The Unchanging Center

You might want to be grabbing your outline in your North Way Notes at the same time. I just want to mention the flip side of your North Way Notes today, or of your teaching outline rather, is an update on the prayer chain memo, or chain links I call them. And every week I'm trying to update those so we're praying the same things. And folks, we are seeing answers to prayer. Now you know I was taken off the praying for good weather committee. For the building project. And Scott and Jeff and Bill took that over. And really had a lucky week in there. But we all are praying for what's on that sheet. And we need you to agree with us. And even if you're not currently signed up for the prayer chain, those are items on the back of that teaching outline that you have in your notes. Pray those things with us. When you have your time with the Lord, pray them with us. And I believe God is going to show us that he's answering prayer in a powerful way. Alright, Mark chapter 2, reading in verse 18. If you have your Bible, if you don't, just listen and I'll be bringing us back to this on a number of occasions. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting and some people came and asked Jesus, how is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting but yours are not? And Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. And on that day, they will fast. Now catch these next couple of sentences. No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. I'm going to talk about two words this morning. It's the whole message. The two words are form and spirit. Wineskins and wine. Now I've made an observation after 20 years of being in ministry and watching folks plot along in their relationship to God. And my observation is this. Human beings are passionately addicted to form. Form is incredibly important to us. And we get real uncomfortable when, for some reason, the structure, the organization, the form changes. We get real nervous real soon. Most of us prefer to have things happen the same way, the same time, all the time. For example, help me out here a little bit if you would. How many of you have dinner together as a family just about every night? How many of you sit in the same seat at that table every single night? And if for some reason someone's in your seat, what do you do? What are you doing in? Now that table can't be more than four feet or five feet around. It doesn't matter where you sit. You're going to get the same food. You're going to have the same fellowship. You're going to have the same time here. But that's your seat. Now don't tell anybody, but that happens here, too. Anyone in your seat this morning? I know over here there's some people real fond about their seat. I mean, we love our form. We love it because we get real comfortable with it. Now if that isn't enough, one of the forms that we're most concerned about is the one you look at in the mirror every morning. Now, all of us look in the mirror and say, Well, that's not really me. I mean, the real me is what's on the inside. Don't we? But we look at that other me that's out there and we get real concerned about the changing form that we see in the mirror, don't we? And we spend billions of dollars. And we say, Well, this isn't the real me. This is just the outer part of me. But we join health clubs and spas and we work out and we have diet plans and we spend all this money. I don't know too many people that spend much money in personality clubs. I mean, the real you part. But we spend it on the form. We're intensely concerned about form. We want to define and set boundaries. We want to know what's going to happen because it brings security and identity and expectation. And in short, form establishes control. Now, a group of leaders in Jesus' day that we read about here, religious leaders that most of us know were called Pharisees, were heavily invested in a form of religion. They defined the boundaries. They knew what rules to follow, what laws to obey, what activities were acceptable. And they were very good at keeping the form of religion. They were masters of it, in fact. They were zealous. They were very visible. People always saw them doing their form of religion. And they were powerful and influential. And in this passage, we see the Lord Jesus doing what He so often did. He walked into a situation and with predictability broke the form. He violated the laws. He didn't do what they expected Him to do. He broke the rules. He did activities they didn't sanction. And it caused them fits. You need to read in between the lines here a little bit. In verse 18, look at it. It says, and the Pharisees are speaking here. They say, how is it that? And we can read that and say, well, that was just an honest question. How is it that? You need to hear the tone of voice. It's, how is it that? I mean, they're really angry about this. How are you getting away with this, Jesus? What they're saying. They were passionate. And folks, many of you know that these religionists had become so identified with the forms, the rules, the laws, the performance of it all, that they never did identify who Jesus was. They never did get it. They never did break away from the old form. And Paul later writes in his epistle to Timothy, they had a form of religion, but they denied the power of it. Ironically, what Jesus was calling them to was a much better form. He was calling them away from the law and away from performance and away from fear and away from religion. He was calling them to love and grace and mercy and relationship. But they couldn't get it. We are passionate about form. Now folks here at North Way, listen carefully. We are about to experience the greatest change of form that we've ever known. Roman numeral one in your outline. What will change at North Way in the coming weeks now? We're down to two weeks. What will change forever is the form of our ministry. May I say as your pastor, I don't really think we fully comprehend what an enormous change this is going to be. I think some of you are very gaily, happily, cheerily moving along and you don't even begin to understand how big the change is going to be. The form is going to change. God's called us to it. He wants to pour some new wine and He doesn't want to pour it into an old wineskin. By the way, we can't really relate to that because we don't have wineskins. We have bottles now. But a wineskin was just sort of a leather vessel that you put wine in and it would ferment and that's why it couldn't... If it was an old wineskin and it would start to ferment inside, it would expand and it would crack the skin and that's what He's talking about here. You see, all of the things that have to do with the outside, the externals, the dimensions of things, the boundaries of how we relate, all of that's going to change and it's going to be very difficult for some of us because the familiar forms of this building are going to be gone forever. Some of you are really sorry we're leaving here. I look out in the congregation this morning, some of you came to your first relationship, your first encounter, I should say, with Jesus Christ in this building. You identify your eternal salvation with this building. Some of you were baptized. We had 22 wonderful baptisms in this little hot tub that we had out here on Wednesday night. It was marvelous. People will identify, I was changed that day. Some of you were married right here at this altar. And when we leave here, you're going to leave here with lots of wonderful memories and it's going to be difficult for you because this form will never be the same. Some of you like the fact that it's sort of cozy and intimate and we feel sort of close together even though it's kind of a strange shape and long and narrow and all that. But it's something we've grown comfortable with. It's a form that we like. It's going to change. Now next week I'm going to talk about how it's going to change in detail. In a few minutes, Scott's going to give us some insight, but I'm going to go kind of deeper next week. Here's what we can expect when we start our exodus next week. But today, just for the closing moments of this message, I want to talk about what's not going to change because, folks, keep this in mind, the more invested you are in the form, the more difficult it is to change. Remember that. In other words, the more you've owned this ministry... How many of you have been here for the whole 13 years? I mean, apart from that little vacation in St. Teresa's, you've been here the whole time and you're very invested. It may be very difficult for you. Now, if this is your first time here, this form doesn't matter at all. Boy, am I glad to get out of this place. It could be that. The form will change, but the spirit will not. The spirit will not change. You see, spirit does need a form. Without form, spirit becomes chaotic. How many of you know that's true? If you just say, well, let's just let the spirit do things... I've been around a long enough time to know people who say, well, let's just let the spirit do what he wants to do. In their minds, that's according to a certain form. In your mind, it might be a different form. In your mind, a different form. And all of a sudden, all of our different forms have created chaos. You see, spirit needs form. Isn't it interesting that Jesus took on a body? He could have come as this ethereal thing that just showed up, you know, and... But no, he came in a bodily form. Spirit needs form for us to understand. But likewise, we make a major mistake when we equate form with spirit. You hear what I'm saying? Don't equate a certain form with the spirit. Let me give you a couple of illustrations. Some of us have had the greatest moments with God in a home group. And that's where you really felt close to God. And for you, I mean, this church stuff, coming to worship, that's good. But you really love home group because that's where you experience the spirit. Some of you had that same kind of encounter at a retreat when you were a young person. You used to go to the camp. Remember the camp you went to? And that's where you had your encounter with God. And that's the form that you equate with really being close to God. Some of you maybe have this in a Bible study group. Maybe some of you have it right here on Sunday morning. This is the time you feel closest to God. And we have a tendency to equate form with spirit. Oh, when I'm in that form, that's when the spirit really moves. Folks, that can be a very insidious little trap. Because we think, unless I'm in that form, I can't experience the spirit. And I remember when I was a student in seminary, a long time ago now it seems, I went