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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, June 11th, 2017:
Broadcast Notes:
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The Word of God Is Alive and Active
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 Senior 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
want to thank a kind Anonymous donor for sponsoring today’s program. We
appreciate people like you who work behind the scenes to help share God’s
words.
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 you how the Word of God is Alive and Active. This
comes from Hebrews, a book in the bible
Hebrews
4:12 (NIV)
12 For the word of God is
alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to
dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and
attitudes of the heart.
Now when
we talk about the word of God, we are talking about the Bible. We use the word
of God, Scripture, the Bible as interchangeable terms.
The word of God is alive and active.
By the time we get to the end of this program, I hope you will be able to say,
the word of God is alive and active in me.
I have one over-arching question
that I want you to ask yourself today. The question is “What is my relationship
to the word of God?” What is my relationship to the word of God?
The truthful answer to that question
will reveal a lot to you about where you are spiritually and where you are
headed spiritually. I know that some of you have never read the Bible – and
don’t have any relationship with it. Some of you have studied it as a text
book. Others of you know it well and love it deeply.
I want to tell you a little of my
story in regards to journeying with the Word of God. The reason I tell you
this, is because some of you will see yourself in some of my story. Others of
you will hopefully be able to avoid some of the mistakes I made.
From my earliest remembering – I
grew up hearing the bible stories. My mom and dad had a big book that went from
Genesis toe Revelation, and told the stories of the bible. Each day, my parents
would read one story to my sister and me, - at the end of the story it asked
the question “Were you listening.” We went through that book a number of times.
In my earliest day the bible was a
great story book. I think that is a wonderful place to begin. It was certainly
good for me as a kid.
As I grew a little older the bible
became about virtue. It told me about what was right and wrong. I came to know
the 10 commandments. But more than that,, if you look through the New Testament
you see all kinds of commands. Be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving each other
Just as Christ has forgiven you.
The bible became a book of virtue
for me. In it we learn what is right and wrong. In it we learn what God thinks
is good and what isn’t good..
There is nothing wrong with that, in
fact it is very good. The idea of inherent human rights comes out of a
transcendent view of what is valuable and therefore what is good. Virtue is a
good thing.
But I didn’t stay there. I started
to use the word of God to prove that what I thought was good was in fact good,
and what I through was bad was in fact bad.
The bible became a fact book by
which I could win an argument.
Maybe this is a phase that we all
have to go through in our faith. You can usually tell a spiritual adolescent
because they want to go out and fight the cults – they want to stomp out
heresy.
I got to know the bible really well.
I could show you where everyone else was wrong and I was right. When I went to
Bible College they tested the incoming class. I knew more bible than almost
anybody.
But here is the thing about
knowledge – even biblical knowledge 1
Corinthians 8:1 says
Knowledge
puffs up while love builds up.
When being right is more important
than loving someone, you know that something has gone wrong in you. If you
can’t speak the truth in love, you should really be asking yourself if you
should be speaking the truth.
Along with this I started to take an
interest in the question, “Is the bible reliable?” It was a burning question
for a while. I knew the arguments against the bible, but were their good
arguments for the bible. I read the
popular apologetic books of the time like Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that
Demands a verdict.” I investigated the Bible, and I found to my satisfaction
that it is indeed reliable.
There are some personality types
that don’t need to go through this phase. They are the type who are quite able
to authentically say, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” But there
are others of us who are more skeptical. We need to wrestle with the issues of
reliability, and authenticity.
And while you are wrestling through
some of these issues it is a big hairy deal. I remember wrestling through an
issue over the bible’s trustworthiness. For the life of me right now, I can’t
remember what the issue was. But I remember losing sleep over it.
I remember wrestling with the issue,
and it being resolved. Things like that become a foundation that we build on.
We may not even remember all the blocks that put in the foundation, but those
things are important to us at the time.
If you are in that place where you
are wondering about the trustworthiness of scriptures, there are all kinds of
great resources to address that question. It is a phase that many of us have to
go through.
When I went to seminary – which by
the way wasn’t the most friendly place on my spiritual life. The bible became
something between a theological and philosophical text book to be understood
and argued with, and a book of literature where we were supposed to bring
literary critique, and a book in another language where we were to learn to
parse the words.
I am thankful for all those things,
and they taught me how to think. It is very helpful to be able to think
theologically about life. But in spite of being around the word of God all the
time, my spiritual life was dry. You will notice, up until this point in my
life, the Word of God was basically about information.
Oh I believed all the right things
about the bible. It is God’s word. It is
inspired by God. It is authoritative in faith in practice.
I read the word of God faithfully. I
knew it. But what I have described so far doesn’t sound a whole lot like
Hebrews
4:12 (NIV)
12 For the word of God is
alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to
dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and
attitudes of the heart.
I was get around the edges of this
verse, but I wasn’t living out this verse.
Well I graduated and became the solo
pastor of Bruce Mines Wesleyan Church at 22 years of age. I look back and think,
what was I thinking becoming a pastor so young.
But Bruce Mines had a Sunday morning
and Sunday Evening service. I had to preach two sermons a week. Those poor
people. They had to put up with sermons that sounded more like a bible
commentary.
It wasn’t long until I could see
those kind of sermons weren’t connecting with people. So I started to preach a
different kind of sermon. I started to preach the principles of God’s word.
Here are principles to live by.
There are certain ways which God has ordained for us to live, and if you follow
these ways our life will be better, if you don’t follow these things your life
will be worse.
God’s word became a handbook for
living. I still believe in following the principles laid out in the word of
God. God designed life to be lived a certain way, and if you go against that
way, life becomes much harder.
The book of Proverbs is full of
principles for living. The problem with principles is that some are inclined to
treat them like scientific formulas. If you plug in A + B it will always = C
So the bible says a soft answers turns away
wrath. That is a principle. Generally speaking if you give a soft answer it has
a way of diffusing anger. That is the principle. But it doesn’t always work.
Sometimes you give a soft answer and things still blow up.
The Bible is full of principles.
Principles like Honour your parents and it will go well with you, wisdom is
found through many counselors, Give and it will be given to you. People get to thinking;
if I do all the right things then life will go right.
I have found over the years that A +
B does not always = C. Just because you do all the right things does not always
mean that life will go right. It is still right to do what God says – it will
save you from a lot of trouble. But life is not a formula, plug in all the
right things and you will predictably get all the right things in life.
About this time, God in his providence
brought some people into my life who were teaching about spiritual warfare. I
was also in a place where I was going through some incredibly tough spiritual
warfare.
Satan’s strategy is to make us think
that he does not exist, and if that doesn’t work make us think that there is a
demon lurking behind every rock.
The reality is that we are in a
spiritual battle and if you are going to win that spiritual battle then you
need the power to defeat the enemy. That power is found in the word of God and
the cross of Christ.
God has to become more than a
premise to be believed in, or some philosophical construct – if you are going
to win the battle.
Ephesians 6 talks about putting on
the armor of God. It talks about taking up the shield of faith so that you can
extinguish the fiery arrows of the evil one. The shield of faith is made up of
the fact that
God
is who he says He is
God
will do what he says He will do, and,
I
am who God says I am.
Who God says he is, comes out of the
word of God. What God says he will do, comes out of the word of God. And who
God says I am comes out of the word of God. If you take God at his word, you
have the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish the flaming
darts of the evil one.
When Paul describes the armor of God
in Ephesians 6, He talks about the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God. In all the armor of God it is the only offensive weapon. When Jesus was
tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He used scripture to parry the temptations
of the evil one.
As an aside, when Satan was tempting
Jesus, once he used scripture – does it not say that if you throw yourself off
this high rock that the angels will catch you. Satan can use and distort
scripture. But Jesus answered the devil with scripture.
In spiritual warfare Satan’s power
comes through the power of the lie. If you put faith in his lies, it gives him
power in your life. He is the great accuser of the children of God. Your only
hope, is to combat his lies with God’s truth.
He will attack your identity. You
are not a child of God, you are not righteous, you are not forgiven. God can’t
really love you. God just tolerates you. Those all lies – and the way to combat
them is by the truth of what God has said. That is why the word of God is so important.
You will notice though, that is not
so much an intellectual processes, although, of course our mind is involved, as
it is a war that takes place in our hearts.
It was in spiritual warfare, that
the word of God for me, started to move into the spiritual realm.
It wasn’t that long after that when
I was introduced to a couple of people who were using scripture in biblical
counselling. Now I know that term can mean almost anything – there are some
people who do biblical counselling, and it is neither good counselling, nor
good use of the bible.
But the people I was exposed to had
a solid grasp of scripture, and showed how scripture uncovered what was going
on in our hearts. They showed how scripture uncovered the patterns of sin in
our heart, and how it gave channels for healing.
Since I learned to see the word of
God as speaking primarily to the heart, the idea of Repentance has become a
positive thing. It is the channel through which Christ heals. The idea of
reading the word of God at a heart level has become more and more of my thing.
It has influenced my preaching in
profound ways. I used to preach in a way that people would know something. I
now try to preach in a way that aims at the transformation of our hearts.
When I am speaking, I try to preach
in a way that aims at your heart without
violating your mind. So I tend to stay away from clichés. I am going to trying
to speak in a way that is intellectually coherent, but my hope is not to create
biblical scholars, although that wouldn’t be a bad thing. My hope is to see us
experience and live out, and invite people into an experience of God’s
transforming love. My hope is that God, through his word and his spirit would
transform us at a heart level.
Well that was a long story of my
relationship with the Word of God. Some of you may have been able to see yourself
in parts of my story. Now I am going to take you back to our verse today. But
before we do that let’s listen to some Music. It is a great old Hymn of the
church
MUSIC – Guide Me Oh thou
Great Jehovah 4:42 – For those of you who don’t know Jehovah is one of the Old
Testament Names for God.
Let me take you again to
Hebrews
4:12 (NIV)
12 For the word of God is
alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to
dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and
attitudes of the heart.
It is not exactly the most comfy
metaphor is it? Why couldn’t it be the word of God is like a soft puppy? No, it
is the word of God is like a sharp two edged sword. That word for sword, is a
short sword, or even a dagger. It is very precise.
What the word of God does is expose
us. It actively and accurately exposes us. It exposes the difference between
our soul and our spirit and our body.
I want to camp on that for a few
moments. Let me give you some rough definitions. Our soul is made up of our
mind our will and our emotions. Our soul is where we think, where we feel and
where we decide.
Our spirit, when we become a
Christian, is made alive – in other words it is connected to God. God by His
Spirit comes into our Spirit.
Here is what Romans says
Romans
8:14–16 (NIV)
14 For those who are led by
the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you
received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the
Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,
Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that
we are God’s children.
There is a lot in those verses, but
let me some up by saying that part of what happens in our Spirit is that we are
led by God and we are loved by God, and show that love in return.
When I say we are led by God, there
is something deep down inside us that says, this is the right way to go, or
this is the wrong way to go. Some of us are better at hearing those checks in
our Spirit. Others of us, are better at hearing that we are loved by God . But
a couple of the primary roles of your spirit is that you are led by God and
loved by God.
Now back to the Word of God. It is
living and active, dividing between the soul and the Spirit.
There are times when our mind and
our emotions will tell us one thing, but we sense something deep down inside of
us telling us another thing. The word of God is sharp enough to expose those
things. It discerns those things.
The word of God exposes the
difference between our mind will and our emotions and how we are led and loved
by God.
2
Timothy 3:16–17 (NIV)
16 All Scripture is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Remember we started off this sermon
asking, what is your relationship to the word of God. I told you about my
evolving relationship. It went from being a story book, to a book of virtue, to
a book to prove I was right, to a theological text book to a book of principles
on how to live life, to a spiritual powerful book in spiritual warfare, to a
book that exposed my heart.
In some of those phases my
relationship to scripture was I was in authority over it. I judged if it was
reliable or not. But I have come to a place where I am not its judge, it is my
judge. It exposes who I am.
It becomes a mirror. If I think I
see clearer than a mirror, I only deceive myself. The bible tells me the truth
about God and the truth about myself. It tells you the
truth about yourself.
The word of God is alive and active.
Will you let it be alive and active in you, or will you deflect what it has to
show you about yourself.
If you want to read the word of God
so that it alive and active in you. Then let me suggest this.
When you read a passage of
scripture, ask, what does this passage of Scripture tell me about God. What
does this passage of Scripture tell me about me. What thought or attitudes of
the heart does it expose?
Take note of what it affirms or
confirms. If you see something that you need to confess and repent of, do so.
My question to you, is will you
allow the word of God to be living and active in you?
For that to happen you need to first
of all be reading scripture. If you are not familiar with the bible, It is made
up of 66 books, with 40 different authors. It is divided into two sections the
Old Testament and the New Testament. If you are not familiar with scripture,
then I would recommend that you not start at the beginning like you would with
most books. I would recommend that you go to the index and find the book of
John. It is the 4th book in the New Testament. Read the book of
John. It will tell you the story of Jesus. That is a great place to start.
As you read it, see what it is
saying about God and about you.
For those of you who are familiar
with the Scriptures, you have probably discovered that if you pray that you
will continue to see new things about God and about yourself.
I want to urge you today to you
allow the word of God to be alive and active in you.
Let’s
Pray;
Lord,
Jesus, thank you for your word. Thank you
for teaching us through it and showing us who we are.
Lord,
I ask that as we come into relationship with you that we would treat your word well
and properly.
Lord,
I ask that you would allow it to be a mirror to our lives. In Jesus’ name, I pray.
AMEN.
Thanks
again to our anonymous donor who made this morning’s program possible.
My
name is Brent Russett and it has been a privilege to spend some time in God’s
word with you and bring you some 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:
