1986, Taking A Step Beyond and Together

The following message was delivered by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian Community at the North Way Christian Community Leadership Meeting on January 4, 1986. This conference that we attended, and many of you asked me, what is it and why did you go and so on. Over six months ago, leafing through one of the magazines that we get around here, I read these articles of what's coming along, and I was just really quickened by the Holy Spirit. Send away and get some more information on this, and I did that, and it was a group that I only know a little bit about called Maranatha Christian Ministries. Maranatha is a group that's 14 years old now, and their focus has always been campus ministries, getting on the campuses and winning students for Christ. Eight years ago, the Lord led them from a fellowship orientation to a church orientation, so they began to establish churches and not just fellowships. What really attracted me about it was, number one, the theme of the conference was equipping the local church for ministry. Number two was the breadth of the speakers that they had invited to come was really unusual. Fred and I were just coming in. There was more people there from different perspectives than I think I've seen anywhere, including our own charismatic conference here at Duquesne and so on. Everyone from Derrick Prince, who probably has been one of the most stable people in the charismatic movement in the last 25 years, Dick Eastman, who led the prayer times before every service, Jack Hayford from the Church on the Way, Oral Roberts spoke the last night, Kenneth Copeland was there to speak. All these people from different perspectives, a lot of extremely dynamic people who God has anointed. A man by the name of Larry Lee from the church down there on the other side of Dallas, who last year, their church added 80 new members every week. They grew by 4,800 members in one year, and I'm telling you, you talk about a move of God. This church is five years old, six years old now. We had just a wonderful sense of input. I'm leaving out a lot of names, Peter Wagner from Fuller's School of World Missions and so on. Carol and I, we asked the Lord, and we had many of you praying for two things, revelation and refreshing. One for two ain't bad, folks. The Lord opened our eyes to see a lot of things, and how many of you know there's refreshing in revelation? But the bod is not caught up yet, I guarantee it. I'm here, Doug. Thank you. That's right. Well, it's been nice to meet you. We are going to have refreshments at sort of the midway point this morning for the sake of those of you who are glum because you didn't get your coffee cake already. I'm dealing with a little bit of physical rebellion, but I need to tell you that the overall things that God confirmed in my heart, I'm going to share briefly this morning with you, and I trust that as we spend this next hour and a half together, you will leave here today with the same sense of anticipation that I have in my spirit about who we are and where we're going. And in no way do I see this as being a basic confirmation of everything that we've ever done or everyone's wonderful and there's no problems and all that, but how many of you today would choose to focus on the Lord of the promise rather than on the problems of a people? Let's just, let's look at him today. Let's recognize that someone around you didn't get a shower this morning or that you know that there are people here and certainly people in the body at large that just haven't lived up to expectations and all that, and I know that and I'm one of them, but beloved, we serve a living God, and I believe the only thing that limits us today, the only thing that limits us from embracing something far beyond what we've seen is our faith. It's our faith because faith opens the door to the channel of God's transformation, and he can take care of your funny little quirks and the little things that you do wrong that I don't like and a lot of things that I do wrong that you don't like, no, that I do wrong that you don't like. He can take care of us, do you believe that? How many of you know you leave conferences like this and it isn't long before you hit reality? I saw the sun for six days, and we were cruising along in the airplane, 37,000, I said, boy, this is terrific, it was 65 every day, we didn't get out much except that we could see it from the conference. We got over Pittsburgh and said, now, prepare for your descent, and we got into the clouds. It was 30 minutes descending through clouds. I'm serious, we didn't, you know, and of course we landed in a sleep in the rain, I said, God, thank you, thank you for this, you know, this, yeah, I said, where is that glory, yes. Oh, and people, listen, there is in my heart just a confidence that God's not limited by anything external, he's not limited by any place that we've been, he's only limited by what faith we'll release today. That's the only thing that holds him back, and I'm just excited to share with you a few of these things. We have a rather extensive outline I'd like you to have right now. Okay, Paul, you want to grab a hand here, and it should be two sheets. Yep, that's the first one. We just need sheet number one for right now, and while they're doing that, let me get organized here for a moment, look with me at Joshua for just a moment as a basis for what we're going to share here, and then we're going to go on. Some of you are newer in the Lord, I'm glad anyone that came today, even if you don't feel like you belong in a leadership meeting, you belong here if you want to be here, and unfortunately, I think if anything, we should have made that a little more clear to the whole body. You know, leadership is very much a matter of desire. The Lord is teaching us how to help you prepare for that, but if you have a desire to be here, you're in the right place. Joshua, the fifth chapter, I want us to look at something that characterizes the people of God, the people of God. How many of you know that the Israelites are a foreshadowing of the church? And we learn, now if you need some scriptural basis of this, in 1 Corinthians, the tenth chapter, it says, things of old were given as instruction to teach us, and types and shadows, and so that's what we need to remember. This teaches us how people learn under the hand of God, and there's much instruction that's given right here for us. And I want you to see what took place after the people of God had come out of the bondage of Egypt, which is a picture, of course, of what? What's a picture, what is that foreshadow? Being redeemed, coming out of the bondage of slavery to sin and death. So the people have been redeemed from Pharaoh, they've come out, they've had a few victories at Meribah, Meribah some would say, and there's been different places where they've seen the hand of God change the bitter to the sweet water. They've overcome a few enemies along the way. Now they come to Gilgal, verse 2, the Bible says this, At that time the Lord said to Joshua, Make flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again the second time. So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibiath, Heroloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them, all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war died on the way in the wilderness after they'd come out of Egypt. Though all the people that had come out had been circumcised, yet all the people that were born on the way in the wilderness after they'd come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. A lot of the people that had been born as they'd been marching along had begun to lose sight of the covenant promise that had been given in Abraham. And there's a whole teaching on circumcision there that someday we probably need to go back and pick up. For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness. To all the nation the men of war that had come forth out of Egypt perished, because they did not hearken to the voice of the Lord. To them the Lord swore that he would not let them see the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land full of milk and honey. And so it was their children whom he'd raised up in their stead that Joshua circumcised, but they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way. And when the circumcising of all the nation was done, they remained in their places in the camp till they were healed. And the Lord said to Joshua, this day have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. And so the name of that place is called Gilgal of this day. And while the people of Israel were encamped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, that evening in the plains of Jericho. And on the morrow after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. Look at verse twelve. And the manna ceased on the morrow. And when they ate of the produce of the land, the people of Israel had manna no more, but ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. This particular passage marks a major transition in the provision of God for his people. For forty years they'd wandered and survived in the wilderness by God supplying to them what? Manna. Manna. That little omer of bread that came down, a little cake. No one really knew exactly what it was. Obviously never seen it since then. But that's what they ate. That's what came out every day, six days a week. God said there's a time now that I'm going to change how I'm dealing with you and what I'm going to provide for you and how you're going to receive it. And it began this way. It began by the people realizing that they'd ended one era and they'd begun a new one. Look back in Joshua chapter one. The Lord said to Joshua, verse two, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise and go over this Jordan. You and all these people in the land which I'm giving to them, to the people of Israel. You see, brothers and sisters, there was a time when the people realized that what had led them, what had taken them, what had gotten them along was over. And now they needed to be open to a new way of God leading. And I just want to say to you today, we will soon be marking our fifth anniversary. It was about five years ago almost to the day that a handful of us met in J. Dawson's basement out in Cranberry and had a wonderful day of seeking the Lord and laying some initial prayer foundations together. But God in his sovereignty has moved us in directions we never had foreseen and brought us to a point where we are today. And he's given us much insight and he's provided much manna. And by that I mean he's been very sovereign and gracious in supplying wisdom for us in ways that we've needed it. He's given us this building. He's given us so many of you as new people to our midst. And he's been about the business of just dropping things into our lap, as it were, when we really didn't even deserve it. Faithful is God to supply. But I want to say to you that I believe in my heart today that God wants us to be open to him changing the way that we receive and what he's going to do with us. And I believe the day is soon going to be upon us when we're going to see the Lord do some things that are just going to boggle our minds. The people of Israel had come to be very comfortable with coming out in the morning and getting their manna together, piling it up and saying, isn't this great? But a change came. And that's what's going to be happening with us. And I want us to see what I believe have been some of the main foundational things that God has supplied that, in effect, we are now just to move on with. In other words, not leave behind, but just to implant down in us as part of who we are. These are things that I saw based on this conference from people all around the country. These are things that I can share with you have been the manna of God to us. Things that God's just given us that are consistent with what he's doing all around the country. And what I'm saying is, it's a blessing, isn't it? How many of you know what it's like to get up in the airplane and be able to see 60, 80 miles? Isn't that about what you can see from up there? You can see at least 50, I know that. And you get up and you get a perspective. When you're down on the ground, skyscrapers look unbelievable. When you get up in the plane, they're just little dots down there. Perspective is a big, big thing. That's why it's so good to get away every once in a while, isn't it? How many of you have been away from here and then come back appreciating it? It's good. If you're having a real problem right now, go visit somebody else for a while. If it's a whole lot better, then praise God. You can ask him to move you out there or whatever. But let me share with you the perspective that I threw. Now listen, not just, well, this is what God's doing with me. But through the prophetic word, which is very strong, strong prophetic word. These are the things on your blue sheet. Just want to jot them down and Paul's going to do an overhead as we go down. This is part of the manna that God's just been pouring out on us over the last years. And particularly, I guess, confirmed more than ever in 1985. The first one is the foundation of everything that God is doing in power in these days is prayer. I want to tell you, you don't know how exciting it was for me to sit there and hear different people share about their prayer ministry and how God has stirred them in prayer. And realize, now listen, beloved, those of us that are getting up to pray in the morning, whether it's here in the building or in your own home, you are part of a movement of the Holy Spirit. There are pockets of people all around the country that are quickening to that call right now that were never there before or were in such disjointed fashion that they had no sense of the identity of a movement of God. And I really believe that this has come because of what's happened in such great power over in Korea. I think, you know, any way you want to cut it, that thing that's happening in Korea where people are caught up in prayer. I mean, we're talking about once a week, all night prayer meetings, we're talking about every church, listen, every church is opening its doors between 4.30 and 5 o'clock in the morning to pray. And I believe that's, and they're praying for us, I know that. There's intercession for this country and I believe the Holy Spirit's starting to draw people. Just getting us alive. My sense is that prayer is what God is requiring of his people in order to get in touch with the flow of his Spirit. Now, you're saying, well, I was part of movements before where, you know, they prayed but they didn't pray like that. And I say, praise God for that manner. But the day is upon us when prayer, we are, without prayer, we're going to stay right where we are. With prayer, there is no limitation to what God wants to do with his people. And I want you right now to jot down something that I believe in God has put in my heart. And I want you to start confidentially, just the hundred or so of you that are here this morning, to pray with me about it. Would you consider praying with me about the possibility of leading a call to pray to the churches of this city? Leading a call to pray to the believing churches of this city. This isn't something that someone asked me to do or something. Let me just tell you what happened as part of this experience. I had a chance to, you know, when I go on these trips, I figure, Lord, I have five days to do everything that's out there to do. And I called the church that I described before that had grown in the last 18 months by 6,000 members. And I said, is there someone, is there an elder or someone there that I can talk to about your prayer ministry? And this was the one on the other side of Dallas. It was about 65 miles from where we were. And the secretary was really gracious. Now listen, you got to get this right. This was Monday of this week. And I said, I'll be in town. How about tomorrow, New Year's Eve? Figuring, you know, that was the best day for me because we didn't have seminars in the afternoon. And she said, well, we have a pastor of prayer. Oh, what does he do? He leads the prayer ministry. Turns out that this man of God, some seven years before, had been praying in this little town outside of Dallas called Rockwell, Texas. And a young pastor, 29 years old, showed up in town and said, I heard that you know how to pray. Would you teach me how to pray? They started praying together, just the two of them. Quarter of five in the morning, they'd meet, pray for two hours. And that young pastor now is the pastor of this church of nearly 8,000 members. And this man of God, 60-year-old man of God, taught him how to pray. Every morning. Well, that was the man we got to sit down and talk to. Now, he didn't sit there like six inches off his seat. He didn't walk on water to get over to me. He was a normal guy. But he had a conviction that prayer was at the core of what God was doing in a sovereign move. They're building a sanctuary that seats 12,000 people. Why? Because God told them not to limit his harvest. And I asked him some of the things about it. You know what he said? It was so encouraging to me. He said, you know, it's a struggle for us. A lot of our people think they should pray, but it's hard. And he shared the same things that many of you have said to me over the years. Well, I'd like to be there, but I've got to get to work. Or, well, you know, I've been to that and it's not all that great. And all these different things. They don't show up and have healings all the time. And words of knowledge and prophecy and visions. Some days they do. Just like some days we do. But they just come before God with faith and he's growing them up together. And he's making it happen. And he's bringing them alive. And it was a touching thing to my heart. Let me just share this and then we'll move on. To see the leader of this Maranatha Christian movement. I'll tell you, this guy, you talk about energy. I used to think, and many of you think, that I have too much energy to be too much good to people. I mean, if you're around and you feel like I get... It's just Jay. He likes to get in early and go home late. This guy was unbelievable. I mean, I... He walks around and I... I'm not exaggerating. He says, well, he is. Constantly. And he's a, you know, just a real energetic and dynamic kind of person. To hear him stand up and say, you know, we had a call to pray a year ago. And I said I was going to do it and I haven't done it. And to see him repent in front of 3,500 people. And I don't believe for a minute, I don't believe it was just for show. I think God convicted him. And many of you sitting here today have heard the call to pray. And you've tried and you've failed. Or you've tried and you've been partially successful. And I'm just saying to you today, the foundation of prayer is going to be the thing that enables us to rise into what God has for us. And I'm asking all of you here today, as leaders in your ministries, to call upon the grace of God to give you a renewed heart to pray for 1986. To ask God to give you the desire to be up. To lay aside the desire to stay up the night before. So that you can be here to pray. And one of the things I want to ask you, anyone here today, if you have some suggestions, ways that you've found are helping you to pray, or maybe there's an alternative to being here that you've discovered. All I know is, if one can put 1,000 to flight, and two can put 10,000 to flight, what can 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 do that are together to pray? I know we need that communion with God, but we need to be together. And so if you have suggestions, I'm open to it. You can get a sheet of paper and hand it in or talk to me afterwards. But beloved, we're going to pray. And we're going to be part of a network of people that are praying. And how many of you would just say, okay, I'll agree to pray with you about leading this city to a call to pray. The number two thing that the Lord has made alive that I'm really excited about. What I heard and what I saw and what was confirmed in my spirit was the centrality of worship. The centrality of worship. A stream that you see in every church that is beginning to rise up and the fullness of God's purpose in it is the intentionality of the people to learn to worship God in a way that his word describes. And one of the things that I so appreciate about many of you is you've come here to North Way and you've had to lay aside the thing that made you comfortable for 25 or 30 years. And I know that's not been easy. Some of the churches that, many of these churches at Maranatha that were described, these are younger people. These are people in their 20s, some in their 30s, but very few in their 50s and 60s. And I want you to know it's a little bit just threatening to be the senior citizen in a conference. You know? 38 and gosh. That's right. I know how you feel now, right, Rob? No. That's right. I have a lot more compassion for you, Ken. I'll cut out the jokes, Roy. I know. I know exactly how you feel. Really, it was true. It was really true that we were definitely in the upper 20 percent age-wise, but the important thing about worship, the important thing that I heard over and over again, listen, is that worship is the way that we keep our hearts soft. What was the thing that Jesus said to the church at Ephesus? They'd done things right. They'd learned to overcome in lots of ways, but what did they end up losing in Revelation chapter 2? Their first love. And worship is the way that God has given us just to renew that first love. There's been different criticisms here and there about things, and we're sensitive to the fact that we've not arrived. But I want you to know, can I say this in all honesty, and I believe with objectivity, many, many of the truths that God has quickened in the body of Christ about worship, expression, listen, dance, exuberant, celebrative praise, and quiet, gentle communion and worship, all of these things, he is just quickening to congregations all around the country. I mean, I want you to know, Carrie, I saw you here this morning. To sit down, and we walked in. Another characteristic about this thing was really something. They started, when the meeting started at 6, 6 o'clock, the first meeting was Sunday night. We got there at 6.03, walked in the door. There was nobody, not one person out in the foyer, 3,500 people there. I mean, the usher was there, and I said, time to start. He looked at me, it's 6 o'clock. Oh, 6.03, okay. Walked in, and they had already started. They had 62 nations represented. And they had flags from all these nations. And to see these people carrying their flags, and then the dancers in procession before them, and the praise of God. I mean, it's such a picture that you see it all through the Old Testament. Coming up to Jerusalem in a festive, celebrative fashion. I'll tell you, it was stirring. It was stirring. And to know that we're not just doing this little thing here that's cute. We're not just into some way to try to get some frustration out from someone who never made it in dance school. We're here because the Word of God tells us to sing and to clap and to dance and to shout. And we're not just some Pentecostal fringe group, beloved. You know, I'm so relieved about that. Aren't you? I can look at myself and realize that I'm part of the stream of God. And there are a lot of people that are swimming in that stream. And we're going up together. And it's been another beautiful thing that I'm seeing. How many of you have had some exposure to the covenant churches? Charles Simpson, Bob Mumford. How many? You can go ahead and confess that. That's all right. That stream is now being woven into what's known as the restoration stream of churches, which is being woven into the faith churches, which is being woven into the kingdom churches, which is being woven into the covenant, the charismatic movement as a whole that we knew in the old denominations. And all these different movements are getting woven. And see, to me, it was very significant to hear that. To hear speakers from all those emphases together, the four square emphases. See, we're part of that. We're part of it together. And my spirit just quickens and says, God, thank you that we're not... How many of you feel something? We're pretty much alone out here. The Lord showed me in my heart. We can either let our uniqueness be something that we're sort of apologetic about. Well, yeah, we're a little different there. Or something we can capitalize on. And let people know, yeah, we're part of a great movement of God that's happening all around the earth. And he has somehow uniquely placed us here in the North Hills to be that representation to our city. And so, the centrality of worship to keep our hearts soft and to grow together in that dimension, I'll tell you what. I don't know how many conferences years ago I'd go to. Presbyterian conferences. And I'd go to charismatic conferences. I'd go to Duquesne or, you know, I'd go to... At that time it was called the Presbyterian Charismatic Communion. And I'd worship God and I'd go and I'd say, you know, I'm going to go home now and somehow I'm done with that. And do you know how just exhilarating it is to get on the plane and know I'm going to go home and pick right up where I left off? To come together, to see you raise your hands, call unto God, and I want you to just ask God, Lord, would you just take that part of the cork that's still stuck in me out? Would you? Some of you are blowing a whistle with half a cork in. God's saying, hey, just let it come out. Let it just flow out. When we're together, we have an audience of one. Amen? And that's the one I want to please is we learn to worship Him together. All right, let's go on, number three. Another ingredient of man that God's given us has been our openness toward healing signs and wonders. And not just healing signs and wonders that a person with a particular gift of healing has come up and displayed. Mario Rivera is one of the first to come and say, don't look at me. God wants you to be moving in this way. John Wimber. It's virtually impossible to get John Wimber to come to your church now and do a seminar. That's how much exposure God's given him around the country. And he was here nearly two years ago to bring us as a people. How many of you were able to get to that conference? But I've discovered, and I'll just confess this to you, that it takes effort just to keep moving in that when you don't always see the miracle signs and wonder. You know what I'm saying? I pray for the brother, but he's still the same, or whatever. But beloved, all around the country and around the earth, God's confirming that that is an ingredient, a dimension of life that He is just pouring out to people. We sat in this church called Word of Faith Church. This is the one I wandered into on Sunday morning. You know why I found it? This is strange. I found it because I saw billboards all around the freeway. I saw the billboard and I finally said, well, God, I asked for a sign. So we ended up in this church. This is the one that I've referred to on different occasions that approaches their evangelism through what's the success in life. I've commented about how I feel about that. So it was good for me to go to this church and watch them. They exalt the Lord Jesus. Now, it's really a production. In terms of being televised, it's a live satellite transmission. I just couldn't conceive of going to church and watching a TV screen as my main event, but that's what they're doing. One of the characteristics about the church that was really exciting to me is you walk in and they have a balcony. We were able to sit out in the open area. To look across, let's do it this way. This was the stage area. We were sitting over there. Along the walls of the balcony, on this side and that side, were probably 80 or 90, maybe 60 or 70 sets of crutches, braces, and all kinds of implements and things that had been rendered useless because of the healing power of God. Just to see them attached to the front of the balcony as a testimony to God's grace. Part of decoration right there among the wreaths were crutches and stuff. You see, the power of God is so much a mark of what God's doing right now. Let me say this to you. What we heard, and I believe this is right, the more churches are reaching out, the more of a demonstration of power they're seeing. Mark that. The more they're reaching out in evangelism, the more power God is releasing. I believe if you read the scriptures, that's very consistent, isn't it? When did Jesus say you'd see the signs following? In Mark 16. What did he say? He said, you go out and preach in my name and these signs shall follow them that believe. You see, one of the mistakes that we can get into is making signs, wonders, and miracles a thing in themselves. Hey, we've got this new little thing. But God's given us an openness, he's given us faith, he's given us a number of folks who have a real burden and heart, counseling ministry, so appreciate what Fred and John have done to open people up to believe God to make transformation. Many of you here, I don't want to leave anyone out, but many of you here have made such a contribution to believe in God in that area. Alright, number four and the last two I'm just going to do quickly. Another thing that I see that God's given us as man that we've seen and walked in, that God's calling the entire church to move in ministry. The releasing, and I'll use this word, equipping and releasing if you want to, equipping and releasing of the entire church. Now beloved, it's one thing to have a few captains and lieutenants who are seeing God do great things. And we all get excited about it and we all love to hear the testimonies come in of what God did through this brother, that brother. But it's another thing all together, it's another whole dimension higher to me, to see an entire body of people moving as a unit together in the things that God's given us. One of the things that I'm increasingly excited about concerning where we're going is that each home group now is beginning to set in place the elements of life that will cause the entire group to enter in to what God's giving them to do. We're seeing giving Jack and others some insight into how to raise up specific leaders who are going to have responsibilities for outreach and for worship. And if you don't know this, I just want to share today that we are encouraging Carl and Bonnie and even supporting them to some small degree to start out in their ministry of equipping you to develop outreach and evangelism in your home groups. We know that Carl has such a gift from God in evangelism and we know that the home groups need that vision, they need that encouragement, they need that equipping. And so we're saying, Carl, in the little time that you have left right now, go after that. And he and Jack are going to develop strategies to help you home group leaders to develop your own strategy and concept and equipping and enabling to be effective in outreach. I'll tell you, I just believe that that's one step among many to releasing the entire unit. How many of you were in the service? You were? How'd they let you in there? Is that what we're saying? What'd you do with people that didn't carry their weight in your platoon? No, you didn't shoot them. What are you talking about? They got an awful lot of grief. Now, it's one thing in peacetime, isn't it? It's amazing what you put up with in peacetime. It's no big deal if the ammo doesn't get there right on time for an exercise out at the old rifle range. Get a little yelling and hollering and shouting and stomping, but it's not going to hurt anybody. But what if the ammo doesn't get there in the middle of a firefight? Well, then there's trouble because life is on the line. And I just believe that what God is saying to us is that everyone is making a contribution. And I want you to know, very specifically, I see many of you who don't necessarily feel like you have a frontline ministry. Now, in this group, most of you do. But maybe your ministry's a little more behind the scenes. Maybe you're more of a supportive role. Increasingly I see that as being something that's so important in enabling others to