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| Rev. Brent Russett |
By Rev. Brent
Russett
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, July 14th, 2013:
http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/14656/good_news_061_july14.mp3
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‘Take Hold of Life’
Good morning. And welcome to good news in the morning.
My name is Brent Russett. I am the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church.
It is my pleasure to look at some of life’s challenges, and then bring you some
good news in the morning.
This program is sponsored by Good News Christian
Ministries. If you want to look us up on the internet, or to re-listen to this
program you can find us at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca
This morning I want to talk to you about Taking hold
of the life that is really life.
As I have walked through life there
are times when I felt a deep sense of well being. Good friends and good
conversation – or just an incredible sense of – of inner strength. There has
been wonderful sense of the work of God happening in and around me.
There have been times when I have
been full of joy. There have been times when I have been so empty, so drained
of life that I could hardly move. There is a tiredness of body, which is a good
thing after a hard day’s work. There is a tiredness of soul that is not so
good.
I have lived much more of my life
than I care to admit in survival mode. You make it by but you don’t really
live. I been in places where I was full of life and places where I felt like the
walking dead.
I suspect that many of you can
relate to that. Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t
buried until they are seventy-five.”
Here is what I have come to
understand about the gospel. I believe it was the church father Irasmus who
said, “God’s glory is the earth creature made fully and eternally alive with
the life of the Spirit.” Or to put it plainly
said, the glory of God is men and women fully alive.
God
is most glorified in you when you are most alive in him.
Music – Fully Alive by Bill and Gloria
Gaither 4:13
God is most glorified in you when
you are most alive in him. That is a different way to measure you spiritual
life. Your spiritual live is not measured by how much bible you know, or how
many prayers you say, or how religious you are – those are just means to an end
– the end of being fully alive in God.
So the question is how do you know
you are fully alive. What does that look
like? How do you measure life.
Is life measured by the amount of
adrenaline rushes you have? Well you do feel fully alive in the middle of an
adrenaline rush. But do you have to risk death to experience real life?
Is life measured by the amount of
money or the amount of toys you have? Well those things are fun. And sometimes
we feel most fully alive when we are at play. But is that the extent of life –
how hard we play?
Is life measured by how we look?
Some people spend a large proportion of their life at the gym, and shopping so
that they can look good. Is life measured by how good you look?
Is life measured by good meals. I
like a good meal. If I could I would eat out most nights. But is life measured
by the restaurants you visit?
I know what you are thinking. You
are thinking that the right answer, the Christian answer to whether life is
made up of Adrenline rushes, and toys and looks and meals is no. But that would not be the answer that
Jesus would give.
I want you to come with me to the
sermon on the mount. Remember Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people in the
backwoods of Israel. The crowd would be made up of subsistence farmers, and
trades people. So their primary concern was what am I going to eat, and where
am I going to get clothes, and where am I going to live.
This is what Jesus says.
Matthew 6:25–34
(NLT)
25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you
have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than
food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds.
They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father
feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can
all your worries add a single moment to your life?
28 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and
how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet
Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And
if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into
the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little
faith?
31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will
we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the
thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.
33 Seek the Kingdom of God* above all else, and live
righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Now I recognize that the primary
reason that Jesus is saying these things – is to instruct us on futility of
worry. That is good to reflect on. But
look what he says to these people.
Verse 25 Life is more than food, and you body
more than clothing.
If he was talking to us, I think the
cultural translation would be that life is more than adrenaline rushes, and
toys, and how you look, and what you eat.
That is part of life, but life is more than that.
And as for the basics in life, like
what you eat and what you wear and where you live. Jesus says in Verse 32 You heavenly
father knows all your needs.
So playing and food and clothing and
even adrenaline rushes are part of life. But life is more than just these
things.
In fact Jesus would go further he
would say
Luke 12:15
(NLT)
15 Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of
greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”
So while those things are a part of
life, you life is not measured by how much you own. So contrary to the saying
that is going around that says “The one who has the most toys at the end wins”
– Jesus would say, no that is not how you measure life.
So
how do you measure life? How would you know if you are more fully alive now
than you were a year ago.
That is a question I have wrestled
with for a while. What does it mean to be fully alive?
I have come to the conclusion that
life is not like a light switch. It is not an on off proposition. It is more
like a fuel gauge that is somewhere between full and empty.
And the reality is, we are not in
heaven yet. We will not be truly fully alive until we are. There are just too
many things in this world that suck life from us. So our gauge is never going
to reach entirely full. But maybe we should have an earth gauge. What does full
of life on earth look like?
The Hebrews have a word – it is
probably the only Hebrew word most of you know. The word is Shalom. They would
use it in a greeting. I might say “Gidday, Gidday” – I’m from the valley. A
Hebrew person would say “Shalom”. It is a greeting an a blessing. It means peace, well being. It is the idea
that things are as they should be. There is something in there that speaks of
life.
God created the world and it was
good, and things are as they should be. That would be real life.
When God created the world, things
were right between God and us. They were not only right, they were great.
Things were right between us and others. There was an openness to be who we are
without shame. Things were right in ourselves. We walked in right relationship with ourselves. We walked in right
relationship with the world around us.
Right relationship with God, and others and ourselves and the world.
Things are as they should be – Shalom. That might be a good definition of life.
At least I think it gets at a facet of life.
Music – Fill my Cup Lord – By the Vocal
Union (2:47)
But let’s think about another way to
think about the Bible talks about life. Jesus was eating with tax collectors
and sinners and being criticised for it. Jesus said to the people criticising
him,
Mark 2:17
(NIV)
,
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I
have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Put that verse together with Romans
3:23 The wages of sin is death.
Sin causes death. The reason why God
hates sin so much is that sin brings death and that goes against all that God
is. But in the way Jesus describes sinners in this particular passage is that
they are sick.
Another way to think of life is to
think about health. Not physical health, although your body is part of your
life – just not all of it as Jesus said. There is this spiritual health.
Sin is like a poison, and toxin. The
more of it you have the unhealthier you are, the less life you have. That fuel
gauge, that goes between life and death. The more toxin in your system, the
more death the less life you have.
And you know that. You know that
people who are full of hatred and bitterness – are like the walking dead. You
know that when you enter into slander and gossip and backbiting, that there is
something wrong in your soul. You know that when you engage in sexual sin, or
relational sin, that it hurts you on the inside. Those things have a way of
poisoning your heart. You live but you don’t.
Think about the opposite. When your
heart is full of love, full of peace, full of hope – there is that sense of
well being. There is a sense of aliveness.
So we can think of life as health.
But it is more than physical health. It is more than emotional health. There is
a spiritual health. Jesus has made a way that you might be forgiven – detoxified
as it were, through his death on the cross. He has made a way so that you might
be forgiven and cleansed.
That is a helpful way to understand
life. How much poison is in my system. How much am I ingesting. What am I doing
to be healthy.
I want to lay one last understanding
of life on your mind before I pull this thing all together. Jesus was talking
to his disciples about communion. This is what he says. (And I like the message
paraphrase of it.
John 6:63
(The Message)
The
Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen.
Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making.
Or
the new living translation puts it this way.
John 6:63
(NLT)
63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing.
And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
The Spirit gives life. The words I
speak are spirit and life. You are not going to get their through human effort.
There is a word for us who are prone
to be religious. You can’t make life happen. All you can do is put yourself in
a place to receive the life giving spirit.
It kind of reminds me of Jesus’
words, “I
am the vine, you are the branch.” If you are attached to the
branch and there is a uninhibited flow of sap, the branch is full of life. But
if you are unattached then you can’t get the life that God wants for you. And
if the flow is broken, life is inhibited.
If you want full life, you have to
be connected to Jesus. That is where it starts. Because it is the Spirit of God
who gives life – you are not going to get there by trying harder.
But if you are connected to Jesus,
then the question is are you fully alive, or are you sick. Are you walking in
right relationship with God, yourself, others and this world?
I am hoping that you are moving a
direction where you can say I am fully connected to God and I sense his life
flowing in me, and through me to others. It is not that the rest of life like
what you eat or how you look, doesn’t matter. It just that those things don’t
define real life.
God
is most glorified in you when you are most alive in him.
The question I want to ask you is,
are you willing to take the risk to come fully alive in Jesus. Are you willing
to deal with the poison and the death in you. Are you willing to take on those
things that block you. If you are really
looking to live, you are going to experience pain and failure. There will be
some risks involved. You are going to have to step outside the walls of your
heart, and invite others into your heart.
You might hear yourself say,
“Embracing all this is too much, too hard; it’ll take too long,” or “This looks
too scary.” Walking over unfamiliar ground, you feel yourself stumble and say,
“I can’t do this.”
As Ken Davis says, When it comes to living, it’s the
never-ending adventure of being a follower of Christ that keeps the wow in my
life. The wow of life lived fully alive is breathtaking. It can also be intimidating.
Choosing to become more fully alive
is more than the movie platitudes of
Carpie Deim, Seize the day. This is more than, you only have one life to live
so grab all the gusto you can. No, this is about Jesus.
Jesus said "I have come that you might
have life and have it to the full." So I am calling you like Paul called
Timothy – Take hold of the life that is really life.
So the question is are you willing
to do what you need to do to move into Shalom. To walk in right relationship
with God, with yourself, with others, with the world around you.
Are you willing to deal with the
toxins that are poisoning your soul and stealing your life? Are you willing to
plug into the vine, plug into Jesus who is the source of life.
God is most glorified in you when
you are most alive in him. Will you say Lord, I want to be fully alive in you.
I am willing to follow you as you lead
me into life.
Prayer:
Lord
Jesus, You are about life. You are about a life that comes and dwells in us.
By
your cross you have made a way that we could deal with sin that’s in our life, and
the toxins in our life.
I pray, even now, that people would say, “Jesus, Come, forgive
me. Take the sin away. Give me your life.”
Lord,
I pray that you would speak into peoples’ lives in such a way, that they would know
you; and you would teach them how to walk in right relationship with you, and right
relationship with themselves, and right relationship with others, in right relationship
with the world.
I pray,
Lord, that you would be so a part of what they’re about, that they would sense your
life flowing in them and through them.
Lord,
I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you, Listeners for your words of encouragement,
and for keeping us in your prayers., Keeping
this program on the air continues to be a work of faith. As you probably know,
the summer month are financial struggle. If you can help with that, please make
out a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries, Box 184 , Rideau Ferry
, On. K0G 1W0. Or you can give online by
going to goodnewsinthemorning.ca
If
you go to that website, goodnewsinthemorning.ca you can also follow us on
twitter, or our blog.
Alan Churchill,
the founding pastor of this ministry is writing a monthly devotional. Alan is
well known for his spiritual insight and ability to communicate the truth of
God. If you would like to receive this devotional, go to our website at
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(It has been a pleasure to spend
this morning with you. My name is Brent Russett. You can follow me on twitter.
@brentrussett)
May you know
Jesus Christ personally and profoundly.
May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart . And may the heavenly Father surround you with
His constant and abiding and accompanying love
- Rev. Brent Russett
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To listen to
the above broadcast, click on the following link:http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/14656/good_news_061_july14.mp3 
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