Ed Young Blog

Paul is saying that anything is permissible for him but that he won’t be mastered by anything.  Foundational truth number one is that food needs to be healthful.  He is saying that this is an issue of freedom.  Right off the bat we need to understand that this is not about chicken fried steak vs. tofu.  This is about helping our bodies be everything that God wants them to be.

I Corinthians 6:19.  “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God.”  Foundational truth number two is that, for you and I in the context of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, our bodies are the houses of the Holy Spirit.

Now given that, let’s attack these four facets.  I Corinthians 6:19-20.  “You are not your own.  You were bought by a price.”  The first facet is that you and I have to identify the ownership of the house.  What that means is that we have to come clean before a holy, transcendent God and say that we do not belong to ourselves.  I recognize that I am not in control and I relinquish ownership to you.  You are the one who gave me this body.  You are the one who created me with a purpose and therefore I give everything that I am and everything that I ever will be over to You.  It is the issue of control.

Psychiatrists tell us that control is actually at the root of the vast majority of all eating disorders.  It is not so much about what our bodies look like visually.  But it is a person’s desperate attempt to assert control over a life when he or she feels out of control.

I want to read some questions to you real quickly.  Please do not answer yes or no, raise your hand or shout Amen.  Do you look forward to events primarily because of the food that will be there?  Do you constantly think about food?  Do you eat when you are mad, bored or stressed?

II Corinthians 10:12   “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves.  When we measure and compare we are not wise.”  I deserve that.  Have you ever said that before?  I deserve that. – Ed Young Church.

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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 swat team.

Ed Young Fellowship: And we have this never ending cycle of the gimmies.  We compare and we classify ourselves and we think, I have got to have that.

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I can’t explain how it happens, but it happens.  So you have got a 100 percent deal going on.  The Good Shepherd says, here is My plan, here is My path, here is My agenda for you.  Admit, submit, obey and pray.

A while back I wanted to come up with something that I could get my hands around regarding this whole path thing.  I want to share with you my path principle.  The Good Shepherd wants to guide and lead you and me into paths of righteousness and here are four things that we have to do in order to stay with the Shepherd.  This is an acrostic.  P stands for persevere.  I love the word persevere because the word severe is in the word persevere.  Things are going to get severe as we track along the path that Christ has for us.  It is going to get tough.  And look what the Bible says.  Romans 15:4.  “Through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”  What is perseverance?  It simply means blasting through barriers.  Are you at a barrier?  Are you facing a marital barrier?  Are you facing a financial barrier?  Are you facing a career barrier?  You need perseverance.  When you add perseverance, God will give you supernatural strength and grace to blast through the barrier and to continue to track with the Good Shepherd.

A stands for attitude.  Philippians 2:5.  “Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus.”  You see it is our attitude not our aptitude that determines our altitude.  And the picture here is a shepherd leading his flock slowly through the valleys to the mountaintop.  So it is our attitude not our aptitude that determines our altitude.  Now what kind of attitude did Christ have?  Was it self-centered?  Was it ego-driven?  No.  It was other-centered.  It was service-driven.  It was generosity.  It was supernatural.  And that is the kind of attitude that me must have as part of His flock.

Ed Young says “They have that home.  They drive that car.  They are a member of that club.  I am just as educated, I’m just as smart, I’m just as young, I need that, I want that.”

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Don’t ever sit there and say that you are not like a sheep, that you would never go over that cliff, that you would never fall into that lifestyle, that you would never be addicted to that aspect of rebellion.  Don’t say it.  We, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned our own way.  And we have got to recognize the simple reality, and the profound one, that God owns us and that we are the objects of His affection.

The second reason that I am obliged to recognize His ownership is because I have been purchased with an incredible price.  Jesus was called the Lamb of God.  Jesus spilled His blood for your sins and mine.  He caused the iniquities of us all to fall upon Him.  He did that just because of His love, just because we matter to Him.  And He has now afforded us the opportunity to become a part of his flock, to be connected to His family.  And the moment we simply say, “God, I have been going my own way.  God, I am astray.  God, I am by myself.  God, I am doing life without a shepherd.”  The moment we admit that and turn and bow the knee and ask Christ to be our shepherd, to receive what He did for us a couple of thousand years ago, then we have a personal relationship with the Lord.  So, God has every right to demand that we recognize His ownership.  That is how much we matter to Him.

There is a third reason why God wants us to recognize His ownership.  It is because He continually lays His life out for us.  Now I am not talking about salvation.  That work was finished on the cross.  I am talking about the Lord, Himself, interceding for us, guiding us, caring for us, helping us in times of trouble.  That is the good shepherd.  That is how much He cares about all of us.

Fellowship Church Grapevine: The word peer in my lingo kind of means we peer at each other to see what the other person has.  Hummmm.

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But here is the problem with it. Over time, seeds of rebellion are sown and the people that work for you begin to feel like mindless robots. They no longer use their creativity or initiative to do their work. They stop thinking for themselves and instead, become mindless robots. They become afraid of taking any risks or making any mistakes, so they do just enough to stay under the radar. Once this happens, their self-confidence has been destroyed.

I played for a high school basketball coach in Houston who had the big gun, intimidation mentality. During practice, he was a great coach, very controlled and calm. But when game time came around, he transformed into “terror coach!” If we made one mistake, missed one shot, or botched one pass, he would yank us out of the game without hesitation. Then, after he calmed down a little, he would look down the bench and say, “Are you ready to get in there and play the right way?”

Playing under those conditions was no fun – the whole team was intimidated rather than motivated. Our self-esteem on the court was nil. After the first few games, our team was even nervous during warm-ups! We were wide eyed and trembling all the time. Too many children today are walking around the same way. Companies exist where all the employees have that “deer in the headlights” look. Basically, their self-esteem is so low that they were afraid to make any moves on their own.

We cannot treat people that way if we have any hope of instilling a healthy self-esteem in their lives. There are times when criticism is necessary; there are times when discipline must be applied. But it must be done carefully. Consider God’s word to us in Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

When we confront and criticize, we are also constructing and building. We are building self-esteem in others. First Corinthians 13:4 says, “Love looks for a way of being constructive” (Phillips). Do you look for that way to be constructive? Do you give criticism carefully?

Ed Young Jr. tells us  the bottom line, though, is that from a spiritual perspective we are all in debt.  We all have a debt that we cannot pay.

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Every time Christ points to the Old Covenant, he sets a higher standard. He raises the bar under the New Covenant of grace. We see this especially in Matthew 5:17-20.

The law said, “Don’t murder.” Christ comes along, though and says, “Don’t even get angry.” The New Covenant holds us to a higher standard.

The law says, “Don’t commit adultery.” But Christ says, “Don’t even look lustfully at a woman.” Again, it’s a higher standard.

The level of righteousness that grace demands goes much further than the law demands. People will sometimes say, “I don’t tithe because I’m not under law. I’m under grace.”

I say, “Great! That means you should be giving a lot more than 10%, because the righteousness of grace always exceeds the righteousness of law.”

Think about how our perspective of tithing will change when we begin to see the local church as a visible manifestation of God’s love. Christ has gone away for a season. And I believe he is saying to us, “While I’m away, I want each of you to take care of my bride. Bring the tithe into the storehouse.”

Do you remember the Skittles story I told you about? When I shared that for the first time in our church, I got a letter a few days later with an empty package of Skittles in it. And inside the empty package of Skittles was a check for $80,000! Attached to the package was a note that simply said, “Dear Ed, Here are some of our Skittles that we want to bring back to God.”

Now, that doesn’t happen all the time. What that couple did was an amazing act of faith on their part. They recognized that the local church is the heartbeat of God. They recognized that they needed to step out and give to his church. They understood that God had given them a pile of Skittles and that they had a responsibility to bring some back. For that couple, it wasn’t all about what they had done, what they had accumulated or what they possessed. They knew that the pile of Skittles in their life wasn’t about them at all. It was all about God.

