Things I Pray Every Day

Let's thank the choir for staying and this ministry boat service is great. I appreciate it. Thank you. While you're turning the book of Acts or taking out better actually turn the book of Acts in your Bible or take your North Way notes the yellow teaching outline is got the text on. While you're doing that, I just want to recognize a couple that a very special day slipped by that I wanted to recognize. It was just I think a week or two ago that this couple who I have known for about 20 years now, 21 years. They were one of the first couples that I met when I came back here to Wexford from Fuller Seminary out in California. And it's their 40th wedding anniversary just recently. I want to acknowledge Bob and Mary Lou Campbell. Where are you Bob and Mary Lou? I know you're here somewhere. Stand up. Come on, where are you? There they are, right in the back. God bless you guys. 40 years. Let's see, when I first came, you'd been married 20. Is that right or 19? You were newlyweds then. Are you gonna stay together? They're committed. Let's be sure you come up and get these flowers Mary Lou. We want you to have these when we're done today. All right, Acts chapter 2. Are you ready? Let's read it out loud folks. I want us to get in the habit of declaring the word. So if you're uncomfortable with that, just require yourself to stretch a little bit. It's good. It's good to speak the word out loud. They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the Apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. What a powerful passage of Scripture. My text for today is leading us into the message that I'm entitling, What I Pray Every Day. And it's about you. And I want to begin by asking you this question. Most all of you read the papers or listen to the news or watch the TV news, whatever. A little question for you to start this morning. What recent, you know, within the last fairly short period of time, what recent humanitarian effort enlisted 3,400 volunteers who gave 75,000 hours of their time and took two years of planning to directly affect 220,000 people at a cost of 30 million dollars. Do you know what it was? Was it the Rwanda relief effort? Was it the Hurricane Andrew repair mission team? I know you think, well, we're in church, it's probably Billy Graham crusade, right? It was the U.S. Open Golf Tournament. 75,000 volunteer hours, 30 million dollars. So that people could chase this little white ball into a, what is that Scott? Four inch, I think it's about a half inch cup and I found that to be about a half inch wide cup. Now, I have nothing against golf tournaments and in fact, my son was one of those volunteers and a number of you, my friends were in that little army of volunteers. But I was staggered by the effort, the volunteer effort and I happen to know that those volunteers paid a hundred dollars for the privilege. And I'm thinking to myself, I wonder if North Way Christian Community will be one half as prepared for our opening in three months as that army of volunteers was for that golf tournament. I pray every day that we will be, because you know folks, the community is really asking a lot of questions. Bill James was telling me just how many, as an elected official here in the township, how many questions he's getting. I get questions all the time from people as I go in and out of different businesses and so forth. Questions like, I never knew you were a church down there, I always thought you were a commune. It says community and that's what, I've never seen a church that big. Why is it so big? Why do you need all that room? What made you grow like that? What are you doing over there? I like this question. Is anyone allowed to come? Can anybody come? Yeah, let's talk about it. I think you'll qualify. But I ask these questions in return. Here's what I say. Well, tell me about your church experience. And I'll kind of compare that to what I think is happening in North Way. And despite the fact that there are lots of good churches here in the North Hills, this is not a commentary on any of our fellow churches. Despite the fact that many of these people have had some church background, the number one descriptor of life in the local church from the community at large, from the people I'm talking to, it wasn't the church was bad or wasn't hurtful to them. It certainly wasn't bold or exciting. The number one descriptor I hear over and over again is that church just was boring. It was a great big yawn and said nothing at all relevant to my life for the other 167 hours that I was awake or alive between services. And you know what? I understand that. And how many of you don't? But that was kind of how you saw things for a long period in your life. Now, not everybody, but many of us were, you know, we grew up in, you know, associated, and here in Pittsburgh, folks, in case you don't know, we have a lot of church background, much more than the average community in America, believe it or not. But here in Pittsburgh, most churches were like the one I grew up in. I mean, it was, we were fine people and I think very well intended. But you see, services were kind of just sort of routine and formal. They were non-events really. The messages were not motivating and exciting or relevant particularly to our daily life. Relationships were not really deep or significantly dealing with life. I can't remember one moment when I would say, I knew God was working right now. I mean, I don't remember one time being caught up in hearing something that made me think, wow, something supernatural is happening right here. The rich didn't really care for the poor. I don't remember any minorities being there. Testimonies, I mean, I know there were a few, but I don't remember much of anything. You say, well, maybe it was your problem. I don't think so. I remember looking for some place to want to give my life to because I had a desire to invest this life in something that really counted. And I knew that there was really nothing going on there that was worthy of the investment of my one and only life. But I discovered that God had more design for the local church than what I was particularly exposed to in my early days. I know when I learned it, of all places, I learned it at a college Bible study. I was dragged into this thing. I mean, I really didn't want to go. I've told this story. But how many of you are college students? Good number of you. Let me just say that I have found that God seems to draw real close to us at that age in our lives, particularly the normal college age, I guess is what I'm saying. And I'm finding more and more that if you're open at that age, God tends to just move in on you and communicate with you. And you know what? For me, we sat down and studied the book of Acts. I'll never forget this. And we discovered what God intended for the first church to be and therefore for all church life to be like. And I saw an entirely different picture here than what I was used to. Sort of a before and after photograph, you know? I discovered that Jesus had said that his A priority, his number one purpose in the world today was to build the church. He said it this way. He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And that's the business that Jesus was about doing in the world, building his church. And I saw that reading the book of Acts, it was to be exciting. People wanted to show up. People were expecting about what God was going to do. It was supernatural, powerful, and alive. And for weeks we studied this. And I discovered that the church that Jesus was building was focused on him, alive in him, responsive to him, and growing in love for one another. And that was not what I had experienced by and large up until that point in my life. It was different from any other organization on the face of the planet. It was a supernatural, biblically functioning, spirit-filled community. The awesome was to be commonplace. God's activity was to be expected. Lives were to be changing on a regular basis. Hearts would be melting. Listen, in the presence of God and his people, hearts should be softening every single time we come together. And the community of believers I read about, differences would fade away. Love would reign. Needs would be met. The unlovely would be welcomed. And racial and economic lines would be blurred. This life would be so magnetically attractive that the whole community would want to check it out because something was happening that they couldn't find anywhere else. And people would give their whole lives to the furtherance of what was happening in that biblically functioning, spirit-filled, supernatural community. Well, I read about this in 1966 and 67. But in 1981, I launched out with a handful of folks, some of whom are here today, to see if we could just one time in our lives launch a community just like that. And we called it North Way Christian Community. That was our vision. And may I say to those of you who are new to us, we never saw back then something like this. When people were gathered in a big auditorium, we never envisioned a building like we're about to take occupancy of here in a few months. We just wanted to be what we saw in the book of Acts. That was our vision. And I have to tell you, it's been an amazing ride. I mean, no one really told us about all the organization and all of the administration and all the stuff necessary to take care of all that God was sending us. We've learned some real tough lessons along the way. But as we reach the halfway point of 94, would you just bear with me for a few moments as I sort of share with you how I see us doing in the establishing of this community? Maybe just give you a sort of an update now, evaluation-wise, and maybe a little prophetic look at where I think we're going to be in six months. There's a few things here that are very important, and I pray them every day for you, the church, and for myself. Now, as you notice there, look at this. It says, second word, they devoted themselves. Before I talk about what it is that these new believers devoted themselves to, I want to talk about that word. The word proskatero in the Greek means to be strong towards. Prosk means towards, and katero means to be strong. It means to willfully persevere. Now, how many athletes are here this morning? How many former athletes? There we go. I knew I'd get some. How many would-be athletes, you know, wannabes here? This word was a word used of athletic endeavor, persevering as you went, particularly in competition. So get the picture in your mind, folks, that the things that I'm going to talk about don't just happen, but you need to ask