No Walls III, The Soul of North Way

Now, you've got to fill in all the blanks, you've got to read those inserts, know what's coming up. You're adults, you can handle it. I'm just counting on you doing that. All right, well, take your outline for today's message out of your notes. And I want to assure the one or two of you in here that wondered, does Jay really know what today is? Does he know there's a game at 12 o'clock? I'm semi out of it, but I do know that it will not affect what I'm going to do for the next hour. So then we'll be done. As you can see, we're preparing for something very unique this morning. How many of you have already eaten, had breakfast? I mean, you just kind of wait till after this to go ahead and go out and get some. How many of you get something to eat after this normally? Okay, well, those hands are going to be the ones that are going to be going fidgeting, ready to get out of here in just a moment. I want to pray and ask the Lord just to bless this because it really doesn't mean anything if his spirit doesn't rest on it. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of gathering in a place where your name is lifted up, where celebration and praise can be expressed from our hearts. And we ask you now, Lord, to speak to us through your word and teach us about the amazing truth of what you've designed us to be as your church, as your family, in Jesus' name, amen. We're going to talk today about the ingredients that God puts into his recipe for a wonderful, fulfilling, and purposeful life. And a life like that is a life that's a fragrant offering to God. Would you look at the first verse in your outline? Here's what the Lord commands of us. He says, this is Paul writing in Ephesians 5, be imitators of God. Read it with me. Be imitators of God and live a life of love. Just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. You see, when you live a life that's pleasing to God, there's an aroma about it. And that aroma is pleasing to God. And that fragrance lifts up to heaven and God looks down and he's pleased. And I don't know about you, but I haven't found anything in my life that I want to do more than learn to live pleasing God. Now, some 21 years ago this month, small group of people, nine couples to be exact, started with a few ingredients. And we're going to talk about those ingredients because 21 years later, they are still the soul of this church. Those ingredients still comprise what make this church what it is. And by God's grace, they've been multiplied many, many times over. But I want you to know going right out of the gate, that I believe that what brings pleasure to God is a church where all these ingredients are functioning, where a church, a whole body. He said, Jesus didn't come to save individuals. You know that, don't you? As much as he loves you, he came, listen, to call for himself a bride, a corporate people. That's why we're not saved individually and just taken to heaven. He's allowing us to learn how to be together because heaven's going to be a place, by the way, you're not going to have your little individual chalet, okay? You're going to be with countless multitudes who worship the name of the Lord. So when the church is functioning well, it's a beauty to behold. It's the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Isaiah the prophet called it the joy of the whole earth. And when it's not, it's lifeless, it's loveless. When it's impotent and irrelevant and purposeless, I believe as Jesus said, it's to be cast underfoot and downtrodden because it doesn't meet the purposes of God. The ingredients that were put into place, they're still functioning today. And our greatest dream for this new year is that more and more people would come and fill this place week after week and discover what you're discovering about the ingredients that make for a meaningful life. And that's why we just want to reiterate for those of you who maybe were gone over the holiday or missed, I want to say what a praise the Lord it was to see 8,300 people here over Christmas and the Christmas Eve services. And a couple hundred of them give their lives to Christ. And some of them, by the way, are taking steps into 101 and some of the other courses that we offer here and making relationships. And seeing you as a church have stepped up and even in your financial support said, we believe in what God's doing here. And I'm excited about that because that now prepares the way for the Lord to do more. I gotta tell you, in Acts 4.23, it says that a spirit of awe fell over the church when they saw lives being changed. And I want you to know that same spirit, I mean, it is awesome. When you see a life that's heading in a trajectory that's taking them away from God and a light goes on in their heart or understanding comes to their mind and they begin to turn and walk toward God. And you say, that's awesome. Nothing else has an impact in my life more than that. And to see somebody who was once in darkness and now is in light. And the soul of this church is to create a place where people can discover what it means to follow Jesus. I wanna say that again. The soul of this church is to create a place where people can discover what it means to learn to follow Jesus. That's the definition of a disciple. Now I've made an effort to simplify this and to put it into sort of a visual term. And I've asked my good friend here, Chef