By Rev.
Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
|
_______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA
broadcast - Sunday, July 12th, 2015:
Broadcast Notes:
*************************************************
Welcome to
Good News In the Morning a program of words and music bringing a Christian
message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for intelligent
meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.
Good Morning.This
program is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries PO Box 184 Rideau Ferry,
Ontario K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian Church
in Rockland. As always I want to start by thanking you our listeners. We are so
grateful for your encouragement and support. Please remember that you can
always visit our website for materials to encourage and support you in your
Christian walk.
If you miss an
episode of the show you can go to our website and download the podcast or the
MP3 of our broadcast. Details can be found on our website.
Today I
especially want to thank the Sponsors of today's show, Clifford & Alice
Miller. Thank you Clifford and Alice for your support of this program and
allowing us to continue bringing the Gospel message to the airwaves and the
internet.
‘Remembering Lise Baxter’
Today I'm
going to be taking a different tack than usual, because today I'm going to be
remember a good friend who passed away recently. I'm reflecting on how her life
reflects the truth of Scripture and the truth of God's promises to us.
So I hope
you'll bear with me, in this somewhat sentimental moment, yet I believe it will
be a time of really great testimony from the life of a good friend.
The Scripture today is taken from Hebrews 4:14–16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone
through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we
profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with
confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need.
So I am going
to be illustrating the Scripture through the life and witness of Lise Baxter, a
good friend and the wife of my ministry colleague Neil Baxter. I wanted just to
mention a couple of Scriptures that she reflected on which were meaningful to
us as we remembered her. Lise wrote a number of devotional books over her life,
eight in total, and the last one was able to be published with the help of our
church in Rockland.
From one of
those books she writes on Genesis 26:24
Meditation
(Gen 26:24) “I am the God
of your father Abraham. Do not be
afraid, I am with you.”
Dear
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your assurance that You are with us. You command us not to be afraid. How can we fear when we know You are with us?
Yet, at times, we fail to accept your promises.
“We are weak, but You are strong.” Lord, help us to remember Your
promise: do not be afraid, I am with
you. Amen
So we're going
to look further at some of these reflections and the testimony of Lise' life,
but first let's listen to one of her favorite hymns which was sung at Lise'
funeral. This is also a favorite song of the sponsors of today's broadcast. This
time it's sung by Mark Schultz and the song is Blessed Assurance from his album Hymns
My friend was
a a woman of great faith and she had a ministry of spiritual direction,
teaching people to draw near to God through scriptural prayer. she was 80 years
old when she passed away, married to her childhood sweetheart. She and Neil, her
husband, had been going steady when they were 16 years old. Lise had a gift of
making things simple and joyful. It is appropriate that right after her
grandchildren had spoken about her influence on their lives we were able to
share this from from her book, Finding
God's Hand in Daily Life
Our Grandchildren are Blessings
Last night I was looking for. . . a new 'journal, [and] what was on the front cover... was:
"I command you - be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged, For the Lord is with you where ever you go" (Joshua 1:9 NLT)
I was looking for this new journal to give to our granddaughter Megan-Marie, who is 16. . . Megan was re-affirming her faith in God!!! . . . I believe it took a lot of strength and courage for her to stand in front of the congregation and family and declare publicly her faith in Jesus Christ. . . .
We do thank the Lord for each of our ten grandchildren. Every night, Neil and I pray and ask God to protect and guard each one of them, and that He may bring each one closer to Him and that they may feel His love and presence in their lives.
L.B.
Finding God's Hand. . . p.88
You may get
the feeling that Lise was a person who was full of Thanksgiving and full of
prayer towards God. That would be the exact right impression. When I was a
young Christian I heard a story from the tales of the Desert Fathers. These 'Fathers'
were early Christians who lived in wilderness areas, apart from everyone else,
to focus on God's Spirit and God's Word. The story I heard way back then is
about a young novice who had just been entered into the order of the Desert Fathers.
He was given a task to do: he was told to take the pit of a fruit and walk a
half days journey out into the arid wilderness, plant that pit in the in the
ground and pour out great jug of water onto it. Then he walked the half day's
journey back to the to the residence. He was told each day to repeat this: to
go out carrying a great big jug of water out the half the day's journey, water
that seed and return. After years - how many years does it the take for a tree
to grow up and to bear fruit? It takes five or six years for some of the trees
I'm familiar with - after a period of years, finally the tree budded and
bloomed and a fruit ripened upon it. I don't imagine it was the great harvest
of fruit in fact I'm told he brought back a single fruit from that tree, finally
after all these years of this labor. When he got back his teacher told him take
a bite of that fruit. As he bit into the juicy, luscious fruit his teacher said,
"That, my son, is the fruit of faithfulness."
When you look
at somebody whose life has been a tremendous witness to God you do see the
fruit of faithfulness. When some people age, and go on in years they just
become more and more luminous. That's the word that I would use to describe my friend
Lise'. The light of Christ shone out from her. When her family and friends
described her influence the Scripture from Galatians Chapter 5:22 came to mind.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Everybody agreed that those were
the characteristics we saw in Lise. How did those characteristics come to be? They
came about because of her journey with Jesus Christ. They are the fruit of the
spirit and they grow and mature as our faith grows and matures.
How much is
the fruit of the spirit growing in our lives? Is it possible for us to be
filled with the fruit of the spirit, to bear that fruit and to bring the
delight of that joyfulness, peace, gentleness and patience, bring the delight
of that to others?
The reason I'm
telling you about Lise' life is not just to be sentimental, but because she has
shown just how very much the truth of these of these promises of God is real. That
in her life, living simply, writing simply, teaching simply, she demonstrated
that she was able to spend great time with the Lord. Not only that she was able
to help scores of other people experience that closeness and intimacy with God
for themselves
Now these
truths are so important to us. I do believe that we ought to continue to pursue
them, but will do so after listening to Glenn Campbell singing another favorite
hymn, Standing On The Promises Of God My Savior
and this is from his album the Inspirational
Collection. Please listen to it with me
Listen to this
meditation on the Scripture from Numbers 23:18-19 which concerns the man Balaam
:
STANDING
ON GOD’S PROMISES
Meditation (Numbers 23:18-19) Baalam uttered this prophecy, “Come Balak, son of Zippor, and listen to what I have to say. God is not like men., who lie; He is not a human that changes his mind. Whatever He promises, He does, He speaks, and it is done.”
Thank You for the reassurance that ‘God
is not a human who changes His mind.
Whatever He promises, He does.’ I needed to hear this, Lord. It brings great comfort to know we can depend
on Your promises. I knew this, Lord; I
just needed to hear it again. Praise You, Lord.
Amen.
L.B. Finding God's Hand. . . p.88
Now God has
given a number of promises. He's promised us that he will always be with us,
that if we if we put our trust in Jesus Christ then we will always have his
presence. We can always count on him. To trust Jesus is to trust is promises. The
life that Lise Baxter lived is a life that God wants for all of us: a life
drawing near to God, a life sharing his joy with others, a life doing his will,
a life enjoying his presence. Iis it possible for you and I to have that kind
of life? The word of God says it is, and so does the testimony of so many
witnesses.
It is not so
much that you should do this - although of course you should, this is the purpose
of life - but the thing which is far more persuasive is just the fact that we can do this!
We've seen in
people like Lise and you've seen them in your life - you've seen those people that been filled with God's
grace, filled with God's joy, filled with God's peace - and there is in us such
a great desire to share in that kind of a life. If we could have joy in walking
a closer, fuller and more secure fellowship with God, why would we pursue
anything else?
This journey
begins with trusting Jesus. It begins with knowing God in Jesus Christ because
we can't be certain if we only have a vague idea of who God is, or if we take
the signs from nature and purely try to understand God from the general
revelation of creation. We see that sometimes nature is beautiful, sometimes
nature is harsh. What is the truth about God? In Jesus Christ we see that God,
in both his firmness and in his grace, is always working for our good .He's
always seeking our redemption, is always looking to include us in his family. We
know from Jesus Christ that God doesn't waver. We know that he doesn't. He isn't
one way one day and a different thing the next day. We know that we can trust
him because Jesus Christ has proven so trustworthy. So trust in Jesus! Learn
from him! Lean on him!
You know I
suppose that leaning on Jesus could seem like a risky thing. There are times
when I look at a bridge that that I need to cross and I wonder whether I can
trust to walk across it. Or a I look at some old rickety chair and I'm not sure
whether I should sit down on it, and whether will hold my weight. But when we
pay attention to who Jesus is we know that we can lean on him. We can know that
he will support us in everything. So trust him and in leaning on him pursue him.
Pray to him. Look at the Scriptures and give thanks to God for the promises,
give thanks to God for the message of his faithfulness. Give thanks for the
example that he sets.
We had the
pleasure of publishing Lise' last book. It is available on the www.RocklandChurch.ca
website and it can be downloaded for free. I hope that you look for it there if
you want to get some examples of how every Scripture can be turned into a
prayer of thanks and devotion and commitment. It's a beautiful lesson in life. Over
the years we can grow in faith, over the years we can grow in peace. It may
seem like a long journey when it starts and it may sometimes seem that little
progress is made, but God promises to bring to completion the work that he's
begun in us.
You know, I
told the congregation as I tell my school bus students. At this time of year
the school bus students are just getting ready for exams and I tell them, "You
know it's never too early to start studying, and it's never too late to start
cramming!"
Maybe you've
been putting off a decision about trusting Jesus. Maybe you really haven't dedicated the early years of your life to
drawing close to him.
It's not too
late. Jesus tells the parable about some workers who were standing waiting to
be hired. In the morning some of them were hired by the by the land owner and
they worked through the day and they earned their daily wage. But some were not
hired until late in the day, some even at the 11th hour! When they came to be
paid the landowner had them line up first, and in spite of the fact that they came
so late in the day he gave them a full day's wages! Well the other workers were
appalled that he should give these people a full day's wages and not give them
some bonus! He said, "I gave you what I promised. You have enough and they
also now have enough."
Now would you
rather stand around in the courtyard waiting to the end of the day to get hired?
Worrying whether there would actually be work for you? whether there'd be a
place for you? Wouldn't you rather start now? Start leaning on God's promises
and finding his sufficiency and support here and now, not just in some future
date!
Well we can
start now, whatever age we are. Whatever state we are in we can lean on Jesus.
While I want
to bring this message here to a close, I do want to share one more thought from
Lise' meditations. In Luke chapter 11:33 Jesus said:
Meditation (Luke 11:33 GNT) No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a bowl; instead, it is put on the lamp stand so that people may see the light as they come in.
Lise declared this about this scripture:
My ultimate purpose is to help others see and experience God’s hand in their everyday lives … and then share these experiences with others … so they can in turn learn to share with others their experience of God, and so on.
Dear Heavenly Father, May You help each one of us to share the light of Your love and Your presence in our lives. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
L.B. Praying with the Gospel of Luke, p 52
This seems
like a very fitting prayer to end today's meditation and I do hope that you
will take it to heart and that God will work through it as well.
So once again
I do want to thank you our listeners for your encouragement and support. We do
thank you because you keep us on the air week by week. I want to encourage you
to support our ministry financially. Once again thank you so much to our
sponsors, Clifford and Alice Miller.
Did you know
the good news ministries has only one major cost? The four hosts Brent Russett,
George Sinclair, Juliet Schimpf and myself are volunteers. So are the people
who manage our website, organize our events and operate our board. Your gift
can help us to continue to meet that one vital expense, the cost of
broadcasting, which enables us to reach you and over 7000 listeners in the
Ottawa River Valley. And if you are one of those people listening to our
broadcast world wide on the internet, you know how valuable it is to hear the
gospel and to hear the message of word explained. It would really help us to
continue in reaching you and people like you around the globe. If you can make
a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries you need only send it to
P.O. Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0 we will be happy to send you a
Canadian income tax receipt at tax time.
I also want to
encourage you to tell others about this program.
Now can I ask
you to be sure to worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed
and lived out with compassion, integrity and resolve? Now to conclude our
program I would like to have you listen to a song, This is a very joyful song,
and was also a favourite of Lise. This is called This is the Day, and this version is sung by Maranatha! Music from their collection of Top
25 Decade Worship, 1990s.
I do pray that
the Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus personally and
profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart, may the heavenly
Father surround you with his constant and abiding and accompanying love.
Good News In
The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio 580 CFRA.
- Rev. Brian Wilkie
St. Andrew's Christian Community, Rockland, Ontario
________________________________________
To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:
No comments:
Post a Comment