Join Berni Dymet, this week on Christianityworks as he opens God’s Word to discover the plans and purposes that God has for your life. 

Join Berni Dymet, this week on Christianityworks as he opens God’s Word to discover the plans and purposes that God has for your life. 

Join Berni Dymet, this week on Christianityworks as he opens God’s Word to discover the plans and purposes that God has for your life. 

Join Berni Dymet, this week on Christianityworks as he opens God’s Word to discover the plans and purposes that God has for your life. 

So why don’t you join Berni Dymet, on Christianityworks as He opens God’s Word to discover the meaning behind the suffering, we all experience.

So why don’t you join Berni Dymet, on Christianityworks as He opens God’s Word to discover the new life that God has in store for you!

So why don’t you join Berni Dymet, on Christianityworks as He opens God’s Word to discover the powerful hope that Easter brings.

So why don’t you join Berni Dymet, on Christianityworks as He opens God’s Word to discover that no matter how bad things get, your Redeemer lives!

People pay a lot of money for wilderness eco tours these days, and yet as Christians, God seems to take us on wilderness tours free of charge on a regular basis. Why does He do that? I mean, can’t our lives just go along on a nice, even keel for ever and ever amen?

Funny thing, but when Jesus was baptised, as He come out of the water, the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove and a voice spoke from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”.

Did that happen at your baptism? No, me neither. Let’s take a look. Mark chapter 1, verses 9 to 13:

Just as he was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan.

A booming voice from heaven – “This is my beloved Son in You I am well pleased” … and yet, the very next thing that God did with His precious Son was to drive Him out (literally the word means ‘throw Him out’) into the wilderness to starve and to be tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights. God didn’t even spare His own Son, but when He was finished, Jesus came out of the wilderness we are told ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’.

It’s just how God does things, get used to it. Suffering is part of God’s plan for our lives. None of us enjoys suffering. I don’t and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. But suffering is a normal part of life. And God tells us that when we suffer, we should consider it nothing but … pure joy!! Come on! Is that bizarre or what!? Have a listen to this. James chapter 1, verse 2:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but pure joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, and lacking in nothing.

God’s plan is that in that wilderness of suffering, He will test and strengthen our faith. That’s one of the main reasons for suffering. So far, my record for bad days in my life, is that I’ve managed to survive each and every one of them just fine. In fact, that’s a one hundred percent survival rate, and there have been some real shockers in that lot, I have to tell you.

As I look back on them, I can see how the Lord carried me through, how He cared and provided for me, how He grew me and moulded me and how He’s used every one of those bad days for good in my life. Isn’t it amazing how the fire of trials and suffering refine us purer and purer each time?

When an athlete trains to compete at an elite level in their sport, they go through a lot of pain. They run until it hurts, they pump iron until it hurts. And what that pain, what that suffering does for them, is, well … it does two things really. It makes them strong, and it gives them endurance, both of those are important. Strength and endurance – you need both of them to compete well in a sport, and you need both of them to get through the tough patches in life. Strength and endurance.

Do you know what the biggest temptation is for you and me when we’re suffering? I think it’s the temptation to start behaving badly. I’ll just go out and get drunk, or I’ll sleep around, or I’ll be nasty to other people that are causing me the pain. Somehow we have this distorted ledger in our heads that goes something like this:

Well, God’s certainly not blessing me at the moment, so why not behave badly? Why not do what I want? Blow God!! What do I have to lose?!

Of course, in the cold, hard light of day, that’s a stupid line of reasoning, because we know that behaving badly, eventually, is just going to make other things worse. So just in case you were wondering, here’s God’s plan for what to do when you’re suffering. Galatians chapter 6, verses 9 and 10:

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

God is a God of seasons. Look at how regularly they roll around – spring, summer, autumn, winter; year after year. Seed time and harvest, season after season. There are seasons of blessing in our lives, there are seasons of trials in our lives, there are seasons of temptation in our lives, and there are seasons of suffering in our lives.

And through it all, here’s the thing, if we don’t grow weary of doing what is right, we will reap the harvest that’s waiting for us. When? Well, at harvest time, of course! So don’t panic. Don’t worry, just cry out to God, pour out your heart to Him.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a small group Bible study with a bunch of earnest, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians. We were looking at that verse in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 that goes something like this:

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Great. So we discuss it, we prodded it and poked it, and we’re about to move on. The Bible study leader summarises with: “Well, that’s is really good, but we still worry, don’t we?” Berni – I can’t help myself at this point – Berni shouts out, “NO!” And they all stare at me.

Come on – do we take God at His Word or not? Here in this passage, He’s telling us, if instead of worrying, we pray and give thanks, His incomprehensible peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good deal to me! All we need to do, is to take God at His Word in those difficult times, and keep on keeping on, and we will discover in our very own experience just how faithful God is.

Spiritual victory is an awesome thing. So many things come against us in this world – people, circumstances, our own selfish desires, the devil and his legion of demons, it’s almost as though we’ve been set up to fail, don’t you think? You look at all the stuff you have to get through in this life and there is just no way that you can live your life the way God wants you to live it.

Way too many people who call themselves Christians are living in that sort of a defeat but Jesus came to give us victory and victory we shall have if only we can get over our desire to be self-sufficient, if only we can get over this natural instinct we have somewhere deep inside us to set out on our own to become better people, to become better Christians if you will. How did we get that idea into us in the first place pray tell?

Well here’s how it generally unfolds in our lives. One of the very first things we try to teach our children is to become self-sufficient. I mean when they’re born they’re completely dependent on us for everything, by the time they leave home we want them to be able to cope with the big wide world out there on their own, we want them to be self-sufficient and that’s good but there’s a downside. The danger is that we take that thinking and that teaching, each one of us, into our relationship with God.

Over the last couple of weeks on the programme, we’ve been talking about the reality that Jesus came to purchase a special kind of victory for each one of us

The sort of victory in life that lifts us up above temptations, that lifts us up above the devastating impact of our sin that lifts us up above the power of the devil to destroy our lives.

The sort of victory that brings a sense of God’s abundance into our world so that no matter who or what attacks us, no matter who or what tries to rob you and me of the joy and the peace and the gladness in our hearts, we can have victory of that who or what and still have the joy and the peace and the gladness in our hearts.

That’s what I call victory and that abundance is precisely what Jesus came to give to you and me. A pivotal passage of Scripture that I come back to again and again in my life when the ravages of the devil and of circumstances are tearing away at my flesh is what Jesus said to His disciples in John chapter 10 verse 10:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.

I sometimes ask people, ‘What sort of life do you think that God wants you to live?’ A boring life, an ordinary life or a stunning life. Come on, on a scale of zero to ten what sort of life do you think that God wants you to live? This God who sent Jesus to die and rise again for you. Zero – a rotten life, five – well an okay kind of life I guess, seven and a half – a pretty good life or ten – a stunning life.

Remember Jesus said that He came so that we might have life and have it abundantly and that anything less than that was from the devil. The original Greek word that sits aback of our English translation literally means ‘super abundantly’. That super abundant life isn’t always a comfortable life or a wealthy life, no often it’s not that at all but it is a life that weighs in and counts for Jesus, a life that bears fruit super abundantly. That’s the life that Jesus has planned for you.

The question is, how do you and I grab hold of that life because let’s be honest, of the millions of people who will listen to this message today in over a hundred and sixty countries around the world, the vast majority, eighty, ninety percent aren’t living that sort of a life?

It seems as though in the Kingdom of God today there are the ‘have’s’ and the ‘have not’s’ when it comes to this abundant victory. Which one are you? A have or a have not? Something has to change right? And I believe, in fact I know that the biggest con out there robbing God’s people of His abundant victory is this, that life is all about being happy, us being happy, me being happy, you being happy.

This big con, the reason that so many people are so unhappy in this world, is that we’re told happiness comes from self-gratification, from buying and having everything we want, that new dress or that new pair of shoes, that new camera, that new car, that new house, that new whatever it is, that’s why most people often think to themselves, ‘If only, if only I just earned a little bit more, just maybe ten percent more then I’d be happy’.

From bitter experience I can tell you that’s simply not true. In fact the biggest shock I had when I became a Christian back in 1995 was that once I started using my God-given gifts and resources to do things for other people, something frankly I had never done much of before, all of a sudden I discovered the satisfaction and the contentment I’d been looking for, for all those years.

That’s exactly what God tells us through His Word, Philippians chapter 2 verses 3 to 8:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ who, though he was in the form of God, didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited but he emptied himself, humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

These days I bless other people, not because I’m a good guy because I’m not but because it makes me feel good because it brings me the peace, the joy and the contentment that I was always looking for but was forever unable to find so long as I was trying to make myself happy. Why did it take me so long to figure this out?

Probably because right from the beginning, right from when we’re little we’re taught that the aim of the game is to succeed, it’s about winning, it’s about coming first, it’s about me feeling good about myself. It doesn’t matter what game you’re playing the aim, the only acceptable outcome is to win.

Well, winning is all well and good, it’s great to be successful and yet so many Christians think that success is the name of the game that they’ve completely lost sight of Jesus. I even had one Christian tell me once that his aim was to have the latest BMW SUV sitting in his driveway. Really? Is that really what’s going to make you happy, success?

John chapter 19 verses 28 to 30:

After this when Jesus knew that all was now finished he said in order to fulfil the Scripture, ‘I am thirsty’. A jar full of sour wine was standing there so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it up to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine he said, ‘It is finished’ then he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

When Jesus died on that cross He didn’t even have the clothes on His back. He was beaten, crucified, this miracle working Jesus who had promised so much looked like the biggest loser of all time. They scoffed at Him, they spat at Him, they mocked Him, ‘Save yourself’ they shouted.

And yet through His suffering He purchased eternal life for you and me. It’s fine to succeed but that’s not the aim of the game. Now He wasn’t a loser Jesus, when He gave up His life for you and me, far from it, He did it willingly, John chapter 10 verses 17 and 18.

For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

In the world’s economy losing makes you a loser, losing the argument, missing out on the promotion, not being as beautiful as the beautiful people, all that makes you a loser but that’s not the way it is in God’s economy. In my life and I know this has happened in yours too, many things have come against me.

I set out each day with faith in Jesus and the joy of the Lord in my heart and like a pack of wolves people and situations and circumstances and things come to tear away at my flesh, to attack my faith, to drag me down and our natural reaction to that is, well God what’s going on here? What have I done to deserve this? Can’t you make it stop?

We behave as though something is wrong when the truth is the moment we step onto the spiritual battle of life with Jesus in our hearts the devil is going to come after us with a pick axe, with all the powers of hell unleashed against us but no matter how bad it gets remember this powerful truth from God’s Word, Romans chapter 8 verses 37 to 39.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us for I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers...

I want you to imagine a person who wants to become an elite athlete, whatever their chosen sport may be. This person sets out to become a great tennis player or footballer or track and field competitor and yet all they ever do is they sit on the couch eating chips and sweets and drinking sugar-laden soft drink. Would you expect that person to realise their dream of becoming an elite athlete on that sort of a diet and that sort of an exercise regime? Not likely.

And yet that’s what so many Christians do. They want to live a life of spiritual victory in Christ and yet they fail to turn away from the things that are ruining their lives. Those things have a collective name in God’s Book – He calls them sin. Have a listen to the Apostle Paul’s take on all of this, Romans chapter 6, verse 21 to 23:

So what advantage did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death but now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God the advantage you get is sanctification, the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For much of my life I shied away from God simply because I thought becoming a Christian meant living out some out dated, irrelevant bunch of rules that would restrict me and constrain me, a bit like a straight jacket. That’s the view that so many people have of being a Christian – you can’t do this, you can’t do that, how’s a person supposed to have any fun in this life?

What surprised me though when I looked closer at it is that God only tells us not to do the things that are actually going to hurt us and hurt other people. And the list of do’s and don’ts, well it’s actually quite small in the scheme of things and yet still there’s always at least one of those that we want to hang on to in our lives, isn’t there?

Listen up, there is no such thing as a small sin. Hang on to any sin and eventually it’s going to kill you, let it go and the reward is freedom today and eternal life for the rest of eternity.

Over the last few days on the program we’ve talked a lot about the powerful transformation that happens to you and to me the moment we believe in Jesus. Our past is completely forgiven, as far as the east is from the west so far does God remove our transgressions from us. So much so that our past misdemeanours become completely irrelevant in God’s eyes and in God’s eyes we’re as pure and as blameless as Jesus Himself.

That abundant mercy and grace is a kindness and a generosity that is simply indescribable and that kindness and generosity is actually meant to have a transformative impact on our lives, Romans chapter 2 verses 3 and 4:

Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself you will escape the judgement of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Don’t you realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

Isn’t it funny how quick we are to judge others and yet how readily we find excuses to rationalise our own behaviour. Maybe it’s time for us to stop kidding ourselves. Other people’s sin, by and large, isn’t our responsibility but our sin is and one day Jesus will come back and judge the living and the dead, each one of us, Christian and non-Christian alike will stand before Him to give an account for our lives, our behaviour and our sin.

Make no mistake judgement day is coming but right now God has done everything that needs doing, He has shown us every kindness, He has given us every opportunity to repent, to turn away from the things that we know are wrong and to turn our lives back to Him.

The right response, the only response to God’s kindness is repentance. The right response, the only response to Jesus death on that cross is letting go of our sin and loving Him in word and in deed. Surely that’s not too much to ask, is it? And it’s not as though we’re powerless to change because God gives us the very power we need to leave that sin behind. He never takes us to a place where temptation is more than we can bear, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13:

So if you think that you are standing watch out that you don’t fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with a testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

Let’s be honest we all struggle with sin, somehow each one of us has that one Achilles heel and one temptation, that one sin that we’re vulnerable to and doesn’t the devil know it. He waits for just the right time, when we’re tired, when we’re distracted, when we’re under pressure, when we haven’t prayed or opened our Bible for a few days or weeks and then whammo, he swoops in and he strikes.

The result, we succumb to the temptation, we stumble, we suffer guilt, we suffer condemnation and we want to run and hide from God just like Adam and Eve did. What’s your Achilles heel of temptation and sin? What are you struggling with? Are you wondering what you can possibly do to overcome it?

Well here’s a powerful promise from God, whatever it is He will never allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to withstand the temptation and He will always provide you with a way out. That’s Gods promise to you, He will always be there to help you overcome the temptation and that’s important because that sin robs us of the spiritual victory that He wants for our lives. That sin steals the very thing that Jesus suffered and died and rose again to give us, abundant victory.

God’s thought of everything, of forgiveness, to be set free from the past and of the power we need to overcome the future. Yeah, God’s thought of everything

For many Christians prayer is one of those optional extras. It’s something we fit in now and then when we can and it seems we’re especially good at fitting in a quick prayer when things aren’t going so well. ‘Oh God please help me, oh God please stop the pain, oh God when are you finally going to show up’? Sound familiar?

Imagine that someone you love only ever talks to you when they’re in trouble, it wouldn’t make much for a relationship now, would it? I wonder sometimes if we don’t have a completely wrong view of prayer because the only sort of prayer that the Bible teaches us about is the sort that has powerful results.

Let me say that again just in case you missed it – the only sort of prayer that the Bible teaches us about is the sort that has powerful results. Now when you think of it that way you have to ask yourself, so why do I keep banging my head up against a brick wall? Here’s how Jesus put it, John chapter 15 verse 7. He said that:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

In other words if we’re close to His heart, if we know what He wants then our desires will be aligned with His and in that context we can ask Him for whatever we wish and it will be done for us. That’s a powerful statement and when we live that out in our lives it yields powerful results.

We’re in the middle of a series of messages called Your Road To Spiritual Victory because that’s what God wants for you, for your life, spiritual victory. And as I said at the beginning of this pro...

Spiritual victory is something of an odd concept, we live life, we go through all the stuff we go through, we know somehow there’s a spiritual dimension to it all but for most of us, particularly westerners like me, the spiritual dimension of life can feel somewhat distant, irrelevant even in the cut and thrust of daily life. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The battles we fight often appear to be battles against circumstances, adversity, and other people – especially other people. Our daily battles appear confined to the here and now when all along there’s a spiritual battle raging for your soul in the heavenly places. This is what the Apostle Paul writes, Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 to 13:

Finally (he says) be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil for our struggle isn’t against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God so that you may be able to withstand on that day of evil and having done everything to stand firm.

So today we’re kicking off a brand new series of messages called Your Road To Spiritual Victory because Jesus didn’t come and die for you and rise again so that you could spend the rest of your life being defeated by your circumstances or by people or by satan or by your sin. Gods plan for your life is victory – spiritual victory. 1 John chapter 5, verses 4 and 5.

For whatever is born of God conquers the world and this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world? That the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

And that’s why today and over the next couple of weeks we’re going to focus on spiritual victory, your spiritual victory to be precise. Often when I start talking about this to people I get a response that goes something like this, ‘Yeah I hear you but I’m not good enough, I’m such a weak person, I don’t think I will ever experience the victory that you’re talking about.’

This is way more common than you think. Perhaps you’ve been thinking along similar lines as we’ve been chatting about this whole ‘spiritual victory’ thing today. Well my job is to open God’s Word with you and show you that that’s a whole bunch of baloney.

Let’s go back to Paul’s words about the spiritual battle and putting on the whole armour of God. The whole purpose of that, he says is quote, ‘So we may be able to withstand on that evil day and having done everything to stand firm.’ In other words ‘to win the battle‘.

‘But I’m not good enough,’ I hear you say. No, you’re not good enough, that’s the truth and nor am I for that matter, we’re all in the same boat. None of us is good enough or strong enough or pure enough or holy enough or smart enough to win the spiritual battle, that’s the whole point, that’s why we need Jesus, that’s why we need the Holy Spirit.

And the starting point for the transaction of spiritual victory can be summed up in one word – grace. And that’s something that your God and mine, has available in bucket loads for you and me. Again listen to how the Apostle Paul puts it, Ephesians chapter 2, verses 4 and 5.

But God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, has made us alive together in Christ.

There are times in our lives when we know that we’ve blown it, I mean completely blown it. There is nothing worse than waking up the morning after the night before and remembering that you hurt someone you loved and damaged a relationship that was so terribly important to you. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have said that? How could I have done that? Yeah I know, you’ve been there right? So have I.

I remember one time when I was in that place when the person I had hurt reached out to me and without berating me, without showing anger, without judging me simply forgave me and opened the door to healing our relationship. I’ll never forget it. That person was Jesus. What He did is called mercy and here’s the thing, mercy is only mercy when it’s undeserved. If we deserved it, it wouldn’t be mercy, would it?

The Bible tells us that God is rich in mercy, ain’t that the truth.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing, it’s a gift from God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9)

See mercy and grace are two sides of the one coin. Mercy is when God takes away the punishment that we so richly deserve for rebelling against Him and grace is when He gives us instead untold blessings that we simply don’t deserve. You and I have rebelled against God and the wages of sin, as we’re told in the Bible, is death and yet because He loves you so much He heaps the death that you deserve on the shoulders of Jesus on that cross. Jesus suffered and died on your behalf – that’s mercy.

And then instead of the death we so richly deserve, He gives us a rich abundant life here and now, a life that we’ll spend with Him for the rest of eternity, that’s grace.

Some days we look in the mirror and we see just what we’ve done wrong. We see how unworthy we really are. We realise that there’s simply no hope and that’s the whole point, that’s why He sent Jesus, for you. He loves you so much, mercy and grace through Jesus Christ.

And so no matter how low the base that you’re coming off is in this spiritual game that we call life, God’s mercy will trump everything. In fact so much so that He’ll wipe away all of your past misdeeds, also known as sin. He’ll make your past completely irrelevant to you, to your life and to your relationship with Him. That’s how rich God is in His mercy and grace. Psalm 103, verses 11 to 14.

For as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him, as far as the east is from the west so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him for he knows how we’re made, he remembers that we’re just dust.

As far as the east is from the west – I recently had to fly from Sydney in Australia, it’s on the eastern seaboard up to Singapore and it takes about seven and a half odd hours to make that flight. Four and a half of those hours, over half of the trip, is involved just in flying from east to west to get out of Australia.

So as I made that flight I looked down on the red dusty land below me and I think ‘the distance between east and west is enormous’. So far has God removed our transgressions from us – as far as the east is from the west. Your slate is wiped completely clean and your past becomes completely irrelevant. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.

So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away and see everything has become new.

Your past is gone, it’s irrelevant. You want spiritual victory in your life then you need to know the truth so that the truth can set you free and the truth is this, it’s what I just shared with you from God’s Word today, the truth is that you a...

Over the last little while on the program we have been chatting together about the amazing transformation that the grace of God brings into our lives. I like to think of it as a grace transformation.

If you’ve been able to join me, you’ll know that we’ve been spending some time in just one chapter of the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah chapter 43 because that one chapter happens to be cram-packed full of the transformation that God’s grace brings into the lives of His people.

It’s amazing to me how much Gods managed to pack into just one chapter of His Word the Bible, His living Word. And if you and I can just drink that in, the amazing power of God’s grace, then we’re going to experience a transformation in our lives that words simply can’t describe.

Now to some that might sound to be a bit over the top, a bit much if you will. Transformation? ‘Hey I’ve believed in God for years’, some people are saying, ‘I’ve never experienced any transformation’.

Well that may be you, that may ring a little true for you and if it does stick with me because we’re going to dig deep today into what God has to say into your life about His grace transformation for you.

Have you ever wondered what grace is? Grace is when you receive something good but you don’t deserve, it’s the flip side of mercy. Mercy is when you are spared a punishment that you deserve. Grace is when in its place, you receive a blessing that you don’t deserve. Two sides of the one coin – mercy and grace. And one of the greatest acts of grace that God could ever pour out on anybody is a freedom from their past.

Let’s dive into Gods Word now, Isaiah chapter 43, a pivotal time in the history of Israel, they were in Babylon of all places, having been captured and exiled as slaves by the Babylonians.

Now for them that was an outrageous thing because they knew that they were God’s chosen people. They knew that God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt some centuries before and brought them to the Promised Land, the Land He had promised to Abraham many many centuries before.

And yet here they were again, not living in freedom in that Promised Land but living in captivity as slaves in another land. Why? Well because they had turned their backs on God. Now God was patient with them but eventually His patience ran out and He allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem, destroy the Temple and take His own people into captivity.

The Israelites were living out the consequences of their own sin. Does that sound vaguely familiar? It happens to all of us when we turn our backs on God and go our own way in sin, in rebellion against Him. We all end up living out those consequences and as far as the Israelites could see there was no hope for the future, they were stuck there in slavery, great, just, let me say, like it is for you and me when we’re wallowing in the slavery of our own sin.

But then God decides to speak through the great Prophet Isaiah. He speaks of bringing the power to change things. He speaks of breaking into their dismal reality. He speaks of the fact that He has redeemed them, that they are precious to Him, that they needn’t be afraid, that He’s going to open their eyes to the great reality, the great unseen reality which is Him.

He is bringing transformation, release for the captives, a new life, the very same thing He wants to bring into your life, the very same thing that Jesus came to this earth to bring for us.

But before that transformation, before that release can happen something else needs to happen in the hearts and the minds of His people. Have a listen to what God says through Isaiah chapter 43, verses 14 to 21.

Thus, says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, ‘For your sake I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned into lamentation. I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King’. Thus, says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse and army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise as they are extinguished and quenched like a wick.

‘Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I’m about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, don’t you see it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people who I formed for myself so that they may declare my praise.’ (Isaiah 43: 14-21)

What is it that needs to happen? God needs to shift their focus off their circumstances onto the great and mighty redeemer that He is. And God needs to get them to forget their past and place their hope in Him for the future because if all they can focus on is their past failures and their present predicament then they won’t be ready to receive the freedom that He’s about to bring. And the very same is true for you and me.

There are some people tuned in today who are gripped by their past. They can’t get over their failures, they can’t get over their hurts, perhaps the abuse, whatever it is in their past that’s holding them back. And the thing about the past is that it’s so powerful it seems that nothing, NOTHING, can set you free.

That’s precisely how it would have seemed to the Israelites. Seventy years in captivity, seventy years of the punishment that by now they knew they so richly deserved and no hope for the future until all of a sudden, without warning the grace of God breaks into their bleak reality and God calls on them to forget their past and replace it with a vision of a bright future – a way in the wilderness, waters and rivers in the desert to give drink and to bless His chosen people, the people whom He formed for Himself to declare His praise.

I believe that God is saying the very same thing to us today, to you and me. Forget the past, He’s wiped your slate clean through Jesus, through the death and the sacrifice of Jesus on that cross for you, the past is irrelevant when you consider the future in the light of the grace transformation that God wants to bring into your life.

Do you hear Him through His word today?

It’s one of the great paradoxes of life: that the good things in our lives can actually distract us from the best thing in life. It’s actually far more common that you may think.

Consider a marriage, the most important of all human relationships on this planet, always has been, always will be. How easy is it for a young couple to get married and then they buy a home and the mortgage cuts in and so they work longer and harder and in any case, they both enjoy what they do.

Then children come along and they focus on those as they rightly should. And as the months and years slip by they become so focused on all those other good things that they forget to focus on their marriage. And then one day they wake up and they wonder, ‘where did all the love go?’

Is it a bad thing to buy a home? No. Is it a bad thing to enjoy work? Of course it isn’t. It’s great to have a job that really invigorates you. Is it a bad thing for a husband and wife to bring children into the world and to love them and to nurture them and to sacrifice for them? No, that’s a great thing! In fact it’s hard to imagine a greater blessing than children.

None of those things in and of themselves are bad things, they rarely are. B...

It’s funny how you and I can be blind to something which is patently obvious to someone else. A lot of that has to do with proximity. I was sitting with a young man the other day who has a great business. He’s a well-known speaker and author and travels all over the world and he’s an absolutely delightful human being, not full of himself in his own sense of self-importance which is pretty rare among media personalities.

Anyhow, he and I catch up every once in a little while to chat and before our last meeting I was thinking a bit about his business and something glaring jumped out at me – an opportunity that he was missing to really take his enterprise, which he works very hard at, to the next level.

So we chatted over lunch and he became more and more excited and then I could see it in his eyes, he had one of those, ‘now why didn’t I think of that’ moments. It’s so obvious, how come I didn’t come up with that? Can I tell you I’ve had many of those moments in my life from my early days in IT consulting when our managing director would fly in and review a project that I was working on and he would see this and see that and this and the other thing that I’d missed, why didn’t I think of that? I remember thinking that to myself, it’s so obvious.

And these days in this ministry of Christianityworks of which I’m the CEO. The ministry that’s responsible for this radio program that you’re listening to and lots of other things to boot. Even though I’m many years older and hopefully just a bit wiser than I was as a young consultant I know that there are still things that I miss.

And so what I’ve done is to surround myself with some smart, insightful, external advisors as well as some great board members who see things differently because they’re not involved in the day-to-day running of the ministry. It’s through their input that so many of the amazing things that God’s done through Christianityworks have in fact happened. And it’s also through their input and advice that we’ve managed to avoid a few mistakes along the way.

You get the point right? The closer you are to something the harder it is to see the wood for the trees. And one of the things that you and I are really close to, far too close to, unavoidably close to is our sin, our weaknesses and our failings. Now that’s a dangerous thing because as we saw last week on the program – sin always, always, always has painful consequences.

And if our weaknesses and failings, our sin are tucked away in the blind spots where we can’t see them they’re going to continue to ruin our lives. What we need is that external perspective and wisdom and insight to help us see what’s wrong so that we can do something about it.

If you’ve been able to join me over the last few episodes on the program, you’ll know that we’ve been talking about the powerful transformation that God wants to bring into our lives, to make our lives better by setting us free from sin which robs us of the amazing life that he always intended we should have.

God is a God of new beginnings and He is also a God of powerful lifelong transformation and growth. That seems a little far-fetched when you’re down there in the mire of the consequences of your own sin but it’s true. And we saw together how God spoke and brought transformation over the nation of Israel precisely at such a time as that, when it seemed impossible.

When as a result of their sin they’d been in exile in Babylon as slaves for seventy years, when because Babylon was the dominant super power of the day freedom and transformation and redemption and restoration all seemed completely impossible.

Right in the middle of that God stepped in and said this:

‘But now’ thus says the Lord, ‘he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel, do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you.’

‘For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you because you are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you. I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.’ (Isaiah 43: 1-4)

So God steps in to redeem them but the problem for Israel is that they still probably don’t completely see their sin, they still probably don’t have a good handle on what got them there in the first place and how to avoid it in the future.

So just a few verses later God acknowledges that and this is what He says, Isaiah chapter 43, verses 8 to 10:

Bring forth the people who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. Let all the nations gather together and let the people’s assemble. Who among them declared this and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them and let them hear and say it is true. You are my witnesses, says the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

In other words, the blind will see and become God’s witnesses. The deaf will hear the truth and will be able to tell others, ‘hey guys, it’s true’. God is going to remove the blind spots and clear out the deaf ears so that they can really see things as they are, so that they can see God as He is, so that they can see themselves and their sin for what they are.

When you think about it that’s exactly what you and I need in our lives, isn’t it? That external perspective and where better the get that than from God Himself? Who could be wiser? Who could care more? Who could love us more? Who could give us better advice than God Himself?

So God goes on and sets Israel free and restores them back to the Promised Land, back to Jerusalem, great. But if He doesn’t bring sight to the blind and hearing of truth to the deaf then they’re just going to make the same mistakes all over again just like you and me.

Do you imagine that a sculptor would begin and sculpture and then leave it incomplete? Do you imagine that a potter would toss a lump of clay on his wheel and leave it to go rock hard as a half-formed lump of dirt? No. They want to complete what they started and so it is with God.

He didn’t redeem you from your sin. He didn’t reveal Jesus to you to save you just to let you rot in your sin for the rest of your life.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6. He says:

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

God wants to finish what He started in you. He wants to keep shaping you and transforming you and one of the main ways that He does that, just as He did with Israel, is through His Word.

One of the great tragedies of the Church is that there are so many so-called Christians. People hungering to be set free from the consequences of their sin, who trifle with the Word of God, who pick and choose what suits them and worse still who ignore it all together.

I wonder how many people today have a Bible or two or three or five, sitting on a shelf or in a cupboard at home, somewhere gathering dust. A Bible that they haven’t opened for months or even years. I wonder. And those self-same people are invariably the ones whose li...

We all have someone or we’ve had someone in our lives who is more precious than anyone else. It’s probably a wife or a husband or a child or a friend or a mentor, everyone’s circumstances are different but of course if I asked you to picture the face of that person it would come to you in an instant, right? And if I asked you, how do you feel in your heart about that person then I’m sure that you’d tell me exactly how you feel.

It could be that you love that precious person with all your heart. It could be that … that precious person has passed away and you miss them with all your heart. Or perhaps that precious person betrayed you and is with someone else now and all you feel is a sense of pain and loss and devastation when you think of him or her.

Whatever your circumstance what I know is that … that precious person elicits a strong emotional response in your heart. That’s because they are or were precious to you and dear to you. Now you may not always have treated them the way you should have. That’s almost certainly true because none of us is perfect, I get that, you get that. But precious is precious.

So imagine for a moment the response that God has to someone who’s precious to Him. Imagine what’s going on in God’s heart for someone who is precious to Him. It would completely dwarf anything that you and I could ever think or feel because the love that God has is infinitely greater than the love that you and I can ever have.

Over the last few days on the program, we’ve spent some time examining grace. In fact, more specifically the grace intervention of God into the life of Israel when the nation as a whole was in a desperate place. A quick recap, through Moses and then Joshua God had brought Israel out of four and a half centuries of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and with honey, the land that He had promised to Abraham centuries before.

Battle by battle they had to take it and He blessed them in the land and yet the nation of Israel rebelled against God. Despite all the good things that He’d given them they worshipped false gods so after many warnings through the Prophets of old God punished them. He allowed the Babylonians, the world’s super power of the day, to invade, destroy Jerusalem, destroy the Temple and take the people into slavery, into captivity back to Babylon where they laboured under the burden of their sin, generation after generation for seventy years.

But there came a point where God said, enough is enough. Let’s pick up the story, Isaiah chapter 43, verses 1 to 4.

‘But now,’ thus says the Lord, ‘he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel, do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you, when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour’.

‘I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you because you are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you. I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life’.

Now we’ve spent a bit of time lately on the program talking about the first three verses there. This is a major grace intervention, a bleak dark hopeless time for Israel. All they can pretty much remember is seventy years they’ve spent in slavery. All they can see is a future, a lifetime of slavery and exile. The consequences, as they’ve now come to understand, of their rebellion and sin against God.

Sin always has consequences and yet seemingly out of nowhere, out of the blue, God shows up and does His ‘but now’ intervention. He completely turns the tables and tells Israel that He’s already redeemed them which incidentally is what He’s already done for thee and me even though our circumstances, like theirs, won’t always immediately reflect the fact.

You have to ask yourself, ‘Why?’ You see they deserve the punishment of God, they were getting their just deserts and then this, why did He do this? Well in that passage I’ve just read to you He tells us why, did you pick it up? It was towards the end, verse 4 of Isaiah chapter 43. He says:

Because you are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you.

That’s why. Because when God looks at His people they are precious in His sight. Listen to me, God loves all people. But those who belong to Him, those in this day and age who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour are special, they’re different, why? Because they’re precious in His sight and honoured and He loves them, that’s why.

Do you believe in Jesus? Have you accepted Jesus as your Saviour? The one who redeems you from the pit, the one who plucks you from the precipice and gives you a new life, have you? If the answer is yes know that He has a plan and a future for you because you are precious in His sight and honoured and He loves you.

Each one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, each one of us deserves the exile from God and the slavery to sin that we, by our own hand, have bought down upon our lives, each one of us. And yet in Jesus, through Jesus, because of Jesus the grace of God has instead fallen on our lives.

Change doesn’t happen in our lives by working harder. We don’t get rid of the sin in our lives by trying harder because nothing that you or I can do can set us free from the exile and slavery occasioned by our sin anymore than the Israelites could have fought the world’s super power Babylon to set themselves free from the slavery occasioned by their sin.

Change happens, transformation begins, freedom starts to take hold in our lives when we take grasp of the free, unmerited favour of God, the grace that we have in Jesus Christ. When we become so thankful for what Jesus has done for us on that cross the Holy Spirit changes our lives. It’s a grace transformation, not hard labour. And it was always meant to be.

To be perfectly honest with you, I love my job because I get to share this good news with you each and every day here on the program and it is good news, right? The sin that’s ruining your life at the moment, Jesus came to take it away. Listen to this Scripture, Romans chapter 6 verse 14.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law but under grace.

What did God say there through Paul the Apostle in His Word? That sin no longer has any dominion over you. It no longer has any power or influence over you. Why? Because no longer are you called to hard labour in trying to keep a bunch of rules, the guilt of failure is gone because you are now no longer under a law but under grace. Hard labour doesn’t work. It never has and never will.

So if you’re into hard labour, if you’re into trying to be a better person, if you’re on some self-help kick at the moment, stop it, it will always end up in failure. The only thing that makes a difference is Jesus. The freedom you’re looking for from the burden of your sin is found in Christ and Christ alone.

Come to me, (He said) all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11: 2...

We’ve all been there. There is this one bad habit that we just can’t seem to get rid of. There’s this one … no, let me start again. Let’s call a spade a spade. There is this one sin that we just can’t seem to get rid of. That’s better – sin. That’s the right word. I know that some find that word just a tad confronting, maybe even anachronistic; a bit old-fashioned, irrelevant in this day and age, and I understand that.

If we focus on today, our lives here and now, it can seem just a bit irrelevant; but if we zoom out, and look at our lives as a whole, we can see how our sin (the bad things we’ve done) has left a trail of destruction in our lives and in the lives of others. Zoom out a bit further and look at the whole world, and you can see how sin – the sin of men and women and even young folk – is tearing families and societies and nations apart.

Now twist the lens some more and zoom out even further, and look at the whole of the history of humanity, and the thing that’s wrecked a great world and a great plan has been what? The sin of humanity: The hatred; the selfishness; the anger; the wars; the exploitation; the genocide …

Think about it. God gave us a perfectly good world in which to live. I mean, He’s given us an amazing world: An amazing universe in which to live. He’s created each one of us so incredibly: The way our bodies function; the incredible talents and gifts and potential that each one of us has, and yet somehow, humankind has been on a course of self-destruction. Whether down in our personal lives or in the geoclinal events that are sweeping the globe today, the destructive power of sin is as plain as the nose on my face and yours. You just can’t miss it. Its effects are totally devastating

And yet we kid ourselves that somehow, our personal little brand of sin, whatever that may happen to be, doesn’t really matter. I’m not such a bad person; I mean, really I’m not. Okay, I get this wrong and I get that wrong, but I’m not that bad. Everybody’s entitled to one or two bad habits, aren’t they?

Well … you see how easy it is to rationalise our own personal sin when the truth is that the cumulative effect of my sin and yours and everyone else’s is what sets us on a course to destruction. Do you see how easy it is to downgrade our sin, and write it off as just a bad habit?

So deep down, we know that sin is sin, even if we don’t’ like to admit it to ourselves, and what’s more, we use the sin of others as our excuse to escalate our sin and get revenge. The problem is (call it sin; call it a bad habit; it’s the same thing) that try as we might, we can’t seem to shake it. It’s entrenched. It’s deep-graven in our flesh. We know the difference between right and wrong; we know what’s right to do; it’s just that we can’t seem to do it. Have you noticed?

The reason for that is that it was always meant to be like that. The reason for that is that God wants to have a relationship with us and the only way, the only way that that’s going to happen, is through what He does, and what He has in point of fact already done for us, not through what we do for ourselves.

Have a listen to this. It was written by the apostle Paul a couple of thousand years ago. He was writing about this self-same problem that you and I have – the problem that even though we know what’s right, we can’t seem to do it. Romans 7:21-23:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what’s good, evil lies close at hand. You see, I delight in the law of God in my innermost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

That’s rather a good question. Who indeed? Well our first response, yours and mine, is to get a handle on our sin. When we finally do and decide for ourselves, ‘You know what? I just have to do better. I just have to stop sinning. I have to overcome this one bad habit that’s totally ruining my life: My anger; my gossip; my jealousy; my smoking or my overeating or’ … whatever other addiction happens to be plaguing us.

It’s just that it never works. In fact, that’s exactly what Paul goes on to say just a few verses later in Romans 8:3-4:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, couldn’t do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, He’s actually condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

So let’s just focus on the first part of that for a moment. God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. In other words the law, a bunch of rules, is completely and utterly powerless to help us to change and get rid of this rubbish, particularly when those rules in effect are weakened by our own sinfulness.

So many people, so many people, believe with all their hearts in Jesus, and yet because they themselves can’t seem to overcome their sin, they live with a constant sense of guilt and condemnation before God. Well, if you know anyone like that, I have some good news for you today.

Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! For there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death, because God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, couldn’t do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Romans 7:25-8:4)

What Paul’s saying there is, the answer is Jesus. The answer is grace, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ is something that you and I struggle to get our minds around because grace is completely unnatural to us.

And that’s why today we’re kicking off a series of messages that I’ve called ‘The Grace Transformation’. The only thing that is ever going to change us, the only thing that is ever going to transform our lives by gradually getting rid of the sin which is so destructive, is the amazing grace of God in Jesus Christ.

“Amazing Grace” is one of my favourite hymns, but every time I sing it, I wonder to myself whether I really grasp what grace is all about. Do you? Do you have a real handle on the amazing grace that God afforded to you by the death of Jesus on that cross to pay for your sins?

I think I’m going to spend the rest of eternity and then some trying to wrap my heart around the grace of God, but as we begin to do that, what we discover is that the transformation and the freedom that we’ve been trying to make happen in our own lives (and failing miserably) just starts to happen of its own accord, as the Holy Spirit makes grace real in our lives.

You have been saved by nothing more and nothing less than the incredible grace of God; the unmerited favour of God; the sovereign decision of God to spare your life and to give you a new start and a new eternity by heaping the punishment that you so richly deserve onto Jesus on that cross. Romans 11:6:

And if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

So just as we sp...

I remember one of the saddest times in my life, I’m going to share it with you. It happened, ooh about twenty years ago now. Everything that mattered to me, everything in my personal life and family life had fallen apart – completely. I’d been working so hard on growing my business that I hadn’t had the time or the energy to work on the things that really mattered in life. The people who really mattered – or should have mattered anyway. It was deeply distressing.

The business that I was a partner in, was an IT consulting firm, you know I guess, in its early stages of success. We were in the process of moving to a larger, better office and one of the things that we had to do was to go through all our stuff and clean out before we packed and moved.

I was sitting on an old, carpeted floor by a number of those grey metal four-drawer filing cabinets, going through all the consulting reports that we’d written for many, many of our clients, sorting out those that we’d keep and those that we’d throw away. We kept probably twenty-five percent and we threw seventy-five percent away.

And I remember looking at that pile of the seventy-five percent of consulting papers there on the floor, thinking … is that what I poured my life into? These reports that we’re about to throw away – is that what I sacrificed everything for? Is that what my life amounts to? Is that the legacy I want to leave behind? A whole bunch of trash!

It was a tragic wakeup call for me, and it was all about the impact that my life had had to date. How much impact? Despite all the hard work, answer: Not very much real impact at all.

I remember deciding then and there, that I wanted my life to have an impact in other people’s lives. I’d made a whole bunch of mistakes to that point in my life. I’d worked hard, I’d been part of a successful business, but in real terms, in life impact terms, in terms of what really mattered – it hadn’t amounted to much. That was one of those experiences that God used to usher me into what I’m doing right now. And while it pays a whole bunch less, it’s a whole bunch more satisfying because it has a whole bunch more impact.

Just last night, I had a Facebook message from someone who said that they were listening to this program each day and it had literally transformed his life. That’s what gets me out of bed each morning – being part of something that God is doing with a real impact in people’s lives.

By the way (he wrote), what he wrote made me realise that he didn’t quite have things right. This is literally what he said, ‘You have changed my life’. Well, no actually, I haven’t. I wrote back, ‘God has. Yes, He’s used our small team here at Christianityworks to do that, but it’s His work and not mine.’

I know that absolutely because there is nothing that I possess, and there is nothing that I, in and of my own self can say or do, that can have an eternal impact on your life or anyone else’s life. Only the Holy Spirit can do that, only He can make that happen. And it happens, when God’s blessing flows down into me in such huge volumes, that I just can’t contain it; that it overflows out of me into the lives of other people, like that man who wrote to me on Facebook last night.

We’ve been talking a lot over the last few weeks about God’s blessing and the fact that it’s right and proper to ask Him to bless us. I ask for God’s blessing each and every morning in prayer. I pray that He will bless me so that I can bless you. That’s how it works in God’s economy. And if I don’t have God’s blessing flowing into me and out through me, then frankly, I have nothing of value to give you.

Listen to how Jesus talked about this very thing, John 15: 1-11, He said:

I am the true vine and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

The fruit only happens on a branch, like you and me, when we’re connected to the vine. When the Spirit of God flows from the trunk to the branch – when the blessing of God flows from the trunk to the branch; when the Word of God flows from the trunk to the branch – then and only then, does the branch grow the sort of fruit that God wants it to grow. The sort of fruit that other people can come along then and pick off the branch and enjoy, and be blessed by, and be nourished by.

And do you notice what Jesus says about how much you and I can achieve without Him? Apart from me you can do NOTHING!

The point I’m making right here is that you and I need God’s blessing. We can’t operate without God’s blessing. When we step onto the battlefield of life, if we don’t have God’s blessing and His Presence and His power and His joy and His peace, we have nothing to offer the rest of the world.

It’s a tragedy to me that so many Christ–followers don’t connect with the vine each and every day by quietly, gently starting off their day resting in Him, praying, chatting, asking for His blessing.

Why don’t we do that? Why don’t we absolutely covet the blessing of God and make it the greatest priority to get connected into that blessing through Jesus each and every day? Come on, what’s the matter with us?

Can I ask you this? Do you want to be filled with God’s blessing or not? Do you want to experience every blessing that God has for you or not? The answer is obvious, isn’t it? Of course, we all want to be blessed. Well, why don’t we connect with the vine? The answer is kind of obvious and yet it’s easy not to make the blessing of God an absolute priority.

I know that the idea of God’s abundant blessing seems incongruous in difficult circumstances. It seems that it’s simply not possible when you’re going though the middle of a testing time, a wilderness experience, a dungeon experience. It’s simply not possible to imagine that in that place you could receive the blessing of God.

But it’s precisely in that place that you and I need the abundant blessing of God. Think of Paul and Silas in prison. They healed a girl, and delivered her from a demon. For that the crowd attacked them, the magistrates had them stripped and beaten to within an inch of their lives with rods.

But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all of the doors were opened and everybody’s ...

Well, if you were able to join me last week on the programme, you’ll know that we chatted about the prayer of Jabez. What an amazing little prayer that some unknown guy, tucked away in the middle of nine chapters of something as boring as genealogy, prayed. Here it is again:

Jabez was honoured more than his brothers. And his mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘O, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from hurt and harm.’ And God granted him what he asked. (1 Chronicles 4:9-10)

It’s quite an astounding little prayer for a couple of reasons: The first is because on the surface of things, it appears to be entirely selfish; and second because despite that, God granted him what he asked for. So, either God is in the business of answering selfish, self-serving prayers, or there’s something else going on here.

As I said at the beginning of the programme, there are plenty of people who believe in Jesus, who haven’t really experienced a whole bunch of blessing in their lives. Well, perhaps that’s not quite true; let me rephrase that … there are plenty of people who believe in Jesus who don’t feel particularly blessed; that’s probably more to the point.

It seems we’re pretty good at ignoring the blessings that God gives us – you know, the basics: our health, the air that we breathe, the food that’s provided for us, the roof over our heads, our family, our friends, our job. Of course, not everybody listening today has all of those things. In fact (as I often say), there are more people listening in to this programme today who live in poverty (many of them in war zones) than there are wealthy people in the western developed nations.

But whoever we are, wherever we are, we all have some blessings to be thankful for. It’s just that we ignore those. And we want this or we want that in our lives, and when we don’t get those, we figure that God mustn’t be in the business of blessing me.

And when I suggest to people that they should ask for God’s blessing, I get this response like, ‘No, no, no! That wouldn’t be right. I can’t impose on God like that.’ Part of that is because we’ve all probably heard the ‘God-wants-to-make-you-rich’ distortion of the Gospel, and we’ve rejected that. Rightly so, I couldn’t agree more.

But let me take you back to Jabez. He (as we’ve read) didn’t have the best sort of start in life, with a name like Jabez, which literally meant pain. But at some point, he decided enough was enough; it was time to ask God for His blessing. And he did and God answered him with a great big fat yes.

Here’s how Jesus put it to His disciples. You can read it in John 16:23-24:

Truly I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in My name, He’ll give it to you. Until now, you haven’t asked for anything in My name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

This isn’t the only time He says that, by the way. Quite a number of times, Jesus says, ‘Ask and you will receive’. Now why is that? Is Jesus promoting selfishness? Let’s stop and think about that.

If a child goes to its mother or father, and asks for help (asks them to do something for them), will the parent grant their request or not? I’m a dad. Let me tell you how it works. I want to bless each of my children. Sometimes though, they ask selfishly, or they’re behaving badly (well, not often these days because they’re all grown-up, but back when they were kids), and on those occasions, I would withhold my blessing. But if they came to me and asked me for something good for the right reason, I couldn’t wait to bless them! It’s just what I wanted to do, ‘cos I love them.

Now, the Bible talks about asking for God’s blessing for the wrong reason. Have a listen. James 4:2-3:

You do not have because you do not ask. You asked and you didn’t receive because you asked wrongly, in order to spend what you gained on your pleasures.

So God’s just like any father! He’ll bless whenever He can, but not when we ask selfishly with the wrong motives. The point is (it’s a point that Jesus made over and over again) that He does want us to ask. And to ask believing that He rewards those who do, because He’s the best Dad in the universe and He wants to bless you; He really does.

Now, you may look at your life at the moment – at the one difficult situation that’s confronting you right now, and doubt deep in your heart that God actually wants to bless you. Let’s say you have a totally, completely and utterly intractable issue going on in your marriage. You and your wife (or your husband, as the case may be) are drifting apart, and you simply can’t see how it’s going to work out for the good. You just can’t seem to get on the same page as each other, even though you’ve tried everything in the book. Ok; you’re not perfect, but you’ve tried everything, EVERYTHING. You’ve prayed over it, and God hasn’t shown up. Well, here’s the answer – Believe that God wants you to ask. Believe that God wants to bless you. Take Jesus absolutely at His word. Claim the Word of God yourself because God means it for you.

Literally, ask and receive, that your joy may be complete. That’s what Jesus is saying to you right now. They are not my words. They are not the empty, hollow promises of a prosperity-doctrine preacher. These are the very Words of Jesus:

Ask and receive, that your joy may be complete.

Into that difficult, intractable situation, ask over and over again. Pray, knowing that God hears you … that God wants to bless you, and that God (in His absolutely perfect time) will answer you … and don’t stop until He does. I wonder, given that difficult situation you’re going through, whether you’ve prayed that way – faithfully and consistently – day after day for God to do what you cannot do.

I wonder whether you’ve dived into your relationship with God in this real, practical way, and spent times asking Him over and over again because if you haven’t, that’s what He’s waiting for! If you haven’t, that’s exactly what the Bible tells you to do, because God wants to bless you. 

I want to share with you right now the biggest turnaround in thinking about God’s blessing that we can ever experience. It’s changing our understanding completely about what God is on about when He talks about His blessing.

I want to go back to another parable about persistence in prayer, because I think we can get the wrong impression about God’s blessing if we read these parables from Jesus incorrectly. We’re going to Luke 11:5-8:

Jesus said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go them at midnight, and you say to them, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for another friend of mine has just arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’

“And this guy answers from within, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s already been locked. My children are already in bed with me. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you anything because he is your friend, at least because of your persistence, he will get up and give you what you need.

It’s an odd parable that one, like the parable of the unjust judge. In...

Well, if you were able to join me last week on the program you’ll know that we chatted about the prayer of Jabez – a man who had a pretty rugged start in life. His name literally means ‘You’re a Pain’, and yet he stood head and shoulders above his brothers and the hundreds of other names listed in the nine chapters of genealogy in the middle of which we find him.

Why did Jabez stand out from the crowd? Because he prayed a prayer for God’s abundant blessing. Here it is again:

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers and his mother called his name Jabez saying, ‘because I bore him in pain’ and Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that your hand will be with me and that you would keep me from evil that I may cause no pain’. So God granted him what he requested. (1 Chronicles 4:9,10)

We’ve seen the power so far of asking for the first part,

O God that you would bless me indeed. (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Bless me abundantly, bless me just the way you want to bless me. That’s a powerful prayer. Ask God to bless you and then leave it up to Him … His Father’s heart to choose how He wants to bless you. God wants to bless you abundantly, He really does. Not with trinkets and toys but with the sort of blessings that will fill your heart with joy and flow through you and over the top of you and right into the lives of other people. That’s how things work in God’s economy of blessing.

You know that line ‘faith without works is dead’? The opposite is also true. When our faith is working its way out – as God’s blessing flows through us into the lives of other people, as God uses the gifts He’s given us to bless others – all of a sudden our faith becomes alive and vibrant and real. Flat, dry, lifeless faith becomes a thing of the past. So can I say, faith with God inspired, God empowered works is so incredibly alive?

Now let’s go onto the second part of what Jabez prayed. Right after asking God to bless him indeed, what was the very next thing he prayed?

Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory. (1 Chronicles 4:10)

Territory was a big thing back in those days. In fact, for all of Israel’s history having your own land has been a big deal. They spent centuries waiting to take the Promised Land. And when finally, God took them there under Joshua they had to fight for it battle by battle. So expanding your land, expanding your borders, your territory was a huge deal for an Israelite. Still today, Israel is fighting for land several millennia on from when Jabez prayed this prayer.

A little while back on the program, we talked about whether or not you and I are kingdom builders or empire builders. Are you in the business of building your own personal empire or are you in the business of building the Kingdom of God? Good question, a question each one of us should be asking ourselves on a constant basis.

But let’s go back for a minute to the first part of the prayer, the request for God to bless us indeed – a whole lot, abundantly, over flowingly, more than we could ever hope for, dream or imagine – let’s say God does that. Let’s say God blesses you so much that you can’t contain it. The natural result is an overflow, kind of what, like Jesus was talking about in John chapter 7, verses 37 and 38. He said:

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’.

When you have that much of God’s blessing overflowing out of you, when you have the Spirit of God flowing out of you – it’s not just a trickle, it’s not just a stream, not just a river – but rivers of blessing, rivers of living water flowing through you into the parched dry land, of the lives of the people around you, people who need more of God’s blessing.

If that’s happening, what’s the next logical thing for you to ask? More influence of course, more people to share the blessing with. More people to experience the mighty blessings of God that you’ve been experiencing. The request for God’s abundant blessing flows, naturally and logically, into a request for God to expand your borders. So that His Kingdom will come one soul at a time, to more and more souls.

When I came to Christ (way back in 1995), right from the beginning, I couldn’t contain the goodness and the joy of what I felt. I knew right back there, on that first day, day one, that I wanted to share this love of Christ with lots of other people. So I started to pray that God would give me the chance to do that and He did. And today, here I am with you and a few million other people across a hundred and sixty countries, chatting about the good news of Jesus.

None of that came because I was particularly clever. None of that came through the great strategic planning of our Board of our ministry. It came as an answer to a simple prayer. Lord, please expand my borders and grow your Kingdom through me. It’s a prayer that I pray daily because I know that’s the only way people will be touched by the Holy Spirit through what I do.

You see, we all labour in different parts of Gods vineyard, with the tools and gifts He’s granted us by His grace. His blessing isn’t limited by a lack of power or a lack of will. The well of God’s blessing is infinitely deep. Imagine the delight in His heart when He hears you pray:

Dear God, please bless me. Bless me, indeed. Please bless me more than I can imagine. And then Lord, God, expand my borders, my territory, my circle of influence so that I can share your blessing … the blessing that’s overflowing through me with people who desperately need to experience you and your blessing.

What do you think God would think when He hears you pray that prayer every morning, huh? I’m thinking that God would be absolutely over the moon at your motivation and your desire. I’m thinking that God would be ready to show up and answer that prayer. After all that’s exactly what He did when Jabez prayed that prayer.

Before the break we’ve been talking a lot about God’s desire to bless us. Let me be a little more specific – God’s overwhelming desire to bless you abundantly. No, not a sugar daddy kind of blessing, not an answer to prayers like, ‘Lord what I really want is a million bucks in my account, a Mercedes SLE in the driveway and a twenty-seven room house overlooking the water’.

Now, in the right context, none of those are particularly bad things in and of themselves. They’re just not prayers that God answers very often. God does want to bless us abundantly, super abundantly, Jesus said, ‘Beyond measure, without limit’. But He wants to bless us in a way that glorifies Him and in a way that’s good for us.

If you have a spoilt child at home, a teenager maybe, whose always demanding this or that and throwing tantrums when he doesn’t get it. Would you bless him with more stuff? I hope not, because if you love him you need to help him grow up.

If on the other hand, you had a child with a heart for helping other people, and doing the best she can possibly do, and sacrificing her life for other people – if she asked you for a blessing would you bless her? Absolutely you would! The only thing that would constrain you would be your resources and your power.

I remember, probably a decade or more ago, when I first read Bruce Wilkinson’s book, The Prayer Of Jabez. It had a huge splash when it was first released. And I don’t know how many millions of copies have sold since but it’s been a huge hit. I distinctly remember though, how uncomfortable I felt reading the first chapter of that little booklet, which, I read all in one sitting in a bed when I was in New Zealand. This is the bit that really got me, Wilkinson writes:

That God really does have unclaimed blessings waiting for you, my friend. I know it sounds impossible, even embarrassingly suspicious in our self-serving day, yet, that very exchange, your want for God’s plenty, has been His loving will for your life from eternity past. And with a handful of core commitments on your part, you can proceed from this day forward with the confidence and expectation that your heavenly Father will bring it to pass for you.