Mike, ta-da, to join us for the occasion. I think you gotta welcome Chef Mike. He's an unusually gifted guy. Um, would you don the Chef Mike hat, please? Well, yeah, that's one of the first things I gotta do. Keeps my hair from getting in other places. I left that out one time and it's just never been the same after that. Yeah. You're slow, but you're getting there. You certainly looked the part today, Chef Mike. Thank you. And what I'm gonna ask you to do is go ahead, you can, I think, to be honest, the screen's gonna come on here. You're gonna be able to see this beautiful assemblage of different ingredients. Fresh veggies, some meat, cheese, seasonings. And you're gonna start it all by cranking my gum. I'm going on. The gum's gotta do the cleansing. Mike plays an instrument and there's a lot of dryness going on. So he's gonna, there you go. What's rhythm, too? All right, he's got it going. And he's, he's got the flame. Now the first thing we've gotta get a hold of here, it's very important. Got the, see the flame? It's gonna come on the screen here. The flame is symbolic. It stands for the power to transform all these ingredients into something that's good. And you gotta get this early on because what the flame represents, church, is the grace, the undeserved favor, unmerited blessing of God in your life. And we want you to grab this because you see, it's so important. All these other ingredients can be out there, but if the grace of God is not providing the power for you to change, you're going to be stilted. You're going to be frustrated. Here's something I know about a lot of you. Growing up in this part of the country as most of you have, there is a general tendency to not understand grace. Most of my conversations, regardless of the intellectual spectrum of people, is they don't understand grace. They understand church and religion in terms of works, in terms of what they needed to do to be accepted by God. They understand trying harder to be better so that God would accept them or going to certain liturgies and so on in order to receive certain blessings, but they don't understand grace. And many of those people spend their whole life trying to figure out what they can do to please God, and they never get there because no one has shown them God's way of grace. Now remember, and by the way, this isn't easy to get through. Some of you have been coming to this church for several years and haven't understood grace yet. Carol, my wife, when we set up our kitchen in our home 14 years ago, we had an island in the middle of the kitchen, and she put the silverware drawer in that island. So for 14 years, every time I needed a spoon or a fork, I'd go to the island, open up the silverware drawer, and pull out a fork, spoon, knife, whatever I needed. In some burst of compulsive sort of creativity, she moved the silverware drawer from the island over toward to the right of the stove on the countertop. I went down one morning and opened up the silverware drawer and there was Saran wrap and some other stuff on it. I said, that's not what I want. And I found the silverware drawer. Friends, it's been four months. When I go down there this morning to get my coffee, the first place I go to get the spoon out to serve the coffee is in the Saran wrap drawer. Now, sometimes she puts little stickies on there saying, get it yet, get it yet. And the fact of the matter is it was so deeply ingrained. That habit pattern in my life was so deeply ingrained. After four months, I'm starting now to realize go this way, go this way. I'm gonna tell you, I know this is a fact. Some of you have been hearing this message for two, three, five years, but you're still going to the old silverware drawer to find grace. Grace is so amazing. It's God saying to you, it's not about your effort. It's not about you trying harder. It's about receiving what I provide. And by the way, it's not just for those of you who are just coming to know God. It's for those of you who think you've walked them away. I've seen lots of folks start in grace and end up in works. In Galatians 3.3, Paul says, don't do that. Having started in grace, keep going in grace. Keep growing in it. And so that's so vital because the rest of what we're gonna talk about is just not gonna get done if you don't lay hold of the reality of that. And when a person gets a hold of grace, when they, I tell you, I see guilt kind of rolling off people when they realize that God accepts them as they are, when they realize he's provided the power that they need. It's wonderful to be free. And that's why we're not ashamed to proclaim the grace of God. It never will be in this church. And we're gonna do all kinds of things. And in this new year, we're gonna have a family series in two weeks called Happy to be Home, where we're gonna weave grace throughout the whole issue of being part of a family and understanding those relationships. And we've got the Easter presentation, all these different things we'll be doing to present grace. All right, now we've got the power going. Chef Mike's gonna step up and he's gonna prepare the little fry pan here with a couple of goodies. That's it. We wanna minimize anything being left behind. Okay. That's the medicinal. Now we got the good stuff. The butter. The butter, okay. Oh yeah. Now I thought butter, I thought margarine was supposed to, no. No, no, no. Margarine, your body doesn't know what to do with that. Butter, God made that. That's beautiful. You just can't eat the whole stick at one time. That's all. I trust your judgment on that, Chef Mike. Okay, so. Thank you, Pastor. But the butter starts to get in there and it's just melting away. It's not only sort of, I see it's, yeah. It's hypnotizing, isn't it? Yeah, it's actually. You're under my belt. Very, very interesting. Okay. All right, now, as soon as that all melts, and prepares a little bit of the base. Okay, we can go ahead and do something here? Oh, we can. We're gonna add some ingredients, all right? 