Well, that’s what God is saying to you and me when we’re dogged with doubt. We’re just standing there and God’s saying, “Move around! You’re killing the grass. Move toward faith. Feed the faith. Put your faith in the right object.”

It’s the logical choice. You’ve got faith, don’t sit there and say, “Well, I don’t have faith.” You’ve got faith. Just put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding.”

Answer The Big Question

Okay, we’ve got to answer some questions. Here is a question I want to ask you. In fact, let’s let Jesus do this. Let me have Jesus answer it and ask it too. Jesus was walking in Jerusalem and there was a pool called the pool of Bethesda. All these crippled people would hang out around the edges. And it was said that an angel now and then would touch the water. And if the crippled person was the first one to touch the water after the angel, then he or she would be healed.

So Jesus walked by this pool right up to a man hanging out by the pool who had been lame for 38 years. And Jesus said a very weird thing. In John 5:6 He said, “Do you want to get well?”

I find that strange. The guy’s been crippled for 38 years and Jesus said, “Do you want to get well?”

Well, I’m going to turn that and ask that question to you. And let’s allow Jesus to answer it in your life and mine. Do you want to get well? Do you really want to believe?

Some people don’t want to believe. They have a vested interest in keeping God at bay. They don’t want God to exist.

I was four years old and I asked my mother this question—where do babies come from?  And I asked so many questions as a kid, as I do today, that I finally wore her out.

She told me, when I was four, where babies come from.  She said, “Ed, babies grow in their mommy’s tummy.”

I said, “Mom, did I grow in your tummy like that?”

She said, “Yes, honey.”

I said, “I don’t believe you.”

Now, after 24 years of marriage and four kids later, my mom was right!  I believe her; she was speaking truth.

The sexual revolution that began the 1960’s ushered in change, because the word “revolution” means change.  But, the true definition is change that ushers in something better. So here’s the question—are we better off four decades later?  Are we better off after the sexual revolution?  Could it be that we’ve been sold a bill of goods?  Could it be that we’ve been lied to?  Could it be that the revolution was really sort of an illusion that caused widespread pollution?  I don’t know.  It’s a good question to think about, though.

At Fellowship, we’re going to begin, during this series, a sexual revolution.  We are going to bring about, obviously through the power and the grace of God, a sudden change, a change for the best.  Because often, when we look at a bed, especially in church, it makes a lot of us nervous.  Some of you are tense right now and you’ve already told the person seated next to you, “What’s up with this?  They brought a bed in church?  That is just freaky.  I don’t like that!”

Well, herein lies the problem.  For far too long, we’ve kicked the bed out of church and the church out of the bed.  During this series, we’re going to bring the bed back to church and the church back in bed, because sex is worship.

So I want to thank you for blessing the greatest entity in the universe, for returning what is God’s to his house. I want to thank you for investing in the next generation because if we can invest in the next generation, it starts with now.  So yes, you know, a watch is fine, you know, a pen, whatever.  But those are microcosms that reflect a major principle in God’s scripture and that principle is the most exciting adventure anywhere.

A while back I told you a story about something that happened to me in Australia.  I was invited to speak at a conference, and while I was at the conference I met a guy named Joseph, one of the other speakers.

He had just written a book and I said, “Joseph, would you sign one of your books for me?” He said, “Yeah, Ed do you have a pen?”  And I begrudgingly gave him my pen because I collect pens, and I don’t want people to write with my pens because they can mess up the pen.

Yet I handed him the pen, and he began to write.  I was thinking to myself, “He is bearing down too hard.”  Then he said, “Hey, this is a nice pen.”  And a little voice inside of me said, “Give it to him.”  I said, “No.”  So I took the pen, put it away, and I thought I will never see Joseph again.

He lives in Singapore so I thought, “I will never see him again, I mean, when am I going to be in Singapore?”  So I kind of forgot about it.  Well that night I kept hearing the voice, “You should have given him the pen.  You should have been given him the pen.”

The next morning we had another session at this arena and I looked across the way, and guess who I saw?  Joseph. Pen-less.  And that voice said, “Give him the pen.”  And I said, “No.”