Think of it this way, instead of standing near the river’s edge asking for a cup of water to get through each day, you’ll do something unthinkable. You will take the little prayer with the giant prize and jump into the river. At that moment, you’ll begin to let the loving currents of God’s grace and power carry you along. God’s great plan for you will surround you and sweep you forward into the profoundly important and satisfying life that He has waiting for you.

Do you see why I was so troubled by this? On the one hand, Wilkinson was promising me the very thing that I wanted, God’s abundant blessing. Do you want that? Sure you do! I want that too. Who doesn’t want to be abundantly blessed by God? But on the other hand, it conjures up a fear … that perhaps the desire to have God’s abundant blessing was a selfish thing to want.

You and I, both, have seen the gross excesses of some who claim to be God’s people and who live this extravagant lifestyle that looks nothing … NOTHING … like taking up your cross and following Jesus. I found myself in a conundrum that I think we all find ourselves in, when it comes to God’s blessing.

Should I ask or shouldn’t I ask? Does God want to bless me abundantly; or does He not want to bless me abundantly; or at all for that matter? They’re the questions we often find ourselves asking.

Wilkinson hits the nail on the head, though, when he says that we live in a self-serving day, we do. And if we approach God’s promises of blessing unlimited, in a self-serving way, then of course, it’s not the right thing to do. To ask Him for blessings that just serve us. He’s much smarter than to give us everything we want. He loves us way too much to instantly fulfil our every desire.

When I was a child, even back then (over a half a century ago), the retailers in the stores figured out that the best place to put the sweets and the small toys was at my eye level, right at the checkout. They knew that I’d pressure my parents to buy me this and to buy me that. Do you remember pestering your parents to buy you these things when you were a kid, right?

But no, being wise parents, being good parents and loving parents, they didn’t always accede to our howls of protest as they dragged us kicking and screaming out of the store without that packet of lollies that we just had to have. And yet, I’m able to look back on all that my parents did for me, for the eighteen or so years that I spent under their roof, I tell you inequitably, that they blessed my socks off. I think most of us can look back on our upbringing and say exactly the same thing about our parents.

Good loving parents don’t always meet the selfish wants of their immature children. But they still bless them beyond measure because that’s how parents are wired … to bless their children. That’s exactly what God’s like. You don’t believe me? Well, let me ask you this, what’s the very first thing that God said to and did for Adam and Eve, when He created them, the very first thing? Do you remember?

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them and then God blessed them and God said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so. God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good and there was the evening and there was the morning of the sixth day. (Genesis chapter 1, verses 27 to 31)

The last thing He did after completing all of creation, was to hand it over to Adam and Eve. God blessed them and He told them it’s all theirs. The whole cotton picking lot, He gave it to them. He gave it to us. And it was only then, on the following day (the seventh day), once He’d done all the hard work of creation, once He’d given it all away to us that He decided to take a day of rest.

Now, if you have any doubt, any doubt whatsoever that God wants to bless your socks off. If the story of creation still doesn’t do it for you, then please turn your gaze with me to the cross of Christ. Galatians chapter 3, verses 13 and 14:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’. In order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

God doesn’t want to bring us up as spoilt brats. But wrap your mind around this; He wants to bless us beyond measure.

The picture that Bruce Wilkinson paints in the passage I shared with you from his book, The Prayer Of Jabez, of standing near the river’s edge asking for a cup of water to get you through each day, is how we’ve been conditioned to think about going to God, and asking for His blessings. "Don’t ask for too much, don’t be too demanding, don’t impose on God".

Well, that’s not how we are as parents, are we? Of course, we don’t want to spoil our kids. But the more they show us their gratefulness and maturity and selflessness, the more we want to bless them, right? We’re wired to bless our children without measure, in the right way.

Do you imagine that God isn’t up to the same mark? I mean do you really? Here’s what Jesus said on the matter, Matthew chapter 7, verse 11.

If then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more then will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask it.

So let’s get this thing about God’s blessing straight. God is a good Father. He will never give us things that will cause us to become spoilt brats. So forget asking Him for that boat, or that holiday house, or that personal jet, or that bank account filled with millions and millions and millions of dollars or whatever currency you desire. He will no more fill us with that stuff than my parents would fill me with the candies at the store, that I demanded each time we were there.

But ask Him for good things, worthwhile things, things that will achieve ama...

Let me start today by letting you in on a little secret, so that you understand where I’m coming from on this whole body-image thing. For most of my adult-life until a few years ago, I hated seeing myself. I hated looking at my face in the mirror, and I hated even more seeing a photo of myself. In fact, as much as possible, I avoided photos. Why? Because I was grossly overweight, and that was something that I was deeply ashamed of. I struggled with my weight all my life, and as someone who pretty much always succeeds at things I turn my hand to, I hated (I mean, I absolutely hated) the fact that I couldn’t succeed at looking good.

It’s a terrible thing, I can tell you, not to want to look at yourself in the mirror. You avoid it studiously, and it eats away at your self-esteem. People would never have guessed it of the apparently bold and confident Berni Dymet, but it was the scourge of my life. Of course, I finally found out what was causing me to be so grossly overweight, and that’s something that I share in a free E-booklet called ‘How I Lost 25 kgs.’ You can download it from the Resources section of our website, ChristianityWorks.com if you’re interested. Thousands already have.

But do you see my point? When I come to talk about body image, I’m speaking as someone who has struggled with the body-image thing for most of his life, so this is not a theory lesson; this is someone whose life has been transformed by Christ speaking here.

Now before we get rocking and rolling to talk about the emotional side of body image, let me say this: What I am not saying is that we shouldn’t worry about our health and our weight. The thing that’s causing gross obesity on a global pandemic scale is our addiction to sugar and processed foods. Get rid of those two things out of your diet, get back to what your grandparents and their parents were eating (yes, including bacon, eggs and all those things), and the weight just comes off. Absolutely, get back to natural whole foods, but weight isn’t the only thing that ruins our sense of body image.

Some people just think they look ugly, ok? Some of us don’t fit the stereotypical images of beauty that we see in the glossy magazines and on television. In fact, the reality is that most of us don’t, right? But that doesn’t stop many people from feeling visually inadequate. Some people have birthmarks or scars, or perhaps you’re shorter than you’d like to be, or taller than you want to be, or you wish your hair was a different colour or those wrinkles would just go away. There’s any number of things that we fret about when it comes to body image, and for many people, it simply ruins their lives. Am I right?

So, where do we go with this? If you’re someone whose body image is ruining their life, do you want to be set free from that (I mean, completely, totally and utterly set free from that)? Then stick with me because that’s what we’re going to be doing right now: Not because I happen to have anything profound to say, but because God does, and first up, this is what He has to say about body-image. Are you ready? This comes from a time when the prophet Samuel was sent by God to find a new king to replace King Saul of Israel, who’d gone off the rails. Have a listen (1 Samuel 16:1-13):

The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long are you going to grieve Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel, so fill your horn with oil and set out. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for Myself a king among his sons.’ 

So, Samuel did what the LORD commanded and he came to Bethlehem, and sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed is now before me.’

But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’

Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. He said, ‘Neither has the LORD chosen this one.’ 

Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, ‘Neither has the LORD chosen this one.’

Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The LORD has not chosen any of these.’ Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’

And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest son, but he is out keeping the sheep.’

And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes.’

He sent and brought him. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome, and the LORD said, ‘Rise and anoint him, for this is the one.’

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Now that’s a profound story of how God chose David, who turned out to be the greatest king that Israel ever had, and notice that David was the runt of the litter. He was the little one, considered so unlikely that his father didn’t even put him before the prophet. Samuel thought, ‘Oh, number one son. You know – the tall, the good-looking one … That’s the one that’s going to be king’, but God said to the prophet, ‘Do not look upon his outward appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him. For the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’

Listen to me. God doesn’t give two hoots about your physical stature. That’s the last thing He’s interested in! What He’s interested in is who you are – your heart, and if that’s the most precious thing in God’s sight, isn’t it time to ditch this whole body-image inadequacy thing that you’ve been going on about? Well? What you look like is, by and large, God’s sovereign choice. Other than perhaps your weight and a few cosmetic things, the rest is completely out of your control; what matters is who you are – your sense of humour; your heart; your passions; the gifts God’s given you. If that matters most to God, shouldn’t that be what matters most to you?

I haven’t had that many job-interviews in my life. In fact, I’ve only really had two of them, but the first one is the one that I remember most. It was a daylong selection board they called it, in front of some generals and colonels who were selecting candidates to train as officers in the Australian army. There were about twenty of us young men there vying for contention, and about six or seven of these senior officers. They spent the whole day putting us through the hoops. There were group-sessions where we were asked questions. We each had to get up and give an impromptu speech. There was an obstacle course that we had to traverse, with problems to solve along the way … All sorts of different things. It was an exhausting day, I can tell you, and the whole time, you were really trying to impress these guys because you wanted to be selected to train as an officer. The pressure was intense.

Out of the twenty of us, just three or four made it through. I happened to be one of them, and then for the next four...

None of us likes wearing clothes that don’t fit particularly well. It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it? That shirt that’s too tight, or that pair of pants, or in the case of women the skirt that sits awkwardly on you. My personal nemesis has always been the stiff collar with a tie in the middle of summer. I tell you, after thirty years of having to wear a tie and a collar, these days I almost never wear them because I hate that feeling of being uncomfortable.

So what happens with these ill-fitting clothes, because you hate wearing them, is that you can’t wait to get home and rip them off and get into something comfortable.

I think we all relate to that, don’t we? And yet, so many people live their lives in something much worse than ill-fitting clothes – they live their lives in a straightjacket. Why? How? Because they’re somehow trying to be someone who they’re not; they’re trying to do something that they were never made to do.

Interesting to look at the history of the proverbial straightjacket. It actually originated in France back in 1790, invented by an upholsterer named Guilleret for a hospital. It was in the time before psychiatric medications were developed and doctors simply didn’t know how to treat mental disorders like schizophrenia or depression or anxiety disorders, according to Wikipedia anyway.

By the time of the American civil war, the mentally ill were often placed into poorhouses, workhouses and prisons, and forced to live with criminals. And again, they were being restrained by straightjackets.

Now, it’s a terrible picture when you think about it, someone suffering from mental anguish, being restrained in something much, much worse than ill-fitting clothes. And not on a rare exception basis, it was the routine approach for the mentally ill, considered to be more humane than chaining them up.

Now, the main point of what we’re chatting about today isn’t to get a complete history of straightjackets. The reason I’m painting that picture is so that you and I can put ourselves in that picture, moving from the ill-fitting clothes that we’ve all experienced and the discomfort that all brings, to the whole idea – the terrible idea – of living even one day, let alone a whole lifetime in a straightjacket.

It’s pretty obvious that we were made, you and I, to be free, to be able to move freely and to think freely and to act freely. And yet, let me come back to it, so many people are living their lives under some oppressive straightjacket regime because they’re trying to be someone they’re not or do something they were never made to do.

I spent over twenty-five years as a consultant in management and IT and so I’ve worked in hundreds of organisations around the world. And the number of people I saw in the banks and the insurance companies and the government departments and the oil companies and all sorts of different enterprises who were so depressed, so dissatisfied with work, made me realise that this is happening on a mass, global scale.

People are being squeezed into a mould they were never meant to fit in. Now I came to know many of these people in these client organisations over the years, and time and time again, what I saw were people who were doing jobs they were never made to do, jobs they just wouldn’t ever be suited to do.

The Bible has this to say about who you are and where you fit, and I’m reading here from the more obscure J.B Phillips translation, because I love the way in which he renders this verse, Romans chapter 12, verse 2:

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your mind from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, that it meets all of his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

I’ve had so many people try to do that to me, to squeeze me into another mould. Its like God loves me but they have a plan for my life. My dad, when I was young, wanted me to be a doctor. I wanted to be a lawyer. I’d have been a disaster at both of those, because I hate the sight of blood and I’m not very good with masses of detail that are so important in the legal profession. And over the last twenty years or so, as I’ve preached at churches, several have asked me whether I’d be interested in becoming their pastor, when the truth is, I’m just not pastorally gifted.

Do you know why so many people feel as though they’re failures? It’s because they’re trying to be something and they are trying to do something they were never made to be or to do.

I will never be a great cricketer – I don’t have the hand-eye-ball coordination. I will never be a great basketballer because I’m just too short. In fact, most professions, the vast majority out there, as I look around, I am just not suited to.

So imagine if I chose one of them, and slogged away at it for forty years. What would that do to my self-image? What would that do to my self-esteem? And this, I can tell you, is happening as a mass, global, pandemic.

I was watching the great singer Billy Joel on TV, (by the way, that’s another thing I’d love to be able to do, but I really can’t), and I remembered back to his great song, The Piano Man, that he wrote when he was a poor musician, working in a late night bar somewhere. And you look at a guy like that and you realise – hey, this Billy Joel, there’s someone who has discovered their gig in life. The one thing they were made to do.

God made you to do something, to be someone. It’s a different ‘who’ and a different ‘do’ to anyone else that you know. You’re a unique antique let me tell you, and when you discover your shtick, your gig, your one thing in life that God made for you, it will totally change your ‘self-image’ because all of a sudden you will be able to excel at it.

Just after that bit on not being squeezed into the world’s mould, the Bible goes on to say in Romans chapter 12, verse 6:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.

That’s the answer. Be who God made you to be, and for goodness sakes, get out there and do what God made you to do.

The whole point of what we’ve been chatting about so far in this series of messages that I’ve called "So … How’s Your Self-Esteem Looking?" is that we can make two equal and opposite mistakes in life when it comes to how we see ourselves and where we think we fit in, in the scheme of things.

Some people suffer terribly from low self-esteem. I’m worthless. I’m not good at anything. I’ll never fit in. There’s no hope for me. Life is just one big long blaaaaah.

Plenty of people are living like that, whether they realise it or not. And that self-image clouds their whole life. It robs them of joy in anything and everything.

At the very opposite end of that scale is pride, hubris, that sense of superiority where no one is as good as me. I have to tell you, that’s just as destructive, because it robs you of just as many things as low self-esteem does.

And in fact for much of my life, I had a touch of both. I covered up my deep insecurities, by putting on a front of bravado and self-confidence that had a lot of people fooled … or maybe not!

There’s good self-confidence and there’s bad self-confidence, isn’t there? Good self-confidence is a quiet, humble confidence in who you are, with a genuine acceptance of who you aren’t; your own limitations. That’s good. Being around people w...

On a fairly regular basis in the various series and programmes that I share with you here on ’Christianityworks’, I touch on things like self-image, low self-esteem, giftings and abilities – that sort of thing. There’s a reason that I keep coming back to that genre of discussion if you will, and that reason is this: I see so many people in this world who are walking around with a distorted view of who they are, and those distortions (fed to them largely by the people in the systems and the economy that surround them) are ruining their lives. So as I was thinking and praying about what we could talk about starting this week, I came to the conclusion that it was time for a whole series on self-image, and so I’ve called it "So … How’s Your Self-Image Looking?", because the aim I guess is to challenge you about how you see yourself.

If you’ve ever read Stephen Covey’s book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", you may remember that one of the things he starts off with is how we see the world. He describes it something like this: ‘It’s like we each have a different set of glasses on our face. Maybe yours have a pink tint and mine have a yellow tint and the next person’s have a green tint, and what we see and how we see it depends entirely on those lenses through which we’re looking at the world. Most commonly, people say that "seeing is believing", but actually no, argues Covey, "believing is seeing". What you believe profoundly influences what you see.’

A few weeks ago on the programme, I shared the difference between someone who’s secure in themselves and someone who’s insecure. Let’s say you’re insecure. A person comes up to you and shares a constructive, well-meaning piece of criticism with you. None of us likes criticism, but an insecure person is going to react terribly to that. They might get angry; they might be hurt; they might withdraw further into their shell; they might start bad-mouthing the person who criticised them. They’re all the sorts of reactions that an insecure person would have. A secure person on the other hand might initially be annoyed by the criticism, but fairly quickly starts thinking about it, and assessing it as objectively as they can, and if the criticism has some basis to it, they start to do some things to change – to learn from what they’ve just heard; to get better at this thing that maybe they’ve botched up the last time round.

Do you see how believing is seeing? How the lenses through which we perceive the world profoundly impact what we see and what we feel and how we react? And let me ask you: In this one small example of handling criticism, which person ends up being better off for the experience, the secure one, or the insecure one? That’s pretty obvious, right? That’s why I said at the beginning of the programme that how we see ourselves is one of the most important, the most profound, the most fundamental influences on our lives. And it’s an influence either for good or for bad; for liberation or for bondage; for building an amazing future, or for living a rotten life. That’s not hyperbole. I’m not overstating the case here at all.

I used to have a terrible self-image of myself. Now let me tell you, it was truly a rotten life. When I was young (and that’s always where it starts, let me tell you), I was short and dumpy and not very good at running and not very good at sports, and in a sports-mad nation like Australia that simply wasn’t a good thing. The other boys used to make fun of me and even when I went and became an officer in the Australian army (a four-year degree course), I was almost kicked out in my final year of officer training for failing the cross-country by just twelve seconds. Other people looked down on me. Forget the fact I had other talents and abilities, my peers considered me to be something less than they were, in fact, considerably less.

Now I caught up with some of these guys recently from the Royal Military College, Duntroon (my classmates). It had been thirty-four years since I’d seen most of them. We were all young men back then, when we were training to be officers. Anyway, we had a great night together, eating and drinking and reminiscing and laughing, and you know, none of them seemed to remember anymore that I was the guy that couldn’t run as fast as them. They’d all moved on, but can you see how these hurts from the past can live on in you and distort your self-image? So many people are carrying round the reproach of the past with them, and they wonder why they’re not having such a great life.

The Bible talks about the reproach of the past, and God is super-keen to remove it from us, because while we’re still carrying it around with us, we simply can’t live the life that He has planned for us. Have a listen to this. Joshua 5:9:

“Then the LORD said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you’, so that place has been called Gilgal unto this day.”

That was said to Joshua (the new leader of Israel) after Israel had been slaves for several centuries in Egypt. Now they were about to cross over into the land that God had promised to Abraham many, many centuries before, so why did God say this thing about rolling back the reproach from the past? Why did God do that? Because God knew they wouldn’t be able to take hold of the Promised Land, battle by battle, if they were still living in their heads as slaves from Egypt. These people had to see themselves as God’s chosen people (not lowly slaves), in order to fight the battles they would need to fight to take hold of all the blessings of the promised land. So God lifted the reproach of Egypt, that sense of looking back on the past and deciding they weren’t good enough. He lifted that off them, so that they could enter and take and enjoy the Promised Land.

Well, let me tell you this: God wants to lift the reproach of your past off you too, so that you can enter the promises He has for your life, so that you can fight the battles He has for you to fight, and so that you can enjoy the blessings He has for you to enjoy. I know what some people are thinking right now. ‘Nah, my life has failure written all over it. That can never happen to me. I’m always going to be fat and ugly. I’m always going to be not good enough. I’ll never be free from my insecurities.’ Well, that’s simply not what God has to say about you, so let’s start listening to what God actually does have to say about you. Here it is, Isaiah 54:4-5:

“Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace. For you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your Husband, the LORD of Hosts is His name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, and the God of the whole earth He is called.”

Maybe you do have failure written all over your life. You’re divorced (maybe once, maybe more than once). You don’t look the way you want to look. You haven’t achieved what you want to achieve. You aren’t perceived the way you want to be perceived. People don’t acknowledge you and praise you the way you want to be acknowledged and praised, so you look at your crummy little life in your crummy little neck of the woods, and you think to yourself: ‘Blah! There’s nothing anybody can do with me; I’m done.’ Well, here’s what I want to leave you with today: God is not done with you. For as long as you have breath, God is not done with you. He won’t be done with you until you’re dead and then, if you beli...

So, when was the last time someone hurt you? Come on, think back. For probably the majority of us, we don’t have to go back even twenty-four hours. A harsh word, being left out, being ignored, being passed over, being misunderstood.

It doesn’t take all that much to get hurt. And they’re just the small things. Then there are the big things like the unfaithfulness of a spouse, physical and emotional abuse, theft and violence. There are plenty of people listening to this message today who have some of those in their lives. In fact, there are more people listening to this message around the world today, who are living in poverty or without basic housing or clean water or sanitation and safety, than there are those listening in the comfortable affluent west.

So, back to you, back to the people who have hurt you in your life – can I ask you, how easy do you find it to forgive them? Is it something that comes naturally, or do you struggle to forgive? Well the answer for most of us is that forgiveness is one of the most unnatural acts of all.

Because when someone wrongs you, that innate sense of justice that you have built into you, because you’ve been created in the image of God – who is, after all, the God of justice, your God. Given that sense of justice, well, what it demands in you, is that things be put right, correct?

When you are wronged, things should be righted. When someone causes you to suffer a loss, then justice demands that they should recompense you. That’s why people sue each other.

But forgiveness is the exact opposite in a sense. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you, when you’ve hurt me. Forgiveness is me giving up the recompense that justice demands that I should have. And for God, forgiveness is rather a big deal.

Jesus once said this, Mark 11:25:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

So us forgiving others, as it turns out according to Jesus, is a precursor to God forgiving us. Have you ever wondered: how is it that this God of justice, is so focussed on forgiveness? How is it that justice and forgiveness can live side by side in the one person? Isn’t there a conflict between the two?

Well, the answer is yes, there is a conflict between these two, justice and forgiveness, they are opposed to one another.

Imagine if you will, the murderer who is found guilty by a court and it comes time for the judge to sentence him. Imagine if the judge said, "Look, young man, I know that you’re guilty of this terrible crime, but I have decided to forgive you today. You can go free."

It’s inconceivable, isn’t it? We as a community would be completely outraged if something like that transpired in a court of the land, because we demand that justice should be done; that the person should be punished for their crime.

But God’s call on our lives is to forgive one another. Ephesians 4:32:

… be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

The problem with unforgiveness, other than the fact that it offends God, is that it continues to hurt us. Let’s say that someone hurts you and you decide not to forgive them. What happens then, is that you keep living through the hurt over and over again. You keep planning on how to get revenge.

You see, when we fail to forgive, the hurt just keeps on hurting. It’s like giving that person who hurt us, rent-free space in our hearts and in our minds, so that they can keep causing us pain. And when you look at it that way, it just doesn’t make sense. Sure, our sense of justice always says, hang on, I deserve justice, justice has to be done.

But common sense, says, let it go. Forgive them, without any expectation that the person who hurt you will apologise, or mend their ways or ask for your forgiveness. Because when we let it go, we end up free from the hurt. When we forgive and choose to forget, the pain starts to dissipate.

You’ve seen this and you’ve probably even done it yourself – when you fail to forgive someone and you just keep on throwing it back in their face over and over again. Is that good for you? Is that good for them? Does it change them in any way? Is it good for your relationship with that person or with God?

Marlene Dietrich once said this: Once a woman has forgiven her man, she should not reheat his sins for breakfast. It’s not bad is it? And how true. And it’s just not about women forgiving men; it’s about men forgiving women and other men.

Listen, this conflict between justice and forgiveness is nothing new. God is the God of justice, absolute justice. Nothing sways Him; He is completely impartial. And yet He is also the God of love, in fact the Bible tells us that God is love.

So what does this God of justice do with His love? What does this God of justice do when He comes across you and me who’ve sinned against Him, who’ve offended Him, and we deserve punishment?

Come on, the Bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It’s true about me, it’s true about you we just know it. We’ve all turned our backs on Him in thought, word and deed at some point in our lives and probably the last time is not that long ago.

We deserve His wrath and His punishment; and yet He loves us so much. How does He satisfy His absolute sense of justice and love when it comes to you and me? John 3:16, 17:

God so loved the world, God so loved you, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that when you believe in him you won’t perish but you’ll have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world or to condemn you or me, but in order that the world might be saved, in order that you would be saved.

Forgiveness is the supreme act of love. It always, always costs us something, but it’s always, always worth it in the end. Because it sets us free from the hurt, and free to get on with our lives.

I want to share a story with you today. It’s something that really opened my eyes to the power of God’s Word and how easy it is to dismiss that power that God means to give to you and to me.

There I was, I’d just become a member of a new church and after a few months, we joined one of the small home groups of the church. Each week, on a Wednesday night, we’d head over to the leader’s place, about eight or ten of us, and we’d have a time of fellowship, a time of studying God’s Word, and a time of talking about what we’d learned.

It was a great way to get connected with people, and to learn a bit more about what God had to say to us.

It’s week two or perhaps week three of attending this small home group and we’re studying Philippians chapter 4, in particular this verse, verses 4 to 6, Paul writes:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone for the Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

Now, we read this passage and then a discussion ensues about worry. We all have some worry in our lives, and what God is saying here through the Apostle Paul is that we should never worry about anyt...

When I was young, finishing high school and making my career choices, I came very, very close to making a couple of major mistakes. I was blessed to be fairly academically inclined, so I basically had my choice of whatever university course my heart desired.

There were three on my shortlist, medicine, law and an information technology degree. Now back in those days, medicine was by far the favoured career. It was seen as the pinnacle of achievement and certainly, my dad wanted me to study medicine.

Law was right up there as well. Both of those professions appeared pretty much to guarantee a big income.

This whole IT thing though was pretty new. The question was: which one to choose? As things turned out, I’d been accepted to train as an Army Officer, undertaking a four-year IT degree along the way, and I guess it was that sense of excitement of a military career which, as a young man, to be honest with you, swung me to that decision.

As I look back on that choice, I thank God that I didn’t choose medicine or law. I can’t stand the sight of blood pretty much, which is not exactly the sort of prerequisite you want to have a career as a doctor. And the law, as I discovered later, is all about detail. Lots and lots and lots of detail, and whilst I can handle detail from time to time, it’s just not my first love. I would have ended up drowning in all the detail.

I think back to that pivotal career decision that I made way back when I was just seventeen and a half years old, with not a lot of life experience to draw on exactly, and I shudder at how easily I could have chosen something that I just wasn’t suited to.

I literally could have found myself living my life as a square peg in a round hole, and that I imagine, would be an incredibly uncomfortable position to find myself in.

There’s a basic rule or life principle if you will, that goes something like this: square pegs belong in square holes, and round pegs, well … they belong in round holes. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out now do you? And yet, as I said at the beginning of the program, so many people are living life as a square peg in a round hole.

A large survey conducted in the US not so long ago revealed that only 19% of workers were satisfied with their jobs; which means that 81% weren’t satisfied with their job. Of those, 16% were somewhat dissatisfied, and the rest were really unhappy. That’s pretty much Pareto’s 80/20 law right there, with the vast majority, the 80%, going to work unhappy.

Another global survey found that over half, 56% of people, actually were looking to find a new job.

Now, there can be a lot of reasons for those terrible statistics. Pay and conditions, poor management, they are just two. But if I were a betting man (which I am not), I would put money on the table that one of the major reasons is that people are doing jobs that they’re just not suited to do.

You yourself know that there are some things in life that give you enormous satisfaction, and other things that leave you completely drained. Now that I’m getting older, I watch people who are grandparents. We have one couple who lives a few doors away on the same floor in our apartment block, who look after a different set of their grandchildren almost every day of the week, while their parents go to work.

Other grandparents, they just can’t stand the thought of having to look after children, because it’s just not what they enjoy doing. They’ve brought up their own kids, and now they want a break from all that.

And so wherever there is this mismatch between the requirements of a role and the natural motivations and talents and abilities of the individual – right there you have a square peg, in a round hole. And it’s generally not the hole that feels the pressure. The role is what the role is. The requirements of the position don’t change. It’s the individual who has to squeeze themselves into a role that they’re just not suited to.

When I was at Bible College many years ago, the Principal of the College, Dr Barry Chant, made us memorise one particular Bible verse. In fact, he used to joke, although I’m not sure it was so much of a joke, that unless we were able to recite this one verse, we simply wouldn’t graduate from the College.

At the time, I thought it was rather an odd choice of Bible verses. Why this one from among the 31,102 verses in the Bible? Well, here it is. Ephesians 2:10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which God prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

The older and hopefully the wiser I’ve become since those days, the more I’ve discovered the wisdom of Barry’s insistence that we memorise this one verse. Because what it says, is that God made us; God handcrafted us; we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus and He made us, you and me, with a purpose in mind.

He in fact made us in order to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for us to do, literally for us to walk into. So picture your life – this journey over hill and dale. Just as you turn round the next corner, or come over the next rise, waiting for you right there is one of the good works that God made you to do, one of the ones that He prepared before time even began for you to make happen.

Now, do you imagine for one moment that God made a mistake? That He made you to do things that you weren’t good at doing? Or things that were impossible for you to do? Now way!! God knows exactly what He’s doing when He makes you. God knew, He handcrafted you to be a perfect fit to do what He made you to do. So why is it that we go and live a life we were never made to live?

You see it all over the place, you see people going and trying to do jobs that they are simply not good at doing. There are so many jobs that if I chose to try and do them, I would ultimately be a failure at, because I simply wasn’t made to do them.

Well sometimes its stubbornness, other times its ignorance, that’s why people do this. Or perhaps you’ve allowed circumstances to sweep you along in life, without ever taking a stand and saying to yourself: Hang on a minute; what I really want to do is … is this! My real dream in life is to go and be this and do that.

The most common question I am asked when I talk on this, which I do rather a lot these days, because like Barry Chant I’ve come to believe that being the me I was meant to be is absolutely critical in life … the most common question I’m asked is this: How do I know what it is that God made me to do?

Now that’s a fair question. Well, the answer is dead simple. Each one of us has something that gets us enthused in life, something that we’re passionate about. Something that we’re really good at, probably better at than anyone else that we know.

For me it’s doing what I’m doing right now. I love to tell stories. I get up mostly at three or four o’clock in the morning to prepare these radio messages. Why? Not because I have to, but because I love to! I love telling stories; I love seeing people’s lives transformed through those stories.

So let me ask you this: What are you passionate about? What do you absolutely love doing? What is it that you’re better at, than just about anybody else that you know? Maybe you love working with your hands and making things, or maybe you are great at looking after kids, or organising lots of detailed things, or … whatever it is that you are go...

This is a tough one for me today because it doesn’t matter who we are: Our circumstances influence us to a greater or lesser degree. When you lose a loved one, of course, you’re going to mourn that loss; that’s natural. Of course, when you get a promotion or a pay-rise at work, you’re going to feel like celebrating. When someone treats you badly, you’ll be hurt. When someone treats you well, you’ll be delighted. None of us is divorced from the day-to-day realities of our lives, and sometimes our circumstances are for us; other times they’re against us. That’s just the way it goes.

Rudyard Kipling was a well-known writer and one of his most famous poems is called If. We don’t have time to read the whole poem, but it’s all about doing the right thing, irrespective of your circumstances. In fact, two lines of that poem are inscribed above the players’ entrance to the centre court at Wimbledon. Those two lines are these: If you can meet triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same. Interesting isn’t it? Kipling calls both triumph and disaster what they are: Imposters. Now, Kipling wasn’t a Christian, but he was the son of two Methodist ministers, and no doubt his parents’ beliefs had a lot to do with the shaping of his philosophy and life.

Think about it. When you have a triumph, you win a race or you get a promotion or you succeed in some way, how long does that last? In Australia where I live, no sooner does a Prime Minister win an election than the press and the electorate are chasing after him or her with a pickaxe. It’s so easy to be seduced by success that pretty soon, you start believing your own propaganda, but success is by and large a fleeting thing. Even those who amass great fame and great fortune, they often find themselves struggling in their lives, so much so that many of them end up taking their own lives. What is success really, other than a narcotic – an imposter?

Jesus, when He was walking this planet, He drew massive crowds to His rallies – four, five thousand at a time, and in those days, that meant that whole towns and cities would all but close down, as people flocked to hear Him. They were amazed at His teaching. They marvelled at His miracles. Jesus had rock-star status across Israel, so was He intoxicated by the adulation of the crowds? John 2:23-25:

When he was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival many people believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing but Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to any of them because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about him for he himself knew what was in everyone

And just as well because just a few chapters later, in the same gospel (6:24, 66), we read this:

The Jews began to complain about Him because He said, ‘I am the Bread that came down from heaven’. They were saying, ‘Hang on. Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ And because of this, many of His disciples turned back, and no longer went about with Him.”

And then of course, there’s John 19:16-18:

So they took Jesus, and carrying the cross by Himself, He went out to a place that is called the Place of the Skull (which in Hebrew is called Golgotha). There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

There’s such a fine line, isn’t there, between success and failure? Yet we seem to become so swept up by success, when the adulation of the crowd is really just a fleeting aspiration, and so overcome by failure when failure is (after all) one of the most common occurrences in life.

We have this fairly floss-sugary expectation that our lives should always be fine, with never a cloud in the sky, let alone a howling storm. It’s a complete fantasy, yet we somehow cling to it like nothing else. We milk it when it’s going our way, and we beat ourselves up when it’s going the other way.

You have to ask yourself, "What’s the matter with us when we let our emotions swing up and down based on a fabrication like that, I mean really"? And if the truth be known, some of our great so-called failures can in point of fact be the greatest time of growth and learning and development in our character that we’ll ever experience. I mean, look at Jesus. When He was hanging there, nailed to that cross, crying out, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani" (which means My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me), didn’t Jesus look like the biggest failure in all of history? Yet the moment of His death was in fact the greatest triumph of all time. Colossians 2:13-15:

When He forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands, He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the end.

See, if we believe that God is, that He exists, that He rewards those who seek Him, if we make Christ the foundation stone of our lives, if we start making our love for God and for those around us our decision-making litmus test, then little by little, circumstances matter less and less.

When I told people that I was writing a book called "Your Road to a Stunning Life", many of them immediately leapt to the false conclusion that it was just another one of those prosperity doctrine, get-rich-quick-under-God books, but that’s not what God promises. What He promises us is this (John 16:33):

I have said this to you so that in Me you may have peace, for in this world, you are going to face persecution, but take courage, for I have overcome the world.

See, what Jesus promises us is that in the middle of the worst times in our lives, we can have peace. We can have courage. What Jesus promises us is His blessing, despite and irrespective of our circumstances, good or bad, and that’s the real thing. It’s not an imposter.

So what circumstances are you going through, the good or the bad or the ugly, that are causing you to believe in them rather than in God? If you’re riding the crest of a wave, have you started to forget the God who blessed you and put you there? Deuteronomy 8:12-16:

When you’ve eaten your fill, and you’ve built your houses and you live in them, and when you have herds and flocks that multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, don’t exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; who led you through the terrible and great wilderness and arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. God made the water flow for you from the flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors didn’t know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.

And if you’re down in a dark valley, what do you believe – the awfulness of your circumstances, or do you believe in the might and the power and the love and the presence of your God? Psalm 23:4-6:

For even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely goodness a...

So, back to that question that I just asked you: What sort of a life do you think that God wants for you? Well your answer to that, I guess, is going to depend on two things: Whether or not you believe that God actually exists, and what sort of a life you’ve had so far. Those two things more than any others are going to shape your answer to that all-important question.

I’ve thought an awful lot about the life that I’m living, and the lives that other people are living. You see, I have more opportunities than most to reflect on the lives of other people. You can imagine that I receive a lot of feedback from listeners to these radio-messages from right around the world: Letters and phone calls and E-mails, and messages on our website at Christianityworks.com – lots and lots of feedback.

The abject misery of many of those people’s lives at times rocks my faith to the core: The woman in London who had to sell her body on the street just to get food on the table; the guy who was on the brink of suicide; the woman whose husband had just left her for another woman; the elderly man who lost his wife of fifty-four years. So many people share the deepest despair of their lives with me, and at some point, you have to ask yourself the question: "Hang on. Is God still on His throne? Is God the God of love for real? In fact, does He exist at all"?

Am I suggesting that everybody’s life is a mess? No, not at all, but it’s as plain as the nose on my face that we all go through difficult times: Times of tragedy in our lives that leave us wondering about this so-called God. And in between the times of tragedy, sure, there are high points; there are times when things seem to be chugging along just fine, and then there’s that dull monotony of the daily repetition of the same old routine.

So it doesn’t seem to matter so much what particular cycle of life we’re in – a trough or a crest of a wave, on the up or on the down, you can come back to the question: "What sort of a life am I living, and what sort of life does God want me to live"? That’s why I produced this radio series. It’s called Your Road to a Stunning Life. Indeed I’ve written a book by the same name, because I’m utterly convinced that God wants you and He wants me to live an absolutely stunning life, difficult though that may seem for some people.

So if it’s true, if God really does want you to live a stunning life, how do you actually get yourself on that road? The what is pretty meaningless without the how, wouldn’t you agree? Well, that’s what this series and my book are all about: How to live a stunning life how to get on that road.

You and I have heard it a million times: This life is not a dress rehearsal. We get one chance at each day and pretty soon, it’s going to be over. Lao-tzu many, many years ago said the journey of a thousand miles begins with? The first step, so here (as far as I’m concerned) is the first step. The very first step along the road to a stunning life is simply to believe that God is God; that He exists; that He is who He says He is.

I know, it sounds trite; a bit too obvious; a bit too simplistic, doesn’t it? "Oh, give me a break, Berni. I don’t need platitudes in my life; I need some real, grassroots how-to to help me to get through the stuff that I’m going through. It’s hard-going, you know." I know you do, and I know it is, and that’s why I’m sharing this first step with you. Let me say it again: The first step is believing that He exists; that He is who He says He is, because it’s a step that has some significant consequences.

We live in a world of cause and effect: You do this, then that happens. Sometimes the consequences are predictable; sometimes they’re totally unpredictable. In this case, the consequences of taking that first step are completely predictable. This is what God says will happen to you if you believe in Him. Hebrews 11:1-8:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Indeed by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that were not visible. By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteousness, God Himself giving approval to his gifts. He died, but through faith he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death, and he was not found because God had taken him, for it was attested before he was taken away that he had pleased God. And without faith it’s impossible to please God, for whoever would approach Him must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who seek Him. By faith, Noah (warned by God about events as yet unseen) respected the warning and built an ark to save his household. By this he condemned the world, and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out not knowing where he was going.

See, when we step out on that road in faith, believing that God exists, God’s Word tells us that we’re going to receive these things: First, His approval and acceptance; second, freedom from death; third, His rewards; and fourth, an inheritance. That’s what that passage that we read just tells us. Like Abraham, when we step out on that road, we have no idea really where we’re going to be headed; simply God’s promise to approve us, accept us, set us free from death, reward us, and give us the most amazing inheritance.

Come on; if that’s not a stunning life, I just don’t know what is. Yeah, I know, I know. You’re going through all this stuff, right? It’s hard, right? How does any of this make any difference whatsoever to all of that, right? But let me tell you something. When God promises us something, even something spectacular like this, He delivers. And when God delivers, that makes all the difference. It completely changes your life.

Just recently, I was invited to visit India to participate in the laying of a foundation stone for the Lutheran Central Cathedral in the city of Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Now, Guntur isn’t far from the Bay of Bengal – a bustling thriving city, and the Lutheran parish is made up of about 25,000 people.

I visited just one of their churches in the parish, St. Matthew’s in the suburb of Brodipet. There were - I’m guessing... I don’t know - somewhere between 4 and 5,000 worshippers there. It was a day of great celebration because we were laying the foundation stone of a 10,000-seat cathedral, to be built over the next two-and-a-half years. The service on the Sunday started at 9 am and it finished around 1 pm with the unveiling of the foundation stone which, amongst several other names, has my name chiselled in gold letters in the granite.

So when some young person looks at the stone in a hundred years’ time when I’m long gone, they’ll wonder: "Who is this guy with a funny name, Sri Berni Dymet, from Australia, and what was he doing there"?

I had the chance to meet the architect of the cathedral and he showed me the plans. I tell you, what an amazing structure! Huge as you can imagine, if it’s going to seat 10,000 worshippers at one time. When the crowds had disappeared early in the evening, they asked me to come back out into this wide-open space, to share the Word of God with some of the young workers who’d been toiling away for the last thirty-six hours nonstop behind the scenes,...

Over the past little while on the program we’ve been talking about the importance of having hope in our lives. Hope is like a photo album in our hearts and in our minds … images of the good things that we hope are going to happen to us and for us in the future. And when we run out of positive images, that’s called … hopelessness.

But the important thing that I’ve learned over the course of this series is this: that the sort of hope that the Bible talks about is entirely different to the sort of hope that we talk about. For us, hope has a dimension of uncertainty to it.

You’re sitting in the doctor’s surgery, you’re waiting to go in to be told whether the x–rays reveal cancer or not. You hope that it’s going to be okay, but … well, you just don’t know. Or you hope that next week, you’ll receive that promotion at work. The bosses are getting together over the next couple of days, to evaluate the candidates. You’re hoping that your name will be at the top of the pile, but … you just don’t know.

There’s a kind of a tension involved in the way that we think about hope. I hope it’s going to be okay. I hope it’s going to be great. I hope my marriage doesn’t fall apart. I hope my teenage kids are going to be okay at the party tonight.

And when things don’t turn out the way we want, often there are tears. The disappointment that ensues when the hope that we had proves to be misplaced, is really, really tough. It often leads to tears. Think about the last time that you shed tears. What was it about? A betrayal? A relationship breakdown? Missing out on that promotion? A scary prognosis from the doctor?

I read on Wikipedia that according to the German Society of Ophthalmology, which has collated different scientific studies on crying, women cry on average between 30 and 64 times a year. Men cry on average between 6 and 17 times a year. Men tend to cry for about two to four minutes and women cry for about six minutes. Crying turns to sobbing for women in 65% of cases, compared to just 6% for men. But these differences don’t start to occur until adolescence.

Inevitably, these tears are related to the disappointment that comes when hope has failed us. Think back to the last time that you cried. What was it about? Why did you cry? What was the trigger?

Sometimes it’s physical pain, but mostly, it’s when there’s some trigger or breaking point that brings lost hope to a head; that thing we’d hoped for: a good marriage, an obedient child, trustworthiness in a work colleague, good health. Whatever it is… that thing that we hoped for… has failed us.

Do you enjoy crying? No. I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet who enjoys crying. And if you or I had our way, we would never, ever, ever encounter another situation that causes us to cry anything but tears of joy, for the rest of our days on this earth. Right?

The things we hope for on this earth don’t always happen. But the sort of hope that the Bible talks about is completely different, and there’s no better passage to tell that story than in Romans chapter 5 verses 3 to 5:

And not only that, (writes Paul) but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Did you pick it? The sort of hope that the Bible talks about is the sort of hope that doesn’t disappoint us. It never disappoints us, because God is faithful; God’s Word is true; God’s promises never fail and so we can hope in Him with absolute, rock solid, certain hope. No ifs. No buts. No maybes.

Even, as is the case here, during times of suffering. Because during that suffering, God is building our character and our endurance and through that, He grows a godly hope in our hearts, by pouring the Holy Spirit into us.

So, when it comes to the tears that you and I shed from time to time there is a promise that I want to share with you today that you can have a rock solid, unfailing hope in. Revelation chapter 21, verses 3 to 5. This passage tells us what our eternity with Jesus is going to be like. Have a listen:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’

Just think about that. Whatever sadness and tragedies that you’ve had to travel through, whatever disappointments and losses that you’ve experienced in your life, God Himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Death, suffering, sickness, pain, mourning, loss, tragedy, disappointment … none of those things will ever be again, because those things will have passed away.

All the things that matter today, all the things that cause you hurt today, every single thing that brings a tear to your eyes today, will be gone because those things … the first things … will have passed away.

It’s hard to imagine isn’t it? I know there’s someone listening today who has lost a child. Another whose life’s work was taken away from them. Another whose wife or husband has just died and was suddenly taken away from them. And there’s no doubt someone listening whose marriage is a complete mess, not at all what you’d planned when you walked down the aisle together all those years ago.

One day, all those things will be gone. And if you believe in Jesus, all that will be left, will be you, with countless others, in glory with the Lord your God for all eternity.

Billy Graham once said this: ‘I’ve read the last page of my Bible. It’s all going to turn out all right.’ That’s the rock solid truth in which you and I can place our hope … and never, ever, ever be disappointed.

So let’s bring that hope now, into the middle of the situations and circumstances that you’re travelling through at the moment. The things that you have uncertain hope about. The thing that last moved you to tears and to sobbing, the pain so deep, that you don’t have words to express it.

What difference does God’s hope, this certain hope make? What difference can it make? Does it completely take away the pain and the tears now? No, I don’t think so. Probably not. Some hurts are incredibly deep. But what it does do, is it puts them into a whole new eternal perspective. Just stand back and look at the whole picture. What you’re going through now in the context of the hope that you can have for where you’re going to be and what you’re going to be doing and what God will have done on that day that you go to be with Him.

And listen to His Words again, as He speaks them personally to you:

‘I will dwell with you; and you will be mine, I myself will be with you; I will wipe every tear from your eyes. Death will be no more; your mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for those things will have passed away.’

And my friend that very same God, the God that speaks those words of love and hope to y...

Hope is one of the most important things to our wellbeing that there is. It’s a feeling or an expectation or a desire for good things to happen in our futures. You know when you sit there, and you daydream about this or that, it’s always about good things, isn’t it? It’s as though you’re creating a photo-album in your mind of the good things that you want to happen to you in the future. Worry and fear is pretty much the same, but that photo-album is full of dark and negative images. When we lose hope in the future, we often lose the will to go on. That’s why hope for tomorrow is such an important part of who we are.

It’s really interesting. The word hope appears around 133 times throughout the Bible, but it’s meaning is a little different to what we’re used to today. See, when we talk about hope, when we hope for something, it has that sense of uncertainty about it generally. ‘I hope I’ll get a promotion at work. I hope the scans didn’t detect cancer. I hope that my kids will grow up to lead healthy, productive, successful lives.’

When something is certain, like you know that you’re going on a 2-week holiday starting next Thursday, we look forward to that with anticipation, but when something is uncertain, then we hope that it’ll happen, but the Biblical word for hope doesn’t make any room for uncertainty. The moment you read hope in the Bible, it’s an indication of absolute certainty. As the article on Bible.org says, ‘The word hope in Scripture means a strong, confident expectation’. So you see, there’s a profound difference between the way that we use that word hope today, and the way it’s used in God’s Word. And if we transpose our meaning onto that word hope in Scripture, then we completely miss the point. Take this passage, for instance. Romans 8:24-25:

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he can see? But if we hope for that we do not see, we wait for it in patience.

Now if you read those words using our modern-day understanding of the meaning of that word hope, it’s not a very helpful passage at all. Let me give you the contemporary version: "For in uncertain hope you were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he hasn’t seen? But if we have a wishy-washy, uncertain hope for what we don’t see, then we’ll wait for it with patience". Now, not only isn’t it helpful, but it just doesn’t make sense because if we wait with a wishy-washy, uncertain hope, then there’s no way we’re going to feel patient on the inside.

So, let’s read it the way it was meant to be read when it was written: "For in a certain, rock-solid hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen isn’t hope, for we don’t hope for what we can’t see. But if we have a strong, certain hope for what we do not see, then we can wait for it with patience". Now that makes sense! Now it’s a help!

So the hope that God talks about, the hope the Holy Spirit puts into our hearts, is a rock-solid, guaranteed, done-deal, it’s going to happen, certain kind of hope. It’s more akin to our understanding of anticipation. You know you’re going on holidays next Thursday, so you anticipate and savour that certainty. That’s what the Biblical word hope actually means, and one of the things that we can hope in with absolute certainty is that when we die, and when Jesus comes again, we will be reunited with Him.

In those days before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. Now that was a scary thing for them because they could sense the assassination plot, and they were wondering if they were going to be next, but this is what Jesus said to them. John 14:1-3:

‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me, for in My Father’s house, there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be.’

So this Jesus who was born as a babe onto the earth for us, this Jesus who died for us and who rose again, this Jesus who sits now at the right hand of the Father, this Jesus whose name is above every other name, to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, this very same Jesus is the one with whom we’ll be reunited on that day. The apostle Paul puts it this way. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18:

For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangels’ call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Forget the dramatic happenings around Christ’s second coming for a moment, as glorious and as wonderful as that day’s certainly going to be. The bit that grabs my heart is this: That we will be with the Lord forever – forever! We will be reunited with Jesus and we will be with Him forever, and ever, and ever, without end. ‘Therefore,’ writes Paul, ‘Therefore encourage one another with these words’.

That’s exactly what I want to do today – to encourage you with these words. Because whatever your present circumstances are, and the disciples when Jesus told them that He was going away – their circumstances were terribly desperate; they were in fear of their very lives ... So, whatever you’re going through at the moment, if you believe in Jesus, then you have the absolute, rock-solid, it’s-a-done-deal hope that one day, you will be reunited with Him. You will dwell with Him forever and ever and ever, amen. Now that’s what I call something to really look forward to.

Eternity, as things turn out, is rather a long time. Right now, the oldest person I know in my circle of friends has just turned a hundred years old. This woman is a great lady with a sharp wit; I love her dearly, but at aged one hundred, her body ... Well, it’s starting to show the signs of her age, you understand.

She walks with a walking-frame and she’s kind of stooped over, her eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be and of course, she has just a few more wrinkles than the rest of us. Her body is in pretty good nick for her age (a hundred years old), but as you’d expect, age is taking its toll. One day, she (like you and me) will return to dust. That amazingly complex, finely-tuned body that we’ve all been given, that has served us all so well, one day will be no more.

So the question then arises, ok; we die, so what happens then? The Bible promises resurrection. That’s the point of Jesus rising from the dead. The writer of the book of Hebrews puts it this way. Hebrews 1:18:

He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.

So, how does that work? You’re dead, your body’s decayed either in a coffin or through cremation, and then one day Jesus returns. You and I are raised with Him, but what do we do for a body? It might on the one hand seem like a bit of a strange esoteric question for us to ask and a...

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? What’s going to happen to you when your time on this earth is done and dusted? That will happen in one of two ways. Either Jesus will return – at which point everything on this earth will be over.

Or – and perhaps you consider this option to be more likely – your body is going to give up the ghost when you breathe your last breath and your heart stops beating. And it’s that latter option that we’re going to talk about right now.

We’re in the middle of a series of messages that I’ve called Merchants of Hope. Hope is such an important thing. Without hope, today’s not worth living – and tomorrow … well who cares? So many people – can I say, even people who believe in Jesus – are living without hope.

And that’s crazy. Because our lives – whether we believe in Jesus or not – don’t end with a beep. There’s life after death – either in the presence of Jesus for all eternity – hallelujah – or apart from Him, in a place of eternal punishment and anguish and regret – that place with Satan and his demons that we call … hell. Hmm.

So … where are you going to go after your beeeeep? Well, I believe … in fact I know … that last heart beat is not the end. It’s just the beginning of where you’re going to spend the rest of your eternity. And there are two parts to that eternity for anyone who believes in Jesus. The part between when you die and when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead, and the part after Jesus’ return.

Let’s talk about the first part first. If you believe in Jesus, here’s what  will happen to you. Immediately upon your death, you will go to be in the presence of Jesus, in conscious blessedness – having escaped your punishment because you have put your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus – in the fact that He paid for your sins on that cross. Just like the criminal who hung next to Jesus on that fateful day. Have a listen to what happened to him Luke 23:39–42:

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

So … exactly when would this man be in paradise with Jesus? Today. The Apostle Paul knew it too, that straight after his death, he would be in the presence of Jesus. Philippians 1:21–23:

For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

What happens to him when he departs this life? He is going to be with Christ. So if you and I die before Jesus returns, and if we believe in Jesus, we go immediately to be with Him, in His Presence. Just sit there now for a minute and look at all your present circumstances – all your pressures and worries – through the lens of that truth. See that hope, that certain hope – is meant to make a huge difference in your life.

Paul the Apostle wrote that letter to the Philippians while he was in a Roman dungeon on death row. Have a read of it some time. It’s full of hope and rejoicing – because it’s written by a man who sees his present bleak circumstances through the lens of his certain hope in Christ. And at some point, Jesus will return and we will all – those who believe in Jesus and those who don’t – stand before Jesus in judgement. We’ve already talked about that.

And when that happens, those who believe in Jesus who have died, will rise in Him. Have a listen – 1 Thess 4:13–16:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Now we’re going to talk about what happens after that next week on the program. I’d love to go there right now because it’s awesome, we just don’t have time, so you and I are just going to have to wait.

Just picture this glorious day. The dead in Christ will rise first. I was in a hospital a few months ago, visiting a friend who has since died of cancer. Hospitals have always seemed to be impersonal, sterile places. He was in a room of three other men who were also dying. The smell of death is a powerful thing, in this sanitised, brightly lit place with linoleum floors polished so much that it squeaks when you walk on them. There’s something stark and confronting about death.

It’s inevitable. It’s not pleasant. And yet at the other end of that, is this triumphant, jubilant day when all those who have died in Christ will rise again with Him. Hallelujah. That's the hope. That’s why you and I and anyone else who believes in Jesus can look at our present day circumstances through the same lens as the Apostle Paul on death row. That’s why Paul wrote:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Hallelujah!’

I know there are some people listening today who have lost a loved one … and you miss them terribly. Perhaps your wife or your husband. Well the good news is that if they believe in Jesus, one day you will see them again – because they will be raised in Christ.

Or perhaps you’re getting pretty close to the end of your life, through old age or sickness – and you’re staring death down the barrel and that’s a scary thing for you.

Wherever you and I are on our journey through life and towards death, the important thing to know, the thing that Jesus wants you to know – not just in your head but in your heart is this. Death is not the end, it’s just the beginning.

It’s the beginning – for anyone who believes in Jesus – of an eternity praising Him and worshipping Him and celebrating with Him. It’s the beginning of an eternity without fear or tears or sickness or pain or illness.

It’s the beginning of an eternity, that compared to our fleeting lives on this earth, is so awesome, so forever that you just can’t compare the two. That’s why Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote this to his friends in Rome – Chapter 8 verse 18:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed...

Great to be starting a new series on a subject that pretty much all of us are really interested in: Hope. I don’t know how much you’ve thought about this, but having hope for the future is fundamental to our well-being today. Think about it. If you don’t have any hope to look forward to, if you have no hope for the future, then you and your life are what we call hopeless and hopelessness, if you’ve ever been there, is the place where people start thinking about taking their own lives because they’ve got nothing left to live for. The future looks so bleak that we come to the conclusion: ‘Well, what’s the point?’

I once read a book about a holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, and he makes the point so powerfully when he recalls an experience from a concentration camp. Have a listen to what he writes:

The prisoner who had lost faith in the future, his future, was doomed. With the loss of belief in his future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually, this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis – the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. It usually began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash and to go out on the parade ground. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect: He just lay there hardly moving. If the crisis was brought about by an illness, he refused to be taken to the sick bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up, and there he remained lying in his own excrement, and nothing bothered him any more.

What a devastating picture of hopelessness, but a lack of hope in our lives takes many different forms. Sometimes, it’s not quite as desperate as that. It’s just that we’ve had this numbness because we’re so buried in the minutiae. We worry about this and that; we worry about ... well, we worry about just about everything really.

I saw a great quote the other day on Twitter that went something like this: Worry is nothing more than your imagination creating negative visions of the future. It’s true, isn’t it? We create all these negative snapshots of how things could turn out, as though that’s any way to live your life.

Hope is the complete opposite of that. Hope is about creating positive snapshots. It’s about a vision in our heads and in our hearts of having a life that’s worth living, and the sort of hope that God’s into is the sort that makes a powerful difference in the good times and in the bad. We don’t find it particularly difficult to have hope for the future when things are going pretty well. The time we struggle is when things aren’t going well, and it’s right in that place that God wants to pour His hope into your life and mine. Romans 12:12:

Rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation; be consistent in prayer.

Did you pick that up? God’s hope is right in there, in the mix, next to, butted up against tribulation – a word which, in its original Greek language, literally means to have the life squeezed out of you. So, when you’re being squeezed and crushed, when it feels like your life is draining out of you, it’s right there that God plans to give you hope.

Our problem is that the hope that we’re all too often looking for is way too short-sighted. We hope that the pain will go away. We hope that the thing that’s causing us grief will go away: Not next month; not even next week; not even tomorrow ... We want it fixed now. It doesn’t always work that way.

I can’t tell you the number of letters and emails I receive from people who’ve been suffering for a long time – some of them a lifetime, and they want to know: What the blazers is God up to? How can I possibly have the hope that you’re talking about? Those are eminently reasonable questions for you and me to be asking, so let’s lift our gaze and take a much bigger, much more expansive view of the sort of hope that God has for each one of us today. Let’s have a listen to the apostle Paul, who was going through his own tribulations on death row in a Roman dungeon. This comes from Philippians 1:18-26:

And I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me, and I don’t know which one I prefer. I’m hard-pressed between the two: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that’s far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

So much hope does Paul have in the eternity that he’s going to spend with Jesus that instead of panicking about the consequences of being on death row, he’s actually torn – not between this and that in life, but between continuing in this life or moving on to the next.

Now, just stop and think about that there for a minute. Take a deep breath; let it sink in. Paul had so wrapped his heart and his mind around the amazing eternity he’s going to spend in the presence of God, with Jesus for ever and ever and ever, he’s completely torn between finishing the course that God’s set for him here on this planet, and letting it come to an early end so that he can be with Jesus. Wow!

So let me ask you this question: How different would your perspective on life be if you had that sort of hope within your heart right now, tomorrow, the next day? Well that’s precisely why we’re talking about this hope – the certain hope that we have in Jesus Christ for all eternity, in this series that I’ve called Merchants of Hope.

Ok, tomorrow starts off like any other day. The alarm clock goes off, you roll out of bed, into the bathroom, breakfast, off to work ... You look out the window, but ... well, the sun’s not there. What’s the time? What’s going on? Here’s the picture that Jesus Himself paints of His return. Matthew 24:29-31:

Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet-call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds – from one end of heaven to the other.

Wow! So is that good news to you, or bad news? Is that something you’re looking forward to, or not? And what about this? Going on in that same chapter, Matthew 24:36-44:

But about that day and the hour, no one knows. Neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the...

I was sitting down with a group of businessmen recently for a breakfast that we’d organised and I was about to share a message called "The Battle Belongs to the Lord" with this group. It was interesting to listen to the discussion around the table as people drank their coffee and munched on a muffin.

Being men in business, the discussion was around the economic climate and it’s impact on their businesses. And as we chatted, it became pretty clear to me how self-reliant this group of men had been programmed to be.

They are after all, businessmen. They have businesses to run. They’re meant to succeed. And when the economy turns sour, it’s almost as though they are the failures because their businesses are struggling. In fact, during the economic crisis, I sat with a wise, older man and he was sharing with me how much of his time was being taken up counselling other men in his sector – financial services – who were contemplating suicide because they were facing ruin.

Whatever we do, whoever we are, it seems that society is programming us to be self-reliant. We have to rely on our wits and our abilities to succeed and if we don’t we’re failures. Never mind that some adversity that we could never control has swept in like a storm off the ocean. No – we’re meant to succeed. But here’s the thing – if we’re so self-reliant, what happens when the storm is so ferocious, we can’t deal with it? What happens when the mountain is so big, we can’t budge it? Then what? It’s scary. Really scary.

The hardest thing I think in overcoming fear in life is actually getting to that point where we have a high level of confidence in God. Who God is. What He’s done. His might and His power and His sovereignty. It all sounds great in theory. But what about in practice? What about when the rubber hits the road? Then what?

I used to think that it was up to me. And I guess in part it is, but not completely. That’s just as well, because you and I, we’re human. We can’t just conjure up confidence. We can’t take this theory about who God is and let the theory wipe away the fear.

Because fear is real. No, I need something more than that. I need something more than promises on paper. And fortunately, that’s exactly what God had planned to do. He didn’t want to leave it all up to us. Wants us to actually experience His peace – not our strength, but a peace and strength that come from Him. Let’s pick up the rest of what He had to say, beginning again at verse 28 of Isaiah Chapter 40:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28)

Great, there’s the theory again but watch now for what comes next.

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31

Do you see the point? Where do the power and the strength come from? Do you or I conjure them up. No! They come from the Lord. And we need that, because even youths will faint and be weary and the young and the strong will fall exhausted. BUT – and here’s the BUT – the glorious, wondrous, powerful BUT:

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

He gives those things to us when we wait expectantly on Him. And that’s literally what that word “wait” means. Not waiting grumbling and complaining. Not waiting with our hearts and our eyes downcast. Not trembling paralysed with fear. No, it means waiting expectantly. Waiting on God with the expectation that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He is going to do.

Looking up at Him and just expecting strength and assurance and comfort from Him. Right there in the middle of our fear. With our emotions on a rollercoaster ride, with our enemies around us, with disaster looming – but with an expectation somewhere deep inside that God is going to act.

And that what will happen is exactly what He has planned. Do you know what we’re doing when we’re doing that sort of waiting. We’re having faith that moves mountains! We’re living it right then and there.

Who knows – will God give us victory over our enemies or not? I don’t know. More Christians martyred in the twentieth century than in the two thousand years before that combined.

We all die some time. Is He going to heal this cancer or let it take its course? Is He going to give me victory over my enemies, or does He have a different plan? Sometimes, we just don’t know? But this one thing I do know, that …

… those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

God is saying to us through His Word today – indeed He is commanding us – DO NOT BE AFRAID.

And you know why it is that I am not afraid of death? Because I have eternal life through Jesus Christ. Sometimes He gives me victory over circumstances on this earth. Sometimes, He lets me suffer. But come what may – if I am diagnosed with terminal cancer tomorrow – I am going to put my confidence in the God who has given me a life eternal with Him.

Just before He was crucified and when His disciples were trembling in fear, this is what Jesus said to them:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

So far as we know each of those disciples (other than Judas) went on to do mighty things for God … and then, they died for their faith. So often we’re focussed on the here and the now but God’s plan for your life and mine my friend is life eternal. That’s why I put my confidence in Jesus Christ who paid the price in full for my sin on that cross.

God gives us His peace and His strength when we wait expectantly on Him. Doesn’t matter how big, bad or ugly the enemy is. Doesn’t matter how fearful we are. God will take away our fear, when we wait expectantly on Him. That’s the sort of faith that moves mountains.

I want to share with you right now one of the most powerful things that I have ever learned about having the sort of faith that moves mountains.

We spoke the last week about the world’s template of success. The notion that if we would just have positive thoughts, we can have positive outcomes in every aspect of our lives. We can do anything and achieve anything, if only we’ll get a positive mindset. It’s a seductive idea. It’s one that we would love to pull up next to.

In fact, so popular is this notion that a whole school of positive thinking has grown up over recent years. But it doesn’t matter how positively we think, there are going to be things that we can’t overcome. It doesn’t matter how positively I think about life, one day, one way or another, this mortal body will give up its spirit.

And so, many a Christian will reject this notion of thinking positively, because it has been so intrinsically linked to the world’s template of su...

It’s great to be back with you again this week – and if you had a chance to join me over the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that we’ve been taking a look at faith – the sort of faith that moves mountains. And we’ve had a good look at a couple of real life stories – the story of Abraham and Sarah – man, they definitely needed faith and yet they made so many boo boos along the way. And then, the story of an incompetent king and these four lepers – that was last week on the program. And both of those stories – well they weren’t what perhaps you may have expected.

Abraham and Sarah were so imperfect in their faith. And then the story of the siege and God’s blessing – none of God’s people showed any faith at all, and then these four lepers with really no other alternative stumble out into God’s blessings. I wonder in a series called, "Having Faith that Moves Mountains" – what sort of stories did you expected? Stories about characters and people who’d shown this mighty faith? Stories of people, real people – who had such a mighty faith that they could single-handedly cast a mountain into the sea?

And when you and I – when we look at our own lives and our own situations, what do we expect of ourselves? What sort of faith, what sort of journey do we expect?

I’ll tell you what I expected when I gave my life to Jesus a decade and a half ago. I expected an easy ride. I expected that despite what the Bible said, despite what the preacher up the front said on Sunday mornings (and I was blessed with a really good teacher) and despite what happened to Jesus – I would have an easy ride of it.

That I’d crash through brick walls. That the problems would go away. That everything that I touched would turn to gold. And yet the more that I got myself into understanding God in His Word, and the more I discovered fantastic promises like:

In the world you will face tribulation (John 16:33).

I found those things and yet I still wanted to cling onto this notion that I would have an easy ride of it. That I was somehow special and different this tribulation thing was for the rest of you could go and travel your difficult roads, but not me.

The only direction for me was up. That’s it. I’m not accepting anything else. And as I look back on those years since I gave my life over to Jesus as my Saviour and my Lord, there are some fantastic stories to tell. He’s done such amazing things in me and around me. He’s involved me in things that I could never have dreamed up for myself.

But there have been long and winding roads. There have been storms. There have been times when I felt completely alone. There were times when I would not have dared dream up a title for a bunch of radio programs like "Having Faith that Moves Mountains."

And those times just didn’t fit with my plan. Because my plan was so much like the world’s plan. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Success. Success is about bigger, better, faster, richer. Success is about other people looking at our lives and saying, "Oooh, he’s truly blessed." And at some point it dawned on me – I can’t remember exactly when – that my plan wasn’t God’s plan. (It’s tragic, but it’s true).

Even though I’d laid my life down at His feet as completely and as utterly as I was able, I still had a plan for “success.” For a long time, my plan and God’s plan were tearing me apart. But the problem was I couldn’t have described it as neatly as I just have to you now. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was but something wasn’t right.

I wanted to do great things for God – but it was on my terms and not His. I wanted to work hard and succeed at being a Christian. I wanted to make a difference in this world for Him. But there was something, something that had to give.

It’s that something that I want to talk about in this week. To put it under a magnifying glass. To hold it up and look at it from this angle and from that. So that together we can identify it and name it.

What exactly are we missing – could it be that our template of success – yours and mine – isn’t the same as God’s. Could it be that the pattern that you and I are carrying around in our heads and in our hearts – the glasses through which we see things – are kind of distorting our view – that we’re chasing after something that really isn’t there? Something that really doesn’t work?

One thing that I’ve discovered in life is that something that works well over here in this situation can be a complete failure over there in that situation. I worked as a consultant in the IT industry for many years. That took me into well over 200 organisations around the world. And it just never ceased to amaze me that whilst my experience and knowledge grew with each project and consulting assignment, it wasn’t possible to take the approach that we used for company X last year and use it for company Y this year.

Why? Because the context and culture were invariably different. Each organisation had its own unique blend of rules and relationships. This one was flexible and entrepreneurial. That one was more structured. This one was risk averse, that one was more open to risk taking.

This one had had a bad project two years ago that everyone remembered. Whilst this new one hadn’t. And so what I discovered after a few years of doing this, and with the benefit of a very wise mentor, is that the template for success was different in each organisation. In each circumstance. The most important thing to do was to figure out what success looked like for each client organisation, in order that we could shape a project and an outcome that was successful for them.

And after a while, I figured out that the template for success in the kingdom of this world, is different – I mean radically different – from the template of success in the Kingdom of God. And the tension that was going on inside me as I was striving so hard to succeed in this new Kingdom, God’s Kingdom was because I was striving for the wrong things. Things that in God’s eyes didn’t constitute success.

See, my context and the culture had changed. And I was still trying to be successful in the old way, the world’s way. In a way that was never going to be successful in God’s kingdom. As I said earlier, my model of success was base on the “onwards and upwards” idea. Always going forward. Never taking a step back. And to be honest, you see a lot of that brand of success is floating around the church of God today. It’s the world’s approach and not God’s.

It turns out that God’s template for success is based on something that I’d never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams thought would be related to success. A word that I’d never used in the same sentence as “success”. That word, is … vulnerability. And that – that’s what we’re going to talk about after this short break.

Now here’s a scary thought – if I say I love God, if I say that actually, actually Jesus isn’t just the Son of God who saved me by dying on the cross – but He’s also the LORD of my life – if that’s what I hold out there as what I believe – well, what if I start hurling my faith at mountains that He doesn’t want moved? What if I’m pulling in one direction – and He’s pulling in the other. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s going to win that little tussle do you.

And that’s the thing with faith – I see so many people exhausting themselves because – well, We want what We want and the Bible says I can have anyt...

Have you ever been in one of those places of real desperation – you know, nothing is going right – you’re wondering what, if anything, God is thinking and has He taken a holiday; has He taken leave of His senses? How can a faithful God allow this to happen to me… me, of all people?

Today on the program, in this second in the series called "Having Faith that Moves Mountains", we’re going to take a close look at such a time in the history of Israel. It was absolute desperation time, in fact, things were so bad; people were so hungry that mothers were cannibalising their children. Can you imagine? See, by and large, we don’t have to rely too much on faith when things are all going swimmingly well. We need faith when there are mountains that need moving; we need faith when we have something impossible to deal with. And those are precisely the times that we find ourselves at our weakest and most vulnerable. Those are precisely the times when the last thing we feel like we have is some mighty faith.

So this story… this story takes place at a time in Israel’s history that can best be described as ‘rock bottom’. So let’s have a look – if you have a Bible, grab it. We are going to Second Kings chapter 6, beginning a verse 24:

Sometime later, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army; he marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. As the siege continued, famine in Samaria became so great that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver and one-fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. Now as the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried out to him, ‘Help me, my lord king!’ He said, ‘No! Let the Lord help you. How can I help you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press?’ But then the king asked her, ‘What is your complaint?’ She answered, ‘This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son; we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we cooked by son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son and we will eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.’ When the king heard the words of the woman he tore at his clothes – now since he was walking on the city wall, the people could see that he had sackcloth on his body underneath – and he said, ‘So may God do to me, and more, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today.’ So he dispatched a man from his presence.

Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, ‘Are you aware that this murderer has sent someone to take off my head? When the messenger comes, see that you shut the door and hold it closed against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? While he was still speaking with them, the king came down to him and said, ‘This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?’ But Elisha said, ‘Hear the Word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of choice meal shall be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, ‘Even if the Lord were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?’ But Elisha said, ‘You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.’

What an incredibly sad state of affairs! Can you imagine a hunger and a hopelessness so deep that mothers are cannibalising their children? I can’t conceive of a situation more desperate, more repugnant, and sadder than this. But here it is – that’s what happened – rock bottom, in fact, so rock bottom that you and I would struggle to point to an event more rock bottom in our own lives.

Israel was under siege from the Aramean Army. The whole point of a siege is to starve the opposition out of their impenetrable citadel and quite clearly, the food has run out. I don’t know the last time you went to the butcher’s shop and bought a donkey’s head but my hunch is there is not a lot of meat on a donkey’s head and this was selling for an outrageous amount of money. A clear case of supply and demand.

So here’s God’s anointed King – in fact, the Hebrew word for God’s Anointed is "Messiah" and it was so often used of the Kings of Israel. The King is walking up on the ramparts of the city and tearing at his clothes – he is wearing sackcloth, which means that he is in mourning. And up there on the city wall all the people can see him. What they need is leadership and inspiration from God’s anointed leader but he’s lost all hope in every sense of the word – he’s hopeless. And a woman comes to him out of sheer desperation having eaten her son (eaten her son!!) and what does the King have to say? "What do you expect me to do? Look at the mess we are in!" Great leadership!

And what’s the obvious thing to do when you believe in God and lose hope? Well, of course, you blame God which is what the King did. Clearly, this mess was God’s fault – He is God isn’t He? And that’s exactly what the King did. So as any good King anointed for leadership by God would do, he decides he is going to go and kick the dog – in this case, he is going to go and kill the prophet Elisha – to shoot the messenger, as it were.

I make light of it but Elisha was in danger of losing his head. So the King goes to see the prophet. Remember the prophet in society is the man who speaks for God – the prophet’s role here in Israel is to speak God’s Word into the life of Israel. And so the King demanded to know of the prophet,

"This trouble is from the Lord – why should I hope in the Lord any longer?"

That, as it turns out, is a very good question. It’s a question that a few of us have probably asked once or twice at some rock bottom point along our own journeys. And the prophet speaks the Word of God – it’s a word of outrageous hope and promise – it’s a faithful word from a faithful God.

"Hear the Word of the Lord. ‘Thus’, says the Lord, ‘tomorrow this time a measure of choice meal shall be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria."

Now that was completely and utterly outrageous; it was impossible, unless you believe God. And remember what the King’s soldier said,

"Even if the Lord would have made windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?"

But God did more than that and as we will see in a moment, within twenty-four hours the words of the prophet – the very Word of God – came to pass. Why? Because however difficult it is to believe; however impossible the situation and big the mountain and distant our God seems, He is mighty to save; He is faithful; He is awesome – just is!

Have you ever met a Mr or Mrs Super Christian? I have! These people have their lives so incredibly together and they seem so strong in their faith, that you go home, you look in the mirror and you think to yourself, "Oh, I could never be like that, I’m hopeless; I’m a failure." Funny how we look at things through the world’s eyes – just because on the outside someone appears to be confident and they can tell us good stories of their lives, we assume that they are perfection personified. And we know for sure that they’re not. If someone has a position or a title or something like that, we imagine, well, that they are better than us. To do something mighty and powerful, God would obviously use them instead of you or me.

But here in this city of Samaria that was under siege, where there was no food, ...

You know something? I’m really excited today because today on the programme we are kicking off a four-week series on faith. I’ve called it Having Faith that Moves Mountains. Jesus once said to His disciples:

Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but you believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. (Mark 11: 22-24).

Now, if you take Him at His Word and I am one of those crazies who absolutely does, then this is an outrageous statement, right? Does He really mean that for you and for me? I mean, I for one have believed until I burst, for something and I didn’t get it. And I have seen people who take this whole ‘faith’ thing way too far, believing for outrageously selfish things. And yet this God who sent us His Son, He talks a lot about faith and the only sort of faith He seems to talk about is the sort of faith that moves mountains. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that, so if you are up for it, let’s kick off a few weeks, just chatting and exploring and let’s see what that comes up with.

I visited an elderly man recently who is in the last few weeks of his life. He was dying of cancer. I’d spoken to him on the phone a few weeks before and this is what he said. "Well, I have believed in Jesus almost all of my life but I’m not sure where I am going when I die." Well, what an amazing time that was. I frankly felt a little uncertain about visiting him – this whole pastoral thing isn’t really my strong point. I was telling myself that as I pressed the doorbell. He showed me into his lounge room. He sat in his favourite chair over in that corner, me in a dining chair over on this side.

As we began talking, I looked down at his feet – he was wearing a pair of slippers, both of which had holes in the toes. And you know, my immediate thought was, "Oh, he needs some new slippers. But then it struck me, at this point in his life, the very last thing he needed was a new pair of slippers. As the time passed I felt more and more at ease with this man.

Whereas before, I had been wondering what, if anything useful, I could share with him, (you can tell I’m a preacher). As the moments ticked by, I was overwhelmed with a sense of deep privilege of being allowed to be in this place with him. It was such a special time and you know, the last thing he said to me as we shook hands on the front porch in the bright sunlight was a confident, "You know we’ll meet again but not here."

Sometimes it’s just the little encouragement that we need to discover that seed of faith that God’s planted in our hearts has in fact, grown into a mighty tree. That’s exactly what he needed – not sage words of advice or a sermon on faith, just the quiet assurance that comes when we rediscover the faith within – a faith that had become clouded by the deep cares of the present. Because that’s what happened to him – he’d been walking all his life with Jesus – as long as he could remember, he told me – but with cancer ready to take his body, all of a sudden the realities of his circumstances started to take over.

I wonder how you and I will feel when, one day, we don’t need new slippers anymore. I wonder how we will confront the greatest reality of all – that one day we will breathe our last breath on this earth. How healthy will our faith be on that day? The things that we struggled so hard for; the things that we always took for granted; the things that somehow, we duped ourselves into believing would be forever, don’t matter anymore. Ever wondered why we need faith? For me, beginning at the end like this brings that into sharper focus.

It’s not just death that we have to confront one day, all of us, but life – today, tomorrow, the next day, next year – everyday life. And in that life that you and I lead, we know all too well that there are things that happen that are bigger than us – things that overwhelm us; things that are outside our control – everyday we face challenges – everyday. Things happen that can rob us of the confidence to live life.

And it seems to me, the central reality that demands faith is this: that there are things out there, outside our circle of control or influence; things that sometimes we can’t even see and don’t even understand, that can impact negatively on our interests – on our health, our wellbeing, our finances, our career, our relationships, on our very lives. You name it – any hope, any dream, any desire and there is something lurking out there that can rob us of the good things that in our heart of hearts, we have planned for ourselves.

And they don’t have to be particularly selfish or self-centred – just ordinary everyday very reasonable things. Sometimes they are really good things – the dreams we have in our hearts to serve God – the deep desire we have to be part of His plan for this world. It doesn’t matter what it is, there are things out there that can rob us of what we have planned.

And those things, they show up in a number of different ways. They can show up as fears and worries – we brood over things; we worry about them and the more we worry, the more fear grips and immobilises us. They can show up as insurmountable obstacles or barriers – things we just can’t overcome – doubts sneak under our guard. They can show up as challenges that we would love to meet but we can’t. Have you ever had that sense of, "WOW, I should be able to do this, but…" They can show up as a deep sense of inadequacy.

The man addicted to pornography who try as he may, simply can’t break his cycle of shame, so he lives in his secret shame – the woman who deep within the fibre of her very being, knows that she simply isn’t good enough and what’s more, she never will be.

They can show up as deep regrets from the past. So many people allow the past to destroy their present and rob them of their future. And here’s what I know: for each one of us there are one or two of those things on that list that resonate deeply and as we each examine our hearts and look into those darker recesses – that we try not to look into often – there’s an ache. "If only… if only I could be set free from these things." "If only those things out there, outside my control; those things I’m afraid of; those things that can rob me of the good hopes and dreams and plans of my heart – if only I could get rid of them, how wonderful my life would be."

It turns out that when we apply faith to something we are concerned about; something that we have been worrying about, well, faith brings freedom. That’s where we were earlier but let’s unpack that together for a moment. Freedom is a commodity that many of us take for granted but if we stop to consider it, we would realise just how highly we value it. Freedom! But are we really, really free? That’s the question!

Jesus once had this to say on the subject:

If you continue in My Word you are truly My disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You see, they answered Him – they said, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying to us, ‘You will be made free?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ (John 8:31...

Over the past few weeks, we've been travelling along with young Joseph, son of Isaac in the Old Testament, on his journey through life – a journey that had some real downers, much like your journey and mine – and yet a journey that was heading in a direction that only God could foresee.

There was Joseph, one of 12 brothers, the youngest one and dad’s favourite. His father was Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham – although God had given Jacob a new name. He’d called him … Israel, and unbeknown to anyone, these 12 brothers were the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. That was a long way off.

Here is what the relationship between Joseph and his other brothers looked like Gen 37:1–4:

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

But things only got worse, because Joseph had two dreams which he shared with his brothers and father, that one day he would rule over them all. That was it. His brothers plotted to kill him, but ultimately instead, sold him into slavery. From there he’s transported, as we’ve seen to Egypt, becomes Potiphar’s slave, is thrown into prison, where he rots for a few years and finally, finally through a set of circumstances that only God could orchestrate becomes the ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.

And again under God’s hand, Joseph as the ruler has stored up in Egypt surplus grain that was produced in the years of plenty, so that when the famine hit, there would be enough to eat in the land. And not just in Egypt, people travelled from all over the known world to purchase grain in Egypt, because they were starving. And, as God would have it, some of Joseph’s brothers travelled to Egypt to buy grain.

They had no idea what had become of Joseph after they sold him. They’d told their father Jacob that he was dead. But low and behold, one day they stood before Joseph and bowed down to him, just as he had dreamed in that dream all those years before as a young boy. Gen 42:1–8

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you keep looking at one another? I have heard,” he said, “that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he feared that harm might come to him. Thus the sons of Israel were among the other people who came to buy grain, for the famine had reached the land of Canaan.

 Now Joseph was governor over the land; it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

Now, we don’t have time to go through the whole story, of how he dealt with his brothers – it runs for several chapters, Genesis 42 to 46 – it’s really worth a read, so if you have a Bible, grab it in the next day or two and check it out for yourself. But can you imagine how Joseph felt – these mongrels, his brothers, who had plotted his murder and then sold him into slavery, now stood before him and bowed down to him, just as God had told him as a young lad in his dream.

He was the ruler of Egypt now, second only to Pharaoh and he had the power of life and death over them. Finally, a chance for revenge. Finally, here he is, justified, with God’s favour on him, and these men who did him such a terrible injustice were begging for food before him. What an opportunity. And, as you read the story, Joseph was seriously tempted; he was torn between his hatred for them and his love; between revenge and forgiveness.

He accused them of being spies, locked them up for three days, then he took one of them as a hostage in prison, to force them to go back and get their youngest brother, Benjamin. He played tricks on them, he gave them an incredibly hard time.

You see, one of the things that just doesn’t come naturally to us, is forgiveness. He had been so hurt and damaged by his brothers, he was tempted to kill them all, after he’d toyed with them in a dark and terrible cat and mouse game. This went on for quite some time, but …

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. (Gen 45:1–7)

Joseph took the greatest opportunity of all, he forgave his brothers not just in word, but in deed. He saw that God had sent him to preserve their lives.

Have you ever had the opportunity to harm or to forgive someone who has hurt you? Which way did you lean, naturally, in the flesh? Towards revenge right? Towards extracting your pound of flesh. That’s what Joseph wanted to do.

And yet, he’d been travelling too long with God to do that. God had been with him in the pit that his brothers had thrown him. God had been with him on the journey to Egypt in chains, in the slave market where he was sold, as a slave, in prison where he was thrown after being wrongly accused. God had been with him each step of the way.

And at each turn, God had placed an opportunity for Joseph to do good or evil. To behave well, or badly. To use his natural gifts and talents to grab hold of the opportunities or not. And at each turn, Joseph stepped up to the plate and took a hold of those God–given opportunities.

He didn’t realise it at the time, but it’s that consistent pattern of behaviour, that brought him to the place of power and privilege in which he now found himself. And it was in this place that he faced his biggest test; to forgive, or to take revenge.

Forgiveness goes against the grain. Forgivenes...

We all have hopes and dreams – and you know how it goes. They bubble away in our hearts, we do a lot of day–dreaming about our dreams, we paint the picture, imagine what it will be like when our dream is realised. And little by little things seem to be heading in the right direction, and then things take a turn for the worse. It’s in that moment, that I’d like to spend some time with you today, because those moments are as difficult as they come.

I was in one of those places recently, it was a ministry thing, a relationship we were working on with another ministry organisation. It’s something we’d put quite a lot of effort into and we’d hoped that it would go really well, and then on the mourning, I was preparing today’s message in fact, things took a turn for the worse.

The details aren’t important, but you should know that we all go through this from time to time. I certainly do and I know you’ve been there too, right? And we’re going to find ourselves in that moment again one day.

Over the last week on the program/ over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been taking a look at how to make sure that we don’t miss God’s opportunities. And we’ve been doing that by travelling a way along the path with young Joseph, the son of Jacob or Israel as he became known, in the Old Testament. Because Joseph had more than enough reasons to give up on God’s opportunities.

Love by his father, his brothers turned against him and plotted to kill him because he was dad’s favourite. Eventually they sold him into slavery, whence he was shipped to Egypt, sold to one of Pharaoh’s officials Potiphar and made a slave. He did well at that and Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his whole household, until Potiphar’s wife, who fancied young Joseph, wrongly accused him of making improper advances, so Joseph was thrown into jail.

He did well there too, so much so that the jailer put him in charge of the prison. And it’s here in prison that we pick up the story, because it’s here, languishing in an Egyptian jail that Joseph has one of those moments – a very long moment actually – where it appears that his opportunity of getting out of jail passes him by. Let’s have a listen to what happened –it comes from Genesis Chapter 40 in the Old Testament.

Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he waited on them; and they continued for some time in custody. One night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own meaning. When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers, who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”

So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms came out and the clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days; within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. But remember me when it is well with you; please do me the kindness to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this place. For in fact I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should have put me into the dungeon.”

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favourable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” And Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you! —and hang you on a pole; and the birds will eat the flesh from you.”

On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants, and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his cup–bearing, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand; but the chief baker he hanged, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Not only did the chief cupbearer forget him, it was actually another two years before he remembered Joseph and things started to happen. Two years is a long time even when you’re having fun. Two years in prison, is unimaginable. I can’t imagine spending one night in jail. But two more years in prison when you’re there because you’ve been wrongly accused, and because before that your brothers turned against you and sold you into slavery and shipped you to a foreign land … I mean, come on – put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. How do you feel?

Everything’s piling up against you. Your family’s turned against you. Your master has turned against you because his wife lied about you – she was the one with evil things in her heart, Joseph was the one who’d done the right thing – yet here he was in prison. And now … now you do this wretched cupbearer a favour, I mean God’s given you this amazing spiritual insight and gift of interpreting this dream – God’s here right? So let me ask you – would you be tempted to give up on God in those two years?

A Step of Faith

I have a confession to make, I hate heights. I remember once standing on top of a 30-metre tower when I was training to become an officer in the Australian Army – it was a water jump on an obstacle course. The idea was simple, climb the tower and jump into the water.

Thirty metres doesn’t sound an awful lot does it? I can cover one meter in a single step. Easy. 30 metres, not that much. I was a little nervous as I queued that day at the bottom of the tower, watching my mates climb up and jump. But as I headed up the tower, I became more and more fearful.

By the time I stood on top of the tower, looking down, I was completely petrified. This was so unnatural – I still remember looking down and my stomach was in a knot. All I wanted to do was run. I couldn't of course. Everybody else so far had taken the jump, apparently fearlessly. Pier group pressure was overwhelming … so I jumped.

The fall seemed to take forever. Of course, not a single person died that day or was injured that day. We all survived to tell the tale. Leaps of faith can be scary can’t they? And sometimes God comes along and gives us an opportunity that is just as scary. Perhaps you’ve felt a call in your heart to go and do something and the fear of failure has paralysed you.

Or maybe you’ve been hit over the head by failure so many times that you’ve started believing that failures is your default mode of operat...

Last week on the program we spent a bit of time travelling along the road with young Joseph, son of Jacob (or Israel as God called Him) way back in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. And it’s been an exciting journey of a young man who had big dreams for his life. Huge dreams – not born of himself, but given to Him, apparently by God.

Have another listen, as he tells his father and brothers about the amazing dream God’s given him:

Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 27:1–11)

When we give our lives to Jesus – and even sometimes before we do that – God puts dreams in our hearts, dreams that almost always seem to be crazy and impossible – that’s the point, right? If they were sane and possible, we wouldn’t need God to make them happen.

But whenever we have a powerful dream like that, something that some people refer to as their calling in life, adversity is always going to plunder that dream. It happened to Joseph that way, it’s happened to me that way and no doubt, it’s happened to you that way too. And when that dream is plundered by adversity, a bunch of people pull over by the side of the road and give up. A whole bunch of people who are passionate about Jesus, who love Him with all their heart even, have given up on their dreams, their calling, because the reality of adversity has screamed in their face, “Ya see, you were crazy! What were you thinking? Who do you think you are?” Am I right?

Well, we’ve seen so far in Joseph’s story, if you’ve been able to join me, that his brothers hated him so much, they conspired to kill him. They beat him up and threw him in a pit – that’s where young Joseph was when we left him last time. So let’s pick up on that story, because things go from bad to worse for this young dreamer.

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?” Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.” He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father bewailed him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. (Genesis 27:23–36)

I want you for a moment to put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. The story here is told much more from the perspective of his brothers and his father, but get into Joseph’s sandals for a minute and ask yourself, how does he feel in the pit? How does he feel when he’s hauled out, probably with his hands tied and sold BY HIS BROTHERS, by his own flesh and blood to a slave trader? How does he feel on the journey down to Egypt, walking chained to other slaves? How does he feel when he’s stood up in the marketplace, sold to an Egyptian official, this young Israelite, this young man who was his father’s favourite, this young man who’d lived in freedom and had had those dreams of greatness?

It’s difficult to imagine, isn’t it, that things could get any lower for young Joseph. Robbed of his freedom; robbed of his life; robbed of his future; robbed of his dreams. Have you ever been there? I have, and it’s a place I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. We’re not told what was going through his mind, but we can certainly imagine.

My point in sharing this story with you is this: none of what we’ve read about the devastating events in Joseph’s life, took God’s eyes off His goal; none of what’s happened to this point – terrible as it will have seemed to Joseph – has robbed him of his God–given dream. To the contrary, all these things – as we’re going to see soon – were necessary to make the dream happen. For without them, Joseph wouldn’t have ended up in Egypt, which is where all that had been in Joseph’s dreams would come to pass.

The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. That’s what this story is telling me – this story is not just about Joseph, but about how God brings His plans and purposes for Joseph’s life to come to pass.

Now it’s easy for you and me to sit here and say, sure, that’s fine for Joseph. But that’s not how it’s going to happen in my life, because me, I’ve got a plan for my life and guess what? I’m going to make it happen differently. I’m not going to travel through that sort of devastation. I’m going to go from dream to fulfilment in a few weeks, on easy street without any pain or diversions. I’m going to ….

Oh, really. Let me say it again. It’s as true for you and me as it was for Joseph. The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. Do you get it? Are you listening to God’s Word for you today? Are you letting it sink into your heart? Hmm?

I know that this is a bitter pill to swallow but just think about the powerful encouragement in this truth. Of the millions of people listening to this program around the world today, a bundle of you are travelling through adversity right now. Perhaps you’re travelling through adversity right now, and the dreams that you had in your heart, the things that you thought God was calling you to – seem...

I wonder if you can point to some seemingly small decision that you made along your life’s journey that had huge consequences? Or perhaps it was a seemingly chance encounter, or some small twist or turn – that changed your life?

When I ask people that question, they often answer no, I can’t think of anything like that. And my response is, you’re not thinking hard enough.

My father was Romanian. After WWII when Romania looked like falling into communist hands, his parents, his sister and he decided to get out of there. But where to flee. So they decided that they would apply to each Embassy in alphabetical order until one accepted them as immigrants.

Now, if you have a look at the alphabetical list of countries, it goes something like this: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Antigua, Argentina, Armenia and then … Australia.

The earlier ones rejected them. When they arrived at the Australian embassy, they went through the process and the official there said no. They left dejected. But as they were walking out and through the car park, that same official came running out to tell them that he’d changed his mind. They would be accepted and could emigrate to Australia.

And that … that’s why I’m an Australian, and not Afghani, Albanian, Algerian, Angolan, Armenian or anything else. That one small twist – years before I was born – has defined my whole life.

Decades later, I almost didn't go to the church service one Sunday, because I was sick and running a high temperature. But I felt I should go – that’s where I met my wife. She was visiting from interstate and that was the only morning I could have met her. It’s funny the twists and turns that life takes?

I know that if you think back, you’ll be able to see some amazing things that happened along your journey, that have completely changed how your life has turned out. Some people put it down to coincidence. Others to fate. Yet others to destiny. What do you put it down to?

Me, I believe … in fact, I know that I know, that it’s none of those, because the God who created us – you, me – has a plan for our lives. He has a plan for your life. He has a plan for my life. And along the way, He hands us opportunities and He expects us to take them and do something with them. Don’t believe me? Have a listen to how Jesus put it:

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back. ’ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us. ’ When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities. ’ Then the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘And you, rule over five cities. ’ Then the other came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow. ’ He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest. ’ He said to the bystanders, ‘Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds. ’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds! ’) ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence. ’”

The easiest thing in the world for us to do is to read this like a fairy tale. Heard this one so many times some of us, that it’s like water off a duck’s back. But let’s just remember who He was speaking these words to – the everyday man and woman in the street. Jews. A proud nation, God’s nation, who were farmers and peasants. Nobodies, when compared to the Roman empire, the power of Caesar. An occupied nation, oppressed, with little or no future.

And so along comes the Son of God and tells them a powerful story about the fact that God is handing them something – in the parable, it’s the pounds, the money – and He expects them to do something with it. What this story is about, is God handing His people, even the peasants, even the farmers, even those who live in an oppressed land, a substantial opportunity with the expectation that they will grab hold of it and do something with it.

Now – let’s take a moment you and I to apply that parable, that powerful story to our lives, the way the men and women who were listening to Jesus tell it, applied it to their lives. God comes to you, He hands you an opportunity – with the strongest of expectations that you’ll do something with it. How do you handle that opportunity?

Are you too busy to notice? Are you too busy to take hold of it? Is it perhaps an inconvenient opportunity? Do your circumstances perhaps tell you that you couldn’t possibly make a difference in this world, a little like those who were listening to Jesus on that Day? Or … do you grab it with both hands and throw your whole life into doing something with that opportunity? All too often, God’s opportunities come disguised as calamities, impossibilities … and yes, even sometimes, seemingly insignificant decisions. But what we do with God–given opportunities is going to impact the rest of our lives.

When we’re young, we have dreams for how we want our lives to turn out. Those dreams are all different in one sense, and all pretty much the same in another, in that they include some common elements. Most of us when we’re young, dream about being wealthy, famous, finding love. Some dream about having children. They’re what I call “happily ever after” dreams.

And in fact, we don’t just dream those dreams when we’re young. We continue with our daydreaming pretty much our whole lives. It’s when we stop dreaming big dreams, that we know that we’re plumbing the depths of human existence.

Whether we realise it or not, we’re all daydreamers. It’s part of what keeps hope going and hope, when the going’s not quite what we wish it was, hope is what keeps us going.

We’re chatting this week and over the coming few weeks about not missing out on God’s opportunities. Because He loves us, He has a plan for our lives. And time and again, He drops opportunities in along our path – opportunities that we can choose to pick up and run with, or ignore and bypass – something which many people do.

But often God places a dream in our hearts – a dream that He planted there when we were quite young. A dream that somehow He brings to fruition as we grow and mature.

When I was young, daydreaming wasn’t encouraged. “Daydreamer” was a detrimental label – that implied laziness. And yet I dreamed dreams. In my ...

The last time we talked about marriage and family on the program … last year I think it was … I had a number of requests from single people to talk about singleness. So today, as we chat about contentment again, I thought that that would be a great thing to do.Because there are some people who don’t want to be married. There are some people who were never meant to be married.

I was having dinner just the other night with a bunch of my classmates from the Royal Military College Duntroon.Now, we graduated from the college over 30 years ago, as officers in the Australian army, so it had been a while. One of the guys, a great bloke, salt of the earth, has never been married. He lives on a yacht on a marina, and works at one of the large, free to air TV stations.

Now, this guy is a live wire – he’s always been that and he always will be. Some would call him eccentric. He is totally content being who he is, being single and I doubt he will ever get married. Knowing him as I do, can I tell you, I think that’s the right choice for him.

No, I am not saying that everyone who’s single is slightly eccentric. It’s just one example. But I think sometimes the rest of us – the ones who are married – sometimes we think that people who have never been married and are never likely to be married are a little bit odd. But that’s not the case.

Some people are meant to be married and others aren’t. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 19, verses 9 to 11:

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery. So His disciples said to him, ‘Well if that’s the case, isn’t it better not to get married.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept that teaching, but only those to whom it is given’.

And so to me, when it comes to contentment and the decision to be married or single, that’s the key. Some can accept the idea of being single. They like the idea of remaining single, and so it’s an awesome choice for them. As we’ll see in a moment, it frees them up to get focussed on God’s work without any restrictions or limitations. The rest of us need to see that as a perfectly valid choice.

Others, like me, can’t accept that. I am not one to remain single. And so those people should seek out a wife or a husband as the case may be and get married. And again that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says, expounding a bit on what Jesus said. Let’s have a read, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 to 9:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman.’ But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of a command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another having a different kind. To the unmarried and to the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Some people might be surprised about the fact that the Bible is so direct about sexuality, but hey, our sexuality is a big part of who we are. And as we chatted about this the other day, we saw that God’s plan is not for us to fulfil our sexual needs in a casual relationship. Sex is an amazing gift from God … it was, after all, His idea … and so He knows that we are designed for physical intimacy to occur in an exclusive bond that we call marriage.

Not everyone has that need. Paul makes the point that he himself was single – I wish you all were as I am. Why? Because as a single person you can very easily go and serve the Lord wherever He may call. And that’s the key. Come back to it, God made me, God made you. He chose one life for me, he chose another life for you. We are all perfectly made to live the life that God’s chosen for us and that’s the life we should be living. Again, the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches.

I’ve been in churches where single people aren’t included in family barbecues, somehow they’re shunned. I’ve seen it, perhaps you’ve seen it too. And those of you who are single have no doubt experienced it. I’ve experienced it from the receiving end.

I was single and 36 years old, and often after church on Sundays, a few families would head off and go and have a BBQ together. And they wouldn’t think to invite me along – because I was single. I didn’t have a family at the time. That really hurts. Some churches have singles ministries – well, fair enough, but it’s almost as though we put singles over there in one corner and segregate them from families.

When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy, because if there’s one thing a single person needs, it’s other people around them. So I say to those who are single, if you are content being single, for goodness sake, stay single.

Singleness is not a disease. It’s something that God chooses for some people, and it’s a high calling indeed, as it was for the Apostle Paul. It can be an absolutely wonderful way to live your life. It can be a completely satisfying way to live your life. In fact the worst thing that a person can do who feels called to be single is to get married and I think that life would be just a nightmare.

But if you’re not content being single, then as Jesus says, the Apostle Paul says, for goodness sakes, get married so that you can be completely fulfilled. Do what God made you to do. Be who God made you to be. Live the life that the Lord has assigned, to which He has called you.

One of the most difficult things is the situation though where someone finds themselves single again, either through the death of a loved one, or through marriage breakdown and divorce. We don’t have time to go into the single–again situation fully today. But I promise that one day in the not too distant future we will do that.

But for the rest of us, we need to understand that those who were once married and now find themselves single again, they need our special love and care and understanding and support. People who have been divorced have typically been through a painful and bloody separation. It hurts terribly when this special, God–anointed relationship between husband and wife, which was meant to last a lifetime, is torn apart.

Is divorce a sin? Sure it is. But so are a lot of other things. And sin always hurts and special compassion is required to love someone through that.

Those who have lost their husband or wife too, they need our love and attention, particularly let me say, the widows, for whom God has a very special heart. Psalm 68, verse 5 said that the:

Father of the fatherless and the protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation.

So, if you know someone who is single again, for whatever reason, there is an opportunity … a great oppor...

In the days when I was studying at Bible-college, a good many years ago now, the principal of the college was a man by the name of Barry Chant, and I remember quite distinctly he came down to the common area where we all gathered before lectures, and he announced that today was exactly fifty years since he’d started following Jesus. Fifty years! And the more I came to know him, as a teacher, as a colleague ultimately, and as a trusted counsellor and friend, I realised how much his life had been impacted by fifty years of walking with Jesus. The man has a maturity and a wisdom that are quite remarkable.

I say that as a preface because I’m about to share with you something today that he shared with me all those years ago. We were studying in our various dreams of academia to become ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I recall one lecture where he talked about the three things that generally bring ministers unstuck. They’re really easy to remember because they all start with the letter G. Would you like to know what they are? ‘Girls, Gold and glory’. Pretty simple. Pretty powerful, and the more I think about it, those are the very same things that bring us unstuck in our search for contentment: Girls or (in the case of women) guys, gold, and glory.

I want to kick off with the first one of those today because unless we get this girls/guys thing under control, then we’re not going to be content. And the whole subject of the boy/girl, man/woman relationship and intimacy thing isn’t an easy one to talk about in this day and age without sounding a bit anachronistic, because attitudes and lifestyles have changed a lot.

See, these days, intimacy before marriage and indeed outside marriage is pretty much accepted in most societies as a fact of life. I think the current term is ‘Friends with benefits’, where people engage in casual sex to meet their physical needs without the emotional entanglement of an exclusive boy/girl relationship, and most couples who get married today have slept together before they get married.

I heard a statistic the other day that fully thirty percent of married Australian men have visited a prostitute, not to mention the office affairs, unfaithfulness and marriage breakdowns arising out of those extramarital affairs.

And as the world around us becomes more and more accepting of promiscuity as purely a lifestyle-choice, I start to find myself wondering: ‘Hang on a minute. Is it me that’s going crazy here? Am I the one who’s out-of-touch by believing that physical and sexual intimacy belongs inside a marriage, in this completely exclusive lifelong relationship between one man and one woman? Is the Biblical position on this still tenable in this day and age?’

Then I pinch myself, and I realise that what Jesus has to say is as applicable today as it was two thousand years ago because truth, His truth, is timeless, and this is what Jesus said when the religious leaders of the day came to ask Him about divorce. He said (Matthew 5:27-32):

You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body to go into hell. It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’, but I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife except for grounds of un-chastity causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

That seems pretty harsh, doesn’t it? Pretty tough and rigid. If Jesus were alive today, they’d probably call Him an extreme conservative: A fundamentalist, but there’s a reason that Jesus takes this apparently hard-line, and that reason is that God created us male and female, in order that those of us who so choose can live in a lifelong intimate marriage as husband and wife. Plain and simple. Again, here’s what He said, quoting this time the first book in the Bible – the book of Genesis (Matthew 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him and they asked Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’

And Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read that the One who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’. 

They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’

And He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you whoever divorces his wife, except for un-chastity, and marries another commits adultery’.

The point is that we were created to be husband and wife and when we try to mess with that, when we try to break that, it doesn’t work. Our physiological drive to reproduce is a very strong one: Stronger in some than others, to be sure, but a strong one nevertheless. It’s a gift from God, and it’s a gift that is satisfied completely in the context of marriage, as God has always planned.

You can’t be content chasing girls (or guys, as the case may be) outside marriage. It might seem fun at the time, and exciting and alluring – fabulous, but in the end, it leads to emptiness and to loss because sex without love is always empty. For me there is no one, there can never be anyone, as beautiful as my wife. She’s mine, and I’m hers. Exclusively. No exceptions; and in that, my friend, there is such great contentment. So, if you find your eye or your heart wandering, remember this: If you wander, you will never, ever be content … ever.

They say that love makes the world go round, but so far as I can see, it seems to be money these days that makes the world go round or at least, it certainly makes our economies tick over. In fact, it seems to me that economies, governments and people at large, ordinary punters like you and me, are addicted to conspicuous consumption to fuel our own personal growth and wealth and status and luxury and what other people think about us, not to mention fuelling the holy grail of a prosperous nation: Economic growth.

I really don’t think we even begin to realise how addicted many of us are to overconsumption: The next thing; the next dress; the next car; the next house, each one bigger and better and brighter and shinier than the last one.

Noam Chomsky, who I know some people consider to be a rabid left-wing critic, says something that really resonates with me, as I look dispassionately at the multi-trillion-dollar advertising industry that bombards me constantly with the exhortation to spend up big. He says this: ‘All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is a constant pressure to make people feel that they’re helpless – that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions, and to consume’.

Pretty much true, isn’t it? Advertising puts its finger on your feelings of inadequacy, in order to get you to purchase the thing that they say will make you feel adequate, even when that thing they’re selling us may not be all that good for us: Heart-healthy margarine when in fact, it’s more ...

Today we’re going to head off on a journey with the Apostle Paul that’s a bit of a mission impossible. Paul was a guy who, in the first century had persecuted Christians. That was, until he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. That meeting totally changed his life. To the point, where he went out and started sharing the Good News of Jesus with the rest of the world … a complete turnaround.

We’re going to pick up some of the story today as he recounts it to his friends in Corinth. Now, Corinth was a racy place, a busy city at the intersection of a couple of major trade routes from east to west. It was a city full of immorality and so even though there was a church there in Corinth, a large, thriving church, they were into a lot of stuff – reflective of the culture in which they lived, which was far from godly.

So the Apostle Paul wrote them a letter, we call it 1st Corinthians, these day’s it’s one of the books in the New Testament of the Bible. And it’s a pretty harsh document. A tough going over for the Corinthians.

But we’re going to pick up the story in the second letter that he wrote to them, 2nd Corinthians, because in it, he shares much of the story of his journey thus far. And I have to tell you, it was seriously a case of mission impossible, or so it seemed from a human perspective. Especially when it comes to experiencing contentment, which is what we’re talking about in this series of messages The Road to Contentment.

So, let’s join the apostle Paul. We’re going to read 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 from beginning to end. Paul writes:

Look, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we don’t lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we don’t proclaim ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But listen, we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it might be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So, death is at work in us, but life in you.

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture – ‘I believed, and so I spoke’ – we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we don’t lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look at not what we can see, but what we can’t see; for what we can see is temporary, but what we can’t see is eternal.

So, do you get the picture here? Paul and his ministry team weren’t having a particularly easy time of it, were they? That’s an understatement. They were doing it really tough.

When was the last time that you were feeling afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down? Paul is out there proclaiming the truth. He’s forsaken the shameful things, the sins of his past; he’s not proclaiming himself, he’s not building an empire for himself. He’s not building a reputation for himself. No. He’s proclaiming Christ. He’s doing all the right stuff. Out there on the road, telling people about Jesus and yet he’s facing this onslaught, this barrage of persecution to the point where he’s in fear for his very life.

So when all this happens, is he complaining about it the way that perhaps you and I might? Is he trying to wish it away? Is he trying to avoid it? Is he dreaming of a better, easier life?

None of those things. Instead, he downplays it all, calling it a momentary affliction. See discontentment is when we want our circumstances to change, so that things will be better for us so that then … this is what we think to ourselves … then we can be content.

But Paul is completely content. Completely. He wouldn’t change a thing. He’s out there getting about God’s business of winning souls, completely focussed on Jesus; completely focussed on what Jesus has called him to do. Completely. That’s the secret. Jesus is his contentment. The promise of what is to come is his contentment.

His body is being tried and tested on the outside, but on the inside he’s growing richer, more powerful in his faith, more content with what the Lord’s called him to do. My friend that’s the secret. That’s the answer. Paul is living his life … listen to this … in glad submission. I’ll say it again … in glad submission to Jesus. The moment we gladly give ourselves over to the Lord, we stop wishing that we could change this or change that, because those things cease to be important.

I can tell you from personal experience that in moments of selfishness and weakness, which we all have, contentment evaporates. But when I spend time with Jesus, when I get back to who He is and what He’s done and what He’s calling me to do, can I tell you, the rest of what’s going on, the things that I have to tolerate sometimes and suffer … they cease to matter. Contentment returns.

What are the nasty little sins that you’re hanging onto in your life? You know … you’ve given everything else over to God, except … except just this one.

It may be something like gossiping and complaining, something that’s evident to all. Or, it may be something that you do in secret – sexual immorality – that nobody except God and you can ever see. Whatever it is, there is no such thing as a small, insignificant sin.

If that one thing you’re holding back from God were the only sin in all of human history, Jesus would still have come to die for you, because the penalty for that one little insignificant sin is eternal separation from God. No sin is small to God. And as things turn out, no sin is too small for Satan either.

Because it gives him a foothold into your life. In fact, he doesn’t even need a foothold, just a toehold will do.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27 tells us that we shouldn’t make room for the devil. And there’s a reason for that.

When I was in the military studying tactics and strategy for war, one of the things they taught us was that if you were invading a piece of land from the sea, the first thing that you had to do was establish a beachhead. A small piece of land that you’d secure by putting your forces on the ground, so that you ...

So come on: On a scale of zero to ten, how content are you with your life? I have a strong suspicion that whilst there are a few outliers out there (a few people who are giving themselves a one or a two because they’re not content at all, and a few who are giving themselves a nine or ten), the vast majority are somewhere in the middle of that bell curve – somewhere between say a four and a seven I’m guessing.

Are you content with who you are, where you live, what you have, your job, your family, your future as you see it at the moment? Are you content or not? It’s worth pondering.

So, what is contentment? Is it a state of happiness or jubilation? I don’t think so. I trawled a bunch of dictionaries, but I failed to come up with a satisfactory definition. A state of happiness and satisfaction was the most common definition, with examples like: He found contentment in living a simple life in the country, or: The contentment of a comfortable retirement.

Of course, it’d be great if we were all able to live a simple life in the country and have a comfortable retirement, but that’s not a reality for the vast majority of people on the planet. The people who are bringing up children, and dealing with the struggles and the joys that all that entails; the people who are working in some fast-paced world with never, it seems, enough time to get everything done they should get to; the people who are struggling with their health; their wellbeing; with their safety … I’m thinking of the many people listening to today’s program in war-torn parts of Africa, from within refugee camps (where I know we have many listeners); I’m thinking of the person who’s just been diagnosed with cancer or just lost one of their children.

Life is a series of valleys and mountaintops, isn’t it, and my sense is that contentment is something we can have whether we’re on top of the highest mountain or in the depth of the darkest valley, I think. But it’s not just me, it’s the Bible; it’s God too. He has a lot to say about contentment as we step out into this series ‘The Road to Contentment’. It’s my job, and my great pleasure, to share with you what God has to say about contentment, so why don’t we kick it off with this Scripture? 1 Timothy 6:3-10:

Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that is in accordance with Godliness is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words. From these come envy and dissension and slander and base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that Godliness is a means of gain. Of course, there is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those, but those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

All too often I’ve heard Bible-teachers, or people who hold themselves out to be Bible-teachers, promise that following Jesus is going to involve wealth and riches. Can I tell you, if I started teaching that, I know that I personally would be far better-off financially because people seem to want to give lots of their hard-earned cash to people who scratch them where they itch; who tell them what they want to hear: That if you follow Jesus, you’re going to be blessed with this and with that … But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to refer to myself as a Bible-teacher because, my friend, because as you’ve just heard, that’s simply not what the Bible says. It’s what we’d like the Bible to say, but it’s simply not what it says.

What it does say, however, is this. Listen to it again, and let it sink in:

There is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those.

Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Let me say it again: According to the Bible, Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. It turns out that God places a very high value on this thing that we call contentment. I guess it’s kind of obvious that God wants you and me to be Godly: No one would be surprised by that now, would they? But contentment – did you realise that God wants you to be content, that He wants you to reap the great gain of the fruit of Godliness and contentment?

And that, in stark contrast to what the world offers. The riches of this world that are so … so seductive, all those baubles and trinkets – the things that go way, way above our basic needs of food and clothing and shelter: The things that God is saying to you and me which ultimately, if we chase after them as our main focus in life, will cause us to be pierced with many pains. It’s pretty strong language.

Think back to a time in your life when you’ve been content, just happy with who you are and what you have. Sure; it may not have been perfect, but inside, you had that warm feeling of contentment. Isn’t that something worth having? Isn’t that so much better than having the things that the world tells us are going to make us happy? You and I know that all those things are imposters, and yet we’re tempted to go chase after them anyway. We get our needs and our wants all mixed up, and our wants take over.

Now, I know this is a touchy area because we all have these desires and aspirations that go way beyond our basic needs, some of them really good desires and aspirations too, but there’s a line that we can cross over which robs us of contentment, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about over these coming weeks on the program. Why? Because God wants you to be content. He wants you to experience the warmth of Godliness combined with contentment; all we need to do is discover how.

I wonder sometimes whether we realise how deeply conditioned we are to desire the things we don’t have. Have you ever been puzzled by the tenth commandment out of the Ten Commandments? Let’s take a look at it as a bit of a refresher. Exodus 20:17. It says:

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.

What an odd commandment! Don’t steal; don’t murder; don’t lie … Hey, they all make sense. They’re about what we do, but this commandment doesn’t talk about what we do: It talks about what we think and feel. That word covet means to desire deeply. Why does God finish off the Ten Commandments with that one? Because He knows that desiring things we don’t have, and (as in the case of the neighbour’s wife) shouldn’t have, can lead us into things that’ll destroy us. Just let the weight of that truth sink in.

The wrong desires of our hearts are what lead to our destruction, and yet every time you turn the TV on, or open the newspaper or some glossy magazine or visit a website, or even go down to your local supermarket, you’re confronted with advertisements specifically designed to fuel your desire for something you don’t have. It’s so insidious; it’s so pervasive that we don’t even ...

It’s amazing here we are in another Christmas week with the whole year gone and we’re about to do that whole Christmas thing. A few years ago I was sharing a Christmas message in July with the church in Sydney. And we were singing some Christmas carols and we were having Christmas in July and after the service some people said to me, "You know, it felt really weird singing Christmas carols in the middle of the year."

