When Life Hurts I, Persevering Through Pain

Let's be seated together. Good morning. First thing I want to do is I want to thank our worship team and tech team and all our servants. Weren't they great? They did a great job today. And really, I mean, they all had to get up substantially earlier than even you did and come at a time that was even less secure than when we traveled over. And I just want to thank all of them. I know what a sacrifice that was because these aren't paid folks. These are folks who just are helping us to have an experience together. And then I secondly want to acknowledge today a special worshiper who's not a guest, but actually a longtime member who's back from a very, very serious moment when she almost decided it was time to leave this earth and go to heaven, but the Lord said, No, I want you to stay here. And she's here to worship. And I can't quite see, but I know she's here. Nancy Van Gorder, would you raise your hand? Where are you, Nancy? Right back here in front of the booth. God bless you. Wasn't that long ago that Nancy was saying, I don't know if she's in heaven. She wasn't sure, but I'm glad she's staying around and pretty soon she'll start bossing people again. And she's sweet that way. Raised our kids in preschool. By the way, tomorrow's her birthday. I don't know how many of them. It won't even say. It's 40-something. And anyhow, Nancy's just awesome. It's great to have her with us. And finally, I want to say this, folks. You know, Mike, he calls it a stress clock. But actually, I thought today, Mike, no, that should be a rejoicing clock, dude. That's the clock that says, Man, life's about to really change for you. 21 hours. I was over in Oakland with Mike and Pastor JR just a couple days ago. And folks, I'm so proud. I'm so proud of what Chris and his team is doing over there to prepare that place. And we are going to have really the most outstanding campus venue that I think we've ever seen around here. And it's going to be a magnet. I was talking to some professional folks from Oakland last night who were here worshiping with us. And they were saying how they're already passing the word around. And people are really curious. And what is it? And we haven't even put up signs yet. They don't even know what it's going to be. But it's going to be awesome. And life is going to start breaking out here just about the right time. Here's a really, really weird thing. But our open date was supposed to be February. Could you have imagined if we'd opened in February and we've had this kind of weather? March 18th is a lot better date, it looks like. And the Lord knows what He's doing. So I'm excited about that and lots of other things I could talk about. But we only have a limited amount of time today. And I've gone too long in the last two services. I'm going to talk real fast and go. Get your notes out. Let's go. We're going to turn to Hebrews 12. Otherwise, you'll be here until it snows again or whatever. And this message this morning, in some ways, you know, I would expect, I could say this of most sermons. I wrote this to myself. And I did that because there are times in my life when there's a lot of different kinds of pain. Now, I'm probably not the only one that would say that. If you're younger, God bless you. You know, you haven't had the privilege of going through a lot of pain perhaps. If you're older, likely you have. I remember when I had my first sort of wake-up call with the fact that life wasn't always going to be as easy. I did really pretty well through high school and college. I accomplished quite a bit by God's grace. I don't need to go back and review all that. But I remember the day that I stood in front of my Marine Corps drill instructor. I was 23 years old. Kind of looked like Mike then. And he's sort of straight up and down, you know. And I was 6'2". He was about 5'6". I looked like down on this guy. He looked up at me and he said, there's a certain language that Marine Corps drill instructors have that probably isn't appropriate for Sunday morning. But he let me know that he was going to make it his mission to help me see that I was going to not be allowed to mess up his blank, blank Marine Corps. And that along with, you know, a few other folks in my 46-man platoon, I wasn't going to get through to the 10 weeks that he was responsible for. And I don't know if I said this in those services, but in that 10 weeks, which in the Marine Corps is really the essence of the basic training for officer candidate school, they can make life pretty tough. And about 10 guys didn't make it. They dropped out. But I have to say, his challenge to me motivated me. Every time I thought about, man, this is really lousy, I remember thinking, you know, that guy is not going to get me out of here. I'm not going to, I'm just, you know. And they got away with some stuff they shouldn't have gotten away with. But nonetheless, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of this. We are here today, and whether we like it or not, we have an enemy. Now that drill instructor wasn't really my enemy. It was his mission, it's his responsibility to shape me into a person that the Marine Corps could use. I understand that. But we have an enemy of our soul who says this. He says, I want to get you out of God's army. And, loved ones, listen, we are called in Scripture soldiers in the army