 |
| 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, August 9th, 2015:
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‘Christ in You - Authentic Gospel’
Good
morning. And welcome to good news in the morning. My name is Brent Russett. I am the Senior
Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church. It is my pleasure to look at some of
life’s challenges, and then bring you some good news in the morning.
I am glad that you tuned your dial
to CFRA. I want you to know that you can also find Good News in the morning on
the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca
. There you keep up to date with what is happening around Good News Christian
Ministries.
This
morning I want to help you to see your life as God sees it. I want to help you
envision your life in a way that will allow you to be all that you were created
to be. This morning I want to give you some handles on how to unleash the power
of God into every area of your life.
For
some of you this will be a reminder of what you already know. For others of
you, you are going to get fresh insight into what God says about you and what
God wants for you. This morning I want to talk to you about the authentic
gospel.
Come
with me to Colossians 1
15 He (Speaking of Jesus Christ) is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For
by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were
created by him and for him.
17 He
is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And
he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn
from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
19 For
God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him,
20 and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or
things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once
you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil
behaviour.
22 But
now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present
you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--
23 if
you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held
out in the gospel.
If
you are going to be all that God made you to be, then it actually does not
start with you. It doesn’t start with your will power or your good works, or
your personality. If you are going to be all that God created you to be, it
will start with Jesus.
The gospel is simply this. It is about Jesus. Jesus
showed us who God is. Our passage just said that Jesus is the fullness of God
in bodily form. And God sent his Son Jesus into the world, so as many as would
want to could enter back into relationship with God.
You
see all of us (you and me) were estranged, alienated, separated from God. Our
relationship with God had been broken. In fact it was so bad that we were in
fact, God’s enemies because of our evil
thought words and deeds. Not only that but the whole world is out of sync with
what God created it to be.
But
Jesus died for you. His physical death on the cross created a bridge over which
you could walk to connect with God, and have your relationship with God
restored. His death has taken care of the sin and evil deeds which separated us
from God. And because of what Jesus has done, you are holy, and free from sin,
and now you reconciled to God if you will in fact walk over that bridge by
faith, and put your trust in what Jesus has done.
Paul
says, this is the gospel I have preached and you have received. There is no
other gospel.
Some
will try to sell you another gospel.
Some will tell you about the gospel of good works. Where if your good works out weigh your bad
works, your in. No it is about Christ and what he has done, not about what you
have done. There is no gospel of good works.
Some
will try tell you about the gospel of religion. If I just go to church and take
part in communion, and pray and read my bible then I am in. There is no gospel
of religion. No, it is about Jesus and what he has done, not about what you do.
You
cannot add anything to work of Jesus. You can receive it or you can reject it,
but you cannot add to it. It is not Christ and something else in which our hope
is based, and in which we come into relationship with God. It is Christ alone.
This
is the gospel of the New Testament Church, and this is our gospel as well. This
is our salvation.
Now I
want to introduce another verse to you. It is found in
1 Peter 2
1Pe 2:2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual
milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
What
does it mean to grow up in our Salvation? I believe that if we were to grow up
in our faith, it would make a bigger difference than any self-help book. It
would indeed be truly transformational.
Before
we get there, let’s listen to
Music
– In Christ Alone -4;50 from the Worship
Together album
In
order to see what it means to grow up in our Salvation, let’s take a closer
look at what the gospel does for us. Let’s look at what it really means to be
saved. Because when the bible talks about Salvation it talks about it in a
sense, that we were saved, when we came to know Jesus. It talks about it in the
sense that we are being saved, that it is an ongoing process. And it talks
about it in the sense that we will be saved when we get to heaven.
Here
is what the gospel did for us, this is what your salvation means. When God
created people there was harmony. There was internal harmony. Our body our
soul, our Spirit functioned together. The Spiritual realm was accessible as the
physical realm. We had not loped off our emotions, or shut down our heart. We
had not put walls up around our souls to protect ourselves. There was internal
harmony.
Not
only that but there was harmony between a person and God. There was
uninterrupted fellowship. It wasn’t a chore to talk to God, it was like
breathing. It wasn’t an anomaly to hear from God, it happened regularly. There
was nothing to hinder the fellowship between a person and God.
Not
only that, but there was harmony between people. There were no marital spats.
There were no grudges. There were no bitterness or unforgiveness or anger. There was harmony
Not
only that but there was harmony between people and creation. Nature and people
were not at cross purposes from one another. We used what God had created for
us, but we didn’t abuse it.
God
created us in harmony with ourselves, him, the people around us and creation. If you want a definition of what it means
to be truly human, then that is it. Living in harmony with ourselves, with God, with people, and with creation.
But
then Sin came into the world And with sin came walls. Our Spiritual side of us kind
of died. Our fellowship with God was broken. We were cut off from other people.
We also lost touch with creation.
It
is no wonder that the poets in trying to describe the human condition said that
“no man is an island”, because everyone feels like that from time to time. I
know few people who haven’t experienced loneliness We have lost touch with what it means to be truly human.
We
have lost touch with ourselves, and we are disconnected from each other, and we
are disconnected from creation, and most of all we are disconnected from God.
But
now Christ has come into the World. By his death on the cross he has dealt with
sin. And when you walk through the door of Salvation by believing in him, and
receiving him and choosing to follow him, Christ is in you . He deals with the
Sin that is in your life. You are forgiven. It is a wonderful thing. We sing
about it all the time. There is nothing better.
In some ways that means that you are put back
together. Your spirit is made alive in Christ. You have fellowship with God.
And when we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one
another. You are connected again with creation as well. Now this is the gospel on a cosmic scale.
Often
I will hear stories of how when someone becomes a Christian, that they walk
outside and the colours are more vivid, they have love pouring out of their
hearts for everyone. Something changes in them that changes their perception of
things.
I
know that many of you listening to me are Christians. You have trusted Christ’s
work on the cross. Jesus has forgiven you of your sin. Christ lives in you.
But
the reality is that most of us don’t experience completely what I am talking
about. We get glimpse of it. But you don’t walk out into nature and burst into song, “The
hills are alive with the sound of music.” You don’t live in perfect harmony
with yourself, or God or others or creation..
There are still some parts of your heart that
has been walled off. Your fellowship with God sometimes feels really sweet.
Sometimes you feel really distant. Sometimes it is really easy to walk in
fellowship with one another, and at other times it right down laborious. And creation, well, often we feel walled off from it.
So let’s go back to our picture and look at the
gospel, not cosmically but personally.
We
have been separated from God ourselves, people and creation by sin. But someone
introduces us to Christ, and we welcome him in with open arms. Walk through the
door into the kingdom of God. Jesus comes into our lives. We believe, we receive we follow.
The
problem is there are still some walls up. Christ is in us, and we are kind of
connected. But we still see Christ as through a glass dimly. Fellowship with
others is sometimes still a challenge.
Think
of it this way. Christ has come into your
heart. But around you heart is a
wall that you have constructed over the course of your life. People are
different and so the walls are different. So some will have a really thick wall
between them and other people. – trust doesn’t come easy. Other people’s wall
will be thin there, but there will be a thick wall between them and God. It
isn’t that they don’t love God, and it isn’t that Jesus isn’t in them, but they
have walled off their heart in ways where they find it harder to pray, and
harder to hear from God.
Some
are walled off from themselves, and they have no idea what is going on in their
own heart. In the city it is really easy to be walled off from creation.
Of
course some people are different. They can have all kinds of walls up inside
themselves but hide those walls well. The cover the walls up with their
extroversion and ability to get along with others. Some are close to God, but
have trouble with people. We all have our walls.
Now
when the Bible talks about growing in our Salvation, one of the ways to imagine
this, is that the walls of our heart become thinner. There is less between us
and God, and us and our own hearts, and us and others, especially those who are
walking in the light, and us and creation.
The
question is how does this happen. Well let me take you back to our Colossian’s
passage. Paul has been talking about the gospel, but then he goes on to say,
our gospel comes with a mystery.
Not the kind of mystery that Sherlock Holmes
would solve. But the kind of mystery, where you know it is true, you just
wonder how it can be true.
Verse 25 The Apostle Paul says,
25 I have become its (The gospels) servant by
the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness--
26 the
mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now
disclosed to the saints.
27 To
them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of
this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The
mystery is this “Christ in you the hope of Glory”
Let
me unpack a little of what that means. If you are a Christian, Christ is in you,
he is at the core of who you are. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Just
a little aside, this is very different than a lot of the dressed up new age
spirituality that you will find of many Chapters book shelves. God is in you,
but you are not God. We are not some kind of cosmic consciousness. The spirit
of God is in you, but He is distinct from you.
But
now follow me for a moment, at the core of who we there is Jesus. But around
our core we have built walls that keep us walled off from ourselves, and
others, and creation and God himself. But Jesus is at our core.
We
have walled him in and we have walled others out. What it means to grow in our
Salvation is to allow Jesus to expand
himself in us, so that the walls become thinner and thinner.
The
way is not by trying to make resolutions from the outside in, the way is to
expand from the inside out.
So
the question is how do you allow Jesus to expand himself in you. Let me give you some time tested way of breaking
down the walls and allowing Christ into every part of you.
·
Surrender – you can’t create your own
spirituality, but you can follow Jesus’ lead. And my guess is that most of us,
if we took a little bit of time and asked the question, what is it Jesus that
you want me to surrender--- – we would know.
o Many of us don’t
surrender until we have too
o Jesus wants us to
surrender before that time.
o Obedience
·
Nurture your Spirit - If Jesus while he was on earth had to go away
and pray – how can we think that we don’t need to take time to commune with God
– or even allow Christ in us to recharge.
o Think of it as two
batteries, Christ and your spirit
§ Christ always charged
§ Your spirit needs to be
charged
§ You need to be connected
to be charged
o Meditate on the word of
God
o Pray
o Go to church
o Read good books/or
listen to good pod casts
o Avail yourself of the
means of grace – like communion, like worship, like corporate prayer.
o Practice Silence
o Memorize Scripture
o Have real spiritual
conversation with other followers.
·
Serve
o Do intentional works of
Christ in this world.
§ Do it without fanfare
§ Things like
·
Hospitality
·
Serving the poor
·
Being kind to a Neighbour
·
Make a phone call to
someone lonely
·
Teach a Sunday School
class
·
Use your spiritual gifts
·
§ Do these things as your own personal spiritual discipline
§ Remember it is not all about you.
If you Surrender, Nurture your Spirit and Serve all with a good
attitude, Christ will indeed expand in you. The walls will become thinner, and
you will grow in your Salvation.
To be truly human, to be truly
Christian, is to be fully connected with our own heart, with people who are
walking in the light, with the creation around us, and with God himself.
I would invite you this year to
enter into the mystery, of Christ in you the hope of glory.
Let’s
Pray
Lord, Thank you so much for Your Word,
that causes us to grow, and for your encouragement that causes us to be all that
we can be, in You.
Lord, I pray that for each person that
you have been speaking to through these words, that You would encourage them to
grow deeper and stronger in You.
In Jesus’ name, I pray, AMEN.
If
Good News in the Morning has been a factor in your journey of faith, we would
love to hear your story. Nothing could encourage us more in this work. Contact us by e-mail or Twitter via the web
site –goodnewsinthemorning.ca
And Thank you for listening this
morning. This program is on the air by the grace of God and donations of many
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K0G 1W0. Or you can give online by going
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May
you know Jesus Christ personally and
profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside
deep within your heart . And may the
heavenly Father surround you with His constant and abiding and accompanying
love
MUSIC – Be thou my
Vision 4:49
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in
Ottawa:
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PODCAST LINK to the CFRA broadcast:
