Open—Alan Weeks
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11 The appendix.
Umm.
It's almost like, you know, I'm afraid.
Of my own friends. You know what you're going to tell us about yourself.
And then stop a lot of water for all of them. Oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh boy. Can you hear me?
Ready together.
I technically live in Montreal as of last week, so umm.
But I used to live in Ottawa, so I feel like I can share a little bit. I really enjoyed the remembrance of the Lord this morning. Wasn't that wonderful?
It was really wonderful to be here at this presence.
Umm, I also enjoyed the reading yesterday and how we were brought into looking at that Day of Atonement but responding in such a way that I was shaping as Richard read that passage and and what that Day of Atonement will be like.
And sometimes, to be transparent, I look at.
The present tense, a little drearily so growing up, I, I think I considered the gospel as a past action. There was a point when I received Christ as my Savior. My dad might remember maybe around six, six years old. My mother wrote it down. I, I was saved because the Gospels in the past. And then we talked about the future, the gospel in the future, that Day of Atonement.
There's also the present. Let's turn to Galatians to.
And look at verse 20.
I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live not I, but Christ liveth in me. Uh, what's interesting here, and what was shared with me a while back, is that the verb tense in this is actually perfect. There's a past action. Paul's referring to his salvation.
But he says I am crucified. So the past action is salvation, but the effect is continuing.
00:05:05
The action has happened, but the effect is now, and the effect continues also into the future.
We see this in other places where the the life that I live in the flesh.
But then it refers to the life that we now live in the spirit. It refers to being dead and sins were alive to Christ. And you see this, this contrast in this, this pull between the two of those things.
What, what about the gospel and the present? For me, for us, umm, I moved last week to Montreal as I was mentioning umm and I, uh, just before leaving, we were in a big rush. We had people in and out. We were hosting almost every day of the week before moving. It was a terrible idea, but we had a great time. Umm, and I was in a rush to move out of the house, but before I did, I actually had to, there's a picture on the wall. I had to remove the picture and I had to drywall a hole in the wall.
Because.
Follow me here. I had lost, felt a sense of loss of control, and punched a hole through the wall. Now I covered it up with a beautiful family picture.
So what does the Gospel say? What does the message of Jesus say to me when I have lost control? I think it is very, very practical. Listen to this.
Jesus came down.
Of his Father. He dies on the cross for us. He's risen again in that same spirit lives in US.
When I punch a hole in the wall because I feel a loss of control.
I'm actually there's an area in my life of unbelief and who Jesus is and what he's done for me.
What would that be? What does the story of Jesus tell about my area of unbelief when that happens?
Jesus says I'm in control.
But you can also trust me. How does he say that to the story of Jesus?
We see him in the garden. He says, Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done. You see him in perfect subjection to the Father, but yet Jesus is trustable.
And he is in control. He says he he lays himself down, yet raises himself up. He has power over life and death. He is trustable.
Ibu I My area of unbelief is I could not trust him and I came to the end of my own control and punched a hole through the wall.
But we can trust them because Jesus came and he's trustable and good because he sacrificed himself for my own sin. And so my response to Jesus has to be of repentance in that present moment. The gospel has to live through me where I say Jesus.
I lost control. I didn't believe that you had control, but you do. You are ultimately good in the way that you sacrificed your son. Then I have to go to my wife, who is part of me and say I've sinned. I didn't put.
I didn't put God first in that. I put myself first. I tried to maintain my own control.
Isn't that incredible how the gospel can work through just a very practical situation and our own life?
And breathe life into it, where we're dead to sins, but we're alive to Christ.
The life in the flesh, yet the life in the Spirit.
There is a umm.
It's hard to do that.
It's hard to live in in.
Transparency about our weakness or our fault. It's much easier to put the family picture on the wall of the hole, isn't it Jesus? Jesus looks at the picture on the wall and he says, you know, it's more or less that's a whitewashed tomb and there's bones behind it.
And the world looks at us when we pretend we are of no sin. And they say that's hypocrisy.
What if we were open? What if we were vulnerable about our faults and weaknesses in such a way?
That rather than covering up.
The Hole in the wall We would be honest about the story of Jesus and how it came in and filled the hole. And through the power of his death, blood, and resurrection, the story of brokenness now becomes the story of the gospel.
How we are now seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. We are clothed in righteousness. He sees us as his bride. He sees us as pure. It's incredible, It's transformational. It's life giving.
00:10:09
The umm, good.
Uh, there's a lady and I'll, I'll leave her name out. I've, I've had dinner with her before. Umm.
Let's call her Mona.
She's part of a a northern Indigenous community. I just want to share another example of how the gospel can speak to us in the present.
And umm, her grandfather was actually part of the translation of the Bible into the native tongue in the area of Canada that she was grew up in. UMM, She's very respected, influential lady who helped children, umm, through situations of abuse, children who are suicidal.
It came out that this individual.
Umm. Her grandfather umm had supposedly inappropriately umm.
Been with some younger members, her cousins in this case. Umm this is way in the past and it came out through the attempted suicide of some of her cousins.
And as she battled with this, she is a Christian, and as she battled with this, trying to ask God what was in this, umm, she found herself going to a faith healing center. And we're not talking about the faith that you and I know, umm, this is something that they have in northern communities quite recently that they've brought back.
And she went there seeking answers.
And she sat in that room and we talked about principalities.
And powers in high places. This is real.
This is very real. There's a battle going on and she's that and that faith healing center.
And what was revealed to her were things that she had grown up with. She had always had this dream that there was arms trying to wrap around her big hairy arms in the night. And in that faith and that faith healing center, what was brought back to her, not by the power of life, but what was brought back to her and exposed was her grandfather.
Coming and throwing her across the room and abusing her.
She screamed, she cried, she vomited in that room. Her daughter was outside and could not hear her. This was this year. We're not talking about another country.
And she left that room because the power of darkness exposes our sin and leaves us feeling empty.
It leaves us empty. In this case, it was sin against her, wasn't even her sin. And so she went.
She didn't feel like she had anyone to turn into. She ended up on the street here in Montreal, drunk, trying to dull the pain like we were talking about earlier.
I think it was February. She wound up at the table of someone I've known a decent part of my life, a brother and sister in Christ, and she sat there and she said I'm such shame.
This is my grandfather, the one we respected. I have such shame.
And as she wept, the brother in there sat.
And open to her. And started to speak the gospel into her.
I'm gonna flip this around. Just pause for a second if that was you.
At that dinner table.
How would the Gospel speak to that Lady? How would the story of Jesus and what he'd done for us speak into the life and speak life that Lady?
So the Brother and the sister UMM began to open up, because we know through the power of the gospel that He sees us spotless.
That her identity and her recognition in the community was built.
Around who? Her grandfather Jesus gives us an identity that's alive in Christ. It's built in Christ. Not in ourselves, not in the people around us. It's built in Christ.
And so as they spoke through her, they said.
Jesus wants to remove that shame from you. He died that guilt that that that exposure that the evil one gave you the feeling of.
Being just completely exposed and vulnerable, He wants to cover you with his love and his sacrifice. That's the gospel.
00:15:10
And the brother continued.
And he said, I feel the Lord is telling me something and I don't know what it is.
And I don't know what language it is.
And it was never scuba lover. I don't, I don't remember what it was. It was one word, he says. Does that mean anything to you?
The mean blanket.
Jesus wants to cover what Satan exposed with his love and to give us a new identity in Him.
Of perfection.
Of daughter, daughter, sons, joint heirs with him and his family.
So powerful.
Jesus today as we look forward to the glory.
So how? How do we as Christians? For me, the Gospel voices 7:00 or 7:30 on Sunday.
Or or through the Sunday School, which are wonderful, wonderful times and we need the gospel.
What are additional ways that we can reach the people who we love around us?
And I've been, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've been encouraged by other people's input.
There is.
Not so much a financial poverty in Canada and the US and North America around us as there is a spiritual and emotional poverty, I would say very broadly.
And things like the Sunday school, which are fantastic for teaching and for admonishing for the gospel, filled a very important need when they were first developed. If we look back to the early church, there's actually no formal education available. And the church was able to step in the body of Christ and to give an education and use the gospel through it, something very practical.
And so if we look at today and how we can communicate the gospel to other individuals, what's helpful to look is those reoccurring things in their life where we can step along beside them and split, speak the gospel into their life so that Christ becomes evident. What are some examples of those? I think 1.
