It Can Happen Here

This is North Way tape number 465. This message, It Can Happen Here, was given by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian Community on January 12, 1986. The worship and praise time from this service are recorded on the reverse side of this tape. You know, God is really doing so much in the earth today. I can't think of another time I'd rather be alive. How about you? I mean, I see history and watch the movies and I don't think I ever wanted to be a cowboy. Last week confirmed that to me. I'm glad to be alive right now. I'm glad to be part of what God's doing all over the earth. You know, we in America aren't seeing the most powerful things that God is doing. You know that, don't you? He is pouring out His Holy Spirit. He's bringing us to a place where we're beginning to run to catch up other places of the world. But do you ever notice, church, how much happens, it seems, away from home? How many of you have ever been on a retreat? A spiritual retreat of some kind. When you look back on your pilgrimage in Christ, do you remember those retreats as being a really high and special time? I mean, time when you really cemented your foundations. Times when you had experiences that have stuck with you. I remember living from one retreat to the next. Remember that? And I know the leader would always say something like, now when we come down off the mountain, don't expect the glory to remain. You're going to get back into real life. And they were always right. And then I waited for the next three months to the next senior high retreat. Only to make it. Only if I could make it. Be as spiritual during the week as I was in those retreats. It just seems that so often, things happen when you leave home. When you get away. When you get out of the environment that's most familiar to you. And it seems that many speakers and those who come to teach are recognized a whole lot more away from home than they are when they're at home. Someone once said, all it takes to be an expert is to move 50 miles from where you are and have a briefcase. Now in this day of satellite TV, we can turn on the tube and just see all kinds of things that sort of stagger the mind. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people coming forward as an expression of receiving Christ. Long lines of people waiting to get into church. Miracles being broadcast all over the earth. One of the churches that we visited down in Dallas had an interesting arrangement. They had a balcony in the church. A platform area similar to this. But then lining, if you will, if you can just imagine in your mind that these side walls here in our worship room were the balconies. Lining the balconies on both sides were sets of crutches and canes and folded up wheelchairs. You see this on the satellite and you say, well, God, it's happening everywhere. If we can only get away from Pittsburgh and get into the move of what God's doing. And then sometimes we begin to make that even more personal and we say, well, maybe it's me. Maybe it's happening to a lot of other people. In fact, when I look around here, I see a lot of people that seem more with it than I do. Maybe I'm the one that's missing what God wants to do. And we start scrutinizing ourselves. I want you to see something this morning with me, church. Jesus had a very similar experience of seeing things happen everywhere he went but in his own hometown. Let's look at it. Mark chapter 6. Are you there? Verse 1. He went away from there and came to his own country and his disciples followed him. Let me read that again. I stumbled twice. He went away from there and came to his own country and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished, saying, where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house. And he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief and he went about among the villages teaching. Jesus returned to Nazareth, the little hometown received back the big time preacher, healer, and evangelist. The healer had come home and the people came out to hear him and to see him and to observe what he was doing. His closest friends were there, the guys that he grew up with down the street, his family, and apparently according to the scripture he had quite a large family, didn't he? They were all there, his closest acquaintances, the guys perhaps that he worked with at the carpenter shop were there. And when he stood in the synagogue, and scholars aren't really sure if Luke chapter 4 is a parallel passage or a preceding expression of what took place here. He stood in the synagogue and began to teach and there was no doubt in the people's mind that what he was teaching was powerful. It was truth of the first rank. They realized that there was something here that didn't quite fit. And so they began to say things to him and began to question a lot of things about his background and who he was and the people that he grew up with. And all he ended up receiving in Nazareth, listen, was rejection and unbelief. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, full of glory, full of miracle working power, having just returned from raising Jairus' daughter from the dead and healing the woman who had the issue of blood. The Lord Jesus Christ who had just stilled the storm out in the Sea of Galilee was restrained by the unbelief of his very own closest friends and people. It seems incredible to me. How about you? That verse just shouldn't be in there that he could do no mighty works because of their unbelief. Well, he should be able to do anything he wanted to do, right? And yet somehow, church, it's true that the Lord Jesus was held back in fulfilling his mission of being the full expression of the glory of God to the people that he was closest to. Now I want you to hold that thought for a moment and consider something that the Lord spoke to me this week. As I was before him in prayer on Wednesday and then on Friday, as I considered the move of God that's happening across the world, around the face of the earth to win the loss to Jesus, as I was pondering the restoration of worship and the healing flow of the power of God to bring miracle power into people's lives to heal and deliver and set free, as I was considering God's outpouring these days to provide all the money necessary for kingdom expansion, as I was just meditating on the missionary spirit that's compelling people to go out in teams and plant churches, as I was thinking of all these things, the Lord spoke to my heart and he said, Son, four words. It can happen here. Would you say those words with me? It can happen here. I said, Lord, here? In Pittsburgh? Not the Sun Belt? Lord, it can happen here in Wexford? Lord, it can happen here in this building with no carpet on the floor? Lord, it can happen here with these people that we all are coming to know so well? Yes. Yes, the Lord said to each one of those questions. Yes, Son, it can happen here in you. And through you. How many of you know when the Lord speaks a word like that to you, you just want to be real sure that you're not making that up because it's too good. And so I weighed that before the Lord and I said, Lord, you mean what you're doing in other parts of the country and around the earth, you want to do here? He said, yes, my son, yes. But this is what we as a people must do in order to see it happen. It can happen here if two things take place and this is what I want to share with you this morning. Number one, we release one another from natural limitations. About three years ago, James Robison, who is a Southern Baptist evangelist of considerable renown, a man who has preached around the world and probably was the number one, if you can rank them, evangelist in the Southern Baptist Convention. A group of believers of 12 million in numbers. How many of you have ever heard James Robison? Here he was, he was on the circuit, powerfully preaching salvation. A little old man, a 53-year-old plumber by the name of Milton Green stopped by to see him. Milton Green didn't have much formal education. He'd never been ordained by any seminary. He hadn't written any books. He hadn't been broadcast and beamed around the earth by satellite. But he came and he talked to James Robison about the gnawing claw, as he describes it, in his own spirit of demonic possession. That 53-year-old man ministered release to James Robison, who now, if you ever catch any of his broadcasts or any of his material, is on fire with the Holy Spirit of God. He's causing a stir in the Southern Baptists. Amen? And he's raising up a standard of righteousness. Why? Because one man who really, by pedigree and background, was a nobody, was bold and obedient and ministered where God had sent him. I want you to look and see, church, what happened with Jesus and what we can learn from it. Look at this passage with me, Mark chapter 6. People tend to gravitate toward these three things, which then debilitate us. They hold us back from releasing all that God wants to do through us. Let's look at it together. Number one, it says, verse 3, is this not the carpenter? The first thing that people begin to evaluate about us is our vocation, who we are. A carpenter. You know, the Greek word there may mean handyman. It may have the idea that Jesus kind of went from house to house fixing things. Come on, Jesus. We know who you are. You're the one that put the shelves back there in my pantry. This is a carpenter we're talking about here now. I can see these Pharisees, you know, turn to one another and say, Hey, wait a minute here. And not just the Pharisees, but his friends. Hey, we'd play ball with that guy. We used to go out together and climb trees and swim in the river. Come on. What? God pound something into your head, carpenter? I can see them beginning just to build. You know how one mocks and then another picks up on it and starts to grow? Beloved, even today it's just the same, you know. You begin to talk to someone about God and what the Lord is doing, and they say, well, what do you do? Well, I'm a salesman. Salesman. Sounds to me like you ought to be a preacher. Salesman can't say anything. Salesman, what are you talking about? And I want to know today, how many of you believe that vocation has no bearing on your usefulness in the kingdom of God? God can use any of us in His purposes and for His kingdom's sake if only church will allow God to do that. If only we'll make room for Him to move through us. I think some of us have a vocation, a vocational calling that ought to expedite our usefulness in the ministry. We have three or four guys here in the church that are pilots. And I think that's a terrific tool for evangelism. You know, you just drop into a sort of a steep dive and you say, no, you just say, this is your pilot speaking. We have two questions to ask you. If you were to die tonight and stand before God, we have a lot of people