of God. Now, I happen to like that metaphor. There are a lot of you who don't like that. You'd rather, you like the, you know, we're God's field or God's garden or something, you know, I guess. But we're called the army of God. That's part of who we are. And there is an enemy. And one of the things that has just struck me so clearly is we're fighting an enemy, and many of us are not really aware. And we're not prepared to fight. And we wake up each day kind of, you know, sort of gliding through life, just sort of thinking that it's going to be fine. And this last six or eight weeks has been a tremendous wake-up call to us that this is, I mean, people left and right are having struggle and difficulty. And this enemy, he's out to, the Bible says, steal, kill, and destroy. That's his mission. And his target is you. So how do you persevere in the midst of that? That's what we're going to talk about today and the next three weeks, actually. I find that the enemy uses three specific things. This isn't on your outline, but you might want to draw it on the side. Three specific, I guess, tools. And I hate to say it that way because you're not going to like them. The first one is people. Have you found that people are often your biggest problem? I've often said to Carol, I'd love the ministry if it wasn't for people. I mean, ministry's great. I mean, we have, like, awesome times together, you know, just doing stuff, baptisms. John is awesome. But people and their problems. How many of you have had a person break trust with you? A person disappoint you? A person lie to you? I mean, that crushes you, doesn't it? The second one is just the problems or circumstances of life. The unexpected things that happen to us that just blow us out of the water. Monday, I got a series of bang, bang, bang calls on my cell phone. And I think it was Pastor JR that called me first and said, did you hear about Dan? And Dan Saverin, most of you know, has been around. He's one of our pastoral team members, been here seven years or so. And every night he goes with his boys up to Seven Springs, one of the local resorts there to ski. It's something that, you know, we just sort of try to help our guys get some family time when they can, you know. And Dan's a great skier. I mean, he goes out west from time to time, and this guy knows what he's doing. And here, long story short, Dan hit a tree on a double black diamond slope at Seven Springs. And I mean, I don't mean glanced off a tree. To hear him, I talked to him yesterday. He said, Jay, it was as if I never saw it. I don't know what happened, but I guess I went to cut, and I hit ice, and I just hit this tree. And Dan broke five vertebrae in his back and two ribs and punctured his lung. And he said to me yesterday on the phone, he said, Jay, for a minute or so, he said, time was kind of frozen. He said, but I know it was at least a minute, maybe 90 seconds that I could not breathe. And I remember thinking, if I don't breathe soon, I'm going to die. Now, I haven't asked him yet what he was thinking, you know. I'm not going to laugh. I'm not going to laugh. I'm sorry I'm laughing. But what was going to happen when he died? But then the first little bit of breath got into his lung, and then he was able to finally, you know. And then folks who saw him hit the tree knew that he was hurt. And a couple came over off the main trail, and he whispered, ski patrol, ski patrol. And they literally, he said, the next several moments as they dragged him down the slope in the back, he said he thought he was going to die going down on that sled. And then a life flighted him right from that location to Presbyterian Hospital here in Pittsburgh. But Dan's life was just going along. He was great. He was skiing, having fun with his boys, and then boom. Friends, do you know how many times over the years I've stood up here and said, I mean, if today's going great, praise God, but we just don't know about tomorrow. So be ready today for whatever might come. And that's what today's message is kind of about. Third thing that happens to any of us, you know, is the first one's people. The second one's just the problems. And the third one is when you start to depend upon yourself more than God, it's the power source of your life. I didn't know how else to describe this, but it's simply this. The more mature you are, and if you're here in a storm like this and in a day like this, chances are you're fairly committed to the idea of following Christ. I mean, I don't think there's too many casual followers who would chip ice off their car and risk it. Let me just encourage you with something. Please be careful, because I find I'm prone to this. The longer I walk with Christ, the more I think I kind of know what's going to happen, and the more susceptible I become to sort of just depending on me. And I want you to know that is a recipe for falling prey to one of the enemy's traps. So, those are the three sources. Those are the ways that the enemy comes in. What do you do about it? Well, here's where the outline comes into play. And let's read from Hebrews 12. And aren't you glad? By the way, sometimes problems or sometimes obstacles come because you're trying to do something great. Let me just tell you, we're going to face some obstacles when Oakland opens. We're going to face some challenges. We're going to go into a culture that doesn't understand us. So, sometimes we face problems because we're doing something really good. It's not always because we're doing something that's not right. But here's what Hebrews 12 says. And by the way, it's God's Word. This isn't Jay's self-help plan. This isn't the best of. This isn't, hey, give this a thought. It's the Word of God. Let's look at it together. Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. That's where the title comes for today, Persevering Through Pain. Many of you wish I was up here to tell you how to just get rid of your pain. But sometimes God does not lift the pain. Sometimes He does. Praise God. Sometimes He heals miraculously. He delivers. You're going to hear a story today of how He did that in one person's life. Sometimes He just says persevere. The four reasons I see in Scripture, four motivating reasons for us to persevere. The first one is this. I persevere when I remember that my heroes are watching. That's the first blank in your eye. I remember that my heroes are watching. The Bible says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. In Hebrews, it says, therefore. Now my fourth grade English teacher said, every time you see a therefore, ask, what's the therefore therefore? Right? What is the therefore therefore here? You think back about Hebrews 11. What is Hebrews 11? It's the hall of faith, right? It's the listing of the 43 or so men and women who stood. And the Bible says, by the way, and some didn't live all the way through. Some died for the name of Christ. He says, therefore. We've got this great cloud of witnesses. Now I started thinking, how can I help you understand how many people are watching you as you stand for Christ? And I thought, well, I'll take you down to Heinz Field and let you stand out there and be surrounded on a Sunday afternoon with 70,000 people saying, Go Chuck! Don't give up. Don't give up, Kate. And wouldn't that be unbelievable? But this is way more than that. The word cloud, when it says great cloud there, that word is descriptive of an innumerable mass. It's like this huge number of people. All the followers of God from pre-Christ to now are in heaven somehow cheering us on. Isn't that awesome to think about? To me, it motivates me. It fires me up to think that when I feel alone, when I feel like there's stuff out there, people are cheering me on. Occasionally I get asked about my great-great-grandfather, the one who fought and passed in the hospital, who was a Lutheran minister, for those of you who didn't know how that whole thing started, down in the Hill District. He went into where the poorest of the poor were, just a couple of miles from Oakland, actually. And you know what? I bet he's up there cheering me on and saying, he's saying, What's up with you? Get moving. He started four hospitals, 26 institutions, three orphanages, 10 churches, a seminary, Teal College. This is all in like 1860 without a cell phone. And here I am, like every modern convenience, I've got one church going. He said, You're lame. Get moving. Cheering me on. Cheering me on. Hallelujah. Friends, listen. The same thing is true of you. You're being cheered on. Don't lose sight of that. And I have to tell you, one of the things that's particularly interesting about the way Satan works, some of you think, Well, you know, this is why I made it to church today. I wanted to be encouraged a little bit and be reminded that I'm not alone in this, and that's a great thing. But when you step into the office on Monday, and many people say, Well, I just, Jay, if you knew the people I work with, or the person I live with, or the situation in school, whatever, you just, it's so hard to be a Christian there. But let me just tell you something. You need to understand that you're just as surrounded in that moment as you are in this moment right here. I used to play high school basketball, and one of the places that we would play basketball that was most challenging was, if you're from the area, if you think way back, this was way back, about, you know, when the lava was starting to finally coalesce on the earth. In Monaca High School, what they did, the school was really small, and so they made their auditorium, which was, I'm going to say, maybe a third of the size of this room. And that and their gymnasium were in the same room. So you literally played basketball on the stage. I mean, it was a regular WPIL team, but the court was like three-quarters size. Now, Mike will tell you, he's a pretty good basketball player. That just throws everything off. I mean, you know, you think you've got this much room to go up, but you don't. You step out of bounds. And on top of that, they had this track built. So the students would stand up there, and they'd throw stuff, and they'd scream at you, and they'd make fun of you. And every team that went to Monaca lost when they played Monaca at home. It didn't matter how good they were. They just lost because Monaca figured out how, I mean, it was like six feet from the end of the three-point line to the midline. I mean, it's just unbelievable. And every place Monaca went, they lost because they didn't know how to play outside of that little tiny court. And I started thinking, your home court advantage, if you will, is everywhere you go because you're surrounded by a gray cloud of witnesses. Think of somebody here at North Way that's praying for you tomorrow. Think of somebody that you care about. And if you're not in a group, if you don't have someone to share with, you need that support. You need that personal kind of touch. So, number one, remember the heroes that surround you. And don't ever forget that you're not alone in this. Then the next thing it says is, it says, throw off the weights or everything. I like the word weights. It's a more accurate translation of the exact Greek word. The weights that hinder. Now, something that hinders isn't necessarily bad or sinful. Something that hinders is just something that's sort of awkward, something that obscures, makes it difficult. Kaylee has something for me here. This is what I had on the other day. I think it was Friday in my car. Got in the car, got to tip the ice off again. I was so glad when it's spring. And this is just a regular old, you know, ski golf type thing. And when I got in the car, and I tried to push the buttons for the heater. You know, I look like the Incredible Hulk, right? I'm pushing these buttons, and everything's flashing. And I cannot make it work. So I had to take this off, and then I could push the rear window defroster and so on. Okay. Is there anything wrong with the glove? No. But it prevented me from doing what I needed to do. Got the picture? Thanks, Kaylee. She's athletic, too. Isn't that awesome? All right. Friends, the things that entangle our lives, the things that are weights are everywhere. And I don't know if I said this very clearly in previous services. I want to say it real clearly to you. I think that that particular problem, the weights, the things out there that aren't necessarily evil, but are distractions from God's best, that's the number one issue that the church faces. And here, let's just do something a little bit interactive right now. You're really spread out. I think that's just a function of the fact that a lot of people made it a little bit late. That's fine. I want you to just turn to the person next to you, or slide down a couple chairs. And I want you to share one thing in your life that you've experienced that's a bit of a distraction from really being wholeheartedly focused on what God wants you to get done. All right? Think of one thing. Just one thing. Go ahead. Slide over, tell somebody next to you. What's one thing that maybe gets in your way once in a while that's not evil, not sin, but just keeps you from doing God's best? Go ahead. Take a minute. We're not going anywhere. Just one thing that's an obstacle. All right? Good. Now, how many of you thought of more than one thing right away? All right? All right? Help me out. Somebody share. Tell me one thing. Thank you. Television. How about just entertainment in general? Friends, in this culture, we saturate ourselves with entertainment. I mean, many days I walk around, and if you walk in a mall and you see a person under 20, they've got these two little wires hanging down, which is they're being entertained. They're not communicating. Television. Average American, four and a half hours a day. We just saturate it. Is it wrong? Well, no, it's not wrong. It's not sinful, but four and a half hours a day of TV and a couple of hours on the Internet, and that's all time away from what God may want you to do. What's another thing? No, no, no. Wait a minute. Work, work, work. Think about it. You just work. I mean, work in a sense is an essential thing, right? I mean, God, it's a good thing to work. If you stopped working, you would stop that sense of production, that sense of meaningful production. I have a little difficulty thinking that's an option. I think God actually created us to work. But I understand when you say, well, if I didn't have to work, then I could spend all this time with God. I would encourage you to talk to someone who's been out of work for a year and see if that's true. They really, really get discouraged. So I'm not so sure about that one. How about another one? How about, well, substances? How about food? Okay, I mean, you know, anything wrong with food? No, but some people count every single calorie that they have. I mean, you know, it's like their obsession. And some people, on the other hand, don't count anything. And they just, they're like, I mean, how about, I had someone ask me the other night, they said, well, is drinking beer against the Bible, Jay? And drinking beer against the Bible, well, I couldn't find anything in there. So I guess, you know, no, I guess I can't say it is. But it could certainly be something that if, you know, if you let that get a hold of you, it'll certainly distract you. And it could become a sin. Certainly getting drunk on beer is not a biblical thing. And on and on we could go. I mean, we could talk about just about a million different things that are weights. I mean, they're just things that get in the way. And I just want you to be encouraged, friends, in our culture, and I want to say in this church, I think this is one of the things that sometimes, you know, I don't want to pour like discouragement on you because we're designed to have great things and to enjoy life. And I don't think God wants us to stop having moments that we celebrate. Someone said to me, well, I haven't heard you say anything about cars yet, Jay, because that's your thing. That's your thing that you'd like to invest in. See, but I turn mine into a ministry. So