THE TABLE
March 27, 2022, 11:15AM
ED YOUNG
How many of you have ever been to the flea market at Canton, Texas before? Let me see the hands. All right. Yeah, I've been there a couple of times. One time I went with my lovely wife, Lisa, and it was pretty unique watching mostly women moving at NASCAR type pace, pushing these carts shopping for all the jibbledy junk that Canton, Texas flea market has to offer. After doing this for a couple of hours, we got hungry and we found a food court, which basically was a bunch of picnic tables strategically located in the shade. We found a little chicken restaurant, chicken sandwiches, and we ordered some chicken sandwiches, and we were munching on the chicken sandwiches in the shade while hunks of humanity filed by. People watching was unbelievable. While we were eating the chicken sandwiches, something unique happened. A woman who worked at the chicken restaurant began to walk up to our table. She had a tray with samples of the sandwiches. We were already eating, and she began to serve us samples of the food we were eating.
We were like, "No, thank you. We're, we're eating the chicken sandwiches from your restaurant." So, she went to another table and another table. Lisa goes, "Honey, all the girl has to do is walk 20 feet out of the shade, into the heat. I mean, yeah, it's hot. It's triple degree heat, but she just needs to leave the shade to get out in the sun and she can pass out samples to all the people who obviously haven't eaten a thing yet." "Yeah, you're right," I said. And then Lisa goes, "A lot of Christians are that way. Aren't they?" I go, "Yeah. I think a lot of churches are that way. We're feeding the already fed in the shade, moving around with the picnic people as opposed to get out into the elements, the hellements, the sunlight, and passing out samples of the Savior, the bread of life, to hungry hunks of humanity who were filing by." As we talk more and more about it, I was like, "The church is the table where people come to get fed."
The table, it's mentioned 72 times in the Bible. The table, the Old Testament, you had the table of shewbread, which was in the temple. There was bread on it, representing God fulfilling our spiritual hunger. Then you have in Psalm 23:5 David saying, "God will set a table for me in the presence of my enemies." Then you go to the New Testament. I'm sure Jesus, as a carpenter-built tables, and then you have the disciples reclining at the table. And then, Jimmy and I talked about this in our last message series "When The Levee Breaks". We will have a forever feast in heaven at the table with the Lord Jesus himself. So, the church is a table where people come to get fed.
Here's another statement. The nourishment from the food gives us the ability to push away from the table and to do what God has called us to do. So, the church is a table where people come to get fed. The food nourishes us and gives us the calories to do what God wants us to do.
And then another statement, the third statement about the table is, the table has chairs around it. A functioning church should have movement in the chairs because the church should be a place where we're comfortably uncomfortable. We're comforted by Christ, but we're uncomfortable for him. Comfortably uncomfortable.
Jesus said a radical statement. He said many, but this is something that is just so powerful. He said about carbohydrates in John 6:35. "I am the bread of life." We hate carbs in today's culture. Don't we? Oh, I'm stay away from carbs. If I just walk by carbs, which just, I don't even have to eat them. You know? Well, Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." And he said, "If you eat the bread, then you're going to live forever." It satisfies us eternally. I can believe that's bread all day long. Oh, I believe it's bread. I believe these are carbs. I believe it. I believe it. I believe it. Factually, yeah, but I've not really done anything with the bread until I eat the bread and digest it. That's what it means. When you see the word believe in the New Testament. Believe in Jesus. It's not just like intellectually going, "Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. I believe this is a table and chairs and that's bread." No, it's more than that. It is a total commitment. It's taking Jesus inside of your life.
The church is a table where people come to get fed the calories, give us the ability to push away and serve others. And the table has chairs around it. In this first chair, you've got the lead communicator, the dude with the food, the pastor, and I'm serving the bread of life, again John 6:35, hopefully and prayerfully in a creative and compelling way. The bread of life does not deserve a half baked presentation. Does it? I mean the bread of life, half baked presentation, you got to be kidding me. We should put forth our best energy and our best effort to serve the food in an innovative way.
Last night, Lisa and I went out to eat, which is rare for us on Saturday, because Sunday is the only day of the week I work. We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and this restaurant was one of the best Mexican restaurants I've eaten at a long, long time. And the food was amazing. The presentation was just on a whole other level. What I liked about it was, it had some things written in Spanish, and the menu was very well explained. Then the manager came over to the table and also some of the servers, they did a masterful job at just saying, "Okay, here is what we're going to serve. And here's the deal." I'm like, "Great. I love that." Well, as the pastor, I have a theological education. I've done doctoral work. I've studied the original languages. I can talk over your head like that. What good is that? You can talk over my head and your area of expertise as well. It's not about that.
Jesus told stories, read his word. Simple, yet profound, simple is not shallow. Simple is where we have to serve the food. If you cannot explain something to me in a simple way, you don't understand it, my friend. It's easy to keep the Bible complex, but the road to take the complex, the complex carbs, and make them understandable so we can eat them, that is where it's at and it's worth the work.
Let's talk about the chairs for a second, because any biblically functioning community should have chairs. There are three chairs that I want to specifically talk about. You can follow along in your message map. You see the message map, please follow along because it's great to use the glass screen, to use your typing machine, a joke, phone, or whatever. But when you go old school and write stuff down, you remember it better. That's why I've done this, because, hopefully, you can remember it, because it's so critical.
CHAIR ONE. This chair right here. That is the chair of the CHURCHED / UNCHURCHED. What is that? It's the pre-Christian. The churched/unchurched.
We have so many in Chair One in Dallas-Fort Worth. One of the reasons I did not want to come to Dallas back in the day is because there were just too many churches up here. Big steeple, few people, churches. Too many seminaries. Too many televangelists. Too many churches. I did not want to come to Dallas. I just didn't. I'm glad I did. I love Dallas. God called me. I didn't hear His audible voice, but He spoke to my spirit, which I can't really explain, to lead Lisa and I here to help start Fellowship Church.
One of the things that caused tension in this was, there are so many churches. There are so many people with faux faith in Dallas. So many people will say, "Oh yeah, I'm a Christian," but then I'll go, "Well, okay. Where do you go to church?" "My father was Episcopalian and my... I haven't gone."
If you're not actively involved and engaged in the local church, the bride of Christ, you're probably not a Christian. I'm not trying to get you to doubt your salvation. I'm just saying, based on what I know about the Bible, because Jesus said, "I will know my followers. My followers will know me by my voice." The Bible says we'll produce fruit. We'll see it. We're saved by grace, through faith, period. Nothing added. Yet, we're going to show people, people will be able to see that we're followers of Christ.
We have a lot of people at Fellowship Church who are churched/unchurched. Why did they come to Fellowship Church? Well, because of the aroma of the freshly baked bread. John 6:44, "No one can come to me, unless the father who sent me draws them," If you're a Christian, what kind of aroma do you have? Or, I mean, are you stinking up the joint or do you have that aroma that draws people to you at the golf course? At the Orange Theory class? While you're Cross Fitting? While you're playing golf? While you're shopping? While you're at the school? In the locker room? Whatever. Do you have that about you? God wants those of us to share samples of the bread of life with hungry hunks of humanity who are filing by. That's why people are drawn to Fellowship Church.
Chair One is the most important chair in the church. If it's a Bible believing, Bible teaching church, the most important chair is Chair One. "Now, Ed, how can you say that?" Jesus said it. That's pretty good. Without Chair One, without someone having an opportunity to become a believer, you don't even have discipleship. You don't have worship. You don't have missions. You don't have the whole deal.
I remember Jesus told the story, it's very interesting, about inviting people to church. Because we're called, those of us who are believers, to invite people, to share the good news, when God gives us the opportunity, to people who are far away from God. In Luke 14, he told this story about a wealthy guy, and this wealthy guy was putting on a massive barbecue. He invited his heavy-hitter friends to this massive barbecue. Back in the day, the wealthy not only would invite you, not only would they text you and send you an invitation, they would send their servants out to go, "The food is ready. Come on." So, he sends the servants out and one guy goes, "Man, I'd like to. I know I said I'd be there, but I can't. I'm in this real estate deal." Well, okay. They go to another guy, "Oh, I can't do it. I'm in the cattle business, and I got to buy some more cattle." This is in the Bible. Not the word "business", but it's in the Bible. He went to another wealthy guy. "You know, I can't right now. I'm planning this destination wedding in Cabo, and it's going to cost me an arm and leg. I just can't go."
So, Jesus tells a story about this wealthy man. He was really hurt, he was devastated. Look what he said in Luke 14:23-24. "Then the master," the heavy hitter, "told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and the country lanes,'" forget these other people, "'and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you not one of those who were invited will taste of my banquet.'" Ouch. The tenor and the tense in the original languages, these people regularly rejected this invitation.
How many people have I invited over the years to Fellowship Church? "Oh, I'll be there, man." No show. "I'm going to be there. My whole family, Ed." No show. That shouldn't stop me, and it doesn't. It shouldn't stop you, and it shouldn't. We should continue to invite people. Sometimes, many times, we have to go out into the country and urge anyone we find, that God gives us the opportunity to talk to and invite, and great things will happen.
Now, here's what's so crazy about Chair One. Every Christian I've ever met wants to reach people, until you start reaching people. Every believer wants to reach people, until you start reaching people. Because, once you start reaching people, not all of us, but once you start reaching people, you've got to change. You've got to tweak some stuff. You're going to do things that might make you a little bit uncomfortable. All hell breaks loose when you go, "You know what? We're going to be a church of Chair One." Now this is not the only chair. Believe me. Your other chairs are just as important. However, for spiritual maturity to really happen, we've got to be chair aware. Chair aware. How do we serve the food? How do we serve worship, a short film? How do we serve a daddy-daughter dance that we did just a couple nights ago? How do we serve a Allaso Ranch where everyone can understand it? It's just like the table.
Okay, here we are sitting at the table. Okay. I've got somebody at my table, and they've never met Lisa and I. All right, cool. I've got somebody, and they know us a little bit, but not really well. And Chair Three, oh man, they're like family. If I launch into some story, I love to tell stories, about something I've done in my life, I'm not going to act like this person is not there. I'm not going to use inside humor or words that only this chair understands. I'm going to bring everybody into context. That's what we do at Fellowship Church. It's that simple.
Chair One would be those who are far away from God. So, you have the invitation, then you have the preparation. You've got to prepare the food. Prepare it. Prepare it. Pray. Ask the Holy Spirit of God to lead and to guide. Think through. That's what we do at our church. And then the presentation. Man, the presentation matters, doesn't it? Again, no half-baked stuff at the church. Chair one. Are you in chair one? If you're in chair one, man, I pray that you make a decision to invite Jesus Christ to come into your life. Now, maybe you're not there yet. All right. Commit to showing up for the next month and pray this prayer. "God, if you're real, because he is, reveal yourself to me." You might be going, "Well, I just don't have enough faith." Oh, you got faith. Oh yeah. You got faith. You got faith. I mean, you're sitting in these seats. You got faith. You got faith. You turn the light switch on this morning. You got faith. You drove here. I mean, that's real faith. We all have faith. Faith is a gift from God. Ask God for faith and I promise you hang around here for a while, the Lord will reveal himself to you and I believe the geological plates of your life we'll change when you invite him in.
There's another chair. CHAIR TWO. Chair two is the BRAND NEW believer. That's someone who has just been born-again. I'm talking about a baby in Christ. I'm talking about a Gerber dining, nap-timing, baby. And we have a lot of baby believers at Fellowship Church. That's great, it's awesome. We all love babies, but I don't want people to remain babies. As a parent, now as a grandparent, I want maturity. I want them to develop. But many are born-again right here and when God wants to birth a bunch of baby believers, he looks for the warmest incubator he can find.
Hebrews 6:1 (NASB), "Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press onto maturity," I like that, press on to maturity. Physical maturity is something that kind of happens, we just mature. One day, you're mature. But when you're mature, you don't go around going, "I'm mature." "Got married when I was 21. We've had four kids. Five grandkids. I got gray hair now, man. I'm mature." No, you don't do that. You don't say that. You just are mature.
Let's go back to the immature and it's a stage that we've all been in. We've all been in chair one, right? We've all been in chair two. Some of us are in chair two. Some are in chair one now, but chair two we go through three stages. The first is the pacifier stage. The second is the puberty stage. I love that word "puberty". Then the third stage is the mature stage.
The pacifier stage. Don't remain in the pacifier stage. Remain in this chair. Grow through the motions. Okay. I'm in chair two. Great and now I'm going to progress two chair three. Well to go through that, you got to go and sit in the highchair. In Dallas, Fort Worth, we have a lot of people who just remain here, in their stinky diapers, and their pacifiers. Pacifier will fall out. "Ah, I want to get fed. That church is not meeting my needs. My, my, my. I, I, I. Me, me, me, my, my, my."
I've whined before. We all have. I get it. I get it. Babies are going to act like babies, but you don't sit here. You don't stay here. Here though is where pastors can mess up. Pastors are like, "All right, man. We had this table going on. Chair one. Chair two. Chair three. This beautiful ecosystem. Do I hear something?" Ah. And they'll run and just, "Oh, I'll take care of you. I'll do what you want me to do. Yes. Don't leave the church please don't. No, because you can help us. Please don't. You have a lot of money. Don't leave." You know what? There's a lot of churches out there in our area but they don't have seats like we do. They have just a bunch of highchairs. Ah. Hey, that's just fine if you want to sit there, but we're not going to turn our backs on the hunk of humanity filing by in the elements. I mean, we're going to love you, and take care of you, but we're not going to do that.
Then the next stage would be, oh, it's one of my favorite stages. The puberty stage. I'm talking about teenagers. Those pimple-popping, hip-hopping, intimacy-stopping people. Got the pimp-limp going. "Oh I know. I know the deal. I know." I used to think I was so smart. I was stupid, but that's okay. It's part of growing up. I get it. I get it. It's part of growing up. You have to individuate. You have to be autonomous. But teenagers, we just think about ourselves. Don't we? It's all about me. It's just me. We have no clue about mom and dad. We have no clue mom and dad are just making it rain. They're paying for everything. Every restaurant, even Disney World, money just happens. Then we act like, "I deserve this. Wait a minute, Mom, Dad. Whoa, my friends, they get this and that, but how about me? How about me?" Again, it's the stage we go and grow through. Normally when you're talking to someone selfish and me-istic, you're talking to a spiritual teenager.
These are natural stages, and we go through them. Chair two, we're born again. Highchair, I chair. Then we go through puberty. Then, CHAIR THREE. We have so many people and chair three at Fellowship Church. Those are FULL-COURT FOLLOWERS, (March Madness) of Christ. Anybody watching March Madness? I thought so. I just wanted to say that just for you.
Chair One, Church / Unchurched. Chair Two, I'm a newbie, Brand New, born-again. Chair Three, Full-Court Follower of Christ. You know, we don't live to eat. We eat to live. The calories give us the ability to push away and do the stuff. I'm a mature follower of Christ.
I read about a year ago, I think Dallas, Fort Worth has per capita, some of the most restaurants of any major city in America and also, we have one of the highest obesity rates. Is there a connection? I don't know. That's true in the spiritual world too. We have more churches, more spiritual restaurants. After all, we're in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt, people call it, and a lot of our spiritual pot bellies have eclipsed our Bible belt. A lot of us we're so obese, the Bible belt's on the last hole. You know? We're not just to sit here and get fat. We're to push away and to do what God's called us to do.
As a mature parent, Parents, you are unselfish. Let me just applaud you. You're unselfish. And teenagers, you'll understand one day. You'll be in your 20's, maybe 40, One day, you'll look back and go, "Man, my mom and dad were unreal. They were so unselfish."
John 4:34, "'My food,' Jesus said, 'is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.'" Hebrews 5:14, "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
Our Menu? The word of God, the Bible. We're a Bible teaching, Bible believing church. The Venue, the Church is the only thing God ever built, Jesus ever built. Para church groups are great. Para church organizations, awesome. Christian school or Christian university, if there is such a thing anymore, all those things are great. But there's nothing like the local church. There's nothing. It's the hope of the world. It's the bride of Christ. The Menu is the Bible, the Venue is the Church, the Revenue, Changed Lives.
If I am mature, it's about the three S's. I'm Serving, I'm getting outside of myself. Here's the cool thing. As I serve, Jesus comes alongside me, and he serves with me. I Share. I share when God gives me the opportunity. I share, and Jesus shares with me as I share. How great is that? I Sow my resources. As I sow, Jesus sows into my life. Mature, this is great.
Jesus said, "Count the cost." Luke 14:28 (NKJV). There's a Relational cost. My best friends must be believers, and that's not easy. As a single, I need to date only those who are believers, who are followers of Christ. If you take that text seriously, two-thirds of the potential candidates are off the table. You got quiet. I understand. I'm telling you, the Christian relationship is the best. I'm just telling you that.
There's a Time cost. You got to go, okay, I'm going to schedule time to spend in the word, time to talk to God, and listen in prayer. Time, time to show up at church.
Then there's a Financial price or cost. Have you ever tried to walk a check before? If you, do it very much, (Singing - Bad boy, bad boy, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?). We have so many generous people here. I'm so thankful. We're so thankful for you, but could it be that some of you are walking the check? Seriously, I don't know because we don't send everyone a bill or anything. It's between you and God, but could you be walking the check?
Think about how much people sacrificed to bring you to this point. What are you going to do? What am I going to do for the next and the next and the next? The Bible's very clear that our offering, our tithe, the first 10% of everything we make goes to the local church. I don't care if you make $100 million a year or $10,000 a year. God's not like, "Oh wow, you make $100 million a year. That's a lot." It's just you have an opportunity to give that first 10%, just like the person making $10,000 has that opportunity. That's why we're blessed. We're blessed to be a blessing.
The Church is a table where people come to get fed. The nourishment gives us the ability to push away and do what God wants us to do. The chairs are in a constant state of motion. Pick out your chair, one, two, or three. Pick out your next step, your next commitment.
I want to end with this vastly important chair, chair three. If you're chair three, just a reminder. This is for me, too. Are you stepping out of the shade, away from the picnic people, into the heat, and are you giving samples of the Savior to so many people God has put in your life? That is the table.
Would you pray? Father, thank you so much for this message. I thank you for this great church. I thank you for what you have done here and what you're going to do. If you happen to be in chair one right now, I want to ask you just to make a decision, just to say, "Hey, Lord I am committing to showing up here for the next month. God, I want you to reveal yourself to me. Father, give me the faith." That might be your prayer if you're in chair one.
Others in chair one, it might be time to go to chair two, to say the prayer that will change your life. To say, "Jesus, I admit to you that I am a sinner and I need a savior. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, and you rose again on the third day. Right now, I take you, the bread of life, in my life. I ask you to be my Lord, my Savior, to run the show. If you prayed that prayer, that's the most important thing you'll ever do, the greatest thing. You just were born again.
Others may be in chair two. Maybe you've stagnated in the highchair, and it's become an I chair. Or maybe you've been paused on puberty, and it's time to count the cost and to move to chair three as you serve and share and sow.
Lord Jesus, we give this time to you, and we ask all these things in the name that's above every name, Jesus Christ our living Lord. Amen.
