Hebrew Praise Night

I'm Pastor Scott. Most of you know that, but I know you don't know who those folks are sitting around you. So everyone stand. Everyone stand. Find someone you haven't said hello to yet tonight, or haven't met. Go ahead. After all, we're God's people. We need to know who God's people are. We're the people of God, called by his name, called from the dark, and delivered from shame. One holy race, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Christ Jesus the Son. Sing that again. We're the people. We're the people of God, called by his name, called from the dark, and delivered from shame. One holy race, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Christ Jesus the Son. Hear us, O spirits. Hear us, O spirits of darkness, so you will know where we stand. We are his servants, purchased with scarves, bought by the blood, the blood of the Lamb. We're the people of God. We're the people of God, called by his name, called from the dark, and delivered from shame. One holy race, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Christ Jesus the Son. With our lips, with our lips, let us sing one confession, with our hearts whole, to one truth alone. For he has erased our transgressions, and slain us, and called us his own, his very own. We're the people of God. We're the people of God, called by his name, called from the dark, and delivered from shame. One holy race, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Christ Jesus the Son. Let's sing that again. Take someone's hand. We're the people of God, called by his name, called from the dark, and delivered from shame. One holy race, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Christ Jesus the Son. While you're holding that hand, let's just have a word of prayer together. Father, we thank you for this very special night, where all of us have such great anticipation of what this evening will bring, because we know, Lord, that you inhabit the praises of your people. You inhabit the praises of your people. That's what your word tells us. And so, Father, as we come into your presence with thanksgiving, with singing, with rejoicing in our hearts, Lord, we know we're not perfect. Some of us have absolutely blown it this week. Some of us aren't worthy to stand in your presence, or even hold the hand of the one we touch. But, Lord, we know that all we need to do is confess with our lips that Jesus Christ is Lord. Receive the forgiveness that you have given us with your shed blood. Forgive one another, Lord. Extending grace, where grace needs to be extended. Loving, in spite of our own anger and anxiety and frustrations. Literally becoming Christ to one another. We thank you, Father, that we are transformed into your image, even as we come into your presence. And so we do come with thanksgiving and with praise. In Jesus' name. Amen. Greet someone one more time as you're being seated. Go ahead. Find somebody else you didn't say hi to, and then let's be seated. You know what? You're such a noisy bunch. We're just going to do one more song before I have you sit down. I can tell you just can't stand it. Let's celebrate the goodness of our God. Everyone stand again. Celebrate, celebrate, the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate, his victory, by he has given to us the victory. Celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate, oh, celebrate, celebrate, the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate, his wisdom and his power, he has given to us the victory. Celebrate the glory of our God. And there is fullness of joy in your presence, in your presence. There is fullness of joy, joy in the spirit of our God. So celebrate, celebrate, the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate, his wisdom and his power, he has given to us the victory. Celebrate the glory of our God. And there is fullness, and there is fullness of joy in your presence, in your presence. And there is fullness of joy, joy in the spirit of our God. So celebrate, celebrate, the glory of our God. Celebrate, celebrate, his wisdom and his power, he has given to us the victory. Celebrate the glory of our God. Celebrate the glory. Celebrate the glory of our God. Once more. Celebrate the glory of our God. All right, be seated everyone. I feel like I should be leaning, you know, maybe this way or something. Let's squeeze a little bit so the other folks that are waiting to sit down can, would you? Put your hand up if there's a chair near you and these people can find their way. There we go. Well, that's all right. We have a couple little things to do that are very important before we move into tonight's activity. Active praise. All right. Before we do that, I'd like to have us pray for two families that are very important in the life of our church, both of whom are leaving. I don't like when important, I don't like anybody leaves, but I like when important families leave, especially ones that have helped in so many ways to shape who we are. One family is going about 200 miles or so away. And that's Mike and Sue Gear. They're going to be going, come on up, Michael, please. Sue, what's she tonight? She's coming soon. She didn't know this could be her moment. All right, sit back down. We'll pray she gets her. All right. If she comes in, you tell her that we're waiting. All right. And I want then to bring up a family that's not going 200 miles, but about 12,000 miles away. And that's Ken and Lisa Starkey who are going back to China. Ken and Lisa, I know you're here, aren't you both? Oh, you're right in front of my face. There we go. Great. Come on all the way up. The lights are a little funny on this side. So I want you to stand where they all can see you. Can I borrow someone's microphone here? There we go. Thanks. Well, this is it. A little bit faster than you thought? Yeah, a few days. OK. Tell us exactly what's going to happen the next couple