New Weapons In Our Warfare

In the hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He'll arise, the mighty army, He'll rise! Now is the time for us to march in monument, To promise we will be the proud we claim. He rides in majesty, To lead us into victory, The world shall see that might we show. Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, we sing, In the hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He'll arise, the mighty army, He'll rise! God is at work in us, His work is principle, Filling our kingdom, Our power, our worth. Living's impossible, Our faith shall be made possible, Blessed be the glory to His power. Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, we sing, In the hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He lives, He'll arise, the mighty army, He'll rise! Though we are weak, His grace is everything to me, We don't fail in what His grace brings to me. He turns our weakness into His opportunity, So that the glory goes to me. Okay, before we go on, could we look at those words on that verse again? How many sang those and don't even know what you sang? Don't admit that. Though we are weak, His grace is everything we need. How many feel kind of weak? Nobody? Oh dear, I'm all alone. We're made of clay, But this treasure lies within. He turns those weaknesses into what? Opportunity. So let's give Him glory. Let's try that again. Though we are weak, His grace is everything we need. We're made of clay, But this treasure is within. He turns our weaknesses into His opportunity, So that the glory goes to Him. Rejoice! Rejoice! The Christ is with you! The hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, His grace is everything to me. Rejoice! Rejoice! The Christ is with you! The hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, His grace is within you. Arise! Arise! The Christ is with you! The hope of glory in our hearts, He lives, He lives, Arise! Arise! The Christ is with you! Hallelujah! Amen! There is joy, joy, joy In the presence of the Lord Hallelujah! Amen! Dance to celebrate, Dance to celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. Dance to celebrate, Dance to celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. There is joy, joy, joy In the presence of the Lord Hallelujah! Amen! There is joy, joy, joy In the presence of the Lord Hallelujah! Amen! Dance to celebrate, Dance to celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. Dance to celebrate, Dance to celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. Okay, kids. Now I want all the kids to stand up. Kids, I see some of you. I've never seen some of you so still and this is your chance to move around. And dance and celebrate. Can you show us how to do that? Look at your feet and move your feet around a little bit. And you have to make those moves to dance. Can we do that? Dance with joy before the Lord. Dance and celebrate, Dance and celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. There is joy, joy, joy In the presence of the Lord Hallelujah! Amen! There is joy, joy, joy In the presence of the Lord Hallelujah! Amen! Dance and celebrate, Dance and celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. Dance and celebrate, Dance and celebrate, Dance with joy before the Lord. Lift up your impoundments All ye saints of God Lift up your impoundments For the victory is ours Lift up your impoundments All ye saints of God Give the glory to the Holy One For the battle has begun And the God of God has won And there's more from Him to come As the gates of hell are torn And the mighty storm is blown We'll be resurrected eternally With victory in our hearts Countin' in glory, saints of God is what we're Countin' in for the victory is what we're Countin' in glory, saints of God is what we're Give the glory to the Lord For the battle has been won and the battle, we believe that So the blood of God will flow To THINE from heaven to God And the gates of heaven open And the mighty shall be blown To these minds eternally With victory Give up your countenance for the sake of God Give up your countenance for the victory is won And give the glory to the Holy One, and give the glory to the Holy One, and give the glory to the Holy One. Harold, get the water flap off, and give the glory to God. Isn't it good to come together and be able to join as a body to give praise? Well, I'm sure he is delighted with that. Could you turn to the person next to you and tell them that they are the Lord's delight? Could you do that? Introduce yourself. Yes, hello. You can go ahead and be seated. You did such a good job of greeting. I'll let you be seated. Lord, it is really wonderful to have the opportunity to get away from the dishes, and the stuff of home, and things that will wait, Lord. That we can come and wait on You tonight, and give You the energy of our lives, and the attention of our minds and hearts. Lord, we thank You for our children, and though Lord, even as we learned on Sunday, as parents, the challenge is very great. We thank You, Lord, that we trust in Your grace to cause our kids to grow, to love You, Lord, to serve You, to be image bearers of Jesus Christ wherever they go. We ask that tonight's meetings, and all the different Pioneer Clubs, and all the different things that will be happening in the back, Lord, that every kid that You've brought tonight would draw just a little bit closer to Christ. Thank You for this time. Lord, bless the teachers, and the workers, and all the ones that make these things happen. We never see, we just see the fruit. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. You know, kids, just before you go, I want to remind you again to be sure to sign up for your Vacation Bible School. It's just a couple of weeks away. Tell your mom and dad, after worship today, you want to sign up in the back, and they'll be there. Jeff, Sue, anything special tonight? By the way, how many of you weren't here on Sunday? Well, let me see your hand. Alright, only about a hundred. Now, you didn't hear this announcement. I want you to hear it, because it's important. Jeff looks reasonably more relaxed tonight. But just through a lot of prayer, and a lot of seeking the Lord, we've confirmed that Jeff is to come on at North Way as our full-time Children's Ministry Director. And the hundred of you that weren't here, go ahead and clap. And we're excited about that. And Sue has other news that... Ask your kid to tell you what her news is. It'll be fun. So, anything you want to tell them before we're going to go, or are you just ready to dismiss them? Just that tonight we're going to be having our awards ceremony for all the kids in the back, in case any of you wondered. So, they're going to be having their own little service in the gymnasium tonight. Also, I have set up a registration table for Vacation Bible School in the gym. Also tonight, so you want to come and register for that. And you'll want to come to see me in pointed ears. I'm going to be Mr. Spock. So, can we have the 5th and 6th graders come up? One thing I'd like to do real quick is, all the teachers stand up, first of all. This is all the Wednesday night teachers last night, for the summer anyway. They don't know that I put another copy of a contract under the last one they signed, so they're due back in September. But I'd like for all of you to give them a hand for all the hard work that they do. Okay, and if all the teachers could come forward. And the 5th and 6th graders, boys on this side, and girls on this side here, come quickly. 3rd and 4th grade, boys on this side, girls on this side. How many days till school, kids? We cranked up the air conditioners back there tonight, boy. I saw a report on the news last night about violence and heat. 1st and 2nd grade, boys on this side and girls on this side. Okay, then the kindergartners, that'd be 4- and 5-year-olds over here. And the 2- and 3-year-olds, and they've asked me to remind you that next week, 2- and 3-year-olds are to go right back before the service next week. Let's give them all a hand, could we? When you see the percentage of kids, of people, and they ought to throw in their leave, I know there are adults that send their kids. It has to be that way. There's not enough adults for this many kids. It doesn't seem possible, it really doesn't. But that's great, and we're glad to have them, and it's our future. Wow. I feel like we had a cry or something. I just lost it. It's amazing. While we're doing that, I have some good news I want to share. You know, we pray for people, and you hear reports, but you don't always hear what happened. And many of us have been praying for Don Hugebrugger, who came back from Morocco just 10 days ago, and ended up in the hospital with a very serious problem. And the physicians were not sure, and it seemed like it had the indication of being something very, very serious, some disease that may be chronic, and so on. We were praying, and we found out just, I guess, within the last day or so, that all Don had was a few amoebas from Morocco. Not that that isn't serious, but she's much better. And did she make it tonight, John? There she is, praise the Lord. Those amoebas will leave by the end of the night, I'm pretty sure, if they have ears to hear. Also tonight, I think it would be worthwhile for you to know, long-range planning is a tough thing for us all to do. I'm going to tell you about something after the summer is over. But I want to tell you about it tonight, because it will be something you want to plan toward. I've spoken the last three Sunday mornings about family issues, moms and dads and kids. And in three months and a half or so, we're going to have a nationally recognized ministry here in our church that's going to affect the whole city when Gary Smalley comes to bring his ministry here in our church. And in preparation for that, tomorrow morning, a number of us are meeting with some area pastors to help encourage them to bring their congregations as well. And Gary sent one of his friends as a representative for breakfast. And I don't know, Gary, did you want to say something? Let's welcome here Terry Brown. Come up, Terry, say hello. Thanks, Terry. He's here from Phoenix. And just give the folks a little idea of what kind of things they can look forward to in a few months. Okay, well, what Gary Smalley and Dr. John Trent, who's on our staff, are doing for the last four years is every month they do a live seminar in a city somewhere, kind of a citywide seminar. And it's a chance to really deal with some family issues, relationships in general, but also areas of practical things on parenting and things on dealing with forgiveness and resolving conflict. And it's a chance to go through it like on a Friday night and all day Saturday format and really get into some depth. So it's really the essence of our ministry next to their opportunities to write some books and that type of thing. But they really enjoy that. And this will be our first opportunity to come to Pittsburgh, to Phoenix. We're in Phoenix. We were surprised to know that. And we've already made contacts