Everything has been done, you’ve dreamed, you’ve sacrificed, you’ve trained. And now as you stand looking down at the slope below you, you realize that everything now depends on you. As you prepared for this day you had your coach, your trainer and your family supporting you and encouraging you. They were always there for you, but now, now it’s just you. Oh they’ll be watching along with the entire civilized world but from here to the finish line you know that you’re on your own and everything depends on you.
Alpine Skiing is one of the premier events of the winter Olympics and covers a wide variety of sub events as well Slalom, free style, Jumping but the one thing they all have in common, other then the skies is that they are all solo events. You don’t see four man skiing, or mixed doubles, at least not intentionally. And regardless of all the help and encouragement the skier may have had in getting to the Olympics when they start down they hill they are on their own. Our Christian life is like that, there are many areas that we need each other and help each other and we are going to look at those next week, but there are also things that we can only do for ourselves, we may have people cheering us on and encouraging us from the side lines but ultimately these things are up to us. Now before I start on those things, I made some interesting discoveries during my research for this message, one of those discoveries was a list of ways that skiers train and prepare for the ski season. If you are a skier I’m sure that you’ll be able to identify with these.
Skiing season training
15. Visit your local butcher and pay $30 to sit in the walk-in freezer for a half an hour. Afterwards, burn two $50 dollar bills to warm up.
14. Soak your gloves and store them in the freezer after every use.
13. Sit on the outside of a fourth-story window ledge with your skis on and your poles in your lap for at least 30 minutes.
12. If you wear glasses, begin wearing them with glue smeared on the lenses.
11. Throw away a hundred dollar bill-now.
10. Find the nearest ice rink and walk across the ice 20 times in your ski boots carrying two pairs of skis, accessory bag and poles. Pretend you are looking for your car. Sporadically drop things.
9. Place a small but angular pebble in your shoes, line them with crushed ice, and then tighten a C-clamp around your toes.
8. Buy a new pair of gloves and immediately throw one away.
7. Secure one of your ankles to a bed post and ask a friend to run into you at high speed.
6. Go to McDonald’s and insist on paying $8.50 for a hamburger. Be sure you are in the longest line.
5. Bind your legs together at the ankles, lie flat on the floor; and then, holding a banana in each hand, get to your feet.
4. Fill a blender with ice, hit the pulse button and let the spray blast your face. Leave the ice on your face until it melts. Let it drip into your clothes.
3. Dress up in as many clothes as you can and then proceed to take them off because you have to go to the bathroom.
2. Slam your thumb in a car door. Don’t go see a doctor.
1. Repeat all of the above every Saturday and Sunday until it’s time for the real thing!
Which might be why one person defined skiing in this way Skiing: the art of catching cold and going broke while rapidly heading nowhere at great personal risk.
When we talk about becoming a Christian we talk about having a Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ. Collins Dictionary defines Personal as: 1. Private; individual 2.done in person. And while there are a great many things about Christianity that involves the church and other Christians there are many of the essentials that are very personal. They involve two individuals: You and God. They can’t be done by someone else they have to be done by you and by you alone.
The first thing that we are each responsible for is 1) Our Salvation Very seldom do we come to know Christ without an introduction from somebody. Most of you know that it was my best friend Reg Thomas how introduced me to Christ. He wasn’t alone, my Grandmother Guptill prayed for her Grandchildren on a regular basis that we would come to know Jesus in the same way she did. Which probably accounts for the fact that when she passed away three years ago there 5 Grandsons who were ministers who performed her funeral. That’s a legacy. But as much as Reg and Gram wanted Denn to become a Christian they couldn’t do it for me. They could tell me about God’s salvation, they could demonstrate his love, they could pray for me and they could point me in the right direction, but they could not take that final step for me. The scripture that Ruth read this morning was from Paul’s letter to the believers in the Church in Philippi and Paul tells them 12 Dearest friends, you were always so careful to follow my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away you must be even more careful to put into action God’s saving work in your lives, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.
In the New International Version as well as the King James and New Kings James Paul says continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. The bible doesn’t command us to work out our children’s salvation or our parent’s salvation or our friends Salvation instead it talks personally about our own salvation.
Patrick Henry was an American Patriot during the War of Independence or a traitor to the Crown during the American Rebellion, depending on what side of the border you are looking at it from. As his life drew to an end he made this statement, “I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.” But that was the one thing that he couldn’t do for them. Oh he could provide a Christian education, he could make sure they were in Church whenever the doors were open, he could have regular family devotions with them but ultimately they would have to either accept or reject the salvation that God offers all by themselves.
Christianity demands a personal response to the sacrifice of Christ, it’s not enough that we acknowledge that Christ died for the sins of the world if we don’t acknowledge that he died for the sins of Denn and the sins of Mike and the sins of Glen and the sins of Heather. King David was very aware of that when he wrote in Psalm 51:10-11 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
And so the very beginning of your Christian experience your salvation begins with you calling out to God and asking him to forgive you. And nobody else can do it for you no matter how much they might love you and want to. Missionary E. Stanley Jones summed it up when he said “God doesn’t have any grandchildren.”
