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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, February 9th, 2014:
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‘The Perils of Religion’
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 look at the Perils of Religion.
If
you are in university or if you are related to someone in university you will
know that this in mid term exam period. If you know someone in high school, you
will know that they have just come through exams.
I have done my fair share of exams. I don’t
know if you have ever done this before, but you study and you study and you
study for an exam, only to get into the exam to find that you have studied all
the wrong stuff.
If
you have ever had that feeling then you will get where the apostle Paul is
coming form in our scripture passage today. We are going to look at Philippians
chapter 3
Paul
had started the church in Philippi around 50 AD. A decade has now passed. Paul is
sitting in a Roman Prison and he decides to write one of his favourite
churches.
In
most of the other letters Paul writes to churches, he calls for some corrective
action. Paul doesn’t do that to the Philippi church. He just constantly affirms
them and teaches them. He also shares a little of his spiritual journey with
them. Today we get to peek in on his journey.
Paul
essentially says, I spent a lot of my life preparing for the wrong exam. What
you need to know about Paul is that he grew up in a religious home he went to a
religious school and he was always a religious person.
Paul
say the most important thing to me has always been, what does God think of me.
How do I get to approve of me? How do I get a thumbs up from God?
The
reality is that Paul was asking the questions that that most religions have
asked from the beginning of time. Greeks and Romans would honor their God by
sacrificing to them, to ensure that the gods were pleased and they got good
crops, or if not pleased, at least appeased so the gods wouldn’t be angry with
them.
Muslims
have their five pillars including declaring that there is no God but Allah and
Mohammad is his prophet, and praying 5 times a day and fasting during
Ramadan. By doing this they hope to
please God and get a thumbs up.
Paul
said, as I Jew I was trying to get God’s approval by following the law. He
studied the law. He followed the law. He interpreted the law. He lived the law.
He put his confidence in how he followed the rules set out in the first 5 books
of the bible. But now he says
Philippians
3:3–6 (NLT)
3 b We rely on what Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though
I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others
have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen
of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was
one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the
Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the
church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
Paul
says, I was as good as anyone and better than most at keeping the law of God.
That is where I put my confidence. No one could fault me for my effort. I was
the right kind of person, who did everything right. I was ready for my
spiritual exam – I was good. I was confident I was ready for the exam.
There
is a Christian equivalent to this. We don’t have formal Pharisees anymore but
we do have the 21st century Christian equivalent. An equivalent
where we could say, “If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts,
I have even more.
The
twenty-first century Paul would say grew
up in the church, I was dedicated, I was baptized, I went to Sunday School
every Sunday and earned a badge for perfect attendance. I memorized the books
of the Bible and always showed up at vacation Bible School and youth. I read
the bible every day and I prayed every day, and went through my prayer list of
everyone I knew who had a need. I went to church on Sundays, and I listened to the
sermon and I took notes, and I was even on the leadership team, I have taken my
turn in the Nursery and teaching Sunday School, and I attend a small group. I
even help out at a drop in center from time to time. Twenty first century Paul
would have said I was ready for the exam. I was pretty confident in what I had
done. I had a good track record.
Religious
human effort. It has been around forever. Paul tried it in the 1st
century, and a lot of people try it in the 21st century.
But
then Verse 7 notes the change.
Philippians
3:7 (NLT)
7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them
worthless because of what Christ has done.
I often feel sorry for people who are really religious. I
will pick on the Christian expression of religion – instead of all world
religions, because it is a little closer to home.
But it amazes me what people do in the name of religion.
I am not just talking about the bad things, like the crusades, where soldiers
were promised that they would go straight to heaven if they were killed in the
wars, because they were fighting for the church. I am talking about the good
things.
I was read a book about a journalist who came out of a
war zone and in order to try to get his head together he decided to do a
pilgrimage of monasteries in Greece. I found his description fascinating. He
encountered some real followers of Christ – but then he encountered monks,
living in monasteries, who were bitter, and petty, and didn’t really display
anything of the life of Christ.
These monasteries were difficult to live in. The food
wasn’t all that good. The work was hard. The schedule was grueling. The
discipline was harsh. Some of these brothers went through this for their
religion, but it looked like it didn’t bring them any closer to God.
Here
is the thing about religion. It is our attempt to get to God. But the good news
that Jesus brought us is that God came to us. Our attempts to somehow get to
God or somehow appease God or earn God’s favour are as Paul says – worthless.
The good news about Jesus is that we can
know God – but it is not through our religious observance. It is through
what Jesus has done for us.
Jesus,
the man who is God, came and he lived a perfect, sinless life. He was
crucified. On that cross, he took all the sin of the world, including your sin
and my sin upon himself. And then he died, and our sin was buried with him. On
the third day he rose from the dead to new life, and he offers this new life to
anyone who will receive it.
To
receive this new life, you have to renounce all self - efforts to earn God’s
favour. It is not your goodness, or your works of righteousness, or your
religious acts that earn God’s favour. Instead, all the work has been done by
Jesus. He took all that stood between you and God. If you renounce trusting in
your own goodness and put your full trust in what Jesus has done he has
promised to give you his life. Every lasting life.
The
way that many people do this, is that they express this belief in Jesus in the
words of a prayer. The prayer or the words aren’t magic, it is faith belief in
what God has done that matters. That faith puts God to work on your behalf.
But
praying a prayer like, God I recognized that all my goodness and all my attempts
to get to you will never work. But I recognize that your Son Jesus came and
made a way for me to know you. Jesus please take away my sin and everything
that stands between God and me. I don’t trust anything and give me your life,
everlasting life. I am trusting in you and you alone.
A
prayer something like that made in faith, applies the work that Jesus has done
for you, to you. Your sin is forgiven, you are given a new life. God’s Spirit
is placed inside you.
This
is the most important decision you can make, to trust Christ rather than trust
your own goodness. If you haven’t made that decision to trust Christ then, even
as we listen to this song, I want to encourage you to take that step of faith.
Use your own word ask Jesus to forgive you for your sin, Ask him to come into
your life, let him know that you plan to follow him, give your life to him.
Jesus always responds to prayers of faith like that.
MUSIC –. All the way my Savior leads me 4:36 Chris
Tomlin Album Hello Love
Now I
know that many of have put your faith in
Christ, and what I have said is only a reminder to you. But here is what I
believe you need to know. We begin our new life by faith and we continue our
life by faith.
The church in the town of Galatia had started by faith and then someone had come
along and said, you need to follow the law.
Paul wrote them a letter and said
Galatians
3:2–3 (NLT)
2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by
obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you
believed the message you heard about Christ. 3 How foolish can
you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now
trying to become perfect by your own human effort?
Paul
says to them, listen, you can’t do that. You can’t start by faith and then hope
to continue by human effort.
Here
is what I have observed. The longer one
is a Christian the easier it is to become more religious and less Christian.
When we first become Christians and we discover who Jesus is, there is often an
excitement about that. We have a hunger to know about him and to connect with
him and tell others about what we have found.
But
like with most things after a while the passion fades or maybe the right thing
to say is that it matures. It is kind of like getting married. The passion
experienced in the first year of marriage is different that the 10th
year of marriage. That doesn’t mean that your marriage is passionless – but you
fall into a routine of living together.
What
matters in your relationship is attachment. Are you still emotionally connected
to each other? The quality of marriage is determined by your emotional
connection to each other. You can have a date night every week, and work like a
well oiled machine together, or you can argue and disagree with each other. But
when it comes right down to it, the quality of your marriage is how connected
you are to each other.
It is
the same for the quality of our faith. We go to church, we pray regularly. We
read our bible regularly. Some us know that we should pray more or be into
scripture more – and we feel guilty about that. We try to live good lives. We
try to be kind to our neighbour. We let people at work know we are a Christian.
We live Christianly. But our faith becomes more of a routine.
