A Fresh Start For Your Soul // Spring Cleaning Your Life, Part 5

How often have we all tried to change something in our lives – something on the outside – only to discover that the problem goes far deeper than that.  It’s a problem on the inside.

It’s just great to catch up with you again today with a different perspective on life.
The soul is something that seems to get quite a lot of attention these days. Body and soul, soul food, resting the soul, soul journey. They are all phrases that get bandied around. Different people try to find rest for their souls in different ways; creating peaceful rooms in their homes, playing relaxing music; shutting out the noise and the clamour and the stress of the world out there.

Now that’s all well and good, but what if all that noise and the clamour and the stress, what if that stuff doesn’t live out there. What if it’s actually a problem deep inside? Then maybe it’s time, time to spring clean our souls.

This week on A Different Perspective, I know it’s not spring, I know you don’t have to write and let us know it’s not spring, but I thought that at the beginning of the year it would be wonderful to talk about spring cleaning our lives. Looking forward to the year and saying, “What is some of the rubbish I can leave behind?”

And over the week so far we have looked at spring cleaning where we live, our home, our finances and getting those right. Spring cleaning our priorities and getting some balance back in our lives. Spring cleaning our relationships we looked at yesterday and getting rid of some of the poisonous people in our lives; dealing with some of the difficult issues and hanging around with some of the people worth hanging around. But they are all on the outside.

Today I would like to finish up with looking at the inside the soul, the deep, the deep part of us. The danger is that we focus just on the things on the outside, the externalities. Now they do have an impact. A messy house is going to be depressing. Debt is going to put a weight on our shoulders. If we have the wrong priorities we are going to have a lack of balance in our lives. If we have some wrong relationships, ultimately that’s going to tear us apart. So they do have an impact.

But if we just try and change those things, the outside, we can spend a lot of time and effort just to discover that there is something wrong in the inside, in our hearts, in our souls. You know that deep place that we live, that place that we laugh and where we cry, where we have fun and we feel sadness. That place.

Jesus actually only had a go at people when he was walking on this earth about two issues. One of them was a lack of faith. The other one which we will look at today was hypocrisy. He detested hypocrisy. And when you think about it, hypocrisy is when what is happening inside us is not consistent with what is happening outside. Hypocrisy is when the outside doesn’t match up with the inside and we say one thing and do another.

And in particular Jesus really detested religious hypocrisy. He said:

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and it’s fruit bad. Because a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers.

He said to these religious hypocrites:

How can you speak about good things when you are evil, because out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word that you utter. Because by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.

He doesn’t mince his words, Jesus, when it comes to hypocrisy and there is some insight. He talks about a tree and He says, “Look a tree that has good fruit is actually a good tree inside. And a tree that has bad fruit is actually a bad tree inside.” He was yelling at these religious hypocrites who are telling the people one thing and then doing another themselves.

Now you and I both know people who bear bad fruit.You can see it in their lives. We know them at work, we know them in our social lives, sometimes we know them at home. It doesn’t matter how much bravado they use, doesn’t matter how much they rationalise it and they brush it aside, you see some of the bad fruit and you have to say, "That is actually a bad tree.”

And to be really honest, sometimes you and I bear bad fruit. If you and I have anger in our hearts, or malice, or envy, or hurts form the past, and c’mon guys if you are eying off every woman that walks past you down the street. Doesn’t matter how we dress them up or rationalise them, they are still there.

I used to live in our house that used to back onto a really busy road, a noisy road. And after about six to twelve months we didn’t notice the noise on the road. I know my aunty who lives in a house just near a railway line, we can be visiting here and having a cup of tea, and this loud train rattles by and we’ll look at the noise and she doesn’t even notice it.

And the same is true, sometimes with the bad fruit that we bear in our lives. We can live in a dung heap for six to twelve months or years and years and eventually you know what happens, we don’t notice the smell. But here’s the rub it still stinks. The bad stuff robs us of good things.

If I get angry with someone all the time it robs me reaping the fruit from the relationship. If I bear malice towards someone, it robs me of joy and peace. If a man has a wandering eyes, you know what it does, it really robs him and his wife of true intimacy in marriage. If someone has a stingy nature it robs them of the blessings that happen when we stretch to give to the poor and to God's work in faith and then God steps into our lives and blesses us.

Isn’t it true? Doesn’t matter how we try and rub it away, it is the way it is. There are kind of two parts to our lives that we looked at earlier this week, when we were looking at the apostle Peter in jail. Remember when the angel came to let him out and the angel said, “Listen Peter, get up, put on your sandals, put on your belt and put on your coat and follow me.” And then the chains miraculously fell of his hands, and the gate just swung open and God sprung him from jail.

There were two parts to that story, the mundane, the bit where Peter had to get up, put on his robe and his belt and his sandals on and follow the angel. That was the mundane, the things that Peter could do for himself, which God wanted him to do for himself.

And then there was the miraculous - the angel showing up, the chains falling off.

And as you and I stand on the threshold of a new year, can I suggest something to you? Your life and my life are exactly like that. There is the mundane and the miraculous. And sometimes we just have to roll up our sleeves and deal with some of the mundane issues and some of the things that we can do for ourselves.I wonder whether part of that isn’t spring cleaning our souls.

What is the mundane? Well I think it is naming the things that are wrong inside us. Owning up to them and acknowledging them, and taking responsibility for them. If you are someone that gets angry quickly at people put it on the table, and say, "God I get angry quickly with people. I am sorry I don’t want to live my life like that. I don’t want to be robbed of all the good things you have for me in this coming year and the years down the track just because I have this rotten thing in my soul.”

And here is the miracle bit. It’s almost impossible sometimes for you and I to change some of those deep rooted things, right inside of us that are wrong. And the miracle bit is that as we acknowledge it and we lay it on the table and say to God, “Look, I can’t deal with this, I need a hand, help me.”

As we hand them over to him, as we submit them to him, God steps in and God comes along and sometimes he does it quickly and miraculously. And at other times he does it over weeks and months and even years but he helps us to deal with those things.

And it is so good to be clean, it is so liberating. There is a whole new level of life and relationship with God. Come on, as you and I look forward to this year, what is it in your soul that needs spring cleaning?