 |
| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, March 1st, 2015:
‘Live as Citizens of Heaven’
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.
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 hear past episodes and find interesting articles.
This
morning’s program is Sponsored by Douglas Crawford. Thank you so much for your
generous and faithful support Mr. Crawford. Your partnership with us, is really
appreciated.
This
morning I want to talk to you about Living
as a citizen of heaven
I
have noticed that I have not heard that much preaching on heaven except at
funerals. I have noticed that the few times I have preached on heaven that I
have had to work hard to get people care.
This
is especially with younger people. I
have noticed that the younger a person is, the less they seem to care about
heaven. When I am speaking to a 20 something, heaven is almost seen as
irrelevant information. Now on the other hand, when I am speaking to a senior
who is on death’s door, it is the most relevant topic there is.
I
suppose that this is understandable. I am not really interested in reading a
travel guide to Peru, until I am getting ready to travel to Peru. But when a
trip to Peru is imminent, I am very interested in reading the travel guide. It
makes sense that the closer one gets to the door of heaven, the more interested
one is in what is there.
But I should remind you that you don’t know how
close the door of heaven is. Every so often that point comes home when people
we know meet untimely death.
The
reality is, however, that while we know that it is theoretically true that any
of us could die at any time, most of us don’t really believe that it likely to
happen to us.
So
taking an interest in heaven, is kind of like me taking an interest in Italy. I
would really like to travel there. Yes, it is theoretically possible that
someone could buy me a plane ticket to Italy this coming year, but it is really
unlikely, and so I am not going to rush out and buy a travelers guide to Italy
– right.
So
when a passage of scripture throws us a pitch about heaven, well a lot of you
still think I am swinging in the irrelevant zone. – Right…
Besides
that – well there is the country song that says, “Everybody wants to go to
heaven, but nobody wants to go now.”
That is
true enough. But often I think that the only reason that many people want to go
to heaven is that it is better than the alternative.
The
way secular people think about heaven is that we are going to be sitting on a
cloud playing a harp. – I have little interest in that – and of course that is
not a true image. But the way Christian people talk about heaven is that it is
going to be one long worship service. We are going to around the throne
worshiping God. Now don’t get me wrong – I like church, but I don’t want to
live in an endless church service – do you? I like church. But I don’t want to
live here.
C.S.
Lewis says “that you can hope for what you desire.” On other words if you don’t
desire something, you are not going to look forward to it, and hope for it. If our concept of heaven is something that we
don’t really desire, we are not going to hope for it.
You see one long worship service is not in
any of our core desires. Things like joy, and love, and laughter and beauty and
intimacy and adventure and discovery, and accomplishment, - those are the
things that is in many of our core desires
The
reality is that those are the things that heaven will be about.
Let
me ask you a question. What do you conceive the next life to be? Is it kind of
a whisp of this reality where we are disembodied spirits kind of floating all
around. What kind of reality do you think we will exist in?
Jesus,
after the resurrection, had a body like he was going to have. He ate, spoke, he
even had a cook out on a beach. The most real the most ordinary, and the most extraordinary
things.
Let
me challenge you with a question. What are the first three things that you want
to do when you get to heaven?
MUSIC
– I Can Only Imagine 4:08
What
are the first three things that you want to do when you get to heaven
I
think the first three things I would like to do is
I
want to run to Jesus give him a big hug and celebrate his grace and mercy, and
celebrate the fact that he is renewing all things.
Then
I want to go to the feast. Think of the best food you have ever eating. There
will be dancing, and drinking and eating and storytelling, and it is going to
be an incredible party.
And
then I think I want to take some of great friends and go horse back riding into
the mountain and explore the country side of heaven. Yes there are horses in
heaven. What an awesome way to start an adventure in heaven.
The
bible talks about a New Heaven and a New Earth. I don’t know what is all going
to be like, but I know that the our deepest desires for joy and love and
laughter and beauty and intimacy and adventure will be satisfied.
Heaven
will be a place where all the symbols of fear will be gone. We won’t need locks
on our doors, or to masks on our true
identities. There won’t be any talk of being authentic, because that will be
the only way to be.
Hiding,
shame, and the things that hold us back from being all that we are meant to be
– will be no more.
It is
important that you get a sense of what the culture of heaven is going to be
like.
I
have talked about heaven as if it is a place that when it is our time we are
going to go to. It is like when it is time we are going to emigrate there. And when we feel it getting closer we tend to
want to know more about it. And while that view is not completely wrong, but it
is not completely accurate either.
But
Paul says in Philippians 3: 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from
there, the Lord Jesus Christ
NIV
Heaven
is not only where we are going. Heaven is in fact “our home and native land.”
Peter
says
1 Peter 2:10–11
(NIV)
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you
had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful
desires, which wage war against your soul.
Peter
say that it is really this world where you are a stranger. Although you might
be a Canadian, you are really a foreigner here. You see your citizenship is in
heaven.
So
the image that we are going to emigrate to heaven isn’t quite right. The
reality is that we are expats here.
I
don’t know if you have ever had the experience of travelling to a foreign
country. You can be quite comfortable in that country, but when you are there often
Canada comes up in your conversations and in your thinking.
And
if you hear of another Canadian close by, you try to connect. And if you hear
of another Canadian close by you kind of hope internally that they are living
in such a way that they are doing their country proud.
When
you realize you citizenship is heaven, spiritual things come up in
conversation, you connect with those who
are also citizens, and you hope they are doing their country proud.
With
all this in the background I think we are ready to get to today’s verse
Philippians
1:27
Philippians 1:27
(NIV)
27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of
Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence,
I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for
the faith of the gospel.
The
New Living Translations puts it this
way,
Philippians 1:27
(NLT)
27 Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a
manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you
again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with
one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good
News.
The
NIV is a minimalist translation, it translates the verse, conduct yourself in a
manner worthy of the gospel.
The
world conduct is a very specific greek word that has the idea of the conduct of
a citizen.
The
NLT is an expansive translation, and it express this verse, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting
yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News.
Remember
that we believe that scripture is inspired by God. It is not inspired in a word
for word dictation of scripture – if that was the case we would all have to
learn Greek to read the inspired word of God. It is the truth behind the words
that are inspired. That is why it is helpful to read a couple of different
translations, so that you get the nuances of the truth that the passage is
trying to express. I believe that in this verse the New Living Translation
helps us out the best.
Philippians
1:27 (NLT)
27 Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a
manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.
Maybe
it was just me, but when I was growing up, I always found this verse which I
first read in the King James and then in the NIV , “Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel” a rather heavy verse.
I
heard this verse saying, be good, be truthful, be holy, be right, - and it
always had very somber overtones for me. Jesus gave his life for you, live in a
way that is worthy of that sacrifice.
I heard this verse saying, live up to
expectations. People who lived like this
were very serious people. People who lived like this took everything seriously.
In some ways it was a very guilt inducing verse. How can I ever live in a
manner worth of the gospel?
Is
that how you read it? I don’t know that I should have read it that way. It
seemed like the gospel, which means good news,--- it seemed that the good news
wasn’t very happy news.
So
what does it mean to conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel – the
good news?
The
gospel as you know, is that none of us can be good enough, or righteous enough,
or holy enough, to earn God’s favour. The good news is that it is not my own
righteousness that saves me, it is the fact that Jesus gives me his
righteousness and takes my sin away. I am not saved because I deserve it. We
are saved because God loves us, and Jesus gave himself for us. That is the
gospel.
The way I was reading this verse was live in
such a way to show that you deserve the gospel that says you don’t deserve what
you got. That doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense to try to
deserve something you don’t deserve.
That
is why I spent a lot of time talking about heaven today. As citizens of heaven,
conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Our
citizenship is in heaven. We come from a country, we are citizens of a country,
that speak into our core desires for joy
and love and laughter and beauty and intimacy and adventure. Heaven is a
place where there is celebration. It is a place where we walk in freedom with
God where he knows us and we know him. It is a place where we give and receive
love freely. It is a place where intimacy is valued. It is a place where beauty
is esteemed. It is a place for adventure
and place for creativity and a place for curiosity. It is a place where
God permeates all of those things.
That
my friends is your home and native land. So when Paul says as citizens of
heaven, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the good news, he is saying
conduct yourself in a manner that is congruent with the culture of heaven.
Are
we more congruent with heaven when we have a sense of well being and joy, or
when we are dour. As citizens of heaven, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Are
we more congruent with heaven when we love and let ourselves be loved, or when
we build walls around ourselves so that we keep each other out and don’t let
anyone in. As citizens of heaven, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Are
we more congruent with heaven when we revel in what is beautiful and good and
true and right, and lovely, or when we are fault finding and negative. As
citizens of heaven, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Are
we more congruent when we live lives of adventure or when we live lives of
mediocrity. As citizens of heaven, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Are
we more congruent with heaven when we are being creative or when we are being
distracted. As citizens of heaven, walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.
Of
course it is also congruent with heaven to walk in purity and justice and
mercy.
Walking
in a manner worthy of the gospel, is not about trying to deserve something we
don’t deserve. It is about living out our own culture in a land where we are
foreigners and aliens.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but we are
not in heaven yet. There are so many thing that come to steal our joy.
There are so many thing that try to stop us from loving. There are so many
things that war against intimacy. There are so many thing that mar beauty and
promote ugliness. There are so many thing that war against adventure and
against creativity. The call of the gospel is that we come from a different
place, and the place where we come from has a culture that trumps the culture
that we live in.
Philippians 1:27
(NLT)
27 Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a
manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you
again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with
one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good
News.
Sometimes
living out the culture of heaven means that we have to stand together with
those who are also living out that culture. Sometimes it means fighting
together to maintain our sense of joy and good and life. Sometimes trying to
live out of the culture of heaven and conducting ourselves in a manner worthy
of the gospel is hard.
I
have had the privilege of visiting believers in Peru and visiting believers in
Uganda and Ghana. There are a couple of things that struck me about the
Christians I met there. First of all I was struck by how difficult their lives
are. A lot of them worked very hard with
very long hours. They dealt with very
difficult circumstances. Death was a very present reality in life.
The
other thing that struck me was how joyful they were. Because life was so
difficult here, heaven was much more real to them. Because heaven was much more
real to them, they adopted the culture of heaven much more readily and it
showed.
What
I am calling you to do, is to live out of your culture. The Bible says that God
has placed eternity in our hearts. The Bible says as followers of Jesus that
you are citizens of heaven. Live out of your culture.
Chose
joy, and fight the joy stealers. Choose love, and fight the love killers. Chose
beauty and adventure, and relational closeness because this what is in your
heart by the grace of God.
As
you live in this world, conduct yourself in a manner that is worthy of the good
news. Above all ---Live in such a way that
the good news, really looks like it is good news.
Philippians 1:27
(NLT)
27 Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a
manner worthy of the Good News about Christ
Let’s
pray:
Lord Jesus,
Thank you so much for the Gospel; the good news that you came and you died for
us. Lord, I pray for those who have not
yet become citizens of Heaven. I pray that even this morning that they would
say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. I’m choosing to
follow You.”
Lord, you
promise that when they would receive you, that you would make them your
children, and you would make them citizens of Heaven.
So, Lord, I
pray that as each person prays this prayer now, that you would just bless them,
that you would put your Spirit in them, that you would adopt them into your
family.
Lord, I ask
that you would just bring the culture of Heaven to bear on their lives, right
now.
Thank you so
much, Lord, for the Gospel and what you’ve given us.
Thank you, so
much, for who You are. AMEN.
“
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considering this.
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.
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
_______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, March 1st, 2015:
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, March 1st, 2015:
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