Things Money Can't Buy VI, Initiatives For America

About one of the children of a family member here at North Way. Most of you may know Steve and Joanne Merzlach. They're very faithful servants in our student ministries and other places. And their seven-year-old son apparently had an unexpected emergency operation yesterday, and quite serious, related to his spinal cord. And let's pray for him. There was a tumor there. The doctors believe it's benign, but we just want to pray for complete healing. Let's bow and pray for that. Lord, as I've already mentioned today, we come with so many issues in our own personal lives, and yet we would all just bring our hearts and attention to this little guy, Michael Merzlach, father. We pray in the name of Jesus that he now, in recovery, Lord, would be fully restored, that there would be no permanent damage of any kind done to his body by the extraction of this tumor. And Lord, we pray that it is not cancerous in Jesus' name. Lord, we ask you to restore him. We thank you, father, that your word promises that when two or more of us agree on Earth is touching anything, it will be done. And so we come into agreement. We ask you to comfort Steve and Joanne and give them strength in the midst of this most difficult trial to see their young son in pain. We pray for healing now and restoration by the blood of Jesus. And everyone said, amen. Just remember to pray for Michael Merzlach, would you, as we move forward. He wouldn't even be in your notes. That's how new that information is. Well, it has been an unusual week, wouldn't you say? I mean, by any standard, this will be a week that you're going to remember. How many of you were affected in some way by the storm? If your hand didn't go up, you weren't in town. How many of you lost your power for more than a day, more than one hour? I talked to someone in the first service afterward who still doesn't have their power. And they're still praising God, just like you did for that day or so. But how many of you found some good things did happen? Some conversations got started? How many of you met some neighbors you never met before? How many of you met some family members you hadn't seen in a while? Those kind of things. You know, in several ways, that experience has been a parable for me. And I want to talk about this today. I'm still reflecting on it. I don't think I'll forget it for quite a while. The pastoral team had gathered in our home. We were having, as we always do in late June, early July, a planning meeting for the fall season. And so we were all engaged in that. And I remember turning to Jeff Small and saying, boy, it's a pretty day out today for a change. Because it had been a nice morning. In fact, it was so nice that we had lunch out on the deck. We just kind of enjoyed the outdoors. No sign whatsoever that anything was going to be happening. Went back in to continue on in our meeting, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock. About 2.45, I remember just noticing the trees were moving a little bit. And the cat jumped up on the deck. And he wanted to get in the house. Very unusual for the cat to come in in the middle of the afternoon. Now, in retrospect, I thought, you know, maybe that cat isn't quite as dumb as I thought it was. Knew it wanted to get in and out. But when I slid the door open, branches went flying by horizontally right past our deck, slamming into the trees and the things behind. And I could tell this was a significant thing that was happening. And no warning whatsoever. Walked from there, headed back into the study to turn on the weather channel to make sure there was no big tornado alert. Didn't even get back there, and the power was out. And that was it. I mean, that's how fast it was. And as many of you, we were without power for 36 or more hours. And it's very interesting how quickly things can change, isn't it? How many of you realize life was perfectly normal one minute, and the next minute, boom, it was really different? Now, you know that Jesus Christ talked a great deal in scripture about nature teaching us concerning his second coming. Numbers of you over the years have said, why don't you do a series on the second coming, Pastor Jay? Why don't you talk about revelation? And I really want to do that. In fact, in 1999, we're going to spend a lot of time looking at the new millennia. And I'm going to talk a lot about prophetic things in the coming year. But I want to just focus on one thing that he talked about. Because you see, he was very intent on letting you know that his second coming was going to be a lot like the weather, that it was going to happen unexpectedly. In fact, he even referenced, he said, you can read the signs in the skies and know, but you can't even read the signs around you and understand them. It was going to be, his coming's going to be unexpected and very swift. And most people will not be prepared for when he comes again. I'm not sure about you, but I've discovered something. I need to be a little more prepared for emergencies. Would you be prepared, friend? Listen to me. Would you be prepared if Jesus came back today? Some of you are saying, well, you know, quite honestly, I don't know. I don't think he's ready to come back yet. Everything looks pretty normal to me. But the Bible makes it very clear that when we least expect it, the Lord is going to come back. And people are going to be caught eating and drinking, just like they were in the days of Noah. And then suddenly, the flood came. And it was too late to do anything about it. I want to talk today about what Jesus said, what attitude we should adopt. And if you'll take your notes, I'd like you to read with me the text for this morning. Here it is. Let's read it out loud, if you wouldn't mind, so we can kind of declare God's word today. At the top of your outline, here we go. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this. If the owner of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Do you see what that's saying? He's going to come at an hour you don't expect him. That's why those of you who look around and say, well, you know what? I don't think we have anything to worry about for a while here. You're the very ones he's warning. And if you read very carefully there, the verse 43, which now marks the middle sentence, the implication is that many of us are going to lose something when Christ returns. We're not protecting our house. We're not ready for what's going to happen when he returns. And as a consequence, we're going to lose a great deal. Now, as we celebrate our nation's birthday, I'm very tempted, I've wrestled with this, about talking about America and its issues. I have been in this series, Things Money Can't Buy, talking about values. And I mean, there's a whole lot of me that wants to go down the road of talking about what needs to change in America. But God wouldn't give me liberty to do that. Instead, I want to talk about your life and mine for just a little while. Because you know what I believe? I believe, friends, that if you and I look at our own hearts, if we look at our own lives and we get our lives right, God will use us to change America. If there's something wrong in America today, it's not you can't point the finger at the media or at the politicians. You have to start at your own soul and say, God, what's wrong with me? What do you need to do in my life? What do I need to watch and pray about in my own life? And that's what I want to focus on for just a few moments. What does it mean to watch? Let's look at this. Well, five things I discovered in scripture. It goes all the way back to the Old Testament. I mean, you can find lots of illustrations. Nehemiah set up watches around the wall. And if you went to Israel with me, you would see places where watchtowers have been built, just to be prepared for the coming of the enemy, to rob, kill, and destroy. Well, here's what to watch means, if you do a study in the scriptures on it. Number one, and this is very quick, to be alert and attentive. In other words, don't fall asleep at the switch, but stay awake about protecting the things that really matter to you. 1 Thessalonians 5, 6. Second, it means to avoid dropping your guard. Watch out for those moments when you're just kind of let down. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane turned to his disciples and said, watch and pray that you don't fall into temptation. You wonder what's going to happen to some of us? We're going to drop our guard and Satan, right at that moment, is ready to pounce and tempt you with something. Someone, something, some circumstance, and bring you down. To be watching is to not let your guard drop. Number three, it's to shun idleness and embrace initiative. In other words, friends, there's nothing about the Christian life that says you just sort of sit back and let all the good things happen. Interestingly, in Isaiah 33, 6, I didn't put the whole scripture up, but I want you to read just this one verse. It's Ezekiel, rather, 33, 6. The prophet is saying this, watchmen have been set in place and he warns them. He says this, if the watchman sees the sword, or in other words, the enemy coming and does not blow the trumpet, he doesn't sound the warning, and the people of the sword come and take the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin. In other words, that person that's the enemy God is going to get taken away. But look at the last part of the verse. But I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood. In other words, that watchman will pay the same price that the person paid who was taken away. And then Ezekiel goes on to say, and I didn't put that up in the overhead, that if the watchman sounds the trumpet and the people ignore it, the watchman's blood, I'm sorry, the person who was taken away, his blood is not on the watchman's hand. He's no longer responsible. What is that saying? It's saying you've got to be diligent to do your part is what it's saying. You've got to make sure that you're tuned in and that you respond to what God gives you to do. You've got to take initiative. Everyone say initiative. Now everyone say it, initiative. You've got to take initiative. Number four, to be diligent toward God and prepared. To watch means that you're diligent, you're looking for opportunity to make a difference toward God. If you haven't gotten this yet, may I help you with understanding one thing about life? Life left to itself always seems to go the wrong direction when it comes to God. How many of you would be honest enough to say, if I just let myself go, I'll drift towards the things that are not of God. I'll drift towards sin. I'll drift toward compromise. I'll drift toward lukewarmness. How many of you get up every morning and say, you know what God, I'm just 100% sold out to you. I'm just going to float through the day and glorify you in every single thing I do. Come up here and preach. All right. I find every day, there's something in me that wants to just compromise. There's something in me that wants to be lazy. There's something in me that doesn't want to sacrifice. There's something in me that wants to give up on the old things that just don't change. How many of you find that same thing? Oswald Chambers said it this way, all noble things are difficult. You're going to read it this week in July the seventh, one of my favorite readings. He said, everything that really counts in the Christian life costs you something. And if you don't discipline yourself to do it, you will not just grow. People say to me, you know, it must be great to be a pastor and just to live in righteousness day after day. Like I wake up some morning and God just pours this righteousness over me. Doesn't happen that way. I'm just like you. I'm tempted to, you know, I want to cut corners. I want to do this. Friends, we've got to be diligent and we've got to be prepared toward God. Not weighted down as Luke 21, 34 says with the anxieties of life. And finally, we need to be discerning of deception. I could do a whole message on deception. In fact, deception is going to become the way that Satan blinds the eyes of people that you know and I know. In the end times, it's going to be so bad that the Bible says God sends a delusion on him and the whole culture is deceived and follows the antichrist. So those are the five things that it means to watch. And I'm just going to ask you today to consider five areas of your life that I want you to watch. Because you know what I think? As we head into the summer, I'm concerned that maybe some of us are just getting a little casual, little bit sort of indifferent. A lot of people aren't even here today that could be here. They're not even away. They just sort of took the day off from God. I'm glad you're here. You're in the right place at the right time. And I hope that what I share with you this morning affects you when you walk out of here today. Some of you are, you're just so desirous of doing God's will, you're just drinking it all in. And some of you are just like, ah, well, maybe so, maybe not. Friends, can I tell you, there's something a whole lot more at stake here than just, you know, having a nice church service. This is about eternal things. I want you to look at five things with me. Flip your outline over. Five things, five life areas where we need to watch. And if we watch in our lives in these areas, then America will be changed if the church at large would do these things, okay? So here we go. First of all, let's take a look at these. Number one, I've got over here tables and chairs. This represents the most common place that families meet together, wouldn't you say? I mean, if there's one place that a family meets, it's to do what? We have no problem with that at North Way. We meet to eat too. And thank God for the time that the family can gather. And maybe if you're not married, if you're a single person, maybe it represents your close friends where you sit down together and share a meal or whatever. But what happens so often is we don't guard this most important thing in our lives. You know, there's not a person here that doesn't want to be remembered as a loving person when they die. There's not a person here that doesn't want to leave a legacy of love. We want to love our families. We want to love our spouse. We want to love our friends that are close to us. But you know what happens? Life doesn't always go that way. Sometimes it goes this way. And we get at odds with people. Don't put your hand up right now, but how many of you had just like a major blowout on the way to church today? How many think Satan has this, he's got this plan laid out every Sunday morning, you know, he's going to get someone mad at someone else. It happens all the time. There might be someone here that you haven't really talked to your family in a long, long time. If it were really known, your kids are sitting around the table without you because you haven't been present emotionally. Maybe you're making sales records all over the place. Maybe your golf game's off the charts, but you know what? You're pulling away from your family. And I have to say, are you watching? Are you protecting the most intimate and most important relationships in your life? Watch your heart here, friends, because you know what? I found this in my life. We tend, and here's the word, we tend to skim right here. We say, you know what? My wife will understand. My husband will understand. I mean, he knows. He'll give me grace. And he will, or she will. But if you keep borrowing against that, eventually the distance can become so great that you can't find repair. You don't know how to get the conversation started. You can't begin to communicate the way you need to once again. How many of you have not made an investment in your family in a long time? Those kinds of things, if you don't love one another deeply from the heart, as 1 Peter says, you'll find yourself losing what matters the most to you. I was talking to a man from another state. He used to be at this church some years ago. He went through a very difficult divorce. He said to me, you know what? In retrospect, I realized I waited too long to do something about the problem that I knew was there. And number two, he said, and then I gave up too quickly once I started. And now I wish I had, he said, Jay, if I could only go back and do a few things different, I lost the most important thing in all the world to me, because I didn't take initiative to make it right. Are you watching there? Are you opening doors of communication? The second one, well, this is something that looks a little odd, but it makes a whole lot more sense this week than last week. How many know what this is? Yeah, it's a branch from my yard. I want to talk about the network of your fellowship. Are you watching the network of your fellowship? The reason I brought this out, I'll just hold it for another second. The reason I brought this out is this. The Bible says that Jesus loves the church in the same way that a man is to love his wife, sacrificially, intimately, passionately. He loves the church. And my question to you is, do you love the church? Do you love the people of the church as Christ did? Well, what do you mean by that? Well, I mean, do you make it a priority of being connected with other Christians? I discovered something this week that I didn't know before. If you did a little drive-by, in fact, some of you might want to put me to the test. Drive-by LaRoche College after the service today. And what you'll notice is this. And I had this affirmed by a tree expert a little later on this week. I might get this thing in one way or another here. Huge trees, I mean, trees that were eight, 12 inches across snapped off right in the middle. Some were uprooted bigger than that, just pulled right up by the roots. But one thing I noticed was on almost every case, the trees that were uprooted or snapped off were trees that were, listen, standing alone. They were maybe on a yard with some other trees around, but they were trees that were standing alone. And I also noticed that there wasn't any place where I saw whole stands of trees blown over. And the person, the expert said this. He said, trees form a natural strengthening of each other. And when trees are clumped together, they can withstand a great deal more force because they support each other's branches and they give just a little bit more before they break. I said, huh, what an interesting parable. It's a lot like the church. Some of you think, you know, I can stand, I am a strong Christian. You can just throw everything life has and I'll make it. And you know what, friend, I have to tell you, it's not a matter of if you're gonna face a storm, it's just when are you gonna face the storm that's gonna snap you off. I wanna just appeal to you today. Get yourself in a stand of trees. Get yourself with some other Christians, a small group of them. Six or eight or 10 that you're meeting with that know you, know your needs, pray for you, are committed to you. And watch carefully that you don't let that slide. Some of you were very devoted five or 10 years ago, but you know what, you haven't been in a group for three or four years. Some of you are new to North Way and you're just kind of afraid, you don't wanna get too intense here. And yet, can I say, if you don't get into a group, if you're not networked into fellowship, the storms of life are gonna come and you're gonna take it head on and it's gonna snap you in half. I just appeal to you, watch your own soul, watch your own heart in that regard because you need to be surrounded by others of like-minded faith. Number three, how about your personal soul? Watch your personal soul. Proverbs, is it 423? Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Last week, I used the story that Jesus told about the man who was doing big time business. I mean, he was making home runs right and left and he finally was about to consummate the mother of all deals and make it so big that he didn't know what to do with all of his money. And there's this little voice that's saying to him, no, wait a minute, don't forget me, God was saying, don't forget to give me some of that time, some of that energy. But he just sort of ignored God, went ahead and did the deal. And then he said, I've got so much money now, what am I gonna do with it? I'm gonna build bigger barns and accumulate more. Well, it was the wrong decision because that very night, the Bible says he died and he was not ready to meet God. And he entered eternity unprepared. And Jesus turning, looked at the people that were listening to him, he said, so it will be with everyone who is rich in the things of this world, but not rich toward God. And I wanna submit to you, those of us who ignore the wellbeing of our soul, do that at our own peril. We become rich in the things of the world. And not just money rich, but fun rich, hang out rich, culturally rich, but not rich toward God. Sadly for most of us, it's our own soul that gets the least amount of attention, the least amount of diligence. I just have to ask a question. And this probably isn't the right group to ask it of, but you can pass it on to the people that need to hear it. A lot of folks say to me, you know, I wanna do what you're talking about. I want to recharge my soul. I picked this sort of battery powered thing. You know how this thing kind of winding down, it's losing power. This thing should be able to really whirl because the battery's going down. And some of us spiritually, we just don't have much horsepower. There's a whole lot of people that took this weekend. They left Thursday after work. They went camping. They went to visit family and friends. They went here. They went there. And they'll get home tonight at midnight and they'll wake up tomorrow and go to work and say, man, just didn't have any time for God this weekend. And I gotta start all over again. Is there anything wrong with recreation? Not at all. But can I say this? We always make time for what's really important. We always do. And some of us need to make time to recharge our souls. We need to take the charger and we need to plug it into the wall. And we need to just sit there and be quiet and let God till the soil of our hearts and speak to us about what really matters in life, friends. One author that I'm reading said this, the world really doesn't need more busy people, maybe not even more intelligent people. It needs deep people. People who know that they need solitude if they're gonna find out who they are. Silence if their words are gonna mean anything. Reflection if their actions are to have any significance. Contemplation if they're to see the world as it really is. Prayer if they're gonna be conscious of God. If they're to know God and enjoy him forever, they need to be alone. Personally speaking, I'm very convicted when I read about Jesus. How about you? Mark 6, 31, the Bible says that people were chasing after Jesus, just trying to touch him. In fact, his own brothers and sisters said, you know, you're mad, you're crazy. People are, they're all over you. But it was so bad that Jesus had to get up before dark and go off someplace to get alone. But he made time to pray. And I have to say to you, I don't have that same passion. I wish I did. And I'm working on it. But if the son of God needed to be alone to recharge, how much more do you and I maybe need that same contact? And I have to say to you, that's one reason why I'm about to take this study break. For those of you who are new to us, every summer I take about a month and I'm no longer at this pulpit because I'm getting alone to where I can get my soul plugged back into God the way it needs to be. It's not a vacation, you know, where I'm just simply, you know, hanging out and recreating and traveling. It's just long periods of really reading God's word, a lot of prayer time, a lot of time of sort of recalibrating what really matters to me, preparing for the next steps of ministry. I just kind of feel a little bit like this drill right now. You know, there's some things working there, but it's not real powerful. And I want to crank it back up and I need to get plugged back in. And I want to thank you for just the privilege of supporting me and the opportunity you've given to support me in that. And I want to urge all of you to make some of that time so that you too can be plugged into God and His purposes for your soul. Number four, your resources. And I use the chest here. This chest can have money in it. I didn't have enough money to put in it, so I put some tools in it. But whatever your resources are, the things that God gives you, you know, we're all given, the Bible says, certain resources, certain tools. Some of us are given financial tools. Some of us have other gifts that we're given. It's interesting, you know, when we talk about the handling of resources, particularly money, it's a place where attitudes come up real quickly. Whether you have a little bit of money or a lot of money, people just get real testy in a hurry. Those with a limited amount of money on tight budgets, and that's a good number of us here today, we think this, we think, you know, what's the use of talking about, you know, my money as an issue before God? I mean, I don't have that much anyhow. The pile's only that high. It doesn't matter all that much how you break it out. But you know what? That's such a deception. Because God says, if you're faithful in the little I give you, then what? Then I can give you more, because I know you're gonna be faithful in more. So even if you have just a little, be faithful, do it God's way. On the opposite end, those with lots of resources, we get lazy about managing God's way because we have so much that we can just throw some here and throw some there and no big deal. Our money really does matter. We better watch how we handle our resources. If you've been blessed and prospered in the last years, I wanna ask you just candidly, are you giving God an increasing proportion of your increase, of your blessing? I had lunch with a man just a while back, a few months ago. His income has tripled over the last three years. Now, how many of you'd like to have that true of your life? His income has tripled. And we were talking about this. He said, I'm blessed. He said, I was able to tithe $15,000 last year. I said, wow, that's great. Praise the Lord for that. He said, three years ago, I could only tithe $5,000. I said, excellent. So you're making almost three times what you made three years ago. He said, yeah. I said, well, I don't wanna be meddling here, but if I might say, does that mean then you made about $50,000 three years ago, and now you're making about $150,000. And that means you're giving God 10,000 more. That means the other 90,000 is going to you. He sent me the check for the lunch. And we talked about it. He