The fight doesn’t start when you tell me to treat Harrison Ford more important than myself or President Bill Clinton. The fight starts when I am asked to treat you as more important than me; and I run head on with this principle throughout Scripture. Treat the gas station attendant, the minorities, Democrats, Republicans, even Buffalo Bills fans, as more important than yourself; and that’s a tough act to follow. That’s a tall order for a self-centered man like me.

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(Theme music to the movie “Rocky” plays). What’s the guy doing? Is he gone nuts? I’ll tell you what I’m doing…I am training for a fight. That’s right. I’m in a fight right now and the fight’s been going on for a long, long time. Sometimes I’m winning the fight. I can feel the jabs coming. Other times I’m getting my face kicked in. My opponent? It’s you. I’m fighting you – the people I love, the people I’m called to shepherd. I’m also fighting my wife, my children, my neighbors, the person next to me on the freeway who is trying to merge. I’m in a fight, and this fight stems from a principle found throughout God’s Word. Philippians 2:3 really puts it in a succinct fashion. The last eight words in Philippians 2:3 start this fight in my life. “Let each of you regard one another as more important than himself”. Eight words…let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. When I obey those words, put the gloves on and we are in the ring fighting. The question for you, the people of the Fellowship of Las Colinas…do you have a difficult time treating VIPs or bona fide celebrities as more important than you? Do you? I don’t have trouble or a big problem with that.

Six years ago, some friends of mine and I went to Belize, Central America, on a fishing expedition. We stayed on a tiny island, a remote fish camp, off the coast of Belize. This place had about twelve rooms, cement floors. You ate in a little, thatched-type hut area. We thought, “Peace, quiet, serenity for a couple of days”.

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But don’t do this: don’t say, “Oh man, I’ve got the book. Now I can skip church for the next three weeks.  Yeah!  Okay!  (audience laughter)  I see where Ed’s going now.”  No. I’m going to talk about some different stuff over the next three weeks.  But I do want you to have it.  Also, I want to thank Target for providing us these carts.  And this book will be available in Target and Wal-Mart (as well as Barnes and Noble and other book stores) all across the country. Just read it.  The foreword was written by a friend of mine, Rick Warren, who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life”. And we feel so strongly about this message that we want you to have it.  If you don’t read it, give it to somebody who would.  And use this to invite someone back for the remainder of this series.

Next weekend I’m going to bring my wife and one of my children on stage to talk some more about this.  And we’re going to talk about it over the next few weeks—intimacy in marriage. We’re going to talk about priorities. So just take one of these books and let’s continue to worship as we sing a song called “The Life of Praise”. Look at verse 2.  He gives us the reason.  “So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all His decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.”

People have a hard time accepting this, but we’ve got to own this and swallow this fact: God wants us to enjoy this life.  God wants us to be the most joyous people around.  And we’re going to be joyful when we obey his directives.  The joy might not come overnight, but it’s going to be lasting and eternal.  You, your children, and their children.  God wants us to leave a legacy.  That’s what God wants.

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One day Jesus was teaching a large group of people.  This group had a very diversified flavor and Jesus, as the master teacher, captured this teachable moment.  He used an illustration with which everyone could identify.  In this illustration He challenged people to do some things as they waited, as they got ever ready for his Second Coming.  The words that I want us to grasp now are the same words He told His listeners about 2,000 years ago.  I want to read to you His words from Luke 12.

“Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps alight and be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.  If the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.  You, too, be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

Well, right up front Christ told His listeners, and He tells us, to do several things.  First of all, He tells us to dress up.  He said, be dressed in readiness.  He tells us to dress up.  This is the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, the land of malls and of fashion.  We are very conscious about our clothes.  We want to make the right statement and we spend a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money on our wardrobe.  Well Jesus challenges us to make a fashion statement.  No, you cannot pick this outfit up at the Galleria or North Park Mall or Irving Mall.  No, it is an attitude.  It is a lifestyle.  He tells us to be ready.  He tells us to put on a wardrobe of readiness.  We are to be ready for his Second Coming.

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I serve you. I’ve committed my life to you. I pastor a church. I speak and tell people about Christ at weddings and funerals. I want to sit here in my seat of self-centeredness on the front row”. Then He tries the second end. He doesn’t stop. This trainer is phenomenal. The second end – He begins to motivate me. Motivate me. “Ed, get up! Get up, Ed. Get up. Unclench your fist from around the chair. Get up! It’s time to move.

Get up! Walk all the way up and give your seat to the person”. I said, “Thank you for the motivation, but no, I’m not going to do it because again, I don’t get a chance very often to see a game like this. I’m on the front row”, and I’m beginning to go back and forth and I’m telling you, the gloves are on now. It was a fight between this guy right here, Mr. Self-Centered Person and am I going to be other-centered. So I had the gloves on and I was fighting.

I was sitting there in the game, popcorn and drink and the Holy Spirit would come by and go, “Okay, pow! pow! Go get him!” And he would come back for the motivation, “Pow!”…motion, “Pow!” and then this Trainer, He pulls out the heavy artillery. He walks up to me and he begins to meditate. In other words, He asks me to meditate and He begins to go, “Ed, I really didn’t want to do this but Philippians 2:3 says to treat other people as more important than yourself.   John 3:16, a verse you know very well, a verse you speak on often says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son”. What if God had the attitude that you are having right now?

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In the book of John, John Chapter 6 and it goes throughout John, Jesus makes a bunch of “I am” statements.  He said, “I am the light of the world.”  Why did he say that?  Light in the Bible represents truth.  Jesus is truth.  And light illuminates a path, a plan, a purpose for all of us.

Jesus said, “I am the gate.”  He didn’t say I am just “a…” He said I am “the” gate.  We get to God through Christ.  He is the way.  He is the gate.  He wasn’t saying, “I am literally a gate and here’s the door knob.”  No, no.  He said I am the gate.

He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  That means he’s the meaning and the message that we all need.

He said, “I am the vine.”  Well, branches can’t be branches unless they’re connected to a vine.  Life is not really worth living unless we’re connected to Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the bread.  I’m the source.  I will satisfy, not physical hunger, but true soulish hunger forever and ever and ever.”  Well, what happened?  This audience, they were like saying, “Okay. Hmm. You’re saying you’re Jesus; you’re saying you’re the Messiah.”

These people were pretty smart. [They knew the Midrash] The Midrash was a Jewish commentary. And the Midrash said that Moses performed a miracle back when the children of Israel were free from Egyptian bondage.  The Midrash says that Moses was the one that caused manna to drop from the heavens.  And it also said that the Messiah would duplicate the miracles that Moses had done in his life.  Now the Bible doesn’t say that, but the Midrash did.

So these Jews are going, “Okay, well, that’s pretty cool.  I’ve been a part of the Hebrew happy meal miracle. And I guess now I’m just waiting for manna.

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I’ve been married for 22 years.  I have four kids.  My daughter is 17, my son’s 12, our twins are 10.  I feel relatively qualified to talk about this stuff.  I don’t feel like I’m an expert.  But I can talk about it.  God wants the best.  Are you using the oil for those kernels?  I don’t know.

Heat

You’ve got to have heat too, don’t you?  I mean, to have some popcorn that (“pop” sound) pops, you’ve got to have the heat.  Man, do you need heat!  What kind of heat?  I’m talking about marital heat.  You saw the interviews.  You saw the videos.  Best thing we can do for our family is to have a hot marriage.

Well, how can we have a hot marriage, though, when a man and woman marry, they crank out a couple of kids, the wife is getting her self-esteem from her kids—what they do artistically and athletically and socially and relationally—and the husband is getting his self-esteem from what he is doing in the market place—how much money he is making, who he is working for, where his office is and maybe some hobbies or whatever?  You’ve got marital drift.  We orbit everything around the lives of our kids.

