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| Rev. Brent Russett |
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, December 3rd, 2017:
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Broadcast Notes:
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Walking in the Wilderness
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.
For
those of you who follow the church calendar, today is the first Sunday of
Advent. I want to wish you a God filled season of Advent.
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 are 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.
Last
Sunday morning we looked at what it means to begin our spiritual
journey with Christ. This morning I want to talk to those of you who have been
walking with Jesus for a little while. You are moving into a different stage in
your spiritual growth. You are not really infants in Christ, but neither are
you yet spiritually mature.
I
think of this as stage two in spiritual development. There are probably about
seven stages, although many Christians don’t make it past stage three. But I
suspect that many of you who have been walking with Jesus for a while will
relate to this stage. I call it moving into the wilderness. This is one of the
more difficult and dangerous levels to the spiritual life.
In
Mathew chapter 13 Jesus tells this story
Matthew 13:3–8 (NIV)
3 Then he told them many things in
parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering
the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some
fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly,
because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were
scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among
thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good
soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
This
is the level or rocky soil, where the roots have not gone deep. Jesus tells us
about this soil in verse
Matthew 13:20–21 (NIV)
20 The seed falling on rocky ground
refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But
since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or
persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.
These
people start out in level one, and they hear the good news with great joy – but
if their rood doesn’t go down deep enough then they fall away.
I
don’t mean to say that everyone who hits level two will fall away, but there is
a danger here. Because at this level, the spiritual life gets a lot harder, and
some people experience that and say – “I’m out of here.”
Let me tell you about this level. Last week we
talked about how people come to Jesus and it often about what God can do to
make them happy. But Jesus comes inside them, and there is joy, and they are
learning to pray, and they are learning about God. They don’t know much, but
they know that something has changed and God is there.
Oh
there are temptations, and there are challenges but these are more than offset
by the new adventure of getting to know God. A person travels in that way for a
while. It could be a couple of months or even a year or two. At some point
though, they move into level two. And I have to tell you that this is one of
the more difficult stages of the spiritual life.
When
you get here, you have come to the
conclusion that God’s way is the right way. This giving our life to Jesus
has become more than an experiment – we are convinced that it is the right way.
But
what seems to happen is that many people walk into a spiritual wilderness. Not
many people talk about this wilderness, and it catches people off guard. In some
ways the initial excitement of our new found faith has worn off.
What
happens is that we start to feel a little double minded in our faith. We know
that God is at work in our lives, but at the same time we engaged in worldly
living. The bible defines that in 1 John 2:16 as buying in the lust of the
flesh, or sensuality, the lust of the eyes, materialism, and the pride of life,
look at me look at who I am. At this stage we sense God working and yet the
pull sensuality and materialism and pride is really strong.
On
one hand we are starting to have the Spirit of God enlighten they eyes of our
heart, so we want what God wants and yet at the same time we see who we are.
Those pictures don’t match. That becomes disconcerting to us.
Not
only that, but because you are making progress in your spiritual life,
spiritual warfare is increased. You are becoming a threat to the work of Satan,
and he starts to roar loud. Our souls become the battle ground.
Not
only that but prayer isn’t quite the comfort to us, it was at first. We know
God is at work, but he seems to be a little more distant. And worst of all transformation is slow.
There
are a lot of people who hit this level and the going gets hard, and they quit.
They say, I have tried this Christian thing and it doesn’t work. But there are
others whose roots go down deep enough that they survive the onslaught.
To
put this in biblical terms, this is the time when people learn to walk by Spirit,---- or they don’t.
Galatians 5:16–17 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is
contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are
in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
The
flesh, for those of you who are not familiar with that term, is not talking
about our bodies, but a nature inside us, that wants to take our desires that
are good, and so warp them so that they
turn into something bad. There is this draw within us to do what is wrong.
Paul
says
Galatians 5:19–21 (NIV)
19 The acts of the flesh are
obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and
witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition,
dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
Paul
says if you walk by the Spirit you won’t do these things.
Verse 16
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh
It
doesn’t say that you won’t want to do these things. If you walk by the Spirit
you just won’t gratify those desires. The Spirit of God is also giving you
desires and they are contrary to the desires of the flesh. So you have these
two sets of desires. The Spirit of God is going to push you towards
Galatians 5:22–23 (NIV)
22 … is love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Those things are going to war against those other desires.
This
second level is all about learning to walk in the Spirit. You get a sense of
the war that is going on. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the
Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with
each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
There
is no place that you will feel this as keenly as in the second stage of growth.
You have two sets of desires that are at war with one another. That battle will
be with you for most of your life, but at this stage the battle is really loud
and really strong, because you are just learning to walk in the Spirit.
I
don’t know if you have every watched a child, learning to walk. The one thing
they do, is they fall a lot. It is the same thing learning to walk in the
Spirit. We tend to fall a lot. Sometimes the wrong desires win.
Have
you seen a parent helping their kid to walk. They will take them by both hands
and walk along with them. If they fall, they don’t say – you’re a bad kid for
falling. No they say opps. And they continue to help them to walk. That is what
God wants to do for you.
But
learning to walk is hard. At this point in the spiritual journey we need people
to come along side us to help us to learn what it means to walk in the Spirit.
They teach them the truth of
Romans 8:5–6 (NIV)
5 Those who live according to the
flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in
accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is
life and peace.
Walking
in the Spirit depends a lot on what you choose to set your mind on. Do you set
it on ways to get what your sinful nature wants, or set it on what you are
missing, or on how deprived you feel, or on how everyone is doing those things
– if you set your mind on what the flesh desires, you are going to fall.
If
you set your mind on what the Spirit desires you are going to stand. One
mindset brings death, the other brings life. We need people who will walk along
side others and encourage them, and help them to refocus.
MUSIC – I will praise you in the Storm – Casting
Crowns 4:58
I
want to take a few moments and talk to those of you who might be in this level.
When
you get to this level in your spiritual life, it can feel like you have gone
backwards. The great feelings that you began with, aren’t always there.
Spiritual warfare increases. It doesn’t feel good. And you is left wondering
what did I do wrong.
The
reality is that you are moving forward even if it doesn’t feel like it. Satan
wouldn’t be interested in attacking you, if he wasn’t scared of your progress.
The
battle that you feel is huge, but it is normal. The best thing that you can do
is learn to turn to Jesus each step of the way: when you feel tempted turn to
Jesus, when you feel spiritually dry turn to Jesus, when you have fallen turn
to Jesus, when you celebrate a victory turn to Jesus.
Let
me tell you about Jesus. He is going to continue to woo you – to call to you.
He wants you to have this deep friendship,, this deep love relationship with
him. He is going to continue to call you towards himself.
When
you sense a desire to move towards him in prayer, or in worship, respond to
that desire. That is the Spirit of God giving you his desires, and teaching you
to walk in God’s ways.
I
also want you to know that the process of learning to walk in the Spirit is a
slow process. Transformation is slow. Patience is one of the key
characteristics for spiritual grown. Be patient with yourself and be patient
with God.
Now
let me talk to you a little bit about prayer. Prayer is one of those key
elements to learn to walk in the Spirit. Last week we talked about learning to
bring all of your life to God in prayer. When your sad pray about it. When you
are happy give thanks for it. When you are confused or when you doubt, talk to
God about it.
You
are also going to learn that God wants his kids to ask him for things. If you
have ever raised a kid, you will know that there is this stage, where they are
used to getting things by pointing or by fussing. But when they learn to talk,
a parent has to remind them to use their words. We learn to use our words in
prayer and asked God for things.
When you start to pray and ask God for things
you are going to notice that your prayers get answered a lot. Well that isn’t
quite true, what you will notice is that you will have a lot of coincidences
happen in your life. You pray about something and you find that it happens, and
you are left wondering was that a coincidence or was that answered prayer. You
will be amazed at how many coincidences happen when you start to pray.
In
fact, you are going to see so many coincidences that you are going to start to
see the hand of God in those things. That seems to be the only explanation for
it. And it is true, God answers prayer – especially simply prayers, prayed in
expectation.
You
may also notice a lot of things going wrong in your life as well. Some people
reason, well if I give God the credit for those positive coincidences going on
in my life – well then I should give God the credit for the things that go
wrong in my life as well.
Here
is what I want you to know about God – God isn’t into negative reinforcement.
He is trying to draw you with love. He isn’t looking for you to step out of
line so he can bop you over the head with some celestial stick. That is not who
God is.
But you do have an enemy to your soul. We call
him Satan or the devil. Now God is everywhere present at the same time. Satan
is not. He spreads his work through demons, which are essentially fallen
angels. They seek to hinder and destroy you. Their greatest weapon is
deception. They will put thoughts in your mind, they will do stuff, and they
will blame all the bad things that go on in your life on God, when it is in
fact, it is them that are doing it.
If
you want to get an idea how they work, C.S. Lewis’ book “The Screwtape Letters”
is pretty good. It is the story of a senior devil mentoring a junior devil on
how to manipulate a Christian.
I
also want you to know that when it comes to demonic attack, God has not left
you defenceless. But part of this stage of the journey is learning how to
fight. You will find that God has given you armor to protect you. If you learn
his word, you can also attack. One of the names of the word of God is the sword
of the spirit. The primary weapon the enemy is deception and lies, your primary
weapon is the truth of who God is and who you are in Christ.
You
will learn the power of worship. You will be tempted to think, when things go
wrong, that God doesn’t really love me. But when you start to worship God for
his love, you will find that it is a very effective way of chasing the enemy
away.
Learning
to call on Jesus, and learning the power in the name of Jesus as you face the
attack of the evil one is all part of the battle.
Learning
to stand in the face of spiritual opposition is part of what it means to walk
in the Spirit. I wish I had time to walk you through Ephesians chapter 6 – but
it is all about learning to stand in the face of enemy.
Now I
have talked about the spiritual aspects of walking in the Spirit, but usually
something else starts to happen right around this time. Jesus starts the
process of discovering and healing the spiritual and emotional wounds from the
past.
We
grew up in an fallen world and we live in a fallen world. Because of that,
often there are bad things that happened to you while you were growing up, or
there was good that was supposed to happen to you that you never experienced –
and those things leave wounds.
And
when you start learning to walk in the spirit, and when you start to see your
desires that are not from God, God will start to show you where they come from.
This is also part of learning to walk in the Spirit. This process usually
continues on past this stage depending on how much damage was done. .
The
most important trait during this part of your spiritual journey is
perseverance. You fall, you get up. You get attacked and beaten up, you stand
back up, and you look towards Jesus in prayer for strength and for healing.
Continue
to study the scripture, for they are true and they are words of life to you.
During
this stage you may need to makes some adjustments about who you hang out with –
if there are some people who continue to tempt you towards a wrong path, then
you probably need to avoid those people until you get stronger.
Now
people of god who are a little further down the way of in your spiritual
journey, let me talk to you about your roll in helping people at this stage of
their spiritual development.
What
a person in this stage needs is a spiritual friend. They need someone who they
can trust to share their struggles with. I have got to say that women generally
do this better than men, but men need spiritual friends just as much as women.
A
spiritual friend is someone you can hold a spiritual conversation with and they can help you see what God is up to,
and they may also be able to point out the attacks of the enemy. They are often
able to recommend resources where you can learn what you need to learn.
I will
also say this to you, the last thing people at this stage need, is someone
laying guilt trips on them. That is counter-productive. And yes they are going
to fail a lot. When you are learning to walk, you tend to fall. And sometimes
you fall in the mud and it gets really messy.
What
they need most is for you to show them God’s love and forgiveness and grace and
truth. They also need you to pray for them and with them. The primary trait
that they need at this part in their spiritual journey is perseverance. What
they need from you is encouragement and assurance that God will come through.
Tell
them the truth about God. Tell them that they can trust him. Tell them to no
doubt in the darkness what they have learned in the light. Tell them that they
can get past this stage.
And pray.
Pray for them lift them up before God. Like I said, this can be one of the most
dangerous stages in the Christian life. But it is also one of those stages
where if you learn well, you develop an incredibly good foundation for the rest
of your spiritual life. If you don’t learn it well, you will find yourself
circling back here a way too often.
Maybe
as I have been speaking you just get this sense that this is where you are in
your spiritual journey. Journeying through the wilderness can be hard. God will
provide Oases along the way. God is close by even if you can’t see Him. His
heart towards you is good.
The
faster that you can learn to trust that he wants what is best for you, and that
his heart towards you is good, the easier it will be to navigate the
wilderness. But be patient with yourself, and with Him, this is an important
part of the journey.
Galatians 5:16–17 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is
contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are
in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Romans 8:5–6 (NIV)
5 Those who live according to the
flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in
accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is
life and peace.
I wish you life and peace.
PRAYER:
Lord Jesus, for those who are at the stage
in their life, I ask that you would give them the grace to be patient with themselves.
Would you give them a spirit of perseverance to make it through?
Lord, help their roots to grow deep, that
will protect them in this time.
Lord, I pray that you would bring along spiritual
friends and mentors that would help them walk through this time.
Lord, we commit them into your hands, in
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:
