Walking in Light, a sermon by Colin Dye

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Living the Life of Love

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The Deeper Life, a sermon by Colin Dye

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How to find happiness in Christ

• Joy
• Peace
• Fulfilment
• Contentment

 
If you experience these emotions then it means you are a healthy believer and you know who you are in Christ. Negative emotions however, reveal that we have needs that are not being met and we are unsure of our true identity in Christ. Such negative emotions include,
 

• Fear
• Anger
• Frustration
• Depression
• Emptiness
• Sadness

 
Many people in their desperation for emotional fulfilment have rushed into relationships or into marriage, believing that their partner will meet all their needs. They have not stopped to consider whether this person is actually the life-partner that God intended for them. But once in the relationship, or worse still the marriage, what do they find? They find that their emotional needs are just as great as ever and they now have the added problem of worrying about the future stability of their relationship.

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Love that Brings Joy

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God?s Word is like a lamp illuminating our path through life.

Key Thought

 
God?s Word is practical. It will enable you to have the wisdom you need to make the right choices in life. Armed with the understanding you gain from the Scriptures you can walk day by day in the will of God.

Prayer

 
Lord, thank you for your Word which is a light to my path and a lamp to my feet. Help me follow in your way day by day and give me the strength to do so today.

Discipleship Steps

 
One clear principle of the guidance of the Lord is that you really want to know God?s will and you are ready to pursue it with all your heart. How foolish to shine a torch in front of you in the dark while walking backwards in the opposite direction! This is exactly what we do when we read God?s Word but do not put it into practice. The right attitude is to love God?s Word and delight in it because we are determined to follow it completely. Only then will the guidance of God be real to us.
 

Read: Psalm 119:105

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Very often in our culture, singleness is looked down upon. Because of pressures generated by society and even the church, a single person can find themselves spending all their time wishing they weren?t single; thinking that singleness is ?bad?; that there is no value in it; and that it is something that has to be tolerated until they find a partner.?

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A Healthy Temple for the Lord

A sanctified diet

The first simple principle is that we must have a balanced diet. God has made us in such a way that we need to eat healthily and moderately to stay well. Over-eating is just as harmful to health as under-eating – and far more common in western nations. Over-eating and addictions to convenience foods and drinks takes years off saints’ lives and robs God’s kingdom of huge amounts of much-needed finance.

Advances in nutrition have shown us that we need to eat more fibre, much less fat, as little sugar as possible, and food that contains a balance of vitamins and minerals.

We should encourage people to eat and drink in a way that brings health to their lives and makes them more useful to God. If there was a heavy smoker in our congregation, would it be right to ignore his addiction and just keep on promising him healing when his lungs finally pack up? Healing grace does abound, but I do not think we should eat to make it abound!

In the Scriptures, there is a pattern of feasting and fasting, among God’s people. We must not be so preoccupied with being healthy that we never celebrate God’s goodness with the occasional gargantuan feast. But, equally, the majority of western believers would benefit physically let alone spiritually from regular fasting.

Regular Exercise

The second simple principle is that we need to have regular exercise and a good level of fitness. God has made us with muscles which start to waste away if they are not stretched and strengthened, and with joints that stiffen when they are not used enough.

Scientists have shown us that a fit human body not only provides more energy to carry out physical activities, it also means a more alert mind, quicker mental responses, and a significantly increased resistance to disease. The phrase, ‘Use it or lose it’ has many different applications in this area.

If we want to be able to serve God for longer – and at a higher level of usefulness – we will choose to exercise more. But if we are happy with increasing immobility, growing discomfort and fewer years to serve God, we will carry on sitting and getting less and less fit.

It is so straightforward for us all to build simple times of exercise into our daily schedules. We could do this by walking or cycling more. We could take up a sport. We could use the stairs instead of the lift or escalator. We could dig our garden (if we have one!) and grow lots of healthy fresh vegetables and so on. It’s easy if we have the will and the motivation.

Rest and Relaxation

In contrast to the first two principles, the Church has tended to make a great deal of the third simple principle of health. The idea that we need regular rest and relaxation is another theme that runs through creation. Animals have been made with the need for sleep so that they can be refreshed. Plants have a cycle of growth and rest. The ‘Sabbath’ principle suggests that humans need one day in seven free from work and as different as possible from the other six. It is not merely that God is so important that we should set one day a week apart to concentrate on Him for He should be central to every day – it is also that we have been made with the need for one day a week which is quite different from the other six.

Christians whose lives revolve entirely around their work, their families and their church tend not to be particularly interesting people – and they are usually not that accessible to people who are not yet Christians. Art, literature, sport, sculpture, music, dance, crafts, hobbies, all reveal something of God’s creativity and spending time contemplating or participating in these activities refreshes us.

