September 4, 2016 Sermon - Part 1 of 5 Part Series: “Living in Christ”
We are beginning a 5 part series today on what It means to be in Christ: ”Living in Christ”. I actually wasn’t planning to do this until it dawned on me that the outline for today’s message that I was working with couldn’t possibly be done in one message.
So Ron Farr, Bill Ryan and Ben Bowser will be unpacking the rest of the series after this week and next week, next week which is our baptism service, where we will be back in our normal location at 306 Gerrard Street East.
Today we’re talking about first steps: Becoming a follower of Jesus.
My hope is that this message will encourage you either in your own spiritual journey, or that it will equip you to have a better sense of how to provide support and direction for those who God has placed in your life and who express serious interest in what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Now, I’ve mentioned to a few of you that I’ve begun to learn the violin. We’ve had Artin, James’ friend, here a couple of times and he’s an accomplished violinist, as well as, I hear, a great pianist.
I’m in my first year on the violin and a long way away from playing in front of anyone.
My long term goal is to be able to play violin, along with my other instruments, in worship services and in our jazz ensemble and perhaps in a quartet.
It will take years. Years of practice, of intensive study, of lessons and likely a lot of frustration along the way, but I will enjoy each step and will seek to honour God and worship Him through the instrument. That last part has always been a thing for me.
Music has always been a strong connecting point for me as most people with God.
Learning instruments has kind of been my thing for ever, but it’s been a strongly devotional practice on my part, a way of connecting with God.
Now put me in a quartet with other stringed instruments today and I ‘weell be da weakest link’. I would be a liability to any group, because I’m just finding my feet on the violin, which is an amazing instrument.
But honestly, I’m pretty rough right now on the violin. But that’s ok because I know from experience that with prayer, focussed discipline and a good amount of time and a worshipful attitude toward it will yield very good results. I will keep moving toward my goal.
Why am I saying this? Well, I’ve been thinking about what’s involved in growing - growing from children to adults, from novices to experienced, and also about what it means to grow as a Christian.
There’s a basic truth that ‘healthy things grow’. In music that means that when we practice the right things the right way, we get better.
It’s really like that in life and in Christian discipleship as well.
If I spend all my time practicing
scales and never sight-read, I’ll never learn to read music on the violin.
If I only ever read music, I'll never learn to improvise by ear without music.
If I only learn to play by ear, I’ll never develop the ability to read music, which means I’ll never be able to play any of the thousands of amazing pieces written for violin.
Developing abilities in regard to ANYTHING in life happens this way:
Learn it apply it, learn it apply it. Learn it apply it, learn it apply it.
Is it any different for followers of Jesus? No. We learn something, and then we apply it. We learn that Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, and then we do it.
We learn that practicing forgiveness is crucial, then we do it. We learn that building a house on sand is pointless, but building it on the rock of faith in Jesus Christ is extremely wise, then we do it.
“Hang on. It’s not that easy”, someone will say. That’s exactly right. We apply what we learn first of all not on our own.
The Holy Spirit, who dwells inside us, enables us. And when we learn something and then apply it, of course it will be very imperfect. But when we give ourselves time, when we’re not needlessly harsh on ourselves and when we don’t give up, we grow.
It is God’s work in us, and the Bible says: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil 1:6
The first step is to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and choose to make Jesus Christ as Saviour an active participant in everything you do. (Become a Christ-follower).
Jacob Koshy grew up in Singapore with one driving ambition: to be a success in life, to gain all the money and possessions he could.
That led him into the world of drugs and gambling, and eventually he became the lord of an international smuggling network.
In 1980, he was arrested and placed in a government drug rehabilitation prison in Singapore.
He was frustrated beyond endurance. All his goals, purposes, dreams, and ambitions were locked up with him in a tiny cell, and his heart was full of a cold emptiness.
He was a smoker, and cigarettes weren’t allowed in the center. Instead, he smuggled in tobacco and rolled it in the pages of the Gideon Bible. One day he fell asleep while smoking.
He awoke to find to find that the cigarette had burned out, and all that remained was a scrap of charred paper. He unrolled it and read what was written; “Saul, Saul Why do you persecute me?”
Jacob asked for another Bible and read the entire story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. He suddenly realized that if God could help someone like Saul, God could help him, too.
There in his cell he knelt and prayed, asking Christ to come into his life and change him. He began crying and couldn’t stop.
The tears of a wasted life washed away his pain, and God redeemed him.
He started sharing his story with the other prisoners, and as soon as he was released he became involved in a Church.
He met a Christian woman, married her, and is now a missionary in the Far East where he tells people far and wide, “Who would have believed that I could find the truth by smoking the word of God?”
That’s one man’s story of how God reached into his life with the gospel. Everyone’s story is unique.
Some less dramatic than Jacob’s, some more so. Some come to Jesus from outside the church, after having lived a life entirely oblivious to God.
Some are raised in the church and find that their stories are harder to put into words because they’ve been raised in the grace and knowledge of God. But for all Christians, for every follower of Jesus the following has happened:
We Hear the Gospel
Jesus knows that hearing the gospel is huge, so much so that He tells a story in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 13.
3 “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.9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
The disciples were not particularly thrilled that Jesus spoke a lot in parables. So Jesus explained: 18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 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. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Hearing is important. In hearing, we are exposed to the gospel, and one way or another we become aware that the gospel demands a response from us.
Gospel means ‘good news’ and for a person to become a follower of Jesus, they will respond positively to the news that God loved us so that He sent His Son who willingly laid down His life for my sins.
There are all kinds of people representing all kinds of soil, and Jesus refers to the things that distract them from hearing and being changed: the evil one who snatches away what was sown in a human heart; trouble or persecution that comes from following Christ; the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth - the pursuit of stuff over God that makes us unfruitful.
But then there’s the good soil, someone who hears the Gospel, understands it, and the Gospel-trusting person ends up leading a fruitful life, a life that is transformed by the grace of God and a life through which others are transformed.
He hear the Gospel, and then that stirs a response from us, which is:
We Believe that Christ Died for Us
In Mark chapter 1, Jesus said: 15 The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"
There’s an interesting story in the Book of Acts, chapter 16 about something that happened when the Apostle Paul and Silas were in prison one time for preaching the gospel.
Acts 16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
We hear the story and it doesn’t just gloss over us. It doesn’t offend us more than it draws us in. We lean IN toward believing, and we find ourself trusting Jesus and trusting His sacrifice for us.
And as we come to trust we learn that through our faith others - perhaps even our own household - can be saved.
We Repent of Our Sins
This can happen before believing or at the same time. But we become aware that Jesus died because our sin separates us from God. We become aware, some of us for the first time, of sin. Sin is anything that offends God.
This often moves deeper into our consciousness as we start to grasp just how holy and perfect the living God is.
We catch a vision of His holiness and we start to see ourselves as we are, and we see the problem. My sin is big. It’s too big to permit me into the presence of God.
I’m separated from God for real, and I feel it. I start to see how Jesus is the Way to God (illustration:https://pastortravisdsmith.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/salvation.jpg).
This picture begins to make sense, and so we find our self experiencing sorrow for our sins. And we go to God with sincere repentance. Repentance is genuine sorrow and a sincere desire to change, to alter the direction of our lives.
There’s a story of a man who sent a check to the government for back taxes with a note attached that said: “I felt so guilty for cheating on my taxes I had to send you this check. If I don’t feel any better, I’ll send you the rest.”
That’s probably not a good example of repentance. But it speaks of something common among people. We DON’T like feeling guilty, and we DO like begin forgiven.
To truly repent means to understand the direction our lives are going and to have the desire to change. With the desire often comes the prayer: God help me to change, help me to want to change.
And we gain the conviction to repent, to change our direction. We realize that we need the living God to enable us to change, and so we begin to cleave to Him, to hold fast to Him.
