Fellowship Church Grapevine

Listen very, very carefully.  If you are not involved in a ministry here, if you are not involved in a ministry here, it’s your time to fill this out.  I can’t force you.  You just have to do it.  But prayerfully, based on this teaching, you will fill it out.

Just write out your name, telephone number, how much you bench press, your 40-yard dash time, all that stuff.  Write that down—I’m kidding about that—and just read through an area of ministry that resonates with you, maybe it’s music/drama/technical, maybe it’s Fellowship Bookstore, maybe it’s Connection Classes, maybe it’s Building Services, maybe It’s Missions.  I don’t know.

I don’t know.  Just check it off. Now, after you’ve filled it out and checked off the appropriate box, just hold it.  Do not put it in the offering plate when it’s passed in a couple of moments.  Do not.  I repeat, do not.  Just hold it.

That’s part of it.  But the most important part is getting involved.  That’s why Jesus said: don’t just talk it, do it.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.  That’s why the half-brother of Jesus said: Do it.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.  We’re talking about A-C-T (clap, clap, clap) I-O-N (clap, clap, clap).  Action, action, God wants action. I could close down right now and we could do a little prayer, take a little offering, sing a little song, do some announcements and then we could just cruise.

But this message is going to end early—it’s only like noon on my watch.  I ended early for a reason.  This is going to be an interactive message.  You know, everything these days is interactive.  Take out your worship guide and then take out an insert that says Game Day. Here’s what I want you to do.

I played my 9th grade year and during my 9th grade year something significant happened in my life.  This hot girl joined our church. Her name was Lisa.  All the guys were like, “Man, have you seen this girl?!”  And I was kind of intimidated to talk to her.

A mutual friend of ours, David “Bubbles” Swindler, gave me a note one day.  I opened the note up and it said, “Ed, call Lisa. She would love to hear from you.”

So I called Lisa on the phone and we talked. And the rest, as they say, is history.  Bubbles helped us make that love connection, you know.  David “Bubbles” Swindler, what a guy!  I found out later that Lisa did not put Bubbles up to giving me the note. He just did that on his own.

What’s so funny about it was that after Lisa and I had been talking to each other, dating for 3 months, I said, “Lisa, you might think I’m crazy, but I’m going to marry you one day.”

She was like, “Marry me? I’m going to become a flight attendant and travel the world! Marriage?”

But I persisted and pursued and now she’s my wife.  We’ve been married for 24 years. That was quite an experience.

So during that time, I was playing more and more basketball.  I had an opportunity after my sophomore year to attend an invitation only basketball camp. At this camp, the best players in the east converged in a small town in Georgia—Millersville. 250 college scouts were there to watch us play five games a day. I was fortunate enough to have several good games, so a lot of schools began to talk to me:  Norte Dame, NC State, Florida, Florida State, Oregon, etc.

Maybe you’re thinking, “If I had gone out with that person or if I had gone to that school or if I had worked harder at that talent or if I would have taken that job or if I would have played for that team. Would have, could have, should have.”

And a lot of us live in what I call “scenario sickness.”  And it’s a real sickness these days, always playing out these scenarios of what could have happened, what should have happened.  “If I had not blown by knee out in the 9th grade I would be in the NBA or NFL.”  We have all of these things that we talk about.

But I believe true opportunity is something that emerges from the heart of God.  God is a God of opportunity.  And it’s one of the ways he expresses his love to all of us.  I believe as a parent we have different love languages, different ways that we communicate our love and our care and our compassion to our kids.  And I know a lot of kids who are gift givers, a lot of parents like to hug their kids, a lot of parents like to give words of affirmation. And that’s fine and dandy.  Some parents, though, tell and show their kids that they love them by giving them opportunities.

God is a perfect God.  He is our perfect heavenly parent.  He does all of those things. But I think as believers sometimes we miss the fact that our great God is into opportunity.  He gives all of us opportunity after opportunity after opportunity because he wants our best in mind.

TOUCH THEIR HEART

“T” – touch their heart.  Appropriate touch.  Go to the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—and see how many times Jesus touched someone.

There was a study several years ago by UCLA and they found that men and women need eight to ten meaningful touches a day.  But some people are just too touchy, feely for me.

Someone came up to me the other day and they said, “Can I give you a hug for my daughter?” No!  Appropriate touching—a pat on the back, a handshake. It just says, “Man, you can make it. You can do it.”  It’s powerful. We have to have touch.

If you take a baby in a hospital and don’t touch it, that baby will die.  We have to have touch, meaningful touch, appropriate touch. And in the marriage, guys, that’s non-sexual touching.  There is such a thing, I’ve heard.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NLT) says, “So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”

It takes ten positive things to erase one negative thing.  That’s why we always remember the negative stuff. It’s because of our sin nature.  But, if you tell some positive stuff, it’ll take ten of those comments to erase one negative one.  That’s why most of the stuff that comes out of our mouths should be positive.

So we’re talking about a construction sight.  S-I-G-H-T. And if you go back through this, that’s what Jesus has done and is doing in your life and mine.  Okay, does he support my uniqueness?  You better believe it.  Does he inspire me with responsibility?  Yes!  Does he give correction carefully?  He disciplines those he loves.  Does he hear my message?  Yes.  When I’m praying, when I don’t even know what to pray,

That’s what I love about Fellowship Church.  Fellowship Church is a diet and exercise church.  We sit at the table, we eat the bread of life, we drink the living water but we get off of our blessed assurance—the Baptists laughed at that; if you’re not a Baptist you didn’t get that—and we get out there and do the deal.  So it’s diet and exercise.

That’s why Jesus said, “It’s my food,” and it should be our food, “to do the will of God and the work…” Again there’s the word again, work, work it baby, the work, and the work “…of him who sent me.”

Now, Jesus finished the work on Calvary.  He said, “It is finished.”  He died on the cross and rose again.  That is the work that we can never, ever do that was done for us even though we don’t deserve it.  The work we can do is witness, is to do what the woman did.

Now think again, put yourself in this woman’s pumps just for a second.  Guys, not for too long, but just for a second.  She had this checkered past, a hooker, we would call her a ho today, and she’s running around inviting people to Jesus.

Sometimes we want to share Jesus with others or just invite them to sit at Fellowship Church but the enemy says, “Who are you to invite that person?  Who are you to share your story?  Who are you?  Do you realize what you have done?  Do you realize your past?  Do you realize?”

That’s the enemy and we need to call the enemy what he is, a liar.  Just in your mind just say, “Man you’re a liar.”  Or if you have to say it out loud, do it. “Stop lying.  You’re a liar.”  People might think you’re crazy talking to yourself, but sometimes you have to do that.  Do you ever do that?  Do you talk to yourself?  I do all the time.  I just talk to myself.  I have some good conversations.

Good morning.  How are you guys today?  Pretty good?  I want to welcome all of our campuses.  Miami, how are you guys doing?  Downtown Dallas, downtown Fort Worth, also in Plano and then our 6th campus, this (Grapevine) is our 5th, but our 6th campus would be our television audience.  A lot of people don’t realize this, but Fellowship Church is seen all over the world.  We get correspondence, e‑mails, voicemails, letters from Africa, the Middle East, throughout Europe, South America. So it is pretty cool to leverage technology in that domain.

I am talking today about delicious.  I’m in a series called “Delicious” and you might think that is kind of a strange title.

We have this desire for the delicious.  God has given it to us and it’s interesting to see how much God talks about food in his Word.  Now physically speaking, I don’t know about you, but I enjoy eating.  We’re made to consume food.  We’re also made to drink water.  If we go without water or without food for too long we die.  And all you have to do is check out the news, go online or watch one of the networks or read any paper and you’ll see that starvation or malnourishment is a major, major problem.  There are a lot of people right now who are hungry on planet Earth and that’s a problem that the church must address.  It is something that we’re addressing and we’re going to get more intentional about over the next several month.

Also, I would argue that spiritual hunger, spiritual thirst, spiritual malnourishment is a major problem.  There are a lot of people who are starving.  Now physically you’re well fed, but spiritually you have this desire for something.  You want to taste something.  You want to experience something.  You want to engage in that something.

How many of you like to go to the zoo?  I love to go to the zoo.  Every time I go to the zoo, I look at animals, insects, birds, and to be honest with you, I think about some of my friends when I look at these animals, birds, and insects; and I kind of compare them to some people I know, even in this church.  I know you find that hard to believe.  I will not tell you what animal I think about when I see you.  Oh, please don’t tell me what kind of animal you think about when you see me.

I want to list for you four decision-making categories, four decision-making categories, and I want to compare these categories with creatures from the Wild Kingdom because as I compare these decision-making categories with creatures from the Wild Kingdom, I think that you’ll see yourself, that I’ll see myself in one of these personality types and you’ll be able to discover how to make better decisions as you see yourself through these animals.  So remember that who you are, what kind of personality you have, who I am, what kind of personality I have, really influences my decisions.

The first category I call the “roadrunner.”  That’s right—the roadrunner.  The roadrunner has an interesting way of negotiating the mazes of life.  He or she walks up to the starting line—“Beep, beep!”  They’re gone.  They make impulsive decisions.  They say, “I’d rather make a bad decision than no decision at all.  Don’t cloud me with the facts.”  They jump to conclusions about people.  They make quick judgments.  Roadrunners are impulsive people.  They get lost in the maze.  They do backtracking.  Now and then they’ll find their way, but most of the time they are confused.  They really are.

Because children want to know where the edge and the ledge is.  That’s why so many of them are misbehaving so much and so rebellious.  They want you to say, “No.  You step over that line there’s going to be some consequences.”  And we’ve got to back up the consequences.  Seasoning.  Man, do we need that!

Time

One more and then we’ll conclude.  Time.  You’ve got to have the right time for popcorn.  Quality time emerges, though, from quantity time.  I’ve got to spend enough time with my children that I can see them and study them and know them to such a degree I can coach them and applaud them and challenge them and give them opportunities to be the best they can possibly be.

Proverbs 22:6.  This is one of the most misunderstood and misconstrued in all the Bible, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

Here is what many teachers and pastors have said incorrectly about this verse for many years: “Well, this verse means, ah, you introduce them to Jesus. And when they get old, they’ll stray away from it. But then when they get older, they’ll come back to him.”

It does not mean that.  It’s doesn’t mean, “Well, I’ll sow my wild oats and go crazy and hydroplane; then I’ll always come back to the Lord.”  That does not mean that.

You know what that verse means?  That verse, we have to understand the Hebrew to really get it. The Hebrew language is a language of the weak verb.  That’s a whole other subject. But just listen, a weak verb language.

So if you look at the picture behind Proverbs 22:6, it’s the picture of a hunter trying to find a bow.

He also speaks to us through prayer and through other people.  But I am going to warn you.  And you better hear this.  When people walk up to me and say “Ed, I have a word from God for you.”  I am going, Oh, Oh, warning, warning, alien approaching.  Because, if the word does not line up with the documented, authoritative, inerrant word of God, then it ain’t a word from God.  Also, while I am praying, if I have an impression or I hear the voice of God (I have never heard an audible voice of God although I know people who have) but if I hear and feel that, again, if it doesn’t line up with scripture, it probably ain’t the voice of God.  So make sure everything you hear, that you deal with, that you follow, that you feel a leading toward, lines up with His Book.

I’ll never forget a story I heard years ago.  It happened in New York City in the late 70s.  There was a native American walking with a New Yorker.  I have never been to New York but they say it is a wild city.  The two men are walking down the street and it is just jammed, as it always is.  And these guys are walking along and they are talking about this and talking about that, and all of a sudden the native American stops.  He goes,  “Wait, wait just a second, I hear a cricket.”  His friend said “What, no way, in New York City, this is the big apple.”  “No, I hear a cricket.”

Fellowship Church Grapevine – And he begins to look and sure enough right at the base of one of those giant skyscrapers a little blade of grass had jutted through a crack in the sidewalk and a little cricket was chirping his heart out.  The native American said, “I told you.”  And his friend was blown away.  “Wow, I can’t believe that, that’s amazing.  How, how, tell me how.”  And the native American said, “I’ll tell you how.”