ECYC 2015: Christ In Me

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Eastern Canada Youth Conference

Plenary

Sebastien Braxton

What Is Righteousness by Faith?

It is a blessing not only to be alive, but not just living, but having eternal life.

The day that you immediately give your life over to Christ.

You just go to sleep and then he wakes you up when it's time to go home.

And so oftentimes, you know, we, as I was telling some of the leaders outside, we kind of lose the joy of salvation, look a little serious sometimes.

So it's okay to loosen up and smile every once in a while.

I promise I won't take advantage of you if you smile.

But nevertheless, it is a joy just to be back in Canada.

I remember when this movement and conference was beginning, 2009 actually, and had the privilege to come in and speak there the first time and have been excited about all the things that you guys have been doing here in Canada and the missions.

And so it's just great to be back again and to be willing to have me here.

Before we get started, I also want to kind of talk a little bit about righteousness by faith right out the gate.

You know, it's 1 of those topics that no 1 really wants to touch.

When we used to plan seminars for GYC, it was a little interesting choosing who was going to talk about salvation.

If you had a seminar on that, sanctification or justification or 1888, you know, these things are very hot topics in the church.

We're not necessarily debating about salvation, but on the higher ivory towers of life, the scholars are debating about this issue.

It's very, very minute, the points and what specific terms you use and at what point does justification become sanctification.

And what does that mean to sin and was Paul converted in Romans 7 and we go on and on and on down the line but I Want to let you know my intentions in terms of going forward this weekend I want to start off first with Jesus's teaching.

To me, if you want to understand anything clearly, just look at what Jesus says.

And I believe that Mary's counsel in John 2 is the best counsel you can ever receive, which is whatever he says to you, do it.

That's the best counsel you can ever receive.

And if that's carrying water pots, then carry water pots.

But sometimes we're so much burdened by the menial, apparent menial tasks that Jesus asks us to do, when in actuality, he's inviting you to be a part of a miracle, a story that will always be told.

We don't even know the names of those guys that carried those water pots.

But they knew, their family knew, and of course, who knows what their children went on to do for the Lord.

But I want to first talk about Christ and his teachings about righteousness and faith and all those things.

Then I want to kind of continue on to talk about righteousness by faith in the Old Testament.

Tomorrow morning and then tomorrow night we'll go into the gospel from the gospels.

I don't know why people don't like to use the gospels to preach the gospel.

We like to go to Paul, but it's called the gospel of such and such.

And so I wanna talk about the gospel in the gospels.

And then My last message, I'll deal with the whole 1888 and our pioneers.

A year and a half ago, I was sitting at dinner with some friends, having some Thai food, and my meal got ruined very quickly as this discussion came up of 1888.

The brother's looking at me, he's like, man, you know, don't you feel like our whole church, we just need like a corporate repentance, like go to a field and just like repent publicly as a church, you know, with the leaders, all of us there.

And I'm like, I don't believe that the church fully rejected it and I don't believe the church fully accepted it.

But I said, which is why I'm starting with 3 quotes from Adventist authors at different times in the church to show that the continuity of righteousness by faith has always been in our church.

Even the great controversy before 1888, when these visions were given, it's saturated with righteousness by faith language.

That was the book that converted me into the church.

And righteousness by faith was the most powerful truth I've ever heard in my life, to date.

And what I mean by powerful is the ability to transform an individual's life.

Every major figure in Christian history, the turning point to where they became the people we now admire them to be was the point of their conversion.

And I'm going to talk about that a little bit later in this message.

So to talk about this experience of righteousness by faith, it is not happenstance that when you trace people who inspire you, who touch your life, it is oftentimes rooted in the experience of salvation in their life.

Listen, you don't start giving certain kinds of messages unless you've been through something.

People think, You know, people come to me about mentoring them and preaching.

I'm like, listen, I can teach you, teaching you preaching is like teaching you how to play pool.

Hit the ball on the top, the middle, or the bottom.

But while it's simple, you know, these things will take you a lifetime to master them, but I said at the end of the day, there's certain things I can never teach you.

I said unless you've been through something, there's just certain things a person cannot teach you.

And Sister White talks about this in Ministry of Healing.

Some people have never been touched by trials or burdens.

So as soon as something difficult comes, people come and say, oh, I got victory over this.

I'm like, if that's the most difficult thing you're dealing with in your life, You're going to have a hard time relating with the world.

My best friend was shot at night, 50 bullets.

My lunch lady was killed for talking against games.

Seeing women raped, seeing kids picked up, my babysitter was jumped walking me home from school.

Those are just a few of my experiences in the city.

And then you come to the church and people are like, you know I'm struggling with impatience.

I got victory over impatience and I'm not doubting anyone's victory.

But what I'm saying is I need to know Christ can do more than just handle impatience.

I need to know that Christ can restore my lost childhood, my innocence.

You know, sexuality is also a meaningful topic for me too.

You go in the city, your parents are not around.

Single moms, they're working all day long.

So you're left to the devices, as that quote said, as a mother, do you let them hang with these kids in the city?

Your friends are who live nearby and who knows what kind of stuff is going on in their house.

So you're sitting there thinking, playing house is such a very innocuous game, right?

You're the mama, I'm the papa, it's the kid, we do the dinner, okay, it's time to go to bed.

This girl took me behind the door, started explaining to me, this is exactly how you have sex.

Did you know based on behavioral and criminal science that when a child is exposed to sexuality before their time, this is where deviance begins.

And the earlier they're exposed to sexuality where they don't understand it, the more deviant they will be.

So when we talk about getting victory over things, we need to be very, very keen on the fact that the people we're trying to minister to are dealing with a lot more than the things we talk about getting victory over.

Why Do I Love Evil?

We must recognize that in discussing this kind of topic as we tried to build a case last night, this could be the turning point in someone's life that turns them into a major Christian reformer.

This could be the preparation for someone to serve the Lord even as a prophet.

This could be the preparation of someone even going beyond what Mother Teresa had done.

Can you imagine how powerful her testimony would have been?

Had she done the things she had done and she had the peace of God at the same time?

But it's all marred at the end of her life.

All her legacy, all those things are marred by the fact that she had this constant abandonment and loneliness in her heart.

Which goes to show you, no amount of works will bring us peace.

However good and however inspirational they are.

People can even canonize you and make you a saint.

Martin Luther is recorded as having preached a sermon 1 time.

And while he was preaching his sermon, he was frustrated because they had, you know, the little indulgences outside, right?

You know, whenever a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs, right?

So people had been hearing Luther preach, but They felt like, you know what, there was an opportunity.

Maybe I can add to the gospel that Luther is preaching.

So not only can I listen to the gospel and believe in Christ, but I can put my money in this coffer?

John from Patmos and you know you'll get some blessing from there.

In India they believe they have the tomb of Thomas, they believe in the Middle East that Daniel is buried there, so Muslims and Christians and Jews all fight over this space.

So you're thinking all these concepts were going on and Luther came to that service that day and he had to preach and he said, steps away from the podium which is very abnormal for a priest to do.

If you've ever seen a Catholic Church right they have the little lectern all the way sewed it up like above the congregation.

He preaches on the floor with the congregation.

And as he steps away from his podium, he's clearly moved by something.

And they describe the experience as Luther comes and he says, listen.

He says, you turn to relics, you pay your money, You think you have to do this penance and climb up this innumerable mounts of stairs?

Self-flagellate yourself when all along there is Christ Right there.

You just have to go to him why is it that we have to add to what Jesus does it is sufficient if it's not sufficient then why did he die Jesus didn't come down to pay 90% of the bill Work out the other 10%.

But Luther is looking at them and he says, you can't add to the sacrifice of Christ.

He says, you drop your coin in that coffer, you're saying his sacrifice is insufficient.

You go and touch that relic and these people are sitting there so moved by the fact that for us it seems so basic, it seems so assumed, but the reality is we don't have relics anymore, right?

John's garments or this was the Bible that Daniel had in Babylon.

All these other relics that we're like, oh wow, you know, I'm going to get a blessing from this because this thing is sanctified, set aside by God.

But we do have our own modern relics as well.

You think because you woke up and read your Bible this morning that recommended you to God.

Some of us think because we pray for 2 hours rather than the normal 30 minutes, right?

You sound like the Pharisee in the temple.

I thank you, Lord, that I pray 2 hours unlike the 30 minutes that these other people pray.

The Bible says he went to his home condemned, not justified.

But he's spiritual, doing spiritual activities.

I'm not an extortioner, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not like these other men.

But the man who sat afar off and said, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I'm preaching my sermon for tonight already.

It is the laying into the dust of the glory of who?

In doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself.

I told you I want you to memorize this quote before you leave This is what it is Whatever reduces man's glory and whatever God does for you that you cannot do for yourself Do you know you are in the realm of righteousness by faith.

You start preaching anything else that you can do for yourself that's not righteousness by faith, it's works.

And God doesn't do for men what man can do for himself.

This is why 1 of the famous reverends in New York City, he used to have this saying, right?

The best thing you can do for the poor is not be 1 of them That's the best thing you can do because if you're poor you're not helping anyone So in in this context right if I applied that to physical poverty and it is true the best thing you can do for the poor is not be 1 of them.

Because if you're poor, you ain't helping anybody.

But it applies equally to spiritual poverty.

So listen, the best thing I can do for the people outside in Eastern Canada is be filled with righteousness.

That's the best thing I can do for them is to have his righteousness and as I'm living that life out sanctified, this is what's awakening the hunger in them to desire righteousness.

And all they need is the hunger and thirst.

Once you have that desire that I want to live a better life, I want to do good, I want to live right by my wife.

As soon as you have the hunger and thirsting, He says, you are blessed.

That's not usually our message to people.

I want to begin with a story from Charles Spurgeon, but before I do that, let's pray together.

Father in heaven, we are about to embark upon the experience of the gospel in the Old Testament.

Father, most often our highest and most severe critics use this part of the canon of Scripture to discount the blessing, the blessed love, grace, and faith Lord that we speak of in terms of salvation and the God whom we love and worship.

We pray Father that you would raise up an Ebenezer today, that through the reflection upon these stories, as they reveal the principles of the gospel and of righteousness by faith in the Old Testament, that Christ would be uplifted, that Jesus would be seen, that we would be drawn to him, Lord, and that we would not resist.

But Father, that we may find ourselves coming before God, not just in brokenness and in contrition, but Father, in joy and in peace, in love, and in excitement of living life, abiding in Him.

This is our prayer, Father, and we trust that You'll help this to be our experience.

Take your Bibles, turn to Genesis 3 verse 15.

We're gonna start with our scripture reading.

He says there was a man who was a pastor over a church in England.

He remembered 1 day that 1 of his parishioners was a very poor woman and he had received several offerings in church So he said, you know what, I remember this woman has need.

I'm going to go visit her to go and help her meet her need financially.

So the pastor leaves the church, locks up, heads down, you know, to where she lives, knocks on the door.

When Temptations Return

Father, we pray that you would guide us to an experience of rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

And Jesus says that the Holy Spirit, when he would come, he would guide us into all truth.

And all we pray, Lord, is the words of that song that says, God be in my head and in my thinking.

Oh God be in my heart and in my understanding.

This is our prayer Lord and we offer this prayer from our hearts in Jesus's name, Amen.

I want you to turn with me to the book of Matthew chapter 4.

The first thing I want to talk about is righteousness by faith in the context of discipleship.

That there is no such thing as discipleship without righteousness by faith.

And unfortunately for many of us, or maybe fortunately I should say, that the actual Great Commission is a commission to go and make disciples.

So to understand righteousness by faith is a critical element of understanding how to engage in discipleship and how discipleship works is what we teach in discipleship.

I'm just going to pray that you are awake.

The Bible says, And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw 2 brothers.

Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Then he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

And they immediately left their nets and followed him.

Going from there he saw 2 other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother in the boat with Zebedee their father mending their nets.

He called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Now right here in the midst of this passage there's something that is actually teaching us about Christ's method.

Ministry of Healing page 146, Christ's method alone right?

And do you remember all the steps in that?

Right it says Christ's method alone will basically give us true success and he A.

He Sympathized with them Thirdly he ministered to their needs Fourthly he won there and then he bathed them.

That is telling you what he did with Peter before he called them here.

The result of Christ's method is not baptism.

The result of Christ's method is discipleship.

So he says, you mingled among men desiring their good.

You win their confidence and then you bid them to do what?

When he calls Peter, he doesn't say, follow me, he says, follow me and.

The call to discipleship is not just about following Jesus.

So I want you to understand something right here in the middle of discipleship is the principle of righteousness by faith.

He looks at Peter, he looks at James and John and he says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

In other words, he's saying, who is the subject of the verb follow?

So if you and I are receiving a call from Jesus to be disciples, our primary call is to what?

We are to study the steps and the words of Jesus.

You see, back in those days when a rabbi would call someone, he had different tests of discipleship.

Typically you would walk up to a rabbi and you would say, you know, I want to be 1 of your students and the rabbi would say, okay, quote for me Jeremiah chapter 35.

If you can't quote it word for word, because he knows the whole Old Testament probably from memory.

And so he qualifies his students by how much knowledge you have.

And then if you got it right, let's say you quoted all of Jeremiah 35 from memory and you did not mess up 1 time, then he would say these 2 words to you.

But you see, when he made that call to them.

He literally meant follow me and In some traditions they suggest that some rabbis literally expected you to walk in their literal physical footprints You ever been in the snow right and When the snow is really high and you want to walk to your car to the road, what do you do?

And you step in the footprints now if you're like really short like Chantal and she's trying to follow my footsteps, right?

I have a long stride So she's gonna be you know doing these things You can imagine people walking around Jerusalem trying to follow the rabbi.

So here they are like walking where he walks, stop where he stops and literally they would say when it's time for me to sleep you sleep.

Because the whole point was if I'm gonna be your disciple I need you to transmit your life over to me in order to transmit your life over to me I have to literally walk in your actual steps live your actual life with you and realize the discipline the asceticism the commitment the fasting the prayer everything that he does so that I can also have the same results in power and knowledge that he possesses.

So can you imagine that the God of the universe incarnate in Jesus says follow me.

Now you have to step back a moment and recognize that what he's asking me to do the power is not in me to do it.

I tell people all the time this story when I was a kid, right, and you're thinking about the fact that playing basketball and learning anything.

I said, listen, if someone, you know, this kid on the playground, he's like a college basketball player and he's like, hey Sebastian, I want to teach you, I want you to follow what I do, right, put some cones on the court, takes the basketball, dribbles around the cone this way, this way, right?

He's like, no, I want you to follow what I do.

I'm not able to follow what you're doing.

So you're asking me to do something for me that's out of my league.

He says, listen, all I'm asking you to do is to continue to try.

And this principle that Sister White gives us in Ministry of Healing, she says, that which at first is difficult, when done repeatedly, becomes easy.

So therefore, the issue is to stick with it no matter what.

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Series

Plenary

What Is Righteousness by Faith?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

What Is Righteousness by Faith?

1h 13m

Why Do I Love Evil?

1h

When Temptations Return

1h 18m

After the Commercial, We will be Right Back!

1h

Sound Doctrine