 |
| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, January 31st, 2016:
'Jesus came for sinners'
Good morning. And
welcome to good news in the morning. My
name is Brent Russett. I am the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church here
in Ottawa. It is my pleasure to look at some of life’s challenges, and then bring
you some good news in the morning.
I am
glad that you tuned your dial to CFRA. I want you to know that you can also
find Good News in the morning on the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca . There you
can keep up to date with what is happening around Good News Christian
Ministries.
This
morning’s program has been sponsored by Ed
and Gail Moorhead. I want to thank you for your generosity. You have given
a gift to all who have tuned in. Thank you.
I
want to say a special welcome to our international listeners, who listen via
the internet. We are glad that you have found us, and that you are finding this
ministry an encouragement.
Last
week we looked at one of the Jesus’ reason for coming into the world. He said, “I
came that you might have life, and have it to the full.” The good news of Jesus is about life: real
life, full life, abundant life. Jesus want’s to give life.
Living
out the gospel is about living in harmony with God and living in harmony with
who you were created to be. It is when you are living there that you will
experience real true abundant life.
I
know that sin is not a popular topic any more, but sin is sin, because it is
not harmonious with God and the way you were created to live. The reason why God hates sin so much is that
sin brings death, and death is our enemy and God’s. Sin makes us less than we
are made to be.
When
we don’t live in harmony with God and the way we were created to be, it kills
our souls, and deadens our hearts, and hurts our bodies, and damages our
relationship with God – it kills us. It is anti-life. It is anti-gospel.
The negative
commandments – the “thou shall not” commandments are there to point towards
what those things are killing us. They let us know what the poison is. But the commands don’t bring life, any more
than not eating poison brings life. Jesus brings life. Jesus is about life.
Walking
in relationship with Jesus brings life. Being connected to Jesus brings life.
Living like Jesus brings life. If you want to be fully alive, don’t ingest
poison and connect to Jesus so you can be fully alive.
*********
The
reality, however, is that many of us don’t live there. Even those of us who
have received Jesus into our lives, don’t live there. We ingest little bits of
poison and it partially kills us. We are only partially alive. We survive, but
we don’t really live.
What
is worse is that we accommodate to feeling only partially alive, and that
becomes our new normal. We see the poison we are drinking, and yet like a drug
hit, we know it is harmful, but for a moment life feels good.
Then we feel
shame and regret. And in our shame and regret we come to Jesus and quickly
confess our sins. But we fail to drink deeply of the living water that could
give us life. So we continue to walk around feeling half dead.
If
you get what I am saying, then you are going to love this mornings Jesus story.
Mark 2:13–17 (NLT)
13 Then Jesus went out to
the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As
he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s
booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and
followed him.
15 Later, Levi invited
Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax
collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind
among Jesus’ followers.) 16 But when the teachers of religious
law who were Pharisees* saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners,
they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?*”
17 When Jesus heard this,
he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come
to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are
sinners.”
Did
you hear Jesus’ Mission statement. “Healthy people don’t
need a doctor—sick people do.. I have come to call not those who think they are
righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
The
NRSV puts it this way. I have come to
call not the righteous but sinners.
Jesus
came for those who are sick. He came for those who are partially alive.
I
grew up in a Christian home. I gave my heart to Jesus when I was very young,
and over the years I gave my life to Jesus. Unlike many people I did not have a
rebellious phase.
But I
grew up being exposed to amazing testimonies of God’s grace. I heard people
tell their own stories of brokenness. People who lost everything through drugs,
but found Jesus and he restored them. People who had all the success in the
world, but life revolved around themselves, until they found Jesus. I heard
people tell their stories of all kinds of sin, and how they found forgiveness
in Jesus.
I
heard their stories and I read this story, and I thought, this story is like
the stories I heard growing up. It is the story of disreputable sinners coming
to know Jesus.
It is
a great story. My problem was, I didn’t see myself in the story. I didn’t see
myself in the Pharisees, because I love to hear stories of how Jesus heals the
broken. I didn’t see myself in the tax collectors and disreputable sinners,
because my life didn’t take that path. So this was a nice story for someone
else, but not for me.
But I
know my life. I have lived too much of it being unhealthy. I have not been
fully alive. And then I read the story in the NLT and I heard Jesus say. I have come to call not
those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” and I knew this story
was for me.
I believe this story is for many today.
Some of you have lived lives of rebellion against God, and you ran from God.
This story is for you. Some of you have lived mostly Christian lives, but
you know that you are not fully alive.
This story is for you. Some of you know that you are far away from God right
now – this story is for you.
As we looked at last week, if you know someone’s
mission statement, you can tell a lot about that person. When you see the
mission statement of Jesus it tells us a lot about Jesus. It tells us who Jesus
wants to be for us. It also tells us who Jesus wants us to be for this world. –
So let’s go to the story.
Mark 2:13–14 (NLT)
13 Then Jesus went out to
the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As
he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s
booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and
followed him.
What you
need to know is that tax collectors in Jesus day were hated a lot more than tax
collectors in our day. You may not like paying taxes and resent the people who
collect it – (my apologies to those of you who work for the Canada Revenue
agency) but the tax collectors of Jesus day were viewed as traitors. They were
worked for the Roman government, who were the oppressors. They oppressed with
their rulers. They oppressed with their soldiers. They oppressed with their
taxes. People who collected taxes were complicit with the oppressors. Tax
collectors were seen as traitors to their country and their religion and to
God.
The
closest parallel I can think of in terms of a modern day tax collector is an
ISIS sympathiser. ….There was not a whole lot of love for tax collectors among
the population of Israel.
But
Jesus sees Levi, also know as Matthew sitting at his tax collecting booth. Levi
was eventually going to write the first book of the New Testament. But nobody
but Jesus knew that. Everyone saw him as this horrible person, this traitor.
Jesus
walks up to him and says –follow me.
What does that say about Jesus? Jesus is willing to take a risk on
people. Jesus didn’t say, when you stop being a tax collector, you can follow
me. When you reform your image and become more likable you can follow me. Jesus
takes Matthew right where he is and say follow me and by implication he is
saying me lead.
You
may feel really far away from God. You may feel that you have to somehow clean
up your act before you can come to God. That is just not true. Jesus comes to
you, right where you are at – then he says follow me – let me lead.
Levi/Matthew
responded to the call. He got up and he followed Jesus.
Mark 2:15 (NLT)
15 Later, Levi invited
Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax
collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind
among Jesus’ followers.)
The
one thing about tax collectors is that they had money. Levi invited Jesus and
the disciples home. So there are 13 of them. In addition to that there were
many other tax collectors and sinners. It was a big party.
Jesus
has dinner with all these people. Now you need to understand that in Jesus
culture, to accept one’s hospitality to eat with someone, spoke of a level of
trust, of acceptance.
Yet
we see Jesus eating with tax collectors and disreputable sinners. I love Mark’s
throw away comment. “(There
were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)
This
was not your church crowd. But these were the kind of people Jesus hung out
with.
The
religious people weren’t impressed
Mark 2:16 (NLT)
16 But when the teachers
of religious law who were Pharisees* saw him eating with tax collectors and
other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?*”
Religious
people who have missed God’s heart always have trouble with the people Jesus likes
to hang around.
But
from this question we hear Jesus mission statement.
Mark 2:17 (NLT)
17 When Jesus heard this,
he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come
to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are
sinners.”
Jesus
is the doctor of the soul. He is the doctor of the spirit. He came for people
who have been poisoned by sin. He came for people who dead and who are not
fully alive. Jesus, you see, is in the business of resurrection, and the
business of healing. That is who Jesus is.
So
who does Jesus want to be for you. If you are humble enough to acknowledge that
you are not perfect, nor are you fully alive, nor are you fully righteous, then
Jesus came for you. If you know your heart, if you can see your sin, then Jesus
came for you.
How
does he bring healing to us? How does he bring life to us? He walks right in
the middle of our lives and says follow me. I’ll lead, you follow. I am the one
who can lead you in paths of righteousness for his name sake. I am the one who
can lead you to the living water that will quench your thirst. I am the one who
can lead you into health. He walks into your life and says, “follow me.”
There
are some of you who made the choice to
follow Jesus a long time ago. I made a choice to follow him 49 years ago. We
all have to make that initial choice to follow him. But I have noticed that
most of the Christian walk is not about the big choices to follow – although we
sometimes come to a fork in the road and need to decide – but most of the
Christian walk is about making the little choices to follow – or about the
little choices to drink some poison.
Who
does Jesus want to be for you. He wants to be your leader. He wants to be your
doctor. He wants to be your healer. He wants to be restore you to full life. He
wants to lead you away from the poison to fountains of living water.
****
But
here is what you need to understand and I believe that the majority of
Christians in North America fail to understand this.. Following Jesus is not
like following principles, or following a philosophy. Following Jesus is
following a person. You invite him into every part of your life. Knowing God’s
word, and following its principles are important and can save you a lot of
grief. Knowing God’s word and understanding how God wants you to live is really
important and can help guide you in life. But there is no substitute to being
open to Jesus leading you by his Spirit day by day.
When
Jesus says follow me, it is more than following his philosophy – it is
following his person.
****
Here
is what I like about Levi. He is who he is in front of Jesus.. Levi could have
invited Jesus and the disciples one night
and had his friends come over another night. He didn’t. He let Jesus into his whole life.
And
you know in a group like this, there is always going to be one person, who
is the life of the party, but has a way
of saying things that make you laugh and cringe at the same time.
As a
pastor I get into some kind of funny situations. For those who know me, you
know that while I have been a Christian all my life, that I have not lead a
sheltered life. I, at one point in my life, was a juvenile delinquent counselor.
I have worked with the victim advocate service of a police department. But more
than that, people forget that I not only get to see people at their best, like
on their wedding day, - I get to see people at their worst – in the middle of
major crisis – and in the middle of major sin.
If you know me, you know I am not easily shocked
If
you don’t know me, and you happen to have a vision of a pastor being
unapproachably holy, and somewhat distant from this world, then that can lead
to some pretty funny – at least for me- not for them – situations. Sometimes I
will meet people’s friends or family and they are fun people, but they have a
mouth like a trucker, or worse. The friends or family members will come up to
me and apologize for the other person’s behaviour. The crazy thing is – these
are the kind of people Jesus hung around. These are the kind of people Jesus
ate with. Accepted. These are the kind of people that Jesus came for.
Some
people try to hide parts of their lives from me. – which is fine I suppose. But
if you try to hid parts of your life from Jesus, this get weird fast. Jesus
came for people like your friend that makes you laugh and cringe.
, “Healthy people don’t
need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are
righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
When
you follow Jesus, he will go with you into all areas of your life, including
those areas that have a cringe factor to them.
What
does this mission statement say about Jesus. It says that he is a friend
to soul sick, unhealthy people. He loves
people. What does this mission statement say about who Jesus wants to be for
us.. He wants to be the restorer of our soul. He wants to be our healer. He
wants us to come to him with our soul sickness. But the only ways that happens
is if you say, Jesus you are my leader, I am your follower. I will follow you
into the path of life.
****
The
next question is who does he want us to be for the world? For those of us who
follow Jesus, Jesus mission becomes our
mission, we are to bring healing to
those who are sick in heart and soul. We are to bring light to those who are
walking in darkness. We are to be amongst the disreputable sinners for Jesus
sake. Healthy
people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who
think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
I
love the comment, from Mark that there were a lot of those kind of people
amongst Jesus’ followers. They seemed to be ok being around Jesus. Jesus was
the holiest man who ever lived, but his holiness did not seem to be a barrier
to people. Holiness usually isn’t when it is accompanied by genuine joy and
genuine love.
What
we say about the church I pastor is, come as you are no perfect people allowed.
“Healthy people
don’t need a doctor—sick people do.. I have come to call not those who think
they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
If
you are listening today and you feel far from God. I want you to know that
Jesus came for you. Simply talk to him and prayer. Say Jesus, you said I could
come to you just as I am. I do that. I give my life to you. I know that you
accept me and that you love me, and with your help I am going to follow you.
Let’s pray together:
Lord
Jesus, thank you so much for who you are. Thank you that you are the light-bringer.
Thank you that you come to those who are not perfect. Lord, thank you that you come
to those who are sinners.
Lord,
we see in your word that the people that you hung around with were people who were
just ordinary everyday people. You called them to be their best selves, because
of what you could do for them, because you would lead them to God.
Lord,
I’m asking that many people today would give their lives to you, in Jesus’ name.
AMEN.
“ If Good News in the Morning has been a factor in
your journey of faith, we would love to hear your story. Nothing could
encourage us more in this work. Contact
us by e-mail or Twitter via the web site –goodnewsinthemorning.ca
And
Thank you for listening this morning.
This
program is on the air by the grace of God and donations of many faithful
people. I especially want to thank Gail and Ed Moorhead for sponsoring this
particular program. Blessings to you.
If you can help financially we would really
appreciate it. You can make a cheque payable to Good News Christian
Ministries, and send it to Box 184 ,
Rideau Ferry , On. K0G 1W0.
You
can also give by going to our website. Good News in the morning.ca
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
MUSIC
– Brian Doerkesen Holy God – Track 10 Change me on the
inside 4:27
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
_______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to the CFRA broadcast:
PODCAST LINK to the CFRA broadcast:
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