Green Lights Guard Rails

Someone asked me yesterday at our SALT meeting, are you going to be preaching tomorrow? And I answered back to them, not really. They said, well, someone else? And I said, no. And they said, well, all right, I give up. What's the mystery? What's going to happen? I said, well, tomorrow I just kind of want to talk to the church as a family. As you know, I write all of my letters to you, dear North Way family, and I do today want to talk with you as a family of believers, and later on invite you as a family to the Lord's table together. We might share his body and his blood together. And I want to include all of our guests. I want you to feel welcome, even though this is a little unusual kind of a message. And as a family, you may come as a guest today. You are welcome. We're glad you're here. But I sensed all week that I was away and kind of dodging raindrops and sunshine at the same time, that I needed to come back and say something against the backdrop of the rather shocking and disturbing situation involving Pastor Rich Rossi and his wife, Sherry, and the friends at First Love Church just north of us. Now, unless you too have been away, you've been impacted by this story. The charges now officially brought against Pastor Rossi and subsequently denied by him, and then his appearance at the church and so on. Every Christian, dear one, everyone who names the name of Christ, has been impacted, affected by this story. Whether or not they will admit it, it's affected them, internally or externally, regardless of the outcome of the charges. It's affected you. Some people said, don't say anything, but you see, I believe it's important to say something today. And I want to begin by saying that it's not my role to comment on the charges. Pastor Rossi's guilt or innocence will be determined according to our long-established judicial system. And I want you to know, I pray he's innocent. And I pray that the internal situation at First Love Church gets resolved appropriately. That's not my concern. I'm not their pastor. We are not their leaders. But, as your pastor, and as part of the leadership team here at North Way, I feel there are a number of concerns that are kind of percolating underneath that are related to all of this. A number of you in our family are really confused about what our response should be. Even our staff, I've discovered, has sort of a broad range of response happening within them, which I think is representative of all of you. People are asking, what do you think? Why do these kinds of things happen? How do we support those who are being directly involved? And some have even asked the question, how do we know things like this won't happen in our church? And it's a fair question. And people are asking lots of questions. Jeff told me at his son's baseball game Friday night, 30 people at different times approached him and asked him about this whole situation. It's on the minds of people. Now you add this local scenario to the already highly publicized moral and ethical failures of other leading Christians, a growing political controversy around the religious right, and a widely acknowledged media bias that's definitely anti-Christian in its orientation, and many of us who seek to be faithful witnesses to our glorious Savior are paralyzed before we begin. But what I really want to talk to you about today as a family is the credibility of this ministry, how we can sustain it, how we can protect it against the many pitfalls along the narrow road. You see, the single greatest vulnerability of Christianity, humanly speaking, is the fact that God has entrusted this glorious treasure of the gospel to earthen vessels, weak, fallible people like you and like me. And God has decided that our faith will be passed on down through the generations solely through groups of people just like us all over the planet, small groups and large groups. Isn't it interesting that God didn't determine that we'd all go to some mountain somewhere and when we approached, he'd say, this is the way to find me? Or isn't it interesting that God didn't put some constellation in the sky and said, when you see the configuration of the stars, then you'll know how to find me? Or he didn't give us some artifact that glows when you found truth or some idol that speaks. He decided that the glorious gospel, the good news, would be transmitted through fallible people like you and me. And groups, as you know, can be wonderful, can't they? They can be a place where life is imparted, where security and safety is embraced, where support is offered, fellowship and friendship, where needs are met, where discovery is encouraged, or groups can also be very, very destructive, where name-calling and accusations and resentments and power plays and disloyalties can bring terrible damage. Might I say quite candidly that a number of you are sitting here today with soul scars from your own former involvement in groups, once good groups, having gone bad. No group ever starts out to be destructive, I'm convinced, at least no Christian group. But along the way, many good groups do veer off the road. It's a narrow road, Jesus said. I get letters all the time, my file drawers have all kinds of examples. One of the folks that we supported for years at Fuller Seminary writes this to me just recently. We struggled all along with our church here. The key lack we found in, and I won't name the church, was a lack of grace expressed from the leadership and therefore from the body. We struggled against the legalism that resulted and nearly left on several occasions, but God would not permit us to do so. Then we saw a change occur, but once again just last year, the pastor was removed and replaced by a more legalistic one. And though grace was still proclaimed from the pulpit, legalism returned in power. And now we are no longer able to have the energy to renew our stance against God. Many good groups at some point veer off the road that God's established. Now here at North Way, we've always had a vision to be a very good group of people. Not to have a big church, that has never been the vision. It's been rather our vision to be, as I described in detail two weeks ago, a biblically functioning, spirit-filled community of believers who are committed to one another wholeheartedly. Where people are authentic and real, where caring and compassionate lives intersect one another on a regular basis, where we are in touch regularly with the power of God, where we're open to anyone who is searching for God's will for their life, where we're gracious and accepting, where opportunity to contribute is given to all, where rich and poor co-mingle, black and white, like the Sunday School song says, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight. A group that's led by accessible, accountable, servant leaders. That's always been our vision. A group where people are drawn to Jesus Christ, not just because they hear the message proclaimed from the pulpit, but because they can see the quality of life in the people around them and be drawn to that. And I won't pretend to tell you that all of North Way is functioning in fullness of that vision, but I will tell you, there are pockets of that life everywhere I look. And I pray that it just continues to keep growing. But good groups are fragile. It doesn't take a lot for a good group to go bad, because you see, we're just really a bunch of fallible, sin-spotted, wounded, weak people that are trying to do this thing. And what holds us together is just a very thin thread of trust, which once torn or broken is almost irreparable in the hearts of people. So how can we here at North Way be sure that we'll stay on course while pressing ahead? And I want to say, it is not an option just to kind of entrench ourselves and play it safe. Building a church is much like riding a bicycle. You've got to move ahead and keep your balance. Because the moment you stop growing, you fall over. So folks, we're here to ride bikes together in the Spirit. And I want to talk just for a few minutes today, because I want to allow ample time for communion, about green lights and guardrails along the narrow road. And I apologize, I didn't have time to develop a full outline like I normally do in your notes. I've only been back a couple of days. But I do have an overhead, and you might want to jot down what these green lights and guardrails are. Number one, the first green light that we ought to pursue to stay on the narrow road together is strong visionary leadership. Proverbs 28 and 19 says that without a vision, the people perish. Or New International Version says, cast off restraint. They wander off on their own. Every group needs strong leadership. If it's to fulfill its vision and make a difference for the kingdom of God. Leaders you must lead at every level. Elders, deacons, home group leaders, children's ministry leaders, youth staff leaders, singles leaders, volunteer leaders. Lead, Paul says, Romans 12 verse 8, with diligence. Because if you don't lead, the people will cast off restraint. They'll do their own thing. George Barna, the now rather widely known Christian pollster says, in every one of the growing healthy churches I've studied, there's a discernible link between the spiritual and numerical growth of congregations and the existence, articulation, and widespread ownership of God's vision for ministry by the leaders. And I know here this morning we have hundreds of you who are in leadership positions. If we're to go on and fulfill God's vision and stay on God's road as a church, leaders you've got to lead. You can't sit back and hope that someone else will pick it up. And that's a temptation in the larger church. Someone else will show up and do what God's called you to do. Now there are differing forms of that leadership. But let me say this, the guardrail is this. God knew just how prone we are to abusing authority and power. And so the guardrail is that all biblical leadership that I've ever discovered, appropriate leadership, is exercised in plurality with accountability. God knows just how inclined we are to ride that rush of influencing other people's lives. And so he has ordained it that in the local church, in a good group, there will be a plurality of leadership. Now there are differing forms of this. In some places they call them apostolic leaders. Some places the five-fold ministry. Some places they're elders, deacons, bishops, overseers, leadership teams. It doesn't matter what you call them. But whatever you call them, they have to lead in community and in unity together. They'll move ahead committed to the purposes of God and unwilling to tolerate inappropriate behavior. You know, when I examined the fall of Jim Baker in, and I want to encourage you, one great book to read about this whole kind of situation, Richard Dortch's book, Integrity, How I Lost It, and My Efforts to Recover It, something like that, a book on integrity. He says there very clearly that you see the men and women that surrounded Jim Baker's ministry, his board of directors and personal advisors, they fell asleep with the switch. And you just can't avoid the conclusion that they failed Jim Baker and allowed him just to go on and do all kinds of things that were inappropriate and never challenged him in, never stood their ground. And as far as I'm concerned, they were as responsible as he for what happened at PTL. I might as well say it out loud here this morning. American Christians despise accountability. It's a very big word with a very small following in Christendom. We prefer rugged individualism, self-determinationalism, mind-your-own-business kind of Christianity. I'll take care of me, you take care of you is kind of the attitude that prevails. And generally, we don't have the heart to ask the tough questions of our leaders or of one another because we are afraid that they'll ask them of us. So we kind of hold off, play it safe. We're not accountable either. Just so that you know, here at North Way, if someone should ask you, well, how do you know that's not going to happen in your church? Any of these kinds of things that I've described. There is no guarantee, but I can tell you this. At North Way, we follow a biblical pattern of leadership. We have clear commitments to mutual submission and accountability in our eldership. I am accountable to our