For the wife to get to the husband she’s got to negotiate around all that stuff.  For the husband to get to the wife, he’s got to negotiate around all that stuff.  Fast forward the deal. Put them in their mid-forties. The husband wakes up, the wife wakes up, “Who in the world did I marry?  Who are you?  What in the world was I thinking?”

And then we call the attorneys to pick up the pieces.   That’s why the divorce rate is exploding in the 45 to 55 age bracket

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Also, we play the comparison game. “Well, you know, I’m pretty spiritual. Look at this guy at work. He calls himself a Christian, but he’s mean, and the language he uses, the places he goes like-” What is our standard? It’s Jesus. It’s not me; it’s not you. It is Christ. So, comparison.

Also, we play the suppression game, Justice says. The suppression game. We try to suppress these sins and all this guilt. What if we all go to a swimming pool right now and I was to throw every person here 7 beach balls that were pumped up-they were so tight-and I said, “O.K. Keep every beach ball submerged.” We would say, “Oh, submerge it? Uh-oh, there’s no–” and it would pop up; we’d submerge it again and it would pop up. And we would get so frustrated going back and forth.

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What is it like for Jesus Christ? When Christ met a sinner, what did He do? “Oh, you sorry sinner. You’re going to hell–” He wouldn’t whack them on the side of the head. He loved the sinners. He rushed to forgive them. He rushed to meet them where they were at that particular junction in life. And that’s what we must do as Christians-meet them where they are. Judicial forgiveness. Now, we also have something called relational forgiveness. What’s that? That’s our relationship with Jesus Christ, our daily relationship with Him. Judicial forgiveness. I received that when I received Jesus Christ, but, guess what? Pastor Ed sins; we all sin every day. And when I sin, I erect a barrier between myself and the Lord. There’s a barrier there. There’s a big barrier. Every time I sin-small sin, large sin, whatever it is~there’s a fence between my life, your life and God.

What does the Bible say? The Bible says we must keep short accounts with God. Every day if you say, “God, forgive me for that sin. I want to turn from that sin,” the barriers come down. And then, we have to have the right fellowship, and have a right relationship with Jesus Christ. And I know a lot of people, they have some type of sin they have not confessed, and there’s a big barrier when they talk to God and God says, “What’d you say?” You say, “God, I can’t see you,” and the problem is there’s a sin in the way. Forgiveness. Forgiveness.

And the Bible says, “Forgiveness us”~we’re talking to God. “Forgive me, God of my debts, of our debts.” There’s a gentleman by the name of William Justice.

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That’s why we exist and we have that vision and we say, “If something does not fit under one of those three
statements, we don’t do it. We throw it out”, and we’re focused and God has given us a vision corporately and it’s amazing what He has done!   So when we look at people, we look at the stars, not the mud in their lives.   Do you? How about you?  Do you look at the obvious?  Do you see the mud?  Are you using vision as a vehicle to get out of the mud? Let me summarize this particular message by giving you three statements on vision. How can I become a visionary person? You see, my motivation today was not just to give you a history of the Children of Israel and talk about the Amalakites, the Hittites and the walls and Israel claiming land.

I want us to make this practical. How can I become a visionary person? First of all, you’ve got to become a vision-caster…a vision-caster. That means you get alone before the Lord, confess your sins like Joshua and Caleb did, get right with God and say, “God, show me your vision. I want to get out of the comfort zone. I’m tired of Al Average, Mary Mundane, all of that. Show me your vision. Communicate it to me”. Be still. Get alone and God will do that. He will show you. He’ll speak to your spirit your vision in relationships, your role in this church, your role in problem-solving, being very solution-oriented. So become a vision-caster.

But once you have the vision cast, once it’s out there, don’t say, “Hey, well, that’s it. I’ll see you later. I have a vision for God and it’s later. Bye-bye”. We’re to communicate the vision. Look at Nehemiah, look at Joshua, look at Caleb, look at Moses.

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