Refocusing Our Vision for 93

You need to stop there today and pick those up, because we have no use whatsoever for those if you don't pick them up. Ephesians 4 verses 1 through 6 please. If you don't have a Bible, ask your neighbor if you can look on or at least listen carefully here. And Jim, I'm going to ask you, you can turn this air off in this section right here please. I'm going to start seeing the teeth rattle, I know it's time. Alright. As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Last Sunday afternoon, two days after New Year's, our family finally sat down for our traditional pork and sauerkraut and kielbasa. How many of you had dinner like that? Okay. Well, I checked and it was two days late, but it still happened. We had an elders retreat on New Year's Day and so on, we just couldn't do it. And we took the time to share the highlights of 92 as a family and the greatest expectations that we had for 93. Now, if you have three teenagers, those can be very interesting dinners. And you kind of have to start, you know, drawing things out and waiting, but in time it was really kind of neat and kind of exciting. We were thankful for a good years of family and a lot of expectation about the coming year. In that same spirit today, I kind of want to share with you as the North Way family and our guests that are here this morning, and I want to open my heart to you in the context of God's Word about where we are and where we see ourselves going in 93. I'm not going to revisit much of 92. I think we did that in the Spirit Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. I really believe the Lord has enabled us to close a chapter successfully and move ahead. But here in Ephesians 4, where by the way, 12 years ago, a small band of us met in Jay Dawson's basement family room to talk about what God might want to do in a local church. We use this Ephesians 4 passage as the basis of our deliberations and our seeking the Lord at that time. We focused on verses about 11 through 16 on that date. Today, I just want to look especially at the first six verses and particularly verse number three. Before we get there, let's look at verse one. As a prisoner for the Lord then, and Paul is writing this from a prison cell. How many know when you're in jail and you want to be out of jail, what you're saying has added intensity? In other words, you're paying a price with your life for what you're writing. He's saying there, I urge you then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you receive. The word urge, simple word in English, but in the Greek, it's the word that means to entreat, to pray, to beg. It's the word parakaleo, from which we get paraclete, which is the word for Holy Spirit. Paul's saying, I want to come alongside of you with everything that I am and say to you, live a life worthy of the calling you've received. Folks, who's he talking to here? Missionaries like Kathy Stokes is going to be? Elders? Pastors? Who's he talking to? Everyone. Turn to your neighbor and say, he's talking to you. All right? All right? Are you living a life worthy of the calling that you've received? Paul urges this because he knows how easily we drift. How many of you have made a resolution for New Year's? How many resolution makers are here? Let me see. I'm not going to ask you what it is. Don't worry. How many have already found, you know, boy, did I really mean that? We're prone to start on a path and drift away from it. And here Paul says, live a life worthy of the calling you've received. Paul recognizes that there's consequences to not living a life worthy of the calling. I want to make something kind of clear. It probably isn't necessary in this service, but it will be in the next more so. We're not talking about sin and judgment here. How many of you know that no matter what your life has been like, no matter how ugly and black it may have been or is even now, if you come to Christ and give your life to him, there won't be a day when you'll stand before God and answer for your sins. That day is not going to happen. Paul is not talking about judgment for sin here. We have a little overhead, a graphic to show you this. It's not before Christ and the sin. It's what happens from conversion to conclusion. Slide it all the way up, Kelly. Conversion to conclusion. Folks, this is what Paul is urging us to live a life worthy of our calling during this part of our life. Now, I look out here and I see lots of young faces and you're thinking, well, slide it down just a little bit more, Kelly, the other way. That's it. You may think I'm only about one inch into the conversion stage. I've got another 40 years of life. Can I just plead with you to think for a moment? Maybe you don't. We buried a man this week from our church, 48 years old, Ken McNeely, a dear man of God, godly single parent. Died just like that. Gave a testimony Monday night at Generations. Died Tuesday morning. Heart attack. We don't know where we are from conversion to conclusion. You may be at the door of concluding your life. I don't know that. I pray you're not. But see, Paul says you don't know where you are, so live a life worthy of your calling. And there is a day that's coming when you will answer for what happened from conversion to conclusion. It's called the judgment seat of Christ. I've not preached enough about that because I think a lot of us sort of think, well, you know, I'm as good as the next guy at least, and you know, I'll be in heaven as long. I've heard people say, just give me a little shack in the corner of heaven and I'll be happy. I get a lot. And I suppose that, yeah, you'd be a lot happier than you would be if you were somewhere else. But I don't know that you're going to want to stand before the Lord and say, well, you know, I just really didn't make much difference with my life. I believe you're going to want to stand there before God and hear him say those words that we commonly sort of mouth. We want to hear the, what is it? Say it. Well done. Hey, you all know it. Well done, good