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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, February 26th, 2017:
http:
Broadcast Notes:
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Good morning and Welcome to good news in the
morning. My name is Brent Russett. I am
the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church here in Ottawa. I have been
pastoring there for 26 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 am
glad you have turned your radio on this morning. Starting your day with God’s
word, is a really good place to start. Of course if you are not a morning
person, and you want to re-listen, or get the manuscript for this program, you
can find us on the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca . There you can keep up
to date with what is happening around Good News Christian Ministries.
I
want to say a special welcome to our international listeners, who listen via
the internet. We are glad that you have found us, and that you are finding this
ministry an encouragement.
This
morning I want to talk about the unrelenting love of God. The dictionary says that word “unrelenting” means “Unyielding in
strength, severity or determination.” The love of God keeps on coming after
you. It doesn’t fade, it doesn’t back off, it persists, it perseveres, and it
does not diminish or fade. The unrelenting love of God.
I
believe that some of you really need to hear this message right now. You are
discouraged, or far away from God and you are really wondering about God –
please hear what God has to say from his word.
There
are some of you who know in your head that God’s love you but it has yet to
sink to your heart. My prayer for you is that you will know in the core of your
being that God loves you.
For when you know
the love that God has for you in Christ, it gives you confidence to walk in
this world. When you know the love that God has for you, it allows you to walk
well in the face trials and tribulations. If you know the love of God even when
life goes sideways, even when you fail, even when you sin, it allows you to get
up again, dust yourself off, and walk back into the fray.
David
in contemplating God says,
Psalm 139:7–8 (NIV)
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
When
life is great and I am on the mountain top you are there. When life is brutal,
and everything is going wrong you are there. Your presence is there, your love
of there.
You
remember David. He was the one who lusted after another man’s wife, and used
his power as king to seduce her, and then he got her pregnant. Then he conspired
to bring her husband back from the frontlines of the war, so that he could be
with his wife, and then they would pretend that the baby was his. But that
didn’t work, so he conspired to have the husband place in a no win situation in
the war, and he essentially murdered the husband.
And
yet God’s presence continued to chase after David. Oh sure there were
consequences. Those whom the Lord loves he disciplines. And the baby died. But
David and Beersheba had another baby, and they name him Solomon. And the Bible
records that God loved him, God loved David. God loved Beersheba.
All the way through the Psalms you see
David talking to God. Even when he turns his back on God, God’s love is there.
Even when he argues with God, God’s love is there. Even when he disagrees with
God and runs from God, God’s love is there. Whether he is on the mountain top
or the valley, God’s love is there.
You
remember the apostle Paul, who was formerly known as Saul. He threatened
Christians, He persecuted Christians, He killed Christians. And then he became
a Christian. He looks back over his former life and he is tempted towards
guilt. He is tempted to wallow in self-loathing. He sees all that he has done,
and he see all that has been done to him. Now listen to his inspired words from
Romans 8
Romans 8:31–39 (NIV)
31 What, then, shall we say in
response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who
did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also,
along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge
against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the
one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised
to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day
long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that
neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the
future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
The love of God is not fragile, it is
not soft, it is not dependent on circumstances – it is unrelenting. It keeps on
coming. The trials of life cannot stop it. The demons of hell cannot thwart it.
Even your opposition to God cannot keep it at bay, the love of God is
unrelenting and it keeps on coming and coming and coming.
You
need to know that when you have sinned and broken your own code, and your have
confessed to God for the 100th time about the same thing. The love of God is
unrelenting. It keeps on coming and coming.
You
need to know that when you have slipped into a place in your spiritual life
where you are lukewarm and where you have grown somewhat indifferent to God.
The love of God is unrelenting. It keeps coming and coming.
You
need to know that in the middle of your doubts and your uncertainty, that the
love of God is unrelenting.
This
is a golden Oldy, but it is still true. This is George Beverly Shea – singing
MUSIC
– The Love of God – 3:04
The
love of God is vast measureless and strong.
But here is what you also need to know.
God’s love has purpose.
1 John 4:9–10 (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among
us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son
as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
God
expressed his love by sending his only begotten son into the world so that we
might live through him.
God’s
love has a purpose. The story of the gospel does not end at the love of God.
The story of the gospel is that God hopes that his love will elicit a response
in us. He hopes that we will love him in return.
Our
love will never be on the same level as his love. His love is unrelenting, our
love is simply a response to love. God’s fondest hope is that we would respond
to his love, so that the love would be me mutual. When the love is mutual, there is a relationship.
A
relationship with God takes more than you would think. But God has done
everything that is needed to have a relationship with him. The bible says that
we were dead in our transgressions and sins. It is really hard for God the author
of life, the giver of life to have a relationship with a dead person. So what
did he do, he sent Jesus into the world that we might live through him. He
brought us from death to life. He made us alive in Christ.
Not
only that it hard for a God who is holy and perfect to have a relationship with
sin – he can’t. The bible says that God can’t look at sin. So what did he do?
1 John 4:10 (NIV)
10 This is love: not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our
sins.
What
did he do, he sent his son to deal with our sin. He paid the price for our sin.
He took away our sin. So the love of God did everything that was necessary to
make a way that we can enter into a relationship with him. He made a way that
we could be made alive. He made a way so that our sin could be dealt with. This
all comes out of his unrelenting love of God.
But just because a road is built does not
mean that is traveled on. Just because a way is made does no mean that the way
is taken. Just because love is given, does not mean that love is returned.
God’s
love has a purpose. Its purpose is to bring us into relationship with God himself.
God makes a path, but whether we walk on that path, depends on our response to
his love. God makes a way for us to be truly alive, but it depends on our
response to his love. God makes a way to have our sins forgiven and dealt with,
but it depends on our response to his love.
To
often, God’s love goes unrequited. His love goes unresponded to.
I
knew a man whose name was John. John had grown up in a Christian home, with
Christian parents. Every Sunday John’s parents would take John to Sunday School
and to church. John heard of God’s love and learned of God’s love.
As is
often the case John hit his teenage years and rebelled. He got into drinking
and into gambling. He especially liked to play the ponies.
In is
early twenties, I believe, John was invited back to the Church that he had
grown up in. There was a special speaker that night. The preacher preached on
God’s love and how God wanted a relationship with people. The power of the Holy
Spirit was heavy upon John with conviction. It was so much so that he could not
sit in the pew. He got up and he paced back and forth back and forth in the
church foyer, all the while listening to the preacher preach.
Finally
the minister gave an invitation to get right with the Lord. He invited people
who wanted to renew their relationship with God, or enter into a relationship
with God to come to the front of the church and be prayed for.
John’s
pacing stopped. A decision had been made. He walked out the church doors, and
left God and church behind. He felt God’s love and God’s draw, but he wanted a
relationship with the world more than he wanted a relationship with God.
John’s
vices got the better of him. He became an alcoholic. He ended up loosing his
family and loosing his business. ----The business of our enemy is to kill,
steal and destroy, and wow, did he do a good job in John’s life.
But
even in the middle of John’s life blowing up, God’s love was unrelenting. I
don’t know if he ever did get on the path to a relationship with God. But I do
know that God kept on calling.
That
is the thing about the unrelenting love of God. It doesn’t give up. It doesn’t
let up. But sometimes the further we get from the path, the harder to believe
that there is a path back. I haven’t known an alcoholic that has liked who they
are. And a lot of people figure that if they don’t like who they are, then God
can’t love them either.
That
of course is stinkin’-thinkin’ as the saying goes. God love is stronger,
deeper, wider, than any love that we could ever muster. Don’t judge God by your
standard of what is loveable, because God’s love goes a way deeper than yours.
There
are some of you listening, who have never responded to God love. He wants to
have a relationship with you. He wants to walk with you and wants to make you
fully alive. He wants to forgive your sin, and enter into a relationship with
you. His love for you is not in question. He loves you. But you will only have
a relationship if you respond to his love. I want to urge you even while I am
talking to talk to God.
Tell
him that you want a relationship with him. Ask him to forgive you of your sin,
and come into your life, and make you spiritually alive. Tell him that you want
to walk with him. If you do that, his promise is make you alive, and make you knew.
God
loves you, and he has done everything he can to enter into a relationship with
you. The ball is in your court – will you respond to his love by loving him in
return.
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Now I
want to talk to those of you who have entered into a relationship with Jesus a
while back. You too need to come to grips with the relentless love of God.
For
some of you it a real challenge, because you have seen how awesome God is. You
have seen his purity and his holiness. When you see that, and when you know who
you are – and all the times knowing what you know – you have blown it. You are
wondering if God can really love you – you think at least you must be a second
class citizen.
I
want you to know that God’s love is unrelenting towards you as well. It keeps on
coming. You are not too flawed for God. You haven’t blow it to many times for
God. Even your doubts and your fears and your unbelief have not made God stop
loving you. His love is unrelentingly towards you.
But
it is love with a purpose. It is still the same purpose. He wants to make you
alive, fully alive by his Spirit. He wants to cleanse you from sin and make you
whole. God’s love has a purpose. He wants to walk in relationship to you.
The
thing is that you can’t boil love and relationship down to a formula or a
ritual or a checklist. If you really want to continue the journey you are going
to have to do more than ask the question, what would Jesus do, you are going to
have to hear from Jesus and respond to Jesus. After all that is what a relationship
is.
God’s
love is more than a theory, or a theology or a philosophy. God’s love is real
and the relationship that he wants with you is real.
This
is so deceptively simple that we often over look it. We become indifferent to a
relationship with God. It not so much, that we are doing bad things – we are
plodding along but our relationship with God has kind of gets sidelined.
There
was a church in the New Testament that was like this. I want you to listen to
the words of Jesus spoken to this church. They are words of correction and
rebuke but they are spoken out of deep love and desire for a relationship.
Revelation 3:14–22 (NLT)
14 “Write this letter to the angel
of the church in Laodicea. This is the message from the one who is the Amen—the
faithful and true witness, the beginning* of God’s new creation:
15 “I know all the things you do,
that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16
But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you
out of my mouth! 17 You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need
a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor
and blind and naked. 18 So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been
purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you
will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be
able to see. 19 I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and
turn from your indifference.
20 “Look! I stand at the door and
knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will
share a meal together as friends. 21 Those who are victorious will sit with me
on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne.
22 “Anyone with ears to hear must
listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.”
The
Love of God is unrelenting. It keeps on coming and coming. But it has a
purpose. The purpose is that you walk in relationship with God.
I
don’t know where you are in your spiritual journey. Maybe you have yet to begin
and today is the first time that you are going to enter into a relationship
with God. I want you to know that he really loves you, and his fondest hope is
that you would be in relationship with him. Invite him into your life to
forgive your sin, to make you alive. Tell him that you want to respond to his
love and have a relationship with him and he will make it so. He will make it
so. God always, always, always keeps his promises.
Some
of you are journeying through a wilderness. You are trying to figure out how to
deal with obstacles. Some are saying, I’m starving God where are you. I’m
thirsty God where are you. I want you to know that God’s seeming absence does
not indicate his apathy. He loves you , He is working out is plan in you
although you might not see it right now. - God is going to come through for
you. Be patient and look to him.
Others
of you have got to the point where you have said, I’ve grown enough. I have
everything I want. I don’t need anything. I’ve got a good job and good life –
but you have become indifferent to God.
God
says, the whole purpose of my love is that you walk in relationship with me. My
purpose is not being fulfilled in you right now. Will you turn from your
indifference.
Jesus
says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If you respond to the unrelenting
love of God, by opening the door he will come in and share a meal as friends.
God’s
love has a purpose. Will you respond to the love of God? The ball is in your
court.
Let’s
Pray
Lord,
Thank you for your love for us. Thank you that it keeps coming and coming after
us. Lord, I pray for those who are yet to enter into a relationship with you, that
they would do that, even right now.
I
pray, Lord, for those who have a relationship with you, but it’s distant. I pray
that they would open the doors to their heart wide, to allow you to connect with
them in a deeper, more substantial way.
Lord,
I ask these things in your name. AMEN.
“ If Good News in the Morning has been a factor in
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And
Thank you for listening this morning.
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As you pray, may you encounter God for who he is.
Loving and gracious. May you encounter the God who is calling you to be all
that you were created to be through His son Jesus Christ.
MUSIC-
How Deep the Fathers Love for us Stuart Townsend 3:35
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan
Church in Ottawa:
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