By Rev.
Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA
broadcast - Sunday, March 13th, 2016:
Broadcast Notes:
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Welcome to Good News In the Morning a program of words and music
bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking
for intelligent meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.
This program is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries PO Box 184
Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St.
Andrew's Christian Church in Rockland. As always I want to start by thanking
you our listeners. We are so grateful for your encouragement and support.
Please remember that you can always visit our website, www.GoodNewsChristianMinistries.ca or www.GNCM.ca as well.
If you miss an episode of the show you can go to our website and
download the podcast or the MP3 of our broadcast. Details can be found on our
website.
Today, again, we're thanking Wills Transfer, a local company that provides full-service logistics and warehousing
services in Eastern Ontario and Western Québec since 1945. They have been so
good to us, so friendly to us, by sponsoring the programs through the month of
March and we're delighted with their support.
He who has borne our
sorrows
The Sunday broadcast for this particular episode will be the Sunday
before Palm Sunday. We're right in the last couple of weeks before Easter, so I
want to share with you one of my favorite passages, a prophecy concerning the
cross of Jesus Christ, taken from the book of Isaiah. There Isaiah is given
this message from God:
Who has believed our message
and to whom
has the arm of the Lord been
revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a
root out of dry ground.
He had no
beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in
his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of
sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one
from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried
our sorrows,
yet we
considered him stricken by God,
smitten by
him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was
crushed for our iniquities;
the
punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his
wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us
has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Is 53:1–6)
This word from Isaiah chapter 53 is a great look
into the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross, a prophecy spoken about him some
700 years before he was even born. It tells us a few things about Jesus, but
the ones I want to focus on today are the fact that he was pierced for our
transgressions, that he took up our infirmities, and by his wounds we are
healed. We'll take a look at what this
means in a few moments but first I'd like you to hear a song that expresses
something of our great love for Jesus Christ. I hope you listen to it with me,
Scholars'
Baroque Ensemble, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows", GF Handel
We were just listening to the passage from Handel's
Messiah sung by the Scholars Baroque
Ensemble, called "Surely, He Has
Borne Our Grief" is a very classical rendition of the very Scriptures
that we were just reading. Handel's Messiah does a tremendous job of using the
Scriptures to tell the story of Jesus in words of prophecy, in words of
revelation and in word from his life story in the Gospels. Now as we go on
let's ask, how it is that Jesus has borne our griefs, born our transgressions and
our infirmities? How have we been healed through his death on the cross?
First let's ask a question, Who can carry your
burdens? We are often describing the things we go through in life, the
difficulties, as burdens and that idea suggests a heavy weight, a literal
burden is a pack on your back filled with heavy weights. It is something that
you have to carry for some reason. Perhaps it needs to be taken somewhere, or
it is something that needs to be dealt with. Sometimes a burden is a thing that
you're glad to carry: Perhaps it's a present for someone else, a good thing. Perhaps
it's a feast, a picnic feast you are taking on a hike with you; though it's
heavy to carry, at the end of the day you are glad to sit down and open up that
basket and take a look at what's inside.
There are also those burdens we carry that are not
happy burdens. We could be carrying garbage out to the curb. You'd be doing your
best not to get any more involved with the garbage than you have to. We could
be carrying a burden in which the outcome of our of our journey is uncertain. Perhaps
we are taking someone who's fallen and we're trying to carry them to help. We're
desperately hoping we can get them there on time.
There are burdens that are not physical burdens as
well. There are the worries that we carry the uncertainty about the future that
can be a very difficult thing to carry; because unless we have some reason to
trust that the future will be good the burden can be unbearable. We can talk
about the burden of guilt. Guilt is sometimes a false burden - sometimes people
feel guilty for things that they really don't need to feel guilty about, things
that weren't wrong in the first place or things that weren't their fault. That
false burden is it is a difficult one to get off because an imaginary burden is
very hard to take hold of, very hard to release. Sometimes there's the true
burden of guilt - when we know that
we've done harm to somebody and we don't know how to make it up. Perhaps we
carry that burden until we go to the person and we ask for their forgiveness. Perhaps
that person may insist that we do something to prove that we're serious or to
make up the damage we've done. Sometimes the burden is a debt that's as real as
a debt of money and until we've paid it back to the person they just won't let
go.
Who can carry your burdens for you. Can anyone? Is there
anyone who can take the physical burdens we carry? Well of course there are. The
person has to be strong enough to actually carry them; they have to be capable
and have to be willing. So if you been asked to take out the garbage perhaps
the you're able to enlist someone else in the task.
If you're Tom Sawyer asked to paint a fence you
might be actually get people to pay you to do the job for you! But for most of
our burdens we need help with we have to depend on someone else's mercy in
order to get the help we need. Whether it's flagging down a car in on a rainy
night when we're stuck beside the highway, we just hope that somebody feel some
kindness and compassion their heart and are ready to carry our burdens.
We do know that Jesus is compassionate and we know
that God is able to carry any burdens that we need help with. Obviously our
focus in turning to God is on the spiritual burdens we have: the burdens of
guilt, the burdens of anxiety, wondering about the future, wondering about our
significance, even wondering about what punishment might be laid up for us
because of our wrongs. It's often spoken that Jesus can carry our burdens and
indeed he can! Let me ask another question: Who can forgive our sins? I mean if
we've done wrong who is it that can forgive us our sins? I'm sure the answer
that immediately comes to mind is either 1) only the person you've done wrong
to can truly forgive you, and secondly, that only God can forgive sins. Both of
these answers are found in experience and in the Bible. In fact when Jesus goes
to forgive the sins of a paralyzed man some of the Pharisees take offense and
say, "how can you, Jesus, forgive this guy's sins? Only God can forgive
sins!" Well, they are speaking something of the truth there. When God
forgives sins it is because it is God who has been sinned against. When we
rebel against God, when we do harm to one of his children, not only have we
sinned against his children but we've also sinned against the Father whose
children were hurt, whose children were damaged by our sin. So God does need to
be involved in the forgiveness of sin, doesn't he? There is not one sin that
you can do, not one sin, even if it's against yourself, that doesn't also
affect God because you are his child whom he loves. Anyone you've hurt is
someone loved by God. Anyone who has been turned to towards wickedness by the
injuries you've done to them is someone that God intended to save, and to love.
there has been a lot of damage done by sin, and I often suggest that even the
smallest sin is like pebbles thrown down a mountain that's ripe for an
avalanche, even the smallest change can cause a cascade of consequences that we
can never repair. When we disobey God and disregard his call, when we act in an
unloving manner or uncaring manner then we have created a burden of guilt that
is not easily shifted. Because one action affects another action in a cascade
of effects, even if we've hurt one person by our sin, within no time at all
there are many people that have been hurt as well. The relatives of the person
who has been hurt, the people that have been struck out at as that person in
anger or pain has hurt others themselves. There is a cascade of effects. Who,
in the end, can forgive all these sins? The answer to the question really is
Jesus. Jesus can forgive the sins that you've committed against him and the
sins you committed against humanity because he is the one who ultimately is
going to take all the harm and take responsibility for repairing it all. There
is one who can who can heal our iniquities and can forgive us our sins, who can
take up our infirmities and heal us by his wounds and that one his Jesus. The place he does it is at the cross. This
next song we're going to hear is from a group called Destiny a local Ottawa singing group from a couple years ago. Their
song is At The Cross.
At the cross! The cross is where we find our
burdens, lifted our guilt taken away, our sins forgiven and the power of sin
broken in our lives. One of the great songs that tells us about this is Rock Of Ages, Cleft For Me, a song that
has the words. "Be of sin the double cure, cleanse me of its guilt and
power." That phrase is a very
important one to understand the fullness of what Christ has done on the cross. You
see on the cross he does show that he's willing to forgive anything. If we
don't believe that we need only listen to his words from the cross. When he
looks at those who have crucified him, unjustly condemned him, some of whom
were doing it out of malevolence, some of whom were just following orders; there
were people mocking him, there were people insulting him, and of course there
were those that had pierced him. Still he says to his Father in heaven, "Father
forgive them, they don't know what they're doing." Can you imagine the
grace of the man who, while dying on the cross, is able to say, "Forgive
these people who are even now doing this to me?" That's the message for
you and for me.
Whatever we have done, whatever harm we have caused
directly to God or to one of the children that he deeply loves, God is able and
willing to forgive us. So he's 'pierced for our transgressions,' we can be sure
of that.
But we need to be freed from more than just the
guilt of sin! We need to be freed from the power of sin as well. That is to say,
it's all very well for my past sins to be forgiven, but do I want to continue
sinning? Do I want to keep on hurting others and offending God and damaging my
own soul? Of course I don't! Yet, as Paul the apostle himself said, sometimes
we find ourselves doing the very thing we didn't want to do and finding that
this power seems to be working in us: the power of sin working in us, so that
we stop doing things we should be doing the things we want to do, and we start
returning to those old ways. Paul says to us, to our comfort, "you know,
that just shows that it sin that work in us. We've got a new nature, a nature
that wants to do good! but we need the power of sin stopped in our lives as
well." Jesus through the cross puts sin to death - that's the image used
frequently in the Bible, that when you go to Jesus and you give him your sin he
not only cancels the guilt but he is in the process of putting that sin to
death, to ending its power, ending its existence, ending its ability to affect
you and others by its malevolence. So we go to God asking not just for
forgiveness but also that we might be crucified with Christ so that spiritually
that old nature of sin would be entirely cancelled, that might be a past
chapter in our life and not trouble us again. We also come to him through the cross because it's through
the death on the cross that Jesus experiences the resurrection and he's raised
to a glorious new life.