elders at two different levels. And they're accountable to one another and to me. And we have established together a seven-point covenant of accountability that we all carry with us. That in specific detail tells what we will do to hold one another accountable on this narrow road. And once a month we meet as husbands and wives to affirm this covenant and ensure that we're walking together on it. See, God's way is to walk together bonded in community, leaders together giving a group direction and providing security and protection so that a good group doesn't run amok and fall off the narrow road. It's not perfect. I am not saying at all that we have this down perfectly. We're always growing, tweaking, sometimes even failing in it now and then. But there is integrity there. And I just want you to know, some people have even asked, well, what about this great big new building and its property and all the money and all that stuff? I mean, what if something really wrong happened in North Way and it all blew apart? Who'd get the money? I've thought about that. I can assure you, it wouldn't be me. In fact, it's written in a couple places that if this ministry should just spin out and blow up, that all of the assets would be distributed among like-minded ministries. In other words, distributed to charity around us. No one would benefit from any of the proceeds. And that's the kind of leadership that you have here at North Way. Again, the green light is leaders you've got to lead, but the guardrail is you've got to lead with clear accountability. That's why home group leaders, when we ask you to come to a home group leaders meeting, it isn't because we're afraid of some mistake you're making. It's because we want to encourage you to be accountable. You know what I've discovered? People who are accountable somehow have an authority of love with people that they serve as a leader. If you're not accountable, people won't be accountable to you. It's simple. The second green light is, and this is what I'm saying, every group wants to have this passionately devoted commitment to following Christ. This is something every group that's going to accomplish anything great for God needs. That's the second green light. Put that one up. A passionate devotion to following Christ. Now, one of the marks of a good group is wholeheartedness. And you know we talk about this a lot around here. It's necessary if we're to achieve our vision. We won't get where we want to go by just kind of lumping along and sort of, you know, in a sluggardly way hoping for the best. Folks, Jesus made it very clear in Luke 9, 23 and many other places, he who would save his life will lose it, and he who would lose his life for my sake will surely find it. I mean, it's wholehearted to the core. Jesus said in John 14, 12, Anyone who has faith in me will do what I've been doing. He'll heal the sick, deliver the oppressed, comfort the wounded, preach the good news. But you know what I've discovered? That anyone who believes in those things is almost automatically categorized as being on the lunatic fringe. I believe Christianity with signs and wonders, with demonstrations of the Spirit should be the norm. Do you believe that? It is not just for the lunatic few. And yet I don't think I've read one report about any such incident as we've experienced here locally, where the idea of believing in healing according to the power of faith has not somehow been described in terms that make it sound like if you believe this, you're really whacked out. Well, folks, if you don't believe it, then somehow you've got to explain away what Jesus said. Every criticism seems to come back and say, Oh, well, if that's where you're coming from, then you must really be off the wall. I don't believe that's true. And what I've discovered is increasing numbers of people who come to North Way and check things out want very firm boundaries drawn around what we believe about these things. And many of them even want an intellectual explanation for it. And, folks, I can't give it to them. Why does God heal some and not others? I don't know. But I will never stop praying that He heals everyone because I never know when He's going to invade a situation and by His glorious grace turn around a physical or mental or emotional problem. Rapidly vanishing qualities that I see all around in Christians today. Three things, if we could just list those. Three things that are harder and harder to find. Number one, courage. Number two, commitment. And number three, sacrificial love. I don't think there's too much of this to be found in Christian circles. And I'm happy to say I do see it in many of you. And I just want to applaud you and say, keep taking some risks of faith. Keep believing God. Keep hanging in there for the tough situations. Without these, you really can't follow Jesus all the way. You won't see many lives changed without these qualities. You won't see people restored or bodies healed or captains released. And I guarantee you won't see the culture changed unless they see this in you. Our culture's had enough of sort of middle of the road, nothing really matters stuff. They're looking for people who really believe the things and live the things that they espouse. But the guardrail along this part of the narrow road is this. Such ministries that espouse wholehearted devotion must always be reminded that they are a grace-driven, love-focused faith. You see, good groups go bad when the bar for passionate devotion is set ever higher by the leader and those that he chooses to put in authority. And no one ever seems to make it unless the leader decides that they have. And without ever saying it directly, holiness becomes a work. And that which was begun by grace ends up in the ditch of works and legalism. The number one characteristics of bad groups is some form of legalism. Believe this, do that, don't do this, do it this way or else. I want to commend you. If you want to know a lot more about how this kind of stuff happens, pick up a copy of the book Churches That Abuse by Ronald Enroff. Fairly recent book. He describes in vivid detail 15 or 20 case studies of churches that have fallen off the narrow road, churches that started out with good intentions. Legalism, like you, is one list of what was to happen at a training session if you were part of these folks being trained. Imagine this for discovering the way, Scott. No unexcused absences from any of the meetings will be tolerated. All the trainees must be seated in the meetings in strict accordance with their assigned seat number. Take a look there, see how you're doing. All the trainees must be in their seats at least five minutes before the start of each meeting. Most of you are already flunking. No eating, drinking, or gum chewing will be tolerated after the start of the meeting. No trainee is allowed to leave his seat for any reason, including the restroom, during the course of the meeting, except for emergency. I could envision an emergency. All the trainees are charged to participate in no gossip or negative talk against any individual or church. All the trainees must rest each afternoon and not go out to visit or shop during the training session. And folks, I really didn't pick one of the more extreme ones. See, in the name of protecting its membership from sin and carnality, leaders advocate a devotion which slips on into a form of legalism that's deadly. And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about because you've lived under it and suffered under it. And I just want to say this. Legalism is like a drug. Once you are hooked, you need increasing amounts to satisfy. It's grace, not legalism. That's the basis of our acceptance and our ongoing standing in the body of Christ and as members of a good group, a church. Let me also say as another guardrail here at church, many believers, many of you here today, please be advised, be cautious about majoring in the things that are not primary in Scripture. Now some of you will, I know I risk misunderstanding, you may just feel I'm off the wall here, but in our hunger for signs and wonders and manifestations of the Spirit, prophetic words and so, we have a tendency to place a higher priority on those things than on the central issues of Scripture like love and obedience and faithfulness and love and integrity and purity and love and forgiveness and forbearance and love. Those are the highest things, 1 Corinthians 13 says. You know, most people who wander into groups that go bad are looking for more. More holiness, more power, more miracles. Just really, when you pare it all away, they're trying to get at something inside of them that's not satisfying. And I just want to submit to you, it's a danger. A man that I respect out in Chicago, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School says this, like most movements in the church, the current emphasis on healing, prophecy and exorcism has both positive and negative sides to it. It reminds us of the need to take seriously the work of the Holy Spirit in meeting everyday human needs. How many believe that's true? Absolutely. It is in danger, however, of placing primary emphasis on what is of secondary importance in Scripture and of bending the gospel to fit the spirit of our times. Satan often tempts us at the point of our greatest strengths. His method is not to sell us rank heresy but to take the good we have and distort it by appealing to our self-interests. And that is so true. You see, in the end, when I talk to people who've wandered into groups that have gone to God back, they have really been looking for something that they felt they needed instead of what Paul says in Philippians 3, which is to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering. Just be aware of it. I am not saying we don't embrace those manifestations. I'm saying just don't make them the primary thing you're after. The third green light is this. The third quality every group needs to stay on the narrow road is a spirit of acceptance and nonjudgmentalism. I mean, these are key qualities in a group that move it forward. Searching people want to find a place to belong. And it always begins with unconditional acceptance. And the words, judge not, that all of us here quoted back to us so many times, the words of Jesus, judge not that you be not judged. Folks, those words keep us from falling into a self-righteousness that goes around and points out others' weaknesses while being totally blind and ignorant of our own. And I need to let you know that studies will tell us, and lots of folks have told me, that those people who've been involved in churches that somehow have gone off the road, they need you to be embracing and accepting of them. They need you to work with them through their questions. They are as confused about it as you are. They do not need you to shut them off or to close them down. They need you to be open and accepting while they work through their hurts and pains. But friends, in a couple of months, I really do pray that you understand how important it is that you send a message to every person that comes through our new doors that are about to be opened, that you accept them unconditionally where they are. That the word will get out in the North Hills and all around the community that this is a church where you can go and people just accept you right where you are. You'll be loved. I pray we get a reputation for being a church that accepts people. It doesn't have some standard in order to get in. And that comes by your sending that message of just accepting them where they are. And certainly never a place where gossip or slander about other groups or other people is ever tolerated. But the guardrail on this is very subtle but important. The other thing that you have to keep in mind about this is you also need to be discerning and learning to speak the truth in love. How I pray for discernment in you all the time, and for me. And I'm in good company. Paul the Apostle writes in Philippians 1, This is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best. Church, I pray you discern what is best. Not just what is good or acceptable. What is best. Judge not does not mean accept everything anyone ever does because you might do something worse. Did you hear that? When Jesus says judge not, he's not throwing out any standard and saying it doesn't matter what you do. You can't say that's wrong. Well, that's ridiculous. In fact, Jesus himself frequently warned the Pharisees about the hypocrisy and said to them, Woe to you. Paul the Apostle called some dissidents barking dogs in Philippians 3, verse 2. You see, if you're faced with a situation where you believe someone is in error, at a personal level, I'm not talking about you corporately going in and challenging necessarily. I'm talking about at a personal level where someone you care about may be slipping into deception. You need to ask the right questions. You need to speak up. You need to love them enough to challenge them. You need to press them on the core issues that I brought up here today. You need to help them to see a different perspective because folks, if you don't speak up, they may make the wrong choice. Most every person or group that goes amok does so gradually and increasingly. They don't start out with the intent to go off the narrow road. A central theme of this book, the author says, is that spiritual abuse can take place in the context of doctrinally sound, Bible-preaching, fundamental, conservative Christianity. All that is needed for abuse is a pastor accountable to no one and therefore beyond confrontation. And you need to know, folks, that sometimes you're the person that God would have reach out to someone that's being affected by this. Now, quite a few of us feel, yeah, but I'm not responsible. I'm not responsible for what happens to them. I don't think that's a godly attitude. In fact, you are responsible to love them. And sometimes it requires you to speak the truth in love. And one of the most powerful quotes in this book by Richard Dortch, let me just read this to you. He says, Perhaps my greatest sin at PTL was consenting, he calls it consensual integrity, consenting to some of the things that happened. It wasn't a deliberate decision. I just did nothing. No man should be accountable for what others do. I must bear my own responsibilities. But I never verbalized my objections, never spoke for it, and was often not against it. I just did nothing. I wanted to be a good person, but I should have lovingly but firmly spoken up and asked, what's going on? Men and women can live lies, teenagers can live a lie, families can live the big lie, institutions can live a lie, a church, a college, a ministry can be living the big lie, and we do nothing. We seemingly consent to it by the actions. We do not take. It's a guardrail. Judge not, but please speak the truth in love. One final green light. The saddest thing about all these kinds of difficulties in churches and situations like them is that they tend to blur the wonderful purity of our precious Lord, Jesus Christ. They put attention on man, and they distract us from pursuing the vision of love that God has departed to us with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. You see, God has called us here at North Way to a great work, a work that needs every one of us to be involved in order for it to succeed. And folks, I know it's the middle of the summer, and I know we've all got lots of different agendas going, but I guess I'm feeling some real discouragement right now about the ineffectiveness of my teaching ministry along one area. And that is, you heard me say just a few weeks ago, how the whole staff and eldership of this church felt a summons, a nudge by the Holy Spirit that we were to focus our energies in prayer through the summer, that we needed to be praying and preparing our hearts for what God was going to do come fall. And it's sad to me when I hear reports of groups that are very specifically listed in your North Way notes where one person shows up to pray, and that's just the leader of the group. No one else shows. And that's not just one of those groups. I had one person kind of say, well, you know, if you stop Wednesday night service, people just take an excuse to cut back. And I said, no, the people, they'll respond. They'll be at prayer. They'll be involved. And unless something turns around, he's going to be right. Every one of you would say, we want this church to move in the grace of God and the power of God in the future, but it is not going to happen just because you wish it. It's going to happen because you pray it so. And I just want to say, what excuse could you have for not finding one hour to pray with the body? And you can't say, well, it just doesn't fit my schedule, because it's any time practically, day or night. It's listed right there in your notes. North Way, listen to me as I close. We need to wake up to the fact that we really have something very special here. We do. Something valuable and rare that I don't see many places. And although I'm burdened by the pain and confusion that other brothers and sisters are going through right now, my real concern is for here. I don't know how many really good groups you'll ever be a part of in your Christian life, but there's a group right here where lives are being changed, where commitments are being made, where servant leaders are being raised up, where sinners are repenting and prisoners are being set free, where needy people are being helped, where captives are finding release, where lonely are finding friendships, where successful people are finding significance, and where some of the moments we experience in worship are the most holy that you'll ever know. But what's going to keep us moving ahead are the green lights and guardrails that God spells out in His Word, and we need to embrace it with all our hearts. Follow the green lights. Leaders, you've got to lead. And those of you who aren't leaders, you've got to follow in love. We need to be passionately devoted to Christ, believing Him for His best, and we need to be accepting of others. And folks, I have a conviction that if we do those things within the guardrails that God's put beside us, we'll just keep growing better and better and better as a church to the glory of Christ alone. Amen? Join the hand of the person next to you, please. Lord Jesus, we come to focus upon You. We come to lift our eyes now to You, holy and perfect and without spot or blemish, fair and lovely, and we worship You together.