My Jesus.com III, Stained Glass Jesus

David filled in. Try doing that. Actually, I was supposed to preach tonight and he, no, I'm just kidding. It's difficult to step in like that, but it typifies what I love about this community, and that is the people here will do whatever it takes to honor God and to be a blessing to others. Just as I was getting dressed to come over tonight, I had a look out my back window and coming up out of the woods, and there's a deep kind of valley behind our house and some woods and then sort of a grassy area, I saw six black children walking up out of the valley behind our house with Matt McCabe and Brian McCabe who had obviously had brought them out from Helen Fajan School as part of their mentoring program, and it reminded me that every week we have 30 or 40 volunteers spending time with kids. You forget that. I forgot it until I saw them that day. They gave their whole day just giving those kids an experience they wouldn't have being out, you know, walking the woods together and just enjoying the outdoors, and that's who we are. We care about people. We're, this is a church that, you know, we don't, it's just big. Every individual counts. Tom Privo and his family are facing a big thing. Tom's here tonight, I think, with some of his family members. Tom's a North Way member. He and his wife Linda have been coming here for a while, and Tom is a part of the Army Reserve is being sent to Afghanistan tomorrow. You know, there's a lot of people directly related to our church. Some of our members are directly related, and they're serving in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, and we need to keep them in prayer. Please pray for Tom. Where are you, Tom? Would you just wave? I know you're here somewhere. I can't see real well. God bless you. We will be praying for you. These men and women need our prayers, and we're committed to these walls, and if you're a guest, by the way, these walls, that's not graffiti. Those are prayers that are written on the walls that people are believing God for. That's typical of who we are, typical of what we're about at this church, because we do care, and we do take the time to look out for individuals, and I just want to say also, I had the Oakland experience last week. I went over Sunday morning, and what an awesome time, and I hope that over the course of the next months, you'll phase in and get an opportunity just to go over there, even if you're not going to be part of North Way Oakland long term. You've got to experience it at least once to see what a great outcome your investment's made there, so we'll be praying for Pastor Mike and all of his team. They are literally incarnating right in the heart of that city who we are and what we're about, and doing a great job with it, and just again to reiterate what JR said, if you're a guest tonight, maybe you've been coming for a while, I'll give you a copy. This is a special. We don't do this very often. This is the the North Way 25th Silver Anniversary CD, so if you'll just listen to me for a few minutes, get a free CD. Otherwise, you would have gotten a message CD, which doesn't really, you know, I mean, you already heard the message, so why would you? No, I'm just kidding. I'd like to pray. Would you join me in a word of prayer, and let's ask God to speak to our hearts. Say, Lord, we come in Jesus' name. We pray that the words you've given me tonight, Lord, would speak to our hearts, fill us up, God, with the faith to believe that what you want to say tonight is something that will shape and mold our spirit, and will help us, Lord, to cry, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord as we live out our daily lives, Lord, not in some kind of religious way, but knowing the real Jesus. For ask in the power of his name. Amen. Amen. I invite you to take your dialing out of your notes, and follow along with me. We're going to have a couple of blanks to fill in tonight, today as well, and if you're not a note taker, just listen well, but it usually helps just to jot down a couple things along the way. You know, most churches that I know of have some kind of physical signature, some distinguishing characteristic. Did you know that in Europe and early America, the churches were always positioned on the highest place in the village, and if you go to some of the older villages in New England, you'll find the highest place. That's what the churches were all the way all over Europe. That's how you could find the church, just go to the highest place in the village. It was a symbol, of course, of the place of spirituality. That isn't the case any longer. Today, churches might be identified by their location near the interstate, you know, across from sheets, something dramatic like that. Tall steeples, big trees, or J.R. said, you know, the church that looks like a spaceship. That's what he tells all his friends, how they find northward. But the first church I found, and actually that I served rather here in Pittsburgh, and found it had a unique characteristic, was in Allison Park, and the characteristic of that church was a beautiful stained glass window. It was designed by a member of the church and had at its very center, across and around it, just beautiful stained glass. In the morning sun, it wasn't all that dramatic, but in the evening sun, as the sun set, well, we wouldn't try to capture a picture. There it is. That's what the sun's setting behind that stained glass window. And I spent many hours in that sanctuary, just praying to God, not represented by that window, but just sort of just inspired by just being in a place where it was sort of still and quiet. At night time, they used to light the window from the inside, so the people driving by, and you know what? Many people would say to folks, where do you go to church? And they didn't remember the name of the church, but they said, well, the church with the stained glass window, and they knew what they were talking about. It just identified it. Now truthfully, that could have been said, this church with the stained glass window, of