10, 12 rows back, you guys smell these onions, don't you? You smell the onions yet? No. You will. Yeah. Very carefully measure that there, notice that. Yes. Just a couple of flicks. All right, what else are you gonna put? I'm gonna get a little red pepper going on in there. Now, you can tell Mike's the real chef. He doesn't have like a cup and, you know, like I would do. He's just like. Sissies, cups, sissies. No, no, no. Green pepper. I don't have any value judgment on that. I just said you were a real chef. All right, and now what's this? This is chives. A few little chives. Okay. Put chives in there. Now, I want you to notice there, he puts four different ingredients in there. And that represents one of the foundational values of our church. Take your notes, you don't have to write down. The soul of our church is to learn to enjoy the fellowship of small groups. Write it down. To enjoy the fellowship of small groups. It is not an exaggeration for me to say that nothing matters more in your journey of following Jesus Christ than becoming a part of a small group. A place where you can know someone else and be known by them. Love someone else and be loved by them. Celebrate someone else and be celebrated by them. And share your struggles with someone else and let them share them with you. My life was changed when I became part of a small group 30 years ago in college. And I realized that God had created that. And by the way, in Acts 2, you can read how the Lord set the whole new church in place, not just to meet all together, but house to house, he says in Acts 2 42. When this church was established in 1981, for the first six weeks, almost three months, we met as small groups before we came together as a corporate body for worship. Small groups are in the original DNA of our church family. And when someone gets into a small group, they begin to discover the reality of a place where they can live out their journey in God. And they can share things and they can discover. You see, these things are mixing together and there's gonna be a blending of seasoning and a blending of aromas and a blending of the juices of all that that make this thing taste different than if each individual thing was pulled out. In my small group, we've been part of seven or eight of them, Carol and I were talking about this. Just this last August, one of our members had twins. And that was a big deal. But when you add that to the fact they have four kids under the age of nine already, their household changed. And we got to share in that experience and help out and enjoy that. And it was a neat sort of life moment for all of us. And I shared with you a couple of weeks ago when Carol's mom was very seriously ill and had to have major surgery. And when Carol was gone for a couple of weeks, the cell group came around me and provided meals and support and picked up different things. And you see, small groups help in the practical things and in the spiritual things. And they help your life to fit together. And you, some of the juices of your life and some of the colors of your life begin to blend in with others. And that's the intention of God. That's why the Bible is very clear about this as a priority. And that's why we as a community, see, this is what we do. A week ago when our elders council met, I see Bill Callahan here, a member of our elders council. First thing we did for the first 40 minutes was to go around that circle of brothers and say, how are you doing? What's going on in your life? Because you see, it's everything we do around here, we're doing in groups. We're doing them in teams, not because teams is the management tool, but because teams are an opportunity to share life together. And it helps enormously. And if you don't know this, listen, our kids, our little, you know, the little ones in kids ministry, they're in small groups. They come into their Sunday school class, they're in a small group. Our middle schoolers are in small groups. Our senior hires are in small groups. If you're not in a small group, you're missing one of the primary ways in which God wants his grace to be released in your life. And I wanna encourage you in the strongest way, get connected. We have 125 groups going now, and we're starting more all the time. Mark your communicator, see Pastor Bob or Margaret or one of the team and say, hey, I wanna get connected. I wanna be part of a small group. All right, so that's been simmering a while there. Chef Mike, is that? Did you smell it? I can smell it really well. Y'all starting to get it out? Yeah, I see the hands of the people that didn't eat going up. What's next in the little mix here? Well, next we're gonna go after some substance. We're gonna add some ham in there. All right, we're throwing some meat in. Boy, you're getting awfully, this is obviously the third service. He's just dumping the meat in there. I can see that. This is a big furnace. It needs fuel, you know what I'm saying? All right, so let me talk about the meat. Because that has to do with your spiritual growth. And the soul of our church, Roman numeral two, is to be a place to experience a growing relationship with Christ. Now, this takes a little longer because the meat's gotta cook through just a bit. Once a person gets connected in a group, then they're surrounded by people who can help them in the journey. I wanna say something that's important here. One of the mistakes I see people make is they try to start their growth journey on their own. And that is usually an invitation to some kind of deception in your life. You need some people around you on a regular basis to help you to know, hey, you're going down the right track. Because you know what? There are a lot of goofballs out there. There's a lot of people on radio and television that's just gonna get you all confused. And on your spiritual growth, you need some, again, that's why the groups come first. Then you get in with some folks to help you and encourage you in your walk with the Lord. Because see, God doesn't wanna just fill you with knowledge. This isn't about your head getting bigger. It's about your heart getting bigger. Look at the next verse in your outline. From the very beginning, God decided that those who came to him should become like his son. Spiritual growth is about life transformation. It's about becoming like Jesus. And we've got, in this church, scores of environments. Pastor Bob mentioned it in his little summary. If you haven't seen this personal development, maybe you pick one up. They're all over the back of the auditorium and out in the foyer. There are opportunities starting this month, the month of January and February, retreats, getaways, great teachers like Gene Yannikos, Bruce Bain, people who are gifted in teaching to give you opportunities to learn God's word and understand it. Different environments for people who maybe have a different kind of growth need, like Alive Again or Marriage Menders. They're all in there. But you've gotta take the initiative. Friend, if you sit there week after week and listen to this but don't take the initiative, no one's gonna call you and say, hey, are you growing? You've gotta be adult enough about it and say, yeah, I'm purposely making a step to keep on the journey of growth in my life. It's very important. All right, all right, Chef Mike, got the meat going in there. What's next? Next, you're gonna put in some of the things that, you know, not everybody likes, but I like them. Mushrooms. All right, yeah, I like those. Yeah, fresh, good, just cut them up. Okay. And some black olives. All right, all right, the black olives. Now, we talked about this before. All right, we did. A little lighter on those this time. Even lighter? Because they're strong. I mean, those are strong. I mean, those are. Yeah, I could eat these, I could eat this whole thing myself. You probably could, buddy. And some tomato. We are in agreement there. You can go ahead and be happy with those. Fresh tomato. Very nice, very nice. All right. Now, there's a lot. Here's why we chose those, because those are three items not everybody likes in their omelet, and they represent some uniqueness. And the next thing that I want you to pick up on is, at the soul of our church, is the possibility that God has given you a spiritual gift to develop. And I believe it's His intention that every person, would you say that with me? Every person. Would you say it with me? Every person discover their spiritual gift and begin to use it. Now, the reason we put these in there is because without it, the omelet lacks something of that unique taste. It lacks some of that special savor. And in a church, if a lot of the gifts are left out, the church isn't well-rounded and it lacks some of that full body taste that God intended for it. And you know what? Spiritual gifts are, some folks just sort of sit there and say, okay, God, if you want me to have a gift, I know you'll give it to me. I guess you don't want me to have anything. And they get up and they go, I'm not exaggerating. I've heard people say, I'm just praying about what my gift is and I'm not doing anything. Let me just make it real clear. You discover your spiritual gifts by getting out there and trying whatever comes down the path. It may be in alignment with your natural ability. It may not be. Spiritual gifts sometimes are just God supernaturally enlivening what you do in the natural, or it may be something you're not even good at in the natural, but he makes it powerful. When I graduated from college, I had my first job, my real job, my dad used to call it. My only real job, my dad used to say. And I volunteered for the first year out of college in a youth group in a Presbyterian church in a small town in Virginia. And just went in and said, hey, can I be of help? And the pastor said, well, we need some more with the kids. I said, great. Well, I can at least give it a try. And so I went there week after week and there weren't many kids. And after about, oh, I don't know, six or eight weeks, he came to me one Sunday and he said, you know what? I have to be gone tonight. Could you teach the kids? I said, well, pastor, listen, I can put things together and organize them and I can lead a few things, but I've not really been