and faithful servant. Paul says live a life worthy of the calling of a faithful servant. Martin Luther's calendar, it said, had only two days on it. Today and that day. And it said of Martin Luther, he knew that if he lived two days for Christ, he'd be okay on that day. Don't worry about all the days in between because God will take care of those for you. The only biblical way to live a life worthy of the calling we have in Christ is to live like Jesus did. I think that's probably a given. And the Bible says that he had a passion or zeal for his father's house. It says that it consumed him. And can I tell you, dear ones, it still does consume him and it ought to consume us. All of Ephesians is about living a life worthy of a person. Who's consumed with a passion for the church of Jesus Christ. The first three chapters of Ephesians talk about fullness being manifested, the Holy Spirit living within us, the wisdom being manifested to the principalities and powers of the age. But what pulls it all together and makes a transition into personal living is verse three. Look at it carefully with me. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Now, you know, that's so easy to read and it's very difficult to do. Make every effort, Paul writes, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The word unity, unity isn't something that I can manufacture. You can't make up, I can't say, go out and be unified. Unity comes as a gift from God. Our only participation is to maintain it. It's to, and by the way, the Greek word maintain or keep means to manifest. We can show unity, we can display it. In fact, I think what God is looking for is a church, is a body of people who will show unity to the world around them that's all moving farther and farther away. I mean, isn't the drift in our culture toward isolation and independence and being on your own? And God's saying, I want a people who will display my glory by being unified in the things that I've called them to be and to do. I want to show my unity. I want to show my presence through a unified church. I'm not talking about, you know, the World Council of Churches and sort of ecumenism here and all. We're talking about a local body. Don't you think that God, I don't think He wakes up and says, hmm, well the World Council of Churches, I really like the way that these people and those people are all kind of sharing some kind of little, you know, universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. I think He wants to look down and see a local church where people love each other, and He's having a hard time. I love what C.S. Lewis writes, talking to Screwtape, his senior devil. He says, one of our great allies at present is the church itself. Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean the church as we see her spread out throughout time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately, it's quite invisible to these humans. You know, Paul is writing here to just a local expression, just us. I have to say to you folks, if it doesn't work here, let's not export it. Kathy, you know, when you go overseas, I pray you go with a sense of unity and support that you can say is securing you as you go out. Now, even if you believe this, what do you do about it? If you believe that unity of the Spirit is something God wants and you want to be part of, how do we do it? I know you're thinking that. I asked myself the question. I see in these verses three ways, in doctrine and behavior and vision, but I changed the wording a little bit to make it easier to remember, and it has to do with three values that we hold, and as we enter the new year, I'm going to ask you, where are you with these three values in maintaining the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace? The three values that are already on our overheads are the values of rejoicing, relating, and reaching out. Unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace through rejoicing, relating, and reaching out. Let me just briefly talk about each of these for a few minutes. The first way that we can build the unity of the Spirit and maintain the bond of peace by rejoicing in God is through sharing in some essentials of doctrine. We need to affirm the importance of the things that we believe are essentials. Now, listen carefully. I say doctrine. Those of you who are teetering on the brink of falling asleep, that just does it for you. I mean, that word, doctrine, boring. Now, folks, the church at large is in trouble because they've ignored doctrine. Do you know how many people just sort of believe whatever comes, and they bite on an apple because they don't have a foundation of doctrine? Paul writes here, look at verses 4, 5, and 6. He talks about seven essentials of doctrine. One body, that's the church, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. Three of those have to do with the Trinity, and four of the seven have to do with our relationship to the Trinity. I want you to know that essential doctrine is foundational to rejoicing in God, and some of us here today, you know, worship was tough today because you don't have the foundation laid of your doctrinal understanding of the glory of God. That's the only reason why you can't enter into worship. It's not because you're a different kind of person. It's because you've not really had an experience of the understanding of who God is. Rejoicing. I'm happy to say to you that doctrinal essentials are being taught at North Way and are discovering the way class right now. They're being taught. Our fifth and sixth graders are learning them, and they're new discovering the way class. We have adult education plan where you can get more basic foundations laid. Chuck Colson, by the way, let me commend a book to you for 93 that you ought to read called The Body. He talks about the body. He says, while basic broad doctrine is a good formula for the church universal, something more is required for the church particular where believers come together for discipleship and worship. Here