Is to listen to people.
To be open, to sit down, to ask questions to non believers. I was in, uh, San Francisco earlier this year and I, I had a meeting with a venture capitalist firm and I ended up visiting a friend, Brendan Reeves. The honeymoon is at my wedding. He's one of my groomsmen. He works at Dropbox and we went out to eat and came back to visit some friends of his or living in some multi $1,000,000 place. And there's a whole group of them, a whole gathering.
If you want to put it that way, umm, in his living room, in their living room and the conversation is going in the eye. The conversation comes up about identity and sexuality and.
Everything that you would hear in in common conversation today.
And.
Something in me, maybe it was the boldness that EQ has been praised for us. Umm. Something clicked and I, I almost interrupted this individual who is talking about an identity and he said what if our identity wasn't based on what we consume sexually?
How reductionistic is that?
What if our identity was based on the fact that were made in the image of God and that we are a valuable merely because we exist?
The entire room in.
And everyone was looking my way and one guy just had his mouth open. He goes. That's the most incredible thing I've ever heard.
Is isn't it?
Isn't the gospel the most incredible thing you've ever heard? In a culture that is drawing farther and farther away from what we know, Jesus, life, death and resurrection, and the truth of what we read in his Word to be, Isn't the gospel incredible?
Isn't it life breathing? Isn't it transformational? So as we sit down and we listen to people and seek to speak into their lives, let's look for ways to put the gospel into that.
00:20:08
Another way we can do that is that I think it's an area of poverty as well, socially or emotionally.
Is to eat with people.
And.
Imagine this.
That you have a group of friends who are Christians and and wherever you live in your assembly and you decide that you're going to invite over your neighbors Chris and I have my wife Krista, I've.
Started to try and do this in, in, in some feeble way in our, in our own community and it's been really stretching. Uh, the lady behind us identifies as a modern day witch. Just crystals on the wall. They had crystals on the wall. The opposite. Julia, we've now moved not because of that, but we had her over and she kept bringing things in a certain direction and we kept having the opportunity to bring Christ into the conversation, to bring the Holy Spirit and what Jesus has done for us, his life, death.
Direction, we had a neighbor down the street who ended up selling us a car. And he says, oh, well, we go canoeing. Well, let's go canoeing and have a picnic together. And this time I'm gonna invite my cousin who's also a believer. And you can surround them and listen to them. And there is always ways in the world where the gospel speaks perfectly and clearly into an individual's life and Christ is exalted.
So much so that the individual says the life that I'm now living is actually in death, I mean.
******* to sin.
Let's start trying to do that.
Let's live in boldness in what Jesus Christ has done for us.
Not in fear. He has not given us the fear of fear.
Paul says.
To preach Christ and his life, death and resurrection.
Let's do that.
Let's actually let's do that.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna pray. And as I do like, let let's think of people in our communities. Let's think of people in our workplace who need the Lord, who we can come alongside.
And so as I pray, ask, ask him to move, ask the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead to start working in you, to start working in them, to bring them alongside. Great things will happen. He will work. He has promised to He will do that.
For Jesus.
Thank you for.
Your son who died for us.
Thank you for the incredible message of the Gospel.
It lives right now.
It lives right now. It's a present day reality. We can't wait to glory Lord Jesus.
For us to live as you and to die is gain. So as we're in this struggle between the two, don't let us drift, Lord Jesus.
But focus us on you, your life, death, and resurrection. Let it be such a reality to us that it's lived out in our interactions with others. And so we pray, Lord, as we meet here as an assembly, that each of the individual locations that these dear brothers and sisters come from, that you would work in them and in their communities and in their workplaces.
Give each and every one of them boldness to speak openly and clearly about how Jesus Christ has worked in their own life.
Let them feel the opportunity to be transparent about their own faults and failures, to relate the story of how you worked, have worked, and continue to work through their areas of unbelief and failure.
And convict us, Lord Jesus, of our own, our own areas of unbelief.
And so as we come together for the rest of these meetings, Lord Jesus as the body of Christ represented a year in, in some small fashion, we thank you that you see us spotless, that you see our bride spotless because and only because of the redemptive work that you've done on the cross. So commend the day to you.