Life In the Rearview Mirror II, The Scenic Route

John, thanks, that was, it encourages me because I feel like sometimes you share and you don't know if it's getting past the front steps, but obviously I'm blessed when someone responds and then kind of lets us know. You know I mentioned last week that this was the first time in about 12 years I've preached in July, and the reason why I didn't go away for an extended study break during this season was because Carol and I have been praying and working together toward moving. And there's been some rumor going around, Jason, you know, at that place, he just had his birthday and he's going to move to Arizona. And the fact is that we are going to move, but we're actually moving closer to the church. So, in about, I don't know, a couple months or less, you'll see a for sale sign in front of our house, a couple weeks or less I should say, and we're excited about that because what it says to me and what it should say to you is we are not going anywhere. We are absolutely excited about being here. Thank you. You don't need to do that. It's my privilege. Thank you. And it's just been with great humility that I've accepted the call of the Elders Council who provide oversight through the elders to God our church, and they've extended a call for me to serve for five more years. Now, let me be real clear about that. What it means is that I will be providing leadership for five more years here at North Way in some form, and for at least two years or so going forward, I'll remain as senior pastor. So, I want to be really clear that that's not going to change. It doesn't mean that following that time there won't be different roles that I'll fulfill and other people will come along because I'm profoundly excited about the young men and women that God is sending to us at North Way, and I believe with all my heart that part of my call is to help those young men and women succeed and call our church on to fulfill its destiny. And there's so much already happening, and Scott alluded to some of that. I mean, he alluded to what's happening here, and it's going to be really growing. I want to alert you to the fact that the next couple of months you're going to hear a lot about how this church is moving from being church disturbed to what we're going to call church inspired. So, be anticipating that this is going to happen. Remember, initially we talked about the expansion. I don't know if we have a slide of that, the expansion. Well, that's the down looking upon it look, and here's the elevation look. That's right. There's the one. We're going to be starting that in about a month, and great, flexible space, and so you'll hear a lot more about that, but we want you to lean into those communications as we go. I want to finish that. That's part of the reason I'm staying. Second reason is I want to work to see these satellite campuses established. And isn't it exciting to know that today at Oakland there's going to be six or seven people water baptized. Isn't that awesome? And about five people, babies dedicated, and that's going to be growing. Our work nationally to establish the seminary is I'm flying this week with JR out to Chicago to talk to the folks at a major seminary out there to get an accredited seminary right here on our campus to grow in training men and women theologically and preparing for ministry. And then finally, our world mission thing just keeps on expanding. And so there's so much for me to do. I don't want to talk about it. I just want you to know that I'm here, I'm excited, and I'm thankful to serve you. It's such a privilege to serve a church like this where it's just never the same. Every week is different. It's not routine. Every time we gather, God meets us in a powerful way. Well, Scott introduced our message for tonight. It's the second in this two-part series. It's two weeks on life in the rearview mirror. And it couldn't do it without some kind of a little bit on cars. So I went out and made this video. So you got to watch this video clip, and there's going to be a new player. We got a new actress in this one. Watch. As much as we might enjoy learning on our own, there's little doubt that most of life's best experiences are the ones that we share with others. Today, we're going to look at life's lessons that we've learned together. Relationship as the key for life's best lessons. Are you ready for this journey? I'm ready. Now, that's definitely the coolest video ever, right? I get my wife in the car. I will confess to you that she rides with me on occasion. For some reason, it's not her first love. She'd rather clip those flowers until they kiss her back. But anyhow. What's great about this tonight is that I feel very expectant about tonight. I think that some of you may find this fitting together. But I want to preface it by saying I'm also concerned about some of you who may, to use sort of a euphemism, blow it off, forget about it. Let me tell you about a story. This is about approximately one year ago, right about now. I've been driving my dad's restored 1946 Plymouth convertible. It's a beautiful car. This is what kind of got him, I mean, he was sort of the inspiration behind all the stuff that we