It’s a bit funny isn’t it? We’re somehow conditioned to do the Christmas thing at Christmas time in December. In the same way that people who live in the Northern Hemisphere can’t conceive Australian’s like me having Christmas in the middle of summer. Sitting on a beach somewhere maybe eating prawns or having a BBQ while the snow coming down in the Northern Hemisphere.

Actually, it’s quite natural for us to have seasons and festivals. The whole festivals and traditions that surround the things that we do throughout the year, actually to turn out to be very, very important to society. Back in early civilisation sociologists tell us, that the whole issue of regular festivals created some stability, created a heartbeat and a cycle and a sense of celebration periodically which was quite important to the development of a society.

Well, what about Christmas? Let’s have a look at, just quickly, at the history of Christmas because it’s a strange history. The early church celebrated the death of Christ that’s Easter and the death of the martyrs of the church but not the birth of people and certainly not the birth of Jesus.

The first mention of a Christ’s mass on the Roman calendar was 336 AD. Almost well, three centuries after Christ was alive. And the reason that they had this thing called a Christ’s mass because there was a huge controversy raging in the church at the time over the nature of the person of Jesus. Was he truly God, that is God become man in the flesh or was he somehow a created being? And so the Christ’s mass was an argument against that heresy. It is was an urgency to proclaim the reality of the incarnation of God becoming man. And it spread right across the church by about the end of the fourth century.

So why did they pick December 25th? Was that Jesus’ birthday? Well, actually we don’t have any evidence to suggest that it was but there was ample evidence to suggest that it wasn’t because the story of Jesus birth says that there were shepherds out tending their flocks by night. Now of course December is the middle of winter and it would be very unlikely for the shepherds to have been out in the middle winter tending their flocks because generally in winter they bought the flocks into a central area within villages and they weren’t grazing out the pastures by night because it was just too cold. So the chances are that Jesus wasn’t born on 25th December.

Actually, the reason we have Christmas on 25th December is because it was a Roman winter solstice festival, a pagan festival. And Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire so they decided to transform this pagan festival which was about the sun, into a Christian festival about the Son.

So instead of suppressing this pagan festival what happened was it was transformed into a Christian festival. And there were many parallel European festivals in the middle of December. It was the end of the harvest season, people prepared special foods, they decorated their homes with greenery, there was gift giving. So by about the 1100’s this pagan festival and this social festival and the Christian thing converged and St Nicholas had become a symbol of gift-giving.

It wasn’t though until the Middle Ages that it was first called Christmas. And it’s popularity grew until the Reformation, until that time when Martin Luther stood up against some of the excesses that were happening in the Catholic church. And Christmas was then considered to be pagan. The non-religious elements were seen to be wrong so in the 1600’s Christmas was actually outlawed in both England and America.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that two more customs become popular, the Christmas tree and the sending of Christmas cards and of course by the 1900’s commerce and retail had taken over and Christmas became quite commercialised. So this celebration that we hold as sacred is really a conglomeration of pagan and cultural festivals, historically reinterpreted. And the Christian dimension is only there to the extent that it was required to argue against a heresy in the early church.

Well, so what? I mean 2000 years on, ok we celebrate this thing and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, primarily it’s about shopping it would seem. What does that whole incarnation thing mean to us today? Is it just a festival or does it have a meaning?

I suspect that in answering that question of what’s the relevance of the birth of Jesus today we have a problem or two. Let’s just think about it for a minute, here’s this baby and this baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem in a stable and laid in a manger. And the purpose ultimately of Jesus coming to the earth as a man was for Him to die on the cross, for Him to die and rise again so that our sins could be forgiven. That’s the theological answer.

But you know, Jesus actually spent 30 something years on this earth. He was a baby, he grew up, he became a man, he had a public ministry and then he went to the cross. I mean if the only reason for Jesus to come onto this earth was to die to pay for your sins and mine if that’s the only theological reason, why didn’t they just kill the baby? Why didn’t they just sacrifice the baby, why wasn’t that God’s plan? It certainly would have been more spectacular.

But no, no Jesus had a life. He grew up. We see a story about his birth, we see that circumcised when he was eight days old, we see him in the temple in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old. We know that he grew up as an apprentice carpenter working in Joseph’s carpenter shop and it wasn’t until he was in his early 30’s that he began his public ministry and then he had a three and half ministry before he was tried, crucified buried and rose again.

So there must be a little bit more to this whole thing of Jesus coming from God to be a man to live on this earth. John the apostle puts it this way:

The word became flesh. Jesus, God’s expression of his love became a human being.

That’s the one thing that Christians celebrate at Christmas time. The question is what does it mean? How does it impact? How is it relevant to you and to me?

To me, there are three key elements to this. I’d like to start, if you have a bible grab it, we’re going to have a look at Hebrews. That’s a book in the New Testament towards the end, Chapter 1:1-4. have a listen to what it says:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets. But in these last days he’s spoken to us by His Son whom he appointed heir of all things through whom he also created the worlds. Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he made purification for his sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having becoming as much superior to angels as the name as he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Isn’t it interesting? This book to the Hebrews to the Jews, it’s a letter about Jesus to the Jews begins by saying long, long ago...

Christmas Night is, I think, the most amazing night. You know we sing that song, "O holy night, the stars, the stars are shining", and you think of the shepherds and the angels and Mary and Joseph and that baby, Jesus, God in the flesh. Part of me wishes I were there. I wish I was there and could see it and be part of it, and yet there’s another part of me that’s glad I know Jesus the way He always intended me to know Him – that is through the presence of God, the Holy Spirit in me.

When we strip away all the rubbish of Christmas, and please; I don’t mean to denigrate the whole giving presents, families getting together, celebration, holiday – they are all good things. But there’s this dimension to Christmas which is a Santa Claus, which is trying to fool our kids into thinking that these presents were brought by a guy in a red suit and reindeer and down a chimney that we don’t have, and … you know … there’s that sort of big con thing, and all the big department stores, all the shops are on the bandwagon to make money and the whole success of Christmas is measured by the retail sales figures … Give me a break! That’s the part of Christmas that I think: Aren’t we missing the point here? When we strip away all of that rubbish, Christmas itself is the most wonderful of all celebrations.

But it’s struck me how often we skip over the beginning of the New Testament, the very first chapter, the first verses in the first chapter. It begins like this:

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David and the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac was the father of Jacob and Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.

And it just goes on, and it goes that Uzziah was the father of Jotham and Jotham was the father of Ahaz and on and on and on. And Eliud was the father of Eleazar, and I think, "Hang on a minute. If I was going to write the first chapter in the first book of the New Testament, which is about the story of the coming of the Saviour – of Jesus, would I have picked that?" I mean, excuse me, but it’s pretty boring, isn’t it? You and I look at it and we go, "Hang on. Why is it that You start the New Testament – this wonderful story about the coming of Your Son – with a long, tedious list of Perez and Zerah and Tamar and Hezron and … Why do You do that God?" I mean, when was the last time (if you happen to be a churchgoer) you went to church (you know how they have the Bible-reading before the guy or the woman get up and preach), when was the last time you heard someone read through a genealogy?

So here we have it. If we put Matthew and Jesus and Christ together, this is kind of what God I think is saying in this opening chapter. Here’s a gift from God – His anointed Saviour, Jesus, and that got me to thinking: Why a genealogy? What is God saying to us when He talks about Christmas through this long, tedious genealogy? It’s the bit that you and I want to rush over. When you get to a genealogy in the Bible, and there are a few of them throughout the Bible, I mean, I know I don’t tend to read them word for word. I say, "Ok. There’s a genealogy; are there any interesting people there that I know? Ok, let’s move on", but God chose a genealogy to open up the book of Matthew – the first book of the New Testament. What was He saying?

Genealogies, it turns out, were significant to the Jews. They were about the purity of lineage. There were three things that were important: Firstly, land and residency. They wanted to know that a Jew was a Jew; they wanted to know that this person had a right to be a resident and to own land. The second thing they needed to know was where there were priests involved because there were some people in the Jewish nation who were set aside to be priests, and their priestly authority came from their lineage (their heritage), and the third where it was really important was legal standing. Where there was a claim to royal succession, they wanted to know legally that a person was entitled to be the king if that’s what he claimed, and the public records were kept by the Sanhedrin, the sort of quasi-religious/secular ruling body, in the temple in Jerusalem.

So this isn’t just a boring list of names to the Jews, but this lineage is quite fascinating and there are three main characters in the lineage. It begins with Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Israelite nation. Halfway through, it talks about King David – the greatest king that Israel ever had, and then right at the end it comes to Jesus – the son of God. And in the case of Abraham and David, I believe what Matthew is doing is pointing back to the promises that God made to Abraham and David. We’re going to specifically go and have a look at those promises today. Let’s flick back and have a look at what God said to Abraham. If you have a Bible, open it at Genesis 12:1. This is what God said to Abraham:

The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse’.

And here’s the blessing in the tail of the blessing:

And in you, all families of the earth shall be blessed.

So, about 1,950 years before Jesus was born, God makes this initial blessing to Abraham – that in him, through his lineage, through his seed, all of the nations in the world will be blessed. Man! You know, Abraham was an old man. He was seventy-five when that promise happened; he didn’t have his first kid until he was a hundred years old. Here was this man: His heart was aching for the land that God had promised him and the son that God had promised him, and … he was just aching. And just a few pages on, if you go to Genesis 15:5, God brings Abraham outside and says:

’Look towards the heaven and count the stars if you’re able to count them.’ Then He said to Abraham, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And Abraham believed the LORD, and the LORD accounted that to him as righteousness.

What a beautiful picture! What a beautiful, tender encounter with God. Here’s this man Abraham who got a promise from God that he cannot begin to understand how it will be fulfilled, and he’s standing under the same sky, the same stars that were shining on that night two thousand years later in Bethlehem, and the Jews knew about that promise. It was the beginning of their belief in a Messiah, someone that God would send to set them free.

There was another key promise. Halfway through that genealogy in Matthew, he talks about King David who is part of Jesus’ lineage, and the crux of that promise happens in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. This is what it says:

 ‘When your days are fulfilled’ (says God to David) ‘And you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom’ (so here God is promising him a son; that son was Solomon). ‘He shall build a house for My name’ (which Solomon did; he built the temple, but have a listen to this) ‘And I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever’ and ever and ever – for all eternity. ‘I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to Me. When he commits iniquity’ (which Solomon did), ‘I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use’ (with blow...

Well it’s that the time of year again. Here we are just a few weeks out looking forward to Christmas. Again. Can you believe it? They just seem to roll around so quickly.

Well, what are we looking forward to when we look forward to Christmas? Maybe it’s a rest or a holiday. Maybe you’re looking forward to the family gathering or the presents or maybe there’s something more.

Looking forward to Christmas it’s kind of a funny thing. You know over the years as I’ve grown up we’re you’re a kid it’s different you look forward to the presents you look forward to the excitement you look forward to all that summer holidays stuff. But I guess for me as I’ve grown up and you’re in the workforce you don’t get the sorts of holidays you used to get when you were a kid at school.

To tell you the truth as I look forward to Christmas of course living in the southern hemisphere it’s summer for us. As I look forward to Christmas the biggest thing that my body looks forward to quite frankly is a rest. You know, just the ability to stop producing and stop doing and just have a time with my wife and my daughter and my family. Just to rest for a few weeks over that period.

Yet somehow in these weeks leading up to Christmas, we seem to race around and rack up bills on the credit cards busy preparing for what? My hunch is that we almost never stop and think what am I really looking forward to when it comes to Christmas?

Let’s be honest, I’m being honest with you. One of the biggest things I look forward to is that the notion of just having a rest. And that’s natural that, that’s ok. But I wonder in all the racing around, all the doing all the stuff that we’re involved in, I wonder whether sometimes it’s just not easy to miss what’s happening at Christmas to miss what God always intended should happen at Christmas.

That whole issue of what are we looking forward to it is as valid a question today as it was back 2000 years ago at the first Christmas. Let’s just step back in time for a minute and look at what was happening for the nation of Israel when they were approaching whether they knew it or not the very first Christmas. The 2000 years of the life of Israel leading up to the birth of Jesus so that’s beginning about 4000 years ago when God first spoke to Abraham the Father of the Israelite nation.

Well, that 2000 leading up to the birth of Christ... it was a real rollercoaster ride. They had some big ups and some big downs. They’d began their lives as a nation in slavery in Egypt and then God released them from that and took them to the desert under Moses leadership for 40 years. Then he took them into the promised land, the land of Israel where they had to fight to take possession of the land. And over the next several hundred years they had some real blessings and abundances as they lived their lives for God as they lived their lives as God had always intended them to live those lives.

As I said it was the land flowing milk and honey. It was a nation blessed they had some great Kings. They had some lousy Kings too. And over the coming centuries, God sent prophets to them. Men whose job it was to speak God’s will into the life of the nation of Israel. Often we think of a prophet as being someone who predicts the future and in part, the prophets did that but only about 5% of the prophetic writings are about predicting the future. The other 95% are about speaking God’s love and God’s warnings and God’s encouragement into the lives of His chosen people, the nation of Israel.

Sometimes what the prophets on behalf of God was really encouraging. Things like, look there is a big battle coming up but let God fight this battle for you. This is God’s battle, let him fight just stand and watch and see what He will do for you. That’s pretty encouraging stuff.

But sometimes, sometimes the prophets had some dire warnings. So often the Kings of Israel or the people or the priests strayed away from God. They married into the nations around them. They ended up worshipping idols, they ended up doing all sorts of things that just weren’t God’s will for them. And so God often sent messages through his prophets when the people had strayed from God to warm them, to call them back.

Those were very difficult and tough messages and some of them were messages of judgment. But as well as the real prophets, those that were genuinely appointed by God, speaking into the life of Israel, there were also some self-styled false prophets. They were saying everything is ok just hang loose enjoy life do you what feels good. In fact, we know that there were some false prophets when one of the greatest prophets Isaiah was prophesying God’s judgment to the nation of Israel because they were worshipping idols. These other prophets were saying "No, no, no everything’s fine." It’s a bit like today really.

Here we are in the West about 70% of people say they believe in God, a god of some sort and in this media generation that we have everyone and everything seems to be about talking at us. And some of them we know, we listen to that voice and they have a genuine ring about them. You listen, you think man I think God is talking to me through that person or through that voice and others, others laugh and chortle at what God’s saying. They look at God’s people and say what a bunch of losers. Look really the answers out here buy that new car, spend the money, get the career, go on the fantastic holiday

None of those things are bad, none of those things in themselves are bad, until they displace our first love. That beautiful relationship that God wants us to have with Him. So in a sense, even though the society was different and the times were different there is a strong parallel between what was going on in Israel way back then in those hundreds and thousands of years leading up to the birth of Jesus and what’s going on in our society today.

In about 596 or 597 BC there was a really ugly thing that happened. A number of the prophets had been prophesying to Israel saying look if you don’t get your act together here, if you don’t start living the life God wants you to lead, if you don’t start honouring God first and seeing that justice is done in the land and loving the people around you, there is a terrible judgment that is going to fall on you. And we know historically that in 596 or 597 BC that the Babylonians came and they took over Israel, they took over Jerusalem they razed Jerusalem l to the ground they destroyed the temple and they took Israelites into captivity for 70 years as slaves in Babylon.

And in a sense from that point onwards it was downhill all the way. The last King that reigned, reigned just at that point and after that there was no more King for Israel. So here was Israel God’s chosen people, God lived in the temple he was doing wonderful things for them but he called judgment down upon them. And after the Babylonians sure they came back into Judea and back into Jerusalem they rebuilt the temple but they were never under self-rule again except for a brief period.

The Babylonians were the world power and then the Persians and then the Ptolemites and the Seleucids from 597 BC right through to 167 BC what 400 something years, Israel was an occupied territory.

It was an occupied country out of the occupation, out of the pain out of the oppression, God has appointed a number of prophets to speak about a Messiah, a king someone who would come and bring freedom and peace. A messiah means literally God’s anointed one. The kings of Israel were referred to as messiahs they were God’s anointed ruler.

And so the prophets time and time again were...

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when a seed falls to the ground and dies, ultimately it sprouts and takes root.

And if it was the seed of a plum tree – we can be pretty certain that the thing that’s growing there is going to one day produce – not apricots, not apples, not pears…..we all know, it’s going to produce plums.

Because it’s a plum tree that’s taken root. In fact, the root produces the fruit.

It’s just one of those basic facts of life that actually we don’t have to think about. The root determines the fruit.

And it’s a bit like that in our hearts. IF our hearts take root in goodness then we’ll produce good fruit. In bad things and we’ll produce bad fruit.

In sweet things and we’ll produce sweet fruit. In bitter things – and we’ll produce bitter things.

This is not rocket science – right?

This week on the program….Want to take a look at the phenomenon of anger in our society and in our lives.

Anger is a real phenomenon in the hearts of so many people. Pressure building up in life – people explode.

Like a pressure cooker – vent the steam otherwise it blows up. It's the same with people – so many people venting their anger – epidemic proportions.

• Road rage
• Supermarket rage
• Call centre rage

In fact, this weeks program is prompted by a real-life experience.

Stan the painter. He was doing some work at our little terrace house. Painting a few walls – at the same time, he was doing a big job in one of the wealthiest streets in the country.

Huge mansion – special paint $1,000 a tin – unbelievable – houses in the street worth $15-$25 million – mega wealthy. Lots of people having building work done in that street – narrow street – yet great views, massive mansions…unbelievable

Been working there for a few weeks now – and he was telling me – "You wouldn’t believe the strife between the neighbours – house I’m working on – 70 year old woman – hasn’t talked with her neighbour for 20 years. Argument over some building work.

All the neighbours are fighting… the woman I’m working for – done some work before – but now she’s so mean and nasty and swears."

Stand back from that – unbelievable… these people have everything in life – nothing they can’t buy or have or own really… everything their heart desires

Yet there’s – well a spirit of anger and bitterness and dissension…

Makes you wonder – what’s going on here. We, like Stan and his brother Douk – two Greek painters, lovely people do a great job. Honest as the day is long – wonderful men.

How can this woman be so nasty to them?

Anger and bitterness has taken root in her heart. That’s why. You let things get to you and get angry with people over and over and over again – like bitterness takes root in your heart. The root produces the fruit.

God actually talks a lot about anger – you know it’s a word that pops up 375 times in the Bible – makes it one of the leading subjects.

Anger is something that we all have to deal with – and it springs up, out of a root of bitterness.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in the NT – puts it like this:

Hebrews 12:14-15.

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated

See – there it is – the root produces the fruit.

The root of bitterness takes hold in our hearts… it springs up and causes trouble and contaminates everyone around us.

We all have a problem with anger some days – some more than others… the longer we let it go on, the more it takes hold and produces bitterness – and a bitter root produces bitter fruit.

A root – is something we cultivate and if we don’t want it to keep growing – have to stop feeding it.

Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. (Ephesians 4:26)

We all get angry from time to time – that’s not the sin – the sin is letting the sun go down on your anger – keeping it in your heart, brooding, planning revenge, going over it and over it and over it and over it…

The right way of handling it is just – get over it. Forgive and move on. Then, then we won’t be cultivating the root of bitterness which – sure as God made little green apples – will produce fruit of bitterness.

Not something we can do on our own though – I believe we need an antidote to this venom… something that heals and cleanses and just gives us a fresh perspective – let’s go back to that earlier quote….

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated.

Let’s get down to practicalities… dealing with anger, dealing with that rising temper. When someone provokes us – you know they do something and you can feel your blood boiling and you go all red in the face… right at that moment, it’s so easy to spit out something venomous – words that we can’t take back. Words that damage a relationship. People even throw something – do something…

Sometimes, when we’re provoked, we can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to responding. Let me share a story with you:

I remember once as a consultant – some years back now - used to run an IT consulting group

I was being mucked around by a large and important client of a particular ethnic heritage…..dealing with them for months to try to kick off a project – meant a lot of money – large, global organisation. After months of investing time and effort with the management… they pulled the plug on the project.

Received an e-mail from one of the consultants working with me – info about the client – explaining that the organisation had decided not to go ahead. I blew my stack – sitting in my office reading the e-mail – couldn’t believe that they’d wasted so much of our time and resources – not fair – losing so much revenue.

I had a few choice sentiments that I almost expressed in reply to that e-mail to my fellow consultant – even typed an angry e-mail… just about to send it I thought better of it and sent a benign e-mail instead.

Just as well, I hit the “Reply to All” button and the e-mail ended up with the client as well as my colleague!!! Gulp.

Can you imagine – my thoughts of anger included some pretty vitriolic stuff about their ethnicity too.

Berni – why are you sharing this with us? Simple – we all go through this sort of thing – day by day. People, organisations, circumstances drive ...

As you can imagine, I get a lot of emails from people who listen to this program and many, many times, they’re struggling with something in their lives. One man the other day emailed me and he was struggling about a lie that he’d told a few years back, and in his heart of hearts he didn’t know whether God would ever forgive him.

Another woman recently wrote to me about one of her children who’d gone seriously off the rails. People going through a marriage breakdown, people going through a divorce. People struggling to be accepted in their church. People who have lost their jobs. There are so many issues that we face in life, and I guess sitting where I sit, I get to see a pretty comprehensive cross-section of those.

And it doesn’t seem to matter where people live, in a wealthy country, in a poor country; east or west; north or south – the issues are pretty much the same.

I even had an email from a woman living on the streets who’d sold her body into prostitution just to be able to afford to buy food. Despite all the growing affluence and all the things that you and I can buy with our hard-earned money. She’s a tough old world out there. Real people struggling with real things.

And into all of that, walks Jesus. How relevant is He really? How much of a difference is He really making? Believe it or not, that’s something I often ask of myself, because by sharing the Word of God with you and many others who listen, if it ain’t making a real difference, if it’s not giving real answers, if it’s not touching people’s hearts with the powerful love of God, then frankly, I’m wasting my time.

So how relevant is Jesus to you? How much of a difference is He making in your life? Because Jesus went to extraordinary lengths to bring the Kingdom of God near to you. And that’s what I want to spend a few minutes focussing on today. The extraordinary lengths that Jesus went to, to purchase for you entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, which begins by the way, down here on earth. Because it’s once we understand the passion in the Lord’s heart to do all that’s required for us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, that it starts to make a real difference in our lives.

Of course, neither you or I can ever enter the Kingdom of God of our own right. We’ve all sinned; we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God and the outcome, or the wages of our sin, is certain death. That’s the whole point of Jesus dying for you and me on the cross.

There He hung, beaten, nailed to that wood, gasping for air, in agony, dying … because God is a just God. Justice had to be done. But the dilemma for God is that He is also a loving God. So how does He reconcile justice and love? His justice and His love? Well, He does it by allowing Jesus to take my punishment and your punishment in this brutal way.

The other day, I read a tweet from a great guy called Peter Pelt (he’s a pastor) and he asked this question, quite simply: "Would you die for someone else?’" Tough question to answer isn’t it? And I suspect that had I been facing such a brutal Roman execution, you’d have had to drag me there to the cross kicking and screaming. Why would you possibly die for a bunch of people you didn’t even know? And yet for Jesus, it was the obvious thing to do. John chapter 10, verses 17 and 18:

For this reason my Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

Jesus gave His life for you and for me willingly. He always knew He’d have to, and He died for you and me so that we could enter the Kingdom of heaven here on earth, and for all eternity. And the only way to enter into His kingdom is through faith in Jesus and for what He did for us on that cross and through that empty tomb.

God loved the world so much that He gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in him won’t perish, but will have eternal life. (John 3:16)

And for this reason, in order to save you and me, Jesus went willingly to the Cross. He gave up His life so that the Kingdom of Heaven would break out in my heart, in your heart, in our hearts, and take us through to spend eternity with Him.

That’s the powerful Gospel. That’s the powerful good news of Jesus Christ. It’s available to you, it’s available to me, and it’s available to anybody who would put their trust in what Jesus did for them on that cross. That He paid the full price of our sin, so that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven by faith, through God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

The question is, does that make a difference to your life today? Does the power of God’s love break through the difficult circumstances that you’re facing today, and bring joy and peace and confidence to your heart today?

I remember a time when I was completely alone on this earth. The people who should have stood by me had deserted me. I think there’s nothing worse than being completely alone. Nobody to call. Nobody who cares. Nobody who understands. Nobody to deeply connect with, soul to soul. It’s a dark place, I have to tell you. I’d never seen such darkness before, and I’ve never seen such darkness since. Inky, black darkness. Alone.

And it’s in that darkness my friend that the light of the love of Jesus Christ shines so brightly. It’s when fear and loneliness and anxiety and pain are washing through you and over you. And you feel like you’re drowning in a tsunami, that Jesus reaches down into that pit. For God so loved you, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that if you should believe in Him, you won’t perish, but you’ll have eternal life.

My friend, that is the good news! And that good news is for you. The old rugged cross is for you. God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ is for you. His love, His presence, His comfort is for you.

The kingdom of God … is for you.

The Kingdom of God is many things … it’s multi–faceted. And one of the things that God’s Kingdom is, is a place of shelter and safety and comfort and love that can never be overrun by the cares of this world. It can never be overrun by the hatred and the sin of others and it can certainly never be overrun by the devil and his legions.

Why is that important? Because when we’re travelling through those dark places in life that we all travel through when we’re feeling alone or unappreciated or under attack, we need to know that the Kingdom of God is like a fortress that we can run into. Romans chapter 8, verses 31 to 39:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through ...

For the last couple of weeks on the program, we’ve been taking a look at what exactly it means to become a kingdom builder on this earth. You see, I’m convinced that God has a plan for your life, just as He has a plan for my life, and I strongly suspect the main focus of that plan is not to make ourselves wealthy and comfortable. I strongly suspect that God’s plan for me and His plan for you is not that we should get out there and build our own little empires, but rather, to roll our sleeves up and be about the business of building His kingdom.

See, our empires, man-made empires are so vastly, profoundly different to God’s kingdom. We want to build things that we can see: A business; a reputation; success, that’s an empire. God wants to build a spiritual kingdom on this earth, that involves winning over the hearts of men and women and children with His love, through Jesus His Son. And I think that in this age of affluence and wealth, whether we’re partakers of that affluence and wealth or whether we simply aspire to it, it’s all too easy to get these two confused.

Of course, there’s nothing new in that. People had it all confused back in Jesus’ day too. Jesus was out there talking about the kingdom of God coming, and the religious leaders who just quietly had been feathering their own little nests, making themselves wealthy and powerful at the expense of God’s people, well when they heard Jesus talking about the kingdom of God, the picture they had in their heads was the picture of a worldly empire: Their own despotic little empires; the empire of Rome, that was their world-view, and so this is what happened. Luke 17:20-21:

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and He answered: ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look, here it is’ or ‘There it is’, for in fact, the kingdom of God is within you’.

In other words, this is not a physical kingdom – a worldly empire like the Roman empire, which was at the forefront of people’s minds back then, but the kingdom of God is something else entirely. The kingdom of God lives in our hearts. It’s the relationship we have with Jesus. It’s all about the glad submission of our hearts to the will, and to the rule, and to the plan of God.

And so that brings us back to the question that I asked a few minutes ago: Why are you on this earth? What’s the purpose that God has in mind for you? There are many who don’t have answers to those questions. Maybe you’re one of them.

I want to introduce you to a couple of men, one young and one not-so-young, that God’s brought across my path recently. Let’s start with the not-so-young man. He’s in his early fifties, very much in the prime of his life; he’s about to build a new house and he’s very successful in his chosen field; works for a large, corporate organisation. I was asked to speak at a men’s breakfast at his church not so long ago. The organiser of the men’s breakfast was really disappointed that not as many people turned up as he’d expected. I smiled, because you know, I never worry about numbers; they belong to God. I had a sense that morning that God had something to do in people’s lives.

It turns out that the theme that I was led to speak about, Psalm 139 (all about God’s purpose for our lives), really touched this man. It brought something to the surface that had been there for a while: God stirred him up. Despite all his apparent success, and by the way he’s also an elder in a very large and prominent church, this man had a feeling deep inside that God has something else for him: Some plan, some purpose, that hasn’t quite yet been revealed. I’m catching up with him shortly for a cup of coffee to talk about it.

The second man, a younger man, a very successful author and speaker. He travels all over the world as a speaker and gets paid a bundle of money just to show up. Often you see him on the news at night on TV, being interviewed about this and that. He’s the emerging go-to guy in the media whenever something in his particular area of expertise pops up.

I mean, this young guy has the world at his feet. He has talents and abilities that I will never have. He felt to seek me out after we met at a conference, and ask me if I could spend a little time each month mentoring him. Now the guy is full on for Jesus. He’s successful, everything’s going really well, and yet again something inside, prompted by the Spirit, told him there has to be more. As I sat having coffee with him, I know in my heart of hearts that God has the most amazing plan for this young man’s life, beyond anything that he can even imagine right now. Two men in the space of a couple of months come across my path, and just at a time when God was prompting me to write about becoming a kingdom builder. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I don’t believe in coincidences anymore.

I remember almost twenty years ago when I’d given my life to the Lord, and it was the same pattern. My worldly empire was pretty successful, but my heart yearned for something. I couldn’t put my finger on it back then. I couldn’t have said to you: ‘You know, I think the Holy Spirit was starting to get me to step out on this journey to discover God’s call on my life’, but that’s exactly what it was, and I know that as I speak about this right now there are many, many people quietly nodding their heads. I know that God is touching people (maybe you) with this same realisation that no matter your circumstances, your age, what’s going on in your life, He has more for you.

It may not be a change of job or career. For most people it isn’t. Maybe it does involve that; I don’t know, but if your heart longs to follow Jesus, if deep in your heart you want to be a kingdom builder (not just an empire builder) then perhaps, perhaps today’s a turning-point. Maybe today God’s speaking to you. Maybe today is the start of something new.

The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, it’s a strange concept to you and me. You know, I’ve read a lot of my Bible, particularly the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). It’s only in the gospel of Matthew that you find the term ‘The kingdom of heaven’ used. Mark, Luke and John record only that Jesus talked about the kingdom of God. At various times Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven being here, and at other times as something that’s way off there in the future. Sometimes it’s something we enter into now; sometimes it’s something that we have to wait to enter into. It’s this idea of here already, but not quite. Have a listen to Matthew 3:2:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Matthew 5:3:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then at other times, He talks about the kingdom of heaven as being something in the future. Matthew 7:21:

Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 8:11:

I tell you, many will come from east and west, and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But this whole kingdom-of-heaven/kingdom-of-God thing was and is a big deal for Jesus. Those two terms together are mentioned ninety-eight times in the New Testament, mostly by Jesus,...

In the natural, you and I are programmed to be empire builders aren’t we? We’re constantly thinking about furthering our own interests in our little corner of the planet … in a sense, building our own despotic little empires. It’s just the way we’ve been programmed. And yet Jesus – topsy–turvy Lord and Saviour that He is – calls us to turn that whole self-interest thing completely on its head, Matthew 16:24:

Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

That’s easy for Him to say; it’s a lot harder for you and me to do by living it out in our lives, right? So how do you live it out? The reason I ask that question is that anybody who’s ever followed Jesus knows that feeling when you’ve tried and tried and tried and tried … and yet still you fail. Still you find yourself pulling up short. Still you see the selfishness or the arrogance or the insecurity or the faithlessness that you wish wasn’t there rearing its ugly head in your life.

You want to be a Kingdom Builder, and yet you realise that really, you’re just trying to build your own empire. Ever been there? Yep – me too. So … what’s the answer. Well Jesus has the answer, and it goes much deeper than you and I might think, Luke 6:43–45:

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of their heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

In other words if you and I truly want to take up our cross and follow Jesus, if we really, really want to become Kingdom builders rather than our own despotic little emperors, it’s a matter of the heart. Good things and bad things, all that we do, begin in the heart. Jesus also pointed out that murder begins in the … heart, right? (Matthew 5:21–26). So what you and I need is a change of heart, not a change of actions.

Come on, you and I know that we can do anything if first, it begins as a work in our hearts. Problem is, there are some things deep down inside that you and I simply cannot do. There are some major works required in our hearts, that only the Holy Spirit can do. So to answer this question – how can we become kingdom builders rather than empire builders, we’re going to go to a man who had a right heart and see what it was about his heart that enabled him to build the Kingdom of God, rather than his own personal empire.

Now this man – David – ultimately became the greatest King that Israel ever had. So if anybody could have been an empire builder, it could have been him right? And yet he was more interested in building God’s Kingdom than His empire. Here’s why – a thousand or so years after the life and reign of David, Luke the Apostle is writing the book of Acts and this is what he writes under the power and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Acts 13:22:

When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’

Do you see? The heart comes first then the actions. David was a man after God’s very own heart and as a result, he was a man who would carry out all God’s wishes. Now the great thing about choosing David to talk about being a Kingdom builder is this: David was a terrible sinner. He was an adulterer, a murderer, a bandit and marauder. He had times when he was faithless in his life – causing huge punishment to fall on the nation of Israel. In fact, he did things that you or I would never dream of doing.

In other words he was a sinner just like you and me, only much, much worse than us. And the point of God calling HIM a man after His own heart is that God knows we’re not perfect, He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but He wants our hearts to beat as one with His.

Over the last little while I’ve been reading through the books of 1 and 2 Samuel in the Old Testament in my personal devotion times. Now of course, as always, certain passages leapt out and I highlighted them, thought about them, prayed over them, as you do when you’re reading God’s Word. But the biggest thing that struck me was the big sweep of the story of God and David. I think sometimes it’s easy to miss that.

We read this verse, or that verse, this chapter or that chapter – it’s as though we chop up God’s Word and we miss the huge story of God’s love and salvation. You know what I mean? So it’s a great thing sometimes just to read the Bible as a story, and ask, what’s the whole story telling me here?

And the thing that this story showed me is what it was about David that made him a man after God’s own heart. What was it about his heart this mighty warrior, this sinner – despite all his failings – that made him a man after God’s own heart?

And here’s the answer: time and time again David showed through his actions that he considered the nation of Israel to be God’s Kingdom and not his empire. Israel wasn’t his, it was God’s.

Over and over again, David showed respect for authority even when that authority was murderous and despotic, he forgave those who persecuted him, he honoured those who were nothing. As I read about those things, I could see the heart of God beating in and through David’s attitudes and actions. And as tough a life as David had, I found myself praying – God, make some of those changes in my heart too. And let me tell you, there’s power in a prayer like that.

Friend, you and I can’t produce good actions out of a bad heart. When there’s arrogance, selfishness and pride dwelling in our hearts, in a little room there that we’ve locked up tight to keep God out, then there’s no way that we can have the God–given security to honour authority that God has set over us even when we don’t agree.

When we hand everything over to God, except just this one little thing, let me tell you, that one little thing is going to ruin our lives. That one little thing is going to be the devil’s foothold; his beachhead from which he’ll plunder our whole lives; our effectiveness in ministry. Because let me tell you something, the devil definitely wants to keep you and me in our natural, sinful state.

What does the Bible say? Ephesians 4:27:

Do not make room for the devil.

Romans 13:14:

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

If in your heart of hearts you want to be used of God to be a part of building His Kingdom rather than your own empire then that thing that you’re hanging onto that you know is wrong, the one thing that you’ve locked away tight and kept from God, needs to be handed over to Him. I know you’re never going to be perfect; so does God. But wilful rebellion in your heart, will rob you of your role as a builder of God’s Kingdom.

There’s nothing surer than that. 2 Timothy 2:20,21:

In a large house there are utensils not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for special use, some for ordinary. All who cleanse themselves of the things I have mentioned will become special utensils, dedicated and useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good...

The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, these are terms that Christians wave around rather a lot, and I guess in one sense they’re entirely self-explanatory, and yet in another, I wonder sometimes whether I and others really, really get it. Here’s why

You and I are by and large programmed to be empire-builders. In other words, we’re programmed to look after our own self-interest: Our needs, our wants, our reputation, our influence, our comforts, our dreams. From birth, we’re taught how to become self-reliant, and for 20 years working as a consultant in (I guess) a few hundred organisations round the world, I dealt with many, many senior managers and leaders – thousands of them.

My observation is that 95% or more were empire builders. They were interested in building their networks, their control, their influence, to achieve their ends. Most organisations had a high degree of conflict, and that’s often why I was called in – to navigate the political minefield, so that the boss could get done what he or she wanted to get done.

And very sadly, can I tell you, over the past almost 20 years now since I became a Christian, the vast majority of churches that I’ve encountered aren’t a lot different. There are factions jockeying for control, there are church-splits, there are many people who are hurt by leaders, abused even. Sadly, many-a church is full of empire builders, rather than kingdom builders.

Am I saying that all churches are bad? Of course not, but they’re full of imperfect people like you and me, and one of the ways in which our sin manifests itself (I know; sin’s a stark word, a harsh word, but hey; it’s the right word) … One of the ways that we sin within the family of God is to be a control-freak. We become all tribal; we form teams; we compete against one another. That team has a different theology to our team; that team belongs to a different denomination to our team; that team … You’ve seen it, right? We have to criticise. We have to separate. We have to … well, we have to win, right?

So, today on the program, we’re kicking off a series of messages that’s all about Becoming a Kingdom Builder, rather than an empire-builder. It’s not for the fainthearted. This series is for those who know that they’re imperfect, but those whose heart it is to see more and more and more people around them, and around the world, experience the love and the grace and the mercy and the peace and the power of God, that can only be found in an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

This series is only for those who want to nail their sin, their empire building, to the cross and discover a new way to live: A new focus, a new priority. It’s for those who want to become kingdom builders, rather than empire builders. So, if that’s not you, I suggest go make a cup of tea or coffee and find something else to do for the next 6 or 7 minutes, and then come back to the radio.

So what’s the difference between the kingdom of God, and the empires of this world that we’re so deeply programmed to be part of? Well, that’s by no means a new question. It’s a question that arose about two thousand years ago, when Jesus started talking about the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven – two terms which, by the way, I take to mean pretty much the same thing.

When Jesus first started talking about the kingdom of God, He had a lot of explaining to do because back in those days, a kingdom was a very specific thing, and it was all about power and control and land and wealth. Nations were by and large ruled by kings, and those kings often went to war over land and wealth and power.

In Jesus’ day, Israel and much of the then-known world was ruled by the Roman empire. Their king was the emperor, and it was a brutal form of rule. Insurrection and rebellions simply were brutally crushed, and yet Jesus came out and said He was here to introduce the kingdom of heaven. Have a listen to this exchange between Jesus and some of the religious leaders of the day. Luke 17:20-21:

Once, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and He answered: ‘The kingdom of God isn’t coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look, here it is’ or ‘There it is’, for in fact, the kingdom of God is within you’.

In other words, this is not a physical kingdom – a worldly empire like the Roman empire, which was at the front of everybody’s mind, but the kingdom of God is something else entirely. The kingdom of God lives in our hearts. It’s not a bunch of chariots and warriors coming over the hill to take the citadel of Jerusalem by storm; it’s a battle that’s fought and won; it’s peace that endures in the hearts of men and women, and children.

What’s a kingdom? Well, plain and simple: It’s the place where a king rules. It’s a place where what the king says goes. It’s a place where the king’s subjects submit to the will of the king. See, back then, kings had absolute power of life and death over their subjects, and the people who were listening to Jesus had one particular kingdom in mind. Well, it wasn’t actually a kingdom; it was an empire – the Roman empire, answerable only to the self-declared deity of the Roman emperor.

No wonder they were confused, and that confusion goes on still today. We are constantly confusing God’s kingdom with human empires. See, we’re all programmed to build and look after our own personal little empires. Laying them down; taking up our cross; following Jesus … well, that’s a totally unnatural act, right? The apostle Paul put it this way. Romans 14:17:

For the kingdom of God is neither food nor drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

In other words, the kingdom of God isn’t something physical. It’s not a bunch of religious rules. It’s not about things that we can see and touch, as much as it is about the stuff that God is doing in our hearts, and the battle that God wants to win in our hearts (yours and mine) is the battle of our will. John Piper, in his book The Supremacy of God in Preaching, says this: ‘Therefore the goal of preaching is the glory of God, reflected in the glad submission of the human heart’. The kingdom of God is alive and well in the hearts of all those people who worship Jesus, and whose hearts ache to obey Him. The Word says that we express our love for God through obedience, much in the same way that a man and a woman express their love for each other through fidelity. 1 John 5:3:

For the love of God is this: That we obey His commandments.

Empire builders, like the Roman emperor of Jesus’ day, they’re interested in furthering their own interests and power and control. Kingdom builders are interested in laying down their own interests, so that others around them might experience the righteousness and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit that only comes through faith in, and a personal relationship with, Jesus. Empire builders and kingdom builders are two profoundly different kinds of people. Kingdom builders are about sacrificing their interests in order to further God’s interests. The life of an empire builder is totally, totally different to the life of a kingdom builder.

So, let me ask you something: Come on, which one are you? Are you an empire builder or a kingdom builder? Are you someone who’s much more interested in building their own circle of influence and control than laying down what you want, in order to build the kingdom of God? And, ...

Today on the program we’re continuing in our series called, “The problem with church is …” As God calls us into His family, as we become one of His children, what we discover is, we have brothers and sisters in Christ, people who are our family, our brothers and sisters. Now being part of a family can be difficult. Being part of a family can, frankly, be a pain in the neck, some days, but it’s part of God’s plan. Part of God’s plan is that we should be together as His family. That plan we call ‘church’. For some people, that sends a shiver down their spine. But it is a part of God’s plan, and if it is God’s plan, then I truly believe that we are meant to flourish when we are planted in the House of the Lord.

One of the reasons that we don’t flourish sometimes, is that we get tied up in ‘doing’ a whole bunch of things that never actually impact people. I’m a great fan of the British comedy series – I don’t know if you have ever watched it – called, “Yes Minister” and ”Yes Prime Minister”. One of the funniest series that has ever been on television since television was invented, and a senior public servant, by the name of Sir Humphrey Appleby, says to a junior public servant, called Bernard, he says, “Remember, Bernard, politicians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.” That’s a fantastic line, isn’t it?

Activity is their substitute for achievement – can I maybe twist that line around a little bit and say, “Remember, Bernard, Christians love activity, it’s their substitute for achievement.”

What can happen in God’s family, in God’s church, is that we all race around doing different things, and being busy, and being involved in this and that and the other, and we think, “wow, we’ve done a good job”. But the only real measure, the only true measure of the effectiveness of a church is eternal results.

Have you ever been on a sporting team that always loses? I have! When I was in the Army, a Cadet in the Royal Military College, Duntroon, our Officer Training Academy, I was a part of the bottom rung of football, and we didn‘t win one game the whole season. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s sleeting, it hurts, to be tackled, it’s muddy, it’s dirty, you don’t win a single game. Let me tell you, it is not a lot of fun being part of a losing team. Yet a lot of Christians are exactly that in their churches.

Are we actually involved in the business of winning, maturing and discipling souls for Jesus Christ? Are the nets of our church straining under the weight of the catch, or are we just a dysfunctional family, going nowhere? Has activity become our substitute for achievement? Has activity become my substitute for achievement? Because Jesus said to His disciples, “I am going to make you fishers of men.” If you’ve got a Bible, grab it, open it up at John, Chapter 21. The other place we’re going today is Luke Chapter 4 and 5 but we’re going to begin in John, Chapter 21. The picture here is, Jesus has been crucified, He has risen again. This is the third time that Jesus appears to His disciples. They are out fishing. They have gone from Jerusalem, about 120 kilometres north, back to Galilee, they are on the Sea of Tiberius, and they’re out fishing. They have been out fishing all night, and no catch, and a man calls out from the shore and says, ”Throw out the nets on the other side,” and all of a sudden, they recognise that. They recognise that because it reminds them of something. Let’s have a quick read of this passage in John Chapter 21:1–8.

After these things, Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, and He showed Himself in this way. Gathered together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Canaan in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two others of His disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I’m going fishing,” they said, “Well, we’ll come with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught absolutely nothing. Just after day break, Jesus stood on the beach but the disciples didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Guys, why haven’t you got any fish? And they answered Him, “We didn’t catch any.” and He said to them,” Listen cast the net on the other side of the boat and you will find some.” So they did, and now they weren’t able to haul it in because there were so many fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved, said to Peter, “That’s the Lord,” and when Simon Peter heard that, he put on some clothes, because he was naked, and he jumped into the sea but the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net, full of fish, because they were not far from the land, only about one hundred yards. (John 21:1–8) 

So the crucifixion which was a horrible time, Jesus has risen again, He appears to His disciples, who have fled out of Jerusalem, north back to Galilee. They are out doing, what? They are doing what they always did before they met Jesus, they were fishermen. They have gone back to work, the party is over, Jesus was crucified. People were after them because they were following Jesus. That’s it, they are fishing and all of a sudden Jesus comes and they recognise Him because they’ve had this experience once before. Flick back to Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 5:1–10

Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. He saw two boats there at the shore of the Lake and the fishermen had gone out in them and they were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon.

So this is three and a half years before the instance in John Chapter 21, we talked about. This is the first time Simon Peter meets Jesus.

So they go out in Simon Peter’s boat, and Jesus sits down in the boat and from the water, teaches the crowds and when that’s done, He says to Simon, “Listen, let’s push out into the deep water and let down the nets,” and Simon answers, “Master, we’ve worked all night long but we haven’t caught a thing, well, if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were about to break, so they signalled to their partners in the other boats to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus' knees and said, “Go away from me Lord, because I am a sinful man.” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you’ll be catching people.” When they’d brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

I love this story because it begins with Jesus having to go out in the boat, there was so many people, He can’t talk to them on the land. He goes out on the boat and it says, the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the Word of God. Let me ask you, in your family, in your church, where you go, is the crowd pressing the doors down to hear the Word of God? Tell, you what, there are a lot of churches where that’s not happening. There are a lot of churches where people are walking in with bored faces, they’re singing songs with bored faces and they are walking out of there with bored faces. I love this, the crowds...

Have you noticed the more money people earn, the more choices we have – the more choices we have, the busier we are at work and with kids, and we get tired? And so these days, getting a sense of community going is really hard. There are lots of lonely people around the country and around the world and yet God has this plan for His family. God has a plan that His family should get together and be a family and that plan is called ‘church.’ Now, for a lot of people, church is a four–letter word. A lot of people are browned off with church. They’ve tried it, they’ve had enough. People are starting to write textbooks about this huge number of Bible believing Christians, who have decided they are not doing ‘church’ anymore. And for someone who hasn’t come to faith in Jesus Christ yet, the whole notion of church is old fashioned, out of date, and irrelevant. So church gets a lot of bad press. Yet God writes, Himself, in Psalm 68, verse 6, it says that, “God sets the lonely in families.” So God has a plan for His children, for His people to be a part of a family and that family, by and large, is called ‘church.’

Now our society is struggling with having a sense of community. Just out there every day in life, lots of people are struggling to connect with one another and a lot of people never do, a lot of people feel very lonely. And to tell you the truth, in a lot of quarters, the church is struggling as well, to create a sense of community. So often churches come up with programs, you know, they have this program for the youth and they do all these programs. It’s almost like you are going to McChurch, you know, it’s – two all–beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun – approach to Church, where you’re kind of ground through the mill.

Community is about relationships. Community is about, well, it’s organic, isn’t it? It’s naturally people getting on with one another, living with one another as a family, helping one another, compensating for one another. I was reading something that a man by the name of Malcolm Langford wrote. He’s a lawyer and a musician. He wrote this,

“I have a dream of a Christian community that when I entered, you were excited to see me. When I revealed my wounds, you held me close. When I lost my job, you paid my rent. When I needed a home, you became my family. When I followed billboards, you led me to the cross. When I ran after mini–loves, you opened my eyes to ‘The’ Lover. When I was self–absorbed, you taught me to love the broken. When I hurt others, you showed me the struggle for justice. When I destroyed everything, you helped me to create beauty. When I let you see my true self, you celebrated my journey and when one day heaven’s glories opened to call me home, I was torn.”

That’s a beautiful verse isn’t it? It’s a beautiful picture of what Christian community should look like.

But sadly a lot don’t. Sadly a lot of people who attend churches, with the right intention – the intention of worshipping God, the intention of hearing His Word proclaimed, the intention of being part of a family. Where they love and are loved, where they support and are supported, where they’re cared for and they care. People go to church with that intention, yet so many churches struggle in this area of community. After all, if a church isn’t a family, if a church doesn’t provide community, well, we might as well all just stay home and listen to sermons on the radio or CD. That’s great but it doesn’t help us to be a part of a family. I would strongly encourage you, if you are struggling with church; you hang in with us, this week on the program, because I believe that God wants us to flourish in the House of the Lord.”

Churches can do programs, they can do ministry activities, we can do that till we’re blue in the face and yet not build relationships and not have a sense of community. Community is the Holy Spirit stirring our hearts and moving our hands, you and me. And today in this message that I’ve called, “Flourishing in the House of the Lord,” the first in a four part series, we are going to look at three key impediments to that sense of community. We are going to name them, identify them and I pray, help remove them.

The first of those is the impediment of ‘commitment.’ When you think of a relationship, as a relationship between two people matures, it moves from being casual to ultimately becoming a relationship of commitment. Marriage is like that, boy meets girl, they are attracted to one another, they might date, they might stop dating, they might date again and progressively they go through a process of commitment, of becoming engaged, spending some time in engagement and then becoming married and the whole ‘marriage’ thing is supposed to be a life long commitment to one another. And as that commitment begins with marriage, so the relationship deepens and matures, that’s Gods plan. I know it doesn’t always work out that way. I know half of all marriages, almost, end in divorce, but that’s God’s plan of a mature relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife.

In the New Testament, the word ‘church‘, well, there are two words for it. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia” Now, I don’t normally talk about Greek words, but this is important. One is the Greek word “Ecclesia”. It literally means – an assembly. I guess that’s what we do Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings, when the Church meets together. It’s the word that we get, “Ecclesiastical” from. The other word is “Koinonia”, it means – a fellowship, it comes from a group of words that have a root meaning of – to share something in common. You can do ‘ecclesia‘, you can meet together on Sunday morning as an assembly and have zero commitment, but you can’t do ‘koinonia’ church that is ‘fellowship ’church, without commitment being a foundation of the relationship. You might say, “Well, I’m committed to church, I think.”

Let’s have a read of what God says in Psalm 92, verses 12 to 14. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it and open it up. This is a great passage. He says this,

“The righteous flourish like a palm tree and a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the House of the Lord and they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit, they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright, He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (Psalm 92: 12–14)

The plan for us is that we should be trees like the cedars of Lebanon and like palm trees, planted in the House of the Lord. The problem is that these days we want to be ‘pot plant’ Christians. We don’t want to put our roots down in the House of the Lord. We don’t want to be part of the fellowship. We want to say, “Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t need those other Christians. They’re a pain in the neck sometimes, so what I’ll be is, I will be a pot plant Christian. In my pot I’ll be protected, I won’t be hurt, I won’t be disillusioned.” Maybe you have been through that, in the past, in a church and you’ve had enough. The hurt has never gone and so you’ve put yourself in a pot instead of a forest. You put yourself in a pot instead of the House of the Lord, where we’re intended to flourish. You put a pot in the wind and it dries out, it blows over. Ultimately you put a pot out there in the weather and the chances a...

My favourite definition of marketing is this – that it’s the ultimate triumph of style over substance. Not sure where I first heard that – but it’s stuck with me for a good many years now. Marketing – the ultimate triumph of style over substance.

And you see it all the time – big impersonal banks, where the customer is just a number and our needs and problems have to fit into their systems and products, and where increasingly the only way that we can interact with them is through disempowered and sometimes poorly trained, anonymous operators, jammed into their cubicles like battery hens in some call centre – those same banks will run adds on TV with families and happy smiling faces and friendly bank managers.

There’s a complete discontinuity between the substance of who they are and what they provide and the style that they hold out in their advertising and marketing campaigns. But that doesn’t stop them – because after all, marketing is the ultimate triumph of style over substance.

Well – perhaps that’s a little cynical, but you know what I mean. Spin doctors and advertising agencies are paid trillions of dollars each year to put a friendly face on unfriendly corporations, and to put a positive spin on the most awful of realities. And they do such a great job of it that Mr or Mrs Consumer out here in consumer–land – well we struggle to know the difference anymore between style and substance. The two have blurred – reality is a combination not only of the service provided, but of how we feel about the provider – and that latter bit was shaped by the marketing. What’s the truth, what’s reality? Who cares. Many of us have in fact, given up caring. It’s all too hard.

And so – we kind of tacitly, implicitly accept the blurring of style and substance we don’t think about it too much anymore and so we carry this blurred reality into our experience of church. Now – there are so many different forms of church. From the small group that will be meeting in my family room and backyard this coming Sunday, through to a big, traditional cathedral with a prayer–book liturgy and hymns sung to organ music, through to the contemporary mega church down the road with seven services of 5000 people each packed into every Sunday, to the community church of 80 or so people in our local suburb … and anything and everything in between.

Some seem good at developing contemporary packaging and branding and signage and websites. Others seem stuck in a time–warp. Some seem to have dynamic preachers up front – talking about things that appear relevant. Others have these men droning out a sermon that goes on interminably and doesn’t appear to have anything to say for my life and yours in the coming week.

Some churches appear to be steeped in the tradition of religion – men in gowns and set prayers and specific terminology like sanctification and propitiation. Others talk in plain language and you’d be flat out recognising the full time minister because that person looks just like all the other people.

Do you see what I’m saying? There are so many different styles of church. Some follow almost a rock concert approach or style for their weekly meetings or services, others use a liturgy that was developed in the 1600’s. The array of approaches and styles – the packaging if you like – is so incredibly diverse. Some churches are huge – some are tiny. An incredible array.

One of the questions people often ask me when they first give their lives over to Jesus – when they accept him as the one who saves them from their sin and when they accept Him as the Lord of their lives – they ask me which church should I go to?

And in one sense, that’s a bit like asking me which shirt should I buy? Which pair of shoes should I buy? Should I live in a house or an apartment? The answer is – I don’t know – because churches come in all different shapes and sizes. Different styles.

And the church that represents a good fit with who I am and where I’m at, may be entirely different to the one that’s a good fit with you, given who you are and where you’re at.

For instance – being a baby boomer, the whole idea of denominationalism doesn’t fit well with me. Nothing wrong with having denominations per se – in fact there can be some very good things that come along with that. It’s just not me. I’m concerned more with who we are as a church in the suburb where we live, and how we can be the hands and the feet and the heart and the voice of Jesus in the context of our local community.

You may have an entirely different viewpoint – and that’s just fine and dandy. So the first thing – the first thing to recognise is that books can have a similar message, even though they have quite different covers and even if the authors have different styles and different ways of telling the story. And rather than dismissing that reality – I think it’s something we should deal with – directly and openly because it’s a reality. There are quite a number of styles of church that I don’t plug into easily. The sooner I accept that reality, the sooner I’m going to discover the place that God means me to be.

But as important as it is to recognise the differences and to figure out where we’re a good fit and where we aren’t there’s something more important than the style – and that’s the substance.

I’ve seen plenty of churches that have a great contemporary style that I think I can plug into – in fact, I went to one for a while. But after a few months, I realised that there was something significant lacking there when it came to substance. The first was this:

I realised I could give up taking my Bible with me to church each Sunday – because I was never called to open it. And secondly, I realised – and this is what we were chatting about yesterday on the program – that the only way to become part of the church was to participate in programs – community was program driven, it wasn’t genuine and organic and heart felt. Now in a few weeks time, we’re going to be chatting about things to look for in a church. And we’ll be going into this in a whole lot more detail.

But I think the substance of a church – what lies at the heart of the church – is really important. And the three things that I look for when it comes to this whole thing about substance are these:

(1) First – I want to see that this is a bunch of people who are passionate about Jesus – whose trust is in Him, whose lives are bowed down to Him – and whose love flows out of them. That’s the first thing. The Apostle Paul talked about this sort of substance versus style. He said to the church in Corinth

When I came to you – I didn’t come with a bunch of fancy words and great ideas. I came imperfectly, I came to tell you about Jesus – I wanted you to know His wisdom and His power. That’s what I’m looking for first and foremost – people passionate about Jesus, people who believe that Jesus can and is and will make a real difference in their lives (1 Corinthians 2:1–5)

(2) That they actually open their Bibles. That when they gather together, not only do they worship God with their lips, but they want to hear what God has to say to them today. Gods Word is alive and active and sharper than any two edged sword. I’m looking for a bunch of people who are serious about learning from G...

