So we have used that and put a lot of our time and a lot of our money behind Fellowship Church personally to make that happen.  And I’m so glad I did.  And I’m doing it now. Here’s the fourth question.  It’s getting more positive isn’t it?  It’s getting more positive.  Fourth question. “Ed,” I ask myself this, “am I making a difference in my corner of the world?”

We have some serious power brokers here at Fellowship Church.  And I’m not talking about rich people. I’m talking about true power.  We’ve got principles here; we’ve got judges here; we’ve got school teachers here. You’re talking about powerful.  Fireman and firewomen.  Police officers.  Man! Power brokers.  We have some people that own corporations.  Now that’s cool.

Okay.  We’ve got roughly 18,000 people who attend Fellowship Church every weekend. 18,000 people.  About 40 some odd thousand that come once a month, especially during the Cowboy season!  What would happen, just think about this, what would happen if we all got serious about these questions?  About these four questions?  Do you realize we could just really do some serious stuff in our corner of the world?

We could say, “You know what? In my realm I am going to highlight, along with the church and the family, and underscore the transcendent values of the family.  That’s what I am going to do.”  What could we do if we got that many people fired up to do it?  Well, you know what, man? I am a positive person. And God is a positive God. And I think we can do it by his help.

Take your keys out and just dangle the keys for a second.  Go ahead, just dangle them.  Just dangle ‘em some more.

That’s a key verse right there!  That’s why I had you do that.  It’s a key verse, man!

[1 Thessalonians 4:6] “No one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.”

Now, that’s weird.  Paul says be sanctified, be set apart, be holy.  And then, all of a sudden, he says no one should wrong his brother.  Don’t take advantage of him.  Key!  Key!  That means that I’m responsible for my sanctification and yours,  My sanctification and the people that I influence. You influence people that I don’t; I influence people that you don’t.  Now think about that one.  We’re Trinitarians, right?  Body…mind…soul.  What I put into my mind, what I think, what I do with my body, my soul; that can influence other people’s sanctification, other brothers’ and sisters’ sanctification.

For example, the way women dress.  Oh, it got quiet!  Ladies…now I’m talking to Christians, now, to believers.  If you’re not a Christian, we don’t expect you to dress like a Christian until you become a Christian.  Now we have many people here who attend Fellowship Church who are dancers, others who own sexually-driven businesses.  We welcome you, we love you, we pray for you. We’re going to tell you the truth, and we pray that today is a life-changing day for you.  But I’m talkin’ right now to Christian women and the way you dress.

Do you realize, ladies, by the way you dress…by the way you put your clothes together, you can cause a man, for example, to stumble.  You can mess up his sanctification.  Don’t mess up my sanctification!

“Well, you’re a pastor.”

I’m a man!  Don’t mess up other people’s sanctification.

“Well, what are you saying? We should wear burlap sacks?”

I don’t know if they are Christ followers or not, because you know, I’m not God.  But Jesus says he will recognize us by our fruits.  And I hope if you know Jessica or somebody, send them the DVD.  Because I think Nick and Jessica would make great Christian people. But think of the values of that show.  Here’s Jessica who says she’s, you know, a Christian, dropping the F-Bomb here and there and she’s drunk all the time she’s wearing super revealing clothing and I… You be the judge.

But see, parents? It takes work, and we don’t want to work.  We say, “Just watch the DVD. Just go to the movies. I don’t care what you do, just watch whatever channel you want to. It won’t affect you.”  What?! Look at our culture. Here’s the third question I ask myself regularly.  Am I taking advantage, and I ask myself this, of the assistance of the local church?  Am I really taking advantage of the assistance of the local church?  A lot of us talk it, but are we walking it?  I make no bones about it.

I’ll say it again.  Fellowship Church has helped us rear our four kids.  Helped us.  Children’s ministry.  They have helped us.  We have four kids, and it thrills me for them to come and say, “Dad, we learned this. Dad, we learned that.” The student ministry has helped.  They’ve partnered with Lisa and I. They helped us raise our kids.  And they talk about just open and honest stuff.  How to pray, how to read the Bible, this gift called sex, this thing called attraction. And its just amazing what’s happening over there.

Let’s say we’re watching a television show.  And they’re talking about here and there, about this or that or whatever. And maybe one time we’re watching Nickelodeon.  And, ugh, Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, of course is owned by MTV.  Nickelodeon sneaks in this subconscious kind of stuff that’s really whack.  Like one time I saw Nickelodeon and they said, “The government should never tell you who to marry.” (i.e. you know its okay for homosexuals to get married. And we should treat homosexuals, as far as being married, just like we treat heterosexuals, which, you know, I just biblically cannot support).

We love homosexuals here.  Love them.  We invite everybody here.  But we draw lines in the sand and say, “This is right and this is wrong.”  And we build bridges of love, but we draw lines.  And I will never ever support that [gay marriage].  I’m all for equality, but I’m not going to support sin. And so I said, “Now, guys, see that commercial on Nickelodeon?  MTV owns Nickelodeon and here’s what they’re saying.   They’re saying that, you know, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.”

That’s how I parent.  And I think that’s Deut. 6 and Proverbs 22:6 and that’s Gen. 2:24. Psalm 101:3; “I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.”  Think about Nick and Jessica’s (Simpson) show “The Newlyweds.”  Have you ever seen that show before?  You talk about sending missed messages! Poor thing.  Man, you know who I really feel sorry for?  I feel sorry for Jessica’s parents.  Man, those, those are sad people.  Sad people.  And what’s so sad is that they even say they’re Christ followers.  Now, I’m not going to judge them.

And then, as we began talking more and more, I began to ask her some questions about her life and about what she wants to do with her life.  And I could tell God begin to convict this young woman.  And God began to convict, I believe, her boyfriend/agent/former porn star who was there with her.  And then I watched her change the subject. And then I watched her walk out of Fellowship and I heard her turn to her boyfriend and say, “What if he’s right?”

Now, you would never think that I would have an opportunity to share Jesus with a porn star.  I mean, come on, that’s crazy!  How did that happen?  I told this young lady, though, “God has brought our paths together for this beautiful collision for a reason, and that reason was for me to get this message to you.”

The Bible says as people who follow Christ, check this out, we sow seed.  That’s what we do; we’re just sowing seed by our life, by our words, and by our deeds.

Also, some of us reap.  When you reap, do you know what that means?  That means you harvest.  That means you collect the fruit.  In this passage we’re going to look at today, some sow and others reap.  In fact those of us who are in Zone 2 or Zone 3, we should be sowing and reaping.  And Jesus said “Both the sower and the reaper rejoice.”  So if you’re in Zone 2 or Zone 3 you should be thinking, “Wow! This is unbelievable because I am sowing and I’m reaping.  I mean, this is crazy.

I’m showing people the bread of life and the living water and whoever eats the bread, of course being Jesus, the cosmic carbohydrate, will never go hungry.  He who drinks the water is never going to go thirsty.  This is just crazy!”

That church has grown in five years from zero to 1200 people.  Mac will be the first to tell you that several men in our church from Houston actually stepped into those roles of father and brothers, and his mom delegated some of that to people like me and others.

Lisa:  I’m thrilled that Fellowship Church has the same type of base.  We have HomeTeams that are small groups that are working to help and facilitate single parents to be involved in everything from babysitting co-ops to events that include the children.  It’s very important to delegate and get help.

Ed:  Speaking of trade off, I want to throw some names out to you.  Last night, I surprised Lisa with some Bible trivia.  She had no idea. I just put her on the spot in front of several friends, and threw Bible names out to her concerning motherhood and this whole trade off deal.

Lisa:  But now I know.

Ed:  Yeah, now you know.  Jochebed.  Talk to us about Jochebed.  Who was Jochebed?

Lisa:  Jochebed was Moses’s mother.  When Moses was born, Pharaoh was killing the young boys because the Hebrews were reproducing, growing in number, and he was trying to stop that.  So, he started killing the male babies.  Jochebed was so creative and so diligent that she came up with a plan.  She said, “I know God has got something really special for Moses.”  So, she made this basket to put him in. She put the basket in the water, floated him down the Nile River and Pharaoh’s daughter found him.  Miriam, Moses’ sister, was standing close by.  Miriam said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Would you like for me to find a nurse for the baby?”

Lisa:  For husbands and wives, I think now more than ever, the roles of the mom and dad have changed.  We don’t see as clearly defined roles as we saw ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.  It used to be that the mom stayed at home and the dad went off to work.  Now, we see more of a cross, or a trade off, between the mom and the dad.  I think a lot of that has to do with the culture, the economy – some men have lost their jobs and the women have stepped up to the workforce.  So it is very important that we understand that there can be a trade off in some of these responsibilities, especially if you are a single mom.  How much more so does a single parent need to depend upon others with the task of rearing the children?

Ed:  Every time I think about a single mom, single parent/mom, I think of what happened several years ago.  There was a family in our church who went through a divorce.  This was the church we attended in Houston.  This mom, who was single, had her kids, her boys, at church in the youth ministry, in children’s activities etc., and her oldest son got to know me.  I am about 8 years older than he is. Several other guys and I kind of stepped in and were kind of like his father or older brothers. It is wonderful to see what God has done with that relationship. The guy I am talking about is a guy named Mac Richard.  Mac was on our staff here for years at Fellowship Church and we helped Mac start a church in Austin.  It’s called Lake Hills Church.

The Bible is what it is. It’s a letter. Specifically, it’s a love letter. Isn’t that amazing?

I took this love letter that Lisa wrote to me and I read it over and over again. I read it over and over again because she wrote it and she was crazy about me and she is crazy about me. She loves me. And I wanted to read something about me and especially it just fired me up to know that a girl loved me like she loved me.

What is the Bible? The Bible is a bunch of love letters. And the Bible is not sprayed with Charlie cologne, but it’s sprayed with the cologne of Christ.

The Bible has one villain—Satan. It has one hero—Christ. And one message—Jesus saves. The Bible is all about love. I would tell you something that you need to think about. Do you know there is nothing that you could do or I could do right now that would cause God to love us less? Nothing. That’s how much God loves you and me. He loves us. We’re on His mind 24/7. He’s crazy about us.

Do you know the psalmist said that, when we cry, God even collects our tears in a bottle? He knows how many tears that you’ve shed and I’ve shed. That’s how much God loves you and me. He wants us, he desperately desires us to be under His authority, under His word, because He wants the best for us. He doesn’t want us to have a good life or a decent life or a life that’s above average. He wants us to discover the best. We’ll never reach, though, our ultimate position until we live a life of submission; submission to the word of God.