While I was finding my seat I ran into another friend of mine named Sean.  Sean is a big hulking figure, 6′ 8″, 340 pounds, a former NFL player.  And I said Sean, You’re looking good man. You’ve got a suit on, and I like that necklace.” He said thanks.  Then he sat down and I sat down on the front row.

A dream is about development.  I’m developing something.  All dreams start with God.  Did you hear that?  All great dreams start with our great God.  God is a God who dreams so if you want to live the dream, and that’s what we want to do over the next several weeks, it starts with God.  So if I’m going to live the dream, that dream starts with God.  God is always developing and depositing and dropping dreams on all of us.  We’re going to see in a couple of moments in Genesis chapter 15 there was a guy named Abraham and God just blew the doors off of his life.  Abraham thought he was living the dream.  If the guy lived today he would be worth several billion.  He had all of this stuff and you would think, Abraham, that guy is living the Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Warren Buffet dream.  But no, God takes him to a level he never thought possible.  God develops the dream.  God is developing you for the dream.  So you either log onto God’s dream or you don’t.  If you don’t, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to live a nightmare.  You’re not going to live the dream; you’ll live a nightmarish existence.  It’s all about development.

Dreaming is also about, look at the R, righteousness.  It’s a righteous dream.  What is righteousness?  That’s purity.  That’s holiness.  We know our God is righteous.  God can’t err.  God can’t sin; he’s perfect.  Well we are sinful.  God can’t look at us because of our sin.  He sent Jesus to live a perfect life and to die a sacrificial death.  Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life.  When we receive Jesus his righteousness is imputed into our lives.  So we’re righteous and we have this desire for righteousness.  God’s dream for all of our lives is to live a righteous life, not a legalistic thing, but based on something that is a relationship within.

We lived off a dirt road, and I took the boat across the dirt road to a small lake. And I would paddle this boat in the high winds, because this lake was windy.  One day, I thought, “I’m going to make an anchor.  I’m tired of paddling.  I’m going to make an anchor, something secure, something heavy.”

So I got some clothesline and a Clorox bottle.  I put the Clorox bottle in the sandbox and dumped all this sand in there, put the top on it, and tied that to the clothesline.  I took it to the lake, paddled out and found a good spot.  I threw the anchor overboard. But I had made a dumb decision.  I forgot how deep the lake was.  This lake was something like 18 or 20 feet deep, but the clothesline was only like 10 feet long.  And then, the Clorox bottle was so light that the sand didn’t give it the weight it should’ve had.  It got all muddy and was just floating in the water. I ended up being blown all over the lake! It was terrible.

So many people I run into are looking for things that are secure and firm; yet, they’re using anchors made of clotheslines and Clorox bottles.  They think, “If I sleep in this bed with this person, that’ll be it!  If I make this deal, that’ll be it!  If I move to the corner office, that’ll be it!  If I have this high, that’ll be it!  If I go to that physician, that’ll be it!  If I go to that college, that’ll be it!”  And they’re being blown around the lake of life with no security, nothing solid, nothing secure.

Well, God comes along and says, “Throw your anchor overboard.  Put it on my Word, in my promises.  Know them, understand them, believe them, and live them out.”

You know, in a crowd this size there is a number of us who are experiencing different levels of marital satisfaction.  Some of you are on the brink of divorce.  No one knows it but you and your spouse.  Obviously God does, but your family doesn’t really know it. Your best friends don’t really realize it. But in your heart of hearts you know it’s not working for you. And you’re here today wondering if it can ever work again.  It used to work by virtue of you being married, but it’s just a secret that you have between you and your spouse.

Now there are some other marriages here and you would be sort of in relational purgatory. You would be between the two.  Let’s say this is the door of marital fulfillment, the other door is the door of divorce. And you would say, “You know, it’s not that good, Ed.  Just to be frank with you, to be honest with you, it’s not really flowing.”

And you realize intuitively that if you continue down this path, you’re going to end up as another statistic.  One day you know you will end up in divorce.

So some here, you have your hands on the door gear ready to bolt through the door of divorce. Others are between the two.

Now, some here have experienced the dark underbelly of divorce.  Maybe you’re a child of divorce.  When I say the word “child,” you could be 10, you could be 30, you could be 45 for all I know.  Divorce has a ripple effect. It’s not just between a man and a woman or a husband and a wife. It is between family members and it is highly emotional and the scars tend to run very, very deep. And the wounds are just hideous.