to a church called the Church on the Way out in Van Nuys, California. And being a seminary student, I knew everything about how God moved. I studied, read in the book. And showed up in this church where they were doing things I'd never seen before, kind of like some of you are experiencing. People literally happy and singing and praying to God in church. Stuff that I hadn't seen much of. And I walked in there and I had my encounter with the spirit in that form that I'd never known before. And I used to drive the 45 minutes from Pasadena to Van Nuys to get in line to get in this church. That's the way it was, get in line to get in. And it was a little sanctuary, relatively speaking, about 600 people. When I started, well, I remember the first year, then the first year they were growing so much they expanded it to 950. And I thought, oh, this is really something. Well, after I moved away and came back here to Pittsburgh, I went back out there a few years later and they built a sanctuary to seat 2,000 people. Plus, 2,200 maybe. I walked in and it was an entirely different form. And all of a sudden that intimate kind of cozy little place where, you know, I sort of pictured God always meeting me, wasn't there. And I thought, this is terrible. They've kind of destroyed the intimacy of it all. And I felt discouraged until the people came in and the worship began. And they all came before the Lord and I realized all of a sudden it was the same spirit, the same presence, the same experience that I'd known at a much smaller basis. The difference was more people were involved. More people were worshiping. More people were calling upon the name of the Lord. And I began to realize it's a danger, it's a trap. We can equate a certain form with the spirit. Cannot let that happen, folks. You know, sometimes if you allow it, form can become a prison to spirit. Form can literally kill life. I look out in the congregation. There's a few pregnant ladies today. If you're pregnant today, you have life in a form in your womb. But that life will grow and grow and grow. And if at some time the form of that life doesn't change, the womb becomes a tomb. God's calling us in our church to allow the form to change so new life can be birthed. And it's going to be a big change. And some of you are going to come into it just like a baby. I want to go back in there. What's not going to change is the spirit. In John 13 through 17, we don't have time to turn there, but in John chapters 13 through 17, Jesus is trying to communicate to the disciples that the form's going to change, that he's going to die. And that's a big change. He'd been with them, walking with them, close to them, identifying with them, and now he's saying, I'm going to be leaving you. They didn't get it. Jesus kept trying them. Please understand, this is what's going to happen. And finally he said to them, I'm going to send my spirit to you, the comforter he called him, and he will be with you and he will be in you, Jesus said. So at the core, he's saying, really, the spirit that you've sensed will always be with you. And folks, I want you to know something. Here at North Way, Jesus will always be the center of what we do. No matter what form we do it in, no matter where we meet, he will always be the man in the middle. His cross will always be the place where we find mercy and forgiveness and the hope of resurrection life. And if you today feel like, boy, it's going to be hard to change, I don't know what's going to happen to me, I have to understand something. The spirit's not going to change. Now mark these words down, because when we move into these new buildings, this interim building, you're going to say, wow, this is really different. And I promise you, when we move into our new facility on Route 19, you're going to say, this is really different. But you have my word and the word of the staff and the elders that the spirit will be the same. Our relationships as a core commitment will be the same. Our mission as a church will be the same. We'll still have the same vision to raise up disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who are loved and nurtured and equipped to minister to God and one another and the lost of the world and the power of the Holy Spirit. That's not going to change. Just the form. In conclusion, what's it going to require of you and me? Well, folks, it means that some of us are going to have to give up some things. I had a conversation with a friend that I've known for a long time. He was a member of the Servants' Council. That was the group of nine that first started our church 13 years ago. And I was talking to him about just how things were in his life. And he said, well, you know, he said, in some ways, I long to go back. I love the times of intimacy and intensity and involvement that I felt every time we met. He said, but I've discovered that in letting go of those things, I've seen God fulfill what His Word says in John 12, 24. If we could put that up, please. John 12, 24. Jesus said these words. Read it with me. I tell you the truth, that a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies. It remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. You see, he was saying that it was necessary for him to let go of the particular role he had in order for some others to come alongside and carry the