They were part of the 21-percenters that I mentioned earlier in the chapter, because they did something that only about 21% of the church does: they tithed. Statistically, about 79% of those who attend church on a regular basis do not tithe to the church; they do not give ten percent of their income and gain back to God’s work. Do you want to be a 79-percenter living outside the zone? Or do you want to be a 21-percenter, living inside the zone of God’s tangible and intangible favor? The choice is yours.

As we segue into other aspects of money management throughout the rest of the book, don’t forget what comes first. Put God first, remember the tithe, and the rest of it will fall into place. Materialism, greed, envy, debt, and every other money issue hinges on this critical issue of bringing first to God what is his. When you do that, and only when you do that, will you be able to get the rest of your financial house in order.

I don’t care how much money you make, how good I am, how good you are, how many times you have been baptized or how many times I have been baptized, or how many hours I read the Bible or how many hours you read the Bible, there is a debt that I cannot pay, that you cannot pay, a spiritual deficit. – Ed Young Church

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So over the last year to year and a half, I have improved in this area.  But let me tell you, men, I’ve got a long, long, long way to go. But now and then, I would say at least once or twice a week I will clear the table off and I give the kids baths now and give them bottles some, which I really enjoy.  And I have seen what it has done for our marriage and our home for me to play more of an active role in this regard.  Hey, I see some elbows at work already.  So, men, make sure you help.  And here is how to do this.  Because it is oftentimes easy to say, well help more.  Great, what does that mean, that is kind of nebulous.

I would suggest you sit down with your spouse and have some labor talk.  Sit down and kind of divide up what you do during the day.  And here is what we do, men.  Well I am working so hard, I have all these pressures at the job.  Let’s say your wife works part time and then the rest of the time she is a homemaker, which is work, even more so than in the marketplace.  And you say, well I am working about 50 hours a week and when I come home I need to relax, I need to watch television.  But as you begin to net out how much you work, it is going to be a sobering thing for you, men.  And you can see how much your bride works compared to you.  So, once you net out all of these responsibilities from the marketplace to the home, I encourage you to divide the specific tasks down.  So maybe you want to do the lawn, and maybe your wife wants to do the bath.  Or you do the bath, or whatever.

Ed Young Fellowship –  And I deserve to live my entire life, even into eternity, being bankrupt.  The good news is this.  God saw a bankrupted sinner named Ed Young and God said you know I love that sinner so much I am going to do something.

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I can bring back the money and she can do whatever she wants with it.  But hey, I will take care of myself, she will take care of the home and the kids.”  It is not saying that.  You can’t option off this responsibility.  Yes, a woman is to take charge and to manage the household well but it is to be a co-manager.  I am to be a co-manager, my wife is to be a co-manager.  And because I grew up in a home where my mother did most of the stuff needing to be done and my father didn’t get involved in many of those chores and helping out, I go into marriage thirteen years ago with this kind of model.  And you can take a wild guess what happened there.  And it has been a struggle for me to help around the house.  It really has.  And over the last couple of years I have learned more and more and more about this exciting opportunity.  Men, we must help.  And let me tell you what it does when you help around the house.  It adds tranquility to this managed household.  It helps the children, it helps your marital relationship, it helps, it helps, it helps.

When LeeBeth was born, our eight year old, I didn’t get involved that much in changing diapers, or giving her a bath.  I was kind of out doing my own thing.  I would come home and you know when she was dry and clean I would hug her and kiss her and all that but that was about it.  And then EJ, I did a little bit more and everything was kind of going along fine and then all of a sudden, we have twins.  And that was a tough deal to figure out, what we were going to do with twins, because you are talking about four children, three under three years of age.  And I am not known for my helping around the house, I need some major work in that area.

According to Ed Young; I am going to send my Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all of his sins and to pay that debt.

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To show you how different men and women are think about air travel.  Over the last few months I have been doing a lot of flying and I notice the amazing phenomenon.  The plane will land and as the plane is taxiing to the gate, even though the plane is usually packed, men are already thinking about being the first one off the aircraft.  Even though they are at the back of the plane, they think they can get ahead of the guy in the row ahead of them and they have their briefcases ready, their shoulder bags in tow and they are prepared for the stop.

Fellowship Church Grapevine: Do you know Christ?  Do you really know Him?  Make sure you settle that issue and that account today.

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