The law of love challenges us to do that. Maybe some of you as believers have some friends who are in the deep weeds maritally. Maybe one is involved in an adulterous relationship and you say, “Well, I’ll just placate them, you know. I’ll just tell them that God loves them and that I’m praying for them.” What?! Don’t yell at them or brow beat them, but speak the truth in love. Say, “Hey, wake up. Smell the coffee. Smell the Scripture. You are messing up. You’re messing up. You need help.”
Parents with teenagers, draw the line in the sand. Teenagers always want to find where that line is, you know, and then a lot of parents are like Etch-a-Sketch parents. You draw the line and erase it and draw another line and erase it. The kids ask, “Where are the lines? I’m not sure where the lines are located.” You’ve got to keep the line where it is, and if they step over the line there are consequences. That’s tough love. That’s the tough side of love.
Dr Ed Young – There are many things that I do not want to say up here on stage. I know I have to because I have to speak the truth in love. It’s not popular sometimes to talk about some of the things that I talk about from God’s word. But I’ve got to do it. So do you. We have to do it, though, in love. We can’t be mean-spirited. We can’t be ugly. We can’t bark at someone. We’ve got to be strong. But don’t think that Jesus was just tender. He had a perfect blend of being tender and tough.
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Remember, the Bible says that we are made like God, in the image of God. We are not God but we are made with His capacities, His characteristics. Thus, no one has ever been made like you are made. No one has ever been tailored like you are tailored. No one has ever been broken like you have been broken. Only you or I can do a certain thing that no one else ever could do and ever will do. But to do these things we have got to surrender our entire being, our entire personality, our entire self to God. We have got to say, “God, You work, You lead.”
I am going to ask you one more time because a lot of you are under attack, “Are you allowing this attack to cause you to worship God because of your significance, or are you so down, so defeated, that you are just threshing wheat asking what has happened to you?” Gideon almost stayed there, but he didn’t.
That brings us to our next principle. And I love this one. God usually uses the unqualified and the insignificant for greatness. Did you check that one out? God usually used the unqualified and the insignificant for greatness. I can identify with that, can’t you? That fires me up on this brisk Sunday morning.
Dr Ed Young – Judges 6:12. The Bible says that while Gideon is in the winepress threshing wheat the Lord just drops by and pays him a visit. Now I want you to check out what God tells Gideon. “Gideon, I am with you….” And then he calls him something that is funny, a little Biblical humor. “…I am with you mighty warrior.” Gideon is in a pit, running from his enemies, threshing wheat. And God says that He is with him, mighty warrior.
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That is why Gideon is underground. Gideon was focusing on his depression, on his situation, on his despondency, on his deal and he almost missed the great things that God wanted to do through his life. Let’s look at the first principle of greatness that we need to own this morning. An attack on any of our lives should tip us off to our significance. I will say it one more time. An attack should always tip us off to our significance.
Gideon was attacked by the enemy because of his significance. God was going to do a great work in his life. When we are attacked by the evil one, we are not attacked because of our past. We are never attacked because of what we have done. We are attacked because of our future. We are attacked because of what God is going to do, what He wants to do. A lot of people here at these services this morning are outside the family of God. You are not a Christian and you know you are not a Christian. You are saying to yourself that you are feeling attacked right now, relationally, vocationally and even spiritually.
Dr Ed Young – Do you know why? Because the evil one knows what can happen in your life once you step over the line and bow the knee and come to Christ. Gideon is a man who didn’t understand how significant he was. Do you kind of feel like you are in a cave of depression right now? Do you feel like you are down? Do you feel like you are under attack? The Bible says that when God allows attacks to occur in our lives it should cause us to worship Him, to thank Him for our significance. We should say, “Whoa, I must be somebody special. God loves me enough to allow this attack to happen. I must be going to do some great things because the evil one is attacking me.
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We are concluding our series Listen To The Music today and we are going to look at a man who was used by God in a great way. His name is Gideon. You might not think that Gideon was a person who could be used by God in a powerful way, but as you look at his life, as you get close to him, I think that we will be able to lift out about four principles of greatness. As we highlight these principles of greatness, I believe that they are principles that we all must download into our lives if we are going to be the kind of people and fill the kind of dreams and aspirations that our God has for us.