doctrinal agreement is essential if believers are to be of one mind and one spirit in submission to one another under the authority of their agreed upon form of government or governing structure. Can I tell you that, listen up, some of the problems that we encountered in 1992 were because we didn't share common essential doctrine. Basic. So we need to come together and to establish those things and also agree to not make secondary things major issues, folks. How many, you know, how many believe in deliverance? Most of you probably would, but how many of that's not on this list? So I can love you whether or not you've ever had a demon or had one cast out or are in the business of casting them out. And neither is the march for life or out based education or outcome based, outhouse based, whatever. None of those things really matter to me in terms of essential doctrines. And I don't base my fellowship with you on where you stand on those particular things. And neither should you someone else. Rejoicing has to do with essential doctrines. And by the way, if this is just sort of a loving word of warning to those of you who are crusaders for those things. If your passion and zeal is toward some of those secondary things, can I warn you that you are destined for a burnout. Because the only sort of revitalizing passion that's out there is a passion for the Lord Jesus and His church. So be careful. I mean, help us, inform us, you know, show us the way, but please don't be so zealously passionate about a secondary thing that you miss the essence of knowing Christ and being caught up with who He is. The second way under rejoicing that we're going to build this year is through worship. And I've already commented a couple times, but worships are number one calling. If I leave here on a Sunday morning and I don't feel like the Lord's been blessed, I feel disappointed no matter how good or how bad everything else was. But if I feel like we've touched God's heart, we've done what we've been called to do. And I have to say to you folks, we need to keep encouraging each other on this. We have a ways to go yet. How many of you know we're not really in the graduate school of worship I mean, if you were to be taken home to the Lord today, maybe this is your conclusion day, where would you enter in? Read Revelation 4 and 5 and decide what school, what level, what grade of worship school would you be in? Well, you know, I'd have to say to you, I mean, you read that and you read about angels bowing down and hands going up and loud noises, and you think these people are goofy? I mean, some of us, if we went home today to be with the Lord, we'd be in remedial worship 101. I mean, we get way back down. Some of us, you know, the more spiritual, we'd probably be in second grade. We all have a ways to go, don't we? And it's so important that we not just get comfortable, but we keep saying, Lord, show me some new things. There's something that happens when if you would show up here saying, Lord, I'm going to be a worshiper today. I mean, pretty soon, these people up here will tell you, there gets to be a dynamic and we together bring out the purposes of God among us as we worship Him. We're going to be focusing on this over the next months. I'm going to do a series this spring on worship. We have special gatherings that are coming along to help with that. I think Lee and Susie and the music team are going to help us just get closer to the heart of God as we worship, and yet to still be sensitive to the fact that there are new people who are way down in their understanding and need to be lovingly brought along in that. Talking about prayer when it comes to rejoicing, the next thing, talking about prayer. I'll be into that just a little bit more two weeks from today, so let me just say, I asked someone near me, what's your number one foundational ballast? That person said to me, it's prayer for the new year. How many of you said that? Just look at that, a number of you. Special events is another way that God's called us to rejoice in 1993. Read the scriptures and as you do, you'll see God's people always gathering for a feast, always gathering to celebrate as God took them through one trial after another. Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, people gathering to celebrate God, and folks, let me just say, we're going to do that here, and I've made a major decision. I've made a choice to rejoice in 93. How many have already had that put to the test? I mean, I got put to the test yesterday. I got this thing from Allegheny County. Did anyone else get that thing? They want to know what I have, like they already don't know, right? I mean, they just push a button, probably all comes up in a computer. They want to know, you know, whatever little savings accounts, and they want to tax stuff. I got that thing, and I sat down, and I said, Lord, now right now, I'm making a choice to rejoice in the name of Jesus. Thank you for Allegheny County. I love this place, Lord. Not true, but anyhow, we need to be encouraging one another. We have a community night when we plan to just be together to rejoice before the Lord, hundreds of us to eat, and we always like to do that, and we're going to be doing lots of creative things. I think our next one is January the 19th, one week from Tuesday, so plan on being here to celebrate with us. We're doing some other things on March the 7th. The way the plan stands right now, we won't even be here to worship on Sunday morning. We're all going to be joining with a number of churches, about seven other churches down at the convention center for a citywide worship service. Well, that's going to be wild, isn't it? I mean, I can see that. You know, we're going to have, on the same platform, we're going to have the Covenant Church of Pittsburgh. Have you ever been over there? I mean, they rock and roll through their worship service. Yeah, some of you are saying, well, that's what we ought to do. On the other hand, we're going to have about three Presbyterian churches on this side of the state, and they're going to be saying, oh my God, how did we ever end up here? And they're going to be like, that's right. That's coming. Maintaining the spirit of unity, or unity of the spirit, through rejoicing together. I'll just do a little personal gut check right now. How many of you would just say, yeah, you know, that's me. I need to be rejoicing in the Lord through some of these things in my life in 1993. Secondly, through relating, and I've always maintained from day one that it's been a mark of this church to build authentic relationships, so that God would be able to show through people lovingly relating together what it means to be a child. Jesus said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that ye love one another. Oh boy, I wish he didn't say that, because we haven't done too well. I remember years ago, unfortunately it's been too many years, a lady in our church had an automobile accident, rolled her car down a cliff, badly hurt, a number of days, maybe a week or two in a hospital. She came home, and her home group began to care for her, bringing meals out, cleaning the house, doing the laundry. Her husband, who was a beer-guzzling, foul-mouthed unbeliever, all he ever did on weekends from Saturday morning till Sunday evening was golf. Hated church, thought it was stupid. Watched this home group pour out love to his wife for no reason, no payback, you know, no personal gain other than just giving to her, and after about three or four weeks of this, finally said to one of the home group people, what is it about this group of people? And shortly thereafter, gave his life to Christ, and is still walking with the Lord ten years later, because the little group of people love someone. Few of us realize, I think, how difficult this will be over the long haul. I mean, it's fine, now real easy, but walk with someone for a few months or a few years, you see some of their dark sides, then it gets a little tougher. Verse two, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Next week I'm going to talk, the whole message is going to be on that verse, and what it means to us, but the essential thing I want you to grab today is that we need to maintain the unity of the Spirit by being mature enough, and many of you here think you're pretty mature, being mature enough to hear the summons of the Holy Spirit through the leadership of your church that's telling you today to be involved in a small group. Oh boy, if I could have one-on-one discussions now, the things I would hear about being involved in a small group, well, you know, I tried that, Jay, and didn't work for me. Well, you know, I just got a second job, and I just don't have any time. Well, you know, Jay, I'm not really that, I'm not a talkative, and these people are so touchy-feely, and I'm not like that. Well, Jay, you know, I think that, you know, small groups are okay, but I'd just rather come together with the big group. Folks, all these excuses are wonderful, but I don't think they amount to a hill of beans in God's eyes. He's the one that said that we're to be together, koinonia. It doesn't happen any other way than being together, and so mature Christians, listen, you need to be responsible enough to find your way into a group and say, I'm plugged in here. It's where I fit. We've got a whole stack of places you can try. We're starting new groups, even as I speak, this next week or so. Next Sunday, I promise you, in the bulletin will be a full listing of every place you can try, but the most natural way is for you to talk to some people around you, see someone that you feel like you could talk to, and say, where's your group? Can I come? Better yet, why don't you invite someone and say, hey, why don't you try my group? And God wants us all to fit into a place and be plugged in where we can give of ourselves and receive from others, and it takes a little bit of risk. Notice Paul says here, verse 3, make every effort. That should be a clue that it's not easy. Take some effort, but we all need to do it. I could go on and on and talk to you about our elders retreat of last week, but I'll wait till next weekend to give a little more insight as to what God told us as a leadership group. Number three, the third way we maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace is by reaching. Rejoicing, relating, reaching. The unity of the Spirit gives us a privilege of participating in a purpose beyond ourselves. Folks, North Way Christian Community does not exist as a church just sort of sent here to hang on to the rapture. Oh God, that I don't stumble and backslide. Did it ever occur to you that God could have started this church somewhere, you know, north of Chakora or south of Washington, PA, where there's nothing but farms? You tell me why He chose to put us right here in the center of the fastest growing region of this part of the country. The only explanation I have is that He purposed for us to be a light, to be a little beacon of hope. There's so many people moving in this area. There's so many opportunities for people to be confronted with the gospel, but I think God's saying, get with it. Get out there. We're a church with a mission. It's to make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we're here to do, and I find that people are very open once you build a relationship with them. You know, forgive me, but this is an illustration I have to use because it's always, it's four days a week, it's in my life, but I'm currently sharing the Lord with one of the trainers at the health club where I go to keep my back in shape, and this young guy is 26 years old. Nice, friendly guy, but he has no clue what's going on with his life, and all he's doing right now is trying to figure out, well, should I take that job at the bar to get some extra income, so maybe I can go back to school, and maybe finish my degree, so maybe I could be something I don't know if I want to be, and he is defined, if I looked in the dictionary under lost, his name would be there. He's a nice guy. I'm not saying he's, you know, a profligate. He's not necessarily a drunkard or anything, but he's lost, and I'm week by week, just every week, I ask him, what did you do last week? Well, you know, and I'm bringing him to the place, and I'm bringing in reinforcements now. I've got my daughters going there, and I've got some other people. The other day, he said to me, you know, my sister's one of those born-againers. Well, he said, is that what you are? Oh, boy, and I'm praying for him, and just praying that God will one day allow us to cross that place where he sees how much God loves him. If I have a particular sorrow about 1992, it's the energy that was spent on trying to deal with things that didn't have any impact on our mission at all, and I've repented of that, and I'm covenant with you to not let that happen in 1993, and if there's a compelling reason why I believe we must press ahead with opening our doors and building a new building in God's time is this. I believe that once we have a visible, accessible facility, without all the complications that we experience down here, God is going to break loose in our community. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with non-churched people who are saying, when's that church getting started? I want to come see. I said, well, why don't you come? Well, you know, I know that God's going to use that. I believe it's a tool for our mission, but until that time, we have many, many more opportunities than we've ever had to reach out to people and enfold them. In 1993, we have things going on like Generations, where a couple hundred people, many of whom aren't church people, can come and find healing for their past and their problems, and we can enfold them into the life of the church. We have priority, too, for the job searching and transitional people. We have a single parents mission. You know most of them. Are we using them together is the question, and then I'm going to do series from time to time like I did at the end of the year. When someone you know, when someone you know is going through a divorce or having a struggle with temptation, or whatever it might be. We're going to talk about prayer next time, or two weeks from now, but we're going to be using prayer as a means of taking the power of the gospel to our neighborhoods. How many of you were in a prayer platoon in 92? Great. We're going to be refiring the prayer platoons with a little different set of marching orders, so hang on. We're going to get out and do some stuff. If you were here with Mark this week, you'll know what I'm talking about. God's given us some things, but let me just say this. I've experienced the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace more when I've been involved in a mission than any other time. How about you? I mean, talk to anyone that goes on a mission trip. They'll say, boy, did God bond our team together. Talk to a group of us that put together the Christmas banquets. When we didn't, we just poured ourselves into those people. We didn't mind because the unity of the spirit was there. When we've done food distributions, when we've done outreaches into our community, there's something that happens in us. And I want to say to you, the greatest way for North Way to get beyond any of its problems is to reach out beyond ourselves and share the love of the gospel with other people. Quickest way to healing I could offer to you. It's going to take a lot of courage to do this. We've got things coming. Small groups are doing special events at a neighborhood level. The church is planning another outreach on the 4th of July. Some concerts. Malcolm Smith's coming. These are all kind of outreach things. And we have one mega outreach event coming. It's the Billy Graham crusade. And I do have to share. Can I tell you just real honestly, passionately, one of my fears about Billy Graham coming? I can envision a scenario where we fill up Three Rivers Stadium. I think they're planning for like 60,000 seats, putting some down on the floor and so on. With 59,500 Christians and a few walk-ins. And can I tell you now what your response will be if that happens? You'll go away and you'll say, well, you know, Mildred, he used to be better than he is now because he's quite elderly, doesn't have quite the same punch. And we Christians won't get our ears tingled like we once did. And I think it'll be a great sorrow in the heart of God. And yet, there are probably people here who came to Christ at a Billy Graham meeting. You want to walk away from the Billy Graham crusade with a blessing? Walk into it with someone on your arm. Someone that you've reached out to. Someone that you cared enough to say, hey, I'll take you down. I'll go with you. I'll be there. Then you'll leave thinking, man, he was wonderful. My neighbor came to Christ. My co-worker finally saw the light. Church, it's going to begin with each of us looking at our lives and saying, God changed me. It's a hard attitude thing. Let me end with this quote that I picked up off the desk of a young martyred Christian who recently gave up his life for the gospel in Africa. He says this, I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I've stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame vision, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. My face is set. My gate is fast. My goal is heaven. My road is narrow. My way is rough. My companions are few. My guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I won't give up, shut up, let up until I've stayed up, stored up, prayed up, and paid up for the cause of Jesus Christ. I must go till he comes, give till I drop, preach till everyone knows, work till he stops me, and when he comes, he'll have no problem recognizing me because my banner will have been clear. I want to live that way in 1993, rejoicing, relating, and reaching out in the love of God. Let's covenant with each other to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. It begins with you and me, and God will do the rest by his grace. Let's stand.