We Are God's Family

This is North Way tape number 467. This message was presented by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian Community on January 26th, 1986. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2, we're going to have a wonderful time together this morning around the Word of God, but in a different way than we've been together in some time, and I'm excited about it. I just want to read this to you. This is such a blessing to me to see how the Lord does things. Would it sound terribly unscholarly to say to you that the Lord gave me the text for this morning? Those of you who are around the church as we know that study time was kind of different, but I had a lot of time to study Friday and Saturday and did so. But this morning, because I think a few of you were diligently saying, God, give Jay peace for this, because I'd share it. This is the passage, and I want you to read this with me. I'm reading from the New International Version, and I just want to make a confession that I'm reading this Bible this year, having departed temporarily from the RSV now. But it's in God's providence that I was reading this today in my time with the Lord because of what it says. I'm in Hebrews 2, and I'm beginning in verse 10. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, oh, hallelujah, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises. Beloved, that's exactly what we were doing this morning. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, he says, here am I and the children God has given me. I want us to focus this morning, church, on that verse 11. What a beautiful statement, and I think this translation captures it the best as I've looked at the other ones. Both the one who makes men holy, who's that? Jesus. And those who are made holy are of the same family. The Greek text literally means are of the same origin. Isn't that unbelievable? You want to talk about a mystery to put your mind around. What a wonderful statement of truth. The Bible says that we are of the same family. And that he who makes us holy is not ashamed to call us brothers. We're of the same family. We're the family of God. Now for some of you this morning, that statement, the fact that you're part of a new family may be very, very difficult to accept. May be laden with a great deal of frustration and maybe even anxiety. Because for you, family, when you say the word family, what it brings in your mind is rejection, pain, disappointment, hurt. A family that never was. A fracture, a separation, loneliness. The number one anxiety producing experience in a child's life is the loss of a parent by death. And the second one is divorce. And by 1990, James Dobson says something in the neighborhood of 40% of all children will come from single family homes. Family may mean something just very difficult to you. But for others, the idea of looking around the room and seeing hundreds of other people who are part of a new family to you, that's the best news you've ever heard. It's so exciting to think that there's all these relationships you can have. All these new brothers and sisters. One gal I was talking to a few weeks ago who's a new Christian said, I never knew there were so many neat people who were Christians. I just wonder about that sometimes. Have you ever thought, be honest now, was there a time maybe before you came to the Lord, if you met the Lord in your adult life or your teenage years, when you were really interested in Jesus but you weren't sure about all those strange people that followed him. Really. And if you're real honest, one of the reasons why it took you so long to come to the Lord is because you saw some other people that called themselves Christians and they were really bazonkers up here. They just were strange people. I know in high school, this is a big thing. There's this little group of people off to the side that have their, it's the religious club table. And those kids are all somehow different according to the mindset of the world. And yet you see in them flows the life of the Lord God, who makes them unique and wonderful in his own fashion. I want to talk this morning to us, with us, church, with you as a family, about being a family. And not just the family of God in general that we're all part of, but this family. How many of you know that you are part of a natural family that has a name and identity? You may not even know it. Maybe you were adopted. But then you were adopted into a family that then you took on their name and their identity. You don't meet people and say, well, you know, where's your family? Well, I don't know. I'm from the family of Mother Earth. But we are, there's a lot of Christians when you say, well, who's your church family? Well, I'm just flowing with the spirit. I'm with this family this Sunday. I'm with that family the next Sunday. I believe God is really putting that to a halt, don't you? I think that's coming to an end because people are dying off. People are, when the family is destroyed, beloved, the individual reaps the harvest. Let me say that again. When the family is destroyed, when you're separated from the family, whether it's the natural or the spiritual, you're the one that reaps the harvest of destruction. I just heard with such deep sorrow and compassion in my heart. I don't know if you saw the special on TV last night, and