Judges 6 begins the story of the man. We find Gideon, Gideon the great, doing something weird. Gideon, this power-packed man, is in a cave. He is in a winepress hiding from his enemies and he is doing something called threshing. Threshing was the process of taking wheat and separating the good part from the useless outer shell. It was something that should have been done on top of the ground, yet Gideon was underground. It was a very messy process. And I am sure that his allergies were a mess with all the particles and fragments flying around. What is our boy doing underground? What is he doing threshing?
Dr Ed Young – Well, Israel and Gideon had been under attack and oppression by a group of people known as the Midianites. They had the Israelites outnumbered four to one. The Hebrews worked twelve months of the year to plant crops and breed livestock. Then right before the harvest the Midianites would come through and take all of their plants, all of their animals, all of their fruits and vegetables and they would cruise. So the Israelites got smart. They moved everything underground.
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John Piper, a noted intellectual and author wrote, “The fire of lust’s pleasure is to be fought with the fire of God’s pleasures.” You see, Jesus didn’t just die to save us from our sins. He didn’t stop there. He also died to save us for life. Do you know life? Give the red lizard to the Lord. Let him break his back. You will discover who you are, uniquely, and then you can climb aboard that stallion and soar.
The word great is greatly overused. It is casually tossed out and thrown about. Basically, I believe that we have decaffeinated this powerful word. We say things are great when they aren’t really great. For example, we say something is a great look, a great sale, a great outfit, a great catch, a great car, a great neighborhood. And after breakfast we look back and say, “Man, those Frosted Flakes were great!” I fall into this trap and so do you, calling things great that are a far cry from greatness. I personally believe that this word should be reserved only for God and what He can do through our lives. After all, we are made in His image; thus we have a capacity for greatness. Our great God wants to do great things through your life and mine.
Dr Ed Young – He wants us to have great relationships. He wants us to develop great marriages. He wants us to become great parents, to get locked into great careers. He wants us to discover His great purpose and agenda for life. Now, if you would, just turn and look at your neighbor for a second. Just look at them. You are locking eyes with someone who has a remarkable capacity for greatness. Now give them a high five. Just turn and give them a high five and say, “Neighbor, God wants to do great things through your life.”
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Replace that with truth. Job 31 says, “For that (talking about lust), would have been shameful, a sin to be judged. It is the fire that burns to Destruction; it would have uprooted my harvest.” Look at the next lie. “I love fantasizing and it’s not going to hurt anybody.” The lizard says, “You love fantasizing and it’s not going to mess you up.”
Look at the truth. Put the truth in. “The mind of a simple man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace,” Romans 8:6 says. Here’s another lie. “Hey, don’t be so radical about the action you need to take about pornography. It’s not necessary. Don’t be listening to what Ed says from the Bible. He’s kind of going off track here. Don’t be so radical.”
Replace that junk with truth. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” Here’s another lie. This is a popular one. “It’s my body. I can do what I want to do.”
Look at the truth. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 reads, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”
Dr Ed Young – You don’t have the right to lust. I don’t have the right to lust. You don’t have the right to look at pornography. I don’t have the right to look at pornography. Why? Because I don’t own Ed. Christ does. You don’t own you. Jesus does. Isn’t that great?
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As we noted last week, there is a battle going on in our lives. The Holy Spirit is saying, “Let’s produce joy. Let’s manufacture joy.” He is fighting, He is battling and we are just trying to jam Him, and say that we don’t want joy. Instead we will listen to what we say, what the experts say. We fight the Holy Spirit with three weapons. I call these weapons joy jammers. We all use them. Joy jammers.
The first one is right up there on your outline. Selfishness. Let’s take, for example, relationships as we talk about joy. Selfishness is a joy jammer. The Holy Spirit says let’s produce joy in this relationship and we say no, no, no. The Bible says in James 3:16, “Wherever there is jealousy…..” Take your pens out and circle the word jealousy. Yesterday, I was reading over this message and the Holy Spirit said, “Ed, look at jealousy.” Right in the middle of the work jealousy is the word lousy. If you are jealous, you are going to be lousy. “Wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition….” Circle the word selfish. The root of every relational problem always goes back to selfishness. You trace the root system and it always goes back to the joy jammer called selfishness. “Wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.”
Dr Ed Young – Yet we say to ourselves, because we are in the 90s, I have got my rights. Well that is true. We do. But if you are always focusing on your rights, you are not going to complement the other person, you will tear them apart. You see, we are basically selfish, at least I am. I think about myself, what I can obtain from the relationship, what I can get from you.
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God is just blessing others. If we’re in the zone, we know it all comes from God anyway. “Good for you that you can lead. Good for you, you got the promotion. Good for you, you got the inheritance. Good for you, you’re making a lot of money. Good for you! Good for you. Yeah, God!” It’s from God.
Because here’s the bottom line. Materialism begins where your income ends. I don’t know if you’re being materialistic and you don’t know if I’m being materialistic, because there are no limitations.
“Well, you mean God is like, pro-vision and pro-goals and pro-ownership?”
Yeah! He sure is. Some of the greatest men and women in the Bible were heavy hitters, high rollers. Now, there are also many other great men and women mentioned in the Bible who were middle class and some lower class. But you can’t say that poverty is next to godliness. That’s not in the Bible. God is going to bless people. Especially, he’s going to bless people who are in the zone. Because God wants to bless us because he knows if he blesses us what are we going to bless the best thing out there, the local church. We’re going to bless other people’s lives. We’re going to be an example to people who don’t know Christ, about how we steward our stuff. And it’s going to be a “Yeah, God!” and a win-win deal for everyone. Materialism, greed, envy. God says, “Man, don’t go there. Life is too short to do that stuff.”
Dr Ed Young – I grew up watching professional wrestling. It’s really called “rastlin” [phonetic], you know? I’m talking about the old school stuff, you know? Chief Wahoo McDaniel, remember him? The VonErics, Rick “Nature Boy” Flair. We’re talking about classics, man. My favorite wrestler is that blond haired guy from Abilene, Texas, Dusty Rhodes. 287 pounds of sweet soul.
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Well, a long time ago a guy named Elijah, a prophet of God, talked to group three people. And I want to teach you what Elijah said because I’m going to reserve my comments for group three people. Yeah, group one and group two, you’ll get something, but specifically this is for group three people. Let me give you a hypothetical situation group three. Let’s just say you decide today to stop straddling the fence. Let’s say today you take off the mask of being a hypocrite and you go Christ’s way. Let’s say you make a choice to become a life long follower of Jesus. Let’s say you have this conviction; you’re on fire for God. What does it look like? What should you expect? How do your convictions play out on, like I say, on the rugged plains of reality? I’m glad you asked. I really am.
I want to take you back to the Old Testament, to the book of 1st Kings, 1 Kings 18. If you have your Bibles turn there, 1 Kings chapter 18. If you don’t, just check out your message map, right there in our worship guide. Before we jump into Scripture, let me set the historical context of where I’m going to go today.
Dr Ed Young – King Ahab was running the show in Israel. Ahab, though, made a horrible decision, a bad decision that I see a lot of people making today. He married the wrong person. He walked down the wedding runner with a young lady named Jezebel. She was a pit viper. Mean, sadistic, she was into Baal worship and she must have been beautiful for him to follow her around like he did. When they got hooked up, Jezebel was so powerful she made Ahab adopt Baal worship in the nation of Israel.
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As some of you think about what I have just said you are saying, “Man, I wish my neighbor could hear this. Boy you’re talking about Kid CEOs, Ed. You’ve not seen anything!” or “I wish my good friends were here.” Well, couldn’t it be that you are struggling with this? Oftentimes, when I’m convicted about something, my first response is “Oh yeah! My friends need to hear this.” or maybe, “It’s someone else I know, but not me.” Let’s just be open and honest and ask ourselves these penetrating questions, because as we look on the family front out there, we see a lot of families that are being run by kids – Kid CEOs.
DO A HOSTILE TAKEOVER
Well, let’s say your kid is a CEO. What do you do about it? What do you do? Well, you need to do a hostile takeover. You need to go home today and look at your son or daughter and say, “Do you know what? It’s time for you to clean out your office. No, I’m not firing you, but I am moving you to the position that you should hold.” Remember, God has an order. God is not a God of chaos; he’s a God of organization. God has a flow chart. Whenever you think about God, whenever you look at his creation, whenever you look at God’s chain of command, there is always a flow there. God has put certain people over you for a reason. He’s put certain people over me for a reason. The same is true with this organizational chart.
GOD’S ORGINIZATIONAL CHART
Dr. Ed Young – Now, if you’ve always wondered about God’s org chart, it’s found in the book of Ephesians. Let me read it to you very, very quickly. Ephesians 5 and 6 — no, I’m not going to read the entire chapter, don’t freak out. I’m just going to read a couple of verses. Number one — God is at the top of the org chart.
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