We Receive Christ as Lord
John 1 says this: 11 He (Jesus, the Word) came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
This step is critical. We hear the gospel. Maybe many times. But then something changes and we begin to believe. And this time it’s not just head-knowledge. It starts here, but then it begin to penetrate here (the heart).
We repent of our sins. And then we hear the invitation of Jesus: Matthew 11: 28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
This is the promise. We are invited to come to Jesus as we are. To trust in Him. To believe the Gospel. To repent of our sins, and to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.
Then...then we begin a new life as a new creation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Cor 5:17
All followers of Jesus have gone through these type of steps, and those steps have led them to become a new creation: a follower of Jesus. The path of our lives has changed. God is now entirely for us, and there is no condemnation for us who follow Jesus.
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. Romans 8:1
Is that all there is to becoming a follower of Jesus? Yes. And then there’s an important thing we do BECAUSE we are following Jesus.
We’re following Him and that means learning to live as He lived and to love as He loved.
And Jesus lived doing the will of His Father in heaven. And so Jesus was baptised in the Jordan River.
All believers, all followers of Jesus are called to imitate Jesus, and so an early part of following Him is following Him in the waters of baptism.
Next week, 3 will be baptised at our outdoor baptism service back at our usual location: Azmina, Foad Karimian and who works at the mission, and Natasha MacNeil, a women who Pastor Jan has been ministering to over the years.
And I wonder, who else here is ready to be baptised. If you are a Christian, if you’ve trusted Jesus for your salvation, repented of your sins and received Him as your Lord and Saviour, what is keeping you from entering into the waters of baptism?
I hope you will take this opportunity - usually only a few times a year do we have baptism services - to take this important step of following Jesus.
And what about the one or 2 or a few more who are here who have been listening to this message, and the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. It is time. It is time to leave your old life behind. It is time to start afresh.
It is time to get right with God. Maybe you’ve been walking your own walk but now you know it’s time to walk as He walked, to follow Jesus with an undivided heart; to give everything to Him and not hold back. No more: you can have my heart but not the bottle.
No more: you can have my allegiance but not my obedience. No more: having one foot in the kingdom and the other foot in the world.
At one time that was me, and the time came when the Holy Spirit led me to give up fighting against the gentle beckoning of God. And so I turned to embrace Jesus, and found Him standing arms open wide, ready to receive me.
For the sake of the one, or the few, I’m going to pray a prayer, and if you want to, you can repeat after me.
Dear God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life that I have lived; I need your forgiveness.
I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.
You said in Your Holy Word, that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved. Romans 10:9
Right now I confess Jesus as the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead.
This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.
Thank you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. I thank you Jesus that your grace never leads to license, but rather it always leads to repentance.
Therefore Lord Jesus transform my life so that I may bring glory and honor to you alone and not to myself.
Thank you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life. AMEN.
If you prayed that prayer and you meant that prayer, then something wonderful has just happened in your life.
In the story I mentioned earlier about the jailer who Peter and Silas led to Christ, pretty much immediately he was baptised. Seriously, he wasted no time.
So…what’s to keep you from being baptised next Sunday? Not good enough? You’re in good company. No one here or on this planet is good enough for God in and of themselves.
But through believing in the sacrifice of Jesus and by receiving Him as Lord and Saviour, Jesus makes us holy.
God looks not on our righteousness but on the righteousness of Jesus to Whom we belong, and in Him the Father sees us as completely holy. Through the blood of Jesus we are cleansed and made ready to follow Him into the waters of baptism.
So if that’s you, please talk to me right after the service today. I’m going to ask others to give some space to anyone who may want to talk to me about having received Christ and now wishing to be baptised. I’ll be waiting for you.
Let’s pray.
God, thank you for giving every person here the opportunity to enter into a relationship with You through Jesus Christ. Thank you that You make everyone who believes a new creation in Christ. Yo do amazing things with very small amounts of faith.
Draw us near to you, O God, and lead us in the Way everlasting. In Jesus name, amen.
