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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 26th, 2017:
Broadcast Notes:
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Beginning With Christ
Good
morning and Welcome to good news in the morning. I am so glad that you have
tuned into the program today. My name is Brent Russett. I am the Lead Pastor at
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church here in Ottawa. I have been pastoring there for 27
years. One of the things I love to do is show how God’s word that was written a
long time ago, connects with our world right now.
I
know that some of you who are listening have been followers of Jesus for a long
time, and I know that others of you think of yourself as spiritual, but you are
not really sure of this Christian thing, and I know others of you just curious
how people of faith think. I trust that wherever you are on yours spiritual
journey, that you will find this program interesting and informative, and I believe
that for those of you desire it, God can use a program like this to take you
another step closer to Him.
This
morning I want to talk to those of you who have just started to walk with
Christ, and those of you who are walking with those who have just started to
walk with Christ. You see we are all on a spiritual journey, but we are at
different places on that journey. It is helpful to know what to expect when you
hit certain stages of your journey. This morning I am looking at beginning with
Christ.
*****
We
all start the journey at the same place. The bible says we were dead in our
trespasses and sin. It says that none of us are righteous, not even one of us. However you describe that state, whether it
be, Lost, or Not a Christian, unsaved, we are outside of Christ. That is where
we all start on our spiritual journey.
Now
to start your spiritual journey with Christ we all have to pass through what
the bible sometimes describes as a door.
Now
there are many path to get to the door, but there is only one door by which you
can enter the new life. Some of you searched for a good long while. Some of
you, like me, had your parents point you towards the door. Sometimes hardship
and trouble drive us towards the door. The Spirit of God is constantly nudging
us towards the door. But you must pass through the door in order to enter this
new life.
The
door is not a church door, or a religious door. The Bible describes the door as
narrow. The door is Jesus Christ
himself. To enter into this new life we need to come through Jesus. That means
humbling ourselves and admitting that we have sinned and broken God’s laws, and
that we want a relationship with God, but we can’t do it on our own. We need
Jesus to perform a miracle on our behalf. We need him to take away our sin, and
give us new life.
Some
of you may be saying, I am ready to pass through the door, but how – how do I
do that. The bible talking about Jesus says, to as many as receive him, to them
gave he the power to become children of God.
To
pass through the door, it is a simple as receiving all of who Jesus is, into
your life. Jesus is our Saviour, for he came to save his people from their sin,
so you receive him as Saviour. Jesus is our good shepherd, so we receive him
into our lives as the one we are going to follow. Jesus is King, so we receive
him into our lives as the one we are going to serve. Jesus also lets us know
that he wants to be our friend, so we receive him into our lives as one with
whom we are going to have a relationship with.
Most
often people receive him through prayer. Praying a prayer like, Lord Jesus I
invite you to come into my life, I receive you as my Saviour, the one who
forgives my sins, I receive you as my shepherd, the one who I will follow, you are Lord and the
one who I will serve and I want to be your friend. I receive all that you are
into my life, and trust you with my life.
The
words aren’t important but receiving Jesus in faith, trusting him to do what he
said he would do is important. It sets in motion a lot of spiritual realities.
You are forgiven, you are made new, you are given Christ life, you are made a
child of God. You have passed through the door.
What
we find on the other side of the door is new life. The Bible describes us as
moving from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We are moving
into the King’s territory where he rules and things are different.
****
We go
through the door that is Jesus, and in doing so we commit ourselves to
following Jesus. We put our lives in his hands.
There
are many labels for the walk through the door. ----Becoming a Christian, being
saved, but the label I want to use today is being born again. When you walk
through the door you are born again. In John 3 Jesus talks about being born
again. In a dialogue between himself and a religious teach Nicodemus, Jesus say
it is not about being born physically again, it is about being born
spiritually. When you walk through that door, you are a spiritual new born. You
are a babe in Christ.
****
Now
babies are cute. I love it when they giggle or smile at you. They are great--
until they smear you with projectile vomit. They are awesome but sometimes they
are really smelly. They are wonderful, but sometimes they will keep you up all
night. And the thing you will notice about babies is that – from their perspective- life is all
about them.
I am
hungry -Whaa I am dirty -Whaa. I don’t know what I want Whaa.
It is
the same the spiritual life. New Christians are awesome to be around and they
are messy. It is so great to have them as part of the family – and sometimes
they can make your hair turn grey.
Come
with me to 1 Corinthians 3. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth. The
church in Corinth is immature. Paul is frustrated with them because he feels
like they should be further along the path than they are. But in many ways they
are still stuck at the first level of spiritual growth.
So
for our purposes, overlook Paul’s frustrations and see what he means by infants
in Christ.
1
Corinthians 3:1–4 (NIV)
3
Brothers
and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as
people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave
you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are
still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is
jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like
mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another,
“I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
This
tells us something about people who are “mere infants in Christ.” They are not living by the Spirit. They need
a special diet, because they cannot handle all of God’s truth. They are still
worldly. They are reacting to situations like they have always reacted to
situations. There is jealousy and there is quarreling, and they are taking
sides on issues that shouldn’t have a side. Paul’s the best, Apollos is the
best- when the reality is that our faith is all about Jesus.
****
These
are just some of the things that often happen when people are born again. It is
sometimes just messy.
The
goal of our spiritual journey is a deep love relationship with God. But usually
at this stage, God is means to my
lifelong desire for security and happiness. God is going to help make me
happy. Life is about me and what I want – and God is going to help me to get
it.
Most
likely our lifestyle is largely reflective of the world’s agenda. Our schedule,
time, money are all built around family work and entertainment. We can’t see
how God relates to any of these. There
is sin, but they don’t really think about it as sin. How we treat people the
people we are in relationship with, how we treat ourselves are often divorced
from the fact that we have come into a relationship with Jesus.
But
you know what, we all have to start somewhere.
It
would be pretty crazy for parents to say of their baby, you smell, I’m not
going near you. It would be pretty crazy of the church to look at Newborns in
Christ and say you smell I’m not going near you. But I have seen it done
before.
***
I
love being around new Christians – but sometimes it is awkward.
And I
have been part of some really awkward conversations. If before you became a
Christian, your coping mechanism when things go wrong is to go out and get
drunk. After you become a Christian and things go wrong, your coping mechanism
is still going out and getting drunk – and then you call your pastor. – Awkward
conversation.
But
you know what, we all have to start somewhere.
There
are some real challenges and severe dangers in this part of the spiritual
journey.
The
fact that they have changed sides and gone from the kingdom of darkness and
come into the kingdom of light -- you know that the enemy of our souls is going
to try to destroy their faith.
Temptations
are rampant. Some of those temptations comes from the enemy of our souls, and
other comes from our own desires, and some come from the social network we are
in that doesn’t want us to change. What
we value is in flux. We used to value what the world values, but God is giving
us a different love.
**
Shame
is often a real factor in this stage of the spiritual life. They start hanging
out with Christians, and they look like things are going well, and yet they are
still trying to figure out how to think of themselves in light of who they were
and who they are.
Yet
at the same time, often there is something good and wonderful happening on the
inside. People love Jesus. They feel themselves coming alive. There is this
wonder that God loves them. They are getting new insight into what this new
spiritual life means.
MUSIC – Draw me close to you – From the Album Heart of Worship 4:22
Let
me talk to those of you who are at this first stage of the spiritual journey. I
am so glad that you have chosen to follow Jesus. I want you to know that you
can’t make yourself grow, but there are ways to cooperate with God that will
help you to grow.
Think
of your spiritual life as a plant. If a plant is fed the right stuff and
watered the right way it will grow, unless of course you put too much poison
into the pot. Your spiritual life will grow if it is fed, and if you don’t
poison it too much. You don’t have to force yourself to grow, you just have to
cooperate with God.
Paul
uses a metaphor of building a house
1
Corinthians 3:10–11 (NIV)
10 By the grace God has
given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building
on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can
lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
He
goes on to say you can build well or you can build poorly. But we are all
building.
You
are constructing your spiritual life. You have the foundation. It is Jesus. He
has saved you, he has forgiven your sins, and he has come into your life. Your
spiritual life rests on him and the work that he did for you on the cross.
That
is your foundation. Never leave that foundation. Your spiritual life rests on
Jesus. It is about Jesus. You can loose sight of that, and think it is all
about you, but don’t.
Now there are some things that you can do to
cooperate with God, to build well.
The
first thing is, Learn to pray openly and honestly about what is going on in
your heart.
Prayer
is simply talking to God. He can hear you even when you pray silently. But if
you have the place and space it is sometimes helpful to pray out loud. When you
are confused about God or what is going on in your life, pray about it. When
you see something that you are grateful for, thank God for it. When you have
something you need, ask God for it.
You
build a strong spiritual foundation when you learn to bring your life to God in
prayer. When you are open and honest with God in prayer it makes a difference.
Also listen to those little nudges in your heart as to what is right and wrong.
God has a way of speaking to us. Prayer is meant to be conversation.
The
next thing that you can do to build well is Bible Study. I usually recommend
that people start with the gospel of John. You can look it up in the index at
the front of the bible. It will tell you the story of Jesus.
Unlike
most books, don’t try to read from front to back. Some of those books at the
very start of the bible are boring until you figure out what is going on. That
can be discouraging for your spiritual life and for the practice of reading
scripture.
The
bible is divided into two parts the Old Testament and the New Testament. You
will also see that from the index in the front of your Bible. Stick with the
New Testament until you are really familiar with it, then you can move to the
old testament.
So
there is prayer and there is bible study, and with those two things, ---you
start to ask God, is there anything that I need to change in the way that I am
living.
You
see God will begin the task of getting
rid of sin and showing you how to do good. How you live is important. If you
don’t deal with the sin that God points out to you, then that is a way of
poisoning your spiritual life. But remember, God isn’t asking you to deal with
these things to make your life harder, but to make them better. You can trust
him with that.
Let me say a word to those of you who
struggle with addictions. What you are struggling with is really hard. And
I have watched as God has taken some people’s addictions away with a seeming snap
of his fingers. I have watched as others have really had to struggle with their
addictions.
I
have come to the conclusion that if Jesus doesn’t immediately remove your
addiction, that there is something really important that he wants to teach you
in the struggle. He wants to teach you about depending on him. He wants to
teach you his ways.
Know
that even when you blow it and you sin, that he is forgiving and merciful. He
wants to lead you into a deep love relationship with himself. So learn to keep short
accounts with God. What I mean by that is if you sin, come back to God quickly
and confess your sin. Simply say, Lord I acknowledge what I did was wrong,
please forgive me.
One
of Satan’s primary tools is shame. He wants you to wallow in self loathing. But
that is not God’s way. Shame is not from God. Guilt is not from God. God
convicts of sin to let you know that it was wrong, but his desire is that you
walk in freedom from sin and shame and guilt. When you sin, confess your sin to God, and ask
him to forgive you – and he does and he will. Even if you are coming back time
and again, he always is merciful, because he wants what is best for you.
What
happens in all this is that God is going to show you more and more of your own
heart. He is also going to show you more and more of Himself. When you get to
know who you are and who He is, it leads to humility in you and awe of Him.
If
you are at this stage I would urge you, if at all possible, to get into a small
group that will nurture your faith. These are sometimes challenging – but I
believe they ae important.
***
Now
let me speak to you as a fellow Christians who have friends who have just
stepped into the kingdom of God.
If we
don’t love people’s whose lives are messy, then we have not grown as much as we
think we have. New Christians have a way of keeping us real and authentic, and
fresh. So I want you to embrace the mess.
Over
the years, I have come to this conclusion, God will only entrust us with his
new children if we have the capacity and the willingness to love them well. The
last thing new Christians need as struggle in their new life, is judgement from
you. It is God’s job to convict and your job to nurture and encourage.
Just
as new babies have needs, so those who have just been born again have needs as
well.
Their
primary need is to have spiritual friends, or mentors or coaches. This involves
friendship, but friendship where we talk about all of life. Being willing to
listen is important. When life is messy, having someone to listen well is
really important. Don’t jump to quickly to speaking into the issue.
These
kinds of friendships are where you can read the bible together and search for
answers together and pray together. And these relationship matters. These
relationships may only last for a year or two, or they may last a life time –
but they are really important. I have to ask you – are you willing to enter
into this kind of relationship with one or two people.
Would
you ask God to bring someone like this into your life?
That would mean embracing the mess and disruptions
that sometimes happen. That would mean welcoming them into our small groups and
into our lives. That would mean becoming spiritual friends or coaches or
members.
Maybe
God has already put someone in your path that is just beginning their walk with
Christ – are you willing to embrace the uncertainty and just walk with them?
This
morning we have looked at the first part of the spiritual journey. There are
many different paths to get to the door into a life with Christ, but there is
only one door. The door is Christ himself. We pass through that door, by
receiving all of who Christ is into our life. He is the Saviour, he forgives us
our sins. He is the good shepherd, the one we follow. He is the King, the one
whom we serve. He is our friend the one who we walk with. We receive all of
Jesus into our life and he gives us new life.
The
goal of this journey with Christ is a deep love relationship with the God of
the universe. Where ever you are on the spiritual journey I would urge you to
take one more step towards God. And take someone else’s hand and encourage them
along the way.
Lord Jesus, I pray for those people who are listening, who are just brand
new Christians.
I would ask that you help them on their journey to get a good foundation
with you.
Bless those who are walking with them and would give them faith and eyes
to see what God sees in them.
I ask this is Jesus’ name. AMEN.
And Thank you for listening to Good
News in the morning.
This program is on the air by the
grace of God and donations of many faithful people..
My name is Brent Russett, and it has
been a privilege to bring you Good News in the morning.
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
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PODCAST
LINK to the CFRA broadcast:
