We come to a point in our life where we believe to the best of our knowledge that Jesus did the redemptive work on the cross and rose again.  And once we receive that, we are adopted into the family of God.  God is our Father and we are adopted into His family.

And once we make this step, we appropriate the redemptive work of Christ into our lives and that becomes our first act of worship.  So a lot of you who are Nicodemus types, checking things out, can’t really worship.  Yeah, you can worship in a Webster’s Dictionary way, but you can’t really worship.

And you will never be satisfied until you bow the knee to the one who is worthy of our worship, something we will talk about next weekend.

I don’t want to see any more.  As a pastor I have had the opportunity to talk to many couples who have had children.  They always say it was incredible, a miracle.  You can talk to physicians who deliver babies.  They say it is a miracle.  I have a physical birthday, so do you.  Mine is March 16, 1961.  That is my physical birthday.  Also, if I want to be a true worshipper, I have got to have a spiritual rebirth.  I have got to be born again into the family of God.

Well, here is how that scenario played out.  There was a guy in the Bible named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus kept all of the rituals and legalistic stuff of the Pharisaical law.  These people were so freaky in their laws that the fringe on their garments could only be a certain length.  They were out there.  Nicodemus, the Bible says, came to Jesus at night.

He was the quintessential seeker, the investigator.  He wanted to come to Christ when no one else could see him.  And I bet you right now we have got some Nicodemus-type seekers probably hanging out in the back, just checking out this Christianity thing.

They know that their life isn’t really working, even though they may look cool with the Rolex watch and the nice car.  But their credit cards may be maxed out and their marriage may be in trouble.  They are seeking because they are not really happy.  Nicodemus asked Jesus what was the net effect of what He was saying.

Jesus said in John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.”  Born again.  How are we born again?  How are we spiritually reborn?

If you like birds, have I got a thought for you.  We see a lot of birds around Texas.  Oftentimes we see evidence of birds on our cars, don’t we?  We love our feathered friends.  Several days ago I was fortunate enough to sit in the exact spot where Christ sat when He delivered the most important sermon in history, the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus used many illustrations as examples in His sermons, things that His culture could connect with.  In this context He used some birds.  Matthew 6:26.  “Look at the birds of the air.  They do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Every time we see a bird, or evidence of a bird, it should cause us to worship God.  Why?  Because God is our caretaker.

So when you see the snow or maybe when you wipe out and eat snow, what does it cause you to do?  Maybe you are not a skier but into the weather channel.  You check it out and see snow.  Maybe you are praying for snow.  When you think about snow it should cause you to worship.

Case in point.  Isaiah 1:18, Living Bible.  “Come, let’s talk it over, says the Lord.  No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow.”   Have you ever had a stain on your clothing that seemed impossible to get out?  Well sometimes sin seems to be permanent, doesn’t it?  We say that God can never forgive us for that one, no way we are worthy, no way we can be restored because of that sin.  But God has promised us that He can make us as clean as freshly fallen snow.  Snow should point us to worship, to worship the fact that God is the God of forgiveness.

What was going on?  What was happening?  This mountain in the dessert became sort of a symbol in my life that pointed me to worship.  It was as if God was saying, “Ed, you have 110 hours every week.  Think about this mountain.  Think about your progress.  Reflect me and mirror me in all that you do and that you say.”  And that is precisely the direction in which we are going over the next few minutes.  I want to help you through the Bible, God’s revealed word to us.  I want to assist you in becoming keenly aware of the things in your life, the significant symbols that God has placed in your path to point you to worship.

I’ll begin by asking you this question.  How many of you love to snow ski?  Raise your hands.  I have skied one time in my life, fifteen years ago.  It was a lot of fun and hopefully I will do it again one day.  When you are skiing, maybe cruising down a Black Diamond, you are watching and looking at and checking out snow.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

It doesn’t start with you and me. It starts with God. We have to understand by faith that God has the best for us and when we clothe ourselves in him, in his righteousness and in his love. That is when we’ll make the ultimate fashion statement of faith.

Reverse Jesus

Some people don’t pimp God. Others wear him this way. [Ed takes off the coat and puts turns it inside out.] We don’t fully clothe ourselves in Christ. Some of us reverse Jesus. We reverse Jesus. During the week we wear him like this [reversed]. No one would ever know we’re a follower of Christ. We’re just all about the lining. We’re all about the pockets and the buttons. And see my name on the pocket? Edwin B. Young. It’s all about me during the week. “B” stands for “bad.” It’s all about me—what makes me look good; what gets me high; what gives me pleasure; what gives me that adrenalin rush. I’m around the guys, I talk smack. I’m around this group, I talk that. I go over here, I run over there.

But when Saturday night or Sunday comes…Fellowship Church, whoa, I’m right here on the front row! I may be at Fellowship Uptown, or Fellowship Plano, or Fellowship Alliance or Fellowship Grapevine, but I’m worshiping God! Reverse Jesus.

I only have two suits and this is a brand new suit. It’s kind of funny the reaction that I’ve had when I’ve worn this suit. Some say, “Hey, Ed, that suit looks good on you.” I’m not sure how to take that. Are you saying the suit looks good? Like “Hey, nice suit”? That suit looks good on you. That’s not that great of a compliment.

My second grade music class was singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”  The music teacher stopped, pointed me out and said, “Hey, Ed, walk up in front of the room for a second.”

So I did, and the kids began to laugh. The teacher said, “Sing the song in front of the class.  Something is wrong with your voice. Quit joking around and sing it the right way!”

And I began to struggle through “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”  If you’d been in my second grade class years ago you would not have thought that was a big deal. But to me, those words hurt.  They wounded me.  I’ve always been a little bit shaky when it comes to singing in public, especially using my real voice.

The power of words is really interesting.  They have the potential to help us on one hand or, on the other hand, to harm us.  Just for a second, look around.  Look around.  Specifically on your row.  I’m sure most of you are seeing a bunch of well adjusted Metroplex Surbanites.

You’re saying, “Ed, not on my row!”

Yes, we all are.  And I think if we had time to share with one another, to get really personal, I’ll bet you that most of us have scars on our bodies.  In fact, it’s impossible to go through life unscathed.  We all have scars.  I have scars.  I’ll tell you about several of them.

I have a scar right here on my chin. I fell on a train when I was a kid, and a man named Dr. Ed sewed me up.

I have another scar right there on my lip.  I had a bunch of stitches because my lip got in the way of one of my teammate’s elbows at Florida State.  He was going up for a slam dunk and Boom!  I was on the ground and he was in the air. He knocked me flat out.

The Bible says in 2 Samuel Chapter 11: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful…”

These two words in the Hebrew, “very beautiful,” come from two words you might have heard before—Carmen Electra.

“…and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, ‘Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’”

David, a man after God’s own heart; David, a man who was on a roll;  David, a man who had won every battle; a man who had established Jerusalem as the capital city; a man who had just written the Psalms; a man who was the toast of the town; a man whose face was plastered on every magazine cover in the Middle East—found himself one afternoon on his roof top.

He should have been fighting. He should have been on the battlefield, but he wasn’t. Who knows? Maybe David was feeling prideful. The Bible says pride comes before a fall. Maybe he said, “You know, there’s no way I could sin. There’s no way I could jump off the ledge and the edge of compromise into the abyss of promiscuity. Not me.”

David had it going on. He was at the top of his game. He was at the top of his game militarily, politically, and financially. Maybe he was a little prideful.

They were all really great and they were really helping me understand more and more about Christianity.

One weekend, we had this incredible flood in Naperville Illinois where I was living. Seventeen inches of rain fell down and we took in five feet of water in the basement of our house; just flooded it.  We were struggling to get all of the water out, and next thing you know, there were 15-20 people from the church that just showed up at our house and just helped pull all of the stuff out.

They helped clean the whole house out for us and sat and talked and told us about Christianity, but in a really cool way.  I was blown away.

“Man these Christian people are cool!”

The Jewish thing, in the Jewish faith, I had always had a bit of an apprehension about the whole Christian scene.  And so it was really breaking down walls.  I was incredibly influenced by that experience and so many other influences that were happening to me in Chicago.  So, I was on a great path.

When I found out that we were being transferred down to Dallas, the pastor said, “Well, you have to check out Fellowship Church. It is really cool.”

So, we came down here, and within a few weeks of moving down here, we came to a service and they were right.  It was happening.

A guy that I was working with at Fox Sports Southwest down here was a good solid Christian man and we would go out to eat all of the time.  And he became an incredible influence in my life and he told me he was praying for me. And I always thought that was kind of weird.  It was in January of 1998. And then midway through the year, I was halfway through the Bible, and I went to the Ballpark in Arlington.