Christmas in Community III, Hope Lives Here

I have to share with you that arrangement has a special place in my heart. Even as it was being played again, I choked up a little bit more. Jeff wrote that, not at my request, just at the prompting of the Holy Spirit for my son's wedding. And that was the recessional that they played when Stephanie and Jonathan were married a little over a month ago. And her middle name is Joy. So that's, I guess, the Lord disconnected. Anyhow, what a great gift to us as a church to have people that are committed and gifted like that. And I hope that you'll just walk out of here just so intent on sharing this gift that we have with others. I know that as we look at the next week, I'm sure we have a million reasons why we could be busy. But what more important moment can we have when we gather together to honor the birth of Jesus? And you know we're going to be prayerfully preparing. And in your notes, I think it's pretty well stated in there. If not, there's all kinds of places to talk about. There's six Christmas Eve events. They're all going to be the same. They're all going to have the same elements and ingredients, the same message, although J.R. and I are going to share that at different times. And I don't want you to tell what times J.R. is sharing. It's... No one will come. No, no. I mean, it's probably the opposite actually. They'll pile that one up. But there they are. Those are the six. And we already understand that the Thursday is almost full, which is great because a lot of folks who might be going out of town said, well, I don't want to miss the Christmas Eve events if I come to that service. And then the following, we know Friday, we know Saturday is almost full. So that leaves Sunday really, actually of all things, the most wide open. But that's the one when most people are going to say, well, where are we going to church tonight? That's right. The non-church people. So please, aren't there tickets still out there? Pick up a ticket. A ticket is... You don't need a ticket to get in. It's just a way for people to be... Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, let's try that church. And especially if you call them that day and say, hey, you want to join us tonight? We'll make room. We'll have different overflow areas and we'll have plenty of room. And it's going to be an awesome experience. Parts like this that are just a little more traditional and parts that are creative. But listen, when people leave, they're going to remember one thing. That Jesus came as a baby, but he also came as a Savior. And that's our message this Christmas. It's going to be really powerful. Now, as part of that... Yep. Like we said last week, it takes about 100 people to pull off these services. So what we're asking is not only that you come and receive a service with some of your friends and families. And I really want to encourage that one piece. As you walk out today, you can stop at the tables that are in the lobby and get these tickets that are for us. They've created space so that we know who's coming where. But for you, they're very much a tool to invite people to these services. These are services you're going to want to invite people to. Maddie and I went on a walk and kind of surfaced the neighborhood this past week and invited all of our neighbors and friends. And I've got to say, it's really a powerful thing to be able to be certain that as you're handing that ticket away, I'm like, I'm positive that if you come to this service, it will start your Christmas in just an awesome way. But in order to do that, we also need you to serve. Right now, we have about 300 people serving. So we need another 300. It's 100 per service. So on your way out, what we're asking for, and you'll notice in your notes today, there's a very clear piece of paper that you can fill out that will say, Yes, I will serve. Yes, my family and I will serve. And so just please do that. Take one and give one. Just come with your family and serve in the nursery or as an usher or greeter, as parkers, all sorts of things. Although I would say the parking lot duty is not for the faint of heart. So I would only do that if you really want to serve God. Then I would go to the kids. And then from there, it kind of goes downhill. It's a lot easier. But only do the parking lot if you really, really feel like God has a calling on your life. The other thing that we'd like you to do is, in the notes today, actually, Pastor Mike Arnold worked on creating a devotional for you. You'll notice that we've made a decision this Christmas weekend to focus on our evening services. You know, this is not an easy thing to do. Typically, we would have Sunday morning services. And Jay and I prayed through this. And man, what do we do? We've got Sunday morning, and it's on Christmas Eve. Dilemma. Do we have eight services in one day? Boy, that would be great. You know, our wives would love us. Or do we focus on the Christmas Eve services in the evening? Because we're certain that's when people want to come to church. And then give you a tool that you can do church at home with your families. Pastor Mike Arnold wrote this devotional. It's in your notes. It's called The Gift. And what we're hoping you'll do is take that home. And on Christmas Eve morning, lead your family in a devotional. That way, we're all sort of studying and getting ready for the gift that night. So that's what we'd encourage you to do this Christmas. Excellent. Excellent. One last thing. How many of you are praying for a white Christmas? Yeah, I've got to know. Especially because I'll be in Florida. Hope you guys get nailed with snow. The Holy Spirit is working against you. If you just raise your hand. I've got the intercessors praying against any snow. Forget about Christmas Eve services. He's praying for no snow. Monday, we could have 40 inches. It wouldn't matter. That's right. I can't begin to describe to you how much better it makes things for everything if we don't have snow to plow through and salt. And it might be all like really sort of so, you know, kind of warm and fuzzy and sentimental to see white flakes. But it's a pain. So far, so good. All right. I've got to say, this is clearly one of the established generations things, you know, like as the emerging generation, we haven't been around long enough to really hate snow yet. But, man, you really don't like snow. I'm just saying. You have this thing against it. It's like a personal vendetta against snow. God did make snow, too. I'm just saying. It's from him. The day you stand up here and look out and there's 40 people there, you're going to say, I hate snow. And then I'm like, what are we going to do with the budget? Oh, no. That's what it is. I know. All right. Well, we wanted today to continue in this series on the compassion of Christ in community, Christmas in community, and specifically through the lens of God's compassion towards us. I mean, he cared enough to send his son, and compassion drives the spirit of the Christmas season. I don't know what it is. This year, we've commented on this. It just does seem, and I concur with what J.R. said a few weeks ago, more radio stations, more advertising, just there's more out there media-wise that's reminding us. I think J.R. put his finger on it. People want to hear something of hope. They want to know that there's more going on in the world than potential chaos and bombs and avian bird flu and all the rest of this stuff that could wipe us out. It's been awesome to be looking at these things. Last week, we talked about joy, and I took a topic that I thought really would be sort of like a, and many of you said how much it helps you just to bring some anticipation to your season. Today, we want to talk about hope, hope in the Christmas season. And I venture to say that there's not a person in the room today or listening by CD or online that doesn't have some area in your life where you say, I've got to come face-to-face with the reality that this isn't where I want it to be. I've been anticipating something. I'm hoping it'll happen. Maybe you're hoping that something in your family dynamics that have always been difficult at Christmas will change this Christmas. Maybe you're hoping that some of the financial stress that's kept you from ever having really the kind of Christmas that you'd love to just be able to lavish on. Maybe that will change this year. Maybe it has to do with just some physical things that keep you from being able to get out. It's just a myriad of things. Back in the times of Scripture, the Jews were longing for, they were longing for the coming of the Messiah. Their hope was that God was going to send a Messiah who would deliver them from the oppression of the Romans and those who preceded them. In your notes, if you'll take your own, we want to read the context today for how we're going to share. And then we're going to share in a completely different way. This morning will be the most unusual message we've done in a long time. But I think you'll get a great amount of encouragement from it if you'll be able to tune in with us. I want to read the whole passage because if you don't get this, you may just miss the basis of why we're going to go the direction we're going to go. This is the continuation. Actually, I pick up exactly where I left off last week when we talked about Mary and Zechariah, I'm sorry, Zechariah and Elizabeth and their son or child that was to be born to them. Remember, the angel appeared and all that and they were overwhelmed and she was old and he was old and the baby wasn't and God did this thing and said, you're going to have this baby that's going to come and he's going to prepare the way of the Lord. Now, here's what happened six months later. And there's just a little misprint here, so don't be thrown off. I want you to read out loud with me because I want to declare God's Word together. It'll be up on the screen. In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. Well, the angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Every time you see the word favor is the word charas, from which we get charismatic. It's the word for grace, highly favored. Friends, if you have opened your heart to Christ, you are highly favored. I want you to not miss that. This isn't just for one. This is for anyone who knows Christ. Let's go on. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. And right there you have to understand that even though Mary was likely 14 or 15 years old, she knew that there was only one individual that this angel could be talking about. This was the Messiah. Only the Messiah had been prophesied to rule over the house of David forever. Listen, we saw these young people up here for which I was really grateful today. Imagine one of these young people. That's how old, at best, Mary was. To have an angel appear and say, You're carrying the Messiah, the hope of the nation of Israel, the people who've wandered and sojourned. Imagine. I mean, we read this little story like, Well, yeah, that was cool. No, it was an overwhelming experience. Mary asks an obvious question. How will this be? Mary asked the angel since I'm a virgin. Let's all read verse 35. Let's read it together. The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God. Can we read that last line together? For nothing is impossible with God. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said. And the angel left her. Remember my last point last week was, What's the posture of faith that receives from God? It's faith that grasps or seizes the word or promise of God. Notice that Mary said, Well, I'm the Lord's servant. Be it unto me as you've said. And friends, as we end this message today, and whatever you hold on to, I want you to walk out of here and say, Lord, let that be for me as you have said. I receive it for me. This is the power of preaching the Bible and sharing truth from God's word. It's not just made up ideas. It's the power of God unto you. And what we're going to share today is really unusual. The way we're going to do it, I guess, is the most unusual part of it. Now, the true confessions. How many of you have heard of this story or the program, I should say, that Oprah Winfrey does right around Christmas season called My Favorite Things. It's a program that comes out at 4 o'clock. How many of you have seen that show, at least once, called My Favorite Things? All right, five or six guys put their hands up. Lots of women did. I heard, by the way, last night for the first time that this year they didn't do that program because I guess so many people complained because they didn't get picked or whatever. But what it was up until this last year was that Oprah would select 12 or 15 of the items that she had discovered that year that were the coolest, the newest, the hippest, the most desirable things that she had come across and said, Wow, that's my... And they'd be face creams from the Dead Sea or they'd be notebook computers that used biotechnology to work or 42-inch flat-screen TVs that came out of your bathroom wall. I mean, I think two years ago they gave away Pontiac G6 cars and every member of the audience got one of those things. So they went ballistic. So guess what you're going to get? You're going to get something better than my notebook computer. We want to share with you for the next few moments, JR and I, just some of our favorite things that brought hope into our hearts through you by God's grace in this past year. And friends, listen now. Here's why it's important. One of these things, if you lay hold of it and grab it as your own and say, Lord, I see that beat unto me, just one of those seeds of hope in your life can do more to transform your life and the people around you than any gift, any piece of material or any hardware or technology or even car could ever change your life because it's reality at work in you. And so with that as a backdrop, I want to share with you one of my favorite things of 2006. And there were so many. And when we talked about this, it really was an idea that we just came up with this week as we were kind of, it was my week to have the message. But I thought, you know, so much has happened. I cannot remember a more eventful year. But one of the things that brought me to the brink of hopelessness was a little over a year ago, I went down in anticipation of our 25th anniversary. And I had been sharing with the team that I knew that 25 years was a milestone, but we wouldn't just celebrate and clap and then say, now, great, let's keep doing what we're doing. But it was time to vision cast for the future. I went down and visited with Mayor Tom Murphy and his senior executive. And this was just before he moved along. He said he passed away, which was the case. He lost the election, although he might have felt like he passed away, but he lost the election or didn't run or whatever. But the point was that the mayor graciously, and I've had a relationship off and on with him, not a close one, but I've known him over the years, does not warm up much to the idea of a suburban church coming in and doing a little bit of good and then running back out again. In fact, Mayor Murphy, one of the things to his credit, lived right in the city. And he looked at me and he thought back and forth. He said, you know, the area in our city that I'm most concerned about is the plight of the inner city schools. He said, the inner city school children really don't have a chance of making it. Less than 50% graduate. I don't know if you saw it today or this week, a matter of fact, and I couldn't track down whether it was the new mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, or the new superintendent, Tom Roosevelt, I think his name, Mark Roosevelt, who one of the two of them had proposed that if a child graduated from high school that the city would guarantee them a college education. I mean, as an incentive. But it gives you an idea how desperate we are to help these children get through the basic elemental parts of education. And then I came to discover, J.R. picked up on this right away and handed me a powerful book called The Shame of a Nation. And the fact that this is a secret that we suburbanites are just sort of clueless to is that all around the nation, the inner city school children are not making it through school. And I started talking to my pastor friends in Tampa and Cleveland and out west and in Dallas and every place I talk to someone, the same story. The inner city school kids are being forgotten. They're being overlooked. They end up in gangs. They end up in trouble. They end up in jail. Their lives get derailed before they ever get out of school. And I came back and I was burdened to my heart. And this is where the hopelessness came. What could we do? One church. And that's when God, you see, God loves it when we get to the end of ourselves, doesn't he? When we say, Lord, I don't know what to do, but I think this is on your heart. And I made one phone call to one person that I knew that had a connection with the city. She happened to work for the mayor when I knew her. But when I called the mayor's office, I said, no, she left here a couple of years ago. She now works for the superintendent of schools. And I got a hold of Erica Jones. And I said, Erica, this is my desire. What could we do on an ongoing basis as a church to somehow influence this very difficult, imposing, almost overwhelming problem? And that's when, as you recall, if you were part of Church History, we talked about the LAMP initiative and how we would partner up with family guidance and train people to go into the city schools and either tutor or then, if you had more time, mentor or come alongside the staff and administration or maybe come in and use your skills to build or whatever, but to help a school begin to turn around. How many of you, I just don't want to embarrass you, but if you'd be kind enough to let us honor you, how many of you are part of that volunteer army now from Northwest that's going in on a regular basis? Would you just stand? We want to honor you and thank you for those of you in this service. Go ahead, if you're part of that, just stand all around the room. I know you're here. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 people that have been trained and about 40 or so on average go in every week. Every week. I went down six weeks ago with some of our team just to spend part of the day. Friends, to walk into the Helen Fajan School, it's a very lovely school on the outside. It's newer than most schools out here. I walked in, but it's hard to describe when I watched third and fourth graders run up to the volunteers and grab them and hug them. I watched the teachers, not protecting their turf, but literally warm handshakes, sometimes even a little hug, thanking them. You know what I heard several teachers say to me? They said, we thought you'd come for a few weeks or maybe a month or two, but we never thought you'd come back at the end of the summer and start over again. No one ever did that before. And now we've expanded, not just in the elementary school, but we're at the Helen Fajan Intermediate School, which is a whole other ball game. And suddenly these little cute third and fourth graders are pretty big, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders who have a different vocabulary and a different set of clothes and a different set of communication and so on. And we've got some a little more, what's the word, toughened maybe and savvy young adults and adults going into that middle school every week. I don't know if you read this last couple of weeks, there's been some outbreaks of some violence there. One of my favorite things of 2006 has been to see you as a church step into what was really given up as an almost hopeless situation. And now not just North Way, but five churches from our area, Allison Park Assembly, Victory Christian, two other ones just skipping my mind around, but five churches now are part of this move. And here's our prayer goal over the next five years that every city school have a suburban church that will adopt it and love it to wholeness. That's one of my favorite things of this year. Amen. That's awesome. Rachel and I were talking on the way back from Thanksgiving. We were visiting her family in Illinois and we were talking about our year. And one of the things that we'll try to do every year from about Thanksgiving to New Year's, we just sort of begin this process of evaluating. Just sort of asking the question, how did the year go? What are the lessons that we learned? What are some things we shouldn't do next year? What are some things that God really did for us? And just sort of try to slow down as best as possible and just thank God for the work that he's done. And one statement in particular, Jay and Carol know this really well and some other people that are close to us on staff, but none of our family is here. And so one thing that is true for us is we constantly sort of live in tension as a family. And coming back is usually, if you've ever been away from family, you know what this is like. You get in the car and I've learned to handle it better than I first did. I mean, the first time that I got in the car and we left her parents behind and she was crying, I was like, what's wrong with you? You know, like, because that's a very sensitive thing to say to your wife. And seriously, guys, you should do that. It works really well. You know, because as guys, we're kind of like, we're ready to get in the car and go away. But the girls, that's not the case. And, but I've learned to just quietly be quiet as she, the tears are in her eyes as she thinks about the fact that we're sort of coming back here and family is there. But she said something this time that was totally different, totally different than anything she'd ever said before. She said, gosh, if we could just move North Way closer to family or move North Way or move family closer to North Way, that would be perfect. Because definitely one of the things that's been our favorite this year has been you. If it's a thousand stories of how God is using you, it's one story that just changes our day. Most recently, my wife told me of a story that the Mops group did. It's mothers of preschoolers. It's a group that she is part of. She goes to it every week, every other week, something like that. And they found out about this family that was in need. And that's actually one of the, probably the harder things about being in a church full time. You know, you, sometimes it's overwhelming all of the needs that you hear about, especially if it feels like we have to meet those needs. But the difference with this church, and I'm sure it's true of other churches, but definitely at this church, is that we don't feel the need to meet all of those needs. Because we know you will. This Mops group heard about this husband who was in an accident, so therefore couldn't work anymore. And so they decided to do something about it. The wife had to go back to work and work two jobs. And so basically Christmas was not even remotely an option. They were just gonna, they were barely surviving. And so this Mops group decided we're gonna do something about it. And from what I understand, it was actually spearheaded by another one of my favorite stories of the year. It was in the middle of the year, I actually was able to baptize a couple at the same exact time, a couple who has found Jesus in the last three years. And their whole life is different because of this church. I'll never forget the letter I got from her father thanking me in tears. I could see the pages were wet, marked from his tears that his daughter's life had been changed. And now this young woman was leading the charge for this Mops group to meet this family's needs. So what they decided to do was to give each table of moms a chore, a list of gifts to go and get for one of the people in the family. And so one of the persons in the family. And so they did this and this young woman drove the car over to this mom's house just a couple of days ago and knocked on the door and said, we've got something for you. I'm a member of the Mops group at North Way. And she took her out to a car and popped open the trunk and the trunk was full of gifts, just full of gifts, like gas cards and toys for the kids and stuff for the dad. And she just started to weep, the young woman said. And she just started to sob. And she just looked at her and just said, you have no idea what this means. My kids get to have Christmas now. My husband didn't think we were going to be able to buy our kids gifts. From what I've heard, she's going to wait to show her husband on Christmas morning. Can you imagine what that will be like for him to come down those stairs? And it's because of your faithfulness as a church. And clearly it's God through you. But that's definitely, you are one of our favorite things this year. Yeah. On the other side of your outline, I give a definition of hope. Hope, biblical hope, is a confident expectation that the grace of God will be sufficient for all of my needs. If you're taking notes, you might want to just underline confident expectation. Hope expects that God sees and by His grace, His undeserved favor will meet your need. Let me share another place where I was despairing. I was in my own strength, running out of the sense that it would happen. This is back in the spring. Mike mentioned this has been a really exciting year, but it has been a very difficult year because I, friends, I have to confess to you, I underestimated how significant a change it was. When we celebrated the 25th anniversary, I didn't realize that what I was sharing with you was not expanding a campus. That's no big deal. It was about taking a church and mobilizing it into a whole city. And not all of you understood that. And you know, candidly, I didn't know that I fully understood what it meant. But when we shared the vision with you, we talked about church disturbed, meaning that the church was disturbed about the condition of so many people being outside of Christ and all the things we've talked about and not being living churches around the city and not meeting these. These were the kinds of things that we wanted to try to address. And we came to you and we said, we need your financial support to grow this campus, to meet... Have you looked around out here, by the way? Take five minutes after the service, instead of just bolting home, drive across the street and look at the 700 single-family dwellings that are going up, townhomes and single-family homes right across the street to supplement the 600 apartments that have just been built in the last few years. I mean, in our own backyard, a small town has been built. You know that? This is right here. And this is one of these amazing things that's happening. But I said, Lord, how is this going to happen? Because instead of there being a groundswell, there was just a lot of things going back and forth. And I remember, I'll never forget this moment. It's one of the two great moments etched in my mind about the kind of spirit in this church when it comes toward sacrificial caring and giving. It was on a Saturday night service. It was the night that we had said we were going to bring our pledge cards in for church disturbed. And we had had a good response, but not an overwhelming response. And some people were coming up and giving their cards. And then one woman, who I've known for a long time, this is one of the established generation people, who really has a pretty simple life. I think she has a basic job, maybe not much above a minimum wage kind of job. And she had shared that she didn't know what she could do. She said, what can I do to help a multi-million dollar thing like this? And she came forward and actually with the help of J.R. and a couple other younger guys brought this Pepsi bottle totally full of coins. I mean, it was packed. There's a few dollar bills here and there, but it was packed with coins. And with the date, 11-19-1999. So for six and some years, she's been saving just a little bit of change, popping it in here. And she said, this is all I have to give, but I want to give it to church disturbed. I remember, this thing was heavy, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. But it didn't take a couple guys. I did it on my own. I just want to make that clear. You say it took like three guys. No, it was awesome. I remember walking over and she had tears in her eyes as she stood up. And this was, it's so key, this was this woman's savings. Everything. For seven years. And she just said, you know what, I don't have a lot, but I got this Pepsi bottle full of change. And I remember whispering, I remember saying to her, ma'am, this is more than I'll ever be able to give in my life. I mean, this was awesome. It reminded me so much of what Jesus said. Remember what he said about the widow? Jesus watched, by the way, when people gave. I mean, he watches. And we put this up here. And I remember that scripture came to mind and Jesus said, you know, a lot of people think they're given because they write a check and give, you know, something with a zero or two on it. And this lady gave a couple of pennies and he said she gave more than all of them. Why? Because she gave all that she had. Well, that so inspired me that someone would care that much about the vision, about the future, about the next generation, really. She wasn't, this woman wasn't given anything, really for anything she was going to benefit from directly as much as she cared about that. It so lifted my heart. And then sort of as a follow up to that, the next day, another man came and worked his way from the back to the front to put his pledge card in the basket. And you've heard his story. He gave his testimony. This is Ed Burbeck. And I think we have a picture of Ed. I hope we do. Ed came and he told his story of how God had so stirred him to want to be part of the future of our church that he willingly left a very, very highly respected job as the chaplain of one of the major senior care centers here in Pittsburgh to join this church. Not to join this staff, not to have a job, but so that, because his, that denomination would not let him serve in that role and worship here. How sad is that? But that was what happened. He chose rather, basically, in essence, what he was doing, the way I interpret it. He's basically putting his life in the basket and saying, Lord, if you can use me. And I've been praying, and I hope you're praying for Ed to find that job that will meet his needs. Those two moments to see two people sacrifice everything gave me such hope that God was gonna meet all of our needs. They're two of my favorite moments, my favorite things of 2006. One of the reasons why I think Christmas and community, as Jay and I sort of talked about this, just these three weeks leading into Christmas, one of the reasons why Christmas and community resonated so deeply with him and I is because we firmly believe that in order to experience all that God has for us, we have to do it in community. We have to do it in relationship with each other, and that's both the good and the bad. I think that, you know, I don't wanna say it's easy, but it seems easier at least to be excited with each other, but it's a lot harder to come to this place and maybe mourn with each other, hurt with each other, even serve with each other, do the hard thing, maybe just say, you know what? There's a need here, and this is gonna cost us something. We're just gonna lean into this as a community, and I'm gonna kind of link arms with you and lean in. One of the things that we see from the stor