Likewise those who come to him and cast their burdens
on him at the cross are, as they're crucified with him, also raised with him to
new life, to a life free from sin. Well, I've got to admit in my own life this
is a process. I expect you've found the same thing: that some sins that you used
to struggle with are gone entirely and you've been delivered from their power.
In
some areas of your life you're still struggling and God is still at work
completing the work that he's begun in you. The good news is he will complete
it. Paul specifies this in the letter to the Philippians, giving thanks to God
knowing that God will complete the work he's begun in the people of Philippi
and preparing them to be blameless on the day of the Lord.
That's good news too, but there is a further aspect
of the cross. When I look at the sins I've committed, they haven't just hurt me
in my spiritual life. They are sins precisely because they've hurt others. My
words and my actions, like your words and actions, have damaged other people. We
can put ourselves into their shoes very easily because, we, ourselves, have
been hurt by words and actions of others and we know how difficult it can be to
climb up out of the pit that others have prepared for us. What about those
we've hurt? Are they going to be healed? Are they going to be lifted up? Are they
going to be set free from the damage we've done? We certainly pray that they
will, don't we? As we come to the cross we discover that Jesus doesn't just
forgive sins, he just doesn't just break the power sin, but by his wounds we
are also healed! Are you suffering hurt in your life because of something
somebody else did to you? Was it a bully in the schoolyard, or the betrayal of
a close friend? Whether was just some random thief taking something precious to
you, you can be healed of the hurt that has been caused. God can recompense you
for the damage that has been done. That's a truth of Scripture, a truth of the
cross that is precious to us all. The good news that is an addition to it is
that those whom you have hurt can be healed by the cross! Jesus can set all
things right that by his wounds! They can be healed as well!
It would be a sad story if we were only forgiven
for our sins, but God was not able to repair the harm. The good news of the
gospel is that at the cross he can repair the harm.
Well finally, we can asked the question that that
Isaiah asked, "Who has believed our message?" Who has believed that
their sins are forgiven? Who has believed that they can be healed through Jesus
Christ? Who has believed that the power sin can be canceled and that we can be
free from its domination, that we can be, as Paul says, in effect slaves to
righteousness at last, instead of being slaves to sin.
Have you thanked Jesus for what he is done? Have
you taken up your mat and walked into new life? Have you rejoiced in the
forgiveness that you have through the cross? What a privilege it is! What a joy
it is to lay those burdens down, to be free from guilt, to know that God does
not hold it against you anymore. He has taken your debt and he's canceled it entirely.
It is a freedom from guilt, freedom from shame, a freedom for new life and it's
yours in Christ!
Let's give thanks to God:
Almighty God, praise be to your name,
that you, on the cross, are undoing all the harm that sin has done in our lives
and in the lives of others. Lord, we thank you that through receiving you we
can be joined into your everlasting kingdom, we can rejoice with the others
who've been freed. We can rejoice to see our friends and those we have harmed
healed. We can rejoice to see a reunion of love and grace and peace in your
everlasting kingdom. We give you thanks that you have done this through Jesus
Christ our Lord and our Savior, who we praise and magnify forever, Amen!
Once again I want to thank you listeners for your encouragement and
support. We do thank you because you keep us on the air week by week. As you support our ministry financially. We want to
encourage you to continue in your support, and if you can please make donation,
by making a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries and sending it to P.O.
Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0 we will be happy to send you a receipt at
income tax time. If you are listening to our program through our website, you
can donate on our website as well. I also want to encourage you to tell others
about this program
Be sure to worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed
and lived out with compassion, integrity and resolve. Now to conclude our
program I would like to have you listen to a song performed by the Marantha!
Praise Band called, Awesome God.
I do pray that the Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus
personally and profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart,
may the heavenly Father surround you with his constant and abiding and
accompanying love.
Good News In The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio 580
CFRA.
- Rev. Brian
Wilkie
St.
Andrew's Christian Community, Rockland, Ontario
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To listen to the
above broadcast, click on the following link:
