VIP Part I

It's good to be back with you again after just a few weeks away, and I want to begin just by saying, after ten weeks in the book of James, leave it to Pastor Jay to step up and stir things up and go a different direction, thanks Adam, and just set a new course, but I want to begin by saying what an excellent job our team did, don't you believe, and agree in the last weeks. It just was a great time. Every message was spot on and challenging, and the ones I missed in person I watched online, and I'm proud of our team. They just work and prepare and then ask the Holy Spirit to anoint their words. It was really inspiring and challenging stuff, so thank you so much guys. Now, the fact that I'm preaching, if some of you, you know, don't like that and you hear some fishy talk about my sermons, you can call 1-800-OLD-GUYS, and that will make sure that I get more opportunities. That's 1-800-OLD-GUYS if you hear fishy talk. Yeah, it's just such an amazing thing to be in the era that we're in, and I'm delighted that I get today to bring a message that I could spend probably two hours on. That wouldn't delight you though, so I'm going to make this relatively brief, and it's actually there's sort of two parts to this message. The first part, I had just, I mean it was, it was a lot of fun for me to prepare because what I had to do was take a look at what's going on in this church and sort of assess and measure and bring a bit of focus, is the word I'm looking for, to very important people. That's the title that you've seen up on the board, VIPs, very important people to God. And we're going to start this series with that group of people in this church that I think are amongst the most important. And those are the people that, like most of the truth of the New Testament, are paradoxically so. See, if you begin to study God's Word, you'll realize that most of what's true in the world is upside down in God's kingdom. Have you noticed that? In the world, the VIPs in the world are the people that are, you know, high profile. They're in the media. They're athletes. They're celebrities. They're entertainers, what have you. They're the VIPs, recognizable figures. I get a little tiny bit of that, you know. I'm on ET now and then, and I was trying to figure out if any of you… No, actually, I was in the line in Giant Eagle. Does that count? That's more my speed. And the lady that was… One lady was checking my stuff, and the other one was putting in a bag, and she had a pretty heavy accent. I didn't… wasn't sure I understood her correctly. And she says, you that preacher? And I have a response to that now. I've heard that question enough times. Here's my response. What preacher? He said, that preacher in that big church up there. This is down in Pine Creek there. I was shopping. And I said, well, you know, a lot of people say I look like him. She says, well, you do. I said, well, what do you hear about him? She says, I hear he's a pretty nice fellow, really. I said, well, yeah, that's me. Now, I have a response B. If she said, he's really a… he's just a lousy preacher, and that's a terrible… I say, a lot of people say I look like him. That's… I just go back to that. I mean, there's no lying there. I'm just, you know, but you've got to have an A and a B. But, you know, see, that's it. In the kingdom of God, greatness isn't measured by authority, or position, or money, or power. If you'll take your outline out of your notes, you'll see this is while in classic form the disciples are fighting for greatness in, you know, sort of the ways of the world. And Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercised authority over them? Well, not so with you, and said, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. I want you to notice, by the way, that Jesus does not say, hey, don't try to be great. He has no problem with being great. He said, but you don't get it by lording over people or by wielding authority. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave, your servant. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. If you want to be great in God's kingdom, you have to become a servant. You know, we would all say, how many of us would we would say, you know, Lord, I would love to have been with you as you walked the earth, and just seen your life. And even to this day, you'd say, I'd love for my life to model the life of Jesus. I'd love for my life to be, you know, just like His, praying, you know, and commuting with God, and speaking miracles, and teaching big crowds, and all those kinds of things, right? But here's the thing. I would expect, if you really were walking in the shoes of Jesus, most of the time this didn't get recorded. One of the gospel writers, I forget which one it was, said, if we wrote everything that He said and done, all the books in the libraries of the world couldn't hold it. I think most of the time, friends, He had been serving people. Do you ever think of that? I never thought of that until I did this sermon. I think most of the time, He was just doing stuff to serve people, to help them out, to come alongside them, to comfort them, all those different kinds of, you know, just maybe to, He was a carpenter, maybe just served them by putting some stuff, all those kinds of things. Meeting the needs that came His way. Jesus had, it seemed to me, a never say no attitude. I can't find one time when He sent someone away and said, I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to serve you. I can't find one illustration. He was a servant. The word, by the way, that you see slave and servant, just a little clarification, in the Greek, the word is doulos, which, by the way, are interchangeably used, slave and servant. So don't be confused if you see slave. It's not slave in the sense of slavery, but it's, it's servant, same word in the Greek. And it says in Philippians 2 that He became, He took on the nature of a servant, even going to the cross. He served our ultimate spiritual need by dying on the cross for us. Now let me say, around here, we're a church that over the years has raised up an incredible army of servants. And that's why I started, I fumbled just a bit when I started, but whether you're participating in Oakland or in the cafe, you know that this church runs on the fuel of servants. From family ministries, to counseling ministries and services, to our kids, to, to addiction recovery, sexual, sexual purity, financial counseling and coaching, the small group volunteers drive over 2,000 people or so participating in small groups. Our food bank, our career changes ministry that helps people in that very difficult time. Our, I could talk for a long time about, you know, the folks that have volunteered in missions and outreach. And take the LAMP, we have 150 people serving the inner city as volunteers in LAMP. I shared that with a person this week, a corporate person. And, and she very politely said, this is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And she asked if she could introduce it to her church. And I said, please do. And let us come alongside. We'd be happy to help you. Bible studies and the people that are making all this technology work. I'm almost, I mean, it's an army of servants around here. And it happens, by the way, not just during these services, but seven days a week and about 18 hours a day, people are serving in some capacity. Now just, I mean, I was going to try to have a big collection. And by the way, we're going to have a little sort of video at the close of the message that will capture a whole lot more. But I just, last night I had one of those almost surreal experiences again. I'm walking around here with 6,000 or 7,000 people because it was a beautiful night. And we had nearly 2,000 cars and motorcycles come out and all the people with them and families, all ages. There was people here from France, I found out. There were people here who came three hours just to come to this event because they heard about it. And so we're going to show you a few photos here just for, just here are some servants. These people are behind the scenes. They don't get paid. They don't get rewards. They don't get acclimation by anybody. I'm not going to show those things. Get them up there. Let them just see. These are great people. They're husbands and wives. You're going to see as many women as men in here. There's people that serve in setting up all day long. There's people helping to direct traffic and park cars and helping people find their way into the church and asking questions about the church. There's people that give things to folks in need. There's people that help people who lose their phones or their keys or whatever. They're just incredibly dedicated people. And I, at the end, is the most exciting, incredible time. When these guys come out of the woodwork and they pick up some, a mountain of trash. You know how much trash 7,000 people produce in four hours? I mean, we have to get an extra dumpster to get it all in. And you know what? By 1030 or 11 o'clock, an hour, hour and a half afterwards, it's as if nobody was even here. I mean, it's just an incredible expression. And we don't have to twist their arms. They come out even on the weeks they're not assigned because they want to be part of something that's touching lives. And I just want to say, in this part of the message, I want to say to all of you who serve, that is the Spirit of Jesus. And you are becoming great in the eyes of God if you're growing as a servant. So we want to celebrate you. And I don't know how to do it. I mean, we were going to pass out things. Someone said, hey, well, let's have a big cookout. But here's the thing. I know that some of you wish you could serve, but maybe there's some circumstances in your life that prevents you right now from being engaged in a specific way. But here's what I want to do. I'm just going to freelance this. And if you're in the worship cafe or you're participating in Oakland, I want you to do the same thing. Let's all stand right now, and let's just give God a big hand, a big clap offering for every servant in this place. Go ahead. Stand up. And Lord, we thank You for all the servants. We give You praise, God, because we see Jesus in them. Thank You, Father. Every one of them, Lord. Hallelujah. Blessed be Your name. Thank You, Father. Go ahead and be seated. I just pray that if you're one of those servants that you just received a little sense of gratitude, deep appreciation. Your real reward, by the way, in John 15, and you can read that later, Jesus says, I no longer call you a servant. I call you a friend. And the more you learn to serve, the more intimate you become, the more close you become with Jesus, because your nature becomes more like His. So if you're finding yourself a little distant and the God thing's a little confusing to you, can I suggest something? Find a place to serve, because you'll find yourself sort of naturally becoming more like Christ, and He'll call you His friend. And I think it's the coolest thing to say, you know what? Jesus is a friend of mine. He's a friend of mine. He's also my Savior and my Lord and all that, but He's my friend. And in the end, by the way, in the end, the greatest reward comes in heaven, because the Lord says, everything that you do, I see, and I'm storing up a reward for your service that you'll receive one day when you're with me in heaven. So I celebrate you. We celebrate you. And by the way, if you haven't found a place to serve, as we move into the fall season, there's no better time than right now to start looking around and saying, well, where could I give an hour here or there? Where can I show up just a little bit early and help out? Where can I maybe come to one service and serve at another? Where out in the community could I serve? Maybe it's not even under this roof. Maybe it's out there. Friends, do you know people out there are seeing what we're doing in here, and they want to be part of that? Do you understand what I'm saying? People out there see what's going on in here and say, well, we think that's amazing. And we want, I mean, I don't know if, I hope the guys have this in the booth. The cleaner operation, the one-hour martinizing folks over here, the Pine Creek shops. If you're out here in Wexford, you know where this is. It's just right across from the church. I know in Oakland you may not recognize that, but they sent me an email, and then they sent this really cool little handout brochure thing that said, we see this ministry that you have to people in job transition, and we want to be part of that. So if you'll send them over to us, we'll clean their suit or whatever outfit they have to go on their interview. We'll clean it and press it and be part of that because we believe in what you're doing, and we want to share in that. I said, I mean, I didn't ask for that. I didn't go, he just, he said, we saw that. We thought that was a really cool thing. And I said, holy cow. And so that's the kind of thing that's going on. And we're part of it, and you're part of it if you're a servant here. And if not, then it's time to step into it. We are getting ready to launch, and we need more servants than ever. Now, let me turn the page and shift gears here just a bit. And I want to talk to you, as most of you know, when I go away on my little time, my little sabbatical, I usually come back and share just, just a bit of what God showed me. I'm going to do that as sort of the second half of this message. You see, to be a servant, really over a long period of time, you can't do it on just willpower. You have to be hearing from the Lord. Your real motivation comes because you know it pleases God. So this kind of goes with it. I know I want to serve, but I get, my batteries go low, and so I need to get away from time to time. Rick Warren from Saddleback Community Church said this in terms of just recharging yourself. Here's three things, and this isn't on your outline, but you might want to jot it down. Here's what he suggests. Number one, divert daily. So get a little bit of time every day when, when you're needing to be with the Lord. Rob mentioned that in worship meeting here, and maybe where you are, you heard that same sort of thing. Divert daily. And then second, withdraw weekly. Take a little bit of time every week when you just say, Lord, how are we doing? Speak to my heart. Make sure I'm hearing you. And then once a year, abandon. Abandon annually. Just if you can get away and just say, Lord, I need to hear You. I need to hear Your heart. And I've been doing this now for almost 20 years, and it's just been a lifesaver for me. Now this time, I was just gone for a little over two weeks, away from the day-to-day ministry demands, and I want to thank the, the pastoral team and the elders for, for just enabling me to do that. And then I have to tell you, after this week, I feel like I, I got dropped down and, you know, in, in the middle of a war zone. It was, there was so much going on. I remembered why I needed to get away. I mean, this, there's so much, life happens in positive ways and challenging ways. But when I abandon annually, let me tell you what happens first of all. This may not be real important to you, but you need to hear it from me. The first thing I always do is I say, Lord, is there something going on inside of me that I might not be aware of that You want to point out that's keeping me from hearing Your voice clearly? And I spend the first days just saying, Lord, I need to hear what You would say about me. And so I take my Bible and a legal pad and I just start reading Scripture, long portions of Scripture, and listening to the Lord. Psalm 46.10 jumped out at me, be still and know that I am God. Lord, I'm not still. I go way too fast. And the more I went on, let me just confess to you one thing the Lord just put in my heart, and I'll keep it relatively general at first because it's painful for me to say it, but the Lord said, You've allowed pride to creep back into your life. And I say that with a measure of sadness because at my stage of walking with the Lord, I should be sensitive enough to not allow pride to gain a foothold. And it's not the kind of pride that says, I know I'm better than you or more spiritual than you or that this or that or whatever. It isn't that. I think I'm, you know, the devil doesn't walk around with flashing signs that I fall for anymore. But it's the kind of pride that creeps up. Andrew Murray wrote a wonderful little book called Humility. And in it, this sort of captures where it comes from. I think we might be able to put this up on the screen for you so you can, you can get a hold of it. Here's what he says. "'Let us consider how our lack of love, indifference to the needs and feelings of others, even sharp comments and hasty judgments, and may I say sarcastic comments and judgments on my part, are thwarting the effect of the influence of the Holy Spirit on others. Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement have their root in nothing but pride. Pride creeps in almost everywhere, and the assemblies of the saints' churches are not exceptions.' And I spent some time with the Lord, having to come to terms with the fact that I've allowed that to happen. And I had to repent of that. And the amazing thing about our God, the God who first called us when we were sinners, as that breaks into you and allows, and then you allow it to really just, you know, someone likened it to peeling wallpaper, because it just takes some scraping. But once you, you write it down and say, well, I repented this one and this one, I got to get right. And when I get back, I've got to talk to this person and get that. And when it gets all done, you find the joy of the Lord starts to return. And you know what happens? The Bible, which had been kind of dry and a little bit not, not meaning all that much, starts to come alive because I've cleaned out the junk. And that's what happened to me. Several days into this experience, my heart started receiving something. And I was reading the proverb of the day. It's a habit I have. I think it's a good habit. Any of you who are, how many of you are in business? If you are, you know, wisdom is really needed in these days, isn't it? Who is this? Who is the wisest man that ever lived other than Jesus? His name was Solomon. He wrote a book called Proverbs. You can get wisdom every day just by reading the proverb of the day. And I was reading on July 29th, the proverb of the day, and I came across Proverbs 29, 18, which says this, where there's no revelation, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. The message, if we have that, the message paraphrase says it in a little different language. Let's put that up. Message paraphrase. If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves. I like that. But when they attend to what He reveals, they are most blessed. And I said, Lord, would You grant me revelation? Would You reveal some things to me that I haven't seen? Would You reveal Yourself, Your plans? Would You reveal more of Your Spirit, more about the future? Would You reveal more things that I need to know to be able to lead well? Because I cherish the privilege of leading the congregation. I do not take it for granted. It's a solemn calling. It's one that I take with great seriousness, and I know that I can't lead. I'll stumble all over myself without revelation, and you will not be led well. You have wonderful elders. Friends, do you know that your elders are meeting every Saturday, whether you're in Oakland or the cafe, you're here. They're meeting for an hour to pray, and during the week we are on email and different ways, corresponding in prayer and sharing and seeking God as an eldership. There were 35 men who met to pray this morning at 7 a.m. to ask God to meet us as a church and to start to reveal some things to us. And I'm excited about that kind of leadership. And we have wonderful people here, and it's an honor to serve you, but I don't want to do it without knowing what God is saying. So here's what He led me to study. And by the way, this is how it happened. The very next day after I read that, I'm expecting to have, you know, to get up the next day and start to see Scripture come alive. And now, you know, I'm ready. I know I got my computer out now, and I got, I'm ready to take notes and find this. And the next day I woke up, and the power was out in this place where I was staying. And I was staying in a pretty remote place. The closest grocery store was 15 miles away. Now, there was this little kind of community there, so there was some other people around. And so, first thing, I mean, I had no milk, no, you know, no cereal, nothing to eat for breakfast. I'm an oatmeal kind of guy. No coffee. First thing I had to figure out was, is this my place where, you know, was I the only one without power? So I got out and got in my car, and no, there was no power anywhere. But a farmer had already been there and dropped off his, his, one of his, you know, trailers of fresh produce. So I pulled out a few dollars, bought three ears of corn and two beautiful tomatoes. And at the gas station in this little community, they had used the generator to make some, to get some electricity going, and they had some coffee. So I went back to my place, and I had three ears of corn and two tomatoes for breakfast and a nice cup of coffee. Let me tell you something. Just about any other time, if you'd put that in front of me at Bob Evans, I would not have picked corn and tomatoes for breakfast, friends. Yeah, that sounds really good. But when you're hungry and there's no power and that's all you got, it was downright, you know, fulfilling. Okay? It was okay. And then on that morning, while the power was out, I sat and read. And here's the word you need to hear. God began to speak to me, and He said this. He said, a shaking is going to come. A shaking is going to come. Unlike anything we have seen in most of our lifetimes. I can't say for everybody, but most of our lifetimes. And the Lord led me to Hebrews 12, 25 through 29. If you turn your outline over, I wrote it down for you. It says, Now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made. In other words, created things are going to be shaken. That the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken. What kingdom is that? That's the kingdom of God. That cannot be shaken. Since we're receiving that, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. And I began to meditate on what God was saying there. He was saying, created things are going to be shaken. Institutions that we've trusted in. Things that we have taken for granted for maybe decades. And I know I'm obviously, some of it's already happening, isn't it? Some of us know things are, we've never been in a thing quite like this, where the things that we could count on, we can't quite count them. But the Lord made it clear to me that they're going to, listen, I'll say it more clearly, that it's not going to come back like we expect. This isn't going to be like the recoveries of old where, yeah, we're going to go down for a while, but then we're going to come back. I want you to take that, just, just take it and you just judge that word. That was the word of the Lord to me. I am going to shake things so that people are going to wonder, what can I put my trust in? Institutions, systems, governments, currencies, communications. Now, I know this can sound a bit ominous and I could take time here to really spell this all out, but it's not my purpose to be frightening you or scaring you. Notice, I didn't use words like calamity or end times or disaster or anything like that. That's not what the Lord said. He just said it's going to be a shaking so that what cannot be shaken, what's that again? The kingdom of God will be clear. And here's the hope I want you to hear in all of this. God is going to allow this shaking of the things that people have put their trust in. The economics of things, the systems of things, the way things have always worked before so that they no longer can look at those and be sure, and they're going to look around and say, well, what can I put my confidence in? And we're going to be able to say what? The Lord Jesus and the kingdom of God. And friends, I'm here to say, I believe that the reason why this shaking is going to come is so that we can be confident that God is going to use us to shine more brightly than we ever have as the world increases in darkness. We're going to become more of the light and seen more clearly as the place of the light. You see, when things are going well, when things are going your way, when you're making the deals and things are all falling into place, you don't need the things of God. But when things get a little difficult, when the power goes off, corn and tomatoes taste pretty good. And here's what I want you to know. As the people of God, the Lord promises to take care of you. So you needn't fear what I'm saying. I just want to alert you to the fact, don't expect things just to bounce back. I think God's going to shake things, and we are going to see and hear things that we have never seen and heard before. And what we've seen today, the Lord spoke to my heart, is just a preview of the things that are to come. And I beg of you not to make this a political commentary, because I don't mean it that way. It's much bigger than that. This is a global thing. Now, here's just, let me close with three things to do. These aren't on your outline, but three things to do. Here's where serving and shaking go together. Three things to do. Number