there was a news clip about black America. Did you see that? That just so wrenched my heart that 50% of the children in black households under the age of 18 are from single parent families right now. Many of them have no idea who the father was or anything like that. And I think quite astutely now, leadership in our country is waking up to the fact that that is a trend that's increasing. Do you know that? And the more of that that happens, the more fractured and shattered and incapacitated black America becomes. And white America is trying to catch up. And it was a very powerful story to me. The family is necessary. We don't just sort of climb on this glory train individually, beloved. We don't get private bunks. We're in cattle cars going together to glory, right? Moving as one body into what God has for us. Now, this morning, I want to talk to you as the North Way family. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next 45 minutes, but I believe it's what God wants for today. And I have to say to you, this is not going to be a sermon in the normal sense of an elaboration of the word of God. And I know that for some that may be a problem. But I just want to answer that today and say that I believe my number one responsibility when I preach the word is to hear from the Lord. How about you? Do you believe that? I mean, there's a lot of places you can go and have somebody tell you what the Bible says, probably much better than I can. But I want to hear what God is saying to this church for this morning, for this week and this month and this year. Because I believe that that's what will change us. I like what Paul Yonggi Cho says, the goal of all preaching is to encounter Jesus personally. How many of you want to see that during and through a sermon? You want to encounter Jesus personally. How many of you feel like that's been happening by the grace of God? He's been faithful to meet us through his word. Now, today as we share, I want it to be kind of like the times that maybe you can envision in your natural family when people would come home from a vacation or from a semester break at school. You kind of just, you have a dinner and then you sort of push the chairs back a bit and pour out some coffee. What's happening? What's going on in our family? We haven't really all been together. And do you know something? This is the only time that the North Way family really all comes together. I mean, we'd love for it to be on other occasions, but it just doesn't happen. Sunday morning is the only time we can kind of count on everybody who calls this their church home being here. So this is a very significant time. That's one reason why I want to share this today. Number two, I want to share it because the Lord is adding to our family every week. Isn't that great? How many of you wish he'd just stop adding? Nobody. How many people are here today that, let's just say, in six months, since we've moved into this facility as our own facility, you've been consistently coming. You're a new part of this family in the last six months. Just put your hand way up there. Turn around and look. Isn't that great? Let's welcome all those people. Hallelujah. Probably a hundred or more hands that went up there. And so we need to talk about a few things as a family because you are impacted by them as newcomers in this family. Number three, I want to talk about family issues today because as we're growing, there are new issues and new concerns that I think all of you care about. You know, when you bring new babies into a household, someone may have to change where their bed is. You've got to make room for that new little one. And finally today, I want to talk about our family life together because, listen, in the life of a family of believers, the life of Jesus is discovered. In the life of a family of believers, the life of Jesus is discovered. As we share for the next bit of time some of the things that are happening, it's not just information. It's going to be for you life. I believe that. It's going to be life. You're going to quicken to what you're going to hear. You know, it was in the epistle to John, that John wrote in chapter four, that he said that you can't love God and hate the brethren. And if you're growing in love of God, you're growing in love of one another. And that isn't always easy to do, is it? How many of you like just, God, it's real easy to love you, but these people, right? I'm not sure. But God is building us into a household, Ephesians 2.19 says, a place where His glory would dwell. You're part of a family where the Spirit of the Lord will dwell. Turn around and say to someone, God dwells in my house. Go ahead. God dwells in my house. Isn't that exciting? Now, you're going to need to have your hands free to pick up some things as we go along here. And I'm going to ask you to move along with me. Now, I've broken this down today just for the sake of helping you to remember it. With an acronym, I want to go down and talk about our family. First thing I want to talk about is our family identity. You want to put that up, please? Family identity. I just want to remind you and refresh you as to what our identity, what characterizes us as a family. You know, if you do a study of your family background, it can be really astonishing, right? I mean, it may be the greatest thing you've ever seen and you may wonder how you ever made it. The family characterization is important in knowing something about yourself. And I don't want to talk a lot about this. I just want to say, though, that there are certain things that we as a family are heavily committed to. Things that we just do and things that we just don't do. I was talking to somebody a while back and they were saying that there was a conflict between their family reunion and a weekend trip that some of the leadership of the church wanted to take. And I said, well, would it be a big deal? And he said, in my family, you just don't miss reunions. You know what that means, don't you? You have to wait a whole year before anyone talks to you again because you missed the reunion. Well, our family has some characteristics. I want to say this. It's not that we are a church who are characteristically described as a faith church or a word church. We're not described, we don't have a reputation as being a prosperity church or a teaching church or a praise church or a fellowship church. We're a church that honors the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is the central theme of all that we do. He is preeminent in this place. And I just want to talk about characterizing us in two words. A king and a kingdom. We serve a king and we represent a kingdom. That's our family identity. We serve a king, we represent his kingdom. Now, listen, we serve a king church in this way. We learn to worship him. Oh, I just want to say to you, the worship of God is the fountainhead of all the revelation that God wants to bring to us. I don't know people who receive revelation from God who aren't worshipers. Because the more he reveals, the more, just like the angels of heaven, we fall on our faces as though dead. And I just, worship is so integral to who we are here. Now, styles of worship, well that becomes another thing. And I want to say, in terms of our family identity, in serving the king, God has given us what we feel is a pleasing way to worship him. A way that we believe expresses who we are before God. Now, for some of you, that's a difficult thing. And I know the struggle of working through that. But I want to say, it's time that we see our family identity is to worship the lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And if that for you is just so difficult that it's resulting in just such tension in your life, or a need to lash out at those who are involved in that, then I want to bless you and dismiss you to a place where you can go and enjoy worship. Well, that's pretty bold. You're telling me to leave if I don't like what you're doing? No, I'm saying it's so important that you learn to love God and to love loving God, that if you can't do it here, go somewhere where you can do it. I want to release you with blessing to go to another church where they worship a way that you can worship. But we've fixed a course and we believe it's of God. And the elders have confirmed it. And we're moving together in one spirit. We're learning and growing, but we're learning to worship together. Lord willing, in February, the times that I'm going to teach, it's going to be on the subject of becoming fruitful in worship. And I want to just share some things that the Lord has been showing me recently. The other part of our identity as a family, to serve the king, but to bring the kingdom. And the way we bring the kingdom, church, is through prayer. It's through prayer. That's the way Jesus said. Violent men take it by force through prayer. Now on your chairs right around you, there should be a recently printed up breakdown of the hours of the prayer chain that are not yet taken. Are they out? Okay, they're this gold color. We are going to begin just as soon as we get these covered, which I hope will be this week. For our prayer chain. These are the only hours remaining. How many of you have already selected an hour of prayer? Put your hand way up. Look around. Isn't that great? Praise the name of the Lord. There's probably maybe a third of you who have not yet taken one. We are going to begin assigning hours. Okay? That's right. If you do not call in, you will be assigned an hour. Seriously, we just yearn for all of us to participate. This is the time to look this over. There are a few tough hours in there. There are. By the grace of God, we are going to cover them all this week. This is part of bringing the kingdom here to the earth. Prayer, beloved, is happening. It's happening by God's grace. Who remembers the charge I gave at the end of last week's service? I said that God would stir up. I prayed for five men to come to Monday morning prayer meeting. Jay Dawson, are you here today? Poor Jay. Jay is in Sunday School teaching. Who remembers what it was like last Monday morning? Well, if you got up any before nine o'clock, it was snowing. No one expected it, so there was nothing on the roads. It was just one of those, I'm sure, strategies to keep the people of God from fulfilling their destiny. Twelve people came to pray. Isn't that great? Hallelujah! Two came in at a quarter to eight. So there were fourteen, but twelve people made it around six a.m. to pray. We had a glorious time together. Glorious time just learning to come before God and to seek His face. There is a wonderful release that's happening. Those of you who can come on Saturdays, there's a small group Saturdays, but the spirit is so sweet. I was there yesterday. It's a warm and vital spirit. It was enlivening to me. I just pray that you'll see a time, maybe with Ruth Dawson on Wednesdays. There are other meetings that you can check with down on Tuesday morning at the CRC with Ken Hobbs and the other downtown folks. Be part of a prayer meeting. Get in touch with bringing the kingdom here to earth. I could go on about that, but I don't have time. The second thing I want to talk about in the family are our family activities. Beloved, we don't do things around here just to keep busy. Unless you're retired, you know there's not enough time to get things done around the house that need to be done. Is that right? We don't have time just to keep making up activities. Rather, we believe that everything the Lord calls us to do is to build up life in one another, in our family. I'm going to ask a couple, Gary and Diane, to come up. I want to give an illustration of how activities, the life that we've learned to share together, has meant a release of building up in the lives of this couple. Gary and Diane Stabor, come on up. Gary and Diane have a tremendous testimony. I know I'm going to frustrate them by keeping it short this morning. Another time, they're going to tell you their whole story. They're just going to give an illustration of what God has done through the activity of this family to make a difference in their lives. I'd love to give them half an hour, because they would just bless your socks off, but they're only going to get about 30 seconds. Well, North Way has been a real family to me and Diane and our children. Three years ago, we came here, and we were broken down and family ready for a divorce and a real bad situation in our lives. A lot of brothers in this community here has been a real brother to me and a family to my kids and myself. They've been growing me to be a man of God. About eight months ago, our home group was very diligent, and their wives suffered a lot. They came and built my business and a barn that I had to restore our family and funds that we would need to support our family. I just really thank them brothers for that and this church. That was a real family. They came daily and night after work that they worked at their own job to come and work until two in the morning to help me get my family together. I just have to say amen to everything Gary has said, and also to say that if it wasn't the love that we received from Jay and from Fred in counseling and from our brothers that built our business, we wouldn't be here right now. When we first came here, like Gary said, we were two broken and torn people and just thought there was no hope left. We had just gone through a lot and were bitter, and we didn't trust anyone. When we came here, the love that surrounded us, we didn't really understand it. We kept waiting for something to happen, for people to stop loving us, and they never did. Even though they didn't see the fruits right away from that love, they continued to love us. I just thank them for that from the bottom of my heart. I thank the Lord for bringing us here and for giving me a new husband and for giving my husband a new wife. Amen. New Life is what it's all about. Their testimony, I believe, if we had the time, could be shared over and over again here in our body. One of the key ingredients in that, beloved, is the home group ministry. Our home groups are not activities. I just pray that you don't see it as a program that you can choose to be part of or not. But this is your church, and that's part of being part of this church. Now, we have prepared for you something. Fred, if you could give me one of these, please. These little salmon-colored cards are a directory update. There's probably a hundred of you here today who are not in the new directory we just released about a month ago. But we can insert pages, and so if you need your name and address in there, go ahead and fill this out. But most importantly, if you're not part of a home group and you say, well, hey, I've been playing with this, but it's time. I want you just to mark on here, see me about home group, or even just circle your name. And we'll know that circle means you want someone to talk to you about a home group. You won't be assigned. You'll just be, someone will come and visit you and talk to you about being part of a home group. Just mark on there some way, talk to me about home group, or circle your name, and we'll know. Otherwise, fill it out for the directory if you are not in the new directory. We so want to enfold you, but we can't do it unless you communicate with us. You can put these in the offering box as you leave today. I could go on. I'd love to. I need to go to the next item, though. Family, we need to talk about money. Money. How many people are part of a family where you talk about money? Come on. Every family talks about, you say, but money sounds so mercenary. Well, in your family, do you talk about, you know, principles of stewardship, resource, investment? You know, we don't put biblical names on a home. We call it money. Honey, I'm out of money. I need some money. Honey, I need some of God's supply and resources. We need to have a talk about our stewardship of the grocery money. It's money. That's what we're going to talk about. Real open-faced, we're going to talk about money. Family, God has been so wonderfully faithful. There have been times that we didn't know, but by His grace, He's been faithful. Never too late. I think we have a graph. Do we, Paula? Steve, do we have a graph? This is a graph of how God has supplied through you to carry on this ministry. Is that making a lot of sense there, it looks like? From our humble beginnings, not quite five years ago, in 1985, through your giving, there was about $560,000 that had been given to the ministry. Gone all through our missions network around the world, getting us established here in this building and so on. By faith, we see 1986 being a year of considerable growth in our handling of money. I want to talk to you about this issue because it bears on our ability to carry on the activity that we talked about, that Gary and Diane mentioned, that I mentioned in terms of bringing the kingdom. Last year at this time, we were sitting in a cold, old Catholic church. Who remembers that? You remember it was cold anyhow, don't you? Our offering during the month of January of 1985 was about $5,000 or $6,000 a month. It was a very difficult time because it appeared as though something awful was happening. It was a trauma to us. We were breaking up and all the rest in terms of not being able to be all together. It was a test, no question about it. During that time, we were praying for the Lord to supply because we knew we were going to have to do something to get a place. I'll never forget through listening to some teaching, the Lord impressed me. One day I was praying and said, Lord, meet our needs. Lord, supply. The Lord said, what do you want me to supply for you? I said, what? It got my attention because I was praying generally. Lord, supply my needs. The Lord made it clear to me that I was to ask him for what exactly I felt the need was. I said, Lord, really, to begin to grow toward what it is you want to do with us, we need $10,000 a week. There's a handful of men here today with whom I shared that. The Lord put on my heart to begin to pray for $10,000 per week. Remember now, we were only moving at $5,000 or $6,000. Do you know that by May, God loosed this building and we were able to receive it? People started to give and our offerings rapidly went up. In May and June, we averaged $10,000 per week in giving. On through the summer and into the fall. You know what I began to see was that the ministry was growing. New people were coming in. We had more to do. More outreach was taking place. The Lord pressed my heart to believe him to give $15,000 a week. Now, I didn't pray on Friday night at the concert of prayer and walk in on Sunday and have $15,000 there. But over the months, the Lord began to increase. Some weeks would go down and everyone would say, It's going down, Jake. But a couple weeks later, God would bring it up. God would help us to just carry that. Do you know that in November and December, we averaged somewhere between $13,500 and $14,000 per week in giving to this ministry. We're getting near that $15,000 figure. Now, it's gone down in January. As much as we don't like it, it's natural. Because we're all rocked a little bit by our holiday. But beloved, we elders faced a tremendous decision about what we're going to do to finish this building. How many of you know God is not a God of incompleteness? He said something when Jesus died that came out of his own lips. Brothers, can we handle the ring here, please? He said on the cross, it is finished. God is a God of finishing. I don't believe that we're to just keep this building sort of in a two-thirds completed mode. And so the elders began to seek the Lord about it. And I want to say honestly, we said, Well, what should we do? About 150 or 160 people made a pledge to the building fund. And that was wonderful. But that's about a third of a total number of giving units that we have, families. And we began to just say, Lord, what are we supposed to do? And we began to talk to people who are in Christian resource stewardship companies. They don't call themselves Christian fundraisers. They've got to put a spiritual name on it. But we talked to them. I hope that doesn't shock anybody. We didn't know what to do. Because we made the plea, but it just wasn't happening. Now, I don't want to minimize what some of you are doing. I know some people who are sacrificing greatly. I know that. And it's been wonderful, but we're not making it. At this rate, it's going to be at the end of the year at best that we'll finish the simple renovations. And do you know, beloved, we're going to pay $78,000 in interest this year. That's three missionaries full time on the field. It's going to go to the bank. And we're saying, well, Lord, you certainly want to do something. And I have to say, it was a wonderful night with the elders in January, early in January. When we came together, we prayed about it. We'd made calls. Brothers, you want to come up right now, please? We came together and we said, Lord, what is your purpose for us? What is your plan? And to a man, church, the elders of this congregation determined that God would have us to pray for those finances. To pray and begin to believe him specifically for $20,000 per week. To release our faith in light of what he's been revealing of his faithfulness toward us. To believe him, to pray for that. And so these men, including Scott, who's not here this morning, we set ourselves to begin to pray for that $20,000 a week. Believing that God would supply to you. That he'd prosper you. That he'd release you with wisdom in your jobs and in your finances. To be able to rise up into that. Now, deacons, would you come and pass out those things I gave you, please? Brothers, I don't know if any of you want to share anything about that. But if you do, this is the time to do that. We came at one heart about this. And what we determined to do was to ask you to pray with us. For this $20,000. That you begin to say, Lord, every day release $20,000 to our family. Because we need that supply. But on these cards, you're going to see something else that's there. You also are going to be asked to do something very specific. To put an action with your faith. And we're asking everybody in the body to consider this. Now let me explain it. Look up here for a second. The cards are, you'll get to take those with you. Okay? We said, Lord, what can we do that everybody could contribute to? That everyone would feel part of and not one more than another. You see, if you set a dollar figure and we say, well, every family give $50 a month, that'd be wonderful. Some families can give $50 with no problem. Some, their whole budget's whacked if they try that. The church, the Lord showed us this. And it was something that I just felt was really, really right for us. If we'll each one, each giving unit, each family, couple, whatever, individual, will commit one day's salary per month to the building fund, we'll be able to move with great speed toward that goal of $20,000 a week. You see, what that principle is, is this. It's equal sacrifice. Not equal gifts. Equal sacrifice. So that Ken Hobbs making $100 a day. I've got to be careful where I'm going next here. And John Size, because he's much younger, making $75 a day. For them, it represents one day's labor. Do you see that? And the wage that they're earning for that day. Well, that month, just that one, each month, they would commit that much money to the building fund. Not their tithe, but to the building. To the completion of what God has given us. And now we see a way that if you're not working, and you're praying just for a job, then you're not under any obligation. You see, you don't have to feel like, maybe you can go out and just do a little side thing. There's a brother here, for example, I know that does detail work on cars. He waxes and buffs them up. Maybe he makes $30, $40 a car, $50 a car. That's his offering, you see. That's his expression. You can do something. But church, we've got to do something. We've got to move on with this now. It's within our grasp. But we've got to do something. Hallelujah. Now, do you want to share, brother? Yeah, where's the microphone? Okay. Grant Smith. I think it's important that we share, that I share. We spent a bit of time deliberating and praying and meeting with, although all the elders didn't meet with him, some of the men did, with a couple of organizations that are Christian organizations that are designed to help churches raise funds for projects and so on. And these are Christian men, and they are sensitive to the Lord and so on. But the more we considered that, let me say this about what they're able to do. We're confident that if we had brought them in, they could unite us as a group. They could, we could set a goal, a financial goal, and they could do certain things in this body, and they can tell us that they can hit right on the goal. They can do it. And I believe they'll do it. I hope I haven't forgotten anything on that. I want to go on. I want to touch the next item in our family life, and that is our involvement in ministry. Okay? Our involvement in ministry. So much is happening through our ministry. So many people are being affected by the things that are going on. Jim, where are you? Are you going to come up, brother? Yeah, now's the time. Okay. Jim Fulmer and his wife Kathy are part of our body, and their lives are being impacted by the ministries that are going on around here, and being challenged by it. And I just want Jim to share for a moment what the Lord is stirring up in him right now. I'd just like to express my appreciation and how great it is to be a part of this body. I've been in different churches, and as Jay says, good churches around the area. Not to put a church down, good churches, solid churches. But there's something about North Way. God's doing a special thing here, churches. As we were singing the song, Standing on Holy Ground, I thought of Moses and him standing before the burning bush, and I thought, Moses probably passed that way many times. What made it so special this time? And it was because God was meeting Moses to covenant with him. And that's what God is doing among this body today. He is covenanting with a people, and we have a response to him. And I'm just excited, excited about North Way, what God's doing in our life, Kathy in my life, and the children. I've just been awakened, newly awakened, to the fact of my involvement with missions. And as I was hearing, heard Andy Kennedy speak and different missionaries, and different parts, and we see a need there. And it's, as Jay says, you can't go it alone. You need the support of a body. You need the prayer support. You need the en