This post is a transcript of the message I brought to the two Renmark Uniting Church Congregations on 9th July 2017.
ORDER OF SERVICE RENMARK 9/7/17
Welcome : Geoff
Call to worship: Psalm 45:1-7 and prayer of invocation.
Hymn: “Jesus lover of my Soul” AHB 139
Bible Reading: Romans 7:15-25 (NIV)
Hymn:”O Love that wilt not let me go.” AHB 525
Offering:
Prayers of Repentance,Intercession, and confession
Hymn:“To God be the Glory.” AHB 85
Sermon: “Keeping short accounts with God.”
Hymn: ”What a friend we have in Jesus” AHB 165
Benediction:
Vesper: “May our Lord,God of Peace.” Edelweiss tune
SCRIPTURE READING
Romans 7:15-25
Romans 7:15-25New International Version (NIV)
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
SERMON:”Keeping short accounts with God”
“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Do you wonder in dismay when you see someone in an AFl game just out of the blue, king hit someone and knock them out.
Usually the person will say that is just not my usual character.
“I am ashamed I did that.”
“I am so sorry.”
They usually have apologised before the day ends to the person they hit.
I can remember in my football days doing things I was immediately not proud of.
Do you find yourself, as a committed Christian, that like the Apostle Paul, this is your ongoing experience?
“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Do you have days when you are feeling quite spiritually aware,
and in tune with God’s voice,
and His involvement in your life,
and yet,
other times where you can’t seem to touch base with Him,
and even sometimes don’t want to.
And when you don’t want to,
you feel guilty because you think
“I am a Christian, I shouldn’t think that way.”
When that’s happening you can feel like you are in a tug of war with God.
So we ask ourselves how real is my faith?
Am I really a Christian or am I just pretending?
Do I really believe what I tell people?
We have thoughts that come into our heads along the lines of “You call yourself a Christian, so how come you said that?”
Other thoughts we might have might say “the Christian life is just too hard, why don’t I just live like everyone else does?”
The Apostle Paul was obviously having some battles when he wrote the words in Romans 7.
“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
You can see we are in good company when we have similar thoughts.
So will we ever be free of all this too-ing and frow-ing in our minds?
Now to many people who observe us from a distance they might think we are wonderful Christians.
That can be because we are very good at making sure others don’t know about our secret sin or thoughts that are less than Christian.
We don’t want people to think ill of us.
We have a reputation after all!
I think back, and you can probably think of examples, where a fine upright Christian person has been caught out for embezzelement and fraud.
Totally the opposite to how the person came across.
Were they just plain evil and deceitful?
The Bible teaches us as Christians that we have 5 enemies.
Sin
The flesh
The devil
death.
the world
Let’s deal with the flesh.
This is what Paul says.
“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. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”
And he goes on to say :
“8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Note how three of our enemies are dispensed with here.
Sin, Death and the Flesh.
This has all been accomplished by Jesus on the Cross.
We do need to recognise this of course and make this real in our lives.
The “flesh” is where the enemy of mankind, the devil, attacks us.
He attacks us through
our minds,
our thoughts.
The things we look at,
the things we read,
the things we listen to,
our behaviour towards others;
So will we ever be free of temptation to do wrong?
No!
But we can be free of any power that temptation has over us.
We can claim the victory that our position in Christ has given us.
Paul gives us the answer.
It is found in other parts of the Bible also.
“9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.”
“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. 7 “
Abiding in Christ.
Walking in the Spirit
is the key to peace with God.
How do we do that?
We allow God to control our behaviour through His Holy Spirit.
We cultivate and develop right habits.
Habits like daily reading the Bible so that our minds become saturated with God’s will for us.
Habits of always seeking to forgive and not condemn.
The habit of giving up our right to ourselves!
Always wanting to be served first!
get special favour above everyone else!
We might see where some Christian we know is failing in their Christian walk.
Usually we can only see where someone else is failing because we have the same sin in our own lives.(finger pointing exercise)
It is not for us to criticise or condemn but to intercede on their behalf.
So what about the devil?
The devil is still very active in the world today.
He attacks Christians through his accusations and life's circumstances.
But the devil is defeated.
He was defeated when Jesus was crucified.