with the area pastors. And we're anticipating this building. Well, by then we're going to have the roof off and you'll be able to sit down and look in. It's going to be that full. But would you pray with us about tomorrow? Because one of the things that's difficult, and I'm sure you've seen this, Terry, pastors are threatened sometimes, folks. And even when a good thing comes, they get threatened by that because they're not sure if they know what the package is about and all that. So just pray for us as we seek to reach out. How many of you care about the people that go to other churches and their opportunity to be blessed? Well, we want to do that. So we'll be praying for you tomorrow and look forward to a great day. Okay, thanks, Terry. Thanks for coming today. One other thing to be praying for a little later on, I want to mention this because I often forget these announcements, but I really appreciate Patty Flacari. If you don't know Patty, she's a gal that's been so brave. In the last year, she's been fighting and winning her battle over leukemia. Patty stands faithfully, I think it's almost every Saturday, in front of the abortion clinics and just shares Christ with the people who go there. She's not a timid gal, but she's frail. She was on her way to a mission trip, I believe, getting ready to go to Grenada and had an appendicitis attack and had to have her appendix out, which isn't all that uncommon, but she's not healing well. We want to pray for her tonight because they have to go back in tomorrow and continue the surgery. So we're going to remember her tonight and be praying for Patty because she's a great, strong gal in faith. And I believe the Lord wants her to have a great long life and a fruitful life, and we want to be praying for her tonight a little later on. Let me just say in light of that for tonight, by the way, the description that we're going to base the next several minutes of our praise and worship on is in 1 Corinthians 15. Why don't you turn there as the basis of our next segment of praise here at Praise Night. 1 Corinthians 15. See, the Bible says, verse 54, when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. And let's read it together. Verse 57. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read it again. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. What does He give us? Victory. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14 says that we have the fragrance of Christ everywhere we go. And tonight, we're just going to kind of freshen up, put on the fragrance of victory as we sing just a little sequence of choruses that declare out loud. And by the way, I've learned something. When I sing, not just what I feel, but what I want to feel, what I want to experience many times I do. Let me say that again. I don't always feel, sing what I feel, but I usually end up feeling what I sing because faith begins to operate. So tonight, you may not feel all that victorious, but as we praise God these next several minutes, why don't you believe God to bring that victory to bear right where you live. Can you do that? Let's stand and Susie's going to lead us. I'd like to just add to that that these next few songs are a medley of songs that go together, and I can't tell you in my heart how strongly I feel that they can be effective in your life tonight. You know, I used to look for the cloud of glory. They said, you know, that the presence of the Lord comes so powerfully that the people couldn't stand in the Lord's presence. But you are the temple of God tonight, and He wants His glory to appear in your temple. But you can only do that by participating in the power of His presence as you give your praise to Him. And He'll come into your midst and break whatever bondage you have or whatever victory you need to see, but it requires of you to decide to enter into that. So I just want to encourage you. These are kind of call-response songs. Some of them might not be familiar to you, but enter in. It's like I told the choir. I said, if you get confused and you don't know what you're doing, I don't care what you do, but do it wholeheartedly because that's where God is. He's in our heart and He wants all of it. So we're going to give victory to the Lord. Hail, Jesus, You're my King. That's You, my God. Your life brings me to speed. Your life brings me to shame. I will praise You all my day. I will praise You all my day. You're perfect in all Your ways. You're perfect in all Your ways. Hail, Jesus, You're my Lord. Hail, Jesus, You're my Lord. I will obey Your word. I will obey Your word. I want to see Your kingdom come. I want to see Your kingdom come. Not my will, but Yours be done. Not my will, but Yours be done. Glory, glory to the Lamb. Glory, glory to the Lamb. You take me into the Lamb. You take me into the Lamb. We will conquer in Your Name. We will conquer in Your Name. And proclaim that Jesus reigns. And proclaim that Jesus reigns. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How powerful You are. How powerful You are. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How wonderful You are. How wonderful You are. Glory, glory to the Lamb. Glory, glory to the Lamb. You take me into the Lamb. You take me into the Lamb. We will conquer in Your Name. We will conquer in Your Name. And proclaim that Jesus reigns. And proclaim that Jesus reigns. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How powerful You are. How powerful You are. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How wonderful You are. How wonderful You are. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How wonderful You are. How wonderful You are. Once again. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How powerful You are. How powerful You are. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. Hail, Hail, Alleluia to the Lamb. How wonderful You are. How wonderful You are. Got one honest hand waving up there. There's a couple going now. Believe me, there's a lot that feel they just won't say it. I know that. But I'm, you know, it's to be a discipline. All right. Now listen very carefully. Now get the cards in your hands and then tune back in up here. I want to end with this. Discipline is not drudgery. Discipline is focus. Discipline is the ability to say no to other things so that you can say yes to the real desire of your heart. Isn't that right? I mean, discipline is being able to say no, I won't do this and I won't waste my time. And that's so that I can give myself to what I really want. And so really, discipline is just a matter of focusing in on what's really important. And I'm going to flash on this screen here now in the next few minutes, next minute, 15 areas that relate to what I see God promising our church but not having fulfilled. I'm going to ask every one of you to write one of those areas, just one, that you'll say, Pastor Jay, for the next 90 days, I'll own that promise. I'll own it in my spirit and I will pray as God gives me grace every day for it to be fulfilled by the time we get to here. Would you do that for me? Would you do that as a response to this message today? Now, gals, I'm going to ask you for the next 20 seconds. I'm going to flash them all up and then put them up again so you can see them all and then decide which one you feel God's prompting you. Go ahead. Put up the first list. No. Actually, you don't have to put your name on anything. I gave you two cards because I want you to keep one and I want you to give me one so I know what is being covered. There's the first sheet. Youth ministry, children's ministry, evangelism and community impact, the harvest ministries, which are home groups and enfolding of new believers and so on, the unity of the larger body of Christ, the leadership. And believe me, believe me, folks, the elders and the staff of our church are under constant bombardment because of what we're seeking to do. Singles. There's a great hunger in the singles of our church. The single parents, as I said on Sunday, tremendous need there. That's the first eight, the second seven for the whole arena of physical healing that needs to be poured out for relational restoration. Many marriages and many sibling relationships and father, son and so on. Relational healings. City ministries. I believe God is going to weave North Way in and we already are launching a couple guys in, but we're going to be doing even more in the city. World missions. We have a great missions conference coming in July 15th, but I think that that's just going to be the tip of the iceberg as to what God's going to do. Strengthening of the worship life. The fabric of our church. Renewal and worship. Number four, the release of the property next door. That, by the way, is a big illustration. I didn't talk about between promise and fulfillment. If we just say case or us or our folks might as well say bye bye. That'll be the last verse of that song. We're gonna have to pray it into possession. Number five, 15, our financial resources that God would continue to open up his blessing upon this church. Okay. Put up the first list again and you all see the second one. We'll put up for 30 seconds. You choose one that you feel God's prompting you to pray for. Just one. And the second list once again, please. Now, I'd like you to take one of the cards and slip them into your Bibles or your wallet or someplace where you'll be every day. Your purse. I want you to pass the other card in. You don't need to sign it. Just pass it into the center and then I'd like just a few folks to gather them up. And then would you stand with me for a word of prayer as we prepare to worship the Lord in conclusion tonight. Lord Jesus, as we, as your church, consider the promises that have been given to us as individuals and as a corporate body, Lord, we say thank you and we're humbled by it. We all now lift our hearts and our voices together, Lord, and say, quicken in us the spirit of prayer. Let us grow once again, Lord, not just lukewarm but hot in our desire to see the fulfillment of this promise. We ask it in Jesus' name. We're going to worship for just a few moments. As part of tonight, we planned an expression of worship that glorifies the Lord Jehovah. Yahweh, the one who said, I am who I am. I am all sufficient in myself. As this song is ministered, I pray that you'll, we're going to sing the chorus together. We'll be worshiping along with this as soon as this song is completed. Why don't you be seated so you all can see well. And tremble before him, Jehovah is our deliverer. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we praise the name. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we praise the name of Jehovah. Let all who know the Lord is their God bow before him in worship. And lift your voice and tremble before him, Jehovah is our deliverer. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we praise the name of Jehovah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we praise the name of Jehovah. We hold him now in all of his glory. King of kings forever. Christ has seen his glorious power. Jesus reigns as our savior.