There
is nothing wrong with routine. Routine helps us stabilize life. Routine help us
live life well. If you want to have a better life, have better routines.
Routines are good.
Having
a routine of prayer every day, and scripture reading every day, and going to
church every week – are positive things. But it moves from gospel to religion
when our routines become what is important. But the gospel isn’t about our
religious practices or even about being good.
Hear
the words of the apostle Paul
Philippians
3:8–11 (NLT)
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else,
counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and
become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying
the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.* For God’s way of
making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to
know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I
want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one
way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
I
want you to hear in that scripture Paul’s goals
Verse
8 – the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Verse
8 – so that I may gain Christ.
Verse
9 – that I might become one with him.
Verse
9 – I become righteous through faith
Verse
10 – I want to know Christ
Verse
10 I want to experience the mighty power that raised Christ from the dead.
Verse
11- I want to share in his suffering
Verse
11 – I want to experience resurrection
The
whole point of the gospel is about walking in relationship with Christ and then
walking out his life in us. It is about becoming one with Christ. Christ is in
us and we are in Christ. It is about attachment to Christ. It is about
connection to Christ.
The thing about our religious routines is
that they can be about attachment to Christ, or they can become about our
attachment to the routine themselves.
You
can see the evidence of whether a church is attached to Christ or attached to
routine when the church tries to change to be more effective for the gospel.
Some churches have been known to split over the colour of the carpet, the
change in the music, or even small changes to the building. We get attached not
to Jesus but to our religious routines, or to religious buildings, or to
religious habits.
But
this passage calls us to do a heart check. It calls us to ask ourselves the
question of what are we relying on our efforts or what Jesus has done.
So
let me ask you this question. How is your relationship with Jesus doing these
days?
When
I am mentoring people I often ask this question. It has amazed me how often the
reply I get back is how they are doing in their daily prayer life – or aren’t
doing as the case may be. They will tell me about some of the good things they
are doing. They give me the religious reply.
But the question really is, do you know
Christ better now than you did six months ago? Do you sense a oneness with him?
Does he have all of you? How are you experiencing his power in your life? How
are you depending on him – putting your faith in him?
What is your desire like for him?
Paul says, “I want to know him.” Does that express your heart? Or have the
routines of life drown out your desires?
Now
let me quickly throw in, there is a big difference between the dark night of
the soul, where we want Jesus, but can’t seem to find him – and so we do all
the right things waiting for him to break through – there is a big difference
between that than doing all the right things but not really wanting him.
So
what do you do if you don’t know Jesus better now? What if you are not growing
in oneness and experiencing his power? What if you are not really trusting him?
What do you do if you know that you don’t really want him, but you want to want
him?
The
only way to go is with the old fashioned word – repentance. Go to God and say I
am sorry for the state of my soul. Let me tell you about God. He is full of
mercy. He wants to be in relationship with you. Tell him about what you want or
even that you want to want him. Tell him where you are at – he knows anyways.
Then
you make space for him in your life. It may even look the same as it did
before. It may look like daily prayer and bible reading and going to church and
all those good things – but the point is not those things but that those things
be an expression of a heart that say, “I want to know you.”
(Watch time call for commitment)
(Optional
reading)
Philippians
3:8–11 (NLT)
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else,
counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and
become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying
the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.* For God’s way of
making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to
know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I
want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one
way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
How
about you? Do you need to take your heart to God and say here it is?
For
those of you who have never given your life to Christ, up until now, trusting
in your own goodness or your own efforts, will you give your life to Christ
this morning.
Let’s pray together:
Lord
Jesus, thank you that you came, and that you did everything that needs to be done.
Lord, we ask that as people are listening to your word, that you would move us closer
to you. Move us away from the things that we just do to pretend to be drawing closer
to you and help us to actually to draw closer. We 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. If you can help with that, please make out a cheque payable
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My name is Brent Russett and it has
been a pleasure to spend this Sunday morning with you.
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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