Eternal Invitation I

That's the thing that makes people uncomfortable. That's the thing that people say we call proselytizing. That's the thing that people say we shouldn't do. That's pushing your religion on them. Loved ones, here's the message for these next two weeks, not sugarcoated, straight out of the gate. That's what we're called to do, is share our faith with others. Now, not push it down their throat, not make them believe what we believe, but to be willing to be used by God, to be an instrument to help others take a look at themselves and also take a look at the cross and come to terms with where they stand, with who Jesus Christ is and what his claims were and what their eternal destiny is in relationship to that. Now, you know, a few of you are thinking, you know, that's just what I, I, I, I wasn't going to come, but I, you know, I haven't been out of the house because of the snow, but I, it's this kind of stuff about Christianity that just puts me off, you know? It's just like, we got to go out and do stuff, and we got to share the gospel, and we got to talk to people, and I'm just uncomfortable. I mean, that's not my personality. I think it's, you know, it's pushy, and it makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I, I came to Christ, and I'm a Christian because I had a need, and I came to church, and somehow that need got met, or whatever it is, you know? I was reading the Bible, and then someone explained to me what it meant, and I came to Christ, or I had this sort of hunger for knowing more about God, and I, I discovered God because someone showed me how to do that, or I, you know, I was just afraid to go to hell. How about that one? And so, I just found what seemed to be the best solution to all that, but, but don't ask me to go out and talk to other people about it. I don't mess with other people's religion. The problem with that is, friends, I know it's uncomfortable, but Scripture after Scripture after Scripture says that Jesus calls us. What does it mean to be called? To be called means someone is issuing a command to you to do something. He turned to his disciples in Luke chapter 5 verse 10. He said, leave your nets behind. I'm going to make you fishers of men. Matthew 28 19. He said, you go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Acts 1 8. You shall be my witnesses. Well, he didn't mean me. He meant you pastor people. It's pastor's job. That's your job. We pay you to do that, Jane, Mike, and Scott, Doug, and everybody else. No, friends, on each of those occasions, Jesus was speaking to all of us who call upon his name, and so that might be a bit uncomfortable, but it's a reality that we need to come to terms with, and I know that some of us hate that stuff. I know some of us feel uncomfortable. I know some of you're thinking, you know, I figured it out. Let them figure it out. Some of you are thinking, well, my parents did a good job raising me. Too bad about their parents. Too bad for them. It's not my problem. I'm covered. I'm good. But how can you look at someone you care about or know even the least bit closely and not be concerned about eternity? This week, Carol, my wife, was headed out to see her mom out in Lancaster, which is about four and a half hours east of the Turnpike, and I won't give the details of all this, but there was bad timing on my part, and I felt horrible just making a bad decision, and I nudged her to get going on Monday. There was snow predicted, but I thought she could beat it. That ended up not being the case, and so she had a little mishap. Any mishap on the Turnpike is not usually little, to be honest, but this one was relatively little. I mean, it was scary. I won't go into all the detail. That night, she was in no condition to drive home or nothing physically. Didn't get hurt at all, praise God, but was a little shaken, as you might imagine. So the next morning, I found my hero hat, and said, I'm gonna go get my wife. So popped in the car. Scott and the team took care of things for me here, and as I was putting the stuff in the car, it's like the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, you know, your wife misses her mother. Now, I don't know. You know, I'm just speaking for me. Heading into nursing homes where everybody there, just about, and especially my mom, Carol's mom's 98 years old, and so in the wing that she's in, everybody there is very elderly. Most of them have a lot of difficulty getting around and so on, but we drove on out there, and we hung out with her mom for about a day, and if you need a reminder of just how good you have it, friends, stop in your local nursing home, and just take a walk around, and shake a few hands, and love a few people, and I just tell you frankly, I had to just confess a lot of pride at that moment, and realized I can't just let people go on. We're all heading that way. That's the other scary thought. That's going to be me in 50 more years, but you see, I want to turn this whole thing around, this whole thing about, oh, I'm not like that. That's not me. I don't want to do that. Let me ask you this question. What's the most fulfilling thing that you've ever done? What do you look at in your life and say, oh man, that, you know, was it going to Disney World? Probably not. Fun, but not fulfilling. Maybe you helped a neighbor who had a real serious, maybe you donated blood, maybe you're, and we have them throughout the church, maybe you're an excellent surgeon, and you literally saved people's physical lives. I don't know, but think about, this is the most fulfilling. I'm going to tell you just straight up, the most fulfilling thing you will ever do is be used by God to lead someone to a personal knowledge of who Jesus is, to recognize that for some reason, in some way, you will see that person in eternity, and for a reason you don't know, God allowed you to participate in that process, and I have said numerous times to my team and in front of you all, preaching doesn't get it. I love to preach, I love to share the message, but nothing changes me more than sitting across a table from someone and leading them through a prayer to receive Jesus into their life, to start that journey. Most fulfilling thing, hands down. So don't look at it as, oh, I just don't want to, but maybe look at it as an opportunity to get yourself into a place where you'll experience something you've never had before, and if you think, well, I'm just not ready for that, well, you can get ready. We're just going to get started this weekend, next weekend we're going to build on that, and in future weeks there's going to be more opportunity for you to get some, you know what, and as soon as you get some basic tools and a little bit of confidence, it's amazing. Guess what? We live in a world that's really kind of hungry, that's looking for some answers for stuff, a world that knows that our time is limited if something doesn't turn around. So, let's look at this, and we're going to go real fast through this outline. I want you to be, I'm still on the introduction, some of you think, oh my gosh, I'm going to cancel dinner plans, breakfast, lunch, whatever. You know, I want to talk to you just real quickly about eternal conversations. How do we get there? How do we just open them up? And I want to look at just a couple characters. It's two of my favorite personalities in Scripture, Peter and John, and if you have your Bible, turn to Acts 3 and 4. If not, the Scriptures should come up in the screen, and they're most of them on your outline, and we've got to move quickly, but let's follow along. We'll catch all of these as we go through. Now, Peter and John entered into an eternal conversation with others in this way. They were going into the temple for their normal time of prayer, which was three o'clock in the afternoon, and as they were heading into the temple, laying on the side of the steps, and if you've ever been to the Holy Land, the temple is this big, has this big sort of colonnade and patio and so on, and then the temple itself is a structure that in its day was magnificent, but anyhow, they laid this beggar down where he begged since birth, because he was crippled from birth, could not sustain himself, and Peter and John were walking in to do their temple prayers, temple prayers. They were faithful prayers, and the man said, you know, do you have anything for me? And Peter stopped and looked at him, and you know the words, if you grew up in Sunday school, you sang the song. Well, silver and gold have I none, but that which I have, I thee give, and I'm sure he's thinking, oh great, you know, another advice giver. Good, you know, tell me how I should get a job, or tell me how I, you know, should learn to play that little thing that's in my guitar case, you know, but that's not what he did. Bible says that he gave him his full attention. Peter looked him in the eye, and he said, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk, and friends, we don't know exactly what happened, but a strength, a power went through this man's body from head to toe, and the Bible says that his legs were strengthened, and he stood up, something he had never done. Could you imagine that? Could you imagine the people watching this, because they'd seen this dude sitting laying there for his entire life, and the Bible says he went walking, and leaping, and praising God, following these men to the temple, yelling at the top of his lungs, I'm healed. He's, you know, he's just, he's going crazy with exuberance. Now, Peter, it's not lost on him that a crowd has been gathered, and let's be real honest. If you brought in someone who'd been crippled from birth, or suffering from a, you know, totally debilitating illness of some kind, and we laid him right down there, and they got up and walked, how many of you believe that next week there'd be a few more people here, right? And then, I mean, pretty soon they'd be coming from all over. I mean, it was a dramatic miracle. So, Peter seizes upon the moment. See, on your outline, how did the conversation begin? Well, the power of God opened hearts. The power of God opened hearts, and Peter was very clear, and he said, look, just very clearly, I didn't note this, but write it down in your outline, Acts 3 16, by faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. Wow, that's where it came from. Not much of a production, you know, not much coordination, no outline. Here's my sermon, this man was crippled from birth, now he's walking, and by the way, it was in the name of Jesus that that power came. See, eternal conversations begin, and I, just as an aside, how many think it might be wise for us just to pray for more of that kind of demonstration of power? Let's say, Lord, I mean, why does it have to not happen? I don't get that. Just my own little personal perspective is, it doesn't happen because for some reason, when we come to church, we don't expect it will. I'll bring some big-time healer evangelist person into a civic arena or a ballroom arena or someplace like that, and a lot of people show up, and they'll expect something to happen, and something happens. It just takes faith in what God already promised that Jesus won for us at Calvary. So, let's just remind ourselves that we have a faith that brings about change. It could be physical healing. We saw stories up on this screen of physical, emotional, and relational healing just a few weeks ago. It is happening. It just doesn't necessarily happen on the footsteps of the platform, wherever we might be. Let's pray that more of that does happen, and so, turn your outline over. Let's go to point four. A lot of people really excited right there. When did the conversation become personal? Well, for what Peter and John did to this crippled man, they were thanked by being tossed in jail by the heads of the temple. Okay, these guys are really disruptive. I'm tired of them. Put them in jail. And look what happens here in Acts chapter 4 now, verses 5 through 11. The next day, so they're in jail overnight, the rulers and elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Now, look who's present. I don't know how to quite give us, well, I don't want to be disrespectful, but imagine the Pope, okay? Annas was the high priest. He was the guy that once a year got to go into the temple, into the Holy of Holies. He was the top person in Judaism of all the Jews. He was their highest leader. So, he was present, and Caiaphas, who was the former high priest, was. So, you've got the two, like, heaviest guys in all of Judaism right there, along with Alexander, I think, and John, and some other leaders, and they're all there. Is that a little intimidating to Peter and John, who were fishermen, unlearned, uneducated men? I would say so. And here's what they said to him. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them. By what power or what name did you do this? I want you to see. They start quizzing them. They ask them questions. And then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, I'd circle that. It wasn't them. It was the Holy Spirit that filled their hearts to speak. Rulers and elders of the people, if we were being called to account today for an act of kindness, shown to a cripple, and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel. In other words, let's tell the whole world. Let's get microphones. Let's have a news conference. Let's tell the whole world. It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified. Oh, my gosh. Everything was okay until that. You see, they would have had a problem if they would have said, look, it was by some, you know, God miraculous, because there's healings in the Old Testament too. If they would have just said, well, you know, the Spirit of God just moved over these men and they were healed, kind of like Elijah did or Elijah or whatever, they would have been good. But they said, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, they knew that these disciples believed was the Messiah, the prophesied one that the high priest said was coming. And Peter and John look at them and said, you crucified the Messiah. I mean, again, I bet you could have heard a shekel drop a mile away. They were dumbfounded. I just want to pause here and say, you know, based on last week's message, if you missed it, when we talked about being freed from our many sins, He who is forgiven much, loves much, this may not be a happy topic, but you're going to hear a little bit more of it as we go along. Friends, people need to realize their condition before God. True conversion doesn't happen until people realize, watch, until people realize that you, I'm not looking at any one person, but you, you put Jesus on the cross. Peter said it right to Annas and Caiaphas and the leaders. I'm saying it to you. And people, see, we want to slide into salvation. We don't want to, can we keep that messy part out? I didn't like that passion movie. There's too much blood. But the reality is, unless people believe that they are lost, they don't want to be found. Unless they believe their sin will condemn them to separation from God for eternity, they don't care about the good news. So somehow, some way, you don't have to call them out and say, you, you know, you did this. It's not your job. God will convict them. But it is your job to make it clear that Jesus went to the cross for their sin and for yours. I always say that. If you share with people, don't talk about your church. Don't talk about your religion. Talk about Jesus. He went to the cross because I put him there. And you know what I found? Even the most sophisticated, well-heeled, high achiever, great family people, every single person admits to me, you know what? Yeah. If perfection's the bar, I haven't hit it. I've never met one person. Well, you know what? I'll take my chances. I've done really well. I'm a really, really good guy. No way God's going to say no. I've never met a person like that. Quickly, Peter and John add this. They say, you crucified but whom God raised from the dead. And that this man stands before you. He is the stone you builders rejected who is becoming a capstone. He's referring back now to a prophetic word back in, I think it was Psalm 118. So he's saying, the very thing you thought you'd never do, you did. And that's where it got really, really personal. That's where everything turned around. That's where everything came right to a head. Now, let's sort of wrap this up this way. So what does, go back to point two, how did this conversation really get going? Well, again, the rulers brought the people in, Peter and John and said, what happened? And they told them the whole story. And let me just say this in the little clip that we saw. When our actions, when our concern for people, when social justice, when being available to people in the community, when our deeds start to speak the gospel, people start asking, what is the gospel? I take not a lot. Let me say it this way. I have intermittent doses of grief about the car cruise. I don't mind it. But you have, we have no idea. And if you're part of the Oakland family, maybe you've wandered out here once or twice to see this thing. But see, what you don't know is because of that event, just recently, I won't name the person, but a rather well-known, prominent car dealer here in the area had one of his long-term employees pass away. And when that owner of this dealership didn't know what to do, he connected the dots of the car cruise to North Way, where he'd been numerous times, and called one of our pastors and said, I need to talk to somebody about all this. And then as a result of that conversation, he said, would you come and talk to all of my team and their families who want to come for memorial service? And that service happened about a week ago. Pastor Scott did that service. And so because of that little seed, about 175 or so people heard the gospel, not in church, but in a car dealership showroom. See, people are hungry if we just give them a little bit of a way to make a connection. So I don't know about you. It's not easy. I'm not always saying it. It doesn't always go the way we planned. It wasn't quite a year ago that I got kind of convicted that I hadn't reached out to my neighbors. And so I started praying, and I had met several of them over the course of the year or so that I'd lived there. And I went to four of them that I had known. The first one, right across the street, guy went to him and said, would you be interested in having a study where we talk about some eternal things? He said, yeah, I'd like that. I was raised Catholic and all. I don't want to go to your church. I said, I'm not asking you to go to my church. Just have a little study. I went to the next guy. He said, well, maybe. I went to the third guy. He said, reluctantly, well, I'll do anything one time. So I'll, you know, classic little line. In other words, I'll come once to your meeting and that's it. The fourth guy said, no. I said, this is Pastor Jay asking you. They said, without saying it, I don't care who you are. Okay. I don't care if you're Billy Graham. I'm not coming. You know, didn't matter. Now I'm embarrassed to tell you. I think I was shaken enough that I postponed that thing. And I put it off and I found reason not to do it. And God just not God. No, I'm going to do it soon as we're done with this series. I promise to that because it's just not, we've got to have that courage, friends. We've got to be willing to be rejected. We've got to be willing to say, okay, Lord, I'll do whatever you ask me to do. Okay. Just quickly, let me bring this in for landing. What is the huge difference? What is it that God really wants you to do? See, the thing that keeps most of us from initiating an eternal conversation is we're afraid we're going to get into an argument or an exchange that we can't win. Someone will say, well, that's fine for you, but what about this? Or, you know, I've had lots of people say, well, I get a Jehovah witness and we get into a big argument. We can't, no resolution. And people will say, well, they'll ask you a question about, well, how, how do you know the Bible's this? And you, you don't have a good theological answer. So you feel like, I don't want to do that. I might mess it up worse than it is. And I know that's a fear that many people have. Notice this on point three, the core message of the conversation. They called him in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, judge for yourselves, whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. In other words, you can decide, you can throw us back into jail. You can do whatever you want. You can torture us. You can even kill us. But look at the next verse. It's critical. But we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. It all comes down to this friends. You're called to tell people just simply what you have seen and heard of who Jesus is, what your experience is. That's what it means to be a witness. A witness says what they have seen and heard. You see, for some of you, it's been dramatic and you will have no problem. Hey, this is my life. And who can argue with your experience? Now, some of you have had less dramatic experiences. So you say it's a little harder for me, but I just want to encourage you. Just hang in there. Just believe God and he'll begin to show you little ways that your faith will become more dynamic and you'll have more experience and more of a sense of reality so that when that moment comes, you can say, this happened to me. I can't deny it. Some of you have had that happen here. You went to a dead church most of your life. You showed up here and you experienced something like you did today when we worshiped. And you said, man, and that made you hungry and you got into the word and then you started fellowshipping with people. And now Jesus is alive to you. Finally, why do we have to continue? Point five. Why do we have to continue testifying? What's the deal? Why do we have to keep on doing it? Well, here's the reason. I've already told you, I believe people are very highly spiritual. I think many of them are searching. They're looking for places to hang. They've seen a lot of things that have disappointed. But here's the deal. The gospel message, last blank, is not intuitive. If you tell people to go sit underneath, well, you know, assuming it's another 40 degrees warmer or so, go sit under a tree somewhere and just meditate on the universe, they might come up with a real clear conviction that there is a God. And most, 94% of Americans believe that. And about 88% of them believe He's a good God. And they also believe that He's surrounded by good beings and people. And so they're asking then, how do I become one of those? And what is the answer that they usually give? I'll be a good person. Right. I'll do more good things than bad things. At the end of the day, you know, I'll burn candles. I'll help people. I'll do this. I'll go there. And they believe that somehow their works, their performance will qualify them to get it out. Hey, just tune in one last moment, please. Don't miss this. It's real important because it's the crux of what I think we face in Pittsburgh more than almost anybody. So many people believe that their acceptance before God is based on what they have done in church and their religious upbringing, that they're banking on, well, I've done more good than bad. I've kept the laws, the rules, the, so the, and they don't have a clue what Acts 4.12 says. And that's where we close here. Acts 4.12, salvation is found in no one else. Notice it doesn't say nothing else, but no one else. For there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must, circle the word must, be saved. Friends, there's no other way to salvation. It comes only through Jesus. And our, our privilege, our call, our responsibility is to testify to Jesus. Up on the screens, Romans 10, 14 and 15, last verse. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? For as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. As we bow in prayer, would you look down at your feet? Father, in Jesus' name, may these feet be led to a place where I can bring the good news to someone who needs to hear it. The good news of Jesus who gave his life on the cross, that we might live eternally with him, that we might share the fellowship and joy of the spirit that only he can bring. Lord, take away our fear. Lord, enable us to overcome all the reservations and all the failures and all the false starts and begin again even now to be those who begin eternal conversations that lead to eternal invitations that we will one day celebrate for all of eternity. Lord, it begins by our willingness to surrender all of our fears, all of our demands, everything we are to you, we surrender. The beginning point of any transformation is that we surrender it all. Next week we have a guest coming in who has a calling on his life to equip churches, to give you the how-tos, the very specific tools of just engagement and we'll start that process. I pray he'll come back, bring someone along with you maybe who's just, they're kind of stuck too, they haven't had the joy of leaning anyone to Christ. So I just want to encourage you to be here next week and continue this journey, just two weeks, but it's enough time for us to reset that button and believe that God will use us to change lives. You may be seated, Mike's got a couple announcements. Thank you, Jay. In a moment we're going to continue with the tithes and offerings here tonight. If you're our guest, I would encourage you just be our guest. We're glad that you're here visiting with us. If you're a regular attender, then thank you for what you give. You know, one of the tangible ways that we kind of do this, reach out to our communities through the launching of campuses in our community and one of the things that we're really excited about is this fall we are launching another campus, a brand new campus, our Swickly Valley campus. We're really excited about Pastor Kurt is here. Kurt, will you stand up please so people can see you. Wave to the group here. Kurt will be our campus pastor at the Swickly Valley campus and he'll be standing at the booth right here in the lobby after the service. If you're from that area or you just want to be a part of launching a new community, this is a very exciting time. I to do that in the very near future. Also, one of the things we have here on this campus is a venue that we call the Worship Cafe. The Worship Cafe meets at 11 o'clock on Sunday mornings and I don't know if you've ever checked this out, but it's a little bit different of an environment. We have this video to kind of show you a little bit what the cafe looks like. Take a look at this. Hey everybody, what's happening? Pastor Kent here once again inviting you to come to the Worship Cafe. On our Wexford campus, we have two worship venues. One that is in the sanctuary and one that's in the south venue where the Worship Cafe meets. And here are what some people are saying of why they attend the Worship Cafe. A place where you can be known and you can know others. A small, intimate environment. Just an intimate atmosphere. An intimate setting. Dare I say intimate. Just a small sense of community. It's a very nice, intimate place with a lot of friends. Really form a community with everyone. Just knowing that every Sunday we get to come and worship God together is incredible. So you can see one of the reasons why people come to the Worship Cafe is because it's small. Maybe you want to come and check it out too. I hope to see you there. Let me pray for the offering here tonight. Jesus, we come before you tonight and we're thankful. So thankful for everything that you've done in our hearts, in our lives. God, as I listened to that message here tonight, I was just reminded of the day that someone extended that invitation to me. And for everything that you've done in my life, in my heart, in my soul, and for the hope that I found in you. God, I pray that you would take now everything that we have. Everything that we have. Our tithes, our offerings, our time, our words, our energy. God, our lives. And that you would use it in such a way that other people will come to find hope, peace, fulfillment, and salvation in you. We love you, Jesus. I pray you would take this and that many more people will be touched through it. It's in your son's name. Lord. Amen. The ushers would take the offering. While they do that, there's a couple other announcements. Jay mentioned this earlier. Gary Poole, who's a well-known author and speaker, will be here next week. I encourage you to come back and check that out. Gary will deliver an incredible message here at all of our services at North Way. Also, if you're a parent of a teenager, we're continuing a series right now entitled Life in the Real World. And this Sunday evening, we're doing a series on intimacy, dating, and relationship. We're also going to have a parent seminar. I'd encourage you to check that out. There's some more details in your notes. But if you're a parent of a teenager, great opportunity for you here next or this Sunday evening at 6 30 p.m. Also, how many of you are here this evening for the Parents' Night Out? You're looking to get away a little bit for the Parents' Night Out. If you raise your hands. Well, we have 130-some children registered for Parents' Night Out. So I want to thank you for being a part of that. Thanks for participating. If you kind of stepped in today and you're like, well, I didn't sign up, but I thought I could just jump in. We overstaffed that. So we hope that we can handle your children. We'd love to have you be a part of it. So I'd encourage you, after the service, go talk with Darren Bowers. He'll be at the registration table. If we have enough leaders in that area and volunteers, we'll definitely take your kids and allow you to have an evening out as well. And next week, we've got a very special thing as well. We're having a chili cook-off after our service here on Sunday night. So I don't know how many of you make a mean chili. Pastor Scott says that he makes a sweet Italian sausage chili, and he thinks he's going to win the cook-off. So we're looking for a number of other volunteers to cook. So if you do, bring a crock pot of your chili. There's some details in the notes as well. You can sign up with Debbie. We'd love to have you be a part of that. Well, church, thanks for being here for the service. Thanks for everything that you do, both here in our church and in our greater community. God bless you, and we'll see you later this week.