vision on. He said, I believe it was worth it. Now, I wish I could tell you that everything is going the way he wanted it to go. I wish I could tell you that, you know, on every level, he was just hitting home runs. But, you know, I have to be honest. He shared with me, you know, I'm kind of still battling in my work and career. But God's still using me. He said, I'm still having a few struggles with sorting out my priorities, but God's in my family and my kids are growing in their love for Him. And he said, you know what? It's been worth it. It's been worth it. Over the Christmas break, I ran into one of the young people that was in the youth group that preceded North Way a long, long time ago. And they began by some of the lies that old friends always say, like, boy, you sure look the same, and stuff like that. And they came to North Way to worship over the holiday, and they said, you know, it's just like it used to be. You're just the same as you've always been. And I knew they were complimenting me, at least in their way, but I thought to myself, you know, well, in lots of ways, I'm very, very different. I'm more aware now than I ever was 15 years ago about spiritual warfare and the reality of opposition in the heavenly places. I'm more sober about how few people you can really count on. I'm more convinced than ever that it's not my effort but the grace of God that's building His church. And I have to tell you, deep in the core of my being, I believe I'm more passionate than I was 15 years ago about the worthiness of the call of God for every life. There is nothing out there that compares with knowing Him. You can have it all. Nothing compares with knowing Jesus. What's Jesus saying to North Way? He's saying, I'm giving you some new wineskins, church. In your notes, look at that left-hand side page on the inside. There's that little baseball diamond paradigm. That's a wineskin. That's what that is. That's just a new way of understanding how ministry happens. Today we have about 75 people going to second and third base for seminars. Isn't that great? Seventy-five people heading around the base paths. I pray many of you will join us March the 6th who haven't gone through Discovering the Way. Sign up today and say, I want to be... ...wineskins about. And then Jesus is saying, I'm giving you a new building as a wineskin. Just keep me at the center. Not a philosophy of ministry. Not a style of ministry. Not an emphasis in ministry. Jesus is saying, North Way, keep me at the center and I'll take care of all the other things that concern you. You know what we all have to face when it comes to a change? We're all afraid of it. We fear. Many of us change because it's taking us into territory we've never been before. In John chapter 20, the Bible says that after the resurrection, the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors for fear. They were cowering down. They were afraid because the one who'd been with them for all those three and a half years of powerful life and ministry had now been crucified and they'd seen him die. And Jesus came and he knocked at the door. And the Bible actually says that he appeared without the door opening. That gets your attention. There he was. And he said to them, Fear not. Peace be with you. There's a new way of looking at things. It's not the old way anymore. The form has changed. But my spirit remains the same. Let's pray together. God dealt with our sin. God brings us to himself in the Lord Jesus. So grace now is forever linked with Jesus. See, I could say that grace is the great force of God. The energy of God that moves into our lives and bestows upon us favor. I could say that. That's okay. As long as you realize that that force, that energy is the person of Jesus Christ. He comes to us. He takes the initiative. See, remember, this is what we do not deserve. The opposite of what we deserve. Part of that is that, I mean, I don't deserve anything from God because I don't want it. See, I don't want it. That's part of my rebellion. Do you understand that? That's part of my sin, that I don't want God. God comes to me. Grace is God taking the initiative. Grace is Jesus coming to you and me when we didn't want him. That's amazing. The initiative of God. You say, well, I found the Lord. It's a jolly good job he found you first. When you say, I found the Lord, it's because you finally woke up to the fact he found you. Do you understand? That's the truth. This is unique to Christianity. As I travel around the world often, I love to sit down with the gurus and the high priests and the shamans of other religions because I need to know what they're saying before I can give them the good news. You've got to hear their bad news before you can give them the good news. And many times, Encyclopedia Britannica tells you what they're supposed to believe, but I want to hear it from the horse's mouth. And I've sat down with the, as I say, the gurus, the shamans, the witch doctors, and the priests of many, many, many religions. And I basically say, what's your news? You know, what's your news? What is it you're teaching the people? Many times I ask the question, would you please tell me how I can be a personal friend of God Almighty? I've heard many tell me, God doesn't like you. That's the beginning of their gospel. God doesn't like you. He doesn't want you. But in all the religions that I've ever sat down with and talked, not one speaks of God coming after us. Every other religion in this world speaks of us going after God. You might picture it. We in our darkness. Every religion in the world says we reach out into the darkness to grope and see if God is there and try and find him. Whereas this that I'm speaking of, the grace of God, is the news that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is the light that reaches down into our darkness, taps us on the shoulder, and says, I'm here. Or you could put it this way, that every other religion in the world, their understanding of God is he's a book on the shelf. Very safe. Very safe. If you want him, go take him off the shelf. Find out what you need and put him back. And you might never need him again. See, Christianity isn't safe. It's the most disturbing religion. Because it said, the book comes off the shelf and comes and stands beside you and opens its page and says, you need me. God comes after you. God takes the initiative. That's grace. So you didn't even seek after God to begin with. God began by seeking after you. And so Jesus told the stories of shepherds who went looking for sheep. A woman who turned their house out looking for coin. A father who ran to where the son was. I don't know if you appreciate how unique that is to the gospel. No one else has that understanding. God comes to us. It's the grace of God. And that continues all through our Christian life. There's never a time when I have to do something to get God's attention. God always takes the initiative. There's that big word in the New Testament that can be very easily misunderstood, predestination. People get all bent out of shape over that word. Basically, I mean really, bottom line, it means God takes the initiative. You're not here tonight because you're so good that you want to find God. You're here because God is so good that he woke you out of the sleep of death and said, you're mine. God takes the initiative. So what's faith? Faith is my response. Faith is not the New Age stuff that says if you've got enough of it, you can make God do what you want. Biblical faith is God has done all. God gives all. God comes to me. Faith says thank you. Faith is my response. Faith really is either the two words thank you or looking to God with the one word yes, grace, and God comes to me. I can only respond with joyful thanks. But it is the love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus, but the love of God, that's the Father. Now, you see, Jesus, the end of what Jesus came to do is to reveal the Father. Do you remember he said that? He says no man comes to the Father but by me. See, this, think about this for a few days if you haven't thought of it already. He didn't come primarily to get your sins forgiven. That has to be done because we're going nowhere while we're in a state of rebellion and unforgiveness. So that had to be gotten out of the way. But he came specifically to bring you to know the Father. Did you notice, if we are going to give the name of the Trinity, we always say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? But did you notice here it begins with Son, Jesus, Father, Spirit. Why did he do that? Because you'll never know the Father except through Jesus Christ. When you wake up to who God is because God woke you up, you wake up to the face of Jesus Christ. Right? You wake up to the fact he loved me and gave himself for me. But he brings me to the Father, not to an austere, distant one. But he said, He that has seen me has seen the Father. You want to know what the Father is like? Jesus is the exact image. He is the perfect representation of who the Father is. Father. In fact, the word really isn't Father. The truth is we don't really have a word for it in English. We can almost get at it, but not quite. The word that Jesus used when he spoke in Aramaic was Abba. And Abba, the best we can do with that is say Dada. Daddy. Dada. It was the first word that a little child was expected to say in a Hebrew family. Dada. Dada. But it's not quite that. It is, but it isn't. It isn't because so often we're very lenient with those who are of age to say Dada or Daddy. I mean, basically, you know, they can get away with murder. You understand. While they're still saying Daddy, that could intimate their probably little brats. You know what I mean? You don't? You do know what I mean. The word Daddy is associated with immaturity. It's associated with a lot of leniency, a lot of getting away with murder. And actually, I suppose, the exact translation would be Dear Father. Daddy, that is what it means, but it's what I'm trying to say is they didn't stop calling their fathers Daddy. Because the word Abba, Daddy, in the context of where Jesus lived and what was said, and still to this day, it meant absolute obedience. There was no question. You did what Abba said. There was no getting away with murder. There was no leniency. When Abba said it, you did it. And you did it because Abba loved you. Your Daddy loved you. You trusted that love and you did what Daddy said. It was a trust, obey relationship between the children and the parent, specifically the father-parent. And so it was Abba, but it wasn't a sick, sentimental, emotional slop kind of relationship. Abba meant I obey, and I obey because