of weeks. And well, yeah, I'm still trying to fathom what's going to happen the next couple of days. In about 36 hours, we'll be at the Pittsburgh airport and we're going to fly to China for the next two to three years. We'll be arriving in Hong Kong Saturday evening. Sunday morning, I'll go into China alone. I'll leave Lisa and the boys behind just for a week or two. I'll need to go and make some arrangements inside China to arrange for our living conditions. But basically, I'll have to go in by train. What's it? Trains, planes, and buses. But anyway, I'll be on all of those in the next few hours. And we'll be meeting with some people that actually, I don't know, many, I think, have met Kevin Graves. Well, Kevin and I have kind of been working together on this. And I'll be meeting with some Chinese brothers, some believers in that city who are going to help us find an apartment to live in. So be praying, please, a lot concerning a place for us to live in the city of Chengdu. OK, that hopefully will be decided within the next week. So OK, and real quickly, Lisa, what one thing can specifically, I know there's a bunch. She's trying to contain herself here. But tell us one or two things we can pray for. I think mostly pray for the children as we go through more changes. Pray that, pray for their health, possibly, just everything. And pray that we make friends quickly, I think, in China, because it's hard to say goodbye to friends and family here. And I think it'll be easier as we make friends there. Pray for quick language acquisition and whatever else comes to you. Thank you. Lisa and Ken sent me a very nice little note just last week. And I think it's appropriate because so many people here really haven't spent time with you. But their note told me how much these last, how many, has it been, how many months? Three. Just three months? Yeah. These last three months, and they've gone so quickly. I remember when I first saw you in the hall, I said, what are you doing here? And now it's gone already. But what has it meant to you just to be able to return home and just be meshed back into the life of the church? That's an easy one to answer. Having been on the field and met so many people who just don't have a home church to go home to, we met so many people, so many full-time and part-time missionaries, people on the field during the six months that we were away. And I mean, the story of their lives, and no one had the care and the constant covering. And we just felt so, you know, almost like we were just, you know, not like we were leaving, but just kind of transplanted, you know, that the covering, I mean, a week didn't go by that some letter, some card, something didn't come. And that meant so much. You know, people marveled at just how well cared for we were while we were away. And I know that's been the vision of North Way since the beginning, just to care for those the Lord brings. And, you know, we came here a long time ago. It was, I think, over six years now that we've been here at North Way, and always with a vision to go out in missions. But I praise the Lord for those six years and what he built in relationship that's lasted. So even while we've been home, there have been houses for us at each turn. We've been through a lot of houses this summer, but just loving homes and good meals and caring all around prayers all the time. So many blessings at each part. And I can't, it was hard for me to ask for anyone here to house. I mean, we're not a very quiet, well-mannered family. No, really? To ask somebody to house a family of four was difficult. And you guys really blessed us in that, and just in meeting all of our needs. And we thank you for that. We want to thank you too. Praise the Lord. You know, it's wonderful to be a church that God's entrusted with folks of commitment like this, isn't it? And, you know, Ken and Lisa represent who I think, they represent just one of our finest young families. And I believe we're setting the world our finest young family. And that's, now if you weren't with us at the mission conference last month, you can pick up one of these on your way out. I'm sure you'll have them at the visitor's booth. Pick one of these up because you're in here, right? Picture and location and how to pray and all those things. So that's really exciting. Mike, are you ready yet? Oh, Mike's ready. Come on up. We want to do this together. Thanks, Sherry. This is, we got dressed up. That's why. All right, here we are. Mike and Sue Geer and Christopher and Bethany, right? And real quickly, Mike, because I think most people know kind of what you're doing. Just give us a nutshell recap of where you're headed. We're headed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to work for, head up a new organization called the Pennsylvania Family Institute. And our goal is to affect positively the family in Pennsylvania in our culture, in our government, in the media, in every way to bring traditional family values back to Pennsylvania and so that we can raise our families and have them prosper in the way that they should. And we'll be involved in political activities as well as cultural activities, try to impact the media so that they understand that the family is the building block of our society. And without strong families, this nation won't stand. That's the effort that we're putting forth. And we'll be moving to Lancaster County. Jay's mother-in-law lives out there, so he'll be visiting, I'm sure. And any of the rest of you can come and visit. OK, you know, I'm going to have you all stand. You know, Mike and Sue, go ahead and stand. I've had the privilege as their pastor to journey with them through these changes. And let me have a show of hands right now. How many of you just aren't sure what your long-range destiny in Christ is yet? Still kind of looking. Al, there we go. Every hand, Dave. Every hand, people that know. I'm not sure yet. OK, now some of you should have your hands down. I mean, I hope some of you know what you're doing. Pastor Scott's hands up. Everyone, as long as this is not good. OK, maybe not word for word. But the exciting thing is to watch the Lord lead a couple and lead families like this. And you found him faithful. This may not be the final revelation, but he sure has made it exciting. A whole new organization that's geared to affecting the future of this state, the legislature of this state, which your kids and your family members will benefit from. Here's what I wanted to do. I'm going to have a brief prayer. And then we're going to sing all together this chorus from Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him. And he'll direct your path. Would you extend your hand, please, everyone, toward Mike and Sue and Ken and Lisa and their wonderful little kids. Lord, we come into strong agreement as a church. Lord, we set in the heavenly places a hedge around their lives. God, we believe you. Lord, not only, Lord, to go before them, but to come up behind as their rear guard, Lord, so that the surprise attacks from the evil one will fall to the wayside. Lord, that nothing that would be sensed as a loose end that they haven't covered, Lord, would ever come back to bother them, to haunt them, to plague them. Father, we declare complete adequacy in Christ from this moment that every need would be met, every provision for this living place in China for the Starkeys, Lord, and for the provision that Mike and Sue need to get this ministry off the ground. Lord, we believe you to be sufficient. Jehovah, Jireh, their provider, adequate in all of your provision for them. Lord, we've cherished their relationship here. And Lord, we see it only as a stretching, Lord, not a breaking. And Father, in due time, return them to us to give us reports and to share in what good things you're accomplishing to establish your kingdom. Lord, we turn them over now in trusting them to the Holy Spirit and to his care. In Jesus' precious name. Amen. Your family loves you. We'll be praying for you. You all may be seated. Now, your faithfulness to support the ministry here at North Way enables these kinds of things to happen. And we don't put these up on the sign on Route 19. But these families couldn't do these things without your support. And it's really a vital part of who we are. We thought tonight it would be good with our kids here tonight to honor the Lord with our offering while the kids are here. So go ahead and prepare that, would you please, right now while I take a moment and tell you what we need to know for the future this week. By the way, we've been moving today. Do we look tired? Thank you. Well, some really have spent themselves today packing and moving furniture and all over. Just a reminder now, folks, if you need to see someone on the staff tomorrow and beyond, we're going to be up at the office building. You can barely see it. Right up there, you can come to the ground run and turn left and come in the parking lot. Or if you forget, you can park right there and walk up the steps. That's where we'll be. The phone numbers are the same, right, Arlene? And the address is the same. All right. So keep that in mind. Can we have the overheads up? I'm not even sure what I have there. Number one, Gary Smalley, love is a decision. Pastor Jim, Mary, are we going to see the video afterwards? All right. If you didn't see the video last week and you want to see, well, what's this really about? We've had something like 100 people sign up since last Wednesday. You can see it while the rest of us are eating. You can watch the video. That should be quite interesting. It'll be right over there in that corner while we're having some refreshments. But please sign up because Pastor Jim reminds me that it's tomorrow, the very last day, right? As a pre-registration to get the best rate. All right. Next, please. All leadership. I forgot to announce this Sunday. If you're a home group leader, a ministry leader, music ministry, deacon, whatever, this Saturday for one hour and 45 minutes right here, a light quick breakfast. We're going to make things a little different. We're going to be done eating by 830. So please be on time. Next. And the singles ministry. Now, we're not going to say this every week, but I wanted to get this down into your heart so you can ask others. How many single folks here tonight? Wave your hand up. Wave it up there, please. All right. This is for you. This is for you. That's almost, I'd say, 25% of the congregation. So please note that. Don't miss Dennis Miller. And you can get more information in the hallway right afterwards. All right. And there we go. Permissions on two weeks from Friday. Let me get that in there so it's being shared. Two weeks from Friday, you can sign up. We have great Friday night mission meetings. And that's something for those of you who want to keep, and all of us should, on the cutting edge there. All right. Anything else? Yes. Pastor Jeff asked me, parents, how many have not signed up for the Pioneer Clubs, which are starting now? If you haven't signed up, ushers, do you have those in your hands? No, we don't. Yes, we do. Well, keep that in one hand. Parents, if you want to sign up for Pioneers, put your hand up. Here they come. Very quickly, guys, run these up here. There's about 10 of them. While they're doing that, let me remind you, teachers, we still are praying for teachers. And we need the teachers to join us soon, like tonight. Folks, you were here Sunday. You saw the 300 kids. We need you to consider helping us. You say, well, I don't know what grade I can do. Well, Pastor Jeff will work with you, train you. He will not leave you without help. I promise you in that. So please see him tonight. Or just put your name in a little card in the basket, and we'll get it. All right. Let's pray, and we'll gather the offerings tonight. Join a hand with somebody, would you? Lord, we now give to you this offering of our abundance, Lord. And as a church, I look out tonight and see hundreds of healthy, happy people. Lord, I also know there are many hurts and needs that are represented here. And Father, we thank you that as we plant physical seeds of faith, that we can trust you to meet not just financial need, Lord, but we can trust you to meet every need, because you're a God who cares about every detail that concerns us. Thank you, Lord. Not a sparrow falls from the sky that you don't know it. How much more then will our Heavenly Father provide for us? We know it's true, Lord. We give expectantly tonight. Our faith is upon your word, and our eyes are upon you in Jesus' name. Now that about covers it, doesn't it? All right. Praise the Lord. If you're a visitor tonight, by the way, please don't feel any compulsion to give. We're just glad you're here. We're going to acknowledge you in a moment. Go ahead, ushers. This is... You're working up a sweat there, Jim. All right. Yes. While they're doing that last announcement, watch carefully. And then we're going to go right on. This is so important. Please watch the screen here, okay? I announced on Sunday that we are going to begin Saturday evening worship services. The Lord may want to use you to help us to do this. Here's where we need help. Because we have been very committed to praying this through before we've asked for any help, we need some help. Number one, we need general servants. We need people who would say, I'll get there a little early Saturday, and I can stay for 30 minutes afterwards and move chairs around. We need about, we figure, 10 to 15 people to do that with some consistency. All right? We start on the 16th of September. Number two, we need some people to help us with a little reception we're going to have. You bring a friend, you want to have a cup of coffee and some very light snacks afterwards. This isn't something you'd have to all prepare, but you could help us to serve it and make sure it's an appropriate ending to their experience. Number three, we need some folks in the parking lot. I say folks because you could be of either gender for this. All right? We need some parking lot help because we can't use all of David Weiss and those kinds of things, and we feel it's important. Number four, Pastor Jeff informs me that we're gonna have an exciting, kind of a new approach to children's ministry, but we do need about four or five people who want to give a frontline approach to that ministry. And finally, we need some folks to help in ushering because we can't have our deacons out every Saturday night and Sunday morning. I'll put them all up, Paula. Can you show them all? How many of you will consider helping in one of these areas for Saturday night? Great. That's wonderful. That's about 30 or 40 people. If there's any way that you can help us with this, I would very much appreciate your coming up right here to the podium afterwards. And I'm going to ask if you'll just give your name to my secretary, Arlene Rankin. She'll take your name down and we'll get back to you. If she's asleep from all the work she's been doing today, someone will be there to help her. Right here at the podium, though. We need your help right away so we can get on with this. It's going to be exciting. All right. Are you ready to praise the Lord? Yes, I've been ready for 20 minutes. What are you doing up there? Okay, let's go, Suzy. Yes, they wanted to sing these songs with us, okay? Okay, let's all stand together. This is going to be a night of celebration, a celebration of some of our tradition. And in the Hebrew sense, this first song we're going to do, Sing for Joy, comes from Isaiah and it's said in many different ways. And you all know it from our journey tape, these next three songs. So let's just enter in and praise the Lord together. Sing for Joy. Okay, before we do that again, this is a night where we're going to be dancing. And this song says something about dancing. So it should give you opportunity to get warmed up, okay? So I'm going to see a little feet moving out there. I will sing in celebration, I will praise the Lord. I will dance in jubilation, I will praise the Lord. I will sing in celebration, I will dance in jubilation. I will praise the Lord. Now he is our hope of victory. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Jesus took our chains, broke them, and freed us. Now He is our Rock for victory. My strength in the time of weariness, my power in the time of war. He is the hope of Israel. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Jesus took our chains, broke them, and freed us. Now He is our Rock for victory. My strength in the time of weariness, my power in the time of war. Oh, He is the hope of Israel. Oh, He is the hope. Oh, He is the hope of Israel. Oh, He is the hope of Israel. Hallelujah. Let's praise the Lord. Give Him a clap offering tonight. Be seated for a second. We're just getting going. Some of you would like to just stay here and watch all this. But we're ready for you in the back tonight. And we want to dismiss you. Just before we do that, I want to say a word to our visitors that have come tonight. First of all, we're glad you're here. It's an unusual night for us in that we're taking a step into the heritage that we have as Christians. Looking back in the scriptures at our Jewish ancestors. But we know that as a visitor tonight it may be a different kind of experience for you. We want to welcome you, though. So if you're a visitor today, church, let's welcome. Wave your hands, visitors. We want to give you a packet from Northwick. Go ahead. Wave your hand up. Are you visiting tonight? Over here and here. Go ahead. We're glad you're here. Back here as well. Great to have you. Anyone else? Are you visiting tonight? Right here? All right. Thank you for coming tonight. Anytime during the service you can open that packet and there's information and little cards you can fill out and put in one of the boxes on your way out. Just let us know you were here. Kids, stand up. We love you and we're praying for a great... Have you made your step up? Yo, have we done that? All right. Lord, send them out and fill them with joy tonight. And most of all, just the love of Jesus Christ revealed in your word and in their fellowship together in Jesus' name. Amen. Let me have the younger children first up through second grade. All right. Go ahead first up through second graders. You go first. Yeah, because I don't want to get mowed down. Go ahead. I'll go out this side. I think it might just be safer. You can be turning in your Bibles, church, to 2 Samuel chapter 6. All right. Now let's have the third and fourth graders. My goodness. All right. And now let's have our fifth and sixth graders who are remaining. Now let's all be turning in our Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 6. I don't know where I can see you best or where you can see me best. Some folks are moving up, and that's a good idea. If you got stuck in the back because you got in a little late, you can move up now. But we're just going to take three minutes and look at one scripture that I think will challenge you, visitors and regular North Way folks alike, because it challenges me every time I read it. Let's begin with verse 12. Now King David was told, The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has because of the ark of God. So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. Verse 13, 2 Samuel chapter 6. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fatted calf. David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. Most of you know that my own training in ministry included what amounted to a little more than four years of intensive study at a fairly decent seminary. This is one of the passages that we never talked about because we'd rather not deal with what that may mean when we read later on that David was a man after God's own heart, when we read Psalm 150 and verse 4 that says, Praise him with timbrel and dance. Now let me say very clearly, number one, you do not need to praise him with timbrel or dance in order to be saved. Your salvation does not depend on how well you dance or how beautifully you may praise. What does it depend on? Faith and the grace of Jesus Christ in your life. However, listen carefully, the release that you look for in your life, the release of power, the release of wisdom, the release of love, is related to your ability to obey God in every detail of his word. When I read this and I realize that a man, most of you, men and I suppose ladies as well, but men for sure, would not want to be known as sort of a wishy-washy kind of in-between Casper Milquetoast kind of person. I mean, when I see David I think of a warrior, don't you? I think of a man who defeated in some cases single-handedly entire squadrons of men. A man who brought Goliath down, a man who was victorious everywhere he went. That's the kind of man we would all want to be. But right here it says that David was also a man that danced with all of his might. I want to say first of all, I don't know that I've come to terms with that fully in my own life. I'm not sitting up here as some model of this. But I say to you, when I read this, I want to be willing to do that. And that's my question. Do you want to be willing? Do you? Turn to someone if you do and say, I'm willing to be made willing. Now, we had about 50% on that one. Time does not permit me to give a thorough teaching on this tonight. I did a lot of thinking about what I would say because it would be very easy to dismiss this as just a fun time. And rejoicing is to be part of what we're going to do now for the next number of minutes. But can we all see here that there's biblical reason to believe that dance is an appropriate expression of thanksgiving and praise to God. How many of you say, I can at least see that? I may not be ready to be there, but it's an appropriate one. All right. Now understand, you've just distinguished yourself as some of the major nutcases in all of America. But I promise you that if you'll allow God to, listen now, if you'll allow God just to work his will in your life, you will be blessed as release comes. You will. You'll be blessed in many ways. And so I urge you to be open and to give attention now as we learn a little bit more of how David may have done this, or at least when he got there, the people around him were dancing with all their might. And I'm going to ask Jan to come right now, please. And she's going to introduce our guest tonight who is going to help us to do this in a way that makes some sense. Jan, thank you. Good evening. The dance company has been learning the Hebrew dances as well. They didn't know any, and so they're just a couple weeks ahead of you. And they've been taught a couple extra things, so they're going to mingle around with you so that you don't feel like you're too flaky in the Hebrew dance art. But what we're going to do is move over there, and as we do that, Malky will give you instructions. We decorated the sanctuary, and that is representing a bridal canopy, which is a typical place where dance occurred. So we wanted you to know that the dance troupe did that. And afterwards, we're going to have some refreshments, and some of the people made some traditional Jewish foods. But I want to introduce to you Malky Frank. Come on, Malky. She is a Jew from Pittsburgh area, and she has spent 10 years living in Israel with her husband Ivan, who's back there. And Ivan, you can wave. She teaches in a synagogue, and she teaches creativity and movement, as well as traditional Hebrew folk dance. So we welcome you, Malky, and tell us what to do.