Illus: And speaking of that, I found a dog a couple of months ago on the freeway, and I’ll do a whole message about him, but check this out.  The other day I had my Bible in my office and this dog literally ate the word.  And I think he got saved, too.

So feed on the Word.  It is the milk.  Again, go back to a baby.  A baby is born and they see light for the first time, they feel the warmth of their parent’s arms for the first time, they breathe in air for the first time, and they taste milk for the first time.

Someone is born again, they see the light of Jesus for the first time, they feel the warmth of his companionship for the first time, they taste the milk of God’s Word for the first time, and they breathe in the power of the Holy Spirit for the first time.

It is time to go onto maturity, because it’s our desire as parents to see our kids grow and develop.  It is God’s desire to see us grow and develop and go onto maturity.  So it is about feeding.

It is also about walking, right?  That is fellowship.  And the Bible talks so much about the walk, our walk.  And walking is progression.  And it is interesting how the Bible uses that to talk about our Christian life.

Illus: Now our daughter, who is our oldest who is 22 now, is pretty much a medical miracle, because when she was 9 months old, the girl could not even crawl or turn over. But one day, I will never forget it, she was looking around the house and she just jumped up and started walking.  Doctors are still writing about it.  Our pediatrician still can’t believe it.  She just got up and just took off.

Well, those of us at Fellowship, the spiritual parents here, it is so exciting to see how you’re helping mentor these little infants.  So infants, it’s time to feed.

You’re to feed corporately on the word of God.  Hebrews 10:25, “Let us not give up meeting together.”

There are 168 hours in every week.  Give God a couple of hours for corporate feeding, because something supernatural takes place when people who are gifted sing, teach, and do creatively what Scripture tells us to do.  Don’t miss it.

Now parents, what if you fed your infant once a month or once every six weeks?  They would put you in jail.  But I know a lot of spiritual infants who will just eat corporately once a month or once every six weeks.  You will never go onto maturity with this starvation diet.  When the doors are open here during the weekend, make sure you’re here.

Also, you need to make sure you’re in a small group.  And Fellowship Church has so many small groups.  We have so many different small group Bible studies here.  We have Newcomers Class and a class to show you how to use your spiritual gifts.  We have FC Studies on how to read Scripture and how to memorize Scripture and how we got our Bible.  So as an infant you have to feed on those things.

And then, are you ready for this?  Infants, this is cool, you have to learn how to feed yourselves.  Parents, was that a great day when your baby grew and matured enough to feed himself or herself?  You were singing, “Hallelujah, this is great.  They can feed themselves.  Wow!”

That’s what we want to concentrate on with the infants here in the house.  Learn how to feed yourself.  How do you do that?  Well, we have so many opportunities to teach you that.  Go to The Source; we have Bibles just for you, messages just for you, different tapes and videos and all sorts of things to help you learn how to feed yourself.

Also, read the words of philosophers, the third rational reason. There’s a gentleman by the name of Immanuel Kant who is no lightweight speaker and here is what Immanuel Kant says. I quote, “All people on planet earth seem to have a concern for ethics”. Why do we have a concern for ethics? We have a built-in concern for ethics. He says through a long, involved philosophical process, the only explanation for this inherent sense of ethics is something he calls justice. Now, check this last statement out.

He argues, “Because justice is not applied fully in this life, it must be applied in the after-life by a judge who finally settles all accounts. There must be, Kant says, an after-life, if for no other reason, for justice once and for all to be served. The philosophers.  Study philosophers.  They say, “There’s life after death”. How about the built-in sense of eternity that we have? Anthropologists have discovered this long ago in every culture, every nation, every nationality. You name it, we all have a sense of the eternity built within our lives. I read Lee Beth books all the time and these books at night always end, “…and Bert and Ernie and Big Bird lived happily ever after”, “and the Bernstein Bears lived happily ever after”.

We love those few words, don’t we? Happily ever after. A built-in sense of the eternity. We want things to last. We think there’s life after the grave. So, how about the built-in sense of this eternal longing that we have? It seems as though mankind cannot get away from thinking about, “There must be something else. We must live forever”. How about the fifth rational reason? The fifth rational reason for believing in life after death. Yes, ethics is important but look at near-death experiences.