Listen to this in Colossians 2:14-15
“He has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. And then having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, he exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in his final glorious triumphant act!”
"And then having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, he exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in his final glorious triumphant act!”
The Bible tells us we don’t fight with flesh and blood but principalities and powers in high places.
Those powers are the realm of the devil and they were dealt with on the cross.
We need to stand up to the devil like a traffic cop has the authority to stop traffic.
We have all the authority of the Cross of Christ behind us.
So will we go on sinning?
that is very likely,
as human beings,
tainted by the fall in the Garden of Eden.
But this is where our title comes in.
“Keeping short accounts with God!”
How do we keep our faith fresh and alive?
How do we keep these so called short accounts.
It’s called repentance.
We have someone we can turn to when we fail.
1 John 1: Living Bible
5 This is the message God has given us to pass on to you: that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all. 6 So if we say we are his friends but go on living in spiritual darkness and sin, we are lying. 7 But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him,[a] he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins.* 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are lying and calling God a liar, for he says we have sinned.
1 John 2Living Bible (TLB)
2 My little children, I am telling you this so that you will stay away from sin. But if you sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. His name is Jesus Christ, the one who is all that is good and who pleases God completely. 2 He is the one who took God’s wrath against our sins upon himself and brought us into fellowship with God; and he is the forgiveness for our sins,[a] and not only ours but all the world’s."
If we sin,
we recognise it,
we repent,
we forgive,
we confess,
we keep on with walking in God’s light.
Did I mention the world earlier as an enemy?
We have to live in the world and mix with the worldly,
but we don’t have to be part of it!
we don’t have to conform!
We have choices don’t we?
We can make these choices new each day.
Keeping Short accounts with God through our Saviour and Advocate,
the Lord Jesus Christ!
Just one real life example:
A well known Christian author,pastor and counsellor!
This was just one of his quotes.
He was a highly motivated and gifted Christian.
“Anger is a divinely implanted emotion. Closely allied to our instinct for right, it is designed to be used for constructive spiritual purposes. The person who cannot feel anger at evil is a person who lacks enthusiasm for good. If you cannot hate wrong, it's very questionable whether you really love righteousness.”
You see he was very much against evil,
against what he did!
I have some of this mans books and tapes of his sermons.
He was without doubt a very influential and wonderfully gifted teacher and counsellor.
I still value his teaching and books etc.
He fell from grace very badly.
He had an affair.
The good news is his wife forgave him and so did the Church, in time.
He had to take the same course that I have been outlining here.
Confession!
Repentance!
Acceptance of God’s grace!
And God has forgiven him!
He is now with His Lord.
None of us here are denied God’s grace.
The love of Jesus Christ!
Perhaps we should all check our overdue accounts!
Before I close I would just like to make an observation:
When I was about 20 I was overcome by a serious anxiety state or depression.
It was really because of feeling guilty about something.
It gave me some very serious physical and emotional problems.
Lesley at this time, suggested we go to Church and that might help.
This was before we were married.
The sermon was by a man who really belted out the Gospel.
I heard the word sin mentioned about every second word.
All the sermon did, as I heard it, was convince me I was a hopeless case.
Because I felt guilt I knew my problem was sin.
The trouble is I was so neurotic at the time I didn’t hear that a solution was also being offered.
All I was hearing was "the wages of sin is death"
I was thinking I had no hope to be relieved of these symptoms.
I was a hopeless case!
I wasn't hearing the part that says: "but the Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.!"
I came out of that Church feeling worst than when i went in.
Some 8 years later I fully understood what he was saying and was able to know the peace and forgiveness that Jesus brings.
My prayer and hope that today if there is someone here, who just like me so many years ago, is not really able to cope with all this sin talk, will go home and realise that while sin is a reality in everyone’s lives,
that Jesus indeed provides the way of escape as we have been learning.
and does choose to receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
Through:
1Faith and Belief that Jesus is the Son of God,
2. Confession of sin.
3. Repentance
4. Acceptance that He is your only Saviour
5. And by being obedient in Baptism
AMEN!
PS. I have recorded this message and may put it up on youtube later.
If any would like a copy of the recording I can email it to you.
