sandals.  Hosea was married to one of the most beautiful people in the land.  The girl had to be gorgeous.  With a name like Gomer, she had to be hot.  Suddenly, and without warning, Gomer spins on her heels and she leaves.  She bolts.

We are going to find out something through this story.  Whenever you run away from God, whenever you cruise away from God, you end up running right into God.  We have all run from God in different areas and different ways in our lives.  We have all been unfaithful to him.  We have all committed spiritual adultery.  Hosea did.  And in our lives, we do as well.  But when we run from God, we run right into God.  We think we are being so independent, so autonomous, and so post-modern; yet, we face God head on.

The Bible describes what is going on in Gomer’s life right before she left.  Hosea 2:5, “For she said (this is Gomer talking), ‘I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’”

When we run from God, we run right into God.  God is a God of pursuit.  He woos us.  He loves us.  That is how crazy God is about you.

One of my good friends is the point man for the Houston S.W.A.T. team.  Several years ago, he invited me to ride with him in his unmarked car throughout the streets of Houston for 24 hours.  I had to sign my life away before this trip, but I did it and it was amazing.  We went on drug busts, served warrants, and we were (well, he was) going after some serious criminals.  I’m talking about drug lords, assassins, and people like that.  We were driving through this seedy part of town, and suddenly my friend saw someone that looked a little bit suspicious.  He began to follow him and the chase was on.  This drug dealer had this sweet car.  My friend—this animal, this special weapons and tactics guy—knew how to drive a car.  He was on this guy’s tail.  The guy could not shake my friend, Jim.  We found ourselves power sliding across the 610 loop at 2:00 am on Friday night going 120 miles per hour.  This guy would go left and Jim would go left.  He would go right and Jim would go right.  We crossed railroad tracks, bumps, and potholes and it didn’t matter.  Finally, the guy just surrendered.  He jumped out of his car and said, “Okay, you got me.  You got me.”  Jim was in high-speed pursuit.  You can’t shake Jim.  He knows how to follow you.

Our God is the same way.  You think you are running from God.  You think you can shake him.  You think you can fake him, give him a head fake, and give him a spin move or whatever.  You think if you cross this track or that pothole that you can get away from God, but you can’t.  God loves you that much.  God loves me that much.  When we run away from God, we run right into him.  God is a God of pursuit.  God wants us to turn to him when we start running from him.  But when we start running and we feel God pursuing us, we should turn and say, “God, I want to go your way.  I have gone the wrong way.  I’ve sinned.  I’ve messed up.  I’ve rebelled.  I want to respond, God, to your love, and to your pursuit.”  Some of us do, and some of us don’t.

Hosea pursued Gomer.  Gomer didn’t turn.  She kept going.  She kept running.  What does God do?  When God pursues people who run from him, what does he do?  Does God give up?  Does God say, “Well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.  Just go on ahead.”  No.  God does not say that.  God does not do that.  Here is what God does—maybe you are running from him right now—God does several things when someone runs from him.  First of all, God barricades us with briars.  God barricades people who matter to him with briars.  We run.  If we don’t respond to God, then he suddenly puts up this big honking wall of briars.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I went up to Lake Grapevine.  I parked my truck on this steep embankment and we made our way down the woods down this path.  We were hanging out on Lake Grapevine, skipping rocks and the whole deal.  We even had our dogs with us and our dogs are the size of cattle.  It was a fun time.  As the sun set, we realized that we had to get back to the truck.  Being a guy, I said, “I’ll show you the way.”  Well, I am directionally challenged.  I thought I could find the path, but I didn’t find the path.  I led my family into a briar patch.  I’m talking about thorns that were scratching the kids, the dogs, and me.  I still have scars from them.  The dogs were howling.  We were in trouble.  It’s not fun to be stuck by these thorns and all this underbrush.  It’s a bad thing.  Well, we had to turn around and go the opposite way.  Finally, we found the path and we made it back to the truck.

When we run from God and fail to respond to him, he puts us in the barricade of briars.  We feel the scratch of sin.  We feel the consequences of our actions.  Because of his love, God wants us to turn to him.  That’s how much God loves us.

As we go back to Hosea, and we think again about Gomer running, look at Hosea 2:6-8: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns.  I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.”  I’ll say it once again: God loves us enough to make it tough when we run from him.  Every time we run from God, we end up running right into God.  Look at Verse 7, “She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them.  She will seek them, but will not find them.”

Some time has melted off the clock.  This high-priced call girl, Gomer, has got some miles on her now.  Now, she has some age on her.  At first, she was probably tooling around the area in an H2.  Now, she is downsized to a beat up Honda Accord, or something like that.  Now, her young natural looks are fading.  She is getting Botox treatment every other day.  The girl is in trouble.  The calls are not coming in.  The money is not flowing.  She’s beginning to get maxed out with her credit cards.  She is in serious turmoil.  I ask you, where is Gomer?  Where is Hosea?

Check this out. The plot clots here.  God tells Hosea to do something strange.  God says, “Hosea, I want you to find Gomer and I want you to give her lover a bunch of bank and a bunch of groceries.  I know she is kind of destitute right now, and I want you to do that.  It will show her that you love her unconditionally and irrationally.”  So Hosea, being a prophet of God, said, “I’ll do it.”

He tracks Gomer down.  He gives all this stuff to her lover.  I can just see him standing at a distance watching this take place.  Her lover, in turn, gives Gomer all this stuff.  Now Gomer thinks her lover is giving it to her. Her lover is thinking, “This Hosea guy, what an igmo.  You think I am going to tell Gomer that he gave it to me?  No, no!”

We are blessed.  We receive things.  We get promotions.  Things happen to us.  Too often, we give credit to everybody and everything else except God.  God, like Hosea, stands at a distance.  We credit luck, we credit networking, we credit our education, or we credit our athletic ability.  Yet, God is shaking his head like Hosea did and saying, “You’re forgetting the source.  You are forgetting who is the man who is making it happen for you.”  That’s where Hosea was and that’s where Gomer was.

God is a God of pursuit.  He pursues us and he loves us enough to build these walls of briars around us.  Sometimes, though, people just crash through the briars.  Do you think Gomer did that?  She did.  She bolted right through them.  Look at Verse 8, “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold.”  When something great happens to you, who do you give credit to?  What is your knee jerk reaction?  Who do you give credit to—yourself or God?  Great question.

As I said a second ago, my wife and I have some massive dogs that are the size of cattle.  Because they are so big, powerful, and protective, we have an underground fence around our yard.  The underground electrical fence keeps them in our yard—for the most part.  They have these huge collars around their necks and these collars have sensors.  The sensors warn the dogs if they get too close to the fence.  It sounds kind of like this [imitates beeping sound].  When it gets too close and too loud, it will shock the dog.  No letters or emails, please.  The dogs are so massive that it does not hurt them at all.  It does keep them in the yard—in most circumstances and situations.

Apollo, one of the biggest and most powerful dogs we have, just leaped through the fence the other day.  He just jumped the fence.  Apollo is one of the dogs I told you about several years ago who ate the headlights our of my friend’s car.  People say, “Ed, are the stories you tell at Fellowship Church true?”  Do you think I would lie?  Yes, they are true.  The dog ate the headlights out of my friend’s car.

So, I’m driving home from work, and there is Apollo standing in the middle of the street.  I thought to myself, “Great, he’s gotten out.”  I looked at him and he looked okay.  I brought him back into the yard, and as I examined him closer, I noticed that he had a gaping wound on his hind leg.  I thought, “Oh, no, the dog is hurt.  This is horrible!”  You can’t pick this dog up, so I had to push him into my truck.   So I pushed him into the truck and took him to the vet.  Because of this little incident, this massive dog had a massive vet bill.  It cost me a lot of coin because he got hurt.

God has placed around your life and mine these fences, these guidelines and these guardrails.  He has given us the Spirit of God that warns us when we are getting too close to breaking his directives, when we get too close to jumping the fence.  But every time we disregard the beeps, the warning signs of the Holy Spirit, and every time we jump the fence, what happens to us?  We pay the price.  We get hurt.  We get wounded and it costs us something.  “Well, Ed, man, I’ve jumped the fence and I don’t feel any cost.  I don’t feel any wounds.”  Just wait.  There are consequences to rebelling against God.  But again, God has such an irrational and supernatural love for us that he builds these walls of briars around us.  Even when we disregard the briars and bolt through them like Gomer did, God doesn’t stop.

God does a second thing.  After God builds these briars, he does something else.  He ruthlessly removes our resources.  God ruthlessly knocks the props out of our lives to get our attention.  Gomer was in serious trouble.  She was in serious debt.  She had all these miles on her.  She was unfaithful and unrepentant.  God began to take away her stuff.  Hosea 2:9, “Therefore I will take back my grain at harvest time and my new wine in its season.  I will also take away my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.”

During the fence stage, the briar stage, she had her essentials met.  But during this stage, during the resource removal stage, her necessities were nil.  They were gone.  The Bible says she was suffering, broke, busted and disgusted.  That is the life of Gomer.

When I think about Gomer, I think about Jonah.  Jonah was God’s quintessential running man, and the same thing happened to Jonah.  God said, “Hey, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh and preach my message to this wicked city.”  Jonah was such a racist, he was so legalistic, he was so rebellious, that he spun on his heels and he went the opposite way.  He went in rebellion against God.  He discovered that running from God will run you right into God.  Every time we run from God, there is always a convenient means of transportation available to bring us back.

The Bible says that there was a ship leaving for Tarshish.   It just happened to be leaving at a perfect time—the time when Jonah was rebelling against God.  He jumped aboard this cruise ship and God built a barricade of briars: a storm hit.  He kind of disregarded that.  Jonah blew through the barricade.  Then God began to remove Jonah’s resources—they tossed Jonah overboard.  Then the giant fish swallowed him.  Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days.  The Bible says that this man of God finally began to pray.  Wow, what a spiritual giant.  He began to pray and seek God’s face in the belly of the fish.  When the digestive juices began to eat away his epidermis he said, “God, I want to follow you.  God, I want to be your man.”  God ruthlessly removed resources.  Then the big fish upchucked him on land.  Jonah went to Nineveh and preached.  The entire city turned their lives around and followed the Lord.

Think about the prodigal son that Jesus talked about.  He did the same thing.  The prodigal son should have stayed in the house.  The house was the blessed place.  The house was the place where he had everything.  This guy had some serious bank.  He had all these blessings and stuff like that.  The Bible says the prodigal son said, “You know what, Dad?  I want my stuff now.  I want all my inheritance now.”  So, the Scripture says he left the blessed place, the house, and he spent his inheritance on riotous living.  The Bible says that God build this hedge of thorns to warn him, and he just bolted through the thorns.  Then you talk about removing his resources!  The prodigal son, this trust fund baby, was fighting pigs for food.  Finally, he came to his senses and turned around.  The father welcomed him home, restored him, and forgave him.

We see this theme throughout Scripture.  God barricades us with briars and then he ruthlessly removes our resources.

I talked to a young man recently who was at the pinnacle of his life.  This young man is highly intelligent and has been blessed in many ways.  This man went on a search for freedom.  He went on a search for autonomy and independence.  Here is what happens to us.  When we go on a search for freedom, autonomy and independence, we think it’s a no holds barred thing.  But, here is what happens.  In our search for freedom, as we break God’s principles and precepts, we end up segueing from being free to being slaves.  Our freedom, we think, is free.  But in reality, we become a slave to sin, a slave to desires, and a slave to stuff.

This young man told me, “Ed, I cannot wake up, I cannot go to bed, I cannot go out on a date, I can’t even go to a Mavericks game without being controlled by a little substance.  This substance owns me.”  This guy, in his search for freedom, is not free.  He is a slave.  He is incarcerated.  He is chained.  Yet, when we give our lives to Christ, Christ gives us freedom.  Christ gives us true liberation.  So many times in our search for freedom we become slaves to anger, slaves to lust, slaves to greed, slaves to gluttony, slaves to slothfulness.  We have all been there.

That is where our girlfriend, Gomer, found herself.  We have all “gone Gomer.”  Gomer had it so bad; do you know what she did?  She sold herself into slavery.  Gomer, this Biblical babe, this beautiful wife of Hosea, this high-priced call girl, became just a slave.  There is an avalanche of material about what a slave auction was all about.  It was a horrible thing.  You had to strip naked and stand there in front of all the crowd, show off your strength, and people would bid for you.

So you might be thinking, “Okay, Ed, you were talking about several things God does when we run from him.  You said that God builds these walls of briars.  You said that God removes the resources.  I know what God is going to do now, Ed.  He’s going to take this big old heavenly baseball bat and just whack Gomer upside the head.  He is going to rain fire and brimstone down from heaven.  I know that is what God will do, because I have heard sermons like this before.”

No, God is not going to do that.  You know what God is going to do next?  Here is the third thing that God does.  God then ambushes us, he grips us, with his amazing and irrational grace—just like he gripped Gomer.  That’s what God does.  God gives and grants Gomer his grace.  Hosea 3:1, “Then the Lord said to me, (This is the Lord talking to Hosea) ‘Go and get your wife again.’” Hosea says, “Wait a minute.  This is strange.  This girl doesn’t even want to come back to me.  This girl has not repented.  She still loves adultery.”  God then tells Hosea, “Bring her back to you and love her.”  Even though she loves adultery.   I’m sure Hosea is going, “God, this is asking way too much.  Here my wife has been with every man under the sun.  She is standing naked before the community and you are telling me, a man of God, to buy her back.”  But Hosea obeyed.

Maybe Hosea stood at the back of the crowd when the auctioneer started the bidding.  The auctioneer, I can just hear him saying, “What’s the bid for this lady, Gomer?”  Maybe someone said, “Five.”  Hosea said, “Seven.”  Someone else said, “Eight.”  Hosea said, “Ten.”  Somebody else said, “Twelve.”  It was silent for a while and then Hosea said, “Fourteen.”  Then the gavel fell and the auctioneer said, “Sold to the man in the back.”  I’m sure Gomer was thinking, “Oh no.”  Because she knew that she was now just a piece of property.  She could be killed or tortured—you name it.  Then what do you think she thought when she saw Hosea walking toward her?  He was a little bit older and probably a little bit grayer.  What do you think she thought when she felt Hosea cover her nakedness?  What do you think she thought when Hosea welcomed her back as his wife?  She thought about God’s grace.  She thought about irrational and supernatural love.

We have all “gone Gomer.”  We have all been on the auction block.  We have all sold ourselves into slavery, haven’t we?  These voices have bid for us: the voice of greed, the voice of sexual addiction, the voice of rebellion—all these voices have bid.  But there is a nail-pierced hand that goes up in the back that says, “I paid for you.  I did the work for that one.  I spilled my blood on the cross.”  The auctioneer’s gavel falls and says, “Sold to the man in the back.”  Then we have our Savior walking forward.

We don’t deserve it.  We have been unfaithful.  We have committed spiritual adultery.  We don’t deserve it.  After our best day, we don’t deserve it.  Yet, Jesus, with his irrational and supernatural love, clothes us in forgiveness and righteousness.  If we turn to him, he fills us up with his love and his grace.  That is what true love is all about.  It comes from the inside out.  It’s a God thing.

My question to you is very simple.  Have you responded to that love?  I’m serious.  Just between me and you, have you responded to that irrational, supernatural, and one-of-a-kind love?  As our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, I am going to say something right now that I said years ago.  But it’s something that I would challenge you to say if you want to mean business with the Lord.  If you want to know him personally, just say these words to yourself.  Just say, “God, I admit to you that I am a slave to my desires—to my sin—and that I have ‘gone Gomer.’  I have gone my own way.  I have bolted on you and your way.  I thank you, God, for those thorns.  I thank you for knocking the props out.  Now, God, I turn to you.  I believe that you sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins and to pay the price to free me from my slavery.  Right now, I turn from sins and ask you, Christ, to infiltrate my life.  I respond to your irrational one of a kind love.  Take control of me.  I give you everything I am and everything I ever will be.”

If you prayed that prayer with me, or something like it, that is the best thing you will ever do in your life.  That is the most profound and awesome decision that you will ever make.

Lord, we thank you for this time of commitment and what you are doing here.  We thank you for your love, because God, I could think of thousands of reasons why you should have never done that for me.  But you did because of your grace.  We worship you for it.  In Jesus name, Amen.