who are in contact with the lost all the time. All the time. And to me, God, how many of you believe that God made a mistake in putting you where you are? Go ahead. God didn't make a mistake. He never makes mistakes. And listen, beloved. Where you are right now, whether it's in a marriage that you don't seem to think fits very well or in a job that you don't really think is very productive for the kingdom, how many believe God can change it starting today if that's what He wants to do? The worst thing you can do is look back and say, I shouldn't have done that 15 years ago. But the key is to live for God right where you are right at that moment. The vocation, listen, let's never look at one another and say, Oh, I know him. He's a salesman. I know him. He's a manager. I know him. He's an accountant. I know her. She's a schoolteacher. She can't minister. The second thing that these people did in pointing to Jesus, look at this, now verse 3 again. They said, This is the son of Mary and a brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? They recalled his family. You know what they did, by the way? Let me just say this. The family of Jesus, they didn't acknowledge him as Lord until when? After the resurrection. So you can imagine, all these people are saying, Hey, well, James and Joseph, they don't think he's anything hot. Why should we? They know him better than we do. They know he's just got this complex now. He left town and he became a big shot. Now he's coming back. But we know his brothers and sisters don't think anything about him. I want to know, how many of you find your home and your family the toughest place to minister? I'll tell you, sometimes it'd be easier to stand in front of the Politburo on Red Sunday and try to give your testimony, right? Oh, it is. That is tough going when you get into the home front. Why? Well, because they know everything about you. And, you know, it's not very often that parents will let you forget what they know about you. Is that right? Or your brother, your sister, whatever. And we're that way. And we hold each other. And now, if we're really honest, how many of you would say, well, you know, there have been times when I haven't been real smooth about my witnessing either. You know, we get on to breakfast in the morning and dad's got the paper. Another, you know, another brother or sister there has a USA Today. You walk down with your Bible like, Hey, you know, I'm starting my day off right here. Start reading that work. You know, they're watching CBS Morning News. You flip it over to the 700 Club. Turn it up a little bit. You're trying to be salt and light. And, you know, they're just like, you know, that gnashing of teeth starts. You know what I'm talking about? And they get down to the bottom of their cereal bowl. They see this track under there. What's this? Oh, yeah, that's my new track. Five things everyone wished they had in hell. You know, we want you to read that. I've heard so many stories of people that have just absolutely blown up in their homes because they were trying to be faithful to God in the hardest territory of all their hometown. Why do I say that? Because Jesus said it was true. If it's true with the Son of God, it's going to be true with us, church. It's tough out there. And our families, our friends, the ones that are closest to us, they're the last ones. Generally, generally, not always praise God. Generally, to acknowledge what God's doing. I want you to see something else, though, that's perhaps a little more hidden. Look at this. Verse three. They also said, he's the son of Mary. Well, that's unusual. Do you know that? What are the Jews usually describe you as being son of your father? You know what they were saying in that church? They were hinting back in a subtle way. We know Jesus. You're illegitimate. We know Mary's your mother, but we don't know who your father really was. How can you possibly be this big Messiah? If you're an illegitimate son. The Lord spoke to my heart, as I was preparing this, and He said, there are going to be people here today, who because of something that you know about your past, whether it's that you were conceived out of wedlock, or born out of wedlock, or adopted, or of parents who've divorced and hated each other, that you find yourself constantly bound up in that and unable to move in the power of God. And I want you to see something today, church. That is never to be a limitation in your life. You're a new creature in Christ. You've been given a new lineage, a new heritage of the sons and daughters of God. And it doesn't matter where you've come from. God only cares about where you are now. He doesn't look back and evaluate everything that you did and who you were. And I want you to see, verse 3 it says, they took offense at Him. You know what that word means? It's stumbled. They stumbled over Him. Now that's the word skandalon, which appears in 1 Corinthians 1.23 when it says that the cross is the stumbling block to the Jews. Right? That word literally means something to be tripped upon. Would you put those three things back up again, please, Paul and Steve? Church, if we allow ourselves to be tripped up in one another because of our vocation, because of our family backgrounds and understanding, and most especially because of something that we know about another person's identity. I want you to know that we are stumbling. We are tripping on something that God never intended to get in the way. And I want to say to you that these natural things, these natural limitations, should in no way stop the move of God one to another in this place. I want to pray when we're done today in circles because at that time, I want you to receive from someone who might be a salesman or someone who might be working with their hands or someone who might be raising four kids, someone who might come from an illegitimate household, someone who might have a family that's all lost in sin, but God's touched them with the power of His Spirit and He's made them new. And I want to just submit to you it's time that we start looking less at the cracked pots and more at the treasure that's within them. The treasure of God, 2 Corinthians 4, 7, is held in earthen vessels. Turn to someone and say, you're a cracked pot. Beloved, I want to say, now listen, let me reiterate, God said it can happen here if we'll look at one another and believe God's best through that person. If we'll look at one another and quit evaluating all the externals that we know about them and seeing them as some sort of 500 pound weight that they're carrying around because you won't let them out of it. It's time to expect words of knowledge and words of wisdom from one another. It's time to expect for healing and power and deliverance to flow one to another. It's time to believe God to anticipate kernels of insight and wisdom and truth. I'll tell you, I rejoice. I rejoice when someone comes up and says, well, you know, I don't know really what this means in the Greek, but the Lord showed me this, and it means, and they share an insight, and I say, wow, that's of God. And it's time that we quit looking at education and quit looking at status and all that stuff and just say, Lord, I'm believing to receive love and power and acceptance from that person right next to me. You know, it's interesting, isn't it, that Jesus himself called outcasts like the tax collector, Matthew. He called fishermen like Peter who didn't have anything going for him in terms of culture and coup. He called loudmouths like James and John who were called sons of thunder. Amen? Okay. Okay. Jesus called, and we've all known this before, an incredible group of vagabonds to be his disciples. And you know what he was saying? I believe there's a statement in this to us. He's saying, what you were, what you did, what your family was like means nothing to me. All that matters to me is that you are full of my life. And I just want to share with you this morning, I think we should be no more scrutinizing than Jesus. Why should we expect perfection from someone before we receive from them, church? What if God expected that of you? And I look around here, I'm convinced in my spirit, as much as anything I know, that God has given us incredible resource in this church. And if we'll allow one another, just tear off all these chains that have been holding back. Don't be timid. I don't want you to hold back anymore. If you've got something from God, you bring it. If the Lord shows you something, you share it. If someone needs prayer, you pray it and believe God to move through you. Now, I'm in no way, listen, I'm in no way condoning immaturity. I'm in no way saying that there's no qualifications for leadership. But I'm saying this, it's time that we expect God to move through one another and believe Him for it. The Lord just spoke to me this morning. He said, would you consider this, if you were on your deathbed and you'd never heard of Christ and you knew that you weren't ready to meet God. Now listen, and that one person, just think about them right now. Here in this body of believers was sent to share the Gospel with you. Would you accept what they have to say as a messenger from God and gloriously open to salvation that comes in Jesus and find yourself in His secure and loving arms? You bet you would. If you've got the love of God living in you, you can share the message of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Lord just said, if I can use any one of you to speak that message of salvation to anyone else, then certainly I can do anything else through them. You see, the Bible says, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us, will he not give us all things along with him? Church, let's see that if we'll accept the word of life from one another, if we were dying, then let's accept everything else because it's all just part of the package. And I believe God is going to multiply that through us. Let me just quickly then say this. The second thing is, we've got to release one another. We've got to do that, Church. We've got to believe God's best in each one. And then secondly, it's time that we learn to release our faith. It's time to see that the other side of the coin of releasing one another is to learn that we as a church, as a body of people, begin to believe God and get in line with what we wish would happen. Interesting little story I read about Hudson Taylor. He was on his ship on his way to China. How many of you know Hudson Taylor? Missionary to China. Founded China Inland Mission, which then became the seed for an ongoing missionary presence in that land. He was on his ship getting near China and they were passing some islands that were known to be inhabited by cannibals who were delighted to see the ship nearing their territory. And as things would happen, wind just stopped. Dead, perfect still in the waters. And they sat there for two days. And the captain of the ship began to notice that they were drifting, drifting, drifting toward the shore. And they could see the fires, you know, the cannibals. And there was a boom, boom, boom. You know that? So the captain of the ship came to Mr. Taylor and he said, Sir, would you pray for the help of God? I will, said Taylor. Provided you set your sails to catch the breeze. The captain thought for a moment and then declined for fear of making himself a laughing stock by unfurling his sails in a dead calm. Taylor said, I will not undertake to pray for the vessel unless you prepare the sails. And it was done. While engaged in prayer, went down into his room, there was a knock at the door of his stateroom. Who's there? The captain's voice responded. Mr. Taylor, are you still praying for the wind? Yes? Well, said the captain, you better stop praying for we have more wind than we can manage. Now, beloved, let me just say to you this morning, we're not in a dead still. We're not in a place where there's no wind here. But I just want to submit to you today that it's time that we all let our sails out and allow the Spirit of God to blow a fresh breath upon us as a church and catch us on up into what God wants to do. Move on out into what He's prepared for us to walk in. There's nothing in the New Testament that's more of a principle of receiving from God than faith. Over and over again, we see Jesus commending people for their faith. There in Mark chapter 5. If you're still in Mark 6, just look it up the page. You'll see verse 34. Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. The Lord is saying to us, let's learn to release our faith, church. Let's learn that every time we're together as a people, that we can expect God to do something. And I've asked the leadership and those of you who were here last Saturday, there was about a hundred of you here. I've asked you to write down what you're believing God to blow in the sails of this ship in terms of leadership, faith goals for 1986. I haven't gotten one back yet, leaders. I want you to do that. I want you to say, I'm believing God to do this in our church in 1986. Put down the sails. Let the Spirit of God come and blow His wind on it. And we're going to pray that it's going to happen. Every morning, all around the community, here at the church, praying for God to fill our sails of faith with His wind. Amen? Now let me say in conclusion, this message is every bit as much for you, and you, and you, and you personally, as it is for us as a church. I believe that the Holy Spirit wants us, is calling us, to personally arise in an expectation of His moving. That maybe today, as several have said, more or less through the morning, you think it's just out of the realm of possibility. You feel that you're here today, and life is so dull and routine, you wish, listen, that it would end. You're tired of it. You might be here as one who feels so trapped in a position that you're in, that you've just had it, and believe in God. And the Lord wants you to know today, as we conclude, that all that He's looking for, to begin to fill your life with the wind of His Spirit, is for you to drop down that sail of faith. Listen, that's an action. It requires you to do something to get in line with what God wants to do. And there is a beautiful story, and I want to conclude with this, in Matthew the 15th chapter. Turn there, would you? Matthew 15. A Canaanite woman, verse 22, from the region of Tyre and Sidon, came out and cried, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. For my daughter is severely demon-possessed. But He did not answer her a word. Have you ever felt like that? I've called out to you, God. These people talk about prayer, and I've prayed and nothing happens. You haven't answered me a word, Jesus. Look at it now. And His disciples came and begged Him, saying, Send her away, for she's crying after us. That's exactly what I'm saying we're never to do. Let's never be the kind of people that shoo away somebody else. Love those disciples and their compassion. And He answered to her, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and knelt before Him, saying, Can you see the picture in your mind? Not just, not just, well, you know, whatever you feel like, God. Lord, kneeling. Lord, have mercy on me. And He answered, It's not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And that's a symbol, that wasn't an expression to her. And she said, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And then Jesus answered her, Oh, woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. Wherever you are today in your pilgrimage, in your journey, if you'll go to God and say, Lord, see me. Lord, I'm waiting for you. And just a little crumb from your table is all I need. God is going to meet you. He's going to fill that sail of your faith with His wind and begin to move you on a sea of hope and His purposes. And church, that's where we're going together. That's where God wants you to be. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, as we receive the word, I pray that it would be as you intended it, Lord. The word of life. A word that releases one another. A word, God, that releases faith to us as your people. Lord, my heart's desire this morning is to be released in faith. And to release one another. I believe it, Jesus. I believe it's a day, Lord, when you're going to set the church free. In Jesus' name. Amen.