do at Car Cruise Rising. Anyhow, here's what the car looks like. It's a beautiful car. It's all restored. And we have a photo of it. And that's, well, yeah. Can we zoom it out at all? You get a good feel for it. Anyhow, it's a great car. I don't know why I'm in it. But anyhow, I had parked it in my mom's garage. And I've done this probably, you know, 50 times over the last several years. And I was backing the car out of my mom's garage. And it's a gentle slope. Now, this is, of course, a clutch car. Some of you don't even know what this is. But it used to have stick shifts on the column. And so I put it in reverse. And I eased the car back. And as I was going back, it was picking up speed. And I used the two-foot method to drive because it's actually a quicker way to do reflexes. You'd learn that if you went to driving school like I did. And I took my left foot over. And when I went to put on the brake, I actually put on the clutch. Right? Because it's through the street pedal. So what happens when you put your foot in the clutch and you're going backwards? Nothing. That's right. You just go faster. And as a result, instead of the car stopping, it kept picking up speed. And I took the scenic route. Now, what you can't tell there is the angle. I mean, I was being kind just to – I took that picture just to try to show you. And I think we have another shot. It doesn't – what you can't see is not three feet behind there. This drops off a big – I want to call it a cliff. But it's just to say a steep embankment down into a major ravine. And we're talking like probably demolishing most of the back of this car. Somehow, at the very last second, I got my foot over on the brake and I skidded. And I was stuck there. Had to call the tow guy. He said, yeah, what kind of nut did – you know, and all that sort of thing. And fortunately, no harm, no foul, I buffed out the little couple scratches on the side doors. And everything's fine. And the car is great. And I was – my mom is very patient. You know, she's – her heart was thumping because, you know, my dad did that. I mean, he built that car. I thought, what's the lesson in that? Well, the lesson is this. You can become real familiar with doing things, so much so that when you do something routine, you forget what you're doing. And as a result, you can experience catastrophe or near catastrophe. And I want to say just something particularly to the younger people that are here today. You know, when you're in your 20s, you keep a pace that's unbelievable. I mean, I – you know, I've got kids in that age, and they just keep burning. I mean, work, play, whatever, just hours. And you do that. When you get into your 30s, you're trying to keep that pace up, but you find it takes more energy. And then when the responsibilities come, and maybe you have a family, you find that, you know, you really can't keep it going. But you try your best. By late 30s, maybe 40, you find it takes so much energy to keep up the pace and to appear like everything's together that you realize that something on the inside is starting to dry up. And it's usually your walk with the Lord, and sometimes it's your walk with your spouse. And then I cannot tell you how many people over the years, I've had the sad moment of sitting down with them in their 40s, and they've hit this wall where they don't want anything to do with – I mean, God just is dry, and He's not anywhere near them, and they – something happens. That's when marriages go. That's when they melt down. That's when the kids don't – whatever, you know, and friends. I just want to – if you're a younger person particularly, these things may seem like, well, it's just some guy, you know, that's looking back. No. This is really for you to help you prevent yourself from hitting a wall sometime in your life. In fact, one way I've been able to last 26 1⁄2 years as senior pastor here is I've, by God's grace and the support of my wife and the leaders of this church, I've been able to blend some of these qualities into my life, and not perfectly by any means, but that's why I wanted to share these five things with you. Now, Scott told you the previous two. They were relate, relate to the Lord as our shepherd, because we use Psalm 23. So let's turn our Bibles, or grab your outline in the easiest way, and we're going to finish Psalm 23 where David models for us these five R's. First one was relate. Second was reflect. And let's look together at what these other ones are that I think might be obvious, but for some of you might be something you really want to pray about. Let's read. Forever. Number one for tonight and number three of the R's is I've learned as I've walked through life that God wants to teach me how to relax. Relax. Now, don't get the idea of just kicking out, you know, on the recliner, on the deck, or sitting in the swimming pool. I'm not talking about disengagement, okay? Very specifically here, we see that David faced very difficult moments in his life. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the things that we all will face in life. I'm not saying by any means that there's going to be, you know, just a smooth ride if you do these things. What I'm saying is that you're bound, in fact, to face things unexpectedly. Nationwide Insurance, I think, has this commercial thing right now that the basic tagline is life comes at you fast. And, you know, one of them is a picture of a house with the, I mean, like a brick falls off and then a few more bricks and then the whole chimney and the roof and then poosh. And another one's there are people walking by and a tree just falls down and smashes. I mean, and isn't it true that you can wake up one day and everything seems normal and something in the middle of the day happens that you completely unexpectedly experience and boom. I mean, your life really gets rocked. Sometimes it can be a good thing, but oftentimes it can be something you didn't expect. It can be very difficult. One of our church members that I know would appreciate your prayers right now, a family that many of you know are the Heralds. And many of you know that we prayed with Ruth and her husband John as they supported their son Jeff through a liver transplant. What was that, about two years ago, Scott? And so he was going through this thing. And then just recently, in fact, early this week, we found out that Jeff, and he's a young man in, I think, early 20s or so, has cancer now. And it's a result of, the doctors believe it's a result of all the immunorejective drug or depressive drugs that kept him from rejecting the transplant. And it's a very, just a, they need your prayers so much. Jeff needs your prayers. How many of you believe God heals? Amen? And that's the message we want to send. And let's all agree to pray for Jeff Herald. He's due to be married in seven weeks. And so we want to support them and believe that wedding's going to come together and that he'll be well enough to just keep moving in his life. But you see, they weren't expecting that. They weren't expecting the things in life to come at us. And David says, I mean, you know, every one of us are going to face giants. David faced the giant of Goliath, but he faced scores of other enemies. As you read through the stories of the kings in Chronicles and Samuel, he faced enemies. Even Saul, his own king, hated him and wanted him killed. David, and we face giants, loved ones. We face that health issue that lingers and holds us down. We face that relational distance that makes us live in a shell of a relationship. We face that thing at work that causes us to wonder, why am I getting up and going through the motions of doing this every day? We face all that stuff day in and day out. We face hardship and struggle. We face the financial burden of bills that we can't pay or demands that we can't meet. Those are the valley of the shadow of death. There are times, listen, I've had people tell me, there are times that they say, you know, I love life, but I'd rather be with the Lord out of this life than have to keep carrying the burdens that I'm carrying right now. And one of the things that I've learned is, it's time to learn to relax, to trust that God's in control. Notice that David goes on and says it clearly here. So even though I walk, notice the next word, say it with me, through, in fact circle it, through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Underline, I will fear no evil. You see, the thing that Satan uses against us more than anything else I've experienced is fear. It's fear that you won't be up to it. It's fear that you can't do it. It's fear that you'll be inadequate. It's fear that you won't be able to keep it up, that someone will find you out. And the opposite of fear is the faith that God is big enough to handle whatever it is that you're facing. The opposite of fear is not, you know, this amazing kind of strength. The opposite of fear is faith. God is in control. I've learned that over time. I've learned that in the physical. I learned that beautifully as we as a church grew from just nine couples meeting in a little basement to then meeting in a building down in Wexford that wasn't even open for business, but they let us come in. And then we ended up getting bounced out of that into a little Catholic church in 1985. And I realized that even though I wasn't in control, God was. And four months later, we bought the very building that they said we'd never be able to buy. And I watched God be in control as we grew through that building and tried to buy property around it. None of that worked, and I didn't know what to do. And in 1992, I watched God provide this piece of ground. In 1994, I watched God provide through the members of this church the resources to build this building in it. And then around 2000, I watched God supply vision in your hearts and minds and say, You know what? We're not going to stop here. This is just the beginning. And so we expanded and gave ourselves more room and more places to grow and do different things. God's going to supply. But I've also seen Him do the same thing in my heart with health issues. I watched my wife go through a miscarriage. And I've experienced and known the reality of living with pain day after day for the last 15 years. I've been through all that. I've been through those relational heartbreaks and people that you thought really loved you say ugly things and leave and go and do their... You know what? And all along, I've found this. I will fear no evil, for the Lord is with me. And I brought something that I think... I said, what's an image of the Lord being with me? How do I demonstrate to you that God will protect you? That you'll make it through? And here's what I came up with. I don't know. Maybe it'll be a little weird to you, but it works for me. I think this is a pretty cool thing if I can get it on right here. Let me just work on it. This one comes over here. Am I doing this right? Let's get this right, Jay. That's right. This has a bunch of bells and whistles on it, so hold on. I want to do it right. There we go. There we go. This is the real deal, folks. This is a Kevlar flak jacket with a titanium bracelet. I'm going to wear this to a staff meeting. See? Is this sweet or what? I will fear no evil, for God is with me. God protects my heart. And whatever you're facing, and I know that some of you are in the dark shadows of the valley. I'm here tonight because you didn't know where else to go. You were just hoping someone would have some kind of message that would help you to hang on. Take a look at this and be reminded tonight, God's with you. I wrote down four things to tell people, by the way. I learned this years ago, four things to tell people when you get a phone call and it says, I'm in a tragedy or I'm in a situation I never expected. Have you ever wondered what do I say to somebody whose family just had an accident or something like that? And here are the four things, and these have helped me an enormous amount. Number one, I tell them you're not alone. The Lord is with you, no matter how difficult or how extreme or how unfair. Number two, I tell them that, as it says here, you will get through the valley of the shadow of death. Number three, I tell them that fear will diminish. Here's what I found. When you first encounter a circumstance, fear is this monster that comes out of the wall and just looks you right in the face and says, you're not going to get through this. I want you to tell people, fear diminishes as God just begins to release faith in your heart. And the fourth thing I tell people, every time they face a circumstance as I say this, God is going to supply comfort to you like you've never known before. God's going to, He's going to be supplying. Here's what Oswald Chambers says. In reality, it's in these moments that we are able to discover God like never before. Here's just a simple two-question test. When do you feel closest to God? When life is going great, when you're in good health, when everything's going well at work, when the family's all together and when you feel blessed. Or, number two, when you're going through times of struggle and trial and testing and difficulty. How many would say number one? How many say number two? Yeah, I wish it were the other way. I wish we could just be constantly blessed and we'd just get closer to God. But you know what happens when we get constantly blessed? We get unbearably proud. Now, I don't believe that that means God doesn't want to bless you, as you'll see in a moment. But God knows once in a while you have to go through hardship so that you'll cling to Him, trust Him. So, that's first. Relax. God is in sovereign control. That's the blank there if I didn't say it. In sovereign control of our lives. Number two, tonight, number four, is I've learned over the years the power of releasing things. Luke, the Lord promises David, He says, You prepare a table before Me in the presence of My enemies. You anoint My head with oil and My cup overflows. Even in the face of adversity, God sets a table and He provides the things that we need. And the picture of anointing oil is the picture of God's blessing running down over our lives and touching everything we do. You see, if you take this scenic route in life, you will discover that the desire of God is to bless your life and not to diminish your life. To provide for you and to take care for you. Instead, I found that so many believers never really discover the adventure of fully releasing their needs to God because they are, again, afraid. You know what, this just mystifies me. Despite the promises of Scripture, despite the testimonies of many folks, do you know how many people here today would just say, I don't know if I can trust God with my stuff. I don't know if I can trust God with my decisions. I don't know if I can trust God with my money. I mean, come on. Loved ones, listen. Hear me. After 30 plus years of walking with the Lord, learn to release what you have to Him. And here's what you'll find. God is amazingly faithful to provide for you. In fact, I'll go farther than that. God will bless you beyond what you could ever imagine. People fear. It's interesting. Wealthy people fear that they won't keep their wealth. And people who are just getting by fear that they're not going to be able to get by. It doesn't matter. If you're walking in fear, you can never have enough. There's a little lie that goes around that says, you know, if I can just get to this level, then I won't be quite as under so much stress. And the reality is, how many of you have seen that? Your stress level about finances grows as your net income