said, well, yeah, to be honest, I mean, I was just like, you see, he took the liberty of God's blessing to say, I'll just keep, hey, I'll just keep fattening up my little thing. I'll just keep giving God his 10%. Let me just remind you of something. When God blesses you unexpectedly like that, don't just skim off the 10%, say, I've done my duty, but say, God, why are you doing this? What do you wanna do with it? And then he'll just be able to keep releasing it. You'll get blessed. You'll have more than enough, but he's increasing you for the purpose of blessing others. Money does matter. The love of it is the root of all evil. The managing of it in God's way is a source of great blessing. Anybody here need to just kind of watch a little bit what's going on? Anyone need to watch that area? Finally is evangelism. Your heart for evangelism. Now, what does watching have to do with evangelism? Well, to me, a whole lot, because you see, your sensitivity in this area is a reflection of the degree to which you're moving in the heart of God for the people that he created. We so often get familiar with people that we don't even think that just maybe God might wanna use us to touch them somehow. Ever find yourself dealing with a person you know that isn't a Christian and you don't even think about sharing the Lord anymore with them because you just figure there's no way they're gonna be ready, they never have been. You know what I mean? We just get so familiar. I read this story about what can happen when you get too familiar with someone. This is a true story. 1992, a Los Angeles County parking control officer came upon a brown Cadillac Eldorado illegally parked next to the curb on a street sweeping day. The officer dutifully wrote out a ticket. Ignoring the man, seated the driver's wheel. The officer reached inside the open car window and placed the $30 ticket on the dashboard. The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued and with good reason. The driver of the car had been shot in the head 10 hours before, but was sitting up stiff as a board, slumped slightly forward with blood on his face. He was dead. The officer preoccupied with ticket writing was unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He got back in his car and drove away. Hey, there's public service taken to a new level of sensitivity. What's the point? Well, the point is, so blinded to what was happening right in front of him, so used to going through the routines, didn't even see a person who was dead. I just wonder, we deal with people all the time that are spiritually dead and we just kind of go through the motions and maybe God doesn't want you just to take care of some specific physical need, but maybe he wants you to be sensitive, dialed in to what's going on in their lives spiritually. In Christian America, we kind of believe that God created the gospel for our well-being. In fact, Jesus said that he came to do the Father's will. And may I say this, church, listen, everyone in this room, God has a purpose in his plans for us to touch the people around us. We are here to make disciples of Jesus Christ who are loved and nurtured and equipped to minister to God and one another in the last world in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's our mission. That's why God's placed us here. Paul said, I no longer live, but it's Christ who lives in me. I am now an ambassador for Christ. God wants to meet your need, but he wants to move you on. The loss of passion for the lost is the first sign of a dying church. And may I say, the loss of passion for the lost is the first sign of a withering soul as well. If you no longer care about the lost, then I challenge whether or not your heart is staying soft. People say, oh, bring revival, God, bring revival. May I just suggest to you one reason why God isn't bringing revival is because we would spend it on ourselves. We'd want more miracles and more feel-goods and more hallelujahs, but we wouldn't care that much if our neighbors shared with us. When will we say with Paul the apostle and a few others in our small group of friends, I have become all things to all men that I might win some. I pray that could be said of this church. And I don't have a lot of details to share with you, but one thing I want to say is in 1998 in the fall and in the next ministry season, one thing I know for sure out of our staff time together, we are going to be recommitted to touching the lost, particularly of the coming generations. To the youth that are coming in the wings, we're going to go all out to impact them for Christ. How are you doing in this? Are you watching? The image I took is this, you know, it's water. If I just let this water sit in this pitcher for long, what happens to it? Stagnates, doesn't get stale. In order for God to put fresh water in you, you've got to pour some of that water out to someone else and hand a couple of cold water in Jesus' name to someone. And then God will refill you with fresh living water from his Holy Spirit. So there are the five images, your family, your immediate friendships, your network of fellowship. Are you watching to see that you're staying plugged in? Your personal soul. I mean, are you staying plugged into God at the soul level? Your resources, are you stewarding them according to God's plan? And finally, your heart for the lost. And you know, the basis of