one, write it down if you've got a pen, God is in control, so worship and serve Him above everything else. If there's ever been a time when you need to be in touch with what God's saying, it's right now. He's in control. He's still Lord of heaven. We sang it. We declared it. So make the time to be with Him. Be in His Word. Pray, worship, serve Him. Let His Spirit fill you every day afresh with His life. Because we're receiving the kingdom that can't be shaken. That's number one. He's got to be first in your life. You need to be His servant. Latreo in the Greek is the word that's translated serve and worship interchangeably. Remember I said doulos can be servant and slave. Latreo can be worship or serve interchangeably in the Greek. And 21 times in the New Testament that word Latreo appears. Worship or serve the Lord. So do that, number one. Number two, build kingdom relationships. And friends, if you're not a person, if you've been around here for more than a few months and not gotten into a group or into a ministry where you are vitally connected with people, again now is the time. You cannot afford to be isolated. You cannot afford to let yourself watch from the periphery and think, well you know when I need to get involved, I'll get involved. It's like the people I talk to every once in a while when you get serious about, you know, knowing God. They say, you know, I'm kind of happy with my life and I figure when I get near the end, I'll make that decision. How foolish. Let me just, I mean, in the next few weeks our small groups are going to be cranking up again. You'll have an opportunity just to get engaged in a small group. Those are the most intimate fellowship moments that I have in my week apart from my times with the Lord. I want to encourage you. Be part of a group or a ministry where people are close together and don't miss the times that we gather on weekends. Don't miss your small group. Don't miss the ministries because it's going to be vital that you're connected and know how to communicate. People are going to be drawn to those relationships as things are shaking. They're going to say, it was interesting last evening, again out here at the car cruise event, a person that I've known now probably for five years, and he's never really been interested, and I, I mean, in church or the life, but that's okay. See, we don't, that's not a qualification for coming to the car cruise thing. There were people, by the way, the Worship Cafe team served last night, and I know people from Oakland were out here as well, and this man came, and we were walking around. I said, have you seen the new, the new addition in the building? He said, no, I haven't seen it. It looks great, but let me. He walked in, and his jaw dropped down, and this about 60-year-old guy who had been really pretty well known here in Pittsburgh, if I mentioned his name, some of you would recognize it from his involvement in different media outlets, began just to mist up a little bit, and he said to me, it's time for me and my wife to get into this church or one like it. We've waited too long. See, you never know when someone's going to respond, but you've got to have a relationship where you can just expose them to see life, because when he looked around and saw this, he said, this is unbelievable. If people care this much to do this, then I need to be around people that are this, this caring, and this sacrificing, and this much in touch with what God's doing, and then number three, number three, seek revelation for yourself. Write down Proverbs 29, 18, and say, Lord, I want revelation. Now, it may cost you a little bit of, you know, pulling off the wallpaper, and you might need to cleanse some things, but God will speak to you just like he did to me. I'm not, I don't have any, you know, hotline to heaven any more than you do, so please know that you can hear from God, because without revelation, you cast, what does it mean, cast off restraint? What does that mean? It means you're undisciplined. You're uncaring, but if you have revelation, guess what? You start to make it happen. When you have revelation, you're driven because God's in it, and you say, I see what God wants. I'm going to go after it, so seek revelation for yourself, and he goes on to say, and be thankful, be thankful. Well, that's it. You know, we started this message by talking about serving, and I want to close by just allowing you to celebrate that gift, because that's the character of Jesus, and as the band comes back out, they're going to sing a song for us, and we're going to show you some film about the servants of this church, and because these people are serving, these people are engaged, as things begin to shake, and they're going to shake, friends, I'm confident that these people are not going to be fearful. They're going to be full of faith. They're not going to be wondering what's going on. They're going to be locked on to the heart of God, because they're ready. My only question is, will you be one of them? So let's appreciate our servants once again as the team ministers to us in song, and watch the video together.