Mind exercises

The last simple health principle is that we need to exercise our minds, and express our emotions. The Bible teaches that our behaviour is controlled by our thinking, and urges us to think like God and to be renewed in our thinking by Him. When we think God’s way, we live God’s way, and we experience his wholeness and health. God has made us as rational and emotional beings. Many people today suggest that we are either ruled by our ‘heads’ our minds or by our ‘hearts’ our emotions. However, it is important to recognise that the Bible teaches that our minds affect and determine everything. Our emotions are merely by-products that stem from our thinking, culture and behaviour. Emotions and feelings are indicators that enhance our lives by adding colour, passion, warmth and self-expression. But we are conditioned by our minds and what we think.

The enemy uses every possible influence to corrupt our thinking and disrupt our emotions. The Bible urges us to be renewed in our minds and to be like Christ Jesus in our thinking.This is the godly way to a healthy mind. We can develop a positive, godly mind-set through studying the Scriptures and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.

God’s way of thinking lifts, builds and strengthens us and it reduces fear, anxiety and anger. Good doctrine, the sermon on the Mount, the Psalms, Paul’s letters-these are all vital medicine for the mind and the spirit, and they bring health and wholeness to every aspect of our lives.

Some Christians have mistakenly suggested that emotionalism is some sort of sin. This devalues emotions and leads to some believers denying their feelings and not being in touch with their emotions. Repressing emotions, however, creates stress, and that is a sure way to ill-health.

I believe that these four simple, spiritual principles for godly healthcare should be part of the modern Christian healing ministry. We have been called to bring hope to a hurting world, and God wants us to help people to become whole in every area of their lives. In the Old Testament, for Moses, this meant teaching a mixture of dietary and sanitary rules and seeing God heal supernaturally. In the New Testament, for Paul, it meant moving in dynamic signs and wonders and advising Timothy to drink wine for the sake of his health. And today, for us, it means that we begin to minister God’s supernatural healing and to teach his healthcare principles and to live by them ourselves.

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Live free!

Shaking off the broken chains

The freedom we have in Christ is freedom from the damage that sin does to us. Jesus came to undo what the devil had done to us. This means freedom from the negative emotions of fear, anger and hopelessness. We are set free from the binding habits and dehumanising bondages of sexual addiction, mental torment, anger, hatred and every other self-destructive way of thinking and living.
By faith we are born into the freedom that comes from God?s grace. This freedom is your birthright as a believer in Jesus, but you don?t automatically enjoy it. You first have to understand that it is yours and then actively choose to walk in it.
There is a famous illustration of a man in prison looking out through the bars of his tiny prison window longing for freedom. But what he doesn?t see is that behind him the prison doors are open. He is free! All he has to do is to change his perspective and understand that he only has to get up, turn around and walk right out of the prison. But he is ignorant of his true position and state.
This is like so many Christians today. We long to be free from the things that bind us, but we don?t know how to deal with them. We don?t know that all we have to do is to shake off the chains that appear to be binding us, turn around and walk out of bondage unshackled and free! Just one tug at those chains and we discover they are already broken. Christ has delivered us and we can walk free. We can live free!

Spiritual and emotional wholeness

God?s will for us is spiritual and emotional wholeness. This freedom is ours in Christ. Some think it is only a future freedom ? that we have our sins forgiven on earth but wholeness has to wait for heaven. Jesus has started a process in our lives that will only be fully completed in heaven; nevertheless, this process brings us freedom now.
You can step onto the path of victory and march on the road to freedom. The goal of the Holy Spirit is for you to meet with him in a powerful, life-transforming way and discover this freedom every step you take on your journey with Christ. As you receive the Father?s love, repent from sin in your life and experience his deliverance from every bondage, you will find the joy of living in the real freedom that is rightfully yours as a child of God.
That way you can grow and mature as a disciple of Christ and become equipped and ready to serve him in his Great Commission today and for the rest of your life on earth.
 

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The storms of Life

We rejoice in the good things God provides, but we do not measure his love or our response to it by the earthly pleasures he allows or withholds from us.

I have recently been prompted by the Holy Spirit to speak out about the “perfect storm” that is about break out on the Christian Church in Britain and Europe. Opposition to the Christian faith is definitely intensifying. Different influences seem to be coming together that could soon combine to produce a perfect storm of difficulty for followers of Christ in our region of the world.

Militant atheism, secularism and false religion seem to be working together in an unprecedented way with one ultimate aim – to weaken the influence of Christian churches and push the Christian faith to the margins of our society. The aim of militant Islam is to become the dominant religious force in the nation and it will not rest until Britain becomes an Islamic state.

We love the Muslims, and it is wonderful to see so many of them finding the joy and freedom of salvation in Christ through our ministry in London and further afield. But we must never forget that the Quran teaches the supremacy of Islam. To be a good Muslim you must believe that there is only one true religion – Islam. All others must be overthrown or subjugated. This is the clear teaching of the founder of Islam and of all its major religious texts.

On the positive side, the historic decline of church attendance in the mainline Christian denominations has bottomed out. Pentecostal churches continue to grow, even faster than in the past 30 years. According to a 2011 survey, 68.5% of people living in Britain still claim to be Christian. The situation is patchy but, by and large, Christianity is still an important force in our nation.

However, we cannot be complacent and, if God is warning us about a coming storm, we must get ready. The spiritual dimension cannot be overlooked. We have an adversary who roams about as a roaring lion, seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Satan’s one aim is to oppose God and his followers. That makes Christians a prime target for his evil scheming.

Pastoral Concern

My motive in sharing these things at this stage is not merely to make prophetic proclamations but to minister pastorally to God’s people. I want to help you face the storms in your personal life so that, when the time comes, we can face the bigger storm together and come through it all triumphantly.

The book of Hebrews is written to a group of believers who had passed through extremely difficult times. As yet, no one had been killed for their faith, but they had experienced persecution to the point of confiscation of their property. What God said to these struggling believers, many of whom were at the point of giving up, is exactly what he is saying to us today.

The Race of Faith

Living in the 2012 Olympic City, we can relate to the common biblical comparison of the Christian faith to an athletic track event. The author of the letter to the Hebrew believers encouraged his readers to strip away every impediment of sin so that they could run their race freely and successfully right to very end.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

As in athletics, the secrets of success in the race of faith are discipline and endurance. We must keep pushing forward no matter how hard or tough it gets. The prize is none other than Jesus himself, who is urging us forward, step by step, ever closer to the finish line where he is waiting for us.

Jesus, as our forerunner has gone before us, enduring everything we have to endure – and so much more. His race meant embracing the pain and the shame of the cross, and his prize was us, the redeemed people of God. He totally triumphed in his quest and has accomplished for us eternal salvation. As both the author and finisher of our faith, he guarantees us an entry into the grandstand of his glory – heaven itself.

That should encourage us never to give in, fall back or disqualify ourselves from the race. We can draw from him the grace to help us in time of need and the assurance of faith that is solid evidence of the reality of the things we hold dear. This race of life is real; it puts us in touch with the truth of who Jesus is – Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The Anchor of our Soul

Our certain hope, is Christ and he is the anchor of our soul, the safe haven in a time of storm and the rewarder of those who set their heart steadfast in the direction of God. Don’t throw away your confidence just because you pass through stormy times. As the people of God, we do not lose hope just because life gets tough. We are not immune from suffering and pain. Rather we triumph in it, because we know what the real deal is.

We love God for who he is, not for what we can get out of him. The comforts, pleasures and accomplishments of this world can never compete with the joy of knowing him and the promise of the life he offers.

Christianity is not a way out; it is a way through. Satan accused Job before God, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9). Job’s life was peaceful, prosperous and successful. To prove Job’s loyalty, God allowed the worst imaginable negative circumstances to hit his life. He lost his property, his family, and even his health. But Job’s faith withstood the storm. He said, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15). This defiance in the time of trial was to God more precious than gold. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and not turned aside. Job 23:10-11

We love God for who he is, not for what we can get out of him. The comforts, pleasures and accomplishments of this world can never compete with the joy of knowing him and the promise of the life he offers. Make up your mind that you will travel light on this earth, not clutching at any and every passing comfort, but choosing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season. We rejoice in the good things God provides (and he is a extremely generous Father!), but we do not measure his love or our response to it by the earthly pleasures he allows or withholds from us.

Exhort one another daily

One of the other great secrets of Christian endurance is the strength we derive from other believers. Knowing the deceitful nature of sin – that it promises the earth, but delivers misery – the writer to the Hebrews gives this stern warning.

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12-13

This is both a realistic appraisal of what can happen to our faith when we pass through personal trial, and an immediate answer to the problem. We know that many people grow cold to God when suffering, but that is why we need each other. The root of the problem is our deceitful hearts that are so willing to listen to the enemy’s slanderous accusations against God, “God doesn’t care; he is punishing you; he is against you; he wants to see you suffer.” Our hard hearts are so easily drawn astray by the alluring promises of the pleasure, comfort and power that sin so glibly offers us.

But when we are in meaningful connected relationships with fellow believers, we can pull each other back into reality. We must constantly watch one another’s backs spirituallyspeaking, and challenge the state of one another’s hearts.

I have recently said publically, and repeat myself here: unless we are part of a tight-knit fellowship such as Kensington Temple’s cell vision provides, I seriously doubt the ability of the majority of members of the church to overcome the pressures the coming storm will bring.

Perhaps the best response you can make to the challenge of this article is to ensure that you are a committed, active and participating cell group member. That way, you can both watch out for the welfare of your brothers or sisters in Christ and get the spiritual support you need as you face the storms that lie ahead.

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