most all churches in Europe, and many churches here in America for centuries. Did you know that stained glass goes all the way back to Roman culture, and that the first buildings where stained glass was used were in the first church buildings that were built in the fourth and fifth centuries? I mean, it was just because of the beautiful craftsmanship, and art, and the way that light was used. I mean, it was to just seem to make this statement, you know, and so it was part of the life, as it were, of the young church as it got started, as buildings were put up slowly around the empire. Of course, the empire adopted Christianity in 336, so it began to be okay to build church buildings. They were known for their beauty. Great cathedrals that I visited in Europe would tell gospel stories all along the perimeter stained glass, and then in certain places you'd see this just huge stained glass wall of light, and I mean, just amazing kinds of things, and it came to be a way to sort of pass along the tradition of the faith, but friends, it also became a symbol of a dangerous attitude that we want to talk about today, and that tradition that was passed along was okay, but when tradition becomes traditionalism, we have a problem. Listen, tradition is a good thing. When you have a birthday and you have a cake, what do you put in your cake? Candles, right? Well, some of you put a whole lot of candles on your cake, and you blow out the candles. It's tradition, right? That's all it is. Now, some of you might have a family tradition of going on a beach vacation every July or whatever. We have a traditional church. We have a candlelight service every Christmas Eve. Tradition is fine. I am not against tradition. I think it's important, but traditionalism is dangerous. Now, this is week three of the series myJesus.com, and week one I talked about the vending machine Jesus, the Jesus we go to where we have special requests and pray to and ask just to help us out, and we make a commitment, and then we just sort of fall away again. Not the Jesus who Peter said was his Lord and his God. Last week, JR did a great job talking about the flannel graph Jesus, the Jesus of our childhood, the Jesus that we can kind of control that's sort of small, the Jesus that we can sort of just keep in the part of our life that we want to keep in. Today, I want to talk about the stained glass Jesus, the Jesus that looks really nice, the Jesus that I kind of got to know sort of growing up because that's the way the tradition was passed down, but the Jesus who really isn't relevant for my day-to-day living. You know, we do something in a certain way for a long enough time, and it becomes our traditional way of doing it, and friends, in church, most of all, tradition can become deadly, and the reality of who Jesus is can diminish because of tradition. Now, tradition, I have to say this candidly, I believe traditionalism is the primary obstacle to the outpouring of God to change lives in our city. I just want to say that. Let me say it again. I believe that traditionalism, the belief that people have that somehow their church and the way they've always done things is all they need to think about in terms of their church. I believe that's the number one obstacle to the outpouring of God to change lives in our city. Now, I've been here 30 plus years, so I know of what I speak. I see it time and time again. Hundreds and thousands, maybe millions of people in this region, if you talk to them about God, if you talk to them honestly openly, open a conversation about spiritual matters, it invariably goes to something like, well, you know, that's fine that you believe that about Jesus, but I'm a, and then fill in the blank, you know, I'm an Episcopalian, and we believe this, or I'm a Catholic, and we believe this, and they answer your spiritual query with their simple little pop back answer, their traditional stained glass answer. Jesus had some pretty harsh words for people who fell into that. Listen to Matthew chapter 15 when he said this, should be up on the screen, Matthew 15 verse 6, thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Loved ones, hear those words. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what your tradition is if your heart isn't touched by God. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules, traditions, another translation says, taught by men. Now, wow, why don't you catch the game first night? Wow, fun, huh? It's a great message, Jay. You're really lifting me up a lot. I just wanted to sober us up just a bit because I so love this passage. I so love Palm Sunday. I mean, I love the palm expressions all around us because the triumphal entry is such a statement of who Jesus was, of his kingship, and we're going to look and read together in this passage in Luke. So let's turn there, and again, it'll be, should be up on the screen, so if you have your Bibles, I'm going to try to find it in my Bible real quickly. I think it's in there. Go. So I don't have to read it off the screens. Luke 19, because this passage captures what I think will lift you up and maybe sustain you in the midst of some difficult times you might be facing, because when you see this passage, not with a stained glass mentality of what Jesus, Hosanna, hallelujah, but you see it as the living, powerful, mighty king of kings. Friends, things change, and what we're going to find in this passage is that Jesus was opposed by a certain group of people, and we're going to see just how that same sort of mindset can get into ours. Let's read together. Luke 19, beginning in verse 28. After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. Now remember, he's at the end of his ministry. He knows it's about to come to an end, and as he approached Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called Mount of Olives. This is about two miles. I literally, if I could paint the picture for you, if I'm standing on the Mount of Olives, it's like I look down this long valley and down across into this dry riverbed and across the way, I can literally see the outline of the wall that surrounds Jerusalem, and then up the hill just a little ways, I can see the city of Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock, and of course now, you know, where that golden dome of Islam stands, but once the temple stood. I mean, it's just a powerful, powerful image. It's only about two miles. He says, go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it, tell him, the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them, and as they were untying the colt, its owners asked him, why are you untying the colt? They replied, the Lord needs it. They brought it to Jesus. They threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it, and as he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road, and when he came near, let me get my place here, when he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they'd seen. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. What a sight. What an amazing scene. First thing I want us to see is this. The Pharisees who represented this traditionalism, Pharisees missed the obvious, but followers embraced the essentials. Let's put that down. It's your first two blanks. What was a Pharisee? Well, Pharisee was the largest sect of the Jewish religious leadership at the time. There was about 6,000 Pharisees, and make no mistake, these were not just numbskulls, sort of do nothings, you know. These were accomplished, well-trained, educated, sophisticated people, and they took great pride in their knowledge of Scripture. Did you know that every Pharisee had to memorize the entire Old Testament? Try that on, and yet despite their enormous capacity for head knowledge, and despite their sort of stature and pride of religious knowledge and tradition, friends, they missed the obvious of who Jesus was. They heard Jesus say, all right, you're going to go untie this colt, and trust me, they sent someone along to see if it happened the way Jesus said. He literally foretold. It was a prophetic thing he did, and the person said exactly what Jesus said he was going to say, and the Pharisees saw that. And you know, the Pharisees knew that when Jesus started walking on that pathway down from the Mount of Olives over to Jerusalem, they knew that it was a fulfillment of the messianic prophecy of Zechariah 9-9. And don't turn there, but let's see if we can get that up on the screen. Zechariah 9-9 says this, and they knew this because they'd memorized the entire Old Testament. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. You see, the Pharisees knew that Jesus was literally fulfilling the messianic prophecies right in front of their face. Imagine if you would, if you walked out of here tonight and people were lined up on both sides of Route 19 from here to Wexford Flats, and Jesus walked down the middle of Route 19, and people were waving their arms and shouting. Don't, this wasn't some polite little thing like, oh look, you know, it's sort of a cool parade. No, they were shouting, dancing, and laying their cloaks and their coats down in front of him so he could walk on them, and they were, they were declaring, this is the Messiah! This is the one we've been longing for! This was an amazing moment, and the Pharisees, listen, would not, hear what I'm saying, would not see it. Please understand, many people that I know and you know that we try to share about the love of Christ will not see it because they choose not to see it. The Pharisees had seen the same miracles, the Bible says that people had seen Jesus' miracles, heard his teaching, that's why they were welcoming him as the Messiah. The Pharisees had seen the same things, heard the same things, but they refused to believe it. Listen, look, listen, in this last year we have seen God do some miraculous healings physically. We saw video testimony two weeks ago or three weeks ago of a man who was delivered by the miracle power of God from what would have been a deadly addiction to fentanyl. We've seen people who have testified to their lives being changed by the power of God through water baptism. Friends, there's a couple thousand people meeting regularly in groups, there's all kinds of ministries. Please hear me when I say I fear sometimes that we sit here and don't even see what God is doing right in front of our faces. Be careful, we might see the Pharisee down the street, we might see the Pharisee next door, we might see the Pharisee who we work with, and we may miss the Pharisee inside ourselves. Be very careful about that. The followers embraced the essentials, they celebrated who Jesus was, they began to joyfully praise him. I love the way they said that, for all the miracles they'd seen. Second thing is this, Pharisees sought or seek to silence expression, but followers desire sincere worship. Blessed is the King, Hosanna, Lord save us is what that means. Sincere followers shouted, you're the one, peace on heaven and glory in the highest, which by the way are exactly the same words that the angels used when Jesus was born in Matthew and in Luke. The Pharisees looked over, let me read on, here's what they said. Some of the Pharisees, verse 29, in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, shut your disciples up. Well that's my paraphrase, but it says, rebuke your disciples. The message, why? Because they're declaring that he's the Messiah and we don't want him to be the Messiah. We haven't said so yet. Tradition, you see, the stained glass Jesus people said no. Some years ago at Liberty University, there was a group of young men who felt like they had a hunger and a desire to communicate the love of God in music in a way that, you know, the cult leaned into. And so they asked for permission to create an album and to create a new sound that maybe would just, and the sound kind of went like this. It was sort of a, sort of a different sound. Here's what it sounded like. Let's see if we can tune into it. You know he's doing it. God is doing a new thing. You know he's doing it. God is doing a new thing. You know he's doing it. Who's doing it? God is doing a new thing. You know he's doing it. Yo, who's doing it? What happened then? God is doing a new thing. That was DC Talk and DC Talk became the rage about 10 years ago, you know, as they started out. Not at Liberty University and that's a, it's a great college and I have absolutely nothing negative to say except that traditionalism refused to allow those young men to give expression to their gifts. You know, when I was a youth pastor at that church with the stained glass window, I remember one Sunday evening we had about 150 high school students gathered in an evening time of prayer and praise and worship in the sanctuary. We rarely went in the sanctuary, but one night there wasn't anything else going on in the church. I took all the students in there and we just got a couple guitars out and we were worshiping God. We were singing the songs back then that were brand new. This was the 70s. Just simple songs with guitar. Some of the kids were just sort of laying on the, on the steps and a few of them were crying just a bit because they just felt so convicted of their sin in their lives. Probably some of the kids were messing around, you know, there might have been some that were, you know, sneaking under the pews and doing submarine races and all that. I know that. Maybe a couple of them might be making out in the back. I don't know, but a few of the stained glass people came in, just stopped by and saw what was going on and they were really upset. And they went to the senior pastor of the church the next day and he said, that young pastor, he's taking us down the wrong path. He's causing trouble. So my senior pastor called me in and he said, he said, did you break anything last night? I said, no. Did you smoke anything last night? I said, no. Neither did they. Did anyone did, were they drinking something? No. So, well, that's good, isn't it? You know, maybe the window was really working. I don't know. He said, fine with me then. And we just kept on doing it. And some of the people in the church embraced it and some of the people said, I don't want anything to do with it. Stained glass Jesus people, they just want to keep Jesus silent. Sincere followers worship God with all their heart and all their strength and all their might and all the soul. Listen, loved ones, honestly, listen, a little challenge for you. Have you ever just kind of looked around and wished that the person down the row a little bit was just a little less expressive? I mean, you know, do you have your sort of personal definition of what's okay in worship? You know, like it's okay to like, okay, praise God, you know, and clap. And that's a stretch for some of you. And every once in a while, you'll see somebody go like this. And even this is like lifting hands to God. Okay, that's cool. But it's the person that goes like this, you say, oh gosh, if my family knew I was here, if my friends saw me in this place. And you just wish that crazy person put their hands down. Come on, right? You know what that is? It's the Pharisee in you. And the reason I know that is it's the Pharisee in me. I remember years ago trying to be a cool praiser. Now, if you're watching in Oakland, you know, a cool praiser is like just, you know, hand in the jeans and just like, it's an oxymoron. There is no such thing as a cool praiser. In fact, the Bible says that David, who is the king, who God said is a man after my own heart, who God anointed and gave the entire kingdom of Israel to, to lead. The Bible says that he danced before the Lord with all of his might, so much so that his wife mocked him. She said, boy, you humiliated. And he said, you know what? If so, I'll humiliate myself even more before my God. And she, the Bible says, was barren for the rest of her life after that statement. God will not be mocked and he will not be ignored and he will not be marginalized by our worship. Stained glass people come face to face with the reality that God must be worshiped sincerely if he's to be worshiped at all. And I trust that you'll see, you know, and by the way, if you're not comfortable, I understand that. But just give yourself time and take steps and read what the Bible says. Don't just take it from me. Read the Bible, take some of the coursework, do some of the studies, and you'll see everything that we try to teach here is right out of God's scripture. Let's keep on reading quickly. Verse 41. And by the way, Jesus said, I'm not going to rebuke them. Verse 41, he said, I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. The very stone. He said, creation was made to praise me. If I tell the disciples to be quiet, the stones will jump up and shout. We can tell them to do. We get hit by a rock. Verse 41. And as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, I, if you, even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hang you in on every side. And they will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls, and they will not leave one stone upon another. He's prophesying of the destruction of the temple, which was soon to follow in 70 AD, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. Friends here, this, this is the heart of the Savior. He longs for people to come to him and he weeps. The Bible only says twice that Jesus wept once at Lazarus' grave when he saw the sting of death and here when he saw the people of Jerusalem, the Pharisees, reject him. And I just want you to know you have a choice. We all have choices to make, but our Savior knows that there are consequences to our choices. Loved ones, listen, if you go out and break the law, if you go out and, you know, take something from from Macy's or, you know, if you swindle something out of your IRA or if you, if you go and drive 120 miles an hour down Route 19 and break the law, you're going to suffer consequences. Likewise, spiritually, if you ignore the simple offer of salvation from the real Jesus, Jesus weeps for you. He takes no pleasure in your denying him. And that's the Jesus that I know. That's the Jesus that I follow. Moving on, here's what happens. Then they entered the temple area, verse 45, and began driving out those who were selling. It is written, he said to them, my house will be a house of prayer, but you've made it into a den of robbers. Isn't that sad? Every day he was teaching at the temple, but the chief priest and teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him for his teaching. Yet they could not find any way to do it because all the people, I love this, hung on his words. Number three, Pharisees distort the purpose of God's house, God's people, God's temple. Followers delight, they delight in gathering together for teaching and prayer, worshiping God together. You know, Pharisees, stained glass followers, they simply think that Jesus should be mild and meek and under control. And this whole thing upsets them because here, apparently, Jesus exercises a little bit of righteous anger and tosses people out of the area. He says, get out. Get out of my temple. You're desecrating it. You're turning it into a marketplace. It's a place of worship. Let me just share something honestly with you. I thought a lot about that this week. We really need to be careful as a community not to become too familiar with this gift of community and this place that we've been given to share the life of God. We need to be careful never to use it for personal gain because that's what he's saying here. I've made this a house of prayer, a house of ministry, a house of caring. Now, at least one person's thinking, well, that car cruise thing of yours. Yes. Well, if I was selling it for personal, selling things for personal gain, yes. If we were using it to kind of indulge our own, you know, personal fantasies for what we wish we own, yes. If it was to create some worldly spectacle, yes, it would be inappropriate. But at the contrary, the car cruise outreach, like other things we do here on our campus, is designed specifically to engage the culture that won't come to the church for ministry purposes, won't come into the building. It's designed to build community with people who don't really have any attachment to the community of God. It's designed to share our faith. We have adopted that simple little three-step sort of sequence that JR shared with us to belong, become, and believe. And I want you to know, friends, in the car cruise with three or four thousand people sort of milling around here, it's an amazing time. And by the way, just a little bit of a request. We sure could use about 20 or 30 of you that would say, hey, I'd be willing to help out. You can mark your communicator and just say, once or twice a month, that's all we need you for. And you don't have to know the difference between a Camaro and a Continental, okay? It's about people. The car cruise is about people. All you have to say, could you just move over here, can I get this for you, or there's where you need to go to do this, or yeah, I can take you around the church. That's all we need you for, but we need you. Because it's going to be bigger and better than ever this year, and more people are going to make a connection because of it. It's what God wants us to do. The last thing is this, really, and it's not in this passage, but it's what the Pharisees do. Pharisees think they're righteous. Followers know they're sinful. Look on the bottom of the outline. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, Levi is another name for Matthew, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. I love this. Don't you love the fact that Jesus didn't hang out with the religious people? When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And on hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Loved ones, Jesus, you know how much he loves you. If you're here today as a follower of Christ, you know deep in your soul the reality of his presence, the goodness of his of his faithfulness towards you, but he's reaching out right now, and he wants to reach through you to the ones who don't know him. He's come to call those who don't know him. He's come to call the ones who've been following this stained glass Jesus all their life and haven't ever really heard of the true Jesus, because once you meet the real Jesus, there's no turning back. And it's not that life suddenly gets all straightened out, it's not that suddenly everything works together, but you know what happens? Something in you starts to hunger for more of him. People hung on his words, and every day of your life becomes an adventure, and you get to write the epitaph that'll be on your tombstone about what you did for God. Interestingly, I read a story this week about Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist. He woke up one morning, this was in the late 1800s, he was reading through the newspaper, and he got to the obituary section, and he began to read an obituary for Alfred Nobel. Now listen, he was alive, he's reading his own obituary. The inventor of dynamite, which the obituary runs, say, was used to kill more people in conflicts than any other weapon in history. This individual was singularly responsible for the death of more people than any other living human being. Because of this invention, he's become very, very wealthy, and see, it was all a big mistake. It was a distant relative that passed away. The reporter thought it was Nobel. Nobel took it as a wake-up call from God, and he said, God, I don't want to be known as the person who caused the death, who profiteered from the death of people, and that's when he created the Nobel Peace Prize to go to scientists and leaders who would do things to help save humanity. He made that choice. You have a choice to make. Glass Jesus, or will you follow the Jesus who comes and says, I'm the Messiah, I'm the King of Kings, follow me, follow me, and I'll make your life an adventure of faith. So in Oakland and here in Wexford, let's stand and pray together. Lord Jesus, for the times that we have allowed ourselves to be in this place, just to get comfortable with who you are, just to keep you in this little sort of nice little picture, nice framed stained glass, God, forgive us. Forgive us, Lord, when we've.