I’ve often thought – if I were a marketing consultant, and I won a tender to run a marketing campaign to give the term “church” a positive position in the contemporary mindset – the secular psyche if I can use those words – I wonder whether I would actually want the job.

I mean – this word “church” has almost become a four letter word in society today. Scandal after scandal. So many people see large parts of the church as being anachronistic – outdated, irrelevant. The vestiges of old style religion appear to be alive and well.

For me – the greatest indictment of church in my living memory has been the whole issue of child sexual abuse. It seems to spread across so many of the denominations – and so I just don’t want to single any of them out. Only it’s not so much an issue – but a string, countless thousands of cases of the most appalling abuse of position and trust that is imaginable.

People who claim to be God’s emissaries sexually abusing children – and not just children, but adults too. And then, if that isn’t terrible enough – the cover–ups by major denominations.

I was reading a government report into this issue in one major denomination, in one particular country and the report concluded that the senior levels of this church denomination had – and I quote – “obsessively and systematically covered up” the widespread sexual abuse of children by its clergy for decades.

And this has happened over and over and over again. You Google church sexual abuse on the Internet, and aside from the fact that you get over 4 million hits – 4 million – you discover church essays, positions, enquiries, policy papers, white papers on this whole subject.

Now – you may well ask – why is it that Berni’s rabbiting on about this? Why’s he being so critical about this? Well, simply to demonstrate why the “church” has an image problem. The easiest thing in the world is for those of us who live inside this thing called “church” to completely lose sight of how people on the outside, see and think about this thing we call … church.

Has the whole church gone bad? Of course not. But there’s enough mud flying around for it to stick. And then – there are so many other issues. The church seems to be anti–so many things. Anti–abortion. Anti–homosexual. Anti this and anti that. And please right now I’m not making any comment or judgement about the validity of those positions one way or the other. As it turns out I have very strong views on some of these issues. But it’s not the views and the beliefs that I’m talking about right now. It’s the perceptions of society as a whole, that this thing called the “church” can hold itself out to proclaim judgements on such issues when – I mean, look at the whole issue of child abuse. Is it any wonder that people look at the church and think – what a bunch of hypocrites. Then there’s the church not far from me – the denomination – that lost $160 million on some bad stock market investments recently. And the other small local church sitting on well over $20 million worth of real estate, with less than a dozen members showing up every Sunday morning.

These days there are so many Bible believing Christians having been burnt by this thing called church, that they’re leaving it in droves whilst still hanging on to their faith in Jesus – that the academics are writing text books about this group.

Perhaps some of that is treading on some sensitive even painful ground for someone listening today. And the last thing that I’m about is dragging down the church. But if you belong to God’s church – whatever denomination, whatever shape of form that takes – do you see the image problem that the Church has?

Church – these days – is very definitely a four letter word out there in contemporary society! Hmm. The sad thing is that so many good things are happening amongst this group of people we call “church” around the world as well. It’s not all bad – far from it – but we live in a world today – where people both inside and outside the church are struggling so deeply with what church means, what it is, what it’s supposed to be, what it achieves – so many people are struggling so deeply and in many cases painfully with this issues – that I believe we have to talk about it on the program. So that’s what we’re going to be doing over the next couple of weeks.

And as you may have noticed – I’m not going to pussy–foot around. Let’s call a spade a spade, let’s see things for what they are – and there’s a good reason for that.

Because like it or not, whatever you think of this thing called “church” it is part of God’s plan and it is something that lies at the core of God’s plan for this world – for humanity. Have a listen to what Jesus said to Peter the Apostle:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

Jesus said He would build his church and make her strong. God also refers to the church as His bride:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

And His body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12)

And as individualistic as we’ve become in contemporary society here in the 21st century after the time when Jesus walked this earth – as much as we’re focussed on ourselves, God’s plan, God’s plan is for His children to be a family.

It’s a powerful plan. And it’s a good plan. To be sure – sometimes being a church hurts. Sometimes it disappoints. Sometimes it falls such a long way short of what we expect these people of God to be and how we expect them to love us – but it is God’s plan nevertheless.

Saw a sign outside a local church recently that said “Don’t let Christians put you off Jesus”. As bad a piece of marketing as I think that is – leading with the chin like that – this sign somewhat clumsily and insensitively puts its finger on the problem we’ve been talking about today. That “church” is a four letter word. So the thing we’re going to look at today and over these coming weeks is this – despite so much doom and gloom and obvious failures of this thing called “church” – how do we make sense of God’s plan? How do you and I – if we hunger after God – grow and thrive in the body of Christ – the church – despite all the things in this world that scream at us that we should run a mile? How?

You know the biggest problem I find with Churches? The one that is absolutely, without any shadow of doubt number 1 on my list of problems with church – is other people.

As sure as God made little green apples, you get a bunch of people together, and some of them are going to be a pain. They’re going to rub us up...

If you’ve ever had that nagging suspicion that things aren’t quite right in your life, then you're not alone. It’s something that we all experience from time to time. We don’t think about it, but in a very real sense, for most of us, life follows a pretty familiar, well–worn trail.

We’re born, we go to school, we become adults, we marry, we have children, they go to school, they grow up … and eventually we die. I know that’s an over–simplification. And I know that a good many people don’t follow every step of that path … and I know there are many twists and turns and variations on that theme, but for most of us, that pretty much describes it.

And along the way we go through times of great joy, times of great sadness and long periods of the mundane same old, same old. Our emotions go up and down. Our fortunes go up and down. But we’re born, we bring children into the world, we die. That’s the basic template on which the human race relies.

So you’re following along that path and at some stage, perhaps, you encounter Jesus and you decide to walk the rest of the journey with Him – where He leads, according to His plans and purposes for your life.

Some people find that notion pretty depressing. I used to, to tell you the truth. But these days it is singularly the most liberating thing about my life. To be able to live out the plans and purposes for my life, that God Himself dreamed up before time began – I have to tell you, it’s just unreal.

But I, like the next person, sometimes get into those patches in life when I wonder – Am I in the right place? Am I doing what I was made to do? And is all the stuff going on around me making sense.

I wonder … where are you at right now? In an up … in a down … in one of those long periods of the boring mundaneness of life? Same day after day. Are you in a place of contentment, knowing you’re on the right path … or are you kind of wondering where it’s all headed?

In the army – I spent 10 years as a military officer – when we were training for war, they taught us about the concept, the idea of what’s called “the fog of war”. It’s this idea that when you’re fighting the battle, you’re enveloped in a kind of fog. Part of that fog is that you don’t have all the information you need about your enemy – how strong he is, how many troops and tanks he has, how well trained, what his morale is like, what his plans are, what his tactics are.

Part of it is that your enemy deliberately tries to feed you misinformation to deceive you. Part of it is that you’re tired, exhausted often, afraid, your morale is down. Your troops – their morale is up and down. And then when the bullets start flying and the artillery shells start exploding around you – it’s like you’re in a fog, a stupor and making really good, well informed, rational decisions is extremely difficult.

That’s what this idea – the fog of war – is all about.

In a very real sense, we sometimes operate in a bit of a fog too. Our emotions are playing havoc. People are having a go and we don’t understand their motives and intentions. We don’t know if we can trust them.

And God – what about Him? What exactly are His plans? Am I in the right place? Am I doing the things I was meant to be doing? Have I perhaps taken a wrong turn?

And it’s in this fog that we can start questioning His faithfulness. It’s in this fog that we start second guessing God and ourselves. We’d like to think we have it all together. We’d like to think we know where life’s headed, but all too often, we either haven’t got a clue, or we though we did, but … we’re really not that sure any more.

I was having coffee with a man who works for a large corporation – who thought he knew what his life was about, but his health was failing him and deep down he had a sneaking suspicion that God had a different plan – he just didn’t know what that plan was.

Do you relate to some of that? There seems to be a gap between your present circumstances and what you think the future might be about.

We’re in the middle of a series called “Following Jesus with Confidence” – and the reason we’re talking about this stuff today, is that when we’re enveloped in this fog – it’s hard to be confident. The thing about this fog is that it limits your field of vision – so it’s easy, really easy – to take a wrong step.

But I believe that God wants us to have confidence in Him, even when we’re in the middle of this fog of war as I’ve called it. In fact, especially then. When you think about it, it’s when things are unclear that we really need God, because His field of vision is never, ever limited by anything.

The first thing we need to know when we’re wandering through life in a bit of a fog, is that God is faithful. He’s not angry, He’s not disappointed with us – He’s like a loving father, keen to see His child learn, and keen to help His child through the fog. His love, in that fog, His faithfulness in that fog, is rock solid. King David had more enemies than most of us. He went through many trials in his life, and so many of the Psalms he wrote, he’s pouring his heart out to God in the midst of the fog of war. Psalm 86:1–7

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication. In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me

And towards the end of that Psalm, based on his past experiences, David concludes this – Psalm 86:14–17:

O God, the insolent rise up against me; a band of ruffians seeks my life, and they do not set you before them. But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; show me a sign of your favour, so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

I know there are people today going through one of those times in your life when it’s hard to follow Jesus with any confidence. And I know there are people today for whom such a time is just around the corner.

Your God is merciful and gracious, He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That’s just who He is – so if you know that you’ve turned your back on Him, turn back now, tell Him you’re sorry, ask Him to forgive you in Jesus’ name – and it’s a done deal. You’re forgiven. You stand before Him as clean and as pure as Jesus Himself.

Because that’s why Jesus died for you. That’s why Jesus did what He did – to give you a fresh start with the slate wiped clean. And now as you draw close to Him, you can take each step with Him being completely sure that when you need to turn to the left or to the right, He’ll let you know. When you need to stop and wait a while or move a bit more quickly – He’ll let you know. That’s the deal. That’s His promise.

So, what do you have planned for today, tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month? We all have hopes, dreams and plans. How we see the future – what we have to look forward to – plays a pretty important part in how much we enjoy our lives today.

This morning, I got up and looked at my diary – for a change, things were pretty clear, normally I have a lot of things in my diary. The reason is that I plan ahead. So – preparing radio programs – I normally have several pretty solid blocks of time during each week to do that.

Time in the studio. Meetings. Admin stuff at the office. Perhaps the odd catch up with a friend. Men’s group Friday mornings. But this morning, it was pretty clear, so after a time with the Lord, I sat down to start putting some thoughts together for another radio program.

But yesterday … yesterday – I had a list of 27 items to get through – got through about half of them, which isn’t bad. But in the middle of some really important stuff, off goes Skype on my desktop, it was one of our team from Africa calling me.

Now, I hadn’t spoken with Joseph for a couple of weeks, and I really wanted to talk to him – but part of me was … well, not annoyed but agitated, because I had all these things planned for today, and yet now I was being interrupted.

Of course I chatted with him and it was great – but it’s that reaction of having my plans interrupted that’s the really interesting bit. I’m sure you’ve experienced it too – really good plans, and then someone comes along and interrupts them.

It happens in the small day to day things, and it happens too, in the bigger things of life. The plan to get married, to have children, to find somewhere to live, perhaps to buy a house. The plans we have in our minds for our finances and for our careers, for our children, for our families.

Time and time and time again, those plans get turned on their head, as other things, other people demand that they be changed. How do you react when that happens, hmm?

We’ve been chatting over the past week/the past few weeks about the idea of following Jesus with confidence. There are plenty of things that come along and shake our confidence in Him day to day, and one of those things is when our plans – good and godly though they may have been – are turned on their heads.

We kind of react with this shock: Hang on, what’s going on?! I had things all planned out and now… this!! Really?! That can’t be right. Maybe I was heading in the wrong direction in the first place. And that sense of maybe I had it wrong shakes our confidence a bit. Would it surprise you to know that you’re not the only one who’s been in that place.?

Have a listen to this … out of the book of Acts in the New Testament, Chapter 16, verse 6 – it’s about the Apostle Paul’s ministry journey.

They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

Now did you notice in there that twice – not once, but twice – we’re told that God Himself stopped Paul and his team from following their plans. I’m sure they’d sat down and thought about it and prayed about it and been convinced to go and proclaim the good news of Jesus in Asia.

And yet, they couldn’t; having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. We don’t find out how that happened – perhaps Paul had a really sharp dream in the night. Perhaps one of their team with the spiritual gift of prophecy stood up and said so. Perhaps they’d been praying together and all of a sudden a few of them just got that really sharp check in the spirit, telling them not to go there.

Whatever it was – the Holy Spirit forbade them to go there, contrary to their initial plans.

And a second time. They tried to go to Bithynia … but the Spirit o Jesus did not allow them. Was there some physical obstacle? Was it a sense of spiritual discernment? We’re not told. But again, the Holy Spirit blocked their way.

I was reading a great blog post “Finding my Keys” by a guy called Luke Collings, where he writes this:

The role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian is often portrayed as overwhelmingly "positive". That is, the Spirit enables the Christian to live in a manner of which they were incapable while they were still under sin. They can be obedient by the Spirit (Rom 8:4). They can understand the things of God (1 Cor2:12). They can overcome the desires of the body (Gal 5:16). I could go on and on.

The contemporary word to describe the Spirit's effect on the Christian's life is "empowerment".

Well put Luke – in our contemporary social context of individualism and self, it’s easy to get only half the view of the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Almost as though the Spirit is there to serve us, rather than the other way around.

Of course God is our helper – but He’s also our King. Of course Jesus is our Saviour, but He’s also our Lord. And it’s that second part of the equation that we miss at our peril. Luke Collings goes on to say:

What we see instead is that the Holy Spirit is more than just Ministry Rocket Fuel. The Spirit is the one who opens and closes doors for the Gospel to spread. The Spirit doesn't just Empower, but Directs and Enables mission. Those engaged in the preaching of Jesus learn from Acts 16 that they are not the Captain and Navigator of their own course. Those jobs are firmly in God's hands.

So … the next time God slams the door shut in your face, this wouldn’t be a bad thing to remember. At the end of the day it’s not my plans or yours that are the important things. It’s God’s plans – because He sees the whole picture.

Notice with Paul, both times He slammed the door shut, God led them in a different direction. The direction that He would have them go; to speak the Gospel to the people He would have them speak to. As well as the “no’s” – there was a strong, positive “yes”.

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

God leads us in all sorts of different ways – sometimes by closing this door, and then a little while later flinging open some other door that you or I would never have dreamed of even knocking on. That change of plans … sure, our natural reaction is to wonder why. Our natural reaction is to have our confidence shaken.

But the whole point of what we’re talking about today on the program, is learning to follow ...

Hannah’s story from the old testament is one that absolutely touches my heart each and every time that I read with it. It’s a powerful story of a woman in some considerable distress.

We’ve been programmed these days, that life – our lives in particular – should be filled with success. But the last time I checked, that’s not always the case. And the times when we really need to be able to trust in Jesus with great confidence, aren’t the easy times, they're the tough times.

The Bible knows little if anything about worldly success. God’s plan for you and me isn’t a life of comfort and compromise, but one of sacrifice and suffering. That’s exactly what Jesus promised us, when He spoke to some would–be followers:

Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. (Matthew 8:18–22)

Now, we’re going to go a lot deeper with this – it’s one thing to hear someone – even Jesus – talking about this idea that following Him often means an uncomfortable journey, but it’s another thing entirely to see this principle in action. That’s why today, we’re going to spend some time with Hannah – so that you and I can discover the secret of having a strong confidence in Jesus, when the going gets tough – because it’s in those times, that we really, really need that confidence.

Hannah’s is a story of adversity and out of that adversity, God births, quite literally, one of the great Prophets that He sends to His people. So let’s just spend the next few minutes entering into Hannah’s pain – 1 Samuel 1:1–8:

There was a certain man whose name was Elkanah. He had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

No doubt there are some women tuned in today who either have been there or who are in that place right at the moment – but even as a man, I can just so feel the pain that Hannah was going through. Body clock is ticking, her heart is to have a child, and … nothing. But as bad and as tough as that is … it was even worse. Because layered on top of the personal pain, were two other things. The first and the most obvious is Peninnah – Elkanah’s other wife. Polygamy was all the rage in the early days of the Old Testament. It wasn’t until society had time to grow and mature that God revealed that this wasn’t His ideal plan.

I mean it should have been obvious – Adam had one wife Eve, not two or more. But we humans have a way of wandering away from God’s ideal for us. And God has a way of choosing just the right time in history, to reveal His plans. So at this point, polygamy was the norm. That’s why Elkanah had two wives. That would be bad enough except one of them could have children and the other couldn’t and the one that could – Peninnah taunted the one that couldn’t Hannah.

Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her.

A terrible situation. A woman who can’t have children and a rival for her husband’s affections who can and then uses that to rub salt into her wounds, year after year. And the final layer of shame, as if all that weren’t enough, was that back in those days the thinking went something like this: If you were a good and godly person, God would bless you with many children. If you weren’t He wouldn’t. So Hannah’s plight was further compounded by the fact that socially, people looked down upon her. They would have whispered behind her back She can’t be a very good person, look God has cursed her and she is childless. Please … put yourself into Hannah’s shoes for a moment. How do you feel? Terrible right? You’d be asking some serious questions of God – Lord, why are you doing this. I’m doing my best to honour you and my husband. My rival is taunting me. People despise me. Lord what have I done to deserve this?!

I don’t know that particular pains and trials you’ve gone through in your life, but this one of Hannah’s would rank right up there wouldn’t it? I mean you can equate your trials and your pain, with what Hannah is going through. This feeling that God has forsaken you. That God’s treatment of you isn’t fair.

But I’d like to suggest that when you and I are having Hannah moments in our lives, often a mighty intervention of God is the last thing that we expect. In fact, we don’t even expect to be in this rotten situation in the first place, because well, surely God wants to bless me and surely if I’m living through a terrible curse like this, something … something terrible must be wrong in my relationship with God.

It’s that false logic that I would like to kick in the guts today. This idea of – yes I am in God’s favour because I’m being blessed; and no – I must have fallen out of God’s favour and our of God’s plan, because I’m going through this terrible patch. That’s a lie, a distortion from the enemy, who’s dropped this healthy, wealthy and wise lie on our heads. Pretty much all the great things that God has done, birthed out of times of trial. And we’ll talk some more about that after this short break.

As I look back on that moment when I first laid hold of the truth that Jesus died for me – that, actually … the Son of God became a man, walked the dusty roads of 1st century Israel and was ultimately nailed to a cross, to pay for my wrongdoing – my heart leapt out of my chest and I decided to claim Him as My Saviour and My Lord.

If you’re a bit like that, you know that desire in your heart to follow Jesus. The problem is when you’re having a Hannah moment, when the going gets tough, following Him with confidence just isn’t easy.

The reason that we’re in the middle of this series of messages – Following Jesus with Confidence – is that we need to know how to follow Jesus with confidence during the difficult times. For me, it’s not enough to be told – have faith in God. That’s a great theory, but how do I live it out when I’m in a difficul...

Adversity is a fact of life. It happens in all areas of our lives, at different times. In our finances. In our relationships. In our jobs. In our families. In our health. In our own thoughts and emotions.

Last month on the program I shared a series of messages with you called How to Stop Your Family from Falling Apart. And quite a number of people wrote to me and said, in effect: well, my family has already fallen apart. What about me? And so later this year we’ll be chatting about marriage separation and divorce, losing a loved one, singleness, childlessness … because things don’t always follow that old fairy tale ending … and they lived happily ever after.

My preference and your preference is that life should be easy – if not completely easy, then at least ten or 15 or twenty percent easier than it is just at the moment. Just a little bit less of a struggle. Just a little bit easier. Oh – and no major catastrophes. No major disasters that cause us pain.

And the key here is expectation. My parent’s generation went through World War II – my dad fought in the German army on the Russian front. My mother lived through air raids and the bombing of her home town Graz in Austria. And when I look at those people from that generation – whether European or Australian or wherever they come from, their expectations of life being easy aren’t as high as perhaps yours and mine are.

My generation – the baby boomers – we were born in the 1950's and 60’s in a golden era of prosperity and hope. Our parents, having suffered much through WWII worked hard to give us a better life. All the modern electric kitchen gadgets, televisions (okay, black and white, but televisions nevertheless) motor cars, all those things happened post World War II – and they indeed gave us a better, more prosperous life.

And so, we boomers carried on that tradition with our children – Gen X and Gen Y – who carried it on with their children – the millennials … and so it goes on. As prosperity boomed in the west, our expectations of what is normal became incredibly inflated. Prosperity is normal. Peace is normal. Success is normal. And of course, the advertising industry chimed in, feeding us, bombarding us constantly with images of success.

Now, what I’m describing doesn’t apply everywhere. There are plenty of people listening today who live in desperate adversity – in refugee camps, in war–torn parts of the world. But even as I travel through those parts of the world, what I see is that the lure of the prosperity of the west beckons. Media is global today. TV, the internet is global. And so people feed on this inflated set of expectations – and we begin to imagine that success, peace, prosperity and comfort are the norm – or if not quite the norm, at least those are the things that we should aspire to.

Comfortable house – tick. Nice car – tick. Healthy superannuation fund – tick. Private schooling for our children – tick. The latest techno-gadgets – tick. The latest fashions – tick.

And for men and women of faith – those of us who believe in Jesus – we tend to drop this worldly model of success onto the Bible, we try and create our own blended theology of success. We expect that following Jesus should be easy – and when they discover that it isn’t, many fall by the wayside. Surely if God loves me He wants to bless me – why am I having to deal with all the problems and challenges and issues and conflicts and adversity? Either there’s something wrong with Him or there’s something wrong with me … I don’t know but something isn’t working.

Have you ever thought that to yourself … or perhaps, if you haven’t quite articulated it that clearly, as I talked about it, you find yourself nodding your head in agreement … Yeah … Yeah … That’s right. That’s what I’m feeling.

So before we can really talk about following Jesus with confidence – and hey, if I’m going to follow Jesus, if I’m going to call Him my Lord and my Saviour, then I want to follow Him with a quiet confidence in my heart – but before we can talk about that, we need to deal with this expectation gap. Have a listen to this exchange between Jesus and a couple of would–be followers whom He met along the way:

Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. (Matthew 8:18–22)

It seems to me that Jesus isn’t calling you and me to a life of comfort. Following Jesus is a journey and from what I can see here – Jesus isn’t promising you and me a big house with two living areas, four bedrooms and a double car garage, in a nice suburb. He’s setting out the reality – plainly and simply – that following Him is an uncomfortable journey.

I often wonder how that second guy felt, the one whose father had just died. Jesus, I really want to follow you, but my dad’s just died, and I have to go bury him first.” I remember when my father died, I don’t think I’d have missed his funeral for the world.

And Jesus replies – Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. The only words that I can come up with to describe that is harsh and unfeeling. If I’d have been that guy, I’d have been thinking – Do I really want to follow this Jesus??

But Jesus here was making a point – a strong point – about what it means to follow Him. It’s not a life of comfort or compromises. Here it is again – Jesus:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish. ’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:23–35)

My friend – have you counted the cost? Are you expecting an easy ride with Jesus, or do you see the stark reality that He’s painting here? Of course, we go through times of great blessing in our relationships and in our circumstances from time to time. Well, most people do. But what Jesus is saying here is that suffering and sacrifice are the norm for a Christ–follower.

Most of us are worried about the single most important person on the planet – me! What’s in it for me? We’re constantly asking ourselves. What do I get ou...

Here’s the thing about the people in our families. We generally know them better than anyone else does. Why? Because we live with them. Most of us can put up a facade that will fool people out there – but none of us is capable of maintaining that façade 24/7 – at home. Eventually, at home – who we really are, comes to the fore.

The people in our families, know our strengths and weaknesses like nobody else. You may listen to my smooth voice and imagine that I have it all together. My wife could tell you otherwise. I try my best, but I’m far from perfect, just the way that you’re far from perfect.

So – we see all the strengths and weaknesses of the other members of our family. But because we live with these people, their weaknesses and failures and limitations – even just their differences, the ways in which they’re different from us – become like Chinese water torture. Here’s how Chinese water torture works.

Back in the 15th and 16th centuries Christianityworks, AD, they would tie a subject down, immobilise him, and then drop water on his forehead.  They’d vary the timing and intensity without warning, and this would go on for days. Eventually, it felt like there was a brick falling on the victims head – it became completely unbearable. 

It was the constancy, repetitiveness and unpredictability of the drips that caused the victim such great distress.  Just simple small drips of water became totally unbearable. And that is what, so often, happens with the weaknesses and failures of the people we live with.

I was having coffee with a man recently and he was telling me something that his wife had done which drove him, the other day, into a complete fit of rage. He’d had enough. He just couldn’t take it anymore. Now the thing that his wife did, in and of itself, wasn’t such a big deal. But they’ve been married for going onto 30 years, and she’s been doing it all that time.

It’s the Chinese water torture thing. You see? I wonder, what are the things that some of your family members do over and over again, that drive you to anger and despair all at the same time. Often they’re just little things. For instance, I’m one of these people who has a place for everything and puts everything back in its place. Seems obvious to me. That way, next time I need it, I’ll know where to find it.

My wife and my daughter aren’t like that. It doesn’t seem important to them, to put the sharp kitchen knives back into the knife block in the same order, so that when you reach for the one second from the top, you get a carving knife, not a bread knife. It doesn’t seem important when they borrow a pen from the penholder in my study, to put it back again, so that I’ll have something to write with, next time I reach for a pen.

Now, that doesn’t make them bad people. They’re not. Love them both, and truly, they have strengths and abilities that I will never have. There are things that I fail to do – that they simply can’t understand.  But this whole knife and pen thing – as small as those things are – used to drive me absolutely around the twist. How can they not get it? Well, they don’t and they probably never will because… they’re different to me.

So – here’s my choice.  Seems to me that there are 3 options here: Option 1 is to continue to get angry with them and tell them what a bad job they’re doing at being a wife and a daughter. Option 2, is to hold my tongue, say nothing but still harbour that anger and resentment inside. And Option 3 is to forgive them immediately and completely.

Which one do you think is the best option? Pretty obvious isn’t it. Option 1 is going to tear us apart. Option 2 is going to tear me apart. Option 3 is going to promote family harmony and let’s face it, which slot in the knife block the knives go in is hardly a big issue, is it? And I do have other pens in the top drawer of my study desk when all is said and done.

These examples may seem trivial to you. And they are, but they have the potential to create a lot of conflict in our household. And I’m guessing that you have some things – equally trivial, equally inconsequential – that set you off too. And because they’ve been done by your family members over and over and over again, you are so sensitive to them, that when they happen, you could just about scream. Am I right? I’m pretty sure I am.

What is it that your family members do (or don’t do) to you that make you want to scream? Come on, just think about them now. You’ll know what they are in an instant because you’re so attuned to them. It’s like you’re almost waiting for it to happen again at any moment, right? So when those things happen the next time, which option are you going to choose:

Option 1 – get angry with them (again!!) and tell them what a bad job they’re doing. Option 2 – hold your tongue and say nothing, but let the anger and resentment build up inside you. Or…. Option 3 – forgive them immediately and completely. Which one will it be? And when you choose that option – what will the consequences of your choice be?

Here’s the reason that unforgiveness is so toxic in a family context. Because it’s cumulative, like the Chinese water torture. Each drip, drop, drip… magnifies the impact on you and the consequences of your actions. And that unforgiveness – each time it happens – it’s like… like wedges being driven between family members, slowly and inexorably tearing them apart.

Before you know it – this family that should be a close-knit, loving unit – is a collection of warring tribes, with no love, or common purpose or sense of family left that anybody can discern at a safe distance.  So if unforgiveness is tearing your family apart. There’s just one place for you to begin.

Begin by forgiving people instantly – in fact, you can even forgive them in advance, anticipating the next drip in the water torture, and even before it comes, neutralising its effect on you. Forgiveness based on tolerance is what keeps families together. Forgiveness – your own, and your example that others will surely model and follow – is what’s going to stop your family from falling apart.

Jesus said this:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, Let me take the speck out of your eye, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. (Matt 7:1–5)

He’s absolutely right isn’t He? This precisely describes the pattern of unforgiveness that goes on in our families. We behave on the premise that we’re wrong, and they’re right – not realising that we ourselves, have a distorted view of things.

This whole forgiveness thing starts with us. It starts with us examining our own flawed judgements and reactions. How can we judge others and conclude that they’re wrong, simply because God wired them differently on the inside? How can an encourager judge a leader – and conclude that the leader is flawed, just because she’s not an encourager?

That’s exactly what we do in our families a...

We’ve all had that experience – having a meal with someone takes a relationship to a whole new level. Not quite sure what makes this whole eating together so important to us – but it is. It’s one of the primary ways that we form relationships.

It’s a very special thing. Eating meals together with other people – in almost every culture on the planet – is an incredibly important part of building and strengthening relationships. We kind of already know that – but just stopping to think about it and talk about it – really drives it home doesn’t it?

So why is it then, that we’re seeing declining rates of families having meals together? In the UK for instance, one in ten families never sits down to an evening meal together. But that same study – which surveyed 3,000 families – revealed that two-thirds of children yearn for a return to the traditional family dinner time. And four out of 10 children have even asked their mother or father to have more evening meals together as a family.

A similar study conducted in New Zealand found that the whilst majority of 15-year-olds – 64.7% – reported that they shared a main meal with their parents around a table several times a week whilst 35.3% – or just over a third – reported that they didn’t have that privilege. The newspaper USA Today had this to say on the whole subject of family dinners:

Family dinners help kids avoid risky behaviours and may even help them in school. But new research shows that the more frequent these dinners, the better the adolescents fare emotionally, says new research published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"The effect doesn't plateau after three or four dinners a week," says co-author Frank Elgar, an associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montréal. "The more dinners a week the better." With each additional dinner, researchers found fewer emotional and behavioural problems, greater emotional well-being, more trusting and helpful behaviours toward others and higher life satisfaction, regardless of gender, age or family economics. The study was based on a nationally representative sample of 26,069 Canadian adolescents ages 11 to 15 in 2010.

Do we really need more studies and statistics to tell us what we already know – eating meals together is good for children, and good for families? Eating meals together stops people from falling apart and families from falling apart. And yet it’s something that in many countries – we’re doing less and less. It’s as though we’re hell-bent on destroying our families.

And our family contains the most precious people on the earth to us, right? What’s one thing – just one thing that you can do to stop your family from falling apart? Eat meals together as often as you possibly can. They’re important for children, they’re especially important for teenagers and they’re important too for husbands and wives.

Over the dinner table in the evening – it’s as though we check in with each other. We find out what’s been happening in each other’s days. How are the rest of our family members going? What joys and triumphs did they have today? What sadnesses and disappointments? Time magazine puts it this way:

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use. "If it were just about food, we would squirt it into their mouths with a tube," says Robin Fox, an anthropologist who teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey, about the mysterious way that family dinner engraves our souls. "A meal is about civilizing children. It's about teaching them to be a member of their culture."

I want to encourage you to take this one thing in your family seriously. It’s all about being a family – providing a safe place for one another – not just the children, but also the adults. I’ve found that our kids need us just as much – differently – but just as much now that they’re young adults.

This one thing is so simple to do. It’s so practical. Okay, perhaps it will require some changes to entrenched routines. Perhaps your children will raise their eyebrows or wonder what’s going on. But remember that study – most of the children on this planet long for a return to regular family mealtime. And for you – it’s perhaps the simplest most practical thing that you can do to stop your family from falling apart.

Just sit down, once every day, and have a meal with your family. Can it really be that simple? Sure it can. If the studies are right – it’s worth a try. As I open my Bible – there seems to be precious little in it about sharing a meal together as a family. Or… is there? I guess back in the times when the various books of the Bible were written, there weren’t all the distractions that we have today, to tear families apart. No cable television, or mobile phones, or internet, or social media.

And yet it seems that God sees the family as the central piece in bringing children close to Him. This is what God says to His people way back in the book of Deuteronomy Chapter 6, starting at verse 4:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Talk to your children about God. And to the church, he says in the NT – Hebrews 10:25

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Bring those two together into the modern-day malady of families falling apart and the message is clear. We need to spend time together as a family – it’s good for us. It’s God’s will for us. And the easiest way to start is to do what comes naturally. Eat meals together. It really is that simple.

Can I ask you a question – what do you do with your spare time? Do you invest it, spend it, or waste it? Let’s take a look at your week and break it down. We’re all different of course, but here’s a typical week – you make your own modifications to suit your lifestyle as we go along.

Each week has 168 hours. So – the average working week is 40 hours. That leaves 128 hours. Let’s say you spend 7 and a half hours commuting – that’s one and a half hours five times a week) now we’re down to 120 hours roughly. 2 hours a day – 14 hours a week, preparing and eating meals – that leaves 106 hours. Oh – we’ve forgotten sleep. Can’t forget sleep. Let’s say you’re getting 8 hours a night there’s another 56 hours for the week – now, we’re down to 50 hours and right there, you have your spare time. Some of that’s going to be taken up with necessary chores – washing, cleaning, shopping – let’s say t...

As I travel around the world and see what’s going on in different societies and cultures – here’s one of the things that I see. It’s happening all over the place. This thing that we call family – is under attack. It’s a war zone out there and this war is relentlessly pounding away at the family unit, intent it seems, on tearing it apart.

I’m a former army officer – and I remember once during my training they took us to a large firing range – it was open, you could see for miles, there were no trees. We were sitting on one hilltop and on a hill a few miles away, they’d dug a defensive installation. There were pits, bunkers with overhead protection, like the one's infantry soldiers would dig if they were defending that hill against the enemy.

Then they began to bombard that hill – first with light artillery, then with medium artillery and then with heavy artillery. It was the most unbelievable firepower demonstration I had ever seen. All of us who were watching it were thinking to ourselves – man, I’m glad I’m not in one of those bunkers on that hill – and since we were training to be army officers, training to lead men into war – we knew that one day, we could well find ourselves in that place.

But the artillery was nothing, compared to the bombs the planes dropped on that hill. Yep – a squadron of bombers clew over and dropped their loads on that target hill – it was just unbelievable. The massive firepower that was unleashed on that defensive position.

That’s what I see happening to families around the world. Modern life is bombarding our families in all sorts of ways. And the army that’s marching against our families is called “individualism”. One of the greatest variations in cultures that I see across the world – is the degree to which they’re collective or individualistic.

In many countries, they remain family and community-oriented. Typically, they’re the less economically developed countries and there’s a good reason for that. Because when people are less well off, they rely on one another for protection and support. The more economically developed a country becomes, the less they rely on one another and the more individualistic they become. But even in many countries in Africa and Asia in particular where I’ve travelled, there is an incessant march of individualism.

So even these family-oriented cultures aren’t immune – they are very much under attack from this western style of individualism, where it’s all about me, me, me. As media globalises, as cable television channels and internet and music crosses borders and cultural boundaries, our children, in particular, are being fed the line that it’s all about them. And it’s a seductive line. It’s a line that says "you can have it all."

That’s why individualism is sweeping the globe. That’s why families in family-oriented cultures are very much under attack.

And here in the so-called economically developed western cultures, hey – many families have been decimated. And those that haven’t, are under attack. In the west, divorce rates hover between 40 and 50%. In the west, many families don’t even share a single meal together. In the west, many children aren’t learning to honour their parents, to respect their grandparents.

In the west, families are disintegrating en masse and it seems that all we’re intent on doing is talking about the symptoms, but nobody much is talking about the heart of the problem. It’s like cancer – rates of cancer amongst people eating a western diet high in carbohydrates and seed oils are skyrocketing. I mean a hundred years ago, almost no one died of cancer. Today it’s one of the top 3 killers. And all the stuff you see on TV is about treating the disease, instead of asking why it’s happening and stopping it in its tracks.

It’s the same with this relentless attack on families. You hear adults talk about children who are disrespectful; you see young boys and girls going on drinking binges and getting rotten drunk – everybody’s talking about the symptoms. The disease however is the disintegration of the family unit. It’s the falling apart of the single, most important – God-ordained – social unit on the planet. The family. So I come back to my original thesis – the family is under attack. Relentless attack.

But this isn’t just a geopolitical issue. It’s not just a law and order issue. It’s not just a health issue. It’s not just a social issue. It’s a personal issue. Let’s bring it right down to you and me. Your family is under attack. My family is under attack. And when all is said and done, our families are the most important thing on this earth. Or are they?

On a scale of zero to 10 – how important is your family to you? Zero is not at all important. 10 is supremely important. Come on – no one’s marking your scorecard here except you yourself – HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR FAMILY TO YOU, on a scale of zero to 10?

Some will answer that with an 8, 9 or 10. But many – many, if they’re honest with themselves, will be disturbed by the answer, because in their heart of hearts they’ll know that other things are much more important to them than their families. Women tend to place a far higher value on family and relationships, for instance, than men do. In part, it’s because mothers are wired to love their children in a special way. And in part, it’s because men are wired to be the hunter-gatherers, out there providing for their families.

But there are other distractions too. There’s the whole materialism treadmill that we can end up getting on – and we find ourselves having to work so long and so hard for the stuff we want to have, that we don’t have the time to invest in our families. I want to leave you with this one thought today – YOUR FAMILY NEEDS YOU. Mother Theresa once said:

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family."

She had that right. Sometimes, we think there are all these big things out there for us to achieve. And hey, for some people there are. But nothing, nothing is bigger than going home and loving your family. This family that – okay – you didn’t choose for yourself. But this family that’s the only one that you have.

This family that is a precious gift to you from God.

For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and his father, to become one with his wife –and the two become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

After God created Adam, He created Eve and gave her to Adam – so that the two would become one and in so doing, produce offspring, children. There you have it, right from the beginning, God creates a family.

It’s easy to miss that. Family was God’s plan from the beginning and as it turns out, He has rather a lot to tell us about how a loving and effective family should live and behave and run as a family unit. That’s what we’re going to be talking about in these coming days and weeks on the program.

But not long after that, the family unit – the very first family unit – starts to come apart at the seams. They had two children – Cain and Abel – and out of jealousy one kills the other. So the moment sin entered the world, there you have it, the family unit is under attack.

When you’re gone, what sort of legacy are you going to leave behind on this earth? A go...

The farmer who expects a harvest without planting any seeds in the field. Now I’m no farmer; I’m not even a particularly good gardener, but I’m smart enough to know that unless the guy plants some seed, he’s not going to see any sort of harvest. In fact the only thing he’ll see is an empty field full of dust or mud depending on how much rain he has had.

He may be dejected, he may be upset that there’s no harvest. But what does he expect? He didn’t plant any seed. Pretty obvious – and yet all too often we live our lives on the very same, equally ridiculous basis. We wonder why our relationships aren’t producing a harvest.

We want our relationships to be rich and fruitful. We want them to be rewarding. We want relationships to be fun, as well as being strong and supportive. But all those desirable attributes of relationships don’t just happen. They take investment. They take effort. And if your relationships aren’t all that you want them to be – then maybe, just maybe it’s time to plant a seed.

This is the last message in a series that I’ve called, "Living a Life That Leaves a Lasting Legacy of Love". Bit of a mouthful but I guess you get the point. We all want to leave something good behind. We all want to leave a legacy of love in the lives of our children and their children. In the lives of our friends, even our work colleagues and our acquaintances.

I hope that when I’m gone, some of the many people who have, over the years listened to these radio programs, will have a much better life, because I did what I did. I hope my children carry forward values that I imparted to them – decency, integrity, kindness – and hand them on to their friends, and their children.

We all hope those sort of things and yet, all too often, we don’t build and nurture the sorts of relationships that allow that to happen. When you think about it, by and large, we only really allow ourselves to be influenced deep down inside by people we respect and trust. If we don’t trust them, why would we listen to them? If we don’t respect them, why would we take on any of their values or ideas? It makes sense.

I want you to think right now about a relationship that’s important to you, but it isn’t quite what you want it to be. This is a relationship that really, really matters … and yet, it’s not as healthy as it should be. Do you have that person’s face pictured in front of you at the moment?

Now, what do you do with that relationship?

One of the options is to run away. That’s a distinct possibility if the relationship is causing you pain, or if you’re just not quite up to working on it just at the moment. Sometimes, what we want to do is give up because the circumstances are against us. I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I want to share with you a story of a man who wanted to run away from something, from a situation – but instead he stayed amidst his difficult circumstances and did something very, very important. Have a listen to this story:

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar, to King Abimelech of the Philistines. The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; settle in the land that I shall show you. Reside in this land as an alien, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfil the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands; and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessing for themselves through your offspring, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.’

So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister’; for he was afraid to say, ‘My wife’, thinking, or else the men of the place might kill me for the sake of Rebekah, because she is attractive in appearance. When Isaac had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw him fondling his wife Rebekah. So Abimelech called for Isaac, and said, ‘So she is your wife! Why then did you say, She is my sister?’ Isaac said to him, ‘Because I thought I might die because of her.’ Abimelech said, ‘What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.’ So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, ‘Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death’.

Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year he reaped a hundredfold. (Genesis 26:1–12)

I shared that story because it has three very important lessons in it about planting seeds. The first one is about the famine – adversity. Our natural reaction is inevitably to run away, to withdraw. When a relationship is going through a difficult time, one of the things that we so often want to do is to crawl into a cave and hide from it. Anything just to get away. The last thing we think of doing is being proactive and planting a seed. Think about that difficult relationship I asked you to picture earlier – what have your thoughts been about it over the past week. Have you been thinking about how you can get out of the situation, or how you can make it better? Which one have you been focusing on.

The second lesson is that Isaac, like his father Abraham, was far from perfect. He repeated his father’s mistake by lying about his wife and putting her into danger. Sometimes, we think we have to be perfect to sort things out. Well, it’s just not true – you and I will never be perfect and if we wait until we are to work on a relationship then we will never get around to it.

And the third lesson is the lesson about planting seed in the middle of the famine. The most counter intuitive thing you can possibly do. Isaac sowed seed in that land and in the same year reaped a hundredfold.

If you want to improve a difficult relationship then be prepared to plant seed in the middle of the famine, to plant a seed in the time of adversity, because chances are, you’ll reap a hundredfold in return. What does it look like to sow seed into a relationship?

Let’s imagine that your relationship is with a teenaged son – he’s causing you all sorts of grief and you just don’t know what to do. He listens to all this weird music; he’s into all these things that don’t make sense to you.

How do you sow seed into his life, to produce a hundredfold harvest? Well, it’s time to get interested in the stuff that he’s interested in. Ask to listen to some of his music, show interest, ask him who the band is, what they’re singing about, why he likes their music.

Maybe he’s into Facebook and you’re a complete novice – so ask him to show you how to setup an account and how to use it. Or maybe he’s done really well at something and its time for you to celebrate with him.

Entering into his space, listening to him, getting interested in the things that he’s interested in … and that’s just the beginning. Each one of those is like planting a seed. There’s a famine – the relationship is difficult. It’s a seed that says you care. It’s a seed that says I love you and I accept you just the way you are. And my friend this is a seed that will reap a harvest of a hundredfold; it’s a seed that will deliver a harvest.

If we want to leave behind a lastin...

Marilyn Monroe once said:

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you certainly don't deserve me at my best.

That’s a cheery thought isn’t it? But it makes an important point. People who are perfect are easy to love aren’t they? They never make mistakes. They never fall short of our expectations. They never disappoint us, or hurt us, or ignore us.

Yep – those people are soooo easy to love. Have you ever found one? A perfect person that is … No, me neither. Of course we know that there aren’t any perfect people walking on this planet. We kind of know that in our heads, but that doesn’t stop us from expecting perfection when we go looking for love. And I’m not just talking boy–girl, husband–wife type of love.

Friendship is a form of love. Being a parent involves loving. In fact, in a sense, we can interact with work colleagues, associates, acquaintances – either in love, or not. With compassion, or not. With kindness, or not. You understand what I’m saying, right?

My dictionary tells me that love is a strong feeling of affection and even attraction. That can be true. Well, it is true … at least in part. At least some of the time. But that dictionary definition falls a long way short of what love really is. That romantic sort of love is easy to have when the person we’re loving is perfect – and lets face it, everybody can be perfect in short bursts.

But anybody who’s ever been married will tell you that their life–long soul mate is far from perfect, lots of the time. Anybody who’s ever been a parent will tell you that their children are far from perfect. So, what is love; what’s the definition when people and situations and circumstances and relationships are imperfect – which, let’s face it, they are, most of the time? What does it mean to love someone then, huh?

Jesus once said this:

No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends.

If we stop and think about it, that’s absolutely true. Because in an imperfect world, loving imperfect people, love is all about sacrifice. In fact, I’d like to propose an entirely different definition of love: Love is the decision we make to unconditionally, care for, support and honour someone. On their good days and their bad days.

And the fruit of that love is that it develops a relationship that becomes rich and satisfying. In other words, the feelings follow along behind the decision to radically sacrifice ourselves to another person. To put up with their failures. To help them when they’re acting badly, rather than criticise them. To give them the space to make mistakes and still be there for them when they come to their senses.

Often times, love is a radical sacrifice that hurts. And when we choose to live out that radical sacrifice, relationships develop that last a lifetime. How’s that for a definition of love? Radical, sacrificial, unconditional love. What would our world look like, if everybody adopted that definition of love, instead of that trite, superficial, inch deep dictionary definition – a strong feeling of affection?

Affection is the reward of love; the feeling is the result of love. Love – as you may have heard me say before – isn’t just a noun. It’s not simply something that we have or don’t have. It is also a verb. A doing word. Love is something that we are meant to do. And the doing part of love, is sacrifice.

We each would like to think that we would live behind a legacy of love – that when we’re gone, our children, our grandchildren, our friends and wider family – all the people we’ve come into contact with, well be better off, for having known us. It’s pretty natural to want that. But let me tell you, there can be no lasting legacy of love that our lives leave behind, unless we’re living out the right definition of love.

And that definition is that love is a decision to make radical sacrifices for other people. And radical sacrifices always, always cost us something. True greatness isn’t about what we achieve. True greatness is about what we leave behind in the hearts of those whom we’ve served. Again, that’s exactly what Jesus said:

The greatest among you will be the servant of all. (Matthew 23:11)

Can I ask you this – what definition of love are you living out? That shallow dictionary definition or the real definition, the true definition – radical sacrifice?

The most beautiful, the most sublime definition of love that I have ever read comes, of course, from the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13. I’ve often heard it read and spoken about at weddings in a lovey-dovey, fluffy kind of way. Have a listen – tell me whether you thing that it’s lovey-dovey, and all fluffy and soft:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

It seems to me that every part of that description is an explanation of the sacrifice involved in loving. Patience – that’s a sacrifice. Kindness – that’s a sacrifice. Not being envious, boastful, arrogant or rude. Not insisting on your own way. Not being irritable or resentful. Bearing all things, enduring all things. They’re all about sacrifice – a sacrifice that never ends. There’s nothing lovey-dovey or fluffy about any of that. It’s all about sacrifice. The sort of love that God is calling you and me to, is the sort that involves radical sacrifice. The sort that the Apostle Paul writes about in Romans 5:8:

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

My friend anyone who wants to live a life that leaves behind a lasting legacy of love – they need to be living that sort of life. That sort of love. It’s as simple … as that.

When we’re flat out, busy with the hectic lives we lead, leaving a lasting legacy of love isn’t always in the front of our minds is it? But … ask anyone who has a lot of time on their hands. Some one who’s retired maybe, or living on their own. And one of the things that’s at the top of their list is the significance of their life. What impact have I had? Are people better off for having known me? What legacy will I leave behind when I’m gone? They ponder those questions perhaps more than any others.

Funny how our perspective changes as we get older. The less time we have left on the planet, the more the important things really matter. Problem is, when you’re older, isn’t necessarily the best time to start thinking about these things, right? Because by then, many of the opportunities to have a positive impact, to leave a lasting legacy of love, will already have passed us by. And then what?

That’s why we’re chatting about this stuff. Because the life we’re living now, today and tomorrow, and next week, next month and next year – is the very life that’s going to determine the legacy that you and I are going to leave behind. And one of the strongest indicators of how good (or not), how powerful (or not) and how long-lasting (or not) that legacy is going to be, is the sort of love that we give to other people.

As I said at the top of the program – there are really only two types of love – cond...

I want to share something with you today that changed my life. It was the turning point for me from a life of complete selfishness and self-indulgence to a life of doing the best I can with who I am and what I have to serve other people. When I read this short passage that I’m about to share with you, my whole world caved in because I knew ... I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that my life was on the wrong course. You may have heard of the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey. It’s been a bestseller for many years. I read it back in the early to mid-1990s, at a time when I was on a self-improvement venture, and it was habit number two in that book that brought me unstuck. Have a listen to what Covey writes:

In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlour or the chapel, parking the car and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers and the soft organ-music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down the front of the room, and you look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral three years from today. All these people have come to honour you; to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life.

As you take a seat and wait for the service to begin, you look at the programme in your hand. There are to be four speakers: The first one is from your family, immediate and also extended – children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, who’ve come from all over the country to attend your funeral. The second speaker is one of your friends – someone who can give a sense of who you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession, and the fourth speaker is from your church or some community organisation where you’ve been involved in serving.

Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about your life? What kind of husband, father, mother, would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of work associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements, would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?

Covey goes on to make this point:

The end of your life is, in fact, the best frame of reference (or criterion) by which everything else should be examined. By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day doesn’t violate the criteria that you’ve defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision that you have for your life as a whole. To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination.

When I read those words for the first time, a couple of decades ago, I wept. I wept for a few days actually because I realised that my whole life, focused as it was on myself, was going to amount to nothing. I realised that the people at my funeral would not be able to say the things about me that I’d really wanted them to have said.

I was in my mid thirties at the time, outwardly successful but at this turning-point in my life, I realised that all the things I’d been doing up to this point simply hadn’t contributed to the outcomes that (in my heart of hearts) I truly wanted, and the outcome that matters at the end is to have lived a life that will leave a lasting legacy of love, and I simply wasn’t doing the things that would have achieved that outcome. I imagined people would struggle to say anything good about me – not because I’d wasted my life; I wasn’t a failure; I was a success, but because the things I’d been doing day after day hadn’t been speaking love and showing love into the lives of others.

That one realisation, as devastating as it was, was the starting-point for a completely changed life – not a perfect life by any means, but a complete change of focus, a complete change of direction; a decision to turn my life around and focus on doing things for others, and in so doing, discover the fulfilment and contentment that thus far had completely escaped me.

Some of you are thinking, "Berni, how could you have completely missed out on the most important things?" and my answer would be because I, like so many people on this planet, had swallowed this lie that to be happy, you have to accumulate a lot of stuff. I was simply being successful, but at the wrong things: Things that at the funeral wouldn’t matter a toss.

Friend, as we chat today and over the coming weeks about living the sort of life that will leave a lasting legacy of love in the people around you, I want to ask you: Have you really decided what is truly, truly important in your life? Is it getting the next promotion at the place where you work, or making sure that your children are getting enough of your time? Is it buying that next trinket or bauble that you can’t afford, or being part of changing the people around you for good? When those people get up to speak at your funeral, will they be able to say the sorts of things that you’d really (in your heart of hearts) like them to be able to say, or will they be struggling to find something nice to say about you?

Maybe it’s time for you to sit down quietly on your own, over the next day or two, and write down the sorts of things that you would like those people to say at your funeral and then ask yourself, "Am I living that life, doing those things that will lead them to say the things I want them to say?" It’s kind of a gap analysis of what’s really important to you, versus how you’re actually living your life. Beginning with the end in mind, doing that exercise seriously, is in fact one of the most powerful things that you can ever do. I can honestly tell you it’s one of the two or three things I’ve done in my life that have brought around the greatest turnarounds that I’ve ever experienced. Beginning with the end in mind.

Now interestingly Steven Covy’s a Mormon, so his theology and my theology are miles apart. Man, that’s an understatement! But at the end of the last chapter of his book, which can (I guess) be categorised as a self-help book, in a section he calls ‘A Personal Note’ he says this:

I believe there are parts to the human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with. I believe as human beings, we cannot perfect ourselves.

And my friend, as great as the other parts of the book are, this one sentence unlocked the door to change and transformation in my life. Over the coming months, it caused me to seek out a relationship with Jesus (the Son of God), who came that I might have life in all its abundance. Like Covey, I will freely admit that there are many things I still struggle with in life, but through each victory, through each negative emotion dealt-with, through each new act of service that I’ve learnt and am learning, I’ve discovered the truth of that one sentence that Covey wrote at the end of his book. Ultimately, we ourselves are p...

Right now, there are just over 7 billion people living on planet earth; a number that’s going up every day. Today, just under 360,000 babies will be born into the world. And just over 150,000 people will die. So the net population growth of people on planet earth is around 210,000 a day, or around 75 million people a year.

They’re big numbers to contemplate, especially when all that you and I see is the small subsection of that 7 billion people that live around where we live. And in all of human history, they tell us that just over 100 billion people have been born on the earth and each of those 100 billion people have left a legacy. For many of them, their most obvious legacy is the children they left behind, who have had their own children, who in turn had children and so the human legacy of people is the most obvious thing they leave behind.

You and I are descended from an incredibly long line of people – the vast majority that we will never have heard of. Suffice to say that our DNA, the genes laid down on each strand is a complex pea soup made up of the legacy of an incalculable number of people. So that’s the most obvious legacy that most people leave behind.

But there’s also the legacy of our lives. The impacts that we’ve had on the people around us – impacts that ripple laterally across to other people, and vertically down through generations. As an extreme example, it’s reasonable to expect that both historically, and emotionally, Adolf Hitler has had quite a different impact on the world, compared to, say, Mother Theresa. Would you agree? Some people have left astounding legacies behind them – and others have left terrible ones.

And then just ordinary folk like you and me, we leave behind legacies too. Some leave behind a good legacy. Others not so good. Others leave behind a terrible legacy of abuse and hatred that reverberates down through many generations to come.

It’s worth stopping to think about these things for a while isn’t it, because the question that all this stuff causes me to ask of myself is this: what sort of a legacy will I end up leaving behind? And you – what about you? What sort of legacy will you end up leaving behind? Hmm? Have you ever wondered that?

The impact that we have on the people closest to us? Our parents, our spouse, our children, our friends, our work colleagues, our neighbours, our community. What sort of a legacy will you and I leave behind for them, hmm? That’s the question and that’s why today, we’re kicking off a new series of messages that I’ve called, "Living a Life that Leaves a Lasting Legacy of Love". Bit of a mouthful I know – but I guess my central premise here is that if we want to leave something good behind, then we have to live the sort of life that’s going to achieve that outcome.

And the greatest legacy that we can leave behind is a Lasting Legacy of Love. You and I are each a mixed bag. We have some good attributes, some particular strengths in our make up, handed down in our DNA, shaped and refined by our experiences. And then … we have some weakness, some not so nice things about who we are. The question is which of those is going to shape the legacy that we live? The answer is, the ones that we allow to dominate in our lives.

Each of us will leave some legacy, something that we imprint on our children. If you’re a person who is constantly afraid, a worrier then chances are that a great deal of that is going to rub off on your children. On the other hand, if you’re a real encourager – someone who is always building other people up – then that is going to totally change how your children see themselves; an impact that will go down through the generations.

So it’s how we live our lives that impacts not just our children, but many other people around us. The smallest act of kindness can change a life. The smallest act of service can totally transform someone’s world – and that my friend is something that can ripple on across the world, down through the generations in a way that we simply cannot comprehend.

And this isn’t just Berni rambling on. It’s exactly what God says in His Word, the Bible. Have a listen. In the 10 commandments, Exodus 20:5,6 God says this:

You shall not bow down to worship false gods, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of their parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

It’s true. You see it all the time. Sin ripples down a few generations. A man who is an alcoholic, is likely to have an alcoholic son. A man who beats his wife or his children, is likely to produce a son who does exactly the same. Our sin impacts not just us and our immediate family it impacts the legacy that ripples down to generations to come.

But note please here the grace and the mercy and the power of what God’s saying. Our unfaithfulness to God only goes down three or four generations. But if we’re faithful to Him, if we worship Him and live our lives – as best we can – for Him, then the fruit of that faithfulness means that God shows His steadfast love to the thousandth generation. That’s a way of saying forever. A thousand generations is like around 25,000 years.

My friend it may be that you are dealing with the generational impact of the sin of your parents, your grandparents. It may be that there is a spiritual hold over you – of violence, of low self-esteem, of fear, of timidity, of pride – generational sin that has been handed down to you from your ancestors. But God’s Word is clear – you and I can break that cycle – by repenting, turning our lives around, worshiping and honouring God.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this series. Breaking the power of generational sin, and leaving a lasting Legacy of Love.

It’s great to want to have a positive impact in this world. It’s fantastic for us to want to leave behind a lasting legacy of love But – and here’s the BIG BUT – we can’t live the sort of life that’s going to leave that lasting, if we’re drowning in negative emotions.

I recently went out to my Facebook friends and asked them, what sort of negative emotions should I talk about on the program. Are you sitting down? Here’s what they came up with:

Bitterness, anger, disappointment, fear, low self-esteem, envy, lust, cynicism, bad body image, pride, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, greed, regret, guilt, shame, being money hungry, hate, prejudice, judgement, self–pity, worry, self-loathing, jealousy, possessiveness, being untrusting, being unable to share, unable to delegate, unable to open up, fear of being vulnerable, inability to love ….

Hey, that’s not a bad list. I’m sure that you can think of a few more too. Someone who’s caught up in continual disappointment is like someone who’s carrying their own personal rain cloud with them 24/7. Some one who has a poor self-image is likely to be untrusting and unable to share their emotions.

When we’re caught up in those negative emotions, we simply aren’t going to be able to shine a ray of love into someone else’s life. When we’re caught up in those negative emotions, when we’re drowning in them we aren’t going to be able to live the sort of life that leaves a lasting legacy of love in the lives of those with whom we come into contact.

And these negative emotions feed off one another. Let me come back to disappointment....

It’s something I understand really well because I used to be a very heavy smoker. It’s just over 30 years since I gave it up, but I remember it as though it were yesterday and still today, there are some times when I feel as though I could have a smoke. Frightening – the grip of that addiction, and depending on where you live, you may have seen a reduction in smoking recently. We certainly have here in Australia, but let’s just stand back. This is a global radio program, heard in over 160 countries around the world, and so let’s look at the global statistics. Here they are.

About one-third of the adult male population smokes, with smoking-related diseases killing one in ten adults globally. Today, that means smoking causes four million deaths a year, but if current trends continue, by 2030, it’s going to be killing one in six people. Today, one person dies every eight seconds from smoking, and why wouldn’t they? About fifteen billion cigarettes are sold daily. That, believe it or not, is about ten million every minute, and to put all that into perspective, about twelve times more British people have died from smoking than died as a result of World War II.

Now I could continue to rattle off the statistics ad infinitum, but you’re getting the point. Right? These days in most countries, every cigarette-packet sold comes with a warning. Here in Australia, we have some of the toughest plain packaging and warning laws in the world, with grim photos of cancerous lungs and feet with toes rotted off them, and by the way, those cigarettes are hellishly expensive.

So, why do people start smoking? It’s mostly psychological. Peer pressure for young women; people are seduced to try a smoke by its glamorisation, and once they’re hooked, the physical and mental addiction makes it really hard to quit. If you’re a smoker, the single-biggest thing that you can do to improve your health, extend your life-expectancy, and increase your sense of wellbeing is quite simply to give up smoking.

As I said, it’s just over 30 years ago that I gave up smoking. It was around 7 pm on 24 January 1983, and this is the story of how I quit smoking. It was an early evening; I was in a hospital-room as I watched someone die of cancer. She’d been a smoker earlier on in her life. The cancer had spread right throughout her body; she’d left a note, ‘Make this the end’, so they withdrew the treatment, food and fluids, and I watched her take her last breath.

As I walked out of that hospital-room, I threw a half-packet of cigarettes (Benson and Hedges extra-mild) into the grey metal bin outside the room. Cold turkey. I haven’t smoked since. It’s a pretty dramatic way of giving up cigarettes, but then smoking has a very dramatic outcome.

I had started just a few years earlier, in my late teens. I was in the army, at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in the Australian officer’s training academy. We went on an exercise and a huge, cold, wet storm had blown in. Young, incredibly fit men were dropping from exposure. Our packs were miles away; the trucks couldn’t get through on the treacherous roads, so we had no wet-weather gear; no cold-weather gear; no tents (or hutchies, as we called them for some reason back then). We were at the mercy of the elements.

One of the blokes generously offered me a durry (that’s what we called cigarettes back then in the army); it was the only warm thing going, so I took it. Of course I coughed and spluttered as the smoke invaded my body, but that was it. That’s all it took. I was hooked, and in a few weeks, I was smoking three packets of twenty-five cigarettes a day. That’s seventy-five smokes every day! This was back in the day when you could smoke at your desk; I could easily go through a packet on a night on the town; between that and the alcohol, I’d wake up in the morning with my mouth feeling like the bottom of a cocky’s cage, as we used to say. Charming.

I was a chain-smoker. I tried to give it up, but to no avail. As bad as it was for me, as much as it made me cough and splutter and wheeze, as much money as it cost me, and as antisocial and disgusting as smoking is, I just couldn’t give it up, until I watched that woman die. The days, weeks, months and years that followed weren’t easy. The cravings were huge. For years later, I would still reach into the top drawer of my desk to pull out a packet of cigarettes. I’d check to make sure my lighter was in my pocket before I went out, but the thing that did it for me, one craving at a time, was the memory of watching that woman breathe her last breath, and the grief that it wrought in a husband, in a family ... In a very real sense, her death saved my life.

Of course, I could get run over by a bus tomorrow, and despite my level of health and fitness, I could prove to be a statistical aberration and drop dead of a heart attack or stroke or cancer; that’s always possible, but it’s far less likely today than if I was still an obese smoker.

What’s the lesson I learnt? Simple. I actually like my body. I like feeling incredibly well. I like sleeping well at night and being alert during the day. I love being able to exercise, and it’s a great feeling to know that, all things being equal, I have a long and healthy life ahead of me. I’m now in my mid-fifties. To put it bluntly, I would never, ever want to go back to smoking.

So, given that I’ve made it through exactly 30 years without a cigarette, you know what? I’m thinking I can probably make it through one more day. Smoking hastened my father to an early grave, and I had a good friend, Tom Curran, who died in his early fifties, and another work-colleague, Russell Abbott, who died in his late fifties.

Perhaps you’re a smoker. If you’re listening to this, it’s time to quit. These days your local doctor can help you; there are patches and sprays and lozenges, that can be deployed to ease you out of your dependency, and I know how tough that is, both physically and psychologically, but it’s time to take the plunge. There are government programs; there’s all sorts of help available, no matter how young or old you are. I had a very simple message for you today: Don’t smoke. Do whatever you have to do to give it up, craving by craving.

Now perhaps you have a loved one or a friend or a colleague who smokes, and perhaps today God’s speaking to you through what I’m saying, and convicting you to get involved, and to help them and to encourage them. I know as a non-smoker, you think it’s a filthy habit, and you wonder, "How can they possibly smoke?" Hey; I used to smoke three packets of fags a day and I see someone smoking today, and I’m asking myself exactly the same question. How did I ever do that? But understand that they are seriously addicted. It’s tough. It’s really tough to give up smoking, but having the understanding and the support, and the help of a family-member or a friend or a work-colleague is so powerful.

The alternative for that smoker, whether it’s you or someone else, is a massive heart attack at a young age, or lung cancer or gangrene, or any number of other horrible things, that will lead to a really grim and ugly death. Hey; God has a plan for your life, and for my life, and for everyone’s life. I know that ‘cos that’s what He says in His Word – the Bible. It’s a good plan: Sure, with ups and downs; sure, with challenges and trials, but it’s a good plan – a plan that for all too many is cut tragically short by this horrible smoking thing.

I remember thinking to myself when I was a smoker, "Oh, it’d never happen to me". Folks, the research is clear. The facts are in. It absolutely will happen t...

You and I have been given such an amazing body, and it’s the only body that we’ll ever get. It’s been wonderfully, exquisitely, uniquely handcrafted and yet so many of us are abusing it into an early grave. All because of what we’re putting into our mouths. You are what you eat – literally.

Way to many people are contracting diseases that, just a century ago were rare as hens teeth. As we saw last week on the program, cardio-vascular disease was almost unknown in the early 20th century. Today, the World Health Organisation estimates that through heart attack and stroke, cardio-vascular disease kills 16.7 million people every year. That’s one third of all deaths worldwide. And please don’t think that this is all coming from wealthy countries. Two thirds of those deaths are coming from low and middle-income nations. There’s probably not a one of us who doesn’t know someone who’s had a heart attack or a stroke.

Well, if we had been having this discussion back in 1901, almost none of us would have known anyone who’d had a heart attack or a stroke. And yet by 2020, the World Health organisation estimates that there will be around 25 million cardio-vascular disease deaths worldwide. It’s on the increase. It’s the same with cancer, same with diabetes, same with obesity. People we are eating ourselves into an early grave. And the more research that comes out, the more it all points to the so-called Western Diet.

I believe, I know that God gave you and me the most amazing bodies, and the reason we’re dedicating a few weeks to talking about this stuff on this program, is because I want to help you avoid becoming a victim of your western diet influences.

The thing that sets the western diet apart as we’ve seen if you’ve been able to join me, is not it’s fat content – there are plenty of instances of traditional diets high in animal fats where the people have a zero rate of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes and obesity – the thing that sets it apart is the high content of processed and refined carbohydrates.

Sugar: there’s sugar in just about every processed food you buy in the supermarket, white flour, white rice. Sweet drinks, sweet sauces, sweet cereals, sweet just about everything. Last week I shared with you that my top secret for losing 25 kgs (that’s 55 lbs)  that’s a lot of weight, was simply removing refined carbohydrates from my diet.

I just want to talk about that a bit more today, because people are shocked. Some think I’m crazy. Others put it down to another fad diet thing. I told someone about it recently, and they said, ‘but aren’t you hungry?’ We are so conditioned to believe that refined carbohydrates are a normal part of a healthy diet. But they’re simply not!

If you turn the clock back a century – back to the days when cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity and a string of other diseases (which today are pandemics on the increase) were almost completely unknown – the one thing that stands out like a sore thumb, is that refined carbohydrates were a complete rarity in people’s diets.

People want to know, ‘Well, Berni, if you don’t eat bread and cereal and tomato sauce and cakes and biscuits and chips and stuff, what in goodness’ name do you eat?’ That’s the question I’d like to answer for you today, as I sit here with my blood pressure normal, my blood sugar normal, my triglycerides and bad cholesterol low, my good cholesterol high.

I wish I could have invited you to dinner last night. It was awesome. My wife Jacqui cooked a roast vegetable salad while I grilled some tandoori chicken on the BBQ. The salad was stunning. She cut up zucchinis, peppers or capsicums, mushrooms, baby tomatoes, onions, beans (I actually can’t remember all the veggies that were there) and drizzled them with healthy olive oil and roasted them for half an hour in the oven. Preparation time – about 10 minutes.

We then tossed the roasted veggies in a bit of vinegar, added a little salt and pepper and served them up warm with the tandoori chicken that I’d cooked. What was missing was any sauce with sugar in it. What was missing was roast potatoes or white rice or white pasta that would spike your blood sugar level and produce nasty triglycerides in your blood.

But do you know, those veggies contained all the carbohydrates my body needs. I had a stack of them too; they tasted exquisite. The meal contained mostly carbs, some protein and some fat – the way a meal is meant to – only the carbohydrates were tucked away inside a whole bunch of natural fibre, which made them slower to digest. Meaning I wouldn’t get hungry for a long time, and my blood sugar wouldn’t spike.

That’s how people ate back at the beginning of the 20th century. In fact that’s how they’ve been eating for millennia – plenty of unrefined carbs, unrefined grains which are slow to digest, with plenty of fat – animal fat included and plenty of protein. If we had the courage to turn the clock back 150 years on our diet, to a time when obesity, diabetes and cardio-vascular disease were virtually non existent, what we’d doubtless discover, is that many of the diseases that are the products of the 20th and 21st century western diet would go away. And the exciting thing is that the food is fantastic.

My biggest insight? Vegetables rock. Animal fat, rather than increasing my cholesterol levels, actually keeps your blood sugar under control, keeps your appetite under control, and doesn’t make you fat. The research is done. The studies are in. And I’m walking proof.

There is so much fantastic, natural food out there, and if we were prepared to go for it what we would discover is a whole new food sensation, a healthier body, a body that ages much more slowly, a body that is mentally and physically sharper and far less prone to 20th century diseases.

Are you serious about looking after that one body you’ve been given? Really? So, what are you going to do about it? You are what you eat.

Now that I’m in my mid fifties, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research about is the process of ageing. What I’ve observed is that you can take two people of the same age, and one looks much younger than the other. A smoker will often look much older than a non–smoker of the same age. A person who is significantly overweight will often behave much older as their leg and hip joints struggle with the weight, than a person who is not overweight.

I see people who are my age using walking sticks, or hobbling, or finding it hard to get up out of a chair. Is that a random process, or is it something to do with the lifestyle that we lead? Does the process of ageing strike according only to the programming in our DNA, or are there environmental factors that influence ageing? In other words, is there something that you and I can do – in how we live – to slow down the ageing process.

That’s not a new thought, there’s a lot of research going on in this area as our population ages. There are a few different theories of ageing. The most widely accepted one in the medical community is the free radical theory of ageing. You’ve probably heard of free radicals, but, much like me before I became interested in the ageing process, you haven’t paid much attention to them.

In a nutshell, the free radical theory of ageing goes like this: Many of the activities of life produce free radicals in our body – these are unstable molecules in search of a spare electron – we won’t go too much into the molecular science here, or we’ll be at it all day. Heavy exercise produces fr...

Are you ready for secret number 1? Here we go. Back in the 1800s we ate about 7 kg (that’s 15 lbs) of sugar a year. Today, that’s topping out at 70 kg (or 150 lbs). The crazy thing is, we kind of think that’s normal, but before the early 20th century, the only way you could get sugar in your diet at all was to fight the bees for some honey (there was no farming or mass production the way there is today), or to be near an apple tree when it was in season (once a year), or chew on a log called sugar cane because 99% of it’s log, and only 1% of it is sugar.

What we consider normal today, in a historical perspective, is grossly abnormal. It’s our high consumption of sugar and other refined carbohydrates that’s very clearly at the heart (pardon the pun) of so-called western diseases of obesity – cardiovascular disease (that’s heart attacks and strokes), and diabetes. In fact the research shows that within 20 years of a western diet high in refined carbohydrates, making it into a country, almost like clockwork, heart disease, stroke, obesity and Diabetes simultaneously appear, but don’t just take my word for it. If you’re online, go to YouTube and watch the video “Bitter Truth” by Professor of Paediatrics, Robert Lusdig. The high refined carbohydrate intake isn’t just killing us and disabling us. It means that in many countries now, childhood obesity (previously unheard-of) is a pandemic.

So here’s my number 1 secret for losing the 25 kg which I have lost, and am now able to keep off without ever having to think about it: I have as completely as possible removed both sugar and other refined carbohydrates (white flour, peeled potatoes, white rice) from my diet, and I know you might think that I’m crazy, but hear me out. When I came to the conclusion that refined carbohydrates were at the heart of my problem, my wife and I went through our pantry and we removed everything that contained refined carbohydrates: Barbecue sauce, 42% sugar by weight; the breakfast cereals were 35% sugar; fruit juice (see I thought fruit juice was healthy); cakes; chips; chocolates; cookies; white bread; Thai sauces – pretty much anything and everything that had been refined and prepared by someone else, and do you know? There was almost nothing left. It was really demoralising – I mean really, and the first week for me was hard not having any sugar, ‘cos I was addicted to the stuff. I used to kid myself that I wasn’t, but actually I was.

The researchers bred rats without taste-buds, and they put two clear fluids in their cages: One was water with sugar, the other was water with cocaine, and each rat became addicted to the sugar solution.

The change in our diets was radical because just about everything out there has sugar and flour in it. We became a bit like our friend Bill who’s a Celiac. He always has to check everything before he eats, and now, we’re kind of the same. I check the label; I ask the waiter, and I will not allow refined carbohydrates to enter my mouth.

Now I know, I know; you think I’m nuts. Well let me tell you what happened. The weight just fell off me. Now let me tell you: I still eat butter, cheese, bacon – all the high-cholesterol things that traditional medicine tells you is bad for you. I’m going to talk more about that a little bit later, because my doctor is over-the-moon with my blood test results.

I eat as much as I want whenever I want, and I lost 25 kg (that’s 55 lbs). It was the moment I removed all those refined carbohydrates. Look, the withdrawal of sugar lasted about a week, and then I was fine. But when I removed those refined carbs, I lost my appetite; I just wasn’t that hungry anymore, and here’s the science behind that. When you eat refined carbs with a high glaecemic index, your body digests them very quickly. In an instant, your blood sugar spikes, so now your body’s pumping insulin into your bloodstream because insulin is the stuff that processes the blood sugar into energy, and the surplus into fat.

A spike in your blood sugar produces a strong insulin response, and the insulin is so effective in mopping up your blood sugar quickly, you’re left with a really low level of blood sugar, and what does that tell your body? It says: ‘I’m hungry!’ What’s your response? You eat. You go for something that’s going to give you a quick fix, so your blood sugar pumps up rapidly again, and down again and up again and down again ... Your insulin is pumping way too high, and right there, you have the beginnings of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and Diabetes.

As soon as you remove the spikes, most of your hunger goes away. That’s the reason I can eat whatever I want whenever I want – because I now want less food and I want it less frequently. And that my friend, in a nutshell, is how I lost 25 kg. And have for the first time in my life ever kept it off without trying. All I do is I avoid refined carbohydrates. I don’t have to think what I eat; how much I eat; when I eat ... That’s easy to do. I walk past those sweet muffins at the café which they put right at eye level to look and to smell stunning, and do you know? There’s not a single twinge of desire in my body to have one because I’ve broken the addiction to the sugar and the carbohydrates. I no longer need the fix, so I look at that, and I don’t want it. I’ve been through the withdrawal, and the desire is gone.

Now what I’ve just told you may sound completely counter-intuitive. How can the guy still be having bacon and eggs for breakfast, and losing weight? But the truth is, almost every truth is counter-intuitive. Hey; love your enemy. Take up your cross. Blessed are the meek. Those things are all counter-intuitive, and yet it’s true.

But God’s also given you and me a brain, and I don’t want you just to take my word for it. Here are three sources that I access frequently to wrap my mind around the rights and the wrongs of what to eat:

The first is the book “Sweet Poison” by lawyer and author David Gallesby, who like me was grossly obese, and given his gifted legal mind, he applied his forensic investigation skills to understand what was going on with his epidemic of weight-gain, and how to lose weight.

The second is that YouTube video by Professor Robert Lusdig called “Bitter Truth” (it’s right there on YouTube), and finally there’s a fantastic blog and website by a brilliant young doctor, Peter Attier. The site is called www.eatingacademy.com All 3 are brilliant, and if you’re a person whose lifestyle and waistline and blood sugar tests and blood lipid tests aren’t what they should be, my friend, it’s time for you to wrap your mind around this stuff, and do something about it because next month, next year, could be too late.

My secret number 1 for losing 25 kg is this: Get rid of the sugar and other refined carbohydrates in your diet, and watch the weight fall straight off you.

When I reduced the sugar and refined carbohydrates in my diet, not only did the weight come tumbling off without me having to starve myself or go hungry, but my blood cholesterol and triglycerides (those things that tell you whether you’re at risk of heart attack or stroke) – they improved so dramatically, it had my doctor asking, "What have you done?"

See, for years, he’d been telling me to reduce my cholesterol by going on a low-fat diet: Limiting dairy products (no more than 2 eggs a week) – the traditional things that doctors tell you to do, and for years I’d been trying to do that, but it just didn’t work. In fact, I’m not the only one. The whole idea o...

That’s right, we’re going to talk about some things that aren’t in the Bible in this series – and as a Bible teacher that’s something I’ve struggled with a lot in planning and preparing these messages. Just for a few programs, we’re going to do something that I as a Bible teacher do very rarely.

Because there is something going on in our world that you won’t find in the Bible. Obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardio vascular disease, diabetes and cancer.

That’s not to say that they didn’t exist back in Biblical times – with medical knowledge as it was a few millennia ago, of course, when someone died, let’s say of a heart attack or stroke, they didn’t know the cause back then – people just died. But by the late 19th century and early 20th century, we knew how to identify these diseases, it’s just that they didn’t exist.

In the early part of the 20th century just a two or three thousand Americans each year would die of cancer. Today, that number is over 650,000 – and it’s only that low because medical science has come up with ways of reducing the morbidity rate of those who a myocardial infarction – that to you and me, is a heart attack.

The rates of heart disease are much higher still, with up to a third of the population of the average westernised, industrialised country suffering from some debilitating effect of cardiovascular disease. If you were an Australian or an American at the turn of the 20th century, your chances of being obese were remote, around one in 25. Today, your chances of being an obese adult are around one in 3 and climbing.

People, something terrible is going on and we need to talk about it. I am someone who all his life has struggled with his weight – I used to weigh 110 kilograms (that’s 220 lbs) and I’m not what you’d call tall.

My problem was that I was always hungry – I lost lots of weight lots of times, but I always stacked it back on again. So in my early fifties I decided three things. Firstly all these low fat high impact diets hadn’t worked for all of my life. Second – if I didn’t do something about it – given what my blood tests and my doctor were telling me – I was going to be dead sooner rather than later. And third – I had to go and find out the answer – why was I constantly hungry, how could I change my appetite and how could I live a healthy lifestyle at a healthy weight.

I’m not alone. There are huge numbers of people in that same place. So I went and did the research, found out the answers – which, by the way were contrary to what my doctor was telling me – and without much effort, changed my diet in such a way that my appetite reduced dramatically.

And my friend, once your appetite reduces, losing weight requires almost no willpower at all. If you’re not hungry as much, you don’t eat as much. What happened to me? Well, I lost 25 kg (55 lb) over a year and a half, slowly. The fatty liver syndrome (a precursor to cirrhosis and cancer) that I’d suffered from all my adult life just went away. And my doctor is amazed at by cholesterol, triglyceride and blood sugar readings. He’s never seen such a drastic improvement in just a short time.

So here’s what I’m going to do. These next few episodes of Christianityworks I’m going to share very simply and plainly my journey from obese, to healthy. It’s a journey that left behind the starvation diets, because I found out what I needed to wind back the clock on the western diet, remove the things that were causing my problem and eat a diet that is healthy, that I enjoy and that gives me the energy that I never thought I had. No fads. Not starvation. No rocket science.

God has given you and me the most amazing bodies – and as it turns out this is the only body that I’m ever going to get on this earth and that is the only body you’re going to get on this earth. It’s time to start looking after them – and I’d like to share how to do that with you today, and over the next few episodes.

The body we live in is something that we take largely for granted. It’s just … there. It’s been there as long as we can remember and sometimes we live as though it’s going to go on forever.

But this body that you and I are encapsulated isn’t going to go on forever. You know what they say: there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. One day your body and mine will quite literally, give up the ghost.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of reading about diet and food and in particular our digestive system – how we process food.

I’m now in my mid fifties and for most of my adult life, I’ve struggled with my weight. You get to your mid fifties and you know that you’re getting to the pointy end of this whole healthy eating and living thing, because it’s at this age that many people suffer heart attacks, discover they have diabetes, end up with cancer – the three big killers in western society and in any country that has adopted elements of the western diet.

We’re going to talk a lot about that over the coming few days. But today we’re going to kick off by just realising how utterly amazing our body is. If we’re going to head to a healthier lifestyle – which many, many people need to do – there’s this decision that needs to take place about how we eat and live and exercise and sleep.

Healthy living is a deliberate decision that we need to make – and when we do, all of a sudden, within just a couple of weeks we stat feeling so much better that we can’t imagine going back to the old ways of living.

And part of making that decision is realising how incredibly precious this body is that we’re living in. So let’s kick things off by taking a look at just a handful of amazing facts about your body. Are you ready? Here we go. Did you know that:

You produce 25 million new cells every second – 24/7 for your whole life? 25 million – that’s more than the population of Australia. And each of the 2.5 trillion red blood cells in your body can circumnavigate your body in under 20 seconds.

Your nerve impulses travel at over 400 km or 250 miles per hour. And just one sneeze generates a wind gust of 166 km or 100 miles per hour.

Your heart will beat around 100,000 times every day or 2.7 billion times in an average life of around 75 years. And your lungs, with a surface area big enough to cover a tennis court will inhale around 2 million litres or half a million gallons of air each and every day without you even thinking about it.

Your eyes can distinguish over a million different colours and take in more information than the largest telescope we’ve ever built. I’m presuming that’s the Hubble Telescope out there in space.. And as if that weren’t enough, your nose is your personal air conditioning system – it warms cold air, cools hot air and filters out impurities.

Just take a look at your hand for a moment – in just one square inch in the middle of your hand you have about 9 feet of blood vessels, 600 pain sensors, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors and 75 pressure sensors. And when you touch something, those sensors send a message to your brain at around 200 km or 124 miles an hour.

Your eyebrows are there to keep sweat out of your eyes, you make around one litre of saliva a day. And if you were able to stretch all of the DNA in your body from end to end, it would be enough to take you to the sun and back almost 700 times.

And I haven’t even begun to talk about the amazing chemical factory that your body is. It has the most finely tuned, complex processes that scientists and medicos are really only beginning to unwrap for regulating temperature, com...

I was recently confronted with a situation that really tested my faith. You see, I don’t want you to think that just because I happen to be this smooth voice on the radio – that I somehow get an exemption stamp in my passport, from turbulence on the journey. In fact, probably the opposite is the case.

Because I’m out there, sharing the fantastic news of Jesus with people all around the world, week after week through these radio programs, our enemy the devil’s got me in his sights. I’ve got a target painted on my chest as far as he’s concerned. So, here’s what was going on.

There was one particular country, one of the world’s most populous countries, where our team had been working to get these programs to air on a radio station with a huge listenership. The daily audience for the program was going to be over one million people – that’s actual listeners.

That’s a big deal! I mean one listener is a big deal to me. A million – I can’t even imagine that many people. It’s a big deal. We’d been working for two years on this project, including finding translators and a voice to record the messages in the local vernacular language.

Quite an investment of time and effort and money. And then the day came when finally, the radio network in question accepted the program and placed it in a prime time slot. Amazing stuff. We rejoiced. We gave thanks. Really – it had been such a long road and so much was at stake. So many lives, so many people to hear the good news about Jesus. Wow.

But on the first day we were due to go to air they told us, well … we can accept the program for the moment, but in a few weeks’ time, we’re having a review of all externally provided programs and we don’t know what that is going to mean.

When our team in that country got in touch with me to tell me the news, they were gutted. I can understand how they felt. All that effort and now, all of a sudden, the whole thing was up in the air again. Devastating. What would happen? I’ll share my reaction to that whole thing with you in a minute. But first I want to go to what Isaiah has to say into situations like that.

Remember, if you’ve been able to join us these past few programs, you’ll know that Israel has been in slavery in Babylon for 70 years, since about 586 or 587 BC. And God comes to them through His Prophet Isaiah and brings them the good news that He is about to set them free; that they are about to return to the Promised Land. Whoopee! You’d think. But just like you and me, when everything’s bleak, they struggled to digest the good news.

You know what it’s like. When all your circumstances are screaming gloom and doom at you, it’s very hard to believe that something good is going to happen. Even if you believe in God. Even if you’ve put your trust in Jesus. Even if you’ve heard a million sermons on trusting God.

When your Goliath comes stomping into your life with weapons of destruction pointing at you – yah, believing that God is there to protect you, that God has a good plan for you – that’s really, really hard. It was hard for Israel, way back then and it’s hard for us today. Here and now. So here’s what God says to His people through the Prophet Isaiah. Have a listen Isaiah 52:12:

For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

You see, they were going to leave Babylon and their slavery behind. But how does that actually happen, they’ve been wondering? Babylon – the global world power of the day. The most fearsome and powerful of armies. Are we going to have to run for our lives? Are some of us going to be killed? What? How’s this going to happen?

All well and good for Isaiah to be carrying on with all this good news, but what if he’s wrong? What if God doesn’t show up?

Have those thoughts ever crossed your mind when you’re between a rock and a hard place? Yep – well, Israel too. And so God points back to a time when He’s done exactly the same for them before. He’s pointing back to a time in their history that every man, woman and child knows from top to bottom, inside out, back to front, because it’s been handed down from generation to generation for centuries.

He’s pointing back to the Exodus of course, to their escape from Israel. Remember? They fled and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and so the greatest army of that time, Egypt, came after them. In front of them was the Red Sea – an uncrossable body of water for a million men, women and children. Behind them, coming up fast was the mightiest army on the planet. Here it is.  Exodus 13:21–22:

The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

So God went ahead of them. But what about the rear, as the Egyptians closed in on them? Exodus 14:19–21:

The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided.

There it is. God went ahead of them, and behind them. He led them and opened the way, and He protected them from an attack from the rear. So when He promises now all these centuries later to do exactly the same – what is it that He’s doing? Is He asking them to rely on blind faith? Is He asking the to conjure up courage that they don’t have? No! He’s asking them to look back at what He has already done.

That’s the amazing thing with God, He never takes us to the point, where we can’t take it. Each challenge, He comes through. And so the next time, when the challenge is bigger and scarier than last time, He asks us to look back on what He’s already done in our lives.

We forget that each time. We forget He’s already proven Himself faithful and true. Oh yeah! He did that last time. Of course, in fact as I look back, He’s always come through, He’s always been there, He’s always somehow some way made it happen. Wow! And there is the bedrock of our faith this time.

When I heard the bad news about the radio program in that country, my reaction was this. We have seen this happen so many times. Today God has tens of millions of people listening to this very same program that you’re listening today in 160 plus countries around the world. There are so many times when we shouldn’t have ended up on stations and God opened the door. He went ahead of us.

There are so many times when the ministry should have folded because there weren’t the resources. But He brought up our rear. He’d trained me to trust in Him over and over again by putting me between a rock and a hard place and showing up and making things happen. After a while even someone as spiritually thick as me starts to get it. We don’t have to listen to the theory, God plans for us to put it into practice over and over again and then shows up and proves Himself true. He teaches us in our experience that this verse is absolutely true:

For you shall not go o...

Life is full of transitions isn’t it? We go from being a child to being an adult, they call those years our teenage years and anybody who’s been a teenager will know that it’s an awkward often difficult time. You se it’s this transition thing from something we know to something we don’t, from A to B. And what we’d really like is, we’d like our transitions to be quick and simple and direct and comfortable and predictable and safe. That’s what we’d like them to be.

But transitions never are. From single to married, from married to single, from staff member to supervision, from supervisor to manager, from employed to unemployed, from student to teacher. Whatever the change is, whatever the transitions is, there’s always an awkwardness, an uncomfortableness about it.

So we’ve been looking at this whole transition thing by putting ourselves in Israel’s shoes in this series. They’d been exiled in Babylon for seventy years but at the end of seventy years God’s ready to bless them again and take them back home to the Promised Land. Now you’d think that when Isaiah announced that, there’d be shouting and dancing in the streets. But think about it, most of them had been born in slavery. They’d been there over seventy years!

And while they’ve heard of the Promised Land it’s a bit like a dream land! Does it really exist? And hey we’re slaves right? Dominated by the dominant world power of the day the Babylonians, right? How are we ever going to see the Promised Land? That’s the reality. And when we’re in our version of Babylon, when we’re in that difficult place we’d rather not be in, come on, how difficult for us to even begin to imagine that God would actually restore our lives?

Sometimes fear is our default mode. It’s true for many of us. Most of us respond to uncertainty and transition with what? Fear rather than faith. And that is where Israel was; they needed some convincing that God was going to bless them. That’s where many people are today. How about you?

So God sends them the prophet Isaiah and as we saw in the last program, three times in chapter 51 in the book of Isaiah God says to his people, “Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen, to me.” It’s like an alarm clock at 6 in the morning going Ring Ring Ring! What’s he trying to do? He’s trying to get their attention, he’s trying to wake them up and in fact the very next thing he says to them is, “Wake up!” Let’s hear what God has to say to His people back then and what He’s saying to you and me about His plans and purposes for us today. Isaiah Chapter 52, verses 1 – 6:

Awake! Awake! Put on your strength oh Zion, put on your beautiful garments Jerusalem the holy city for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up oh captive Jerusalem loose the bonds from your neck oh captive daughter Zion for thus says the Lord your God you were sold for nothing and you shall be redeemed without money.

For thus says the Lord God, ‘Long ago my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens and the Assyrian too has oppressed them without cause, now therefor what I am doing here,’ says the Lord, ‘seeing that my people have been taken away without cause, they’re rulers house’, says the Lord, ‘and continually all day long my name is despised therefore my people shall know my name therefore in that day they shall know that it is I that speak, here am I’.”

This is God shouting, “Wake up people!” You know what it’s like when you first wake up out of a deep sleep and your kind of groggy and disorientated and if you default mode is fear and you’re traveling through your difficult place – your Babylon, your health issue, your marriage issue, your family issue, your money issue, your whatever issue – when you’re in that place and your default mode is fear, Hey! You’re going to take some waking up. To wake up from the drowsiness of that negativity to the potential and the amazing future that God has for you.

We need to get dressed in the garment of praise, we need to put on the strength we have in Christ! We need to shake the dust off our attitudes where it settled from lack of movement, cos tell you, fear has a tendency to paralyse us, we just kind of sit there and hope it’s all going to change. We need to lose the bonds of captivity to our circumstances that are choking us.

What a beautiful picture. God is wanting His people to wake up to the fact that by his sovereign will and His immense power He’s already started doing some amazing stuff but the God of their fathers is going to redeem them without money in other words He’s going to do it, He’s already doing it, and it’s going to cost them nothing. No work, no effort, cos God is going to do it.

“Wake up to what I’m doing here people”. That is what God’s saying to Israel and my friend that is what He’s saying here to you and me today. When we’re in that dark and difficult place of transition from something we know to something we don’t, from something that’s comfortable, albeit trying, to something that’s maybe not as comfortable and familiar, we almost want to sleep, most of us want to stay where we are. It’s out default mode; we’re not expecting God to move.

I’m not saying God’s going to wave a magic wand and solve all your problems over night that may be his plan, that may not be his plan but he may have a plan to fill you with exquisite knowledge of his present, the sort that is only available in the dark place that you’re in the sort of knowledge the presences of God and his healing an comforting spirit that simply wouldn’t be as poignant or as powerful in a place of light as it is in a place of darkness.

Whatever God’s plan is for you let me tell you, He has a plan. A plan for good, a plan to bless you, a plan to be your God right smack bang in the middle of that place that you’re in at the moment. You’re God has a mighty plan and a mighty purpose for your life and I don’t care if you’re 8 or your 80 or you’re 800, your God has a mighty plan and a purpose for your life. And today through his word this is what God is saying to you. “Wake up my child, wake up to the plan that I have for you.”

Wow, see the stuff that we could end up missing out of if we are not in God’s word? If we don’t’ open God’s word and read it and read it as though he means to speak to us through it? Wake up to the plan that God has for your life for whatever it is, it’s good! And it’ll be such a tragedy for you to miss out on God’s plan for your life. Wake up!

Good news about tomorrow always brightens up today have you noticed? And there are probably only one or two people, and perhaps you’re one of them, who needs a bit of good news about tomorrow today.

Like the nation of Israel a few hundred years BC when they were coming to the end of exile and slavery in Babylon, back in around 520BC give or take a few years. They desperately needed some good news. But you see for the last seventy years as slaves all they were used to was bad news, and for someone only used to bad news it can be really hard to get the good news though. God had to shake them and wake them up.

He used the prophet Isaiah to do that as we’ve seen so far in this story, and of course you and I can be like that too. If all we’ve been used to is bad news for a long time, it’s kind of hard to wrap our hearts around some good news. It’s hard to have hope for tomorrow when the circumstances of yesterday and today are screaming at you there is no hope!

Are you with me? Sure yo...

I was recently confronted with a situation that really tested my faith. You see, I don’t want you to think that just because I happen to be this smooth voice on the radio – that I somehow get an exemption stamp in my passport, from turbulence on the journey. In fact, probably the opposite is the case.

Because I’m out there, sharing the fantastic news of Jesus with people all around the world, week after week through these radio programs, our enemy the devil’s got me in his sights. I’ve got a target painted on my chest as far as he’s concerned. So, here’s what was going on.

There was one particular country, one of the world’s most populous countries, where our team had been working to get these programs to air on a radio station with a huge listenership. The daily audience for the program was going to be over one million people – that’s actual listeners.

That’s a big deal! I mean one listener is a big deal to me. A million – I can’t even imagine that many people. It’s a big deal. We’d been working for two years on this project, including finding translators and a voice to record the messages in the local vernacular language.

Quite an investment of time and effort and money. And then the day came when finally, the radio network in question accepted the program and placed it in a prime time slot. Amazing stuff. We rejoiced. We gave thanks. Really – it had been such a long road and so much was at stake. So many lives, so many people to hear the good news about Jesus. Wow.

But on the first day we were due to go to air they told us, well … we can accept the program for the moment, but in a few weeks’ time, we’re having a review of all externally provided programs and we don’t know what that is going to mean.

When our team in that country got in touch with me to tell me the news, they were gutted. I can understand how they felt. All that effort and now, all of a sudden, the whole thing was up in the air again. Devastating. What would happen? I’ll share my reaction to that whole thing with you in a minute. But first I want to go to what Isaiah has to say into situations like that.

Remember, if you’ve been able to join us these past few programs, you’ll know that Israel has been in slavery in Babylon for 70 years, since about 586 or 587 BC. And God comes to them through His Prophet Isaiah and brings them the good news that He is about to set them free; that they are about to return to the Promised Land. Whoopee! You’d think. But just like you and me, when everything’s bleak, they struggled to digest the good news.

You know what it’s like. When all your circumstances are screaming gloom and doom at you, it’s very hard to believe that something good is going to happen. Even if you believe in God. Even if you’ve put your trust in Jesus. Even if you’ve heard a million sermons on trusting God.

When your Goliath comes stomping into your life with weapons of destruction pointing at you – yah, believing that God is there to protect you, that God has a good plan for you – that’s really, really hard. It was hard for Israel, way back then and it’s hard for us today. Here and now. So here’s what God says to His people through the Prophet Isaiah. Have a listen Isaiah 52:12:

For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

You see, they were going to leave Babylon and their slavery behind. But how does that actually happen, they’ve been wondering? Babylon – the global world power of the day. The most fearsome and powerful of armies. Are we going to have to run for our lives? Are some of us going to be killed? What? How’s this going to happen?

All well and good for Isaiah to be carrying on with all this good news, but what if he’s wrong? What if God doesn’t show up?

Have those thoughts ever crossed your mind when you’re between a rock and a hard place? Yep – well, Israel too. And so God points back to a time when He’s done exactly the same for them before. He’s pointing back to a time in their history that every man, woman and child knows from top to bottom, inside out, back to front, because it’s been handed down from generation to generation for centuries.

He’s pointing back to the Exodus of course, to their escape from Israel. Remember? They fled and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and so the greatest army of that time, Egypt, came after them. In front of them was the Red Sea – an uncrossable body of water for a million men, women and children. Behind them, coming up fast was the mightiest army on the planet. Here it is.  Exodus 13:21–22:

The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

So God went ahead of them. But what about the rear, as the Egyptians closed in on them? Exodus 14:19–21:

The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided.

There it is. God went ahead of them, and behind them. He led them and opened the way, and He protected them from an attack from the rear. So when He promises now all these centuries later to do exactly the same – what is it that He’s doing? Is He asking them to rely on blind faith? Is He asking the to conjure up courage that they don’t have? No! He’s asking them to look back at what He has already done.

That’s the amazing thing with God, He never takes us to the point, where we can’t take it. Each challenge, He comes through. And so the next time, when the challenge is bigger and scarier than last time, He asks us to look back on what He’s already done in our lives.

We forget that each time. We forget He’s already proven Himself faithful and true. Oh yeah! He did that last time. Of course, in fact as I look back, He’s always come through, He’s always been there, He’s always somehow some way made it happen. Wow! And there is the bedrock of our faith this time.

When I heard the bad news about the radio program in that country, my reaction was this. We have seen this happen so many times. Today God has tens of millions of people listening to this very same program that you’re listening today in 160 plus countries around the world. There are so many times when we shouldn’t have ended up on stations and God opened the door. He went ahead of us.

There are so many times when the ministry should have folded because there weren’t the resources. But He brought up our rear. He’d trained me to trust in Him over and over again by putting me between a rock and a hard place and showing up and making things happen. After a while even someone as spiritually thick as me starts to get it. We don’t have to listen to the theory, God plans for us to put it into practice over and over again and then shows up and proves Himself true. He teaches us in our experience that this verse is absolutely true:

For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, ...

Over the years I’ve done a lot of flying and on those long haul trips that I really like to do is to get from point A to point B by the most direct possible route, preferably flying business class; that pretty much sums it up when I’m sitting crammed up in an economy seat at the back of the plane on a 14-hour flight.

And that pretty much sums up our attitude towards life as well. Whatever we’re traveling through we want it to be quick and comfortable and direct would you agree? Life is full of awkward transitions, from being single to married, from being married to being single, from being a child to becoming an adult, from being a couple to being a couple with a baby.

It doesn’t matter what the situation is there always is an awkwardness to the transition. Have you noticed that? And somehow we always seem to be in some transition of some sort. If only we could just arrive, if only we could get to the end of whatever we’re going through from point A to point B in a straight line, preferably flying business class.

If we can get better at travelling through life’s transitions – the change from A to B; from something we know to something we don’t know – frankly we’re going to have a much better life, we’re going to enjoy life a lot more. So I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Are you ready? Life is just one big transition, see we constantly want to arrive at the point where everything’s going swimmingly well, where everything is absolutely perfect, cause most of us have some seasons in our lives where things are like that but seasons come and go.

It seems to me that most of our lives are about traveling through transitions, and instead of just wishing that the transition phase was over, instead of wishing today and tomorrow away I believe that with all my heart that God wants us to enjoy every minute of every day. Enjoy – quite literally entering into His joy.

There was a time in the history of the nation of Israel where they were about to start going through a major transition and I guess over the coming weeks I want to explore that time of transition to discover how God handles transitions, our transitions in life, because where not traveling through this alone – you and I.

He has a plan and the whole world’s plan doesn’t always revolve around us. We need to fit into God’s bigger plan and He’s a player in all of this.

When we’re going through transition and we’re feeling uncomfortable and we’re looking forward to something much better. You know where our focus is? It is normally on ourselves, 100% on ourselves we become all inward looking and self pitying and we’re all woe is me, friend that’s no way to live our lives, it’s no way for me to live my life and it’s no way for you to live your life.

Israel at the point where we’re going to pick up this story have been exiled in Babylon as slaves for close on 70 years it was God’s punishment for their unfaithfulness. Most of the Israelites couldn’t even remember the Promised Land and Jerusalem, because they had never been there! Most of them had been born in slavery but God is about taking back to that place the Promised Land, they’re about to go through a major transition – from slavery to freedom from Babylon to Jerusalem.

Change is always difficult; even getting them to believe that change was going to happen! Hey, they had been slaves for all their lives. God appears to have failed them even though he hasn’t, but that’s how they see it. The Babylonian kingdom is so big and so strong and they’re been hoping that God would do something. They’ve been hoping beyond hope that one day … one day Israel would be restored and God’s promises would be restored. But you know in the face of the present reality – slaves in the most powerful kingdom in the world – that seems somewhere between improbably and impossible. Really?

So this is what God says to them through the prophet Isaiah. Incidentally I believe that this is what God saying to anyone today who’s in that same place as the Israelites back then. Isaiah chapter 51 beginning at verse 1:

God says, listen to me you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hue and to the quarry from where you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you for He was but one when I called him. But I blessed him and made him many. For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places and he will make her wilderness like Eden, her dessert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and Gladness will be found in her thanksgiving and the voice of song.

So what’s God saying? What does it mean to look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from where you were dug? God’s pointing them back to an impossible promise and an impossible journey that they’ve all heard about. They know it backwards. The promise God made to Abraham, 75 years old he was, and God promised him a son. His wife Sarah was barren and off they went on a 25 years journey.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was finally born. God promised a future, he promised to make him a mighty nation, and he promised him the Promised Land. And the very nation of Israel the descendants of Abraham and then Isaac, these same people who are now slaves were themselves the impossible fulfilment of that impossible promise.

See, God’s saying to them, ‘I know it looks impossible, I know your present reality is all you can see at the moment but look back at what I’ve already done, look back to the quarry from which you were hewn. How far have I already brought you? Look back at the many impossible promises that I’ve already fulfilled and the many improbably journeys, like Abraham’s, that I’ve already made happen. It’s your heritage it’s your reality. I am that God; I am your God.’ Wow talk about standing on the promises of God

Whatever transition you’re traveling through your life at the moment, look back and see how far God’s already brought you, look back at Jesus, look back at the cross, at the tomb, at the grace that God’s already poured out on you, at the many blessings, at the many provisions that he’s already bestowed upon you.

However overwhelming your present circumstances may feel, this is your reality. This is who God is; this is who your God is. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, there will be comfort there will be a garden in the dessert the Lord will find a way to restore to you the blessings that he promises.

They don’t call it the Good News for nothing. My friend, listen to me. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s’ true isn’t it we hate uncertainty. We want everything to be under our control so that we can make sure that we head to the right destination – the destination that we want. It may be that your job’s going just fine, your children are fine, your finances are fine but your marriage is anything but fine.

Well what’s going to happen? How’s it going to turn out what can I do? Will it ever change? Will she ever change? Will he ever change? Why can’t things be different and if it’s not your marriage, it could be your job or your finances or your health or perhaps your children. At any point in life there is some part of our lives in transition, from point A to point B and often the outcome is uncertain. Well here’s what I believe, in fact here’s what I know – There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

As we saw before the break Israel was at the point of hopelessness – 70 years in exile in slavery und...

Most people these days live hectic lives, just scraping through each day. Personally, my list of things to do is as long as my arm and then some. There are some personal things I have to do; things to do with writing and recording and producing this radio-programme; there’s an organisation to run; people to meet with; this project; that project; a new idea over here, another one over there; hundreds of e-mails each day ... Welcome to my world.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining and none of those things are terribly bad at all, but the point is that with so many more things to do than I can possibly fit into my day, or my week or even my year, my process for deciding what I do is absolutely critical. Chances are, the same is true for you.

One of the big mistakes I used to make is that I’d sit down in the morning, which (given that I’m a morning person) is my most lucid and productive time, and just start answering e-mails. After a while, I realised I wasn’t getting anything else done because by putting my E-mails first, I was putting other people’s priorities first. I was in fact dancing to their tune instead of sorting out for myself what the most important things were on my agenda, and doing those things first.

There’s a well-known principle or framework that you read in a lot of management books, that sets out the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important, and what you discover is that almost nothing that’s urgent is important, and almost nothing that’s important is urgent. And yet most of us react to urgent things, or at least the things that other people say are urgent, and so we spend most of our time doing urgent things, instead of the important things – day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And before you know it, your life is kind of slipping away, doing a whole bunch of things, which, in the scheme of things, sure, they make you busy, but how important are they?

Do you see my point here? How are you spending your life, and are the things you’re spending your time on important and worthwhile? I guess I’m asking those questions for you to ask them of yourself, and answer them. Come on! Be brutally honest. For instance, making sure I have some time with my beautiful wife Jacqui is important. Making sure I encourage her and give her a hug and a kiss, and spend some unhurried time with her in the morning over breakfast is really important, but it’s not urgent. It’s not as urgent say as the e-mail that comes in from a radio-station somewhere around the world that says they weren’t able to download tonight’s radio-programme from our FTP server.

And yet what I used to do (because remember, mornings are my most productive time) is get up early and spend no time at all with Jacqui over breakfast, and just work furiously through that time, and by the time she comes home from work and I come home from work, we’re both tired and there you go. We haven’t spent any time together.

Do you see how easily this stuff happens in people’s lives? The urgent trumps the important in so many people’s lives, and before you know it, your life is falling apart. Things are in a mess. Marriages are falling apart, all because we allow the urgent to crowd out the important. It’s scary, isn’t it?

So what about you? What about your life? Are you letting the myriad of urgent things crowd out the important things like spending time with people, managing your finances properly, nurturing your children, developing relationships with your co-workers? See, all those things are incredibly important, and in many-a person’s life, they’re being cast aside simply because we’re too busy doing the urgent stuff.

‘I don’t have time to exercise!’ Well, if you don’t make time for exercise (which is important), let me tell you you’ll certainly be making time for sickness (which will be urgent), and actually, that’s how it works. Doing the important things generally over time reduces the number of urgent things that you need to do because if the important things go undone, that leads to crises and those crises increase the number of urgent things requiring an immediate response.

I don’t know what your destiny is, but this is what I do know: It doesn’t lie in a myriad of things that other people tell you are urgent; it lies in the things that, in your heart of hearts, you know are important. If you or I went to God, this God who handcrafted us, who designed us in His heart – blueprinted our DNA, if we went to Him and said: ‘Lord, what’s the most important thing that I have to do with my life’, what do you think He’d answer? What would He put at the very top of our to-do list? Well, actually, we already know. A clever young lawyer once asked Him a very similar question. The lawyer sort of said (and this is my paraphrase):

Well, Jesus, you and I both know that in the Law of Moses handed down over all those years, there are 613 commandments and prohibitions. That’s kind of a lot. I mean that’s a lot day-to-day to remember to do, so how would you sum up the Law? I mean, if I’m trying to prioritise these things in my life, which one of all those commandments is the most important one?

You can read the exact words in Matthew 22 and Mark 12, and if I had to paraphrase Jesus’ reply in kind of here-and-now speak, it’d run something like this:

Look, I know you have a lot of things to do. There are lots of rules: Do this, do that ... They’re all good things, but you can sum up the whole Law in just two commandments – to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. That’s the most important one, and the second one is just like it: Love the people around you as much as you love yourself. That’s the whole Law in a nutshell.

Do you know something? The most important thing that I do almost every day, the thing that I do before anything else, is that I spend an hour or so alone with Jesus praying; reading the Bible; asking Him questions, and that’s what sets the course for my whole day – day after day, month after month, year after year. Actually, it sets the course for my whole life. It is quite simply the single-most important thing that I do, and it’s through that time with Him that I’ve discovered my destiny.

If I were to ask you, "What’s your destiny? What were you put on this earth to achieve – to do? What impact are you meant to have on this planet of over seven billion people? What’s the point of your life, and is it heading in the right direction", I wonder how you’d answer those questions.

I ask those questions of people rather a lot, and I can tell you the number of people who have a clear sense of destiny and purpose and direction – well you know, it’s less than five per cent – maybe one in twenty; maybe. Now I’m not saying that we should each have our lives completely mapped out because things happen along the way. There are twists and turns in life that are totally unexpected. Little things can change the whole course of a life.

We can’t map out our whole lives in the minutest detail and say. "Yep. That’s what I’m going to do, that’s where it’s going", and yet deep-down, we need to have some sense of a destiny. Another way of putting it would be to have a sense of direction for our lives. Where’s your life headed? And that destiny is invariably tied up with...

So can I ask you something? Are you really living the life to the full? I mean really. The worst possible outcome to my life and I think to yours too, is to get to the end of it one day and to look back and think to ourselves ‘I think I missed out, I don’t think I lived the life I was meant to live, I don’t’ think I’ve fulfilled my destiny. If only I could go back and live it again and do it properly this time.’ Don’t you agree? Wouldn’t that be just the most tragic outcome to our lives here on earth?

It seems to me that we can be alive and kicking but not really living life. We can be alive but for all and intense and purposes be dead. So I guess when I talk about discovering your destiny is what I’m really talking about is being who you were always meant to be and living the life you were always meant to live. Getting the most out of life, is that something you want? I certainly do, and I hope you do as well.

And so today we’re going to take a look at a man who in a very real sense managed to get a second chance and whatever you may think of his story, his name is Lazarus, the question is, what does it say about your life here and now and the possibility of a second chance?

It’s a powerful story the story of Lazarus. It’s about a real man who died and whom Jesus we’re told brought back to life again. Now there are two parts to the story, we’ll look at the first half right now and the second part after a short break on the program so let's have a bit of a read. Johns Gospel chapter 11 is where you’ll find the story of Lazarus.

Now a man named Lazarus was sick, he was from Bethany the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Now this Mary who’s brother Lazarus now lay sick was the same one who had previously poured perfume on Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sister’s sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love Lazarus is sick’. When he heard this Jesus said, ‘The sickness won’t end in death. No, it’s for God’s glory so that God’s son may be glorified though it.

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was for two more days and then he said to his disciples, ‘Well ok, lets get up and go to Judea’. ‘But Jesus,’ they said, ‘a short while ago Jews there tried to stone you and here you’re going back?’ And Jesus answered them, Isn’t there 12 hours of daylight in a day? A man who walks by day won’t stumble for he sees the worlds light, its when he walks by night that he stumbles for he has no light.’

After he said these things he went on to tell them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep but I’m going there to wake him up again’. And his disciples replied, ‘But if he sleeps he’ll get better.’ But Jesus had been speaking of his death and the disciples thought that he was just asleep. So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I’m glad I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let us go to him right now’.”

The last couple of programs we’ve dealt with an issue, well, so many of us don’t really want to deal with head on – sin. I mean in our world sin is something of a four-letter word. The stuff in our lives we know is wrong that robs us of life itself, when I look back on my life as a wealth apparently successful businessman on the outside people envied me. I seemed to have it all together and I seemed to have it all, but on the inside I was dying. I was dead and empty and hollow just like a shell, truly. I describe myself as a dead man walking. And so many people are living their lives that way today, truly they are!

Are the things you're doing wrong robbing you of the life you were meant to be having? Are you a bit like this Lazarus alive sort of but not really? Sure physically alive but spiritually through the things you are doing with your life not really having a life at all?

You know something, it doesn’t matter how much we deny it and try and put a respectable face to it, or sell it as a feature of our freedom to do whatever we want, sin does that to all of us. It makes us dead on the inside. At this point someone might be saying, "Come on Bernie, what an old fashioned point of view." If you’re in that camp I encourage you to do something, take a look, a good hard look at the way you are living your life and ask yourself am I really being the me I was meant to be? Am I really living the life I was meant to live?

Do I have this sense that I’m fulfilling my destiny? See to me, it’s a tragedy when people can’t answer those questions with a clear assurance that yes they are being the person they were meant to be. Yes they do have a deep sense that they’re fulfilling their destiny that God has for them because that’s what God wants for your life, he wants a new life. Let's look at new life; let's look at how things unfold in this story of Lazarus.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him and Mary stayed at home. “Lord, Martha said to him, if you’d been here, if you’d only been hear earlier Lazarus wouldn’t’ have died!’ and Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ But Martha answer, ‘I know he’ll rise again in the resurrection on that last day.’ Jesus said to her ‘I am the resurrection and the life, who ever believes in me will live even though he dies and who ever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ And she said, ‘Yes lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who has come into this world.’

And after she said this she went back and called her sister Mary, ‘The teacher Jesus is here.’ she said, ‘he’s asking for you.’ when Mary heard this she quickly got up and went out to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered their village but was still in the place where Martha had met him, when the Jews who had been with Mary in the house comforting her noticed how quickly she got up and went out they followed her thinking that she was going to the tomb to mourn there for Lazarus.

When Mary reached Jesus and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord if only you had been here my brother wouldn’t’ have died.’ And when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit was troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ ‘Come and see Lord.’ And Jesus wept. And the Jews said, ‘See Jesus loved Lazarus!” But some of them said, ‘Couldn’t he who opened the eyes of the blind come and kept this man from dying?’

See here’s the thing, nobody was expecting Jesus to come along and raise Lazarus from the dead. And when we look at our lives and when we see our dead things can be on the inside and we look at God and say, ‘God, why didn’t you show up earlier?’ And we can’t imagine how God could possibly breath life into our situation, we can believe he could have done something back then like the people with Lazarus, he could have stopped him from dying. We can believe that one day we will rise again and have eternal life, but it can be so hard so hard to believe that Jesus could come and breath a new life today, here and now. Let me ask you, what do you believe?

Well let's get back to the Lazarus story because there is so much more in it about living our lives to the ful...

As I look around at people, big, small, black, white, young, old … what I see is an awful lot of people who aren't happy with their lot in life. And as you talk to them, what it often comes down to is not that they're not happy with their lot and the things that are going on – although that's sometimes part of it – but something much deeper going on. Because more often than not, they're not happy with who they are.

In our last program, we chatted about the fact, that often, that's because we feel we don't measure up to what the world expects of us but today, I'd like to go even deeper than that again. Let me ask you, forgetting everything that goes on around you, when you're alone in a quiet room, completely alone, do you like who you are? Are you excited about who you are … your potential? Do you enjoy your own company? Or are you one of these people who can't stand to see themselves in a photograph or in a mirror?

Every now and then I think to myself, "it's time to get right in your face about something", and today’s one of those days. I mean, I don't mean to shove anything down your throat, that's never my intention but I don't know, I just feel that today it's time to really challenge you about how you see yourself. I'm someone who for many, many years, in fact the first 36 years of my life, appeared to be so confident on the outside. I have to tell you, everyone who ever met me thought to themselves, "this guy is so confident".

But on the inside, which after all is where we live and where we feel and where we laugh and where we cry, I wasn't happy with who I was. People would never have guessed it, because in my confidence I used to roll over the top of them. I'm not talking about the things that we do but who we actually are. As a woman by the name of Joyce Meyer says, "It's not our do that I'm talking about but our who." I didn't like my "who", I didn't like myself and you know the more I tried to pump myself up in my own eyes and in the eyes of others, somehow the lower I sank in my own estimation.

But the very day, the very instant that I gave my life to Jesus back in 1995, from that moment onward I knew I was okay. I've thought a lot about this and I thought why did it happen like that? It's one of those things that changed in an instant for me, why? This is such a deep thing. My own self image had been plaguing me for years and years. How could it change in an instant? So far as I can see, there's only one answer because on that day I felt accepted and I felt loved in a whole new way, at a whole different level.

Different people believe different things. Oh – whatever you believe – let me ask you this? Does your belief system, does your faith – whatever that is – make you feel loved and accepted? Does it bring healing to that deep, nagging suspicion that you’re not good enough? Does it bring you into a place where you are truly happy and content with who you are?

I never used to be able to look at myself in a photo without cringing. I recently had a photo shoot, something I have to do from time to time, to get some images to use on websites and in the back of my books, that sort of thing. And when the photos came back, I looked at them and I was really happy with what I saw. I’m never going to win a beauty competition, you understand – that’s because I’m just a pretty ordinary looking kind of man. But as I looked at those photos, I smiled, because I realised that I now like myself. I didn't become Mr Perfect overnight and all my faults and all my failures and all my weaknesses didn't disappear in an instant, it's not how it works. Sometimes I make mistakes – I don’t like that. So I get up and learn, and work on my weaknesses. But fundamentally, these days, I’m really happy with who I am … and indeed with who I’m not.

So change in me didn't happen overnight but the thing that did happen is that I knew that God had accepted me just as I was and that even though I could see all the things I'd done wrong, that I was completely forgiven. He came to me and said, "Now, that you have a new beginning let me help you to change."

That’s the thing, I thought if God sees me that way maybe it's time for me to see me that way and still today there are some things that I'm really good at and others that I'm just not and I may never be. Some of the things that come naturally to you, I'll never be able to do it’s unconditional love that brought me to a point with all my heart, I'm delighted to be who I am. I often say to my wife, Jacqui, "I'm so glad I'm me, I never want to be anyone else." That is a gift from God because I never liked me before.

Let me get in your face and ask you a question, is it time for you to ask yourself do I see myself the way God does? Do I love me in the right way, not proud and arrogant but in a humble delight in who he made me to be? Because how can you and I possibly ever be the me we were meant to be and live the life we were created to live, if we don't like who we are.

When we compare ourselves to other people and think – Wow, I wish I was like him, or I wish I was like her … we’re completely missing the point. Completely. I will never be a basketball player, because I’m too short. I will never be a surgeon, because I don’t have the skill in my hands. I will never be a pop star, because I can’t sing. But what I can be, is the best me that I can possibly be.

And you know something – that’s just fine with me. And the reason it’s fine with me is that I was handcrafted by God and the love that He’s shown me is the unconditional love of Jesus … Jesus His one and only Son, who died so that I might be forgiven.

We can’t truly be happy with who we are, until we know beyond any shadow of doubt that Jesus died to pay for all our shortcomings and failings and because the price is fully paid, we can now stand before God completely forgiven, completely whole, completely loved. And if you’ve ever stood in that place – with your faith in Jesus … Jesus alone – you will know that the acceptance of God is what makes you whole. The love and acceptance of God – is what sets us free to see ourselves through His eyes.

I think we all have a sense of wanting to fulfil our destiny, doing the things we're meant to do, achieving the things we're meant to achieve and being the person we're meant to be. But the more I talk to people the more I discover how many aren't happy with who they are.

I spent a good many years of my life comparing myself with other people, here's how it goes. Here’s what we do when we compare ourselves with other people: all we see, are their good points: 'he's athletic and good looking, and she's really intelligent, and he's caring, and she's so perceptive about people, boy he's got such great hand-eye co-ordination, that couple over there everyone seems to like them. He is such a good cook, she has her house so tidy, they have such well behaved kids.'

You see what's going on here right? We construct some super human unreality which is a pastiche of the very best points of everyone we know and then when we don't live up to that unreality, all of a sudden we come to the conclusion that …, "Ah, I'm a failure". Never mind that everybody we know is good a some things and not at others, never mind that each one of those people has weaknesses as well as strengths. We tend to construct an unrealistic image of who we should be and then we spend a lifetime, fuelled by the advertising industry - with all these images of success - we spend a lifeti...

I remember once a few years back being at the airport in Christchurch, New Zealand. My international flight from Australia was late in getting in, and I had to race to make a last domestic connection that night to my final destination – Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. And in the rush, I left my passport lying in one of those luggage trolleys at the international terminal – something I didn’t realise until I was checking in on the domestic flight at the next terminal. Oh, panic attack! Can you imagine losing your passport while you’re overseas? No passport, no identity. Now what? How could I tell people that it was me? I couldn’t leave the country; I couldn’t stay there ... It turns out that our identity is very important.

I’ve never forgotten that, and in a very real sense, the same is true in life. We need to know the answer to that all-important question: Who am I? Other people need to know who we are. It’s so basic; it’s so fundamental, and yet so many people don’t have a deep sense of who they really are. It’s a problem deep-down, and it’s not something we talk about much, but it’s there, and as I talk to people, I think it goes something like this.

Often we live life day to day without really thinking. We just go along and do the things we’ve always been doing: We go to work or we go to school or we look after the children, whatever it is, but bubbling away deep inside somewhere is a sense of: What’s this all about? Why am I doing this? What’s the point?

The reality is this. We just have one life to live here on earth. It’s not a dress rehearsal. We can’t hit the rewind button and play it over again. When today’s gone, it’s gone; that’s it, and every year, every week, every day, every moment that you and I have lived up to this point is gone. We can never get it back. The only thing left in our time here on earth is the time between right now and when we breathe our last breath. It’s a sobering thought, and at the same time, most people have some sort of sense of destiny.

Whether or not they believe in Jesus or some god even, they believe in things that are meant to be. How often have you heard someone say, "Well, it was just meant to be", or "If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen?" Whether it’s karma or whether it’s "que sera sera", whatever will be will be, we all have some sense of a future and a destiny to be fulfilled. It’s as though there’s some intelligent design or destiny that we just can’t quite put our fingers on.

I believe that that’s there because in each one of us, God has made us in His image – each one of us, and when we look at the time we have left in the context of some sort of sense of destiny, a profound question of life emerges. Am I being the ‘me’ that I was actually meant to be? Am I living the destiny that I’m supposed to be living? They’re huge questions. It’s not about having things; it’s more about being.

The turning-point of my life was when I was reading a book, and the author asked this question. He said: ‘Do you want to be, or do you want to have?’ and I realised very clearly that I was one of those people who wanted to have, and having things is not being. Having is about the next car; the next sound system; the next pair of shoes, but being is a profound sense of joy and contentment; being really happy with who we are and what we’re doing, and how we’re living, and enjoying the relationships that we’re having. When I realised that, it was so incredibly unsettling for me because I tried to do stuff my way, and it was turning out to be empty.

Let me ask you something. As you contemplate the remaining time you have left here on planet earth, when you ask yourself the question, "Am I being the 'me' I was meant to be? Am I living out the destiny that I was meant to live?" What’s the answer? Yes, or no? If your answer is "yes", then you’re talking about some profound sense of joy and peace and contentment – the sort of stuff I was talking about just before, but if the answer is "no", then probably there’s this nagging sense that you’re missing out on something. Is this all there is? Surely there has to be something more than this.

You know, in my experience, most people (by far the majority) are in the ‘no’ category. They have a sense that there should be – that there is – some destiny for their lives, but they also have a nagging suspicion that they’re not really living it out. That’s why we’re kicking off a brand new series of programmes over these coming few weeks called "Discover Your Destiny" – to … I don’t know … help us unscramble that, and maybe get a solid foundation of life sorted out in our hearts, get our lives on track, to live them out to the full so that when we’re on death’s doorstep, we can look back at our lives with a deep sense of satisfaction, and say to ourselves, "You know what? I’ve lived it to the full. I became the ‘me’ I was meant to be, and now I’m ready for my eternity with God."

The starting-point of all that is an understanding of who we’re meant to be. It’s knowing where we come from and who we are, and what a tragedy it is for so many people who live their lives without knowing those things about themselves; without having a sense of what their lives are all about; without having, in effect, a really good handle on who they are – their identity.

We live in a world that wants to tell us who we should be. We live in a world shaped by commerce and sales targets and advertising, that tells us: ‘You’re this, and if you’re not, you’re not successful, and if you’re not successful, if you buy this, then you will be, and then you’ll be happy. Then you’ll have a sense of who you are, and where you’re going’. Hey, I lived out that life for a good many years. I mean, I lived it out par excellence, and so successful was it that it drove me to the point of suicide.

God’s take is completely different. God tells us that we’re made in His image – you and I. He tells us that not only did He make us who we are, but He also made every day of our lives to fit with who we are. More about that a little bit later, but right now, all I’m really trying to do is put my finger on the problem; that nagging thing that just doesn’t seem to want to go away; that sense that so many of us have that we’re missing out on something – something that we just can’t quite explain.

Surely there must be more to life than this, this drudgery. Surely there has to be something that sets my heart on fire; that inspires me; that lets me be the me I was meant to be; that lets me live out the destiny for my life. Do you really know who you are, who you were made to be, what you’re meant to be doing, or is your life a bit like a cork bobbing around in an ocean, completely at the mercy of the elements – sunny one day, stormy the next, but just drifting – kind of drifting?

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but living an average, normal, everyday life creates dirt. I mean, just eating and drinking and living – the most basic things – create waste: Carbon dioxide we all breathe out with every breath (and of course if we didn’t get rid of it, it would poison us), perspiration, and we excrete waste. If we kept all of those things inside us, you know, they’d kill us in a pretty short time. On a global scale, we call this pollution; it’s a perennial problem. It’s just the way it is. For so many years, I have to tell you, I listened to these Christians talking about this word sin, thinking, "Oh, go on, get a life. I don’t need this guilt tri...

We’ve all heard of those word association tests that psychologists use. You know, they say ‘black’, you say ‘white'; they say ‘rabbit’ and you say ‘carrot'; day/night; God/mmm love; devil/mmm evil; Bible/hmm … Bible? How do you respond to that? Stuffy, old, irrelevant? Well, different people will have some different views but actually in Australia where I live, the Bible is one of the least trusted of all historical documents.

Over the last week and a bit on the program we’ve been talking about the incredible power that we unlock, when we read the Bible. But this thing that we call “the Bible”, it’s a big book, it’s massive and it can be daunting. So today I thought it might be useful just to have a look to see what this Bible is exactly.

I want to share with you a secret, it’s sad but true. I never read a book cover to cover until I was in my early twenties. I managed to get through school and university and did pretty well I might add, without ever reading a book from beginning to end. I remember at university, in first year English, we studied the book Wuthering Heights which absolutely bored me to tears, I’m sorry and I never opened the book once.

There are companies that publish crib notes, you know the summary of the book and a summary of what’s in it and a summary of what some of the critics say, so I just quickly read those, crib notes, wrote essays and did, by and large, reasonably well. And I never, ever liked libraries either. You know how libraries have this kind of dusty, dank smell; all of them are the same. Every library on the planet has the same smell. I thought about it for a while, I thought ‘Berni, why don’t you like libraries? Why did it take you so long to read books?’ The answer I guess has two parts.

Firstly, libraries for me always felt really big and inaccessible. They have tens of thousands of books and in the old days when I was at university, they had card systems for accessing, for finding things, I mean these days they have computers. The old card systems had what they call the Dewey Classification system and finding anything just took so incredibly long. And secondly, when you did find the stuff, there was always so much of it, there was so much time involved to, I don’t know, look through all those books and research them. I mean, some people are natural book worms, well I’m not. I still frankly don’t like libraries. I’m sorry if you’re a librarian, I just don’t like libraries. I haven’t darkened the doorstep of one since I finished my last degree quite a few years ago now.

You know something; I think for a lot of people the Bible is exactly like that. It feels big and inaccessible. There are many, many people who wouldn’t mind having a read but, for goodness sakes, where do you start? Well today let’s break it down a bit, let’s make it a bit more accessible. I remember when I started Bible College only a few months after becoming a Christian, everyone took for granted that we knew about the Bible. The reality was, I didn’t and my hunch is, I wasn’t alone. Let’s unpack it a bit, let’s demystify it a bit. All of a sudden you know it becomes a whole bunch more accessible.

The thing that we call the Bible is made up of 66 different books written by different people over somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 years. That’s the kind of period over which the Bible was written. And it wasn’t just written by different people but at different times and the last book was written, well almost 2,000 years ago.

There are essentially two parts to the Bible, this was complete news to me when I first opened it, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and when I started at Bible College I didn’t know which one was which. The Old Testament, well the Old Testament is God’s story and the story of how He interacted with and engaged with His chosen people, the Israelites. The Old Testament is written completely B.C., before Christ, before Jesus came to be on earth with us here. What Christians call the Old Testament is in fact exactly the same as the Jewish Hebrew scriptures, Jews still use those same scriptures today, Christians call it the Old Testament.

It’s written mostly in the original language of Hebrew, the language of the Jews. Now there’s small parts of books like Daniel which is written in a language called Aramaic which is the language that Jesus actually spoke but by and large, the Old Testament was originally written in the language of Hebrew. And what we have today, the thing that we call the Old Testament is an English translation of that. Now there are lots of funny name books, Deuteronomy and Judges and Chronicles and there’s Ezekiel, there are 39 separate books and there are kind of 4 main parts of the Old Testament.

The first 5 books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, are the Jewish or Hebrew Law, the Torah.

And then you go Joshua through Ezra and Nehemiah and that’s kind of the history of what God did and how His people responded.

And then after that are the wisdom books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and Lamentations.

And the rest of the books in the Old Testament are written by men called Prophets. Men whom God called to call His people back to Him.

That’s the Old Testament, it’s a story of God engaging with Gods people. And the New Testament is 27 books. Now, it was mostly written in the language of Greek.

The first 4 books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are gospel accounts, they’re the historical account of Jesus’ life and His ministry.

And the next book, the book of Acts is the story of the first 20 or so years of the Church after Jesus rose again to be with His Father.

Then there’s a whole bunch of letters called Epistles from people like Peter and John and Paul, written to Churches that they were involved in or in some cases, to individuals.

This may be old hat to some, but I know to many, just a simple understanding of the basic structure of the Bible is going to be a real help. I know that when I was a new Christian, no one ever bothered to explain it to me – I wish they had.

Now some people might be saying to themselves, that’s all well and good, but how accurate is the Bible. Because before the printing press was ever invented by Gutenberg in 1450, the Bible – there’s this massive thing, the Old Testament and New Testament – was transcribed over and over by hand by people called Scribes who copied them by hand. It’s hard to imagine.

But these days, there’s a science called Textual Criticism. It studies whether any errors crept into the Bible as it was copied through all these generations manuscripts. And what it tells us, is that having studied thousands of manuscripts, the levels of accuracy are remarkable. I mean it’s a science, people have done it. There are very, very few words or sentences where there is any doubt what was originally written.

And blessedly these days, this thing called the Bible has been translated into easy to read, contemporary versions. No more thee’s and thou’s – great, modern day, accurate, easy to understand translations. And did you know that in the Bible, over half of the 66 books, over half, you can read in half and hour or less.

Now look, in a few minutes we can’t hope to do anything but scrape the surface. Today we’ve just talked about some basic factual stuff. No-one really taught me this stuff. I remember becoming a Christian and going and sitting in a Church and people just teach from the Bible which is wonderful but no-one ever explained to me that...

Over the last couple of weeks on the program, we’ve been talking about the unlimited power that’s available to you and me through God’s Word. It seems like a bit of a crazy notion, this idea that you can find incredible power, unlimited power in a book. But the Bible, well … the Bible isn’t just a book. It’s the living Word of the living God and when God speaks, amazing things happen.

This is what the Bible says about the Bible – two key verses that change everything about how we look at God’s Word:

Hebrews 4:12: Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

2 Tim 3:16-17: All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who call themselves Christians think that they can live their lives in peace and joy and power and service … by never, ever opening the Bible. By never, ever drinking in the living, active Word of God that helps us discern the intentions of our hearts. Because let’s face it, it’s in our heart that we deceive ourselves. It’s in our heart that we conceive sin and give birth to it. And so we do need teaching, we do need reproof and correction and training in righteousness in order to be proficient and equipped for every good work.

What I’ve discovered in my life is that there are fundamental flaws and weaknesses in my personality, that, try as I might, I am powerless to change. And yet, when I let God’s Word wash through my heart, when I allow the Holy Spirit to write God’s Word on my heart, He does things that I could never do, He unleashes power … power unlimited … to do the things I cannot do. That’s what happens when we listen to God through His Word. Because God calls into existence the things that do not yet exist (Romans 4:17).

Think about it, how did God create the universe?

God said “Let there be light and there was light.” (Genesis 1:4) God said “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters. (Gen 1:6) God said “Let dry land appear” and it was so (Gen 1:9) God said … God said … God said … and so the universe was created. In other words God spoke the whole universe, the trillions of stars, the great lights, all the creatures and plants on the earth … God said … and it was so. That’s the power of God’s Word. And if that isn’t power unlimited, I don't know what is.

But … there always seems to be a “but” doesn’t there? … but you and I, all too often, we want that power for all the wrong reasons. We want it to make our lives better, rather than to empower us to sacrifice our lives for Christ’s sake. We want it to get ahead, to overcome this, to get that … rather than to take our Cross and follow Jesus. I said at the beginning of the program that Jesus said that following Him would be hard. Here it is:

Matthew 16:24-26: Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life.

Let me ask you plainly, quietly but very honestly: Why do you want God’s power, God’s unlimited power, in your life?

Is it in order to change the difficult circumstances, the difficult people the things out there, the things around you that are causing you grief? Or is it in order that God would change you, to empower you, to enable you to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth? Is it that the Holy Spirit would give you the power to take up your Cross and lay down your life, to potentially lose it all, for Christ’s sake?

This whole series of messages Power Unlimited, comes with a warning. Don’t try this at home, unless you’re prepared to lose it all because this wild, untamed, Jesus, is radically counter-cultural and He’s calling His followers to a radical, counter-cultural life. A life that could cost you, will cost you, everything.

Have a listen to these couple of encounters that Jesus had with the religious establishment. It’s worth taking a few moments to see how Jesus upset the prevailing culture of His day:

Matthew 12:1-8: At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

Do you get it? This is what got Him killed. This is why they crucified Him … because He shone light where there was darkness; because He brought truth where there were lies … and that upset people. Have you noticed how vitriolic people, society, culture becomes when you stand up for the rights of the unborn child, or when you speak with love of the wonder of God’s plan for marriage to be a sublime union between one man and one woman, or when you pull back from the filthy jokes that people tell at work? Have you noticed that?

Or have you noticed about the “dangerous religious teachings” in schools that people talk about these days in the news … when it was Christians who are responsible for taking education far and wide across this globe, founding schools, founding hospitals, caring for the needy. Have you noticed?

Jesus isn’t calling you to an easy life my friend, make no mistake about it. You follow Jesus and you are going to upset people, and they will come against you like nothing else on earth. And what you’re going to need the power for, is to make it through in love, to continue shining the light of God’s love into this earth, despite the opposition, the persecution, the difficult people, the difficult circumstances.

As Adrian Pass wrote: You’re going to need the joy to bear the pa...

That simple little three letter word, ‘God’, is used in so many different ways. I mean, when you use the word ‘God’, different people have different views of who that is.

Is He some angry despot? Is He a judgemental old man? Is He kind? Who or what is God? Well you go out and ask different people and what you discover is that they have a picture of God in their heads that doesn’t always have a whole bunch to do with who God actually is.

It’s almost like we reconstruct Him in our own image, to suit ourselves, to suit our own agendas, but let me ask you something, if God is God wouldn’t it be worthwhile kind of figuring out exactly who He is? IF God has the power, is the power, to transform our lives, shouldn’t we get to know Him?

I mean, who is He really and how do you and I relate to Him? What if God is awesome and powerful and loving and kind and we spend the rest of our lives missing out on all that because we never really went after Him to discover who He really is? So how do we discover who God really is?

This week on the program we’re setting about laying hold of God’s power to completely and utterly transform our lives. And the place that we discover that power, the place that God the Holy Spirit has made available for us to lay hold of that power – is His Word, the Bible.

I mean reading the Bible was something I would never have done in a million years. What do you think I am, some wacky fundamentalist? But you know something, reading the Bible for myself has completely and utterly transformed my life. It didn’t stunt me, it opened me up. It didn’t narrow my mind; it opened me up to the wonder and the possibilities of life with God, to the power that God wants to unleash in my life.

Over the last twenty or so years I guess I’ve spent a lot of time in that Book, in fact its 66 different books. I’ve had the chance to study and to learn and to think and to mull it all over and truly, in those twenty odd years I’ve really only scratched the surface. But the more I think about it, the Bible is basically about four things:

1. 1. Who God is, what He’s like and how He reacts to things.
   2. What God’s will and purposes are, what His plan is.
   3. Where my life is headed. It’s about who I am, made in His image but how does He see me? Who did He make me to be?
   4. And … how I can respond to God.

Some people think this last one, number four, is all that the Bible has to offer; just rules and regulations … but you know, as you read it for yourself, how to respond to God is quite simply not the main thing, it just kind of drops out at the end, it’s the natural consequence of the first three.

Those four things again are: who God is, what His will and purposes are, who you and I are in His eyes and how we can respond. That’s what the Bible contains, it’s real and it’s practical, it’s about life, it’s awesome and it’s exciting and it contains power … power unlimited to transform you, to transform your life, to heal you, to bless you, to empower you.

Today I just want to look at the first one of those; who God is. I mean if God is God, shouldn’t we figure out who He is? Who He says He is? Where better to do that, to search Him out, than that great love letter that He’s written to you and to me, the Bible. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

When I first laid eyes on my wife Jacqui, when I first saw her from a distance, I was speaking at a Church and she was sitting in that congregation. As far as I was concerned, she was just another face in the crowd and had I never sought her out, I would never have come to know her and to have a relationship with her. So, I did seek her out and she responded to that.

In a sense, picking up the Bible is seeking God out, it’s the same thing, He responds. It’s not a dead book written by men thousands of years ago. It’s the living, active word of God and His promise is that when we pick it up, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, will bring it to life in our hearts. God promised that He would pour His Spirit out on all flesh and that He would write His words onto our heart.

By far, the greatest reason for reading the Bible, is to encounter God Himself, to discover who He is, and how He sees things; what He’s like and what He’s up to. You see, it’s easy to read this story or that in the Bible and say, "Well that was a story about King David" or “That one over there, that’s the story about Moses or Peter or Paul”. But so often in the pages of this great and mighty book, the great unseen player is God Himself and as I read every story, every verse, I keep asking myself, “What does this tell me about God Himself? What’s He up to in this story?”

Let’s take just one example, it’s a short story. God makes a promise to this man called Abram who is childless. You know, Abram’s an old man, his wife Sarai is an old woman, they’re childless and yet God has called them to go from their home on this huge journey. God’s promised them children, a multitude of children, but it’s never happened. It’s gone on for years and years and years. Abraham’s out of his comfort zone, he’s on this long, uncomfortable journey and he’s frustrated and this is what happens.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:1-6)

It’s really easy to read this story and imagine that it’s a story all about Abram. But the real question that we should be asking is What does this short little story, tell us about God?

Here’s Abram. He’s frustrated, he’s waiting for a breakthrough that’s not coming. He’s trying to believe in God, but it’s hard. I wonder if that sounds at all familiar to you? And it’s going on for years and years and years and he and his wife are old and it’s just absolutely impossible. But along comes God and He does this kind of gentle and kind and wondrous and patient thing with Abraham, He takes him outside to gaze up into this beautiful masterpiece called the Milky Way.

Have you ever looked up at the stars away from the smog and the lights of a big city at night? It’s incredible how many stars are up there and in the middle of Abram’s frustration, God says ‘Abram, look … look at this! This is how many descendants you’re going to have. My promise will actually happen”. And if you read the rest of this story, Abraham ultimately has a son, with his wife Sarah, called Isaac. He never saw all these offspring happen, he never saw the rest of the promise fulfilled in his life time, but here is this good and gracious and powerful God who takes a man in the middle of his frustration and just speaks lovingly to him.

It’s a story about God do you get it? It’s a story about how God treats those who He loves when they’re at the end of their tether. the Bible is full of those stories. You p...

I wonder if this scenario sounds at all familiar to you. At some stage, way back when, you decided to believe in Jesus. Perhaps you, like me, can remember the day that you took that step. Or maybe like many people I know, you can’t remember a time when you didn’t believe in Jesus.

So you’ve believed … and believed … and believed … and somehow life doesn’t seem to get any better. You seem to have the same challenges, successes, failures … whatever, as all the other people you know who don’t believe in Jesus. In fact, often times, they seem to be living a better life than you are and on top of that, they’re not wracked by guilt the way you are, because by not believing in Jesus, they don’t have to worry about the idea of temptation, or falling short of God’s ideals, or any of that stuff.

Does that sounded all familiar? Sadly, it’s de rigour for many a Christian. Most Christians in fact. The Christian life doesn’t seem all it’s cracked up to be.

Wasn’t it Jesus who said:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

So where is that abundant life (the original Greek word used there actually means super-abundant!) Where is this super-abundant life that Jesus promised us? Why is everything so difficult? Why is it that I’m not filled with the joy and the excitement that I first felt when I gave my life to Jesus?

Can I tell you, I speak to a lot of people, all around the world, who come to me with basically that scenario; basically that same story. Here it is in a nutshell:

I know that my life isn’t what it’s meant to be in Christ. I know that. But I don’t know why. I don’t know what to do about it.

And that’s why today we’re kicking off a brand new series of messages called "Power Unlimited". Because the thing that’s lacking in the lives of these people – perhaps in your life too – is the power to live the life that Jesus promised us. The devil comes along and whispers in our ear You’re not good enough for God. And actually He’s right.

That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says of himself (and remember God called him to write almost half of the books of the New Testament).

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. (Romans 7:14-21)

So Paul, as it turns out, has exactly the same problem that you and I have. But happily, he doesn’t give up, because the old Paul, God bless him, also has the answer. The only answer that has the power to make a difference:

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24)

You see I have some very good news for you today. Listen carefully so you don’t miss it: God has already placed within you all the power that you need, to live the super-abundant life that Jesus died and rose again to give you.

God has already made the resurrection power, the very same power that raised Jesus from the dead, available to you, here and now, to live the super-abundant life that Jesus came to give you. I know, I know … you don’t believe me. Good, you shouldn’t believe me, it’s not within my purview to grant you that power. But will you believe what God says in the Bible:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:17-22)

Do you see? Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is that they would discover the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us who believe … the very same power that raised Christ from the dead. Each year we celebrate Easter, the death on the Cross (which receives most of the focus) and the resurrection (which frankly, we don’t focus on as much).

But this resurrection is the evidence of the immeasurably great power that is available to you and me, so that we can live a new life. The life that Jesus promised. As Bible teacher Casey Treat once said … we need to stop praying for power, and start praying with power, the power that we already have.

One of my Bible college lecturers from years ago, Dr Barry Chant, once said that if he were to transliterate the original Greek words used there for immeasurably great power, it would sound something like this: hyperballistic, megathonic, dynamic power!

Do you get it? Do you realise the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that He has placed at your disposal to live your life for Christ? Hello, wake-up!

And the purpose of this power, the whole point of this power, is to enable us to live the new life, the born-again life, the resurrection life, the super-abundant life, that Jesus came to give us. Yet so many Christians, most Christians, fail to live that life for one reason and one reason alone. Because they don’t lay hold of that power. We live on a spiritual battlefield. The Apostle Paul puts it this way:

… our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:12-17)

No I’m an old soldier from way back. And I can tell you that as I look at each of the elements of that spiritual armour that Paul lists there, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes, the shield the helmet, each of them those is a defensive piece of armour. Defence is important to protect yourself, but you don’t win a war by ...

“From Vanity to Victory” – that’s what we have been talking about these last few weeks on the programme and that’s what we are going to be talking about again today. Because I know that so many people … people even who believe in Jesus, many of them are living real lives of vanity rather than lives of victory. Lives that feel more or less, on the empty side. Lives that feel as though they lack meaning and purpose and direction; lives that leave us asking, "Is this all there is? Is this really what life is about? There’s not more to life than … this?" Or as Solomon put it:

Vanity of vanities; vanity of vanities! Everything is a vanity. What do people gain from the toil at which they toil under the sun?

So, today we are going to kick off our look at what constitutes a life of victory. What does a life of meaning and purpose and victory actually look like? Because if we can find such a life; if we can discover how to live such a life amidst all the pressures; all the realities going on in my life, all the pressures and realities going on in your life, it strikes me that will be a really, really worthwhile thing to do. Do you think?

And there’s one life; one life above all other lives that brings this whole question of victory into sharper focus than any other. That’s the life that we are going to be looking at right now. It’s a life that began so well. Jesus born to Mary and Joseph in Nazareth in their ancestral home of Bethlehem. And then His awesome launch into public ministry – the baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Let’s read about it. Luke chapter 3, verse 21 and onwards:

Now when all the people were baptised, and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

What an awesome start to His public ministry! Some people are blessed with an awesome start. The question is not so much how we start though, it’s how we finish that really counts all the more. And Jesus, right from the word go, had so much … I mean, so much to contend with – straight after His baptism, He is led out into the wilderness to starve for forty days and forty nights; to be tempted by the devil. And straight after that, He returns home to Nazareth to begin His public ministry as the Son of God and the people were so delighted that:

... all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, they drove Him out of town, they drove Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they might hurl Him off the cliff

Zippidy doodah! Welcome home Jesus! By now perhaps, you and I would be wondering, "Why am I doing this?" Perhaps you and I would have retreated to the relative safety of the carpenter’s shop where He grew up and consigned ourselves to living a life of meaninglessness, albeit a safe life. You know, there’s a thought, maybe that’s why so many people don’t have victory in their lives because they are not prepared to go into the dangerous places where we actually win victories. No battles, no victories, right?

Maybe in the face of attacks and opposition and setbacks and a lack of approval from other people as Jesus had, we would have withdrawn to a life that it wasn’t our calling to live; a life that God had never planned; a life of comfort and safety; a life of pursuing our own pleasures, rather than God’s plan. Life that would lead us, like Solomon, to conclude:

Vanity of Vanities … everything is a vanity. Everything is meaningless and empty.’ What benefit do I get from all this toil that I toil at under the sun?

What do you think? Am I being a bit harsh? I don’t know. I think sometimes we think that serving God is all about winning; serving God is about having success; maybe serving God for Jesus should have been having a successful carpenter’s business that prospered? Is serving God more about meeting our needs? But the more I see of Jesus’ life, the more I see that victory; His brand of victory had very, very little to do with any of those things.

The religious leaders came after Him with a meat cleaver; He was upsetting the status quo; He was preaching what they considered to be blasphemies; He was eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes; He was healing people – can you believe this, on the Sabbath? I mean, how dare He? And then to top it all off, He declares Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath! "Something … something had to be done about this dangerous heretic," they murmured. "I know," says one of them, "Let’s have Him killed; let’s play the system with the Romans and get Him crucified. That will do it. Jesus loses, we win."

That’s an all too simplistic; all too common view of victory. The world’s view; the view that we often carry around in our heads – victory is when I win – right? Again, listen to Jesus on the subject of being crucified. John chapter 10, beginning at verse 17:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one is taking it away from me; I am laying it down of my own accord. I actually have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.

And what ensues – you can read it for yourself in the tenth Chapter of John’s Gospel – is how people hurl abuse at Him. They try to hurl stones at Him and then they try to have Him arrested! All because He claims to be the Messiah, the Son of God. All because He claims to be God. But when it comes to living a life of victory, the thing I want us to notice here is that victory for Jesus, was not about avoiding the Cross. Victory for Jesus was not about winning in the sense that you and I might think about winning. I mean, if we were in His shoes would we be trying pretty much save our own skin?

Victory for Jesus was doing what He came to do. Victory for Jesus was doing His Father’s bidding, laying down His life voluntarily, and then taking it up again. Victory, as it turns out, has little or nothing to do with winning. Victory has everything to do with living out the call of God on our lives. Can I say that again? This is so important.

Victory has nothing to do with winning. Victory has nothing to do with having a successful, prospering carpenter’s business in Nazareth – Victory has everything to do with living out the call of God on our lives.

In pursuing victory, Jesus puts no premium on His life whatsoever. On His needs, on His comforts. And even when, as any man or woman would have done, He prays to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me". Obviously it concludes victoriously, yet, not I want, but yet your will be done. Victory was not to be found for Jesus huddled over His tools in the safety of Dad’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. That would have been pure vanity.

No, victory to be found on the Cross as He laid down His life for you and me, so that our sins could be forgiven. Victory was to be found in the empty tomb as God’s power raised His Son to bring you and me a new life. Victory for Jesus was all about – completely about – what He did for His Father in heaven and what He did for you and for me. It had nothing to do with what He did for Himself. That is an astou...

Man, I wish I was a singer. If you heard me sing you may not wish the same thing. But the reason I wish I was a singer is that singers who sing songs we like, when they get on the radio and they sing a song we’ve heard before we go, "Great, I’m really looking forward to hearing this song again." When a guy like me who talks rather than sings gets on, and talks about something you’ve heard him talk about before, we screw up our faces and say, "Hasn’t that guy talked about that before?" And so that’s my prelude to telling you I’m going to be talking about something you may have heard me talk about before. Not because I feel the need to repeat myself, but because it’s important and it fits in to what we’re talking about in this series called, "From Vanity to Victory".

What we’ve been chatting about so far in this series is this sense that so many people have that their life has no real purpose. The sun comes up every day and sets every night – same old, same old, same old. And you work hard and you do your best and you go through the good times and then some bad times. And you get toward the end of your life, and as King Solomon did, you say to yourself:

Vanity of vanities, says the teacher. Vanity of vanities – all this is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?

And right now we’re going to take a look at one of the places we go looking for meaning, only to discover after a lifetime of looking there that there’s no meaning there at all. So where is that place? Let me begin by sharing with you the circumstances in which Solomon wrote this piece of wisdom. When he was a young man, just been appointed as king of Israel, he had an encounter with God. 2 Chronicles Chapter 1, verse 7:

That night God appears to Solomon and says to him, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ And Solomon said to God, ‘You showed steadfast love to my father David and have made me succeed him as king. Oh Lord God, let your promise to my father, David now be fulfilled for you have made me King over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go our and come in before this people, for who can rule these great people of yours.’

God answers Solomon, ‘Because this was in your heart and you haven’t asked for possessions, wealth, honour or the life of those who hate you. You’ve not even asked for long life, but you’ve asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king. Wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions and honour, such as none of the kings had who were before you and none after you shall have the like.”

So God gives Solomon not only what he asks for but what he didn’t ask for, which was riches and possessions and honour. And that promise came to pass. Solomon truly was the richest man on earth. Sadly though, those riches became a snare to him and he began worshipping idols and getting caught up in the things of this world. So towards the end of his life, as he looks back on things, this is his reflection on the meaning of wealth and possessions and all the pleasures that those things can buy. Ecclesiastes Chapter 2 beginning at verse 1:

I said to myself, “Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But again, this also was vanity I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, until I might see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life.

I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines.

“So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."

So Solomon, more wealthy than probably you or I would ever be in a hundred lifetimes, there was nothing he couldn’t have. No pleasure in which he couldn’t indulge. He gave it such a good try. And yet he comes to the conclusion that it was totally meaningless. It took him a lifetime to figure it out. It took me at least half a lifetime to figure it out.

So many people are looking for meaning in their lives, so many. Perhaps you’re in that place right at the moment. And yet we can spend a lifetime looking for that meaning as Solomon did, in completely the wrong place. What a salutary lesson. Is there anything wrong with enjoying the things that God’s given us? Not at all. In fact, that’s something we’re going to be looking at after the break as we take a look at the whole God dimension in our lives. But trying to find our meaning and our satisfaction and wealth and possessions and pleasure is completely and utterly hollow.

It’s a dead end road. And what a pity it would be to discover that when we’re close to death, close to the end having spent our whole lives trying. Again, further on in the book of Ecclesiastes, this is what Solomon concludes out of his wisdom and years of experience leading Israel and her King. Ecclesiastes Chapter 5 beginning at verse 10:

The lover of money will not be satisfied with money, nor the lover of wealth with gain. This also is vanity. When goods increase those who eat them increase and what gain has their owner but to see them with these eyes?

In others words, it just doesn’t work. There is no real satisfaction, no real joy, no real meaning in chasing after possessions and wealth and all that stuff. There’s no life worth living to be discovered in the ownership of things. But things are a part of our life. Our circumstances are parts of our lives. How do we discover meaning in the midst of these mundane things of life? How do we discover a life worth living amidst the mundane, ordinary, day-to-day realities of our lives, my life, your life.

Well, that’s what we’re going to be talking about after this break as we discover how to live our lives in the God dimension. Because not only do I believe that God wants us to truly enjoy where we’re at and what we have right at this moment, whatever that may look like, good or bad, I believe He wants us to discover real meaning and real purpose as we live out our lives first and foremost for Him.

It seems that we can all find ourselves on something of that merry-go-round in life. Same thing day after day, after day punctuated by the odd happy event and the odd crisis. And lots of people will sit on the bus on the way home, or the train or the car or whatever,...

My hunch is that we all want to have a life that’s worth living. I mean, you don’t have to think too much about all that do you? If we weigh up our lives, each one of us, there are things that are worthwhile and enjoyable and then there are things that we would rather not have there but I guess we can live with and then there are things that are downright awful that we just wish would go away forever. And depending on the mix between those three – the good, the mediocre and the bad – we either feel as though our lives are worth living or they’re not.

The problem is – and this is a universal problem; it’s a problem that each one of us faces – as time goes by, the mix, the balance between the good, the mediocre and the bad changes; our circumstances change, our emotions change, our health goes up and down. And sooner or later, the old body will give out. And so if we live our lives based on our circumstances; if we judge the value of our life based on what is going on and how we are reacting to it, well, we are pretty much at the mercy of the elements.

And so if I were to ask you right at this moment, do you have a life that’s worth living, what would your answer be? And not only that, what are you basing that answer on – how you feel, what’s going on in your life, or something else?

That’s what we are going to be tackling the next few weeks on the programme – the value of the life that you are living – but in quite an unusual way. I say unusual because we are going to go to what I think frankly, is simply one of the most extraordinary Books of the Bible. It’s the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes. It was written by King Solomon, we believe – one of the wisest men who ever, ever walked the planet. In fact, when Solomon was a young man, God gave him the opportunity to ask Him for anything that he wanted. This is how it happened. I’m reading from Second Chronicles chapter 1, verse 7:

God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I should give you.” Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to my father David, and have made me succeed him as king. O Lord God, let your promise to my father David now be fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come to in before this people, for who can rule this great people of yours?”

God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honour, or the life of those who hate you, and you have not even asked for long life, but you have asked me for wisdom and knowledge for yourself so that you might rule my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge will be granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honour, such as none of the kings had before you, and none after you shall ever have the like.”

So the wisdom of Solomon was actually the wisdom of God. He spends a lifetime serving God as king – diligently working as the King of Israel. But later on in life … later in life things go a bit awry. He starts to worship idols, he gets carried away with his wealth and all his possessions and all his wives and he becomes something of a confused, bitter and twisted old man.

This Book, Ecclesiastes is extraordinary because it’s written is this later state of Solomon and you can see his wisdom interwoven with disillusionment. What makes this Book totally extraordinary is the fact that it is in the Bible at all. But it’s there for you and for me to show us what happens when we take our eyes off God and go chasing after other things. It is a powerful Book and it’s one that at different times in our lives, I think we all relate to.

So, this is how Solomon kicks it off, the opening narrative, if you will, of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Have a listen. I wonder how much of this resonates with you – Ecclesiastes chapter 1, beginning at verse 1:

The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises again. The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run into the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, they will continue to flow. All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it can be said, “See, this in new?” It has already been, in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.”

Do you see where Solomon is coming from? He has spent a life time doing his best; exercising his wisdom and ruling over Israel and he is coming to the end of it all, asking himself, "So, what’s the point? Why did I work so hard?" We are really just on some great big cosmic treadmill – the wind blows around in circles, the rivers run into the ocean but the ocean never fills up, the sun goes up, comes down; goes up, comes down; goes up, comes down and … “Is there anything new under the sun? No!” he concludes. "And when we die, no one is going to remember us." Great! Brilliant! So what was the point of all that, huh?

I love … I absolutely love the fact that God has this particular Book in the Bible, especially, since, as we will see later, Solomon never really comes up with an answer to his dilemma. He has a few suggestions along the way – but really, he never nails it.

And I think … I think a lot of people are living their lives just like Solomon. You look at your life and it goes round and round and round and round the same mulberry bush and really, nothing ever changes. Our hair goes grey, our skin gets old and wrinkly but fundamentally, nothing ever changes. Some days are good; some days are okay; some days are rotten but at the end of it all, as life heads into its last stages – as was the case with Solomon here – what was the whole point to it? Was it really a life worth living? I mean, come on, really?

On the one hand, being at that point is pretty tragic. On the other that point of futility, of vanity, is exactly where many, many people are right now in their lives. Oh, we kind of try to sweep it under the carpet and ignore it, but it’s there and if we were truly honest with ourselves, many people would be saying right now, just like Solomon:

Vanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?

And let me say this from the bottom of my heart: if you are in that place at the moment, then that’s the very question … the very question that should be asking yourself. It’s time to bring this to a head; it time to stop ignoring that sense of futility; that sense of, "My life has no value; is of no consequence. Like a thin vapour; here today, just and gone tomorrow," and to do something about it.

That’s why over these next few weeks, in this series of messages that I’ve cal...

Today is a big day on the programme; a huge day on the programme. We have been chatting so far over the past few weeks about the heart that Jesus has to be close to us. The reason He came; the reason He did all those miracles; the reason He blesses us; the reason He is knocking at that door right now. You and I, we are so often just – I don’t know – bumbling our way through life, kind of believing in Jesus, kind of believing in God but really, honestly, a bit lukewarm.

You know, life is busy, things are okay and then Jesus comes along and says:

Look, I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm; you are neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth because you are saying to me, ‘Look, I am rich, I have prospered. I don’t need anything. But you don’t realise you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. So I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen and a salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love. So, be earnest and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and I will eat with you, and you with me.

See, Jesus wants us to have real gold; real purity; real vision – He wants us to get real with ourselves; He wants us to admit that we are not well off, we are not prosperous, that we are poor and pitiable and naked and … Come on, let’s get real with ourselves.

But as I can attest, repenting ain’t an easy thing to do. The reason is, it’s about pride. To repent – to have a change of heart; to turn our lives over to Jesus once and for all – we have to admit to ourselves that who we are, who we have become, how we are living our lives falls so way short of the mark.

Now, is Jesus only looking for people who are failures? No! But there comes a point where despite any outward success we may have and lots of people have lots of successes – we need to admit to ourselves that, yes, there is a God and yes, some of the stuff we are into isn’t pleasing to Him and yes, if we want to lay hold of this amazing life He has for us, then it’s time to change our hearts and our minds and our lives and our ways.

And that immediately brings up this prospect of, well, "If I have to change some things in my life, then I have to give things up for Jesus! Man! This God, I’m sure He doesn’t want me to have any fun in life." That’s how it felt for me way back when. And I look back on that now and think to myself, "Well, how could I have thought that; how could I have had that idea?" But that is knowing what I know now and I didn’t know those things back then.

I didn’t have the benefit of walking with Jesus for the past twenty years and realising how much fun He does want me to have – even though sometimes the going gets tough. I mean, I can’t deny that. I didn’t realise back then how those few things that I was clinging on to – my pride, my selfishness, my anger (they were my big ones) – were robbing me of life.

Now, I don’t care if you are someone who has never in their wildest dreams imagined giving their lives over to Jesus, or someone whose struggling with that and you are right at the moment, wondering whether that’s what you want to do, or someone who has been warming the pews of a church with your backside for the last half a century or more, we all have stuff. Listen – we all have stuff that we want to hang onto that is not pleasing to God.

And here’s my favourite executive summary of that stuff. You may have heard me pull this one out before and the reason I pull it out from time to time is that this executive summary of stuff that God calls sin, kind of whacks you in the face and brings you to your senses. Here it is – it comes from the contemporary Message translation of the Bible. It is Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21. Paul writes to the Galatians:

Look, it is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalising everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, I’m kind of pretty sure you recognised one or two of those things in your own life – temper, loveless, competitiveness, de-personalisation … all that garbage. And if we are going to be honest with ourselves – as tightly as we hang onto those things; as much as we justify let’s say, our anger; as much as we have been duped into believing that those things are essential for our lives – actually, the things in that list are just ruining our lives.

If we are overly competitive; if we always have to win, how many relationships are we going to have? How rich are our lives going to be? The bottom line is that God only asks us to give up the things; to repent of the things; to turn away from the things that are ruining our lives. Isn’t that a powerful insight? Sin is the stuff that ruins our lives – sin in the stuff that robs us of life and that’s what the devil wants for us:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came that we may have live and have it in all its abundance.

So today, I believe Jesus wants a few of us to repent – to have a change of mind and a change heart and a change of life about some of the muck that we are hanging onto in our lives. Let me come back to the centrepiece of what we have been sharing together and talking together on the programme these last few weeks. Jesus is saying to us:

Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you; I will eat with you, and you with me.

And my prayer for each one of us today is that the Spirit of God is writing His truth and His love and His mercy and His grace on our hearts right now. I’m believing that there are a good few of us whom Jesus is calling right now to repent. You can feeling Him knocking at the door of your heart; you can hear His voice and His Word – you just know He is calling you to a place of giving up those few bits of muck that you have been hanging onto for dear life, duped by the devil into believing that they are essential for your existence, when all along … all along, like a cancer, they have been spreading throughout you, making you sicker and sicker. I believe there are men and women and children listening to this message right around the world today, whose hearts are fit to break as you have heard God’s Word. You have grieved at the realisation of the sin you have been clinging onto.

Well, before we pray a prayer of repentance – a turning point prayer together – God wants you to know this from His Word – Second Corinthians chapter 7, verse 10:

Hey, great to be with you again today. And today we are continuing in our series about having a powerful deep relationship with Jesus. The series is called “There’s a Knock at the Door.”

Now, last weekend I was really blessed to have a great break. I love doing what I do; I really love being able to spend these few minutes with you on the programme each week but you know something, I really love having a rest. I like that break over the weekend. You know, you work hard all week – at least I do – generally they are long hours. And although when you love doing what you do (it doesn’t feel like work) come the end of the week, have to tell ya, I’m ready for a rest.

And one of the highlights of my weekend is waking up on Saturday morning and planning a date with my beautiful wife. Now that our kids have grown up we are able to just go out on a little date on a Saturday morning to a coffee shop – mostly it’s only toast and coffee. But it’s something we do for us. We chat, we read the paper, we just spend time together. I’d have to say, it’s the most special time of the week for me.

But before you get the idea that we are a perfect couple, with a perfect marriage, let me tell you, I am not a perfect husband – as much as I’d like to be. And sometimes, Jacqui isn’t the perfect wife. I can be such an insensitive clod sometimes and that can bruise Jacqui’s feelings. And yet, even though we are two imperfect people – sure we are trying to honour God; sure we are doing our best to love each other – but despite our imperfections, we love each other and our relationship is intact and hopefully growing deeper and deeper with the passing years.

So how is that? How is it that two imperfect people can grow in their relationship? Well, here’s what I try to do in our marriage: whenever I get it wrong; whenever I’m insensitive or I make a mistake or I don’t take Jacqui’s feelings into account, whatever it is, that kind of cuts me to the quick. When I realise I’ve done wrong – and hopefully I’m making fewer mistakes these days than I was say five years ago – but when I realise I’ve made a mistake, I say "Sorry" and I try to mend my ways.

Now saying "sorry" isn’t something that comes naturally to me and learning to say "sorry" has been one of the hardest things for me to do in my life, because "sorry" is about humbling yourself. "Sorry" is about admitting that you have made a mistake. "Sorry" is about taking the first step to mend a relationship and yet, as we live our lives together, Jacqui and I, best we can, making mistakes, saying "sorry", pulling each other closer, the relationship grows.

If on the other hand we just made mistakes and never ever said "sorry", never apologised, never had a softening and a changing of heart, tell you what, the relationship would pull further and further and further apart. And that’s how divorce happens! Because hearts grow first lukewarm, then eventually hard and cold and it takes time – but before you know it, there’s no love there anymore; there no relationship there anymore.

Now the reason I have shared that with you today, is that it’s a powerful metaphor, if you will, or a parallel, in understanding the relationship between God and ourselves. Last week on the programme we spent some time understanding this concept of Jesus knocking at the door of our hearts. He loves us more than a man or a woman can ever love one another. He loves us with a powerful, tender, sacrificial love and yet you and I, whilst once we may have been on fire for Him, have this ability to grow lukewarm in our relationship with Him.

Let’s just take another look at what He has to say about that: Revelation chapter 3, beginning at verse 15. Jesus says:

Look, I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I have need of nothing.” You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor and blind, and naked. Therefore, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice, open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself have conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

As I said, we have spent quite a bit of time taking a look at what Jesus is saying to us through that passage, but the bit that I would like to unpack this week on the programme is the bit about repentance. Because, to tell you the truth, when I first became a Christian – almost twenty years ago now – I remember those Christians talking about repentance. And can I be perfectly honest with you here? I thought to myself, ‘What! I mean, it sounds like a word from the 1950s. It’s a kind of religious, moralising kind of word; it’s an old fashioned concept being spouted by an out of date irrelevant church. Repentance? Oh, give me a break!’ Not sure how you react to the word but me, every time I still hear it today, it has that kind of feeling of a "religiousy" kind of word to me.

And yet its meaning is anything but that. Can I go back to what I shared with you about Jacqui and myself earlier? In our imperfection, the only way we keep our marriage relationship together; the only way we keep growing in our love for one another; the only way we get to look forward to our special date on Saturday mornings and being together, is constantly to repent. Constantly to admit that we have done wrong; to admit we gave failed; to apologise to one another; to mend our ways. And that right there is exactly what repentance is.

And so when Jesus is calling those of us whose hearts have grown lukewarm towards Him; those of us who have become distracted with all the trinkets and baubles this world dangles before us, what is it He says? What does He call you and me to do? He is saying to us, right here and right now, “Be earnest therefore, and repent.” Literal meaning of that original word for repent, here it is, word for word from my Greek lexicon:

... to change one’s mind for better; heartily to amend with the abhorrence of one’s past sins.

In other words, to get a grip; to realise that what we are doing is wrong; to have the guts to admit that to ourselves and having had that change of heart, to change what it is that we are doing. Now isn’t that exactly what I have just described in our marriage relationship before? Isn’t that what keeps a marriage together? Absolutely, it is! So ‘repenting’ isn’t some old fashioned religious word, it’s one of the most – in fact, let me say this – it’s the single most important thing in maintaining healthy relationships and growing strong relationships.

And the thing I love, or one of the things I love most about Jesus is, He doesn’t want us to be religious with Him; He doesn’t want us to go through the motions with Him. He wants a relationship; He wants to fellowship with us. He wants to come in and have a meal with us. And s...

Just the other night my wife Jacqui and I were invited over for dinner by some friends of ours, James and Shirley. So we headed over, picked up our daughter from work along the way, she came with us. They'd prepared this lovely meal, a rich stew with lots of vegetables which I really like. In one sense it wasn't a real flashy meal, not up market if you will but that wasn't the point. It was a week night, they'd both been at work all day as we had. It was just such a joy sitting down sharing a meal together, sharing our lives with one another.

It's those simple things in life that I really enjoy, don't you? Every now and then to just fellowship with friends over a meal is something really, really special. Not a large crowd, just us and some friends. That's how we get to know one another. That's how we get to know the heart, the life, the joys, the sorrows of someone – by sharing a meal with them.

This week again on the program we’re continuing our theme of intimacy with Jesus in this series that I’ve called, "There’s a Knock at the Door" because Jesus, as it turns out, wants exactly that same sort of relationship with you and with me. And that, from where I sit is absolutely awesome. That's something worth wrapping our hearts around – His passion to be close to us.

So far in this series, we’ve spent some time in this passage in the Book of Revelation. I’m going to read it again. It comes from the Book of Revelation Chapter 3 and it starts at verse 14:

And to the angel of the Church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation: “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you're lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth. For you say ‘I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing.’ You don't realise that you're wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.

Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice then open the door, I will come into you and eat with you and you with me.

To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the Churches.

What we’ve seen so far is that Jesus is passionate about being close to you and me and the last thing … the very last thing He wants from us is a lukewarm response. Give Him hot or give Him cold, anything but lukewarm. But more often than not that's exactly what He gets from us – lukewarm! Why? Because we're so caught up in the here and now that we say, "I'm rich, I've prospered, I don't need anything". We don't realise that we're wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Ain't that just the truth?

I spent half my lifetime living like that. In fact not long after I gave my life to Jesus the pastor of my Church asked me to write down my testimony so I did. This is how it started out. “I never really needed God …” And that's exactly how it felt. I was doing pretty well in life, I had a good job, good career prospects, all that stuff and one day, the hard way, Jesus came along and opened my eyes to the truth. I thought I was rich … but really I was wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.

I had money but what I was missing out on was the rich abundant life that Jesus came to give me and you know at the point of realising that, when I finally woke up – a bit like the prodigal son sitting there amongst the pigs when he came to his senses – I felt like such a dill. I realised how pitiable my pride must have looked to God and so my natural reaction was to shrink away from Him.

You know when you know that you know you're not worthy. I'd always had that sneaking suspicion but when Jesus shines His light in your heart, when we can finally see all the muck that's there for what it really is – muck – what we naturally want to do is to pull away from God.

I had a man contact me not so long ago who'd been a generous supporter of our ministry but he was into some stuff in his life that he knew was wrong and so he was pulling away from Jesus. He knew that that was the worst thing he could do but he was still doing it because it came naturally. We feel so inadequate, so unworthy so we pull away. Been there? Yes … me too.

