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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, November 3rd, 2013:
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‘Living Sacrifice - A walk through Romans’
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 paint for you the big picture
of God and his work in the world.
One
of the most well known verses in the Bible is found in Romans 12:1 The apostle Paul says,
12 Therefore, I urge you,
brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
I
have always struggled with this verse. The phrase 'living sacrifices' conjures
unpleasant images for me. I have read the old testament, and about the lambs
that were sacrificed, and they didn't fair to well, - and now Paul you want me
to be a living sacrifice.
Do you ever wrestle with scriptures
like this? I do. I have heard some very moving sermons preached from this text.
People asking to put their “All on the altar.” I have seen many people respond
to preaching like that. I don’t know about you, but I have found it harder to
live out.
So what does it mean to be a living
sacrifice. How do we get our heads and our hearts around this?
Well this morning I am going to
invite you to come on a journey with me. I want to tell you the grand story of
God using the book of the bible called Romans.
But before we go on that
Journey, let’s listen to
Music
– Mat Redman – Friend of Sinners – 3:10 (Album the Friendship and the fear.
The book of Romans is full of
intricate logic. Chapter for chapter it has more theology in it than any other
book in the Bible. The apostle Paul shares God's great plan. But when we to our
verse in chapter 12, we come to a transition point in the book
It
is transitioning from theology, to how do we live out this theology. That is
why chapter 12 starts with the word, “Therefore”. It is a reference to all
that has gone on before. The verse starts to make a whole lot more sense, when
you see what has gone on before.
Preaching through the first 12
chapters of the most theologically dense book in the Bible, could take a year.
I am going to walk you through it in 15 minutes.
So here it goes:
Paul starts out by saying, Hi Church
in Rome, we haven’t met but I have heard of your faith, and you have no doubt
heard of me. It is one of my great desires to come to you so that we can
mutually encourage each other.
I feel like God has called me to
minister to people like you, and I really do want to come to Rome to preach the
good news. For the
good news of Jesus is the power of God at work for saving everyone who
believes. It is through faith in Jesus that we are made right in God sight.
You see ever since the creation of
the world the truth about God has been obvious. If he is big enough to create
what is, and powerful enough to bring into being what is, then it is obvious
that he should be worshiped.
But people chose not to worship him.
Instead they made up gods of their own choosing. They claimed that they were
wise but they did things that totally degraded themselves and those around
them. And then they made idols in the in the form of animals or birds and
worshipped them.
All this made God angry, and because
they failed to acknowledge Him, God abandoned them to their foolish thinking
and let them do things that should never be done.
Their lives became full of
every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling,
deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are
backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new
ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse
to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy.
(Chapter 2)
Now I know Roman Church that it is
really easy to point to all the people around you and say look at how bad those
people are. But the
reality is that you and I are just as bad. We judge others,, but our own
lives condemn us, and the reality is that God is not partial.
Yes he will judge the evil doers but
he will also judge us. There are people who never knew God’s ways but should
have honoured God because of what they have seen around them. Then there are
people like us who have known God’s ways but we have failed to follow them.
(Chapter 3)
Here is the reality “No one is righteous, and
when I say no one, I mean no one. All have sinned. We all have fallen short of
the glory of God. That is your reality and my reality and the people who are
doing horrible things – that is their reality also.
Yet here is the thing. God is kind. And even
though we have all done bad things he declares us righteous. He does this
through Jesus who paid the penalty for all our sins.
You see Jesus was the sacrifice for
our sin. People are made right with God when they believe in Jesus sacrifice.
When God didn’t punish those who
sinned in passed times, he was looking forward to this time, when Jesus would
pay for their sins too.
None of us can boast that we have somehow earned
our righteousness, or that we are accepted by God because of our goodness. Our
forgiveness is based on faith in what Christ has done.
Chapter 4
Now if you were to go back into the
old testament and look at Abraham you would see that he believed God and it was
counted to him as righteousness. Belief has always been God’s way to
righteousness, not earning.
God made Abraham a promise for a
son, and Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise, and God counted him
as righteous. Now that story wasn’t just recorded for Abrahams benefit It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us
that God will also count us as
righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the
dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he
was raised to life to make us right with God.
Chapter
5
Now through faith we have been made
right with God, and now we are at peace with God because of what Jesus has
done. And here is what I want you to know – you stand in a place of privilege.
For even though you will run into
troubles in this world, God has brought you hope, and God has given you his
holy spirit. And the best thing of all, what has happened is that God has shown
that he loves us.
But God showed his
great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners
We are not condemned by God, in fact
our friendship with God has been restored. We have become friends of God.
As you know it was through Adam that
sin came into the world and it infected all of us. But now Jesus has come into
the world and through his death has brought life to many.
God gave his law so that people
would understand just how sinful they were, and when they saw how God forgives
through Jesus they can see can see how gracious God is.
Chapter 6
Now does this mean that we should go
on sinning? Of course not. In fact your old self that drove you towards sin was
buried with Christ. This is what your baptism symbolizes. And when Jesus rose
from the dead he broke the power of sin.
Therefore do not let sin control the way you live.
Don’t use your body to serve sin. Instead give yourselves to God and use your
body to bring glory to God. Sin is no longer your master.
Chapter
7
You do understand that if two people
are bound to each other by marriage and the one person dies, then the two are
no longer married.
You were married to sin, but you
died with Christ, and you have no obligation to sin.
But here is the trouble, we as people have
something in us that says, when I hear that I am not supposed to do something,
it kind of makes me want to do it.
I want to do good but I don’t and I
don’t want to do what is wrong but I do it anyways. So I end up doing what I
don’t want to do and that makes me miserable.
So what do I do a fact that I am
miserable. Who will free me from this life.
Chapter 8
Here is what I want you to know.
There is no condemnation
for those who belong to Christ. I also want you to know that you have been
given the Spirit of God who can free you from the power of sin. Listen, the law
couldn’t do it, but the holy spirit is doing.
Now here is what has to happen, you
need to let yourself be led by the Holy Spirit. Think about what he wants you
to think about, and don’t spend time thinking about sinful things.
At the core of you is the Holy
Spirit. He is the one who lives in you. And he will give you real life. He does
so much more than that. He leads you. He lets you know that you are God’s children. We
get to call him father. Daddy. He is what allows you to get into heaven.
Now I know that life is rough right
now. And the reality is that creation groans right now, because things are not
as they were met to be. But I want you to know that the Holy Spirit was given
so that you could have a foretaste of the future.
Right now he is interceding for you.
He is at work in your life.
31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who
can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own
Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who
dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing
with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ
Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place
of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer
loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or
destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the
Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being
slaughtered like sheep.”*) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory
is ours through Christ, who loved us.
Chapter 9
It use to be that Israel was thought of as God’s
chosen people and that they were. God
revealed himself to them. He gave them his word. And God still has a special
place in his heart for the Jewish
people.
Chapter 10
But what I want you to know is that
Salvation is now open to everyone.
9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is
by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by
confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
God is no respecter of persons.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Chapter 11
Can you see the plan of God?
36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is
intended for his glory
But he has called you into relationship
with himself. He loves you. He sacrificed his son for you. He made a way for
you.
Romans 12:1–2
(NIV)
12 Therefore, I urge you,
brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Can you see what he means by
therefore. In view of that grand plan, that he invites you into present offer
your bodies as living sacrifices.
When it says this your true and
proper worship, the greek word is the one where we get our word logic from. In
light of everything you have heard, in light of such a great salvation, in
light of all that God has forgiven you for, and continues to forgive your for,
and in light of what he has given to you, in light of his great mercy it is
only logical, it only makes sense that
you present your body a living sacrifice.
******
Music – Third Day –
Saved 3:47
Romans 12:1–2
(NIV)
12 Therefore, I urge you,
brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
. The words used for offer your
bodies, or present your bodies, means to come and stand before. Basically we
are coming to stand before the king of kings and we say – Here I am Lord. I am
putting myself at your disposal. (That is the picture – there is no altar to
climb up on top of here)
In view of all that God has done for
us, it only makes sense that we dedicate our lives to him.
Maybe you have never come to Christ
and found forgiveness of your sins. This morning I would invite you simply
pray, Lord I sorry for how I have broken your laws, come into my heart, forgive
me of my sins, I want to follow you. I believe that you died for me, and that
you will give new life to me. Thank you for coming into my life.
I want you to know that Jesus will
do this that.
Maybe you have invited Christ into
your life, but it has been when a while since you said, God I am at your
disposal. In view of all you have done for me, I want to live my life
completely for you. In praying a prayer like that you invite God to take you on
a grand adventure in living for him and doing his will.
Let’s
pray together:
Lord
Jesus, I ask for each person who doesn’t know you, that they would hear your invitation
to come and be reconciled to God. Come to God. Lord, I ask that even now, they would
open up their hearts, ask for your forgiveness, and invite you into their lives.
And,
Lord, for those people who don’t know you, I ask that you would just give them a
sense of how much you care about them.
And
for those that do know you, I pray that they would put themselves at your disposal.
I
ask 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 months are financial struggle. If you can help with
that, please make out a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries, Box
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goodnewsinthemorning.ca
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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
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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.
Music-– Michael W. Smith – I give you my heart 3:26
- Rev. Brent Russett
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