grows. It's just because that's the way we're wired. You never hit a place where, OK, I'll just live there. It's all, it's, why? Because it's all about the heart. It's all about the heart. God's kingdom affects every area of life, particularly, and I've found, what's most important to us. And friends, work, family relations, all that's important. But at the bottom of the whole barrel, God, Jesus said it this way. He said, you can't serve God in money. You've got to make a decision about life. What's going to be my ultimate ruler? And I don't, you know what, you're noticing I'm not pulling any punches about saying it. The competing power in the world today, and particularly in America, is the pull for more stuff, more money, that we acquire for our own good. Instead of saying, Lord, I'm willing to go and whatever you want to provide, I'll release it back to you and then watch you work. Here's the best metaphor. I mean, the scripture I use, by the way, look in your outline, is this. It's the one about sowing. I won't read through it, except it says this. The essence of understanding God's economy, the kingdom economy. Once you become a believer, you step out of living life in sort of the world's way, and you live life God's way. Decide to live your whole life that way. And the best illustration that I can think of is sowing. And so what we have here is something that's really going to be awesome this year, and that's corn, huh? I mean, because of the rain and the sun, we have great corn. This is early corn, and this looks really pretty good, actually. And you can make three choices with your seed. You can choose to eat it all. I mean, I just throw this baby in some boiling water for, what, eight or nine minutes? Put a little salt and butter on it. Great stuff, huh? Or I can eat part of it and tuck some of it away in my own little stash. And Jesus talked about men who would build barns and just keep throwing what they would grow into the barns and build bigger barns to hold on to it. Or I could choose to do what Jesus said to do. And that is, He said, Hey, take some of your seed, okay, and plant it. And all we ask you to do here is to consider the mandate of God. Don't consume all of God's provision. Don't eat it all. Don't consume it on yourself. And don't tuck it away for you and your family just to sort of have and to, you know, bring out and just look at what we're doing. But we're saying, take a portion of it. Take a portion of it and plant it in God's kingdom. And the Scripture is very clear about what God says. He says, Whoever sows generously will, what, reap generously. And whoever sows sparingly, notice, can't you want to try this? Whoever sows an occasional little seed, they're not going to get much out of it. But if you want to get, if you want to really know the size of God's heart to you, sow a lot. And say, Okay, Lord, I'm trusting you now. It's an awesome experience. And when I've done it in my life, when I've taken those leaps, and I have over time, I do every time that God nudges me, I can't believe how good God is. I just look back and marvel. I just, I can't imagine. God, listen, I've heard it said, God is in debt to no one. And whatever you give God, he more than returns to you. And so many times, you know, I hear people talk about, you know, well, the church is, listen, this isn't about what North Way needs. This isn't about what the church, please put that off your table for a minute and just say this is about you and your heart. Because if this doesn't get settled, you will never rise to the place of spiritual maturity that you could. Hear me. It's one of the first things I ask every new staff member. Talk to me about your giving. Well, you know, I'm just a student, so I don't give anything. Well, then, you know what, you haven't really understood God's plan. Well, you know, we've scraped along, but we haven't had much. Well, look at what God says. He promises if you sow, you're going to reap. And by the way, don't reap with a sour face and like, okay, you know, you keep talking. Reap with joy. It's the one place the Bible uses that one term hilariously. The Greek word literally to be transliterated is with laughter. When you give, when the offering basket goes by, there should be this sort of absolutely counterintuitive thing. You're giving away your money, but you're giving it to God, who then invests it where He knows that it's needed. There's just two questions here. How many of you will be willing to say, Lord, I want to learn to be a regular giver because that's what you've called me to be? And second, how many of you would say, when I learn to give, Lord, I want to do it joyfully? You know, I can't wait until we get to that point when we come to the place of, as a church, celebrating the achievements that we have. In Scripture, there's two things. There's a verse in Nehemiah, I think other guys are going to pull it. Pull that verse in Nehemiah, guys. You know, the people of God had rebuilt Israel in 53 days, and they brought all of their sacrifices. They didn't have that much, but here's what it says. This is in Isaiah, I'm sorry, Nehemiah 12, 43. It says, On that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. And the women and the children also rejoiced, and the sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. You know what that sound was? That was the sound of the fact that they knew that what they had done had pleased God and had blessed them and then had sealed their identity as a people. And when we learn to give generously, friends, it seals our identity as God's people, obeying Him in every detail of our life. Last thing, last story is simply this. It's to rejoice. The Bible says, Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I have to say the five R's, this is the one where I maybe feel like I failed the worst. I was talking with one of our young interns who was interviewing for one of our staff positions here, and she's a bright gal, really great gal, great family, and she's just fired up about her potential job. And one of the things she commented on was just the way that we tend to do so many things at North Way with excellence. And as soon as she used that word, I said, I asked her some sort of question. I said, I bet you're a firstborn, aren't you? And she said, well, yeah, I have a younger brother. And see, the wiring pattern of firstborns, in case you don't know this, is that they just sort of have an eye toward doing everything just right. See, if you're a baby, you don't care if the lights are even working. You just show up and, hey, let's have a party. You know, there's other people around. How long do you want to talk? You know, hey, who cares about the music? You know, it's just all labor. But if you're a firstborn, I mean, I can tell you what lights are out in the lobby without even going out there. I look out the window. I mean, just, you know, you obsess over things. So how many of you are married to a firstborn, and you know what I'm talking about? It's a completely annoying person to live with. Right? They are. It's just, that's their nature. They're so, I mean, everything's just like... There's so much to say there. I just won't go down there. But I want you to know, see, I'm firstborn, and I know how irritating I can be. That's why I wear this flak jacket. Because the reality is that over the course of my journey, I have tended to see the things that God brings along as not quite good enough. I'm more the half-full guy, you know, than the half-empty guy. Whatever. I don't know how that comes out. I just don't, I don't see it as positively as I should. And that particularly, you know what, that particularly matters when it comes to people. And I wish, I pray over the years, as I look back, I wish I would have taken more time with people. Just to celebrate with them. Just to acknowledge, hey, you know, even if it wasn't excellently done or perfectly done, or the way I would have done it, that's our worst fault. If it's the way I'm doing it, that's the best way. Forget that. I wish I would have celebrated and rejoiced. And I want you to learn with me to rejoice in this, that God's grace is working in us all the time. That's really the essence of what rejoicing is. It's the rejoicing that comes from, you know, no matter who that person is or what they've done, you can celebrate with them because they are vessels of God's grace being poured out. That's the joy of the church. We can face the challenges of life knowing that God's grace is good. So I wish I had celebrated more. I wish I would have just had more parties, you know, just doing more things like that. Just had more fun. Just enjoyed life. There we go. That's what it's supposed to be. And just had more moments when I just stopped criticizing, stopped saying, well, it could have been this way, and said, wait a minute. That's awesome. You did great. And just would have lifted sort of the weight of it all because you know what? God's in control. Did you notice the power of those closing words in this text? Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Friends, John Wesley said next to the cross, there is no greater statement of the love of God for our destiny than that verse right there. Isn't that awesome? Goodness and mercy is going to follow you all the days of your life. And in the end of it all, we don't just die and fall into the earth. We live eternally with God. Forever. And that gives me great hope and great cause to rejoice no matter what comes my way. And so as we close, I just want to ask this question. On these five R's, which of the ones, or which one if it need be, that you've heard you most say, Lord, gosh, make that part of my life? Is it the one to relate to the shepherd and the other sheep in such a way that is more like committed to connecting with them? Is it to reflect as we think about our lives and say, God, just cause me to slow down and really listen to your voice. See, if you can't get these sorted out in your head, if you can't understand, then life's just going to keep bouncing along. Lord, teach me to relax in your grace and sovereign control. Lord, teach me to release what I have and not be afraid. And Lord, help me to rejoice in the people around me and to celebrate the amazing promises that you have. Which of those do you most need? Maybe circle them on your outline right now. You say, make that part of my life. Let's stand together, please.