Ed Young

Hawaii basically is a bunch of volcano’s, correct me if I’m wrong, these giant volcano’s and it’s made from this lava and stuff that’s harden, whatever, it’s gorgeous!  It’s beautiful!  It’s a garden spot.  Hawaii, it’s unbelievable!  Unbelievable!  There’s a lot of volcano’s here.  All of a sudden (Ed gestures erupting!)  we erupt on people!  (Ed continues the gestures)  On our spouse; our kids; our co-workers; that person in the foursome who cheats when we’re playing golf.  We just ahhhhhh (Ed gestures in a way I cannot put into words!)  I almost said vomit on people, but I can’t say that.  Edit that out.  (Ed gestures replaying a tape – audience chuckles).  As you look back, volcano people, as you look back, what’s left?  Does, does what’s left reflect the glory of God?  Yeah, you, you erupted on that person, but how ‘bout what’s left?  Does that reflect the nature and character of God?  Does it?  It should.  See if volcano people would just do the work, the Bible says, one time, if volcano people would just one time would go to that person and seek forgiveness and restitution, you would not erupt on someone again in an ungodly way.  You wouldn’t do it.  You wouldn’t do it.  That’s what I’m gonna challenge you to do.  Hawaii’s is one of the most beautiful spots on earth and you can turn into Hawaii if you’ll just do the work and deal with the anger.  If you’ll go to the person and get it right.  Don’t’ garage it.  Don’t volcano it.  Go to the person and express your anger.  Face your anger.  That’s cool man to face it.  But how do you express it to someone else?  Maybe you’re garaging your anger.  Maybe you’re volcanoing your anger.  How, how, do you, how do you express your anger towards someone else?

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

Jesus said, “I am the door,” and then here is the awesome thing about the door.  The door, which is Jesus, was and is unscathed and unscratched.  Not like the doors in my house, no. The door of Jesus is unscathed and unscratched.

Then he breathed his last breath and everyone thought, “Oh man, it’s over, lights out. The Messiah has clocked out.  We won’t see him anymore.”

And they put him in a tomb and shut the door.  His disciples bolted. You know the enemy was like, “We got him! It’s over.”

Yet, Jesus, what did he do?  Jesus, on Easter morning, destroyed the door of death and the door of sin and he opened the door.  And that’s why we celebrate every Sunday the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Because it’s something that I don’t deserve and you don’t deserve.  It’s something that’s totally out of God’s love. And the Bible says that Jesus stands at the door, because he is the door, and he waits and he extends his nail scarred hand to you and to me and he says, “Whoever.”  Remember in John 10:9 God said, “Anyone who enters through me will be saved and safe and satisfied.”

The other night I took Lisa to the grocery store. I didn’t want to go in so I just sat out in the car and she shopped.  Have you ever watched people walk through the doors of a grocery store?  You talk about hilarious.  What people wear to a grocery store! I was just dying laughing to myself.  You know it’s funny. And the people who would walk up to these electronic doors—all shapes, all sizes, all colors, all stripes—they would walk up and put their foot on the electronic pad and every time, every single time that door would open.  The door didn’t refuse anybody, it just opened.  People had the faith to step on the electronic pad.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

So it was the night of the performance, all the parents were there with their cameras, and it got to the point where he emerges from the tomb. And he goes, “He’s not here. He’s risen. If you’ll please leave your name and number and time of call, he’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” I thought that was pretty funny, so did you.

Well, I know what happened, man. The disciples took the body. A bunch of rag-tag, perch-jerking, delusional disciples got together at Starbucks. They devised this plan to steal the body of Jesus. They said, “I know what we can do. We can take out the most powerful soldiers in the world, the Roman soldiers. And we can move the rock that’s covering the opening of the tomb, something that 20 men can’t do. And we can steal the body of Jesus. That’s what we’ll do, that’s what we’ll do.”

What are you smoking? Surely you’re not on that train. The disciples doing that? What happened? Read your Bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus was arrested, crucified; they’re bolting. Simon Peter is like, “I’m going fishing!” Luke was like, “I’m going back to my successful practice.” He was a physician. Matthew’s going, “No, no, no, man. I’m going back to the IRS.” The disciples, they weren’t men of courage at that point. They were cowering in fear, trembling. They were freaking out, “Aaauugh!” The disciples, they didn’t steal the body.

I’ve heard some say, “Well, I know who took the body. The Jewish officials and the Romans, man. They took it.” Really? Well, the disciples, who were cowards, all of a sudden after the resurrection began to stand on street corners and preach the Gospel with power. Thousands were coming to Christ.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

So I thought we would look at some questions, some critical questions about the resurrection of Jesus, because everything rises and falls literally on the resurrection. If Jesus came back from the grave, we’ve got some incredible implications. So this resurrection deal is not something to fly over or circle or say, “Well, I read this little book,” or “A professor told me this or that.” It’s something to think about and process.

Question one. I call it the vacancy question. What about the empty tomb? That’s a good question. What about the empty tomb? What about the empty tomb?

Let’s turn to Scripture. Matthew 28, I’ll read Verse 1 and then I’ll read Verses 5 and 6. It says, “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.” Very important! Mary and the other Mary. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Women. Say that with me, one, two, three—WOMEN. That’s huge. Put that in your frontal lobe. I’ll come back to it later. Verse 5, “The angel said to the”—what?—“women. ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.’” He’s not here; he’s risen.

I was talking to Lisa’s sister on the phone a while back and she told me that she had some friends who had this little kid, and this boy was supposed to play an angel in this Easter resurrection play. And he was supposed to emerge from the tomb with angel’s wings on and say these words, “He is not here. He has risen.” That was the little kid’s line.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

What did Joseph do?  It was a JTM, a Joseph Type Moment, a big moment, a defining moment, a crucial moment.  What do you do during those JTMs?  That’s the rugged planes of reality that I talk about so much; that is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life, things like this, situations like that.  What do we do?  Do we pay them back or do we pull back?

And here’s what’s ironic about this whole subject whenever I talk about revenge.  Whenever you read or think about someone living the Christian life, so often people think as a Christian I need to be meek and mild and soft and turn the other cheek and I should not stand for what I believe in.  I mean, that’s the way I should live my life; at least that’s what the world tells us.

But the Bible says that I need to be powerful, to speak the truth in love, to stand for my convictions, and to say what’s on my heart.  So the culture gives us this situation of Christianity as those who need a crutch and those who are weak and those who don’t have it together; yet, biblical Christianity, I mean, it takes some serious guts to live it out!

I ask you: you are served your betrayer on a silver platter; what is easier—to whack them or to pull back?  I’m telling you, Christianity is not for light weights.

The Bible says we’re to do some things when we’re faced with those moments of betrayal.  One of the things is, we are not to strike back, and we’re to strike up a conversation with God.  That’s a good place to start.  We’re to pray for ourselves.  Don’t pray for the other person.  Don’t even pray for the situation. Just pray for yourself.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

And you end up doing things and saying things and having attitudes that you normally wouldn’t have because you want to be a part of the in-crowd, you want to be a critical cog in the clique.  This happens at about ten or eleven.  But it also happens when we are twenty-five and thirty-five and forty-five and sixty-five.  It happens, doesn’t it?  It is so sad.

I saw this lived out the summer before my freshman year in college.  I got together a group of students in my church and we went around the sprawling city of Houston putting on backyard Bible clubs for little children.  These kids were four, five, six and seven years of age.  We would go to these apartment complexes and use their club houses and do puppet shows, give Bible lessons, let them do art work.  We had an absolute blast doing it.  And I remember noticing at the ripe old age of 18 how these children, Asian children, Hispanic children, African-American children, white children held hands, hugged each other and had a wonderful time.  I remember thinking how great it was to have children who were colorblind, not worried about six pounds of flesh.  But I intuitively knew that after awhile they would come into contact with the currents of the culture and that would pull at them.  Then racism, the six pounds of flesh deal, would cause them not to want to hold hands any more, not to interact any more, not to want to hug anymore because they would want to be a part of the in-crowd.  So if parents don’t do the job, our culture will do the job.

And to show you that racism is nothing new, think about Jesus.  Christ one day, with his disciples, was trying to expedite a trip.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

But that interchange spoke volumes to me.  It showed me that my parents saw people in a color-blind way.  It showed me that people mattered to God no matter what the situation.  It showed me not to worry about six pounds of flesh.  Little did I realize it, but after that time, for the next fifteen years of my life I would spend more time with African-Americans than Caucasians.  Why?  Because I was heavily involved in sports, junior high sports, high school sports, college sports.  I did not worry about the six pounds of flesh.  Why?  Because of the example of my parents.

Today, think about your verbiage, think about your stories, think about your body language when you deal with people of color.  What are you showing your children?  How are you marking them?  How are you influencing them?  Are you teaching them to be card-carrying racists or relationalists?  It is up to you.  But definitely, the fault lines of racism can be traced back to our family of origin.

But not only can they be traced back to our family of origin, they can also be traced to the currents of our culture.  Think about our culture, because if our parents don’t turn us into racists, our culture will try.  When you are about ten or eleven years of age, something begins to happen.  You begin to feel the current of the culture.  It begins to pull you and it is powerful.  And slowly you are out to sea.  The currents of the culture say that you have got to be a part of the in- crowd.  And to be a part of the in crowd you have got to belittle, diminish, broad-brush, generalize those who are outside the crowd so you can be in the in-crowd.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young

We had been at the church for maybe four or five weeks and we were asked by the wealthiest member of the church to come over to his mansion for dinner.  I remember understanding, even at a young age, that some people with money would try to influence others, including pastors, for their own agenda.  This situation was unique for me because I had never been to a mansion before.  This deal was like something from Gone with the Wind.  There were butlers and maids and servants running back and forth.  When we sat down at their long table covered with a white linen tablecloth, the hostess used a little buzzer under the table to call for the help.  My Mom had given us a little lecture beforehand about our manners and we were trying to be on our best behavior.

The family was talking about their home in Palm Beach and about the millions and millions of dollars that they had.  Out of nowhere, in the middle of the conversation, this multi-millionaire racist turned to my father and said, “Dr. Young, what are you going to do when a bunch of niggers try to join the church?”  My father locked eyes with this powerful man.  Let me mention something about my father.  When he locks eyes with you, you better back up.  His voice was kind of shaky and he said, “Sir, I will tell you what I am going to do.  I will love them and treat them like every single other person that Christ died for.”  Whoa.  This man was not used to hearing that.  He was a man of means, a man of influence, a man of power, a man full of the poison of prejudice.  The meal ended right after that and we left.

Tags: Ed Young, Ed Young Blog, ed young church, Ed Young Fellowship, Ed Young Fellowship Church, Ed Young Jr, Ed Young Ministries, Ed Young Ministry, Ed Young Pastor, ed young tv, Fellowship Church Ed Young, Fellowship Church Grapevine, Pastor Ed Young