I challenge you, you know. I mean, if you've got one that's really good, turn it into a ministry, then God will bless it. That's what I get. If David Watts is watching in the back, I don't see any fishing boat ministries going on back there. But it's just those things that are weights. Then let's quickly look on to another thing that says this. It says, and the sin that entangles. And I want to, I'd like to really hit this one hard, but I don't have enough time. Let me just say this. The idea there isn't so much of some besetting sin like your, like I've heard preachers talk about the thing that you just can't overcome, you know, your addiction to pornography it might be, or maybe it's alcoholism or whatever it might be. The word here, even though it's in the New King James, it's translated besetting, really means sin that is easily, readily, or unexpectedly upon you. The other day I took, this was on the Valentine's Day snowstorm, I took Tucker out late in the evening, just, you know, at the end of the day, and just to do like the nighttime run, okay. And we have about a, it's maybe a 30-foot, 40-foot walk from our house out to where we hook him up, and then he goes down. And I walked out with him and just let him go toward where he was supposed to be. He went out about five feet from underneath the deck of the house, and I've never seen a dog do this. He just walked out four feet and went whoosh. All four legs just went whoosh, and he went plop down. He was fine, didn't get hurt. I did what you did, Mike, I laughed. I took two steps, boom. And I just went right out and just landed on my side, unfortunately not on my head. And again, fortunately, there was enough snow underneath that ice that it just cushioned it a little bit. And I remember laughing at J.R.'s story about falling down the steps, and I realized, wait a minute, that's what sin's like. I looked out there, and I didn't see this. It just got me. One of the things that happens to us is this, friends. We can be cruising along, and then out of nowhere, a temptation comes along. Hey, you know, get in on this, or watch a little of that, or compromise this way. And I love that word, it entangles us. It just trips us up, and down we go. And be warned today that you won't be able to persevere if you get entangled with sin. And the number one sin in my book is unbelief. It's the idea that you're, you know what, you've got to control your life. That's why people gossip. That's why people do things that argue with God. That's why they exert themselves, because they can't trust God. It's the number one sin in my book. And some of you, by the way, I would sense even right now, are wondering just a bit if maybe this is just a little uncomfortable for you, because you're a control freak of sorts, and you like to have things your way. May I just appeal to you today? Maybe God wanted you just to know that today, listen, look, look up. Today is the day that you need to do this. You need to say, Lord, I want to release to you control of my life, and I want to believe you for the things that I've had control of, because I want to persevere. I want to finish the race. And that's a big thing. It's a big thing. I don't think life's going to get easier in the United States of America, friends. I think it's going to get more difficult for Christ followers. And we need each other to persevere and make it. Then the author goes on to say this. He says, You know, sometimes the Bible talks about walking the Christian life, but here it talks about running. And what's the difference between walking and running primarily? It's just the amount of energy we exert, right? And some of us, I have to say, some of you are very good. You're walkers, and you're steady. And, you know, the fluctuation of your emotional involvement is like this much. On a bad day, you're here. On a good day, you're here. And some of you, man, you're just like pedal to the metal. You are all out. The writer of Hebrews is saying he sees this as a race. It's a long race, so you don't sprint the whole way. But you've got to exert energy. And one of the things that I have found is this. People whose lives as Christians become boring or dull or meaningless or lifeless, and they sort of wander off and just sort of get... You know what it is? They don't make an investment. They don't run. They're just sort of walking along, and they get picked off. You read this, and I say, please. You folks that got baptized today, that's a great step in running the race. It's a great step because it's a step of saying, I'm serious about finishing. I'm serious about going on. Run the race with perseverance. It's endurance. It's energy. It's an investment. You know what I love about this church? If you find it difficult to run, there's people around you that are going to help you to finish. And I don't know how to do this. I keep doing it. Every time I do it, the guys sort of, like, laugh about it. But the reality is that we need each other in this thing. Some days I run better than other days. Mike, stand up a second, please. You know, we're about to start this project in Oakland. Now, I've got to tell you, I could do that. I could go down there and do that. I did it before. I did it here. But here's a guy. He's a lot younger. He's a lot more in touch with that culture. And he's going to do a lot better job. He's going to be down there living the life with those people. And there's going to be times he's going to say, I don't know what. I'm stumbling here, man. Help me out. Help me to figure out what to do. Right? I mean, period, probably. And at the same time, I'm going to look at Mike and say, Mike, man, you are so encouraging me to keep on, man, because what you're doing down there is you're just, you know, you're blasting through and making a difference. And it's this partnership. And that's what I want you to see about this church. Wherever you are, whatever your age, whatever, you know, how much, we've got young men and women. We've got more mature men and women to make the race and to finish it together. Amen? Amen. Thanks. That's the way it is. Let's finish the race. Let's not just play around with it. That's what I love about who we are and what we're doing. Looking to Jesus. I'd love to talk about that. I don't have time today. I'll maybe pick it up a little bit next week. The author and the finisher of our faith. You see, he's the one that started it. He's the originator. And he's the finisher. You know, I love, by the way, I love the fact that I'm one of the originators of this church. It gives you a certain sense of freedom, you know? I have people come up to me all the time and say, you know what? I'd love this church a lot more if we just sang more hymns. Got rid of some of these instruments. I say, that's great, but we're not going to do that. Why not? I say, because we started it a different way. I was there. I'm the founder. Along with some other guys. And we all agreed back then that we weren't going to be just traditional. We'll do a hymn now and then. End of argument. Okay? Well, I'm leaving then. Good. I mean, sorry. Sorry. No. It's just part of, you know, you know what the founding. Many times you hear in political discussions, what do the founding fathers mean? Well, the cool thing is, I can still tell you exactly what they meant. Jesus was the founding father of our faith. And he's also the perfecter. I want you to hear a story real quickly today. Can't do justice to it in a couple minutes, but I think you will get a sense of just how profound it was. You know, to be a missionary. I know I've often thought this. To be a missionary. If anybody should have special blessing in their life, shouldn't it be a missionary? If anybody should have, like, no problems in life and should have blessing and health and everything, you know, abundance, supply. Shouldn't it be a missionary? If they're going to leave, you know, the comfort of the North Hills or whatever part of the USA they're in and go into a foreign culture and live, you know, sort of day to day. Shouldn't they be blessed? I've always said, come on, God. Where's the justice in this? And yet, sometimes our missionaries face very difficult circumstances. More than I could ever even begin to describe. But I want you to hear real quickly a summary of a powerful story that you were a part of. So welcome Paul and Kay Carter and their families that come up together. Give them a big hand. Let's give them a couple of chairs, guys. This is Paul and Kay and Emma and Abigail. Welcome. Girls, are you going to stand? Yeah, okay, good. Dad's going to stand for a second. Well, let me tell you about the Carters. And the way I'm going to do this is just sort of a summary because we don't have a lot of time today. But if you were here around the holidays, you heard this story, a powerful story that we sort of lived from a distance and then we got deeply involved in. And up on the screen, you'll see a little bit of a timeline. On December 20th, just what, as I think about it, just a little more than two months ago. It's amazing when I think about it, right? Isn't it? More or less two months ago. Emma became sick. Emma is the lovely, taller young lady here in the back. And then the next day, Abigail became sick. Now, being sick, and by the way, they are in Senegal, West Africa, which is, you know, that's like not on the beaten path of anything. And what they do is they work with indigenous church planters. In other words, they help people who grew up in that part of the world to learn how to plant churches. And they had several years of training. Paul was in business, and he was very accomplished. He didn't, you know, this wasn't. I really churn when people say, well, people, you know, they become missionaries because they, you know, life wasn't going all that well here. These guys were doing really well. Paul is a bright guy. But he felt God's call on his life, so he took his whole family over there. Is that you, Kate, in the blue t-shirt? And there they are working with, you can see, the very dark-skinned folks from Senegal that they work with. Okay, so the kids, these two kids get sick. Well, that happens. But this sickness quickly escalates, and four or five days later, they're taken to the emergency room at the Dakar Hospital. Their diagnosis was that they had cerebral malaria. Eventually, in the next few hours, everyone was taken to the ICU. And then Paul and Kate said, you know, this is bad. This is getting really bad. And they got a hold of us over here at North Way, and we started to pray. I remember that. We were here. It was right around Christmas. By the 27th, both the girls were in the ICU. By the 28th, they were declining so rapidly that Emma slipped into a coma and was n