a teacher and I'm not all that good at that stuff. He said, well, I guess we won't have the group then because no one's there to teach. So I stepped up and put together a message and strangely enough, the kids seemed to listen. I was kind of surprised. Well, over the next three or four months, I did more and more of that. We went on a retreat. I'll never forget one time at the end of a retreat, the kids, we were talking about forgiveness and the kids gathered together. And I remember seeing this little, in my mind, this little huddles of kids with their hands on one of their shoulders, just praying and asking forgiveness because I taught about that and how it hurts God's heart when we're bitter toward each other. And I said, wow, they're not just hearing it, they're acting on it. And I taught one time on honoring your parents and how important that was according to God. And I got a call the Monday after the Sunday night group and a parent calls it, is this the guy that's teaching the Bible study over at the Presbyterian church? And I said, well, why do you ask? And they said, well, because my two kids have been going to that thing for a couple of months and they are acting different at home than they've ever acted before. And I just, I said, yeah, yeah, I could be that guy. That might be me. I saw a gift begin to emerge and may just say to you, it was a process that I cultivated over time. Likewise, every one of you have a gift. It may be the gift of hospitality, the gift of serving, the gift of teaching, the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing, the gift of leadership, the gift of administration. There's three places in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit lists. Some say are about 21 different gifts that are in the body of Christ. And when they're all working, folks, this is a powerful place. And when it's not, it's just kind of limited. It's just, it doesn't have all the flavors. It doesn't have all the richness that it could have. And I just want to say, if you've not been to the 301 course, if you haven't discovered your shape, then get connected in there and discover it. Find out how you can serve. Now, maybe that's something that you've already done. Take the next step and then just start trying some places where you can see where that gift emerges. I want to introduce you right now to eight people who are using their gifts. A few of them really are in the process of discovering exactly where their gift is. And this is our student ministries team, our leadership team. And I'm telling you, these folks are excited. I got eight of them here today. These folks are giving themselves literally full time to this ministry. And first of all, I want to bring Mark Kelsall and his senior IT team up. Just give them a hand as they come. These guys are so... Well, all right. Eric's going to explain his picture. What happened with your picture, Eric? I told the last service, but I'd like to say it again. It wasn't the one that I had chosen. It's, I think Mark did it. That's not your graduation picture? I apologize for that. I thought that was your graduation picture. What kind of high school kid wants to hang out with that? Jerk. Okay. All right. Well, Mark Kelsall is our senior high ministries director and he took the picture. Yeah, I did. You'll admit that. All right. This is Doug Miller. He's a recent grad of Grove City and he's working full time with kids on campuses. What's going on with the kids? One of the things I'm really excited about is our small group ministries. Jay was talking about small groups are so important. Stay away from the food, Mark. You don't need it. He's getting married. You know, he's got to cut out. But our small group ministries really started to explode. All of us are leading small groups and we're trying to get them all started in high schools. And just one example has been at Hanson Pine Mission. A couple of the kids are right down here. And that group's gone from starting with three students to now there's about 40 students that are involved. And it doesn't sound like a small group. It's more like a home group, but it's a high school kids. It's awesome when they come there and it's great to see their hearts being transformed. And, you know, kids that had things going on in their life, whether it's been their parents are separated or divorced, or maybe they're just struggling with Christianity and maybe just struggling with the claims that Christ made. We're talking about all that stuff there. It's been neat to see. It's just hard to change. You guys meet tonight, right? Yeah, we meet tonight. 6-3, okay. This is Erin Brownback. Erin led a whole youth group herself down in South Hills and now she's come to join this team. And what are you excited about right now? I'm excited to be a part of this excellent team. These guys are so great to work with. And it's fantastic to not be alone, to be supported by one another's gifts and to support each other and appreciate the different things that we bring. And I also appreciate so much being in a church that just supports the way that this church does, that doesn't sit back and just watch everybody else do the ministry, that really gets involved. And one thing I made to help you get a little bit more involved is a prayer calendar. You can support us through prayer throughout the coming months. You can get them from the ushers afterward. And on here, there's contact information if you wanna get ahold of us and say, yeah, I'd like to help out behind the scenes or I'd like to come and build some relationships with kids or run a small group like Doug was mentioning before. Great, okay. Mark, you have about how many leaders now? We have around 20, 25 leaders that volunteer in the ministry and help us through. Some of them are behind the scenes people. Some of them are people that are right in there with kids every week. So if you're a college student or you're a young adult and you wanna say, I wanna. Or older, we have a lot of people that are older that do, you do a great job, I'm sure. I'll accept that affirmation, all right. So that's our senior high team. And I want you to welcome, and if you wonder why they're not quite as spry on their feet, our middle schoolers. Come on up, John Huber and your team. Let's give them a hand as they come. Come on, give them a hand back there. Let me tell you why they're not quite as spry. John barely is moving, I noticed it. Last night, they had an overnighter at Oxford and here at North Way, back and forth. They had 187 middle school kids. And I think that's pretty awesome. John, you look like you might be ready to take a little bit of a rest. I think I might pass out. What was the highlight of last night? The exciting thing about last night is that all the students that came out, the challenge was you plus two. So we challenged our core kids to bring two friends and they did that. And it was exciting to see them hang out and have a great time. And then our leaders, we had 33 of our regular leaders and 15 parents gather and really minister to these kids and hang out with them. And it was a great time. And Janie Bacurin, she's the administrative director and helps keep things together. Did you have enough help last night? Yes, we did. And we are very pleased and we feel very blessed to have all the leaders that we have. I'm in awe sometimes of just, I don't know how many times they probably got so sick of hearing me say, I love you guys. You guys are so awesome. I thank you so much. Yeah, when you see 100, almost 200 kids back there, you need to thank the Lord for these leaders, don't you? Yeah. This is Leah Edwards. And Leah's just joined full-time to help in middle school. What's exciting to you right now? I'm just really excited to be a part of something that's so much bigger than myself and that God is just really doing something around here. And I just feel so blessed to be a part of it. Thank you. And this is Sean Riley, who's got a very challenging task and one that seemed impossible to help the middle schoolers learn to focus long enough to worship. Yeah, and I tell you, it's been amazing. I re-worship for Epic, which is the 20s ministry and also for the Junior Hat. And to see Junior Hatters coming and worshiping in the same sense and with the same reverence as people twice their age. And it really is just amazing to see God work and to sense His presence in that. Well, you can see why, looking at this team, folks, I am really excited about what God's gonna do in our student ministries. Let's give Him a hand and let's be short of prayer. Thanks, guys. Bless you. Let me have that again. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. In case I forget to mention it, don't forget to pick up one of these calendars so you can pray for all the events that are coming up. Tonight, Planet X for the senior high kids and every Sunday, and Middle School Extreme Eats on Saturday night as well. These are folks discovering the gifts. Some of these young people, by the way, are here specifically because they said, Jay, we're not sure what our call is and would you help us to discern where our gifts are? And so I thank you for your support in that. Your support helps us to create an opportunity for these kids to make a difference. All right, now, Chef Mike, we got something. I mean, it's looking good. Oh, yeah. What's it lacking right now to make it, add just a little bit of a bite to it? Just to get it over the top. It's really lacking some spice. I like that, over the top. Over the top. Yeah, you want it over the top. All right. A little Tabasco. Green, it's green Tabasco. All right, green Tabasco, okay. Just a little bit. Yeah. I'm not gonna kill you. Okay. Now, there you go. All right, and a couple other little. A couple other things, a little marjoram, a little sage, salt and pepper. All right, so we're adding. Here's the key word. We're adding some seasonings to give this thing a little punch, okay? So it's not bland. I always wanna go real clear here, folks. If there's one thing I don't wanna be a part of, it's a bland church, one that doesn't make a difference. And what Jesus has called us to be is the salt of the earth. There was a reason why he used that imagery. The next thing on your outline is that the salt of the earth is to fulfill our mission of going out. I've said it before, I wanna say it again. Our goal, our pastoral team's goal is to bring down the walls that keep people from feeling like this can be a place where they can come and discover what God's doing in their life. We believe God's, listen, and the only way that's gonna happen is by going out. We're gonna have to make, I love what John said. Did you catch that? It was you plus two. He challenged his kids, you plus two. And they stepped up, and many of their kids brought two friend