Secondly we are each responsible for our Obedience After Paul makes the statement about working out our own salvation he says this 13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him and then two verses later he finish he expectations by saying 15 You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God. It is true that we are saved by faith not works, you cannot earn your way to heaven but throughout the bible our salvation is linked to obedience. In the book of 1 Samuel we read how King Saul was caught in a deliberate act of disobedience to God’s commands, when he realized that he had been discovered he told Samuel the priest that he would offer sacrifices to make up for his actions. Sounds like our thinking sometimes, except instead of offering sacrifices when we get caught we have already planned on asking for forgiveness. Kind of a forgive me for what I’m going to do. But listen to Samuel’s response 1 Samuel 15:22 first he asks a question But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice?” And then he answers his own question “Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.”
When Paul wrote to the church in Rome he asked and answered a very similar question Romans 6:1-2 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
In both the Old and New Testament the Bible tells us that our Love for God is demonstrated by our obedience to his commands. If we love him we obey him, if we don’t obey him then we don’t love him. As a matter of fact our obedience is commanded by none other then Jesus in John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.” And then he expands on that concept in the next chapter when he tells us John 15:10 When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. Would that imply then that if you don’t obey Christ that you don’t remain in his love? If so that is a scary thought.
And bottom line is that there is only one person who will be held responsible for your obedience to the word and that is you. You might try to justify or rationalize your disobedience; you might try to blame others. They led me astray or they tempted me. But ultimately you will be held responsible because God is looking for obedience from his people not excuses. The Bible, the word of God warns us in Ephesians 5:6 Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the terrible anger of God comes upon all those who disobey him. It’s easy to excuse our behaviour, and everybody has an excuse. Author A.A. Milne said “No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature.”
You can obey the commands of Christ and not be a Christian but you cannot be a Christian without obeying the commands of Christ.
The third thing in your Christian life that we are responsible personally for is Our Attitude. You alone will determine if you are going to be positive or negative, you will choice to go through life demonstrating the joy that Christ gives or grumbling about everything that happens to you. When Paul addressed the Philippian Christians here he writes two contrasting things. The first is found in verse 14 In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing. And then in contrast he writes 18 And you should be happy about this and rejoice with me. Nobody else will be able to determine your attitude, and you know that because you know people who have it better then you who can’t say a good word about anything or anyone and you know someone who has it a lot worse then you who is always looking on the bright side.
It was Lord Jeffrey who said “The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects.” Ouch that has to hurt.
If your attitudes affected only you it would be different. I would say whine, grumble and complain to your hearts content, but the problem is that grumbling and complaining are poisons that not only affect the person who is doing the grumbling and complaining but also affects the people around them. That’s why Paul was telling people to stop it because he knew that ultimately it would have a negative effect on the entire church. Throughout the bible we see this attitude condemned. When John Crosby ran for the Leadership of the PC party back in the eighties he spoke of some doomsayers within the party and he called them “Nattering Nabobs of Negativity.” When John Symonds was pastoring the Yarmouth Wesleyan Church he must have had one of those guys in his church because he was describing someone and he said “If the angel Gabriel came down they’d put on dark glasses and shot him for a crow.”
This is what the bible says 1 Corinthians 10:10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, for that is why God sent his angel of death to destroy them. James 5:9 Don’t grumble about each other, my brothers and sisters, or God will judge you. For look! The great Judge is coming. He is standing at the door! Deuteronomy 1:34 “When the LORD heard your complaining, he became very angry.” Numbers 11:1 The people soon began to complain to the LORD about their hardships; and when the LORD heard them, his anger blazed against them.
Instead we are told things like 1 Thessalonians 5:16 Always be joyful. James 1:2 Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 1 Peter 1:8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy.
Remember don’t complain that you are not getting what you want, Just be glad you are not getting what you deserve! Listen carefully, what I’m about to say I don’t say lightly, if there is more about Bedford Community Church that you complain about then you brag on. If we can’t seem to get things right for you and you are always grumbling about something then it might not be the church, it might be you. Because the truth is that often we don’t see things the way they are, we see them the way we are. And I know that as long as the church is made up of people it won’t be perfect, and when there is a problem we try need to correct it, but if you feel that you need to be constantly telling people of the problems in the church whether they are real or imaginary then you might be happier in another church where you won’t be tempted to complain. Ouch that’s tough but it’s the truth.
The fourth thing that we are responsible for is Our Witness Which kind of goes without saying because it is the sum total of the other three Philippians 2:15You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them. People know that you are a Christian, or at least they should if they don’t that’s a whole other sermon, and being a Christian means coming from Christ. Just as a Nova Scotian comes from Nova Scotia and a Torontonian is someone who comes from Toronto, A Christian is one who comes from Christ. And as such people except you to act like Christ. Mahatma Ghandi made this less then flattering commentary “If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.”
Because your salvation is personal and because your obedience is personal and because your attitude is personal you witness will be personal. Your life needs to reflect Christ; people need to see Jesus in you. Because when you bear the name Christian you have accepted a responsibility to let your light shine before people.
So where are you at? Personally? Are you living in a personal relationship with Christ? Are you living in obedience to His will for your life? Are you attitudes reflecting a joyful spirit? Are you letting your light shine for him? I can’t answer those for you; you are the only person who can answer them and the only person who can take action to change them. Today it the day of change. Are you ready to turn your life, your habits and your attitudes over to God?
PowerPoint may be available for this message, contact me at denn@bccnet.ca
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