Easter Sunday, If Easter Never Happened

Lord, as we pray, I ask you to take whatever part of this message you have specifically designed for every person that's here, for I believe that you indeed want to speak to every person here. So quicken your word, Lord, make it come alive, and let us be renewed today in hope, because you are alive. You're here. Speak to us now, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks, everybody. You can be seated once again, and I encourage you to take your outline out of your North Way Notes this morning. I just want to read a portion of the Easter story. It's not in your notes specifically in its entirety, but it's referenced there. I'd just like to read the story where Jesus first appears to the disciples. If you have your Bible, turn to John 20. John 20 and verse 19. This is the first appearance of Jesus to the disciples. It happened on the evening of the first day of the week, which would be Sunday evening. John 20, 19. I bet they were. I am with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. And verse 24. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. Well, a week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. And they said to Thomas, Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. And Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. What incredible events those were. Well, welcome to our 21st Easter at North Way. In case you don't know it, if you happen to be a guest today for the first time, we are celebrating in these weeks our 20th anniversary as a church. I couldn't have imagined 20 years ago when 100 of us gathered on that first Easter that we would grow to a church family of this size and have the impact that we are having in our community. But lots of things have changed since 1981. Ronald Reagan had just been inaugurated President. The Blues Brothers were big. Showgun was a popular TV miniseries. It had only been a year and a half since the Pirates had won a World Series. And two years since the Steelers of Super Bowl. Atari had just introduced the first video game called... No, Space Invaders. If you said Pong, you're really old. That was before that. That didn't even count. I was thinking earlier this week of some of the words that are now commonplace we didn't even know back in 1981. Words like Internet, e-mail, websites and dot-coms, compact discs. This next one will crush some of you. Cell phones. What would I do without my cell phone? Laptops, camcorders, Walkmans, minivans. Those words didn't exist then. Computer dating or computer viruses. Nintendo, Prozac, AIDS. No one knew or ever had heard of MTV, DVDs, QVC or CNN for that matter. I'm not sure we're better off because they have. But lots has changed since 1981. But one thing has not changed and that is the needs of people. Fundamentally, our needs are the same. And neither has the answer changed. Only a savior can heal my broken heart. I'm going to step outside the Easter box a little bit today. I think I'll just be real transparent with you. I've struggled with sharing this message because I know that some of you won't get it. But for those who have ears to hear, I pray you will get it. Because I think it's maybe one of the most important messages I've brought in a long time. You see, statistics will tell us, those who study these things, and there are people who do, believe me, that 96% of us here today believe in God. And, in fact, in this church service, it's probably higher. 96% of Americans believe in God. And the same studies show that 84% of people polled believe that Jesus was the Son of God and was raised from the dead. So why don't we just say, Hallelujah, Amen, and go home? Because everything that I observe about society and the church tells me that that 84% sure isn't acting like they believe it. They haven't connected the dots somehow. When I talk about their lives, those same 84% seem weighed down, somber, and defeated. You tell me why they're less committed, less involved, less impacting of their culture, and less fulfilled than 20 years ago. Well, I want to submit to you that it's because of one very simple but profound aspect of our lives, and that is what the Bible calls our soul. Now, I'm not talking about our eternal soul because soul and spirit get sometimes interchanged there. Our spirit lives forever. Our soul is that which makes us human. Our emotions, our mind, our will, our personality. It's what makes us who we are when we encounter someone. It's the fullness of being alive. But that's very important to God because look at the top of your outline, the second verse that I quoted. When asked, Which is the greatest commandment? Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and say it. So He wants all of your soul to be engaged in loving Him in all your mind. For this is the first and greatest commandment. You know, for the last year, we've been involved pretty heavily in the process of watching God supply land for us to grow forward as a church. And I've had some friends here in the church who've been concerned about me because they know it's been a very engaging process. And they say, How are you doing physically? And I say, You know, because they know about back surgery and all that. And I say, Well, by God's grace, my back's great and I'm doing fine. You know, as well as you can do when you keep chugging along. Relationally, I'm doing well. I'm engaging with people that I care about and I'm committed to. Spiritually, my faith is just growing because I'm seeing God answer prayer. But I will tell you that in my soul, when I really did an examination, I felt somewhat depleted because it's just taken some things out of me to do that. And that process, all of us need to engage in once in a while to examine what's really going on inside in the personhood of who we are. And I want to talk to you today about how Easter affects our soul. Because, you see, Paul says in Romans 8.15 that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will quicken, the word means make alive, these mortal bodies. Mortal bodies. Not eternal bodies. So the power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to help our soul come alive again. And to heal the mortal bodies that we have. Romans 8.15 I want to look at this today and I want to submit to you that the reason why our soul and I know that some of you are going to already disconnect, you can't understand what I'm... I'm going to plead with you, stay with me on this because your soul is you. But I want to say to you what I believe has affected most of us is the pace of life that we have embraced in our culture. You know, Satan can't make you just doubt God, he'll keep you busy. That has the same impact. And it's amazing to me how crowded and hurried our lives have become despite the fact we've been sold, you know, a truckload of time-saving devices. How many of you have one attached to you somewhere right now? You know, some way to save some time and, you know, stay in contact and da-da-da-da-da and all these things that we have. The great theologian Bill Gates said if the 80s were about quality, if the 80s were about quality and the 90s were about re-engineering, then the first decade of the new millennium will be about velocity. Going faster. One of the big business magazines some of you will know when I hold it up, Fast Company, the last three years has soared to the top of the charts as a favorite among business leaders. Fast Company, I'm about to cancel my subscription. People, are they not working more hours, more weekends, taking more work home, taking fewer days off, shorter vacations than even 10 years ago. They're spending less time with their spouse, less time with their kids and extended family and recreation and certainly less time in church. I can tell you 20 years ago we did a lot more together than we do now. So what's going on here anyhow? Who's got their foot smashed to the floorboard of our lives? Well, before I just submit a couple of answers to that, I want to ask you one other question and sort of just a laid back moment here. Think about this. What experience of enduring value can occur in your life when you're moving at a high rate of speed? I'll say it again. What experience of enduring value can occur in your life when you're moving along at warp speed? Think about it. I mean, can you really open and sustain deep levels of self-discovery if your life is going whoosh? Can you really engage intimately with your spouse if you're going at warp speed? Can you really know the heart of your 10-year-old child or grandchild if your life is just on fast forward all the time? Can you really have close friends who are transparent and open and mutually edifying? Let me take it another level. Can you relate to God optimally and sincerely and genuinely when you're going at warp speed? Some of you here today, you're kind of checking God out really. I mean, you're here because it's Easter, but you're not sure what you believe. I want to ask you, how much time are you going to give to the process? Or is this just a quick refill at the sheets of spirituality before you get back on the road for another year? And some of you, many of you are believers. I want to ask you, can you really hear the voice of God to you? Can you hear Him guiding you? Can you hear Him leading you and nudging you if your life is in fast forward? Can you really examine your life carefully and honestly know what's going on? Can you confess your sin deeply moving at warp speed? I've discovered lots of folks are somewhat deceived about how well they think they're doing. Reminds me of a dream I had a while back. I dreamed, you know what dreams are, I just dreamed, that I was up in heaven and angels were up there and I walked by this big room where all these little things that kind of looked like clocks, they were little machines that were going around and it would tick every time the hand would move, like this. And I asked her, what is that? And she said, well, those are synometers. I said, what is a synometer? Well, it moves and ticks each time someone sins. And I began to realize there was a name over each one of these synometers. I saw Pastor Dave Fleming's over one and every 20 seconds it would tick. That concerned me a little bit, I have to be honest about it. Then I saw Carol's. It was an hour or two before hers moved. First service, it was 15 seconds. I said, wow, there's a lot of these. I said, I don't see mine anywhere. I said, does that kind of mean I'm really doing better than maybe I thought I was? She said, no, go open that door. I opened the door and I got hit by this blast of air. She said, yeah, we're using yours as a fan. And then I woke up from my dream. Some of us are just deceived. We don't really know how well we're doing. I've had a couple of weeks to think about the question I've asked you. As I've thought through the treasured memories of my life and the richest experiences I've had with Jesus, the times of the closest marital intimacy with Carol after 30 years of being married, of connecting with Amy and David and Jonathan, of the moments of really talking with men as brothers and other couples, I've got to tell you, all of these rich, impactful memories of my life, you know what they all have in common? They all happen slowly. They all happen when I didn't have a timepiece in my hand. They all happen when I just push back a little bit. And they made me feel so alive that I can just pick them out right now. You, if you'll take a moment maybe later on today and just get away and draw a timeline and just look at your life, I bet the things that will pop up above the horizon of your timeline will be the times when you read a book and fully absorbed it because you took the time. When you had a worship moment, when you didn't hurry through it, when you had a long conversation over an evening with another couple, none of them will have speed attached to them. They all happen when we give it time. So I ask myself, if the best moments of life, the ones that make us feel alive and engaged and in touch with God and really married and those kinds of things, if they happen when the pace of life is dialed down, why do we keep fueling the pace of life? What is going on here? What is happening that's pushing out the things that really matter? We're much like the pre-resurrection disciples. If you saw the drama, the pre-resurrection disciples were running around, well, Master, what should we do now? And they were doing their best for God. They remind me of lots of times the way I am. I'm just always looking for this and that. Then I realized that Jesus brought the cross into their lives to get their attention that it had to be different, that it had to be on His terms, on His pace, and not on theirs. The cross compelled the disciples and the followers to slow down and reevaluate. They were crushed, if you remember, they were crushed. They were just absolutely dumbfounded by what had happened. But I think they discovered that there were then some fears that Jesus had to address. That's what we just read about here in John chapter 20. Has something happened in your life like that that just stopped in your tracks? Have you ever had that happen? You know, you get the phone call about an accident. And, you know, whatever you're doing, you leave it because that's more important. Or you get the phone call or you get the news about your job and things have totally changed and life goes on hold. Or you get the doctor's report, well, I've got this condition now. Some of you are going to have that happen tomorrow when you do your taxes. Everything's going to go on hold until you figure that one out. Well, what happens when those moments happen is that Jesus comes in and He speaks to those fear-producing, driving, compelling behaviors. And He says to you this word, He says, Peace be with you. Say that with me. Peace be with you. If there is one thing that seems to be missing in the culture of this millennium, it's peace. People seem so hurried. I just want to say, may God help us to discover the peace of the risen Jesus in our lives. Now, let me just, by way of sort of an illustration, give you a few ways in which this happens. Some of you are really concerned because I haven't gotten through the notes yet. You're thinking, oh my gosh, we're going to be here until 4 o'clock. This is going to happen real quickly. What are the fears that drive us? Well, the first one we read about here is when the disciples have the doors locked for fear of the Jews. It's fear of opposition. You see, they had one foot in the world of believing Christ and one foot in the world of wanting to keep the Jews at bay. And that just compelled them to all this activity. We don't have that same religious thing going as much as we do. Most of us have the fears of competing values. It's a reality. And I want to talk about competing values for a couple of minutes here. Uh-huh. See, I hear from a lot of people. Give me a hand here, Ben. I can't quite do this with one thumb. He got down real quick last time. I've been mocked about my jab already, so don't go there, all right? My dad was a champion boxer, actually. Not on me, but when he was in the Navy. But a lot of men tell me this, especially. They said, I've been beat up at work. I've been beat up. I get pushed around. A lot of women tell me, I'm just getting beat up by the things that I've got to keep balanced in my life. There are a lot of you here feeling that right now. You see, the way the marketplace is these days, the way competition is, everything's leaner and meaner. More is expected. More has to be produced. You know that if you don't produce, someone else is going to come and take your spot. And I know more and more people whose numbers are higher and higher and their soul is drier and drier than it's ever been. Because, you see, this drives you. It compels you to keep running, to try to keep up. If you're here today, the Easter message for you is, Jesus walks into that hurriedness of life and says, peace be with you. Someone's thinking right now, well, you know, but that doesn't fix that. It doesn't change the fact that I've got to keep my numbers up. Listen, you can't control what other people expect of you, but you can control your response to it. Peace be with you, Jesus says. I have it under control. The second thing that drives us at a fast pace is the fear of opportunity lost. I want to talk about that for just a minute. Jesus appeared and he said, receive the Holy Spirit, and thereby gave the disciples purposeful direction. Pray that doesn't fall down. It would ruin my day, especially if I was walking under it. We live in a culture of amazing opportunity, do we not? I mean, go home today, take out your Sunday paper, the classifieds, the entertainment section, and of course, you know, if you want to get a little more high-tech about it, get your computer going, go on web, find out what's happening, and all these, I mean, there's more than we could ever imagine doing. But I want to talk for just a minute to the families here. I want to talk to parents for just a second. I'm a parent of three great kids, but I want to go back to before then, when I was a kid. Back in the 50s and early 60s, when I was growing up, this time of year, right about now, we were in between seasons. There wasn't anything really to do. We didn't have indoor soccer leagues, video arcades. We didn't have malls. We didn't have all this long list of things that, you know, just lined up to do. In fact, my mom used to, when I'd come home from school, my mom would say, go out and play. Can you imagine that? What did that mean? Give me something to play with. No, you go out and figure out something to do. And then, guess what? We would get together and have dinner, all five of us at the same time, and talk and share and open up our lives a little bit. Some of you look at me, boy, you know, are you a relic? Well, you know what? I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure that in our culture today, that what's going on with our kids is all that great. You know, even in the last 10 or 15 years, there's just been this enormous explosion of opportunities for kids. And many of them are, they're high class. I mean, you know, the huge health club that has everything for a kid to imagine to do. You know, the whole computer thing and all the opportunities there. And all these different kinds of leagues and things. And, you know, by the time a kid is five or six years old, he or she can be in five or six different things. And parents kind of start to feel this competition among themselves. What kid can get the most stuff going in their life? And what I've been discovering is more and more parents are coming back and saying, you know, gee, my kid's not responding very well to us. Well, why not? Because they're so full in what they're doing that they're not having any time to be who they are. And I want to tell you, this is dead serious. That's why my colleague, Dr. Kevin Lehman, who's been a child psychologist for 30 years, when parents start saying, what should I do with my kids? You know what he says? He says, pull them out of everything. And he gets a lot of angry mail about that, but I want you to know, that's a better alternative than having them spread out over 50 directions. Opportunity loss drives us. And then, you know what? The parents get all caught up in it and they're just, they're communicating in their vans. No, we won't have dinner tonight, we won't see you. Oh, we'll connect Sunday afternoon. And pretty soon it's just this craziness going on in the home. Is that, is that good? Does that fuel the soul? And adults, you know, we're getting to be the same way. But we all have these things that keep us busy, busy. You know, stuff to do, options and alternatives. Jesus steps in and he says, peace be with you. Find the purpose of God in your life, get involved in that, and peace will rest in your life. You don't have to do a million things to find fulfillment. The third fear is the fear of overlooking the process. See, Thomas basically was afraid that somehow he'd miss something. He said, I'm not going to believe. And what I discovered, what drives people, and it drives them crazy sometimes, is they're trying to figure out how to feed their soul, but they're not sure where to go. So they just try anything they can. And, you know, it's kind of like candy bars. I've got a couple of great candy bars here. When you get hungry, you know, like middle of the afternoon, and you reach for one of these, what happens with it? You snarf it down, that's right. And does it satisfy your hunger? Oh, maybe for like five or ten minutes, you get this sugar rush, you know? Woo! And off you go, and like you get back on to business. And then what do you find about five minutes after that? Well, your blood sugar goes way down, and you go, oh boy, do you get... And see, this is a substitute for real nourishment. It doesn't really work. Lots of people are doing this with their soul. They're feeding their soul with something that just gives them a little rush. And they'll find some self-help thing that they'll get into, or some sort of interactive thing online that just sort of gives them a rush, a little bit of a band-aid approach. When God says, feed your soul the pure nourishment of the Word, give it substance, and it will change your life. It'll keep you from running hither and there, and yon, and trying to find some answers. You see, these influences, whether it's opposition or opportunity, or just digging around, trying to find this and that, what they're doing is taking the energy away from your soul, and your soul is saying to you, it's saying to you, I need some attention, I need you to feed me, I need you to slow down and pay attention to me. And when Jesus appeared, it's very interesting to me, when He appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, He did not appear. I mean, it would seem to me He would have done something like, a lot more like, let's get on CNN now, I'm back. Do you see Larry King interviewing Jesus? Well, what was it like in that tomb for three days? Well, what do you think is going to happen? Instead, Jesus appears in everyday kind of circumstances, doesn't He? He shows up in the house where they were. He didn't even go to the temple. The Bible says He went in the boat with the fishermen. He walked with a couple of disciples, a long walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a seven mile walk. Here's what I'm saying, is that He knew that they needed to touch Him in the everyday things of life. He knew that that's where their soul would find nourishment. Listen, you can believe all the right things about Easter, up here and even in here, and still have a dry and shriveling soul. And I'm concerned about that, because eventually, it will take a very deep toll on your life. Some of you right now as I'm sharing this, right now, you're inside thinking, I have been dry. I need some change. Your soul is aching for nurture, and some time to be fed, and some deep conversations. Let's just do a little check here as we close. Here's the three question test, real quickly. Three things to ask yourself about your soul this Easter. Number one, are you feeling alive and energized in your soul from day to day? You see, if your pace of life is moderate and balanced, each day you feed your soul, and you have something to give, and you're feeling alive and excited and energized. The Bible makes it very clear that you'll have a spring of living water, Jesus said, coming out of you in John chapter 7. Is that what you're like when people engage you? Do you have life coming out? The alternative is called barrenness, or dryness, or aridness, or emptiness of soul. When people engage you, do they find that there's really nobody there? Ask yourself that question. Inner springs, living water, or dryness. Second, are you increasingly aware of His closeness to you? I mean, as the day goes along, do you sense the Lord whispering? Can you sense His promptings? Do you know the Spirit's nudging you? Or would you have to honestly say, you know, it's been days or weeks or months. I like when Bob said, you know, he's now hearing God. Does he spend some time listening to Him? And number three, are you more or less in touch with the needs of others? You see, when your soul's alive, you're drawn to others because what satisfies you is a conversation that's soul to soul, not superficial. I don't want to talk about PNC Park anymore. I don't want to talk about the Weather Channel. I just want to blow it up, you know, that kind of thing. I want to have meaningful things in my life. That's why I love my cell group, and that's why I love the ministry leaders that I serve with here at Northwood, because we try to exchange life at the soul level. Not everybody does that. Some people go through their whole life and don't get what I'm talking about. I had a man come into my office last week or so, a couple weeks ago maybe, from another part of the city. He said to me, you know, his circumstance, not unlike Bob's, was that he had been serving in one particular company for 20 years, and then he just got let go. Goodbye. And so he was four months into a new job search, and he said, I've had a lot of time to reflect. And here's what he said. He said, I've come to realize that after 20 years of just being on the fast track, and he was quite successful in his business, he said, I realized I didn't really know myself. I really didn't know my wife, and I certainly didn't know my kids, because I only saw them one or two nights a week. And he said this. He said, I don't want to live the next 20 years like I lived the previous 20. It's taking the life out of me. You see, that's what Easter's about. It's not just about the day that we stand before God. It's about now. That's why Jesus appears in the now kind of circumstances. That's why we need to lay hold of his life now. We want to be more than conquerors. Let's start conquering the fears that drive us, propel us to stay disconnected in our soul. Let's change our pace, not by getting newer Palm Pilots, but by really looking at what matters to us. And let me just say this. If you don't care about what I'm saying, I'm sure a lot of you don't, then just, you know, if what matters to you is just, you know, more superficial, self-absorbed, higher numbers kind of life, then just keep the pedal to the metal. But if you're inside, if you want to have life and life abundant, and I pray that you'll listen carefully to what the Spirit might... Isn't it interesting that Jesus said, look at the bottom of your outline, what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? What can a man give in exchange? If your soul matters, then you have to do something about it. To receive his peace, it's going to take some doing. You're going to have to make some changes. By the way, this does not happen just because you pray a prayer. It happens over time. It takes a process. You have to learn to exercise your no muscles once in a while. You know what that is? That's when you choose to say no to some of the things that are going to push life out of you. I know it's hard to say no, but try it. Say no. You need to work on it. Try again. No. No, I'm not going to do this. No, I'm not going to do that. No, I'm not going to run here. No, I'm not going to join that. No, I'm not going to get involved there. I'm just going to focus on what I'm supposed to do. And I'll tell you what. People get frustrated, kicked off, and all that kind of stuff. Actually, they expect you to do all these things. You're the one that knows the condition of your soul. May I just tell you, once that starts to be reignited, your life becomes magnetic. I want to close with this verse. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus walked with those disciples all day long, and then he had communion with them, and then he left them. And here's what they said when he left. He said, Were not our hearts burning within us when he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? The word for heart is the word for inner person. In other words, he's saying, something happened. We came alive in the inside when he was with us. And, loved one, that is my prayer for this Easter, for the grand congregation of the Northwestern Christian community, that we would find our hearts burning within us, alive with the resurrection power of Jesus. Let's stand. Lord, in this moment, we want to engage you with all of our mind, all of our heart, and all of our soul, because you are worthy to be trusted and worshipped in the inner core of our being. Thank you that you came, not only to be our Redeemer and our Savior.