Clear Thinking About Our Future I

One thing I learned quite a while ago is if you just want to feel young, stay connected to young people. There's an energy and a life that's there and that's part of our mission as a church. To reach and empower the next generation. And we're going to miss these dancers, but we've got great ones coming along. I want to thank Matt Griffin for working with our... Matt, he's scooted out already, but Matt did a great job just leading that team. And there's lots going on with our young people here. They're going into a culture where the kinds of things that they face, folks, are far more extreme than what we faced, many of us, 25 years ago or so when we may have gone to school. So I want to support them and pray for them. By the way, we're going to keep connecting with our college students more aggressively this year. That's one of the things that we're committed to doing. And I have to say, a number of folks said, Gee, you seem like you've gone a long time this time. And I was gone a little longer than usual, two Sundays to be exact. And the reason was that because of the development of the property issues next door, which I'm going to talk about some later on today, I had to come back a number of times and that just sort of disconnected me. And then we had real families taping that happened at the end of July. And that was four or five concentrated days, again, in the middle of that study break time. And then we had two folks that went to be with the Lord and I had to come home and share in that experience with the family. So it just made it difficult. And it's very important for me to have focused time. And some people sort of jokingly, I think, and some people sort of seriously say, Well, how was your long vacation, Pastor Jay? And I say, Well, it really wasn't a vacation for this one reason. My wife doesn't go with me. Carol doesn't go with me for that time. I go to really focus on being with her. It's a vacation for her. She's like, phew, let's go. I don't have to worry about food. It really is a time that's coming. Sure, I have some recreational time and time to rest. And those are important things. How many of you remember the name H.B. London, James Dobson? Let's start there. Many of you know Dr. James Dobson. Well, his pastor and pastor that he has engaged to go around the nation encouraging pastors like those that serve you here at North Way. H.B. London was here in June. There was about 400 pastors from around the city that came. And I had some personal time with him. I asked H.B., I said, In your experience, what's the number one thing that pastors can do to sustain their long-term energy and focus and faithfulness? And he said, I've discovered over the years that it's making time to recharge and be alone with God. And you know what? All of us say, Well, I wish I could do that too. But I just will tell you, for my pastoral role, it gets really intense at times in the spiritual realm. And I just need that break. And I just so thank you for supporting me and allowing me the blessing of being away. But it's great to be back. And I'm so excited about the things that are happening. Lots of changes. I looked up here and it was like everyone up here, I mean, there are new faces and everybody's younger than I am. It's great. It's just kind of great, really. But I want to tell you about one special person. I was part of this process. It didn't surprise me. But it's really a blessing to be able to share it with you today. Someone asked me a while ago, How do you discern and determine who will be a pastor at North Way? Do they have to have certain theological criteria met? Do they have to get certain degrees? And there's a number of things that we look at. But ultimately, friends, in the New Testament, when a person was called, the Lord called them and the people confirmed them. And that's the way it happened. And here at North Way, I can point to a number of our pastoral team that we have raised up from within our local body. We watch their lives. We watch their ministry. We discern their fruitfulness. And we say, you know, that person has a call from God in their life. Well, the brother I'm going to bring up here on the platform right now has met that criteria. He came here five or so years ago. And he and his wife just came and they had full-time jobs. They were out in the marketplace working. And doing very well, I might add. And then as they got more and more engaged in the ministry, they were fruitful. They would meet new people. They created small group connections. They served people. They were available. And we just kind of sensed that after a period of time, we set Bob apart as an elder. And that fruitfulness just continued. And I'm delighted today to tell you that we've extended a pastoral call to Bob Zahn. Let's welcome Bob as he comes up. Hey, brother. Thank you. Now you don't know what to say now. Are you excited? I'm very excited. Very, very excited. Tell us why. I'm so excited because clearly in our hearts we know where God has called us a lot of times. And that completely keeps coming unfolded to us and clearer and clearer in the impressions and where our desires and our passions and our giftedness are. And I'm so thankful for his provision from the medical sales position I had for a number of years. We were involved in ministry at the same time, and it clearly was getting to where that was it. And that's where our heart is in getting to meet people like yourselves and welcoming you into this church family and getting to see you believe on Christ and belong to the family and then to grow and to become what God has all of us created to be uniquely that makes up this family. So I'm excited. Well, we're really, I mean, I have to tell you that Bob is devoted. And if you're new, he's the guy that's going to help you get connected. There's a process. There'll be a few months that will go on here. And Bob's already going to be serving in a directorship as we prepare to ordain him probably around the first of the year in the full-time pastoral ministry. And so we're looking forward to that. What's happening today at 1 o'clock? Yeah, 1 o'clock today we're having our discovery reception. For any of you that came through the August and summer classes that couldn't make it to the other ones at our house, we're going to have a reception for you to welcome you in, to celebrate, to encourage, and just thank the Lord for you coming in and how he's shaping this mission. I will be there, and I want to encourage you to come. If you didn't sign up, you usually have more than enough food. Sure. So stop at the welcome center. Again, if you've been through discovery and you haven't been, even if it was back in April and you didn't get to the reception, I would like the opportunity to meet you. That's when I get to meet you, look you in the eye and say, Aha, I put a name and a face together. Absolutely. And my home number, I'm leaving now, so it's not anything against your service. You might want to mention that your wife's not there. No, she's actually with a multi-generational bonding experience with her mother and my daughter having a little time away. So who's doing the preparation work at your house for the luncheon? Remember how you said there could be mistakes and grace and grace and grace? It's going to be fun, and it'll be well worth your effort. But my home number is 538-9500. If you all need directions, I'm heading there now. So we welcome you all. Okay, boss. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. First service, they've taken my name tag off. I figured that was a bad sign, so I went ahead and had another one made. There you go. We should all have our name tags. This really just helps us in our conversation. Well, I want to share the word with you this morning and ask you to take your outline out of your notes, and let's pray together. Lord, as we look at your word this morning, I am so encouraged that you have spoken not just principles, Lord, but eternal truth. Thank you that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then, Lord, you revealed yourself fully in the person of Jesus and then in this book that we might know you today. I pray that you'd open my heart, Lord, and my mouth to speak and open the hearts and the minds of these, your people, that you love so much. In Jesus' name. I want to talk today with you about the subject of some clear thinking, clear thinking about our future. I want to talk about what's going to be happening here at North Way in the coming weeks and months. And if you're a guest today, you pick a good Sunday to come because when you leave today, you're going to know what this church stands for, and you might look at each other and say, you know what, we sure don't fit here. But I want to underscore something about that. A lot of folks would say, when they first walked into this place, they weren't sure, but the longer they stayed here, the more they realized that there was a ring of truth and there was substance here that they needed in their lives. Look at the first sentence on the top of your outline. We are more likely to anticipate our future when we understand our past. Friends, one of the problems that some of us have is that we don't really know where we came from, so we don't know where we're going to. And I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about where we are going as a church, and to do that, I want to sort of fit in part of our past journey as well, because it really fits together. We need to celebrate the past. We're building on what has happened here. I need to underscore something. As I share some of these, what I'm calling, future casts, visions of the future, it's not going to be, for some of you, revolutionary and new, because you've been here a while, but for some of you, it's going to be things you haven't heard before. We've had a great foundation. We've had sacrificial servants throughout the life of this church, 19 and a half years, that have brought us to where we are, and we need to celebrate that. In a way, that's what anniversaries are for. That's what birthdays are for. That's what those special events are for. When you sit down and just celebrate accomplishments, you also affirm that you have a future, and you never know what it's going to be. On Friday evening, we had a high school graduation class reunion, and I wrestled with going or not, because you kind of know when you go, everyone's going to say, is he going to go through all that? This is a pretty long one now. I'm not even going to tell you how many it was. It's still double digits, I'll just tell you that. But one interesting thing happened. I had one conversation with a couple, I met them both, and they both had class badges on, so I realized, graduated with us together. I said, did you guys date in high school and just get married? They said, oh no. I said, well, how long have you been married? They said, eight years. I said, wow. I said, well, what's the story there? They said, well, we kind of liked each other in high school, but nothing ever happened. Went our separate ways, never got married. Came back for the 25th reunion. 25, no, several years before that. And we got married at that reunion. Shortly after that reunion, we ran into each other and said, you were the one all along. And for 25 years, they hadn't connected. But that 25th reunion became the reason for them to establish a new friendship and then a relationship, and I guess a year or two later they got married. I said, interesting. So what was meant to be a celebration of the past became a new beginning, and that's kind of what I want to do today. I want us to celebrate what we've done, but I also want to look and see where we're going in the future. Because we've been committed as a church from the outset to certain priorities, and you need to know these. And the very first thing I want to talk about, I've mentioned this many times before. If you've been here a while, you're going to hear me say something very important. Pastor Jack Hayford from the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, imparted this into my spirit many years ago. He said that Jesus Christ will not build his church on an emphasis. Listen, as valuable and important as an emphasis may be, I see them as being a corrective in the course of the journey of the life of a person and of a church, and not the foundation. You need to understand that. What am I talking about? Well, you see, over the years, churches have popped up around certain emphasis. For example, about 25 or 30 years ago, people were saying, you know, people have lost sight of the Word of God as the basis of faith, and so we need to start claiming the Scriptures in this book. And a lot of Word of Faith churches popped up. And if you confess the right things in the Word of God, then that was the basis of going forward and so on. Am I criticizing this? I'm just saying, however, that was an emphasis. It was a corrective of something that had been lost. And I could go down a long list. There's the five-fold church ministry that's been restored. There's healing churches. There's small group churches. Listen, this is going to sound strange. There's even churches that are Bible teaching churches. And they present themselves as, well, that's the kind of church. We're a Bible teaching church. Well, can I say, if that's your emphasis, as right as the Bible is, and as much as we teach the Bible here, and yet it is not the core issue. It is not the number one priority. There are other churches, even these days, there are more recent things. There's a thing going on right now called a 24-7 prayer movement. And I've read about this, and maybe some of you are more passionate types. People are literally praying around the clock. And, you know, in different shifts. But folks will pray 24 hours a day, seven days a weekend. They're building a church around that. Well, I have to tell you, that's an emphasis. It may be a corrective to a lack of prayer, but it's an emphasis. And there are seeker churches. Well, now, there are whole ministries around winning the lost and creating seeker events and services and so on. That's great, but it's an emphasis. And I want you to know, I believe that what Jesus would call this church to do is our number one priority is this. If you're going to fill in your blank, it's to lift up the person of Jesus as Lord of the church. Jesus is the Lord of the church. And His presence and His power and His person needs to be the most important thing that we as a church keep in front of us. Look at what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, 3. For I received, what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. It's the most important thing. Jesus Himself is not on your outline, but in John 12, 32, He said, If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. Now, folks, listen. This is so basic, I'm afraid that you might miss it. But a lot of you have gotten detoured along the way in your spiritual journey. Maybe as a child in a particular kind of church. Maybe you didn't go to church at all because you heard about religion and you didn't want to be religious. Well, I want you to know the problem with most churches, as I see it today, is that they've gotten off on these side tangents. Or they've gotten off into their, you know, different parts of who they are. And they've gotten away from exalting the person of Jesus Christ. Most of all, I mean, they can proclaim Him in a sense. They can doctrinally and theologically understand that He's the Son of God and He died for our sins and He was raised from the dead, and so on. But He is not worshipped. He is not experienced. And listen, and most of all, He is not invited to be present when the people gather together. And I want to say, if I have one passion as we start this new season here at North Way, it's that we would, as a corporate body, invite Jesus. What if Jesus walked right down this aisle? Some of you would be exhilarated and thrilled and exalted. And some of you would be shocked and frightened and afraid and run for cover. And some of you wouldn't even know it was Him. I want to say, let's be a place where we invite Jesus to be present. Because healing takes place. And hope is restored. And love is released when Jesus is present. You know, Pastor Jeff said it very well. We hadn't choreographed this, but he said it very well. We need to articulate that. We need to say it. We need to be willing now and then to speak our love. Worship, listen, what we do here at North Way when we sing and articulate, worship is the love language of the heart which is inclined toward Jesus. It's just love being expressed. When I was separated for many days, sometimes a couple weeks at a time from Carol, when I would come back to be together, I would always bring something. You know, a card? Some little, you know, expression of the fact that I missed her. You know, she finally said, bring some food. Keep the flowers in the cards. Because love that is not expressed, and how many of you would agree with this? Love that is not expressed is love lost. We need to express our love. And I'm going to ask the worship team to come. I think this is a good time to reaffirm that we love the Lord. Listen to what David Wilkerson wrote as they're coming. He said, ever since the cross, all spiritual giants have had one thing in common. They've revered the person of the Lord. They became lost in the glorious vastness of Christ. They all died lamenting that they still knew so little of Him and His life. And so it was with Paul, the apostle and the disciples and many early church fathers, with Martin Luther and John Calvin and the Puritans, with the English and Irish preachers over the past two centuries, such as Wesley and Whitfield and Fletcher and Miller, and so it has been with the American church leaders such as Tozer and Ravenhill and Graham. These and many others are a powerful roll call of men and women who everyone shared the same ruling passion, an ever-increasing revelation of the person of Jesus. That's my passion. Let's stand together, shall we, and just open your heart as John leads us. Let's worship our God. What our hearts cry this day is that You would reign in this place, that we would exalt You as Lord, and that Your person, by Your Spirit, would always be welcome here. Hear our cry this morning, Lord, and infuse us with life, that we might consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord, for whose sake, Lord, we willingly give up all things. If that's your prayer, would you say amen, please? God bless you. Let's be seated. Thank you, John. Team, proceed. So our first priority, church, is the person of Jesus. And then our second priority, that which is going to move us forward, are the purposes of God. Look at Proverbs 19.21. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. Everything that happened in this world has happened for a purpose. And it's difficult at times to understand. You know, the Bible says that even Jesus came with a purpose. For this purpose was the Son of God manifest. What? To destroy the works of the evil one. 1 John 3. That's why Jesus came. That was the purpose of His coming. He came for a purpose, and you're here for a purpose. I'm here. This church is here. Now, see, we all come to God looking for something. Is that not true? My experience is, especially in a prosperous, blessed culture in which we live, people aren't interested in God until they have a need. How many have discovered you try to share with people who have everything, and they don't care? I don't really need that. I'm doing pretty well without Him, thanks. But when they face a need that they can't somehow deal with themselves, then they start searching. And they search for freedom from guilt or healing or a restoration of a relationship or just forgiveness. Something is missing in their life. But once they've established that contact, then they move to the most important question of their lives. It's a question that some of you are wrestling with right now. Here it is. Why am I here? I mean, once you get that need met, then the question becomes, Why am I here? I mean, what is this 70, 80, 90 or so years about? What is it about? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my existence? And that is a vital question. Something is going to move you. Something is going to drive you. Something is going to direct you. What's going to drive you? What's going to propel you on in your life? When I looked up the word to drive in the dictionary, it meant to guide, control or direct. How many of you drive a car? Hopefully you guide, control and direct it in your lane under the speed limit. And if you're on Route 19 and you're going over the speed limit, I can promise you that you'll guide, control and direct it off to the side because there'll be someone behind you with their lights on. Don't do that. How many of you have ever guided, controlled or directed a golf ball? You drive a golf ball and hopefully, where do you guide, control or direct it? Yeah, way off into the weeds or whatever. Driving something is to keep it right on course. That's the idea. Every church is driven by something, whether they're aware of it or not. Some churches are driven by tradition. Their credo is, Hey, we've always done it this way. We've never done it that way. And this is the way we're going to do it. And they are stuck. And may I say, the churches like that in America are declining in great numbers, sadly so. Some churches are driven, guided, controlled, directed by finances. The very first question they ask when someone presents them with a vision is, How much will it cost? Before they ever ask, Is it God's will? What will be the impact? How will it affect the people who are trying to win or our church or whatever? They'll say, How much will it cost? Some churches are guided, controlled or directed by personalities, by the pastor, by certain musicians or worship leaders, by certain ministry heads. And I want to say, one of the benefits of having other people like Mark and Dave and Jeff and others lead you up here is because you get to hear the Lord's voice through other messengers and it's not all about one person. And I think it's very healthy. Some churches are driven by events and they just load up their calendars with different things to do. Some are driven by programs and they've got long lists of all kinds of different things just to keep you busy enough not to ask the important question of why. Well, as I study Scripture, I see that most all of what the Lord wants us to do is summarized in five overarching purposes. And we're going to talk about these in more detail another time, but I just want you to catch it. And by the way, for this second priority, I put up our logo. How many of you think you know what our logo means? If I ask you, describe, define what it means. It is not just a random idea. It means something. Well, not today, but another time I'm going to define what that means for you because it's very purposeful. But the two specific times that Jesus talked to his followers about their calling, he gave them what we call the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. And I want those two verses to come up. First of all, the Great Commandment. Read it with me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments. That's key. And if you'll look there, you'll see we've underlined two phrases because those are two of the purposes that Jesus said every follower should embrace. The first is to love the Lord your God. That's worship. So worship is number one. The second is love your neighbor. That's serving others. Tangibly, being alongside them as you need. So that's the Great Commandment. Worship the Lord and love your neighbor. Worship and service. And then the second verse is the Great Commission. It comes out of Matthew 28. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do everything I've commanded you. And there you'll see I've underlined three phrases. The first says go and make disciples. That's evangelism. Baptizing them. They get baptized into the body. They join the fellowship of the church. That's fellowship. And then teach them to do everything. That's mature them, grow them up, disciple them. So those are the five purposes we're going to be looking at in the weeks ahead. Worship, service, evangelism, fellowship, and discipleship. Say them again if you're writing, and I appreciate those of you who are taking notes. Worship, service, evangelism, fellowship, and discipleship. And if you want to see them sort of captured, look at the purpose statement on your list. Or on your sheet. Look at that purpose statement. We worked all summer. See it right there in one little paragraph. If you're a guest today, you want to know what does this shirt stand for? Here it is. To grow as a vibrant community of those discovering Jesus. In other words, you may be way over here. This may be all new to you. You say, I don't know if I fit in here. If you want to learn to discover more about Him, you're in the right place. Maturing in relationship with Him. Some of you just need to grow some more. You've been just sort of on the sidelines. Serving others. Giving something of yourself. Reaching other people with His good news. That's evangelism. And worshipping together in the joy of His grace. All five purposes right there in that statement. That's what this church is going to be about. In the weeks, in the months, in the years ahead. And as a result, we're going to see. I'm going to tell you right now. There's going to be such unity that this place is going to begin to multiply. And we're just going to see so many positive things happening in the lives of people. And that brings me to our third priority. Flip your outline over. Our third priority is people. The person of Jesus. The purposes of God. And third, people. And there we have a photograph. A small group of some people sharing their lives together. I've said this many times. People matter to God. He loves people. He created us to be in relationship with Him. And to share eternity with Him. But everyone doesn't see it the same. And this is what's so interesting. We oftentimes just kind of struggle with. Why did this happen? And what's this about? And if some of you are here today and you're going through a real heartache. And a real difficulty. And you're saying, I don't understand why God's letting this happen. And what's going on here? You just need to get some perspective. We lose our perspective. And I want you to know. God has a perspective that's probably different from ours. And I can promise you this. Sitting along in the same road today. The exact experience could happen to two of you. Even a husband and a wife. Like Kent and Vicki here. And you could look at it entirely differently. And interpret it entirely differently. And come away with a different conclusion. And who's right? Now, Kent said he is. No, not necessarily. Let me give you an illustration. You know, when I go away, people say, Well, did you hear anything really profound from the Lord? Well, this is one of the things I heard. It's about perspective. It's best captured in a little illustration of cats and dogs. Cats and dogs can experience the same exact thing. And they have a different total interpretation. A dog looks at its owner and says, You know, you feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You care for me. You must be God. A cat looks at its owner and says, You feed me. And you pet me. You shelter me. And you care for me. I must be God. And there are dog people and there are cat people, right? Have you discovered that? And what happens when dog people and cat people meet? They get married, right? That's what I found. How many of you married a dog person or a cat person, and you're the opposite, huh? Man, it makes for some interesting time. It's perspective. And people in this church are more important, you see, the issues that I'm most concerned about are not tradition. They're not budgets and programs. It's people. Now, someone came in here tomorrow and said, Well, show me. What do you have to show, Pastor Jay and your team, for the last 19 1⁄2 years of ministry here? It wouldn't be this building. I wouldn't walk around and show them all this, you know, the structure. I would be able to say, Well, you know, let me take you around and introduce you to some people who were lost and are now found. Let me show you some folks who were right at the very end of a relationship and now they're restored and walking. Let me show you some people whose kids were in a total nightmare of a mess and now their lives are in order. Let me show you some people who were physically near death and now are healed. Let me show you some people who didn't have many friends or relationships and now they're bonded together with a small group. Those are the things that really matter. Look at your next verse. God does not want anyone to be lost, but he wants all people to change their hearts and lives. What counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people. That's why we have this long list of testimonies week by week up here. That's why we let you hear people's stories because that's the testimony that really matters to God. But let me just say this. The building, the shoe, if you will, must never tell the foot how big it can be. You know, if you have a 9-year-old and you get him a size 5 shoe, let's say you have a 12-year-old and you get him a size 7 shoe. You say, that's the only shoe you're ever going to get. That's the biggest shoe you're going to get. What's going to happen when he gets to be 15? Like your son, Pastor Jeff, he's got like, he has ski boat shoes that are size 14. You see, the shoe cannot tell the foot how big it can be. It cannot tell the foot how big it has to be. You have to get a shoe that fits the foot. And that's something that's very important. We need to learn that the buildings and all this stuff that we use to facilitate ministry has to be flexible and adaptable and it has to fit. Someone said to me, well, isn't this church big enough? I mean, is this about your ego? Do you have to just keep reassuring yourself by single people? And the answer is absolutely not. You know when I was happiest in terms of like the size of the church? When we were about at 350, right around there. Because I knew everyone's name. I could say hello and mention their name right to their face every time. It was great. I knew the staff people. I kind of knew what everyone was up to. It was easy to manage them. I sort of fulfilled what people often jokingly but ignorantly say to pastors, well, you only work on Sundays. I could have lived that way probably for quite a while and said this is fine, this is comfortable. But being comfortable is a very dangerous place for anyone to be. In Revelation 3, as Jesus is saying his last words to the church, he looked at the church at Laodicea and he said, you're so deceived. You think you need nothing, you say, but I see you as wretched and poor and pitiable and blind in nature. And I want you to know that comfortability, just being really comfortable. I like my cushy seat now. And I like the air conditioning just being just about there. And I like my kids' ministry. And I like having a gym there. And I like having my own parking spot. You know what? We just get comfortable. And I want you to know that's a dangerous place to be. My passion to see this church grow isn't at all to do with me. It has to do with our need to keep challenging one another to go on in Christ, to keep our spiritual development as our highest priority, and most especially to let the lost know that we care about them. And I never want us to look into the eye of someone and say, you know what, I don't care if you're going to heaven or hell or not. I want them to know that at least one person out there would do anything that it takes to see that they come to know Christ. Is that you? Would you do anything to see a neighbor or a loved one come to know Christ? We sing it up here, but it can be cos