God to give you the strength, the will to enter in. It's so important. If you're to be devoted, and I want to say, I guess I want to say primarily almost to those of you who want God's will in your life with all your heart, understand something. It takes devotion to see it happen. It does not chase you around and catch up with you. And so what do they devote themselves to? Number one, to teaching, to the apostles' teaching. Now, boy, you take teaching, right away you think, oh, you know, boring. You think, how many of you used to time the sermons you heard? Oh, no, wait a minute. Some of you are enjoying it. How many of you are doing that right now? You're saying, no, no, no. I mean, for many of us, we equate teaching with sitting and enduring someone who thinks they know how to teach, imposing upon us stuff they don't really know anything about, so that they can feel good about themselves, right? Well, that's not the biblical definition of teaching. In fact, biblical teaching is essential to lay a foundation for your Christian walk and to help you progress and avoid the pitfalls and snares of what it means to walk with God. Folks, many people fall from the Lord because they do not establish their lives in sound biblical teaching. And I have to say to you, in this church, I sense sort of an ebb and then a flow and a hunger for the Word of God. I don't know what it is, and we've talked about this at our staff meetings and our elders' meetings. We know that many of you love the Word of God, but then we seem to go into a season where it just kind of, we drift. And I am praying, I am praying for God to just release a hunger so that you're so hungry for the Word of God that you put other things aside to sit down and to receive teaching and to hear from God yourself as you study the Word. You know, many studies today say that Americans want truth. They want to know the truth. But interestingly, at the same time, only a third of all Christians read their Bible once a week. And that figure has gone down 10% in the past two years. All I see is well-intended people kind of slipping away from the very foundation of truth in their life, the Word of God. It's kind of like the health club experience I have every year. Several of you go to the same health club I go to. You know what you see every single year? January and February, the place is packed. Folks, I mean, you know, you wait to get a parking place. You wait to get up on the treadmill. You wait to get on the stair climber. You wait to get on the equipment. You know, people are bumping each other off and pulling their watch and saying, and it's like intense. Now, if you go there now, I mean, you can park in the front. You walk right up in the equipment you want. You take any spot. Just pretty much, it's pretty much wide open. Why is that? You think people are all in shape so they don't need anymore? What do you think is happening? No, their good intentions have faded over time, and they've slipped away from what they knew they should do. And folks, I just want to say, somehow, I hate to say this because it sounds harsh, but many of us have good intentions about teaching, but we don't follow through. And so we see things like our adult education start with, you know, the big number of people, and then slowly it just kind of drifts down and other things happen. Or home group, wherever you're receiving teaching. Folks, we need to be devoted to the Word of God. And most of all, we need to receive it into our own lives on a regular basis. I have to just ask you the question, are you devoted to it? I mean, does something in you trigger when you miss the teaching of the week? Or the home group meeting? Is something you say, man, I'm hungry. I want the Word in my life. Because if it doesn't, and you know, you might be, you may be surprised how much teaching I get. You may think, well, you know, you teach every week. What do you? I probably listen to between six and eight hours of Bible teaching every week from people that I respect around the country by cassette tapes and other kinds of means. I believe in it. I'm hungry for the Word. And I pray every day that you'll share that hunger with me. It's so important. Number two, they devoted themselves to fellowship. I love that word. How many of you had a fellowship hall in your church? What did you do in fellowship hall? You ate. How can you have fellowship without eating, right? I've had fellowship halls in different churches I've been part of. Normally you walk back there and, you know, you kind of all line up with the kids and you look at each other and you say, wow, that's a new dress, you know, that's nice. How's that donut hole? That's a great donut hole. It looks good. And, you know, it's just sort of safe and you smile and you're positive. Is that fellowship? Well, I suppose it's the first step. I mean, it's the first step of communicating. But that isn't what the Bible's talking about. The Bible has something far more profound in mind than just, you know, simply holidays, cookies. We're talking here about something far more significant. We're talking about this sharing together of lives, of hearts. Fellowship is happening when people pull down their masks and say to one another, here's what's really going on in my life. Here's where I need some support. Here's what my kids are facing. Here's what just happened to me that's caused me a lot of pain. Here's where I'm really hanging on and hoping for a change. Well, here's a great opportunity I have, would you pray with me? You know, Friday night after a long week, I mean, we had a long week in our household. We had folks over three nights in a row and Monday night I had generations and I was exhausted Friday night. But my little support group of men had committed about two months ago to meet and pray in depth and fellowship together one night this month. And so we met, you know, as the six of us gathered and we spent about 30 minutes on each guy, just listening and then ministering in prayer. And it was so powerful just to hear the things that were shared and prayed for in confidence. And you know what? I left there, I think, I'm not sure, I think I was carried to my car and sent home, physically wiped out, but spiritually I was lifted inside. And folks, I have to tell you, fellowship spiritually recharges you, real fellowship. It energizes you. That's the kind of fellowship we need to devote ourselves to. And there's lots of context for that here at Northwood, lots of places you can plug in, hear what Rob was saying, men, get into a fellowship group this coming July the 9th, get started with some men. Our home group ministry is specifically geared to help you have fellowship. Women's groups are meeting for fellowship together. And fellowship, by the way, has to do with participation. The Greek word koinonia, I put that in your notes, that word means to participate or to share together. How many of you know that people generally do like to be part of something? I mean, they don't like to just sit and watch. When we had a workday not too long ago, I remember this, people were off, you know, out in the property picking up wires and cables from the old drive-in speakers and chunks of cement and all this stuff. And one little guy, maybe four or five years old, came up and kind of tugged on the back of my shirt and had this little bucket. This little guy was holding it up. And I said, oh, that's good. What is that? And he said, well, I was picking up, and it was full of all this gravel and stuff. He said, I was picking up broken stones. And I thought, boy, I'll tell you, that's more powerful than he knows because that's what the Lord is doing here in our church. He's just taking some broken stones and making them into a new temple. He just wanted to help. Fellowship can happen around activities when we participate, and it's not always easy. One of our elders came about, I don't know, a week ago or so, maybe two weeks ago, came to an elder's meeting. His legs were all scratched and his arms were scratched, deep cuts in his legs. I said, where were you? He said, oh, a bunch of us were out in the property pulling out thorn bushes. I don't want any part of that fellowship group. But you need to be part of something. You need to participate. Folks, it won't happen in your life. God will not have His full measure of release if you just sit and watch. You've got to participate, fellowship, share koinonia together in a way where you can be a little bit open and vulnerable, willing to just let yourself be known, where you're heart to heart and soul to soul, where you're giving grace and love and support to one another. That's how God will change you. Number three, I see God calling us to be devoted to the sacraments, to baptism and communion, to prayer and to worship. You know, communion and baptism are the only two visible outward signs of the grace of God that the church has been entrusted to, or to the church, rather. And yet I sense somehow we don't really treasure them as we should. And then when it comes to prayer and worship, I wonder how many of us realize the wonderful opportunities we have to enter into what God is doing when we pray and when we worship together. God is saying, this has been a strong area at North Way, and I rejoice in that. I mean, when you walk in here, most of our guests find it like really different because people really seem to be enjoying themselves and participating in the expression of love to God. And that's the way that it should be. But dear ones, we need to keep on being strong towards those things. When we have a baptism here, we should have to turn people away. And in our new building, I mean, I can't wait for you to see the power. Those of you who've never seen one, when someone publicly walks into that tank and says, I'm giving my life wholeheartedly to Jesus Christ, and I want you all to know. Two weeks from today, we're going to have communion. I don't know about you, but when I miss communion, I miss something in my walk. I feel like something in my life is missing. I need that intimacy with the Lord. Prayer and worship the same way. And I have to say, I mean, this church has been built on prayer. How many of you are part of the Summer Prayer Challenge? There's about 170 of you who have taken a step. And in your North Way notes, I listed all the opportunities on the inside page. Why not see which of these meetings you could attend and be devoted to prayer? You say, well, you know, I'm not good at praying out loud. You don't have to. Just go to the group. Your presence will be an encouragement. Your presence, just being there will be a support. And I'm believing God that that number of 160 is not going to fade as the summer goes on, but it's going to grow as we reach out and invite. And if you're going to a group, invite someone near you to come to your group. We should be growing that way. And speaking of growing in prayer, how many of you heard about the march yesterday? There was about 35,000. How many of you were at the march? Okay, 35,000 of our brothers and sisters in Christ were walking on the streets of Pittsburgh. And you know, it's really funny to watch the media try to make sense of this. They don't know what category to put it in. And I'm watching the police kind of watch this parade go by, and they just have, this is, I mean, it really is a mind-boggling event. And there were so many people, just wave after wave after wave. North Way was, we were the beginning of the second half, and it took 20 minutes before we even got into the march, or almost 25 minutes. And I don't know about you, but when I heard that 35,000 gathered there and 125 million gathered similarly around the world yesterday, I don't know about you, but I said, God, thank you that Christians are not afraid to publicly say, we believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We meet, I was, one of our missionaries from Morocco said, well, you know what? You'd be arrested if you had a parade like this in Morocco. So they, at night, go and march around the consulate and around the office buildings, declaring the Lordship of Christ. Folks, God will. I just want you to know, I believe you're going to see impact in our city and around the world because of Christians. And that's just one step. That isn't the end. It's the beginning of what the Lord wants to do, to raise up an awareness of prayer. And notice this other thing about worship. It says they were praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Sometimes I sense that we think that worship and praise alienate people. Here the Bible says they were praising God and enjoying favor. How do those two things go together? Have you thought about that? I believe it's this way. When folks enter into a biblically functioning community where the Spirit of God is moving, if they sense authenticity and integrity in the worshipers, they can't help but be impacted by it. They may say, well, you know, I don't really know if I understand it. It may not be who I am right now, but I know these people, and I know that what's coming out of them is authentic. It's from their hearts, and it's how they live their lives. And I just want to say, may God, as we move into our new building, give us the grace to be authentic worshipers of integrity that cause people by our very character to be drawn into praise and worship of the living God. That's what I believe the Lord would have for us. People around us will be added as we lift up His name. Number four, sharing of resources. In a biblically functioning, Spirit-filled community, you'll find that people will share willingly. Those who have a lot will share with those who have little. And folks, this isn't always easy to gauge. One of the most touching moments I've had in recent weeks, I was told that a home group with no fanfare, no publicity, willingly gave three months of rent to one of their members, a single mom, who didn't have the money. And it was a lot of money. I mean, it was a significant amount of money for that group to pull together. And I want to say, what you're seeing in North Way now is the coming together of many hundreds of us doing our little part to make a difference. And it is having an impact. It is making a difference. I want to give you a report. Operation Accelerate, last week I asked you all to prayerfully come together and bring in your next quarter's commitment to opening our doors. And some of you were able to. Some of you haven't. Maybe you weren't here and you're going to do it this week. But I'm just happy to report, and this is a praise of the Lord, that last week you all gave in cash $93,338 to Operation Accelerate. I'm going to give you a round of applause for that. In a biblically functioning, Spirit-filled community, people are willingly giving because God is at work. And they know they're not giving to a man. They're not giving to a building. They're giving to God. And that's what frees them to enter in with joy. And folks, I just pray that those of you with the gift of giving will continue to lead us. And those of you who are still afraid, those of you who couldn't clap right then because you weren't part of that, because you're afraid, that you would come to the point of trusting the Lord with your finances. It will free you. It will free you to enjoy His grace in your life. Number five, the fifth mark is this. The Bible says that the Lord added every day those who are finding salvation. It's evangelism. In a biblically functioning community, spiritually wayward people are attracted to what they see. And you know, North Way has always been a church where spiritual prodigals tend to come and find renewing grace in their life. I found this, it amazes me how many people come and just sit sort of incognito, many times for months or even years, trying to come to terms with what God is doing in their life. And I'm glad for that. I'm glad you feel that way. At our home on Wednesday night, one young woman shared that for three years, she sat where you are, never responded to Scott's letters of invitation, never took a step to discovering the way, never felt ready quite yet to meet with anyone and talk about her relationship. She just needed to come and be healed of former difficulties and hurt and pain in her life. And then she said, and just last winter, God began to break through in my life and I feel healed. I feel like now I'm able to come again and give my life to God and to trust Christ. And folks, I wanna say that just blesses me. And if you're here today as a seeker, someone who's trying to put sense into your Christian life, or maybe you don't even know where God is in your life, keep being devoted and God will lead the way home as that beautiful song described for us. You see, in coming months, church, listen, God's gonna be sending us many people just like the one I described. My question is, will you be ready? As you have been to receive them and not judge them, to welcome them and to not push them, but to let them know that you love them where they are and that God will meet them. I hope we're ready. I hope we're prepared. I hope you take it upon yourself. Well, in conclusion, where are we today? I have to say in 13 and a half years, we're on our way. We're seeing this biblically functioning, spirit-filled community kind of grow up around us. And it's not been all fun and games. It's been a lot of challenges. But what I know for sure is God's given us, in coming months, we're gonna see more than we ever imagined others who are being attracted to this expression of God's life if we're prepared to receive them. And what I pray every day is this, that more of you would make God's number one priority your number one priority. Because what I sense is so many things compete for our affections in this life. And I don't believe there's a cause more noble, a vision more compelling, a challenge more worthy of the investment of your one and only life than the building and establishing a biblically functioning, spirit-filled, supernatural community. I don't believe there's another thing on the planet that's worthy of that kind of allegiance. You know, not long ago, I was in Washington, D.C., driving in those streets, looking at those incredible buildings, you know, that our government has established, Department of Interior, Department of Labor, and, you know, all those incredible monuments. And I thought, you know, that government, with all of its power, still can't change a single human heart. And walking on the streets of Pittsburgh yesterday, I mean, we walked down those streets, past those huge corporate towers and CNG and all, you know, USX and PNC and all the brokers of financial power can't change one single human heart. Just coming back from my college reunion, as wonderful as it was to get a good education, that institution wouldn't even pretend to be able to change my heart. And so if the government can't do it, and business can't do it, and institutions of learning can't do it, what can change a human heart? Only a biblically functioning, spirit-filled, supernatural community of believers, where the Holy Spirit gets a hold of you. And so I just want to submit to some of you, what are you giving your life to? I'm not talking about everyone quitting their jobs and working at the church. That'd create a cash flow problem. But I am saying, when you look at your life, is there a priority there that's visible to anyone of your devotion to the establishing of the community of God? Or has it been relegated to somewhere in the hierarchy of what you do with your time? You know, every time I think about this, I have to say to you, if you make the decision, whether you're 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70, if you make the decision to commit yourself to this, it's going to cost you. I want you to know that. And it shouldn't surprise you, Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And it costs you. But every single time I take a hit, every time a disappointment comes upon me, every time someone gets disillusioned and bent out of shape, every time someone distorts what we say or believe here at North Way, every time I get tempted to run or to give up or to go after lesser dreams, and I do sometimes, I wonder how much money I could make if I really made that my first priority. I wonder what position I could attain to. I wonder what places I could go. I wonder what stuff I could get a hold of. And then the words of Simon Peter come ringing into my mind, Lord Jesus, whom do we go to? Only you have the words of eternal life. Young men, young women, where do you invest in your one and only life? There are a whole lot of men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s that would tell you they wish they'd done it differently. But I want to say to all of you, it's not too late. It is not too late. In fact, you can make a decision today to re-prioritize and reorient your life so that what you're giving your best energies to is what God is doing in the world today. And that's the establishing a biblically functioning, spirit-filled, supernatural communities. And so I end with this question. And it's just a frontal assault. I mean, here it is. I'm going up the wall right into your eyeball. What are you giving your life to?