I am loved. It meant complete dependence. This does not make any sense to us in the West, especially here in the 20th century. But don't try and make sense of it, just understand this is what the word meant. If you were a male or a female, you didn't leave Daddy until he died. You were told, I mean the respect for elders. In fact, that is probably a better word, but children in those days were not looked upon to love their parents so much as honor them, right? The Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother. It was, I respect age. If I lived in those days, I'm almost getting to have some respect. Just, you know, the white hair is the head of wisdom. It means you've been around long enough to be consulted. And so you didn't leave home. The prodigal son who left home, that was the beginning of his rebellion. You never left home. You stayed there until Daddy died, because Daddy knows everything. And you were going to be dependent upon him and his wisdom until he dies. Even when you got married, you didn't move away, you built a house on the property. So you'd be near Daddy, and Daddy would instruct you, and you would go and sit at Daddy's feet, and he would give you wisdom, and he would tell you how to live life. Different today, don't question it, just understand that's what the word means. So when I say the father Abba loves you, I'm not talking about a sloppy kind of love. I am talking about a love that demands my obedience. It's a love that I can trust. It's a love that I sit at the feet of that love to hear his word in my heart and to do as he said. Maybe this explains why in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is still calling him Abba. Do you notice that? It means Daddy, and yet when Jesus is 33 years old in the garden, he's saying Abba. Why does he say Abba? Because the father is telling him that he must now go and die for you. And he's saying Abba, that is, you love me, and because you love me, I will obey you whatever you tell me, and I will bend to the wisdom of your plan even if it means death on a cross. And that's what Philippians picks up. Do you remember there where it says that he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross? Jesus died because the father told him to. Jesus died for you because the father told him to. And Jesus obeyed his father and died for you because he trusted his father. And if father said, I'll raise you from the dead, then I'll go and die. So Abba, please understand that. The love of God that we're talking about is a strong love that evokes our obedience, that bends our knee to obey him and to trust him implicitly, the love of God. And you can't know this love apart from the Lord Jesus. How do you know the love of God? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. It's when I meet the only begotten Son, the next question is, where did he come from? What's he doing here? If Jesus is God living among us, how did he turn up here? Ah, he was sent. He was sent. The father so loved you that he sent the Son. Or as the Scripture says, herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son. So Jesus, who comes to us as the grace of God, we now understand that there's the prior, the first love of God that instigates the grace of God. Does that make sense? God bless your nod. Is there another? Do you understand what I mean? It isn't just that God does nice things for you in Jesus. It is the behind that, the reason he does that is because he loves you. And as always, we come up with a problem when it comes to this word love because we're not dealing with human love. If we're dealing with human love, I have to say, what's the fuss about? If God loves you like your husband loves you, what's the fuss? If God loves you like your father loved you, what's the fuss about? Why do people get excited and sing and worship God if love is love, if it's just human love? Even if it's human love taken to the nth degree, so what? See, human love, let's look at human love to know what God's love isn't. Human love, how should we describe it? Human love is always love of the lovely. You think about it. You never say, I love her because she's so ugly. It's love of what we perceive to be beautiful. We love because we see in that person, I mean, I just love her. She's so horrible to be around. I just love. We love because there's something beautiful about this person. Everything of their mind and their emotions, their person. We can go down our checklist of beauty and that's it. So human love is always love of the lovely. It's love of the highest and the best person. If we say we love someone, it means that in our estimation that we have joined ourselves to the highest human being. We know the best human being that we know. The most admirable human being. Human love always draws us up. We admire the person that we love. Now, I want you to hear this very carefully. Human love is created by the beauty of the person loved. Do you understand that? See, you don't go around with a pocket full of love trying to find someone to use it on. Do you understand that? You don't, do you? I mean, when you met her, that's when you felt love. You didn't go around with this great big heart-throbbing feeling Valentine's Day in your heart looking for someone to give it to. Right? Do you get that? It was when you met him that it happened. In fact