And it's into that situation that Jesus is speaking. Remember He's speaking here to a lukewarm Church in Laodicea that's at risk of pulling away from Him and so He comes along with the exact opposite. He calls them to come to their senses:

Be earnest therefore and repent. Listen, I'm standing at the door knocking, if you hear my voice open the door. I'll come into you and eat with you and you with me. (Revelation 3:19-20)

"If only you'll have a change of mind, what you hear is my knocking at the door or of your heart", says Jesus, "and what I want to do is to come in and sit down and have a meal with you. Nothing fancy, just a good honest meal so we can sit and eat together and chat together and fellowship together. You can hear my heart and I can hear your heart."

That's what Jesus is saying here. It's an invitation to the sinner. It's an invitation for you and me to decide to earnestly turn our lives back towards Jesus; to open the door of our heart's to let Him in so He can fellowship with us, dine with us, draw close to us. But when we're in that place of feeling inadequate and unworthy, it's the very last thing we expect.

What we expect is condemnation and punishment but that's not why Jesus came. He didn't come to condemn us, He came to save us … to save us from a life of a deluded, pitiable, poor, blind, naked wretch. That's what makes Christianity – which is a belief in this very same Jesus – totally different from any other belief system or faith or so called religion on the planet.

The thing that sets the Christian apart is that he or she believes in the grace and the mercy of God. We believe that because Jesus paid for all our sin we can come to Him now and rely on what He did on the Cross for us back then. Rely on the fact that we are totally forgiven, totally set free to be totally one with Him. And just as the picture I painted for you of the dinner my family and I had with our friends James and Shirley the other night is beautifully heart warming, as simple as it is, so this picture of Jesus knocking at our door desiring to dine with a sinner, is totally wondrous and awesome and sublime.

Listen, I'm standing at the door knocking. If you hear my voice open the door, I'll come into you and eat with you and you with me.

So what's your response?

Before the break we were chatting about the passion that Jesus has to come and fellowship with us, the passion He has, as it were, to share a meal with us. Yet so often that's the last thing we'd ever expect. The more we become aware of God, of who He is, of the l...

It’s so exciting to be with you again at the beginning of a new series of messages that we are kicking off today. And before we get going, let me share with you what brought me to this place.

One of the things that I have done many, many times in churches around the world is to stand up the front, either leading worship or preaching, and one of the things I have noticed, especially, let me say, as people are supposedly worshipping God, is (what are the words?) a lack of engagement. You look around at the sea of faces and you can see the minds wandering – people being distracted by who is walking in late behind them; people looking at their watch … well, you can just tell that they are not there! Blankly staring into space – their lips might be moving, sure, but the last thing they are doing is actually worshipping God.

Now, I don’t care whether you are someone who believes passionately in Jesus, or maybe … maybe you are someone who is not in that place. Maybe you would call yourself more an agnostic or an atheist but irrespective of where we are at, if we wandered into a church amongst people who professed to believe in this amazing God, we would all expect them to be sincere about their faith, wouldn’t we? I mean, we would!

But a good many people aren’t! They go to church out of – I don’t know - a sense of obligation, maybe or maybe its habit. It blows my mind and that’s what led me to this series of messages. The series is called, “There’s a Knock at the Door,” and that’s a phrase that comes straight out of the Book of Revelation, as Jesus is speaking to a church where the people are lukewarm towards Him.

Now, we might think, "Well, at least they are lukewarm – that’s better than ice cold, right?" Um! We’ll have a listen to Jesus and see what His take on it is. Revelation chapter 3, beginning at verse 14:

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation. I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For your say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.” You do not realise that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

So this idea that lukewarm is better than cold is far from the truth. Jesus wishes we were either cold or hot. Have you ever drunk a lukewarm cup of tea or coffee? It’s disgusting! What you want to do is spit it out of your mouth. And see, the thing doesn’t start with the church; the thing starts in our hearts – you and I – we’re hot, or we’re lukewarm or we are cold, when it comes to this Jesus; this God who loves us with a love that would have Jesus nailed to a cross for you and me. Nothing, absolutely nothing lukewarm about God’s love for you and me! God is passionate about you and me.

And yet it is so easy for us to live a lukewarm life. Just recently, I had to fill out a census form here in Australia – we had a national census, I think it’s every five years or so. They ask you all sorts of questions; one of the things they ask you is your religion. You can tick the different Christian denominations or boxes for other religions. Last census, almost two thirds of us ticked a box for a Christian religion and yet only ten percent of us are regularly part of a church. That’s at least over fifty percent of the nation who are probably lukewarm Christians – probably more because there are plenty of people in churches today who are lukewarm Christians. Okay, it’s a broad generalisation, but you get my point.

By far, the vast majority of people who would call themselves "Christian", aren’t committed followers of Jesus Christ. By far, the majority of people who would call themselves "Christian", aren’t in a dynamic, vital community of faith. By far, the majority of people who call themselves "Christian" have anything but an intimate relationship with Jesus. Hello? I’m sorry if I am getting in your face here. I’m sorry if this has you squirming in your seat a bit, but this passage that I just read before – this passage of Jesus talking to a bunch of lukewarm Christians, is bound to make us squirm a little in our seats if we happen to be a lukewarm Christian.

Anyone who kind of believes in this Jesus as a bit of an insurance policy, just in case; anyone who kind of believes in Jesus but has Him at arm’s length; anyone who goes through the motions – plays out the religious rituals but doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus; anyone who is in that place is going to squirm just a bit. That’s good; I think that’s what Jesus is looking for, because today, if you are in that place, the last thing I’m here to do is to criticise you or condemn you because I spent a huge part of my life in that place. I know it well. And the longer I stayed in that place the less certain I even became that there was a God who had sent His Son to earth to die on a cross to pay for my sins.

So if you are one of the people who are kind of squirming a bit – wondering whether you really are a Christian; wondering whether Jesus would consider you hot or cold or lukewarm, this is especially for you. Today there is a knock at the door; a knock at the door of your heart. Today as we spend these minutes together, I believe Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart and asking you, "Where are you at?" Today, I believe Jesus is calling you to open your heart to Him.

And I remember when He first came knocking on the door of my heart. It was a shock! You know those "Knock, knock" jokes – "Knock, knock, who’s there?" And that’s what it felt like. Hang on, someone or something is kind of knocking at the door of my heart. I had this sense that God was touching me; that God was speaking to me; that God wanted to fellowship with me. It was such a weird feeling. It was like, "What’s this? What’s going on? Who is there?" It was an unsettling feeling. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, as I speak these words, there is many a man, woman and child listening who has the same unsettling thing happening inside them right now.

That’s because Jesus is knocking on your heart. He doesn’t want you to lukewarm any more. He wants something so much more; so much better for you – here and now, for the rest of your life and for all eternity. I can speak the words but I can’t touch your heart, only He can and that’s precisely what may be happening to you right now.

There was a time in my life – twenty years ago or so – when I was completely alone on this earth. I mean, completely alone; no friends, no family. Now, sure, I knew people but none of them were my friends; at least, that’s what I tho...

We have been chatting these last few weeks about the whole subject of friendship. It isn’t something we talk about that often; it’s something we kind of … I don’t know, take for granted. And yet friendship, relationship, love, sacrifice are at the very centre of God’s plan for this world.

As we have seen over these last few weeks, God looked at Adam when He created him and He said, "Hey, it’s not good that this man should be alone. I’ll make him a helper as his partner." Why? Because you and I are made in the image of God – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – three persons in one God; a God of relationship and community and of love for all eternity.

I have heard some people postulate that the reason God created us – you and me – was that He got lonely. God was never lonely because God is three persons in one and that’s a mystery that I think we will spend the rest of eternity wrapping our minds around. No, God created us so that He could show us His great love; so that we could behold His glory. That’s why God created us. And He created us in His image. Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27:

God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” So God created man in his image; in the image of God he created us, male and female he created us.

See, we have been created in the image of a relational God, “… male and female he created us.” But although we are created in His image, there is one big difference between us and God … one difference that God allowed to happen in order that we should have a free will – either to love Him or not to love Him – for without freewill, love can’t be love. As A.W. Tozer writes in his book, “The Pursuit of God”:

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we simply lack the power.

You see, our sin is what sets us apart from God, in more ways than one. And our sin means that our capacity for love and friendship and relationship is marred; twisted and often perverted. That’s why people have arguments and disagreements. That’s why marriages fall apart. That’s why beatings happen. That’s why exploitation happens. That’s why wars happen.

Because through our rebellion against God – and that’s precisely what sin is – we lose the ability to live together, to work together, to honour one another in perfect love and perfect relationships, as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit honour and love one another in the perfect relationship that we call “God”. You see this time and time again throughout the Bible.

Over the past few weeks we have talked a lot about the friendship between Jonathan – King Saul’s son – and the heir to the throne of Israel, David. Now Jonathan eventually gave his life in order to be David’s friend but only because Saul’s sense of friendship and loyalty became so twisted and so perverted and so jealous that he set his heart on killing David, whom God Himself had chosen to be the next king after Saul. Why? Because Saul was jealous of David’s success and popularity. Have a listen to this – First Samuel chapter 18, beginning at verse 5:

David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; as a result, Saul set him over the army. And all the people, even the servants of Saul, approved. As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry, “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Saul was very angry, for this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David tens of thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands; what more can he have but the kingdom?” So Saul eyed David from that day on.

The next day an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; and Saul threw the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice.

Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence, and made him a commander of a thousand; and David marched out and came in, leading the army. David had success in all his undertakings; for the Lord was with him.”

Do you see how our own selfishness and pride and anger, births something in our hearts that unlocks a powerful evil in the spiritual dimension? Do you see how our sinful nature and our thoughts can lead to a breakdown in God’s perfect plan for perfect love and unity and friendship? See, this is why friends fail; this is why sometimes people turn against us – because their sinful thoughts and desires have unlocked a spirit of evil that grips them and leads them to sinful acts.

And whilst we might say, "Well, yea, right, this is a bit extreme here. I have never tried to kill anyone with my spear before today," have a listen to another example – a much more recent one. One that happened about a thousand years later after this Saul/David incident, in the first century AD; one that a few of us may well relate to just a bit more closely. It comes from the Book of Acts chapter 15, beginning at verse 32:

Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.

After some days, Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take with them John also called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and who had not accompanied them in the work. This disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.”

You know what we have just witnessed there? The very first church split. Paul and Barnabas had this big argument and they went their separate ways. Let me ask you – can you imagine God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit doing that? Nooooo! But Paul and Barnabas did – even though they had been through a huge amount together in ministry already, in the name of the Lord. Why? Why didn’t they go to God and ask God to reveal what they should do and which way they should go and whom they should take? Perhaps God wanted them to go their separate ways. So why didn’t they figure that out and do that in love? Why did they have to have an argument? Why did they have to have a fight?

Because we as friends, sometimes get on our high horses and we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. See, friends are supposed to make us stronger. Friends encourage us; friends help us … friends help us see when we are...

Today we're continuing on in a series of messages that I've called, "A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed" and I really want to take a look at the heart of friendship, what friendship is all about because I wonder whether in this disposable world in which we live whether we're only too prepared to trash friends who don't suit us. People who don't always tell us what we want to hear, people who don't pander to our whims.

Now don't get me wrong I believe there are some people that we all know that we shouldn't have as close friends because they'll do us more harm than good. We talked about that last week on the program. But we live in increasingly in a world where there are so many other distractions, well if our friends are a bit too difficult to get on with we just ditch them and we immerse ourselves in a rapidly growing range of entertainment options.

And that is, in fact, what a lot of people are doing. They're kind of cocooning themselves in things that please them and in so doing withdrawing step by step from meaningful friendships.

It kind of works for a while but my what a lonely place that ends up being. I wonder where you are right now in your life when it comes to the friendship stakes? When some young lawyer – schooled in the Old Testament Law of Moses, which is what lawyers in the 1st Century of Israel relied on – when this lawyer asks Jesus in effect, "Out of all the commandments in the law (and there are, the scholars tell me, around six hundred and thirteen commandments) which ones were the most important." Jesus was very quick to answer. Mark chapter 12, verse 29-34:

The first is, ‘Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength'. The second is 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself'. There is no other commandment greater than these. Then the Scribe said to him, 'you're right teacher, you have truly said that he is one and besides him there is no other and to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbour as one self. This is much more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices'. When Jesus saw that he'd answered wisely he said to him, 'you are not far from the kingdom of God'. After that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

And the thing that really leaps out for me in this is not so much the bit about loving God, I mean as absolutely vital as that is, you kind of expect the Son of God to say that. The bit that kind of leaps out for me is that we should love our neighbours as ourselves and the Scribe, the lawyer replies, "You're right, Rabboni!" In fact loving God and loving others, well those things are so much more important than any religious ritual we'd care to name.

Loving our neighbours, making friends, serving them with all that we are is more important than sitting in a Church and singing songs or listening to a sermon, as important as all those things of course are. The word here for love is "Agape" which means unconditional love, sacrificial love and the word used for neighbour is "Friend". You shall love your friends with all that you are unconditionally, without reservation and sacrificially.

This is precisely what Jesus is saying here and it follows right on from loving God with all that we are. In fact it's the flip side of that coin if you will. Now if we should love our friends as we love ourselves then let’s stop and think for a minute, how is it that we love ourselves? Do we care for ourselves, provide for ourselves, protect ourselves, nurture ourselves? Yeah, by and large we do.

And if we didn't have a roof over our heads we'd do everything we could to get one. If we didn't have food to eat we'd do everything we could to get food. If we were drowning we'd do everything we possibly could to get air and survive. It turns out that not only do we have a strong survival instinct, we have rather a strong provision instinct. We want to survive and thrive and we do what we need to do to make those things happen.

So right here Jesus is actually saying, that's how you love you now love your friends in exactly the same way. Do you see the power of what He's saying here? Take this survive and thrive love that we have for ourselves and in exactly the same way that you apply it to yourself, Jesus is saying to you and to me, apply it to your friends, to your neighbours.

Now when it comes to doing the whole "survive and thrive" love for ourselves, by and large, it's pretty much not a sacrifice. We look after ourselves, we look after our family, we provide for them, we're kind of hard wired to do that. Making sure that I'm safe and I'm fed and I'm well provided for.

Okay I have to get up each morning and I have to go to work to earn a crust to make that happen. I just can't lounge around in front of the television all day. But that's not a sacrifice, it's just what I do for me and for my family and yet when we take the love we have for ourselves and we start doing with it what Jesus is saying here, loving our friends the way we love ourselves all of sudden it can seem like a huge sacrifice.

Can I tell you something? Love is always a sacrifice and this unconditional love that Jesus is calling each one of us to have for our friends can be a huge sacrifice. Unconditional love, agape love comes at a price because it's unconditional and Jesus is calling us to fire Him into loving our friends with that sort of love and as He does that He makes it abundantly clear that it's going to cost us something. Matthew chapter 16, verse 24:

Jesus told his disciples, 'if any one wants to become one of my followers let them deny themselves and to take up their cross and follow me.'

Loving friends – loving them the way God means for us to love them, loving them in the way that is so much more important than any religious ritual under the sun – is about laying down our lives for them. It's about putting their needs before our needs. It's about sacrificing what we want for them. Do you see how radically different Gods take on friendship is from the worlds approach?

Many people have friends because of what they can get out of the friend. Companionship, maybe money or a business deal or a good time and when they're no longer of any use we just kind of toss them on the scrap heap. Done with them, no good to me anymore, move on.

And yet the people whom we choose as friends we're meant to love with all the drive that we have to love ourselves to survive and to thrive, with all the instinct we have to provide for ourselves we're meant to take that drive and that instinct and love our friends with that. Unconditionally in the same way that we love ourselves, dying to self, sacrificing for our friends and in Gods scheme of things this comes second to only loving God Himself with all that we are.

Being a friend means laying down our lives, being a friend means being there for someone no matter how badly they maybe acting up right now. It's about denying ourselves, taking up that grizzly brutal cross of sacrifice and following Jesus.

When we talk about friendship there's one young man, Jonathan, whose story in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, I simply can't go past. I want to unpack that story a bit more with you today because it's like a powerful case study of what we've just been talk...

Hey, it’s great to be with you again this week on the programme as we are continuing our look at good and godly friendships in a series that I have called, “A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed”. And today we are going to take a look at the fact that, as things turn out, we actually do get to pick our friends. Now it’s always fascinated me how people choose a marriage partner. What is it that clicks there? What is it that kind of gets that chemistry going?

I was watching a TV special a few months back where a whole bunch of research has been done on exactly that. It was fascinating really, but despite all the research, they still didn’t quite nail it. There is something incredible and special about how two people kind of choose one another to become life-long soul mates. It’s one of God’s great mysteries, don’t you think? At the moment I locked my eyes onto the woman who is now my wife, Jacqui, there was no one else for me – not sure how it works but I’m really glad it does.

But have you ever thought about how people choose their friends? I remember doing a series on air a few years back about relatives. It was called, "You Can Pick Your Friends but You Can’t Pick Your Relatives". Boy, did that one get a great response! So this idea of picking friends, how does it happen? Because my hunch is that there are some people who, frankly, we wouldn’t want as friends.

There are some people who I know – I can picture their faces right now – who I have to tell you, would make terrible friends and so they don’t become friends; I don’t let them into that circle, because if I did, that relationship would damage me. I’m sure you can think of a few people in your life who are just like that.

Now, in my own personal devotion time over the past few weeks I have been spending some time in the Old Testament Book of First Samuel. And I have to tell you, it is one of my favourite Books because you discover so much about whom God is and how He operates and how He thinks and how He reacts to things. Part of the story is that Israel demands a king. Up to this point their system of government has been a theocracy, with God as the Head of State. But they weaken and demand a king, just like all the other Nations around them as though, somehow, coming down to their level would be a good thing.

So God gives them a king, King Saul, having warned the people that it wouldn’t work out brilliantly in the end, but they still demanded the king. So they got what they deserved and surprise, surprise, surprise, things don’t go well, to the point where ultimately, where God takes His hand and His anointing off Saul and He anoints this young shepherd, David, to be the next king, even while Saul is still on the throne.

The problem is, with God’s anointing on him, David becomes a strong and powerful and popular figure. And meanwhile, Saul is still the king and he becomes incredibly jealous of young David, so Saul, not once, but several times, sets out to kill David. Isn’t that how it often happens?

I have seen it several times in ministry – I have seen a man who has been anointed by God for a role but at some point it becomes obvious to everyone and sundry, that God has taken the anointing away. And at that point – I am thinking of one man in particular now – this man lashes out and tries to destroy the people around him that still have God’s anointing on their lives.

And so, David is in Saul’s sights and in those days the king had the power of life and death over people – plain and simple. If the king decided you were going to die then, guess what, you were going to die. Let’s have a listen. First Samuel, in the Old Testament, chapter 18, beginning at verse 10:

The next day an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house, while David was still playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; and Saul threw the spear, for he thought,”I will pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice.

Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence, and made him a commander of a thousand; and David marched out and came in, leading the army. David had success in all his undertakings; for the Lord was with him. When Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in awe of him. But all of Israel and Judah loved David; for it was he who marched out and came in leading them.

So, King Saul is still king in name only, but the anointing of God – God’s power, God’s favour to be king – has quite clearly passed from Saul to this young kid David. And Saul just wants to kill him. Well obviously, he doesn’t because David goes on to become perhaps, the greatest king that Israel ever had.

So who or what does God use to stop Saul from killing young David? Let’s look at First Samuel chapter 19, beginning at verse 1:

Saul spoke with his son Jonathan and with all his servants about killing David. But Saul’s son Jonathan took great delight in David. Jonathan told David, “My father Saul is trying to kill you; therefore be on your guard tomorrow morning; stay in a secret place and hide yourself. I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you, if I learn anything I will tell you.

Jonathan spoke well of David to his father Saul, saying to him, “The king should not sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have been of good service to you; for he took his life into his hands when he attacked the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great victory for all of Israel. You saw it and you rejoiced; why then will you sin against an innocent man by killing David without cause?”

Saul heeded the voice of his son Jonathan; Saul swore, “As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death.” So Jonathan called David and related all these things to him. Jonathan then brought David before Saul and he was again in Saul’s presence as previously.”

See, it turns out that Saul’s son – the very man who, according to human logic, would be next in line for the throne – Saul’s son Jonathan, decides to save David’s life. The question you have to ask yourself is, ‘Why would he do that? Because as we read, “... Jonathan took great delight in David” in first Samuel chapter 9, verse 1.

Something inside Jonathan kind of clicked – he could see what everyone else could see – he could see that the mighty hand of God was on David; he could see the power of God on David; the favour of God on David; he could see the humility and power; the goodness of this man David, who had been anointed to become the next king and so he chose to become David’s friend. He stands up to his all-powerful father, King Saul and he defends David, as some risk to his own position, you would have to say; even to his own life. Remember Saul could have him struck down and killed – such was the power of the king.

It seems the way Jonathan chose David as his friend was to see the goodness of God in him. Now, not all the people who would be our friends are perfect, are they? But a fantastic first criterion for choosing a friend: Is this a good person? Is this a godly person? Is this the sort of person that God would choose? Well, as it turns out, David was exactly the sort of person that God would choose. He had already chosen him to be king. And not according to...

It’s always exciting to kick off a new series of messages and starting today we are going to be talking about friendship. That’s why I have called this series “A Friend In Need is a Friend Indeed.” It’s a saying that most of us have heard of many times before and it’s well … it’s so true. There are some people who, right now, who are living their lives without a friend in the world – or so it seems to them right now. Sometimes that happens because we isolate ourselves and sometimes it happens, well, for a whole bunch of reasons that are completely outside our control. And sometimes we are just not sure why it’s happening but we feel so desperately alone.

Well, over the next few weeks we are going to explore this whole thing about friendship, because whether we realise it or not, we are made to have friends. We are made to be a part of a community; part of a family and we are made to connect with people who are our friends. And there is a reason for that. It’s not just a quirk of fate as the primeval slime evolved over eons to become thee and me. No, that’s just stretching the imagination a bit too far.

The reason we are made to connect with other people is that that is exactly what God is like and you and I – the thing that makes us different from any other creature or species alive is this: you and I are made in the image of God. And that as it turns out, is the whole reason that we are meant to be in close relationship, at least with a few other people.

It has always blown me away how the first few words of the first verse of the first Book of the Bible must have puzzled people way back when it was written. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, starts out:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Hang on – let’s just stop; let’s just pare that back a little bit.

In the beginning God …

Before everything and everyone else, was and is God. Now most of the Old Testament is written in the Hebrew language – this verse certainly was – and the word that we translate as “God” is the strangest word. It’s the word “Elohim”, which literally, in the Hebrew language, is the word “gods” – plural. “In the beginning Gods”, is what it actually says and it’s what it said to them, thousands of years ago when it was written and what it still says to the Jewish Nation today.

In the beginning Gods …

And just a few verses down, when God tells us how He created us, this is what it says – Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Did you pick it up? God said, “let US” make humankind in our image.” “US!” Now back in those days, just about every nation had its gods – they were polytheistic, which means they believed in many Gods, much as Hinduism does today. But Israel … Israel believed in one God; they were monotheistic and in that way they were really quite unique. Have a listen, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And so this One God, who declares Himself from the beginning, to be more than one, turns out as we later discovered, He is three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in one perfect relationship that we call “God”. Three persons in One God which is the mystery of what today we call the Holy Trinity. So from the very beginning, God is a God of community.

And we – you and I, and every other homosapian that has ever trodden this Earth – are made in the image of God. And how did God make us in His image? Well, male and female He created us. He made us to be companions; to have friends; to have close relationships for this reason, because this is one of the key aspects of being made in God’s image.

Now, as you and I look at ourselves in the mirror, we realise that we are made to have friends, notwithstanding the fact that we are really all quite different. I mean, my daughter Melissa and I couldn’t be more different. We both go exercising most mornings. I do it on a brisk ten kilometre walk all on my own. I have done exercise with other people when I was in the Army – I hated it. I love exercising just on my own. Melissa, on the other hand, she joins a group of twenty or so people under a trainer and they exercise together. For her, she simply wouldn’t get out there in the morning if it weren’t for the companionship of the other people.

See how different we are! And yet, even I at the end of the spectrum where I really enjoy my own company, at that extreme – if I can put it that way – I need close relationships; I need friends; my wonderful, long suffering wife and a few good friends. They say “no man is an island”. It’s true of women too. None of us is meant to travel through this life on our own. Yea, sure, there are times when people desert us. That even happened to Jesus, when He was arrested and tried and crucified – all His friends left Him. It happens, sadly, sometimes to each one of us. But that’s not the norm; that’s not how it’s meant to be for most of the time, because that, quite simply, is not the way we have been created – in God’s image, remember!

And so in kicking off our chats about friendship and relationships, I guess I am hoping that you and I will examine our own lives. Come on, honestly, who are our close friends? Do we really share our souls with them, or have we built up protective walls to hide behind. Walls that protect us from getting hurt; walls that shield us from accountability; walls that save us from the pain and the expense of feeling someone else’s pain and sacrificing for them? Or quite simply, walls that have grown up all by themselves because we are so … so busy racing around earning money, paying the mortgage on a house that is way too big and for possessions that are really way more than what we need?

Well, come on, let’s get real here! God made you and He made me in His image to be in this thing called “community” – to have friends and deep and meaningful and rich and rewarding and painful and sacrificial relationships. And one of the most profound turning points of my life – as someone who doesn’t need quite as many relationships in his life as perhaps others do – is that until we enter into such relationships; until we start serving our friends with the gifts and the abilities and the resources that we have and until we see the impact on their lives through our service, there can, quite simply, be no sense of satisfaction or fulfilment or contentment in our lives.

Why? Because it was for this purpose that God made us – to love Him and to love our neighbours as ourselves. That’s it. That’s what life is all about! And to the extent that we turn away from relationships of true friendship, it is to that same extent that we miss out on real life; rich life; a rich and abundant life; the sort of life that Jesus came to purchase for you and purchase for me on that cross.

It strikes me that in one sense we are all incredibly different – different places, cultures, circumstances – and yet in another, though, we are all the same – we all need to feel God’s love around us. We all need to experience the warm ...

Here we are, Christmas is almost upon us – can’t believe it but there you go – another year, just a few weeks to go and on the program, we are talking about peace. We have been talking about peace the last couple of weeks because there’s so much turmoil in people’s lives. We get a lot of feedback – people write and ring and send us emails who have listened to this program and for so many people, what they consistently say is that as they’ve let God’s Word, through this program Christianityworks, come into their lives and into their hearts, it’s given them peace in the midst of their turmoil and that’s what God does. That’s what God’s Word does, God’s heart is for us to have peace.

But what is peace? What does it look like? Over the last few weeks we have been looking in the Book of Ezekiel, which talks about Israel’s rebellion against God. God blessed them greatly and God started a covenant with them – a promise; a relationship – that we can read about. We won’t go there now, but you can read about it in Leviticus chapter 26. Oh, we will go there now, let’s go. Grab a Bible – can’t help myself – let’s go and have a look at Leviticus chapter 26 and this covenant talks about God’s blessing. It begins by saying:

If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you the rains in their due season and your land shall yield it’s produce and the trees of the field will yield their fruit and your threshing floor will overtake the vintage and you’ll be blessed - I’ll bless your socks off, if you keep my commandments.

And in the middle of it He says:

And I will make my dwelling place in your midst and I won’t abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you will be my people.

That is the heart of God; it’s the heart of God then and it’s the heart of God now. God’s heart is to be our God and for us to be His people but right after that He says:

But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments - if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you do not observe all my commandments and you break the covenant (this promise), I in turn will do this to you. I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that wastes the eyes and cause your life to pine away.

And then He goes and lists all the curses that will befall Israel if they don’t keep the commandment. And that’s the dilemma of humanity. You read through the whole Old Testament and Israel could never uphold their end of this covenant and nor can you and nor can I. We can’t keep our end of that covenant and like a marriage, when we fail, we reject God. It’s like adultery in a marriage and God out of His great love, lets His anger roll forth. That’s what this punishment is about.

We saw last week on the program, and if you weren’t with us you can listen to the program again at our website, "Christianityworks.com". Go and have a listen – that God’s anger is kindled out of His love because He wants His people to come back again and you can read about that in Ezekiel chapter 14.

So that’s the dilemma of the Old Testament covenant that we just read in Leviticus chapter 26. On the one hand God wants to bless us, on the other hand, if we don’t obey Him, He will curse us and He will bring His punishment and judgement and anger upon us but sandwiched right in the middle of those two, in Leviticus chapter 26, from verse 11 through to 13, is this heartbeat of God:

I will place my dwelling place in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people.

And because we can’t hold up our end of that bargain, God had a choice. Either to keep punishing us or to come up with a new plan; a new covenant and He did that. We looked at that last week on the program. He came up with a road map for peace and it was never a plan "B"– it was always His plan "A" because as I said the Old Testament is a story about how we struggle with God and clearly, over a thousand years, it tells us that Israel could never uphold its end of the bargain through its own works.

So God can either punish us or God can come up with a new plan and God came up with a new plan that we read about in Ezekiel chapter 37, where He said:

I will make a covenant; a new covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them and I will bless them and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary amongst them for ever. My dwelling place shall be with them and I will be their God and they shall be my people and then the nations around them shall know that I am the Lord God who sanctifies Israel, where my sanctuary is among them for ever more.

And that new covenant; that new sanctuary; that new presence of God in our midst, is Jesus Christ and that is what Christmas was about. If you flick forward to John chapter 1, the fourth book in the New Testament and it says:

And the Word became flesh.

God became flesh and tabernacle amongst us. In other words the very presence of God came into our midst. That is awesome! That’s what Christmas is about because God steps into our dilemma. God puts on flesh; God wraps Himself in our flesh and puts Himself in your life and my life, here and now and that’s the Christmas present. God Himself, wrapped in our flesh, one of us, stepping into our dung heap; into our circumstances, into our sickness, into our pain, into our lost-ness and saying, “I’m here, now let me bring you peace.”

Christmas is God’s declaration of peace with humanity and that’s what we are going to look at during the course of this program.

Well, we are talking about this central human dilemma which is our rejection of God and you know, when we rejected God – we all have, none of us have lived up to the glory of God. We have all fallen short and sinned, when we rejected God; we declared war on God and the reason so many people in this world don’t have peace in their lives, peace in their hearts, peace in their spirits, is because they haven’t accepted God’s peace plan.

When Jesus was born He was taken to the temple - if you’ve got a Bible grab it and open it at Luke chapter 2, beginning at verse 25:

When Jesus was born He was taken to the temple and they presented Him at the temple and there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon and this man was a righteous and devout man looking forward to the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit rested on him.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came up into the temple and when the parents brought the child, Jesus in, to do for Him what was customary under the law.

Simeon took Him in his arms and praised God saying: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant, (wait for it!), in peace, according to your Word, for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

See, this old man, Simeon, in his spirit, knew that God was sending His Saviour, Jesus Christ and he said, “I can now go, in what? "In peace" – "in Shalom" – because Jesus brings peace. Now some people won...

It is fabulous to be with you again this week, leading up to Christmas. Now Christmas is this time of, well supposedly, peace and goodwill to all men. Peace can be hard to come by. So many lives are in turmoil, day by day, step by step, there’s conflict. In a sense, it’s the way of the world, yet so many lives are in so much turmoil – in the home, between husband and wife, in families, in the workplace.

I mean, people get "feral" in the workplace – and of course, in ourselves. Some people have a lot, some people don’t have very much, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Some people believe in Jesus, other people don’t, yet still, they don’t have peace. Conflict rages on! Life is always bringing along things to rob us of our peace. Have you noticed that? It happens to all of us.

That’s why in these weeks leading up to Christmas – this Christmas that is supposed to be about peace and goodwill to all men and women and kids and everyone else. We are doing a series called, "A Peace Beyond All Understanding". I believe we need to unzip our souls and pour God’s Word into us and get some great teaching on the peace that Jesus came to give us. I believe that God’s plan for your life and God’s plan for my life is to give us a peace and a joy beyond all human understanding and that’s why we are doing teaching on "peace" in these weeks leading up to Christmas.

The whole problem of the human condition, the whole thing begins with our rebellion against God. You can read about it in the first couple of chapters of Genesis, when Adam and Eve – God blessed them, God put them in the garden, God provided for them and they rebelled – they did the one thing God said "don’t do". And you might say, “Come on, Berni, what’s this got to do with Christmas?" It’s got everything to do with Christmas because the moment that they rebelled and the moment that we first rebelled in our lives against God, we initiated a war between us and God and that’s what we looked at last week on the program. If you missed it, visit our website at ‘Christianity works.com' and you can listen to it again.

We need to understand the anatomy of that battle because it is that battle, that war that you and I initiated in our rejection of God that is the whole reason behind Christmas. We were looking at the Book of Ezekiel – now the Book of Ezekiel was written by a prophet called Ezekiel, not surprisingly, to Israel just a few years after they were exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. These were God’s people. God had promised them the land of Israel, He’d given them Jerusalem, He’d given them Judea, He’d given them all of this land and He’d blessed them and they turned their back on Him. They worshipped other gods; they worshipped other idols; they did abominations in God’s sight, so ultimately God’s judgement fell on them. He used the King of Babylon to bring his armies into Israel, he destroyed the land, he killed most of the people and those that were left went into exile as slaves in Babylon and Ezekiel writes to them – I’m just going to read a very short passage from the fifth chapter. If you’ve got a Bible, grab it. We are going to be spending a bit of time in Ezekiel and a few other books today.

Just to explain where we’re at, so we’ll recap. This short passage about God’s judgement of His people because they rebelled against Him:

This is what the Lord God says: “This Jerusalem, I’ve but she has rebelled against me again; against my ordinances; against my statutes, becoming more wicked than all the nations and all the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances; not following my statutes.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Because you are more turbulent than all the nations that are around you and you haven’t followed my statues or kept   my ordinances, but you have acted according to ordinances of the nations that are around you. Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “I myself am coming against and I will execute judgements among you in the sight of the nations. And because of all your sin and your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again.”

And so He then goes on to talk about all of His anger being spent on them and letting countries come against them to destroy them and wild animals and famine and then pests and God brings His judgement on Israel – why? Because Israel rebelled against God – Israel rebelled, God expelled!

Remember these were God’s people; God’s chosen people! Now some people reject God altogether and they have this sense of emptiness and something missing. Other people who believe in God; who believe in Jesus, hold part of themselves back, maybe they carry around some un-forgiveness, maybe they have some secret sin, maybe they have their own idols. Whatever, but we all need peace in our lives. Amen? We all need that deep, satisfying fulfilling peace and the biggest thing that robs us of that peace – the number one issue – is our rebellion against God; going our own way, as Israel did.

You and I are hard-wired for a relationship with God. Let me read you this short passage from Psalm 139 verses 14 to 18. This is what it says:

God I praise you for it was you who formed my inner parts. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works that I know very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth; your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me when as yet none of them existed. How weighty are your thoughts O God, how vast is the sum of them.

Isn’t that a beautiful passage, of God’s involvement right from our conception when we were in our mother’s womb? Our substance, our frame wasn’t hidden from Him. He is the one who has made you and me what we are, and when we reject Him. When we reject the one who created us, the one who loves us, we declare war on God and ultimately, we kindle His anger and judgement. We get all proud and we set up our own throne, our own rule, our own kingdom, our own life and God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

And that’s the beginning; that’s the essence of our turmoil and our discontent. Unless we understand that, Christmas doesn’t make sense and today we are going to particularly look at God’s anger. It’s not a picture of God we like to think about, but the anger and the judgement of God is kindled by our rebellion and strangely, it lies at the heart of Christmas.

We are looking today at the anger of God. “My goodness, Berni, it’s almost Christmas time and you’re talking about an angry God, what’s the matter with you?” Well, we’ve got to understand God’s anger and why He gets angry with us, for us to understand Christmas. It’s a good question: “Why does God get angry with us?” If you have a Bible – we are working our way through the Book of Ezekiel – go to chapter 14 of Ezekiel.

This is a book that was written by the prophet Ezekiel to Israel, at a time when God’s judgement had fallen on the nation. When the Babylonians had come and destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, killed many of the inhabitants – these are God’s chosen people – and taken the remnant as slaves into Babylon. The people are going, "well, my goodness, what’s going on?"

Ezekiel the prophet is explaining God’s judgement to God’s people and this is what he...

I don’t know what your December generally looks like, but for a lot of people it’s rush, rush, rush, getting things done at work, its presents, its parties, it's getting ready to have a bit of a break, its anticipation and for some people its despair. And into that special time that we call Christmas - no matter where we live, it seems to be a special time.

December tends to be a month of preoccupation with other things, with something, and so often we get to Christmas and we’re exhausted and the whole Christmas experience can be empty and hallow. Sometimes it doesn’t live up to the expectation – to all the hype. "Why did I do that?" Have you ever felt that? You go into Christmas and you look back on that busy month that we’ve just been through and you think, "my goodness!", there’s this turmoil where there should be peace; there’s an unrest.

Sometimes you can feel so far away from the "peace and the goodwill to all men" thing, that’s supposed to be happening at Christmas time. Because peace is what Christmas is all about. Christmas, as we are going to see over the next few weeks on the programme, is God’s declaration of peace with us. Peace from what? Peace from all the turmoil; peace from all the war; peace from the mother of all wars because until and unless we come to know Jesus Christ, there’s a war happening between us and God. Maybe your have never thought of it that way but at Christmas we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace. Everybody’s life has a sense of turmoil sometimes and our lives can feel like a war zone.

We need peace so over these coming four weeks – this week and the next three weeks on the programme "Christianityworks", we are going to be working our way through a teaching series that I’ve called, "Peace beyond all understanding". Today we are going to start and say, “Well, peace from what?” We need to look at this war between God and humanity. Not God’s initiative but our initiative – our rebellion.

If you have a Bible, I’d ask you to grab it and open it up to the Old Testament, to the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is, in a sense, a strange book. It’s a book of God’s judgement against His people. The situation is that Israel, they did the whole, "get out of Egypt, go through the Red Sea, forty years in the desert with Moses then they made it into the Promised Land and they had some judges overseeing the Nation of Israel and then they had three Kings and then the Nation of Israel split in two. Israel, the ten tribes to the north, Judah and Benjamin the two tribes to the south in Jerusalem and it all went down hill from there."

Centuries went on and God’s people rebelled against Him, even though He had a covenant with them; even though He promised them this land that He’d given them; the land of the Canaanites, and yet they still rebelled against Him. So God’s judgement fell on Judah and Benjamin and Israel and they were exiled – the temple was destroyed. It was about five eighty six, five eighty seven BC. The temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was raised to the ground, many, many were killed and those that were left were exiled as slaves in Babylon.

And the Book of Ezekiel was written just a few years into that exile. It is written to the exiles to explain God’s judgement. You can imagine! Israel was saying, “Hang on, aren’t we God’s people? Didn’t we have the temple? Wasn’t God present in the temple? And all of a sudden now we have been defeated by the Babylonians. The temple is destroyed, there’s no more sacrifice, how do we get our sin forgiven? Where’s our God? Is Babylon stronger and more mighty than our God?” And so the Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel was one of God’s prophets who was called to explain God’s judgement to His people - to those that were left, to those who lived.

And so we are going to go to chapter 5, beginning at verse 5 and just have a bit of a read. The first twenty-four chapters of the Book of Ezekiel are God’s judgement against His chosen people. We’re going to read just a small part of that. This is what the Lord God says:

This is Jerusalem, I’ve set her in the centre of the nations with countries all around her. But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances and not following my statutes.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you are more turbulent than all the nations around you and you have not followed my statutes or kept my ordinances, but you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are all around you, therefore thus, says the Lord your God: “I myself am coming against you.

I will execute judgements among you in the sight of all the nations and because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done and the like of which I will never do again. Surely parents will eat their children in your midst and surely children will eat their parents and I will execute judgments on you and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God: “Surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will cut you down. My eye will not spare and I will have no pity.

One third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you. One third shall fall by the sword around you and one third I will scatter to every wind and will unsheathe the sword after them. My anger shall spend itself and I will vent my fury on them and satisfy myself and they shall know that I, the Lord God, have spoken in my jealousy when I spend my fury on them.”

Well, doesn’t sound like a message leading into Christmas does it? But we need to understand what’s going on here before we can really understand Christmas. We like to ignore some Scriptures but this is about a God who is angry with His people. If we want to understand our own turmoil – that sense that something is not quite right – we need to understand the war between us and God that was occasioned by our own rebellion. Dad, God, Father, is a Dad of love but like every other father, sometimes enough is enough and sometimes rebellion leads to punishment – that’s God – that’s as much God as the loving, gentle, Father God. And when we rebel we break His wonderful plan – the plan of God, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

And as you read through these judgments in the first twenty-four chapters of Ezekiel, God doesn’t hold back His punishment. He punishes His people to get this rebellion sorted out and until we get our rebellion sorted out, we are at war with God and our lives are going to be in turmoil. You might say, “But, me, how? I’m not that bad a person.” We are going to answer that question next.

We are looking at how God’s anger is kindled against His people when they rebel against Him. Ezekiel, the whole book – or much of the book is about God’s judgment against the people of Israel because for centuries they worshipped other gods; for centuries they did things that God said don’t do and Ezekiel is a prophet that speaks God’s punishment and judgment to God’s chosen people. And the key accusation against them is: "you haven’t followed my statutes or kept my ordinances but you have actually acted on the ordinances of nations that are all around you so instead of looking like my people, you just look like the rest of the world."

Ain’t that the truth? Isn’t that so easy to do? You start off believing in God – w...

It is fantastic to be with you again this week. Over the last three weeks on the program, I guess leading up towards Christmas we've been looking at living a life of peace because Christmas is God’s declaration of peace. When you and I turned our backs on God and walked away and did our own thing and do stupid and silly things as we've done in our lives we declared war on God and what we deserved was God’s anger, what we deserve was God’s judgement. And we've been looking at the Book of Ezekiel for the last few weeks and seeing how exactly that befell the nation of Israel when they rejected their God, but God had a peace plan and God’s plan for peace is Christmas, Jesus Christ, His own Son.

This week on the program we're going to finish this series off by looking at what it actually means to live that life of peace; and for me there are three key things. We have to make a decision for peace, a decision, a deliberate choice to have peace and that involves spending time with God, getting right with God and relying on God. So, are you ready? We're going to dive into Gods word and just see what God has for us because I truly believe God’s plan for you is to live a life of peace.

There’s one thing that being marriage teaches you is that you can't have any peace between husband and wife unless you spend time together, enjoying each other, that’s why God invented intimacy. We go along through life together, husband and wife and our ups and downs and bumps and bruises and stresses and strains but when we spend time together, when we have fun together, when we do special things together and talk and just work through issues, that builds the relationship and we get so close as husband and wife that when those pressures come, when those tensions come, they don't affect us because the relationship is in place and the same, exactly the same, is true in our relationship with God.

We need to spend time with God. I have plenty of stresses and strains in my life, people sometimes look at me and go, "Well, must be a pretty easy life really, recording the radio programs."

But that’s not the half of it, doing this ministry gig is a tough gig, it all just doesn't happen. Hundreds of stations and the relationships with those and all our blessed supporters and friends and our relationships and communications with those, our finances, our staff and the rapid growth and managing that growth, there are tensions, there are strains, it's hard work and in the middle of all of that, for me, the highest calling on my life, from God, is to do what I'm doing right now and I'll let you in on a little secret, I'm no good in God’s hands if I'm some screaming nervous wreck.

I need peace to be used of God to bless you, I need joy, I need that quiet assurance amidst the pressures of life. There's only one place where I've found that, in my quiet times with the Lord, early in the morning when the rest of the world's asleep. On those days when I take that time, 30 minutes, 40 minutes maybe even an hour, just to spend time with Him, I have a quiet assurance and a peace.

Jesus knew that, He was the Son of God and He was doing this ministry tour and preaching tour through Galilee and He'd just been casting out demons and healing people, He must have been tired. This is what it says in Mark, chapter 1, verse 35:

And in the morning, very early whilst it was still dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place and there He prayed and all the people came looking for Him and said, "Where are you? We're all looking for you." It would have been very easy for Jesus to say, "Well, you know, I'm busy. I've got too much to do; I haven't got time to pray." And we kid ourselves if we think that we can live a life of peace without spending time with Jesus. Jesus, when He walked on this earth, was a man of prayer. He spent time with God for guidance and peace and power.

The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 11 says this,

Seek peace and pursue it.

In other words, get deliberate about having peace in our lives. What's life like, day by day, every step of the way when we can walk in the quiet assurance of peace? Inside, how do you feel? It's awesome isn't it? And outside, how effective and capable are we when inside we have this wonderful peace?

But on the other hand, compare that to those days when we're a screaming blubber of jelly, all over the place like a cork in the ocean driven by a storm. Inside you feel terrible, outside you just can't do what you want to do. It's a no brainer, we need peace. We all have trials, we all have temptations, we all feel like we're the only ones, we feel lonely.

But it happens to all of us, I have mine, you have yours and sometimes we get so busy that we think we don't have time to spend with God and that is nuts, I'm sorry but it is. If we want peace we have to pursue it, in other words, to run swiftly after it. That's what that word means that Peter uses, to run swiftly after it in order to catch it, to press into it. A deliberate decision, "well, I don't have any peace in my life." What are you doing about it? "Mm, nothing. I just want peace." Well let’s get a revelation today, the rest of the world isn't going to give us peace, it's just not going to flop into our laps, in fact, the opposite is true. The world wants to rob us of peace.

The true, deep, abiding, restful, joyful, delightful peace only happens in one place, with Jesus and we have to make a decision to pursue it and that means making time with Him every day. It's not a guilt trip, it’s not some sort of rule, it's just plain common sense. Time to talk with Him, time to rest with Him, maybe it's on the train on the way to work, maybe it's very early like me, maybe it's a half an hour after dinner, whatever. Time to offload our burdens onto Jesus, time to get into God’s word, to listen to radio programs or teaching CD's or to read a good book, just to spend time with God, a quiet time alone and little by little, day after day, week after week, month after month, God builds in us the most wondrous sense of peace. If we're going to live our lives we have to choose peace, we have to seek it out, we have to pursue it and for me the biggest part of that is spending my time, quality time, the best time that I have in the day, with Him.

The second part of that, for me, which we're going to look at is just getting right with God. Have you ever had that situation where there's someone you really care about and you've had an argument, you know you do something stupid to hurt them and there's a fight and the more you fight the harder it gets to make up because the more entrenched you get and then there's like a cold war happening that can go on for an hour or a day or weeks. You know what I'm talking about, we've all been there. Our stupid pride stops us from making peace and saying, "Sorry" and all the time there's this coldness and silence even though we really care about this other person.

The worse thing about that is that there's no peace, there can never be peace until we set things right and the same is true with our relationship with God, unless WE set things right in our relationship with Him there can never be any peace.

As I was saying just before and as we've been talking about over the last few weeks, our rebellion is a war against God and Jesus is God’s peace plan, the Christmas present at that first Christmas is God’s peace through His Son, Jesus Christ but in order to experience that peace, a peace that goes beyond anything we can ever understand,...

Over these last few weeks we have been chatting about money matters. Trying, I guess, to take a Kingdom view; a Kingdom of God perspective on this whole issue of money. God talks so much in His Word about money and the influence it has over us – the fact that it can drag it away from Him as we chase so hard after the riches of this world. First Timothy chapter 6, verse 10, says that:

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

We are so eager in our love of money, at least we can be, that we wander away from our faith in God, little by little, and before we know it, we have pierced ourselves with many, many pains.

I was in a lift, an elevator in a large shopping centre, the other day and stood next to a young woman with a young child in a pram and she had cut marks all down her arms – self mutilation; cutting that had left scars. Horrible! And you wonder, "Why does she do that?" It’s the same with the love of money, we pierce ourselves with many pains, it leaves scars.

And you have to ask yourself, ‘Why do we do that?’ Because it’s the most natural thing in the world for a person to do, to chase after wealth. The problem is it only brings pain. And what we are seeing over these last few weeks together is that God offers us a solution, a very simple solution, to give into His work – generously, sacrificially. That’s what sets us free from the pain, the devastating impact of the love of money, which is the root of all kinds of evil.

One of the things that people often ask me is, "How much should I give? If I indeed need to let God heal me of this malady for my giving, how much should I give?" The Old Testament talks about tithing – should I give a tithe; a tenth of my income? Will that do? It that the answer; is that the formula?’ Funny how we are all looking for a formula isn’t it? "I’ll set up a direct debit of ten percent to my church and then I’ll be free."

Tithing comes from the Old Testament Law; the Torah. God’s people in the Old Testament were commanded to give ten percent. It was a legal requirement for them, much as paying taxes is a legal requirement for you and for me. This finds its roots way back in Genesis chapter 14, verse 20, when Abraham gives thanks to the Lord. It works its way into the Law so that the Levites can be ministers to God’s people to pay, in effect for their ministry.

And we see quite often how God uses the tithe to bring His people back to Himself through obedience. That oft quoted passage on tithing – you may have heard it, in Malachi chapter 3 – is set in the context of God’s people having wandered away from Him, realised that and asks Him for a path back and He gives it to them through this one simple act. Read it for yourself. Malachi chapter 3, verses 7 to 12, towards the end of the Old Testament. Have a listen:

Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. “Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?” Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! You are accursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

Do you see how, God, through this one command in the Law is giving them a solution to their wandering off from Him? I wonder if it isn’t a solution for someone today. But the tithe, the giving of one tenth is no longer a legal requirement. People who believe in Jesus are Christians and they are no longer under the law of the Old Testament; we are under the law of grace. We walk according to the Spirit of God. Indeed, as the Apostle Paul, in Romans chapter 8, verse 3, says:

… the reason is that God, by sending His Son, has done what the law weakened by the flesh couldn’t do. He’s dealt with our sin.

Do I think tithing is a good idea? I think it’s a great idea, a brilliant idea and I would encourage anyone who has strayed away from God to return to Him and through this one simple principle, make a sacrifice to God. The good thing about one tenth is that it typically represents a fair chunk of our discretionary expenditure. We all have bills, we have to have somewhere to live and rent, mortgage and food and clothing and all those things – they consume, for most of us, most of our income. What’s left is the money that we use for discretionary expenditure. Giving a tenth of our household income to God restricts our discretionary expenditure. It’s a significant sacrifice and it’s changed many a heart. Remember that’s what God after all, wants – our hearts. He knows that our hearts are linked to our wallets and that’s why He calls for this sacrifice.

But do I think that tithing is the answer is that what God is looking for? No! James L. Kraft, the founder of the Kraft Phoenix Cheese Corporation, still a household name in many parts of the world today, was well known as a tither. When asked whether he believed in tithing he said, ‘No, although I guess it’s not a bad place to start.”

If someone is looking to honour God, to invest their treasurer in heaven rather than here on earth, as Jesus taught, how much should they give? Well, the answer I think lies in Second Corinthians chapter 8. Have a listen. Paul is asking the Corinthians to contribute to his ministry. It’s a fundraising letter, if you will, at least, this chapter is:

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; (Remember he is writing to the Corinthians here. He is talking about the Macedonian church. He says about them,) for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints—and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you.

Now as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you — so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”

So, two things: the first is that the Macedonians themselves were struggling terribly. In those days that meant not having enough food to eat. But even though they themselves were going through an ordeal of affliction and extreme poverty, they were generous. They gave beyond their means, to God’s work, through Paul. In fact, they begged him for the privilege of giving. Imagine what this world would look like if we did the ...

Over the last couple of weeks we have been talking about money. Why? Because so many people had issues with money. Sometimes we don’t have enough; other times the desire for money and wealth and all that that brings can overwhelm us. So many of us are immersed in cultures that worship wealth: advertising that rampantly and without check promotes conspicuous consumption and governments keen to make their economies grow, who tacitly or explicitly, endorse excessive consumption.

All that leads to a malady that sees us becoming enslaved to the idea of wealth and success, many people labouring so hard; so excessively on this treadmill, that it’s killing us. Any of that sound vaguely familiar?

So, over the last few weeks we have been looking at that problem and how this love of and desire for money tears so many of us apart. On the one hand, we want to love God; we want to be generous and to do good in this world but on the other, many want to be wealthy and hang on to their wealth, so, becoming enslaved to it. They are like a dog with two masters.

Today we are going to have a look at the solution. Now, I come to this whole issue of money and materialism as one who has spent most of his life – at least the first thirty six years, before I met this Jesus somewhere along the dusty road of my life – as a rampant, extreme, committed, born again materialist. I wanted to be rich.

That’s where I came from. And perhaps you have heard me say it before, but as hard as I worked at that – and man, I worked hard and I was well on the way, you know – but as hard as I worked at that, it simply never, ever delivered the satisfaction and the contentment that I was looking for. It promised satisfaction; it promised contentment, it just never delivered.

Over the last decade and a half of walking each day with Jesus, far from perfectly some days, I have to say, but just walking with Him the best way I knew how, I’ve discovered a different way; another way of handling wealth and money and it’s the only way that I have been able to find that actually delivers. And that way goes back to a simple and yet radical and, to me, challenging, even repugnant principle of life that Jesus talked about. We touched on it briefly in the first programme of this series, “Money Matters – A Kingdom Perspective.” And that principle is this, Luke chapter 9, verse 24:

For those who want to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for my sake will save them.

Now, there was a much broader context within which He made that statement. The context was about winning and losing and we will look at that in a moment. But the principle here is this: it’s this paradox that by hanging onto our lives – and that includes our money – eventually we will lose everything but by letting go, we will save ourselves.

In other words, winning leads to losing but a deliberate choice to lose, leads to a win. I know it sounds a bit bizarre but the first part of that is something that I have already proven in my life. By trying to win; by trying to be wealthy; by serving the god of wealth, what I have discovered, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that it just doesn’t work.

Now, let’s look at the broader context of winning and losing that Jesus was talking about, because when we do that, all of a sudden it starts to make sense. Now, this comes at a time when Jesus had been wandering around, healing people, preaching with power and authority and relevance in a way that rang true for the people. Crowds, huge crowds are following Him. We are looking at this, beginning at Luke chapter 9, verse 18. So if you have a Bible, grab it and read this with me:

Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah of God.” He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Then he said to them all, “If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."

So, His closest disciples had figured out who He was – the Messiah, the Son of God; God Himself in the flesh. And I don’t know about you but, at this point, if I’m one of the twelve I’m thinking, "Boy am I on a winner here? Son of God, WOO HOO!!" And then He launching into this whole suffering bit, that He’s going to have to go through and the suffering that they are going to go through themselves. This miracle Man, Jesus, as we know, ultimately gets Himself nailed to a cross. He becomes the ultimate loser so that you and I can become the ultimate winners.

That’s what happens to Him and that’s what He says has to happen to His disciples – you and me included – if we want to follow Him. By suffering and sacrificing, He was glorified. That’s the principle and you and I, we’re called to take up our cross daily and follow Him. Not to follow a worldly path of success. Does that mean we have to go round poor as church mice – all of us?

Well, now later in the programme, we are going to meet one person that Jesus encountered who was as poor as a church mouse and one who was wealthy, and we will see the contrast. But what it does mean – here’s the underlying principle – is that when we are prepared to lose our wealth for Jesus, that’s when we discover true wealth.

Friend, there are so many different ways of doing that. The choices we make on where we live and what we drive and how much our lifestyle will cost us. Will I have a high flying job that earns me lots of money but demands a hundred and twenty percent of my life? Or will I have a lesser paying job so that I can do some of the things in my family and my community that Jesus is calling me to do?

When it comes to supporting God’s work, will I throw my loose change into the hat or will I give sacrificially; will I give in a way that truly costs me something? That’s where the decisions are made; that’s where the rubber hits the road and that’s when we choose to lose (great phrase that) we choose to lose in the money department when we get into the business of giving through the cross.

In other words, giving sacrificially and that sort of giving is the sort that hurts. That’s where we discover the satisfaction and the contentment we have been looking for because then, all of a sudden, we gain mastery over our money. Instead of us worshipping wealth, now our wealth serves us – and not just us but God. And when we lay it down like that, our heart changes. As Jesus said in Luke chapter 12, verse 34:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

We live in a pretty conventional world where the more you have the more you are worth. Let...